Public Relations
Blogger and columnist Paul Wells brought out the largest Third Monday social media meetup crowd yet.
Paul started out quoting from a recent newspaper article that suggested that citizens have become convinced that politicians and journalists are talking primarily to one another – not to citizens. A really ornery political context. Journalists receiving nasty emails. Blogs that pounce on even the most innocent mistakes of reporters. And that describes the experience in … France.
Sounds familiar. But in fact, the French political system and situation is very different from the North American systems. However, the one thing that we have in common is the Internet.
As the new tools of social media have come online, power has been leaking away from the traditional power centres, the politicians and the media and moving to the citizenry – a radical democratization of the discourse that is essentially irresistable.
Two Canadian messengers. Two very different situations:
Robert Libman spoke out in the late 70s against language legislation that the English minority in Quebec saw as threatening to its existence. As a 28 year old, he founded the Equality Party. His party elected four members of the Quebec National Assembly. As a Party Leader, Libman challenged Quebec’s referendum law before the courts. He eventually won his case – five years after the referendum. At great cost and to no immediate effect.
Brayden Cayley is an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He was a delegate for Gerard Kennedy at the Liberal Leadership convention last December 2006. Cayley became concerned that the Liberals were going to open up the Constitutional debate again. He prepared a video that he posted on YouTube and sent an email notice of it to all the delegates at the convention. Within a week, a thousand of the four thousand delegates to that convention had seen it.
Look at the difference that a decade makes. Suddenly, the incremental cost of getting in on the great debates of the day is zero. You need a computer, an internet connection – and you can have an impact. And you don’t need to ask anyone.
As power democratizes, it makes it harder to trace, harder to define and harder to control.
The new power is diffused. It can be spread through thousands. And therefore, it can is likely to be less effective than other newer strains of new media.
Blogging’s Canadian political coming out was intended to be the 2006 Liberal Leadership convention. Bloggers marginalized themselves by hanging out in the blogger lounge, failing to mix on the convention floor. The truly engaged Liberal bloggers posted rarely as they were too busy talking to and twisting the arms of the other delegates. The few who did post regularly produced posts of little value and insight.
Sadly, Canadians do not have a lot of political bloggers with the depth of some of the leading American political bloggers. The fruitsandvotes.com political blog has a Canadian section that shows more insight and authority than the Canadian political blogs.
Canadian political bloggers need to get serious, quit their day jobs and begin to dig deeper.
Other new media, such as YouTube have greater potential than blogs for the best content to emerge. The most-accessed, most compelling rises quickly to the top.
Wikis. In the day of Wikis, governments can conduct a consultation online without the need to travel thousands of miles or ask people to leave their homes. It’s utterly cost-free. They can afford to experiment, afford to fail in this – without gouging the tax payer. And that’s worth looking at in this age of increased accountability.
The central assumption of social media is that a thousand people are smarter than any one person is.
Why is opening up and trying this worth doing? Paul cites the example of Estonia. During the Soviet era, if the government knew more about you than you knew about the government, it could be fatal. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the new government invested heavily in technology, the Internet and wireless technology. They used this to give the public unprecedented access to information the government holds about them and also to the people who are accessing this information. Cabinet meetings are essentially live-blogged. The decisions are public decisions, with decisions taken announced to the public within minutes of being made. People now know what their government knows about them and they know what there government is doing.
I f this can be done in Estonia, it can be done elsewhere. Like here. In Canada.
Which brings us to Stephen Harper. He understands the importance of channeling information through the new media around the traditional media. That’s why Harper was posting audio and video of his speeches on his Website shortly after being elected. Why he has his own channel on YouTube. Why political blogger Stephen Taylor has a better channel into the PMO than virtually any reporter in Ottawa.
So, what of the next campaign? Wells predicts that the Conservatives will run a very traditional central campaign. Having reporters filing on deadline as they always have. But while they are doing this, the Conservatives will be setting up the next day’s targeted communication – and communicating it using social media. Blogs, videos on YouTube, viral emails.
And what’s the value of the very expensive campaign plane flying across the country loaded with Canada’s top journalists? It’s a great way to cage them up.
Coda: In a question about the relevance of Paul’s Inkless Wells blog to his employers at Rogers and Maclean’s Magazine: The further you go upstream, the more interested the executives are in new media. Roughly speaking, the parts of Rogers business that Orson Wells might recognize – the traditional print properties might generate $1 of profit. The core cable business – the business that Harvey Kirk might recognize probably generates $2 in profit. The new electronic businesses, especially the wireless business, that didn’t exist 15 years ago, generate $4 in profits. And that drives the interest of the most senior executives.
“I started the blog as a hobby and now it may save my career. ;-)”
Thus said Paul Wells.
He gets his own post because he’s a good sport and because, well heck, just because he’s …
Congratulations to Joe Boughner for what is easily this year’s best PR blog title: 42 Points on a double word score!
Communication. That’s what it’s about.
Last week, I posted about the Government of Canada’s Request for Industry Comment on its proposed new public relations Standing Offer selection process. I’ve also cross posted to the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms‘ Weblog with the aim of stimulating some discussion that the Council could reference in preparing the submission on behalf of its member companies.
If you run a public relations firm in Canada that has bid for assignments from the Government of Canada or that would like to compete in the future, drop over to the CCPRF site and share your views about the draft Standing Offer.
I’m starting a new project this week: to capture pictures of the leading Canadian bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers.
I’ll be able to jump start this effort thanks to a heavy schedule of social media meetups in central Canada this week. The week will kick off with the Third Monday social media meetup in Ottawa featuring Maclean’s columnist and author Paul Wells. The action moves to 
Toronto the next day for the Third Tuesday gathering with Wikinomics co-author Anthony Williams. On Wednesday, Marc Snyder has organized a blogger dinner with Naked Conversations co-author Shel Israel. And on Saturday, it’s back to Toronto for Podcamp Toronto, which promises to bring together up to 200 podcasters and podcasting enthusiasts.
At each of these events, I’ll try to get as many people as possible to subject themselves to my amateur snapshot skills. I’ll save the pictures to my flickr account with the tags: socialmediator, socialmediatorOttawa, socialmediatorToronto, and socialmediatorMontreal.
So, by the end of the week I hope to have a snapshot profile of the Canadian social media scene.
I hope that you will join me in this project. If you plan to attend a social media meetup, why not capture pictures of the bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers that you meet and save and tag them on flickr.
If you add photos, please let me know by a trackback to this post or a comment.
Have you ever worked late into the night preparing a proposal for a large assignment and thought to yourself, “There must be a better way to do this?”
Well, Canada’s largest purchaser of public relations services, the Federal Government has just invited industry comment on a new standard Draft Request for Standing Offer that would be used to select firms to provide PR services to departments and agencies.
The Standing Offer system allows the government to pre-qualify firms as suppliers through a competitive process. Firms then may be contracted for specific services by the departments and agencies for which they have been pre-qualified.
I’ve been told that the Federal Government purchases between $5 million and $7 million in public relations services each year. That’s a big target that entices many companies to compete for assignments.
We all benefit from a fair and effective selection process for work. The current Request for Industry Comment provides us with an all-too-rare opportunity to suggest improvements to this process.
If you have bid for government work in the past or if you have been discouraged from doing so because of the bidding process, don’t miss this opportunity to comment on the government’s proposed new selection process. Download the Draft Request for Standing Offer and submit your comments before February 26, 2007.
Wikinomics is a great read for anyone interested in social media, communities and collaboration. And Toronto’s Third Tuesday social media meetup group will have a chance on February 20 to discuss Wikinomics with Anthony Williams, who co-authored the book with Don Tapscott.
If you haven’t read Wikinomics yet, here are a few samples of what Williams and Tapscott have written:
“Twenty years from now we will look back at this period of the early twenty-first century as a critical turning point in economic and social history. We will understand that we entered a new age, one based on new principles, worldviews, and business models where the nature of the game was changed.”
“…profound changes in the nature of technology, demographics, and the global economy are giving rise to powerful new models of production based on community, collaboration, and self-organization rather than on hierarchy and control.”
“… four principles – openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally – increasingly define how twenty-first-century corporations compete.”
“… firms that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators are positioned to form vibrant business ecosystems that create value more effectively than hierarchically organized businesses.”
“While the old Web was about Web sites, clicks and “eyeballs,” the new Web is about the communities, participation and peering.”
“A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish.”
Wikinomics speaks directly to the collaborative and creative challenges and opportunities that are sweeping through marketing and communications. Lots of great ideas persuasively advanced.
If you plan to be in or near Toronto on February 20, don’t miss this event. Register on meetup.com to attend the Third Tuesday session with Anthony Williams.
We have a great speaker lined up for the February Third Monday, Paul Wells of Maclean’s Magazine.
Paul’s Inkless Wells blog is an agenda setter in Canada’s capital. He posts on events – before they happen, while they are happening and or soon after they conclude – with an immediacy, insight and wit that makes him a must-read for other political bloggers, journalists and politicians. For many people, it’s Paul’s blog that sustains top of mind awareness for Maclean‘s, the weekly news magazine for which he writes a column. And to keep a weekly outlet relevant is a real accomplishment in the post-deadline age.
Paul’s first book, Right Side Up, was published in late 2006. I’m only about a quarter way into it. But so far, it’s a pretty interesting, pull-no-punches read.
If you plan to be in or near Canada’s capital on February 19, treat yourself to an interesting evening of discussion with Ottawa’s social media community and a journalist who’s straddling social media and main stream media. Sign up to attend at the Third Monday social media meetup site.
I’m a big fan of David Maister’s approach to creating a successful professional services company. Effective leadership is an essential ingredient to his approach.
Real leadership is earned, not bestowed as an byproduct of one’s position in an organization. Many managers have discovered that the technical skills that have propelled them into management are not the skills they need to be successful as leaders. People vote with their feet every day, especially in an organization that is staffed by knowledge workers with highly valuable expertise and skills. If these people don’t have confidence in the leadership of the company they work at, if they don’t trust them or like them, they can easily take their talent elsewhere.
That’s why today is a happy day for me. Today I was able to recognize one of those true leaders people choose to follow, who inspires loyalty and encourages people to excel.
As I try to walk the talk myself, I thought I’d share with you the email that I sent out earlier today announcing the promotion of one of my colleagues, Keelan Green. I hope that it conveys the right signals to the people with whom I work about what is important and what is valued in our organization.
You’ve probably noticed that the Ottawa office has been on a real roll during the past year. We’ve added some great new consultants (you know who you are!!!), done great work for clients who not only continued to place their trust in us but also provided positive referrals to other clients, and won additional business through straight-ahead competitions. Equally important, the sound of laughter and the sight of smiles is a regular part of the work day.
Every person working in Ottawa has made a real contribution to this success. And I thank you for this.
Today, I want to recognize the particular contribution of Keelan Green. Keelan has been our leader in many ways for the past two years. He leads us literally in being the first person in the office most days. He leads us in showing how to use our work time effectively to get results for clients. As a colleague, I know that Keelan can always be counted on to pitch in when I or someone else needs help. And when the chips are down, he won’t give up until we’ve achieved what we set out to do.
Keelan can also be counted on to show us how to maintain a good balance in our lives (because it’s not only about work.) He taught us that summer Thursdays are for golf. And beware the person who tries to cut into that time!
But most important, we know that Keelan always cares. He cares about our company, the people who work here and making sure that together we are successful. Because if we are successful we can all realize our dreams.
So, I am absolutely delighted to recognize Keelan’s achievements and place in our company by promoting him to General Manager of our Ottawa office. (sound of applause, whistling, foot stomping)
This is not an end, but the beginning of an even more exciting year that lies ahead. In the coming days, Keelan will be working with both the Thornley Fallis Communications and 76design teams to lay out plans to continue to excel in each of our practice areas while also exploring the potential synergies that can be realized by combining our different areas of expertise. I know that he’ll be talking to each of us about the opportunities for us individually to grow and contribute to our collective success.
Congratulations Keelan! It’s your time.
* Thanks to Hugh McLeod for the great drawing. Always a source of inspiration.
