On the Road…
Kia Ora! Sorry for the lack of posts… I’m New Zealand bound having hitched a ride with friends on their Jet. This is definitely the way to travel… No high-speed at the Hyatt in Hawaii so this should be coming to you from Wellington, NZ.
Transparency = Accountability
Scanning through my RSS feeds, David has another post up on his Media Transparency Portal… He rightly points to one of the side benefits of transparency – accountability:
Although it doesn’t happen often, this was the second time in a week where my interviewee didn’t have the answers to some obvious questions. I don’t want to turn this transparency channel into a bitching and moaning session about poorly executed PR. While this again is an example of how a the practice of media transparency can be embarrassing to interviewees, the companies they work for, and their public relations representatives, there’s an upside. Transparency should make all three of those parties much better at what they do because they know that there’s more on the line than just the story itself.
That transparency raises the bar for everyone is an inevitable consequence of the kind of activities David is undertaking and recommending. Tip For Communicators:- Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Or, in simpler terms, train your spokespeople. And where possible, use a third party – they’ll be less tolerant of internal correctness and lack the knowledge of your business necessary for asking obvious questions to which there are no obvious answer. [sidebar: in reading the transcripts for the interviews posted to David’s site, the one thing the interviewee does right is acknowledge they don’t have the answer and say they’ll get it]. I hope David keeps posting on this.
Two other transparency sites that are worth a look. First, Kent Bye at The Echo Chamber Project (who has an interesting post from the Social Networking Conference) and second, Jon Garfunkel. And, Fast Company has a somewhat goofy ethics monitor.
Rocket Fuel – FuelTV is taking off. Love it for the surfing and esoteric commercials. Definitely a channel to Tivo!
No Protection! Wired has an article by Media Hack – Adam Penenberg titled No Protection for Bloggers. The piece discusses if bloggers enjoy the same legal protection that journalists do. Adam points to State Laws, which have very clear definitions of what a reporter or jounralist is:-
Arizona says a reporter is someone “engaged in newspaper, radio, television or reportorial work, or connected with or employed by a newspaper or radio or television station.” Many of the other state laws all contain some provision that you must be employed by a newspaper, radio or television station. Getting the laws re-written to include bloggers is next-to-impossible.
The laws do need rewriting – definitions such as those found in Arizona are ludicrous in the post-Internet era.
Edelman On Trust… Transparency
Edelman significantly thickened PRWeek with a chunk of it’s 2005 Annual Trust Barometer. Kudos for a) doing marketing and thought-leadership, something that most agencies seem to be asleep at the wheel on; and b) for a really timely piece of research. One quote really captured my attention:
“Sacrifice control and perfection of a message for speed and free-flowing discussion. The paradox of transparency holds that companies benefit more when they disclose fully what they know – bad or good – as soon as they know it. This is truer than ever.”
And this:
Employees and “an average employee like me” are more credible than CEOs.
Communicators are still way over-vectored on the c-suite and on broadcasting it’s voice. Too much of a companies communications channels are vectored to the top of the pyramid. Blogs are a revolutionary force in this respect. They run against what communicators have so long fought to do – keep the voice of the employee under wraps. As blogs liberate the voice of the company they’ll, somewhat ironically, become the most potent force for restoring the credibility of corporations. Look no further than Scoble at Microsoft to see this in action…
Storytelling
I’ve long believed that great storytelling is the cornerstone of great communications. Spot a great communicator and you spot a great storyteller. It’s pretty much non-negotiable. Bill Breen – who consistently churns out great stuff for FastCompany has a good read on Marcus Buckingham in the March 05 edition. Marcus, who authored the brilliant – First Break All The Rules, now has a new book – The One Thing you Need to Know… About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success. Well, that pretty much covers all bases! I’m looking forward to reading it… In identifying three approached to finding the clarity – as a leader – that your followers will require he points to:
- Take a Time Out
- Practice Your Storytelling
- Show Us Your Hero
He says of storytelling:
“As a leader, you must practice over and over what to say to describe where you’re taking people. After you’ve found the right words, stick with them – in emails, in meetings, in speeches. Doug, Degn, head of WalMart’s general merchandise, uses seven words to describe his customers: “the people who live paycheck to paycheck…”
Forbes is also on to storytelling. Daniel Pink in A Story Goes With It, says “Once upon a time businesses could ignore story. Doing that today, though, could spell the end.” While that’s a little dramatic (actually, it’s way too dramatic) he makes some great points about the importance of storytelling. Unfortunately, most of his examples are the unauthentic kinds of storytelling – copy for direct mail catalogues – as opposed to what Marcus is advocating. One of the key ingredients to great storytelling is authenticity and in this respect Blogs lend themselves perfectly to the art. The message is the medium in this respect. Storytelling is ads makes for more effective ads, but not more potent stories. In other words – don’t confuse great copywriting with great storytelling. Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox is quoted on the back page of FastCompany:
“Stories exist at all levels of a corporation…. It’s much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy.”
The same issue of FastCompany has an interesting piece on Andy & Kate Spade. On Branding, Andy says:
THE BIGGER YOU GET THE SMALLER YOU SHOULD ACT. Never, never start thinking like a big company. Otherwise you become a corporate, and there’s no interest in that.
(to which I say AMEN!)
NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU’VE DONE IS SUCCESSFUL. Challenge it every second, every day.
(not so sure on this one. challenge everything, yes! but also celebrate successes)
BRAND CONSISTENCY IS OVERRATED. The brand doesn’t have to look the same, but it has to feel the same. An element of newness and surprise if important for every brand.
(damn right. this is the core challenge facing rules obsessed brand marketers)
BRANDS SHOULD HAVE SOME MYSTERY. Customers should never understand the whole picture of a brand
(absolutely).
YOUR PEOPLE ARE YOUR PRODUCT. They are the vehicle through which everything happens, and they define what you put out.
(um, kind of. the product is the product. the people are the people. but OK, the people matter more. they bring the brand to life. they make it happen. but it’s simplistic to isolate customer experience like this. for instance, I love Jack Spade bags – I love the stores – I’ve always found the people courteous and pleasant – but man, your inventory sucks. you’re nearly always out of everything I ever ask for. sigh!). And I’m very envious of the brand you’ve been able to build.
You Are All Crazy
Another GREAT piece from the Opinion Journal on Blogging… brilliant summary of all we’ve been called:
"Salivating morons." "Scalp
hunters." "Moon howlers." "Trophy hunters." "Sons of Sen. McCarthy."
"Rabid." "Blogswarm." "These pseudo-journalist lynch mob people."This is excellent invective. It
must come from bloggers. But wait, it was the mainstream media and
their maidservants in the elite journalism reviews, and they were
talking about bloggers!
This is a really great piece – out of difference to copyright and right to traffic I’m not going to summarize it more, BUT YOU MUST READ IT.
Intel’s Internal Blog…
Dean at the Merc snags a copy of Otellini’s internal blog and the Web is abuzz… From this morning’s Good Morning Silicon Valley – the eZine I look forward to most (other than Flavorpill…
…Otellini reveals a new side in “AMD suXorS” blog post: So now that we’ve reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines, where do you turn to hear an executive talk straight? Why, to his or her blog, of course, because blogs are required by longstanding Unwritten Net Law to be BS-free…
“Hollywood has always had a love affair with Apple Computers. In movies ranging from ‘Mission Impossible’ to ‘Shallow Hal,’ Apple products are positioned to in ways that say you are ‘Cool’ if you have an Apple Computer or IPOD. My kids will settle for Intel Inside PC or Laptop but they want an Apple computer. Beyond paying for product placements in movies, developing a better relationship between Intel and Hollywood is great way to make Intel the “Cool” computer company of the future
I’ve long maintained that the internal blog is where the action is. Now if we could just read more of them. For therein lies the paradox of blogging. You want conversations to be as personal and private as possible – you don’t want to use the same tone internally as you might have to externally – but anything posted digitally to more than one other person is likely to end-up public so why not just tear-down those walls – the transparency is likely to be positive in the extreme…
“Paul wanted another way to communicate with employees,” said Intel spokesman Tom Beerman. “It is meant for employees only, and that explains the tone and nature of the subject matter”
And hey Dean, don’t be a meanie, post everything you’ve got.. don’t serialize the data, be transparent…
