Archive for February, 2008

It’s interesting to watch how many major public relations respond to trends … usually becoming engaged after a trend is already well-established. Couple of examples –

My old friend, Greg Dobbs, and I launched a creative writing online magazine for baby boomers, called BoomerCafé, in the summer of 1999 in response to all of our boomer friends who complained they didn’t have a voice online. Neither AARP nor anyone else has ever provided an online voice of boomers like BoomerCafé over the last nine years. In fact, AARP tried for a short time to connect with baby boomers and gave up.

More than that, it was only last year that Fleishman-Hillard discovered baby boomers. Edelman announced a baby boomer team of “experts” last month. It’s odd that anyone would trumpet the fact that they are coming to the competitive table so late.

Then, there is online — Web 2.0 and the digital revolution. Most of the major agencies have only recently formed Web communications teams to address a trend that was charging forward at light speed five years ago! Other agencies, like Burson, Porter-Novelli and Ketchum, have yet to discover the Internet.

I’m not sure what to make of the slow response … it’s like a fire department that shows up a couple of months late to a four-alarm fire. Is it today’s overwhelming internal focus on making money for the big holding companies, such as Omnicom and WPP, that is preventing agencies from doing great work?

My column today in the Daily Dog online newsletter, the leading PR industry site:

Here’s a reality I learned long ago as a correspondent at CBS News: Perception can be the highest form of reality.

The media has always managed to create stories out of perceptions that sometimes carry enough substance to become reality. We make personal decisions based on how we perceive something or someone. And no two perceptions are exactly alike. We can be poles apart in our perception of something, and both be “right,” because our perceptions define our reality.

You and I see a cloud. It reminds you of Elvis holding a microphone; to me, it looks like a sailboat in the sky. Still, someone else might see a storm approaching. All different perceptions, all correct up to a point and certainly our own truths.

Today, the public relations industry is abuzz with questions about recession—will a recession hit the U.S. economy? Are we in a recession already? How would a recession impact the PR industry? How can we protect our PR agencies and businesses from a recession?

[Click here to read the full column online ...]

General Motors is trying to patch up whatever reputation it had as an environmentally aware corporation. The company is holding a series of online chats with environmental critics after GM’s blog was slammed with comments that were critical of the company’s environmental efforts. The environmental activist group Rainforest Action Network said some things that GM didn’t like, and the big car company pulled the plug on the comments function of the blog, defying all the rules for openness and transparency in a New Media world.

In today’s world of communications, corporations or organizations must behave with openness and transparency. When engaging audiences - even critics - in conversations using the communications tools of Web 2.0, companies need to accept the risk that not everyone loves them.

Now, GM has backed itself into a defensive, duck-and-cover position and has been responsible for creating adverse media coverage about itself. Not smart.

The word, “strategic,” is so over-used by many organizations that its true meaning is at risk of becoming trivialized.

The board of a trade organization mandates a “strategic” communications plan, without even considering what is involved. A not-for-profit launches into a “strategic planning” process that consumes many hours by many people, without clearly defining what the organization really needs. A consulting practice wants to be more “strategically positioned” to attract new clients, without accepting that it must take some risks to get ahead.

We live today in a whole new world … a world where “strategic” has taken on expanded meaning. It is a world where traditional styles and approaches in communications may no longer be effective. A strategic communications plan in today’s competitive world requires that an organization take some risks, get outside of its comfort zone and become active in new territory and with new approaches. It requires an organization to embrace and master the use of the increasingly influential communications tools provided by Web 2.0 - blogs, content management platforms, open source, RSS, wikis, podcasts, video - together with traditional tactics. In today’s world, “strategic” means engaging your audiences in conversations and … listening to what they have to say.

The more important question I would pose, however, is whether an organization is ready … and really means it when the organization says it wants authentic strategic approaches to become more competitive. In reality, most are not ready, and that is a critical defining factor. Clearly, those who are will become the leaders, today and tomorrow.

Want to be seen as a savvy communicator? Be careful about what you write and suggest.

As an online publisher, I received an email pitch recently from a PR person who suggested I might want to add their contact information to my “Rolodex.” Rolodex?! I haven’t seen one of those things in about 20 years! Sorry, I deal in vCards and Mac Address Book.

At a business meeting, a junior-level PR person had an unscripted moment and suggested that the client might want to have a “letter writing campaign” to control a message. Letter writing?! When was the last time you wrote a letter much less attempted to control a controversial message through a letter writing campaign. That method is the antithesis of message control. Incidentally, the client and other people in the room rolled their eyes at the idea.

Yet, such old-fashioned ideas and language by some PR people seem to be persistent despite today’s digital revolution.

All of the PR people, including major agencies, who are now struggling to figure out online strategies might want to hear Jeanette Gibson. She is the visionary Director of New Media at Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA. I spoke with her recently to get her thoughts about how organizations can use the Web for competitive advantage into the future.

While full detail will be in my upcoming book, The Media Savvy Leader, I wanted to share some highlights on how an executive can take charge of his or her organization’s online strategy, using the tools of Web 2.0:

• Consider your organization’s culture – What is acceptable, and what is your tolerance for risk? Any New Media program involves a sense of recognizing that you are no longer fully in control, a big challenge for many executives.

• Accept that we all are doing business in a new world – The landscape has changed. Doing business today requires a sense of transparency and new ways of engaging customers, employees, stakeholders and other important audiences.
Continued

Six more senseless killings on a college campus, and politicians sadly intone that, “we must do everything in our power to stop this … “blah, blah, blah.” But, of course, they don’t actually intend to do anything.

Politicians have had it in their power to do something about gun violence in America for decades that has contributed to a culture of violence were it not for their personal fear of the NRA and its political and financial clout. Let’s face it — politicians put their own job security and protection of campaign contributions ahead of public safety.

Isn’t it about time that politicians … or at least those few who are authentic leaders … stood up against the NRA and really addressed the issue of gun violence?