Posts Tagged ‘communications’

A reminder that on January 27, I’ll be hosting the first edition of the FIR Book Club.

This is an outgrowth of my position of Book Reviews Editor for the wonderful podcast For Immediate  Release, created by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson.

In a quick 30 minutes, we’ll have a chat with an author and a call-in so that you can ask the author questions.

Our first guest on the FIR Book Club will be Christopher Barger, author of the new book “The Social Media Strategist.”

Join us on Blog Talk Radio on the 27th.

And two other book-related notes:

1. If you have a book you would like to hear reviewed — or if you’d like to do a review yourself! — get in touch and tell me about the title.
2. If you’re interested in being a guest reviewer, let me know what book you’re thinking about. In the past, we’ve had folks like Shel and the mellifluous Donna Papacosta do reviews. More voices are better.
3. If you’re a book publicist or an author of a book that is related to public relations, social media, communications, marketing — get in touch with me. I’d like to hear about your book and perhaps review it.

It’s a little surprising (maybe not very surprising, actually) that I don’t hear very often from authors or publishing companies asking me to review books. Try me.

Tony Cement demos a new Twitter app

While politics isn’t a huge part of my business life (unlike my compatriot Mark Blevis, for example), I am an armchair political quarterback of the first water. So this post by Maclean’s magazine parliamentary correspondent and blogger Aaron Wherry really caught my eye.

Minister of Industry Tony Clement is possibly the most passionate user of Twitter within Canada’s federal cabinet (although there are others.) And he should be given credit for not cutting and running despite being in charge of some controversial files, including changes to Canada’s census, an attempted takeover of Potash Corporation by Australian firm BHP Billiton, and most recently the government’s awarding of $300 million to Pratt & Whitney Canada to assist the company in carrying out research & development on new aircraft engines.

The announcement of this funding led to some stiff media criticism, and last night, as Wherry illustrates, Minister Clement took to his Twitter account to joust with several people, including journalist Andrew Coyne and economist Stephen Gordon (who had been intensely critical of Clement’s decision to discontinue the mandatory long-form census).

Clement puts on the gloves Twitter-style

The exchange lasted about two hours and ended at about midnight. I think it’s remarkable (in a good way) that Clement is doing this. But it makes me wonder about a couple of things. The Stephen Harper government has been painted as exceedingly locked-down in terms of communication, and there has been a long history of clashes between journalists and the government. But here’s a senior cabinet minister slugging it out with a journalist and others in the public twitterverse.

So I tip my hat to Minister Clement. I think it’s great that he’s doing this. And now, some tips that I think his tweeting can teach us all:

1. Use the tool that you are comfortable with. It could be argued that a blog might be a better tool for Clement. But for whatever reason or reasons, Clement likes Twitter. So he’s using Twitter. You can’t force a minister to do stuff. But I don’t think anyone’s twisting Clement’s arm to do this. He’s engaged. So work with that.
2. Don’t cut and run when things get tough. Clement has gone through some bruiser battles on Twitter. But he’s still there, and while he may end a given exchange, he doesn’t go to ground when critics appear. You have to brace yourself for the critics and be ready to respond.
3. Remember that you control your message, no matter the medium. In the exchange from last night, Andrew Coyne presses hard for Clement to disclose departmental research. Note that Clement doesn’t say “no.” He ignores the request. He could provide it at a later time, or he might not. Or Coyne could do an Access to Information request to obtain the research.
4. Choose a medium you can communicate in. Clement appears to be a tech savvy guy; he also appears to like cut and thrust. That makes Twitter useful for him. Furthermore, he uses the shorthand and conventions of the medium to his own advantage. He shortens words, uses hashtags, etc.
5. Choose a medium that matches your urgency and frequency needs. I mentioned in tip 1 that a blog might be better for Clement in terms of putting out fleshed-out arguments. But the conversationality wouldn’t be there, and the need to polish the writing would be higher. A podcast would require some sort of equipment (even Audioboo would require a mobile device), and it doesn’t have the immediacy of a tweet.

I hope these tips are useful. If you have any more to add, please leave them in the comments.

Cherry & Ford, in a Toronto Star photo

I’ve been dithering on whether to write about the investiture of Toronto’s new Mayor Rob Ford since I first heard that Don Cherry had been invited. You may recall that I covered Rob Ford earlier this year, when he didn’t quite do an interview with CBC Radio’s “As it Happens” on the day after his election.

For non-Canadian readers, Ford has styled himself as a plain-speaking council maverick who will stand up for the “little guy.” Don Cherry is a former NHL coach who is now a commentator on Hockey Night in Canada, a Saturday-night sporting institution. He’s also got a number of other gigs, from a radio commentator on sports radio networks to endorsements or ad appearances for things such as Cold-FX, the Quizno‘s restaurant chain, a series of hockey videos, and a chain of restaurants with the Don Cherry name over the door. He’s a passionate supporter of Canada’s military and a number of charities from organ donation to a hospice named after his late wife Rose, to whom he seemed to have been quite devoted.

Cherry is also a polarizing figure. He can seem belligerent, he doesn’t seem to suffer fools gladly, and he would likely place himself pretty far on the right of the political spectrum. In a recent byelection, he recorded a robocall in support of Conservative candidate Julian Fantino.

And then he was asked to attend Rob Ford’s investiture ceremony to place the chain of office around Ford’s neck (it should be noted that in most cases, the city clerk does this duty). Here’s what he said after he did the deed:

So. I was a little horrified at this speech. It seems to me that the investiture of a mayor and a council is a time for a little dignity and not for baiting of one’s ‘enemies’ and crude insults.

And I wasn’t alone. Spacing Toronto is holding a poll to design a “LEFT-WING PINKO” button, and others are busily printing t-shirts and other merchandise. Meanwhile, more right-wing media outlets are supporting Cherry as plain-spoken and just what was necessary. Joe O’Connor, for example, wrote in the National Post:

Be outraged over Cherry. Be embarrassed for Toronto. Or else be like this left wing, bike riding, print media wacko and lighten up. And remember this: we are talking about a 76-year-old Grampa.

But I think it’s too easy to simply dismiss Ford — or Cherry, for that matter — as ignorant or stupid. Ford is sending messages here, and I think they’re very specific. I think he’s specifically targeting the “pinko” contingent and smacking them verbally.

Now here are the public relations / communications questions, and I don’t know if I have answers or not:

1. What does it gain Ford to do this?
2. What are the circumstances – in politics or outside of them – when it’s appropriate to antagonize or alienate publics?

I would REALLY appreciate some insights on this. I rarely find myself unable to answer my own questions.

I had a quick chat with Robert Janelle yesterday, who was writing an article for the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce‘s member newsletter about social media for business.

One of the things I talked about was learning from others, and building on their ideas. In folk music, that’s “the folk tradition.” But given that you can’t copyright an idea or a concept, there’s no reason that businesses embarking on a social media initiative — or any sort of communications, for that matter — shouldn’t learn from others.

And case studies can be a powerful way of doing just that. Conveniently enough, there are good people who are compiling lists of case studies online. Some of these lists are in wiki form, so you can easily add your own; others are more conventional sites. Either way, use them. Why not save yourself making the same mistakes others made, and find brand new mistakes to make! As Samuel Beckett so famously put it: No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Here are some places to find useful case studies in social media:

Penn Olson’s 30 social media case studies

Web 2.0 examples in Canada wiki

Peter Kim’s list of over 1000 social media “examples” (the inspiration for Web 2.0 examples in Canada)

Tod Maffin‘s Case Studies Online site

UPDATE: If you prefer your case studies in the live and in person format, and you’re in Ottawa, you should check out Case Study Jam, a little meetup that I’ve been helping to organize with a cast of ones, including Joe Boughner, Amy Boughner, Melanie Bechard, Della Siemens, and Nick Charney. You can get a sense of what a CSJ is like from Robin Browne’s handy-dandy audio playlist!

And one more thing to think about: If you have an example of how your company or a client did something interesting, why not write something up about it and submit it to one of these lists? Sharing is caring.

Photo credit: The Cake Engineer on Flickr, licenced via Creative Commons