PR from the Beach

Returning to the Beach...

I have to confess I have sadly neglected this blog over recent weeks, simply because there has been a lot to do offline and, I have to confess, I do spend more time on Twitter than I should when I get round to blogging. Probably not the best approach, as there is a lot more to be said than can often be contained in 140 characters, but I have an early New Year's Resolution to be more regular in terms of updates on here.  

One thing you might like to have a look at is the Global Alliance survey on advocacy and the future of the profession, which you can find here and which I would urge you to complete if you are involved in public relations and communication management.  The survey is only open for a few more days - so take a look and help shape the future of the profession. For the sake of transparency, I am currently secretary of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, so I am hoping that as many practitioners and academics as possible will take part.  The survey results will inform part of the agenda for the next World Public Relations Forum in Melbourne, Australia, which will take place this time next year.

Air New Zealand talk social media on social media

Couple of good clips from Air New Zealand this week. Firs one below takes a quick  look at their use of social media. The second is Rob Fyfe talking about how the stories, the channels and the way they intersect change approaches and engagement.  It's long, but worth sticking with.

 

Making it personal: The Air New Zealand Brand - wierd wacky or inspired? by Rob Fyfe from Creative New Zealand on Vimeo.

A Tweetview of #PRINZ11 - PR: Art or Science

Cri-du-coeur for real communication as Cloud outage crashes confidence

Last week - and this weekend - saw major outages at Amazon and Sony. Gamers hoping to get down to some serious wins over Easter were struck by the fail - highlighted here on the Playstation blog, while Amazon's super fail affected sites far and wide, most notably, Quora, Hootsuite and Reddit.

Amazon's latest health reports show that things have improved since the problem occurred and, realisitically, this kind of thing is bound to happen as increasing numbers take to the Cloud as a means to manage server demand. Mistakes happen, sites get attacked, someone unplugs the wrong connection. What counts is the ability to keep customers, users and other stakeholders informed, up-to-date and confident that you can fix the problem as quickly as possible.

If your web presence is your main communication channel and you are rendered invisible by someone else's crash, what can you do?  Hidden among the acres of copy written in the last few days, probably the most useful is over at ZDNet, where Phil Wainewright has some salutary lessons for the user.

But what of the providers themselves?  What lessons should they learn? The greatest cri-du-coeur has been that Amazon failed to communicate clearly and effectively with its customers during the crisis. Personally, I'm not surprised.  Without exception, today's web giants are, I believe, appallingly bad at communicating with their users. For many years they were able to shield themselves behind remote access walls, responding only to emails (eventually), with very little human contact (if at all) and, in latter years, using minimal statements on blogs and webwalls to update users in a crisis. But believe me boys, (as mostly boys you are)  a blog post does not mean you have 'communicated', created trust, understanding or cemented the necessary forgiveness to maintain your licence to operate.

Anyone who has ever tried to communicate directly with Facebook, Google, Amazon or other large web corporates will know exactly the level of frustration I am talking about. In a world where instant two-way communication is the lifeblood of a system that champions trust, engagement, transparency and the user as the vital ingredients of the service mix, our web giants are lacking in their ability to generate and maintain the kind of real relationships they tout so readily on the global stage but which they spectacularly fail to deliver at a user level. 

Their technology may be great but the business model - as far as their public relations and communications is concerned - is more akin to the impenetrable walls of corporate non-communication circa 1950. And we all know how that turned out.

Some day soon, the big guys are going to have to wake up to the fact that they can no longer hide behind nerdy geekdom when it comes to good communications practice. If they don't, then some day soon, they'll suddenly find their licence to operate withdrawn by the users, customers and stakeholders they fail.

Fabulous - if fixable - code is not enough. You have to talk, respond and act and engage - just like the rest of us.

Earthquake changes communications landscape

If there is an organisation left in New Zealand that has, post-February 22 - failed to appreciate the power and potential of online and social media then seriously - we need to talk.

The ferocity and scale of the second Christchurch earthquake meant that organisations were forced to leave 'old' communications processes behind and venture in to uncharted waters as the urgent need to communicate outweighed entrenched opinions of how 'communication' should be undertaken. 

I take my hat off to all those involved in the post-quake communication, many of whom were having to deal with both the professional and personal aftermath of the quake. 

For some, that meant learning to use 140 characters or less while under great stress, for others, it was simply about saying 'I don't know - but I'm finding out'. 

I would particularly salute Christchurch City Council's communications team and the many volunteer techies who built valuable and vital web platforms - sometimes in hours - so that people could access information that helped them towards the basic necessities of life.

Lots of people will, in the months to come, pontificate on what was good and what was bad, the lessons to be learned and so on.  As for me, I think that unless you have lived through such an experience, you can't legislate one way or another. Those involved have done the best possible job in extreme circumstances with what was to hand. 

Post-quake communications will continue to be vital for the Canterbury region for many years ahead, long after the world at large has switched its gaze elsewhere.  Christchurch communicators - and all of us involved  in this line of work - are in this for the long haul. So Kia kaha. And well done.

Google Wave Wipes Out

The news from Google this week that the Wave has crashed and burned was a bit of a shame.  I had high hopes for this development, but sadly, the platform was just too hard for people to get the hang of.

One of the reasons that the social web - particularly social networking and blogging - has done so well and grown so dramatically in the last five years is because it is easy to do. You don't require a high degree of technical skill, you can point and press and it takes moments to share stuff with others.

Despite the anticipation, the huge build up, the long wait for a Wave invite, once faced with their Waves, most people tended to look at it blankly, realise they had no idea where to start and quietly put it back in the box - a bit like an IKEA cabinet where you can see the screws are there but they are taped so tightly to the packaging you never get round to putting it together.

There were some excellent bits to Wave and I suspect that they will be used elsewhere - the rumoured 'Google Me' might pick up a few or perhaps they will build in some additions to the rather lame Buzz.

I am a big fan of Google's development processes and think they are to be applauded for continually exploring what else we can do (even though I have serious and long-term misgivings about the potential for misuse of power and information that exists around an organisation so large having so much information in its control).  What these clever folk need to always keep in mind is that for the web to work it has to be easy. Geek it up for mass use and you are on a hiding to nothing.

Given we are talking Waves here, Google - and others - need to remember that many on the web are paddlepusses, delighted to play in the shallows but not yet ready, willing or able to take on the big surf.

So perhaps the big lesson for Wave is make sure the box contains clear and simple instructions next time around. The failure was perhaps not so much the product itself, but the communication that surrounded it. Building the anticipation is fine to a degree, but if the why, how and what for is not clearly communicated then expectations are dashed and reputation suffers. Which, if I recall correctly, sits somewhere in Lesson 101 Communications Management...

Measuring up for a month

Been head down for the last few weeks designing and developing a PR Measurement and Evaluation training session for online access - which means that those who can't get to training sessions in the main centres can head online and spend a couple of hours developing a neat evaluation system for your organisation.

Few more days till it is live, but one of the questions that came up during the pre-test was how do practitioners create a measurement and evaluation system for little or no cost.  The simple answer is that unless you want to go out and buy in services, the main 'cost' to developing a system that works is your time and, quite frankly, developing and running robust evaluation and measurement procedures are as much part of our job as any other activity we might take part in.

It really is the old journey analogy - know where you are going, understand what you want to do when you get there, create signposts that allow you to stay on track and be prepared to adjust your journey if the signs indicate that another route will be better.

The Barcelona Principles were agreed in June and, while they are a good starting point and it is nice to have an agreement, there is still a lot of emphasis on the signposts rather than the destination.

So, now that's done, I can resume normal service - just need to redetermine what normal consists of these days!

 

 

Mind the GAP - Proof Positive of the need to measure public relations?

Findings from the latest GAP study have been doing the rounds over the last day or so, with commentary primarily centred on the use of social media. More interesting for me was the data they had pulled together on how communications professionals were dealing with measurement and evaluation. 

With 382 communication decision makers participating in this latest University of Southern California project, it was interesting to see that those who offered up their activities for scrutiny spent an average of just four to five percent of their total budget on formal evaluation. This makes for an interesting 'PS' to my last post, particularly as the study suggested that corporate participants felt that higher spend on measurement and evaluation meant higher standing with the CEO. 

As the GAP survey summary put it "In other words, the greater the investment in evaluation (as a percentage of the total PR/Communication budget), the greater the likelihood the CEO believes PR/Communication makes a bottom-line contribution."

I don't consider this to be a surprising finding. In fact, it teeters into the realm of Monty Python's 'bleeding obvious'. However, because there are seemingly still so few practitioners operating robust evaluation programmes, perhaps it will take more research findings like this to convince them to get on and do what they should have been doing all along.

I did find myself weeping into my afternoon tea when I read the 'top five metrics' revealed by the research as, still there at 'No.5',  was 'Total Number of Clips'.  Now who in their right mind would take that seriously as a measure of organisational performance, reputational health or relationship strength? 

Obviously, there is a huge business opportunity here for evaluation-savvy professionals to corner the market with great ethical practice, reported well and demonstrating the value of the work undertaken. As professionals, we know that the work we do has value, improves the organisation and its relationships and creates positive change.  So why are professionals so shy about demonstrating this through good research and reporting practices?  The old excuses of cost, fear and uncertainty as to what to do have no place in today's operating environment. 

GAP stands for Generally Accepted Practice and the research is published every two years. The final report from the 2009 study, which outlines best practice, will be released soon. From the reports so far, I fear that we are a long way from best practice in measurement and evaluation, even though it is entirely possible, affordable and achievable.

Measuring Public Relations

Last week saw the 2010 PRINZ Conference, Taming the Tiger, and delegates were lucky enough to have Jim Macnamara on hand to talk through his thinking on measurement and evaluation. It was great to see so many people taking diligent notes throughout his presentation and I hope that it encourages more people to make sure they have a robust and effective evaluation process in place for their programmes. His presentation concentrated primarily on media evaluation and measurement which is really only part of the work we undertake in public relations.  The main purpose of our work is to build and sustain relationships between organisations and communities, and media relations, especially old-school, mainstream media relations, is only one small part of that purpose.

I do find it truly bizarre that the nonsense that is AVE persists as well as the measurement of website 'hits' - I can't wait for the day when both disappear into the ether. Jim Macnamara spent a lot of time debunking both, although some of the research he quoted I personally believe only serves to support the myth that either of those two activities are remotely useful.

While tweeting about Jim's presentation I was sent a message asking what to use instead of AVE and so there are a few simple responses to this below - it is what I've been doing for more years than I care to measure and although simple, it is an approach that provides accurate reporting on the success of programmes.  

• Set your outcomes and measure to those. If you are looking for an improved relationship, then benchmark your existing relationship with research before commencing your programme, monitoring how each phase of activity moves you nearer - or further away - from your desired outcome. 
• Set precise objectives for each phase of your programme and evaluate whether or not they have been achieved. 
• Make sure that each objective contributes to the over-arching outcomes you are working towards.
• Use qualitative and quantitative analysis in your reporting.  There are many tools and techniques out there that will produce the data you need to track your programme and its effectiveness.
• If you are working online, again - know what you want to achieve and why. Don't just throw Facebook pages at it and hope that will do the trick.
• Understand and identify the communities with whom you hope to build and sustain relationships
• Understand and identify where, when and how they get their information. Don't expect them to come to you - you need to go to them.
• Keep your focus. Don't get too distracted with peripheral activities or groups that do not form part of your objectives and outcomes.  Be watchful, mindful and concerned, but stay on track.
• Remember that research, planning and evaluation are a continuous process and need to be looked at holistically, rather than as siloed activities. Each stage informs the next.

Measurement and evaluation is not hard. It is an essential part of what we do and any practitioner worth their salt should make sure that they build a system that allows them to track and report with ease. If you are unsure what to do and are in New Zealand, then come along to one of the PRINZ sessions (that have been running for years now) that will help you create a system that works for your organisation and if you want some help with where to start measuring online activity, here's a paper I put together a while ago that might be a useful starting point. Download Measuring_the_social_web 

The bitter taste of chocolate coated influence

This is not a whine brought on by lack of chocolate. But it is a worry about the way 'influence' is being trumpeted and overly paraded in the social media sphere to the extent I am once again reminded of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Earlier this week, in a bad mood caused by other matters, I grumbled when I read a tweet from the local branch of a global confectioner on Twitter to a blogger who had benefited from some free chocolate, apparently sent following her commentary on the palm oil debacle and the company's subsequent 'recovery' in social media channels. I was delighted for her that she had received the chocolate and hope much 'nom. nom, noming' was going on at her base. I would also add that she conveyed surprise in her blog at the arrival of the goodies. I was, however, intrigued.

Supply of freebies in the blogosphere is dependent on the supplier's perception of the recipient's 'influence'.  In the US, restrictions have now been placed on bob-a-blogs, elsewhere I suspect they may materialise soon.  But what I find interesting is not the supply of freebies, but the perception of influence. You see, in my house, I am the primary chocolate buyer. The filler of supermarket trollies who lumps in those palm-oiled bars for my confectionery-loving crew. I also have an extensive network - not on Twitter - of fellow trolley-fillers, who in turn perform outreach 'within a tightly formulated purchasing tribe' (to add the sparkle of some current corporate blather-speak).  But which do you think is potentially of greatest influence? A person who blogs about how well a company has done in the social media sphere or a person who actually buys the products? 

At this end of the week (having cheered myself up with some purchased chocolate) I have been playing with Klout, another Twitter analytics tool that, along with many others, advises users as to their influence on the network. Apart from the fact it doesn't seem terribly accurate and doesn't correlate terribly well with other similar analytics tools, it makes great play of the 'influencer' numbers, telling you how you should try harder, do this, retweet that, ask this question and so on.  A couple of weeks ago I was playing with Twitter lists - a seemingly benign mechanism for organising groups of people - that was almost immediately tainted by a feverish outbreak of a seemingly high school mentality of popularity.

I know that many of those 'influencers' in the social media sphere will probably baulk at this, but my worry is that all this talk of influence takes social media down a wrong turning and into a dark alley.  The biggest bonus awarded to us all by online interaction was the removal of filtered communication. We had been stuck with commercial mainstream media models - well, for centuries  - and over the last fifteen years we have seen the gradual erosion of their control. (Which is one of the reasons Rupert Murdoch is so mad, but that's another post entirely).  There is a real and present danger that the benefits of social media, the open channels, the acceptance of newcomers and the willingness to actually listen to someone else (and I mean properly listen) will diminish and content, instead of having the power to change things will become another platform for marketing spam.

Statistics show us the millions of people who are engaged online, using all sorts of tools to connect with each other but there are still millions more who have no access to the tools, technology or concerns of those intent on filtering who says what to whom and when, but who may well end up permanently out of the loop.

I've been working in this space for many years now (despite Klout's assessment of me!) and I know that if your intention is to genuinely build community, you don't put barriers in front of people - you make them welcome. You make them feel they are part of the team, rather than the one who never gets picked. 

Introducing pop charts, lists, influencer ratings, most popular this, most fantastic that simply replaces the old filters with new ones, removing individuals from the conversation. Voices that should be heard won't be heard - or considered important - because they haven't made this week's list or carry last week's Klout.

Much is going on online to make people feel unwelcome, unwanted and unnecessary, which is very sad indeed. If it continues as it is at present then countries who do much to block internet access and content won't have too much to worry about as the egos, seekers-of-influence and experts will put sizeable numbers off joining in in the first place.

Influence is subjective. A relationship has action. Build a real relationship with real people that have real 'reach' in the real world. That'll build the chocolate sales and keep the jobs alive far more effectively than seeking social media plaudits.