Blogging Makeover To Sharpen The Edge

It's about time I put the atomic drop on my blogging.

After 20 000 page views and over 250 posts it's time to revamp my blogging style to make it more engaging, useful and a bit edgier.

So far most of the content on this blog has been about "how to" communications tools, tips and tactics. Hopefully folks have found value in this approach.

While I plan to continue to share these types of thoughts, it's time to branch out.

Today we are drowning in oceans of advertising, marketing and PR speak. And the really sad part is most of it is insufferably bad.

Therefore from time to time, as we come across poor communications, we will " call it out."  By the same token we'll also be quick to praise the good work of those who engage us with compelling, persuasive and helpful information.

So watch this space for the normal - we hope useful content - but also join in celebrating and critiquing some of the communications efforts that confront us each week.

New Sports Podcasts for Canberra

Justin Barrie shares insights for the new sports podcast series

Australia's national capital, Canberra, is home to many successful sporting leagues and clubs.

 

In the coming 12 months Sport and Recreation Services, part of the ACT Government, is offering Canberra's sports administrators free workshops to improve club performance in fundraising, marketing, managing volunteers and other key areas.

I'm helping Sport and Recreation Services to produce a four-part podcast series featuring local professionals involved in the workshops.

   

This morning I talked to Justin Barrie of Canberra-based company Design Managers Australia.  Justin shared insights into why your sports marketing mix needs social media, how clubs and codes can get started and the importance of social media planning. He also offered some interesting observations on social media during the recent London Olympics.

Check out the Canberra sports workshops here.

(I'll let you know when the podcasts are available.)  

Planning For Gold Medal PR

It seems the upcoming Olympics have created a local demand for PR skills.

Last week we were approached to provide PR workshops for sporting clubs, codes and large leagues in Australia's national capital.

Here are our early thoughts on the two workshops we are planning to offer. 


---------------------
Earn Media Coverage for Your Club
A media workshop for small clubs and codes
2 hours

Media coverage is one of the most effective ways your Club or Code can reach people to let them know what you are doing.  This workshop helps Club PR/media officers in smaller organisations attract media attention.  

This is a highly interactive session and covers:

• The duties of Club PR/media officers.
• Who are the Canberra media? 
• The single most important thing you can offer a media organization.
• Do your homework before approaching the media.
• Three media products your organization must have.
• Club spokespersons can be more valuable than gold medal winners.
• Four ways to go one on one with the media.
• Helpful resources for your PR/media role.

---------------------
Boost Your National Profile
Integrated communications for larger leagues
2 hours

This how to workshop is about developing an integrated communications campaign to boost the profile of ACT sporting organisations competing in national leagues.  

A highly interactive session it covers:

·          Why integrated communications is the new black.

·          Working with traditional media beyond the sports reporter in an era of change.

·          Social media: sometimes it should lead, sometimes it should follow.

·          Communications mash-ups for high impact results.

·          Build the right communications infrastructure on a small budget.  

Tell us what you think. How could we improve these workshops? 

Political App Might Strike Fear Into Advertisers

A smart phone app being released for the US Presidential Election could be the start of something that makes advertisers very nervous in the future.

Using the Super PAC App, US viewers will shortly be able to hold up their smart phones to their TV screens and identify who's behind election commercials.  While watching a political TV ad, they can also rate the ad and learn who and how much money is behind it and the claims it makes.

The app can also link to third party websites where viewers can check to see just how accurate those claims are.

Founders Jennifer Hollett and Dan Siegel hope their app can help viewers make sense of political advertising and bring greater transparency to the 2012 US presidential campaign.

The Super PAC App is being released in time for the Republican Party Convention at which Governor Mitt Romney will be crowned as the Party's Presidential candidate.

Read more here.

Let's see how the app performs on debut in the hothouse of an American election.

Of course if it works for political ads, with a little tweaking here and there it could be made to work for product advertising. 

And with viewers empowered to instantly check the accuracy of what an ad claims, advertisers in Australia and elsewhere are likely to become afraid, very afraid.

  

The Importance of A Single Year

Sometimes a single year can prove a decisive turning point in a life.

1967 seemed to be that pivotal time in Lyndon Shea's life. 

Military man, public servant, activist and poet, Lyndon Shea was buried today after battling with cancer. His funeral was truly a celebration of a life richly lived and obviously loved by those attending his standing room only service.

Prior to 1967 Lyndon had been the sixties poster boy of young, conservative, male Australia.  School captain of one of Australia's most prestigious private schools, ruggedly handsome Lyndon was a  star footballer and athlete with a sharp, incisive mind. 

In 1966 Lyndon was selected to enter the Royal Military College Duntroon, Australia's equivalent of the American West Point.

Like his classmates, Lyndon's Duntroon time was marked by incessant, mindless bullying.  Officially it was designed to prepare him for the role of a junior Army leader in the Vietnam War and beyond. In reality it was profoundly dehumanizing experience that gave no credit to the individual or the institution.

By the end of his first year, whether he quit  or for some other reason, Lyndon moved on.  From that point onwards he was no longer fighting for the system but rather fighting the system over the range of its contemporary injustices.

Throughout his life Lyndon campaigned for Indigenous rights, education reform, the womens' movement, gay rights, the environment and other issues long before they became fashionable. In doing so Lyndon often put himself on the margins working for the marginalized.  

Today his funeral was marked by tributes from people from all walks of life.  Each noted his commitment, strength and single minded determination to shape a fairer community. 

Over the past 100 years the Royal Military College Duntroon has had many luminaries.  However it would be hard to find many like Lyndon who displayed the qualities of fairness, commitment and a fair go the rest of us aspire to.

Vale Lyndon Shea...  mission accomplished and superbly well done.