Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Planning Online Campaigns - its tougher than you think
The recent posts have examined risk and uncertainty planning tools to manage change and risk, how can we apply this to development of online public relations?
Most practitioners use a search engine to see what is available about their clients online.
Few organisations are not involved.
There are rules about online campaign planning.
* The first is that at each stage risks and opportunities become apparent. They have to be managed.
* Events online including what people do, technologies that emerge and competitor activities will mean that we need to re-visit assumptions that may be only a few weeks old.
* Monitoring and evaluation is a constant. Stuff happens all the time and so it has to be monitored.
* There is no substitute for a structured approach.
There is a process which includes the following:
1.Landscaping
The Internet offers ever new and evolutionary forms of interactions for relationship building as a matter of course. These affect all forms of communication and social interaction.
This means that the practitioner needs to follow events, know what kind of online interactions are attracting attention. In 2005 it was blogs, 2006 it was YouTube and huge interaction between photos from cell phones being loaded onto MySpace and facebook.. By 2007 Twitter was became fashionable and the ability for people to add application, Web Widgets, to social sites like Facebook took off in a big way. We also saw the first changes in time shifted TV viewing and streamed Internet Protocol TV. The first digital posters appeared on the London Underground and Games online meant that the massive games demographic joined the online community with Xbox and Sony Play Station. Newspapers offered blogs, podcasts and video online. Radio podcasts meant that time shifted radio programmes were available.
Consumer habits have and continue to change. The Internet is the biggest high street by factors. People spent less time reading newspapers and watching TV and much more time online. The channels for communication changed.
This speed of change affects organisations. Learning to be aware of these developments and finding time to stay abreast of developments is crucial to the communications specialist.
In the PR industry, we are fortunate in that many practitioners provide free insights into these developments on blogs, in podcasts and at conferences. Trends are provided by research organisations.
Sources that help include: http://www.statistics.gov.uk; http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz; http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/index.asp;
Ofcom Research and Market data; http://www.internetworldstats.com; http://www.pewinternet.org; http://www.emarketer.com; http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli; http://www.readwriteweb.com; and http://www.alexa.com
2 Channel Analysis
Checking out the presence of the organisation and its competitors' online presence in a wide range of web and social media is next. In the chapter on channels for communication we identify some methods for each channel. The structured way of doing this is involves identifying the extent of exposure in each channel (web, blogs, podcasts etc.), the key subjects in the conversations, the most regular sources (e.g. bloggers, Twiterers etc) who are adding content and the extent they are referenced by others. These are, for want of a better word, the opinion formers and a key public for each subject.
Internet mediated interventions come in many forms. Of course, there are the visible channels such as web sites, emails, forums as well as blogs and Social portals, virtual worlds like Second Life and the newer forms used in communication online. For the technically minded, the Internet goes further because its protocols (Internet Protocols) have been adopted by other channels such as television (IPTV), mobile telephony platforms and computer languages which describe the nature of the content so that computers can manage it (e.g. XML, Micro-formats and tagging). The practitioner has need to be informed of current, emerging and new platforms and channels for communication.
3. Organisation analysis
In preparing any Public Relations plan, there is a need to understand the organisation. With the potential for unimaginable numbers of people to find, and evaluate the direct and indirect statements made by the organisation, regulators, information aggregators, the media and social commentators online, there is a need to be precise in statements about the organisation. Claims served up with spin, hype, exaggeration or bling draw a rich and often lurid repost in cyberspace at a time and in circumstances not of the organisations choosing.
Value systems evident online need to analysed and defendable. Wenstop & Myrmel, (2006) offer virtues, duties and consequences as three types of value systems that need to be identified and organisations often need to modify un-realistic claims to be able to compete online.
Such analysis will affect evidence and content published in online corporate backgrounders (history, financial and management structure, products, markets, associates and regulators, endorsers). Some of this will be provided by the organisation (or it will point to it – often using hyperlinks sometimes selectively using web widgets) bearing in mind that for most organisations, they are not responsible for the majority of data about them that is published (starting with Internet data, government, regulatory and trade data provided by third parties as well as web site and social media content).
In addition, analysis of the content offered online will indicate the kind of organisation behind the website facade. Using a form of Uses and Gratification analysis of web sites and other online content quickly exposes the nature of the organisation not by what is said but by how it is presented.
Practitioners need the tools, expertise and authority to present and construct the online persona of organisations.
A useful method for examining the online image of an organisation is by examining its web site and selective commentary of the online audience for the values that are identified. Statements such as 'reliable delivery, most advanced product and similar statements - most marketing departments insist on adding such statements in product literature and web pages. There will be statements that are made by corporate leaders as well. These are are statements by the organisation about its values. These need to be examined and catalogued as the value systems of the organisations.
Because the online community is critical (not frequently adversely critical), its will examine these statements and where there is dissonance - i.e. the claim is unreasonable or unbelievable - will expose such statements for a an Internet user generated version. many companies have fallen foul of this form of online analysis. If an organisation makes a claim on or offline, it must be able to defend it. Risk/opportunity analysis is a useful tool for evaluating value systems.
Situation analysis is a valuable tool for identifying a profile: This will include analysis of the organisation on and offline and a typical profile would include analysis of:
* Company (Product line, Image in the market,Technology and experience, Culture, Goals,
* Collaborators (Distributors, Suppliers, Alliances)
* Customers (Market size and growth, Market segments (including Internet user groups), Benefits that consumer is seeking, tangible and intangible, Motivation behind purchase; value drivers, benefits vs. costs, Decision maker or decision-making unit, Retail channel - where does the consumer actually purchase the product? Consumer information sources - where does the customer obtain information about the product?Buying process; e.g. impulse or careful comparison, Frequency of purchase, seasonal factors, Quantity purchased at a time. Trends - how consumer needs and preferences change over time).
* Competitors (Actual or potential, Direct or indirect, Products, Positioning, Market shares, Strengths and weaknesses of competitors)
* Climate - or context (The climate or macro-environmental factors are, Political & regulatory environment - governmental policies and regulations that affect the market, Economic environment - business cycle, inflation rate, interest rates, and other macroeconomic issues,
Social/Cultural environment - society's trends and fashions, Technological environment - new knowledge that makes possible new ways of satisfying needs; the impact of technology on the demand for existing products.
An additional analysis might include a PEST analysis is an analysis of the external macro-environment that affects all firms. P.E.S.T. is an acronym for the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological (and Gregory 2006 adds legal) factors of the external macro-environment.
Organisations are exposed in a range of channels for communication. Some have a different view to values systems than others. Televisionaudiences will accept hype statements with little qualm unlike blogging community.
One final test is useful which is to examine how the online community regards online content.
The Uses and gratification theory, first identified in the 1940s by Lazarsfeld and Stanton (1944), attempts to explain why mass media is used and the types of gratification that media generates.
Denis McQuail (McQuail, D. (1987): Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (2nd edn.). London: Sage) offers a schemata to help establish the quality of web sites. When reviewing a site, this is a method that may be valuable to gain insights into how people will regard and use a web site (or a blog) and Morris and Ogan (1996) poit out that U&G is a comprehensive theory and is applicable to Internet mediated communication ( see also McLeod & Becker (1981).
Using McQuail, practitioners can create questionnaire to invite people to evaluate web sites, blogs and wikis or any other online property to identify its value as an online resource.
The basis by which this can be done are these:
1. The first is information, where we use the media to educate us in certain areas, such as learning more about the world, seeking advice on practical matters, or fulfilling our curiosity.
2. The second factor is personal identity, where we may watch television to associate an actor's character with our own. For example in the comedy 'Friend' all the actors have different personalities, we as the audience imagines or desires that we were them or resembling them.
3. The third usage of media is 'integration and social interaction', and refers to gaining insight into the situations of other people, in order to achieve a sense of belonging. For example, when watching a movie, we may get very emotional because we experience a sense of connection to the movie, and experience symptoms like crying, or covering our eyes. Television also facilitates us in our personal relationship with friends as we are able to relate and discuss details of media texts that we like in common with our friends.
4. The fourth usage of the media identified by McQuail is 'entertainment', that is, using media for purposes of obtaining pleasure and enjoyment, or escapism. For example when we watch TV shows or movies we end up going into a new world of fantasy, diverting our attention from our problems, wasting time when we are free and even sometimes acquiring sexual arousal or emotional release.
Academic Darren Lilliker would add Interesting as a fifth element.
With this analysis, the practitioner is well armed to develop the plan further.
4. Value partners
Online, there are no messages hidden from users which might give rise to a view that there is little need for segmentation. This is a misleading view. There are platforms and channels for communication as well as types of content, written and semiotic, that are more significant for some audiences than others. These people who have an interest in the values and value systems of the organisation will be drawn to them and where there is dissonance will, at some point take issue.
Using segmentation techniques offered by Smithi (Smith 2002) and Grunig and Huntii (1984) among others as described by Anne Gregory and Alison Theaker in their books as well as Freeman (Stakeholder theory) and a multitude of others (not least the many market segmentation theorists and practitioners) are now joined by User Generated Markets. Users are now beginning to decide that they would select issues, products and brands which undermines segmentation theory used by most organisation. The evolution of online behaviour whereby User Generated Market segments, (often confined to closed communities such as Facebook, MyRagan and Melcrum), form round brands, issues and organisations makes discussion of these networked social groups (mostly very small groups) important. There is nothing new or revolutionary about the concept. Small communities through history have behaved in the same way aided by the normal discourse of daily lives leavened by gossip. The Internet, a place, has many networked communities. There is a temptation by many of us who are used to mass communication and mass markets to imagine that because we can find references to issues and brands online that these sites and post are a homogeneous market. The evidence suggests they are comments in relatively small often transient online social groups. It is typical for people to use search engines to identify what the online community is saying. This is far too simplistic. The online community is predominantly active in small groups and cares little for views expressed across the whole Internet unless seeking to selectively 'pull' new information. Online social groups range from the intense and academic to hard news and simple family snap shots. To imagine that all comments about an issue, brand or event from a single sweep of comments across all such groups would be a mistake.
Segmentation is needed. It is needed because the language of different channels is different (Twitter versus Times online) and the channel is a message in its own right and to be able to hold a conversation through such channels needs to be adapted to meet user needs.
Historically is was considered enough to frame some public relations communication in a few succinct messages. In a conversation, this is simply rude. Statements need to be supported, users need to be able to explore further and frequently seek to 'pull' more information. This means that the content available needs to be comprehensively available through devices such as hyperlinking. Where information is not provided by the organisation, online communities will go elsewhere online to meet their needs. The attention to the organisation is broken and the link lost. Value partners are valuable when they have all the information they need to hand.
5. Aims and objectives
In landscaping and organisational analysis the practitioner will have identified the organisation's aims, corporate objectives and mission statements. In addition, there will be a driver that prompts entering into the online world. It may be a brief or thepractitioners own initiative but there is purpose.
It might be a corporate desire to be evident online to extent the 'eFootprint' to add to the asset base of the organisations (online presence and online relationship are significant assets), it could be a need to establish relationship offering products or services, knowledge, need and satisfaction. It can be political, commercial, charitable, public sector or something else. The key is that the online activity is becoming critical for an organisations.
The first question is why. What does the organisation want to achieve. What does it seek to achieve.
Setting online objectives is not as simple as many other forms of PR. Online objectives have to coincide with organisational objectives and organisational values and both will quickly or probably already are transparent to the world. Setting objectives requires risk analysis and a view of how to mange the unknown. What, in other areas can be a campaign will soon reach further both inside an organisation and beyond it. Employees, customers vendors and other partners will have compete visibility. Its an axiom that all you do and say online is available to everyone - forever - however embarrassing that may be.
Objectives need boundaries - most often they need to be SMART
1. Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve.
2. Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not stage by stage.
3. Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable with manageable risk?
4. Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have?
5. Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives? Or can you sustain objectives to the point where the online community is satisfied you have served their needs.
To sum up: Do your objective chime with the organisations objectives; are they compatible with values held by the organisation that are defend-able in any forum, is risk and opportunity manageable, are they SMART and agreed with the organisation?
6. Strategies
At last! here you are in a position to get to grips with what you want to do.
Online strategies have to be creative in concept. There are so many platforms and channels for communication. There are no boundaries. You can use eposters or SMS, blogs or wiki's, podcasts or virtual environments. The online media and media online can be part of a campaign that includes Internet mediated television or games machines. There are exciting ways you can monitor, measure, evaluate and report. There is also considerable strategy theory from experts like Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Philip Selznick, Igor Ansoff, and Peter Drucker.
Some of your objective will be strategic because online the consequences will be felt at the highest level. Some will be more functional. Certainly they will be explicit.
Strategy is adaptable by nature. It will consider availability of resources (financial, time, technologies). Allocation of responsibilities and reporting with associated training and management infrastructure are all considerations.
There is an imperative for good clear communication inside the organisation and there is usually a need to involve internal 'stakeholders' because online initiatives will affect them and they will be well aware of your programme almost as soon as it goes public. All online activities require a capability to manage change.
Using management aids to decision making and project planning (ibid) you will develop a plan and processes for management monitoring and reporting and progressively you will include elements that have the right pay off when they are applied. They need a reality check. There is so much online that it is easy to imagine a Second Life presence but difficult to execute. and the process of developing the strategy will include even more risk and opportunity testing.
7. Tactics
I have an ever growing list of media channels available. They will be deployed to meet the strategic plan. There is no online PR campaign that only uses one tactical device. There will always be a proactive element, a monitoring element and a capability to respond to events and actions by the organisation and or its online community.
There are things we need to know about channels for communication which I listed here.
To be able to deploy tactics, they need to be well understood:
Are they technically possible
Do you make of buy (use an existing service or develop your own - who hosts, who has copyright, is your information confidential, are you sure about the nature, even nationality of your vendors.
Can you sustain the activity for the duration. Online interventions are very time hungry.
How are you going to test and evaluate the concept (e.g. channel) and technologies?
What are the risks and are there other opportunities?
When do you deploy your programme?
How will you launch what you propose?
How does this tactic integrate with other tactics in the strategic plan.
8. Monitor
We have mentioned that there is a need to maintain landscaping. It is valuable that such monitoring is structured (create your own - closed - wiki) and include the process for assessment including risk and opportunity management.
In addition to this, there is a need to be able continuously monitor what is happening and for each social media you have identified, you will include methods for monitoring and evaluating. The new book in print from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell (2008)iv, identifies people in social media with five characteristics: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, and Spectators. These are five elements that offer structure to your monitoring and evaluation techniques.
Monitoring these five elements is essential when using social media.
Monitoring traffic on your web site and its competitive ranking and capabilities will be needed by every practitioner but monitoring and evaluating much of what is happening online is simply impossible. Chat is a case in point. A busy chat room generates huge content as do many brands in blogs and social networks.
Using the monitoring tools available, makes evaluation and reporting difficult. But there are a lot of tools to help. In some areas far more than for media relations. To cope with such activity it is worth creating a resource where real time information is available (a wiki?) and is available to a wide number of people who are involved in the project.
Online public relations is one form of PR that has to be monitored and evaluated. The risk in not doing so are far too significant and dangerous to leave it to chance.
That just about covers it I think.
Most practitioners use a search engine to see what is available about their clients online.
Few organisations are not involved.
There are rules about online campaign planning.
* The first is that at each stage risks and opportunities become apparent. They have to be managed.
* Events online including what people do, technologies that emerge and competitor activities will mean that we need to re-visit assumptions that may be only a few weeks old.
* Monitoring and evaluation is a constant. Stuff happens all the time and so it has to be monitored.
* There is no substitute for a structured approach.
There is a process which includes the following:
1.Landscaping
The Internet offers ever new and evolutionary forms of interactions for relationship building as a matter of course. These affect all forms of communication and social interaction.
This means that the practitioner needs to follow events, know what kind of online interactions are attracting attention. In 2005 it was blogs, 2006 it was YouTube and huge interaction between photos from cell phones being loaded onto MySpace and facebook.. By 2007 Twitter was became fashionable and the ability for people to add application, Web Widgets, to social sites like Facebook took off in a big way. We also saw the first changes in time shifted TV viewing and streamed Internet Protocol TV. The first digital posters appeared on the London Underground and Games online meant that the massive games demographic joined the online community with Xbox and Sony Play Station. Newspapers offered blogs, podcasts and video online. Radio podcasts meant that time shifted radio programmes were available.
Consumer habits have and continue to change. The Internet is the biggest high street by factors. People spent less time reading newspapers and watching TV and much more time online. The channels for communication changed.
This speed of change affects organisations. Learning to be aware of these developments and finding time to stay abreast of developments is crucial to the communications specialist.
In the PR industry, we are fortunate in that many practitioners provide free insights into these developments on blogs, in podcasts and at conferences. Trends are provided by research organisations.
Sources that help include: http://www.statistics.gov.uk; http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz; http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/index.asp;
Ofcom Research and Market data; http://www.internetworldstats.com; http://www.pewinternet.org; http://www.emarketer.com; http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli; http://www.readwriteweb.com; and http://www.alexa.com
2 Channel Analysis
Checking out the presence of the organisation and its competitors' online presence in a wide range of web and social media is next. In the chapter on channels for communication we identify some methods for each channel. The structured way of doing this is involves identifying the extent of exposure in each channel (web, blogs, podcasts etc.), the key subjects in the conversations, the most regular sources (e.g. bloggers, Twiterers etc) who are adding content and the extent they are referenced by others. These are, for want of a better word, the opinion formers and a key public for each subject.
Internet mediated interventions come in many forms. Of course, there are the visible channels such as web sites, emails, forums as well as blogs and Social portals, virtual worlds like Second Life and the newer forms used in communication online. For the technically minded, the Internet goes further because its protocols (Internet Protocols) have been adopted by other channels such as television (IPTV), mobile telephony platforms and computer languages which describe the nature of the content so that computers can manage it (e.g. XML, Micro-formats and tagging). The practitioner has need to be informed of current, emerging and new platforms and channels for communication.
3. Organisation analysis
In preparing any Public Relations plan, there is a need to understand the organisation. With the potential for unimaginable numbers of people to find, and evaluate the direct and indirect statements made by the organisation, regulators, information aggregators, the media and social commentators online, there is a need to be precise in statements about the organisation. Claims served up with spin, hype, exaggeration or bling draw a rich and often lurid repost in cyberspace at a time and in circumstances not of the organisations choosing.
Value systems evident online need to analysed and defendable. Wenstop & Myrmel, (2006) offer virtues, duties and consequences as three types of value systems that need to be identified and organisations often need to modify un-realistic claims to be able to compete online.
Such analysis will affect evidence and content published in online corporate backgrounders (history, financial and management structure, products, markets, associates and regulators, endorsers). Some of this will be provided by the organisation (or it will point to it – often using hyperlinks sometimes selectively using web widgets) bearing in mind that for most organisations, they are not responsible for the majority of data about them that is published (starting with Internet data, government, regulatory and trade data provided by third parties as well as web site and social media content).
In addition, analysis of the content offered online will indicate the kind of organisation behind the website facade. Using a form of Uses and Gratification analysis of web sites and other online content quickly exposes the nature of the organisation not by what is said but by how it is presented.
Practitioners need the tools, expertise and authority to present and construct the online persona of organisations.
A useful method for examining the online image of an organisation is by examining its web site and selective commentary of the online audience for the values that are identified. Statements such as 'reliable delivery, most advanced product and similar statements - most marketing departments insist on adding such statements in product literature and web pages. There will be statements that are made by corporate leaders as well. These are are statements by the organisation about its values. These need to be examined and catalogued as the value systems of the organisations.
Because the online community is critical (not frequently adversely critical), its will examine these statements and where there is dissonance - i.e. the claim is unreasonable or unbelievable - will expose such statements for a an Internet user generated version. many companies have fallen foul of this form of online analysis. If an organisation makes a claim on or offline, it must be able to defend it. Risk/opportunity analysis is a useful tool for evaluating value systems.
Situation analysis is a valuable tool for identifying a profile: This will include analysis of the organisation on and offline and a typical profile would include analysis of:
* Company (Product line, Image in the market,Technology and experience, Culture, Goals,
* Collaborators (Distributors, Suppliers, Alliances)
* Customers (Market size and growth, Market segments (including Internet user groups), Benefits that consumer is seeking, tangible and intangible, Motivation behind purchase; value drivers, benefits vs. costs, Decision maker or decision-making unit, Retail channel - where does the consumer actually purchase the product? Consumer information sources - where does the customer obtain information about the product?Buying process; e.g. impulse or careful comparison, Frequency of purchase, seasonal factors, Quantity purchased at a time. Trends - how consumer needs and preferences change over time).
* Competitors (Actual or potential, Direct or indirect, Products, Positioning, Market shares, Strengths and weaknesses of competitors)
* Climate - or context (The climate or macro-environmental factors are, Political & regulatory environment - governmental policies and regulations that affect the market, Economic environment - business cycle, inflation rate, interest rates, and other macroeconomic issues,
Social/Cultural environment - society's trends and fashions, Technological environment - new knowledge that makes possible new ways of satisfying needs; the impact of technology on the demand for existing products.
An additional analysis might include a PEST analysis is an analysis of the external macro-environment that affects all firms. P.E.S.T. is an acronym for the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological (and Gregory 2006 adds legal) factors of the external macro-environment.
Organisations are exposed in a range of channels for communication. Some have a different view to values systems than others. Televisionaudiences will accept hype statements with little qualm unlike blogging community.
One final test is useful which is to examine how the online community regards online content.
The Uses and gratification theory, first identified in the 1940s by Lazarsfeld and Stanton (1944), attempts to explain why mass media is used and the types of gratification that media generates.
Denis McQuail (McQuail, D. (1987): Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (2nd edn.). London: Sage) offers a schemata to help establish the quality of web sites. When reviewing a site, this is a method that may be valuable to gain insights into how people will regard and use a web site (or a blog) and Morris and Ogan (1996) poit out that U&G is a comprehensive theory and is applicable to Internet mediated communication ( see also McLeod & Becker (1981).
Using McQuail, practitioners can create questionnaire to invite people to evaluate web sites, blogs and wikis or any other online property to identify its value as an online resource.
The basis by which this can be done are these:
1. The first is information, where we use the media to educate us in certain areas, such as learning more about the world, seeking advice on practical matters, or fulfilling our curiosity.
2. The second factor is personal identity, where we may watch television to associate an actor's character with our own. For example in the comedy 'Friend' all the actors have different personalities, we as the audience imagines or desires that we were them or resembling them.
3. The third usage of media is 'integration and social interaction', and refers to gaining insight into the situations of other people, in order to achieve a sense of belonging. For example, when watching a movie, we may get very emotional because we experience a sense of connection to the movie, and experience symptoms like crying, or covering our eyes. Television also facilitates us in our personal relationship with friends as we are able to relate and discuss details of media texts that we like in common with our friends.
4. The fourth usage of the media identified by McQuail is 'entertainment', that is, using media for purposes of obtaining pleasure and enjoyment, or escapism. For example when we watch TV shows or movies we end up going into a new world of fantasy, diverting our attention from our problems, wasting time when we are free and even sometimes acquiring sexual arousal or emotional release.
Academic Darren Lilliker would add Interesting as a fifth element.
With this analysis, the practitioner is well armed to develop the plan further.
4. Value partners
Online, there are no messages hidden from users which might give rise to a view that there is little need for segmentation. This is a misleading view. There are platforms and channels for communication as well as types of content, written and semiotic, that are more significant for some audiences than others. These people who have an interest in the values and value systems of the organisation will be drawn to them and where there is dissonance will, at some point take issue.
Using segmentation techniques offered by Smithi (Smith 2002) and Grunig and Huntii (1984) among others as described by Anne Gregory and Alison Theaker in their books as well as Freeman (Stakeholder theory) and a multitude of others (not least the many market segmentation theorists and practitioners) are now joined by User Generated Markets. Users are now beginning to decide that they would select issues, products and brands which undermines segmentation theory used by most organisation. The evolution of online behaviour whereby User Generated Market segments, (often confined to closed communities such as Facebook, MyRagan and Melcrum), form round brands, issues and organisations makes discussion of these networked social groups (mostly very small groups) important. There is nothing new or revolutionary about the concept. Small communities through history have behaved in the same way aided by the normal discourse of daily lives leavened by gossip. The Internet, a place, has many networked communities. There is a temptation by many of us who are used to mass communication and mass markets to imagine that because we can find references to issues and brands online that these sites and post are a homogeneous market. The evidence suggests they are comments in relatively small often transient online social groups. It is typical for people to use search engines to identify what the online community is saying. This is far too simplistic. The online community is predominantly active in small groups and cares little for views expressed across the whole Internet unless seeking to selectively 'pull' new information. Online social groups range from the intense and academic to hard news and simple family snap shots. To imagine that all comments about an issue, brand or event from a single sweep of comments across all such groups would be a mistake.
Segmentation is needed. It is needed because the language of different channels is different (Twitter versus Times online) and the channel is a message in its own right and to be able to hold a conversation through such channels needs to be adapted to meet user needs.
Historically is was considered enough to frame some public relations communication in a few succinct messages. In a conversation, this is simply rude. Statements need to be supported, users need to be able to explore further and frequently seek to 'pull' more information. This means that the content available needs to be comprehensively available through devices such as hyperlinking. Where information is not provided by the organisation, online communities will go elsewhere online to meet their needs. The attention to the organisation is broken and the link lost. Value partners are valuable when they have all the information they need to hand.
5. Aims and objectives
In landscaping and organisational analysis the practitioner will have identified the organisation's aims, corporate objectives and mission statements. In addition, there will be a driver that prompts entering into the online world. It may be a brief or thepractitioners own initiative but there is purpose.
It might be a corporate desire to be evident online to extent the 'eFootprint' to add to the asset base of the organisations (online presence and online relationship are significant assets), it could be a need to establish relationship offering products or services, knowledge, need and satisfaction. It can be political, commercial, charitable, public sector or something else. The key is that the online activity is becoming critical for an organisations.
The first question is why. What does the organisation want to achieve. What does it seek to achieve.
Setting online objectives is not as simple as many other forms of PR. Online objectives have to coincide with organisational objectives and organisational values and both will quickly or probably already are transparent to the world. Setting objectives requires risk analysis and a view of how to mange the unknown. What, in other areas can be a campaign will soon reach further both inside an organisation and beyond it. Employees, customers vendors and other partners will have compete visibility. Its an axiom that all you do and say online is available to everyone - forever - however embarrassing that may be.
Objectives need boundaries - most often they need to be SMART
1. Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve.
2. Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not stage by stage.
3. Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable with manageable risk?
4. Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have?
5. Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives? Or can you sustain objectives to the point where the online community is satisfied you have served their needs.
To sum up: Do your objective chime with the organisations objectives; are they compatible with values held by the organisation that are defend-able in any forum, is risk and opportunity manageable, are they SMART and agreed with the organisation?
6. Strategies
At last! here you are in a position to get to grips with what you want to do.
Online strategies have to be creative in concept. There are so many platforms and channels for communication. There are no boundaries. You can use eposters or SMS, blogs or wiki's, podcasts or virtual environments. The online media and media online can be part of a campaign that includes Internet mediated television or games machines. There are exciting ways you can monitor, measure, evaluate and report. There is also considerable strategy theory from experts like Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Philip Selznick, Igor Ansoff, and Peter Drucker.
Some of your objective will be strategic because online the consequences will be felt at the highest level. Some will be more functional. Certainly they will be explicit.
Strategy is adaptable by nature. It will consider availability of resources (financial, time, technologies). Allocation of responsibilities and reporting with associated training and management infrastructure are all considerations.
There is an imperative for good clear communication inside the organisation and there is usually a need to involve internal 'stakeholders' because online initiatives will affect them and they will be well aware of your programme almost as soon as it goes public. All online activities require a capability to manage change.
Using management aids to decision making and project planning (ibid) you will develop a plan and processes for management monitoring and reporting and progressively you will include elements that have the right pay off when they are applied. They need a reality check. There is so much online that it is easy to imagine a Second Life presence but difficult to execute. and the process of developing the strategy will include even more risk and opportunity testing.
7. Tactics
I have an ever growing list of media channels available. They will be deployed to meet the strategic plan. There is no online PR campaign that only uses one tactical device. There will always be a proactive element, a monitoring element and a capability to respond to events and actions by the organisation and or its online community.
There are things we need to know about channels for communication which I listed here.
To be able to deploy tactics, they need to be well understood:
Are they technically possible
Do you make of buy (use an existing service or develop your own - who hosts, who has copyright, is your information confidential, are you sure about the nature, even nationality of your vendors.
Can you sustain the activity for the duration. Online interventions are very time hungry.
How are you going to test and evaluate the concept (e.g. channel) and technologies?
What are the risks and are there other opportunities?
When do you deploy your programme?
How will you launch what you propose?
How does this tactic integrate with other tactics in the strategic plan.
8. Monitor
We have mentioned that there is a need to maintain landscaping. It is valuable that such monitoring is structured (create your own - closed - wiki) and include the process for assessment including risk and opportunity management.
In addition to this, there is a need to be able continuously monitor what is happening and for each social media you have identified, you will include methods for monitoring and evaluating. The new book in print from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell (2008)iv, identifies people in social media with five characteristics: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, and Spectators. These are five elements that offer structure to your monitoring and evaluation techniques.
Monitoring these five elements is essential when using social media.
Monitoring traffic on your web site and its competitive ranking and capabilities will be needed by every practitioner but monitoring and evaluating much of what is happening online is simply impossible. Chat is a case in point. A busy chat room generates huge content as do many brands in blogs and social networks.
Using the monitoring tools available, makes evaluation and reporting difficult. But there are a lot of tools to help. In some areas far more than for media relations. To cope with such activity it is worth creating a resource where real time information is available (a wiki?) and is available to a wide number of people who are involved in the project.
Online public relations is one form of PR that has to be monitored and evaluated. The risk in not doing so are far too significant and dangerous to leave it to chance.
That just about covers it I think.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
More about Risk Management
I commented that risk management was a well established discipline. Almost immediately, I was asked to explain myself.
Here then are my thoughts on risk management and how practitioners can implement social media campaigns and incorporate risk management and planning for the unknown in an era when we don't even really know what traditional newspapers, radio and television will look like in five years time, a planning time scale for many organisations.
Risk management
Risk Management is a well established discipline with an excellent literature.The Institute of Risk Management has an excellent guide that will be helpful to PR professionals working in both on and offline practice.
The basics of risk management are relatively simple to grasp. In most PR work there are risks. To manage risks we need to identify them. This can be done by an individual, a focus group or management team or can be established from research.
Risk can be examined from many sources. Examples are:
Legislative change
local
regional
national
European
Global
regulation
Corporate change of direction
Change in requirement
Change in objectives
Change of output, outtake, outcome requirement
Change in publics/stakeholders
Added publics
Removed publics
Publics change
Platform/channel for communication
Change/changing
New
Fast/slow adoption
Reach
Reliability
Perceptions of
Implementation impact
Technology change
Content not available
New/changed opportunity
Unexpected change in team
Managment team
Technical team
Operations team
Competitor action
Merger/acquisition,
Competitors me-too actions
Management Directive
Corporate aims and objectives
Budget
Delivery schedule
Monitor, measurement, evaluation requirement
other
Corporate re-organisation
At board level
Departmental re-organisation
Merger/acquisition
Problem not anticipated
Reputation/ethical issue
Corporate, brand, personnel crisis
Server down/overload
System attack/bug
Change in available resources
Vendor availability
Regular checking of these elements to identify potential or actual risks is helpful, if not essential.
Having described such risks, the practitioner (evaluation team) will asses each element in terms of likelihood of occurrence and impact (perhaps on a scale of five for each) typically using aids to decision making. The next part of the process is to create a mitigation (or contingency) plan, process or protocol to reduce either of both risk of likelihood or impact. Then a new assessment is made of the likelihood or impact to see if the proposed programme for mitigation has had an effect that makes the risk acceptable within the campaign.
An example of risk management might be a risk of porosity where employees use blogs. The risk is likely and could have significant impact. A practitioner might propose that all employees are given some company guidelines (an example is IBM which has an excellent policy statement). such a plan will help reduce both likelihood and impact.
Using such a process through each part of the planning process reduces risk to a manageable level and also helps to make precise projections of expected outcomes.
Of course, for each risk there is an opportunity. By applying the same technique but looking for opportunities and means to optimise such opportunities, the practitioner can enhance the effectiveness of any approach to a campaign.
Uncertainty management
In planning against uncertainty the rules are simple. We consider variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty and chaos.
Variation
All plans have expected outcomes, financial budgets and timescales. These are often identified using aids for project planning.
Monitoring such plans will identify where plans are going awry. Often such occurrences are small. These are 'variations' to the plan. Good monitoring will give teams notice that remedial action has to take place and contingency can be built into the plan. An example might be a contingency sum in a budget and some flexibility in delivery time built in.
Foreseen uncertainties
There are some variations that are identifiable and understood that the team cannot be sure will occur or when an event it will occur. To mitigate foreseen uncertainties, the plan will need to include the capability to identify the event and a capability to deploy a pre-planned contingency programme. An example might be unscheduled maintenance that is running the campaign blog. A real example for all practitioners in online public relations is planning for the sure-fire certainty that in the next few months, channels for communication will change. Equally all our constituents will adjust the channels for communication to be able to cope with the time available to use their different channels - its called attention deficit. Every practitioner should be aware that for a range of reasons the organisations web site will, as some time, by flooded with requests. When that happens, there has to be a plan to keep the server responding and offering the information the online constituency needs and the web site open for business as usual. This is a PR problem. It is not an IT department problem. Risk analysis is critical in identifying and mitigating these events. Practicing for such events has to be included in any plan. Who does what, when and how and if they are not available or facilities are down should be part of such a plan.
Unforeseen Uncertainty
This kind of event can not be identified during project planning. There is no Plan B.
The team will be unaware of the event’s possibility or consider it so unlikely that there is no in-built contingency plan.
“Unknown unknowns,” or “unk-unks,” as they are sometimes called, make people nervous because existing decision
tools are not available. Unforeseen uncertainty is not always caused by spectacular events or issues. They can arise from the unanticipated interaction of many events, each of which might, in principle, be foreseeable.
The first thing that we have to do is to make the organisation aware that unforeseen events do happen and they have to be, and can be, managed. Contingency planning has to evolve as the project progresses.
Here are the key elements for reducing the impact of the unforeseen:
* Teams must go beyond mere crisis management and continually scan for emerging influences — either threats or opportunities. Practitioners should be scanning the horizon more than three months out to identify potential problems while they can still do something about them. Monitoring the destinations of users online is a first consideration. In 2006, the move of the online community away from traditional web sites to sites driven by user generated content was unforseen with unknown additional web sites struggled to attract visitors.
* Risk analysis must be an ongoing activity with no potential hazard excluded because it seemed wacky at the time. With awareness of the growth of Twitter (www.twitter.com), corporate porosity became even more significant.
* With unforeseeable uncertainty, a lot of time and effort must go into managing relationships with key publics, often getting them to accept unplanned changes. Knowing who and how to contact key publics is important. Good old fashioned public relations to maintain good and effective relationships count when the unforeseen happens.
* Top-management support, negotiation techniques, team-building exercises and the practitioner's leadership can help resolve conflicting interests.
* Trust is a core element in managing the unforeseen which means value systems and value system analysis is critical (ibid)
* Managing variance and planning for managing foreseen uncertainty assist managing the unknown because contingency planning will be part of the organisation's culture.
The unforeseen can be managed.
The US Institute of crisis management offers some insights into where to look for unforeseen uncertainty, listing the most common on its web site (http://www.crisisexperts.com)
One of Catastrophes
Casualty Accidents
Environmental
Class Action Lawsuits
Consumer Activism
Defects & Recalls
Discrimination
Executive Dismissal
Financial Damages
Hostile Takeover
Labour Disputes
Mismanagement
Sexual Harassment
Whistle Blowers
White Collar Crime
Workplace Violence
If ever there was a list for identifying how confidence and reputation could be destroyed by online influences, this is it! It offers a start point for scanning both internal and external events that could escalate into unforeseen uncertainty.
So there it is.... we can, and have to plan for risk and uncertainty.
There is a counter argument:
Clay Shirky puts this view for ward: "when you explore really new ideas, it’s pretty much impossible to tell in advances the successes from the failures. The business world today is geared towards “optimizing” the innovation processes in order to reduce the likelihood of failure. That’s a significant disadvantage when compared with the open-source ecosystem, which “doesn’t have to care” and “can try out everything” because “the cost of failure is carried by the individuals at the edges of the network, while the value of the successes magnifies and adds value to the whole network”. “Ecosystems such as open-source get failure for free, and that produces some inevitable unexpected big successes - the Linux operating system - that nobody could have predicted but end up changing the world”.
Which leads to this comment from JP Rangaswami on this blog post: "If you disaggregate the cost of failure it will drop. If you reduce the cost of failure then you increase the capacity to innovate. If the innovation is carried out by individuals at the edge then those costs drop as well. As all these costs drop there is a natural speeding-up. A lovely virtuous circle with the right feedback loops."
So there is a case for experimentation and 'pushing the envelope' for the bold PR person if the concept (strategy) can accommodate involvement by the community to gain a competitive advantage.
So how does this fit into online public relations campaign planning?
Here then are my thoughts on risk management and how practitioners can implement social media campaigns and incorporate risk management and planning for the unknown in an era when we don't even really know what traditional newspapers, radio and television will look like in five years time, a planning time scale for many organisations.
Risk management
Risk Management is a well established discipline with an excellent literature.The Institute of Risk Management has an excellent guide that will be helpful to PR professionals working in both on and offline practice.
The basics of risk management are relatively simple to grasp. In most PR work there are risks. To manage risks we need to identify them. This can be done by an individual, a focus group or management team or can be established from research.
Risk can be examined from many sources. Examples are:
Legislative change
local
regional
national
European
Global
regulation
Corporate change of direction
Change in requirement
Change in objectives
Change of output, outtake, outcome requirement
Change in publics/stakeholders
Added publics
Removed publics
Publics change
Platform/channel for communication
Change/changing
New
Fast/slow adoption
Reach
Reliability
Perceptions of
Implementation impact
Technology change
Content not available
New/changed opportunity
Unexpected change in team
Managment team
Technical team
Operations team
Competitor action
Merger/acquisition,
Competitors me-too actions
Management Directive
Corporate aims and objectives
Budget
Delivery schedule
Monitor, measurement, evaluation requirement
other
Corporate re-organisation
At board level
Departmental re-organisation
Merger/acquisition
Problem not anticipated
Reputation/ethical issue
Corporate, brand, personnel crisis
Server down/overload
System attack/bug
Change in available resources
Vendor availability
Regular checking of these elements to identify potential or actual risks is helpful, if not essential.
Having described such risks, the practitioner (evaluation team) will asses each element in terms of likelihood of occurrence and impact (perhaps on a scale of five for each) typically using aids to decision making. The next part of the process is to create a mitigation (or contingency) plan, process or protocol to reduce either of both risk of likelihood or impact. Then a new assessment is made of the likelihood or impact to see if the proposed programme for mitigation has had an effect that makes the risk acceptable within the campaign.
An example of risk management might be a risk of porosity where employees use blogs. The risk is likely and could have significant impact. A practitioner might propose that all employees are given some company guidelines (an example is IBM which has an excellent policy statement). such a plan will help reduce both likelihood and impact.
Using such a process through each part of the planning process reduces risk to a manageable level and also helps to make precise projections of expected outcomes.
Of course, for each risk there is an opportunity. By applying the same technique but looking for opportunities and means to optimise such opportunities, the practitioner can enhance the effectiveness of any approach to a campaign.
Uncertainty management
In planning against uncertainty the rules are simple. We consider variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty and chaos.
Variation
All plans have expected outcomes, financial budgets and timescales. These are often identified using aids for project planning.
Monitoring such plans will identify where plans are going awry. Often such occurrences are small. These are 'variations' to the plan. Good monitoring will give teams notice that remedial action has to take place and contingency can be built into the plan. An example might be a contingency sum in a budget and some flexibility in delivery time built in.
Foreseen uncertainties
There are some variations that are identifiable and understood that the team cannot be sure will occur or when an event it will occur. To mitigate foreseen uncertainties, the plan will need to include the capability to identify the event and a capability to deploy a pre-planned contingency programme. An example might be unscheduled maintenance that is running the campaign blog. A real example for all practitioners in online public relations is planning for the sure-fire certainty that in the next few months, channels for communication will change. Equally all our constituents will adjust the channels for communication to be able to cope with the time available to use their different channels - its called attention deficit. Every practitioner should be aware that for a range of reasons the organisations web site will, as some time, by flooded with requests. When that happens, there has to be a plan to keep the server responding and offering the information the online constituency needs and the web site open for business as usual. This is a PR problem. It is not an IT department problem. Risk analysis is critical in identifying and mitigating these events. Practicing for such events has to be included in any plan. Who does what, when and how and if they are not available or facilities are down should be part of such a plan.
Unforeseen Uncertainty
This kind of event can not be identified during project planning. There is no Plan B.
The team will be unaware of the event’s possibility or consider it so unlikely that there is no in-built contingency plan.
“Unknown unknowns,” or “unk-unks,” as they are sometimes called, make people nervous because existing decision
tools are not available. Unforeseen uncertainty is not always caused by spectacular events or issues. They can arise from the unanticipated interaction of many events, each of which might, in principle, be foreseeable.
The first thing that we have to do is to make the organisation aware that unforeseen events do happen and they have to be, and can be, managed. Contingency planning has to evolve as the project progresses.
Here are the key elements for reducing the impact of the unforeseen:
* Teams must go beyond mere crisis management and continually scan for emerging influences — either threats or opportunities. Practitioners should be scanning the horizon more than three months out to identify potential problems while they can still do something about them. Monitoring the destinations of users online is a first consideration. In 2006, the move of the online community away from traditional web sites to sites driven by user generated content was unforseen with unknown additional web sites struggled to attract visitors.
* Risk analysis must be an ongoing activity with no potential hazard excluded because it seemed wacky at the time. With awareness of the growth of Twitter (www.twitter.com), corporate porosity became even more significant.
* With unforeseeable uncertainty, a lot of time and effort must go into managing relationships with key publics, often getting them to accept unplanned changes. Knowing who and how to contact key publics is important. Good old fashioned public relations to maintain good and effective relationships count when the unforeseen happens.
* Top-management support, negotiation techniques, team-building exercises and the practitioner's leadership can help resolve conflicting interests.
* Trust is a core element in managing the unforeseen which means value systems and value system analysis is critical (ibid)
* Managing variance and planning for managing foreseen uncertainty assist managing the unknown because contingency planning will be part of the organisation's culture.
The unforeseen can be managed.
The US Institute of crisis management offers some insights into where to look for unforeseen uncertainty, listing the most common on its web site (http://www.crisisexperts.com)
One of Catastrophes
Casualty Accidents
Environmental
Class Action Lawsuits
Consumer Activism
Defects & Recalls
Discrimination
Executive Dismissal
Financial Damages
Hostile Takeover
Labour Disputes
Mismanagement
Sexual Harassment
Whistle Blowers
White Collar Crime
Workplace Violence
If ever there was a list for identifying how confidence and reputation could be destroyed by online influences, this is it! It offers a start point for scanning both internal and external events that could escalate into unforeseen uncertainty.
So there it is.... we can, and have to plan for risk and uncertainty.
There is a counter argument:
Clay Shirky puts this view for ward: "when you explore really new ideas, it’s pretty much impossible to tell in advances the successes from the failures. The business world today is geared towards “optimizing” the innovation processes in order to reduce the likelihood of failure. That’s a significant disadvantage when compared with the open-source ecosystem, which “doesn’t have to care” and “can try out everything” because “the cost of failure is carried by the individuals at the edges of the network, while the value of the successes magnifies and adds value to the whole network”. “Ecosystems such as open-source get failure for free, and that produces some inevitable unexpected big successes - the Linux operating system - that nobody could have predicted but end up changing the world”.
Which leads to this comment from JP Rangaswami on this blog post: "If you disaggregate the cost of failure it will drop. If you reduce the cost of failure then you increase the capacity to innovate. If the innovation is carried out by individuals at the edge then those costs drop as well. As all these costs drop there is a natural speeding-up. A lovely virtuous circle with the right feedback loops."
So there is a case for experimentation and 'pushing the envelope' for the bold PR person if the concept (strategy) can accommodate involvement by the community to gain a competitive advantage.
So how does this fit into online public relations campaign planning?
Friday, June 22, 2007
Newspapers v Social Media
The World Association of Newspapers, have published phase two of a research project about youth media behavior. The study, titled "Youth Media DNA" is a result of interviews with young people in 10 countries.
...“discussion with friends” as a top source for news and information, sometimes ranking higher than TV or newspapers
..." social networking and user-generated content sites can be seen as complements to their news and information experience."
...“discussion with friends” as a top source for news and information, sometimes ranking higher than TV or newspapers
..." social networking and user-generated content sites can be seen as complements to their news and information experience."
In reply to Frank Ovatt
I was going to post a response to Frank Ovatt's post The Fork in the Road to PR Research . To do so would be churlish. He is the messenger for Dr. Jim Macnamara.
I sense there is academic frustration.
There is such a focus on the dead tree society that the Institute for Public Relations (IfPR not CIPR) needs to re-consider whether it follows or leads.
Does it inform the CEO or measure the flack?
Does it take seriously that the 'eFootprint' of an organisation is an asset.
Does it recognise with over 10% of the economy of the UK online and a similar proportion in the USA this asset is probably the most important one every company has.
Can it take seriously that most of this asset is mediated by social media. Does this mean that its research will now turn from the dead tree society to what are the components of this asset?
There is a presumption that public relations is communication, the servant is the master. This has to go. Juts stop thinking it.
There is a presumption that the technical is the practice. Marx would be driver to PR's fireman.
Is it that our view of 'public relations' is modern or post modern or Dickensian or pre Dickensian. Are practitioners mere Sophists?
Is a PR person performing the antithesis of a dialogue with Crito?
Dr Macnamara says: "A large part of the PR industry has not yet engaged in any substantial way with new media and concepts such as Web 2.0. Of those that have, the primary focus is how to produce Web sites, produce blogs, produce podcasts. Yet more outputs; more focus on process and practice. It is comparatively rare to find practitioners monitoring and analyzing the use, impact and effects of blogs, for instance, and it is rare to find them at the forefront of policy making and planning, advising their organizations on the implications of new media." To be sure there is an industry involved in doing what he says, but there is another one that is more than well aware of the evolving paradigm. But the real paradigm is not found in such musings. This revolution is much bigger.
He also suggests that "Professional development programs are heavily orientated to practical skills development." Sure, there is a need for a lot of grease monkeys. They perform an essential role in delivering PR - skills that have to be re-learned every month. Yesterday video for YouTube, today a word for Twitter, tomorrow another web widget.
But is he suggesting these are the people who are really in charge of PR? Do all practitioners not have responsibility - just the accountability? They sound like National Health managers. Just tick the boxes and survive. Is this PR?
Modern advertising and direct marketing, for all its ROI is now in flux. Its best efforts are parodied in YouTube; its spin, bling and hype exposed in blogs and its very tenets are changed by the day. In an era of Instant Messaging CRM is but a computer programme loaded with spam. As advertisers desert newsprint and creative television advertising to lavish their largess on a Google computer algorithm, what social science and psychology or cultural studies underpin their hopes?
When the copywriter is the consumer which rules apply?
But relationships, the convergence of values, remain the stuff of organisations and civilisation.
Who cares about six sigma, KPI's, balanced scorecards, dashboards and ROI when ubiquitous communication allows values, the foci of power, to morph and move inside, and often outside, organisations? What do managers care for when their power base shifts by the Twitter Tweet?
We are worrying about evaluation of another age. We are back in positivist/antipositivist debates of industrial capitalism. Yet, as post industrial capitalism fades from view, its failure manifest in the markets it cannot optimise in India, China and Mexico, do we still hanker after the paths of the past.
Who, in the measurement obsessed, and little practised, PR world asks what are we for? How can our client flourish in the micro payment, invest at the point of consumption world that races towards us with 'Google docs' and brand new mobile phone capitalisation of $75billion in pay-as-you-go mobile in rural India.
There is no six sigma when quality is a value that infests an organisation; KPI's are irrelevant when the nexus of human values denotes an organisation; Balanced scorecards obfuscate the value of relationships; dashboards mechanically display the mechanical and ROI has no meaning if relationships are not(the premier) asset of all organisations. Straw men in the Value Systems world.
The $600k that is YouTube is a lesson for PR. Google paid for a computer programme and machinery of a few thousand dollars worth and $1.6 billion for relationships.
Relationships sharing knowledge remain the most expensive part of the whole life cost of a car - by factors.
If cultivation theory is the limit when neuro-psychology tells us so much more and Facbook confronts Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann we do have a long way to go. We do not see what is really happening to and among real people.
Is Macnamara's fork in the road mere fumblings along an ancient byway, blinded to distraction by the glare and bustle of the highway. It light in a different direction?
It is time for Public Relations research not pseudo-marketing, pseudo-management and pseudo-accounting? We need it to better inform 'management' to help fix that transitory nexus of values that make the relationships we call the firm and then re-cast the nature of the firm.
So where are we? Journalist advise out political elite with, as Macnamara points out, no knowledge of W. J. McGuire’s (now dated) stages of communication; Joseph Klapper’s limited effects findings; Roland Barthes “death of the author”; Leon Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance; Umberto Eco’s theory of aberrant decoding; social cognitive theory and modern scholars in the public relations field. Add to that Cluetrain Manifesto, Evans and Wuster's "Blown to Bits" and Fred Wenstøp and Arild Myrmel's "Structuring organizational value statements ".
Lets make no bones about it, the billions of Chinese texting messages are now mightier than media mogul; shareable, global, free at the point of use word processing and spreadsheets are in the hands of billions of Indians. The of Microsft's Office is only paid for out of sluggish organisations pretence of assets to defend their walled gardens.
Where now?
Learn why people smile when you give them a rose.
I sense there is academic frustration.
There is such a focus on the dead tree society that the Institute for Public Relations (IfPR not CIPR) needs to re-consider whether it follows or leads.
Does it inform the CEO or measure the flack?
Does it take seriously that the 'eFootprint' of an organisation is an asset.
Does it recognise with over 10% of the economy of the UK online and a similar proportion in the USA this asset is probably the most important one every company has.
Can it take seriously that most of this asset is mediated by social media. Does this mean that its research will now turn from the dead tree society to what are the components of this asset?
There is a presumption that public relations is communication, the servant is the master. This has to go. Juts stop thinking it.
There is a presumption that the technical is the practice. Marx would be driver to PR's fireman.
Is it that our view of 'public relations' is modern or post modern or Dickensian or pre Dickensian. Are practitioners mere Sophists?
Is a PR person performing the antithesis of a dialogue with Crito?
Dr Macnamara says: "A large part of the PR industry has not yet engaged in any substantial way with new media and concepts such as Web 2.0. Of those that have, the primary focus is how to produce Web sites, produce blogs, produce podcasts. Yet more outputs; more focus on process and practice. It is comparatively rare to find practitioners monitoring and analyzing the use, impact and effects of blogs, for instance, and it is rare to find them at the forefront of policy making and planning, advising their organizations on the implications of new media." To be sure there is an industry involved in doing what he says, but there is another one that is more than well aware of the evolving paradigm. But the real paradigm is not found in such musings. This revolution is much bigger.
He also suggests that "Professional development programs are heavily orientated to practical skills development." Sure, there is a need for a lot of grease monkeys. They perform an essential role in delivering PR - skills that have to be re-learned every month. Yesterday video for YouTube, today a word for Twitter, tomorrow another web widget.
But is he suggesting these are the people who are really in charge of PR? Do all practitioners not have responsibility - just the accountability? They sound like National Health managers. Just tick the boxes and survive. Is this PR?
Modern advertising and direct marketing, for all its ROI is now in flux. Its best efforts are parodied in YouTube; its spin, bling and hype exposed in blogs and its very tenets are changed by the day. In an era of Instant Messaging CRM is but a computer programme loaded with spam. As advertisers desert newsprint and creative television advertising to lavish their largess on a Google computer algorithm, what social science and psychology or cultural studies underpin their hopes?
When the copywriter is the consumer which rules apply?
But relationships, the convergence of values, remain the stuff of organisations and civilisation.
Who cares about six sigma, KPI's, balanced scorecards, dashboards and ROI when ubiquitous communication allows values, the foci of power, to morph and move inside, and often outside, organisations? What do managers care for when their power base shifts by the Twitter Tweet?
We are worrying about evaluation of another age. We are back in positivist/antipositivist debates of industrial capitalism. Yet, as post industrial capitalism fades from view, its failure manifest in the markets it cannot optimise in India, China and Mexico, do we still hanker after the paths of the past.
Who, in the measurement obsessed, and little practised, PR world asks what are we for? How can our client flourish in the micro payment, invest at the point of consumption world that races towards us with 'Google docs' and brand new mobile phone capitalisation of $75billion in pay-as-you-go mobile in rural India.
There is no six sigma when quality is a value that infests an organisation; KPI's are irrelevant when the nexus of human values denotes an organisation; Balanced scorecards obfuscate the value of relationships; dashboards mechanically display the mechanical and ROI has no meaning if relationships are not(the premier) asset of all organisations. Straw men in the Value Systems world.
The $600k that is YouTube is a lesson for PR. Google paid for a computer programme and machinery of a few thousand dollars worth and $1.6 billion for relationships.
Relationships sharing knowledge remain the most expensive part of the whole life cost of a car - by factors.
If cultivation theory is the limit when neuro-psychology tells us so much more and Facbook confronts Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann we do have a long way to go. We do not see what is really happening to and among real people.
Is Macnamara's fork in the road mere fumblings along an ancient byway, blinded to distraction by the glare and bustle of the highway. It light in a different direction?
It is time for Public Relations research not pseudo-marketing, pseudo-management and pseudo-accounting? We need it to better inform 'management' to help fix that transitory nexus of values that make the relationships we call the firm and then re-cast the nature of the firm.
So where are we? Journalist advise out political elite with, as Macnamara points out, no knowledge of W. J. McGuire’s (now dated) stages of communication; Joseph Klapper’s limited effects findings; Roland Barthes “death of the author”; Leon Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance; Umberto Eco’s theory of aberrant decoding; social cognitive theory and modern scholars in the public relations field. Add to that Cluetrain Manifesto, Evans and Wuster's "Blown to Bits" and Fred Wenstøp and Arild Myrmel's "Structuring organizational value statements ".
Lets make no bones about it, the billions of Chinese texting messages are now mightier than media mogul; shareable, global, free at the point of use word processing and spreadsheets are in the hands of billions of Indians. The of Microsft's Office is only paid for out of sluggish organisations pretence of assets to defend their walled gardens.
Where now?
Learn why people smile when you give them a rose.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Management Approaches to PR Planning
The evidence would suggest that optimised relationship development practice needs to adopt and develop a range of management skills to be able to execute complex communication systems which includes a high level of uncertainty and change.
In effect, we need to be able to plan for surprises.
Such management skills come from a range of disciplines. For the most part, they do not replace existing practice but add and extend it.
This means that the practitioner needs to know and understand the management practices needed for planning and implementing complex programmes in order to be able to develop online strategies. Being conversant with such techniques has to be an elementary skill including such ideas as:
Aid to decision making such as: Pareto analysis; Paired Comparison Analysis; Grid Analysis; PMI (Plus/Minus/Interesting'); Force Field Analysis; Six Thinking Hats and Cost Benefit Analysis. Other methodologies include Impact Analysis, Avoidance of Group Think, Inductive Reasoning and an approach developed by Charles H.Kepner and Benjamin B. Tregoe in their book The Rational Manager (1965).
Aids for project planning such as: Time estimating; scheduling; cost analysis; Gantt Charts; Critical Path Analysis and PERT; 'Stakeholder Analysis'; Change management and the ADKAR model.
Such approaches are part, and will, of course, be included in any of the traditional Public Relations planning models (Gregory andTheaker ; Smith and many more) which can be summed up as: Research, landscaping, situation analysis, objective setting, Identifying publics, Key messages, Strategy, Tactics, Timescale, Budget, Crisis issues and management plan, Evaluation
As we move into Internet mediated Public Relations, there are notable adaptations to these models. User Generated Participants increase the level of risk involved. We have to face the needs and responses of Internet users, their selection, use and satisfaction with channels for communication to pull content and their capability to participate in the relationship dynamic. We find that the nature of the Internet means we have to adapt many processes that were once adequate and now need to be updated.
Online Public relations is not linear. Stuff happens! This means that there is a constant need to continually research, landscape, perform situation analysis and re-visit objectives. Plans have to be fluid.
We now have to adopt practices from other disciplines where management of the unknown is common. There is a great deal of useful management experience in this field and De Meyer, Loch andPich ( De Meyer A, Loch C, & Pich M 2002 ) offer insights that can be used by relationship management practitioners. An adaptation is is offered below.
First off, they offer a picture of what uncertainty looks like. They offer an approach to uncertainty-based management which derives planning, monitoring and management style from an uncertainty in four uncertainty types — variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty and chaos.
PR can also take from research in the financial disciplines that Internet traffic data, displayed in time series, has a number
of characteristic properties, widely known as "stylised facts", which are different to other kinds of time series:
· They tend to be long-tailed, i.e. there is a higher frequency of very extreme events than would not be expected with say normally distributed data (issues arise frequently and randomly all the time);
· They tend to show long-range dependence, e.g. the autocorrelation function (management of events and issues) returns decays to zero at much slower rates than conventional time series models (the Internet has a 'long memory' and 'time shifts' information).
· They exhibit volatility, i.e. the apparent variance (from the plan or anticipated outcome) is not a constant but tends to fluctuate irregularly (for optimum effect, plans need frequent tweaking).
To develop PR programmes using these techniques offers a greater certainty of success and reduction of risk (the combination of the probability of an event and its consequences - ISO/IEC Guide 73).
Risk Management is a well established discipline with an excellent literature. Its application in PR is less well developed than for many other disciplines such as financial, project management, Health and Safety. Contributors to the literature include: (C. Chapman and S.Ward, “Project Risk Management” (Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley, 1997), 7. R.L. Kliem and I.S. Ludin, “Reducing Project Risk” (Hampshire, United Kingdom: Gower, 1997), 10-25. Chapman, “Project Risk Management,” 10, 241.). The Institute of Risk Management has an excellent guide that will be helpful to PR professionals working in both on and offline practice.
So now to extend this thinking....
In effect, we need to be able to plan for surprises.
Such management skills come from a range of disciplines. For the most part, they do not replace existing practice but add and extend it.
This means that the practitioner needs to know and understand the management practices needed for planning and implementing complex programmes in order to be able to develop online strategies. Being conversant with such techniques has to be an elementary skill including such ideas as:
Aid to decision making such as: Pareto analysis; Paired Comparison Analysis; Grid Analysis; PMI (Plus/Minus/Interesting'); Force Field Analysis; Six Thinking Hats and Cost Benefit Analysis. Other methodologies include Impact Analysis, Avoidance of Group Think, Inductive Reasoning and an approach developed by Charles H.Kepner and Benjamin B. Tregoe in their book The Rational Manager (1965).
Aids for project planning such as: Time estimating; scheduling; cost analysis; Gantt Charts; Critical Path Analysis and PERT; 'Stakeholder Analysis'; Change management and the ADKAR model.
Such approaches are part, and will, of course, be included in any of the traditional Public Relations planning models (Gregory andTheaker ; Smith and many more) which can be summed up as: Research, landscaping, situation analysis, objective setting, Identifying publics, Key messages, Strategy, Tactics, Timescale, Budget, Crisis issues and management plan, Evaluation
As we move into Internet mediated Public Relations, there are notable adaptations to these models. User Generated Participants increase the level of risk involved. We have to face the needs and responses of Internet users, their selection, use and satisfaction with channels for communication to pull content and their capability to participate in the relationship dynamic. We find that the nature of the Internet means we have to adapt many processes that were once adequate and now need to be updated.
Online Public relations is not linear. Stuff happens! This means that there is a constant need to continually research, landscape, perform situation analysis and re-visit objectives. Plans have to be fluid.
We now have to adopt practices from other disciplines where management of the unknown is common. There is a great deal of useful management experience in this field and De Meyer, Loch andPich ( De Meyer A, Loch C, & Pich M 2002 ) offer insights that can be used by relationship management practitioners. An adaptation is is offered below.
First off, they offer a picture of what uncertainty looks like. They offer an approach to uncertainty-based management which derives planning, monitoring and management style from an uncertainty in four uncertainty types — variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty and chaos.
PR can also take from research in the financial disciplines that Internet traffic data, displayed in time series, has a number
of characteristic properties, widely known as "stylised facts", which are different to other kinds of time series:
· They tend to be long-tailed, i.e. there is a higher frequency of very extreme events than would not be expected with say normally distributed data (issues arise frequently and randomly all the time);
· They tend to show long-range dependence, e.g. the autocorrelation function (management of events and issues) returns decays to zero at much slower rates than conventional time series models (the Internet has a 'long memory' and 'time shifts' information).
· They exhibit volatility, i.e. the apparent variance (from the plan or anticipated outcome) is not a constant but tends to fluctuate irregularly (for optimum effect, plans need frequent tweaking).
To develop PR programmes using these techniques offers a greater certainty of success and reduction of risk (the combination of the probability of an event and its consequences - ISO/IEC Guide 73).
Risk Management is a well established discipline with an excellent literature. Its application in PR is less well developed than for many other disciplines such as financial, project management, Health and Safety. Contributors to the literature include: (C. Chapman and S.Ward, “Project Risk Management” (Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley, 1997), 7. R.L. Kliem and I.S. Ludin, “Reducing Project Risk” (Hampshire, United Kingdom: Gower, 1997), 10-25. Chapman, “Project Risk Management,” 10, 241.). The Institute of Risk Management has an excellent guide that will be helpful to PR professionals working in both on and offline practice.
So now to extend this thinking....
What has changed for communications professionals
In its simplest form, PR management consists of planning, executing, and monitoring. In traditional PR, there is little needed to represent a client other than a close brief, data and personable time leavened with creative approaches to impart knowledge. Mostly its a two step (pressagentry , lobby or event based) activity. It is assumed that human planners, (seldom even using formalised risk management tools) will generate the “best” network of activities. The plan is expected to be the same as the execution which is seldom theactualitie. There is a fundamental difference between a Plan and the execution of that Plan. Emerging events alter the execution and no more so when using social media.
The one thing we know is that in 2007 we do not know what channels for communication will be relevant in 2009 or 2011. In the last four years a number of changes in the way people communicate show that change and the rate of change is important for future planning. What we are aware of, is that for large parts of the population Internet mediated channels for communication is very important such as in maintaining relationships with journalism and, for many, it is the dominant protocol for interaction, by example, gamers.
Where once mass media made it relatively easy to offer content to a wide audience, and even a strong media sector with many titles of a few dozen TV and radio channels was manageable, reaching an audience is now more complex. The range of platforms such as digital radio and TV, cell phones and iPods as well asPC's , games machines and other devices adds to complexity. New platforms are arriving fast. Each platform offers a different experience which means that reception and intervention of even the same message may be perceived differently at the point of consumption.
Added to this range of platforms the common and, frequently, convergent channels for exchange of information means that to reach any segment or group of people changes communication from 'silver bullet' outlets to 'silver buckshot' multi touch. The compounding effect of new channels for communication (such asMySpace, YouTube , Twitter) add to complexity in relationship and behaviour motivation planning. Channels for communication can also be part of the message. For example, using aPDF file suggests that further debate is not encouraged while a blog has the opposite effect.
The evolution of the Internet from a platform for communication of data to an application that encourages the manipulation of that data, not just through human intervention but by Intent enabled technologies that act as agents, is now very apparent. It is readily evidenced in the form of the relatively benign web widgets and gadgets to complex capabilities.
New Media does not kill off old media. Old media tends to adapt. Newspapers are now also broadcasters; the BBC is using Twitter (www.twitter.com) and interpersonal telephone conversations include text, pictures and video from home phones,PC's using Skype and mobile devices. Channels also remain available long after they fall out of fashion (e.g. FAX and Usenet) and often morph (e.g. Google Groups) and so there are legacy channels to be considered.
There are further devils in the detail.
The nature of local versus global communication online is a consideration.
These is a notable tendency for publics (or market segments or stakeholders) to give way to online user generated segments where, given that information is online, users gravitate to it and do not conform to the profile identified by the organisation. Online community portals offer rich evidence of this tendency. Groups form that defy their market geographies, age profiles, income and anticipated interests.
People who will never use the Internet are influenced by it at one step removed.
In addition, because a lot of information is made available in the form of 'User Generated Content' (UGC) there is a symmetry in communication which influences both organisations and its public.
Control of 'messages' is largely a thing of the past, messages are changed by human and machine interventions and hop from channel to channel. An organisation now competes with a wide range of other actors in the development and dissemination of, what now becomes the development of value systems, across a network of authors and channels.
Finally, there is an issue of attention deficit. People once did not have to multi-task when interacting with data or knowledge. Now to acquire knowledge it comes to people as a constant, always updating stream of images and texts.
Once, to compete in such an environment, attention was gained by dominating channels. Huge poster campaigns and mass media advertising was a sure fire, if expensive, magic bullet. Now, there is resistance. People 'tune out' these attempts, they also select channels that are either less intrusive or compromise a little interference for cheap access to what they want. They pull information and select methodologies to remain informed without dedicating time to searching to satisfy information needs. RSS is an example.
In developing both traditional media and online strategies there is a need to take into account such volatility as well as the growing complexities. This means that practitioners have to be able to deploy advanced management techniques to optimise motivations among people.
The one thing we know is that in 2007 we do not know what channels for communication will be relevant in 2009 or 2011. In the last four years a number of changes in the way people communicate show that change and the rate of change is important for future planning. What we are aware of, is that for large parts of the population Internet mediated channels for communication is very important such as in maintaining relationships with journalism and, for many, it is the dominant protocol for interaction, by example, gamers.
Where once mass media made it relatively easy to offer content to a wide audience, and even a strong media sector with many titles of a few dozen TV and radio channels was manageable, reaching an audience is now more complex. The range of platforms such as digital radio and TV, cell phones and iPods as well asPC's , games machines and other devices adds to complexity. New platforms are arriving fast. Each platform offers a different experience which means that reception and intervention of even the same message may be perceived differently at the point of consumption.
Added to this range of platforms the common and, frequently, convergent channels for exchange of information means that to reach any segment or group of people changes communication from 'silver bullet' outlets to 'silver buckshot' multi touch. The compounding effect of new channels for communication (such asMySpace, YouTube , Twitter) add to complexity in relationship and behaviour motivation planning. Channels for communication can also be part of the message. For example, using aPDF file suggests that further debate is not encouraged while a blog has the opposite effect.
The evolution of the Internet from a platform for communication of data to an application that encourages the manipulation of that data, not just through human intervention but by Intent enabled technologies that act as agents, is now very apparent. It is readily evidenced in the form of the relatively benign web widgets and gadgets to complex capabilities.
New Media does not kill off old media. Old media tends to adapt. Newspapers are now also broadcasters; the BBC is using Twitter (www.twitter.com) and interpersonal telephone conversations include text, pictures and video from home phones,PC's using Skype and mobile devices. Channels also remain available long after they fall out of fashion (e.g. FAX and Usenet) and often morph (e.g. Google Groups) and so there are legacy channels to be considered.
There are further devils in the detail.
The nature of local versus global communication online is a consideration.
These is a notable tendency for publics (or market segments or stakeholders) to give way to online user generated segments where, given that information is online, users gravitate to it and do not conform to the profile identified by the organisation. Online community portals offer rich evidence of this tendency. Groups form that defy their market geographies, age profiles, income and anticipated interests.
People who will never use the Internet are influenced by it at one step removed.
In addition, because a lot of information is made available in the form of 'User Generated Content' (UGC) there is a symmetry in communication which influences both organisations and its public.
Control of 'messages' is largely a thing of the past, messages are changed by human and machine interventions and hop from channel to channel. An organisation now competes with a wide range of other actors in the development and dissemination of, what now becomes the development of value systems, across a network of authors and channels.
Finally, there is an issue of attention deficit. People once did not have to multi-task when interacting with data or knowledge. Now to acquire knowledge it comes to people as a constant, always updating stream of images and texts.
Once, to compete in such an environment, attention was gained by dominating channels. Huge poster campaigns and mass media advertising was a sure fire, if expensive, magic bullet. Now, there is resistance. People 'tune out' these attempts, they also select channels that are either less intrusive or compromise a little interference for cheap access to what they want. They pull information and select methodologies to remain informed without dedicating time to searching to satisfy information needs. RSS is an example.
In developing both traditional media and online strategies there is a need to take into account such volatility as well as the growing complexities. This means that practitioners have to be able to deploy advanced management techniques to optimise motivations among people.
What has changed for communications professionals
In its simplest form, PR management consists of planning, executing, and monitoring. In traditional PR, there is little needed to represent a client other than a close brief, data and personable time leavened with creative approaches to impart knowledge. Mostly its a two step (press agentry, lobby or event based) activity. It is assumed that human planners, (seldom even using formalised risk management tools) will generate the “best” network of activities. The plan is expected to be the same as the execution which is seldom the actualitie. There is a fundamental difference between a Plan and the execution of that Plan. Emerging events alter the execution and no more so when using social media.
The one thing we know is that we do not know what channels for communication will be relevant in 2009 or 2011. In the last four years a number of changes in the way people communicate show that change and the rate of change is important for future planning. What we are aware of, is that for large parts of the population Internet mediated channels for communication is very important such as in maintaining relationships with journalism and, for many, it is the dominant protocol for interaction, by example, gamers.
Where once mass media made it relatively easy to offer content to a wide audience, and even a strong media sector with many titles of a few dozen TV and radio channels was manageable, reaching an audience is now more complex. The range of platforms such as digital radio and TV, cell phones and iPods as well as PC's, games machines and other devices adds to complexity. New platforms are arriving fast. Each platform offers a different experience which means that reception and intervention of even the same message may be perceived differently at the point of consumption.
Added to this range of platforms the common and, frequently, convergent channels for exchange of information means that to reach any segment or group of people changes communication from 'silver bullet' outlets to 'silver buckshot' multi touch. The compounding effect of new channels for communication (such as MySpace, YouTube, Twitter) add to complexity in relationship and behaviour motivation planning. Channels for communication can also be part of the message. For example, using a PDF file suggests that further debate is not encouraged while a blog has the opposite effect.
The evolution of the Internet from a platform for communication of data to an application that encourages the manipulation of that data, not just through human intervention but by Intent enabled technologies that act as agents, is now very apparent. It is readily evidenced in the form of the relatively benign web widgets and gadgets to complex capabilities.
New Media does not kill off old media. Old media tends to adapt. Newspapers are now also broadcasters; the BBC is using Twitter (www.twitter.com) and interpersonal telephone conversations include text, pictures and video from home phones, PC's using Skype and mobile devices. Channels also remain available long after they fall out of fashion (e.g. FAX and Usenet) and often morph (e.g. Google Groups) and so there are legacy channels to be considered.
There are further devils in the detail.
The nature of local versus global communication online is a consideration.
These is a notable tendency for publics (or market segments or stakeholders) to give way to online user generated segments where, given that information is online, users gravitate to it and do not conforms the profile identified by the organisation. Online community portals offer rich evidence of this tendency. Groups form that defy their market geographies, age profiles, income and anticipated interests.
People who will never use the Internet are influenced by it at one step removed.
In addition, because a lot of information is made available in the form of 'User Generated Content' (UGC) there is a symmetry in communication which influences both organisations and its public.
Control of 'messages' is largely a thing of the past, messages are changed by human and machine interventions and hop from channel to channel. An organisation now competes with a wide range of other actors in the development and dissemination of, what now becomes the development of value systems across a network of authors and channels.
Finally, there is an issue of attention deficit. People once did not have to multi-task when interacting with data or knowledge. Now to acquire knowledge it comes to people as a constant, always updating stream of images and texts. Once, to compete in such an environment, attention was gained by dominating channels. Huge postercampaigns and mass media advertising was a sure fire, if expensive, magic bullet. Now, there is resistance. People 'tune out' these attempts, they also select channels that are either less intrusive or compromise a little interference for cheap access to what they want. They pull information and select methodologies to remain informed without dedicating time to searching to satisfy information needs. RSS is an example.
In developing both traditional media and online strategies there is a need to be take into account such volatility as well as the growing complexities. This means that practitioners have to be able to deploy advanced management techniques to optimise motivations among people.
The one thing we know is that we do not know what channels for communication will be relevant in 2009 or 2011. In the last four years a number of changes in the way people communicate show that change and the rate of change is important for future planning. What we are aware of, is that for large parts of the population Internet mediated channels for communication is very important such as in maintaining relationships with journalism and, for many, it is the dominant protocol for interaction, by example, gamers.
Where once mass media made it relatively easy to offer content to a wide audience, and even a strong media sector with many titles of a few dozen TV and radio channels was manageable, reaching an audience is now more complex. The range of platforms such as digital radio and TV, cell phones and iPods as well as PC's, games machines and other devices adds to complexity. New platforms are arriving fast. Each platform offers a different experience which means that reception and intervention of even the same message may be perceived differently at the point of consumption.
Added to this range of platforms the common and, frequently, convergent channels for exchange of information means that to reach any segment or group of people changes communication from 'silver bullet' outlets to 'silver buckshot' multi touch. The compounding effect of new channels for communication (such as MySpace, YouTube, Twitter) add to complexity in relationship and behaviour motivation planning. Channels for communication can also be part of the message. For example, using a PDF file suggests that further debate is not encouraged while a blog has the opposite effect.
The evolution of the Internet from a platform for communication of data to an application that encourages the manipulation of that data, not just through human intervention but by Intent enabled technologies that act as agents, is now very apparent. It is readily evidenced in the form of the relatively benign web widgets and gadgets to complex capabilities.
New Media does not kill off old media. Old media tends to adapt. Newspapers are now also broadcasters; the BBC is using Twitter (www.twitter.com) and interpersonal telephone conversations include text, pictures and video from home phones, PC's using Skype and mobile devices. Channels also remain available long after they fall out of fashion (e.g. FAX and Usenet) and often morph (e.g. Google Groups) and so there are legacy channels to be considered.
There are further devils in the detail.
The nature of local versus global communication online is a consideration.
These is a notable tendency for publics (or market segments or stakeholders) to give way to online user generated segments where, given that information is online, users gravitate to it and do not conforms the profile identified by the organisation. Online community portals offer rich evidence of this tendency. Groups form that defy their market geographies, age profiles, income and anticipated interests.
People who will never use the Internet are influenced by it at one step removed.
In addition, because a lot of information is made available in the form of 'User Generated Content' (UGC) there is a symmetry in communication which influences both organisations and its public.
Control of 'messages' is largely a thing of the past, messages are changed by human and machine interventions and hop from channel to channel. An organisation now competes with a wide range of other actors in the development and dissemination of, what now becomes the development of value systems across a network of authors and channels.
Finally, there is an issue of attention deficit. People once did not have to multi-task when interacting with data or knowledge. Now to acquire knowledge it comes to people as a constant, always updating stream of images and texts. Once, to compete in such an environment, attention was gained by dominating channels. Huge postercampaigns and mass media advertising was a sure fire, if expensive, magic bullet. Now, there is resistance. People 'tune out' these attempts, they also select channels that are either less intrusive or compromise a little interference for cheap access to what they want. They pull information and select methodologies to remain informed without dedicating time to searching to satisfy information needs. RSS is an example.
In developing both traditional media and online strategies there is a need to be take into account such volatility as well as the growing complexities. This means that practitioners have to be able to deploy advanced management techniques to optimise motivations among people.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Museum of communication
If one was to suggest to a young person that they might have an advantage in life should they know about channels for communication, where might one send them. Where is the collection, the centre for communication channel research.
One of the problems so many people have is knowing just how many channels are out there. For too many believe that this or that approach is a silver bullet.
The traditional channels, the fora for travellers tales and old men's stories still exists and remain important and sit alongside Twitter and Facebook, books and magazines.
So where is the research about availability, use, reach and application for each of these repositories of knowledge and fun?
For one of those people who spends an amount of time trying to keep abreast of what is happening to forms of communication, its not easy. For PR, Marketing, advertising and other political, socvial and economic communicators, it must be even harder.
Ans, as we know there is quite a lot we want to know about each channel.
There may be a case for collaboration between a number of Universities.
One of the problems so many people have is knowing just how many channels are out there. For too many believe that this or that approach is a silver bullet.
The traditional channels, the fora for travellers tales and old men's stories still exists and remain important and sit alongside Twitter and Facebook, books and magazines.
So where is the research about availability, use, reach and application for each of these repositories of knowledge and fun?
For one of those people who spends an amount of time trying to keep abreast of what is happening to forms of communication, its not easy. For PR, Marketing, advertising and other political, socvial and economic communicators, it must be even harder.
Ans, as we know there is quite a lot we want to know about each channel.
There may be a case for collaboration between a number of Universities.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Transparency and and values
The news today of reserach by Dr Brad Rawlins of Brigham Young University's Department of Communication, as reported in Internal Coms hub showing a link between corporate openness and employees' belief in the companies they work for should come as no surprise.
On the other hand it does have wide implications.
Transparency is not a nice to have. It does need strategic consideration in its implementation.
The first thing to note is that transparency is the enemy of hype, hyperbole, spin and bling. Making the values systems of an organisation transparent is perhaps the first step and then making a clean breast of the values the organisation can honestly support for its products, services and brands is next in line.
As part of the strategic decision making package what should be openly transparent (radical transparency) is a big question for the organisation. Indeed explication what should not be transparent and why is also important and part of the transparency package.
I remember when a company I was working for was taking over its competitors at the rate of one per year, journalists would spend a lot of time trying to find out who was to be the next target. My response was that it would be unfair on all parties to disclose the M&A thinking of my organisation but that if a suitable opportunity arose we would take it. I disclosed the extent and limitations that the organisation was prepared to go to in its efforts to be transparent.
Part of this was internal communications with just about every employee singing the same song partly because it was the habit of managers to tour the factories and store rooms with visitors from bankers to customers, school kids and journalists and where visitors could freely hold conversations with all employees (incidentally, the best press spokesperson for a company is a line fitter on a production line - earthy or what!).
So, in thinking about transparency, one might think of bloggers in companies or employees blogging (Porosity); Microsoft's Channel 9; IBM and other organisations.
What we are seeing a strategy that is taking organisations closer to radical transparency set in a communications setting. The values of the organisation are available to all (as well as a mass of Intellectual Property). It offers people with similar (convergent) values to make a contribution and helps motivate them.
The alternatives to transparency are not very pleasant and range from uncontrolled disintermediation to low productivity with associated loss of competitiveness.
On the other hand it does have wide implications.
Transparency is not a nice to have. It does need strategic consideration in its implementation.
The first thing to note is that transparency is the enemy of hype, hyperbole, spin and bling. Making the values systems of an organisation transparent is perhaps the first step and then making a clean breast of the values the organisation can honestly support for its products, services and brands is next in line.
As part of the strategic decision making package what should be openly transparent (radical transparency) is a big question for the organisation. Indeed explication what should not be transparent and why is also important and part of the transparency package.
I remember when a company I was working for was taking over its competitors at the rate of one per year, journalists would spend a lot of time trying to find out who was to be the next target. My response was that it would be unfair on all parties to disclose the M&A thinking of my organisation but that if a suitable opportunity arose we would take it. I disclosed the extent and limitations that the organisation was prepared to go to in its efforts to be transparent.
Part of this was internal communications with just about every employee singing the same song partly because it was the habit of managers to tour the factories and store rooms with visitors from bankers to customers, school kids and journalists and where visitors could freely hold conversations with all employees (incidentally, the best press spokesperson for a company is a line fitter on a production line - earthy or what!).
So, in thinking about transparency, one might think of bloggers in companies or employees blogging (Porosity); Microsoft's Channel 9; IBM and other organisations.
What we are seeing a strategy that is taking organisations closer to radical transparency set in a communications setting. The values of the organisation are available to all (as well as a mass of Intellectual Property). It offers people with similar (convergent) values to make a contribution and helps motivate them.
The alternatives to transparency are not very pleasant and range from uncontrolled disintermediation to low productivity with associated loss of competitiveness.
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