Online Public Relations Thoughts

Each year before the Nobel prizes are awarded, there is a mock ceremony bestowing Ignoble prizes for dubious research.  I have a candidate for this year.  It comes from a New Scientist story, and it falls under the "Duh" category. 
 
Any PR practitioner could have told the scientist the answer he laboriously reached.  
 
Are you ready?  Here is the conclusion of recent research:
 
Computer glitches would be a lot less annoying if the machines were programmed to acknowledge errors gracefully when something goes wrong, instead of merely flashing up a brusque "you goofed" message. The trick, according to a researcher who has analyzed users' responses to their computers, is to make operating systems and software more "civilised"by saying sorry more often. That way people won't feel they are stupid or at fault, so they become less apprehensive about using computers, and perhaps more productive and creative.
 
Wow!  A Taiwanese scientist conducted a large user study to come to this conclusion.  What will scientists discover next --  if you maintain relationships with key publics you are likely to have a better organization overall?

I've just posted a new paper for your consideration in the white papers section of online-pr.com.  It is here.   The topic is uncontrollable crisis.  There are crises that one has everyday, and then, there are crises that are so sudden and severe a CEO has to worry about the future of the company.  In uncontrollable crisis, there is little or nothing one can do in communications.  It is a case of hanging on, doing the best one can and repairing damage when it is over -- if the organization survives. 
 
I got to thinking about this topic because a client recently suffered through such a disaster.  The client has come out OK, but no one would want to go through the experience again.   Take a look at the paper: Let me know what you think.
 
Along this line, I have been thinking about cynicism.  We are in a period culturally when altruism is held in suspicion, especially in the political world.  I am working on a paper focusing on sour attitude and what PR practitioners can do about it, if anything.  It may be that cynicism is healthy.  That is an open question.  I'll publish that paper soon, and you can have a crack at it too. 
 
I don't expect everyone, or even anyone, to agree with articles in the "white papers" section of online-pr.com.  It would be nice if the papers could spark arguments.  Along that line, Global PR Blog Week 1.0 was tremendously successful.   A hearty thank you to all who put it together.  It would be nice to have more get-togethers like it.  

Why is it the news media place allegations in banner headlines on front pages and corrections in little boxes inside a newspaper or magazine?  No one likes to fess up to an error, but if journalists want to maintain credibility, they need to state loudly and boldly where and when they have gone wrong. 
 
This rant is brought to you courtesy of an episode that afflicted a client recently.  The government investigated the client for something the client didn't do.  The client had proof of its innocence.  That made no difference: The government wanted to make an example of someone.  There were big stories with fat headlines that trumpeted the company was under investigation.   The company's stock tanked as investors fled.  Less than two months later the government sent the company a letter saying  it had no further interest in the case.  The government, of course, did not make the letter public, which it should have done.  The company had to send out a press release.  The resulting AP story was barely a paragraph buried deeply inside the paper.
 
Size matters in public relations.  Big headlines and lead TV stories crush individuals and companies.  When they are wrong, journalists owe it to people they hurt to correct the mistake prominently.  Of course, they don't.  One positive turn of events is beginning to rectify this situation.  Bloggers are prominently posting corrections then discussing them loudly to make sure everyone knows The New York Times or Washington Post erred.  I  hope they extend their truth hunting beyond the political world and into business were there are plenty of mistakes that never get acknowledged or corrected. 
 
Since I'm in a ranting mode, I will scream about one other thing.  Government agencies rarely give anyone a clean bill of health.  The agency that investigated the client said it had no further interest in the situation, but it had some concerns that it wanted answered.  That was a way for agency personnel to rescue some self-respect for an investigation that shouldn't have been done in the first place.  Whatever happened to a simple,   "You didn't do it, and we are completely satisfied?" Arse-covering is endemic and discouraging. 
 
On the other hand, that means work for PR practitioners to help clients dig out of holes the clients never created in the first place. 

This is posted in different location -- Global PR Blog Week 1.0. There is some mighty good reading there along with intelligent argument. Take a look and add your comments as well.

A friend of mine badgered me for months to help him with a TV show that he was doing on community cable. For those of you who don't know community cable, it is an access channel that a cable TV company has to provide a local community for the community to use -- broadcasting high school football games, city council meetings, public service shows, etc. My friend is devoted to reading and a member of a book club, so he started a show that focuses on books and authors. He wanted me to be the host because too many years ago I worked on local television.

The last thing I wanted to be was the host of a community cable show. But my friend is persistent, and he got me to agree to do one show -- just one show, only one show. Silly me. I did one show then another and now I'm on my fourth or fifth. I have forgotten the total.

But there was something I began to notice from hosting these shows. They are a great way to rehabilitate my on-air skills, which have grown rusty. Each show has presented a challenge that I had forgotten as a media trainer -- keeping the guest talking. As you might expect on a community show, we get guests who have never been on TV, are nervous and given to stopping in mid-sentence. There is a skill in relaxing them and keeping them going. That skill applies directly to my work in media training clients. Why the heck didn't I think of that before?

So now, it looks like I might be the permanent host for the show -- a position that I don't want but will take. Call it training.

Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is underway and has thought-provoking reading. But in the midst of skimming articles, a queasiness began to fill my stomach. Where had I seen rhetoric like this before? It came to me that I had seen it at least three times -- when PCs were introduced, with the rise of the Internet and now with blogging.

There is too much enthusiasm for what blogging can do. It is like discovering a new world and dreaming of what the land can be before one finds it has poisonous snakes and deadly spiders. Certainly there should be enthusiasm for blogging. It is a low-cost, widespread communications tool that gives millions an opportunity to express themselves. But it is not a revolution in communications. For one thing, if everyone is blogging, who is reading and listening? The noise would be deafening and good ideas potentially driven out by bad ones.

Ultimately, blogging needs an editorial process like journalism. It needs an objective eye overseeing it and asking if the story is complete and accurate, the opinion thought out and the grammar and spelling correct. I have never agreed with journalists who maintain that blogging frees them from editing. Their blogs should be edited right along with their copy because whether they like it or not, what they say in blogs reflects on journalism and the media they work for.

Please put down the stones and put away the faggots. You can burn me later for heresy.

I believe there is room for unedited opinion and reporting in blogging, but after the first few successful libel trials, there will be less.

Now you can light the fire...

The Senate report on intelligence failures in Iraq partially blamed "groupthink" for an inability to make correct assessments about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Over the years, I've written about groupthink. It was a topic in my first book 10 years ago and the case then was Kennedy White House failures while invading Cuba.

Groupthink should be of profound concern to PR practitioners. It is at the root of many poor and inappropriate communications.

Essentially, a group falls over time into an assumption pattern that dictates how it assesses events and makes decisions. Saddam Hussein had used WMD against the Kurds and once upon a time was known to be assembling equipment for nuclear weapons. Even though it was 10 years past, it was easy to believe he had not changed his stripes. Inspections proceeded on that assumption. When inspectors could not find weapons before the war, it was because Saddam was moving or hiding them. When CIA analysts talked to defectors, comments about WMD bolstered their estimates of the number Saddam had.

I am not trying to absolve the Bush Administration but nearly everyone in Congress, the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and Western Europe believed Hussein possessed WMD. The question was how many and whether he posed an imminent threat. The idea that he might not have them was deemed incredible. In other words, the Western World fell into groupthink.

This can happen to companies too -- and does. I have been in situations where we knew the answer. There was no question. The problem was that it wasn't the answer. Psychologists have warned for years that someone in a group needs to question assumptions thoroughly. It cannot be just anyone. Secretary of State Colin Powell held out for several months before he subscribed to the WMD thesis. Colin Powell, however, did not have the president's ear on the issue of WMD. It was a matter of intelligence agencies and the White House convincing an obstinate holdout to get with the program.

So who should tell a CEO he might be dead wrong and his assumptions incorrect? In communications, PR counselors should have the courage to speak up and if they don't, they shouldn't be in the job. Even so, that doesn't mean that counselors will have the CEO's ear or that they can break through groupthink. The fact is that most of the time they don't and they can't. Still we should try.

A short while ago I noted that one can no longer keep secrets with the Internet. The proof of that statement continues to come in. The latest example has to do with the announcement of Sen. John Edwards as Sen. John Kerry's vice presidential running mate.

Which news outlet broke the tightly kept secret first? None. It was a Pennsylvania airline mechanic who popped the secret online before other news media got wind of Kerry's choice. The mechanic saw a Boeing 757 parked in a hangar and covered with paper and masking tape and bearing the logo "Kerry-Edwards." He posted his sighting onto an aviation Web site -- USaviation.com.

It wasn't until eight hours later that NBC News broke the story in the traditional media.

I say again: You can't keep secrets with the Internet. There are too many eyes and ears in the world, all with online access. Most PR counselors understand this but others don't. Openness is not a nice thing to have. It is essential because even if you aren't open, others will broadcast your secrets.

I'll give Kerry credit that he nearly got away with a surprise announcement, but the fact that he held the decision tightly and it still leaked should be an object lesson.

You can't keep secrets with the Internet.

What should you do? When a politician makes an irresponsible statement about your company, should you slam the politician, make a statement about the facts or ignore the fellow? The answer is not easy because politicians are like the media. They can summon barrels of ink quickly through a few phone calls to reporters.

On the other hand, when a politician makes a statement that is clearly false and designed for impact only, should one take it lying down? There is no obligation to speak, but perhaps one should. Yet by speaking, one gives a politician a currency the fellow might not get otherwise. It gives the politician a chance to repeat charges. Of course, unless charges are as serious as those that Joe McCarthy made in the Senate about Communist sympathizers, it is unlikely the media will scramble to prove the politician wrong. Truth squads used in election campaigns may not work well, it seems to me.

So what should a company do? If the CEO is bellicose, answer a charge with a charge. If the CEO recognizes the statement for what it is -- political folderol - ignore it. If the statement is slanderous and can be proved so, refute the politician point by point and bury the fellow under facts. It seems to me one should state evidence first and then give a quote. It should be along the line of Fact A, Fact B and Fact C and then, "If politician X had done the least bit of homework, he would have known these facts. They are all on our web site."

Noise doesn't always help one's case. But then, political campaigners might dispute me, and they know their business better than I do.

Before I get back to the office, here are road notes. The Blackberry e-mail device was the most consistent tool I had on the road, even including locations that were inaccessible to the cell phone. The cell phone was nearly a useless tool on some days and had a nasty habit of remaining in roaming mode when it was supposed to be in full service. It had an equally nasty habit of referring calls to my voice mail and then ringing me from there. That trick messed up a teleconference I was supposed to participate in. The service provider is Verizon, in case you are interested, and I will call Verizon in the morning to find out what is happening.

I found that I am not much on typing on a Blackberry because the keyboards need a microscope to see. No wonder Blackberry users make typos and use bad formatting. On the other hand, the Blackberry kept me in touch with the office in ways the cell phone could not. I'm going to keep the Blackberry this time around. I had a Blackberry two years ago that I turned in after six months because it was useless for me then.

I adopt new technologies reluctantly. I believe one tool should do as many things as possible in order to cut down on expense and to maximize efficiency. I have opposed gadgeteers for my entire time in technology. Folks with laptops, desktop PCs, PDAs, cell phones and Blackberries have too much stuff around them to keep work straight. The best solution is one or two tools at most that do everything one needs and are integrated with one another to avoid transferring of data back and forth.

Technology should make you more productive. If it doesn't, get rid of it.

In 10 days on the road, I received more than 2,400 spams. How do I know? My spam filter did not work with the Blackberry, and I had all of them sitting in the e-mail box when I returned. I don't know about you, but 240 spams a day is a bit much in my estimation. I understand the Supreme Court feels it must protect the right of free speech in the US and it believes that filters can do something about spam. I think the court is not being practical. Who pays for all the spam I am getting? As you well know, it is you and you and you and me. Why should I have to pay for something I don't want and why do I have to be the recipient of missives I despise? There is a right of free speech, which I defend to the utmost, but there is also a right not to listen to free speech, which I also defend. If I don't want spam, I shouldn't have to get it. It's that simple and it is not an abridgment of free speech.

I am in favor of a system that charges for e-mail. It is the quickest way to put the sleaziest operators out of business and it doesn't harm free speech just like paying for a newspaper doesn't transgress free speech.

We need solutions -- the sooner the better.

One last note before heading off on the road.

There is a state of existence in which an organization has no control over its future. It lives amid events so much larger than the organization itself that it cannot do or say much to influence the outcome. Instances in which this happens include the death of Enron when forces moved against the company quickly, the demise of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm swept up in the Enron affair, the collapse of large US airlines that continues.

The question is what to do when this happens. The answer isn't easy. The CEO might stand amid the wreckage and rally the troops until the bitter end -- or not. One might continue to deal with the media -- or not. The awful truth is that everyone knows the outcome will be damaging. It just depends how bad it will be -- whether the organization will survive in some form or disappear. Rah-rah morale building is hollow. Optimistic statements to the media are laughable. Acknowledging the awful state is good, but everyone knows that, don't they?

It takes a leader to keep an organization focused at times like these and tough PR practitioners to find ways to communicate effectively when there is nothing to say.

I'm of a belief that one keeps communicating in some fashion until the end, whatever that is. But then, that might be foolish. On the other hand, useless communications make matters worse, so the course one chooses is critical. But there are no rules for situations like this. One endures or leaves.

I'm on the road for a week, so I won't be blogging much. It is typical, however, that travel doesn't mean absence. With Blackberry on belt and cell phone in hand, I will be conducting business and as connected as if I were in the office.

The need to stay wired has bothered me since the Internet era started. Too much connectedness overrides time to read and think. Good practitioners devour news and information and from that gluttony, find ideas and avenues for effective communication. Constant thumbing of a Blackberry and talking on the phone pulls one from learning and cogitating. I do not agree with those who see PR practitioners as arms and legs. The business would bore me if that is all that I was allowed to do.

The fun part of PR is not media hits -- although they are satisfying -- and not writing and production -- although everyone should be able to do that, it is tackling problems and finding solutions. It is an ability to walk through a client's dilemma and to find effective and realistic ways to communicate the client's message. Implementation becomes a test of one's recommendations.

But it requires constant reading, learning and thinking to know what to do and how. Constant connectedness is white noise that obscures good ideas. There is a role for silence, and we forget that in PR.

Pete Shinbach is a long-time friend and compatriot in the war to bring technology to PR. Pete and I have wounds from the effort and a few successes along the way -- darn few, unfortunately. The industry has resisted technology from the beginning, as Pete will attest. It hasn't changed much. So, I asked Pete for his outsider's view of PR and blogging. Here, edited, is what he had to say.

Will PR people figure out blogging? Some will but most won't. Those that will are those who grasp the principles of third-party endorsements, relationship management and other things most PR people pay lip service to but don't really understand. On the agency side, I think some boutique shops will use blogging and the larger agencies like Edelman, Burson, Fleishman-Hillard, if they're not already. Others won't because it isn't media relations, it can't be controlled, it can't be relevantly measured (yet), it requires first-person singular mind sets and not first-person plural with passive voice.

The other reason is that virtually all PR people who blog these days blog about blogging. True, there are exceptions. However, most PR bloggers seem to kill a lot of electrons gazing at their navels and linking to each other. As a result, they are really not contributing to the body of knowledge or encouraging PR people to integrate blogs into their work, either by publishing, commenting on or reading blogs.

Should PR people know how to use the blogging tool? Sure, they should. Will blogging become a mass medium? Hell no. Will it become an influential medium? Hell yes. That's because it has so many characteristics that any successful information medium has. It is personal, it bypasses filters and gatekeepers, it's trusted (even if there are dubious characters writing and reading blogs -- which is true for any communications medium), it's interesting and it's self-selective. However, what sets blogging apart from most of its electronic and all of its dead-tree predecessors is its use of linking to form online conversations within an unstructured framework. By employing trackback links, blogrolls and other tools, bloggers encourage serendipitous exploration.

As usual, Pete has given me something to think about. Thanks, Pete.

We visited a client yesterday in Atlanta, which entailed a plane flight south. My colleagues left from La Guardia, and I left from Newark Airport nearer to my home. My colleagues decided to go out Monday night because they did not want to get up early Tuesday morning. I decided to go out Tuesday morning because I get up early anyway. Here is what happened.

My colleagues did not get to their hotel room in Atlanta until 1:30 a.m. Flight delays, of course. They sat around the LaGuardia terminal for hours and had a dinner of "very bad food," one colleague reported. I got up at 3:30 a.m. to get to the airport for a 5:30 a.m. flight only to find that the airline had lost my reservations and the flight had been cancelled. I was bumped to a 6:30 a.m. flight. The airline did not notify me of the cancellation until I got there. In the end, I got more sleep than my colleagues did, but that was small consolation for wretchedly poor airline service.

Fortunately, in my work I have not had to travel that much in recent years. I suppose I would be inured to the lousy conditions that fliers suffer if I did. As a result, I am angry over the lack of service that airlines pass off to customers these days. They are cattle cars of the air with one exception. They aren't as regular as cattle trains.

Long ago when I first started working, flying was a pleasure. But that was long, long ago. I don't expect to enjoy flying every again. And that's a pity. But then, I don't expect anyone will ever enjoy flying again. The airlines need PR that starts with decent service.

It has long been said that there are two forms of selling -- foot in door and door in face. Foot in the door is push selling -- advertising, publicity and face-to-face persuasion. Door in the face is exclusive selling -- holding off the consumer until the consumer is deemed worthy of being catered to.

Similar principles hold true in PR. But, exclusivity is not what we mean by door-in-face. What we mean is that we communicate a message that we know might hurt or upset some who listen to it. Usually only a CEO gives these kinds of messages. They are often about downsizings, mergers, restructurings, management turnover and other unpleasant topics that employees don't want to hear but must.

There are instances, however, in which one lets matters take a course and consumers come to their own conclusions. This is what is happening with fuel prices, for example. We can cajole all we want about conservation, but the quickest way to fuel savings is to let gasoline rise over $2.50 a gallon. And increasingly, that is the way some in the energy industry see as the only realistic course to get Americans to change out of Hummers and SUVs into practical and fuel-efficient vehicles.

We rarely use door-in-face persuasion in our work, but sometimes we should. I can think of one instance. The obnoxious, bullying journalist who won't take no for an answer and badgers one endlessly can use door-in-face discipline. These individuals hate "no." But, if one gives a juicy tidbit of news to a competitor first, the bully gets the idea that a hard edge won't work with you. And if the journalist doesn't learn, one cuts the reporter out completely until he or she does. One can't always do this, but one should never be afraid to try. The problem is that too many PR practitioners and CEOs quail before bullies.

Door-in-face persuasion is a valid technique. Use it with care.

Although the following story appeared last week it is worth a first or second read. The article investigates the course of two rumors on the Internet -- one had to do with the intern who supposedly had an affair with Kerry but didn't and the other focused on rumors of Reagan's impending death, which were true.

What the story makes clear is that the Internet has become the primary pipeline for rumors, and if you don't control them at the Internet level, you won't control them once they hit traditional media. That said, there are only certain kinds of rumors that hit the Internet heavily. They are usually associated with high-profile people, places and organizations.

However, one never knows when an organization might be thrust into the limelight. A client went from a quiet existence to international criticism in hours, and the Internet was filled with false rumors about the organization that found their way into print. We were able to warn off some journalists but others plunged ahead with irresponsible suppositions that had no basis in reality or fact.

The worst part of such rumors is that some people will believe them. And, it is often people who should know better. But, humans are not given to checking facts before they speak. If they did, they would speak less or more carefully than they do.

During the Internet Bubble, one company after another was plagued with rumors from people shorting their stocks. It was difficult to control. It is tougher now. The media are more attuned to the Internet and rumors floating through it. Reporters are quicker to pick up the phone and ask rather than using common sense. However, asking is better than running with the story and not asking -- which some have done.

Keep your eye on the Internet. You don't know the day or the hour when things can go bad.