Internal communications case study at school

Over the last couple of weeks, first-year students in Red River College's Creative Communications program have been looking at internal communications: principles, tactics and tools.

As it happens, they also got an insider's look at a case study on internal communications in the age of social media, when they learned (via Twitter, for many) that beloved Journalism instructor Steve Vogelsang will be leaving the College at the end of this academic year to pursue new opportunities.

They responded immediately, and with hashtags.

While the departure of a teacher isn't the same as a major management change in a career, it can bring about some of the same feelings: losing an advocate and/or mentor, less certain footing for the future. It also illustrates a point about how people would rather hear about changes in their own "management" from the person making the change.

In Steve Vogelsang's case, he didn't stand a chance of beating Twitter. I'm not sure what his order of notifications was, but I do know that, when I read about his departure on Twitter and emailed to ask him whether it was true, he said that it was -- and he'd just shared the news 11 minutes earlier.

I saw a class shortly after the news had hit. Many students professed shock -- one asking me whether I had a "crisis communications plan" to address his departure -- and some were disappointed that they'd "had to hear about it on Twitter."

The fact is that, short of interrupting the school day and bringing all seven classes together for an assembly (an unprecedented action, to my knowledge), there isn't any way Steve could have simultaneously shared the news with everyone in person. I explained that at the time, and of course they understood: they were just sorry to hear he was leaving.

Think you're going to beat Twitter? Good luck!

The stakes are higher, of course, when a major change takes place on the job. Change can be nerve-wracking, and study after study shows that employees are better able to manage change when they hear about it directly from management before the news gets "out there."

This gives them the chance to let the news sink in before they have to discuss ramifications with anyone external, as well as an opportunity to ask questions about what the news will mean to their jobs. It also shows that the organization will give them as early notice as is possible under the circumstances.

My tenure in a corporate communications department preceded Twitter: in those days, our main adversary in the internal information race was the grapevine (potentially just as effective, locally, but not at lightning speed!). But even so, we created long and complicated notification timelines to ensure (as best we could, anyway) that every employee personally affected by a change would hear about it as quickly, personally, and from as appropriate a source as possible.

Nowadays, organizations have to recognize that the first wave of information may become instant public disclosure.

What does that mean for internal communicators? A couple of things.

1. They have to be vigilant about timelines, setting up rolling series of meetings to enable the rapid sharing of major change information to as many "affected" people as possible. When it's a question of helping employees deal with major change, and people's jobs are involved, you should hold that assembly. You interrupt the work day, because you want to show those employees that their well-being is more important than keeping to a normal schedule, even if only for 15 minutes.

2. In between announcements like these, they need to ensure the corporate culture is such that employees understand why information is shared in the format and order it is. This helps to avoid inadvertent insult, and to ensure employees understand the organization respects them and cares about their feelings... and will do everything it can to get the information they need to them as soon as it can be shared.

That means open, two-way lines of communication, in normal times and in times of change.

And as for our students?

While they're disappointed to be losing a favourite instructor, they're happy for him -- and even happier that he'll be sticking around until the school year's out.

And even after he's gone, you have to know they'll be following him on Twitter.

Exploiting Charlie

Over the last week or two, you'd have to have been living under a rock not to have witnessed at least part of the circus that is Charlie Sheen's public life.

If you're just crawling out now, here's a selection of his recent statements.



At first, Sheen's behaviour seemed to indicate a huge ego and, possibly, a huge quantity of drugs/alcohol. People followed along as he lashed out, entertained by his anger and unreasonableness and hubris, waiting anxiously for the next installment of his tirade - as well as his inevitable crash back to rehab.

But as this week progressed, public perception seemed to change a bit. We started to hear medical experts on the newsmagazine shows speculating about frontal lobe issues that could be driving Sheen's manic beviour, and the entire affair started to feel pretty uncomfortable for some.

Were we watching someone self-destruct before our eyes? Would Charlie Sheen be the next celebrity about whom we said "it was obvious, he was clearly sick, why didn't somebody do something to help him," the way we did about Michael Jackson?

For the networks, though, it was an opportunity too good to pass up.

The mainstream media tripped over themselves to come up with the latest content to feed social media: it was the first time I was conscious of watching the mainstream media work consciously to create viral video.

It helped that Sheen was more than willing to help them all out: it seemed he was giving everyone an exclusive. The guy can't help himself - it's part of his illness/personality/addiction/whatever it is we're watching him suffer from right now.

I was discussing this my friend Sherri Vokey this week, and she said it best: "it's like we're watching an episode of Intervention, but no-one's intervening."

Personally, it all gives me a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I've never been able to watch shows like Intervention, Hoarders, name the watch-the-sick-person program -- I'm not entertained by other people's suffering.

But I understand the business.

The issues manager in me is starting to get nervous, though.

I get it that the networks have to be on top of this story - audiences don't seem to be able to get enough of it.

But the issues manager in me has to wonder what they'll be saying if, say, he ends up hurting others or himself in his delusion. They were pleased to report on the contribution Michael Jackson's entourage made to his death; if Charlie Sheen's public "meltdown" really is that, will they accept a share in the blame?

Will the rest of us?

On a related topic, I caught this tweet from the American Red Cross this week.

In PR classes we talk about creating newsworthiness/buzz by tying our messages to stories in the news - clearly, that's what the Red Cross is doing. And it caught my attention, so good for them!

Except I hope for their sake (as well as for his, of course) that Charlie Sheen recovers.

I wouldn't want to be the spokesperson for a humanitarian aid organization that had exploited the rantings of a person suffering from mental illness for publicity, if that illness caused him to hurt someone or himself (more than he already has, of course).

Gaga over Maria

This week, media (mainstream and new, Winnipeg and international) fell in love with 10-year-old Winnipegger Maria Aragon.



This video was first posted to YouTube on February 16th, and as CBC News reports, went from 3,100 hits to over 2 million within 24 hours, after Lady Gaga herself tweeted how much she loved it.

Shortly after the viral video came mainstream media coverage, from the Winnipeg Free Press to The Huffington Post.

Local radio station Hot 103 brought Maria in studio on Thursday, where she chatted with Lady Gaga herself -- and viewership of that video went wild, too.



This is a great social media story. Perez Hilton reportedy sent Lady Gaga the link to Maria's video on YouTube; Lady Gaga liked it, and tweeted it to her 8 million followers, unleashing a wave of attention little Maria likely never expected.


Maria Aragon is a talented (and adorable) little girl -- and would have been without YouTube, Twitter, and the always hungry 24/7 media beast. But with all those things, she's talented, adorable, and a superstar... even if the latter is only for a local news cycle or two.

As for Lady Gaga...

With that little-girl's-dream fulfilling phone call on Thursday (recorded for posterity and shared online for all to enjoy), Lady Gaga won some hearts. With her invitation for Maria to sing with her on stage in Toronto a few months from now, she won a few more (and will win even more, I'm sure, at that show). And while she was at it, she got people (in this town, anyway) to stop talking about how much the new single sounds like Madonna's Express Yourself for a while.

Not bad, for 140 characters' work!

I'm not at all suggesting Lady Gaga's tweet was a publicity stunt; and even if you're suspicious of her motivations in agreeing to the phone call with Maria, I don't think you can deny that she seemed genuine, and that she absolutely thrilled that little girl.

But with that said, Maria's video does give us an excellent (and heartwarming) example of the impact social media can have in terms of publicity, given the right story.

PR's new career path starts in school, not the newsroom

In the next week, 70 or so first-year Creative Communications students at Red River College will declare their "major" area of study for their second year: Advertising, Journalism, Public Relations, or Media Production (formerly "Broadcasting").

Many already know what they want to do when they leave college, but some are still on the fence, weighing their options and trying to figure out which major will be the best fit for them.

A fair number have come to ask me for advice, and I tell them all the same thing: they should major in whichever of the fields they plan get a job in, because that's what their portfolio will be best-suited for when they graduate.

I read an interesting article on the New York Times Education blog recently, about Mary Ellin Arch, a news editor who'd been 'downsized' from the newspaper where she worked, after 29 years in the news business.

Not yet ready to retire, she did what many journalists had done before her: she decided to look for work in public relations.

And after four months of  “no bites, no interviews, no calls, no interest whatsoever,” she realized she was losing all the PR jobs to people who were educated in PR.

The way it was

Not that long ago, it was a pretty normal thing for journalists to make the move to PR once they either realized they weren't going to become Walter Cronkite/Barbara Walters/Bob Woodward/Carl Bernstein, or they decided they wanted a job that might be a little more family-friendly.

In fact, if you talk to many veteran PR pros today, they'll even tell you that you should go work in a newsroom before making the move to PR, because it'll make you a better PR guy.

They say that, because that's how it worked for them, back then.

It made sense, really. Even a decade ago, a good understanding of how the mainstream media worked was sometimes the most important characteristic of a successful PR professional. The mainstream media represented one of the very few ways we could practically get our messages out to our external audiences. Logically, who'd know better than someone who'd been on the other side, right?

On top of that, working in a newsroom was how you learned to write like a journalist, which is what PR folks aim to do.

The way it is

Today, a few variables in the equation have changed.

First, public relations programs have grown and expanded in colleges and universities around the world, at the certificate, diploma, degree, and graduate levels.

Students in these programs learn the fundamentals of organizational communications, and put them into practice. They learn what they need to know about their audiences in order to get -- and hold -- their attention. And they explore the creativity they need to figure out how to break through today's noise with a meaningful and persuasive message, on top of learning how to write for PR.

The "learn-it-by-watching-it-from-the-outside" approach of reluctant journalists doesn't hold up as well anymore. They are competing for PR jobs against people who can show employers work samples illustrating the range of skills they're looking for. PR grads don't have to say "trust me -- I have experience in a related field, so I'll probably be pretty good at PR."

Secondly, while understanding how the media work remains important for PR pros, organizations' reliance on media relations for mass communication will decrease steadily as social media grow.

There's a reason newspapers and magazines are fighting for audiences these days -- and it's because those audiences are getting their information online. Today's PR pros do need to understand how to work effectively with the mainstream media, but they also need to be able to communicate much more broadly -- a skill that requires a far greater breadth of PR knowledge and experience than having written for a newspaper.

Don't get me wrong

Please don't think I'm saying it's impossible for a journalist to switch into PR today, because it isn't. It continues to happen, and I expect it always will, for certain people.

When I was the director of a corporate communications department, I hired a number of former journalists -- all of whom demonstrated in their portfolios and in interviews their understanding of how PR works.

I also interviewed and declined to hire many more, who didn't.

If you want to work in PR today, you'd do yourself a favour by entering a formal PR program in a post-secondary institution, and by building a portfolio that shows your understanding of the fundamental principles of effective communications and how you respond creatively to a range of communications challenges.

Writing articles is only one of many writing-based skills a PR pro needs -- not to mention the need to understand different stakeholder motivations, to be able to create effective strategies to reach them, and how to use the growing number of communication tools at our disposal effectively.

I got lucky.

I entered this profession in the mid-1990s, before the Internet was even widely used. I received my PR education "on-the-job," when I was mentored by a partner in the communications firm that hired me based on my English degree, my strong writing, and the strength of my interviews.

Today I wouldn't stand a chance. There are far too many grads of public relations programs who can prove they already know what they're doing, and are ready to hit the ground running for their client.

My PR majors would have beaten me out for that first job in a minute, I can guarantee it... and I'd have been back to school.

Super Bowl + French Impressionism = publicity

If you're looking to earn publicity, always be on the alert for ways to tie your client to a topic in the news.

That doesn't mean you have to watch for stories that are closely related to your client's business. In fact, the less obvious the tie to your client's usual image, the stronger your story idea may be: if you can provide an unexpected twist on a story everyone's talking about anyway, you're gold.

No sports story is bigger than the Super Bowl

In the U.S. and Canada, the Super Bowl is a ratings bonanza and an advertiser's dream: even people who aren't that big into football pay attention to it (even if just for the nachos and beer). And because the Super Bowl is such a big story, the mainstream media welcome different angles from which to cover it. 

Publicity 101: provide an unexpected angle on a major story

Is it possible to use the Super Bowl to boost attention to and attendance at art museums? You bet.

The directors of the Milwaukee Art Museum (Green Bay doesn't have its own) and Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art have reportedly made a friendly wager on the outcome of next weekend's Super Bowl game, which will feature their respective "home" teams. The temporary loan of multi-million dollar French Impressionist paintings (one Renoir, one Caillebotte) is on the line. 

The directors even threw in some good-natured trash talk, to give the story a little more meat:

"Milwaukee Museum of Art director Daniel Keegan said in a statement to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he is already preparing a space for the Renoir.
“I'm confident we will be enjoying the Renoir from the Carnegie Museum of Art very soon,” the Green Bay native told the paper. “I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers.”
Lynn Zelevansky, the director at Carnegie, had a retort for her Cheesehead counterpart.
“In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form,” Zelevansky said in a statement. “We let the excellence of our football team, and our collection, speak for itself. It will be my great pleasure to see the Caillebotte from the Milwaukee Museum of Art hang in our galleries.” (Source: CNN "This Just In" blog)
When it comes to publicity, quick thinking can trump deep pockets
I heard about this story on CNN's morning news broadcast late last week; if you search Google News, you'll find the story covered by a variety of mainstream media, as well as betting sites, sports sites, art sites, and a range of blogs (including, now, this one!).
While this isn't a completely original idea (a similar wager was reportedly made over last year's Super Bowl game, instigated by an art critic), it still does the trick. Because it's a novel twist on a big story, the media (and their audiences) love it.  
It won't be novel forever, mind you... the more often it's done, the less attention it will naturally get. But for this year, it's bringing great mainstream attention to both art museums -- and, their directors hope, will bring visitors to see the spoils of the victorious team's win in the local art museum.
For we students of PR, this is a great example of how finding ways to connect our stories with current topics in the public eye can lead to great coverage, with very little investment.

Having the right Board members can help with your PR

This week, Karen Press and I launched a new course in the Red River College Creative Communications program on communications for non-profits. One of our topics for our introductory class was the role -- and the strategic composition -- of a non-profit Board of Directors.

Non-profit Boards come in as many styles and sizes as the organizations themselves. Depending on the mandate (and work) of the non-profit, a Board can be focused on governance, or on management, or on operations -- or on a combination of all three, to varying degrees.

Picking the right people
Smart non-profits invite diverse people who bring a range of useful talents and skills to the Board: for instance, an accountant, a lawyer, an HR expert, a PR person, as well as expertise and experience in the subject areas in which the non-profit operates. For example, a non-profit that helps the homeless would be smart to have people on its Board who have worked with homelessness and homeless people in varying capacities.

Similarly, a non-profit catering to the needs of a particular cultural group would be well-served by having that group represented on its Board. You want to make sure there are voices around the boardroom table that reflect the perspectives of your key audiences and inform the Board's decisions. This isn't just good PR: it's good management.

An excellent Board candidate will also have personal or professional connections that will help the non-profit meet its objectives, either because they are philanthropically inclined, or because they have access to resources or other people who can help, or because they have an influential voice in the mainstream.

Or maybe, if the non-profit is lucky, all of the above!


Enter Jon Stewart

Screen shot of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
 from mediaite.com

The Washington Post reported today that The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is joining the Board of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum (whose Chairman is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg).


Stewart was an outspoken advocate for the recent passage of the 9/11 First Responders' Bill, which provides health care and compensation for first responders who became ill due to the toxins they inhaled at Ground Zero. His Comedy Central show served as his platform to raise public pressure on the government.


Stewart is a great choice to join this Board for many reasons. Among them: 

• He is passionate about New York City.
• He has a strong sense of what's right, and articulates it persuasively.
• His insight and pragmatism have earned him significant respect, at least among the left and in centrist circles.
• Through his show, his voice has an influential role in American political discourse.

On top of all that, there's another fringe benefit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in having Stewart on its Board: both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (of which he is the Executive Producer) will be far less likely to mock anything it does... and may be more apt to mock its detractors.

Smart PR.

Sarah Palin's words hurt her again

One of last week's biggest political pile-ons was the controversy over Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel" in defending herself against accusations that her inflammatory political rhetoric (and gun-sight imagery) had contributed to the shootings in Tucson.

Here's the statement she posted online, linked to her Facebook page (the controversial language in question comes at around the 3:26 mark).


Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

My first reaction to this story was to be surprised that we're still surprised by anything Sarah Palin says -- or any word or expression she uses or misuses.

But an opportunity to attack a political opponent is an opportunity to attack a political opponent, so the game was on in the media.

Did she mean to be inflammatory?

Personally, I doubt it. My bet is that she was aware of the expression, but wasn't aware of its origin.

Had she known, Palin (or, at least, her advisors) would have to recognize that using such inflammatory language would do nothing to help endear her to the segment of the American public not already on her side.

In politics, as in public opinion, it's important to keep your eye on the "undecideds" -- that's where you should be spending most of your effort. Your supporters already support you, and people who've decided against you take a lot more persuading to bring on-side; so your most efficient use of resources is to focus on the undecideds.

To knowingly use divisive and hate-fuelled language at a time of crisis does not reflect positive leadership qualities; people who may be shopping for a new leader don't tend to like that. To do so could cost you at the voting booth.

What should she have said once the criticism erupted?

Once the statement was made and the expression on the record, Palin had a difficult choice to make.

Admitting she didn't understand the historical significance of the expression could make her look ignorant (not ideal, for a would-be leader of the free world).

Standing by her statement could give her opponents more material to use against her.

Palin's choice, until this evening, has been option number three: return to silence... which leaves the rest of the world to debate whether she's ignorant, or insensitive, or intentionally divisive.

Tonight, ABC News is reporting, Palin will make her first media appearance since her controversial Facebook statement, on Fox News' Hannity. I'll be interested to see what route she takes; while I think addressing it is the right move, I think she may be a bit late.

If you don't speak, the media will fill in the blanks for you.

If you search Google News for "Sarah Palin blood libel" you'll get thousands of articles.

Thousands, over the space of a week.

While the vast majority of the coverage I've seen on this topic has been critical of Palin's choice of words (even from conservative commenters like former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer), articles like the one by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in The Wall Street Journal last week came to her defence, arguing her use of the expression is appropriate.

But whether or not the usage is appropriate, a good understanding of the public's sensitivities (and even the mainstream media's prejudices, for that matter) would have told a good PR advisor that using an expression like "blood libel" would hurt her more than it would help.

The ABC News-Washington Post poll results released today, suggesting that 70% of Americans disapproved of Palin's response to the Tucson shootings, seem to bear that out.

UPDATE Monday night

Here's audio of Palin on Hannity tonight. The segment on the "blood libel" issue begins around the 15:55 mark.



To my ears, this isn't a statement aimed at the undecideds.

When it comes to public relations, it doesn't matter whether you meant to offend anyone. If people were offended by something you said, you want to take a hard look at your language, and see how you might avoid doing that next time.

It doesn't really matter how many others may have used similar language before you; this is between you (or your organization) and your audiences.

Think about how this works in our personal lives: if someone says something that offends you, how much does it matter whether they meant to offend? Maybe a bit, but not much. If you're going to feel better about your relationship with that person, you probably want your perspective acknowledged, and the person to regret having offended you. What likely won't help is if you're told you are unreasonable to have been offended.

Sarah Palin is so certain that the "lame-stream media" is out to get her that she's betting few people were actually offended by her language. That's a bet I wouldn't be willing to take.

The time to respond to a gaffe is immediately, and the way to respond to a gaffe is with an apology.

If you don't think you have anything to apologize for, you shouldn't do so insincerely; but if that's the case, and you're concerned about public opinion at all, don't re-raise the issue after the initial controversy has passed.

Doing so may just as likely offend -- and alienate -- even more people.