Archive for the ‘Public Relations’ Category

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Measurement Musing: Questions…No Answers…

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Public Relations measurement is so essential, yet so poorly understood. I’m sure it’s my bad that after gaining one client upon launching my business that focused on measurement, I haven’t had a second.  I’ve done some strategy work, some writing, and now am working on a  long-term project for a client that once again, has no measurement component to it.

I do wonder whether I’m just not the right person to help organizations measure — there are other, longer standing, better educated folks out there. Maybe it’s my destiny to stick in the internal communications space, rather than the measurement angle.  Of course, I try never to make life decisions any time from December through February — the seasonal affective disorder reaches its nadir (or zenith) as the winter solstice arrives and lingers through the cold, gray months.

I introduced measurement to my PR Tactics class at Kent State this fall — just a brief tablespoonful — I’m hoping that they remember it as they enter the profession. One thing’s for sure — they certainly had better measurement components in their final projects! Whoo-hoo!

This spring, I’m teaching a course in PR Metrics — so perhaps this is how I can drive measurement into our profession: give it to the kids who’ll replace the dinosaurs in a few years…

Speaking of which, I’ll be sourcing case studies in measurement — and entertaining guest speakers (either in person or by Skype) — so if you can help me out, let me know!

More questions:

Why do so many companies still see news media and social media as mutually exclusive instead of related?

When thinking about measuring social media, why we want to categorize it in the same way we do news media?

Why do we think reaching the most people is better than reaching the right ones?

Why do we want to define influence as only occurring through social media, and why do we so narrowly define it IN social media?

How come we can’t come up with a better means of determining appropriate scope and scale?

Why do people think the only marker of PR intelligence and value relates to external communication?

Why do companies fail to measure employee communication outcomes? Matter of fact, why do we still count clips?

Why am I thinking these hairy thoughts ?

Are these rhetorical questions? (No…)

BTW, don’t miss the Twitter chat, #MeasurePR with @Shonali Burke, Tuesday at 12 noon.

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Posted in Measurement, Personal Reflections, Public Relations | 4 Comments »

My name’s Sean and I’m a Media Junkie.

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

I wrote a piece for my Theory of Mass Comm class that I thought might be interesting for you, dear reader. Especially because my Lost October gobsmacked my blogging and Tweeting, I feel guilty about this — CommunicationAMMO.com is MINE, and I’ve (gratefully) passed the torch this 35 days.  And, I feel guilty about feeling relieved. Did I mention guilt? Please read, comment, and whine.

From the time I was 10, I’ve been a media junkie. The summer of 1968…watching the gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic National Convention from Chicago. Dan Rather punched by goons, Chicago PD pummeling “Yippies” and Gene McCarthy’s delegates locked out of the convention by Mayor Daley’s machine. The last of the smoky back room method of choosing a nominee.

Last week, I read my usual newspapers (in print), the blogs I frequent, Twitter, watched the NBC Nightly News for the first time in years; I also caught CNBC, The Weather Channel and watched most of two baseball games.

I read the Cleveland Plain Dealer for local and state news (especially political news, given the season), and for the quick overview of the rest of the world. The Wall Street Journal gets me caught up on international news, national politics, and news about companies and the economy in detail. A hotel visit left me with the USA Today. That paper’s a bit like white bread – it fills the belly but doesn’t amount to much nutrition.

The Nightly news happened to be on prior to a baseball game, and in moments I determined I didn’t care what Brian Williams thought was important that day — I chatted with other denizens of the restaurant about unrelated things and generally ignored what I saw as the valueless drivel the airbrushed talking heads were discussing.

The blogs gave me a few interesting perspectives on marketing and communications — from people I don’t know but whom I’ve found cogent of thought in the past (I found them on recommendation from people I know and trust).

Twitter is audience participation — forwarding and responding to what others said, making me feel connected to a wider team, something, as a sole proprietor, I miss. It’s almost conversation (the delay makes it a bit different, but with enough similarity to make it seem valuable to me.)

Why do I continue consuming these media? I remain a news junkie.

A couple of weeks ago, I was too busy to do my usual routine. There I was in two of the best newspaper markets in the U.S. (Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.), and I didn’t once read either newspaper. Sigh.

I don’t feel right not knowing. I don’t feel good being ignorant. I’ve got to have that fix.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Media Relations | 1 Comment »

Some Crises Are ‘No-Win’

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

In a balanced article in the 22 August New York Times, writer Peter S. Goodman talks to a heap of PR folks about the Goldman Sachs, Toyota and BP communication nightmares. It’s a good piece, especially one graf:

“Which raises a question: Are some crises so dire that public relationship victory is simply not on the menu? And, if so, what’s an embattled company to do?”

After living through the financial crisis with a regional bank, I can tell you that we did wonder whether there was anything we could do differently to try and make our sow’s ear into a silk purse. Or even just a paper bag, anything except what we were getting.

The question of visceral hatred that we see for Goldman Sachs and BP isn’t equaled for Toyota. Of course, the corporate reputations of both Goldman and BP weren’t near as positive prior to their crises as Toyota’s. In the Goldman case, was public opinion merely scapegoating a convenient target? We didn’t much like the idea that this company was busy racking up big profits whilst the average Joe saw 401 (k) collapses, layoffs and strife. BP had held itself out as a new breed (Beyond Petroleum). Meanwhile, Toyota had become the largest auto company in the world on the strength of perceived exceptionally high quality. There was more goodwill built up around Toyota, and although they had a few bumps, they seem to be returning to their lofty status.

One expert quoted in the article said when the facts are horrible, “the best PR fix may simply be to absorb the pounding and get back to business, while eschewing the sort of foolish communication gimmicks that can make things worse.”

We see, however, how heavy the pounding can get when companies decide to stonewall or be overly parsimonious in their statements. But I agree that sometimes, the news is just so bad, so damaging, that there’s no way to win. So, the question becomes, just how much crisis medicine are you willing to take?

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Posted in Crisis Communications, Media Relations, Public Relations, Strategy | 2 Comments »

4 Steps to Build Relationships with HR (& others)

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

It’s an axiom that the Human Resources and Public Relations teams often don’t get along, though as with the IT crew, we should be fast friends and excellent partners.

Let’s face it, it can’t be easy to be an HR pro these days. “HR jobs are often the last to go in a recession. Layoffs, wage freezes, benefits cuts, discrimination lawsuits, new government regulations and other recession-fueled workplace developments all generate additional HR work…” (Workforce Management, May 2010, p. 16).  All that extra work, especially the human factors, have to bring a boat-load of stress.

We PR folks haven’t had it easy the last couple of years, either, as our staffs and budgets got squeezed. Long hours, multiple shifting priorities…  That’s even more a reason to partner-up, even as compadres in misery.

Whether in good times or bad, HR or IT, what do we do to foster professional relationships? Follow these four steps:

1. Communicate: Start by opening lines of communication. Reach out, go for coffee or lunch, ask lots of questions about HR’s business goals and how they’re striving toward them. Put yourself in their shoes. HR folks have a lot to offer, and a lot of times, just need your expression of interest to open up. Besides, that’s how we’re supposed to gather business intelligence, anyway — by talking to people.

2. Coordinate: Where do your worlds intersect?  HR content is important, whether for employees or for external constituencies. What events, projects, initiatives are on the horizon? Again, look at it from their perspective.  It may seem basic, but the big issue is the old right-had/left-hand disconnect. Help to reconnect by sharing information from your broad perspective and by being ready to make a few changes to your plans to accommodate HR’s situation and goals. You want employees to be informed, and so does HR. You want the organization to attract qualified prospective employees, and so does HR. We’re not so different from one another — we’re professionals with jobs to do.

3. Collaborate: Every department has been doing more with less. Pitch in and offer to help out.  At Goodyear, I volunteered to be part of an organizational effectiveness audit. My participation allowed the audit to move a bit more quickly and spare some folks a couple of really long days. It also allowed me to hear from our front-line employees face to face. They weren’t shy about their experiences with leadership, and communication. I was able to look through HR’s lens — thinking and talking about how to improve the organization. Plus, I built trust, won some allies and made some friends in the organization, always helpful outcomes for a communicator. Yes, we’re all busy, but it’s worth the investment of time.

4. Counsel: The heart of being a trusted counselor is the relationship. Working hard at forging professional bonds with your HR team gets noticed. For that matter, you could apply these steps to any constituency, whether you’re in conflict or not.  When you’re known for your curiosity, willingness to help and ability to add value to a discussion, you’re setting a strong foundation for relationships and your role as a trusted adviser — a seat at the strategic table.

You still need to bring the goods, by the way — your planning, advice and writing have to be first-rate. The assumption of expert status must be backed up by your outstanding performance, again whether you’re working with HR, Finance, IT or whomever.

When you do it right, you’ll discover what great partners they can be.

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Posted in Internal Communications, Public Relations, Strategy | 3 Comments »

5 Reasons Why HR & PR Don’t Get Along

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Ask any corporate communicator who they want to report to and they’ll say, “the CEO!”  Now ask who they’d NEVER want to report to. They’ll say, “HR.”  why is that?

Our corporate cousins in Human Resources have many of the same issues that we do. They want to be seen as strategic resources, not mere tactical cogs in the wheel. They struggle to be taken seriously outside of their functional silos.  They fight for budget and resources with some difficulty, because they “don’t drive sales,” or “don’t understand the business.”  By these lights, we should be strong partners — the shared pain of the back-office services would seem to be a logical impetus for a good relationship.

My own experience demonstrates that possibility. Goodyear’s (now retired) Kathy Geier was a trusted member of then-CEO Bob Keegan’s cabinet.  She reached out to me often on all kinds of matters, and recruited me onto a task force on business process optimization. Many of her team sought me out (and I, them), and we forged a strong, positive relationship. KeyCorp’s Diane Coble and Jeff Darner (since moved on) and I enjoyed similar mutual respect and partnering. Even my brief tenure at National City Corporation included positive experiences working with HR.

But in other organizations, jealousy, turf wars, even outright stiff-necked opposition are the order of the day. Why?

Here are 5 reasons why HR and PR don’t get along.  Next week, 5 ways YOU can build a good relationship with them.

1. HR thinks they’re smarter than PR. There’s a stronger academic body of knowledge in HR, a business school connection missing from most all PR programs, which reside in Journalism.  They think their college experience was more demanding and quantitative than ours.

2. HR is hungry for budget and control.  They want more than just the functional duties of compensation, personnel, etc.This is key to their strategic aspirations; the “support services” model often puts an HR person in charge of all the support functions, elevating them to higher pay and bonus as a result of larger budgets and spans of control.

3. HR often believes that only information critical to the employee should be communicated to them — and that means comp/benefits, business conduct and training opportunities should be top of the fold in the employee newsletter and front-and-center on the intranet. They believe that they know more about communication than we do (and sometimes they’re right, but that’s another post).

4.  HR provides training in many fields, so it believes it knows better how to train managers to be communicators than we do.

5. HR likes checklists. Communicating something is an output to be checked off, not a process with a closed loop. They prefer push to pull, wanting to declare that a communication has been sent and therefore is complete. This is especially fraught when discussing how to measure the effectiveness of communication activity.

Just a reminder — these aren’t hard and fast rules, they’re examples. Your results may vary.  In fact, share your thinking here!  Do these resonate with you? Am I full of it?

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Posted in Internal Communications, Public Relations, Strategy | 4 Comments »

Don’t Cry Over Measurement

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Listening to communicators carry on about how hard measurement is makes me crazy.  Look, I’m no quant-geek, high-foreheaded, pointy-headed type of guy, I’m a lowly scribe, an ink-stained (and pixel-illuminated) wretch.  That’s why I wrote an article for IABC’s CW Bulletin called “Measurement Without Crying.” Read it, and stop weeping.

Don't Cry.

You’ll also find pieces by my Institute for PR Measurement Commission colleagues Katie Paine and Mark Weiner — in this all-measurement issue.

Honest – it’s not all math all the time, and it’s not scary once you learn something about it. This fall, my students at Kent State University (PR Tactics) will find out, because I’m going to give them a window into measurement as part of the coursework!

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Talking About PRSA, IABC, IPR on PRConversations Blog

Monday, July 12th, 2010

I’m honored (or honoured) to have written a guest post on one of the best blogs in all of PR/Communications — PRConversations — thanks to Judy Gombita, who recruited me.  The topic is my tripartite professional association affiliation — IABC, PRSA and the Institute for PR. Namely, are they valuable, necessary and a good value?  The comment stream alone is worth reading, with several luminaries weighing in (and no cursing or objects thrown so far, thankfully.) Give it a read and tell me what you think!

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Posted in Public Relations, Strategy | Comments Off

Another IABC International Conference…

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

I recognize that if I’m not a speaker at the big IABC soiree, I’m probably not the target audience for it. I’m not surprised, therefore, that my first blush reaction to the Toronto gathering wasn’t particularly positive.  My goal for attending this year was to meet some new people and make contact with some who I haven’t seen in a while. I hope to eventually get some business from it, but really just need to expand the network.

The programming and format are nearly identical to my first International, in 1995, also in Toronto. That one was a revelation — I was just 4 years or so into the profession, and everything was new.  Every session offered fascinating insights or enhanced skills.  I met scores of people and hung out with many, enjoying my first trip to Toronto and my first extended business trip in several years.

In 1997, L.A. was a different experience. Many of the speakers were the same as two years earlier, and in 2002 at Chicago, there were just a few sessions that really caught my eye. So I took a vacation from the big show until this year.

Things that impressed me:

Erin Dick from Pratt & Whitney — a social media case study that wasn’t from a Silicon Valley firm… Her use of blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to help support P&W’s client (the U.S.Government) on the selection of an engine for the Joint Strike Force fighter was off the charts — brilliant. And it had a fairly strong measurement component. I decided to Tweet the session instead of trying to take notes. The benefit was that I had a great summary, though my thumbs threatened to lock up from BlackBerry-itis…

William Amurgis from American Electric Power — Looking for use of social media in internal communications? Amurgis delivered. AEP’s blogs, discussion boards, employee-uploaded photos, etc., set a high standard of participation. The company’s intranet philosophy? Enhance employee productivity, reinforce corporate messages and provide a place to meet for all employees. Everything has to pass through that frame, or it doesn’t happen. And, rather than buy software solutions, AEP makes their own. Amurgis has a designer and a developer on his staff.

The UnConference — OK, it was a bit different than other UnConferences (usually low-or-no-cost, open to anyone; you had to buy the day (at least) for the IABC Conference to get in, and it wasn’t cheap) — but the method of operation was different and fun. There was no pre-set program, just a list of ideas posted on the TorontoTalks website (that a few people did discuss first), and three 5-minute “keynotes” — very informally delivered.  The three-hour session on Sunday afternoon was comprised of four 25-minute blocks of time with six possible topics (being held at six tables). We wrote on sticky notes our question or suggested topic, then stuck it on a flip chart in an empty time slot. The writer could lead the discussion, or someone else could.  I talked measurement (what a shock!) with seven other folks and it was fascinating. We didn’t solve the ROI question in full, nor did we get into other facets of communication, but it still was valuable and fun.

The thing is, the (nice) venue, formal structure and overwhelming size of the show made it hard to connect with people. Even the formal networking session (the big one held on the floor of the exhibit show) was just an hour long — not near enough time to connect. (I also didn’t attend Monday’s sessions — none particularly grabbed me. That might have inhibited my networking activities, so shame on me!)

The cost was pretty high for a new entrepreneur, not only in travel but in the conference fee. I’ll be considering very carefully before jumping on again soon. But, if I wind up as a speaker…

{FYI, I’m speaking in November at IABC’s Research and Measurement Conference in Seattle, as well as at the PRSA National conference in DC in October.  I’m also willing to come to chapter lunches, etc., and can make a deal for my PRSA/IABC fellow members!}

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Posted in Intranet, Measurement, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 12 Comments »

CEO Transitions Need Employee Attention

Monday, June 14th, 2010

When you’ve worked most of your life in big companies, as I have, it’s easy to forget that major change is a huge employee issue regardless of the size of company.  Big company complexity can be daunting to contemplate, and I’ve heard people pine for smaller firms with the idea that big change would be easier. News flash: It ain’t necessarily so.

Central Federal Corp and CFBank – a four-branch bank headquartered in suburban Akron with 66 full-time employees, according to Yahoo! Finance — is going to find out how easy it will be, now that former kahuna Mark Allio stepped down. According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Allio offered his resignation at the company’s annual meeting, and now the firm is searching for a new leader, with General Counsel Eloise Mackus steering the ship in the meantime (and “indicating interest”, per the Crain’s piece).

During any big change process — and a CEO transition is usually a big one — employees get distracted; it’s human nature. There are at least 65 people at that company wondering 1) Who’ll be the boss? 2) What will he/she change? and 3) What will it mean for me. It won’t help matters that the company’s financial performance (as with many banks) has suffered during the recession. Now the boss quits and there’s going to be a “process” to replace him.

Employees are ripe for worry, and worried employees seldom give great service, which ostensibly is the raison d’être for community banks.

The tendency of the board and leadership team is to look inward to themselves and the shareholders. Yes, they have a fiduciary responsibility to those owners, but they must not ignore their wider team. I don’t know that they have or have not — but they will need to ramp up the contact with the ordinary employees and be sure they’re equipped with the right tools to manage the customers and prospects.

Here are three “must-dos” –

1.  A note to employees with a draft customer letter — explaining the change and next steps, including a basic timeline.

2.  Questions-and-answers document anticipating what customers, community leaders, friends and family will want to know about the change.

3.  Commitment to a weekly email note and a twice-monthly conference call for managers updating everyone on progress.

It’s not a hard thing to do at all, and following these steps can make it a whole lot easier to glide through the transition.

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Posted in Internal Communications, News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 1 Comment »

Crisis Analysis, SocMed Use, Get Globe/Mail Attention

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Canada’s outstanding The Globe and Mail has two stories today worth noting.  Vancouver, B.C., retailer Lululemon is using Twitter to gather intel from its customers about what sizes and colors to stock; British Petroleum gets second-guessed in its crisis communication strategy under the headline, “Lessons in Leadership Spill from BP.”

BP’s feckless communication strategy, especially demonstrated by company CEO Tony Hayward’s frequent gaffes when speaking off the cuff, deserves to be pilloried. Hayward and company were obviously led by lawyers in this regard, minimizing the potential impact of the disastrous gusher, appearing too rarely in public and pointing blame to subcontractors. Hayward’s “I’d like my life back” rang especially tone-deaf in the wake of 11 deaths and the potential for catastrophic wildlife impact (not to mention the economic peril for the gulf fishing industry.) Several communication experts get quoted in Wallace Immen’s excellent piece, including Michael Stern (Michael Stern Associates), Prof. Julian Barling (Queen’s University School of Business), and Guy Beaudin, (RHR International).

Lululemon sells athletic ware, and by all accounts does a bang-up job of it. Some of the success, according to CEO Christine Day, is due to its use of social media — Twitter and Facebook.  Reporter Marina Strauss quotes Day: “We learn more about [which items are in demand] on Facebook and social media: what are the guests really screaming for, and so we use [the feedback] to get a little bit more indication.”

Keeping an eye on its 127,000 Facebook fans and 32,000 Twitter followers gets Day and company a faster view than its store performance metrics (and offers perspectives from people who are just thinking about going to the store, rather than having bought something there — that’s an interesting view on potential demand, the pipeline, some call it.)

The social media use has two purposes, according to the article — to gather information, and to drive traffic to the company website. When we’re looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of social media, website traffic is more often cited than the research value, which is a pity.  Going back to the ROPE method of communication planning (Research, Objectives, Programming, Evaluation), you don’t have anything without the research.

If social media served no other purpose than market intelligence, it’d still be worth the investment, no?

{P.s., my Canadian sojourn is nearly complete – back to a more regular schedule next week.)

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Posted in Measurement, News Analysis, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 2 Comments »

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