Public Relations

Common Sense in Communications

Business Communications, Public Relations

There are times I really shake my head at some businesses and what they try to roll out as “good policy” to consumers.  I had one of these moments recently with the H&M fiasco regarding shredding clothing that doesn’t sell versus finding a better way to remove inventory. 

This situation hits a number of important issues where communicators should have stepped forward to raise questions that could have improved the situation.

  • Ethical Inquiries- O.k. this could be raised to anyone in leadership frankly.  Common sense says that destroying clothing while so many are in need is a waste.  At a bare minimum, I hold communicators to a higher standard in at least thinking about this perception if nothing else.  Why didn’t anyone raise this issue internally?  Too scared of internal arguments or do they just really not care.
  • Policy Issues- If you have to write a two-page explanation justifying your corporate viewpoint, there’s probably something wrong. 
  • Leading the Culture- As communicators, wheat we say publicly has a major impact on how a culture operates internally.  Trainwrecks like this H&M incident have a very real impact on everyone associated with the company.  If your public communications appear phony, you’re hurting the reputation of every employee in that company.  Not a great long-term retention tool is it?

I think most communicators have a good sense of judgment and should understand how audiences will view and evaluate these types of problems.  Let’s collectively step-up and put our skills in understanding audiences, and some common sense, to good use.

MacGyver is a Nonprofit

Business Communications, Life, Public Relations

A World of Tools for MacGyverYes, that MacGyver, the one that can create a bomb out of a paper clip, some lint, and maybe a ketchup packet if he’s fortunate to have such luxuries around.  For anyone seeking a trip down memory lane, or context for some of my younger readers, be sure to check out the original geek adventure hero online and have some fun with the SNL spoofs too.

Aside from a good retro laugh, the real prompt for this post was chatting with my friend Arik Hanson who is working with a couple of Minnesota nonprofits in the digital space.  He commented on how dedicated the staff and leadership of these organizations are and how much of themselves they truly put into their work.  The comment Arik made that hit home with me is “this is their life; they don’t leave the job when they go home. It’s part of them.” 

I’ve been fortunate to work with so many outstanding people from a variety of nonprofits and it’s a spot on comment.  As you may know, I  work for a nonprofit so I am commenting as an “insider” but have also worked for a global PR agency, a Fortune 500 medical device company, and a small specialty pharmaceutical company.  I can tell you (relatively objectively) that nonprofit staff invests themselves in their work just as much as any corporate or agency pro…maybe more. 

However, I believe that many in the PR world view nonprofits as a second-tier job.  It doesn’t carry the status that some in our industry want on their resumes which is too bad because nonprofit pros are MacGyver-like problem solvers.   They’re working on addressing major community challenges with limited budgets, increasing demands for accountability, typically lean staffs, and doing it all for less pay and prestige.  So next time you’re at an industry get-together, keep an eye out for some of these smart MacGyvers in the room.  I bet you’ll meet some great new friends filled with passion and creativity.

Resources:

Noted below are some great contacts if you’re interested in learning more about smart nonprofit thinking and other communications pros working to help their communities and important causes.

  • Beth Kanter who has a great blog and a ton of ideas around nonprofit leadership
  • In Minneapolis, for my local contacts, be sure to check out Ashley Schweitzer who is a constant advocate for nonprofits
  • My inspiring pal up north, Danny Brown with his outstanding 12for12k social media/charity efforts
  • Or maybe Katya Andresen focusing on marketing for nonprofits on her blog

PR Resolutions

Business Communications, Leadership, Public Relations

It’s that time of year when we all make resolutions and promises…many of which fall by the wayside by the end of January.  However, I think as PR practitioners we need to do better.  As we enter into 2010 our profession is still not give the respect I believe it truly deserves.  Too often PR is still viewed as “spinning” bad news to make it acceptable to the masses.  There are too many outstanding communicators out there to allow this misperception to continue.

How do we kill off this old stereotype? We collectively step-up to make sure that we don’t allow our profession to be viewed as window dressing but a critical function to every company we serve. How?  Here’s a few starters.

  • Know Your Business and Your Customer
                                                                                                                                    Before you start throwing out ideas about how to obtain more coverage or the greatest new promotional idea, make sure the efforts line up well with the overall strategic plan for the company.  Take the time to think about your work from the customer perspective– ask yourself why would a customer care and how would your ideas improve their experience.  Also be sure that you’ll be able to measure how your work will have an impact.  Even if you fail, you want to learn from the effort rather than have no idea if you made a difference.     

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  • Use New Tools to Improve Your Work       
                                                                                                                                           Don’t recycle the plan your boss used when you started.  That’s a sure-fire way to maintain a very average program that becomes irrelevant…and doesn’t exactly position you as a great strategic mind.  Take advantage of the new technology out there and think critically about how social media may fit in your mix.  Look at if there is a fit in your company for Skype to cut down on some costs and encourage better collaboration. 

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  • Don’t Just Use New Tools to Improve Your Work              
                                                                                                                   
    On the flip side of that last point, please don’t chase after the new shiny toy so much that you forget about core fundamentals.  I don’t care how many followers you can get on Twitter if you can’t explain what the heck it is your company does and why anyone in their right mind would use your product or service.  Be sure to communicate all the methods you want to use in reaching your audience. Your discussions should never strictly focus on a technology but what the technology can do for you. 

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  • Deliver What Reporters Need    
                                                                                                                                                                         One of the issues that hounds our field is the “smile and dial” approach where a PR person is asked, typically by a client, to just call your reporter friends and pitch this great new product.  Here’s the problem, if you have no idea what the product does or (even worse) the product is junk and you still pitch it then it’s your reputation that takes the hit.  We need to be smart enough and strong enough to push back to our companies and clients if there is no valid news angle. 

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  • Be an advocate for communications 
                                                                                                                                                     This is especially aimed at my corporate readers more than agency but it applies to us all.  If you are being paid to be an expert communicator, you also need to help others in your organization understand the true importance of the role.  If you have a truly groundbreaking product that nobody knows about, then you have nothing.  If communications is always viewed as the least important part of a planning session then you know something is critically wrong culturally and you need to change it.  Take the time to explain (supported by examples of your results) the value of communications and be a leader in speaking up for the importance of our profession. 

So, in 2010 let’s all resolve to eliminate the missteps that plague our profession.  Let’s do a little PR work on PR this year.  What else belongs on this list?  What else can we do to improve our collective reputations?  Let’s think big this year and make some real change.

Keep Your Eyes on the Ball

Business Communications, Public Relations

As anyone who has spent much time with me knows, I’m a certified sports nut. I will catch a game whenever possible.  I might be at the game, could be watching on television, or could be reviewing old tapes of games (Yes, I am that geeky when it comes to sports.) This is especially true of football and enjoy finding any chance to weave that into my work. However, this one isn’t a stretch.

A receiver will often drop a pass when wide open without a defender in sight.  Why? They were too eager to get into the end zone and not focusing on what’s right in front of them.  Maybe they were thinking about the glory of the end zone and their celebration (cough, @OGOchocinco, cough) or maybe they assumed it was so easy that real effort wasn’t needed.

Here’s the point- if you take your eyes off the ball, you may miss the big play that can be the difference between a win and a loss.

In communications, a group often overlooked is the one right in front of you.  Your employees are the faces of your organization.  They are the ones that will be asked, “so, what do you do” countless times at holiday parties in the next month.  They are the ones we may miss when busy coming up with the next great pitch to our reporter friends or while busy getting ready for a big product launch.

It’s easy to quick rush by and say “they know what we’re about” but, if they are only updated once a year on your efforts, they aren’t likely to tell the story you’d like to hear.  They are the people you want, and need, to tell your story in a positive and committed manner.  It’s essential to take the time to plan for your internal communications just as thoroughly as you focus on key external audiences. Take a minute to think right now and ask yourself if your employees are they ready to answer those questions in a way you’ll completely love. If you aren’t 100 percent sold on their glowing answers, you better get at it now.  Don’t get so busy looking downfield that you drop the ball right in front of you.

Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Dirk Hansen under Creative Commons Attribution License.

Earning a Seat at the Table

Business Communications, Leadership, Public Relations

One of the ultimate goals for this blog is to discuss what I believe is the essential intersection of business and communications.  If public relations professionals can’t find a way to connect with organizational leadership, the profession will continue to suffer and be viewed as a function that is essentially there to push out tactics rather than set leadership strategy.  What should we do about it? Complain loudly? Provide stacks of clips? Of course not, the only way to obtain a genuine leadership role is to earn it by providing value to your organization in a manner that really moves the measurement needle.  For most executives, the best measurement tool is always income.

Over the past year or so, I’ve had the opportunity to trade thoughts with a great communications and business guy in Allan Schoenberg (@AllanSchoenberg).  His perspective on the importance of business knowledge is reinforced each day in his role as the director of communications for the CME Group (@CMEGroup) where understanding intricate details about trading regulations, economic indicators, and global markets are just a portion of his day.

In this discussion, I wanted to find out more about how Allan became so involved in an arena where many PR pros are afraid to tread.  It can be intimidating to sit in a room with C-level leaders but if you want a “seat at the table” you need to understand how to be part of the discussion.

(DF): You’ve got a very strong blend of communications and economics knowledge, when did you first realize your interest in economics?

(AS): My interest in economics dates back to my years at Central Michigan University as an undergrad (1990). I decided to earn a degree in economics for two reasons:

1. I found the topics both interesting and challenging. People don’t understand that there are a number of topics to study in economics – it’s not just macro or micro. At the time I was interested in studying both labor economics and environmental economics.

2. Economics is about analyzing information and trying to make sense of it both from a past perspective (how did we get here?) and a future perspective (where are we headed?); the idea of looking at economics to me was like trying to solve a mystery.

There are also stories behind economic data and those stories are really the power behind all of the information gathered. Pulling all of that together was something I enjoyed and still do to this day. It’s hard for me to read any news about the economy today without wanting to dig deeper by talking to people and reading other sources (news media) and opinions (blogs) about the topic to get a better picture.

(DF): One of the core areas that we’ve discussed, and both feel strongly about, is PR as a critical business function.  How can PR improve its reputation with business leadership?

(AS): I don’t think this is rocket science and I think we tend to waste a lot of time as a profession trying to talk our way to the management table. There’s no other industry I can think of –except maybe IT – where a profession talks so much about getting the attention of management. And nothing you read will make this change. My belief is that you have to earn your reputation with senior management and in my mind you do that by gaining their trust and influence. How do you do that? Through time and experience. There’s no secret recipe. You have to understand the business — customers, competitors, the issues, management’s pain points, and then you have to know how to best build and executive a business strategy around communication. This is hardly anything that is easy to do. I think what it boils down to is that if you don’t know how your company operates – how it makes money – you are going to have a hard time earning the time you need with any leadership within your organization. I think the best thing we can learn to do as a profession is to learn how to ask really smart questions of our leaders and ourselves. You’ll know you are there when management asks you, “How are we going to solve this business problem?” versus, “Should we do a news release or a customer letter?”

My final point is that we also have to put this into the perspective that some public relations degree programs still reside in the journalism schools while other are very young and being a stand alone department. I hear people wondering why marketing tends to get all the glory, but we often forget that you get a marketing degree from the business school — the same schools producing CEOs and CFOs. We have a lot of work to do as a profession to earn our place.

(DF): How can a working understanding of economics help a PR pro in their daily work?

(AS): If you can understand what is driving the economy and apply it to your business – because your executives are applying it to your business – you will have an easier time understanding some of the key external factors affecting your organization.

I also feel that there are stories behind economic numbers, which is very similar to the profession of public relations and the stories we try to tell about our people and organizations. For instance, let’s look at the US dollar. In the past year it has taken a real beating in the market, and that affects a lot of things. You could leave it at that, but there are stories behind the falling value of the dollar – What is driving it geopolitically? How are commodity prices influencing its value? What federal reserve decisions are causing its value to rise or fall? And then you apply those to your business – Are we gaining more customers globally now that they can buy US goods for less money? Are we better positioned in the long term for international growth? What is our organization doing to adjust to the devaluation and can we talk about them to our publics? I’ve always felt that with economics it’s never just black and white, and I can relate that very much to the profession of public relations.
 
Some of the things I read on a regular basis include blogs like The Big Money, Cheap Talk, WSJ Real Time Economics, Business Pundit, Planet Money, Naked Capitalism, Infectious Greed and Money Supply. There are more but these have become core to my daily routine of catching up on the news and opinions in the marketplace.

(DF): Great points. I love your comparison between the disciplines and how there is no simple black and white. I believe that most PR people operate in a world of gray each day.  Can you provide a good example of when your strong financial knowledge made a strong, positive difference in your career?

(AS): It’s hard to say “this point in time I pulled out this formula” or if there is a specific example. I think I’m lucky that I’ve always had this foundation of economics – not finance; there’s a difference. That foundation and education certainly has helped me to better understand the bigger picture and think outside of the public relations box. I think having an education and interest in economics is what separates me from other professionals. I’m not saying it makes me better, but I typically approach problems always first from an economics point of view.

(DF): On the flip side of the last question, do you recall a point when you’ve unfortunately seen a PR pro struggle or fail due to a lack of knowledge in the finance arena?

(AS): I would certainly use that same example from above – me – to point that out. I have had my share of failures where I’ve either come to a meeting unprepared (thinking I knew everything ahead of time or having the wrong data because I asked the wrong questions) or not prepared at all. The lessons learned from those experiences are to never be unprepared and to admit when you don’t know the information. That doesn’t mean it can be forgotten — if you show up too many times without the right information or unprepared you won’t last long. That’s why it also pays to build key relationships with people across functions of the organization so they can help provide you with information when you most need it.

A big thank you to Allan for his time and participation on this topic.  Look for more with Allan down the road as well when we’ll touch on economics and business knowledge for students looking to enter the pr profession.

Additional background:

Allan Schoenberg (http://www.linkedin.com/in/allanschoenberg) is director of corporate communications for CME Group – a CME/CBOT/NYMEX company and is responsible for managing a staff of 15 responsible for issues management, media relations, crisis management, social media, message development, international initiatives, and broadcast/digital communications. Within an 18 month time frame he worked closely with management and the communications team through two mergers (CBOT in July 2007; NYMEX in August 2008) worth a combined value of nearly $30 billion. In August 2007, he initiated the company’s social media strategy, which includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, social bookmarking and reaching out to influential bloggers. In addition, he has been an adjunct professor with DePaul University since 2005 and Loyola University Chicago since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Central Michigan University and a master’s degree in communications management from Syracuse University. In 2002 he established an annual scholarship given to an outstanding integrative public relations student at Central Michigan.