Epiphany Half-Life

On the heels of the Ragan Communication 2^nd Annual Employee Communications, PR and Social Media Summit, I am officially facing what CIO Magazine recently dubbed the “Epiphany Half-Life” – the time that passes between an inspiring event and the implementation of new ideas.

You feel it as the opening speaker of a conference psyches you up with new campaigns and best practices – yes, Microsoft spent millions on a Cirque de Soleil marketing spectacle to launch Kinect for Xbox 360, but if they sell five million units this holiday season, the risk will have paid off as the company’s biggest Xbox product launch – wow!

Microsoft-sized dreams do feel possible, particularly when you’re away from the office and listening to some of the leading minds in marketing and communications.

Every speaker talked about transparency, honesty and consistency as core to effective employee communications. These attributes are now more important than ever before as social media and the 24/7 news cycle are driving new ways of connecting with people and sharing information. Today, no one can hide, so why try?

Sara Tatchio, global integrated communications manager for Ford Motor Company, shared that CEO Alan Mulally asks his executives to invite an employee guest to staff meetings – brilliant! And to think he didn’t even need to invest in new technology to put that idea into action. It’s actually not a coincidence that he was recently recognized with the Fortune Magazine Businessperson of the Year award; Ford used internal communications channels to rally employees together to vote for him.

But, technology can be helpful, and the conference highlighted a handful of new ways to use familiar tools – such as Dell’s use of Saleforce’s CRM Force.com – into employee communications campaigns.

My former employer deployed Microsoft’s My Site to more than 5,000 employees nearly three years ago – no small undertaking – and it stalled. The lack of employee buy-in was not the fault of the technology, but rather the way we used it. Beyond the initial launch, we never created any incentive for employees to return to the site.

To think we could have done something as simple as hyper linking to employee My Site pages from feature articles on the company’s Intranet. Doing so would have directed eyeballs from more familiar Intranet pages to My Site, while also encouraging employees to keep their My Site content up to date. My Site could have helped a company sometimes struggling with employee morale to create a greater sense of connectedness and shared understanding of everyone’s contributions and expertise. Again, brilliant – thank you Deloitte.

With all these fresh (and doable) ideas ripe in my mind, it’s time to avoid the distractions of the holidays and year-end deadlines to share them with my peers and more importantly, our clients.

The Epiphany Half-Life challenges that if inspiration isn’t “put into practice by the end of the first half-life that it will fade into wistful daydream.”*

I’m of the mind that with 21 pages of notes from the event and closing keynote David Pogue’s Britney Spears-inspired jingle, “Oops, I apped it again,” seared in my brain, I’ll have a good chance of extending the first half-life beyond New Years and well into 2011.

~ Kimmie Greene

^*Source: CIO Magazine, “How to Keep Your Team Fired Up,” Bob Lewis, Nov. 1, 2010.

Always Continue to Learn…

I recently attended the Mayo Clinic and Ragan Communications’ second annual Health Care Public Relations, Marketing and Internal Communications Social Media Summit in Jacksonville, Fla., and it got me thinking about the value of professional development. It’s so easy to get so wrapped up in our day-to-day work and our hectic schedules – and often, taking time out for professional development falls to the bottom of our priority list. It sounds like a lovely idea, but who has the time???

My experience at the Mayo/Ragan conference reminded me of the importance of stepping back and taking the time… the time to learn from renowned leaders in the field, the time to share ideas with industry colleagues, and the time to get re-energized about the work we’re doing.

For me, the conference was extremely valuable in that it served to validate that, as an agency, GroundFloor Media has stayed on the proverbial leading-edge when it comes to counseling our health care clients about social media. At the same time, I learned a variety of new tips, tricks and tools from both the speakers and my fellow attendees as we discussed approaches we’ve taken, issues we’ve faced, etc. And, indeed, I returned to Denver energized and excited to share this expanded knowledge with my co-workers and apply it to strategies for clients.

I am grateful that GroundFloor Media places such an importance on professional development – whether it’s membership in a professional organization or participation in a webinar, a local industry group luncheon, or a multi-day workshop in another city. We are encouraged to identify opportunities that will help us strengthen our expertise – and then to take the time to participate in them and share what we learned during a subsequent internal staff lunch & learn.

In addition to the conference I recently attended, one of my colleagues is currently at a conference focused on internal communications. Three of us will be attending a monthly breakfast for health care communicators next week, and yet another is planning to attend a travel-focused social media conference early in 2011. Many of us are also active members of professional organizations including the Colorado chapter of PRSA, Colorado Healthcare Communicators and the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN). All of these activities are invaluable when it comes to ensuring that we continue to stay abreast of the latest trends and developments in the PR/marketing communications industry.

~ Amanda Brannum

Multimedia world changing how we communicate

Here’s further proof that the media landscape is continuing to change, reinforcing that the tried and true traditional news mediums are becoming less of a factor in the communications and PR world.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), considered the gold-standard guide to newspaper circulation numbers, reported this week that from April through September 2010, weekday newspaper circulation numbers across the county dropped 5 percent compared to the previous six months.

It’s a grim story for newspapers, but still a slight improvement from the last report, which showed circulation numbers dropping 10 percent. To put it in perspective, consider the falling numbers are coupled with ballooning expenses in everything from newsprint to employee health benefits.

Only The Wall Street Journal showed a distinct increase in numbers, since the ABC began counting paid online subscriptions in its report.

GroundFloor Media offers a couple of best practices that we can takeaway from the ongoing trend:

• Newspaper pitches must be targeted to specific reporters, and include real news. Shrinking news holes means gone are the days of simply blanketing a nominal press release and expecting some pick-up.

• Consider taking advantage of “On the Move” sections. When I was at the Rocky Mountain News, we had reports showing that these announcement sections were one of the most highly read features of the paper, next to the obituaries (which is an announcement of sorts but not one that we hope to use anytime soon).

• Look for strictly online news publications and citizen journalists to pitch, such as AOL’s DailyFinance or MSNBC.com or Examiner.com. They don’t have newsprint or distribution costs and to a certain extent, their content can be endless. Plus, content lives forever online, and will never be used as fish-wrap.

• Social media is doing the job of newspapers. Use the power of the word-of-mouth sensation of the social media world to announce events or client news.

• The paid online newspaper subscription model is expanding, as newspapers try to recoup loses from the print editions. The Grand Junction Sentinel was the first newspaper in the state to begin charging for most of its online content. The model works for the Wall Street Journal, but it might be an uphill battle for local publications.

Plunging newspaper circulation numbers further acknowledges we live in a multichannel world. The good news is more people are getting news; we just need to be smart about how we reach them.

~Gil Rudawsky

What will your legacy be?

Last week I attended a beautiful funeral service for a good friend’s father. The chapel was standing room only, the flowers, plants and photos of his family were abundant, but the space and décor paled in comparison to the words that were spoken during the 90-minute tribute. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to spend Memorial Day with this family and was well aware (after a competitive afternoon of washer toss, knockout and listening to funny family stories), of the kind of man he was simply by being a witness to the incredible family dynamics he and his wife of 58 years had created. So as much as I dread funeral services, I found myself looking around the packed chapel curious to know more about what kind of person would command such an unbelievable crowd. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

The memorial service began with a tribute by his business partner of 32 years and was followed by a moving speech from his older brother. But what was even more touching was that seven of his grandchildren got up in front of the crowd to speak, as did all five of his children. Their eulogies were personal, poignant and full of the specific life lessons he had imparted on each and every one of them. While their stories were all different, they shared a theme that couldn’t be missed. It was a theme of compassion, acceptance, and kindness to all o fthose he encountered; unbridled love and commitment to his family, and a strong work ethic (he was still happily working at age 78) where his business associates were treated as family.

So I ask myself – in your business and your professional life – does it really matter what awards you win? What titles you hold? What contracts you secure? The size of your paycheck or the year-end revenue you report? At the end of the day – or your day as the case may be – you won’t be remembered for these things. You will be remembered, as was this amazing man, by the friends you keep, the kindness you show, the quality of time you spend with friends and family and the legacy and lessons you leave your children and grandchildren. It really is that simple.

Is Our Profession Making Americans Fat?

Americans are fat. I said it. Fat. I know it, you know it,the world knows it. I know, it is a dirty word that people don’t like to talk about and as marketers we now use the term “health and wellness.” I suppose that is much easier to swallow. No pun intended. However, research supports this accusation. George Washington University researchers did a study on the overall cost of obesity that also added in things like employee sick days, lost productivity, even the need for extra gasoline — and found the annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man. Ouch! Another study done by John Cawley of Cornell University and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University released last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, estimates that nearly 17 percent of U.S. medical costs can be blamed on obesity.

It’s not all doom and gloom. There are great healthy food choices to eat. I’m all for snacks. (And a little chocolate on the side.) Many of us remember walking or riding our bikes to school and playing outside until the sun went down. There is life beyond cable TV. People are starting to take notice and communities are fighting back. That is the beauty of grassroots movements and a tremendous opportunity for communication professionals working with these organizations as well as with businesses as they launch new products and services supporting the health and wellness cause. There are many stories to tell from revitalizing neighborhoods, eliminating “food deserts,” retraining lunch ladies, reviewing the built environment, and creating food policy councils, initiating small changes and lifestyle makeovers. But this goes beyond telling a good story and educating the public about smart choices. What’s our role in this as marketers?

As a communication professional, I can appreciate the value of good food marketing. Even my kids pick the carrots in a Dora the Explorer bag over the generic store brand. What I don’t like are the cereal boxes at kid eye-level with the Disney characters. In fact, I’d rather take my kids down the toy aisle than walk the cereal aisle. If you haven’t read Dr. Mark Hyman’s article in the Huffington Post, Obesity in America: Are Factory Farms, Big Pharma and Big Food to Blame?, I encourage you to do so. In the article two things grabbed my attention:

"Stop food advertising to children. Food marketing directed at children should be banned (through the FTC). This has been done in over 50 countries across the globe including Australia, the Netherlands, and Sweden. We should follow suit. The FDA should also restrict unproven health claims on labels.

End irresponsible relationships between medicine and industry. Public health organizations like the American Heart Association and the American Dietetic Association should avoid partnerships, endorsements, or financial ties with industry that compromises their independence and credibility. Coca-Cola sponsoring events at the American Dietetic Association, or the American Heart Association promoting chocolate sugary cereals as heart healthy because they have a few grains of whole wheat--is this credible?"

It’s hard to admit that our profession may have greatly impacted and added to the obesity epidemic. Dr. Hyman challenges us to be more creative and to develop an economy based on products and services that make people thin and healthy. We can support grassroot movements, back solid programming, promote healthy products and services and tell their stories.

I’ve had the good fortune to spend time with Dr. James Hill, professor of pediatrics and medicine, University of Colorado, and executive director, Anschutz Medical Campus Health and Wellness Center, and have become a fan of his small changes concept. Dr. Hill aims to inspire Americans to make small changes in how much they eat and how much they move to prevent weight gain. What a simple yet big concept that has millions of marketing applications.

We must be advocates for change within the marketing industry. The next time you hold a brainstorm for a client, think through the big and small ideas and trends and creative partnerships that truly align with not only your client’s business objectives but are innovative and are sustainable from a socially responsible perspective. We can help shape our future through our creative campaigns and advocacy efforts. Our overall health demands it.

~ Amy