Turning News Into Knowledge

Even in this digital age, face-to-face networking – where you press the flesh (shake hands) with those you meet – still is key to building long-term business relationships.

Events held by professional associations provide one entry into the world of business networking, and two key associations for communications professionals are the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

We make a point not only to attend events held by our local chapters but also to make our presence felt at national and international conferences. This weekend, for example, our team flies into Saint John, N.B. for the CPRS national conference, and next weekend, several of our representatives will be in San Diego, Calif. for the IABC World Conference. Sandwiched in between is our sponsorship of the IABC Ottawa Excel Awards Gala.

Since we’re also at the social media camp in Victoria this weekend, the forecast for our immediate future is for a lot of flesh pressing indeed.

And hey, in the spirit of these upcoming events, we thought we’d share five networking tips for beginners. (Everyone has to start somewhere, right?)

1. Prepare an elevator speech. This is a brief – 30 seconds or so – explanation of who you are and what you do. Use it as a base to clearly and concisely position yourself. Having your own personal boilerplate in your mind can eliminate any tendency to ramble. To ensure it sounds natural, be prepared to adapt as the situation warrants.

2. Do your homework. When you register online, check out the other attendees and prepare relevant questions to ask or update yourself on timely news to discuss. If you’re interested in meeting particular people, research them using LinkedIn and other tools.

3. Listen. Soak up information people impart and be an active listener. Use appropriate body language (head nods, facial expressions, body orientation), ask relevant questions, and make comments that assure the speaker you are taking in what she or he is saying. In one-on-one or one-on-few conversations, good talkers may be admired, but good listeners are treasured.

4. Follow up. Have plenty of business cards to exchange, and consider adding a QR code with your contact information. If you make a solid connection, feel free to email the person, follow him or her on Twitter, and/or send an invitation to join your network on LinkedIn.

5. Do not commit any of these four cardinal sins of networking:

• displaying bad manners, including interrupting people, leaving when the speaker is in the middle of a sentence or thought, or constant checking of your watch;
• dumping people once you get what you want;
• taking but giving nothing in return;
• forgetting the common courtesies such as saying thank you when warranted.

If you’re attending any of the events we mentioned, we’ll look forward to meeting you there.

If not, and if you’re in the Ottawa area, perhaps we’ll find ourselves pressing the flesh at a future Social Media Breakfast Ottawa event, a Girl Geek Dinner, or a Third Tuesday get-together.

Have you ever written something, especially for the spoken word, that just doesn’t sound right?

If so, try these diagnostic tools to determine if your PR or marketing copy is afflicted with one or more of the following. (I’ve certainly had them all at one point or another.)

1.  Prepositionitis. This is caused by a high preposition count. Take, for example, this sentence: The blood drive at the Red Cross starts on Monday and runs for four days. Remove the prepositions and voilà: The Red Cross four-day blood drive starts Monday. It’s tighter, cleaner, and easier to read and understand.

2. Sentence lethargy. When all your sentences contain the same – or close to the same – number of words, it can sound listless and lethargic. Wake it up by varying your sentence lengths and it will sing and dance. Follow a 26-word sentence with a six-word sentence, then a 12-word sentence, a … . Well, you get the point.

I tend to do this automatically now when I write, and I certainly do it when I edit.

3. Hypocan’trism. For some reason, many of us tend to limp along on word crutches we really don’t need. One symptom is beginning too many sentences with “there is” or “there are.” Throw them away whenever you can and your copy will run freely. For example: There are 30 people enrolled in the program. Chuck that crutch and write: Thirty people are enrolled in the program.

4. Statement syndrome. Are all your sentences crafted as statements? If so, consider alternating with other sentence types. Although they should be used sparingly, consider a question or two. Throw in command sentences. And spice things up with exclamatory sentences – with or without the “!”.

For example, replace: The food at XYZ is really good with: Are you looking for a great meal? Try the food at XYZ. It’s really good!

(Can you tell I used to work as a radio copywriter?)

5. Weak – or no – transitions. When it comes to the spoken word, you have to take your listener by the ear and lead him/her smoothly through each point in the copy. These transitions – and, but, although, however, etc. –stitch your thoughts together seamlessly. And here’s another transition tip: Use the last two or three words in one sentence to begin the next. Example: He said he would do better. Do better than anyone else with his environmental policies.

6. A thready pulse. This can be the result of an over-use of verbs that often are – well, just let me just say it – wimpy. You know them: is, are, has, have, had, was, get, got, etc. Sure, they’re indispensable and vital for healthy writing, but relying on them too much can make your copy dull and boring. Put your piece under the microscope to see if there’s a more useful, explanatory – even more exciting – verb waiting in wings. Example: He had a lead in the polls. Consider: He enjoyed/celebrated/basked in his lead in the polls. One caution, however, be careful your new verb doesn’t change the meaning.

And if you’d like to go beyond the verb to inject even more colour and verve, look at changing She had a headache to Her head pounded like a …. .

Yep, I could have completed that sentence with a cool and creative simile – but I won’t.  Figures of speech, my friend (along with Joss Whedon) are topics for a future article on slaying the mundane in writing.

“The monkey’s the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that? So I’m wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, ‘Hey, where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity.’ And, you know, the monkey’s just (French accent) ‘I mock you with my monkey pants.’ And then there’s a big coup at the zoo.” – Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It probably won’t come as a surprise that the two words most of us enjoy reading and hearing are “thank you.” And they most certainly are a pleasure to say and write as well.

I’m not talking about responding to all emails with a “thank you.” That lends itself to a farcical “After you, Alphonse.” “No, you first, my dear Gaston!” charade. But here are four scenarios where a thank-you email is a crucial ingredient in good public relations communications.

Scenario #1 – Someone compliments you on a job well done, an award you won, or a promotion you earned. While a simple thank you may suffice, if the person is effusive in his/her praise, you may want to devote a minute or two to thank her/him for the kind words. It’s also an opportunity for you to express your admiration (if true) for the sender as well.

Scenario #2 – Someone goes out of his or her way to be thoughtful. It could be unsolicited information on a job opening, a link to a site you might find useful or enjoyable, or a relevant event you might want to attend. Expressing a simple thank you for that information is simply good manners.

Scenario #3 – Someone has done an exceptional job on your project, going well beyond the call of duty. While you should say “thank you” in person if possible, consider putting your appreciation in an email and copying the employee’s direct supervisor. This sets up a win-win-win situation that makes the employee feel good, enhances her/his satisfaction with you as a project manager, and speaks well for the company overall.

Scenario #4 – Someone responds to your email granting a favour you have requested. It may have involved just a bit of effort, or it may have taken a lot of time and thought on her/his part. In the case of a relatively easy request, a simple “thank you” – that takes less than 30 seconds to type and send – is appropriate. If nothing else, it acknowledges that you received his/her response.

If the favour was larger, a more heartfelt note of appreciation is both warranted and usually very much appreciated.  And if the favour was very large, involving a lot of time and thought on the part of the respondent, there can be consequences to skipping the niceties.

Take the example here: http://www.buchananpr.com/2011/03/why-you-will-never-get-hired-at-our-pr-firm. Please do check it out, but in the meantime, here’s the gist of it. A “friend of a friend” approached the president of a PR firm to ask that she do an “informational interview” with her niece (a college student). One of the firm’s senior employees emailed a detailed and thoughtful response to the student. She copied another employee who also wrote a lengthy reply.

Time passed, but neither heard a peep from the student. There was no acknowledgement that she had received the responses – certainly no thank you (heartfelt or otherwise).

Note that in this instance it was a student who committed this faux pas, but this type of behaviour, of course, is not restricted to students.

Thank-you emails never are a waste of time. Just think of them as 30- 60-second investments in relationship building and maintenance.

Emails may be viewed by some as old-fashioned, but courtesy never goes out of style.”

As a communicator who understands the importance of building and maintaining business relationships and who takes pride in her communication skills, reading or hearing these five words – “Did you get my email?” – raises the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

It usually means someone has sent me a message and I’ve failed to get back to him or her. Now, if the email was from someone I don’t know who’s trying to sell me something I neither want nor need, I can shrug it off. But if the message contains information I need – or, worse, have requested – I have to think “mea culpa.”

My next step is obvious. Send an immediate apology to the message sender. It should include any legitimate reason I may have had for not responding more quickly. If I had no reason – legitimate or otherwise – I know it’s time for fence mending. A relationship can be damaged if one party feels his/her message – or even he or she – is not sufficiently important to warrant a response.

I also may be excused if the sender – particularly a sender I don’t know – uses a less-than-compelling subject line like “hello” or “hey there” or no subject line at all. But if it’s clear and explanatory (either as an original or part of a thread), I have no excuse.

I don’t chastise myself if I don’t have time to respond immediately, particularly if that response requires some research or a lot of thought. But I would be remiss if I did not at least acknowledge the email, explaining I’m really busy, on a tight deadline, etc., and will get back to the sender ASAP.  Better yet, I should identify a day and rough time for my response, i.e., Thursday afternoon, Monday morning.

And yes, in spite of my best efforts, I sometimes am guilty of:

• Setting an email aside to deal with later – then forgetting about it.

• Not opening an email right away because I wrongly think it’s not important.

• Putting off responding to an email I don’t want to respond to – at all.

• Missing an email completely because of human frailty (illness, stress, etc.)

• spending too much time agonizing over my response.

I’ve also been berated – occasionally – for not responding to an email only to find that the sender used an incorrect address, and I never received it!

But that example aside, I’m working on being a more courteous communicator, and I’ll share my continuing journey in my next post (April 11) by identifying the two words I most want to say – and hear.

Emails may be viewed by some as old-fashioned, but courtesy never goes out of style.”

“As Michael Geist is to copyright, Jacob Glick is to everything else.”

That’s how organizer Joseph Thornley introduced Google’s senior policy counsel and keynote speaker at Third Tuesday Ottawa, held at the Hard Rock Café in the ByWard Market March 29.

And while that’s quite the description, Mr. Glick delivered with interesting and relevant content and an entertaining and memorable presentation.

His theme (craftily titled “Jacob Glick’s Unified Theory of Everything”) was based on one single, simple thought – everything we see is the result of a convergence to the open Internet.

Stovepipe vs hourglass

To set the scene, Mr. Glick took us on a journey back in time to the old stovepipe universe when information pipes (phone, cable, wireless, etc.) were controlled by single players (the phone company, cable company, wireless company, etc.). It was, he said, an era defined by limits on consumer choice, innovation, content, and competition.

In contrast, he looks to what he calls a “virtuous hourglass” to epitomize today’s universe. Here and now, pipes have been squeezed together with one platform – the Internet – entering the hourglass. This, he says, creates a flow of rapid innovation, increased democratization, ramped-up competition and multiplied choices for consumers.

On the other hand, he points out, it also “puts many of our existing regulatory structures in flux,” making this a “golden age for communications law nerds.”

As Google sees it

Since the topic for the event was “As Google Sees It”, here’s how the company’s Ottawa counsel sees some hot-button public policy issues:

• Don’t force intermediaries such as Facebook to be responsible for third-party content

• Bill C32 (copyright reform) – while not perfect – should be supported (if/when it’s reintroduced)

• Traditional broadcast Can-con regulations have no place on the internet

• Net neutrality. (“I’m a fan.”)

Kudos to the speaker

While the subject matter was serious, this knowledgeable, culturally plugged-in and at times self-deprecating speaker regaled us with everything from a refrain from Gilbert and Sullivan to a testimonial for YouTube’s dancing cats.

Mr. Glick’s presentation set the Twitterverse abuzz via the #3RYow hashtag, with comments like these.

• “A smart guy and an entertaining speaker” – @krusk

• “Really engaging, lots of gestures and humour” – @vincentwhite

• “Brilliant, wide ranging thoughtful insight on the net, new business models, policy implications and more” – @FrancisMoran

• “I’ve gained a lot of admiration and respect for @jacobGlick. Very entertaining and educational speaker” – @jason-faber

• “Funny and insightful” – @pragsy

• “Quick wit and sense of humour” – @Thornley

But I’ve said enough, so let’s give the (almost) last word to Jacob Glick’s own post-event tweet: “Thanks for the all the warm feedback on my #3TYow preso. It was super fun for me.”

It was super fun for us too, Mr. Glick.  Thanks!

Like you, I’ve received emails that are clear and concise as well as easy to read and understand.

I’ve also received some (too many, in fact) that would have made Mother Theresa mutter an impolite word.

Emails, like other effective communications tools, are – or at least should be – based on courtesy for the reader. So if you’re creating an email communications protocol in your shop, consider including these six common-sense guidelines.

1. Make sure your subject line clearly describes what the email is about. Be as specific and explanatory as you can in the limited space available.

2. Keep the message thread going. When some email conversations begin, you just know it’s going to be an ongoing – and perhaps long – process, so use reply instead of creating new messages. By keeping the thread intact, everyone can refer back to the emails for reference even if days or weeks have passed. Before you automatically hit reply all, however, make sure everyone on the list really needs the information in any particular email. It takes just few seconds to remove a few addresses.

3. Don’t change the subject midstream. If you’re having a specific conversation about updates to your website, don’t reply via that thread and subject line to begin a discussion on print collateral.

4. Keep your emails short and to the point. The James Joyce stream-of-consciousness writing style may win literary kudos, but it’s annoying to busy people trying to decipher a message. Some tips to consider to enhance readability include:

• Edit to ensure it’s concise.

• Spellcheck it.

• Double check your grammar.

• If you know the recipient can receive your formatting intact, consider bolding key points.

• If appropriate, create a numbered or bulleted list.

5. Respect the recipients’ privacy. If you’re sending a message to a lot of people who don’t know one another, consider using the bcc (blind carbon copy) field for the addresses.

6. End your message with a few words about what comes next. There’s a reason why you’re sending the email, so include any call to action. Also make any deadlines very clear.

“Etiquette may be viewed by some as old-fashioned, but courtesy never goes out of style.”

To view the email etiquette pledge created by NetM@nners.com (in the illustration above), check out http://mmi.sr/2Pm.

And watch for the next post on email etiquette and relationship building – 5 words you don’t want to see or hear –  April 4.

If you think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you probably haven’t met Farhad Manjoo. Well, I haven’t actually “met” him either, but I did read one of his recent posts on Slate.com where he waxed typographic on the proper spacing between sentences.

As someone born in 19-nevermind, I learned to write on a manual typewriter. That’s where this old dog picked up the bad two-spaces-after-the-period habit. Even though I’ve known for some time that it’s wrong, the neighbourhood in my brain that governs the left thumb just kept it tappin’ tappin’ the space bar.

Manjoo’s arguments in Space Invaders were sufficiently compelling that I vowed to change my ways. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to re-program my brain for a one-tap function. (In the interest of full disclosure, however, I had to go back over this post and get rid of a couple of two-spacers.) Or maybe four or five. OK, nine.

In time, this old dog’s brain will learn this new-to-me trick. But while @fmanjoo has convinced me to go with the one space, I have no desire to proselytize. So if you’re an unrepentant two-spacer, free to add your two cents.

By the way, the “old dog” in the above photo is Lady Bug, an 18-year-old shih tzu owned by Joyce O’Grady of Ottawa – a recent fan of our Facebook page.

A season-high 140 people, including four of us from MediaMiser,  attended the Social Media Breakfast (SMB) in Ottawa yesterday.  When it was over, we left the warm building and ventured into the cold streets with a hot new book in our hands and some cool concepts in our heads.

The author and speaker, C.C. Chapman of Boston, dealt with the double meaning in his title Content Rules as he shared some key “rules” to follow when creating content and made us believers in his book’s central message that when it comes to communicating via social media:  it’s all about content.

He touched upon his key rules, giving us 11 things to think about when creating content, including:

• Insight inspires originality

“Just like good journalism, good content strategy focuses on the story you have to tell and the audience you are trying to attract.” Good advice, especially since we are exposed to stories from an early age and continue to relate to good storytelling.

• Reimagine – don’t recycle.

This is all about what he calls the content circle of life. “Always keep an open mind when you think about the material you want to create. Instead of a ‘one and done’ approach, treat anything you develop as pieces of a larger whole. Create content that can come to life in various formats, across many different platforms, and that can address multiple audiences.”

• Do something unexpected.

Be creative, he said, and make your content stand out. “Occasionally adding an element of surprise to your content both drives viral sharing and enhances your company’s personality.” If you believe, as we do, that people like doing business with people they like, it’s important to come up with interesting and different ways to express your and your company’s personality.

C. C. Chapman rules!

Pragya Dubey, an account manager in our client services division, said that “of all the content rules, what resonated the most with me was his Speak human rule. I like it because often in our drive to show our expertise, we get stuck in the jargon jungle. It was refreshing to hear that ‘human speak’ is what works best when communicating and connecting in the social media world.”

C. C. certainly “spoke human” as he engaged us with various interactive techniques and used humour to great effect. “From both a personal and professional perspective, his presentation was as entertaining as it was informative,” said Remi Roy, one of our 17 employees (media analysts, media monitors, toning specialists, and managers) in client services.

“While his work will assuredly find a home in my bookshelf in due time, it will first be a mainstay on my nightstand as I intend to dissect Content Rules to find out more about the fascinating world of social media and the character that is the affable C. C. Chapman.”

Our CEO, Brett Serjeantson, also was very impressed with the content and delivery of his message, applauding the way C. C. “hammered his points home with spontaneity and levity.”

Speaking of spontaneity and levity …

When C. C. told us he had never before received so many apologies from so many people about the weather in their hometown, someone in the audience quipped: “It’s a Canadian thing.”

For a more detailed story on this presentation, check out SMB Ottawa’s post by Simon Chen.

Can small organizations use corporate social responsibility policies and initiatives to make a difference in their communities and/or globally?

At the Corporate and Community Social Responsibility Conference we attended, we heard of major contributions made by large organizations. Farm Credit Canada, for example, has collected and distributed 5.2 million pounds of food for local food banks since its Drive Away Hunger tractor tours began in 2004.

Here in our neck of the woods, the Ottawa Food Bank has launched its annual holiday Drive Away Hunger challenge to workplaces, and MediaMiser has responded once again with an office collection for Nov. 29 to Dec. 16. We’ll be lucky to raise dozens of pounds, but we’re confident that our donations will make a difference to many families.

We’re also an active supporter of the United Way Ottawa, offering employees the opportunity to make payroll donations and encouraging them to organize various events and activities. Last year, our small firm (25+ employees) donated $3,660 to this cause. (Thanks to this year’s team, led by analyst Remi Roy, we’re at $4,400 and counting.)  Compared to the many elephant-sized organizations that participate in the campaign, this is small potatoes indeed, but as Lynne Deachman, our United Way representative says, every dollar – and thus every ant – makes a difference.

“As a Loaned Representative with United Way, it is my privilege to be working with MediaMiser as one of my clients. I have been amazed by the depth of caring for community that this company as well as its young staff possess. Kudos! “The people at this company “get it.” For example, they know that even a small donation like $1 per pay can support a peer mentoring program for one neighborhood teen – giving him or her the skills needed to become a good role model and effective leader in her/his own community.”

At the Beau's All Natural Brewing Company tasting session, 30 per cent of our beer purchases go to the United Way. Left to right: Daniel (MediaMiser), Lynne (United Way), Darren (Beau's) and Remi (MediaMiser)

We’re proud of our staff and proud of our ability to emulate a tiny insect that many scientists say can lift 50-100 times its body weight. Like other small firms, we accomplish this feat by following key CSR principles.

Begin at the beginning. Before setting CSR policies and instituting initiatives, look to your corporate mission, vision, values, and business code of conduct. These are what drive – and in many ways define – your culture and, ultimately, your CSR efforts.

Don’t be in it for the glory. The end result of implementing a CSR program should not be to obtain positive publicity or win awards. You do it because it’s part of your corporate culture. You do it because you want to leave a footprint (even if only your people can see it) in the sands of your community or beyond.

Don’t stop at charity Philanthropic endeavours can engage employees and make them feel good about themselves, their employer and their fellow employees. That is important, but CSR is about more than charity. It’s all about being a good corporate citizen and all the responsibilities that involves, from dealing ethically with all stakeholders to lifting your weight – or beyond – to the betterment of both your company and society as a whole.

Focus your efforts. To be effective, small companies need to narrow their focus. In 2010, for example, we concentrated on three main areas – the environment, entrepreneurship, and education. We celebrated Earth Day with a Reycle/Reuse sale to create awareness, supported an entrepreneur in Cambodia with a micro-loan through kiva.org, and will be giving a $1,000 cheque to the second-year Algonquin College public relations student who wins our Turning News Into Knowledge Award. We also left doors open through our “good neighbour” approach, helping our local food bank and United Way campaign.

Engage your employees. Obtain management buy-in to provide employees with resources, incentives, and rewards. Motivate them to pick causes they want to support.  Thanks to one employee’s initiative, we’re participating in Movember 2010 to raise money for prostrate cancer research. And go beyond allowing staff time to initiate, organize and participate in awareness and fundraising events, and involve them in the decision-making process. MediaMiser, for example, recently set up an employee CSR committee. The members’ task is to make recommendations for our firm’s CSR policies and activities (workplace environment, industry contributions, voluntarism, corporate governance, philanthropy, etc.) both for the next fiscal year and for the long term.

Measure your goals and objectives. Evaluate the impact of your CSR program on key stakeholders such as employees and those you are helping. Use qualitative and quantitative measurement techniques to both assess results (outcomes) and forge ahead in the future (benchmarks).

If you still think your company isn’t big enough to have a CSR plan, consider this observation by Betty Reese:

“If you think you’re too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”

As usual in any community, debates are standard fare.  In the PR measurement community, two ongoing discussions centre around the use of advertising value equivalencies (AVEs) and the term ROI.  (More on the latter at a later date.)

Where AVEs are concerned, there seem to be two extreme views – they’re useless as effective measurement tools or they serve as a valuable evaluation methodology.

I, like many others I’m sure, tend to fall in the middle.

I believe AVEs can be very useful if they’re used to measure outputs, i.e., to evaluate the practitioner’s abilities and capabilities in attracting media attention. The information gathered also can help direct subsequent campaigns.

More importantly, perhaps, is that high AVEs can help justify publicity expenditures to organizational bean counters.  In other words, they produce a figure that can help budget holders see the value in spending money to garner media publicity.

One example of this is the space trip Guy Laliberté (Cirque de Soleil) launched (literally) in 2009, partially I’m sure for his own enjoyment but also to promote his One Drop Foundation, a nonprofit organization he created to increase awareness of the millions of people who don’t have access to clean water.

Was it worth the $35 million he spent on his own personal star trek?

He and many others, I believe, would say “yes.”

According to Montreal’s Influence Communication, the media coverage (television, Internet, radio, and newspaper) generated by his space visit  reached a media audience of 878.8 million people in 71 countries. Computed with no weighting or factoring, the AVE was valued at more than $592 million. Where the foundation is concerned, 92 per cent of the coverage was earned between Sept. 30 and Oct. 14 when his Poetic Social Mission in Space show was broadcast.

To a bean counter, this is the equivalent of a juicy porterhouse steak!  .

However, and here’s what puts me in the middle, while the measurement of the outputs show great value, what about the outcomes with target audiences?

Was there an increase in awareness of the foundation among key publics and stakeholders?  If so, did this awareness generate positive perceptions?  Did more potential donors and key opinion leaders engage with the foundation?  Did donations to the foundation increase?

If nothing happened back here on earth to benefit the foundation, the trip and that wonderful AVE add up to a lot of sizzle – but no steak.

Claudine Wilson is a senior associate with MediaMiser. This post was re-posted from her own blog, PRHunter, with permission.