If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll certainly never get there. But all too often when we seek to engage others either to buy or use a product or to embrace our cause or point of view, we start the conversation in the wrong place. This is where professional facilitation comes in handy−to make sure we make the kind of connection we are expecting.
Lately, there are some folks who make me feel like I’ve just finished a heavy Thanksgiving meal. These are the over tweeters: people who just gobble your attention and leave you feeling stuffed but unsatisfied. It’s too bad because a great deal of what they have to say, some of the time, is useful. They just don’t know when to stop.
I just logged into my Twitter account and was greeted by this happy whale with the message that “Twitter was over capacity. Too many Tweets.” I give Twitter credit for social media optimism. They didn’t take a doom and gloom approach to being out of service. They told the truth — what choice did they have? — and used a colorful image to illustrate their point.
BP’s Tony Hayward doesn’t get it. In crisis communications terms, his words are a like a giant oil spill themselves, coating the media waters with arrogance, stupidity and leaving the impression that no one really is taking charge of this extraordinary catastrophe. A New York Times article today suggests that he’ll probably be fired before this is all over.
Not too long ago, I was approached by a potential client looking for a PR firm to increase its visibility among target audiences. The first question they asked was “So Can you Tweet for me? We need to be on Twitter?” They might need to be but in my view that was the wrong question. What needs to be asked first are two basic questions: Who are you trying to reach and why?
It’s official. The BP oil spill now is the worst in US history, surpassing the Exxon Valdez according to an […]
Recently, I got a call from a survey company asking me “a few” questions about local hospitals (it was more like 30). As someone who often conducts such customer service surveys on behalf of clients, I decided to participate. It was clear after a short time that the survey was about a specific local hospital trying to understand its reputation in the minds of potential consumers and how they make decisions about which hospital to select when they need one.
Last week I spent two days on a video shoot for a piece on the importance of affordable housing. Intellectually, I understood the arguments for affordable housing and for public policies that support it. However it was this digital storytelling about people–a bank teller, a medical assistant, a grandmother–all of whom were able to reshape their lives for the better once they had a safe and decent place to live–that helped me to fully grasp the issue. Seeing is believing.
The Twittersphere was abuzz today with several posts about a website called One Sentence. It’s a place where brevity and a quick trip to the essence of the story is celebrated and honored.
Last Thursday was Earth Day and there were the usual wonderful and less wonderful actions on the part of marketers, nonprofits and corporations to get in on the celebration by aligning and promoting their brand. Nancy Schwartz highlighted a number of great nonprofit efforts. On the commercial side, Leslie Kaufman wrote a piece for the New York Times about Earth Day now being big business.
