Public Relations

My foray into podcasting – Light Bulb Moments

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Happy to note that I now have six podcasts published on iTunes.
They are also here at the Decision Theater blog.

More to follow!

I began the podcasts, Light Bulb Moments as a complement to the Decision Theater blog that bears the same name.

But none of this happenned overnight. Podcasting is an interesting a curious exercise. As those who do it will tell you, there are many components to it, from the interview prep, to the editing (if you’re not going live to the drive, as some pros like Mitch Joel and CC Chapman do), and the publishing.

My deep appreciation to two people –fellow IABC members– who have been my inspiration to get started: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. For the past –what was it?– three or more years I’ve listened to several communications and PR podcasts, and still do. But For Immediate Release has been one show I never fail to get back to. I learned the nuts and bolts of the trade from their book, How to do everything with podcasting, then took a class at ASU, and jumped in. Suddenly the deep-end doesn’t feel so intimidating.

A note about Light Bulb Moments. It’s a sort of a peek behind the curtain, if you will, at what goes on here at the Decision Theater.

The core area (left), a room with floor-to-ceiling screens is a high-tech interactive environment. It’s used for planning –scenario planning– systems thinking and policy making.

We work with cities, businesses, govt agencies, school districts / schools and non-profits; more recently in pandemic influenza planning exercises. It looks very complex from the outside. So since part of my job is to communicate and distill that complexity, podcasts are perfect for this. It lets me capture the light bulb moments, plus the nuances –right down to the ambient sound.

Quotes for the week ending 23 May, 2009

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“It’s an interesting use of technology, but I can’t help but feel a bit ‘eeewww!’ about this.”

Twitter user on hearing about surgeons in New York tweeting through a kidney surgery

“The word “campaign” has become the pariah of social marketing. Preferred alternatives include terms like “program,” “initiative,” or even “conversation.”

David Berkowitz, in MediaPost, about the word (borrowing from George Carlin) that will “infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.”

“Think of it as an early warning system.”

Dan Greenfield on a new tool called Tweet Cloud he has developed for PR and marketing, to make better use of Twitter

“As if there is a lick of difference between those split hairs.”

Arizona Republic editorial on Nancy Pelosi.

“I really hope we don’t get shut down.

Ross Luippold, editor in chief of Texas Travesty, about a fake Twitter Account the student humor magazine had created on behalf of University of Texas at Austin president, William C. Powers Jr.

“1 billion applications served, 35,000 applications available and more than 30 million devices in market.”

Advertising Age on how mobile advertising –app-vertising– is going to change.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only 1 for 2 as President.”

President Obama, at his second commencement address this year, at Notre Dame University, with a snide reference to his visit to Arizona State University last week.

Quotes for the week ending 9 May, 2009

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“Gaze tracking is well-established … In the future, the whole image could also be panned left or right as the gaze approaches the edge of the screen.”

Gadgets and how we may use them, in BBC story on Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.

“The effects of the swine flu epidemic have been felt in Hollywood.”

Access Hollywood on an e-mail spam message that claimed Madonna had caught the virus.

“Moving from the digital world to print as everything else moves in the other direction may seem contrarian. But people want physicality, especially as more and more of our lives are lived virtually.”

Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb, a profitable print-on-demand company that has sold $30 million worth of books in 2008.

“Integration has long been talked about as the holy grail of brand communications. Socialization of media warrants finding it, and fast.”

Chris Perry, executive VP at Weber Shandwick. In Advertisng Age.

“…the greatest facilitators of human conversations, its building itself as a brand based on emotional bonds and trust in a shell of social , web 2.0 services.”

johnhorniblow, talking of Facebook, responding to the above article

“Forever is a word people aren’t used to hearing from marketers. But forever is good. If you could keep every customer you get forever, you’ll be in business for just as long.”

Rohit Bhargava, about the United States Postal Service’s use of a ‘forever stamp’ at the current postage rate, and it would be valid many years later, irrespective of price increases.

“Be warned. It’s me uncensored.”

Megan McCain, on her blog about her use of Twitter. Megan, daughter of John McCain is seen as the new voice of the Republican party. She will publish a book on this subject soon.

“They should be the ones writing the tweets – no ‘ghosttweeting’.”

Linda Vandevrede at ValleyPRblog.com, about CEOs use if Twitter. The full report is on Ryan Zuk’s presentation about Twitter.

Too many swine flu experts hyping it up?

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

I have seen a flurry of responses to the outbreak of swine flu over the past few days, and have to wonder if our ability to monitor and repeat information often overstates the situation /crisis. Or exploit it.

I can say this with some confidence since:

(a) I work at a the Decision Theater, where we have conducted three pandemic flu exercises –the last of which was in February this year.

(b) We have to caution many people who ask, because everyone’s in reactive mode, not realizing that this is still an outbreak, not an epidemic, and still far from being declared a pandemic.

I suppose we could hype up the situation, and claim to be ‘experts’ in the field, just to get media attention. But we won’t go there. It is not in the public interest to add to the uncertainty.

Down-playing. Sort of. If at all, I have had to tell media who call that guess what, Arizona was recently ranked the most prepared state as far as pandemic plans. I also sat in a meeting where one researcher in this field noted that Mexico has some of the most advanced epidemiologists, and that their health care monitoring system was not to be doubted.

I have seen communicators jump into this space. Some in a good way. But as Evgeny Morozov of the Open Society Institute noted, “too many Twitter conversations about swine flu seem to be motivated by desires to fit in, do what one’s friends do (i.e. tweet about it) or simply gain more popularity.”

Here’s a short list of how some in the industry reacted:

  • On Sunday, while I was monitoring the information on the outbreak (at 10 pm Mountain Time), Gerard Baud pinged me about how his outfit is looking at the crisis, with a short podcast. Unfortunately it was an ad for a tele-seminar that you would have to pay for. I would have preferred if the response, in the public interest, was a free ‘seat’ at the teleconference for at least one person in the organization.
  • Melcrum today published a short but intelligent piece in the Melcrum Hub about an effective crisis communications plan. One of the points they raised seemed so pertinent to the present situation: Stick to the known facts. It’s so easy to go on anecdotal evidence –as in stuff you saw online, repeated by someone who thought she had heard it from a ‘source.’
  • Ragan Communications also published a good piece on it but unfortunately they too have connencted it to a webinar that will cost you $99.
  • Happy to note that IABC is making a teleseminar available free. Details here.

Bottom Line. I know times are tough. But people are also getting sick. There are lots of cities, school districts and healthcare systems who have plans but will like to see what else they could do. I don’t think at this time they should pay for learning about better communications to help their local community and their country.

Hey, that’s just me.

Quotes for the week ending

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“I hate Earth Day the same way I hate Christmas and Thanksgiving … Should we only seek peace on Earth and be thankful one day a year?”

Justine Burt, on the ReGeneration blog

“Enough already. The Oprah and Ashton-i-zation of Twitter is good, if you believe, as I know many of you do, that the more universal Twitter becomes…”

Catherine P. Taylor, on how we are all guilty of being on a constant hunt for cool, but it’s all good.

“This abuse of trust, rather than the activity on Facebook, led to the ending of the work contract.”

Nationale Swisse, an employer who fired a woman who was on Facebook, after calling in sick to say she could not be working in front of a computer. The woman was supposedly on Facebook in bed, using her iPhone.

“conversation shouldn’t be a blind ambition with social media, but rather an end that you seek strategically.”

Rohit Bhargava, on why there are many valid business situations where a conversation via social media are not needed.

“Online media’s ‘favorite child status’ … appears to have diminished over the last few months.”

Nielsen’s Global Online Media Landscape report, 2009

“The world has changed. It is no longer round, nor flat. It is Twitter-bird shaped and people are talking about you, your products and services.”

Wayne Kurtzman, in Media Bullseye

Quotes for the week ending 11 April, 2009

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“How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent?”

Paul Jacobs, resident of a small town of  Broughton in England, protesting Google’s roving camera van that captures street views of towns and cities for enhanced Googls Maps.

“We don’t prohibit public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping, or filming at screening locations. You can take pictures at our checkpoints as long as you’re not interfering with the screening process or slowing things down. We also ask that you do not film or take pictures of our monitors.”

Post by Blogger Bob on the TSA Web site, Evolution of Security, clearing up the sticky issue of whether a camera can get you in trouble at an airport. Many airports ban photography.

“I did not eat my own dog food. Why? Because the book industry still works well enough to pay me an advance. Dog’s gotta eat, you know.”

Jeff Jarvis, in an interview with Steve Rubel, on his new book, What would Google Do. He also confesses that in seeking this old-media attention he is a sort of a hypocrite, but…

“We acknowledge that… in this world, in an increasingly cyber world, these are increasing risks.”

Janet Napolitano, Secretary US Homeland Security, on the news that the US power grid could have been infiltrated by foreign spies.

“I don’t believe in work/life balance at all. I think our professional and personal lives are converging as such a fast pace …there will be no separation in the future.”

Dan Schawabel, in an interview with Rohot Bhargava about personal branding

How do we present a ‘black lung?’

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Excuse the horrible metaphor, but I had two amazing conversations today that made me think a lot more deeply about what we communicators do for a living.

We do not perform complicated surgical procedures, we do not step outside the space shuttle to fix a broken rudder, we do not stand atop a Humvee in Fallujah ducking sniper fire. All we appear to do is generate content and try to get some buy-in.

OK, I know we have ambitious strategic plans, and wear business development hats, sit at board meetings and what nots. But still…

When it comes to presenting something, especially something that’s somewhat complicated, slightly controversial, icky, we  summon the best best tools from digital cameras to–as they say in the military– human assets. But we tend to lean heavily on  ‘push’ tactics.

Speaking to these two senior communicators, I realized that 95% of their time appears to be devoted to understanding the audience, and 5% into the messaging. Without naming names, one is the director of an organization with multiple audiences, another the head of an outreach effort that involves a web site, with as many audiences as there are dots on the world map. Let’s leave it at that.

  • The Comms Director was someone who’s  finely attuned to considering what the audience was interested, using the web and as a listening post, as much as a publishing platform.  “We appreciate your views in helping us grow,” he mentioned. I was not in his orbit, not geographically, or professionally close to anything that his outreach program was all about. And yet…
  • The Corporate Director was someone who thought a lot about–some would say overly sensitive to — information overload, and losing the audience. “We shouldn’t come across as far too complex. We sound like we are trying to cure every form off cancer, when in reality, we may be just experts in lung cancer.”

I asked if she meant pruning down the content? More than that, she said. “How do we present the black lung?” The what? She  remembered way back when smoking was being attacked on all fronts with logos, warning signs, ad campaigns etc, how one simple presentation in school made an impression. It was a canister with a black lung, and next to it a unsullied one. It was not the slick PSA copy in the campaign that made her decide she would not smoke. It was the black lung!

Which brings this to us.  We tend to pack our communication tool kit with everything we’ve got, when all it takes is one memorable take-away. Not to say we need to drop everything. But perhaps we unintentionally clog up (pun intended) our message.

So I am formulating this black-lung theory. We all have this black lung problem. We present way too many bronchioles, blood vessels and pulmonary side shows as a stand-in for a real solution.  In other words, sometimes it’s time to cut down that presentation deck from 35 slides to 5. Or … zero?

There are other ways to keep the black lung front and center.

  • Use more visuals, less words.
  • Speak for 35 minutes and leave 25 minutes for questions.
  • Better still, start with questions and end with a presentation, counter-intuitive as this might seem
  • Listen to the blogosphere, twittersphere, whateversphere
  • Analyze leads, study your audience, use Google analytics
  • I bet there are dozens more

If you have some great presentation examples (or even horror stories) I’d like to know. And so will my two unnamed sources.

Quotes for the week, ending 21 March, 2009

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“The Holy Grail is to know as much as possible but to protect to the greatest extent privacy rights. Google’s halo has slipped for the very reason that it believes in the first part of the equation but not in the second.”

Simon Davies of Privacy International, on Google’s Street View maps of the UK.

“This is like the captain and the crew of the ship, reserving the lifeboats.”

Congressman to AIG chairman Edward Liddy on Nightline.

“My job then becomes one of ‘comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable.”

Social Media Today’s Blogger of the week Dennis Howlett, on the need for PR and Communicators to get buy in from middle management, who have much to gain from social media, but feel most threatened.

“We’re just now emerging from a dark age, and as we ease out of decadent late capitalism and into a more sustainable way of life, transparency, authenticity, balance, egalitarianism and distributed models will become the norm.”

HilaryBromberg, Writing for CMO Strategy in Adverting Age, on the 8 strategies a marketer could do tp stay afloat in an uncertain economy.

“We need human colors to paint the greatest piece of art that has ever been made – the world.”

A line from a video submission by a high school student, José Vinícius Reis Gouveia of Brazil, that won the online contest for video held by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.

“Forget live blogging everything people say. It’s too much pressure and I guarantee there are way too many pro/experienced bloggers doing it better and more consistently than you in the crowd. Let them.”

Rohit Bhargava, a prolific blogger,with a few tips on how best to manage time and resources at SXSW Conference in Austin Texas this week.

“The role of the curator is to, in a lot of instances, broaden the horizons of the audiences …so that they don’t get stuck in an echo chamber.”

Gina Trapani, founder of LifeHacker, at a session on Curating a Crowd-sourced World, at SXSW Conference in Austin, TX.

“I also suggest to young communicators to showcase their Social Media talents and make sure that is a listed skill on resumes.”

Johna Burke, VP of BurellesLuce, in a Twinterview I conducted this week, responding to a question about the why job seekers in PR and Communications need to be doing

Quotes for the week ending 14 March, 2009

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“Stewart’s attack on CNBC is not some cable cockfight. At the heart of this spectacle is a lesson that reporters, anchors, editors, news directors and anyone with a stake in a vital American fourth estate should heed.”

Joe Vince, blogging about the Jon Stewart – Jim Kramer fight, where Stewartwho has a popular Comedy Central show, attacked Cramer of CNBC for failing to warn people about the risky Wall Street conduct.

“lot of people will actually get to see the Internet”

Tim Berners-Lee, the farther of the World Wide Web, talking about how mobile devices will be the main access points for the web in much of the developed world. He however warned of the vulnerability of being able to be snooped on.

“Guava threw together this spot in which a Blackberry literally shoots through Apple.”

A fruity quote by AdRants about a story about a new TV spot by Blackberry taking aim at the iPhone, without mentioning the latter.

“So is advertising really adding value to our brands or not? I am sure agencies fail their clients from time to time … But the difference is that civilians don’t attempt to do the job of a military man. That is why they are set apart and called civilians and military.”

Udara, a blogger at JWT Sri Lanka, commenting on the eternal problem of how anyone with a Mac and a designer may not be in the ideas business.

“So far “McCain” in gothic letters on the back of my neck is winning my unofficial survey.”

Meghan McCain, commenting on her latest media tour and writing stint.

“We’re going to attempt to conduct a full interview exclusively on Twitter — complete with the 140-character limit!”

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News announcing his attempt to ‘twinterview’ John McCain on twitter next Tuesday

“Some of the communications I see haven’t changed since the 1960s. Same bad photos, same jargon (we need to leverage our core competencies and strive for World Class synergy), same platitudes … same spin.”

Steve Crescenzo, in an interview with ValleyPRBlog, on why he he speaks out against corpoorate-speak. Crescenzo will hold a full-day seminar for IABC-Phoenix on Thursday 19 March.

“You don’t have to have your fingers in every social media pie. All these channels are grouped under one category but … If a chat forum works best then stick to that.”

Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcru, on the ROI and reasons for using social media.

“The more we can do to open the process to the public, the greater the public understanding – the more legitimacy the public system will have in the eyes of the public”

A Kansas Judge J. Thomas Marten, who allowed a court reporter to use Twitter slthough jurors are told to avout newspaper, broadcasts and online media.

What we could learn from the Rush Limbaugh spat

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If you haven’t been following the heated exchange between the Democratic Party, the Republican leadership and Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, it’s worth going back and looking at the he-said, he un-said, he didn’t mean to say back and forth.

It’s like an ongoing tutorial (check this, this and this) on why it’s important to pay attention to the medium not just the person you are engaging before foot is inserted in mouth. Here is an example:

Loose Lips: “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh’s whole thing is entertainment … “Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly.”

Who Said That: Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee

Oops, I take that back: “Words that I said weren’t what I was thinking. It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently.”

What??? Steele was attempting to take back his sharp criticism on Limbaugh

You cannot take anything back. Any media relations rookie will tell you that. In fact any SEO rookie will tell you that also. Just Google the words “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer” or just “Limbaugh Steele” and see. So what can we learn from this –besides never trying to engage nuclear talk-show hosts?

  • Understand that radio is still a powerful medium. The host always, always has the last word. If you don’t believe me, tune in and see how cleverly any show host cuts off a caller with a few simple words:  “I’m coming up on a hard break.” Click!
  • If you have to challenge someone, make sure you have full access to the media platform, or be pretty damn sure you have a stronger one beneath you. I remember Sun CEO/blogger Jonathan Schwartz once said “while a journalist is writing about my blog, I am blogging about his journalism.”
  • Stick to some talking points if you tend to improvise, or your mouth tends to go extremely left field without informing your brain first. Here’s Steele, again.

PS: I have nothing against Steele or Limbaugh –the above may contain “words that I said weren’t what I was thinking…”