• Columnists

Hope Katz Gibbs, Founder, The Inkandescent Group

PUBLISHER, BE INKANDESCENT MAGAZINE
PRESIDENT, THE INKANDESCENT GROUP, LLC

Prior to founding Inkandescent Public Relations in 2008, Northern Virginia freelance writer Hope Katz Gibbs worked as a newspaper and magazine reporter since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. After studying for her master’s degree in Educational Leadership at The George Washington University, she launched her freelance writing business in 1993.

25 years experience as a journalist —,Hope’s articles have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Miami Herald, The Costco Connection, The National Press Club’s Wire, and dozens of association, business, education, and general interest magazines, and many alumni publications including her own alma maters, the University of Pennsylvania and The George Washington University. See more on her freelance writing website, www.hopegibbs.com.

Awards — To date, Hope has won two awards for feature writing from the Florida Magazine Association, and six other honors for newsletter writing and design from the National School Public Relations Association. She has been listed in Who’s Who in Media & Communications since 1989, and Who’s Who of American Women since 1993.

Foray into PR — In 2002, she landed a job as the director of communications with the City of Fairfax Schools to help Superintendent George Stepp and the City School Board pass an $86 million bond to rebuild Fairfax High and Lanier Middle School. She launched City Schools Close-Up, an eight-page newsletter filled with articles and photos that helped the community learn more about the good work going on in the schools. The bond passed by 81 percent and Hope began working full-time with the superintendent and architects to coordinate the construction project.

She continues to work with the City Schools today, and in November 2009 her company launched a new website for the School Board: www.cityoffairfaxschools.org.

When the schools construction project was completed in 2006, she began doing PR for the futurist research and consulting firm Social Technologies. Her media outreach efforts helped get the staff onto CBS’ “The Early Show” three times (for reports on the Future of Men, the Future of Youth Happiness, and Helicopter Parents), MSNBC, Fox News, and ABC. The futurists were also quoted regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, Business Week, TV Week, and others.

The Inkandescent Group, LLC

InkandescentPR — In 2008, Hope founded Inkandescent Public Relations, a PR, publications, media relations, marketing firm that helps small businesses get the visibility they need. Along with her award-winning team, she creates high-end marketing materials, writes and edits press releases, newsletters, and white papers, and works closely with reporters to help get the word out about her clients.

Hope also plans and organizes events, co-writes and ghostwrites books, and maintains her clients’ websites so they are up-to-date and provide an accurate, impressive image. Learn more about Inkandescent Public Relations: www.inkandescentpr.com.

Be Inkandescent Magazine — In January 2010 she launched Be Inkandescent Magazine: The ezine for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. It features columns by her clients and other entrepreneurs, as well as the Entrepreneur of the Month.

Inkandescent Books — Hope is working on developing a book publishing entity for The Inkandescent Group, LLC, which she incorporated in January 2010. The first title, “100 Truly Amazing Women Who Are Changing the World,” will be written by Hope, designed by Michael Gibbs, and photographed by Steve Barrett. Be on the lookout for more information on that title.

View Hope’s published journalism clips www.hopegibbs.com.

Send Hope an email: hope@inkandescentpr.com.

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Who cares if my glass is half empty or half full; I still have something to drink.”

– Optimism rules

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”

– Andrew Carnegie

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

The only dream worth having is to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”

– Arundhati Roy

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries