"These busted boomers," writes Constance Lavendar, "are clinging to an argument based on authority, hierarchy, and privilege; they
despise digital democracy because it threatens their existence, challenges their
authority, and breaks down their well-preserved hierarchy."

She is commenting on a post in the Chronicle, about The Cult of the Amateur argument by Andrew Keen in his book about how "experts" are more valuable than the chattering masses, and the internet is killing culture.

She could well have been commenting on Lord Maurice Saatchi’s "Google Data Vs Human Nature" in The Financial Times in May. The core of his argument is in this sentence

"It is an inconvenient and stubborn fact that outside Newton’s universe,
where physical laws govern reality, the world is conditioned by
perception."

Attacking the predictive model of marketing is not different from dismissing the hoi polloi who are suddenly on equal footing with experts. The old guard wishes it –and wikipedia, and blogs, and the ability for non-agency folk to come up with hugely popular Diet Coke/mentos uncommercials– were not so.

In a later column, Mr. Saatchi wrote: "Sometimes I feel as though I am standing at the graveside of a well-loved friend called advertising." You know he is troubled by this algorithm thing. It must be tough watching the digital natives over-run the place.

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Stu Reed, a Motorola VP and a passionate proponent of ‘straight talk’ checked most of the boxes in communication this morning in a very engaging presentation.

Reed, was feted by IABC as this year’s Excel (stands for "Excellence in Communication Leadership") award winner, which is to say he’s the cherry on top of communication this year at the international conference. The kind of boss everyone would want to have.

In his straight talk about straight talk, he admitted he started off getting a ‘C’ in communications when Motorola conducted an audit. His lessons learned are well worth recounting:

• The most important communications should address the ‘What’s in it for me’ factor.
• Communication is pretty simple, but binary: Go/No go.
• Communication is a process, not a fad.
• Don’t communicate only when it feels good.
• Be proactive, even when you have to do reactive communications.

But there was one thing that stuck out –remember I said he ‘checked most of the boxes.’ Stu is still not ready  to launch into blogs. He’s holding on to the belief that he would rather make sure his team enhances existing communication processes before adding one more thing.

Controversial? Yes. At a later session this topic came up. You know, the ‘what to do if your bosses don’t get social media’ question. To give Reed credit, he ‘gets’ the transparency, and the part about responding quickly and directly, and has done a terrific job sans social media. He was also largely talking of employee communications.

But as the critics would put it, engaging your different constituents, be they internal or external, is all about conversations not just communications.

Sidebar:
None of this is to imply that Motorola execs do not blog. Padmasree Warrior,
Motorola’s executive vice president and chief technology
officer, has a wonderful blog called Bits At The Edge. She writes in a style that belies her IT side, with the kind of openness that we sometimes long for in corporate communications. In one post earlier this year titled Mea Culpa Warrior refers to a Dilbert strip about embarrassing blogs.:

I know why I feel blue. It is unadulterated guilt! My blog! I have shamelessly neglected it for almost a month.
Now God is messaging me through Dilbert…
Sigh.

Mea Culpa? Seems like they’ve got straight talk in their DNA, with or without blogs.

No wonder Stu Reed –and Motorola– got an A today in New Orleans.

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