Archive for the ‘Communication is about relationship’ Category
Iran Protests Demonstrate Our Deep Need for Dialogue
Down with one-way messaging!
I’ve been talking with different folks about a theology of communication—how we’re made to dialogue rather than just politely accept one-way messages delivered from on high. The protests in Iran are a living and vivid demonstration of this very thing. People are finding each other to protest twisted election results and the government doesn’t like it. And yet—shouldn’t anyone in a position of leadership begin to expect this very behavior? The protests demonstrate Clay Shirky’s argument (Here Comes Everybody) that these new social media tools allow people to find each other, not just without the benefit a hierarchy of bosses and managers and leaders, but in direct opposition to the bureaucracy. Just think how this will continue to work its way out when we’re not threatened by government action. Searching and organizing will become the new norm. Maybe they already have.
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The Power of “Search”
We search for what we know is important.
This one simple function has changed the way I personally create and access information. With a few keystrokes I can locate any particular word on my computer. This is great because often I can remember only one word of something I’ve read or written, and I certainly cannot remember which document it was in. Contrast the power of search with the old ways of keeping information in tight categories so that if I needed something, I followed a trail of folders which would (eventually) lead to the right document. I gave up on tracking actual physical pieces of paper long ago. “Search” not only saves time, it ends up being more precise.
Clay Shirky, In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations makes the case that the power of search is changing the way we organize and access information and the way we organize and access each other. We can come together now as we search out common problems and interests. Shirky contrasts these new ways of organizing by showing how complicated organizations have become: the larger the organization the more complicated the structure required to track work, direct workers’ movements and facilitate clear communication. Shirky offers a fascinating discussion of where org charts came from (they helped railroads establish clear communication so west-bound and east-bound trains could share the same track). There will always be org charts, but will they tell the whole truth? With this new “freedom to find,” large companies are beginning to see lines of authority blur. We will (also) always have bosses, but bosses will not always have the power of superior knowledge. I wonder how those relationships will change over time? One of Shirky’s points is that nimble new organizations are already taking advantage of this non-organizational way of organizing. He points to Flickr (versus Corbis) as an example of an organization that depends on user-generated organization as a successful model for the future. The contrast between Flickr and Corbis is not completely fair because of the differing goals of the two organizations.
Of course, we hear endlessly about how Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the other various social media are changing the way we connect. And we know from personal experience how Google has become our first source for answers to questions. The future of communication—where who we listen to will have less to do with lines of authority or the budget to develop clever messaging and purchase media—and more to do with how we access information. As we search on interests, hobbies, problems, solutions, vocation, avocation and whimsy, we’ll bypass gatekeepers, generate more word of mouth (physical and/or computer-mediated), and quite possibly, more truth.
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Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out (and Don’t Burn any Bridges)
Don't burn your bridge
There’s a flurry of lay-off activity these days over at a large client I’ve worked with for a number of years. I know because I’ve heard about it from a few different folks. I also know because lots of those I’ve not talked to are buffing their LinkedIn profiles and adding contacts like crazy. The rate of contact additions I see tells me these folks are not expecting to make it through the current set of axe swings. One guy told me they were expecting marketing to lose 30% of their people. One never knows how true these things are, but it is reason to take action.
In the medical device community I spend a lot of work time in, you never know if the fresh kid who started last year will be the director of marketing next time you come calling—so it only makes sense to not burn bridges on the way out. Friends—keep your options open as you welcome the next phase of your work-life.
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Read about “Building a Generous Brand”
Check out John King’s article about Building a Generous Brand in Ad Age. This is a positive step, when an agency as forward-thinking as Fallon starts considering how brands can “give back.” This is also an excellent way of thinking about the dialogue that consumers really want to have—versus the dialogue marketers wish consumers wanted to have. Is this more evidence that the days of one-way messaging are going away? The danger is that the generous brand becomes just another manipulative gimmick. But in this new dialogical age, such chicanery will be found out, posted and soundly dressed down.
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What MPR can tell Marketers about Talking with a Target Audience
It’s hard to wrap our minds around new ways of doing things—especially when the new ways require clear thinking along unexplored routes. Yesterday in conversation with a marketer we discussed the difficulty in getting his niche business known. There is no “road map,” he said, no established market for the custom work his firm does. Clients eventually come to them from all over the world. And for these clients, my friend’s firm is a group of miracle-working artisans who combine art and science to solve manufacturing problems.
The problem is getting word of the miracle-working artisans to just the right people. At just the right time. Exactly when they are having the manufacturing problem that requires a miracle.
Which reminds me of an experiment going on over at Minnesota Public Radio. It’s called Radio Heartland and host Dale Connelly uses his Trial Balloon blog to hear and respond to exactly what his audience is looking for—which happens to be something more than the eclectic range of music that plays 24 hours a day through the new station.
Dale Connelly’s show, and the continuous-running station that derives from it, are actually a remix of The Morning Show that Connelly and “Jim Ed Poole” ran for 25 years. A show that built a wide following despite being on the verge of removal from the radio dial a number of times—at least that’s how the lore goes. The remix includes a highly interactive element.
First, the Music
The genius of Radio Heartland is two-fold. First, there’s the music, which Connelly alternately describes as “Americana” or “roots,” but neither of which title allows for a playlist that runs from Tom Waits to Sammy Davis Jr. to the Drive-By Truckers to the Kinks to the Café Accordion Orchestra. Any summary of the music is woefully incomplete. Like the previous Morning Show, Radio Heartland also gives play time and promotes local music. Connelly changes up the music as he hears from his audience.
Second, the Conversation
I asked about the role of the conversation in running Radio Heartland. “I think of the blog contributors as my co-hosts,” said Connelly. “And I try to work their ideas and music suggestions into the fabric of the show every day.” Reading through the blog it quickly becomes clear that much more than music is on topic. Goats, goat cheese, a virtual Radio Heartland Community band (“The Goatles”?) and lots of conversation that is only tangentially related to goats.
But music is really the focus. In particular, how the music works through the ups and downs of a day. What the music reminds of and how it works in the lives of listeners. Listeners freely respond with comments, praise, poems and prose. Much of the comments are in direct response to Connelly’s lively and funny writing and regular blog updates. It is clear the listeners feel heard.
Then the Loyalty
“Word of mouth is our major promotional tool for new listeners right now,” says Connelly. But the blog helps, especially when people “tune in” to hear/see how their comments and suggestions work out. One of the hallmarks of the Morning Show was great listener loyalty—which Connelly felt would be threatened—which ultimately led him and produce Mike Pengra to set up the HD and Web-Only station.
What can Marketers learn from Radio Heartland?
- That engaging in dialogue as a precursor to conversation can actually help potential customers find you. Is this just another version of “If you build it, they will come?” Possibly. But given the low cost of entry into dialogue and the potential for building word-of-mouth interest, when is the time to launch? Putting specifics out for discussion invites response. And when those interested see their suggestions incorporated—all the better. Sporadic readers move to loyal readers.
- Loyalty builds one conversation at a time. So does community, for that matter.
- Loyalty may start with “Search.” We’ll always ask our questions to people in the know. We’ll rarely turn to a drawer full of brochures for answers. Just make sure your interest pops up in the search.
- There may be a conversational space your firm can own. It may have nothing to do with goats (one can hope). But it will take the shape that flows from a dialogue that seeks and responds to dialogue partners. But dialogue possibilities will not always be as wide-open as they are now.
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A Telephone Is Not A Commitment To Communicate
The other day a friend painted a picture of marketing and sales at his company: it looks like a telephone. His firm had not spent on outward-facing communications for a couple years. Instead, they picked up the phone and called people. This company targets a very tight niche of companies needing specialized fabrication services.
We talked about the state of their communication, and how brochures and the usual assortment of tools seemed like a waste of money—given that his industry has very few players and most are well-known to each other. I wondered aloud whether he could position his employees as expert problem solvers—which exactly is what they are—as walking, talking brochures. Is it possible that the very thing they do on the telephone could have a broader reach and work for them all the time? This is the promise of entering into dialogue.
But before moving that direction, set aside tactics for a moment. Before freeing employees to be public experts, any company—and especially my friend’s company—must make an extraordinary commitment. They must commit to communicate. If my friend’s company uses today’s conversational tools like he previously used advertising or brochures—tossing one-way benefit messages out in the marketplace every once in a while—he will fail. Instead, he and his company need to cultivate an attitude of sharing what they know in a way that draws out interest and conversation. And that is an on-going commitment. That’s how experts become experts.
Interestingly, putting experts into conversation is also a route to increased employee satisfaction. Good employees love to use their expertise to help real people solve real problems.
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Our Strange World: Bankers Give Money Back
Yesterday’s StarTribune included an article about TCF returning TARP funding (“TCF rejects rescue money,” 3/3/2009, p. D1). Chris Serres quoted TCF chief executive Bill Cooper as saying it was a no-win situation. If they don’t accept TARP money, people would think they couldn’t get it and they were in trouble. If they did receive TARP money, Cooper said, “you’re stigmatized as evil people stealing from taxpayers.” An article in today’s StarTribune reports on two more banks receiving TARP funding.
Turns out TCF didn’t need it and would write a check for the $361.2 million.
Is it possible we’ve turned some corner in this country where the big money-makers are starting to worry about their appearance to the working folks? TCF has always seemed like a bank for anybody—perhaps the PR department thought they could win points with their target audience by returning money they didn’t need. Did they feel just stigmatized—or maybe even a bit guilty? Or did they just tire of the public peeking into their expensive meetings. Whatever the motive, giving money back seems like a positive sign. Kudos to TCF and Bill Cooper.
It’s a tribute to the power of opinion that $360 million (and change) is being returned by a bank that didn’t need it in the first place. This act seems to elevate the actions that could result from public knowledge: people might bank elsewhere. And dialogue among the working folk could begin an exodus from a stigmatized TCF.
It could happen.
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Let’s Start with “Manipulation-Free Zones”
My friend is a corporate philosopher who lives out his work life in a tall glass tower thinking about, among other things, how to adapt his corporate culture to create more honest dialogue. My primary concern with dialogue in this blog has been how to engage customers honestly. But yesterday’s conversation with this friend I realized that honest dialogue (and if not honest, is it really dialogue?) requires truth-telling. And truth-telling starts inside corporations, even inside individuals. As Mrs. Kirkistan put it, “It seems sort of obvious, doesn’t it, that people should tell the truth?”
Indeed.
But what is obvious to us on a personal level gets twisted in a corporate setting, and processed and stuffed into an animal bladder and offered as a truth-sausage at the other end. Such manipulations are standard procedure for any organization to present their product or service in the best light. That’s where the one-way messages have always come from, the ones that fall flat with potential clients because they stink of the processing plant and are exactly similar to all the other one-way message that land on their mental doorstep hundreds of times each day. My friend suggested I read the Cluetrain Manifesto, which I’ve ordered. The cluetrain website offers to dig much deeper into the notion of conversation between companies and customers, and also promises that customers will—and are already—finding the relevant information they need to make a decision. And they are finding it independently of (and likely contrary to) the one-way messages thrown at them. The website is dated at 1999, so these are not new thoughts, but seem to be gathering force in 2009.
Which brings me to another conversation with an FDA-regulated firm wanting to engage in dialogue but knowing the limits of what their regulators and lawyers would allow to be said in the corporate space. As we kicked around the idea of blogging and just how much truth-telling (in the raw, personal form the blogosphere rewards) could really happen, we stumbled on the peer-review model and wondered if more truth-telling must necessarily happen outside the corporate site, where dialogue could be engaged with experts offering unfiltered opinions. Naturally, such a web site must offer hearty benefits to any dialoguer. I hereby declare these site “Manipulation-Free Zones,” though I recognize that manipulation is part of the human condition. It is the rare human who does not present himself/herself and his/her interests in the best light. But can we aim high?
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Balancing Audience Infatuation and Ignorance
Part of my work life is invested in helping college students believe writing can be a legitimate career. Not long ago the technical writing class I taught took a break to hear Scott Cairns discuss his poetry, his writing process and his motivations. Cairns commented that he rarely thinks about audience when he writes. He writes as a way of finding what he does not know. Questions are his starting point. He writes to resolve those questions.
But wait: not think about audience?
When our class met again, we discussed at length how it is the poet could write without thinking about audience. For the classes I teach, audience is a key element that shapes the writing. What the audience already knows, what the audiences wants to know, and what the audience needs to know are all questions we entertain as we shape words and concepts to accomplish stuff out in the world. We hope our words (at least) engage our audience in meaningful dialogue or (at best) persuade them to take some action based on received/processed messages (the enduring dream of any copywriter).
Though audience looms large in shaping the working writer’s discipline, I do not disagree with Cairns. Many of my best connections with audiences have occurred when words have formed over some deeply personal question. Those same words have then gone on to connect to my audience in ways I had never anticipated and could not have planned. I’m not talking about creative writing exercises, but working editorials, print ads, direct mail and marketing copy. Perhaps that is why writing remains mysterious: it comes from several layers of consciousness seemingly at the same time. And somewhere in that bubbling stew our human connections speak with each other. Knowing God created us to communicate (with Him and each other) makes me more and more curious about the secret life of words.
Working writers must balance audience infatuation with ignorance of audience. The best communication emerges from somewhere between transcendence and imminence.
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Write On Through To The Other Side
Two recent conversations with marketing friends illustrate a common issue I face when writing copy for a communication tool. The financial marketer needed to reach through the independent financial counselor to the individual investor. The medical device marketer needed to reach through the rep organization to a new-ish target audience—an audience the reps were not so eager to talk with. Both marketers understood that the communication tool we were preparing must help establish a relationship between the counselor/rep and the final audience.
In both cases we worked through a set of messages, set priorities and discussed the tone. The copy and entire piece must engage the first audience (I’ll call them the “gate” audience), but in a slightly different way than it must engage the final audience. The gate audience must quickly understand the primary benefit to the final audience and then be prepared to verbally go over the communication piece with the final audience, pointing out benefits and finally leaving the piece with them. The gate audience must also quickly feel very comfortable with the messages, tone and presentation—so much so that they can speak intelligently and with passion. After all, that is what these folks do for a living.
The final audience may (or may not) take the piece and read it. More likely they will engage in a conversation with the communication tool as something of a prop, and then take their cues from the relationship they already have with the presenter. That is, after all, how we understand and take action on lots of things in this life. Most everything is about relationships.
Effective copy must make the gate audience comfortable, then impassioned, then empowered. That same copy must duplicate the passion for the final audience and go on to provide detail as necessary. And that means communication tools like your common brochure are really instruments for relationship-building.
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conversation is an engine 
