IABC International Conference: Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz, Alan Jenkins, cont'd

June 4, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Desirable Roasted Coffee

After the break:

Question: What does it take for a company to be ready for social media?

Neville Hobson: Culture. An understanding of the value of conversational communications. You have to be prepared to give up control of your message. An organization that doesn’t encourage people to talk freely about what’s going on in the organization, that requires log-ins for all types of information, is not ready for social media. If the organization is not ready for social media, its use could cause “all kinds of disruptions.”

Alan Jenkins: Even if a company is not ready for blogging, you should nevertheless pay attention and monitor what people are saying and understand why people are saying what they are saying about you. An example of a company that is blogging, but not doing it well, is Arla Foods in Europe. Their PR staff blog. However, senior executives do not. Consequently, the content of the blogs is restricted to commentary about previously reported information. The blogs are stale and uninteresting.

Question: What about portals?

Shel Hobson pointed to Pageflakes, which makes him wonder “why would people pay big money for SAP portals when they can have this for nothing?”

Question: Once you know something is going on? What do you do about it? Can you control it?

Alan Jenkins: “Once your message is out and people are starting to repeat it and manipulate it, you’ve lost control of it. … But then, you’ve never really had control of messages. The nice thing about social media is now you can be part of the conversation about this, and before you couldn’t be.”

Shel Holtz: One of the things that blogs allow is for your people to talk, not just the company. Companies have a hard time admitting mistakes. Individual people will do this more readily. And in doing so, they are humanized and more likely to benefit from good will.

“Influence is wielded through engagement and participation in the conversation. There is no opportunity to control.”

Question: As a corporation or government, would you let the CEO loose with his fingers on the keyboard? What is the role of the communications professional.

Alan Jenkins: The CEO should write for himself. That will bring authenticity. There are many examples of senior executives who do this quite well.

Shel Holtz: The two qualifications for writing a blog are passion and authority.

Alan Jenkins: If your CEO doesn’t want to write, do a podcast. Put a mic in front of them. Ask them questions.

Neville Hobson: Two must reads: Naked Conversations by Scoble and Israel and Blogging for Business by Holtz and Demopoulos.

IABC International Conference: Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz, Alan Jenkins

June 4, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

UPDATE: Neville Hobson has posted his slides for this presentation on NevilleHobson.com.

Neville Hobson led an un-conference session on Organization communication 2.0: The age of social communication. He was joined by Shel Holtz and Alan Jenkins as panelists.

Neville opened the session with a general presentation of the key concepts and elements of social media: citizen generated content; open-source software; search engines; wikis; podcasting; the Web 2.0 Meme map; the Social Customer Manifesto; MySpace; SecondLife; OhMyNews; tagging (del.icio.us); photo and video sharing (Flickr and YouTube)

Some takeaways:

The Thin Membrane between internal and external communication. “There is a blurring of the division between internal and external communications.” Consumers can speak directly to employees inside companies without intervention from traditional corporate spokespeople. “Eventually, the line between internal and external communications will disappear.”

“The social media ecosystem is primarily technology tools that fulfill something we all do as human beings anyway – which is to connect.” The social media ecosystem includes: blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, vlogs, moblogs, MMS, Internet telephony. These tools facilitate communications, engagement, transparency, trust.

Technorati is now tracking 44 million blogs tracked, with the number doubling every six months. The blogosphere is now 60 times larger than it was 3 years ago.

“Community is what this is all about. Building that sense of community is key to Organization 2.0. Whether it’s with consumers, shareholders or whoever that might be.”

Neville cited The Hobson & Holtz Report as an example of the power of social media. Using Skype, Neville and Shel are able to regularly produce their show across a 13 hour timezone difference – at virtually no cost. Today, the podcast’s Frappr map shows listeners around the globe – a community that has grown up around the hobby of two communicators. Question: Will we reach the point where citizen generated content (blogs; wikis) will become as trusted as mainstream media.Shel Holtz, “I don’t trust blogs. I trust some people. … I don’t think we need to have trust in the tools. We need to trust the tools to enable people to have these kinds of conversations. …. In the era of social computing, the power is transferred from instutions to individuals and audiences.”Shel Holtz provide a A good explanation of the Long Tail concept for communicators who speak to narrower or smaller audiences. The magic middle can have a very real impact through time.

Alan Jenkins pointed out that Steve Rubel has become a “trusted agent” for many people. Few know him personally. But many read him and have a sense of familiarity through his blog.

Shel and Neville reach much larger audiences through their blogs than they do through their podcast. Alan Jenkins began podcasting a couple weeks ago. He reported that the number of subscriptions to his blog have increased significantly since he launched the podcast.

After 1 hour and 45 minutes, Neville called for a mid-session break…

IABC International Conference – Sunday sessions

June 4, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I’m planning to kick my conference off with a panel session titled Organizational communication 2.0: The age of social communication. Blogger and podcaster Neville Hobson will moderate. Unfortunately, the names of the panelists were not published in the conference program, so I’m relying on Neville and the timeliness of the topic to make this a worthwhile session.

Reality television creator Mark Burnett will deliver the keynote address. The conference program promises “a refreshing look at today’s new media. You’ll learn how reality television has revolutionized the entertainment industry and raised the bar for audience expectations and participation in television programming. We’ll discuss the impact of this shift for the way businesses communicate. And we’ll explore how we can meet our audience expectations for constant innovation and an active role in business decisions and communication.” Having never watched any of Mr. Burnett’s programs, I’m approaching this session with an open mind.

I’m looking forward to ending my first conference day with the For Immediate Release dinner being organized by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. I’m a regular listener to Shel and Neville’s podcast and a reader of their blogs. So, I’m looking forward to good conversation with other members of their/our community.

Hey, I bet Mark Burnett feels pretty lucky to be on the same page with Neville and Shel!

Blogging IABC International Conference

June 4, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Vancouver, British Columbia

I’ve arrived in Vancouver for the IABC International Conference, the last in a trio that included Mesh in Toronto and PRSA Counselors Academy in Savannah.

I’m planning to report on the sessions that I attend. I’ll liveblog if there is Wi-Fi in the meeting rooms. If not, I’ll post after the sessions or at the end of the day.

So, if you’re interested in best practices in public relations, check back here for my impressions of the conference sessions.

IABC International Conference

June 3, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I’m heading out to Vancouver Sunday morning to attend the IABC International Conference. If you’re planning to be there, look for me. I’m keen to talk to other bloggers and people interested in social media and the evolution of PR.

PRSA Counselors Academy: Watts Wacker

May 28, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Counselor’s Academy ended on a high with a tour de force presentation by Watts Wacker, the celebrated futurist. (Watts describes himself much more entertainingly as a “twenty-first century alchemist.”)

Wacker was at turns humorous, inspirational and thought provoking. I can’t do him justice in one blog posting. You really have to see him. But I’d like to offer some snippets:

“What does the World look like after The abolition of context? There is no context today. The study of what has come before. Studying what has come before will not provide good insight into the future. It used to be that the mainstream would define the future. Now the fringe, the edge, has replaced the mainstream in the Zeitgeist. How else could Ozzy Osborne become a model for fatherhood?”

“People do not know what to trust anymore. People do not believe that institutions are prepared for the future. There’s never been a better time for people to swallow hard, summon courage and take the radical step. In our industry,this will lead to the demise of the traditional ad agency. Because the traditional agencies are unable to step outside of what they know.”

“We can’t stay here. There is a groundswell of people coming up who are saying, I’m ready to go. I just need to know who to trust to take me there.”

“Self selecting social organziation: a thousand years ago, the biggest contribution of Christ was the organization of life around families. Now we are moving to a neo-tribalism, a desperate search of people to find someone like themselves. This is what blogs are about.”

“In the broadcast model, value equalled the size of the audience. … Metcalfe’s Law of Networking Theory: The next person into a network makes everything before it have more value (e.g. fax machines). Every new person in, makes everything have more value.”

“As we move into this self-selecting organization, you have messaging, content creation, networking and commerce creation. The value creation becomes truly exponential. … You’re the ones who can help our clients put themselves together with new self-selecting communities.”

“The media centric life: We no longer define one another through possessions. We now define one another through the media we consume. We are starting to frame social discourse around something other than stuff. This media centric-ness is growing at a precipitous rate.

“All life is mediated. It’s all third person-driven. We should start to think about messaging as a result of that. We are now living in the pluperfect tense. Newspapers no longer write about what happened yesterday; they are writing about what may happen tomorrow. We are living in a future-focussed world.”

“We have new forms of tribal media. When Gianni Versace was shot, there was a cover story on Biker Magazine. That was counterintuitive. But as I looked at this I realized that the mass media tell you what you need to know about, but the tribal media tell you what you need to think about.”

“Post-America Geopolitics: We are seeing the dawn of the post-America era. Australia is an example of a country that spent the past century oriented to the west and now it is defining it’s future in relation to China.”

“Beauty and Earth: The post modern movement has come to conclusion. Just as the Empire Struck Back, so has beauty. In post-modernism, beauty wasn’t to be appreciated; it was to be parsed. … Beauty is coming back. We will have a new relationship with beauty. And the earth will be the recipient of that.”

What would I do if I were you?

“Relationship Theory: We have to really understand this. … The greatest currency in the world is reciprocity. Stop holding stuff back. You must give a view. Sellers should understand that I am never the same consumer two times in a row.”

“Story telling and myths: What can you hold on to in a time of change. Myths are truth stories. … A good story teller tells a story well. A great story teller helps me find myself in the story.”

“From “fringe” to “mainstream”: Malcolm Gladwell told us about one stop on the line; remember there’s a whole train line. Anything that makes it to social convention begins on the fringe. We don’t recognize enough where things are and where they are going. Stop hiring people like me to be a cool hunter for you. Do it yourself.”

“Do right to do well: Adam Smith was right, It’s called enlightened self interest for a reason.”

PRSA Counselors Academy Deb Radman

May 27, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Day two of Counselors Academy opened with another round of Breakout sessions – small groups of 10 to 15 participants seated around a table for a discussion led by a senior practitioner or an expert advisor.

The first session I attended on “Preparing Your Future Leaders,” was led by Deb Radman, Managing Director of Stanton Communications and a former Chair of Counselors Academy. Darryl Salerno, the President of Second Quadrant, also offered much valuable insight. Darryl is the advisor Steve Cody credits with helping him to develop Peppercom‘s successful formula.

Most of the discussion participants agreed with Radman’s that all people are imbued with somesome leadership qualities. It is the responsiblity of current leaders to help young people to identify and develop the particular leadership qualities each of them possesses.

Of course, some people need more help than others to discover what they have that is special and will help them to lead a team or to run an agency.

Mid-size firms provide an opportunity for people to develop their leadership abilities. We’re in the leadership business: Our work is about helping articulate a vision, helping set goals, planning, researching, advising, persuading, and clarifying. That’s what leaders do.

We must stimulate the people who work for us to consider what kind of leader they might be and what they need to do to get there. Ask employees about who is an aspiring leader? Who do they perceive to be leaders? it’s very revealing.

What leaders look like:
They have bedrock values.
They have the courage to be decisive.
Consistent behaviour.
They do what they say they’re going to do.
They have the courage to be decisive.
They enable collaboration by building trust.
They create other leaders, not followers.
They articulate a clear vision of where they’re going.
They choose to lead.

To teach leadership, the people who you are trying to teach must perceive you to be a leader.
You must know what the people in your organization view as leadership qualities; then look at yourself to determine if you have the qualities to lead them, not just to manage them.

Radman emphasized that there is a tremendous difference between being a leader and a boss.

Boss drives people; Leader motivates them.
Boss depends on authority; Leader on persuasion.
Boss uses fear; Leader uses positive reinforcement.
Boss fixes the blame; Leader looks for a solution.
Boss say “I”; Leader say “we.”
Boss will tell people what to do; Leader will entice people to do something.

Leadership is a choice; you must inspire or persuade people to look inside themselves to determine what they want.

PRSA Counselors Academy: Robert French, Josh Hallett, Giovanni Rodriguez

May 27, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Counselors Academy topped off the first day with top level panel discussion of the future of newspapers and the implications for PR. Robert French and Giovanni Rodriguez originally were to be joined by Tom Foremski. However, Foremski came down with a “bad knee”. So, Josh Hallett was recruited to pinch hit fresh off his all star turn in the Bloggety, Blog Blog session immediately prior to this panel. (After almost three hours on stage in two successive sessions, Josh gets the Energizer Bunny award from Counsellors Academy.)

Giovanni Rodriguez

Rodriguez asked the audience to think of Blogs as Do It Yourself (DIY) publishing; Podcasts as DIY broadcasting; and Wikis as DIY communities, markets and social movements.

These three developments, with their consumer generated character constitute challenges for both journalism and PR.

Giovanni indicated that he is involved in a work thatthe Society for New Communications Research has initiated to understand these challenges and to become an information resource regarding them. Rodriguez laid out a list of 10 things to watch:

10 Historic decline: “We can’t kid ourselves, newspapers have been in decline for a long time.”

9 Consolidation: “There are now three major newspaper chains in the U.S.A. … There are fewer stories being told. There is a troubling uniformity in reporting.”

8. Metros in trouble: “Some major city newspapers are in trouble. … They are in highly populated centres, but they are not getting the circulation and advertising necessary to support them.”

7. Stocks: “Family controlled papers are disappearing. Publicly held companies will tend toward a similarity of voice” as they seek to maximize returns.

6. The Internet – Advertising: Google’s advertising growth is being drawn from media like newspapers and magazines.

5. The Internet – Debundling content: Craigslist and Yahoo Finance are focused content internet channels that break down the newspapers’ model of bundling content.

4. The Internet – DIY Content: podcasts; wikis; blogs

3. Content across platforms: “The future may be about focusing on the content distributed across all channels. Telling a good story is still the core of journalism. Now, the channels are broader.”

2. Talking about “my” generation: myspace.com; Ohmynews; backfence; Greensboro101.

1. Investing in “my” generation: “Rupert Murdoch has not done anything with myspace.com – yet. However, there is no doubt that he and other large organizations are studying social media closely.”

Rodriguez concluded with the observation that, “There are always opportunities for innovation at times of change. … The future of journalism is innovation. Look for the new leaders who understand these ten rules and others.”

Josh Hallett

Josh Hallett’s consulting to both public relations agencies and newspapers gives him a unique perspective on the impact of social media.

Most notably, he is working with the Orlando Sentinel on new media channels. The Sentinel is transferring their columnists and B reporters over to the web.

Looking at the early results, he noted that blogging is having an impact on news gathering and writing. A couple of the Sentinel’s columnists use blogs as opportunities for citizen input on developing stories. Lawyers, interested parties and others comment on their blogs regarding stories. And the coverage can evolve as a result of this input.

In response to a question, Josh added that “In only two cases in the past year have stories been held for the print edition. They post on the blogs that they are working on stories and start to see tips start to come in.”

Josh noted that this development has implications for PR pros as well. As we see the stories develop this way during the day, we may be able to participate in the process of shaping them.

One potential negative impact on the public: “We are getting more and more into the daily need. We can construct our news feeds as content silos in which we do not encounter any news that disturbs you.”

Robert French

The driving force behind Auburn University’s progressive approach to blogging and journalism, Robert French is also a practicing PR pro and a “reformed journalist.”

Auburn is using social media in its classes. And French indicated that this is having a positive impact on the career prospects of his students. In fact, he reported, one student has just been recruited by Edelman in New York to work on the Wal-Mart national campaign. Edelman in New York. A dream job for a new graduate.

So, how are social media integrated into the student’s curriculum?

“All of my students are required to blog,” said French. “They must interact with other PR bloggers. … They must write in their blogs two times a week and they must comment in their blogs two times a week.

“We teach our students to write the new kinds of press releases using wikis,” he added. “Our students have taken to livejournal and myspace.com. They have incorporated SMS into campaigns.

“We practise Experiential learning. We run campaigns for clients in our classes. You cannot graduate unless you have run one of these campaigns.”

French believes that, “More of these programs will pop up in universities and colleges around the world” And he counsels PR executives to look for students who have this kind of interaction.

Robert also reported some recent research findings by both New York University and Auburn on the use of blogs by newspapers:

New York University has looked at the major market websites for the top 100 newspapers; 84 were incorporating blogs; some were incorporating podcasts and video.
83% of the newspapers surveyed by Auburn are being updated as events happen on a 24/7 basis.
60% never place anything behind a paywall.
68% do not provide extra services to print subscribers in their online offerings.
35% of their online efforts account for less than 15% of the newspaper’s overall budget — it’s inexpensive to do and many are still wary
69% indicated that their online effort generates less than 15% of revenue — they can’t figure out a way to make money from it

Finally, he observed that the content in print newspapers is beginning to suffer because investigative journalism is being cut and younger, less experienced people are being used as reporters.

PRSA Counselors Academy: Josh Hallett

May 24, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Josh Hallett‘s session, titled Bloggety, Blog, Blog, provided his audience with an overview of the social media and the tools used to create, view and search content.

Josh began by defining social media as “everything that is said, spoken, written photographed about your organization that is on the internet and that you have no control over.”

He pointed out that the February 2006 Forrester Big Idea report on Social Computing indicated that we have entered an era in which “individuals increasingly take cues from brand loyalists.”

From this, says Hallett, we should understand that, “It doesn’t matter how much advertising I’ve seen. If I hear something from somebody I trust, that’s what I’ll listen to.”

Hallett then provide an outstanding primer on blogs for the audience. His one digression from the orthodox was on the issue of transparency. He objects to the notion of transparency in blogs, suggesting that we can’t have true transparency until you have the ability to search completely into the files, correspondence and circumstances of the blogger – an opportunity we are not about to have.

(On this issue, I can’t agree with Josh. I think that there are enough people out there who know each of us to ensure that any misinformation or omissions would be found out. But, hey, time and experience will prove which view is correct!)

He followed the discussion of blogs with a review of bog search sites (Technorati,etc.) and other social media, including photo and video sharing sites like flickr and youtube.

He challenged the audience to consider why they should care about the people using these services. “Who are these people? And why should I care? Your mother, your sister, your son. More and more somebody you know knows somebody who is blogging.”

Josh went on to demonstrate the relevance to PR of social media by discussing the Sony RootKit debacle and Mark Cuban’s posting of interviews with reporters in order to wrest back control of his statements from the Fourth Estate.

He covered Creative Commons licensing, noting that many bloggers are motivated to share information, not by profit.

Again, addressing the concerns of his PR practitioner audience, Josh indicated that, “Blogs should never be written by the PR department. They should be written by the people who are doing the work.” He offered several examples to illustrate the difference between blogs written with an eye to corporate speak and those written with a genuineness of voice.

He stressed that bloggers can be honest and blunt in their assessments; so be ready for a candid conversation. You must be prepared to take the good and the bad.

In the remaining time, he covered RSS syndication technology (“more and more traditional media are providig RSS feeds”), podcasts, Wikis and Vlogging.

He suggested that, with all of these social media channels and the power of the search engines, paid media monitoring services are becoming redundant. Junior staff can be charged with monitoring the information flows without need of premium services. And the role of the practitioner becomes one of knowing what to do with the information and the social media

He also addressed blogger relations. He advised the audience to be careful to only “send something of interest to somebody you know.” He noted that he uses IM to send information to bloggers. This satisfies their appetite for timely information relevant to their interests. But to use this effectively, you must get to know the blogger you are dealing with.

He suggested that effective use of blogging requires PR practitioners to step outside of their traditional mass audience focus. “Do not think of blogs as a vehicle to get to 5,000 to 10,000 people. Think of blogs as a way to get to 100 to 150 very interested people.”

He also provided some examples of Media bypass – product launches directly to bloggers rather than through mainstream media.

As he wrapped up, Josh suggested that the audience should look at social media not as a technology tool, but as “a communications and search tool — it gives me the ability to find the 10 people in the world who share my passions.”

Finally, he suggested that people should look at Richard Edelman’s remarks about the press release at the Syndicate Conference as a preview of where PR may be going next in its use of new media.

Josh Hallett pitched his session at the perfect level for an audience that included less than five bloggers. About half the approximately 50 people in the room indicated that they use a feedreader. This level of use by senior practitioners suggests that blogging has a distance to travel before it will have penetrated into the mainstream of the public relations industry.

All in all, Josh’s presentation was a tour de force. In 75 minutes, he provided the complete introduction to social media. And even though the presentation ran overtime, no one left the room early. And people kept asking questions. The sign of a great presentation.

PRSA Counselors Academy: Tom Hoog clarification

May 24, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I received an email from Tom Hoog that one passage of my post on his remarks at Counselors Academy may have given the reader the wrong impression. Tom’s email said:

hey Joe just reread the blog—-one thought that might clear up a question—on the fifth paragraph I think it was, I’m not sure if the reader may take away the thought that H&K made some mistakes or the industry made some mistakes—clearly my intent was to say the industry had made some mistakes

My intent was to faithfully capture the intent of Tom’s remarks, which were both candid and full of valuable advice. I appreciate that he took the time to read my post and clarify this point.