the big speakeasy

This blog post really started as a comment in response to PR Warrior, Trevor Young’s post, ‘Communicating in a Hyper-connected Marketplace,’ the topic of conversation to be addressed at next week’s IABC Queensland Be Heard^® event.

The facilitated discussion, led by Trevor, promises to bring some lively debate to the table as we explore how organisations are navigating the new media landscape.

Pre-discussion

Trevor has already kicked-off the conversation in preparation for the intimate round table confab, drawing comment from would-be attendees (myself included) which will serve to set the scene for proceedings on the night.

Input so far has touched on demonstrating ROI for strategies grounded in new media (and corporate communication generally); getting senior management on board with social media; and senior executives using social media as a means for personal interactions with one’s team.

I suspect my own comment may be a little controversial, especially within what is shaping up to be esteemed company. Trevor, for one, has already presented his counter view, prompting me to go away and think a little more deeply about my assertion. Whilst I’ve definitely refined my position, I haven’t reversed it and I’d like to flesh it out a little more here.

New media and big business

Our brave new world of new media and connected communities presents all manner of challenges for big business. As Trevor states in his reply to me, the evolving new media landscape is all about change – the arch nemesis of conservative big companies.

I think it’s fair to take as given the fact that many – or even most – large corporations are conceptually at odds with new media and the extraordinary sense of authenticity, community and connectedness they bring. This is disappointing and sadly remiss, but none-the-less remains the current status quo for the most part (with some notable exceptions).

The lost opportunities are obvious for retail and consumer entities. Companies who provide products and services to individual consumers and even to businesses who have a single decision maker with regards to purchasing, (think printers/copiers, stationery, merchandise, legal and financial services, even motor vehicle dealerships and specialist consultants), have so much to gain by building a community and offering value-add through simple human interaction and genuine thought leadership. The point is, they can establish, develop and maintain connections and conversations with individuals.

The communication of project tenders

But what about the type of businesses who, in order to bring work in the door, have to tender for multi-million dollar contracts? There is generally no single person who will be responsible for this type of decision making. All information considered necessary for choosing a service provider forms part of the tender submission and associated presentation – if there is even an opportunity to make one. There is little scope to explore potential providers outside the tendering process – and in some cases is even frowned upon, with interaction between the customer and tenderers strictly prohibited. So for the tendering company, there are very strict boundaries around how they can demonstrate their capability.

So here’s the controversial bit: The fundamental difference between the scenario that I’m presenting, and the premise of the Cluetrain Manifesto (which virtually underpins the true value and potential of all new media), is that the end-user is still listening to – in fact, still prefers, and indeed requests – the reams of stilted corporate speak that get offered up in response to equally stilted and somewhat cryptic client-speak criteria. They’re still acting like seats and eyeballs, not human beings. So why mess with it?

How can marketing and communication professionals possibly break this vicious and self-perpetuating cycle? It’s almost a closed circuit – an endless feedback loop that will continue to support itself with an endless flow of energy borne of corporate spin. And is there even a need to break the cycle, if everyone is hearing what they (apparently) want to hear? Does new media even have a place here?

Part of the issue, of course, is that very few entities within these industries – either on the client or the provider side – are utilising new media to anywhere near its full potential – if at all. This space is often viewed as just another marketing channel and used simply for pushing out bland press releases, or editorial about a project or program. Self-serving documents filled with corporate speak and spin. Therefore, if an engineering or construction firm were to try to start building a community online, aimed at influencers in potential client organisations, chances are that their efforts would simply go by the wayside. My preliminary research indicates that no-one in these industries has truly started charting the territory of new media land. Yet.

And this, of course, is Trevor’s point. It’s up to us, as communications professionals to bring about that change from within our organisations; to act as change agents. Frankly, for the scenario I have presented, I reckon this is a pretty tough ask. What do you think?

Looking to the future

I feel it’s inevitable that infrastructure and resource developers will ultimately carve out a space for themselves somewhere in the new media landscape. The potential to use these tools for community interface is enormous – once big business is prepared to shut down the spin and be transparent. And make no mistake this is no small matter, when your history is one of carefully defining key messages about the big hole you’re about to dig in the ground alongside a country community.

As for the future of tendering, I think the potential for the process to become more interactive in a networked marketplace – and therefore competitive – is huge. But maybe this is a good enough reason on its own to continue to resist the change!

I believe ultimately, the circuit-breaker will come from within. Because inside the walls of the organisations that outwardly assert a preference for the formal dialogue of a structured process for engaging service providers and winning work, exist real people. Human beings who are already getting restless and impatient with the spin and bland, formal messages transmitted from above. They are already demanding real answers to their questions – in an open forum with direct dialogue.

Join the discussion.

What do you think? Am I burying my head in the sand about these businesses? Am I ignoring my charter as a business communicator to challenge the status quo? What do you see as the future for these – and other – businesses in the context of the hyper-connected marketplace?

Join the discussion here, over at Trevor’s blog or bring your thoughts to the table next Wednesday, 18^th August. I promise we’ll be talking about a lot more than my personal agenda!



(Image by Constantin Jurcut)

It’s been a while since the original post in the ‘Conversation Evolution’ series, and while this has been more by accident than design, the intermission has actually proven somewhat serendipitous. I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of information sessions run by IABC in Victoria and Queensland where I encountered some good discussion that triggered more thought and even more dialogue around the topic. It’s a subject that appears to be a growing fascination among communicators – and understandably so.

The Conversation Evolution series started as a personal articulation of recent developments in corporate communication and what would now be considered best practice in the area. Really, it was just me trying to put my thoughts in order about what it means to be a corporate communication practitioner. My journey started as an aim to get a sense of what organisations should be doing – what is considered best practice. I wanted to identify the ultimate destination that we should be heading towards, i.e. what constitutes communication excellence and how is it achieved?

The first two posts of the series examined the types of conversations occurring in organisations:  the existing conversations, compared with those that ‘should’ be occurring, and why there might be a gap. This third post is intended to discuss what the new rules, models, and new ways of thinking and conversing in a hyper-connected world might mean for corporate communicators.

Road maps and landmarks along the journey of my first two posts included  The Cluetrain Manifesto and its concept of markets as conversations, and various models and dialogues put forward by the likes of change guru Jennifer Frahm and the learned folk over at Park Young.

So, during the interim, I’ve read (though perhaps not widely enough), discussed, examined and considered, and what I’ve come up with, for the main part, is – nothing. Yeah, really.

All bets are off.

The rules are: there are no rules

In our brave new world of hyper-connected conversations, the rules are,  in many ways, that  there are no rules. The old rules need not apply – but there are no new rules. Not hard and fast ones, anyway. They’re for us to make up as we go along and apply as appropriate.

I like rules and guidelines – in many ways they make my life easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty happy to bend and step outside such structures, but I need to know what they are in order to circumvent them. I think it’s reasonable to assume that this is so for most communication professionals. And for most organisations, rules and structure = safety, control and risk management.

So, if the rules are that there are no rules, all bets are off, and markets consist of conversations, but organisations, (and if we’re honest, communicators), like some kind of structure or road map, what does it mean for the modern day communicator and the stories she is telling to her people, both within and external to the organisation?

Obviously there isn’t going to be a correct answer here – we’re all still learning about letting go of structure, rules and control. So, for what it’s worth, here’s my two cents worth …

Trust – and the old soft-shoe shuffle

I think it’s about taking baby steps. It’s about listening. It’s about transparency. It’s about being real and human and authentic. It’s about diverging from the party line and questioning – when the time is right – what is being ‘spun out’ and delivered to the troops. It’s about understanding rich organisational histories and taking into account the conversations that have gone before – and why they have occurred.

It’s a soft shoe shuffle of change. And like any dance, there has to be trust between the partners – and this is a whole new routine with new music.

The structures we now work within are bigger and broader and sweeping. They don’t accommodate micro-managing of key messages or attempt at control by an organisation of how it might be perceived. The networked marketplace and its conversations are the control. They let the detail take care of itself – as long as you are honest and true then the conversations are real.

But such freedom is heady after so many years of constraint. As corporate communicators, we have to be kind to our old, slow moving, constrained businesses and help them see a common ground. We need to use the past to shape the future and demonstrate how fewer communication restraints are not so much a risk, as a catalyst to empowering an organisation to be the best that it can.

In the first post of this ‘conversation evolution’ series, I discussed my observations about the types of conversations undertaken in organisations and how, if they are to be constructive, they should fit, (at least partially), within the existing conversational paradigm – even if the discussion seeks to effect change to a new one. In this post, I’d like to explore why these paradigms came to exist in the first place.

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