ARTICULATED

Just like everyone else, I watch economic data and signals, holding out hope for a rebound sooner rather than later. Some of my fellow PR free agents have been terribly affected by the recession, a constant source of anxiety, to say the least.

Kinkennon Communications has been fortunate thus far. We no longer turn away great prospective great clients over lack of bandwidth, like we did for a while. I don’t predict that bizarre reality to return any time soon. But the business has not been forced to massively contract, either. Knock on wood, we have yet to lose a client solely because of the economy.

And now, the phone has begun to ring. After nearly a year of silence, we’re receiving incoming requests to be part of cool projects. It’s probably a coincidence. But it’s encouraging to speculate that I’m seeing a sign, however anecdotal, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) provided a example of how not to do crisis communications.

Check out this summary on the Washington Post website of the alerts issued by WMATA immediately after the crash. The collision happened at 5pm. For the next two hours, Metro issued email alerts (to those who have signed up for them) referencing a Red Line train experiencing “mechanical difficulties.” This pattern extended a full 1.5 hours after Metro issued a press release to the news media acknowledging a collision (5:36pm) and an hour after it issued another press release acknowleding the first two of many more fatalities (6:03pm).

In the comments section of the Post article, people talk of waiting in a downstream station for trains to start up again, only to learn the extent of the problem from a friend across the country.

Even if the email alerts were thorough and timely, those alerts only reach people who carry email-enabled smartphones, and only those whose wireless service works in the subway tunnels.

Riders in trains and stations needed real-time, running information updates from station managers and train operators over P.A. systems. “Folks, we’re getting initial reports there’s been a crash. Can’t say for sure when the trains will be running again. Exercise discretion if you want to stay in the system. More updates as I have them…”

Of course, Metro Rail has bigger fish to fry right now than its communications processes. Nine people are dead. The computerized system for keeping distance between cars is broken. The cars themselves are outdated. The system is overcrowded and starved for dollars.

But in moments of crisis, treating your millions of customers like they are the least important consideration is not sustainable long term. Not any more.

I follow a number of social media experts on Twitter. Still relatively new to that space, I quickly discovered that as a communications practitioner, there’s much I can learn.

A couple of weeks ago, many of those experts were gathered at the “140 Character Conference” in New York to talk about the changing media landscape, its impact on business and life, etc. At the event, they tweeted nonstop from handheld devices. So sitting at my desk in Denver, I received running, real-time commentary on the interesting things speakers were saying. I also received insta-views into sidebar conversations between individuals. (“Talking right now to @WellKnownTweeter, who just said Twitter is a conversation, not a tool! Wow!”) I never read a single news article about the conference, nor talked with anyone who participated, yet I have a pretty strong sense of what transpired. That’s pretty cool.

But throughout the experience, I was vaguely uncomfortable. I imagined a room of people in which everyone was tapping on their phones with abandon at the expense of quality personal interaction with folks of very common interest. I had no idea if that was actually true, so I looked for tweets that would provide some insight. Did the constant smartphone focus make anyone feel awkward? Were people diffusing the awkwardness with humor? No answers came.

I love when people report their lives on the fly via social media, business or personal. And I like doing it myself. But doing so creates, or requires, a more intense focus on my Blackberry than work email ever did. (The New York Times explores this very topic today.) What balance have others found between participating in social media via handheld device and focusing on the important people right in front of them?  Feel free to offer your thoughts in comments section below.

Twice recently I’ve attempted to convince clients and prospective clients to engage in a communications strategy that include almost zero mainstream media relations. My recommendations have generated some quizical looks, but I’ve held my ground (well, as long as I could, anyway). I’m increasingly convinced that the traditional method of PR is on a rapid path to doneness.

When traditional media outlets are laying off reporters, leaving fewer people to do more work while fearing for their jobs, why would we put our fate in their hands? Instead, how about we find our stakeholders (donors, customers, employees, or whoever else is important) where they are online and talk to them directly? More accurately, how about our communications program talk with our stakeholders and the citizen journalists that influence them, rather than at them? Shoot, for that matter, we could even modify internal processes to synthesize and act upon the feedback we generate! It’ll be fantastic!!

Admittedly, despite my exuberance, I haven’t found it the easiest sale. Much of the push-back is very legitimate – corporate culture and questionable ROI and time investment and the like. And there’s the small detail that I can’t yet point to a tidy instance in which a client has done this, based on my recommendation, and found success.

This morning I was reenergized by a blog post by Todd Defren, an advocate for “PR 2.0.” His agency is successfully convincing its clients to take the leap into an all-new communications paradigm. I know from following folks like him on Twitter that others are doing the same. I myself haven’t pulled it off yet. But I will.

I just read a very interesting blog post by social media expert John Dvorak, arguing that social media is not a particularly effective marketing tool. Full post is here.

He offers supporting data, but what I find most compelling is his common sense, funny explanation:

“Joe! Hi! How’s the wife? I have a discount coupon for you for the next time you rent from Dollar. Ten percent off, buddy!” … Obviously this is not the way friends interact. So why are they going to suddenly interact online like that?”

Like so many communications folks, I’ve argued to both nonprofits and B2B clients lately that we should be thinking up strategy for social media. But despite all my readings, I continue to be challenged by that nagging ole’ question, “Why?” Dvorak’s eye-opening and entirely common-sense post confirms my trepidation. But also maybe clarifies?

The case I find myself making to nonprofits is that a good social media strategy can present a sound (if not terribly measurable) way to dramatically improve “stakeholder relations.” A social media strategy could be a cheap and fairly free-flow way to keep the nonprofit’s most enthusiastic volunteers and donors in-the-know, engaged and listened to. If and only if those things are done well, those people can ultimately be called upon to do more, and that’s good.

The case I find myself making to B2B companies, at least the kind I’m talking to, is that a good social media strategy can grow awareness and credibility by nature of the company’s honest and active “participation” in its marketplace. That means finding and engaging online, candidly and visibly, with employees, trading partners, and key customers – actually listening to what those folks have to say! – then finding ways to feed that input back into corporate strategy-setting. None of that directly results in sales. But done well, it supports it.

Am I right? I hope so. I think so, even if Dvorak is correct in his assertion that using social media to disseminate rental-car coupons doesn’t really work. If only I were 100% sure.

I have done it. I have contributed to the devolution of business writing. I have denied culpability in this matter. I have pretended that rules don’t apply to me. I have defended my actions. I’ve even accepted money for it.

But I will no more. Today, I name the truth. And I commit to change.

1. I have contributed to the obesification of verbs.

I have turned verbs into adjectives and nouns just because I could, making the verbs all fat and weird and multi-syllabic and lawyer-like. I have “been impactful” when I could simply “impact.” I have “built strategic assessments” when all I really did was “assess.”

And my audience’s eyes glazed over … that is, if people read more than a word or two before going back to filing their nails or thinking about dinner.

Making big words out of small ones, nouns and adjectives out of verbs, doesn’t make me sound more professional or smarter. It makes me sound like I’m trying too hard. It renders what I have written uninteresting. And it insults my readers’ intelligence. No more.

2. I have destroyed the word “solutions.”

I have single-handedly destroyed the word “solutions.” I have used it without discretion in attempt to make products, particularly complicated tech products, clear and interesting. My attempts were successful only in beating the poor word into irrelevance.

I will cease and desist. I will write about products and offerings and things in plain ‘ole straightforward English. I will re-read what I have written, most certainly find more clichés, and strike them out, too. Readers will thank me for it.

Last night I had dinner with a close friend who is a very high-level congressional staffer. We’ve been friends since our mid-20s, so I confess to be partial to him. Yet I never cease to be amazed at his capacity to single-handedly, inadvertently challenge some of my most closely held ideas.

To my mind, this guy is a genuine public servant. Over the years, I’ve never been able to detect anything that’s “in it” for him. Who could guess how many lobbying jobs he’s turned down, ones that would probably double or triple his salary. He never seems drunk by the political game, instead viewing it only as the means to an end. He suffers no egomania. He has no discernible private agenda.

From my view, he’s made it to a position of considerable influence by being a good public servant through being a measured, pragmatic voice for what he believes is right. More and more, watching him operate flies in the face of my perception of the vast majority of politicians -– motivated by what is best for their careers almost entirely at the expense of what is best for their country.

Of course, he’s not the only person who serves on Capitol Hill for the right reasons. He’s just the only one in a position to challenge my notions. And he does so without even trying.

I’m sitting here in DC today reflecting for a moment on my setup.

I love home offices. In Denver, my home office is nearly perfect. It’s situated so that I look directly out my glass front door onto a courtyard and then the street. When the door stays open, dogs can come and go. The office has a door to the house’s master bath, and it’s around the corner from the kitchen. It’s comfortable, convenient, and conducive to work.

In DC, Kinkennon Communications rents a spare bedroom in my friend Shane Reppert’s house. In that bedroom, I have a bed, desk, printer, computer charger, and the like. I also have a Swobo Sanchez (fixed gear bicycle) to get around town, green-and-fit style. So I also keep a lock, a set of lights, a pump, tools, helmet, and all else I need to ensure that bike is ready to be used any time I get to town.

My actual office address in DC is a K Street address, which really is borrowed from a good friend who runs his own law firm at that location.  A great guy, he feels like he owes me one, even though he doesn’t.   Of course, most of my time in DC is spent in meetings anyway, so I spend very little time in any office. When I do, it’s usually the little spare-bedroom office, which for some reason I like very much.

For all of this, I consider myself quite lucky.

I digress for a moment to reveal something that has weighed on my mind for weeks. I hope that writing helps me find clarity. 

A few weeks ago, my 78-year-old mother had a pacemaker installed by one of Shreveport, LA’s top cardiologists. Pacemaker surgery is considered minor surgery. It is typical for patients to be awake during the procedure, with a local anesthetic to guard against pain and a mild sedative to calm the nerves. I’ve read multiple explanations of the surgery, and none say anything about the patient feeling pain during the actual procedure.

But my mom felt pain during the procedure. Understand that she is tough as nails. She has a high tolerance for pain. She tends toward the stoic and has no flair for the dramatic.

Yet she called the procedure “torture.” She explained that she winced often. When one of the nurses asked her why, she replied, “Because it hurts!” Yet the doctor applied no additional anesthesia. She laid there, awake and cut open, experiencing torture-level pain as that doctor dug around in her chest.

When the doctor visited her room following the surgery, she and my sister asked him, “Why did that hurt so bad? Why didn’t you give more anesthesia when I said I was in pain?” He countered that, in fact, she had neither been in pain, nor complained about pain. (So, you’re saying she’s making it up??!!) Instead, he told her she had been asleep. When she insisted that she had been very awake and very much in pain, he countered, with no shortage of sarcasm, “Do you always snore when you’re awake?”

The surgery also ran many hours late. When she asked him for an explanation, he offered none. Instead, he called upon her to think about how she had made his other patients that day run even later.  He explained that was her fault because her veins were so small that he had had difficulty executing one of the procedure’s basic elements.

In fairness, I was not in the operating room. I don’t know what actually happened. But my mom is not inclined toward victimization. She is strong and tough. I trust what she says.

So for weeks, I’ve been seething with anger. My view of this is entirely dominated by emotion. I fantasize about using my communications skills to exact a price on this doctor. I have before me the names and contact info of assignment editors at each of Shreveport, LA’s television stations, for instance. I’ve considered devoting a website and Twitter account to expose this guy.

But I’ve done nothing yet. That’s partially because I feel so cloudy-headed. But more to the point, my mom remains under this guy’s care for another two months. I certainly don’t want to cause her any more grief. Or worse, have this doctor retaliate against her because of my burning desire for justice, or revenge, or an apology, or whatever it is that’s so firing me up.  I don’t want this to become about my anger rather than her well-being.

This guy probably performs pacemaker surgery every day. How many old ladies are suffering? Or maybe my mom was the victim of a freak deviation only. I suppose I’ll never know. But I so crave a clear path forward. If you have suggestions, I’m open.

What communications person hasn’t been forced to water down what the organization really needs to say because of a corporate lawyer? In crisis communications situations, when lawyers really clamp down, it goes from annoying to downright dangerous.

A few years ago, a friend of mine’s company was in crisis. What the company desperately needed to say to its customers and the public was, simply, “We were wrong. We are sorry. We are fixing it.” But my advice got trumped by what legal counsel wanted to say, and it certainly didn’t include an apology. I urged the company’s leaders that, while the legal advice they were hearing might in fact insulate against future litigation risk, none of that would matter if all their customers bolted because the company sounded as though it were shirking obvious responsibility.

That’s the first time I ever knew for certain that the corporate lawyers placed on earth to temper my enthusiasm were dead wrong.

So I loved reading this great blog post today from respected author Shel Holz, a leading advocate for corporate transparency. He explains that companies that proactively own their mistakes and apologize accordingly not only maintain their reputations, but they actually achieve better legal results! What’s more, data shows such companies achieve higher year-end closing stock prices than those companies that handle crises with the typical legal ducking and dodging.