The Communicator

Blogging is a wonderful way to build relationships, showcase ideas and motivate audiences. But do blogs work in every industry and for everyone? Certainly not.  

Blogs facilitate the sharing of ideas with like-minded audiences. They can be used to motivate, inspire, educate or placate, but – at the end of the day – their value rests in their ability to communicate ideas and opinions. 

In my very first post on this blog (To Blog or Not to Blog), I suggested that certain industries and functions – in particular those that generate ideas or motivate people – had more to gain from blogs than most other sectors. Here are some examples: 

Not-for-profits: For organizations that depend on public good will, blogs provide an excellent way to motivate donors, inform volunteers and advocate for a cause. Blogs are also great vehicles for improving an organization’s profile with stakeholders, media and the general public. 

Professional Services: No industry produces more thought leadership than the professional services. For consultants and ‘rain makers’, blogs deliver a safe and certain distribution channel that can be branded and reused as business development or marketing collateral. 

Industry Associations and Unions: With a geographically dispersed membership and only the occasional formal interaction with the members themselves, blogs offer trade associations and unions a way to highlight certain issues and motivate the membership around advocacy. 

Politicians: In most democracies, the public likes to know what their elected officials are thinking, planning and doing on a daily basis. Blogs provide a transparent and approachable way for politicians to further their agendas, rally constituents, and win-over their detractors.  

CEOs: Regardless of the type of organization, blogs have a large role to play in Executive and Internal communications. It is critical – especially in times of change – that executive teams be visible, approachable and honest. Blogs can be an excellent way to provide context to corporate objectives, motivate employees around a cause or inspire innovation and collaboration.  

Just over two years ago I ended my post with the following advice for professional communicators:  

Treat blogs like you would any other communication vehicle. Evaluate their reach, impact, cost and effort against your objectives. And if it turns out that a blog makes sense, the first step should always be to ensure that you have a long-term commitment from your organization, and the right resources to ensure sustainable success.  

And – regardless of your industry – that certainly hasn’t changed.  

Want to talk about whether a blog strategy is right for your organization? Contact Peter at peter@communicationsunlimited.ca.

iPhones, iPads, PDAs, laptops, cell phones, PCs… the internet is now truly ubiquitous. No matter where you go, the web always seems to be right at your fingertips. 

But for professional communicators, the rapid proliferation of web-accessible devices can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the public’s increased access to the internet can lead to more visitors for your website and thus a better return on your investment. On the other, the complexity of maintaining a consistent customer experience and brand identity across a growing number of platforms can quickly sap your resources and become a burden. 

For many organizations, there is no easy answer. Communicators will need to find a comfortable balance between maintaining an easily-accessible website and managing the host of other web priorities that drive their traffic and achieve their objectives. 

Regardless of your current strategy, we have noticed a few trends that we’ve picked up from leading websites: 

• Keep it simple: Don’t let your website get bogged down with long passages or huge pdf files. Remember that people may be accessing your site with different download speeds, screen colour capabilities, and data plans, so try to stick to simple text and a lot of white space to enhance ease-of-use. 
• Know your audience: While this may be a ‘no-brainer’ for most, it’s easy to get caught up in hype (or simply the desire to demonstrate your innovation to the world), and lose sight of the basic characteristics of your audience. Use your website metrics to understand how your most frequent visitors – or most valuable customers – access your site, and concentrate on improving their experience first. 
• Seek value opportunities: Regardless of their popularity, many new technologies and devices perform unique functions that can greatly enhance your message. Try gauging the added effect of incorporating tools such as interactive charts, streaming video and real-time updates to illustrate your point and add value. 
• Leverage free apps: Rather than spending too much time and money deploying video functionality or other cool applications, consider harnessing existing free sites such as YouTube or Twitter to perform some of those functions. Not only are they extremely cost-effective, but they can also gain much wider viewership than your corporate site alone. 

At the end of the day, it all comes back to the basic fundamentals of communications: know your audience, how to reach them, and what really matters to them. If you always keep that in mind, you can’t really go wrong.  

Need help adapting your communications material? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

As communications professionals, we are often expected to defend our organizations through thick and thin, the good and the bad. In fact, frequently we’re expected not only to drink the corporate KoolAid, but to mix and distribute it too. 

This is about more than just toeing the company line – as is expected of every employee. We are also expected to be evangelists of the strategic vision, defenders of the corporate faith, and crusaders in campaigning against those who would besmirch our corporate reputation. 

For the most part, communicators embrace this role; A-types tend to relish playing the role of the gallant knight. But – all too often – we become blinded by our faith in the corporation. In the process, we lose touch with our audiences and external perspectives. We think of the world only from one perspective: the Beloved Company’s.  

Balancing between both sides of the spectrum isn’t easy. It requires us to walk a fine line between being believers and being fundamentalists. The most difficult part is that we tend not to notice that we’re jumping off that cliff until it is far too late to turn back. 

So how do professional communicators keep themselves grounded in reality without losing the faith? 

Most importantly, communicators must stay close to their audiences. Whether visiting branch plants to keep in touch with employee concerns or meeting with reporters to take the pulse of the media, we must always have line of sight on our audiences. 

In particular, make an effort to seek out detractors. Try to empathize with their perspectives and understand their biases. We don’t have to agree with them, but we do need to understand where they are coming from. 

A great way to do this is to engage in social media. These are often better than traditional media, where bias must be kept (somewhat) in check and journalists are (usually) bound by a burden of proof. As a result, social media commentators tend to be much more opinionated and often provide clearer insight into audiences’ real motivations and concerns. 

The bottom line is that, while we must still mix and distribute the corporate KoolAid, it would be advisable to maintain some perspective, and not to take as big a sip as everyone else.

Need help with your corporate communications? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

There have been a record number of home foreclosures over the past few years. In simple terms, the credit crunch combined with a reduced income has forced home owners to choose between paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. Not surprisingly, many families have opted to service their short-term needs, often to the detriment of their long-term stability.   

Many professional communicators are facing a similar problem at work. For years, they have been building equity with the public through steady investments in their corporate reputation. But as the economy tightened and budgets were decimated, many communicators diverted their funding away from their long-term commitments to shore up projects that would provide ‘quick-hits’ and generate instant revenue. 

Faced with certain foreclosure, many home owners choose to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, allowing them to manage their short-term needs while maintaining the equity they have built up over years of steady payments. 

That’s a good idea. Here are a few areas where professional communicators can look to renegotiate, while still securing their corporate reputation investment: 

• Maintain sponsorships, especially your support of community or charitable organizations. It’s easy to be magnanimous in the good times, but your continued support during a tough economy will do more to build and protect your equity. Try working with your partners to renegotiate the terms of your sponsorships rather than abandoning them all together.
• Focus on low-cost, high interaction vehicles such as websites or social media. Take a hard look at your current cost-per-contact (how many people you reach vs. the cost of using a specific communications tool), and put a premium on vehicles that engage and interact with your customers. Besides, not everyone needs a high-gloss brochure or expensive chatchkes.  
• Look to Public Relations. Not to fuel the PR vs. Advertising debate, but spending lavishly on full-page ads can send the wrong message in a slow-recovering economy. Instead, try employing smart and targeted public and media relations to reach your audiences.
• Use freelancers and consultants to support your corporate reputation initiatives and to reduce the cost of maintaining an ongoing program. While corporate reputation may not require full-time oversight, it is important to maintain consistent objectives, principles and tone of voice. Try using freelancers and consultants to augment your in-house team without increasing your headcount or retaining expensive agencies.  

At the end of the day, just remember: much like your mortgage, stopping your investments in your corporate reputation could leave your company out in the cold.   

Looking for cost-effective ways to manage and enhance your corporate reputation? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

The Economist magazine doesn’t usually make me laugh out loud. But I do remember one story about a $2.5 billion deal between Russia and Nigeria for natural gas exploration rights. The correspondent quipped that the new company, ‘Nigaz’, showed a “refreshing ignorance of politically incorrect language”. 

Examples like this are not difficult to find. What seems like a brilliant marketing idea in one culture may be horrifying to another. Europeans are not likely to want to drink ‘Pee Cola’, a popular soda brand in West Africa; Canadians would have never voted for CRAP (the Conservative Reform Alliance Party); British tourists to France were not about to buy “Smack” cereal for their children; and Americans didn’t trade in their vacuum cleaners after hearing that “nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.  

While certainly humorous, these examples are indicative of a larger issue prevalent in most global organizations: one-size-fits-all communications. 

In an effort to reduce cost, align messaging and manage risk, many organizations follow a centralized communications model, where all content is generated from Head Office and disseminated into the colonies. 

There are a number of risks inherent with this model, not least of which is pandering to the lowest common denominator. 

The greatest risk, of course, is of committing a cultural insensitivity (the likes of ‘Nigaz’) that negatively impacts or even devastates your corporate reputation. 

That being said, if you’ve been reading my posts, you would know that I am a huge proponent of centralized messaging. It is vital to your brand and your corporate reputation that everyone is on the same page and using the same key messages. 

But on the country level – or even regional (think Quebec or Hawaii) – the most successful strategy lies in local customization. While globally-approved key messages should form the backbone, local resources must be engaged to provide strategic guidance, and to ensure that the content and intention are not misunderstood. 

Global communications should be a well tailored suit, not a one-size-fits-all Mumu. 

Need to have your content updated or altered for different audiences? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Have communicators completely consigned their spelling skills to Microsoft and Apple? All too often these days, I find myself the recipient of emails rife with glaring spelling mistakes or sporting a completely out of place word. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I am often schooled by Professors Gates, Jobs et al., particularly when I’m short on time or enjoying the blessings of an (all too infrequent) brainwave. But rather than blindly right clicking and accepting the first offering that the magical red wavy line suggests, I always try to take the time to see my mistakes and learn from them. 

An even worse scourge, however, is the ever-helpful ‘auto-correct function’. This little gem has been responsible for frequent careless and often embarrassing mistakes around the office. I myself have been guilty of blaming the looming ‘pubic health crisis’ for many of society’s woes. 

Here’s the problem: as professional communicators, a basic command of spelling and grammar is a must. A disregard for spelling – and in fact for editing – only erodes your credibility as a communicator. Sure, your friends and family will forgive you the occasional mistake or misplaced word, but at the office, few will give you the benefit of the doubt. In the corporate world, spelling mistakes are indicative of two types of people: those who believe themselves to be too busy for ‘quality control’, and those that simply can’t spell. Communicators should fall into neither camp. 

Regular readers will know that I always like to provide a selection of actionable and practical advice for the challenges I raise. In this case, however, there really is only one solution: Always make the time to read what you have written. And while the importance of rereading your work should not diminish based on the length of the piece or the audience for which it is intended, communicators who have just pounded out a 30-page dissertation (or a short yet crucial quote from your CEO), will want to make sure they walk away from their drafts and return to re-read them with fresh eyes. And it’s never a bad idea to get a colleague to take a look over projects you have been staring at for a while. 

At the end of the day, communicators that do not take this simple but critical step may suddenly wake up to find that they have lost both their ability to spell and their credibility around the office. 

(Editor’s note: those with dubious sensitivities will roar in laughter at some of the ‘autocorrect’ horror stories found at http://damnyouautocorrect.com/. You may want to close your office door.) 

Looking for a professional communicator that understands the importance of good grammar and quality control? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

These days it is virtually impossible to do a Google or Yahoo search without turning up Wikipedia. In just 10 short years, the not-for-profit encyclopaedia has grown to encompass more than 3.5 million English language articles and pulls in almost 4 million unique visitors a month. In the US, Wikipedia now outranks sites like Apple and the New York Times in terms of page views. 

Obviously, Wikipedia has an enormous reach. But it has also quickly become one of the most trusted sources for information on the internet. People frequently cite its articles in conversations; my own mother treats its pages as a form of medical triage.  

For professional communicators, Wikipedia also distinguishes itself as a pure-play PR opportunity. The site does not accept advertising and will quickly remove any entries that are seen as being overly promotional in nature. But in this arena, PR pros are the masters: we know how to walk the fine line between informing and promoting. 

But given the devout neutrality of the site, communicators will need to tread carefully or risk having their content pulled down by Wikipedia’s ‘cabal’ of editors. Even so, there are a number of ways that Wikipedia can contribute to achieving your communications goals. Here are three: 

• Post news items: Did you know that Wikipedia has built a collaborative news portal? Anyone can contribute an original story and – if it passes the editorial review – post it onto the site. And while the site hasn’t yet rivalled Reuters or Bloomberg, it will provide a growing opportunity for communications professionals who want to put some legs on their story.
• Add or edit your company: Unbiased articles and descriptions about companies and organizations are fair game on Wikipedia, so it is important that communicators closely manage their corporate entry on the site. But be warned, negative criticism and bad press from the past will invariably find its way onto your company’s entry and there is very little you can do about that (unless the entry is factually incorrect, in which case there may be some recourse).
• Update articles: Many companies today see themselves as not only product and service providers, but also ‘thought leaders’.  For these organizations, Wikipedia offers an unsurpassed opportunity for experts to share their insight and reference their research in a trusted – yet open – forum. For example, just last week, Cancer Research UK announced that their experts would update Wikipedia entries related to cancer… and got some great PR in the process.  

So while Wikipedia may not gain as much attention as its social networking cousins, professional communicators may find that it carries a lot more weight and garners a lot more attention than one-off tweet-fests or short-lived Facebook campaigns.  

Looking for a writer that knows how to write for Wikipedia? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Your leaders are under attack. All around them, new enemies are sniping at their heads and nipping at their heels, determined to bring them to their knees. 

It wasn’t that long ago that the reputation of corporate executives was inviolable. As the heads of big organizations, executives were often given the benefit of the doubt or afforded leniency by the press, shareholders and employees. For those that went too far, new roles were created in the ‘subsidiary’ in Majorca or Peru, where ne’er-do-wells could be kept well out of the limelight. 

But the last ten years have been particularly turbulent for corporate executives around the world. Maybe it was Kenneth Lay and Jeffery Skilling (at Enron) that finally burst the bubble in 2001, but ever since, executives have been under siege: activist shareholders are pushing back on management decisions; media relish lambasting and hounding those suspected of nefarious acts; employees are selling their executives’ internal emails to whistle blowing sites and Australian muckrakers; even the way executives are compensated has come under intense public scrutiny and debate. 

Sadly, executives can often be their own worst enemies. And while there is no excuse for those caught with their hand in the cookie jar (or using child labour, etc.) many gaffes are often the result of insufficient coaching and training. 

Indeed, as professional communicators, we must always remember that executives are not born with an innate ability to communicate. Rather it is something that must be developed and cultivated over years of training and experience. 

So many professional communicators will need to pull their executives – kicking and screaming if they must – through some intense coaching over the next few years, particularly in three key areas: 

Writing: Executives can be a bland bunch. In all of my time working with them, I have yet to tell a CFO to ‘tone down the passion’. But executives will need to demonstrate more character and conviction in their written communications, particularly with employees and shareholders. And while training executives to write appropriately is crucial, so too is ensuring that everyone on the communications team knows how to write for executives (for some tips on this, check out this article on executive writing). 

Presentation skills: From internal meetings to earnings conference calls, many executives will need to brush up on their presentation skills in order to maintain (or in some cases, re-establish) confidence and motivate audiences. Both executives and their communicators will need to recognize that their actions, deportment and mood can often speak louder than words or fancy PowerPoint slides. According to researchers at Stanford University, even the speech pattern of executives can indicate whether they can be trusted or not. 

Crisis training: As we saw from BP’s ex-CEO Tony Hayward, the way executives react to a crisis can have a huge impact on their credibility and the level of trust that the public is willing to extend to their companies. Indeed, many leaders – both in the business world and beyond – are now keenly interested in sharpening their crisis communications skills and finding better ways to handle issues (click here for more on this topic). 

But professional communicators should consider themselves warned: executive coaching is not easy. Meetings will be missed, lessons will be ignored and – in some cases – personalities may clash. Those that are successful, however, may find that they spend less time fighting fires and more time delivering proactive and valuable programs instead.

Coaching your Executives is one of our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011. Next week, we’ll look at ways to cut through complexity.

Looking for help with your executive communications? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

No matter where you stand on transparency and good governance, the release of reams of sensitive information through WikiLeaks over the past few months should serve as a stark reminder for professional communicators: nothing is ever fully confidential. 

Information leaks are certainly not a new phenomenon for either public or private organizations. Most companies put a high priority on maintaining the confidentiality of their proprietary information and trade secrets (just ask any Pharmaceutical company, or the folks who mix KFC’s 11 herbs and spices). 

But while the recent rounds of revelations into the US State Department are certainly causing headaches for government leaders and their spokespeople, they also act as a catalyst for elevating the role of communications as a key component in the fight to safeguard organizational secrets. 

Being part of the solution
Traditionally, the role of protecting confidential information falls largely to the Legal Department (who create the controls and pursue the perpetrators) and IT (who build the security systems and develop the encryption software). 

The problem with this status quo is that leaks are not usually generated by computer systems or faulty processes, but by malcontent employees with misguided intentions. Bradley Manning (the 23-year-old US serviceman accused of being behind the US government leaks), still managed to find ways to circumvent the rigorous national cyber-security protocols (rumour has it he downloaded millions of files to a single Lady Gaga CD) because he believed that the means justified the ends. 

And while no amount of company Kool-Aid will stop the most malcontent or fanatical perpetrators, a stronger focus on communications may actually offer the best solution to mitigating many of the more innocent (yet no less damaging) leaks and acts of ‘casual’ corporate espionage. 

Protecting, not hiding
First and foremost, employees must understand that they are being asked to protect the company jewels, not hide malicious secrets. To achieve this, communicators will need to do a better job promoting the reasons behind confidentiality clauses in an open and transparent manner, rather than the ‘command and obey’ directives of the past. 

Part of this education campaign requires a clear separation to be made between leaks and whistle blowing, and proper outlets and processes must be provided and promoted for the latter in cases where wrong-doing is systemic.

The Plumber Communicator
Inevitably, however, it often comes down to professional communicators to assume the role of corporate plumber: plugging the leaks and maintaining the integrity of the information pipelines. For those in more benign industries, this may be as simple as including ‘information leaks’ as one of the many issues against which they are constantly vigilant. But for those who represent more questionable organizations (whether in truth or public opinion), protecting against leaks will require a proactive and rigorous plan, substantial crisis management skills, and the trust and respect of the C-suite. 

And – once all of the dust has settled – most communicators will find that the recent WikiLeaks fiasco provides the strongest catalyst yet for persuading executives to place a renewed emphasis on the strategic communication of confidentiality policies, rather than just the legal repercussions.

Looking for more ways to use communications to combat information leaks? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca

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Before starting Communications Unlimited, I spent a number of years managing the external communications program for one of the big brand-name pharmaceutical companies.  And while I’ll have to admit that it was probably one of the more challenging roles I have ever tackled, I learned several important lessons that have served me (and now my clients in other industries) rather well since leaving. 

In truth, the pharmaceutical industry – much like many other fast-paced and highly-regulated sectors – is a great place for communicators to rapidly build their skill set and experience. Regardless of your industry or audience, there are a number of significant lessons that every professional communicator can take from the world of ‘Big Pharma’. Here are five:

1.            Risk mitigation is always better than issues management: Every professional communicator knows that it’s better to manage a risk than an issue. And while most of us are quite good at identifying and eradicating risk within our own communications programs, we tend to be less willing to raise the spectre of risk when it comes to the overall business strategy. Sure, raising prices on batteries during a storm may be a smart commercial decision, but the repercussions for the organization’s reputation clearly present a risk, and should be identified and reported as such to leadership. 

2.            There is no such thing as ‘over-prepared’: It’s amazing what can come out of left field when you least expect it. Even the most robust communications strategy can come undone in a matter of seconds, ambushed by some unplanned occurrence or external event. Whether contingencies are actually developed or not, communicators should be mindful of the potential for unexpected incidents and build some flexibility into their plan for on-the-spot course-corrections.   

3.            Pay attention to your key influencers: Every industry has its key influencers and market makers. For fashion, it tends to be celebrities; in pharma, it’s doctors and medical researchers. Regardless of who sets the trends and purchasing patterns in your industry, it is always smart to treat this group as a separate and sophisticated audience that requires special attention. Very often, providing this group with a confidential ‘heads-up’ in advance of an important (non-material) announcement can not only build relationships based on trust, but also create an instant and educated audience for the media and public to consult.  

4.            Empathy builds better bridges than silence: Sometimes people just want to know that you understand their concerns. So while the lawyers and risk managers may counsel silence in the face of public scrutiny, professional communicators must learn to work with legal counsel to craft messages that – while not necessarily admitting guilt – demonstrate some level of empathy with the audience’s concerns. Silence will only create animosity, resentment and rage – but empathy builds relationships.  

5.            Ignorance should be educated, not scorned: Often, negative public opinion is based on a misperception or misunderstanding of an organization’s motives. While it’s certainly easy to get defensive or indignant with what seems like outright ignorance, communicators should instead recognize and seize the opportunity to educate their audiences and – hopefully – influence their opinions.  

The other thing I learned from pharma? It helps to have a good flack-jacket and tough skin before you sign up for certain deployments.  

Looking for ways to make your communications program more efficient and effective? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.