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.
Monday, June 25, 2007
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.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
A Walk in Wiltshire
On occasion, a bunch of people go for a stroll and chat about common interests.
On one occasion they agreed that Avebury was an early supermarket and we also fond on another occasion that Silbury Hill is really made of sugar.
Well on Friday 8th June there will be another of these walks and For Immediate Release listeners will know that they are invited as are any PR practitioners who want a stroll in the lands about Stone Henge.
If you would like to come, contact me here and I will fill in all the details.
On one occasion they agreed that Avebury was an early supermarket and we also fond on another occasion that Silbury Hill is really made of sugar.
Well on Friday 8th June there will be another of these walks and For Immediate Release listeners will know that they are invited as are any PR practitioners who want a stroll in the lands about Stone Henge.
If you would like to come, contact me here and I will fill in all the details.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Google blogs - so many to watch
I was looking at what our research is showing for what Google is up to and saw that Girish has created a Really Selective Sources page for Google blogs.
It really is a remarkable number even though the company is huge and the thing that is fun about it is how open Google is about things most companies would keep under lock and key such as new product development.
Google is exposing its values and people with similar values are attracted to it and that means they build relationships.
Relationships (as YouTube teaches us) are money in the bank.
It really is a remarkable number even though the company is huge and the thing that is fun about it is how open Google is about things most companies would keep under lock and key such as new product development.
Google is exposing its values and people with similar values are attracted to it and that means they build relationships.
Relationships (as YouTube teaches us) are money in the bank.
Monday, May 21, 2007
A symmetrical marketing
The American Marketing Association has re-defined marketing this year. Last time they did it was in 2004. fast moving stuff huh!
I suppose the critical difference between marketing and the relationship value model is that marketers have an interest in a value and relationships are about convergence of many values.
The latter, being richer is harder but more rewarding.
"Marketing is the activity, conducted by organizations and individuals, that operates through a set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging market offerings that have value for customers, clients, marketers, and society at large."Of course, no one is mentioning that this might be one type of symmetrical activity - money is expected to flow the other way. More spin and hype then.
I suppose the critical difference between marketing and the relationship value model is that marketers have an interest in a value and relationships are about convergence of many values.
The latter, being richer is harder but more rewarding.
Friday, May 18, 2007
RSS Juice
I was checking RSS feeds that have, due to considerable laziness on my part, whiskers.
Absolute joy. David Meerman- Scott has his new book out and very kindly is sending me one. But - just look at the quality of the contributions - wow!
Absolute joy. David Meerman- Scott has his new book out and very kindly is sending me one. But - just look at the quality of the contributions - wow!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
After YouTube
I am spending a lot of time thinking about how Public Relations can manage a future where the the platforms and channels for communication are changing fast.
That TV viewing figures fall when homes get broadband is interesting, not startling. It will be a bigger issue when broadband is 50 meg instead of 8 which is happening in places where there is cable (not in the hills about Stonehenge you understand).
What is important for us is to be able to identify the new and next media journey, the next process in relationship building and an ability to evaluate the new as well as its implementation, effect and possible outcomes. These are tools we must have and they must be part of the PR management package at every level of practice.
What we have to do is look at some of the thinkers in this area like Malcolm Gladwell Author of Tipping Point and Blink.
In addition, we can call on the techniques used in engineering, mathematics and management.
People like Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe with their five essential qualities for 'Managing the Unexpected' : preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise, are invaluable.
Of course, part of this thinking includes how we approach risk management.
These are things we now have to put into PR planning and management.
They do need a lot of thinking about as part of a managed strategy for PR
That TV viewing figures fall when homes get broadband is interesting, not startling. It will be a bigger issue when broadband is 50 meg instead of 8 which is happening in places where there is cable (not in the hills about Stonehenge you understand).
What is important for us is to be able to identify the new and next media journey, the next process in relationship building and an ability to evaluate the new as well as its implementation, effect and possible outcomes. These are tools we must have and they must be part of the PR management package at every level of practice.
What we have to do is look at some of the thinkers in this area like Malcolm Gladwell Author of Tipping Point and Blink.
In addition, we can call on the techniques used in engineering, mathematics and management.
People like Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe with their five essential qualities for 'Managing the Unexpected' : preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise, are invaluable.
Of course, part of this thinking includes how we approach risk management.
These are things we now have to put into PR planning and management.
They do need a lot of thinking about as part of a managed strategy for PR
Where is the value in TV and film programmes
The punch-up between Viacom and Google reminds us how far the copyright debate has to go.
It seems to me that most people in companies have a funny idea about the value of their value systems.
Most have not read the 1994 John Perry Barlow article in Wired Magazine.
Lets take a simple example. There is a special thrill in reading good old fashioned newspapers. The paper, the layout the mix and match of style and context makes this a special experience. It is the same with magazines both consumer and B2B. There is a special relationship between a reader and the mag. Even if you read the story in a newspaper, the magazine take is different. You buy both magazines and newspapers.
The trouble is that content in newspapers (and magazines) has a limited exposure and a short shelf life. From time to time some people try to increase the reach of a story or its longevity.
They take clippings. Reading clippings is not the same as reading the original. It is sanitised and comparatively ugly. Now here is the rub. Publishers don't like people taking press clippings because they feel that this is an abuse of copyright and if someone wanted to read the article, they should buy the whole newspaper. The reality is that, with few exceptions, the value of a clipping content as an experience is not enough to prompt people to buy the newspaper. The value is just not worth it most of the time. So the publishers limit the longevity and reach of their copyright in the UK through an agency set up to do just that.
Some people read content online. Once again the story has an increased circulation and life. The experience of reading press stories online is very different to reading it in print. People read more words online (yes - that is a surprise). The content is in a different context. But publishers don't like us doing that. They want to charge subscriptions, or get at email addresses to shout at people who want to read their journalists' content (but possibly not the publishers' advertisers' content) . Alternatively, the publisher serves up advertisement and online readers will accept some of that interference in exchange for reading the editorial.
What the copyright holders find hard to understand is that these three media (and there are lots more) for their initial copyright are different experiences. The commercial model can be different too.
Trying to make copyright fit all platforms and channels for communication is stupid. The experience is different and what and how people are prepared to pay for it is different. I like listening to the verbal declamation of some newspaper journalists, as well as reading their writing in print and online and the added blog comment as well as some of the online video.
The same goes for music and video. I am listening to Guitar music (Mario Parodi - Fur Elise on Sky.fm) as I write using a headset. I could be listening to a track on my laptop in a range of formats. It is different to using earbuds, LoFi and HiFi CD players, and broadcast radio, indoor concerts, and outdoor gigs, the London Underground busker or (horrors) in a supermarket.
Like the publishers of news, publishers of music and video are just rubbish at getting the most from their copyright. They want a one stop suits all method for getting the best value from journalists or artists.
What they miss is the value of copyright. In reality it is worth nothing.
It gets value in an exchange with, guess who, you and me.
Today, its digitised and can spread and replicate and transcend platforms and channels for communication and the publisher can still have it and hold it as its own.
Keep upsetting me, I say to publishers, and I will just go somewhere else or will just break your rules and end up in court where you win the case and I win the argument.
With just a tiny bit of imagination - publishers are not renown for it - the ways of making pots of money and creating massive assets are available to all copyright holders.
When Roland Gribben says " DaimlerChrysler was born out of ego, arrogance and an element of naivety. Jürgen Schrempp, Prussian-style chief executive of Daimler Benz, was on the ego trip." Its a great statement. Here is a long standing and respected global commentator making a powerful statement. To hear that in podcast form, on YouTube or in debate, could be a much richer and added experience. The drama is everything in print and has great potential elsewhere not least in the PR exchange that always follows such statements.
Drama that a lot of people would want to exchange for real money.
It is in the morphing and Internet Agency where true value arises online. Digitisation releases information and knowledge creativity and authors from the place where copyright has its hold.
Value is in the values that go with the content and delivery channel and changing values into a new metaphor for value (OK so you want money) is a different trick altogether.
It seems to me that most people in companies have a funny idea about the value of their value systems.
Most have not read the 1994 John Perry Barlow article in Wired Magazine.
Lets take a simple example. There is a special thrill in reading good old fashioned newspapers. The paper, the layout the mix and match of style and context makes this a special experience. It is the same with magazines both consumer and B2B. There is a special relationship between a reader and the mag. Even if you read the story in a newspaper, the magazine take is different. You buy both magazines and newspapers.
The trouble is that content in newspapers (and magazines) has a limited exposure and a short shelf life. From time to time some people try to increase the reach of a story or its longevity.
They take clippings. Reading clippings is not the same as reading the original. It is sanitised and comparatively ugly. Now here is the rub. Publishers don't like people taking press clippings because they feel that this is an abuse of copyright and if someone wanted to read the article, they should buy the whole newspaper. The reality is that, with few exceptions, the value of a clipping content as an experience is not enough to prompt people to buy the newspaper. The value is just not worth it most of the time. So the publishers limit the longevity and reach of their copyright in the UK through an agency set up to do just that.
Some people read content online. Once again the story has an increased circulation and life. The experience of reading press stories online is very different to reading it in print. People read more words online (yes - that is a surprise). The content is in a different context. But publishers don't like us doing that. They want to charge subscriptions, or get at email addresses to shout at people who want to read their journalists' content (but possibly not the publishers' advertisers' content) . Alternatively, the publisher serves up advertisement and online readers will accept some of that interference in exchange for reading the editorial.
What the copyright holders find hard to understand is that these three media (and there are lots more) for their initial copyright are different experiences. The commercial model can be different too.
Trying to make copyright fit all platforms and channels for communication is stupid. The experience is different and what and how people are prepared to pay for it is different. I like listening to the verbal declamation of some newspaper journalists, as well as reading their writing in print and online and the added blog comment as well as some of the online video.
The same goes for music and video. I am listening to Guitar music (Mario Parodi - Fur Elise on Sky.fm) as I write using a headset. I could be listening to a track on my laptop in a range of formats. It is different to using earbuds, LoFi and HiFi CD players, and broadcast radio, indoor concerts, and outdoor gigs, the London Underground busker or (horrors) in a supermarket.
Like the publishers of news, publishers of music and video are just rubbish at getting the most from their copyright. They want a one stop suits all method for getting the best value from journalists or artists.
What they miss is the value of copyright. In reality it is worth nothing.
It gets value in an exchange with, guess who, you and me.
Today, its digitised and can spread and replicate and transcend platforms and channels for communication and the publisher can still have it and hold it as its own.
Keep upsetting me, I say to publishers, and I will just go somewhere else or will just break your rules and end up in court where you win the case and I win the argument.
With just a tiny bit of imagination - publishers are not renown for it - the ways of making pots of money and creating massive assets are available to all copyright holders.
When Roland Gribben says " DaimlerChrysler was born out of ego, arrogance and an element of naivety. Jürgen Schrempp, Prussian-style chief executive of Daimler Benz, was on the ego trip." Its a great statement. Here is a long standing and respected global commentator making a powerful statement. To hear that in podcast form, on YouTube or in debate, could be a much richer and added experience. The drama is everything in print and has great potential elsewhere not least in the PR exchange that always follows such statements.
Drama that a lot of people would want to exchange for real money.
It is in the morphing and Internet Agency where true value arises online. Digitisation releases information and knowledge creativity and authors from the place where copyright has its hold.
Value is in the values that go with the content and delivery channel and changing values into a new metaphor for value (OK so you want money) is a different trick altogether.
Olympics in the near field
Near field technologies and social media have a potential to be both part of the security system for the London Olympics in 2012 and a key part of the public relations activity for the Games.
While there are squabbles over who gets what contract, PR agencies are exploring how the same near field technologies can be used to optimise sponsorship and develop new channels for reaching one of the most savvy audiences in the world who will attend the Olympics.
Near field communication, which can be as simple as a Bluetooth add-on to downloaded value added widgets to most mobile phones can be activated at any pinch point such as turnstiles and Underground ticket terminals.
This will be a really nice way to add value to the Olympic experience. Or it could be more marketing bling, spin or hype - depending on where companies think they can get the best ROI or loose most of their reputation.
While there are squabbles over who gets what contract, PR agencies are exploring how the same near field technologies can be used to optimise sponsorship and develop new channels for reaching one of the most savvy audiences in the world who will attend the Olympics.
Near field communication, which can be as simple as a Bluetooth add-on to downloaded value added widgets to most mobile phones can be activated at any pinch point such as turnstiles and Underground ticket terminals.
This will be a really nice way to add value to the Olympic experience. Or it could be more marketing bling, spin or hype - depending on where companies think they can get the best ROI or loose most of their reputation.
Adverts turned into conversationtional value
I want to comment further on the post by Charlene Li on the acquisition of Right Media by Yahoo!
While here post and the Right Media (not to mention Yahoo!) focus on serving up advertisements, I want to change the setting somewhat.
If instead of serving up ads, the 'advertiser' served up ideas or even dynamic conversations what would happen?
The advertisement would become a conversation and although push in the first place could quite quickly become the method for pull.
The concept turns online advertising into a form of interaction not dissimilar to RSS feeds.
Instead of shouting, PR can enjoy a conversation with interested parties.
What will be happening will be that values will become a currency between users and organisations... nice thought.
While here post and the Right Media (not to mention Yahoo!) focus on serving up advertisements, I want to change the setting somewhat.
If instead of serving up ads, the 'advertiser' served up ideas or even dynamic conversations what would happen?
The advertisement would become a conversation and although push in the first place could quite quickly become the method for pull.
The concept turns online advertising into a form of interaction not dissimilar to RSS feeds.
Instead of shouting, PR can enjoy a conversation with interested parties.
What will be happening will be that values will become a currency between users and organisations... nice thought.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Estonian attack - cyber tank outside Parliament and economic sanctions announced
European and U.S. leaders have repeatedly accused Russia of using its energy resources as a weapon against its neighbors. Russia has always denied it, citing different technical reasons for energy supply halts.
Now Estonia Russian oil firms are re-routing a quarter of their refined products exports away from ports in Estonia and Russia's railways halted deliveries reports Reuters.
This is set againts what Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip called 'continuing cyber-attacks from the servers of Russian state authorities' a few minutes ago.
The Russioans have a cyber tank on the lawn outside the Tallinn parliament and now have economic sanctions in place.
I guess that we are still waiting for the EU to imagine this is not happening ahead of a nice long week end break.
Now Estonia Russian oil firms are re-routing a quarter of their refined products exports away from ports in Estonia and Russia's railways halted deliveries reports Reuters.
This is set againts what Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip called 'continuing cyber-attacks from the servers of Russian state authorities' a few minutes ago.
The Russioans have a cyber tank on the lawn outside the Tallinn parliament and now have economic sanctions in place.
I guess that we are still waiting for the EU to imagine this is not happening ahead of a nice long week end break.
Russia shuts Ken Livingston down - EU delegation on its way
Let's suppose, for a second, that London was Estonia. Imagine if the statue of Karl Marx in Highgate Cometary was to be re-located to Westminster Abbey.
Two days later would we hear Ken Livingston, Mayor of London, reported as saying: "cyber terrorists'" attacks against Internet pages of City of London government agencies and the office of the Mayor originated from Russian government computers."
Well, according to the BBC and other media, that is what is happening in Estonia today. This is State sponsored cyber terrorism. It is an attack on the government of a NATO and EU member just as powerful as a tank on the lawn.
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Wednesday called on Russia to "remain civilised" amid a spiralling diplomatic crisis sparked by the removal of a Soviet war memorial."It is not customary in Europe to demand the resignation of the democratically elected government of another sovereign country," he said in a statement. "It is not customary in Europe to use computers belonging to public institutions for cyber-attacks against another country's public institutions.
There are deep ethnic divisions and a cruel history at play here which is not part of this post. This post is about how governments can invade the cyberspace of a nation's peoples. But one cannot but wonder if this is not a row that is part of the NATO concern over Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to freeze his nation's compliance with a key arms control treaty
F-secure list many Estonian government sites, that have been subject to attack and on Saturday this was the situation:
www.peaminister.ee (Website of the prime minister): unreachable
www.reform.ee (Party of the prime minister): reachable
www.agri.ee (Ministry of Agriculture): reachable
www.kul.ee (Ministry of Culture): reachable
www.mod.gov.ee (Ministry of Defence): reachable
www.mkm.ee (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications): unreachable
www.fin.ee (Ministry of Finance): reachable
www.sisemin.gov.ee (Ministry of Internal Affairs): unreachable
www.just.ee (Ministry of Justice): reachable
www.sm.ee (Ministry of Social Affairs): reachable
www.envir.ee (Ministry of the Environment): reachable
www.vm.ee (Ministry of Foreign Affairs): unreachable
www.pol.ee (Estonian Police): reachable
www.valitsus.ee (Estonian Government): unreachable
www.riigikogu.ee (Estonian Parliament): unreachable
If it were London, there would be a run on the pound, the Stock Market would be in free fall and reaction on behalf of the European Union to the behaviour of Russia would be as vigorous as possible.
We would hear Ken saying "This could mean suspending different talks between the European Union and Russia or not commencing them at all. The postponement of the European Union - Russia summit should be also given full consideration."
For the last few days I have been watching how this skirmish has been panning out.
The world media has been following the story with a bigger bias of Russian coverage than European
To ensure that Estonian Government statements can get to the wider world, bloggers have been spreading them, some with nervouse statements about membership of NATO and the EU. One gets the impression that some Estonians are not sure if they can count on the support of the European Union or NATO.
Blog spam has been brought to bear but not to great effect because the spam is the same content on lots of sites (I expect it will pop up here soon too).
Ross Mayfield (founder of Socialtext) has been following (fighting?) the propaganda war on Wikipedia.
There is a war of video and pictures on line too. YouTube is caught up in the propaganda war.
Twitter has been involved in distributing news and Podzinger is showing podcasts on the subject too.
The attack on Estonian sites has been effective but its interesting to see how Social Media has come into play and offered a range of perspectives.
In addition, social media is showing that shutting down web sites is no longer the threat it once was and that an online interactive conversation, even when passions is high, a range of views are available and in play allowing a wider and global population to align with the value of people they would support.
There is a lot more to come on this story.
Two days later would we hear Ken Livingston, Mayor of London, reported as saying: "cyber terrorists'" attacks against Internet pages of City of London government agencies and the office of the Mayor originated from Russian government computers."
Well, according to the BBC and other media, that is what is happening in Estonia today. This is State sponsored cyber terrorism. It is an attack on the government of a NATO and EU member just as powerful as a tank on the lawn.
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Wednesday called on Russia to "remain civilised" amid a spiralling diplomatic crisis sparked by the removal of a Soviet war memorial."It is not customary in Europe to demand the resignation of the democratically elected government of another sovereign country," he said in a statement. "It is not customary in Europe to use computers belonging to public institutions for cyber-attacks against another country's public institutions.
There are deep ethnic divisions and a cruel history at play here which is not part of this post. This post is about how governments can invade the cyberspace of a nation's peoples. But one cannot but wonder if this is not a row that is part of the NATO concern over Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to freeze his nation's compliance with a key arms control treaty
F-secure list many Estonian government sites, that have been subject to attack and on Saturday this was the situation:
www.peaminister.ee (Website of the prime minister): unreachable
www.reform.ee (Party of the prime minister): reachable
www.agri.ee (Ministry of Agriculture): reachable
www.kul.ee (Ministry of Culture): reachable
www.mod.gov.ee (Ministry of Defence): reachable
www.mkm.ee (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications): unreachable
www.fin.ee (Ministry of Finance): reachable
www.sisemin.gov.ee (Ministry of Internal Affairs): unreachable
www.just.ee (Ministry of Justice): reachable
www.sm.ee (Ministry of Social Affairs): reachable
www.envir.ee (Ministry of the Environment): reachable
www.vm.ee (Ministry of Foreign Affairs): unreachable
www.pol.ee (Estonian Police): reachable
www.valitsus.ee (Estonian Government): unreachable
www.riigikogu.ee (Estonian Parliament): unreachable
If it were London, there would be a run on the pound, the Stock Market would be in free fall and reaction on behalf of the European Union to the behaviour of Russia would be as vigorous as possible.
We would hear Ken saying "This could mean suspending different talks between the European Union and Russia or not commencing them at all. The postponement of the European Union - Russia summit should be also given full consideration."
For the last few days I have been watching how this skirmish has been panning out.
The world media has been following the story with a bigger bias of Russian coverage than European
To ensure that Estonian Government statements can get to the wider world, bloggers have been spreading them, some with nervouse statements about membership of NATO and the EU. One gets the impression that some Estonians are not sure if they can count on the support of the European Union or NATO.
Blog spam has been brought to bear but not to great effect because the spam is the same content on lots of sites (I expect it will pop up here soon too).
Ross Mayfield (founder of Socialtext) has been following (fighting?) the propaganda war on Wikipedia.
There is a war of video and pictures on line too. YouTube is caught up in the propaganda war.
Twitter has been involved in distributing news and Podzinger is showing podcasts on the subject too.
The attack on Estonian sites has been effective but its interesting to see how Social Media has come into play and offered a range of perspectives.
In addition, social media is showing that shutting down web sites is no longer the threat it once was and that an online interactive conversation, even when passions is high, a range of views are available and in play allowing a wider and global population to align with the value of people they would support.
There is a lot more to come on this story.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Social Media can be controlled
There are riots in front of European Union offices in Moscow
There is almost no media coverage about it. There is even less Google news juice. There are few blog posts about it. Its just as though someone was working really, really hard at Denial of Service against a plan that has been in place for a long, long time.
The story could have been written by Ian Flemming and is about Russian imperialism and the scars that go back to Nazi and Russian deals over the Baltic states that kept peoples in shackles for fifty years.
It is a story about ethnic Russians abandoned by their own country and forced to face the ire of their one time subjects and Russia using both sides to drive another wedge between European interests and Russian ambitions.
So, how come a DoS attack?
What if wikipedia was closed to new edits? What would happen if some newspapers' stories seemed not to get indexed except in the copy of secondary pages - by Google? What if the news aggregators have lots of content from Tass and Interfax but not much from the mainstream European or US press?
It would seem odd. It is odd. Tim Wilson reports on DoS attacks which seem very slick and comprehensive for a country of a million people, even the clever Estonians.
It will be interesting to see if you have similar experiences.
If there is a way to hide/bury or deny a competitor space online would n't that be a good products to sell to the command and control freaks?
There is almost no media coverage about it. There is even less Google news juice. There are few blog posts about it. Its just as though someone was working really, really hard at Denial of Service against a plan that has been in place for a long, long time.
The story could have been written by Ian Flemming and is about Russian imperialism and the scars that go back to Nazi and Russian deals over the Baltic states that kept peoples in shackles for fifty years.
It is a story about ethnic Russians abandoned by their own country and forced to face the ire of their one time subjects and Russia using both sides to drive another wedge between European interests and Russian ambitions.
So, how come a DoS attack?
What if wikipedia was closed to new edits? What would happen if some newspapers' stories seemed not to get indexed except in the copy of secondary pages - by Google? What if the news aggregators have lots of content from Tass and Interfax but not much from the mainstream European or US press?
It would seem odd. It is odd. Tim Wilson reports on DoS attacks which seem very slick and comprehensive for a country of a million people, even the clever Estonians.
It will be interesting to see if you have similar experiences.
If there is a way to hide/bury or deny a competitor space online would n't that be a good products to sell to the command and control freaks?
Sunday, April 29, 2007
What do we need to know about the media
There are many channels for communication. More arrive every day. What do we need to know about them if we are going to use them for public relations activities?
Here is a small list:
Here is a small list:
Title (e.g. email)
Definition
History (wikipedia or another resource)
Fast Facts (how would you explain this channel for communication really quickly)
Communication platforms (p.c, laptop, cell phone, print - yup I guess the dead tree society deserves to be included in social media resources).
How do people (the public/s) contribute to this channel? To what extent is this common (past/now/future)
How does the public share knowledge of content in this channel - using this channel and across other channels. To what extent is this common (past/now/future).
Risk analysis (issues, future opportunities, threats - read the lecture and fill out the risk assessment matrix )
What services are available to help you set up/deploy this channel (software, suppliers and/or contractors; are there expert people that you could employ on behalf of a client)
How to implement the technology (what are the steps involved)
Internal/external policies (examples of such policies will be needed if you are going to use this channel)
How do you optimise this channel to help people find/use it (e.g. Search Engine Optimisation)
Monitor (what is there out there that can help you monitor the effect of your work using this channel - e.g. can you set up and RSS feed or a search engine monitor. Can you monitor how this channel is affecting its audience and how? Do you need to use a monitoring company and if so who has the expertise - and how much will it cost?)
Metrics (what numbers are available in the public domain? What numbers are available in the private domain? Is this best measured as page views or is it the number of references it generates in Digg) or a combination or are the metrics completely different?)
Evaluate (How do you set realistic targets and outcomes; how can you measure how hgood you are at using this channel for communication; how can you evaluate the effectiveness of using this channel for communication as part of a relationship building campaign?)
Overcoming barriers to dominant coalition (what are your arguments; how are they supported with real and verifiable evidence; can you call on quantifiable evidence and case study supported reasoning?)
Case studies of good and bad practice (Can you find case studies and can you look at the best examples and the worst and then identify the risk mitigation or opportunity optimisation policies you need to have when using this channel for communication).
Relevance to organisations and practice
Training (training resources, training examples, etiquette)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Evaluation by another name
The discussion at E-consultancy’s March 2007 roundtable on Web Analytics offers some interesting insights.
They suggests that this form of measurement is now an industry worth some £56 million (2006).
They also offer some ideas as to how outcomes can be measured in this post.
The importance of all this is that it is now part of the mix of reporting data needed for PR in our Internet Mediated world.
They suggests that this form of measurement is now an industry worth some £56 million (2006).
They also offer some ideas as to how outcomes can be measured in this post.
The importance of all this is that it is now part of the mix of reporting data needed for PR in our Internet Mediated world.
Opinion Polling is showing half of the story
Sir Robert Worcester FIPR has been offering his opinion polls to the PR industry for years. Mostly these services offer useful information and sometimes insights (you might imagine that, in another life and as the founder of Media Measurement, I had some occasion to monitor what was offered and used by some of his clients).
Today I read his comments about uptake of the Internet and why we should not rely on it because it does not reach a range of segments of the population.
To begin with lets be clear, the Internet is not a channel for communication and it is as much a place as a range of technologies. Thus if people do not access the Internet using a PC, they might by using a cell phone of television set, Skype phone or Playstation3. Thus the Mori factoid offered in Profile Magazine does need to be read with salt and a wake-up pinch.
Mr Worcester's contribution offers us this:
"...But still only about one in four of those 65 and older have taken up the Internet, and there has been no growth during the past 18 months.
"- And still fewer than one in ten of those 65 and older in DE households living on state benefits are taking part in the benefits of the internet.
Just as one would not depend on SMS for interacting with these segments of populations, one might also not use Blogs or telemarketing the over '80's.
That the Internet - a place - is where a lot of people visit and is not far from anyone, does not mean that it is in the least bit appropriate for direct relationship building any more than Heathrow Airport.
All That Robert Worcester's polls tell us is that loads of people use PC's to use the Internet - Wow! another victory for the pollsters.
This was just a plea to get PR people to use Newspaper interactions and is just nuts. If a campaign is worth its salt and is only exposed on one of, lets say 60, Internet mediataed communications channels, the media will report it.... no need for press releases - just good journalists who are on the look out for a good story. The newspaper proprietors will eventually learn that there is a need for good journalists for print as well as online and that printed newspapers are different to digital news (Read differently, at different times, using different channels etc).
If Robert wanted to get to the meat, he might ask if a story is relevant for the constituent and if so which media is not reporting it. You see, if the story is not on a tape, my 90 year 'old other person in the household' would not read it in a newspaper either - she is one of the nine in ten of the over 65's not using the Internet everyday (well except DAB radio) and is blind.
Come on Bob - it was a cheap article.
Today I read his comments about uptake of the Internet and why we should not rely on it because it does not reach a range of segments of the population.
To begin with lets be clear, the Internet is not a channel for communication and it is as much a place as a range of technologies. Thus if people do not access the Internet using a PC, they might by using a cell phone of television set, Skype phone or Playstation3. Thus the Mori factoid offered in Profile Magazine does need to be read with salt and a wake-up pinch.
Mr Worcester's contribution offers us this:
"...But still only about one in four of those 65 and older have taken up the Internet, and there has been no growth during the past 18 months.
"- And still fewer than one in ten of those 65 and older in DE households living on state benefits are taking part in the benefits of the internet.
"It is also true that the majority of wealth is in the hands of the oldest third of the country, who did 43 per cent of the voting at the last election. If you are thinking that communicating to your audiences is so easy now that the internet is so ubiquitous, think again. You might not reach all of your target audience using traditional media, it is also true that you won’t reach all these people via the internet, without also using the traditional media."
This is using an opinion poll as a 'PR exercise' on behalf of the newspaper industry (big Mori customers one cynically might add) .Just as one would not depend on SMS for interacting with these segments of populations, one might also not use Blogs or telemarketing the over '80's.
That the Internet - a place - is where a lot of people visit and is not far from anyone, does not mean that it is in the least bit appropriate for direct relationship building any more than Heathrow Airport.
All That Robert Worcester's polls tell us is that loads of people use PC's to use the Internet - Wow! another victory for the pollsters.
This was just a plea to get PR people to use Newspaper interactions and is just nuts. If a campaign is worth its salt and is only exposed on one of, lets say 60, Internet mediataed communications channels, the media will report it.... no need for press releases - just good journalists who are on the look out for a good story. The newspaper proprietors will eventually learn that there is a need for good journalists for print as well as online and that printed newspapers are different to digital news (Read differently, at different times, using different channels etc).
If Robert wanted to get to the meat, he might ask if a story is relevant for the constituent and if so which media is not reporting it. You see, if the story is not on a tape, my 90 year 'old other person in the household' would not read it in a newspaper either - she is one of the nine in ten of the over 65's not using the Internet everyday (well except DAB radio) and is blind.
Come on Bob - it was a cheap article.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
A backgrounder
We spend a lot of time going through the background of what is happening to media and so I have created this slide show. If you want to use it its available under the Creative Commons Licence (say where you got it from):
It is downloadable from here too.
It is downloadable from here too.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Internet Archive
One of the great places to put out of print books and papers that you always meant to submit to a journal but just could not face the form filling is the Open Archive.
I have put my first book about the Internet there.
It saves having to back it up every so often.
I have put my first book about the Internet there.
It saves having to back it up every so often.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Managing the risk of technology
The graphic below comes from a post by John Milan in Read/Write web and is very germaine to PR practice. We are not going to stop Internet Transparency or porosity. We have to manage it.
If you look at the image, it offers the means by which the senior practitioner can manage lack of IT knowledge and responsibility or innovation.
Using the techniques of Risk Management, Organisations can asses thier level of risk along both axis (1-5) and can then look ate what can be done to mitigate the risk and test the assumptions again.
Sophisticated applications of these types of approach offer a good idea of ROI for managing risk (and opportunities).
Nice graphic!
If you look at the image, it offers the means by which the senior practitioner can manage lack of IT knowledge and responsibility or innovation.
Using the techniques of Risk Management, Organisations can asses thier level of risk along both axis (1-5) and can then look ate what can be done to mitigate the risk and test the assumptions again.
Sophisticated applications of these types of approach offer a good idea of ROI for managing risk (and opportunities).
Nice graphic!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
It Just Happened
You can embed this video using this code from here: http://eyespot.com/blogs/leverwealth?postId=9378
Monday, April 02, 2007
The online module for a PR degree
I am pondering what we really need in a PR first degree course now.
At present the online module includes a syllabus that is primarily based round online strategy: how the online landscape is changing for organisations and how to assess the change (the Internet is ever evolving); Online demographics and segmentation (is segmentation now in the hands of the user?); the significance of value systems online (marketing speak served up as values lays organisations wide open to dissonance); development of aims and objectives (but this time aimed at the online communities of which there are many); strategy development (the mix and match of multi-touch communication and related effects); risk management (is a management function that is essential); tactical use of social media from YouTube to web widgets, wikis to blogs. We also have to develop strategies for graduates to keep up to date with online communication developments.
Students should provide case studies of social media to see how social media is being used and how. Must they must have their own blogs (even if it is an existing Bebo or MySpace account)? Is it ethical to force anyone and expose student experimentation to future employers - forever?
There is no substitute for work on a brief for an organisation (presented in a wiki - with all the background reserach) and they should use and apply web widgets, search, monitoring and evaluation tools and strategy software. They have to deal with legal, copyright and ethical issues and there is a case for the development of a video blog.
Add this to writing and semiotic skills on top of what theory remains (after the digital tsunami has wiped out 'the media' as we have known it for 50 years) and symmetrical relationship building and we have a start.
Oh... they must get that RSS feed going on week one otherwise they are as out of date as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (June 7, 1757 – March 30, 1806) buying votes with kisses.
Its a lot to handle.
But what have I missed out.....
At present the online module includes a syllabus that is primarily based round online strategy: how the online landscape is changing for organisations and how to assess the change (the Internet is ever evolving); Online demographics and segmentation (is segmentation now in the hands of the user?); the significance of value systems online (marketing speak served up as values lays organisations wide open to dissonance); development of aims and objectives (but this time aimed at the online communities of which there are many); strategy development (the mix and match of multi-touch communication and related effects); risk management (is a management function that is essential); tactical use of social media from YouTube to web widgets, wikis to blogs. We also have to develop strategies for graduates to keep up to date with online communication developments.
Students should provide case studies of social media to see how social media is being used and how. Must they must have their own blogs (even if it is an existing Bebo or MySpace account)? Is it ethical to force anyone and expose student experimentation to future employers - forever?
There is no substitute for work on a brief for an organisation (presented in a wiki - with all the background reserach) and they should use and apply web widgets, search, monitoring and evaluation tools and strategy software. They have to deal with legal, copyright and ethical issues and there is a case for the development of a video blog.
Add this to writing and semiotic skills on top of what theory remains (after the digital tsunami has wiped out 'the media' as we have known it for 50 years) and symmetrical relationship building and we have a start.
Oh... they must get that RSS feed going on week one otherwise they are as out of date as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (June 7, 1757 – March 30, 1806) buying votes with kisses.
Its a lot to handle.
But what have I missed out.....
Workplace Blogging is OK
James Richards has just posted his paper on work related blogs. It is timely because today The Telegraph reports that an Englishwoman sacked for bringing her employers in Paris into disrepute by writing an internet diary under the pseudonym petite anglaise was awarded £30,000 for wrongful dismissal yesterday.
In a test case for bloggers in France and beyond, a tribunal concluded that Catherine Sanderson, whose blog is said by some to be the equivalent of "Bridget Jones in Paris", had been dismissed "without real and serious causes".
Her former employer, the British accountancy firm Dixon Wilson, was ordered to pay 34-year-old Miss Sanderson 44,000 euros in compensation plus 500 euros in legal fees, and to reimburse the French benefits office the equivalent of six months of wages.
Meantime, The Register reports that Blogging is part of the job.
 | |
Her former employer, the British accountancy firm Dixon Wilson, was ordered to pay 34-year-old Miss Sanderson 44,000 euros in compensation plus 500 euros in legal fees, and to reimburse the French benefits office the equivalent of six months of wages.
Meantime, The Register reports that Blogging is part of the job.
Last week, Sony BMG UK issued a new corporate marketing strategy.
According to an official release from the group, Ged Doherty, chairman and chief executive of SonyBMG in UK and Ireland, said the company "has made it obligatory for all senior staff at both Columbia Records and RCA Records to start blogging actively".
So what happens to staff who refuse to toe the corporate line, or perhaps fail to produce the required quantity of blog blather?
The employment lawyers are going to get rich on this.
Internet Porosity
Roy Lipski coined the expression Internet Porosity for the CIPR/PRCA Internet Commission (published by the CIPR five years ago called 'The Death of Spin' a document now lost to practitioners and members alike now that online PR seems to be of interest to the PR industry). It describes the effect when people let slip information about their organisations to an online audience.
It can be accidental, innocent or malicious but it happens a lot.
There is more about this here and there is now some new research into into Internet porosity using blogs from James Richards .
Internet Porosity (listen to the podcast and see the definitions) is by no means new and the use of blogs is pretty old too. It is a factor in any and all online PR and so this paper is important for all practitioners.
For those that take online PR risk management seriously (and we all do - don't we - and here's how), this is an interesting paper.
It can be accidental, innocent or malicious but it happens a lot.
There is more about this here and there is now some new research into into Internet porosity using blogs from James Richards .
Internet Porosity (listen to the podcast and see the definitions) is by no means new and the use of blogs is pretty old too. It is a factor in any and all online PR and so this paper is important for all practitioners.
For those that take online PR risk management seriously (and we all do - don't we - and here's how), this is an interesting paper.
Round up of news snippets.
This is a busy week for online PR news
Google is now mobile.
Half of Internet users in the UK shop on-line.
Google is now mobile.
Half of Internet users in the UK shop on-line.
"You're looking at a 30-second ad, not a four-minute pod," said Mike Ripka of Millward Brown. "You'll sit around for 30 seconds, so you're highly engaged with the advertising." Audiences are less likely to get up during those 30 seconds than during TV ad pods.
Now you can use someone else's delivery system software to deliver goods if you are a local shop wanting to deliver locally.
At Bournemouth we teach online risk analysis as part of every campaign - good job too. Its really easy to have you TV commercials hi-jacked.
The ethics of the 'empty chair'
Like many people, I watched Jeremy Paxman on the BBC Newsnight programme Michael White of the Guardian and "Guido Fawkes" a political blogger.
The discussion talked of the relationship between Journalists, bloggers and politicians.
The debate told how some politician 'punish' some journalists by not allowing access, the 'empty chair' whereby access is denied to the fourth estate when the politician has had some sort of bust up with a newspaper, TV channel or journalist. The other side of this trade off is when journalists do not report or who selectively report about a politician in a way that harms the the politicians standing with the electorate and other constituencies.
This is, of course, an example of the all too cosy relationship between Public Relations and the Media.
Underlying this debate is a serious point.
Who is all this content really for? Would it be, just by mis-chance, electors or others who want to be informed about the events among politicians and government?
If not. It does not matter much, other than it is a huge and costly exercise affecting the public purse.
If it is, then there is a big issue and one would no longer doubt why people are turned off by political maneuvering to manipulate the information they need but a wrangle at their expense.
Lets take this further and into the realm of all Public Relations.
Lets suppose an organisation wants to get its message across to a constituency and relies on the media to act as the purveyor. Is this legitimate? Is it ethical?
There can only be legitimacy if this is the only method for communication. Today, of course, this is not so. There are endless channels for communication. The traditional Press, radio and TV are but three conduits among many (The press release is no more than a form of blog post that saves lazy journalists setting up effective RSS feeds).
If, on the other hand, the Press is being used to add legitimacy to a story, then it has to do the job. It should not be selective or deny access because it has had some sort of tiff. It cannot be childish about it. Today, the press release can find its way onto a web site; the background can be offered and debated using blogs, wikis or any other form of publishing and social media. On the other hand the Press can be critical, it can add that most precious of values, time and expertise. It has a resource and journalistic expertise to put the story into critical context. The same might be said of bloggers but without the authority of the publishing house. The closer the media gets to PR the less it is valued for its critical faculty and its authority.
At the same time, when a person (minister, politician, celebrity, company, brand) plays the empty chair routine and and does not provide access to a journalist, programme or newspaper, the media response has, once again, to be critical and explain to its audience that it is being denied access and transparently explain why it is not able to report or discuss issues in public.
The public, including the elector in the case of Fawkes, Paxman and White, can then make a judgement.
Pretending that the present state is 'News as Usual' demonstrates a lack of ethics by both parties. It undermines the authority of both and diminishes trust.
An ignored person, politician, celebrity, company or brand has YouTube and blogs available all the time. Its use is news on a number of fronts. An ignored journalist has the privileged position of showing how a lack of transparency is against 'the public interest'.
The status quo, in an age of social media corrupts both PR and journalism and both sides need to recognise it if only to re-build trust among their respective constituents.
This is not just a political issue, it is an issue for all practitioners. Why only use Press releases and private briefings when the whole world can see the story for what it is using social media.
It is time the publishing houses looked at what they can offer that blogs can't. Expert, timely, critical, reporting.
It is time for PR to act ethically and expose stories to their publics and not hide behind copy takers, the so called journalists of our time.
The discussion talked of the relationship between Journalists, bloggers and politicians.
The debate told how some politician 'punish' some journalists by not allowing access, the 'empty chair' whereby access is denied to the fourth estate when the politician has had some sort of bust up with a newspaper, TV channel or journalist. The other side of this trade off is when journalists do not report or who selectively report about a politician in a way that harms the the politicians standing with the electorate and other constituencies.
This is, of course, an example of the all too cosy relationship between Public Relations and the Media.
Underlying this debate is a serious point.
Who is all this content really for? Would it be, just by mis-chance, electors or others who want to be informed about the events among politicians and government?
If not. It does not matter much, other than it is a huge and costly exercise affecting the public purse.
If it is, then there is a big issue and one would no longer doubt why people are turned off by political maneuvering to manipulate the information they need but a wrangle at their expense.
Lets take this further and into the realm of all Public Relations.
Lets suppose an organisation wants to get its message across to a constituency and relies on the media to act as the purveyor. Is this legitimate? Is it ethical?
There can only be legitimacy if this is the only method for communication. Today, of course, this is not so. There are endless channels for communication. The traditional Press, radio and TV are but three conduits among many (The press release is no more than a form of blog post that saves lazy journalists setting up effective RSS feeds).
If, on the other hand, the Press is being used to add legitimacy to a story, then it has to do the job. It should not be selective or deny access because it has had some sort of tiff. It cannot be childish about it. Today, the press release can find its way onto a web site; the background can be offered and debated using blogs, wikis or any other form of publishing and social media. On the other hand the Press can be critical, it can add that most precious of values, time and expertise. It has a resource and journalistic expertise to put the story into critical context. The same might be said of bloggers but without the authority of the publishing house. The closer the media gets to PR the less it is valued for its critical faculty and its authority.
At the same time, when a person (minister, politician, celebrity, company, brand) plays the empty chair routine and and does not provide access to a journalist, programme or newspaper, the media response has, once again, to be critical and explain to its audience that it is being denied access and transparently explain why it is not able to report or discuss issues in public.
The public, including the elector in the case of Fawkes, Paxman and White, can then make a judgement.
Pretending that the present state is 'News as Usual' demonstrates a lack of ethics by both parties. It undermines the authority of both and diminishes trust.
An ignored person, politician, celebrity, company or brand has YouTube and blogs available all the time. Its use is news on a number of fronts. An ignored journalist has the privileged position of showing how a lack of transparency is against 'the public interest'.
The status quo, in an age of social media corrupts both PR and journalism and both sides need to recognise it if only to re-build trust among their respective constituents.
This is not just a political issue, it is an issue for all practitioners. Why only use Press releases and private briefings when the whole world can see the story for what it is using social media.
It is time the publishing houses looked at what they can offer that blogs can't. Expert, timely, critical, reporting.
It is time for PR to act ethically and expose stories to their publics and not hide behind copy takers, the so called journalists of our time.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Communities attract participants
In this new era of "conversational marketing", the measure for engagement in a community isn't the number of people logging on. Rather, it's how actively people participate in the community, according to research by Communispace.
The anaysis of participation behavior among 26,539 members of 66 private online communities, provides an initial look at member participation in communities.
The study evaluated communities along three participation metrics:
- Frequency - how often members contribute
- Volume - the number of contributions made by each member
- Bystander or "lurker" rate - what percentage of members are simply observing versus actively participating.
"Big public communities may attract more eyeballs, but they may not be the answer for practitioners who are looking for deep engagement with customers" says Julie Wittes-Schlack, Communispace vice president of innovation and research.
I can believe this. A social space refelecting a the social values of an organisation and its constituency will attract like minds and participants.
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