Getting It

A year on...

...and so much to reflect on this morning. Sorrow for the 185 lives lost, guilty relief at not having to endure what those families have been through in the last year; astonishment that we have managed to hold body, soul and business together through these past insane 12 months and 10,000-plus aftershocks. Pride and awe at how resilient and pragmatic the kids have been through it all. And an acceptance that this really is it. 

Life in Christchurch will never be what it was, and it will never be what it would have been. Somewhere, sometime, once they stop pulling things down and the earth stops shaking things to the ground, the building will begin. The city will grow and evolve from the ground up for the second time in its 150 year history. But this time, as then, it will be slow, it will be a stop-start affair, and it won't be for the people who lay the first stones. Or this time around, drive the first 30m piles. 

Hell, at this stage of the game I'm not even confident we'll know whether the house is a rebuild or a demo job before they're putting me 6 feet under. Let alone have a home that is fixed. 

I am away again. Surprise, surprise. This time at istrategy in Sydney, where the focus is on the vexing question of the IT/Comms divide, the power of data and customisation, the move to mobile (that statistic about more people acccessing web browsers via mobile platforms than tethered devices by 2014 spookily close and top of mind here), the power of communities, and building social businesses. The conference is more reaffirming and focusing than revelatory. But nonetheless, valuable as we enter what is Christchurch's version of the New Year, and think about what is to come from here.

On the drive in from the airport out of the city and through suburban Sydney I was struck again by something that also hit me when we were in LA a couple of weeks ago: our city might be broken, but we'll be fixed one day. These cities of endless, colourless, suburban sprawl will always be ugly. Sorry, Sydney, I love your CBD. But these suburbs? They leave my heart stone cold. 

And so to another day of digital marketing immersion. I am sad to be away today. But also slighty relieved to be able to just dip a toe in the water here and there into the deep, awful emotions of this day. And so aware at how fortunate I am to have that choice. The families of those 185 live with that anguish every day.

I will wander off and find a quiet place at 1051am local time, and take those two minutes to reflect. 

And hopefully, then I will do what we just need to keep on doing and put one foot in front of the next, and head to the next session. 

The office will be closed this afternoon in recognition of the anniversary, but if you need anything urgently, you can still get hold of me (just leave a message and I'll respond between sessions) on 027 4346667.

Onwards. 

Susi

 

Thanks, QANTAS, for helping to justify every cent and minute I spent to get to IABC's Crisis Communications Summit at the University of Southern California last week. 

Waking up to to this piece of news (QANTAS's patently stupid and utterly avoidable twitter fail)  just made me more and more determined that it's time for us kiwi PR/comms people to pull ourselves into the 21st century by the bootstraps, fast. The rest of the world won't wait for us to hone our skill sets, and while the impact of social media is only just starting to really make itself known at home, it's happening. And it's happening fast.

The QANTAS fiasco just goes to show why it's so important for strategic communicators - not spotty recent graduates or the IT guy - to take hold of the social media space and own it. Not because we're control freaks (though mostly, we are) or that there's masses of money to be made in it (there isn't, in the traditional clip-the-ticket sense), but because we owe it to our clients to make sure that the people taking them into this unchartered territory are experienced communicators who can make the link between every one of their channels, their marketing plan, and the wider business plan. 

Social media can't sit alone, whether you're using these tools in an attempt to spread good news or it's part of a bad news scenario. While it can't be managed, there are absolutely things that organisations can do to keep them out of the sort of crap that QANTAS has found itself in. Many of these things are grounded in traditional strategic communications thinking. Others turn what we thought we always knew on its head. Success in this scary, exciting, and fast becoming unavoidable area means knowing what to use, when. More later. 

 

Winning by telling it the way it is

What's not to love about this sales pitch for the Gold Coast:

"It isn't exactly exotic and mysterious but it's an easy option for a holiday. 3 hour flight, plenty to do, reliable weather and easy on the pocket."

I'm not looking for a holiday to the Gold Coast (got one booked already - for exactly the above reasons), but I can't help but click through from the promo emails that land in my in-box from travelscoop.co.nz, as I'm busy relegating the efforts of their competitors to the 'junk' folder.

So what is it they're doing right that the others just haven't yet grasped? And what are the lessons for others looking to stand out from the spam crowd?

They're willing to do something differently. The travel sector is full of hype, glitz, hyperbole and over-promise. These guys tell it like it is, in plain English, and in language that immediately sets them apart from the rest. So many organisations say 'we want to stand out from our competitors. But when the rubber hits the road, reject every new marketing or PR idea because 'it's not the way we do it in (insert industry/profession here). 

They're likeable and fun, which is reflected in the tone and style of their emails. They make me want to read on, and hook me in with a story that takes me to the deal before I even know I've been sold. Again, from the Gold Coast promo:

"It's quieter than a Tuesday night in Taihape out there. Our TravelCafe experts are all Mums and many work from home, so when it's quiet they have to deal with piles of washing, knitting, preserving fruit and stuff like that (I'm a bloke and I'm embellishing but stick with me.) So, in an effort to avoid their 'other jobs' they go hunting for holiday deals that I might have missed... They then nag me until I agree the deal is worthy of a Travelscoop and then 'hey presto' you get this email. So make our travel expert Mums busy, give them a break from their chores (and me a break from them) and get them arranging your next holiday." 

They're transparent and honest. They not only tell you there are hidden taxes, extras or credit card fees, but are at pains to point out that they are per person. There are no surprises. 

They're using their personality, the way they do business, as more of a sell than what the business is about. Travel sites are a dime a dozen, and travel packages are the same wherever you click. These guys (and Moms) have used personality to add some X factor to what is basically a commodity product. Even their staff profiles differentiate the brand, and provoke interest, as well as trust.

They're using their business model to tell me how they're different. By telling me a bit about the way they do business, they're showing me they're not like any other online or bricks and mortar (or combo) travel agency. Which makes me think they're more likely to come up with innovative solutions to my own travel challenges, rather than throw a cookie-cutter solution at me. 

Like it lots. 

Hooking into connection culture the Weather Watch way

If you want to watch a company embrace all that is the next big communications thing - check out weatherwatch.co.nz.

I'd never even heard of them before I interviewed Richard Green on the radio show, but now it seems they're everywhere - including holding a permanent space on my desktop during the event they affectionately refer to as 'Snowmageddon'. 

By my reckoning, they've just about doubled their Facebook 'likes' in the past 24 hours, rocketing ahead from a respectable 2000 to something around 4000 at the time of writing. 

There's no doubt that Weatherwatch are on to a good thing. After all, weather is the one great universal topic. And since the fragmentation of mainstream media and the consequent death of shared experience (when was the last great 'who shot JR' telly moment?), it's a guaranteed people connector and community binder. Safe ground, no matter what the differences between folk. 

So it only stands to reason that, since we love to talk about weather in real life, we'll also love to use social media to extend the conversation - especially those true obsessives who have exhausted (or bored to tears) their immediate realm of real-life contacts, and are looking to connect to others just like them. 

Weatherwatch has managed to do something that the crusty old Met Service never could: it has hooked into the excitement, the thrill, the drama and passion of the weather, and put it out there for us all to share. They're a great example of an organisation using tools like Facebook to connect with, engage and hold an audience. 

But that's not all they do. They're tapped into another communications now secret: they speak plain English . It may not always be perfect, and one of them is seriously comma impaired (continually leaving out the , in sentences like 'that's right, Susi'), but we forgive them because they seem like really likeable guys. 

They've got something else that the competition can't match: personality and the freedom to express it. 

When was the last time you saw a regular-guy-or-gal metservice person who was just like you and I, without all of the 'I'm a Met Service Spokesperson, and Here Are My Official Words' business? Oh sure, some of them try. But between the unkempt beards and the pocket-protector fashion sense, it's hard to find much to relate to.

These guys, on the other hand, are warm and funny, spontaneous, and just plain real. They use smiley-face emoticons when people Facebook them, excited about the coming snow. They show empathy and interest. Importantly, they're OK about getting it wrong. They're willing to take risks, and they're not precious about it.

The Weatherwatch guys understand something else that's important about what works right now: they know how to start and sustain a conversation. Old school organisations continue to issue edicts/statements/information updates, and retreat back to their ivory towers. New communicators know that the real gold, the opportunity, is not in the information itself, but the interactions that follow - that gather momentum in snow-ball fashion as more and more people gather around the idea.

They also seem to intuitively understand something that so many organisations don't: that even though they're hard work and time consuming, the new consumer expects more than a single-time interaction. Truly successful companies today find ways to build and sustain relationships. 

 

 

What lies beneath the bright, shiny, happy headline

NZ's first state-of-the-nation for the media industry is out, thanks to a new report by PWC which takes a big picture look at the sector through until 2015.

 NBR's take on it (Media Forecast Bright) and  Stuff's summation look initially to be good news. However scratch the surface, and the picture is not pretty for mainstream media still overly reliant on traditional off-line channels. Unless they are to turn their current thinking on its head, and really get to grips with the stark, cold reality that it's content, not channel, that will drive their future. 

This idea - that people will gravitate towards the best writing, reading, imagery, regardless of the form it is housed in - is anathema to many mainstream media outlets, who have spent years centralising, systemising, de-localising, generalising and just plain dumbing down their content in the hubristic belief that people will continue to flock to them - just because they're of who they are.

The evolution of the 24 hour news environment has led to a quantity-over-quality ethos. The initial toe in the water to digital for many media organisations left a bad taste in their mouth, as efforts to monetise the early days of online content failed. 

However models like the itunes store shows that people will pay when relevant, quality content is organised, categorised, filtered and boosted (curated, in today's communications lexicon) - even if for a little more work they can get it free from somewhere else. 

That digital advertising revenues now surpass traditional media spend in this country should come as no surprise, but still, it is hard not to draw breath sharply at how quickly it has happened. 

More on this later. There's a lot left to be said.

Curation vs plagiarism: finding the line and toeing it

This Close Up gaffe is a great example of what happens when organisations don't quite connect with the way the world is changing.

The show recreated a segment from American show ABC, at times verbatim, with no acknowledgement of the original piece. 

Let's be real about this: every day reporters looks to the work of their peers for inspiration. And so much of journalism these days builds on, deepens or find new angles on stories created by others, echoing all of life in this hyperlinked world of ours. 

There are salient lessons in this Close Up piece, not just for media, but for all organisations, as we come to grips with changes to the way we use and interact with information. 

Increasingly, non-media organisations are grappling with the fine but very clear line that exists between the curation of content - a perfectly valid and constructive art - and ripping off the work of others. 

The opportunities presented by new direct-to-consumer publishing technology, the removal of traditional hierarchical communications barriers, the fragmentation of audiences and the truly niched audience bases that are emerging mean every organisation is a potential publisher or broadcaster of sometimes highly-specialist content. 

Sometimes this content is created from scratch. Other times, sites provide a portal that links the audience to like minded ideas, often providing context and wrap-around to the original content or commentary on it. 

So it stands to reason that we all need to come to grips with the difference between curation and plagiarism. 

To stay on the safe side of the line, think about the job that galleries do in curating the works of others. Shel Holtz explains that idea elegantly in this clip from IABC World (San Diego, last month - stunning).

  

Curators don't claim it as their own, they happily acknowledge the artist, even helping audiences connect with more of his or her work once their interest is piqued (echoing today's online 'link culture'). Furthermore, they understand two things about linking. Firstly, that there is value in providing introductions to the work of others, and secondly, information territorialism is last decade's thinking. Todays consumers live their lives in a link economy. They are used to open-source everything, and don't take kindly to side-steps and fudging. Transparency, honesty and authenticity are bottom line to this generation of media consumer. 

Curators don't just slap up a title and a bit of background, they really think about the context that the work is being shown in, and what their own specific environment can add to the experience of viewing the work.

There's nothing wrong with being inspired by the work of others, and I'd venture to suggest that in information terms, we're all collaborators - even media outlets that consider themselves to be fierce competitors. The media consumer doesn't draw a line in his or her head about where all the different elements of the story have come from - to them, it's just a mash-up of information that continuously forms and reforms. However in a world where content can be cheapened to the point of being deemed worthless, we must continue to demand that peoples' work is valued, by continuing to acknowledge the source. 

We live in a world where the work of others is so accessible it's dizzying. One of my ZB colleagues, the long time journalist and very wise human being, Lesley Murdoch, refers to the glittering news array we face at 5am every morning as 'the candy store'. Her counsel is wise: make your selection carefully, then leave. Or else you'll end up mesmerised by the bright, shiny colours, and you'll never get enough focus to get a talkback show off the ground. 

The temptation to pinch the candy must be huge for those resource hungry news organisations who have progressively found their staffing whittled down to near nothingness yet are still expected to churn out an hour of quality programming, five nights a week. 

Nonetheless, for Close Up, the litmus test should have been a simple question: are we comfortable being transparent that we've taken another media outlet's work and simply 'New Zealand-ised' it, or do our viewers expect more from us? 

It's  the sort of pondering that PR and marketing departments world wide, need to be doing, as we all come to grips with where the line sits, and what constitutes crossing it. More often than not, the answer is glaringly obvious. We just have to be brave enough to ask the question. And respectful enough of our readers and viewers not to duck the answer. 

Are they REALLY taking notes?

One of the things I loved the most in Shel Holz's IABC World presentation was hearing about Bullshit Bingo. 

Audiences download and print Bingo cards ahead of time,  tailored to the particular event type - e.g staff meeting, strategic planning day, conference call (somebody really should make one for those torturous EQ media conferences).

Players check off each block when they hear a Bullshit Bingo word or phrase - things like core competency, paradigm shift, user centric  etc.  The first person to get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, can either stand up and shout BULLSHIT!!! or send a secret signal to other meeting attendees to let them know they have a winner. 

Bound to be happening somewhere in the shaky isles. Probably not so much in Christchurch, where there are barely enough places left to hold a meeting and we're all too tired to mince words, anyway. 

Big questions. Are we brave enough to look for answers?

Six days on, I'm still working my way through my notes from last month's IABC World Conference.

I keep saying (and thinking) that none of these are new ideas. Smart communicators have seen them coming for at least the past five years. Smarter ones, even longer. But what is new is that we're now starting to see the case studies emerge from this new consumer/communications environment and evidence around what's working - a world where:

- 'us to them' and 'them to us' is no longer enough - 'them to them' is an integral component of any successful communication effort

- authenticity rules

- you can't capture minds without first capturing hearts

- content comes first, channel second

- content holds the key to connecting with the ideas that you and your customers/staff etc care about, and holding their attention

- a changing media landscape means content has to be sharper, smarter and savvier than ever to cut through the babble and make a connection

- your key influencers may well no longer be the people you thought they were

- a realisation that your greatest competition for slice of mind isn't information from the rest of the organisation - it's what's going on 'out there'. 

- conversations are the point of story telling

- finally, we get it that staff are people too, and communicate with (not just to) them as respectfully and strategically as any other audience whose slice-of-mind and commitment we're looking to win. 

What does it mean for you as a leader, a communicator, a business person, or all three?

What new skills/tools/resources do you/I need to bring ourselves up to speed with the new consumer and how they're connecting? These are just some of the questions we all need to be asking ourselves right now - whether we class ourselves as communication professionals or not. 

Getting to grips with 3.0

Apologies in advance to all the clients and colleagues who will be subject to my rekindled enthusiasm for what it is I do, when we finally return to the shaky city - IABC world has got more excited about the wonderful world of corporate communications than I have been in years. And we all know how unbearable I can be when I'm over excited...

The International Association of Business Communicators hold their world conference every year, pulling together communicators (this time 1400 of them) from around the globe. 

This year's theme was The New Normal - which couldn't have been more fitting for a Cantab - covering every conceivable angle of channels, content and strategy as we sit at the cross-roads of the old/new media divide, and all of us come to grips with a new generation of media consumer, with a whole raft of different expectations and needs. 

By far my favourite sessions - containing by far the biggest of the Big Ideas for me out of this conference - was Shel Holtz, a digital strategist from San Francisco, who talked about Communication 3.0 and its focus on curation, creation and sharing. The slides alone won't do it justice, and unfortunately there's no video of this session. But you can listen to the audio here.

 

Your Company Must Become a Media Company

View more presentations from Shel Holtz

 

It was the sort of presentation that had me frantically scrawling ideas for GT and clients alike, all through the session, until I'd run out of space on my note pad and had to start writing on the back of stuff.

A close second was BJ Fogg, a Stanford University academic described by Fortune Magazine as one of '10 new gurus you should know'.

BJ is bringing science to the art of marketing, developing systems to change human behavior. Much of it is based around the creation and maintenance of habits (I know, scary, huh?), and he talked about the way that social media tools like Twitter and Facebook clues to marketers looking to create connections between ideas/products/services and people. 

I tried to get a balance between PR, marketing, internal comms/engagement and social/digital media, but to be honest, I only felt like I managed to scratch the surface. 

Not looking forward to touching back down in liquefaction central. But very much looking forward to further exploring the ideas I've had the privilege of being exposed to and sharing them with everybody I work with.

The news from home nobody wants to get

My worst nightmare, on booking to come to IABC world (PR conference, San Diego, on now) was that I would be sitting in a conference session and I'd get a text from Molly's (12) school to say there'd been another big shake. It was something I'd wrestled with over and over again, when I made the decision whether to come or not. Especially since Douglas decided to tag along, too, leaving neither parent in Quakesville. So you can imagine how surreal it felt to hear that tell-tale buzz as I sat in the opening keynote (Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide) and to glance down to a text reassuring parents the kids were ok, but asking us to come and pick them up. I completely freaked out for a full minute (in the confined of my own head, of course) before remembering that we'd decided to take Molly out of school and bring her with us - to avoid precisely this moment. It's 1pm here in San Diego, 8am at home. All I know for sure is that the GT team, my closest friends and my parents are ok. The dog has company again after the housesitter got stuck on the other side of town, necessitating a dog rescue moment by my wonderful friend, Kim - despite her dog allergy. Apparently the house is standing, but stuff is broken and flung around in every room. The ground floor of our post-February offices is liquef...ed all the way through the concrete slab again. And James has performed a daring server rescue mission (not quite as daring as mine, which involved a dash under darkness and some quick talking) to rescue that all-important square box and sequester it off to safer and less shaky ground (Rangiora). Watching from a distance is so hard, it's difficult to even be grateful for the things that I know will be a precious luxury by now at home: running water, flushing toilets, fresh, hot cappuccinos, roads that are passable, land that stays still. Very still. Most of all I should be grateful that we were all away and safe when the quakes hit this time - Bramley in the North Island at school, the balance of the Macleans hein San Diego. But I struggle to be anything but shocked and scared and worn down. And if I feel like that from the comfort of the Grand Hyatt here on the waterfront, surrounded by 'normal' (whoever would have thought, in a room with 1399 other PR people), I can only imagine - and I do, constantly - what it is like to be back home right now. I promise I will write about the conference, and what I have learned, and the amazing ideas I am being exposed to, soon. But for now, like all Christchurch people, I just need to keep very connected to what is going on at home, where and when I can, and try and figure out what this all means.