Online Public Relations Thoughts

Only in California where love of cars equals love of bean sprouts and environmentalism would you find a story like this. It's hilarious to think the governor could show off an eco-friendly Hummer -- the brutish war machine converted to monster road vehicle. The irony of it seemed to be lost on the AP writer until the last paragraph when he writes these delicious sentences.

Though Schwarzenegger arrived at the event in a low-pollution vehicle, he left in a gasoline-powered SUV that typically gets about 15 mpg. Officials said the hydrogen Hummer needs to refuel every 50 miles and there are only about a dozen fueling stations across the state.

The sentences send up the PR event and show it for what it was -- a hokey tip of the hat to clean air that was as unreal as caps on Beverly Hills teeth.

There are some PR stunts that aren't worth doing because no one will believe them. This was one. Anyone who knows about hydrogen fuel-cell cars knows they are at least 20 years off, and there is little liklihood they will ever achieve commercial feasibility. If the governor was going to show a Hummer converted to a real fuel-saving vehicle he should have shown a hybrid-power vehicle that uses batteries and an engine like the Toyota Prius.

Instead, the PR stunt left one laughing at the impracticality of it all.

A well-known political pollster used to say campaigns are a one-day sale. Everything one works for comes down to less than 24 hours in which people enter a booth and make a choice.

The length and bitterness of the presidential campaign is a cause for wonder in that regard. There is no doubt where I live, for example, that many people dislike the president and support challenger John Kerry. How do I know this? From signs on lawns and stickers on cars. These outnumber the Bush-Cheney signs by a huge amount. In fact, I have yet to enter a community in my New Jersey travels where the reverse is true.

Lawn signs are a public relations tactic with extra force. One has to commit to allow a sign to be posted on a lawn and to keep it there. The voter has made up his or her mind and wants others to go along with the choice. Nieghbors know these people and their word of mouth is public for all to witrness. That, it seems to me, has more force than a billboard or an ad on TV that has been bought and paid for.

In a close election like this one, lawn signs have a force they might not have at other times. A voter can see his or her neighbors' selection and are tempted to go along. I don't pay attention to lawn signs most of the time, but this year is different. They have become clues to which way this deeply divided election will go. My guess is New Jersey will be solidly Kerry. I won't place a bet.

We were talking to a client about pending litigation recently when he told us a story. The client knows a white-collar individual who faced indictment. Attorneys for the individual promised the prosecutor they would bring the individual in when the indictment was rendered. They said he posed no flight risk whatsoever, and he was eager to cooperate. The prosecutor listened, but what did the prosecutor do? He rousted the fellow out, handcuffed him and made him do the "perp walk" into the station house.

As I have written before, prosecutors are tough players in PR. They know the image of an accused individual with arms handcuffed behind him is an important message. "We're tough on crime." They leak to the media when it suits them. They are often unfair in how they treat people and yes, unjust. Few individuals who have been indicted and treated this way have recovered reputations after photos in the newspaper and footage on TV. Even if an indicted individual is proven innocent, people think differently.

We asked our client if he was aware of how the prosecutor behind the upcoming indictment handles publicity. He seemed surprised we would bring that up. We explained how real life works, and what could happen. It turns out the individual's company wasn't ready for the impact of an indictment if a prosecutor plays rough. We suggested he needs a plan.

Never underestimate the power of the law to ruin reputations of innocent individuals and companies.

We were discussing a case with a potential client yesterday that highlighted why tort lawyers are a craven crowd. This firm makes a chemical, which is labeled a "probable carcinogen." There is no proof it is, and recent studies apparently show no connection between the chemical and cancer. However, that didn't stop a tort lawyer from filing dozens of lawsuits against the company at a plant site because the lawyer claimed the chemical caused an amazing number of illnesses from birth defects to shortness of breath. The lawyer, of course, demanded the company settle before he picked the company's pocket in the courtroom.

The company says the lawyer has no evidence to back his statements, and in the courtroom, under the Daubert principles, the company will be able to throw out the lawyer's junk science. But, the company noted, winning in the courtroom isn't going to do the firm any good with the people in the plant community. They now believe the chemical is at fault. It is another case of being guilty until proven innocent, as happens so frequently with perception. But the company cannot prove innocence with finality because the tort lawyer is using a further bit of cant. This is the argument that just because we don't know the chemical caused the illnesses, it doesn't mean that the chemical didn't cause them. Science just hasn't found the right tests yet. When it does, the chemical will be proven a bad actor. How do you fight that logic? Not easily. So even if the company wins in court, it is placed in a position of defending itself and its chemical forever.

Do you ever wonder why many people dislike tort lawyers? They are masters of PR and of self-justification. They wrap themselves in the safety of mankind. And, it works. If Kerry wins the presidency, we will have a tort lawyer one step from the highest office. That's something to think about.

It is frustrating to have a news leak to the media when one has planned for a big debut. The auto industry for decades has battled spy photographers who make a living out of lensing new models the companies try to hide. They know the loss of surprise and advantage from a leak.

A colleague working on a big announcement recently in another industry suddenly found the story reported in a magazine the day before the press conference. The client was unhappy and my colleague disappointed, but he had been wary of leaks. The organization is porous. It seems as if somebody in the media knows what is happening inside the firm all of the time.

This organization is one of those entities that cannot keep secrets for long. It's like Congress. There are too many reporters prowling corridors, too many gossips, too many self-promoters and too many political enemies getting even. (This is why when I read stories about dark conspiracies in the halls of Washington, I laugh.)

In the end, the only way to keep leaks from happening is to keep the number of persons who know the news to a minimum. Unfortunately, with some news like deals, a lot of people need to know. And one of them is bound to have a big yap.

You can never get rid of leaks. You can only hope to get the news out at the same time the leaker does.

Some PR practitioners are asked to serve on community boards as the face of a company. I am beginning to think volunteering like this can be a waste of time -- if one wants to get something done.

My frustration comes from personal experience serving on an advisory board that seems incapable of steering a course, any course. Part of the problem is the board's leadership that fails to keep members focused. The rest of the problem lies with board members themselves who find it difficult to focus for more than few seconds on any one topic before flitting to something else.

What does one gain from serving on boards like this except a healthy disrespect for the human species? Why put up with meandering meetings that start nowhere and end there?

It is unfair to condemn all not-for-profit boards and I won't, but it seems to me that far too many are like this. They are staffed by people who needn't be accountable, so they aren't.

It is easier to deal with a taskmaster than with a wandering board. My suggestion: If you must volunteer, select a board that you can control or join one that is serious about its work. Skip the rest.

Contrary to what businesspersons say, they don't like change. In fact, they hate it because change means they have to adjust business models, and they might find their companies are no longer competitive. That is why businesspeople enter collusive activities when they can to control industries, such as insurance, as we learned last week. There is a good reason for their behavior. They're human: Humans dislike risk and uncertainty.

Thus, it is interesting that the telemarketing industry discovered change has not been that bad in the last year since the "Do Not Call" registry was put into place. The industry predicted its demise. According to this story, it didn't happen.

PR practitioners should temper remarks espousing the rough and tumble of the marketplace. They usually aren't true. When I hear CEOs praise competition, I'm tempted to gag. They would get rid of it if they could. And if they detect a least hint of unfairness, they are quick to complain. Witness Boeing's recent howls about AirBus and American farmers' screams about foreign growers (name the crop or animal, and you'll find a scream.)

The fact is we compete because we have to. Few like it. Microsoft established a monopoly, so it wouldn't have to compete, then it told everyone how hard it was to win. Computer Associates did the same thing.

In a truly free market, there are many losers and a few winners, many of whom don't play fair. That is why capitalism should never be truly free. Government maintains fair competition, whether players like it or not. The next time you are tempted to write about the glory of change, think twice.

Some stories beg to be written. This is one.

It seems that BMW, the motorcar company, discovered a certain porno site carried photos of - er - interesting photography sessions that had its autos in the pictures. BMW sent a cease-and-desist notice to the site, which prominently published it on its web page. I'm sure some folks must be sniggering -- and they are not at BMW.

If that isn't reason enough for monitoring the use of your company's product, then try this story happening at the same time. Kellogg, the cereal company, has been giving away electric tooth brushes to young folks to encourage them to brush their teeth. Some one figured out that you can detach the toothbrush handle with the brush and voila!, it becomes a vibrator. Don't ask what it could be used for. I'll leave that to your imagination. And if you have a dirty mind, shame on you.

The point is that you never know what your product or your promotional giveaway can be used for. That's why you monitor the web and blogs every day.

The Presidential campaign in the US got me thinking about conditions in which there is little chance of building relationships across a divide. In this case there are ABBs (Anybody But Bush) and pro-Bush zealots screaming at one another without pretense of objectivity. Passion rules, and common sense doesn't.

There are many such instances throughout the world and people dying because of unbridgeable gaps in places like Iraq, Israel, Palestine and Chechnya. The question is how does one get started building a relationship in situations like this? That is why I have written and posted this essay for your consideration on online-pr.com. I wish I could be optimistic, but realistically, it approaches an impossible mission.

The challenge, it seems to me, as the world heads toward network-centric relationships is how to forge consensus when individuals and groups use the network to sow dissension rather than reasoned argument. The recent paper I posted on network-centric relationships on online-pr.com does not tackle this issue, and it needs to be investigated. A network invites flaming rather than discussion. People feel safe behind semi-anonymity of the written word. Thus, the very tie that joins us sets us apart -- a peculiar outcome that communicators need to accept and deal with.

This is not a new story but I am posting it because it shows how far one can go before overstepping while blogging. In this case, it was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Sun Microsystems who ticked off Hewlett-Packard by commenting on HP's strategy. HP sent him a stiff letter telling him to cease and desist. But then Jonathan Schwartz, the President, was practically begging for HP to say something. He said HP's operating system was "dying" and that the company was being left out in the cold as the industry moved away from it.

A cease-and-desist letter doesn't mean that one must stop or that a defamation suit in is the offing. It does mean someone is watching you, and they don't like what you have to say. That means if one is going to keep writing, check facts and grammar closely before publishing. If there is any doubt, leave the comment out.

I wrote here a long time ago that bloggers are not free to say anything they want because laws still apply. This case is a potential example of that.

This is a heartwarming story about an engineer who is more effective in building relationships than most of us. She does it by using old technologies in innovative ways to help the poorest of the poor in Third World countries. Whether it is a new way to make charcoal that avoids overuse of forests or fixing a chlorine metering system with a toilet tank, Amy Smith has found unusual and interesting solutions to help people help themselves.

No wonder she was given a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation Award. Her solutions are as valuable as education programs that nonprofits spend millions to deliver. But she can do it for $20 when it comes to testing water.

She is a more effective PR practitioner than we who call ourselves that. It should be a lesson to stretch outside of skills sets that we know to focus on what people need. PR is less communication than action. It is how we behave as much as what we say about ourselves. Wouldn't you think that some larger engineering companies might have done the same things this woman has done? So far, they haven't. That should tell us something about the difference between real PR and nice-sounding but hollow statements.

I have long thought that games are good public relations and relationship-building devices when they are well constructed and teach players about issues. Sim City, for example, is a game where one has to constantly watch interactions in growing a city -- the utilities the city needs, roads and traffic, railroads, maintenance, taxation, the opinion of the populace, trade promotion and a host of other factors including where the city is built and how it is laid out. Politicos have played the game to understand better the jobs they have to do.

Now the Republicans in Illinois are getting into PR games and in an enticing way. Look at this site. You can play games around four issues -- medical malpractice reform, education, participation and economic development. Each game has interactions. Change one component and you influence a related component. It comes down to choices you make just like the legislator does in the face of high demand and low funding. I can't think of a better way to show citizens the responsibilities and challenges of being a legislator. We need more games like it.

For example, why can't there be a game that shows choices one makes in protecting the environment. You can protect this land over here but when you do, you take away the rights of that group over there. That's OK but when you do that, they become a political block and make your life more difficult in the future. Every action has a reaction -- some direct and some serendipitous.

I would love to have an opportunity to work on at least one PR game in my career.

Who is losing the media in Iraq? If you believe this scathing explanation from the Naval Institute Proceedings, it is the military brass themselves because they are making no effort to get along with or even deal with the media.

But who is responsible for this state of affairs? While it is easy to blame the media for failing to get the true story or to accuse journalists of a liberal bias against military operations, this fails to identify the true culprit. The reason the military is losing the war in the media is because it has almost totally failed to engage, and where it has engaged, it has been with a mind-boggling degree of ineptitude. It is a strange circumstance indeed when virtually every senior officer agrees that the media can make or break national policy, but no more than a handful can name the top military journalist for The Washington Post, The New York Times, or The Wall Street Journal. Thousands of officers who spend countless hours learning every facet of their profession do not spend one iota of their time understanding or learning to engage with a strategic force that can make or break their best efforts.

This might seem harsh but the writer who was embedded with the 101st Airborne in Iraq has a point. He has been on the wrong side of Public Affairs Officers too many times and he's tired of it. I find his rant unfortunate because one of the best PR people I know is a former Air Force Public Affairs Officer. He's a pro in every way and someone I look up to. Maybe he is an exception.

This story is interesting -- not because it's about PR. It isn't. It is about a lack of security in the nation's control systems for utilities and manufacturing. What is interesting is that four years ago a former client told me exactly the same thing. He raised a warning and told me to talk to the head of systems at SoCal Edison in Los Angeles. Sure enough, the warning was confirmed. But we had no proof. And we had no great interest either on the part of the media. Homeland security was not such a big concern at the time.

Four years later, it is a story. Has anything changed in that time? Well, there is proof of hacking in utility systems, and there are viruses. But the vulnerabilities existed four years ago as they do today.

Every story seems to have its time, and this not the first occasion in my career that I couldn't get reporters to pay attention to a good and urgent story. It has happened time and again. Journalists are no different than anyone else. They read the same news sources, and they watch the same electronic media. It is difficult to get them to see a step ahead, especially when there is no study or factual source to point to.

I'm glad the story is out at last, but I am unhappy that my client did not get to break it. That's PR for you.

This story is a reminder that public relations can be tough relations. One not only does not go along with the public, but one imposes demands and expects the public to live up to them. This is a stance one takes in such things as union negotiations, for example. The company shows a firm outer face while negotiating. Any sign of weakness only encourages strikers to stay out longer. On the other hand, the union shows a firm hand as well to communicate to the company that the business does not have the upper hand. Public relations is a face-off between wrestlers in a ring -- each growling and gnashing his teeth.

In the case of public housing projects, one has only to see the old projects to understand how bad they were and how dangerous. Chicago is determined to change from the past and hence, its demand that everyone work. Cabrini Green is a hellish place: It has been for decades. There were periods of running gunfights in broad daylight and open drug dealing everywhere. There were murders, rapes and robberies, and no one was safe even in one's own apartment. It is a mark of Chicago's concern that it is imposing rules on the residents of the new North Town Village homes. It doesn't want to repeat the Cabrini Green experience: Most of the occupants don't either. Of course, there are those who raise concerns about what these people can do, but I hope Chicago sticks with the demand. Sometimes the only way to get one to respect oneself is to force the issue.

There is one lesson every PR practitioner should learn and rehearse throughout his or her career. It is this: Progress requires clear objectives. Obvious? No, it isn't. Time and again, I have witnessed clients who don't know what they want to do or who charge off into directions that make little sense.

I'm ranting because I sat through a lengthy board meeting last night at a nonprofit organization where it happened again. A committee had been meeting for a year on a task -- a year! --, and it showed up at the board meeting to propose what it was going to do without a clear statement of its objective. Predictably, the board erupted into factions with one group calling for this position and another for that and a third for something else. After an hour of wrangling, one member was fed up and gave us an earful. The fellow was right, and we deserved his broadside.

How the heck can a committee go for a year without clear objectives? That question baffles me. The first question any group should ask is "What are we doing here? What is our mission and objective?" If that isn't clear, stop everything until it is.

I feel sorry for the committee members, but there is a hint of progress. The board determined that we will meet again soon and discuss options. We won't leave the room until we have a specific direction for the committee -- a direction to which we commit.

It would have been nice had we done that a year ago.

(Sorry for the late posting today. Blogger was upchucking again last night and this a.m.)

Anyone who deals with America's health care system can tell you horror stories. But, one service seems to be working, and it builds good relationships with patients. That service is Ready Access -- a place where one can go at any time of the day and most of the night and get medical help. Ready Access reduces the burden on emergency rooms and allows patients of health care groups to visit doctors they are likely to know.

Ready Access weighs on medical groups because it must be staffed and available, but the difference in public relations is enormous. I have been fighting an infection for days now and on Saturday, after another bout of coughing, hacking, sneezing and wheezing, my wife determined she wasn't going to put up with me any longer. She told me to go to Ready Access NOW. So I went. There isn't patient chitchat in a service that handles symptoms in bulk. But, the doctor was efficient, quick and apparently accurate in his diagnosis of the problem. In less than 10 minutes, he had me in and out with two prescriptions in my hand. So, he might not be the kindly General Practitioner of old, but his bedside manner was good enough for me. I just needed relief.

Good PR comes in many forms. It needn't always be a smiling face and friendly manner. That's something we shouldn't forget.

There is a new article posted on the online-pr.com web site about network-centric relationships. It is here. I had written earlier about changes that ubiquitous networking would bring to relationship building with stakeholder audiences. The article expands this view using an example of grocery retailing.

It is based on an existing store of the future in Rheinburg, Germany as well as retail grocery web sites such as Albertsons, Peapod and Fresh Direct. I am convinced that future PR practitioners will not use traditional media as a first choice but a secondary option. Many recipes merchandised to newspapers and magazine food pages today will go first to web sites or the networked store where there is a link between the network and individual pushing a shopping cart. In fact, there is a business for grocery retailers in doing this. They will form relationships with food marketers and charge for the use of their network to reach customers at the point of purchase. Publicity information will become part of the information mix.

Read the article, and let me know what you think. I may be wrong but it seems to me that much of what I describe is in existence, and it will dominate in the next decade or so.

It is amusing to watch the build-up to the debates between the two presidential candidates. No one is talking about substance. There won't be any. Everyone is focusing on style. There will be plenty of that. It seems to me that we have reached the "why bother" stage of debating. The only effective communication left is whether one is sweating and the other isn't, whether one smiles pleasantly and the other smirks, whether one seems confident and the other circuitous.

I suppose there is something to learn from that, but it seems darn little. It's the equivalent of a Miss America beauty contest. Maybe we should award points on the basis of John Kerry's tan.

I am far from alone in wondering why and how election communications have degenerated so far into imagery and away from issues. This bastardization of campaigning is certainly not new. In the 19th Century, campaign managers were adept at the same thing. Has it always been thus? If so, what does that say about the concept of public relations being built on facts?

I should review my assumptions about the business.

I've had a chest cold for several days, and I've lost my voice. Rather, my voice is the basso croak of a male pond frog. This is embarrassing enough when talking to clients on the phone, and in a client meeting, I sounded like I was on my deathbed because my voice began to go.

Well, wouldn't you know that I had a half-hour television program taping to moderate last night? On air for a half hour with a voice that no mother -- not even a frog mom -- could love. It is a tribute to throat lozenges -- lots of them -- that I was able to get my voice back to the basso profundo croak from the somewhat indescribable sound it had in the afternoon. But along with "deep throat" came periods of uncontrollable hacking and coughing. I wasn't sure I could make a half-hour on air without shutting down the audio system during an attack.

So I stuffed my cheeks like a squirrel with Cepacol lozenges and had one of the cameramen get a class of water on the set. That carried me through 13 minutes. I hacked a couple of times in the 14th minute, and we went to a one-minute break. During the break, I broke open several more tin foil blister packs of pale yellow lozenges and stuffed them into my mouth. The hope was that the lozenge would prevent coughing even if it could not prevent a voice change. Unfortunately, I blew the cue into the second section, and the director had to reset the system. There went the lozenges and by time we started to talk, my mouth was dry. I let the guest speak as much as she wanted and nodded my head most of the time. I didn't dare say many words.

We made it through and everyone was happy with the program. No one teaches you these tricks in professional communicator's school.

There are individuals that no matter how and how often you explain, talk, cajole, scream, they don't get what it is you are telling them. There is a failure to communicate. Why this happens, I don't know, but it does, and it is one of the most frustrating situations a communicator suffers. After all, we are practitioners who are expected to know how to communicate to audiences of all kinds. It is a comment on our abilities when we don't.

But it happens. I know I will not understand anything about quantum physics. I've tried for years, but I don't get it or the anti-logic of it. I don't understand chemistry. I dislike the topic and avoid it. But neither of those topics are often on my list of things to understand or write about. It is everyday things that frustrate one the most. You want to tell someone that anyone with COMMON SENSE would get this, but common sense isn't common. There are people who lack it completely.

Some people are so committed to their way of viewing things that any statement that contradicts their point of view is wrong. There is no discussion and no effort to see the other side. Failure to communicate to such hardheads is disappointing but not surprising. Communicators must learn to go into the other person's assumptions and to come out with one's own. Grant the other side its point, then show how the point fits a larger and more expansive view. But that doesn't always work.

There are failures to communicate no matter how good we are. We should not try to take them personally, but who is going to believe that?

What can 11 9-year-olds talk about for nearly 12 hours? I haven't the slightest idea, but I can attest to the fact that they can do it. My daughter had a sleepover for her birthday party and she and her friends talked all night long. I gave out about midnight and got up once about 1:45 am to calm the group down, but they kept talking.

As a working communicator, I find this dedication to chatting and gossiping interesting. There is a compulsion in the human animal to communicate: Silence is not golden. I suspect if I asked my daughter what she talked about, she wouldn't remember that much. (Actually, she is so tired that she isn't recalling anything right now. She will go to bed early tonight.)

I suppose it is not the substance of what everyone talked about so much as the bonding that went with it. These girls are likely to remain friends. They were friendly before the all night slumber party and after hours of chatting, they know each other better than before. Face-to-face communication is still the best form, as any communicator knows.

I went to bed, but I am exhausted. It will take a couple of days for me to recover from being a chaperone. That said, the 11 girls were well-behaved and a pleasure to have in the house. (I'm not sure I would do it again, however.)