Judging International Communications

This weekend I'm in Melbourne helping to judge the 2009 Gold Quill entries from the Asia Pacific Region.

The International Association of Business Communicators sponsors the Gold Quills which recognise excellence in communications. This weekend the judging (which is the first level of assessment) will focus on around 80 entries from PR, marketing and other communicators from India, Australia, New Zealand, China, Thailand and the Philippines.

Successful entries from this weekend's judging go through to final review in San Francisco later in the year. The 2009 Gold Quill winners are announced in June 2009.

I'm looking forward to the judging experience. It's always informative to see how organisations in other cultural climates are getting their message to the people they to reach.

Recession Proof Your Marketing and PR

We are living through a perilous economic period with lots of talk about budget cuts and job losses. It is a troubling time for communicators facing cuts in their PR budgets and job losses. If you are a corporate, government or not for profit communicator invariably your marketing and PR efforts are under sustained and serious challenge.

It would be nice to able to apply a marketing template and come up with an answer for the future. But we are in unprecedented times. We can only determine the way forward by reviewing the lessons of the past, understanding the changing environment we find ourselves in and applying all our skills, experience and intuition to the current situation. And of course we will all need a little luck.

Let me share some personal thoughts as you set out on the road ahead.

Firstly strip away all the high blown definitions of marketing and PR. Marketing and PR is about talking to your customers, clients or community and helping them meet their needs. Whether you are in a down time or a boom time you can only achieve real results through having a continuing conversation with these people.

Cease the conversation and you cease the relationship.

So rule #1 in difficult circumstances is keep the conversation going. US studies dating back to the 1970s show companies that continue to market during tough periods increase their sales not only during the downturn but for up to two years afterwards.

When people slash marketing budgets they are effectively abandoning the conversation with the people that matter most. They leave behind a vacuum which organisations with more active communications often step in and fill.

Marketing in tough times is akin to the effort required by cyclists in the annual Tour de France road race. At the start every competitor is fresh and ready to win. But as the race enters its mountainous stretches, the individual who puts in the greatest and most sustained uphill effort often sets himself up to win the race.

But while you should continue to communicate it can never be a blind effort. Now more than ever is the time to be strategic and to move forward with serious and sustained intent. This means:

• Marketing to a simple, well thought plan and not acting on impulse or being paralyzed by fear.
  

• Keeping whatever marketing and PR efforts you can in-house. Only bring in outside expertise for absolutely essential tasks you cannot do yourself. Now is the time to skill up your team in those PR and marketing jobs which in better times you may have outsourced.

• Replacing high cost marketing activities with more accountable options such as structured word of mouth marketing, referral and alliance marketing, direct mail and communicating through digital media. These may be less glamorous than glitzy events, glossy publications and the glories of TV advertising but in the end they are likely to prove more sustainable and will certainly be less expensive.
  

• Measuring all your outreach efforts so you can accurately calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each marketing tool you use. Starting now you need hard data to make conscious, well thought out decisions about where your effort and money (now both in short supply) should go.
  

And above all recognise that consumers, citizens and communities are in the process of redefining their concepts of value. Smaller wallets and lighter purses may mean they hold off longer on new purchases and they are more prone to negotiate. But when they do decide to act, they will be looking for a balance of price, reliability, performance and a sense of safety and confidence in the goods and services they purchase.

So if your marketing has gone missing in action during the recession, there's little hope of convincing them you are the one to meet these fundamental needs.

Without doubt organisations will need guts and persistence to hold their marketing nerve and continue to communicate. But the quality and level of your marketing now could well determine if your organisation makes it to the other side of this recession.

Assumptions Are The Biggest Mistake in PR

Never assume anything when you communicate:

• Never assume any communications task is easy. Invariably it won't be.
• Never assume those you work with know what you are doing. They don't. Unless you specifically tell them.
• Never assume those beyond your organisation have received your information and understood it. Chances are they haven't.
  

Recently I had a humbling experience.

At the end of a meeting with two key supporters of a particular program, they asked where this program fitted "in the grand scheme of things" and requested simpler explanations of the program that could be passed on to their members. Simple requests but startling statements. I had been dealing with these organisations since 2003. For six years I assumed because I knew, they knew.

PR-wise it was embarrassing. In building our relationships with these key groups, it seems we overlooked three fundamental PR tenets.

• Always keep key people in organisations that support your program fully informed. In particular make special efforts to let them what is happening in times of significant change. Even if you can't reveal the full story tell them as much as you can.
  

• Write your publications and produce your multimedia for others ... not for yourself. Sometimes we becomes so obsessed with how we want our information presented and what senior management will finally approve, we forget to ask if our intended audiences will actually understand our material.

• And always follow up to see if your material hits the mark. I have worked with organisations where the energy involved in just getting "things out of the door" (often because of cumbersome approval processes) leaves the communications team too exhausted to check their information is received, understood and acted upon.
  

For organisations with a monopoly on services, funding or information, push down communications might still work. But even then I think those days are numbered.

If like most of us, your organisation competes for the limited time and attention of citizens, consumers or communities, you need to continually engage your audiences with easy to understand and updated information. Or run the real risk of being among the thousands of PR and marketing messages people discard each day.

Is this basic? Yes it is? And I can see some communicators thinking these observations are wasting valuable blog space. But no matter how good we think our PR is, from time to time it's good to challenge ourselves to never assume anything when you communicate with others.

City Provides Internet Tools For Volunteers

In some respects Australia's councils are leading other government agencies in using the Internet to connect citizens.

In an Australian first, the City of Casey in Victoria is establishing an on-line community for groups and individuals who live, work or meet in the municipality.

The Casey Connect project is providing a web-based portal for local groups to help them communicate with members, promote their services and generally link to the wider community.

The City is providing the Internet infrastructure that lets local voluntary organisations create their own web presence, I particularly like the interactive nature of these sites and the list of resources to get people started is impressive - on-line tutorials, user manuals and help guides.

The City of Casey is providing a service few volunteer bodies could afford.

Internet Blackout Matches Victoria's Power Blackout

In Friday 30 January it was very hot in Canberra. Well into the evening the temperature was hovering around 82 degrees F.

But to the south, Melbourne was far, far hotter and the City was suffering significant power shortages as the overloaded power grid struggled to meet the electricity demands generated by the heat. Melbourne's rail service ground to a halt under a combination of the heat and the power outages.

A significant part of the City was affected by power cuts. And at least on 30 January the power blackout was matched by an Internet blackout.

Only two of the five power utilities servicing Melbourne had up to date outage information on their websites. Well done to those two - Jemena and SP AUSNET. For the others, well it was business as usual.

The Victorian Government Internet portal carried dated information. And the websites of the Victorian Police and the State's Emergency Service had no current news on the outages.

Although local newspapers and other media carried news, key corporate and government websites were strangely silent on an event that impacted on so many people including concerned relatives like me in other States.

Victoria gets a "could do better" grade for its effort to use the online communications to keep Melbournians updated on what was happening in their sweltering off-line world.

PR2.0 Book Review

"PR2.0 New Media, New Tools, New Audiences" by Deirdre Breakenridge

Is this evolution or revolution?

Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, Slideshare and a host of other social media tools are changing the way we communicate. And doing so rapidly.

Which leaves PR professionals looking similar to 19^th century pioneers. We’re leaving the familiar world of brochures, media releases and other one way tools to travel the plains in search of the promised land of digital communications. We don’t know how long the journey will be or where we will finally settle. But as communicators we instinctively know there’s no turning back because things will never again be the same.

And for those who continue to doubt, look at Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. It firmly put the seal of legitimacy on new media as a mass medium.

Fortunately US author Deirdre Breakenridge has written a book to help us find our way around this new frontier.

Her book PR2.0 is a valuable reference for communicators who need to understand new media, how to use it and how to integrate what we’re doing now with what we may be doing in the future. It offers a balanced view of social media but settles on a firm conclusion. New media’s ability for us to go one on one with our audiences means we live in the most exciting of PR times.

Most books on the subject either deal in generalities or descend into tech babble. This book does neither. It is written by a PR person for PR people and covers the things we need to know for our campaigns and projects. It starts with sections on digital research, monitoring and evaluation before dealing with new tools and applications such as social media releases, RSS feeds, blogs, video and audio.

Every chapter has blessedly simple explanations of the new technologies and features interviews with companies using it to good effect. Each concludes with a bullet point summary which is handy when so much rich information is presented.

The later chapters deal with planning for PR.2.O with valuable case studies showing how companies are using social media tools right now to get results. You could easily develop a template from these examples.

PR2.0 is a must-have reference for PR people. Get it, read it and keep it handy besides your desk or in your briefcase. It’s more than a book. It is a road map to the next PR destination.

Our Non-Prediction Predictions for 2009

It's that time in the calendar when pundits and commentators rush out their marketing and PR predictions for the coming year. But do all their wise words mean much ... really?

After January who reads these predictions anyway? By the following December is there anyone who remembers them? And how do the rest of us hold the punditocracy accountable for what they said at the start of the year?

But for all that, it is legitimate to comment on trends likely to affect how we communicate to our communities during uncertain times.

So here's my non-prediction predictions for 2009: the factors that will influence how we reach out to one another:

• Firstly these will be the very best of times to communicate. Whatever your status as a communicator, today and tomorrow you will have more tools than ever to engage your audiences. The potential to go beyond traditional information gatekeepers and production processes to get your message out is simply incredible. Social media is the genie which can grant your communications wishes and in the past two years that genie has jumped from the bottle. New media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc may not be around forever but one thing is certain. In the aggregate they are perceptibly changing the way we relate to each other. They have put us well and truly in pioneer territory, and although we may not be able to see the new communications landscape, there's no turning back from here on in.
  

• Paradoxically these will also be the worst of times to communicate. Two issues - the financial crisis and global warming - will dominate our conversations into the foreseeable future. Both are incredibly difficult to understand, harder yet to explain and the solutions to them are a good way off and far from clear. Yet every significant issue you and I wish to raise, may at some point be benchmarked against these two stories because together they define our times.
  

• The future looks set to place a premium on leaders as communicators. In tough times people look to those in authority to provide explanations and point the way ahead. Yet few hierarchical figures in our organisations are good communicators. And even fewer are good at motivating those around them. It is never too late to instill in our managers and others the imperative of communicating well and give them the skills for that difficult but important job.
  

• During the good times our societies are often individualistic and materialistic. But the high fliers and big names of the financial and business worlds have left the scene leaving precious little to show for their much lauded efforts of previous years. In tough times either we act together or we fail to act. Hopefully a sense of community and common purpose will return to our communities where a person's public value is marked by their contribution to the greater good rather than how much they earn. The rush to be seen to be green and corporate social responsibility may have already laid the foundations for this shift to authentic communications and commitment to communities.
  

Only two things are clear from this vantage point. No-one and nothing is certain. And our surest course is to communicate with integrity.

Watch Out For These Things In '09

Watch out for these three marketing issues in the coming year.

• Act and communicate green. People automatically expect organisations to be environmentally conscious. It's now the entry level standard for successful community relationships.
  

• Go high tech to hire staff and to engage people you need to reach. Social media is free, easy to use so why not get on board and begin to use it in 2009.
  

• Times may be tough but think long term and resist the panic urge to slash your marketing budget. Hopefully your organisation will be around long after this financial meltdown so keep talking to your clients and your community.
  

Is Your Cause Wired for 2009?

It probably happens to you once or twice a year.

A well known charity knocks at your door during its annual fund raising appeal. You make a donation and in return get a receipt. This brief encounter speeds your money off somewhere to help someone somehow. Or you might donate regularly to an aid agency that sends out an annual letter about a sponsored child in the third world.

This remote control philanthropy – where your donation helps someone but you’re unsure who or how - is set to change according to US author Tom Watson. In his book Cause Wired he argues that Web2.0 technology is arming not for profit organizations with “weapons of mass collaboration” and transforming how people support good causes.

Watson believes that social networking applications like Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin etc are evolving from personal promotion into important fund raising, activist and political tools. And it seems Internet users across generations are welcoming the change. Members of Generation Y find that digitally supporting the issues they believe in is a natural extension of living their lives online in public. And Baby Boomers are attracted because the new ways of giving allow them to be personally involved and see results for themselves.

Pioneer charities are beginning to use the power of Web 2.0 to gather, sort and distribute information to donors in a way once reserved for only their very wealthiest supporters. kiva.org is probably Cause Wired’s best example of online fund raising. This digital not for profit allows small scale donors to use their credit cards and laptops to help struggling entrepreneurs in developing countries.

For a $25 upwards you can join with others to loan money to specific individuals in specific countries such as a group of women needing sewing machines for their garment start-up or impoverished taxi drivers urgently after car repairs. Kiva works through established non government organizations (NGOs) and the web to provide the loans, monitor repayments and continually report back to donors through reports and images from the field.

Watson cites other cases where digital philanthropy is achieving equally impressive results but he tempers his enthusiasm. While a campaign on a social networking site like Facebook may raise awareness of an important environmental, human rights or other issue, the actual fund raising figures for many charities still remain modest.

Cause Wired also explores how Web2.0 can empower political organizations and community movements to connect with citizens and consumers. Perhaps Barack Obama’s Presidential election campaign is among the most powerful example of new media technologies helping to win a cause.

While Watson’s 236 page book is enthusiastic about the new possibilities it acknowledges its limits. Online causes can get tens of thousands even millions of people talking. But they still need online leaders. Just like the bricks and mortar world committed individuals who can organize, coordinate, administer and generally keep things moving are still at a premium. And transitioning this digital attention to real world results is still the acid test. Once you have raised awareness you still need to motivate people to take out their cheque books and man the barricades.

Cause Wired is a very good, easy to read book. It is a must for marketers in not for profit and community organizations who want their fund raising efforts to remain competitive in the coming year.

PR Tips For Not For Profits in Tough Times #2

Thanks to all of you who contributed ideas to our call for low budget PR ideas for not for profits facing tough times. We got a great response through Facebook, email, in conversations over coffee and of course through this blog.

We have put together a 19 page PDF report which brings together all these great suggestions.

I'll be sending it out to those contributors for whom I have contact details.

Email bobcraw@webone.com.au if you would like a copy and put the word Report in the subject line of your email.

Again thanks for your thoughts and good luck to the marketing efforts of all community groups in the coming year.

Three Learings From Obama's Online Marketing

It is just over a month since Barack Obama won his historic bid to become President of the United States. And as the dust settles you have to admire how his campaign used new media tools to get out his message of change to Americans and the rest of the world.

US viral marketer Jalali Hartman looks at Obama online, and concludes that by dominating the Internet Obama's message carried further and faster than his rival's John McCain.

Hartman's statistics tell it all. Obama had 5.5 million visitors to his website each month. McCain had 2.5m visitors. There were 442 000 Obama Youtube videos compared to 221 300 items featuring McCain. Obama had over 3 million friends on Facebook while McCain registered just over half a million supporters.

Obama's online campaign used three strategies others could use to promote their own issues and causes.

• Share content Obama campaign managers had a no hassle copyright policy. They willingly shared the candidate's speeches, images, official logos etc with online supporters and encouraged them to re-purpose it for their own needs. Supporters could also download official campaign signs, literature and guidelines and receive up to date news of events.
  

• Connect Facebook and other social networking sites connected supporters . Both Obama and wife Michelle had their own pages and friends created their own affiliated groups. The campaign also used Twitter (the micro blogging application) to keep followers informed about campaign developments such as appearances and speeches.

• Make it easy to create community The official campaign website was structured to allow individuals to organise within their communities by offering tools, contacts and opportunities to share their own stories.
  

Obama's mastery of the online world contrasts sharply with the efforts of Australia's political parties in the 2007 Federal Election. A March 2008 report by the Australian Centre for Public Communication showed use of new media by Australian politicians remains low.

Psst...What Do People Say About You?

What do people say about you?

When your name comes up in conversation do people talk with respect or do they trash your brand?

We all want positive word of mouth about our products, services, issues or causes. Yet the irony is few Australian organizations use word of mouth marketing as part of their marketing mix?

That’s why you should read Andy Sernovitz’s new book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

Word of mouth marketing has been around forever, beginning when people first saw the value in sharing information and warning others about risky situations.

Word of mouth is about genuine conversations where people exchange ideas, criticisms and endorsements. And it is becoming increasingly important given the tsunami of invasive advertising hitting us each day. Sernovitz argues ‘traditional marketing is no longer the safe way to go. It may make you comfortable but it is becoming gradually less and less effective for more and more companies.'

Organic word of mouth is the range of genuine conversations people have among themselves each day. They share information on what to buy, what to wear, where to work and countless other topics with friends, family, classmates, workmates and team mates. Organisations can encourage organic word of mouth by providing quality services, listening to people and responding to their issues and continually freshening conversations by bringing in new programs, products, faster turn around times, etc.

Organisations use amplified word of mouth when they deliberately set out to create positive talk about their products or services. This often involves seeking out people with influence with the specific intent of inviting them to start conversations within their networks. And organizations can accelerate this type of word of mouth by moving it online where, through a keyboard or mobile device they can engage either individuals or specific groups.

Amplified word of mouth marketing can also be encouraged by creating online communities where people swap ideas and experiences, encouraging others to promote what you do and using advertising or media coverage to strategically prime the pump and start conversations.

Andy Sernovitz’s book details the topics, talkers, tools and tracking needed to make word of mouth succeed. It is a must read for those of us on limited budgets looking to communicate with impact.

The Future of Marketing

What's Next In Marketing & Advertising

From: paulisakson, 6 months ago

What's Next In Marketing & Advertising

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: digitalthinking accountplanning)

A presentation I gave internally at our agency last week (3/21/08) for our monthly "What's Next" lunches.

Quick background on these lunch sessions: Each month, three or four people are called upon to share either what inspires them or what's going on in a specific area. So far, I've seen some of our creatives talk to what motivates them and share trends and up-and-coming names in art and design; some of our tech team talk to emerging technologies, showing off what they can do and how they're relevant to our clients; and finally some of our modern media team share the newest ways we can help people find what they're looking for more easily and get more relevant information in front of them for our clients. Like I said, it has all been very fun to take part in as well as quite inspiring and energizing.

For this one, I was asked to share what's going on in marketing and where things are moving. What you'll see/did see is that I ended up using a little bit of what I've been posting about on my blog and some of what has been getting covered both within the trade pubs and on industry related blogs to give me the outline. If you follow the plannersphere and other social media and marketing blogs, then this probably won't be much new, but it might connect the conversations a little more. Or maybe not.

Mostly just wanted to share it since I did put a bit of time into pulling it together and was inspired by many of you who've been writing about similar subject matter. Also because what limited free time I did have last week went into putting it together instead of writing on my blog.

Note: Most of the examples in it are the more covered ones used to support the topics they're associated with. With limited time, I opted for the easy-to-find examples. Sorry about that. One that isn't as covered across the blogs and in the press yet is the My Vegas site. For more info on it see David Armano's Logic + Emotion blog where he has a detailed post on it.

As always, if you've got any thoughts, questions or comments...


SlideShare Link

Not for Profit Scores Good PR for Under $100

Recently we had coffee with the ACT Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Society. The Society supports people suffering chronic fatigue syndrome and estimates around 3000 Canberra families may be impacted.

Since January the Society has attended the marketing workshops we run for community groups and has been overhauling its marketing and PR approach.

In the last three to four months it has promoted a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day, a theatre screening to raise funds and a self help course. Along the way it has used community radio, YouTube, Facebook and email campaigns and changed the way it stages events.

Other marketing included:

* Community newspapers

* Notices in local newsletters

* Word of mouth
* Posters on community notice boards

* Online and offline community event calendars - including free notices on ABC, ACTEW AGL Switch, Canberra Times fridge door and wotzon

* Getting pro-bono support from communications professionals.

The President reports so far the Society has spent less than $100 on the new PR arrangements yet the results have been impressive.

”Our enquiries are up 400% since March! As we haven't recorded everything this is a conservative figure. As such our staff member is run off her feet trying to answer it all. I imagine our website is also receiving more hits ... our membership is (also) up approximately 10% since March”.

Word of Mouth Marketing Part 1: The Zen of Word of Mouth

"The idea of word of mouth is very Zen. You put the idea out there, let it go and if people like and trust you they will spread the word." Variety Magazine 21 July 2005.

This is the first in a series of posts on word of mouth marketing (WOM) following interest generated at Canberra's first word of mouth marketing workshop.

Today WOM is more important than ever because we are increasingly weary with advertising and cynical about how the media report events. Word of mouth stands out because it is about genuine conversations between real people. That makes it the cheapest and most effective promotion an organisation can have.

The span of word of mouth is spreading. Traditionally it involved face to face encounters. You talking to me. Now new digital technologies have put WOM on steroids making our on-line conversations just as important as our off-line efforts.

Whatever the arena effective word of mouth marketing needs six key elements to work:

• Make sure your organisation and its issue, cause, product or service have integrity and offer value. People will only spread positive word of mouth when they believe in something. So provide something worthwhile to talk about and remember word of mouth will always punish poor performance and those who lack integrity.

• Be clear about who you want reach because WOM is all about people and their networks. Know who and where they are.
  

• Identify, recruit and maintain relationships with people who can help you connect with your audiences. Often called 'key influencers', these individuals lend you their language, contacts and credibility when they carry your information into their networks.
  

• Provide key influencers with simple messages, stories and pass-on tools so it is easy for them to spread the word about you. Constantly refresh your conversation with these people.
  

• Use as many channels as possible to keep the conversation going. Create continual 'buzz' through face to face meetings, speaking to groups, inviting people to events and going on-line to either create your conversations or join in with others. Perhaps it is better to start with a few communications channels you are confident will work and then expand your repertoire as you see results.
  

• Track the results of your conversations by encouraging feedback and using on-line and other tracking tools.

At the end of the day marketing is about doing the right thing by your customers, clients or fellow citizens and encouraging them to talk about you.

PR in the Service of the Public

Leanne Glenny from the University of South Australia is completing a PhD on public sector communication and public relations ethics.

Recently Leanne addressed a an IABC Canberra audience (mainly Australian Public Service communications professionals) on her work and the extensive research behind it.

Leanne has met with public servants, journalists and advocacy groups and analysed three government communications case studies in detail. And while her work is yet to be completed it is throwing up interesting insights including:

• Government communication is often viewed as something the government ‘does’ to people rather than an exchange of information.
• There is no single model for government communications ... rather approaches and strategies continually change as personalities and politics dictate the communications mix.
  
• Public servants who are not communicators tend to see PR mainly in media terms and as ways to push information out to persuade.
• On the other hand, public sector communicators are often looking for a broader and richer engagement with their audiences.

She suggests public sector management needs a more detailed understanding and acceptance of PR principles and communications ethics, rather than view PR merely as a technical tool.

PR of World Youth Day

We know good PR when we see it ... so we take our hats off to the team organising World Youth Day.

The event management was superb ... hundreds of thousands of young people (often a tough audience) attending multiple mega-events over seven days. Things apparently running smoothly, no-one getting lost and activities synching in on time. And the most important indicator: people leaving events enthused by their involvement.
Event Management: A+ rating.

Media coverage was huge ...we know that sometimes these types of events gather a natural momentum and just take off. But you could detect someone's guiding hand (or was it divine intervention?) in the media relations planning ...every day a batch of freshly cooked stories, young and articulate clerics on hand as spokespersons and colour, sound and drama in abundance for the cameras and photographers.

Media Monitors reports 42,277 media items reporting the Pope's time in Sydney:

14,581 TV items
14,592 Radio items
11,301 Internet items
1803 Newspaper stories

Media relations for the visit: A+ rating.

And issues management ... well this one scores a C. The subject of sexual abuse by clergy was always going to be a key issue. Yet throughout the week while the Catholic hierarchy expressed regret for past transgressions, the apologies seemed wooden and at times unconvincing. Certainly aggrieved families and individuals who talked to the media regarded these efforts as less than genuine.

Without trivializing the deeply serious issue of sexual abuse and the Church, the rather average management of this issue marred a week of very good PR practice.

Governments and Social Media

Having previously blogged on climate change, we noted with interest the current TV advertising for the Australian Government's new Climate Change website.

No doubt the site will become an important destination for Australians looking for information on our changing global environment and what we can do about it.

The website is rich in content and offers detailed explanation of the environmental threats facing the country and options for action. What is disappointing is that it is disturbingly short on community interaction. Aside from attending public meetings in major cities or reaching decision makers through traditional email, postal or telephone channels, there is little opportunity for the public to seek information or contribute to the national discussion through the site.

Perhaps we should be making greater use of social media technologies to reach out and engage people. So it would be a leap forward if this site allowed people to share their thoughts, concerns and issues with others.

We acknowledge that you always need mediation when you allow on-line public commentary. That's to stop the slander, bad language, vilification and other inappropriate conversations degrading the discussion. But this gate keeping is easily achievable - without censoring comments either because they are unpopular or show ideological bias.

The Canadian Government recently commissioned a study into using social media in government communications. It is well worth a read. If the Canadian research is any guide, people are open to the idea of using social media to access government information and to having their say on public policy.

And a 2007 IBM report showed that blogging is increasingly being used in the US by Congress, state legislatures and city officials to reach out and engage citizens.

Climate change is important, so if we want to engage Australians, perhaps it's time we began using the complete range of communications tools to involve them and generate action.

Communicating in Different Spaces

Here's some articles worth a quick read:

A recent study on using social media to keep up with not for profits.

The art and craft of choosing the right words for your media release - or how toxic is your shower curtain?

And a Pentagon General says “… when you get the call in the middle of the night and everything is going the wrong way, blogging could in fact inform decision makers in real time with real information to make decisions much quicker than a phone conference.”

Navigating the Social Media Frontier

Social media is the buzz word in PR and marketing circles these days. You can feel awfully left out and lonely if you're not talking blogs, Facebook, wikkis, RSS, Twitter and all the other new digital applications.

In our workshops we always recommend organisations seriously consider using social media to reach their audiences. But then we add three common sense caveats:

• The people you need to reach must use that media .... using social media just to be cool will waste a lot of communications effort.
• You must be prepared to engage in, not control, the conversation with your audience. And organisations locked into top down, command and control communications suddenly start to sweat when they realise the new media is about a philosophy of participation as much as it is about technology.
• And finally when in Rome do what the Romans do. You need to communicate like others folks in the social media zone ... and they don't use corporate speak and words like vision, mission statement and outcomes. When you bring organisational language into a social media conversation you look like the man wearing a suit and tie on a summer beach. Uncomfortable and silly.

At this stage social media is new and no-one knows where it is heading. But sticking to some common sense principles will help most of us navigate this pioneer territory.