Metal elevator doors slide open to reveal seamless wood floors and a stairway spiraling between the two floors at Conners Communications New York City headquarters. The smooth hum of computers and hushed exchange among the staff infuses its light-and-air environment with subdued yet electric flow, lending the impression of an efficient team, framed within a carefully constructed, yet relaxed presentation.

This leading consumer technology public relations firm has been putting its philosophy to work for over 15 years, branding and positioning such giants as Prodigy, Priceline.com, and Amazon.com-to name a few. But indeed this a far cry from the renovated Tribeca butter factory where the company originated. its Irish-American president, Connie Conners, founded her thriving business as she brought her career as a dancer and actress to a close. Her decision to use financial smarts for profit rather than her performing skills in MTV videos began in 1984 when she had a near-tragic encounter with a speeding cab that left her bedridden for five months and lucky to be alive.

Coincidentally, it was the dawn of the PC revolution, so to supplement her income she had been teaching computer literacy to celebrities, Fortune 500 CEOs and print publishers. Since she was unable to dance or teach, Connie started writing computer manuals and how-to tomes for salespeople to sell and demo software.

As a result, Conners found her niche. In true entrepreneurial spirit, she began applying the philosophies of art and architecture acquired in the performing theater and dance to the oncoming wave of consumer technology.

"The Intemet is late in the [technology] cycle. I've heard young people say, "Well, I've been in this business since 1995.' Unfortunately, they are still forgetting they are not selling themselves enough. They have a wide open storefront that the entire world can see and yet they have hung nothing in the window and are still talking about printing a brochure. And that's on the business-to-business side of the internet community.

"On the consumer side, nobody has incorporated real world merchandising fully. I mean when you check out xyz.com store, does anyone pop up and say, 'For you, as a first-time customer, I'm going to give you John Grisham's novel for 10 dollars with no extra shipping?' We are missing the fact that this is a communications media. So utilizing the media is one thing. What's the next technology to go directly to the consumer?"

Of course her real-world outlook seems even more pointed in light of the tumed-upsidedown state of the web business world. When confronted with the daunting job of translating and humanizing technically intricate concepts to the average client or consumer She does not skip a beat. Educating is what she does best.

"We can't expect people to understand what we are saying and if we do not clarify we're missing the mark. I think culture and brand are tied up together and both have some foundation in personality and I think it is a much bigger concept than people realize. I think it is very important. Culture and brand is important. If I want to do anything that I will feel great about in the next era I want to write the book on how to build a different kind of culture for a company in this century. Culture is the only thing that gets us through, whether it is an economic change or something else. Again that is my choreography song, "How do you get a lot of non-dancers to work together?"

The added assets of a quick-witted eloquence and bright blue eyes bely her Irish heritage. Conners was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised Irish Catholic. "I identify with my grandfather because I am the youngest in a family of five boys. My grandfather and I were very close. He grew up in Albany as one of 13 and was not economically advantaged. He volunteered to work for nothing in the Albany railroad and worked his way up to being the Executive Vice President of the Union Pacific Railroad, which is how he moved to Nebraska." Does she have a greater sense of her heritage when in New York City or Nebraska? She replies, "Clearly there was more of a melting pot there [Nebraska] than in New York. New York has so much diversity that no one really talks about it. I thought about it more in Omaha because there was the German community and the Irish community, and people always asked about your roots."

As far as tracing her Irish roots is concerned, she has done so, but laughs, "I don't believe it because everyone cannot possibly be from Cork. The good news is that owning the Conners URL (i.e. website address: www.connors.com), I get a lot of inquiries about the name. I actually registered my surname and have a trademark on Conners. It creates some protection vis-a-vis URLs and where it relates to public relations, so it is very effective. I own it for almost every country, and I'm really glad I have that." Her reference to URLs raises the inevitable Internet-dotcom question and its wavering economical success. Conners is quick to remind us that "I focus on what I love to do. I pick and choose what clients to work with. In day-to-day operations, I decide what to get involved in."

"We grew 100% last year and doubled our revenue and this year our goal was to manage our growth and provide excellence." Conners pauses, picking up a large smooth riverbed stone from the edge of her desk engraved with the letters THRIVE. "Our mantra here is Quality and THRIVE (which stands for Trust, Honesty, Respect, Integrity, Value, Excellence) in what we do."

Conners credits her performance culture background and the creative sensibility she encourages in her staff for Conners Communications' exponential success in consumer tech PR; a unique and masterful mix of marketing, messaging, and momentum underlies the company's prime position. Dress rehearsals are not unheard of as prep work for client meetings. Of her staff she extols their creative virtues by explaining, "Everyone who works here is an entrepreneur."

The lithe Conners insists that her company is not a consulting firm in the traditional sense nor simply a publicity business. "People ask me how being a dancer/actor in theater relates to this business. Running this company is no different from choreography. We do theater and magic for our clients. Amazon.com was momentum building media exposure that after a six-month period there was no turning back. You have to test and know how to capitalize on things. Let's say Parade Magazine has a huge circulation, but mentioning a client online still draws more power, traffic, consumer interest, whatever, than an article in Parade. You have to cross your demographics."

In relaying her remedy for success, Conners relys on this philosophy, "I think public relations falls into two camps: art and architecture. Art is just throwing the ink out and hoping it will land in the newspapers; architecture is creating foundation for messages, knowing who you are and where you are going."

Conners believes strongly in the school of architecture PR, insisting upon a close and honest relationship with the client in order to generate a clear message. They have hired her to teach them about the potiential of their company; how to sell it and win. Conners lives by the motto that "practiek makes perfect" and she expects her clients to do the same.

"Our foundation work is really in the positioning and messages. We work very hard back and forth with the client to force them to develop a better positioning. We also force them to do media training." As an example of how vague large technology entities can be she recalls, "Infrastructure is a hot word right now, although I don't really know what it means. At a conference recently someone asked this woman who runs a big high-tech company what her company did and she responded,'We manage really large complex systems.' What does that mean? The missed opportunities are so numerous. If she were our client we would have gone over that in the foundation work to explain what the position message is. They obviously never did the foundation or the architecture. They are obviously in the school of Art PR." And what exactly is the difference between consumer tech PR vs. related PR fields? Says Conners, "Because of new media and the recent hype, PR is now elevated as an acceptable, respectable and important vehicle in the marketing mix. We have always concentrated on the niche of consumer technology, not the intemet, not new media. We want to explain the technology to a broader mass market, which truly makes a difference in the way we live, learn and work."

In doing it the Conners way, PR takes on a far deeper role than surface selling; it involves communicating and demonstrating complex cultural needs upon which companies can build and sustain their brand. "Clients fall into a number of different categories, taking something and working on the positioning. Our goal for Amazon.com was never about selling books or being the Walmart of the Web, but it was about making them the poster child of e-commerce. Priceline was very much a business challenge. It was explaining the business model and trying to understand who the customer was. Is it buyerdriven commerce? It's not a reverse auction. New brands aren't being built on the Web because ultimately brick-and-mortar brands are going to win."

With that said, she paints a risky picture of the game she's in. Admittedly, Conners must choose carefully who her clients will be. Perhaps the value lies in the longevity of the trend that the company introduces to business and culture rather than the longevity of the company itself. It becomes about building client relationships, and when the clients selected are true visionaries, they will always be at the forefront of their business.

When asked what her biggest client successes have been, she smiles confidently. "I feel like our client successes are launching major trends in this business and we have been quite responsible for launching trends since the '80s, whether home computer software in 1984, to hand-held computers like the electronic bible and encyclopedias in the late '80s, to CD-ROM drives. It is not that we've been so instrumental in launching a company, but really helping the world understand why this is important and where we are going with it."

Of course there is always the downside, especially nowadays. Amazingly and very "unPR," Conners remains honest and unfated. "Some clients don't make it and the truth is we have to get used to it. I feel like the clients we launch are our babies and it's very sad when they don't make it. Although last month I had 60% attrition in my client base, either by bankruptcy, mergers or sales, it was a record revenue month for me. We believe in the companies we choose to represent but after 16 years in business I have learned how to manage for change. You gotta love what you are doing, although sometimes it's unnerving." With offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and London, it looks as if Conners knows where she is going and is taking her company to the top with her, but she is well aware, unlike many technology executive and PR players, that nothing happens overnight, and if it does, step carefully. "You can either go forward or backward but there are lots of places for growth. I am very much about entrepreneurialism and I let people make mistakes. Sometimes I am told not to take a client, but I am not afraid. I make sure that every year I write down what I want to do and what I do not."

One of Conners' greatest strengths is looking ahead with an entrepreneurial eye as she puts her finger on the pulse of popular culture. "There are huge cultural implications that the intemet has created that people won't realize for a long time. We hope." ·