The Lost Age of Innocence

It’s been a disappointing week for old-fashioned purists who believe a man is innocent until proven guilty. It’s a simple principle; if, after due process, he is found guilty as charged, any amount of ordure can be poured over his reputation. But if cleared in a proper court, then he leaves the dock “without a stain on his character”, as the judges supposedly say.

This tried and tested practice still applies in a court of law. But in the court of public opinion, in Britain at least, it is no more than a distant memory. As British cabinet minister Chris Huhne and footballer John Terry found to their cost, the very fact of  charges being brought against them has already blighted their high-flying careers.

Huhne was forced to resign as environment minister on February 4 to face bizarre charges that he once tried to pass off a driving offence onto someone else. If acquitted, a return to the cabinet is not impossible, the pundits say, but the leadership of his party will never again be a realistic prospect.

Terry was stripped of the captaincy of the England team the same day after being charged with racially abusing another player and there are increasing calls for him to  be sacked from the national squad altogether.

Neither man has been found guilty of any offence, or even put on trial yet.  Both protest their innocence and vow to fight the charges. But the taint of accusation has rendered them damaged goods. For the sake of the reputation of the government and the England team respectively, their demotion was inevitable.

It was different in the days when newspapermen and their proprietors would hold back the mud-slinging until after a guilty verdict and the general public had no other way of making its own judgements. Today no one can control the bloggers and tweeters, the newspapers are uninhibited, and anyone with a satellite dish can view events on dozens of different tv channels.

Nowadays the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty takes a back seat to practical considerations. So when handling your media relations in a crisis, forget about whether you are legally, or even morally, innocent or guilty. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is what the general public will think about you.  So far as reputation is concerned, it’s not significant that the oil rig was being operated by someone else, or that some supplier’s equipment malfunctioned; if you are the brand name and public opinion is holding you responsible, then you must react accordingly.

So if public opinion overwhelmingly wants you to eat humble pie, appear deeply concerned, or apologise, then try to satisfy its demands – at least as far as you can without compromising your legal position.  It may not be fair, but public opinion is not fair.

Oliver Wates, MediaTrain

Organisation – Making Ideas Contagious

Social media is on top of most organisations’ communications agenda, from UN agencies to businesses and governmental bodies. They acknowledge its value in disseminating messages, reaching key audiences, and ultimately promoting the organisation’s aims.

Today, around 2 billion people are online, including over 700 million who use Facebook (and sure enough, we are looking ahead at an early billion user milestone in 2012). Twitter crossed the landmark of users now sending over 200 million tweets per day, and with the integration of tools for sharing photos, videos and more content from popular streams, it will be a platform to monitor for brands across the globe. LinkedIn crossed the 100 million member mark in early 2011 while YouTube has reached a turning point with over 3 billion videos viewed a day.

The notion of driving a media campaign or even doing business without social media in the coming years will be as old-fashioned as working without using email.

For organisations, some of the key questions posed by the takeoff of social media are:

1)      How can they engage strategically with social media?  Starting small and coordinated (get everyone on the same page and up to speed on what is meant by digital/social) is often a good way to go – a rush to embrace social media does not equate to success. Social media engagement requires a concerted effort and defined roles within the communications team to share content, participate in conversations and support community interests.  The organisation needs to think about a clear and over-arching strategy with editorial planning and content management across all social platforms.

2)      How to best plan and execute social media strategies. Planning is essential, however any approach should be flexible enough to react to unforeseen developments and discussions. Integration is also paramount. Sure, you can easily create a new webpage and a profile for your organisation in a matter of minutes but what truly matters is how you decide to use them and how they’re integrated to work together, play off each other, complement one another in order to reinforce messages and monitor how effective they are at driving traffic and engaging users. Consistent contribution and integration from all platforms (online and offline) are a must for communication success.

For example –you could issue a press release (and post it on the organisation’s website) as well as a blog on the same topic or campaign and link them together, which will increase traffic. Have the blog set up so that it posts to the organisations’ Facebook and Linkedin pages. Craft tweets and schedule them to go out at different hours on several days to reinforce messaging. In between, post relevant articles, updates or statements from spokespeople.

3)       Who matters to the organisation and what do they say? Organisations must deeply understand communities of interest in order to engage effectively. There is an endless number of conversations driven by more sources than ever and it is important to map out and monitor key influencers and advance the organisation’s mission or support its campaigns. In the case of international organisations, a social media strategy should also reflect the range of official languages if possible. Engaging with specific communities is most efficient when done in the local language.

Building rapport, trust and credibility with individuals in your community of users goes a long way and can generate positive contagious feelings among the community.

Marian Hens, MediaTrain

 

Hitting the Right Notes

The “Rick Perry Moment” will delight all but supporters of the Republican hopeful from Texas. But it carries a useful lesson for all public speakers.

For anyone who missed it, Governor Perry was on a nationally televised debate with rival candidates and listed the three huge federal government departments he wanted to abolish. “Commerce, Education and …” And there he lost it, the third government agency just wouldn’t come to mind.

For 50 toe-curling seconds he floundered before a live audience of millions. The man who seeks to be president could not recall the scarcely insignificant Department of Energy. Ouch! Many commentators are already reading the last rites over his campaign.

But we should spare a little sympathy for  the Texas governor.  The bright lights of television and the awareness of the millions behind the camera can do strange things to our brains. The pressures are unimaginable, especially during the hostile environment of a political debate.

How could the debacle have been avoided?

In principle there is nothing wrong with having a list, so long as it is no longer than three.  Rhetoric relies heavily on threes, it’s enough to sound weighty and not too many for an audience to absorb. “Commerce, Education and Energy” would have sounded fine.

But as a back-up you need notes, especially in a high-energy (sorry!) situation like Wednesday’s Michigan debate.  Don’t prepare pages of notes with carefully crafted sentences. Just one sheet, with the outline plan of what you want to say, in clear script large enough to be read through the glare of the lights.

It should consist of:

– section headings for the points you want to make

– key numbers and names

– any title which might cause difficulty

– a reminder of your prepared soundbites

– and any list.

Turning it into an acronym can be a useful memory-jogger. Governor Perry did briefly peruse his papers in his desperation. But the letters CEE were presumably not there.

Oliver Wates, MediaTrain

Flying in the Face of the Facts?

Ryanair, now claiming to be Europe’s largest airline, has a reputation for adding charges for bags and baggage to bolster its low fares. So when Chief Executive Michael O’Leary was interviewed about his company’s forecast of a 20 per cent rise in profits, the first question was predictable.

“How much is higher fares and how much is charging … for more things,” asked Simon Jack.

O’Leary is a favourite with media trainers, and he didn’t let us down.

“We raised profit for the half year by 20% despite a 37% increase in fuel bills,” he began. “I think the secret of that is a 13% increase in average fares. Now that’s masked a 6% increase in sector length – we are flying to longer destinations such as the Canaries. So the underlying numbers are about a 6% increase in fares and 6% in sector length.” And with that, the interview moved on to Greece.

Where was the reference to extra charges? Nowhere. Instead O’Leary gets in his usual dig at fuel costs, promotes his new long-haul flights, and throws in some percentages which sound fine, but somehow just don’t seem to add up.

O’Leary, who wastes no opportunity to appear on the airwaves, has once again illustrated a cardinal rule of interviews. Say what you want to say, not what the interviewer wants you to say. And the audience? We’ll just grin and bear it as long as he keeps the fares (and extras) lower than anyone else.

Jeremy Toye, MediaTrain

 

All the (Good) News that’s fit to print

“Journalists are only interested in bad news. Journalists only like disasters and coups and suffering.”

This is a real comment from a participant at a recent MediaTrain workshop in Kenya, but it echoes assertions made at practically every gathering where What Is News is discussed as part of our coaching basics.

There is some truth in this, but that seems to reflect more the appetites of society for the bad stuff rather than all the good news that is taking place, that is out there, and which deserves space in the media.

One of the problems, our trainers usually say to the “bad news” argument is that if individuals and organisations could identify and publicise data or information that shows progress, then more of it would get used in the media.

Packaging that information is often the key: a crisply-written headline with an eye-catching headline and first paragraph, a few quotes to give it humanity and immediacy, and some pictures that tell the story: that’s MediaTrain’s advice to all those who want more “good news” in our daily media diet.

Mogadishu. Hear the name of the capital and you instantly flinch in readiness for some more grim tales of suffering, privation and inhumanity. Right?

So hats off to the African Union peace-keeping media team in Mogadishu. Check out their press release below. Perhaps not the crispest headline or intro, perhaps not the best captions for photos: but the net result is a win for the boys in green.

Just a few hours later the story, much of it straight from the press release, was in the front page of the Guardian’s web edition and was still there several hours later. Google Mogadishu residents take to beaches and see how many other hits you get. We got six, at last count.

Proof positive that if you get your messages straight and deliver them in media-friendly form, good news sells.

Andy Hill, MediaTrain

From: AMISOM FORCE Headquarters <amisomforcehq@gmail.com>
Date: 6 November 2011 14:53
Subject: AMISOM PRESS RELEASE – Mogadishans Take to Beaches as City Reawakens

 

For Immediate Release

Mogadishans Take to Beaches as City Reawakens
Mogadishu, 06 November, 2011

Hundreds of Mogadishu residents last week took to the beaches for the first time in three years in a dramatic display of a new found sense of security following the forcing out from the city of Al Qaeda-linked terrorists.
The revelers, who included former President, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, converged on the scenic Lido beach on Friday where they enjoyed a game of football and took a dip in the waters.
Ever since the Somali National Army, with the support of the African Union Mission in Somalia, forced the extremists’ retreat in August, the capital has been experiencing something of a resurgence. Roads are being repaired, homes rebuilt and markets reopened. Real estate prices along Via Moscow have doubled and there are people out in the streets late into the night, despite the ongoing threat of terrorist attack.
Following a successful operation to secure parts the vast outlying district of Deynile, hundreds of thousands of people in the Afgoye corridor who had previously been prevented by the extremists from returning to their homes in the city are now streaming back.
Traffic at the Aden Abdulleh International Airport has also tripled and the line of ships waiting to dock at the seaport grows ever longer. The city has played host to several high profile visitors, including Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, and a number of countries have reopened their embassies.
However, as the city reawakens, it is also experiencing problems common to other capitals around the world. Traffic jams along the busy streets are a perennial headache and crime rates are up, according to Mayor Mohammed Nur “Tarsan.” The AMISOM Police Component is helping to train the Somali police force, now numbering over 5000, to manage these challenges and the AU has appealed to the UN Security Council for help in deploying formed up police units to aid the effort.
Last week, the city’s business community presented a gift of thirty animals to AMISOM in appreciation of the Mission’s effort in helping secure the capital.
ENDS

 

It’s the way you tell it

Is 10 per cent alarmingly high or surprisingly small? It depends on where you’re coming from …

The British government has come under a lot of criticism for raising the ceiling for university fees from £3,000 per year to £9,000 from 2012.

So when the latest statistics showed a reduction in applications for next year’s entry, the headlines were predictable. “University applications see record drop as fee hikes bite,” trumpeted the Daily Mirror. The papers were unanimous, with words such as “plummeted”, “record lows”, slump” and “major fall”. And they all linked the 10 per cent decline in applications to the rise in fees. The “devastating” impact of the increased fees is a fixed part of the newspapers’ familiar narrative, and they were not going to deviate from that line now.

Then came a report on a different survey, commissioned by the BBC and published on the same day. This came up with the same rounded figure of 10 per cent. But the BBC said the survey of more than 1,000 youngsters concluded that “…only one in 10 are being put off applying for university by higher tuition fees…”.

Note that little word“only”, justified perhaps by a general expectation that the figure would be much higher. Suddenly we are in the realm of a moderate adjustment in university attendance, rather than the devastation presented by the newspapers.

Ten per cent is either a lot or a little. It all depends on how you present it.

Oliver Wates, MediaTrain

Tender Care

 

Much of our work at MediaTrain involves responding to Invitations to Tender, or Requests for Proposals. If you ‘re considering putting together a tender invitation, you may like to consider the following suggestions, which should apply whether you are looking for a service or a product.

 

1. Make it clear up-front what it is you are looking for. Many tender documents bury the essential details in a mound of contract conditions and internal arrangements. A brief but clear summary at the beginning of what you need and why would help.

2. Keep it short. The longer the document, the greater the chance of confusion.

3. Background is essential, but not a full-blown history. If you were buying a part for your car, you wouldn’t need to know the family history of the man that made it. Make the background relevant only to what you need.

4. Be honest. Some tender invitations look suspiciously like going through the motions. A preferred supplier may have been identified already. Clues are that the invitation is issued very close to a deadline, or that the tender documentation is very precise, perhaps cut and pasted from the favoured supplier’s own proposal. Tenders need to be fair, but it should be possible to say that some preparatory work has already been done by a third party, or that another supplier has done similar work in the past.

5. Provide a contact who is actually available. Getting an automated response saying that someone is on leave is very off-putting. State your working hours, including which days constitute your weekend.

6. Highlight clearly any specific requirement that is absolutely essential. “A supplier that does not have ISO9000 certification should not apply,” or somesuch.

7. Provide clear instructions on how an application should be submitted. If it is electronic, provide more than one email address in the event of communications problems. If you must have hard copies delivered by post (and please try to avoid that), give a full address – and give plenty of time for the post to reach you. International couriers take their time, and often don’t collect or deliver at weekends – but they are still expensive.

8. If technical and financial details must be kept separate, and delivered to separate addresses, highlight that.

9. Acknowledge receipt of a tender application. An email response, even to hard copy submissions, takes a few moments, and is simple courtesy: a supplier has taken the trouble to make an offer – saying it’s arrived is a cost-free way of saying thank you.

10. Advise the losers as well as the winner. A simple note to say thanks but no thanks means that a decent supplier will consider your requirements next time – and may even keep the price down.

11. Provide feedback. Take a few moments to indicate why a bid was successful or unsuccessful. If the price was too high, indicate whether it was near to the winning bid – you don’t have to give details. If the rejection was caused by other factors, try to say briefly what they were. In the unlikely event that a supplier comes back to you to complain, you can cross them off your list for the future. If they take on board what you say, they may make you a better offer next time.

 

Putting together a tender invitation is always a chore. By making the result clearer, you can save yourself the trouble of handling queries or issuing clarifications. And if you take the trouble to acknowledge each bid and provide feedback, your potential suppliers will be very grateful – and respond better next time.

 

Thank you.

 

Jeremy Toye, MediaTrain

Unspeakable

“Interfacing with targeted persons to leverage message potential and facilitate successful outcomes.”

Does this title grab you? Thought not. What does it mean in plain language?

“Communicating well to get results.”

In our working lives we use the language of our profession. At lunch with a colleague, a banker might say: “Unless the MFC expands quantitative easing there’s no bottom to the downside risks for the macro-lending sector.” And his companion would understand him because he too uses Bank-speak.

But when they get home, tired and harried, what would those bankers say when asked, “how was your day at the office?”

“A nightmare! The banks will go bust unless cash is pumped into the market. I need a drink.”

Communication requires the speaker and the audience to be using the same language.

To communicate successfully, whether you are in banking, development, the corporate sector or the aid world, you need to de-code your language. Shift it out of the workplace and into ordinary life. The key thing that matters is to be understood.

Rebellious types in the aid world play a game which shows how often jargon is used where simpler language works better. Let’s call it Jargon Bingo.

The organiser hands out cards containing a selection of five or ten current buzzwords and catchphrases before an event. The first player to tick off five shouts “Jargon Bingo” and wins.

Here’s a list of some current words and phrases. Turn them into the language of the street or the café, and you’ll be communicating better.

1)      Gender mainstreaming

2)      Vertical transmission

3)      Employment opportunities

4)      General population

5)      Risk vector

6)      Facilitate

7)      Environmental factors

8)      Lactating women

9)      Beneficiaries

10)  Civil society

11)  Mortality

12)  Collateral damage

13)  Friendly fire

14)  Holistic approach

With kind regards (and what does that mean?)

Andy Hill, MediaTrain

It doesn’t add up

“Two-thirds of the 16 stores have closed,” said the marketing analyst. Wait a minute, two-thirds of 16 means that two-thirds of one of the stores has closed – that can’t be right.

“More than nine out of ten people support this,” said another. More than nine just has to be ten – does she mean everyone?

Yes, it is very pedantic to pick up on such miniscule things – but it seems difficult for some of us to resist mentally checking a stated set of statistics. “Forty per cent are in favour, 38 per cent against and 20 per cent undecided.” Did you check the arithmetic?

The point is that while the more pedantic of us are running our mental calculators, we’re not listening to what you are really saying. Add to that the claim that 80 per cent of people don’t understand percentages, and you’re missing an incalculable portion of your target audience.

Surely more than nine out of 10 of you would agree that’s not good…

Jeremy Toye

MediaTrain Ltd

Child’s Play

Worries that some children in Britain haven’t learned to recognise written words by the age of six have led the government to come up with a scheme to test their skills.

Except that the kids won’t be “tested” – they will be subjected to “decoding assessment.”

It seems that education officials are now very wary of the word “test.” They’ve been accused of imposing too many tests, so the kids will instead be subjected to a “decoding assessment”, this time on their understanding of “phonics.” Phonics, as an interviewer helpfully reminded his audience, is teaching that the letters D-O-G spells and sounds like Dog.

Children who pass the phonics test (sorry) may not have too much trouble with the letters T-E-S-T. But they, like us, might struggle with D-E-C-O-D.. etc.

Using the language of six-year-olds to explain what we do might be going too far – but could it be worse than the phrases dreamed up by some adults? After all, The Cat Sat on the Mat says it all, really.

Jeremy Toye, MediaTrain.