Practical Communication

The age-old battle

Sarah Brown — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:40:08 +0000

As a recovering journalist, I find this highly entertaining, if a bit cheesy:

Thanks, PRSA.

BP’s crisis response – disastrous, or just evasive?

Sarah Brown — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:31:14 +0000

An oil soaked bird struggles against the side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

NPR ran an interview with Patrick Kinney of Gaffney Bennet Public Relations this morning and discussed BP’s not-so-great crisis response to filling the ocean with oil, and it was pretty awesome.

What they didn’t really touch on, however, was how BP should have (and still could, although I don’t know how much it would do for their public image of “basest evil”) simply granted unfettered, comprehensive access to scientists, the government, and anyone else who wanted to help.

Although that may not be the best legal strategy, it is certainly the best PR strategy. And that’s probably a problem that comes up quite a bit at large companies like BP — Legal vs. CorpComm.

In BP’s case, by denying access to scientists and shooing away the public’s desire to know exactly how much oil is gushing into the Gulf, they come off as having something to hide. And I bet if you ask their legal department, they do.

Collaborative competition: Way more fun than the regular kind

Sarah Brown — Sat, 15 May 2010 02:52:09 +0000

I found a monthly career education-type series on Columbia University’s alumni resources/continuing education web site. How? I have no life. Anyway, if you love webcasts approximately as much as I love webcasts (which is approximately to the level of “7″), then you’ll probably love this:

Corporate Control Over the Public Mind?

Sarah Brown — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:18:14 +0000

A new book, “A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power” claims to uncover the secret history of the PR industry and relate our current, sanitized corporate PR environment to the dirty world of war propaganda.

Although it seems a little far-fetched at first, upon further reflection it sounds about right. If you think about it, the goals of public relations align pretty closely with the goals of propagandists: Sway people to think positively about your message. Whether the message is “Apple products are swell,” or “Communism is the best system for the people,” the methods are the same.

Authors William Dinan and David Miller make a good point when they say:

The field of Public Relations research, the discipline of marketing, some aspects of Human Resource Management and Management and Business Studies more generally all bear the mark of propaganda victories…

They verbalize what I have so often thought, not just about the fields of PR, marketing and communication, but about society in general: That there is something sinister going on here. Something to do with power and influence and the dynamics of how the powerful interact with the powerless.

My optimistic conclusion? It’s not just people in positions of power — CEOs and presidents — that need to be careful of the corruption that can come so easily with that power. It might be more important for people near the powerful or in a position to sway the public to guard against the abuse of power.

For another take on the book, see the great sociology blog, The SocJournal.

Football? What football?

Sarah Brown — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:32:45 +0000

For those of us who just watch the Super Bowl for the ads:

Although I must admit I’m more inclined to watch The Puppy Bowl than The Super Bowl.

Corporation Runs for Congress

Sarah Brown — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Here’s a PR firm you know doesn’t take itself too seriously: Murray Hill Incorporated, in a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to grant corporations even more control over the political process, has produced a campaign video, below, announcing its candidacy for Maryland’s primary. Self-deprecation, when packaged with relevancy and high production values, adds up to a great way to get your name in front of a public wary of the PR industry:

How to report the news

Sarah Brown — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:03:33 +0000

I’m the first to admit that journalism is not as easy as it looks. Staying profitable while ethically addressing tough issues in a way that will be appealing to a wide audience is hard. That’s why so much journalism – television, print, and otherwise – is really, really awful. But there’s a silver lining! Without terrible journalism, we wouldn’t get hilarious videos like this one:

Strategic communications: An impediment to clarity?

Sarah Brown — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:09:29 +0000

The adjective “strategic” lends an air of importance and complexity to any noun that follows it. It’s jargon that means a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

Strategic communications takes a lot of planning and careful listening.

If you really want to get granular (more business-speak meaning “nitty gritty”), you can define it as the art and science of enabling an organization to achieve its objective through a series of top-level management decisions.

Strategic communication consultants and director-level experts have surrounded the practice of communication (strategic or otherwise) with impenetrable jargon, successfully barring everyday businesspeople from feeling confident in their inherent understanding of their audience and marketplace. They would have you believe that coming up with a strategic communication plan is impossibly difficult, rife with danger at every turn. Better leave it up to the highly-paid expert consultants. That’ll be $300 per hour, please.

But basically it’s this: What do you want to say about your organization? Your products and services? To whom are you speaking, and how are you going to get your message to them? What tone will you use when you address them? How will you measure the success of these initiatives? How will you take metrics and improve the process of researching, composing and delivering your message?

The most important rule of any communications, strategic or otherwise, is this: SHUT UP AND LISTEN. You m ay think because you fill the role of communicator, that you should be writing, talking and producing content all the time. And you will be. But first, ask your customers and clients what they think. They can articulate what is important to them better than you ever can. Tell them about what you’re doing, and listen carefully to their responses. Then, and only then, should you start thinking “strategically.”

A social media primer for latecomers

Sarah Brown — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:03:11 +0000

This is a great introductory video for anyone that suspects Twitter, Facebook, and social aggregating sites like FriendFeed and all the derivations thereof either a) have no real marketing, journalism, or communications value, or b) think social media is a fad. Alternatively, this video functions nicely as a primer for people who know that social media is big, but aren’t quite sure how big, and don’t want to get bogged down in the sea of details available online.