Mutually Inclusive PR

IABC Cafe Cups Runneth Over

The coverage of the IABC international conference offered by conference
attendees themselves is refreshing for a number of reasons (see The IABC Cafe)..

• You get different perspectives on the conference, so you can recognize
• the comments that seem credible to you.
• Stories about travel conditions, networking, and the mechanics of being at the conference, added a human touch to the coverage.
• There's coverage about an event while it's still happening. This adds to the sense of reading about a real event, rather than a curt summary of what the main speakers had to say.
• The incoming chair of IABC (Regina's Warren Bickford) actually gave a lukewarm review to keynote speakers James Carville and Mary Matalin. How's that for transparency? The representative leader of the organization making an honest comment about the content of the conference. The opposite of corporate bafflegab, and refreshing to hear.
• Full frontal photo of Warren Bickford and David Kistle.

Not every posting was a brilliant gem, but as a whole they did an excellent job of giving you an idea of what you're missing. Which is exactly what a conference report should do, if it was a good conference. (If you click through to the conference coverage, some of the articles will seem to be posted anonymously. That's just a glitch with the software. If you click on the conference category in the right margin and scroll through the postings, you'll see all the author attributions.)

Bickford's decision to pass off conference coverage to his posse of correspondents was brilliant. At a conference with 1,300+ people, the chair of the organization has to do a lot of in the flesh meet and greet, attend meetings,  and so on. He didn't have lots of time for blog postings, and wisely had others available to pick up the slack. A good idea, and something to consider as the year progresses and Bickford finds his schedule gets in the way of regular blog postings.

My rating of the coverage:  Hey, that would be too easy. Go to IABC Cafe and make up your own mind.

Other conference coverage:
Technorati listings
Some photos

IABC Cafe Press Corps (who did a great job):

• Silvia Cambie - Brussels, Belgium
• Adrian Cropley - Melbourne, Australia
• Alix Edmiston - Toronto, Canada
• Jerri Etchason - Seattle, USA
• Russell Grossman - London, United Kingdom
• Tom Keefe - Libertyville, USA
• Barbara Palframan Smith - Sydney, Australia
• Jeremy Pepper - Phoenix, USA
• Gail Pickard, ABC - North Vancouver, Canada
• Debbie Weil - Washington, DC, USA
• Anna Willey, ABC - Regina, Canada
• Julie Woods - Boston, USA
• Charles Pizzo - New Orleans, USA

Microsoft Wants to Listen to You

Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble tells anyone who will listen that Microsoft hasn't been doing a very good job of listening to its customers.

"But I hate Microsoft and don't want to help you out," he says, putting words into some of his readers' mouths.

I'm trying to think of an organization that wouldn't have fired him for making comments like that in a widely published format a few years ago. Surprisingly, I can think of a few. I even worked for an organization that had an incredible willingness to allow doubt, concern, alternatives and criticism within its widely-distributed trade magazine. I was the editor, but even at my most gadflyish I never came close to some of the specific criticisms Scoble has levelled at his employer.

Scoble gains a lot of credibility by laying it on the line like that. Today he lays out his "agenda for the next couple of years":

1) I want an "Internet Content Sharing Suite" that does it all with simple, common, interfaces.
2) I want a really killer podcasting device.
3) I want another "Internet Memo." (A reference to Bill Gates' 1997 statement he was going to embrace the Internet with everything Microsoft did.)

The ease of use described by Scoble would make my life a lot easier. He has set up a discussion area on his Channel 9 web site.

(Channel 9 is the video education team that "evangelizes" and educates about what Microsoft does and where it's heading).  That should be an interesting discussion.

Update:  Jeremy Wright takes Scoble to task for purposely keeping his comments function turned off, and for being an inaccessible business person instead of a regular blogger. He argues that, without comments turned on, Scoble is running a marketing web site, not a blog.  Ironically, Wright's next post tells us his e-mail is down for a few days. How's that accessibility coming, Jeremy? ;-)

Warning: Rick Mercer's Blog May Contain Humour

Former This Hour Has 22 Minutes skewerer of politicians, people who are full of themselves and innocent Americans has launched a blog, and it's worth checking out.

Mercer's first day of blogging was spent explaining why his hit fake news show Monday Report was being moved to Tuesday. Most of his subsequent postings flail federal Conservative leader Stephen Harper.

Responding to a criticism that he has become a Liberal shill (Mercer is paid to promote Canada's Kyoto targets for the federal government on TV ads), he responds:

The National Citizen’s coalition has a letter to the Editor in today’s Globe and Mail claiming I’m a liberal shill. I’m not a Liberal, I’m just lazy and the Tories make it so dammed easy. Maybe if they would just stop dousing themselves with gas and waving matches around for five minutes I could focus on corruption and greed in the Liberal Party.

It should be pointed out of course that Stephen Harper used to run the National Citizens coalition. Having them write a letter defending him is the equivalent of me getting my mother to write someone who thinks I’m a liberal shill.

Keep Tags Simple

The lesson to be learned from IABC's choice of a four word lengthy tag for tracking postings and photos seems to be: if it isn't simple, it won't work.

All the tagged items so far on Technorati are from IABC's own blog. No one else who's blogging of posting photos about the IABC international conference being held in Washington D.C. have been able to figure out how to make their tags match the one IABC suggests.

Compare that to the technology conference Gnomedex, which had hundreds of tagged postings, and you can see that simplicity pays.

(Tags are way to identify a web page with information on a topic that others might find relevant.  On Technorati, you can view postings and photos with a common tag, and you can browse around different tags.)

Update: Chris Hall, the web guy handling IABC's blog, suggests I might be nitpicking to worry about whether Technorati tags are functioning the way they're intended. He also suggests I not assume the problem lies with IABC the next time anything doesn't appear to be working.

Fair enough. Any technorati tags about the IABC conference that used all four words in sequence showed up fine if you searched for all four words. And anyone who was guessing at the possible word combination to use as a tag still had a good likelihood of successfully searching for postings if they used "iabc conference" or some similar search that used a couple of the words from the four-word tag.

I still think any tag that uses four words is probably too long for the kind of use proposed.  But I'm probably nitpicking.  ;-)

Tag: IABC International Conference 2005

Numbers 1, 3 and 7

Just testing my Master List of Blogging:

#1, #3, and finally #7.

Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Update: Now you can add your own pearls of wisdom to the Master List on The New PR Wiki.

A Modest Proposal for PR Blogs

(With a gentle grin aimed at Elizabeth Allbrycht.)

In order to speed up discussion while still allowing all PR and communications bloggers to have their say, I propose we create a master list of 100 wise things. This list could be housed on a central web site or wiki.

Then, whenever someone wants to make a statement about a topic that's already been covered, they just cite the number and link to the original statement.

I'll get the list started, and maybe Constantin Basturea can create some room on the New PR Wiki for the list.

The Master List

1) Stop saying PR is dead. My CEO might cut my budget again.
2) Any company that hasn't implemented a blog by December 31, 2005 at midnight will suddenly lose all ability to function. They should hire blog consultants to avoid this catastrophe. (For background material, see archival information on the Y2K crisis.)
3) Don't believe the blogs will solve all problems.
4) I'm sorry I made the comment in my previous post. The person mentioned never did what I said they did, and has every right to beat me senseless.
5) Companies should hire CEOs who understand communications instead of arrogant bastards whose sole focus is increasing shareholder value this year.
6) I'm writing a ground-breaking business book. Buy advance copies now for yourself, your aunt, your neighbour. Please!
7) Managers need to spend more time listening to employees and customers.
8) I'm at a conference and will share my thoughts once I find a WiFi connection. Dial-up sucks.
9) I want to attract more traffic to my blog, so I'm going to mention a bunch of A-List bloggers like Nick Denton, Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Halley Suitt, B.L. Ochman, Cory Doctorow and Steve Rubel, in a Top-10 List that also mentions Paris Hilton and Brad Pitt.
10) I'll be busy doing something in the real world this week, so won't be posting much to my blog. Please don't unsubscribe. Please!

Add your suggestions for additional items on this list. With the added efficiency of just linking to a commonly-stated opinion, we can free up both the bloggers and their readers from the drudgery of having to type in and read a thought that has already been stated. Eventually, most readers will have the list memorized, and can quickly glean the gist of your day's commentary by scanning the numbers you refer to.

Update:  The list is live on The New PR Wiki. Feel free to use numbered references from now on, referring to the list on the wiki. Thanks to Constantin Basturea, and all future contributors to the list!

Update 2: Phil Gomes takes a similar tack on the compulsion of bloggers to constantly post that they won't be posting much.

Tags: PR, Public Relations, Humor, Weblogs, Blogs

The Lost Art of the Apology, Vol 2

An apology has incredible power, as Jane Genova explores in her posting Apology As Totally Disarming.

She offers tips: 

1. Just observe.  When anyone makes a sincere apology, we listen.  I landed an assignment in the mega competitive hospitality industry by recognizing that even the most unhappy guest will be turned around by an authentic and detailed apology.

2. Give up on the cult of the self.  Did it ever work?  That's open to debate.  But in an interconnected, volatile global economy, who can go it alone?  That's why eastern philosophy of no-self is catching on rapidly.  If we aren't defending the self, apology comes naturally.

3. Decide if we want to be right /appear to be right or be successful?  Surrendering on this one is the necessary inner paradigm shift that makes apology possible.

4.  Ignore the lawyers, initially.  We can apologize in ways that won't invite legal action or strengthen the case of the opposition. After we make a decision to do a mea culpa, then we should listen to the lawyers.

5. In low-stakes transactions, try out apologizing.  When we get the other's attention out there, we know we're doing it right

Other sources worth checking out:

The Lost Art of the Apology - Vol 1 (an earlier posting of mine)
The Apology Project
South Knox Bubba vs. Local Publisher (check the 94 comments)
Karl Rove: Apologize, resign or both - Dave Weinberger
Technorati "Apology"

Shel: Clarity, Simplicity, Impact

Shel Holtz proves once again why he's one of the best communications/PR bloggers around.

His notes about the James Carville and Mary Matalin keynote at the IABC Conference are remarkable for their clarity, simplicity and impact.  He reminds us that the tools of the trade change, but the need to communicate remains at the centre of our profession.

You tell 'em, Shel.

(Photo of Shel from his blog, a shel of my former self.)

Warren Bickford finds the presentation less inspiring.

Tag: IABC international conference 2005

 

PRSA Goes After Internal Critic of Executive

The New York Law Journal reports that the Public Relations Society of America and its COO Catherine Bolton are pursuing a lawsuit against a former PRSA employee who sent what he or she thought was an anonymous e-mail about Bolton to members of the board of directors.

Though there has been some coverage in subscription-only Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, the only other mentions on the Internet are a note by PR executive Ken Kerrigan in a blog posting June 24 that doesn't offer many details, and the New York Law Journal report.

The Law Journal says Bolton won a court action to have a Time-Warner-owned Internet service provider reveal the identity of the person whose e-mail account was used to send the critical e-mail. However, the PRSA as an organization was turned down in its request, so if the suit proceeds, the PRSA is unlikely to be a direct party to it.

The ISP didn't make a court appearance, but a lawyer for the anonymous e-mailer argued against releasing the information.

Says the Law Journal:

The e-mail stated, among other things, that the Public Relations Society of America's director Catherine A. Bolton "is a fast-talking nonstrategic PR person. She cannot manage or lead an organization. Her quarterly reports to staff are garbage, often met with rolling eyes," according to Justice Kibbie F. Payne's decision, Public Relations Society of America v. Road Runner High Speed Online, 116210/04.

Getting the name of the person who controlled the e-mail account is a precursor to a defamation suit, the Law Journal reports.

Comments Kerrigan:

I fail to understand how concerns about the performance of a senior officer at an organization sent anonymously to board members could negatively impact governance, as PRSA has publicly stated as a cause for their concern. Isn't such "whistle blowing" and the response such a communication receives from a board a test of effective governance in the first place?

In an interesting twist, their pursuit of the e-mailer's identity has caused quotes from the e-mail to be published. You would think they would want to limit the distribution of the contents of the e-mail. The PRSA doesn't appear to have any information about the pending lawsuit on its web site, which is similar to the low profile maintained by the International Association of Business Communicators when their former CEO Elizabeth Allen sued acting president Lou Williams for defamation.

I can't imagine a situation where a public lawsuit about an e-mail between an employee of the organization and its board members will improve the PRSA's image. Some organizations encourage feedback on their leadership, and accept the occasional poisoned pen letter as part of the anonymous feedback process.

I guess that's not the case with the PRSA.

White Board Creativity

  White Board - Finn's Slides 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

A white board is just a tool you use to record ideas, make plans, conceptualize a project. Or in this case, record the many possible variations of slides a five-year-old can imagine.

After deciding on the kinds of slides, Finn wanted each of them to have a circular slide looped around it as well.  And a kid. What's the use of a slide without a kid?