PR FROM THE BEACH

Heartbreak and horror that should never have happened

The utter heartbreak and horror of this week's tragedy at Grenfell Tower in London beggars belief. This should never, ever have happened. We live in a world where buildings can and must be safe, fires can be contained and danger properly averted. It should not have been possible for such a fire to rage through a newly refurbished building. Residents should not have been told to ‘stay put’ in the event of fire - what incompetence led to that instruction? And laws governing basic building and fire safety should have been passed - and enforced - years ago.

On the slaying of dragons and Brexit's headless chickens

In business, we have a wealth of information available to us on leadership. From Harvard to Oxford there are tomes filled with guidance designed to develop those in leadership positions. Yet here we are. Brexit vote complete and a whole country is now 'steered' by a coop of headless chickens.

At a time when true leadership is vital, the UK parliament is peopled with buffoons and xenophobes fighting like rats in a sack for power and position rather than turning their attention to their job of serving the country and the people they represent. Cameron's last act - putting everything into a holding pattern and neatly avoiding triggering Article 50 - was probably the only thing he could do the morning after the results came through.

Wouldn't it have been tremendous if, at that point, his colleagues turned their attention to the good of the people, rather than immersing themselves in the machinations of a leadership battle, leaving the populace facing the ineptitude of  jumped-up journalist Johnson and the glacial Gove. As for the spectacle of Farage speaking at the EU Parliament - once again I had to step away from the keyboard for a while so as to not write in anger.  His behaviour, demeanour and words were utterly shameful and, wittingly, unwittingly or simply half-wittedly, echoing an infamous phrase attributed to Adolf Hitler.

The 'Leave' campaign presented the UK with a dragon. The beast was supposedly responsible for all the ills of the country and the suffering of the people and, once slain, all would be well in the kingdom. Pens would be drawn at the ballot boxes. At a stroke a new day would dawn. The beast, though mythical, was slain. But there were no knights to rally the people. Instead, the dubious and incompetent squires bickered their way into new battles of their own making and there they remain, squabbling, self-serving and divisive, ripping out the heart and cutting off the head of the country they were - and are - supposed to serve.

There isn't a single leader among them. Not one capable of stepping up to the mark and healing the bitter division that this process has caused. And it is the division, hatred and prejudice that this process has created that truly breaks my heart because those are the things that will take the longest to heal - scars that will take decades to fade.

A leader needs many qualities - listening, empathy, understanding, foresight, courage, wisdom and tenacity to name but a few. In business, leaders are nurtured, trained and the best of them understand they must learn continuously. The headless chickens of the Westminster coups say much, know little and apparently care less.

St George, a Syrian immigrant born of Greek parents who ended up a Roman soldier, was named England's patron saint by King Edward III in 1327. A patron saint is named not because they come from the country that chooses them but because they embody the characteristics the kingdom wants to project to the outside world. On current form, those in charge in the UK - and I use the term 'in charge' loosely - should perhaps take a moment to look at the legends and behaviours of this quintessentially 'English' saint who also stands as a nominal spiritual guard over other countries in Europe. Perhaps then they might realise that the characteristics they are currently presenting to the British people and the outside world belittle and shame us all.

*Image - wikicommons - Mummers  of St Albans enact St George and the Dragon

Tough new reality for PR professionals - virtual communication

For years now I've been struggling to get practitioners to use video (yes I know I'm using text here but this is a text-based place). It has been an uphill struggle but I'm happy to say that more than a few of them are having a go now. So I wondered, as I eagerly unwrapped my Google Cardboard this morning, how long it will be before they get to grips with virtual and augmented reality and the huge opportunities presented by these two forms of communication.

Five awkward questions about the future of PR

Last year I gave a webinar for PRIA, the Public Relations Institute of Australia covering five awkward questions for the profession. As my blog languished during 2015, I thought I might pose some of the questions here via my edited notes for the session. To listen to the webinar  you'll have to head over to the PRIA site, but in the meantime, here's a long read covering a few of the issues I believe our profession must tackle in 2016.

A question of equality - the case for International Women's Day

I've been intrigued by female colleagues grumbling about International Women's Day. One said she was always taught that if you put your mind to it, you could do anything you wanted to and that having a 'women's day' actually marginalised women. I'm sure that if you are fortunate enough to be in an environment where the hardest part of progress is making your mind up to do something, then yes, it is possible to succeed and make it happen. But if you are oppressed, marginalised, subjected to violence and control - well then the strongest mind is going to have difficulty 'getting on and succeeding'. It is certainly going to be tricky if you are one of the 62 million girls worldwide denied any form of education.

International Women's Day does more than celebrate a gender. Inequality remains rife even if the advantaged fail to recognise its existence.  Statistics from the UK's Independent newspaper and elsewhere paint a grim picture that all people (not just men or women) should read, understand and take action to change.

Every job, profession or paid pursuit seems to include an automatic wage gap between men and women - with women always the lower paid. Our own profession of public relations and communication management is no exception.  The CIPR is trying to address wage equality although the UK is not alone in this - it is a global problem that must be addressed across the world and across all types of work. 

Here, the Executive Director of the UN Women's explains it well:

 

We still have much to do - gender equality is a required condition for the success of any global agenda but it won't happen without a shift in the power relations between men and women. 

So celebrate International Women's Day - shout and make a noise. Don't belittle it - instead, draw attention not just to the inequalities that exist but the solutions that would see such inequalities resolved. When the clock rolls over at day's end, take what we've learnt from others and start making some changes. Then, we might just start to achieve an equal world for all.

Je Suis Charlie - Nous Sommes Charlie

 

The murders of 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France yesterday have left 12 families bereaved and bereft. In Egypt, Al-Jazeera journalists are still held in jail.Worldwide, in 2014, 61 journalists were killed. Everyday, around the world, people are being killed for speaking out, for not agreeing, for holding a different opinion or belief. 

The magazine satirises everyone - religions (of all kinds) politicians (of all kinds) and any topic, person or subject deemed worthy of lampooning. Since the murders, debate on the perceived 'rights and wrongs' of Charlie Hebdo content has been heated - here in New Zealand, remarks by a former broadcaster have prompted a storm of social protest.

But the focus should not be on debating the rights and wrongs of content. Instead, words and images that accurately describe the evil men who perpetrated this crime should be chosen with care. They are not fighters for a cause, warriors in a war or any other of the descriptors assigned to them.

They are murderers, pure and simple, who took the lives of 12 people and injured seven others. Their actions contravene civil and religious laws. They will be caught and granted a fair trial.

As for the rest of us, such murders should not constrain our thinking or our speech. The spontaneous vigils held throughout the night of the murders showered sparks of hope on a dark day - would that such vigils continue for the thousands upon thousands around the world currently at the mercy of other ruthless murderers.  

I would urge you to use your words to affect change - write on behalf of those, like the Al Jazeera journalists, imprisoned for doing their job. If you don't know where to start, then Amnesty International can guide you. Write to your politicians and media urging them to do what they can to encourage, rather than suppress freedom of speech and the spread of ideas. Speak out when someone is hounded on social media for an opinion or idea that contradicts, satirises or challenges convention. 

As Edmund Burke possibly remarked: 

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Nous Sommes Charlie - nous devons tous parler.

 

 

Fonterra's crisis competency falls whey short

There's been much commentary on the Fonterra botulism scare and the subsequent reputational meltdown since the company broke the news of the contaminated whey just a fortnight ago.

Heads have started to roll - first Gary Romano and now two other managers - and there will probably be other management team members looking for a new job before things settle down. 

What I have found unbelievable is the lack of unpreparedness apparent in New Zealand's biggest company. As the scare unfolded it was evident in every public interaction - and inaction - that nobody at Fonterra had ever thought to plan for a crisis. Whether this was due to arrogance or incompetence we will never know.

Given the Sanlu scandal of 2008, I would have thought that Fonterra (renamed Fonterror during that scare) might have learnt a lesson or two. But it would seem not.  

What we got this time around was a display of complete incompetence, misinformation, misinformation leading to panic, damage to the country's global reputation and the image of all manner of individuals - from the Prime Minister to small scale baby-food manufacturers - running around like headless chickens attempting to correct things but in reality making it all a lot worse.

No company or organisation can deem themselves to be 'above' a crisis. I only hope that the executive team now realises the importance of crisis planning, effective communication and the value of reputation which, to be frank, were things that they seem to have felt beneath their consideration.  I also have some sympathy with Gary Romano who from the outset was let loose on the media without - it would seem - proper preparation or support. Seldom have I seen such a shambolic performance from a such senior player.

Alongside the inquiries into how the contamination occurred, I hope Fonterra is forced to scrutinise its crisis planning and communication - it has little remaining social capital here or abroad and another bungled crisis could mean the end of the road for this farming conglomerate along with New Zealand's ability to export food products to global consumers.

Not if, but when: the radical reflection and PR rethink waiting around the corner

Imagine it is this time next year. Or even the year after when all the bugs are ironed out of the new web-enabled devices that will pop into Christmas stockings this December. Your organisation has some visitors arrive. They are all wearing Google Glass. What do you do? Ask them to remove their eyewear or accept that your interactions are likely to be live-streamed or captured on video to be shared with their stakeholders? 

Or you're serving in a restaurant. The customers come in, again, with wearable transmitting devices. Do you quietly present them with their meal or, as was the case last year, create a scene that ends in physical assault because the augmented-reality digital eye-wear cannot be removed?

In the same way that ten years ago the developments on the web disrupted the way we communicate and interact with others, bringing us to today's point of ubiquitous mobile engagement, the next wave of wearable (or implanted) devices  will change forever not just the way we communicate, but the way we live. I wonder how many people, organisations, businesses and governments are ready for this shift?

 

There are countless scenarios that can be conjured when you think about the effect the next wave technologies will have on our lives and, from a professional standpoint, they are scenarios that all public relations and communication practitioners should be rehearsing before they find themselves, and their organisations, 'always on'.  It is a big leap for most - a leap highlighted by the recent instruction to journalists not to tweet from a press conference. Even today this is a redundant instruction, but how would the organisation concerned react to the press conference being live streamed through a device such as Glass? The journalist attends a press conference as the representative of others. The expected delay between briefing and publication is the assumption of the host, based on older communication speeds and use of technology.  As a journalist, my expectation would be to get the information back as soon as possible, and, if that means as it happens, then all the better.

The reality is not what shall we do if this happens, it is actually what are we going to do when this happens - and that 'when' is just around the corner. It's not just Google Glass either. Many companies are working on wearable devices and the next 'next wave' is likely to include invisi-wear, such as contact lenses, implants and the like. Unlike today when people at least have to speak to their phone, pretty soon you simply won't know who is communicating 'elsewhere' when you meet as the process will be seamless and simultaneous.

I meet with a lot of people who debate and discuss their 'social media strategy'. Frequently it revolves around tactics on the big networks - Facebook, Twitter and the like rather than creating a digital strategy that underpins their organisational and communcation goals. Rarely does it include Google+ or Hangouts and it inevitably involves a discussion around how to convince the organisation involved that today's communication channels are chaotic, concurrent, confused and cannot be controlled. 

Over the last ten to twelve years I've said many times that the available technologies we have at our disposal don't simply transform the way we communicate - they transform the organisations themselves. That's where the biggest changes occur. Individuals and organisations that meet with success in social communication have inevitably undergone this transformative process from the inside out.  They have a clear understanding of their role, provision or service, they have identified the communities that are critical to their licence to operate then set about forming networks of engagement mutually beneficial for all those involved. Yet even those organisations will find themselves disturbed once again by the device-shifts ahead as the reality of what we do rather than what we say becomes the primary organisational asset it should have always been.

As a matter of urgency, I would hope that practitioners convince their organisations to focus on their inner workings and deliverables. To focus on their employees and how to equip them to be 'always on'. On their suppliers and customers and agreed levels of acceptable shareability. 

As the mobile phone is replaced in its ubiquity by the wearable or implanted device the question every public relations professional should be asking is this: how ready are you for the technology waiting around the corner and the change it will bring to your organisation?

The Hunger Games ahead: will governments offer social protection or social jeopardy?

Earlier this month, the United Nations Committee on Food Security met in Rome. Among the many grave warnings they issued was one concerning the effect of extreme weather on the United States' crops and grain reserves - extreme weather that, when described, was a lot like today's Hurricane Sandy.

 

A combination of rising food prices, extreme weather, falling grain stocks and overconsumption has led to the warnings that we will all face a global food crisis in 2013. The UK's Guardian newspaper had the most rounded report but there was slim coverage of this critical subject to be found elsewhere.

The official reports from the CFS meeting - here - include strong recommendations that governments must ensure that social protection is available for citizens to ensure an adequate supply of food and nutrition. All well and good - but social protection measures need planning now, not when we get into 2013 and find our cupboards bare or discover that the price of basic foodstuffs is so high it cannot be purchased.

Over the last four days, we have seen presidents and candidates, mayors and congressmen urge people to safety, told them to listen, told them that danger was coming. Hopefully, the result of the warnings will be that loss of life and injuries are kept to a minimum. Without the warnings - and the necessary actions being taken - it would be a very different and far more tragic story.

Here, on the doorstep of 2013, should there not be similar warnings about the oncoming problems with food pricing and availability? Will we see social protection programmes established to help those who will, without doubt, find themselves in direst need? Somehow I think not.

In New Zealand we currently have a government that has a slash-and-burn approach to any policy or provision that smacks of social justice or social protection, with disenfranchised young people unable to get the support they need and families struggling in difficult economic circumstances faced with losing what little support they have.  We are not alone in this with millions around the world dealing with austerity measures, hardship and - right this minute - food crises of their own. 

A long time ago, politics and government became about power and holding on to power. Protecting power so political parties could continue on their particular ideological way.  If, as a global society, we are going to tackle the real and common problems we all face - this year, next year and the years beyond - then political protectionism has to stop and be replaced with social protection for the people, by the people.

In 2008, I highlighted some of the problems ahead with regard to food poverty and food shortages. That's four years ago and nothing has improved. My very real concern is that it is starting to look like it's too late to take cover on this one.

Why Tongariro eruption should ignite New Zealand's infrastructure plans

The beginning of August saw Pacific Fibre close its doors after valiant attempts to finance and construct a second cable to secure New Zealand's connections to all things web. At the moment we have only the Southern Cross cable to keep us going, which to me seems utterly foolhardy - if not reckless.