Murphy's Law

For all the talk about the death of media, mainstream media, traditional media, broadcast media, print media and online media, since the turn of the century, they’re still hanging on. Sure circulations are down, many traditional papers have closed down, slimmed down or moved online.  But thankfully we still have the media, we still have journalists.

Social media has been great giving people a platform to share their opinions, but it doesn’t negate the need for journalists. This isn’t a post about bloggers not being journalists by the way.

The world isn’t that simple anymore. 

Some bloggers are journalists, some are not. Regardless everyone has opinions and thanks to social media they can share those opinions.  On the whole, and in view of the alternative, that’s a good thing.

However, after twenty years in the Public Relations business, I remain more convinced than ever that journalists are an essential and valuable asset that we must support and protect. 

Their cause hasn’t been helped by the confusion surrounding business models in a world that has a cacophony of often free content. But the value of free content is often tied to the cost. 

If you catch my drift.

As I’ve often said before the great thing about opinions is that everyone has one, and the downside is the same.

We need journalism because we need someone to be looking at our world in an objective manner. Yes I know there are sometimes issues, as I already mentioned, I’ve worked in PR for over twenty years.  I know the issues.

However, in a world of vested interest, give me traditional journalism any day.

I read a lot of blogs.  I read them with a filter.  We know that people (present author included) write blogs for a reason, and it’s not often to do with the finding the truth. People want to showcase their knowledge, share insight, push an agenda, sell their wares. There’s nothing wrong with any of these motivations, but let’s not pretend that it’s a replacement for journalism, it’s an adjunct – at best.

The bottom line is that society needs journalism regardless of your views or leanings.  The medium may indeed be the message, but it doesn’t matter if  journalism is in print, video, audio or online.  What matters is that we have people involved in looking at our world with an objective lens.

Blogs are a tool, they aren’t a replacement for the practice of journalism.

We should all try and remember that.

As the old song goes, all god’s creatures have a place in the choir.

I blame my grandmother. She loved providing real-time feedback on my grammar and her favorite was the difference between ‘off’ and ‘from’.

If I innocently reported to her that I had received something off someone, she would immediately respond that “you get fleas off people, but you get things from them”.

Indeed.

While I am a huge fan of Eats, Shoots & Leaves (and have a well thumbed copy on my bookshelf), I am also sympathetic to Stephen Fry’s tirade on language purists.

However, there is a happy medium.

Today well written, simple, plain English is the exception. Too often we descend to the lowest common denominator where we all proactively leverage robust, strategic solutions to global world-leading paradigm shifts.

Worse, in a deluge of meetings and conference calls we are routinely subjected to a verbal assault of meaningless phrases and buzzwords. This unscientific blog survey captured a few of the more common ones, although some of my personal favorites like ‘grok’ and ‘running it up the flagpole’ didn’t make the list.

Dan Pallotta put this very well in a post he published on the Harvard Business Review in December:

I’d say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn’t understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it’s to people’s benefit that I understand them but I don’t, then they’re the ones who are stupid.

So, what is the point of this post?

I want to promote a balanced approach to language.  Let’s encourage each other to speak and write in plain, simple English and avoid the buzz word madness.

In that spirit here are two bonus links:

• 7 grammatical errors you can ignore
• Replace Meaningless Words with Meaningful Ones

So I’ve been trawling through my PR RSS feeds and I’m including some interesting posts below, but before I get to that indulge me for a moment… 

Mini rant: What was interesting in reviewing these posts is the fact that the ‘PR 2.0’ moniker continues to live.  What is PR 2.0?  Should my business card say that I’m a PR 1.0 practitioner, or a PR 1.7.5 practitioner or maybe I can get ahead and say I’m a PR 3.1 practitioner? Here’s a secret truth. There’s no PR 2.0.  There’s just PR.  PR practice is either good (using the right tools and channels to reach, inform and engage the right audience in the right place at the right time) or bad (not using the right tools and channels etc. etc.).  There’s no 2.0.  Stop trying to make yourself sound more interesting.

	The award for the most obvious statement(s) of the week goes to John Bell at Ogilvy in this PR Week story.  I was going to include a quote, but there’s too many. Far too many. Lord.
	Andrew Bruce Smith has an interesting post on whether PR really is about reputation management.
	Aven Hames has a report on Paul Holmes’ predictions for PR in 2012 – there are some hardy annuals in there (e.g. PR in the executive suite).
	Paul Seaman shares some interesting thoughts on the Edelman Trust Barometer. You can find more news and views on the Trust Barometer here.
	Heather Yaxley has kicked off and interesting discussion “Are you too smart to work in PR”. David Reich also chimes in. I’m not
	Finally a nice post by Ariel Kouvaras on three things to keep in mind as the tools and channels of PR change and evolve. Be curious Be a thinker Be willing to change

 

Enough said.

Darika Ahrens at Forrester has blogged that that changing nature of ‘interactive marketing’ has the potential to make PR agencies largely irrelevant:

Why is PR at risk of losing their seat at the interactive table?

• Traditional media decreasing in relevancy
• Frontline ‘public relations’ online moving in-house
• PR agencies tend to lack specialised service
• Interactive marketing spend is dominated by Search and Paid advertising

She believes that the answer to the ‘problem’ facing PR agencies, among other things, is to build their search engine capabilities.

I haven’t seen the reaction to this yet though I’m sure there’ll be much breathless discussion of the topic across Twitter.

I have two core thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, ‘traditional PR’ is not dying as quickly as (it’s ever) been forecasted.  The reality is that traditional media still drives the majority of news cycles and much of the emerging online news is driven by key, identifiable influencers.  As a result the core PR business will survive for the time being.

Secondly, do PR agencies need to review the services they are offering and the skills of their people? Well that question isn’t reserved just for PR agencies.  Every PR and marketing professional needs to review their skills and capabilities in view of the new ways people are finding, sharing and creating information online. PR agencies are no different, they need to match the need for traditional services with services that address changing models of influence.  That’s their business.

The model for online marketing is evolving and changing in step with consumer consumption habits.  The idea that ‘interactive agencies’ will simply replace PR firms is at best a long shot and at worst a fallacy.

We live in interesting times.  One of the most enjoyable elements of a career in Public Relations is the constant need to change and adapt. The past ten years has shown me that change never takes place as quickly as people expect, but that change does happen. It’s not just PR firms that need to be actively looking at how the models of influence are changing, it’s every marketers’ challenge.

Update:

Today’s a busy day for the PR agency love meme. Haydn Shaughnessy over at Forbes has an interesting post on what PR companies are doing wrong.

Shakespeare wrote that when words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain. It’s not a problem we typically encounter these days. In fact verbal flatulence is everywhere.

Back in olden times (early and mid 1990s) one of the favorite journalist tricks was the pregnant pause. Sit and look at your interviewee. Peer over your spectacles. Say nothing. Watch them squirm at the uncomfortable silence, until hopefully they break and in a vain attempt at appearing interesting and relevant they fill the silence with some nice juicy morsel of previously unreleased information. Having seen this trick work at first hand, I now think its time may have passed. Today the likelihood of a pregnant pause is unlikely.

Silence may indeed be a virtue, but it’s a seldom used virtue. Instead we try our very best to inject noise and volume into everything.

I speak in general terms here, no specifics, just an observation.

It appears the marketing response to the increasing noise of our always-on world is, ironically, more noise.

Shout louder.

Shout more often.

That’s not to say frequency isn’t important. It is. But the big question is the frequency of what. Not to over indulge my Shakespearian theme, but 400 years ago he wrote:

Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

That could be a motto for communications today.

Too often we just decide we need a blog post, with little thought about what we’re trying to achieve, what we’re trying to communicate and how we’ll make the information relevant, interesting, or memorable.

Too often we just write, proof, hit publish and move on.

It’s not just a social media phenomenon. Going back to olden times there were many proponents of getting a press release out regardless of whether there was any actual news. I imagine they’re still asking for press releases and now their poor downtrodden communicators will try and palm them off with a blog post or a tweet. Something that will be dispatched into the cloud -  more in hope than expectation – never to be seen, read or thought of again.

So, the alternative is to take a strategic approach to communications. Get an understanding of your audience, where they are, what they’re reading and sharing and invest the time and energy into creating something memorable. Not once a year for a special occasion or the one time you have some real news, but as part of your daily routine.

So next time you’re asked to ‘create’ a blog post about something no one cares about, remember:

This above all; to thine own self be true.

I’ve been reading a variety of stories (links below) recently about Marketing, PR and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the one thing that became very apparent is that there’s a lot of disagreement and perhaps no little confusion about the intersection of Marketing/PR and CSR. In fact I found myself agreeing and disagreeing in equal measure with many of the opinions voiced in these stories.

This post isn’t an attempt to provide a complete view of these issues but I hope it outlines a number of things to consider when you’re thinking about CSR and how it fits with Marketing and PR.

CSR is a strategic business commitment

First off, let’s be really clear. CSR is not a marketing program or a campaign. CSR is a strategic commitment a company makes in recognizing its role and responsibilities as a legal entity. You could think of this commitment in two major buckets – and this taxonomy is influenced by my employer’s view of CSR but no less relevant because of that.

1) Working responsibly – a commitment by an organization to operate within the legal and social regulations as an integrated part of doing business. This encompasses adhering to legal requirements, being a great employer, enforcing strong corporate governance, and taking responsibility for working towards creating a sustainable enterprise.

2) Serving communities – a recognition that companies are made of up real people who live in local communities and that corporations can bring their resources to bear for positive social impact. This includes but is not limited to philanthropy and employee giving.

A CSR commitment requires resources, commitment and transparency. It must permeate the business and it must be both encouraged and enforced. It’s a long term commitment. Don’t make the mistake of dressing up a cause marketing campaign (see below) as “CSR”. It’s a sure fire way to damage your brand, your business and your goodwill.

PR is not CSR and vice versa

I am frankly alarmed when I see people increasingly equating PR and CSR as one. This is a fallacy. PR is about how a company reaches, communicates and informs its audiences from staff, to media, to customers, partners, stockholders and communities. That’s not to say that PR people can’t bring value to CSR. They can. The PR function has an inherent understanding of the perception challenges facing an organization, they can advise and support. When appropriate PR can help organizations communicate to their stakeholders about CSR. But the two aren’t the same. If CSR is done solely for the purpose of PR, it’s not CSR.

Cause marketing is not CSR

Cause marketing is a form of marketing where for profit and nonprofit organizations come together for mutual benefit. For example a company provides a donation to a nonprofit for each order made by a customer. The key thing to remember here is that it’s a type of marketing. It’s not CSR. It can be part of a CSR program, but not the whole.

Philanthropy is not CSR

Presenting a large cardboard check (or cheque) to a local nonprofit is not CSR. It’s philanthropy. As per my outline above, when it’s done effectively it’s part of CSR, but that doesn’t make it CSR. The most effective philanthropy is strategic. It ties back to the organization’s core business strategy. It is focused on creating positive, real, sustained change over time. It’s not a quick, one off check to the local animal refuge.

Organizations should promote their CSR commitment

Many organizations remain reticent about promoting their CSR efforts. Many worry about the potential negative backlash. I don’t agree. Increasingly customers and stakeholders will demand more information about how organizations are being responsible, not less. As long as CSR is a strategic, real, long-term commitment, then organizations shouldn’t be concerned about appropriate communication of that work. If you’re interested in a great introduction to this subject, I’d recommend Kellie McElhaney’s book Just Good Business.

Read on…

• The-Global-Social-Media-and-CSR-Report-2011 [Scribd]
• Should Companies Market their CSR? [Network for Good]
• CSR: more than meets the eye [Platform Online magazine]
• Debating the future of CSR [Paul Seaman]
• PR and CSR: symbiotic, inseparable and synonymous [Holmes Report]
• Let’s call a sale, a sale [Ethical Corporation]
• Marketing your company’s commitment to shared value [Shared Purpose]

It’s interesting to watch the response to Reed Hastings’ announcement that Netflix is splitting its DVD unit to a new business called Qwikster.

As we know, on the internet everyone is an expert and no one is shy on casting judgment on anything within minutes of it being announced.  Of course this is nothing new and the pundits rarely if ever go back to their archives to point out that they got it wrong.

From a communicator’s view there’s a couple of lessons here. 

While everyone has an opinion you must balance public opinion with loud opinion.  Nothing happens as quickly as everyone forecasts and taking a strategic view of any situation remains key, regardless of the noise out there.

What is your organization’s strategic imperative?  Sometimes you just have to push through.  Getting the balance right between acknowledging customers’ views and concerns and doing the right thing for your business is challenging. But that’s why you’re paid the big bucks.

From a communications perspective (and as a customer) I think Netflix has done the right thing.  They didn’t do a good job communicating the pricing change.  They’ve admitted the issue and have announced a strategic direction change for the company – pushing out its DVD business. I’m not an expert but it seems to make sense to me. (Adam Richardson has an interesting post on the move over on the Harvard Business Review).

Will the change be successful?  I don’t know, but let’s see how well the new division(s) perform. That’s the real barometer of success, not someone’s opinion.

As you might know, I’m not shy about sharing my often strong views on the shortcomings of many of the self styled social media gurus.

Recently, due to work and family commitments -  sometimes referred to as the real world -  my consumption and participation in social media has been extremely limited.  The upshot was that I spent time away from the gurus, and you know what? It was fantastic.

Twitter in particular has matured into a brilliant and smart, yet simple channel for finding and sharing information and connecting with people.  I haven’t seen Twitter’s recent usage numbers but I have been impressed with how many people have now jumped in.

So I learned my lesson.  Stay away from the hype and spend more time with real people, who are far more interesting, less annoying and often talk a lot more sense. Thankfully there are load of these individuals in every walk of life discussing whatever you’re interested in. 

Social media has become enjoyable once again.

Similarly I have changed my podcasting habits.  In addition to the traditional (Irish, British and American) radio shows I’ve always listened to, I’ve weaned myself off the usual breathless, hyperbole-filled inner circle stuff and now I’m just investing time in the real-world.

One social media related podcast I do like is Marketing over Coffee which is hosted by John J. Wall and Christopher Penn. It covers social media but from a different perspective. Instead of endless navel gazing they discuss how traditional marketing and social media can be used to engage with people, drive leads, create business opportunities etc.

In other words they talk about how social media can work in the real world.  The casual discussion format is great and a nice departure from the usual social media podcast.  Give it a listen.

So, here’s a question for you.

What other real world PR and marketing podcasts, blogs, and twitter handles am I missing?

Let me know.

@tpemurphy

I limit the number of books I review as I always have a long queue of books to read and I find that agreeing to review a book changes my relationship with it from being a joy of exploration to yet another task to be completed – a task that’s now four months overdue J.

However, when Katarina Hicks from Fortier Public Relations got in touch about the latest Howard Schultz book – Onward – I made an exception. .

Mr. Schultz and Starbucks have fascinated me for some time.

It’s a little known fact that I made my first visit to the shores of the continental United States in 1994, spending two fantastic weeks travelling between Boston, New York, Baltimore and Washington D.C. It was the first time I came across a Starbucks store and I was hooked immediately. It was cool, yet functional, stylish yet welcoming, and they also sold good coffee.

I was so impressed that when I returned to Ireland I made the Starbucks Coffee Company the offer of a lifetime. I wrote to them and gave them the opportunity to leverage the skills and experience of a twenty something – with no experience of retail, no knowledge of running a business, but someone who appreciated a good cup of coffee – by giving me the exclusive Starbucks franchise in Ireland. Amazingly they turned down this very kind offer but they did take the time to respond and I recently discovered that their first overseas store wasn’t opened until 1996 in Japan and of course it wasn’t a franchise.

Despite Starbuck’s foolish and potentially catastrophic failure to let me bring their coffee to Ireland I have long admired the company. For me they are a company that has that rare combination of a strong focus on innovation – across products and services – and a real commitment to corporate social responsibility – just think of the health, pension and stock benefits they pioneered for part-time staff. And yes I know they’re not perfect, but then who is?

So that’s a very long preamble about why I accepted the offer to review the book, and as expected I saw a number of self-imposed deadlines passing by.

So finally…

Onward provides a brief potted history of Starbucks but primarily focuses on the company’s stumble in 2008 and Howard Schultz’s decision to return to the company as CEO eight or so years after he became chairman. The real focus of the book is on the company’s ‘transformation’ from the lows of 2008 to its recovery.

It has all the elements of a great story. Man transforms a small Seattle coffee company into a global retail powerhouse. He steps upstairs as chairman and the company continues to grow and expand until suddenly, eight years later, it hits a wall. Man returns to salvage his life’s work.

It’s the perfect set up.

I have to admit it took me a lot longer to get into this book than I expected. However, in the end my perseverance was worth it. The second half of the book moves along at a faster pace and provides a more interesting insight into both the company, including decisions that were taken to address the company’s stalled growth and profitability, and a personal view of the events from the returned CEO.

Of course one’s fine-tuned PR senses tell you that a book co-written by the current CEO of a global brand and listed public company carries a health warning. You’re not getting the unvarnished inside track, but that doesn’t mean the book isn’t interesting and a worthwhile read, in fact I think it is.

Schultz deserves great credit for sharing his more vulnerable moments and underlining the importance for everyone to keep growing and learning, to ask others for help and listen to advice. That’s a great message; I think we all sometimes forget that we don’t have all the answers.

While the book is co-authored by Joanne Gordon, Mr. Shultz’s voice is loud and clear and he comes across as authentic, not shying away from self-criticism, accepting blame and acknowledging where he and the company have failed.

Schultz takes you on the voyage of recovery, from difficult decision to slash costs through closing stores and redundancies, to increasing productivity, believing in the potential of innovation to drive revenue and ultimately how the company regained profitability and growth.

Aside from the day-to-day struggles of correcting the company’s course, as you’d expect with Starbucks corporate social responsibility is front and center. To quote Schultz:

“Starbuck’s mission from the beginning was to build a different kinds of company, one that would achieve a healthy balance between profit and social conscience.”

He provides some interesting insights into the work of the Starbucks Foundation and like every executive at every major corporation that has long standing CSR commitments, he struggles with how to educate and inform people about the breadth of activities the company supports.

He talks in detail about the rise of social media and its growing importance to Starbucks, from the leaking of his internal memo (see below), to the rise of Starbucks related blogs and latterly how Starbucks is using social media to drive loyalty and revenue.

“More than just a marketing tool, our digital presence further engages our customers, which is an essential element in our growth model moving forward.”

 

There are a few weaknesses in the book.

Reading it there were a number of times, for me anyway, you really have to suspend disbelief. For example Mr. Schultz’s surprise that a company memo he wrote in 2007 detailing the company’s shortcomings and the challenges they faced was leaked externally. Now you may have to accept his word on this, but I struggle to understand how anyone could be surprised that a critical memo from the President of a high profile global brand wouldn’t make it outside the company. The leaking of such communications has been rife since the late 1990s and it’s now expected that sensitive internal
communications will reach audiences outside the organization. If I were a more cynical person I might suggest that the memo was purposely leaked to raise awareness of, and pressure around, the issues facing the management team. But of course I’m not cynical at all.

There are other areas which are glossed over, such as the transition of the incumbent CEO, and while you can understand why, it’s still a little dissatisfying.

Lastly the transition from troubled global enterprise to successful recovery at the end of the book happens a little too quickly, and while you can piece together the various elements that heralded the transition, it seems a little abrupt or maybe even accidental to me. It’s a little jarring.

These are pretty minor criticisms. I recommend this book for anyone interested in getting an inside view on the turnaround of a global brand and the very personal story of how a founding father returns to fix what’s gone wrong and drive large scale organizational change.

Howard Schultz and Starbucks are both intriguing subjects and the journey continues onward.

Disclosure: Fortier Public Relations provided me with a review copy of Onward on behalf of the publishers Rodale.

Although I have always rarely talked about my employer on this blog, I’m always willing to make an exception for a good cause.

Today Microsoft (disclosure for anyone other than my mother who reads this blog: my employer) has expanded the company’s software donations program to give more nonprofits access to technology that can help them do more.

While Microsoft currently donates software to about 40,000 nonprofits a year – that’s only a start – the challenge is making millions of other nonprofits aware that the program exists.

So.

Here’s your good deed for today.

Share this news with your favorite nonprofit and pass it along with a colleague or friend so they can tell their favorite nonprofit.

(You could even Tweet it: RT @msftcitizenship: Microsoft Broadens software donation program to reach more #nonprofits http://bit.ly/q6DJnA #mycause)

Now. Not only have you done your good deed for today, but as a bonus you can enjoy this video on why and how Microsoft donates software to nonprofits!