The Black Swan

As a child, my father would often try to explain his job and teach me about how the stock market works. I would always get lost in his example of trading fictitious pencils and erasers, but the part about bull and bear markets – or upward and downward trends – made sense. Bulls were rambunctious and bears lumbered, plain enough.

So, I was surprised while reading The Wall Street Journal when I came across an entirely new term, “black swan,” to describe drastic market upheavals, such as the Sept. 11 attacks, Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the 1987 stock market crash – wait, I thought that was “Black Monday” – OK, this is all becoming very confusing.

The article described that the term black swan hails from the historic belief that all swans are white – a claim that was obviously false when European explorers discovered black swans in Australia.

The gist: Anything is possible. In fact, big surprises are more common than people think.

This notion caused me to think about the current upheaval in media and communications, largely wrought by the rise of the Internet. Newsrooms are shrinking, user-generated content continues to dominate online channels, and now Facebook has launched Places as a new location tracking service, the likes of Gowalla and Foursquare, to find friends and share your location with the rest of the world. But that’s a whole other blog post!

Stock market investors have the benefit of hindsight in knowing that financial markets will ebb and flow, and also rebound from dramatic black swan-type events. But not since the printing press have we experienced such dramatic change in communications. What will become of this current upheaval in the way we distribute and share information?

I imagine that more is to come in mobile communications and that both traditional and new media content sources will need to be even savvier at delivering news and information to small-format devices. I also expect the ongoing convergence of home entertainment and computing technology – whether it’s broadcast-quality TV from our laptops or computing from our flat screens. This is one thing that “Back to the Future II” got right.

Regardless, it’s safe to say that media and communications are in for continued black swan moments and that we shouldn’t expect a return to the past with a bear market any time soon.

So as PR professionals, this constant change translates into a new way of doing business. We cannot rely exclusively on a toolkit of proven best practices. To stay ahead of our industry’s own black swan moment, we need to continue to evolve our skills and use new and emerging resources to the best of our ability to meet the needs of our clients.

As an example of this new paradigm, our client Qdoba Mexican Grill recently launched a new campaign to fight burrito boredom – check it out! The campaign combines word-of-mouth marketing with online surveys and social media to keep burritos top-of-mind – a good example of how our jobs are evolving to get you (and reporters) to think differently about new and existing products and services.

(Source: Kim, Jan J., The Wall Street Journal, "Preparing For The Next 'Black Swan'," Aug. 21-22, 2010.)

~ Kimmie Greene

The Safety Pin

My little brother got married in May. Ten minutes before he was set to walk down the aisle, his pants broke. Wide open. As you can imagine, it was a melee trying to find a solution so he could make it down the aisle, say his “I Dos” and find a longer-term option for the reception. We searched high and low for a seamstress that we could pull out of the pew for a quick mend, but apparently there wasn’t one on the guest list. In a last ditch effort; we opted for the thing that always holds things together when you are in a pinch – the safety pin.

It’s an amazing little invention, the safety pin. It’s not ostentatious, doesn’t command the limelight and always seems to appear just when you need it the most. In a nutshell - it fixes things.

I wish every company had a job description for a safety pin.

As I look at the team at GroundFloor Media, I am reminded how invaluable these character traits are in a person and a colleague. Who is the safety pin in your office? On your team? In your life? Take a moment and send that person thanks for always keeping it together and for fixing things when nothing else seems to work.

You might even give them a small safety pin as a token of thanks for who they are and what they do for you. They may not light up in the same way they would should you show up with a bouquet of sunflowers, but once you take the time to explain it, it may mean far more than you could ever imagine.

~ Laura Love

Do the Right Thing

In between what has seemed like nonstop client crises and dealing with some serious things in my personal life, I’ve been reminded frequently over the past several weeks that simply doing the right thing is highly underrated.

It sounds simple, right? Just do the right thing. But in the business world and even in our personal lives, it’s very easy to let selfishness, profits or that next big promotion, drive our actions rather than focusing on what is right. Some might argue that “right” and “wrong” have different meanings to different people, but I would say that’s just a way of complicating a very simple concept.

Does the “right thing” mean waiting for regulators in your industry to implement new standards, and then complying fully with the new regulations? Or is it taking a look at your business, proactively, and setting your own standards despite what your competitors are doing or how it might affect your bottom line?

If one of your employees is going through a tough stretch personally, is it enough to provide personal days, as outlined in your employee handbook, so he/she can sort things out? Or do you pull the employee aside and really ask him/her “what can I do for you and how can we help you get through this?”

Real life examples of this concept are outlined extremely well in a book that I started re-reading this week. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman is the business biography of Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia. It’s a compelling story of how the outdoor clothing/gear business was built, almost by accident, and how the closest thing he had to a business plan for decades was this: Patagonia and its employees have the means and the will to prove to the rest of the business world that doing the right thing makes for good and profitable business. It’s a great read for business owners, managers or anyone who might need a little perspective on how doing the right thing doesn’t have to be difficult.

Call it karma, the Golden Rule or simply doing good… whatever it is, we could all benefit from taking a step back a little more frequently and asking ourselves “what is the right thing to do?”

- Jim

Revisiting PR101 -- Messaging

I have been involved in a lot of messaging projects lately. Be it drafting key messages to help a client with issues management or building general messaging for a client from the ground up, it’s been a primary focus for many of my clients over the past few months. Which got me thinking about messaging – and why it matters in the first place.

We know we need messaging – it’s a basic tenet of PR. But does it really matter? Can’t we just wing it? Not advisable. Winging it can lead us down all sorts of tricky rabbit holes. So, here is a friendly reminder of some of the reasons that having solid messaging in place is of the utmost importance.

Key messages…
• Allow you to concisely articulate your company’s benefits
• Keep you focused
• Provide consistent positioning throughout all communications efforts
• Help you tailor your comments to specific audiences during media interviews
• Help you define not only who you are, but who you aren’t
• Highlight differentiation without bashing the competition or giving them a voice
• Allow you to measure success of communications efforts

I actually think messaging may be one of my favorite PR projects. To help a client nail down its story in a clear and concise way is a fun challenge. Sometimes it’s daunting at the outset, but once you conduct the interviews needed, cull through the loads of information gathered, and really hone in on those “nuggets” that define and differentiate your client, it’s very satisfying. And when you can take a crisis situation and distill it down to the key points you need to address, the crisis becomes less overwhelming and somehow more manageable.

Of course, messaging is never really finished – your company’s messages are always evolving and need regular updating and revisiting. At GroundFloor Media, we’re practicing what we preach and are revisiting our own key messages. In fact, we conducted a message development session for ourselves just last week. We all gathered in the conference room and went through the same steps that we take with clients – and came up with some great results.

That process is very reassuring because those key messages can come in handy. Two great case study examples from PRWeek include:
• Clear identification emerges as a focal point of messaging (Dec. 1, 2009)
• Consistent message helps P&G in diaper rash crisis (June 18, 2010)

When was the last time you took a look at your key messages? It may be time for a refresh. Or, if your answer is “never,” it’s definitely time to put that foundation in place.

~Amanda Brannum

What's Growing in Boulder County? Hint: The Natural Food Industry.

Last week the Republic (of Boulder) earned a front page business story in The Sunday Denver Post titled “Boulder: Where innovation is hip.” It touted four industry leaders, including software, biotechnology, natural foods, and outdoor products as the front runners in thriving startups.

In the natural foods sector, Boulder has given birth to Alfalfa’s, Wild Oats, and Celestial Seasonings. Although all three of these companies were purchased by out-of-state rivals, they were able to blossom in the New West. There are hundreds of businesses reaping the benefits of launching in Boulder County, like Justin’s Nut Butter, Rudi’s Organic Bakery, EVOL Burritos, Fiona’s Granola, to name a few.

I liked what Frances Draper, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, had to say: “The message to companies is if you want to be cutting edge, you want to have some of your operations in the Denver metro area. It’s a cool place to be.”

Boulder is cool. Very cool. GroundFloor Media was founded in Boulder in 2001. Due to our employee base, we made the move to Denver in 2005 but have fond memories of our little house off Pearl Street. We weathered the storm of 2008-2009 due to our startup/entrepreneurial mentality and like-minded food & beverage partners who took chances and tried new things, including local favorite Qdoba Mexican Grill and a new luscious snacksquare called goodnessKnows™ by Mars.

It’s not hard to see why Colorado, and Boulder in particular, is attracting startups and churning out new products in the natural food industry. Plus it is the perfect test market for functional foods. If a new product can make it in Boulder, it can make it anywhere. (That might even be trademarked) On the communications front, these businesses have great stories to tell via traditional media, social media, experiential marketing and influencer networking.

It is hard to believe it is August 2010. Colorado business leaders are predicting growth in the state economy, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, released mid-July by the University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business. You can bet the natural foods industry is impacting these numbers. I’d like to say this is good news without holding my breath or whispering the word recession.

And with that, I guess it is time for a mid-afternoon snack break of Justin’s Chocolate Almond Butter on an apple from SunFlower Farms. California can have Silicon Valley. We live in an outdoor playground backed by the Flatirons that lends itself to new ideas and tomorrow’s next big _________. Go ahead, fill in the blank and dream a little…it may become a reality in Boulder.

Resources:
• Naturally Boulder
• Boulder Innovation Center
• New Hope Natural Media
• Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District
• Boulder Chamber of Commerce
• Boulder Small Business Development Center

Finding Your PR Pause Button

Stepping back to make time for community involvement

As a busy PR professional it can be really easy to get wrapped up in your own professional and personal obligations. We are so busy planning events, chasing the “big hit,” and trying to stay on the bleeding edge of a lightening fast industry—not to mention raise families and maintain friendships—that months, or even years can go by without noticing that you haven’t made much time for those who are less fortunate.

I will admit to being one of those busy PR professionals as of late, which is why I am extremely grateful for the community awareness GroundFloor Media has reenergized in me personally. For example, last week we got to spend time with a group of brave and strong young women that GFM sponsored for an Outward Bound Urban Adventure program. Our agency sponsored the girls so they could spend two days backpacking around Denver and participating in both team building and community service projects. They finished their adventure by coming to our office for lunch from Qdoba and participating in a round table discussion of challenges and successes in life, as well as the importance of finding a mentor and volunteering in the community.

The Outward Bound Urban Adventure group enjoys lunch at GroundFloor Media's offices 

The short time I spent listening to and talking with the girls, who ranged in age from 12-18, was powerful for me because I realized that each of them were at a real tipping point when it comes to community service. The longer you wait to get involved, the busier you get, and the easier it becomes to make various excuses—I have too much homework, work is too hectic, or my weekends are for my family.  I wanted to share this personal realization with the hope that it might motivate even one more busy PR professional to step away from it all for just a few hours each month in order to lend a hand in the community.

I have a passion for the elderly and so I am getting ready to begin my Denver nonprofit journey by donating my time to Jeremy Bloom’s Wish of a Lifetime organization. While I couldn’t be more excited, I can also fully understand how hard it is to find the time to take a first step towards better community involvement. At GFM I am also lucky enough to be surrounded by team members who dedicate countless hours to various organizations and have fantastic, real-world advice for how to get started here in Denver.  What’s the GFM consensus? Take advantage of at least one of the many leadership programs in town to meet other community-conscious professionals and get inspired to give back along the way.

A few examples of leadership programs that GFM employees have either graduated from or are participating in now include:

• Downtown Denver Partnership Leadership Program
• Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation
• CBCA Leadership Arts
• Leadership Boulder County

I challenge you to find your personal passion to give back to the community. How will you make a difference?

~Alexis Anzalone