PR from the Beach

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.

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.

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...

Hurrah - I'm a Newspaper Publisher

A longtime fan of NewsCred, their latest development is seriously cool - just think of the possibilities for this type of off the shelf publishing. Check out my new 'newspaper', PR Dimensions, and tell me what you think I should add - I am looking for global public relations feeds, public relations news, comments and blogs and would be delighted to check out your recommendations.

The Tweet Imperative: Practitioner Beware

Little story today about problems at a tween star's autograph signing, but one with major implications for communicators who regularly use Twitter to advise, inform and attract people to events.

There are different versions of the story around - one says the executive was arrested for not tweeting when told, while another says it was because he tweeted too much, drawing a large, over-stimulated, hormone-fuelled crowd of screaming teens.

Whatever the actual situation, practitioners and communicators everywhere should take careful note of this one. For example, how does 'being ordered to communicate' sit with free speech? What if, in your professional opinion, tweeting would make the situation worse? And what impact would that have on your organisation's reputation? 

Equally, in a 'non-democratic' environment, what if you are 'ordered' to tweet something that will put others in danger? And for the journalists who live tweet material - what if your story is the catalyst that causes chaos? What liability would mainstream media assume?

This is a small story about an action taken - or at very least suggested - by some US police officers. Its implications however, are enormous, not necessarily at this moment, but certainly as we rush towards the future. Bet there are a few people out there live tweeting events as I write. As the event manager are you at some point, going to be held responsible for what they say or the actions their tweets precipitate?

I know it's a consideration that I'll be building into programmes from here on in. 

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.

When the Ghost in the Machine needs to back off

So this weekend Facebook decided that it would make some decisions on my behalf, selectively editing my friends' updates, information, quiz results, likes (but not dislikes as there is no button) et al. Today, Google launches social search so I can retrieve information from my public social graph that will take me one step nearer to the most recommended coffee shop this side of the CBD - but only if the Google machine considers it relevant based on decisions it has made about me - and you - as determined by our online profiles.

Marvellous isn't it. Clever almost beyond words. Deeply impressed that they can mine the data so efficiently. But one major thing has slipped the minds of the great and good - I don't want them editing my information or the news that comes to me, be it social news, mainstream news or an update from my Great Aunt Edy (if I had such a relative).  We had enough 'editing' of information during the reign of mass media. Information was power and selective distribution fed the hierarchical business models that have been collapsing around our ears the last year or two.

I am more than happy for them to find the information - but deliver it whole, unaltered, unchanged. Let me decide. The kind of selective editing currently being proffered is not about being a helpful 'free' service provider. It is about behavioural control, social selection for influence and steering users towards content that will power advertising revenue and stimulate a little mouse action. Methinks it is time to make sure that today's ghosts in the machine don't surreptitiously remove  the 'social' from social media and replace it with 'remote control'.

That marvellous Orwellian phrase 'Big Brother is Watching You' is now surpassed. Great Google and Fearsome Facebook will simply tell you what they think you should know.

Don't worry about owning social media - just defend it

There is a blog post today from Text 100 about 'who owns social media', which came to my notice via @creoceo.  In this case, they suggest this 'duel' is between public relations and advertising. Personally, I think they might just have too much time on their hands. This week we remember those who died in Tiananmen Square. A week in which China was so keen to minimise global and domestic memories of this protest and the subsequent slaughter they snuffed out access to social media channels like Twitter and others. Given this situation, surely to goodness any social media discussion should be revolving around something more productive than 20th century-style turf wars?

For more years than I care to remember I have been trotting round various countries helping public relations practitioners and others understand and come to grips with the disruptive technologies that make up the social media environment. Every time I advise them that as practitioners, we are the navigators in this environment, working alongside those we are helping to build the relationships they need to operate. We need to understand the channels, know how to work them, understand when and why to engage with them - and it is vital to our work that we do this. But I don't own social media - nor would I want to. I am far more interested in it remaining a suite of unfiltered, direct, open access channels that allow me to listen, engage, act and build with those communities I work with and alongside.

What I have become passionately concerned about is the lengths that some are going to in order to block access to the channels, or disrupt them, or switch them on and off according to political whim. This is of great concern and, I believe, should be the burning discussion among practitioners - not 'who owns it, ads or PR' - what a very old fashioned discussion!

Twenty years ago, a student jumped the barriers in Tiananmen Square and tried to stop a line of tanks. He stood, bravely and passionately, for free speech and, momentarily, for freedom itself. The world seemingly chose to ignore China's actions that day - or at least, let them get away with it. It would seem that 20 years on, the actions taken to curb, restrict and crush free speech, this time on the internet rather than the streets, have also been ignored.

For all those social media advocates out there - these actions are ignored at our collective peril. If access can be turned off and on by political whim, who really gives two hoots about who *owns* something that by its very nature is unable to be possessed. Our concern will be that we can no longer access, connect or share with each other. That to me, is of considerable significance. Discuss.

A Darkening of the Cloud?

The concept of cloud computing has, as we know, gained considerable ground, tipped over by Microsoft's Azure, but established as a potential reality by the Googles and Amazons of this world some time past. The news that Googledocs 'leak' earlier this month, followed by this weekend's report that a 'vast spy system' was looting computers faster than you could say hacker, starts to sow the seeds of doubt among those whose nerves start to twitch at the thought of committing their information into cyberspace. Personally, I believe the bigger concern is the vast amount of server space that will be needed as we progressively mobilise our data. Sooner or later, I think the big switch off will be caused by a big server bang, rather than a big server hack. And who says the cyber pirates will want the data when eventually they could hold a floating server island hostage instead? In years to come, such islands be more valuable than the oil tankers currently negotiating their way through cut-throat waters. I'm guessing someone, somewhere is working on worrying about this?

Even the simplest technology can get us in the end...

I laugh at failblog.org fairly frequently, but this clip with the mismanaged microphone had me chuckling all the way to work.  Sometimes, no matter how hard we try and prepare our clients and friends for their presentation, something still eludes them...