Engaging graciously with one's audiences

World's most beautiful geraniums - one, originally uploaded by The River Thief. Copyright Ruth Seeley 2008

Since social media and Web 2.0 are all about engagement and dialogue rather than top-down message delivery - which is, essentially, monloguing - I thought I would do a brief post about engaging graciously with one's audiences.

I came across Leo Bottary's blog when looking through the questions relating to public relations posed on LinkedIn - he had asked if there was a way to make PowerPoint presentations less deadly (my hyperbolic phrasing there), and I pertly answered that I believe Pecha Kucha is the answer - six slides, 20 seconds per slide, and you're out. Much to my surprise, I later found myself on the June honour roll on his blog - a lovely example of acknowledging one's readers. Leo and I were colleagues at the same firm, but he wasn't one with whom I'd worked directly or with whom I'd even corresponded during my stint at H&K. I'm not saying we're all wonderful, but it's certainly a huge talent pool of professionals who have benefited greatly from the resources, continuing education, and professional development opportunities made available to staff. I have to say I agree with him - basic social skills (including use of the 'magic words') are kinda key to this medium and should be a requirement for folks working in public relations.* And it's nice to see that Web 2.0 is more about standing up and being counted than the empowerment of anonymity we saw with Web 1.0.

Next up: my former boss Boyd Neil, whose blog can be found here, or through the links I've provided. A crisis communications and corporate reputation management expert at H&K, Boyd did something I think few people can, which was to build a department from an extremely motley crew of inherited staff with, shall we say, varying levels of ability. That's one tough gig. Coming across Boyd's original blog was actually what got me off (or onto) my ass to start blogging myself. The premise for his original blog was Proustian. Even though writing is a large part of what he does for a living, he had more to say on a variety of subjects, and his subject matter was not trivial. I was following his Air Canada complaint saga closely but with a rather hopeless feeling: having requested a gluten-free meal they sabotaged him on a flight to Europe and he was sick for days afterwards. As someone who's had a variety of food allergies throughout the course of her life and has been astonished to see food allergies given less respect and attention by servers than religious dietary restrictions, I would have been falling all over myself to grovel at the mistake I'd made if I were Air Canada. But no....

When I alerted him to the fact that a link he'd posted wasn't working, I got a very gracious acknowledgment from him. When we worked together I appreciated Boyd's professionalism so much and was frequently amused by the fanatical grammarian in him. I don't think I've convinced him that those who regulate the English language (I think it's the OED folks, but I'm a little hazy on this) have conceded on the split infinitive front (it had to have been all those Star Treks, no? After you've heard 'to boldly go' seven million times you have to accept that you're never going to be able to maintain an 'infinitives must not be split' stance - better to choose your battles wisely and just stick to refusing to permit sentences that end with prepositions, a battle we can win).

The third example, and the original motivation for this post, was this exchange I discovered on the CBC web site, in which Esther Enkin, the executive news editor, discusses why CBC chose not to air the latest Bernardo video in its entirety. It's an excellent example of how to deal with diversity of opinion without compromising the stance your organization has taken. And if you read it, you'll see that the tone of the questions actually maps to the gracious tone Esther displays throughout.

Happy reading, all.

* If only they were - I came as close to death as I ever have when I watched in horror as a junior colleague once - gasp - picked his nose in the middle of a major presentation to a major client we'd been trying to win for nearly a year. I have never prayed so fervently to Scottie to beam me up as at that moment.

Plus ca change, plus ca change

The Life of Riley, originally uploaded by The River Thief.

While this photo isn't timeless, with the clothing, the car, the chair (in Canada we call them Muskoka chairs, not Adirondack chairs) and even the architectural style of the cabins in the background firmly fixing it in the late 1950s, early 1960s, my aunt is doing precisely what I wish I were doing now - sitting outside, watching the chipmunks and listening to the sound of the wind in the trees.

Instead, however, I'm blogging away, and the escape to the cabin in the woods will be delayed a few weeks. I came across this article about Bill Gates stepping down and wanted to link to it and discuss it because it details some of the controversy surrounding the battle for market dominance of Microsoft Word over WordPerfect.

It may be silly to be nostalgic over software (of all things!), but it's interesting to me that it is universally acknowledged that Betamax was better technology than VCRs and yet VCR technology still managed to triumph (for a while). I don't know the details of how that happened, or I've forgotten them. I do know though that WordPerfect had actually achieved market dominance at one point, and that it was lovely software to use. New releases were relatively rare, but when they happened, the richness of functionality, the ease of use of the new features, and their incredible usefulness made learning an intensely rewarding experience. No one has ever made the mail merge as simple as WordPerfect did, although it was a bit of a jolt, after having memorized hundreds of commands for the F keys, to just be able to use your mouse to click on an icon with version 5.1.

I remember coming back from a client user conference in California and trying to tell some of my 20-something colleagues what one of the product managers I'd met at the conference said to me. In retrospect I'm beginning to think anyone who worked in high tech PR during the dotcom boom deserves a medal merely for having been able to find a journalist under a rock who was willing to cover our clients - there was that much going on it sometimes seemed like we were asking them to be four places at once. Anyway, I remember telling them that the product manager had told me a story about his mother being a very early adopter of technology and that while she knew other software was available, she was still using Multimate. Even I had only encountered one or two computers in the 80s that used Multimate software. So I told them the story, adding that the software product manager had also said, 'Most people already have more software than they will ever need - or learn how to use.' I was met with blank stares. Usually my anecdotes get a better reception than this. Finally, one of the 20-somethings asked, 'Multimate?' I explained that it had been the word processing standard before WordPerfect. The stares were no less blank. And so I gave up. Twenty years can be a very long time, it seems. And my point - which was the bewildering profusion of options and the stress engendered by constantly having to learn new things to make one's job easier merely because new things were being developed and marketed, not because they were really necessary - had just sailed right over their heads.

But I was also thinking last week about the world before Starbucks. During one of my mother's last trips to visit me in Toronto in the mid-1990s, Starbucks hadn't really penetrated my consciousness. There was a Second Cup in my neighbourhood (Kensington Market), but Starbucks hadn't really arrived, and I caught myself wondering what she would have made of both the coffee and of the Starbucks experience. In her later years she was a huge Tim Horton's fan, and I wonder if she would have hated Starbucks' coffee, or if she would just have objected to its price.

The battle lines are very clearly drawn between Tim Horton's and Starbucks, and while it makes perfect sense that these two firms have positioned themselves at opposite ends of the marketing spectrum and deliberately set out to create completely different customer experiences, they've behaved like rival hockey teams. Except for the fact that they seem to have forgotten that you can't have a hockey game without two teams, and that hockey (and coffee) fans have something in common: they love hockey. Erm, coffee. I'm mystified by the loyal following Tim Horton's has (although I do snicker when folks cross the street with their Tim Horton's coffee to sit on the Starbucks patio directly across the street). The coffee is weak and bitter, the lighting makes me pray to be beamed up (or back in time to an era where fluorescent lighting had yet to be invented), and the whole orange and red thing - it doesn't just make me want to consume quickly and get out of there, it makes it pretty much impossible for me to set foot in the place.

But I find it sad to see Starbucks making the kind of mistakes that lead to the closure of 600 stores in a single year. When I lived in a town of 6000 in Ontario, the only good coffee I got was the coffee I made myself. I used to joke with my former colleagues that they could always leave Toronto and open a Starbucks in Kincardine, because the town needed one source of commercially available decent coffee (there were three Tim Horton's in town, I believe. Okay, two. That was two too many, IMNHO). Silly and frustrating though the whole Starbucks language is, as a corporate entity they've done an amazing job of training young staff and of creating a consistent experience. What seems almost like the mock-Italian of their creation labelling masks some very good things at the heart of this corporate empire. For staff, provision of benefits for even part-timers, a wage above the minimum, and a commitment to training are the things we as customers benefit from but don't necessarily see. Exquisite service, comfortable seating and lighting, and consistency of product quality are things we should celebrate, no matter our vintage.