Recently, I was honored to be asked to give a lecture at the 2010 Four Star Debate program at King’s Academy near Amman, Jordan by Gen. Tommy Franks, The Academy of Leadership & Liberty at Oklahoma Christian University and the National Center for Policy Analysis.
The topic given to me was communication, one of the four pillars of leadership as defined by Gen. Franks. The audience consisted of approximately 40 high school students from the United States and the Middle East. Other speakers included Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan, as well as two-time Olympic Softball Gold Medalist Michele Smith. Needless to say, I felt the pressure to perform.
As I began preparing my remarks, a lot of thoughts came to mind.
First, the students I was to address are all digital natives. They were born into an age where communication technology has been a primary tool they have used to learn. Understanding how to make this technology work to their advantage is a huge benefit.
“How many of you had cell phones by age 12?” I asked.
Nearly every hand raised.
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I’ve been to a ton of receptions. Political receptions, anniversary receptions and meet and greet receptions, to name a few. I’ve been to more receptions than I can remember.
I’ve been to hundreds of events. Ground-breaking events, ribbon-cutting events and inauguration events. I’ve been to weddings, and I’ve been to banquets. I’ve been to rallies, and I’ve been to meetings. I bet you have, too.
I’d be hard pressed to remember details about any of them. The majority of them have been remarkably unmemorable. So why would Saxum spend our money and our time on an open house reception for our new office in Tulsa?
Our objective for last night’s open house was simple – make it memorable.
When you put creative minds together and throw out the traditional PR playbook to solve problems, good things happen and memories are made. Sustainable solutions mean campaigns that ultimately change public perception.
Good public relations is so much broader than making introductions, securing articles in the local paper and working political connections for board positions. If you say “contribution” and I say “oversized check” or if you say “grand opening” and I say “ribbon cutting” then you’ve hired the wrong firm. The days of hiring agencies only for traditional services is coming to a close. Today’s firms must be creative, serious, transparent, measureable, responsive, resourceful, thoughtful and effective. Or we get fired.
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I was 25 years old when I started Saxum. Looking back, it was pretty presumptuous for someone who had been out of college only a minute (my term now, not then) to think that I could add value to would-be clients. Never one to think much about the competition, I was always somewhat offended by being called the “young” firm back then.
Recently, Saxum hired a professional services firm for some consulting. Sure enough, our small account was handed to a 25-year-old to serve as our account manager. Not too far removed from the days of being told I was too young, I found myself skeptically thinking that we had a “young” account representative.
Shame on me.
Five meetings later, I sat astonished at the resourcefulness, flair and confidence from this talented individual. It served as a good reminder that account managers can be just as effective (or ineffective) at 25 as they could be at 55.
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I’m headed to Miami this week for We Media, a collection of media innovators, researchers, journalists and big thinkers who will dig deep to understand what’s next for media. Part of the conference is sponsored by Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, led by my friend, Bob Ross. I’m honored to be a part of the panel discussion on Why Community Matters with Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix.
Chris asks a few key questions in his recent blog post about the role of local media. I liked the direction Chris is going with the discussion with an excerpt of his comments here.
“When I think about ‘Community Matters’, it occurs to me that the question is what is the purpose of community? Is it to extol content for the community? Or is it to generate content that the community creates? And then, the larger question becomes how to monetize ‘community’? There are 2 billion users coming online in the next ten years. How do we monetize the value of their content? And, further, how do we deal with “truth” in community-generated journalism? On a community site, truth is subjective. Newspapers must be very cautious about libel issues, and objectionable content is muted.”
I’d like to position a few thoughts for attendees and observers to think about prior to Wednesday’s session.
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My professional life has recently come full circle. Saxum Public Relations, a creative public relations firm that I started in Oklahoma City nearly seven years ago, announced this week that we have hired veteran Tulsa public relations professional Chris Payne, APR, from Dollar Thrifty Auto Group as vice president and general manager to run an office we are opening in Tulsa soon.
This business decision had a lot of personal investment and thought. For starters, I’m a Tulsa native. Following a terrific experience as a student in the Jenks Public School System, I attended the University of Oklahoma, where I was privileged to play basketball for the Sooners. Four NCAA tournaments later, I graduated with honors and began looking for a job. I chose Oklahoma City as my home because I was offered a job there. Then, I married an Oklahoma City girl and the love of my life, Lee Anne.
Ten years later, I find myself a native Tulsan living in Oklahoma City. There are not many of us. As someone who always thought I’d spread my wings and fly somewhere far away, Oklahoma City and Tulsa offer unique and rewarding experiences without having to leave a state where we’ve put down solid roots.
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Stop what you are doing right now. Seriously. Take a moment and read this post.
What have you accomplished today? Not just work, but everything. Did you say thank you to the guy opening the door or the gal who served you coffee? Did you tell your kids or spouse I love you? Did you make a difference?
Last week, I took a flight to Phoenix on my favorite airline – Southwest – to meet a client and a consultant. With two small children at home, I am trying to only do these trips for one night at a time and I am writing this post on Friday evening on my way home.
The unthinkable happened as we were on our final approach into Phoenix. A lady a few rows in front of me went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. Southwest handled the situation perfectly, first by asking for a doctor and then getting the plane down as quickly as possible. We watched as paramedics carried her off the plane. For thirty minutes we sat as they worked on her in the jet way, presumably unsuccessfully based on everyone’s reaction as we exited the plane.
As I saw the real tears from passengers and flight attendants after the tunnel had cleared, it made me remember the blessing of today. Part of my trip to Phoenix was to plan for the future of our business in public relations. The funny way God works is that we are only guaranteed today. I didn’t know the poor woman, but I thought about how short life is and how thankful I am for today’s blessings.
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If you ever rode on a subway in America before Apple’s iPod debuted in October 2001, then you remember that people were listening to Sony Walkmans or (gasp!) nothing at all. Go to any bus station or train station today, and a huge percentage of riders will have the little white Apple ear buds protruding from their ears. The iPod is a very popular gadget for the top socioeconomic classes. Studies show penetration still has a way to go with lower groups, but we haven’t heard anyone at Apple complaining.
Now, think about today. If you travel to any airport, ride public transportation or have spent the night at a hotel before, then you have seen printed newspapers in use. Today marks a major change for printed news as we know it.
Apple introduces their Tablet to the world today, aka the Kindle Killer (much to Amazon’s dismay), at an exclusive event in San Francisco. We’ll know more as reviews come in, but book publishers have been scrambling in recent weeks to make sure their electronic books are available, and I’m sure newspaper publishers will be next in line to sign up. Finally, journalism has a tool that could make paid content the new normal.
Whether you live in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Timbuktu, the Tablet is being billed as the electronic tool that will change how consumers receive their news, interact with social media channels and change how we all read books.
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The Economist reported last week the public relations business had fared well in 2009. Most encouraging is the projection for revenues to double by 2013.
For months, I have been espousing to anyone who will listen that the PR strategist will lead every marketing discipline in the future – at the corporate, NGO and small business level. It is my belief that media relations, social media, strategic communications, crisis and creative services has a natural home, and that traditional advertising is irreconcilable with the new marketing mix.
Further proof is the latest StevensGouldPincus By the Numbers Management Survey Report, which showed agency revenue up in 2009. Most impressive is the growth by agencies with more than $25M in revenue with 54.1 percent increase in net revenues. Nearly all firms projected a stronger 2010, with Rick Gould opining that “the PR agency historically rebounds after a recession. All indications are that this rebound will occur in 2010.”
We shall see.
The tweet caught my eye. Pepsi Chooses Social Media Over Super Bowl from @codella. OK, so Pepsi isn’t spending their entire $20M budget on their cause-related “Refresh” campaign on social media and public relations, but they are pulling dollars away from the one event that showcases Madison Avenue’s connection to the American consumer – the Super Bowl. A major brand opting out of the mecca of ad platforms is to advertising what Tiger Woods opting out of playing golf is to the PGA tour. In short, it’s a disaster.
“The Super Bowl broadcast can be an amazing stage for advertisers if it aligns with their brand strategy,” said Frank Cooper, a senior vice president at Pepsico Americas Beverages. “However, brands should not blindly anchor themselves to history.”
Ad Age Magazine opines that the move could be a risk, since just one year ago, Pepsico blocked rival Coke from the first half of the game. Most interesting to me was a statement from Pepsi about the $2.7M cost of a 30-second spot.
Pepsi said the cost of advertising in the Super Bowl was not at the heart of its decision to keep its famous beverages from the game.
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The year is 2007. Oil topped $150 per barrel, only techies have heard of Twitter and Google was just a search engine beating up Yahoo. Saxum, meanwhile, preached the value of brochure Web sites to all of our small business clients. Programming is for national media, manufacturers and e-commerce, among others. “If you need that, call our partners at Phase 2 ,” we said.
“Stop printing tri-fold brochures,” we pleaded. “What you need is a comprehensive Web presence with your entire brand’s key information.” We tried to give up content management rights, but a lot of people took comfort in having us “handle that stuff.”
Ahh, the good ‘ole days. How quickly things change.
We are announcing today that Saxum launched the new and improved www.saxumpr.com – our fifth version in less than seven years. We have moved platforms to Wordpress. Watch this cool tutorial video about the platform. Also, Wordpress is functional enough to serve as the British Prime Minister’s HOME PAGE! What started as a blogging platform can now serve all our Web needs. We are encouraging clients previously using brochure sites to follow suit.
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