Category Archives: Communications

How to Present Data

Ever wonder how great presenters get to be great? While what they are presenting is important, how they present it and what considerations they give to the environment they are presenting in is equally important.

In a recent post I marvelled at how data could actually get in the way of strategic thinking. It isn’t a question of how accurate the data is, though that of course that matters, but even the best data can be overwhelmed by the state of mind of your audience, your own mindset and how you choose to share data.

It is difficult to be persuasive when your body is closed or unfriendly. I explore those challenges in my post, Body Language – Managing You So You Can Deliver Your Message. Even when we physically present a positive demeanour our tone can change how information is received. A grating tone can have a disruptive effect and a soothing tone can create interest.

A few years ago on a Saturday afternoon I was lazing around the house with the TV on when I found myself following along with avid attention to a documentary. I was more than twenty minutes into the program when I had to ask myself, “Since when did you have any interest in cartography?”

I like a good map as much as anyone, but the history of map making would never have made my top ten TV list, not even my top fifty, yet there I was mesmerized. It was at that point that I realized that the narrator was Patrick Stewart. Being a fan of Star Trek I had always enjoyed his voice and that enjoyment was all that was required to get me to enjoy the making of maps.

Tone is so influential to how information is received that even if you deliver the identical words, if you change where you place emphases, you can change the meaning. One of my favourite exercises to illustrate how the identical words can have multiple meanings is the following sentence.

“I didn’t say she stole my money.”

If you place the emphasis on different words in the sentence you can get at least 7 different meanings.

I didn’t say she stole my money – someone else said it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I didn’t say it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I only implied it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I said someone did, not necessarily her.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I considered it borrowed, even though she didn’t ask.

I didn’t say she stole my money – only that she stole money.

I didn’t say she stole my money – she stole things that cost me money to replace.

If a sentence this supposedly straight forward can change meaning depending on which word we emphasize, is it any wonder that even the most influential data can be misinterpreted based on emphasis?

To further complicate things we have the audience’s emotions to take into consideration. Were they anticipating the information? Are they vested in the outcome? Do they even understand why you are sharing the information? Just because the connection between your data and their interests are obvious to you, doesn’t mean they are obvious to your audience.

The mood of your audience can also have a tremendous impact. If they are tired because it’s mid afternoon on a busy day, you may want to have them do some stretches before beginning. If they are angry it can have a whole host of consequences. Angry people take shortcuts in their thinking and are more likely to blame people rather than a situation for outcomes. Anger will influence how information is perceived and what actions follow as a consequence. In one study conducted at the University of Illinois (Jennifer S. Lerner) and UC Berkeley (Julie H. Goldberg of and Philip E. Tetlock) noted that people who watched an anger-inducing video were more punitive toward defendants in a series of unrelated fictional tort cases involving negligence and injury than were people who had seen a neutral video. The exceptions to the rule were in those cases where they were told that not only would they be held accountable for their decisions but they would be asked to explain their decisions to an expert.

This gives us a good glimpse into best practices when sharing data, which is having the audience have a sense of responsibility about the outcome or a vested interest in the outcome. Letting them know exactly why you feel the information is relevant to them and telling them that you will ask a few questions at the end to get their opinions on the findings is a good way to ensure that they will do more than daydream while you present. If you can associate a sense of accountability with how they manage the decisions as an outcome, you will also produce more thoughtful contemplation of the data.

Finally we come to the data itself. Whether you use PowerPoint, Prezi, video or Skype can influence your audience’s reception of your materials. Some people actually feel nauseous when they watch the movement of a Prezi presentation while others want to curl up and go to sleep at the first signs of a PowerPoint. Whichever vehicle you choose, make sure that that you are not overloading your presentation with data. Next week I will explore common pitfalls in showcasing data including when Prezi can outshine PowerPoint.

What about you? Have you ever had a presentation, pitch or a meeting take a strange turn because of how data was viewed? Have you ever found yourself captivated by the delivery style of a presenter?

First image courtesy of Pakorn/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Communications, Internal Communications, Management

Surprises at Work

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

I once had a boss who loved to sabotage meetings. It wasn’t a question of him not liking his staff or even disliking meetings. It was more that he didn’t want people to enter into discussions with their minds already made up. His theory was that if we all started from the same point, with the same information, we would produce honest and open responses. So, he habitually called meetings without explanation or gave only the vaguest indication of what he had on his mind.

While this concept might have worked in theory, it was a bit of a bust in practice. I remember feeling completely lost in meetings, staring across the boardroom table at my colleagues who were equally lost while our boss discussed his newest idea. Now, I’m all for hearing new ideas, but he wanted a decision about what we thought of his idea right then and there. What we discussed was his idea, his research on the idea, his perspective, his contemplation and of course, his bias. It didn’t go well. Not because he wasn’t smart, but because there was no opportunity for the rest of us to research, test or think about the idea as he had.

No matter what genius you call your own, if you really want your ideas to be given a fair hearing, you have to assume people need time to consider and test that idea. No matter your ailment, you probably wouldn’t take medication based on even the best scientist’s suggestion without first knowing some independent testing had been done. So why would you accept an untested idea any quicker?

So what did we do as a group when my boss presented his surprise idea? We reacted on instinct, impulse and prior bias. Instead of having an open debate, we ended up arguing over our own biases, perspectives and ideas. The facts had little to do with the discussion. Rather than build on an idea collectively based on our individual expertise, we became little more than the sum of our independent parts. For those of you who have been taken by surprise at work by unexpected propositions, meetings or changes, you won’t be surprised to know that our meetings frequently ended in tears, anger or frustration – not exactly an ideal or productive working experience. Certainly not the honest and open response my boss had hoped for.

Lessons Learned:

No one likes surprises at work.
Whether you’re preparing for internal or external meetings, providing a fair warning in the form of a briefing note or clear agenda is central to success.
Give participants the opportunity to bring their best thoughts and research to the table and your meeting will prove more fruitful, effective and productive.
Taking people by surprise with ideas means that, rather than putting ideas to the test before implementation, at best all you’ll get is the sum of your own parts and some disgruntled colleagues.
Even if you’re the best brain on the planet, synergy will always improve on good ideas, not to mention the acceptance of them.
Despite the popularity of brainstorming sessions, they have many built in flaws that reduce their effectiveness.

Communications

Why Spying Will Make Us Communities Again

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks I’ve had lots of practice at feeling awkward for strangers. There always seems to be a new, uneasy revelation in the news about someone’s privacy being invaded. Around the world and in my own neighborhood privacy breaches seem to abound and as these various pieces of information are aired I keep thinking sooner or later people will figure out that what they really want is more face to face time with their neighbours and colleagues. Although the technology to end it may be in the works, I pleased to say that I think it’s still possible to have a private conversation in person. I suppose if I’m giving credit where credit is due, then I’ll tip my hat to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning for our new found need to engage with real people. After all, it was their efforts that made us realize that “private” isn’t what is used to be.

As I watch the coverage of the American diplomatic incident that left Washington distinctly uncomfortable and the Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, apologizing for saying, “Fu@$ the European Union” in what she thought was a private telephone conversation, I can’t help but think she’ll be having more face to face meetings in the future. I bet German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose cell phone was bugged by the U.S., is also thinking about having more face to face meetings too. Their experiences should certainly make us all consider the value of always being on our best behaviour.

Of course now that Canadian travellers know that their cell phones have been picked up and tracked for days after they had walked through Canadian airports they can feel a little like these powerful political leaders, invaded. Just like their more famous counterparts, the records of all of their calls and emails have been captured by government entities, in the case of Canadians; the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) did the work.

Now we too can think twice about what we say on our cell phones or using them at all. I haven’t carried one for two weeks and rather than feeling disconnected or untethered, I find myself strangely more in the moment wherever I am. It could be because no one can call, text or email me to disrupt the moment and I’m not disrupting it by looking at my phone for messages.

Don’t get me wrong. My decision to not carry a cell phone isn’t a political statement. I don’t have one because I changed positions and haven’t sorted out if I actually want or need one. The recent revelations have simply added to the debate. What occurs to me is that we wouldn’t have to worry about our cellphones being bugged if we didn’t rely on them so much.

More than anything I worry that as more private exchanges are released for public consumption we will start to normalize these intrusions into our privacy. In many respects we already have. Target, Shoppers Drugmart and many other retailers send me specialized coupons based on the things I have purchased while by myself in their stores. Facebook tells me they own my content on their platform, Google tells me they are making my online experience more effective by tracking every move I make and the government tells me they are keeping me safe. As someone in marketing I can’t help but appreciate what can be done with all of that information, but I also know some simple truths. Knowledge is power and all of that knowledge is an awful lot of power for very few people. No one needs to know everything about me and I certainly don’t need to know everything about complete strangers. There’s also that small detail about the ethics of intrusion.

Perhaps I’m looking at this all wrong. As a friend of mine pointed out, privacy as we recently knew it was a relatively new construct. Having grown up in a West Indian family, I know that there is very little that is private in a real community. I could track the movements of my cousins in Montreal while visiting in Barbados and that is before Facebook, social media or the Internet. My family never needed spyware to figure out what was going on with family members around the world. Perhaps all this spying and gathering of data is simply a reflection of a very natural human instinct to know. Of course, I actually knew the people “spying” on me and their incursions into my privacy really did keep my world much safer and of course they were never trying to sell me something.

So, whether these privacy breeches are natural, abnormal or just plain creepy, it makes me think it’s time for more dinner parties. Perhaps we should think about recreating the old fashioned salons, those gatherings intended to entertain and teach. Those intimate exchanges where the cell phones and laptops are left behind. I’m not suggesting the abandonment of contemporary media, I am a blogger after all and I make my living in communications and marketing, but maybe a little less time online and a little more time in the world around us would be good, not all of our communities need to be virtual.

What do you think, too much time spying? Is it time to spend more time in person? Should we just get used to having less privacy?

Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Communications

Making A Profit With Charity – Cause Marketing

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

One of the most challenging aspects of doing marketing for a charity is the apparent conflict of interest the role represents. When donors give money to a charity, they want to know that their money is going directly to the people in need. This means that when organizations are considered for giving, donors will often ask what percentage of their gift will go directly to programs and services and what percentage will go to administration. The bigger the percentage going towards administration the less appealing the charity becomes. Makes sense right? Well, not always.

The problem of course is that in order for a cause to generate the level of support it requires to be truly successful, it needs to be highly visible. It’s not enough to do good if no one knows you’re doing it. There has to be awareness and buy in. In order to get those donations, you need to be seen, in order to be seen you have to invest in marketing. You have to advertise and you have to have people in place to do those things. If your revenues are small you may think in order to do any good you have to spend the lion share of it on your cause. The thing is, if you spent 25% of those revenues generating awareness, you’d have more revenues. Your reach would go further and you’d have more money for your cause. So while a larger percentage of money would go to promotion (administration), a greater number of people would be served.

This is the principle at work behind for profits and it has served them well. However, people expect charities to behave in a very different fashion from for profits. While some charities have learned to work around this baffling expectation, most continue to struggle in a world that expects them to get something from nothing. Despite overwhelming evidence to support investing in marketing, most people don’t want their charities spending money this way and sometimes the charities convince themselves not to do it. I think Dan Palloto delivers an eloquent explanation of this in his TED talk, called, “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong”.

What I find appealing about cause marketing is that it essentially looks at this challenge and then avoids it all together. By blending the charity or cause with a for-profit activity, the dynamic changes for everyone. Donors also become consumers. The distinction matters because consumers don’t care if you spend money on marketing, in fact, they expect you to. Consumers don’t penalize you for getting attention and they don’t care about your overhead. The best part is, consumers feel good about getting something they value and having some of the profits go to a good cause.

In a 2013 Neilson study, 43 percent of global respondents said they had actually spent more on products and services from companies that have implemented programs to give back to society. Men were slightly more likely to have done so than women and younger respondents were more likely than older respondents to spend more. Not only do you get the engagement of more people, but you get the engagement of a younger demographic which is one of the tougher sells in the charitable sector.

The Neilson Company also noted that 66% of respondents prefer to support companies that give back to society and the Cone Millennial cause study found that a cause will prompt over 60% of shoppers to try a product. What that means is that not only is this good sense for the cause, but it’s great sense for the company. Consider that in even the competitive brand markets over 80% of consumers would switch brands to one of equal quality if it was associated with a cause.

It should be clear though, the quality of the product matters. With cause marketing your product isn’t a convenient excuse to give, it is why you give. As Terry O’Reilly, author of “The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture” and host of numerous radio shows so eloquently put it, “You can’t put mission before margin.”

It doesn’t matter how great the cause is, if the product lacks value or if the quality is questionable, then donors and consumers will walk. It is the profit that makes the cause sustainable. If you’d like to learn more about how to engage in cause marketing, Arleen over at Garrett Specialties had a great post that shared five ways to do cause marketing.

Have you ever bought a product associated with a cause? What do you think of cause marketing or marketing a cause? Do you remember Bono’s RED campaign? What about the causes supported by Starbucks, Armani or Nike?

Communications, Internal Communications

E-MAIL Versus Communications

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

It lurks, waiting for the unsuspecting communicator. Its disguise, the quick and easy transition of words or documents from one place to another. Yet it has an insidious power that can transform grown men into small-minded bullies or professional women into petty tyrants. Yes, I’m talking about e-mail. If we’re totally honest with ourselves, we would see email for what it really is, a supervillain. I’ve seen the horror it can do.

I’ve run down a hallway shouting to colleagues to, “STOP SENDING E-MAILS” when a chain of emails with some of our stakeholders across the country escalated into war. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good joke and really, email fights are always funny in retrospect. It is just that when you make your living building relationships, you don’t have much humour about watching years of cultivation, goodwill and hard work go up in flames because of a few poorly worded emails. It’s not just your external stakeholders who can be affected by it either. Internal emails are probably among the most prolific contributors to poor morale.

A poorly worded or too widely sent email can spiral a team into chaos. I’ve coached managers on what to say to chronic email abusers and I’ve had to soothe frustrated team members when someone showed disrespect to them in an email. There is also the abusive reply all function. Imagine the chain of events that unfolds when thousands of people receive a shrill email questioning management on a decision that impacted the whole organization. I still wake up screaming.

Or there is the unjustified anger that follows when someone sends an email with directions and subsequently does not get the behaviour they want. If I hear one more time, “But I sent them an email!” I may get dangerous. For the record:

Sending does not mean people received it.
Receiving it doesn’t mean they read it.
Reading it doesn’t mean they understood it.

There are protocols associated with email use that is a Google search away, so I won’t belabour the point here, but keep these lessons in mind.

Lessons Learned

Read it out loud, if it sounds obnoxious, it is. Don’t send it.
A smiley face after being obnoxious doesn’t make the email less obnoxious.
How many people really need to see your message? Do the math and don’t add anyone else.
If you’re getting angry, stop emailing, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
If it’s urgent, important or a risk issue, don’t email, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
E-mail is a temporary short-cut for sharing information, not a substitute for good communications or good relationship management.

Have any e-mail nightmares to share? Do you LOVE email or are you a careful user?

Communications, public relations

Random Acts Of Branding

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

What happens if everyone in an organization decides to engage in branding activities without first engaging in an internal conversation? This question prompted an extended conversation with my friend Janet MacLeod, who like me, is a communications professional. This post is the consequence of that discussion and so our joint offering.

So what happens when an organization starts to perform random acts of branding? A commercial in one area, a public relations program somewhere else. Essentially, a variety of initiatives delivered over time that are unrelated but intended to improve profile or set a tone for services? Even if the initiatives aren’t identical, they would at least get attention right? Raise the profile of the organization and if luck is with the organization, it might even result in a viral moment. It’s possible that many of those individuals will have a brilliant idea…right. Who are we kidding? First of all, there aren’t that many geniuses and second, if you have different people doing their own “thing” with a brand, then that probably means that they have no communications experience. Even a mediocre communicator understands the benefit of being consistent. A good communicator would say that inconsistencies in branding eventually result in diminishing the brand and yet so many organizations allow their brand to be shuttled about with little regard. Despite what you might think, it isn’t just the little organizations who do this either. Unless you are an organization that sells products like soda or toilet paper, items that live and die based on brand, you may not fully understand the strength and impact of brand.

Too often the description of a corporate brand can sound like little more than jargon to employees. And really, it’s often treated as a descriptive phrase that illustrates what corporate leaders would like employees, clients or customers to think and feel about a company. The thing is, brand is a pretty loaded word. It represents a concept that seems to mean a multitude of things to people and can also mean next to nothing. Brand is color, it’s a logo, it’s a font, it’s how you are perceived, how you deliver service and how your products perform. It’s the feeling the public gets when your name is mentioned. It’s the choices that people make to use or not use your offering.

Brand is the unique features that distinguish one organization from another – it may be the words used, the procedures you follow and most likely it is a combination of all these things. Brand becomes the things people see, hear, feel, and touch so that a perception or idea develops about what can (and should) be expected of the organization. The authentic feelings and emotions that are triggered by brand – whether factual or not – become the reality. In effect, the brand is the organization.

Since internal activities drive the brand exhibited and understood outwardly, it is concerning (to say the least) when those activities lack cohesion. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, companies sometimes “run with scissors” and become susceptible to brand breakdown. Change is often the trigger. Whether it comes as a result of shifts in culture, technology, finances, staff turn- over or simply poor strategy, changes that are poorly executed or poorly communicated, can lead to dysfunction and can put a huge dent in what had been a perfectly fine brand.

A living example is BlackBerry. It used to be RIM or Research in Motion. It was Canada’s technology darling. People loved it, trusted it, and expected good things from it. Then it changed. It went into the consumer marketplace (and grew itself accordingly). But soon it went from being the industry leader, to being perceived as the industry follower. In truth, it was still making reliable, secure devices, but because it didn’t do what the iPhone did, it was perceived as being a poorer product. BlackBerry lost momentum. Investors stopped coming, people stopped buying the product. Layoffs ensued.

So although the quality of the actual product had not altered the perception of the product had to the point that the brand was seen as waning. The changes that impacted BlackBerry happened in the market, yet organizations often inflict negative shifts in perception on themselves by ignoring or poorly attending to their brand. Brand is a powerful device. It needs care and attention and there should be nothing random about it.

What do you think about branding? Do you have favorite products you buy because of their brand? Do you have a favorite beer, pop or paper towel? Do you know what your own brand is?

Communications, public relations

Ask for the Order

Debra Yearwood 49 Comments

Guest Post by Diana Marinova

Ask for the order or what lessons about communication the lady in the supermarket taught me. Honoring Debra’s one year anniversary of blogging, I decided to share a little story from few months ago. It’s a very ordinary every day story but put in the right context and perspective, we can learn a lot about communication from it.

The story

One cloudy morning, I went to the supermarket because I ran out of coffee. Maybe it’s good to know (in advance) that I am not a morning person and I definitely hate going to the supermarket. So, I entered the supermarket. I looked around (I was on a vacation so I didn’t quite know that particular supermarket). I found the coffee, took my brand and went to the cash register.

The lady looked at me, saw the coffee, ran it through the bar code reader and said to me: “We have a new brand of biscuits in the store. I tried them this morning and they are delicious! And at a promotional rate, too! Would you like to try them?”

I stood there for a moment thinking – well, yeah, who doesn’t like a nice chocolate treat with their coffee – so I nodded affirmatively. She ran the biscuits through the bar code reader, too. Then she just took out from a little fridge beside her a small cartoon of milk and said: “And you gotta try both the coffee and the biscuits with this milk! It’s not at a discounted rate but it sure will make your day if you have your morning coffee and biscuits with it!” – and she winked at me – LOL

I laughed and I felt good – it’s not every day that someone winks at you the old fashion way, eh? Besides, she did make me smile although I hadn’t had my coffee yet… So I ended up buying both the milk and the biscuits along with the coffee that I went for in the first place… and an ice-cream – because I was feeling good 😉

Ask for the order, always: The customer may or may not buy something. But if you ask them to, politely and with a hint of humor, they are more likely to!

Don’t be shy. Don’t be rude. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be pushy. Be yourself and ask for the order genuinely – as if you are talking to a friend and making a personal recommendation regardless what the answer might be.

Share the information you have: Being a non-morning hating-the-supermarket customer, no way could I have noticed there are cookies at a discounted rate; or a small carton of milk beside the cashier. And I definitely had no way of knowing the brand of biscuits is new in that particular store. So, unless the lady at the cash register told me all that, there was no way for me to make a decision to purchase anything beside the coffee I went there for.

Don’t assume the customer knows something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t care. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want to be bothered. Well, basically – don’t assume anything. Assumptions are your enemy when it comes to communication (and sales). Just share the information you have and deem important. I will cite here Debra – “information shared is power squared” 😉

Connect on a personal level: As hard as it may sound, it really isn’t. In my story – the lady in the supermarket winked at me! It was unexpected; it was funny; it was personal – it definitely helped me like her and purchase all she had to offer.

Connecting on a personal level doesn’t mean you have to know the person you are dealing with. It means being human; being yourself; being honest and forthcoming; being creative; being funny sometimes. Connecting on a personal level has a lot to do with being genuinely interested in what’s going around you. More importantly, it means helping the other party, even if they don’t know they need help – and just because you can!

Thank you, Debra, for hosting my story on your blog! And to all of you, dear readers – tell us in the comments –

What else did you learn about communications from my story?

Diana Marinova is a freelance marketing consultant and writes a wonderful bog providing smart and practical advice for freelancers and anyone in the business world who has clients or is a client.

Cafe con galleta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Communications, public relations

Going Viral, It’s As Easy As 1,2,3

Debra Yearwood 30 Comments

If you were tasked with the job of making an organisation’s message go viral, what would you do? Where would you start? I was wondering just that the other day, it’s something I think all marketing professionals wonder about and we’d all like to see at least one campaign go crazy (or if we’re honest, all of our campaigns) but the truth is, the fastest way to have a campaign go viral is to take your time.

There is nothing I find so frustrating as people talking about delivering a social media campaign without planning, investment or consideration. It makes me groan and my frustration grows because it is based on a misconception that often plagues communications and marketing professionals, the idea that social media is easy and that success is just around the corner if only the marketing manager knew what they were doing.

The truth is successful social media campaigns rely on the same three things that successful traditional media campaigns required. They just happen to be three difficult things for most businesses to deliver. Let’s look at some campaigns that have worked and try to determine what might have pushed them from just viewable to viral.

Who Gives – Humour and the Unexpected

This little gem doesn’t hit the really BIG numbers, but for a relatively inexpensive charitable endeavor, it has managed to capture a fair bit of attention with over 10,500 views and earned traditional media coverage as well. What’s it’s most notable selling feature? A rabbi in a dress of course.

This charity video poses the question, “Who gives?” and then shows Rabbi Avrohom Zeidman performing as a series of characters who run through every imaginable excuse for not giving. Within one week of being posted the 2-minute video played well over 7000 times.

Blendtec – Something You Always Wanted To Do

Blendtec’s, video campaign poses the question, will it blend? What follows is a series of ridiculous items that the blender is challenged to blend. These YouTube posted videos take the premise set out in the old Ginsu knives commercials and add power and imagination. Smartphones, lighters, boron steel and super glue are all put to the test. These videos have gotten millions of views and make up the backbone of Blendtec’s advertising campaign. The geek factor is high, but you can’t look away.

Old Spice – Surreal and Funny

The Old Spice commercials are among my favourites. These beauties were popular on television, but they exploded on YouTube with each video getting millions of views.

Not only do the videos use humour to deliver their message, but as the main character moves smoothly from one ridiculous accomplishment to another the viewer is left laughing and a little bewildered. The best part of these ads is that, like the Axe deodorant ads, they appeal to a younger demographic making them fodder for shares, likes, posts, memes, and quotes.

Although these campaigns each achieved different levels of popularity they do share some things in common. They are quirky, they show imagination and they have broad appeal for a younger demographic. The reality is that for most businesses a successful social media campaign sits closer to the first than the second example, a million views is far from the norm. Even with the accessibility afforded by social media, generating the kind of widespread attention, it takes to be massively popular generally means that you are playing off of traditional media sources, as well as, social media.

Going viral relies on having at least two of the following factors in place, time, money, and creativity. If you don’t have the money, then you definitely need to take your time and show creativity. One social media king we can learn from is a young man originally from Sweden who goes by the name, PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg). He usually posts two videos a day and is also active on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. He has more than 56 million subscribers on YouTube, and every video he posts generates millions of views. He’s funny, always irreverent, unexpected, creative, appealing to a younger demographic and most importantly, he is very, very dedicated. He started posting videos in 2009, but it was not until 2012 that he really hit his stride.

Have you ever had a campaign or post go crazy? Do you have any viral ads or videos that you love? What do you think it takes to make a campaign go viral?

Communications

Everyone Loves A Good Story

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

When I first thought about starting a blog I had some pretty grand ideas. I thought I’d pontificate on government relations. Dazzle readers with my vast experience in communications and of course, my dynamic background in relations…hmmm; I got pretty bored, real fast too.

Clearly more thought was required…or less. What did I enjoy? What made me giggle, what fascinated me that was also worth sharing? An idea came to me because of a dinner party I had. After dinner I was sitting with my friends and exchanging stories about our experiences with constituents and clients. We laughed and groaned depending on the story and generally had a wonderful time.

I love a good story. They come in all shapes and sizes, some are short little gems others are long and winding tales of intrigue. Often they are funny, but they can also make you cry. That’s what makes communications interesting, the stories. Communications in the real world isn’t about the smooth transfer of knowledge from point “A” to point “B”. No, what makes communications interesting is all the messy ways that it can go disastrously wrong or unimaginably right. What communications reveal more than anything is our core perspectives as human beings. What we see, what we believe, what we know, what we do and what we intend are all rolled together. Good communications is about psychology and sociology as well as,understanding language and images. Communications, is as much science as it is art and anyone silly/brave enough to call themselves a communications professional, clearly has a sense of humour. I know I do – I laugh at myself and the world around me all the time.

As my one year anniversary as a blogger approaches (November), I’d like to celebrate by hearing from you. I’d like to invite you to share your stories in guest posts. The stories should be about communications. It doesn’t matter if things went just right or horribly wrong. All that matters is that the story struck you as one worth telling. Like the time I showed up for a birthday party late…by about a week, didn’t quite read the invitation. I look forward to hearing your stories and as always, your comments!

I will collect stories over the coming month and share them in December.

Communications, Management

Six Tips for Managing Difficult Conversations

Debra Yearwood Leave a comment

Getting started is the hardest part. It’s getting past that awkward pause before you begin or worse still, explaining why you want to talk. Part of the challenge is that often by asking for the conversation, you end up having the conversation before you’re really ready. That’s something to avoid. No good comes from having the conversation when you’re not prepared. Of course, you could always hijack the other person into a discussion they didn’t anticipate. If that seems unfair, it’s because it is. You are also likely to end up in a defensive and angry discussion when resolving, revealing or relieving the issue should be your first priority.

Some phrases to consider:

I’d like to talk to you about – but first I’d like your point of view.
I need your help with something. Can we talk about it soon?
I have something to discuss with you that I think will help us work together more effectively.
I think we have different perceptions about __ and I’d like to hear your thinking on it.

Pick your location wisely. Where a difficult conversation happens is often as important as how the conversation happens. It will hardly make the process easier for you if the setting is full of distractions. So start by ensuring that you are prepared to speak and that the setting is conducive to clear communication. In an office scenario I ask people out for coffee to avoid any possibility of being overheard. Being the centre of office gossip is only interesting on TV. I’ve sent someone away from their desk because their boss was having a discussion about them within their hearing. I then told the person having the discussion that others, including the subject of their discussion, could hear them and could they keep it down or move. I don’t think much of private discussions held in public.

There are always two people in a discussion. Remember that any discussion is a two-way activity. Although what you have to say may be weighing on your mind, you won’t know what is on the mind of the other person unless you give them room to speak. Open the floor; ask them what they think about what was said and if they can think of a way for you both to resolve the issue. You may have a great idea, but they may have a better one.

Don’t spend too much time in a negative discussion. Give yourself time to talk but don’t give yourself too much time. What can be accomplished in 30 minutes can be undone in 60. Set another time to meet if you can’t get it all out. This will give you a chance to cool down, consider the discussion and contemplate new solutions based on what you learned.

Get clarity and acknowledge emotions. One of the most effective ways of breaking down the negative rhetoric that comes from difficult conversations is repeating back to the person what you think you heard them say. A few years back, a colleague of mine was quite angry. An important document had gotten mixed up with less important pieces and subsequently redirected to our correspondence unit. I answered the phone and was met with yelling. She was shouting at me about how important the document was and how time sensitive and how much trouble it had caused when it went missing, and then repeating. In the middle of the second go around I said, “I know it was important and urgent, that’s why I sent it to you right away. Are you angry at me because a paper clip from another document in the envelope snagged it and so you mistakenly sent it to correspondence?”

There was a pause as she considered, then a very quiet, ‘“Yes.”

“Would you like me to staple documents in the future?” I asked. Again a pause, then a very calm “yes” followed. The conversation ended shortly after that. Given our respective positions, the conversation made no sense, being angry, even less, but sometimes anxiety gets the best of you and before you know it, you’re having a difficult conversation.

If you’re thinking that I am naturally a calm person, you would be wrong. The only reason I wasn’t yelling back was because I have interpersonal communications training. What the exchange taught me was that the tactics work. All my yelling would have done was escalate things and waste time in a pointless finger pointing activity. By keeping my tone even and paraphrasing what I heard, the discussion slowed and stopped.

There is power in being wrong. Perhaps one of the most difficult things about difficult conversations is acknowledging when you are wrong. We all take pride in our opinions and I think most people strive to do the right thing. So when you find yourself in a situation where you are wrong, it can be very challenging to acknowledge and to respond appropriately. The thing is, when you acknowledge you are wrong it can be such a powerful action, particularly as a leader. When you acknowledge you are wrong, it tells people who report to you that they can own up to mistakes too. It tells colleagues that they can trust you to be fair and it tells bosses that if you don’t back down from an issue, it isn’t because of pride.

On a final note, don’t forget your body is in the conversation with you. Make sure you are not sending one message with your body and another with your mouth – no arms folded across your chest.

Have you ever had to have a difficult conversation? How did you handle it? There are many, many tips for managing difficult conversations, what are some of your best practices for dealing with tough discussions?

CommStorm

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