Monday, May 18, 2009

 

Twelve Ways Newspapers Can Reinvent Themselves

It is clear that newspapers across the country are in the midst of a crisis. Dozens have closed in the past two years, including some large, metropolitan dailies like the Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Cincinnati Post and Tucson Citizen. Others have threatened to close, sought bankruptcy protection, merged, or moved to partial week publication. A few have decided to cease print operations and serve their news only online. As a Time journalist eloquently said, it is "as if some creeping, flesh-eating virus had got hold of the newspaper industry."

Causes of the Crisis

While the current crisis is clearly influenced by the rise of the Internet as a source of news, a decline in circulation, and a collapse of display and classified advertising, it is actually not an entirely new problem. In fact, newspapers have been experiencing a decline in total circulation for the past 30 years. And newspapers don't have a good track record of adapting to technology, as evidenced by the press-radio war of the 1930s when print media attempted to limit radio's access to news.

In addition, newspapers have not yet adapted to changing audience preferences. Walter Pincus (in Columbia Journalism Review) has pointed out that newspapers have squandered resources "that could have been used to give readers a wider selection of stories about what was going on and that may have directly affected their lives." In the Internet world, this is called "content is king." In other words, "any media venture is likely to fail through lack of appealing content, regardless of other design factors" (Wikipedia entry).


Many Solutions Silly

A number of solutions have been proposed to address the current newspaper crisis. Unfortunately, most do not make a lot of sense.

Publication cutbacks – Nearly a hundred papers are scaling back the number of days in which they print a newspaper (list of newspapers that have cut publication days). Saturdays and Mondays are the most frequent victims of these cutbacks, although many cuts are even more severe. Other newspapers, such as the Detroit Free Press are still printing weekday editions, but cutting back on home delivery days. Such an approach is expected to help the Free Press save 20 percent of its costs, according to an AP report, while hopefully maintaining most of its advertisers who already prefer other publication days.


Yet, there seems a danger in customers forgetting about you if your contact with them is not on a regular, consistent weekday basis. It's one thing if a newspaper is weekly and I expect it on Wednesdays, but it's another thing if it only comes out on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays while my weekday patterns of life run Monday through Friday.

Content payment or subscription changes – Rupert Murdoch has recently suggested that an newspapers are going to need to seriously reconsider the need to charge for online news content, something few papers except the Wall Street Journal currently do. Similarly, Walter Isaacson (in Time Magazine) has called for movement toward a subscriber micropayment system that incorporates ease-of-use features like iTunes or PayPal. But both approaches seem to be looking backward and akin to closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. It is also worth noting that subscription fees for newspapers generally only covered the cost of newsprint and have never been a key driver of revenue.

In contrast, Merlin Mann and John Gruber (at SxSW 2009) have explained why giving away content often makes good sense for bloggers, often in unexpected ways. It seems a similar logic could apply to newspapers' online efforts, given sufficient time to discover new, perhaps unforeseen revenue options. Admittedly, much of the time for such discovery has already been squandered.

Non-profit status - Senator Benjamin Cardin (D, MD) has introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act into the U.S. Senate that would allow newspapers to become non-profit "educational" organizations. The arrangement would be similar to public television and prohibit papers from making endorsements. Advertising and subscriptions would be tax exempt instead of unrelated business income, as is typically the case with nonprofit organizations.


Overall, this concept seems to be an overreaction which bends the typical understanding of a non-profit, with little historical precedence. Furthermore, it fails to acknowledge that newspapers are still, by and large, profitable enterprises. In a less radical approach, Gov. Gregoire of Washington State has provided special tax breaks to his state's ailing newspapers through 2015. Yet both these approaches follow a bail-out mentality rather than a path that would help newspapers adapt to changes in the environment.


Online-only approaches – A smaller group of newspapers has taken the drastic step of moving to becoming online-only publications. The Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Ann Arbor News are notable examples. While a bold step into the brave new world, online advertising may not yet be mature enough to support these ventures.

Others have also expressed skepticism. Walter Pincus (CJR) has stated that "serious people have proposed what in time will be considered absurd ideas – turn papers into nonprofit organizations; charge for each downloaded story; turn into Web-based publication; make Web aggregators, such as Google and Yahoo, pay for carrying newspaper stories." With the possible exception of becoming online-only publications, these proposals generally seek easy solutions. Unfortunately, this is typically not the way most challenges are overcome.

The Need for Reinvention


There is no doubt that newspapers need to reinvent themselves, although how best to bridge from the past to the future is not entirely clear. The rational answer likely involves strategic creativity and risk taking, such as the effort that created USA Today some 25 years ago.

To that end, it seems clear that newspapers need to make a paradigm shift from printers of news to conveyers of information, at least for those that have not already recognized that further integration with the Internet is essential to survival. Hard work and technical savvy will also be prerequisites, but there will likely be no "easy" way out for newspapers.

Here are 12 practical yet strategic steps newspapers might take in pursuit of such a transformation:

1. Webize the Newspaper Name

Most newspapers have figured out the importance of having the Web address displayed on their pages, and even on the sacred home page. These web address also generally match the newspaper's name (although surprisingly, some don't). But the time has come for total commitment between print and online presence. At a minimum, the URL for the newspaper's online presence should be the largest, boldest item in the masthead after the paper's name. For maximum effect, the URL should become the paper's name. So instead of Smithville Daily News, the masthead reads in big, bold type "SmithvilleNews.com."


2. Print Content Should Always Jump to the Web

We propose at least 80 percent of articles in the printed version of a newspaper should end with a URL. Not just a listing the newspaper's Web address, but providing a relevant call to action with as numeric details where feasible to add specificity:

Conversely, online news must also find ways of cross-selling print editions where and when feasible.

3. Flip the Editorial Page

Instead of letters to the editors printed in the newspaper, the editorial pages should print the best of the previous day's reader's comments on stories or editorial postings, as reviewed by the editorial editor. Or perhaps the editor would sort out excerpts from posts into pro and con columns (but without the shouting as one gets on cable television shows).

Another possible approach might be for the editorial staff to interject their commentary into the stream of the conversation as it is reprinted from the web, rather than exclusively in a separate column at the top of the page. The editorial page could become a section that reports on editorial opinion, categorizing, analyzing refuting or supporting points of view in chunks (each attributed back to the poster's username), rather than the traditional display of letters to the editor.

4. Recapture the Classifieds

The rise of Craig's List, eBay, eBay Motors , Monster.com, and other such sites have marginalized the value of traditional classified advertising. The resulting collapse of classified advertising has been cited as one of the key factors in the financial difficulties faced by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe.

Newspaper chains or an industry sponsored consortium should use their resources and national presence to identify ways to compete, partner or buyout significant players in what may be understood as the micro-advertising marketplace. A process is needed where individuals or businesses could post short, text-based ads or modular display ads through the local newspaper's web interface. These ads would then be populated to the newspaper's local or national partner web sites, e-mail newsletters, print editions, and perhaps even traditional online text ad services like Google's Adwords and Overture, or social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

This new genre of classified ads could also appear next to relevant content in print (not just in the back of the paper where nobody looks), as identified through keyword tagging in the ads and some sort of algorithm that understands the topic of the news article. Such an approach could bring new value to the otherwise exhausted classified concept, especially if space were devoted to explaining the easy steps for advertising and reporting the individual, local success stories.

5. Kill Impression-based Advertising and Embrace PPC

While print ad placements may still need to be sold on a traditional basis, newspapers should shift their online advertising strategies from the old paradigm of pay per impression to the more modern pay per click model. This may cause the demise of most banner ads, and we'll all be glad to see them go. The pricing model is likely one of the few reasons such ads persist in the face of low click through rates and research showing widespread banner blindness.

A move to a PPC model for online display ads will also require a fundamental shift in advertising philosophy. Advertisers will have to think and work harder to get their message across. They will need to be more relevant to the consumer and partner with newspapers to find ways to tie their ads to relevant content through keywords – without destroying the editorial-advertising divide. Finally, advertisers and newspapers will need to find ways to provide value to the reader to earn their clicks, which in the end is a win-win for newspaper and reader alike. More informational, emotional and visual online advertising will likely result.

A PPC advertising model may initially result in lower income, but there should also be potential for increased volume due to this approach lowering the bar for smaller businesses to confidently enter the online advertising arena. Such democratization of advertising will likely have the added benefit of creating new, secondary industries focused on analytical services and tools.

6. Customize Content Delivery

StumbleUpon.com is a potential model for delivering news that is of the most interest to each individual newspaper subscriber. This customized content could be delivered through an e-mail newsletter format, or to a wireless, web-enabled book reading device. In fact, newspapers should be running, not walking, to the Kindle and Sony Reader Digital Book platforms.

In this approach to customized content delivery, the subscriber would give initial input about their areas of interest such as one does on StumbleUpon, which would be combined with the subscriber's demographic information and content analysis algorithms that "learn" what the subscriber is most interested in through how they rate items positively or negatively through thumbs up or down icons, or through their click behavior.


7. Report on Online Activity

Newspapers could do a better job of reporting on what is happening on Internet in their print editions. By this we don't mean more techie stories, but some type of summary display that gives the pulse of news or other online activities. For example, BuzzFeed covers memes and the viral Internet, Google zeitgeist reports search trends, and there are a number of tools that help track trends on Twitter. A good place to start would be reporting yesterday's most popular activity on the newspaper's Web site: what are people searching for, what topics received the most comments or blog posts, which advertisers are receiving the most clicks. A daily or weekly, data-driven content analysis of media coverage –newspaper, radio, Internet, cable and network – could create a new position for newspapers as the rational, data-driven analysts of current events and opinions (i.e. – database journalism).

8. Make Newspapers Clickable

Alltop.com aggregates news stories in categories (and by source) and displays the results as clickable headlines. The whole page is filled with clickable headlines. This concentrated approach to news is like a newspaper with hundreds of sections, quickly scanable, and more appealing than an RSS feed reader. If newspapers were clickable, this would be an appealing format to make papers more valuable. QR Codes have the potential to make newspapers clickable.

QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that are already popular in Japan. There you can take a camera phone photograph of such a code – on a handout, a mailer or even a billboard – and be transferred to a corresponding Web site on your web-enabled cell phone. Thus either camera phones or some new type of pen-like input device could be used as a bridge between printed headlines accompanied by such a code and Web-based reading devices like a tablet PC, e-book reader, iPhone, or a customized e-mail newsletter.

Interactivity is one of two attributes that newspapers currently lack, according to Andrew Davis, President of the American Press Institute (see Time Forum). The newspaper industry should aggressively pursue the implementation of QR codes and related technology which have the potential to make the printed word interactive.

9. Become the Celebration

Births, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and deaths are a significant part of local newspaper coverage. A few national Web sites like our365.com (for births) and legacy.com (for obituaries) are in this market space, but it seems there is a opportunity for a newspaper chain or consortium to develop an innovative Web concept that combines aspects of photo sharing, local directories, retail sponsorship and sales.

Of course, an online version of newspapers' social pages sounds a lot like Facebook, which has itself been struggling to find a sustainable advertising model. This suggests that there may be an opportunity for collaboration where newspapers become the local on-ramp for social news and in turn funnel local, targeted and relevant advertising from small businesses back to Facebook or similar sites. In this way newspapers would become the intermediary between highly personalized online and local advertising revenue opportunities.

In a similar way, concerts, plays, lectures and sporting events also get hometown press attention. Eventful.com and Ticketmaster are key online players in this market space. While some newspapers are "reverse publishing" event calendars from their websites in weekend media & event-focused print editions (Example: Bay City Times's Let's Go Section discussed at :33), a better option is likely to find a way to partner with Web ventures that already have a wide national presence, commenting or voting capabilities, social networking aspects, and other linkages that already give it high value in the eyes of the consumer. For example, it might be possible to publish print listings of eventful.com events and collect a fee from that website for measurable increases in web traffic or ticket sales that can be attributed back to the newspaper promotion. Today's Internet-based economies will require newspaper's acceptance of less control over the means of production and more innovative collaboration.

Such an approach to event publishing could also overcome a common reader complaint: that newspapers cover interesting events after the fact, but don't do a good job of advance notice of community activities, presumably because they consider pre-event publicity "advertising," not news.

10. Consider Hyperlocalization

Hyperlocalization is the concept of focusing on community news. While the Web is outstanding for delivering national and international news and information, it still can't compete with newspapers for breadth and depth of local coverage (see PBS Frontline: "Should newspapers go hyperlocal?"). Unfortunately, some early examples of hyperlocal approaches such as backfence.com and LoudounExtra.com have been less than successful. Nevertheless, the strategy may yet have merit if and when the correct formula is applied.

Ethnic newspapers are another example of focusing on an audience subsegment. While not unaffected by the recession, many ethnic newspapers are growing (example: El Diario La Prensa), and such papers are surprisingly popular (NYT article), making them worthy of further study by an industry that needs to better focus on their readers.

11. Partner (or Compete) with the Post Office


Newspapers are unique in that they operate a home delivery network. While the United States Postal Service has exclusive legal rights to deliver first and third-class mail, newspapers have a potential opportunity to provide an alternative way for advertisers to reach their target audiences. Furthermore, lobbying for readjustment of the changes made to the second class postage rate structure in 2007, which favored media conglomerates over smaller publications, could help papers take further advantage of postal delivery options.

12. Take a Contrarian Position

If all else fails (or even if it doesn't), newspapers could consider a "Good News Page," that compiles user-submitted, positive stories from around town for exclusive publication in their print editions. Of course the axiom is that "Bad News Sells" (Pew Research supporting this), but perhaps it is time for print media to find a way to establish a unique, contrarian media position that could attract hometown advertisers interested in good public relations as well as an audience of eyeballs who would appreciate this material in an otherwise discouraging world of news.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The crisis faced by newspapers across the country should be of concern to all marketers since printed newspapers and their accompanying Web sites are still valuable vehicles needed to effectively reach the marketer's target audiences. Furthermore, marketers within the newspaper industry have a role to play in helping reinvent newspapers for the future – a role that will serve their own careers as well as helping shape the newspaper industry for decades to come.


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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

 

Why Graphic Artists Have a Difficult Job

In a word, clients.

These videos give us a view of the world from the graphic artist’s perspective. Sorta like the animals at the zoo looking out at the funny homo sapiens with their noses pressed up against the glass. Remember, humor is funny because it is truth delivered in a well-timed fashion.

Designing the Stop Sign



Microsoft Redesigns the iPod Package


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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
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Monday, April 06, 2009

 

Correcting Your Company's Brand Name or Location on GPS Systems

Misspellings of brand names, mislocation of buildings on a campus, or just plain incorrect data on GPS systems can be frustrating.

The two main map makers for GPS devices are Tele Atlas (www.teleatlas.com) and Navteq (www.navteq.com). Both offer ways to submit updates to their maps via their Web sites.

Map Feedback for Tele Atlas
http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/
Teleatlas' Map Insight™ application walks a user through the process of submitting a correction. The company states that "by leveraging user perspectives, our data will become even fresher and more valuable to consumers, developers, and enterprises alike."

Give Map Feedback for NAVTEQ
http://mapreporter.navteq.com/
NAVTEQ Map Reporter™ provides a method to submit a correction, catogorize it by type and make additional comments. The company states that it makes "every effort to ensure that our map data is as fresh, accurate, and up-to-date as possible by employing full-time staff in more than 130 offices around the world."

Both systems provide a view of their map that you can zoom in on until you find the point of interest. You can then "thumbtack" the location (a thumbtack icon in Teleatlas, a more obscure target circle icon in NAVTEQ) before submitting the item with your e-mail address. NAVTEQ provides a way for registered users to track the status of their submission.

Making Corrections to Other Map Systems

In addition, Garmin (who uses NAVTEQ data) provides a (complex, hard-to-use) map error feedback form on the Garmin web site. Magellan points users to NAVTEQ's map feedback. Tom Tom promotes a "real time" map correction feature that you can enable on your device, although the video demo only shows a road construction/detour example. TomTom has turned over millions of correction suggestions from the system to Tele Atlas (Read article on GPSReview.net).

Google Maps provides "edit" option you can use while viewing a map (View video showing how) as well as a way to submit Google Map corrections as part of Google Maps Help section (Note that Google Mobile uses TeleAtlas map data. Web-based Maps uses NavTeq map data). Mapquest provides an "report data errors" option on their contact page, while Yahoo Maps are built upon NAVTEQ data.

If you've had success or frustration with using these or other methods of correcting GPS data from a marketing or PR perspective, please use the comment link below to share your experience.

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
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Monday, March 30, 2009

 

Could .TEL Spell the End of Yellow Page Advertising?

The new top level domain .tel is uniquely positioned to change the face of yellow page directory advertising. It may also have significant impact on search engine optimization and will likely better serve mobile devices than the .mobi top level domain has heretofore done.

For background, the Internet has numerous “top level domains” or TLDs such as .com, .net, .edu, .gov and so forth. Telnic’s introduction of .tel is the most recent addition to the domain line up, but is significantly different than previous TLDs. This is because .tel isn’t tied to traditional HTML web pages, but rather is only a repository for data that is stored at the DNS, or domain name system, level.
Once your register and configure your company’s .tel domain name (using a standardized backend tool provided by Telnic), you may load information like phone and fax numbers, web site, Facebook page, GPS coordinates and so forth into the .tel system. There it is available for retrieval – although retrieval by whom and how is yet to be fully realized.

For now, anyone can type the .tel domain into their browser to receive a standardized display of the contact information that you entered for your company. This will likely be an immediate application for phone-based mobile devices and more convenient method for finding phone numbers and for GPS identification of locations and than a .mobi page, which is essentially just a stripped-down version of your web page for cell phones. The real future for .tel is likely hidden within the potential for the aggregating of .tel information by search engines like Google or other yet-to-be-developed online applications (Others are more skeptical about the potential for SEO benefits).

.TEL Impact on Traditional & Online Yellow Pages

Yellow page advertising is another service that could potentially be in .tel’s crosshairs. Obnoxiously overpriced and notoriously confusing, yellow page advertising is a bane to most marketing and public relations managers. In addition, online “yellow page” web sites are frequently inaccurate and difficult to correct.

Enter .tel domains, which allow a company to control the accuracy, level of detail and keywords associated with their contact information. Updates can be made immediately instead of waiting up to a year for the next directory to be issued, and everyone has the most recent version instead of a 3-year-old spaghetti-splattered tome that Mikey is using as a booster seat. Plus, as life moves to the Internet, it is reasonable to assume that thick directories will give way to the more portable web-enable cell phone or the kitchen-based family computer.

As some have pointed out, it will take a critical mass of business adopters to make .tel a success --and a true threat to the yellow page status quo. In the first month, business adoption appears brisk although press coverage is still modest. As of this post, major firms such as Microsoft, IBM, Intel, GM, Bank of America and Exxon do not currently have live .tel domains. On the other hand, Apple, Cisco, Amazon, Toyota and the White House do.

New .tel addresses have the advantage of being relatively inexpensive since domain registration is the only cost; there is no web page or web server involved. Furthermore, MySpace will be promoting .tel domains to its members, potentially tapping into individual and social networks as a strategy to bootstrap broad acceptance and implementation of the domain (this is the approach registrar Domain Monster is taking with it's video below).

The jury is still out on the brand new .tel domain, but marketing and public relations professionals would do well to take steps to protect their brand names, configure basic contact information on their .tel domains and be watchfully waiting for further opportunities within the .TEL marketplace.

Video Information about .TEL Domain

1. Bloomberg News interviews Telnic CEO Khashayar Mabdavi about how the new domain could “spell the end of the old style directory services.”





2. Telnic’s official demo for business explains the domain’s potential in a 4 minute video overview.





3. This humorous promotional video for Domain Monster suggests how .tel videos can be used for social networking. You can even follow the ben.tel URL from the spot to learn more about UK actress Laura Haddock.




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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
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Saturday, November 15, 2008

 

New Tools and Social Media Cause Practitioners to Sound Warnings about the Future of Public Relations

"The Future of PR" is the subject of a video compiled by the Council of PR Firms with commentary from various noteable principals and practitioners within the field. Although not a structured presentation, the video does touch on some of the major forces influencing the direction of public relations today, the majority of which are influenced by the growth of new and social media tools available to practitioners, their clients and the public.

Points that he speakers touch on include:





Additional Links

PR Industry Leaders Put Their Feet in Their Mouths at Critical Issues Forum
The Future of Public Relations
Students: The Council of PR Firms asks, “What is the most dangerous idea in PR today?”
Dangers Equal Opportunity for Smart Marketers, PR Firms

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
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Monday, November 10, 2008

 

Developing a Culture of Giving within Your Organization

Employees and internal stakeholders should be a cornerstone of your non-profit organization’s fund development efforts.

Yet the Spirit of philanthropy doesn’t necessarily come naturally to the human soul, even if they’re employed by your 501(c)(3) organization; work on your board of directors; or teach, heal or pray in your corridors.

As organizations grow, they have a tendency to begin to resemble their for-profit counterparts. As a result, and over time, it is not unusual for the charitable focus that may have been at the core of the founders’ vision to become hazy or even fade away altogether. Fortunately, developing a culture of philanthropy within your organization can serve more goals than just assisting with fund raising. A philanthropic employee base is more likely to be committed to the organization’s mission, to the team effort, and to bringing a positive attitude to their work.

Here are a dozen tips for developing a culture of giving within your not-for-profit organization, whether it is a para-church ministry, a hospital, or a university:

1. State Your Mission ― Again
Employees need to understand your organization's non-profit mission and be regularly reminded of what they come to work to accomplish. It is natural to expect that the worthy nature of your mission will lead to employees making a personal financial commitment. It's not about requiring employees to give, or browbeating them, it's about employees coming to a place where they internalize your mission and want to participate more fully with it through voluntarily giving back something to the organization and its causes.

2. Start with Small, Non-Threatening Opportunities
The opportunity to give small gifts can help employees become more comfortable with giving to your organization. A common approach that fits this criterion is a holiday "lights on the tree" appeal. This type of appeal gives Niece Sally an opportunity to make a donation in honor of Aunt Suzie’s recently deceased husband. It helps both the donor, who doesn’t know what to get Aunt Suzie, and your organization.

Likewise, your organization could ask for an extra dollar, or to round up the employee’s purchase to the next dollar when they visit the gift shop or cafeteria during a special celebratory week. Bringing in Jewelry, Uniform or Book Sales to the workplace for employee's convenience and your organization's benefit also fall in this category ― especially when your communication efforts make clear that your organization's share is going to a specific, worthwhile cause.

3. Talk about It
If other departments are on the agenda for presentations to management groups or to employees, so should fund development. Upcoming appeals and plans are strategically important to the organization just like a new advertising campaign, or the introduction of a new service. Discussion of fund development plans with employees should be done openly and naturally, not hidden from view.

4. Ensure Executive Giving
Your organization's C-level executives should already be giving back to your organization at some level. If not, it's unlikely that they will have the necessary commitment to support the development of a culture of giving within your organization. A fund development director will need want to take on stragglers as they would any potential major donor. If nothing else, recognizing executive giving may help your PR efforts when the press gets a hold of your 990s.

5. Recognize that Some are 'Takers'
Your fund development and executive leadership should recognize that Americans by nature ― and many people by personality ― are "givers." In service industries and non-profits, more than the average number of employees may already be receptive to supporting your cause. Fund development is not about pulling money from someone's hand, it's about providing people the opportunity to partner with your organization's mission to do something important that impacts people's lives. If staff are upset that you're asking, they likely don't understand your non-profit status and mission.

6. Develop Social Networks at Work and then Tie to Your Cause
People you work with often become like "family." Nurturing this can benefit morale and teamwork, as well as providing another avenue for you to share your mission with your own employees. Traditionally, internal giving by departments can be encouraged through holiday appeals or memorial opportunities that employees can mutually contribute to as a natural unit. Online social networks like and Facebook and LinkedIn are additional ways to create a network. Start by making sure your organization has a Facebook page or group that employees can affiliate themselves with. Then consider that Facebook also provides a way for members to support "causes" – information about which can then be distributed virally to your employees’ friends.

7. Celebrate Volunteerism
The spirit of volunteerism is akin to the spirit of giving. They are often the same constituency. Celebrate even if the employee's volunteerism is elsewhere in the community, not just within your own organization. It is the same spirit regardless of where expressed.

8. Encourage Volunteerism
The next step after celebrating volunteerism is to encourage it through providing opportunities, requiring community service for managers, requiring it for promotion, providing time off, flexible scheduling and so forth.

9. Encourage All Types of Giving
A culture of giving that encouraging employees to give to worthy causes is good for the employee, good for the community and good for the organization. Some ways to do this include United Way campaigns, providing a matching gift program, or participating with national organizations with which your non-profit has affinity (for example, a hospital putting together a team for the Alzheimer Association's Memory Walk). Selfishly avoiding providing employees with such outside giving opportunities doesn't make sense. Rather, develop a spirit of philanthropy among employees and watch for downstream benefits to your organization in the form of new donors or planned gifts from those employees.

10. Acknowledge Internal Donors
Acknowledging internal donors internally can express the organization's gratitude to them and be an encouragement for other employees to give as well. Admittedly, this requires some finesse to come across in a positive manner and not as cajoling non-givers. Summarizing employee giving and reporting the aggregate results in newsletters and easel posters can be an effective first step. In addition, major internal donors might be recognized at board or foundation meetings where other major and external donors are present.

11. Make Internal Giving Easy
Payroll deduction can make employee giving easier. Also splitting a pledge across multiple paychecks provides an opportunity for employees to become regular donors and reach larger giving levels.

12. Ask
Unashamedly ask your employees and related internal constituencies to support the strategic needs of your organization with their charitable contributions. If your needs ― and their support ― weren’t important, you likely wouldn’t be a non-profit organization to start with. Your board members and employees are likely already giving elsewhere, as are physicians within your hospital or health care organizations, or the professors on your teaching staff. Why shouldn’t – why wouldn’t – they also be interested in giving back to the good work being done where they work? You’ll never know, and you’ll never develop a spirit of giving, until you ask.

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
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Monday, October 27, 2008

 

Update: Calendar Marketing Approaches

In an update to our earlier post, "Getting Your Event on Your Audience's Calendar," Calgoo.com will soon launch a cross-platform service that promises to put events like your company’s upcoming education seminars, your store’s upcoming sales events, your professional sports team’s game times, a golf course’s open tee times, or even relevant eBay auctions on your Outlook, Google or iCal calendar. The company describes their approach as a permission-based marketing medium for businesses to promote time-sensitive products and services

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

 

Good Art is Not Subjective

Jackson Pollock's art is interesting, especially the more colorful pieces, but I've generally had a much harder time appreciating other abstract art. I found some rationale for my tastes (or lack thereof) in "Acquired Taste," in article by Gene Edward Veith in World Magazine (subscriber login required for full article, Feb 9/16, 2008 issue), where he explains "A work is beautiful to the extent that it displays at the same time both complexity and unity."

"A canvas of random paint-splatterings may have complexity, but it has no unity," Veith said. "The Sistine Chapel, or a Rembrandt woodcut, or a Hudson River landscape has both, being full of individual details that come together into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts." Veith extends the concept to music, drawing contrasts between simplistic and more complex forms, even within the same era or genre of music itself.

Enjoying junk food or junk culture isn't bad once in a while, but developing taste in art (or music, or writing, or dance, etc.) does require discipline. "Growing in taste means learning to take pleasure in what is objectively good," Veith said.

While classic thinkers spoke of three kinds of absolutes: the true, the good, and the beautiful, Veith clearly bases his definition of "good" on a Christian worldview. "The Bible tells us to set our minds on 'whatever' is 'excellent' and 'of good report' (Philippians 4:8)," he said. "To think that beauty is nothing more than a subjective preference—unconnected to standards that originate in God Himself—is to buy into a foundational principle of today's anti-Christian worldview."

Regardless of worldview, a principle we can apply here is that making good judgments about art, copywriting or strategy is often less subjective than the novice (or naïve) may think. Rationale patterns flow underneath good communications, and the professional communicator does well to become a life-long learner of theory as well as the practical application of our trade.

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Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 5:45 PM | Permalink | |

Monday, August 11, 2008

 

Bill Hybels: The Importance of Decision Making for Leaders

Author and pastor Bill Hybels (bio & books) spoke about decision making during his keynote address to the Willow Creek Leadership Summit on August 7.

Good decision making is critical to being a leader because so much of leadership is about making decisions. In addition, many decisions we make as leaders have "high stakes," affecting the lives of those who work for us, as well as hundreds or perhaps thousands whom our work efforts touch, according to Hybels.

It is important to have a process to arrive at good, God-honoring decisions. Likewise, it is important to learn how to improve our decision making over time. Hybels recommended Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis as the best book he's read on the topic. He then outlined a traditional, four-point approach to Christian decision making:

1. Does the Bible say anything about this?

So many decisions aren't that hard, Hybels said, because the Bible gives clear direction. For example, leaders should admit when they are wrong. They should set an example. They should treat all with respect. He recommended leaders read the Bible regularly and see what effect it has on their decision making.

2. What would smart advisors tell me to do?

All leaders should establish a formal or informal network of advisors, Hybels said, since in the abundance of counselors there is safety as Proverbs 11:14 suggests. However, the leader must also apply their own discernment to the advice they receive, as in the case of Absalom, the son of Solomon, who made the poor choice of following the advice of his peers instead of his elders, which resulted in a civil war instead of consolidating his hold on the kingdom after his father's death.


3. What have I learned from past pains, gains and experience?

Reviewing the scars from past experiences helps give perspective to subsequent decisions. Likewise, gains from past bold decisions can help influence the current decision. Put together he abbreviates this step as P,G & E – pains, gains and experience. Hybels said journaling can be a valuable way to add to your wisdom if you include information about decisions and their results.

4. Is the spirit prompting me?

When facing a decision, Hybels attempts to listen for an inaudible whisper that is God's voice. Sometimes when he feels God is warning him against a course of action it is like God is saying, "Let me save you from yourself." Relying on the spirit's promptings leads to life and peace according to Romans 8:6, he said. Another method he uses to make decisions is a "test decision." He will make a decision in his mind, and then carry that around for a few days to see if it feels right as he goes through his day.

Decision Making Axioms

As leaders lead over time they often begin to subconsciously compress these decision making steps into principles or proverbs for themselves. As they use these and find them helpful, they may become part of the organizational culture. Such "business proverbs" are the topic of Hybel's most recent book, Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs.


Abraham Lincoln's response to people who wanted revenge on the South after the Civil War was phrased as such a proverb, "The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend." Likewise, Bob Galvin, retired CEO of Motorola, is known for "create motion for motion's sake," meaning that taking an organizational action is generally better than complacency and forces individuals to make changes that have potential for improving operations.

Colin Powell, a former Leadership Summit speaker, has about a dozen such proverbs according to Hybels. They include "check your ego at the door," "promote a clash of ideas" (don't seek consensus, but ask "And who has a contrary point of view?) and "reward your performers; get rid of your non-performers" (don't waste time on non-performers).

After interviewing Powell last year, Hybel's staff pointed out that "you have sayings too." He began to write them down over the course of the year and came up with a total of 76, which became the basis of Axiom. These include:

Vision leaks – Even after a leader sets a vision, people forget. They need the vision and goals restated for them from time-to-time. My wife noted that a better analogy might be that "vision evaporates" since it's not necessarily the fault of the recipient that the vision gets dull over time.

Get the right people around the table and it will be fine – Meaning that a challenge is best addressed by a team of the right people, not necessarily preconceived solutions.

Facts are your friends – I've found myself saying something very similar in my career. Hard data helps make decisions, and make them easier.

When something gets funky, engage – In other words, when a situation is awry, don't think it will go away or heal itself. Actively intervene instead.

Leaders call fouls – when someone or something crosses the line, the leader should say so publicly. Sometimes a leader has to call a foul on himself and admit when his behavior was out of line.

Take a flyer – Take a bold risk to launch a new initiative. Every once in a while you will have to create an action plan that takes your breath away, Hybels said. This should be differentiated, however, from moves that "bet the farm" by risking everything.

Of course, axioms that you create and coin yourself as a leader will always be more powerful than those you adopt from other leaders, Hybels said.

Leaders cannot be decision-adverse, Hybels said. Leaders need to make decisions. It's what leaders do. If the decision turns out well, your response should be to thank everyone you can think of. If it turns out to be a poor decision, don't blame others. Don't whimper or whine. Rather, take the responsibility for the poor decision and use the lesson to improve your decision making in the future.


Having a framework for decision making, a network of advisors, and an awareness of principles that have worked for us in making decisions in the past are all excellent recommendations applicable to marketing and public relations professionals.


Additional Resources


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Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 9:00 PM | Permalink | |

Saturday, May 03, 2008

 

Polish Your Employees' Name Badge Presentation

Good customer service and safety standards encourage your employees wear their name badges in a clearly visible manner, but sometimes this can be a challenge.

Name tags with simple pins are common in restaurant and retail businesses, but corporate organizations generally issue a name badge. Frequently these are embedded with a proximity reader, bar code, or other "smart chip" devices for security, identification, or time card purposes. Such badges generally have clips, which work well enough for employees with suit coats. Shed the jacket; however, and the name badge creates the dreaded droopy pocket syndrome.

Lanyards are often employed in such situations, but these may involve safety concerns, even with break-away connectors. In addition, a lanyard still positions the name badge around the navel, rather than where it is clearly visible to customers in the upper body area.

Badge Supports, LLC has now created a very nice option for shirts or scrubs that include a breast pocket. Their Nerd-Buster Badge Support slips into a shirt pocket providing an easy way of displaying a vertical or horizontal badge. The device also includes a tab that sticks up to attach a recognition or ribbon pin. Versions are available to hold a few business cards (I'm always forgetting to bring my cards to vendor meetings!), or may be pre-printed with a logo, calendar, mission statement, commonly used chemical formulae, or safety information (such as your organization's overhead paging codes). These features make the badge support a unique idea for vendors to give away at trade shows or Human Resource departments to purchase in bulk for their organization.

Name Badge Links
Unsolicited's crack research staff has scoured the Internet for solutions to droopy pocket syndrome and found these resources:

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Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 2:30 PM | Permalink | |

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