The Conversation - developing a digital strategy

Erins ePortfolio 

http://vassa02.wordpress.com/

This is part one of a story. It is the synthesis of a number of recent conversations in contributing to thinking of PR strategies.

Mary T who has worked in PR for a generation, the client, represents herself and a number of very talented people entering the realm of internet mediated public relations.

Background

Mary T suspects that very soon she will be asked to present a plan for her company to rapidly move towards being involved in the wider aspects of online public relations.

In our conversation she says she is certain she will be asked for her thoughts on social media, perhaps also the company web site and she is aware that there is more to online public relations than these very visible manifestations of the internet.

In the first discussion there are three people present: Mary, her media relations manager and an intern.

True to all forms of Public Relations Management, the team spends a considerable time defining objectives.

At present, the brief for this company (which  manufactures and licences some manufacturing and sells to wholesale, retail and direct to consumers) is, of necessity, vague. It is not uncommon for PR briefs to be a trifle vague. Most management policy making tends to emerge.

Digital impact

The initial discussion revolves round the the nature of the digital impact on business.

Digitisation of so many functions offers considerable benefits for the organisation. It empowers people, reduces cost and enhances capability to serve all stakeholders. At the same time it opens opportunity for risk which could damage reputation and,more importantly, relationships.

It comes as something of a surprise for Mary to discover that the company’s accounts were digitised before her intern was born and the first accounting computers were in operation before she was born. Her company has sophisticated order fulfilment which depends on computers that makes her a bit uneasy and so she is surprised to find out that management consultant’s Arther D Little developed the first computerized inventory control package for IBM in 1962. These are technologies that are pretty well bedded-in now.

Not only is a large part of company operations digitised it has been for a long time and there is huge experience and reliability in the systems.

Digital process and inventory is not new or or particularly frightening.

We could agree quickly that, strategically, digital risk should be added and included in PR issues and crisis management.

Outsourcing

From the network and intranet to the IT centre, there are things to worry about and none the less that IT need to cut cost - a lot. There is talk of closing the computer centre and contracting out computing ‘to the cloud’.

Of course this is a worry because so many activities are being ‘out-sourced’.

A moments thought brings this into perspective. Here am I, a consultant, an outsourced resource.

There are lots of of them each vested with very sensitive information. Lawyers, accountants, franchise manufactures using the company secret IP in production processes every day are some examples. The fact is that management processes for outsourcing already exists in the company.

They need to be brought up to date. Including an outsourced communication channel such as Facebook is a challenge. The Terms and Conditions of Service (T’s & C’s) become critical here. In some cases T’s & C’s may be too onerous or some risk has to be accepted to take advantage of the opportunities available.

What we discover is that the company already has outsourcing and contracting processes that can be used and adopted (some may need to be adapted) but within the existing management capability and management structures in the company.

This is of comfort in being able to present new forms of communication within the existing company and management framework (we laugh at the idea of delegating both implementation and budget sideways).

In terms of strategy, we have a solution which is to purposely and in a managed fashion using existing protocols use existing corporate expertise.

Internal communication

Love it or hate it, company email is the backbone for internal communication. It is fast and can get to everyone literally in an instant. Its capability is its downfall. A lot of internal email is irrelevant, personal, junk or spam and is simply ignored because it is regarded as internal spam.

There is a long history and much research to inform the practitioner.

There is a big HR/management discipline responsibility here (the corporate email policy is important and should be refreshed in the minds of employees at regular intervals) but there is also a huge PR element too.

When people find forms of communication are not helpful they find work-arounds.

• 79 per cent of people send work emails from their personal email accounts, with 1 in 5 saying they do this on a regular basis
• 71 per cent of people recognise there is an additional risk in sending work documents outside the corporate email environment, but 47 per cent think it is acceptable to send work emails and documents to personal email accounts
• 40 per cent of those asked say that if they had an unlimited mailbox at work, they would be less likely to send work emails to personal email accounts
• More than a third (36%) of incoming email to work inboxes is NOT work related
• Over 300 work-related emails are sent per person via personal accounts each year
• Generation Gmail is particularly predisposed to personal email; 52 per cent rated it as better than work email in terms of mailbox size, compared to just 29 per cent of over 55s

(source: Mimecast)

Today the ubiquitous mobile phone is  the easiest work round and modern phones give options of email, instant messaging, social networks and much more to as alternatives to company internal email.

This means there is a need to both review the company email policy at regular intervals and review the range of media that is in use. For some organisations the replacement of much email traffic with company social networks is a consideration.

In addition, because there are many instances of contractors, consultant and employees working externally, there has to be consideration of capabilities that extend beyond the physical limitations of the company, including hot desking and  home workers.

In some instanced this may mean that wifi is a better option than networks; laptops or slates are more cost effective than PC’s and, in some cases cloud solutions will be appropriate ( the Google example here Gmail – Google Apps http://bit.ly/nGGiDv includes secure instant messaging).

As the communication expert, we need to be aware of what is happening and what the alternatives may be.

Engaging  and empowering employees to not just monitor but to proactively contribute to both best practice and enhanced organisational effect through devolved responsibility is a major corporate strategy decision.

The decision has, to a large extent, been taken out of the hands of the one time dominant coalition. The mobile phone has seen to that!

This means that PR now has to take a hand with both the agreement and active support of the Board.

An open system where 1000 employees are engaged in enforcing commonly help best practice has been shown to be more powerful that one employee attempting to enforce 1000 views of best practice.

A recent high profile example was at Google.

Forbes reports:

Google engineer Steve Yegge accidentally published to the world a rant about his company’s new social network that was meant to be shared only with his Google colleagues. (Tricky sharing settings were actually not among his complaints about Plus.) Widely circulated, the devastating critique said Google Plus was “a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership.”

Luckily for Yegge, those highest levels of executive leadership are forgiving types. Company founder Sergey Brin told the AP this week that Yegge wasn’t fired because he had intended to only share the post with other employees.

“Amazingly, nothing bad happened to me at Google,” writes Yegge (publicly) on Google Plus, also saying the Plus team will be making some changes in reaction to some of his criticisms. “Everyone just laughed at me a lot, all the way up to the top, for having committed what must be the great-granddaddy of all Reply-All screwups in tech history.”

Yegge started the post with harsh words for his previous employer, Amazon. Yegge regrets that going public, too — as well he should. Hiring managers, understandably, frown on negative comments about a previous employer when they’re doing their social media research on a candidate.

Understanding of these issues among employees is very important.

Long ago, lecturing to 60 final year PR students in I explained that for all intents and purposed everything that goes online is there for ever and that Facebook owned all those compromising photos as well. I simply asked if they would like a future employer or their children to see the images. Within 24 hours a lot of photos vanished from Facebook entries.

Being more open and still retaining high levels of corporate security is possible and can be positively beneficial.

The advantage of having an intern present is that she offered a reality and, perhaps a naivete and reality check in her minutes of our discussions. If she had difficulty understanding our deliberations, it was reasonable that the Board would too.

Long before we had examined the external strategy needs of Mary T, we had developed some really important and grounded strategies that she could use as part of her presentation to the Board.



Next time I will reflect some of the conversations about external communication.






Sources:
Early Electronic Computers (1946-51)  http://www.computer50.org/mark1/contemporary.html Accessed October 2011
The first accounting computers http://www.historyofinformation.com/index.php?category=Accounting+%2F+Business+Machines accessed October 2011
Arthur D Little Timeline http://www.adl.com/fileadmin/timeline/timeline.html Accessed October 2011.
Mimecast report http://www.mimecast.com/News-and-views/White-papers-Reports-and-analysis/Dates/2011/3/Generation-Gmail-Report/ Accessed October 2011
Employee Internet Abuse: Risk Management Strategies and their Effectiveness. (2003)
Case, C. J. and Young, K. S.  http://www.netaddiction.com/articles/eia_strategies.pdf Accessed October 2011
Ranting Google Engineer, Still Employed, Rethinks His Amazon Bashing http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/21/ranting-google-employee-still-employed-rethinks-his-amazon-bashing/ accessed October 2011

Dear Chief Executive

http://bit.ly/q1JNTG 

The internet is contributing 7.9% to the UK economy this year, about £11 billion.


This is up 10% since last year. It is bigger as a contributor to GDP than health, construction and transport.


The ONS report 10% of all retail sales are now conducted online. In September this amounted to  £5.5bn.


Most managers recognise the economy is at best, flat-lining and yet last month while retail sales rose, unexpectedly (by 0.6%), it was dwarfed by Online retail sales which were up 15% Year on Year. 


This is not just for the middle market buying the week's groceries. Top of the line retailers are benefiting from the web too and they are not nearly as affected by a sluggish economy.


When excluding online travel sales, e-retail sales growth in September jumped 20%.  We could do with a similar boost.


Not to be too bullish, it is realistic to imagine annual growth online in the retail sector to slow somewhat but good double digit growth will continue.


This suggests there is an opportunity here for us.


The data is clear that traditional selling outlets, that is, non internet retail sales, are in decline and to make up the shortfall online marketing is essential to maintain turnover, and probably margins.


With 35 million people already shopping online, it is not a big stretch of the imagination to believe that online selling in B2C is reflected in B2B data as well.


Organisations like Autorola are projecting sales of 220,000 cars  this year and twice that in five years. Construction Enquirer is an online magazine with a readership that would make the traditional magazines proud and 57% of businesses are reporting increased internet budgets this month.


We know that seven in ten B2B buyers start their purchase process with a query typed into Google or another search engine. Thus, right at the beginning of the purchase cycle, the internet is pivotal. B2B marketers with a social media strategy has now doubled from 32% to 64% in three months.


To get some idea of the capabilities that are part of the digital infrastructure now, the BBC has done amazing things online for the Olympics that we can learn from. But most important is that they have taken as their mantra that they will deliver content on "on whatever piece of glass" they choose". 


The range of platforms is now extensive and PC's are only one platform among many for delivering digital content. 


Mobile is critical and has even domestic implications notable in being able to offer wifi throughout or premises. 


At the same time the internet is expanding to include physical objects fitted with sensors or intelligence.


We need to find systems to manage different platforms and technologies as we increasingly need to accommodate the many different devices chosen by employees and consumers.


On the delivery side, users are adopting a wider range of channels from Facebook to Google+, mobile phone apps to storing everything in the cloud. 


This applies as much to individuals as to organisations. For the most part the adoption of these advanced technologies is hardly noticeable. The technology is so good it is not even noticeable. 


We will have to come to terms with offering digital services internally among employees as well as for an extensive range of external stakeholders.


What these data tell us is that to be competitive more than £1 in £10 has to exclusively flow from online activity. 


Better than 7.9% of turnover has to be directly attributable to the internet.


We need to be able to adopt and enhance activity on many channels with many communications platforms, including social media, throughout the organisation.


Having done that, we will be ordinary and average. To be competitive, we need to do better. The need to understand the internet at the heart of our organisation is now pressing. 


This means that all businesses, and ours in particular, need good quality digital capability too.


We also need to employ and deploy a much greater level of strategic as well as tactical expertise.




Your sincerely,


Your PR manager








Sources:
Every statement here has excellent provenance


http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16092825
http://www.bcg.com/media/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-64183
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15383602
http://www.brc.org.uk/brc_news_detail.asp?id=2064
http://www.imrg.org/IMRGWebSite/user/pages/homepage.aspx
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2118831/luxury-retailer-saks-courts-percent?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clickz+%28ClickZ+-+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2011/07/countdown_continues_as_olympic_1.html
http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2011/10/20/psst-want-to-know-the-top-10-technologies-you-cant-afford-to-miss-next-year-39748109/?s_cid=991
http://www.am-online.com/news/2011/6/30/european-b2b-online-car-sales-set-for-rapid-growth/29230/
http://blog.pwcom.co.uk/2011/04/15/for-online-only-b2b-media-twitter-matters/
http://www.newsreach.co.uk/seo/b2b-search-success-requires-an-ongoing-commitment
http://www.circle-research.com/2011/business-ideas/b2b-marketing-sector-bounces-back-57-report-rising-budgets/
http://www.circle-research.com/b2b-barometer/

A real nuts and bolts post by Jean-Baptiste Queru - every student should read

Jean-Baptiste Queru  -  Oct 16, 2011 (edited)  -  Public

Dizzying but invisible depth

You just went to the Google home page.

You just connected your computer to www.google.com.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how networks work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play DNS, TCP, UDP, IP, Wifi, Ethernet, DOCSIS, OC, SONET, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let's simplify.

You just typed www.google.com in the location bar of your browser.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how operating systems work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play a kernel, a USB host stack, an input dispatcher, an event handler, a font hinter, a sub-pixel rasterizer, a windowing system, a graphics driver, and more, all of those written in high-level languages that get processed by compilers, linkers, optimizers, interpreters, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let's simplify.

You just pressed a key on your keyboard.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know about bit about how input peripherals work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play a power regulator, a debouncer, an input multiplexer, a USB device stack, a USB hub stack, all of that implemented in a single chip. That chip is built around thinly sliced wafers of highly purified single-crystal silicon ingot, doped with minute quantities of other atoms that are blasted into the crystal structure, interconnected with multiple layers of aluminum or copper, that are deposited according to patterns of high-energy ultraviolet light that are focused to a precision of a fraction of a micron, connected to the outside world via thin gold wires, all inside a packaging made of a dimensionally and thermally stable resin. The doping patterns and the interconnects implement transistors, which are grouped together to create logic gates. In some parts of the chip, logic gates are combined to create arithmetic and bitwise functions, which are combined to create an ALU. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bistable loops, which are lined up into rows, which are combined with selectors to create a register bank. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bus controllers and instruction decoders and microcode to create an execution scheduler. In another part of the chip, they're combined into address and data multiplexers and timing circuitry to create a memory controller. There's even more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Can we simplify further?

In fact, very scarily, no, we can't. We can barely comprehend the complexity of a single chip in a computer keyboard, and yet there's no simpler level. The next step takes us to the software that is used to design the chip's logic, and that software itself has a level of complexity that requires to go back to the top of the loop.

Today's computers are so complex that they can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. In turn the computers used for the design and manufacture are so complex that they themselves can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. You'd have to go through many such loops to get back to a level that could possibly be re-built from scratch.

Once you start to understand how our modern devices work and how they're created, it's impossible to not be dizzy about the depth of everything that's involved, and to not be in awe about the fact that they work at all, when Murphy's law says that they simply shouldn't possibly work.

For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all. That is the reason why many people can find computers so frustrating to use: there are so many things that can possibly go wrong that some of them inevitably will, but the complexity goes so deep that it's impossible for most users to be able to do anything about any error.

That is also why it's so hard for technologists and non-technologists to communicate together: technologists know too much about too many layers and non-technologists know too little about too few layers to be able to establish effective direct communication. The gap is so large that it's not even possible any more to have a single person be an intermediate between those two groups, and that's why e.g. we end up with those convoluted technical support call centers and their multiple tiers. Without such deep support structures, you end up with the frustrating situation that we see when end users have access to a bug database that is directly used by engineers: neither the end users nor the engineers get the information that they need to accomplish their goals.

That is why the mainstream press and the general population has talked so much about Steve Jobs' death and comparatively so little about Dennis Ritchie's: Steve's influence was at a layer that most people could see, while Dennis' was much deeper. On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things. On the other hand, I literally can't imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Ritchie did and the people he inspired. By the mid 80s, Ritchie's influence had taken over, and even back then very little remained of the pre-Ritchie world.

Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of the complexity of what they're regulating and running. That's the ultimate bikeshedding: just like the proverbial discussions in the town hall about a nuclear power plant end up being about the paint color for the plant's bike shed, the patent discussions about modern computing systems end up being about screen sizes and icon ordering, because in both cases those are the only aspect that the people involved in the discussion are capable of discussing, even though they are irrelevant to the actual function of the overall system being discussed.

Thank you Jean-Baptiste Queru

My five year prediction for the PR industry

—The next five years

—80% of PR revenues will be through digital interfaces.

—Relationship based practice (every ‘like’ is a relationship building block).

—PR industry will be a major economic driver in the (the internet economy)

—The range of digital interfaces will explode and interaction between things and people (with their associated apps) will become a new form of “Internet of Things” communication and engagement.

—Digitally evolving modes of communication such as body language, touch language,  direct brain interfaces based on electroencephalography (EEG) technology, etc.

—A new range of communication via smart phones apps (and other platforms) or services like  Pachube deliver Internet of Things capability and is opening up for PR to engage.

—Avatars and Internet of Things devices are going to be included in social segments/segmentation.

—Social Network societies with personal as well as new ‘tribal’ groups

—Media evolution planning as part of campaign/relationship planning (the media will have changed by the time the campaign kicks in)

—Semantic concepts (aka values) used for individual, personal and tribal group segmentation

—Corporate ontology’s as part of brand value, reputation and relationship management with semantic intelligence and competitive evaluation

—Radical Transparency

—Noticeable structural change in the nature of organisations.

—The value of the Internet

—GDP of Europe was EUR 11,791, 000 million in 2009. The euro area accounted for 76.0 % of this total, while the sum of the five largest EU economies (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain) was 71.6 % (Source: Eurostat)

—In 2010 the internet  economy represented 7.2 percent of UK. GDP (sources : Google/BCG).

—This GDP share is likely to grow by about 10 percent annually, reaching 10 percent of GDP by 2015

—By extrapolation, it is not unreasonable to assume the internet economy represents 7.2% of the European Economy or about EUR 848,963 million (800, billion)

—And it will be worth EUR 1,200,000 million in three years time.

—The United Kingdom exports £2.8 in e-commerce goods and services for every £1 imported – Digital exports to Europe could be very high

—Change of Internet and its use

—Internet use will be up by a factor of 3 in 5 years

—U.K. smartphone adoption growing 70 percent to more than 11 million subscribers this year.

—37 per cent of adults and 60 per cent of teens are ‘highly addicted’

—Almost half of Internet users connected to the Internet, using a mobile phone, while away from the home or office. 
There were 17.6 million mobile phone Internet users in 2011, representing 45 per cent of Internet users, compared to 8.5 million users (23 per cent) in 2009.

— UK internet population spent 3.4 billion hours online during August 2011

— 32.5million UK people are collectively watching over 5 billion online videos every month (17 hours per person per month).

—UK online retail will hit €40 billion by 2014 onlineshoppers will increase from 31 million to 40 million. Since the start of 2011 online retail has grown 18% (to October 2011)

—Online charitable giving has risen by 85% in the past three years 

—Britons spend 43m hours gaming every day, with consoles accounting for 21 per cent of that figure. Social networks claim 18 per cent and casual games 17 per cent.

—Using the Internet to sell goods or services, for example via auction sites such as eBay, saw large growth in 2011.

—International comparisons show some countries have an opportunity. The UK is one of the best situated

There is no doubt that this is a major opportunity for people active in the sector.

—What needs to be done

—Recognise the contribution of the internet (£100bn  250k employment in 2010)

—Doubling the broadband internet access speeds for an economy can increase its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 0.3%

—Development of internet based businesses

—Investment in research and teaching

—The PR industry’s need to do more digital work

— The value of the PR  industry in the UK is £7.5bn (Source: PRCA)

—If all PR was online PR, the PR industry would represent  7.5% of UK internet business

—However, 30 percent of communications professionals work at firms devoted to social media rather than traditional media. (source: Bizbox)

—The PR industry executed 2.25% of the UK internet business. That is a start which can now be developed.

—PR people contribute £122,000 per year to their industry (GDP).

—Internet employees contribute £ 400,000 per year to their industry (GDP).

—If the digital contribution from the  PR industry was 100% of its activity, at internet industry productivity rates, the PR industry would be worth £24.6 billion.

—Where is the PR industry focussing its future efforts

—According to the ICCO, demand for digital services rose internationally in 2010. As a percentage of overall fee income for public relations consultancies, these services remained relatively small (ranging from 5 to 20 percent) but showed an increase over 2009.

—A survey by Stevens Gould Pincus, suggests the use of social media for public relations and public affairs purposes jumped 15 percent from 2009 to 2010.

—30 percent of communications professionals work at firms devoted to social media rather than traditional media.

—At this rate,  the digital/social media element of the PR industry will represent £180 billion by 2016 all by itself (over 2.5 times the rest of PR industry earnings).

—The industry would increase employment  to 467,000 (to be competitive with the rest of the internet industries) in five years.

—How the PR industry will develop

—The development of internet mediated PR may be by the existing industry or by an emerging industry of specialists.

—It will be involved in a form of PR whether the industry likes it of not.

—The successful development will need to be competitive with other internet sectors (e.g. input £400k to the sector each person/year)

—The development will be on a wide front because the range of communications technologies, platforms and channels will be so diverse and will be integrated for optimum effect.—

—W3C is talking PR

—Already W3C is talking the PR language:

“The role of vocabularies (Ontologies) on the Semantic Web are to help data integration when, for example, ambiguities may exist on the terms used in the different data sets, or when a bit of extra knowledge may lead to the discovery of new relationships. “

An introduction to methodologies

—In planning PR activity, there will need to be elements that take account of:

◦The values systems and brand values of client and consumer

◦Different forms of segmentation from stakeholder theory to new ideas in the field

◦Channels that are evolving/changing or will be new at time of execution

◦New social frames/constructs

◦Development of protocols that will deliver an annual return on costs

◦The return per day (allowing for holidays and weekends)  has to be of the order of £2000 per day per employee

—This will require a significant element of  cost management, training and automation to deliver significant effect for optimal effort (and a 3.2 fold increase in productivity).◦

—Where the new productivity comes from ?

—Undergraduate education has to be much broader and must include an understanding of the technologies five years hence to leaven PR practice and give them a flying start

◦There are still schools teaching undergraduates how to write a ‘good press release’ but not the need for styles to deliver an effective blog post, Facebook messages or email.

—University research has to inform teachers and practitioners about the digital era

—The realms of research will extend into may other academic areas

◦there is every good scientific reason to believe that the internet is as much part of human evolution as speech.  We love it!

—Research will be needed to inform practice as well as academia and PR teachers.

—There is a deep need to be aware of the need for productivity throughout the industry.—

—