Waiting for UAL 836, and customs and immigration, the bus driver, and the hotel clerk named Godot...
One industry that provides my students with some of the richest personal examples and experiences in crisis communications and leadership are the airlines.
I found that the airlines, despite years of tragic experience and other just time wasting experiences still don’t “have it right”. If the pilot of UA 836 from Shanghai said just one more time (after about 8 statements) “just bear with us”, I thought of an agency that should script what pilots and flight personnel say. Too much personality and quips are not welcome when you have been in the airport for 9 hours, 3.5 hours trapped in the plane 15 feet out on the tarmac, served only pretzels and water.
The serious aspect of the travel was that the two flight attendants heard a noise in the rear of the plane shortly after backing away from the gate that we later described as the sound of crushing the luggage vehicle. It was missed by the pilot, but thankfully the flight attendants (who are there for our safety) stopped him from moving to take-off. The saga continued with an inability to diagnose the huge noise (not luggage loose in the hold), but some sort of firing mechanism in the engine (a huge retort). Read or ask Rob Mark at his airline blog site http://www.jetwhine.com/about/ for a technical explanation. My expertise, if I dare, is the failure of the service and communications management and leadership of UAL. 1. They did apologize (over and over and over again). 2. They did not offer a consistent pattern of explanation or up-dates (forgetting us for an hour at a time). 3. They “forgot” to tell us that the flight attendants could not continue past a three hour time (labor agreement) until that became a crisis. 4. They did not arrange for labor to open the doors again, 5. They did not send us to the right immigration gate (imagine about 200 people walking back and forth at 9 p.m. looking for a way out). 6. They did not warn the airport security that 200 plus would have to be re-entered since we had walked from point A to B inside security and needed to be checked again, they forgot to tell the baggage handlers that they needed to remove hundreds of bags or the carrousel would not allow more bags from the belt (I unloaded about 30 bags for exercise), they forgot to put bags on the right bus (some of us peons went to the economy class hotel and others, well you elites know who you are). They failed to tell the hotel to have more than one desk clerk of the 5 on duty help check us in the hotel, etc. And, newsflash, they failed to test the engine before coming up to the gate in front of hundreds of passengers waiting Now, they are now backing away. I guess we will have to “just bear with them”.
The answer in crisis leadership (some insight due to Ian Mitroff) is to consider the crisis in the context of a whole general system: the passengers are connected to the plane is connected to the loading gate, is connected to immigration, is connected to security is connected to baggage claim, is connected to the bus, to the hotel, to the bus, to immigration, etcetera, etcetera as Yul Brenner so capably said. In the spirit of full disclose I did get a free ticket (I think it is a ticket because the letter from the customer relations professional is such a generic apology it might be from Tiger Woods for a free sleeve of golf balls or a well used club for smashing car windows.
The next day from the time of the loading scheduled for 2 p.m. it was also a series of missteps: the same plane had the same mechanical failure (before we loaded). UAL tried to have us bump the same flight number’s plane (all several hundred of us jostling for position at the one gate). However, they finally abandoned the original plane on the tarmac, December 9 flyers (me) took December 10 flyers’ plane and they took (we heard) another plane. To my flying partners at UAL: Systems, systems, systems are linked with software and communications and leadership!
Friday, December 11, 2009
China Times Blogs and Tweets on Crisis Leadership
China Times Blogs and Tweets on Crisis Leadership
I would have posted this blog and a number of Tweets from Xiamen and Shanghai, but I was blocked from teaching Chinese business leaders some modern lessons of history in crisis management and leadership.
My weekend of teaching and two days of conversations with my colleagues in China were limited by my addiction to using the web for teaching and examples. My access to Youtube for teaching my class of Executive MBAs was also prevented. I tried to locate equivalent videos of the CEO of Mattel apologizing to the Chinese government and to the people of China, but the videos so readily available via Youtube were not available on more than one China site. It was a shame because I really wanted to help the 33 business leaders (age 35-55) who own their own firms or are CEOs of others that crisis management can be taught and practiced by observing the mistakes of others. Naturally, there was a lot of “news” about Tiger Woods that gave me an opportunity to provide instruction on a failed crisis leadership display 1. He did not respond in a timely fashion, 2. He did not apologize, 3. He did not respond personally (except through an “announcement” on his website. 4. He was not forthcoming about the real issues in even a slightly transparent manner, 5. Even after an initial delay of 2 days and later of 5 days; we do not know what he really wants us to know. And, obviously a man with over 7 million Google “hits” cannot ask for privacy or to be left alone. Tiger, like the Hong Kong movie star Edison Chen, “hunter” VP Dick Cheney, David Letterman, Jack Welch, Governor Blagovich of Illinois, or the officers of any publicly traded company cannot expect privacy. They are now all “public figures” in the broadest sense. The business leaders in China that I know (over 1,000 whom I have educated and trained) now know that they are public figures (hard for many corporate officers all over the world to accept). They are especially “public” if they make, distribute, sell or retail high risk and high visibility products or services: toys, food, pharmaceuticals, cars, cosmetics, products with long directions of operation, education, legal services, health care and others. They are also at risk if they make or market products for the elderly, children, women, the poor, disabled, uneducated, and more.
I wish the Chinese government would allow educators and others to access the lessons of history so that their citizens will not repeat the mistakes of the West.
I would have posted this blog and a number of Tweets from Xiamen and Shanghai, but I was blocked from teaching Chinese business leaders some modern lessons of history in crisis management and leadership.
My weekend of teaching and two days of conversations with my colleagues in China were limited by my addiction to using the web for teaching and examples. My access to Youtube for teaching my class of Executive MBAs was also prevented. I tried to locate equivalent videos of the CEO of Mattel apologizing to the Chinese government and to the people of China, but the videos so readily available via Youtube were not available on more than one China site. It was a shame because I really wanted to help the 33 business leaders (age 35-55) who own their own firms or are CEOs of others that crisis management can be taught and practiced by observing the mistakes of others. Naturally, there was a lot of “news” about Tiger Woods that gave me an opportunity to provide instruction on a failed crisis leadership display 1. He did not respond in a timely fashion, 2. He did not apologize, 3. He did not respond personally (except through an “announcement” on his website. 4. He was not forthcoming about the real issues in even a slightly transparent manner, 5. Even after an initial delay of 2 days and later of 5 days; we do not know what he really wants us to know. And, obviously a man with over 7 million Google “hits” cannot ask for privacy or to be left alone. Tiger, like the Hong Kong movie star Edison Chen, “hunter” VP Dick Cheney, David Letterman, Jack Welch, Governor Blagovich of Illinois, or the officers of any publicly traded company cannot expect privacy. They are now all “public figures” in the broadest sense. The business leaders in China that I know (over 1,000 whom I have educated and trained) now know that they are public figures (hard for many corporate officers all over the world to accept). They are especially “public” if they make, distribute, sell or retail high risk and high visibility products or services: toys, food, pharmaceuticals, cars, cosmetics, products with long directions of operation, education, legal services, health care and others. They are also at risk if they make or market products for the elderly, children, women, the poor, disabled, uneducated, and more.
I wish the Chinese government would allow educators and others to access the lessons of history so that their citizens will not repeat the mistakes of the West.
Missing the Roast
Missing the Roast
You know the kind of roast I mean. The one where Shekie Green and Dean Martin and a bunch of rat pack type comics “honor” one of their own with quips and friendly insults. Maybe, just maybe, a classier form of the tradition is the annual Washington D.C. Press Association roast of the President. Sometimes, the roast in D.C. is a little too close to the policy bone, sometimes it creates new comic heroes (Steven Colbert of Northwestern). Some years it should just be cancelled when even the press and the president can’t seem to put any distance between their actions, their points of view (GW Bush) and their funny bones. The Northwestern University version of this oddly American tradition is the nearly annual Integrated Marketing Communications Department Roast of the faculty by the graduate students. I believe it would be fair for me to say that I encouraged the first of the roasts in 1991. However, the tradition may have come and gone and come again over the years in Medill. The PR group at that time listened to me when I told them (as they got upset with our classes, exams, class schedules, technology failures, late hours - sound familiar?) to “write it down and then get us later at a roast”. They liked the idea. I liked the idea of deferring the pain (hoping some of the stories would be lost).
I am a bit worried as I sit typing this unpostable blog in China (see China blog above) in the Pudong Airport (see UAL above) that I will miss the roast at 2 p.m. today (of course I am flying east and gain a day). I think that the students have two versions of each sketch (a tough one and a tougher one). The tough one is meant for the professor when he is in the audience. It is tough enough (pictures of me and Albert Einstein as a comparison….of our both having “bad hair years”). Now I can handle that jab (I have had to for many years). However, I think they have a double tough version if the professor is foolish enough to be out of town or trapped in Shanghai.
My prediction for this year’s roast is that one way or another; I will be roasted for teaching them the value of the on-line software – SecondLife. I thought I might send my avatar to the roast but that would incur more jibs and jabs (jibjab.com). I must not have explained it well enough last January that millions of productive business hours (and even more wasted personal hours for netizens) are used on SecondLife. My favorite use is not to role play, change gender or drink and smoke but to attend lectures and meetings where (like IBM, Gronstedt Group and dozens of leading universities you can hold classes and discussions). I just hope that the roasters are not too mean (I can take it), but I may have the last roast the first time I attend a meeting, seminar with them and their bosses on SecondLife (or Thirdlife). Enjoy, I am sorry I am not there, but I promise to watch the illegally recorded video posted on Youtube!
PS I ran into some IMCers in the airport in Chicago and, sure enough, my profile was all done in avatar!
You know the kind of roast I mean. The one where Shekie Green and Dean Martin and a bunch of rat pack type comics “honor” one of their own with quips and friendly insults. Maybe, just maybe, a classier form of the tradition is the annual Washington D.C. Press Association roast of the President. Sometimes, the roast in D.C. is a little too close to the policy bone, sometimes it creates new comic heroes (Steven Colbert of Northwestern). Some years it should just be cancelled when even the press and the president can’t seem to put any distance between their actions, their points of view (GW Bush) and their funny bones. The Northwestern University version of this oddly American tradition is the nearly annual Integrated Marketing Communications Department Roast of the faculty by the graduate students. I believe it would be fair for me to say that I encouraged the first of the roasts in 1991. However, the tradition may have come and gone and come again over the years in Medill. The PR group at that time listened to me when I told them (as they got upset with our classes, exams, class schedules, technology failures, late hours - sound familiar?) to “write it down and then get us later at a roast”. They liked the idea. I liked the idea of deferring the pain (hoping some of the stories would be lost).
I am a bit worried as I sit typing this unpostable blog in China (see China blog above) in the Pudong Airport (see UAL above) that I will miss the roast at 2 p.m. today (of course I am flying east and gain a day). I think that the students have two versions of each sketch (a tough one and a tougher one). The tough one is meant for the professor when he is in the audience. It is tough enough (pictures of me and Albert Einstein as a comparison….of our both having “bad hair years”). Now I can handle that jab (I have had to for many years). However, I think they have a double tough version if the professor is foolish enough to be out of town or trapped in Shanghai.
My prediction for this year’s roast is that one way or another; I will be roasted for teaching them the value of the on-line software – SecondLife. I thought I might send my avatar to the roast but that would incur more jibs and jabs (jibjab.com). I must not have explained it well enough last January that millions of productive business hours (and even more wasted personal hours for netizens) are used on SecondLife. My favorite use is not to role play, change gender or drink and smoke but to attend lectures and meetings where (like IBM, Gronstedt Group and dozens of leading universities you can hold classes and discussions). I just hope that the roasters are not too mean (I can take it), but I may have the last roast the first time I attend a meeting, seminar with them and their bosses on SecondLife (or Thirdlife). Enjoy, I am sorry I am not there, but I promise to watch the illegally recorded video posted on Youtube!
PS I ran into some IMCers in the airport in Chicago and, sure enough, my profile was all done in avatar!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Notes on President Obama's Speech at West Point
Notes from interview with ABC-TV Channel 7 Chicago: December 2 2009. Watch for video on site:http://abclocal.go.com/wls/index. The speech was his first public and televised action as Commander-in-Chief. There was no real news since the story of 30,000 U.S. additional troops had been released to newspapers 18 hours before the talk and 12 hours before to the morning news broadcasters. As usual (but not his best) he delivered an eloquent talk about hope, American dreams by quoting most of our parchment documents. He give a great mini-lecture (the best our recent Presidents have been able to deliver) to the audience near 20 year olds who were in grade school when these wars began. His "bone" to the progressively liberal Democrat base of announcing an end date for departure in a little over a year created the greatest stir. Some would say that "no one really likes the illogical idea except the enemy". The applause, though spare was polite. On the other hand, he shook hands hundreds of times with the cadets on the way out of the auditorium seating over 4000. It is a devil's dilemma for Obama. He has to get a national healthcare bill passed with help from the Democrats but his bill of $50,000,000,000 (billions) for the war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan?) has to be supported by the Republicans and more conservative Democrats.
Today, the President placed himself in the fragile but great position of being a leader. Who will follow? More real news to come.
Today, the President placed himself in the fragile but great position of being a leader. Who will follow? More real news to come.
Tiger Woods
Notes from interview with NBC-TV Channel 5 December 2. It was last Friday that Tiger Woods caused a great deal of damage to his Escalade (I thought he drove Buicks)see http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2009/11/tiger-woods-crash-photos-show-his-cadillac-escalade-sustained-up-to-8000-in-damage-in-accident/1. It was not a minor accident. The real accident is to Tiger Wood's reputation and "brand". Despite his plaintive appeals for privacy; he built his career on the basis of this golf skills shown on the media and reported in the media. As a "public figure" he must be willing to subject himself to even the tacky "journalism" of US magazine and the National Enquirer. All CEO's and corporate officers of "public companies" as well as NGOs (non-governmental organizations), government, education, military have this same obligation. Journalism is now available to all of us (witness this essay)and photo opps are as close as your cell phone. Tiger Woods should have 1. responded by Saturday p.m. with a personal statement. He should have had his team of advisers (crisis consultants, public relations experts, sports management talent) arrange a personal appearance on Oprah or with Katie Couric. If he is clear on his desire to save his relationships in his family and if his wife, Elin, will "stand by her man", then he would be more the master of his own fate. With his sterile postings to his website of "fill in the blank" (David Letterman, Eliot Spitzer, Michael Jordon, Bill Clinton) I have sinned press release, he lost a modest amount of control over his message. 1. he should have personally responded immediately (or least in 12 hours)- recall VP Chaney quail hunting debacle. 2. he should have apologized to his family (Letterman forgot the first night and came back the second night with an apology) and his fans. 3. as an entertainer especially in a sport at his level he should have not asked for privacy, but understanding. 4. If he was having marital problems he should have said so as he finally did five days later. At least the speculation, rumors, even tapes would have had some context and been less newsworthy. 5. He continued to behave as if "it would go away" when he fostered the problem. Others, less ethical media, filled in the blanks for their readers who include even the legitimate press who were "forced" to run the story reported by others. We are supposed to be transparent (open practice of honesty and ethics). 6. He needed a crisis plan. See http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm 2003 Caywood and Englehart. Finally, his sports endorsements are another subject. For a discussion of the "morality clause" See http://www.eventmarketer.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=448. Unless he can repair the damage without hiding behind his website (not social or conversational media); he is likely to lose some endorsements in the near future. P&G Gillette, Nike Golf, Gatorade, ATT, Upper Deck, Accenture, Tag Heuer, Buick, TLC Vision, Netjet reportedly generating $100 million per year. I still believe he can recapture his position and get out of the "sand trap". _
Monday, November 30, 2009
Content and Credibility Platform for Business Writing?
Two “C” Framework: Content and Credibility
This essay is built upon a relatively parsimonious model to explain the opportunity for the strengthening and advancement of professional communications education. It has been prepared, in part, for a course taught at the graduate level, to integrated marketing students. The objective of the essay is to engage the students in a dialogue on why communications is a critical factor in business and other organizations.
The model is offered to create a possible new “unique strategic position” (new USP) for that would integrate the best traditions of the School toward a newer substantive educational future.
The report asks the general question: Can the unique values and skills of academic journalism developed nearly 100 years ago be established, sustained and celebrated more formally in non-journalism based or non-news organizations?
The model shows what unique value journalism can offer by demonstrating its ability to produce viable content in all forms of new media channels. It also demonstrates how to produce credible content that will appeal to students and to the managers of their hiring organizations.
The essay examines the decline in traditional journalism content sources and explores how content can be provided to serve the public through an increasing number of non-journalism channels and organizations. The report notes the recent research surveys from the Pew Foundation and Edelman Communications and others that demonstrate the fluctuating and nearly incredible loss of credibility over the past decade in public and private institutions.
The report asks three specific, researchable questions:
1. Can the large volume of information content formerly produced by journalists be created by a new generation of educated professionals?
2. Can future information content strengthened with journalistic standards be offered in non-journalism/press organizations?
3. Can “credible content” become an educational goal for a non-news degree?
The logic for new journalistic laws applied in non-journalistic organizations derives from Sir Isaac Asminov’s extraordinarily logical “First of law of Robots”. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", the “Laws”:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
An alternative set of laws may be established:
Now, the First Law of the New Degree (with apologies to Isaac Asimov)
#1. An organizational journalist may not actively provide content that is not credible or through inaction allow content that is not credible to be communicated.
#2. An organizational journalist must adhere to the policies of their organization and orders except where such policies and orders would conflict with the first law.
#3. An organizational journalist must protect his or her own journalistic reputation as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law
he
First “C”: Content
The first issue of “who will provide content” is a contemporary issue that is argued by surviving members of the press, by researchers in the automated delivery of journalism, by journalism educators and by investors in new media systems.
For example, the well publicized “test” announced October 16 2009 by the Chicago Tribune of the value of the AP wire service, the sharing of stories and content across an Ohio network of newspapers and media as suggest that content supply and demand are in flux(Owen Youngman). If a precipitous decline in the numbers of traditional news hunters and gatherers means a relative decline in content; then new sources for news content, information and even entertainment content will have to be developed, staffed and supported. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/16/bsiness/chicago-tribune-ap-oct16u
The new content may be needed for the rapidly increasing numbers of newer channels of communications. However, while traditional journalistic channels are dying in some countries, they are growing rapidly in others such as China. The growth and demand for content includes the growth of advertising and public relations to feed the dragon...http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574485044128954298.html
Whether traditional journalism is dying or just changing in some economies, the demand for original content and new communication pipelines may be expected to outstrip the ability of even traditional journalistic content providers to have created and disseminated information. Journalism has always adapted to the demand for information by expanding it sources, using websites as sources and relying on other professionals for information.
Journalism has always been an experimenter in new media as has public relationsTechnology Shifts
• From broadsheets, to tabloid to newspapers and back to tabloid
• From paper to computer screens to digital readers
• From print to electronic to digital
• From print to sound to video to digital forms
• From community to national to global and back to community
A somewhat useful search of Google for November 4, 2009 locates 167,000 searches for the phrase “who will provide content”. The more serious uses of the phrase and the concept of content are identified in two following examples that 1. "operationalize" journalism as the professional provider of content and 2. "operationalize" public relations and corporate communications as professional careers providing content for multiple stakeholder organizations. . From a mirror perspective both fields have served the public and their audiences with credible communication standards.
Paul Gillin wrote about the future of journalism in a world the role of journalists will be substantially pared: “For one thing, the craft of journalism will evolve to include far more aggregation and organization than it has in the past. Editors will assemble their reports from a vast library of resources located across the Internet. Information will come from paid staff writers, others from freelancers and still more from reports and opinions published by independent third parties. Editors will still have a critical role, but their value will increasingly be in assembling and organizing information for readers who don’t have the time to sort through the vast Web”.http://paulgillin.com/gillin/how-the-coming-newspaper-industry-collapse-will-reinvent-journalism/
The future of the creation and dissemination of content was also described by Gillian under the title which parallels the work of this report as “How the Coming Newspaper Industry Collapse Will Reinvent Journalism”
Gillian wrote that “Editorial content is outsourced to an army of individual enthusiasts, former journalists working for a wide range of organizations and bloggers who find interesting information on the Web or original information from organizations and feed it to the site operators. Editorial expenses, which account for about a third of the operating costs of a daily newspaper, are practically zero”.
What Gillian misses in both his creative predictions is the logical placement of traditional journalists and new journalists into a wide range of organizations from hospitals, to NGOs, to churches, to government and politics to the largest potential content provider - business. His “third party” journalists may be former journalists and new crops of young journalist able and willing to deliver content from their catbird seat in many legitimate organizations with huge quantities of digital information to share for free. His editors in surviving journalistic pipelines may be charged with determining the credibility of the content of the wider and wider range of content providers (rather than simply tossing the past high percent of public relations generated content. http://paulgillin.com/gillin/how-the-coming-newspaper-industry-collapse-will-reinvent-journalism/
The content provider issue is on-going. Even the decline of reporting on business by the press was illustrated by David Carr’s November 1 and 2, 2009 stories in the New York Times:
“Fortune magazine had already cut back to 18 issues a year from 25 and this week will be whacking anew at staff along with other Time Inc. magazines. BusinessWeek was sold for parts to Bloomberg a few weeks ago.”
“Instead, Forbes, a magazine that sells a beau idéal of capitalism, announced last week that it was cutting a quarter of its already decimated staff. The Wall Street Journal’s Boston bureau — historically a hothouse of game-changing business coverage — is being closed.”
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/the-media-equation-no-rally-for-business-media/?pagemode=print, http://bx.businessweek.com/magazine-industry/business-is-a-beat-deflated/6777786051928429494-75b532ee469e37c690aac826af91df26/
A practical example may also suggest that “assisted” traditional media 2009 is an important trend for public relations. . Lindsey Miller reporting for a PR newsletter (Ragan) notes that the shortage of journalists in traditional media may have opened opportunities for PR:
‘While you’ve been off discovering the latest trends in social media, your local newspapers, TV, and radio stations have been laying people off. That puts you, the corporate communicator, in line to give them an extra hand while getting the exposure you need.
“They (TV and newspapers) don't have any reporters anymore,” said Rhonda Mann, Beth Israel’s director of marketing communications, at the recent Mayo Clinic-Ragan Social Media Summit. “In Boston, everyone has laid off writing staff, but they still have columns to fill or airtime to fill, and they need content.”
Mann has used that reality to her advantage: She’s given stations much-needed health content in return for the hospital’s name mentioned on the show. Mann knew that Boston’s Fox affiliate cut almost all of its morning show writers but still had a four-hour morning show to fill… “They’re looking for good health content. There’s a need for health because a lot of the first people laid off covered a beat, health in particular,” Mann said.’ http://www.ragan.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=5AA50C55146B4C8C98F903986BC02C56&tier=4&id=4617815D2F4040EBA594436E71B6BADC&AudID=3FF14703FD8C4AE98B9B4365B978201A
The diminished source of traditional journalism content could be augmented with content information from NGOs, healthcare, government, business, religion, military, education, investors, communities, and many serious issue related organizations. The challenge does not appear to be our society’s ability to simply provide content. The credibility of organizational content may be a greater challenge.
It is clear that content is of important value to the future of our society. The source of the content may widely fluctuate from traditional sources lead by the press and journalists, but providing content is not enough.
The future of meaningful content provided by professional sources depends not just on its distribution but its credibility. It may be clear that journalism can provide content. The challenge that the Asimovian rules state at the beginning of the report is to provide both content and credibility
Second “C”: Credibility
In the past decade most of our cherished institutions have lost their credibility as defined by trust (Edelman Trust Barometer) or according to the public view (Pew Research). There are a number of views of the importance of the survival of the same set of organizations whether they 1. challenge the public’s trust in key institutions and demand new communications and behavior, 2. open doors for Medill students and faculty to apply journalistic values and skills in a wider range of stakeholder organizations and 3. constitute a shift in the power of new “estates” beyond the simpler 4th estate model where credible content is needed to reestablish the credibility of our basic institutions. The institutions and common controversial issues include:
• Religion (Catholic priest behavior, Christian fundamentalism politics),
• Government, (sexual behavior of members of Congress and President Clinton,
• Employees (unemployment, entitlement values)
• Consumers (economic failures, housing crisis)
• Investors (Wall Street, executive compensation, fraud)
• Labor (automotive industry, retraining)
• Healthcare (national healthcare debate, fraud)
• Media (accuracy, Pew studies of trust)
• Universities (public/private school tuition raises, clout, Innocence Project)
• Arts (MCA board donation controversy in Chicago, economic failure of theaters)
• NGOs (highest ratings)
• Others
For over a decade the Edelman Communications agency has produced the Edelman Trustbarometer. The reliable research global surveys have established strong metrics for following the “ups and downs” of the public’s faith in a wide range of institutions. For example in July 2009 Edelman reported that 48% of U.S. respondents were affirmative on the question of “How much do you trust business to do what is right?” While the number suggests that there is great room to improve it was a 12% increase over the number reported only 6 months prior. The numbers for Government were 30% in January and 42% in July for the same question. NGOs, on the other hand, scored the highest with young and older members of the world public. The work is worth greater reporting detail. (see charts and www.edelman.com/trustbarometer).
Another series of well known and substantial surveys from the Pew Research Center confirms the general premise of this report: “Americans express increasingly negative views of a wide range of major institutions, reflecting strong discontent with national conditions (October 25, 1 2005). The series of studies are naturally more policy oriented. They confirm, again, the general decline in what can be translated to represent a precipitous loss of credibility in our institutions (stakeholders). http://www.people-press.org.
The data (appendix) raises an important question about how to improve the public’s view of a wide range of organizations. Called by a range of terms depending on the viewer these stakeholders, organizations, institutions and even “estates” are critical to the professional career future of university students, teachers, administrators and staff.
Some observers consider the loss of credibility* or trust as merely a “PR” problem. The statement is like the proclamation of a mining official attributing a labor strike and threats of death to both the management and labor and gun shots as a “PR problem” (Fortune magazine over 30 years ago).
A more recent link to a story on Medellin Columbia was titled: Aint No Way to Go: Just a PR Problem
But Medellin isn't just any beautiful city. It is variously known as the world's "murder capital," "cocaine capital," and "kidnap capital. ...www.aintnowaytogo.com/medellin.htm
Obviously, these institutions have more serious issues. It might be naïve, but even the most outspoken critic of public relations can hardly logically blame a single professional field for the errors in judgment or corruption of the leadership of many of the world’s leading institutions (so, it might be very naïve). However, academic and practitioner public relations professionals still realize that the acronym PR is not the most popular or accepted professional term. The legally required use of the words “public information” rather than PR (U.S. federal government), strategic communications (Columbia School of Continuing Education), public affairs (YUM! Brands, Abbott) is tantamount to disavowal of the term public relations (PRSA).http://archive.corporatewatch.org/newsletter/issue19/newsletter19.pdf.pdf
Not all authors or organizations in the field have denied their roots. The field of public relations is defined by Caywood as “the profitable integration of an organization’s new and continuing relationships with stakeholders including customers by managing all communication contacts with the organization that create and protect the brand and reputation of the organization:. “Caywood, 1997 (Kindle Edition 2009) and “Public relations helps an organization and its publics
adapt mutually to each other.” PRSA.org 2009,)...
Clearly the value that PR proffers is to build two and multiple-way relationships between key institutional stakeholders such as: consumers, NGOs, employees, investors, community, government, press, religion, labor, competitors, suppliers, education and others (See Caywood in Calder, 2008 and Caywood 1997.) The stakeholder illustration below lists the range of stakeholder organizations that may have a “stake” in the success or failure of universities' offering a new degree. The list can be expanded to include departments and many more organizations.
Public relations like marketing, law and community organizing are often criticized for their advocacy of a single (one-way) point of view. However, the research and values of modern public relations and organizational communications has established the honest broker, exchange, credible, ethical and two-way and mutual exchange nature of the relationship. (Grunig et al. 1992 Excellence).
This essay is built upon a relatively parsimonious model to explain the opportunity for the strengthening and advancement of professional communications education. It has been prepared, in part, for a course taught at the graduate level, to integrated marketing students. The objective of the essay is to engage the students in a dialogue on why communications is a critical factor in business and other organizations.
The model is offered to create a possible new “unique strategic position” (new USP) for that would integrate the best traditions of the School toward a newer substantive educational future.
The report asks the general question: Can the unique values and skills of academic journalism developed nearly 100 years ago be established, sustained and celebrated more formally in non-journalism based or non-news organizations?
The model shows what unique value journalism can offer by demonstrating its ability to produce viable content in all forms of new media channels. It also demonstrates how to produce credible content that will appeal to students and to the managers of their hiring organizations.
The essay examines the decline in traditional journalism content sources and explores how content can be provided to serve the public through an increasing number of non-journalism channels and organizations. The report notes the recent research surveys from the Pew Foundation and Edelman Communications and others that demonstrate the fluctuating and nearly incredible loss of credibility over the past decade in public and private institutions.
The report asks three specific, researchable questions:
1. Can the large volume of information content formerly produced by journalists be created by a new generation of educated professionals?
2. Can future information content strengthened with journalistic standards be offered in non-journalism/press organizations?
3. Can “credible content” become an educational goal for a non-news degree?
The logic for new journalistic laws applied in non-journalistic organizations derives from Sir Isaac Asminov’s extraordinarily logical “First of law of Robots”. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", the “Laws”:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
An alternative set of laws may be established:
Now, the First Law of the New Degree (with apologies to Isaac Asimov)
#1. An organizational journalist may not actively provide content that is not credible or through inaction allow content that is not credible to be communicated.
#2. An organizational journalist must adhere to the policies of their organization and orders except where such policies and orders would conflict with the first law.
#3. An organizational journalist must protect his or her own journalistic reputation as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law
he
First “C”: Content
The first issue of “who will provide content” is a contemporary issue that is argued by surviving members of the press, by researchers in the automated delivery of journalism, by journalism educators and by investors in new media systems.
For example, the well publicized “test” announced October 16 2009 by the Chicago Tribune of the value of the AP wire service, the sharing of stories and content across an Ohio network of newspapers and media as suggest that content supply and demand are in flux(Owen Youngman). If a precipitous decline in the numbers of traditional news hunters and gatherers means a relative decline in content; then new sources for news content, information and even entertainment content will have to be developed, staffed and supported. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/16/bsiness/chicago-tribune-ap-oct16u
The new content may be needed for the rapidly increasing numbers of newer channels of communications. However, while traditional journalistic channels are dying in some countries, they are growing rapidly in others such as China. The growth and demand for content includes the growth of advertising and public relations to feed the dragon...http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574485044128954298.html
Whether traditional journalism is dying or just changing in some economies, the demand for original content and new communication pipelines may be expected to outstrip the ability of even traditional journalistic content providers to have created and disseminated information. Journalism has always adapted to the demand for information by expanding it sources, using websites as sources and relying on other professionals for information.
Journalism has always been an experimenter in new media as has public relationsTechnology Shifts
• From broadsheets, to tabloid to newspapers and back to tabloid
• From paper to computer screens to digital readers
• From print to electronic to digital
• From print to sound to video to digital forms
• From community to national to global and back to community
A somewhat useful search of Google for November 4, 2009 locates 167,000 searches for the phrase “who will provide content”. The more serious uses of the phrase and the concept of content are identified in two following examples that 1. "operationalize" journalism as the professional provider of content and 2. "operationalize" public relations and corporate communications as professional careers providing content for multiple stakeholder organizations. . From a mirror perspective both fields have served the public and their audiences with credible communication standards.
Paul Gillin wrote about the future of journalism in a world the role of journalists will be substantially pared: “For one thing, the craft of journalism will evolve to include far more aggregation and organization than it has in the past. Editors will assemble their reports from a vast library of resources located across the Internet. Information will come from paid staff writers, others from freelancers and still more from reports and opinions published by independent third parties. Editors will still have a critical role, but their value will increasingly be in assembling and organizing information for readers who don’t have the time to sort through the vast Web”.http://paulgillin.com/gillin/how-the-coming-newspaper-industry-collapse-will-reinvent-journalism/
The future of the creation and dissemination of content was also described by Gillian under the title which parallels the work of this report as “How the Coming Newspaper Industry Collapse Will Reinvent Journalism”
Gillian wrote that “Editorial content is outsourced to an army of individual enthusiasts, former journalists working for a wide range of organizations and bloggers who find interesting information on the Web or original information from organizations and feed it to the site operators. Editorial expenses, which account for about a third of the operating costs of a daily newspaper, are practically zero”.
What Gillian misses in both his creative predictions is the logical placement of traditional journalists and new journalists into a wide range of organizations from hospitals, to NGOs, to churches, to government and politics to the largest potential content provider - business. His “third party” journalists may be former journalists and new crops of young journalist able and willing to deliver content from their catbird seat in many legitimate organizations with huge quantities of digital information to share for free. His editors in surviving journalistic pipelines may be charged with determining the credibility of the content of the wider and wider range of content providers (rather than simply tossing the past high percent of public relations generated content. http://paulgillin.com/gillin/how-the-coming-newspaper-industry-collapse-will-reinvent-journalism/
The content provider issue is on-going. Even the decline of reporting on business by the press was illustrated by David Carr’s November 1 and 2, 2009 stories in the New York Times:
“Fortune magazine had already cut back to 18 issues a year from 25 and this week will be whacking anew at staff along with other Time Inc. magazines. BusinessWeek was sold for parts to Bloomberg a few weeks ago.”
“Instead, Forbes, a magazine that sells a beau idéal of capitalism, announced last week that it was cutting a quarter of its already decimated staff. The Wall Street Journal’s Boston bureau — historically a hothouse of game-changing business coverage — is being closed.”
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/the-media-equation-no-rally-for-business-media/?pagemode=print, http://bx.businessweek.com/magazine-industry/business-is-a-beat-deflated/6777786051928429494-75b532ee469e37c690aac826af91df26/
A practical example may also suggest that “assisted” traditional media 2009 is an important trend for public relations. . Lindsey Miller reporting for a PR newsletter (Ragan) notes that the shortage of journalists in traditional media may have opened opportunities for PR:
‘While you’ve been off discovering the latest trends in social media, your local newspapers, TV, and radio stations have been laying people off. That puts you, the corporate communicator, in line to give them an extra hand while getting the exposure you need.
“They (TV and newspapers) don't have any reporters anymore,” said Rhonda Mann, Beth Israel’s director of marketing communications, at the recent Mayo Clinic-Ragan Social Media Summit. “In Boston, everyone has laid off writing staff, but they still have columns to fill or airtime to fill, and they need content.”
Mann has used that reality to her advantage: She’s given stations much-needed health content in return for the hospital’s name mentioned on the show. Mann knew that Boston’s Fox affiliate cut almost all of its morning show writers but still had a four-hour morning show to fill… “They’re looking for good health content. There’s a need for health because a lot of the first people laid off covered a beat, health in particular,” Mann said.’ http://www.ragan.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=5AA50C55146B4C8C98F903986BC02C56&tier=4&id=4617815D2F4040EBA594436E71B6BADC&AudID=3FF14703FD8C4AE98B9B4365B978201A
The diminished source of traditional journalism content could be augmented with content information from NGOs, healthcare, government, business, religion, military, education, investors, communities, and many serious issue related organizations. The challenge does not appear to be our society’s ability to simply provide content. The credibility of organizational content may be a greater challenge.
It is clear that content is of important value to the future of our society. The source of the content may widely fluctuate from traditional sources lead by the press and journalists, but providing content is not enough.
The future of meaningful content provided by professional sources depends not just on its distribution but its credibility. It may be clear that journalism can provide content. The challenge that the Asimovian rules state at the beginning of the report is to provide both content and credibility
Second “C”: Credibility
In the past decade most of our cherished institutions have lost their credibility as defined by trust (Edelman Trust Barometer) or according to the public view (Pew Research). There are a number of views of the importance of the survival of the same set of organizations whether they 1. challenge the public’s trust in key institutions and demand new communications and behavior, 2. open doors for Medill students and faculty to apply journalistic values and skills in a wider range of stakeholder organizations and 3. constitute a shift in the power of new “estates” beyond the simpler 4th estate model where credible content is needed to reestablish the credibility of our basic institutions. The institutions and common controversial issues include:
• Religion (Catholic priest behavior, Christian fundamentalism politics),
• Government, (sexual behavior of members of Congress and President Clinton,
• Employees (unemployment, entitlement values)
• Consumers (economic failures, housing crisis)
• Investors (Wall Street, executive compensation, fraud)
• Labor (automotive industry, retraining)
• Healthcare (national healthcare debate, fraud)
• Media (accuracy, Pew studies of trust)
• Universities (public/private school tuition raises, clout, Innocence Project)
• Arts (MCA board donation controversy in Chicago, economic failure of theaters)
• NGOs (highest ratings)
• Others
For over a decade the Edelman Communications agency has produced the Edelman Trustbarometer. The reliable research global surveys have established strong metrics for following the “ups and downs” of the public’s faith in a wide range of institutions. For example in July 2009 Edelman reported that 48% of U.S. respondents were affirmative on the question of “How much do you trust business to do what is right?” While the number suggests that there is great room to improve it was a 12% increase over the number reported only 6 months prior. The numbers for Government were 30% in January and 42% in July for the same question. NGOs, on the other hand, scored the highest with young and older members of the world public. The work is worth greater reporting detail. (see charts and www.edelman.com/trustbarometer).
Another series of well known and substantial surveys from the Pew Research Center confirms the general premise of this report: “Americans express increasingly negative views of a wide range of major institutions, reflecting strong discontent with national conditions (October 25, 1 2005). The series of studies are naturally more policy oriented. They confirm, again, the general decline in what can be translated to represent a precipitous loss of credibility in our institutions (stakeholders). http://www.people-press.org.
The data (appendix) raises an important question about how to improve the public’s view of a wide range of organizations. Called by a range of terms depending on the viewer these stakeholders, organizations, institutions and even “estates” are critical to the professional career future of university students, teachers, administrators and staff.
Some observers consider the loss of credibility* or trust as merely a “PR” problem. The statement is like the proclamation of a mining official attributing a labor strike and threats of death to both the management and labor and gun shots as a “PR problem” (Fortune magazine over 30 years ago).
A more recent link to a story on Medellin Columbia was titled: Aint No Way to Go: Just a PR Problem
But Medellin isn't just any beautiful city. It is variously known as the world's "murder capital," "cocaine capital," and "kidnap capital. ...www.aintnowaytogo.com/medellin.htm
Obviously, these institutions have more serious issues. It might be naïve, but even the most outspoken critic of public relations can hardly logically blame a single professional field for the errors in judgment or corruption of the leadership of many of the world’s leading institutions (so, it might be very naïve). However, academic and practitioner public relations professionals still realize that the acronym PR is not the most popular or accepted professional term. The legally required use of the words “public information” rather than PR (U.S. federal government), strategic communications (Columbia School of Continuing Education), public affairs (YUM! Brands, Abbott) is tantamount to disavowal of the term public relations (PRSA).http://archive.corporatewatch.org/newsletter/issue19/newsletter19.pdf.pdf
Not all authors or organizations in the field have denied their roots. The field of public relations is defined by Caywood as “the profitable integration of an organization’s new and continuing relationships with stakeholders including customers by managing all communication contacts with the organization that create and protect the brand and reputation of the organization:. “Caywood, 1997 (Kindle Edition 2009) and “Public relations helps an organization and its publics
adapt mutually to each other.” PRSA.org 2009,)...
Clearly the value that PR proffers is to build two and multiple-way relationships between key institutional stakeholders such as: consumers, NGOs, employees, investors, community, government, press, religion, labor, competitors, suppliers, education and others (See Caywood in Calder, 2008 and Caywood 1997.) The stakeholder illustration below lists the range of stakeholder organizations that may have a “stake” in the success or failure of universities' offering a new degree. The list can be expanded to include departments and many more organizations.
Public relations like marketing, law and community organizing are often criticized for their advocacy of a single (one-way) point of view. However, the research and values of modern public relations and organizational communications has established the honest broker, exchange, credible, ethical and two-way and mutual exchange nature of the relationship. (Grunig et al. 1992 Excellence).
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