The Communicator

The English language is full of words that have lost their meaning. Many – “awesome”, “cool” and “sick” for example – were hijacked by pop culture years ago and patiently moulded into our minds with completely new meanings. Others were usurped by the business world to metaphorically represent complex ideas to the public in simple terms (some of my personal favourites are “deliverables”, “synergize” or “utilization”).

But there are a growing number of once-useful words whose meanings have been diluted through extreme over (and occasionally improper) use.

A prime example is the term “innovative”. At its root, innovation is about creating something completely new. Think Thomas Edison or Alexander Cummings.  Until recently there was a high creative threshold to be crossed before you were considered innovative. Today all you need to do is install the latest software package or use social media in order to brandish this innovation badge.

As professional communicators, we have all been complicit in the proliferation and dilution of once emotive and strong terms such as innovation… even though it’s sometimes difficult to avoid jumping on the bandwagon for fear of seeming out-of-touch or being left behind by your competition.

However, from a marketing standpoint, innovation has become an extremely overcrowded market to compete in. Let’s be honest: any value that remains in the term innovation is being fought over by old-world leader GE and new world upstart Apple, and I’m guessing your pockets aren’t deep enough to seriously challenge either of them. So (as Al Ries and Jack Trout would say) rather than trying to compete in a category with a behemoth incumbent, try to create a new category that you can own in your audience’s minds.

For example, look for adjectives that are meaningful to your audiences and products, or that articulate your value to your customers and define your core brand characteristics. Try to avoid terms too popular within your industry and too metaphorical or cliché to have any real impact. It’s always best to avoid fads – unless you are the one setting the trend.

At the end of the day, the key to success has always been to differentiate yourself from your competition. Why should your words be any different?  

Need help finding your words? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.  

Emotion can be a double-edged sword for professional communicators.  For the most part, we embrace the role of emotion in communications, merrily plucking on the public’s heart strings to sell products or promote our clients’ strategies.

But using emotion is a bit like raising a pit-bull: it can be predictable and friendly for years, until suddenly it snaps and bites you in the ass.

Case in point: Canada’s Pandemic Influenza Vaccination campaign. In the run-up to the start of local vaccination clinics, Canada’s Public Health Agency and other health authorities were deeply concerned. They believed that a comparatively low mortality rate would lull Canadians into complacency and reduce the vaccine uptake (keep in mind, they did order 50 million doses for 33 million Canadians).

To compensate, the Government’s communications professionals appealed to the public’s emotional side. They reminded us of our responsibility to our children, prophesised future waves of illness and played up our civic duty.

Sadly, just days before the clinics were to open across the country, news broke of the death of two (previously healthy) children from H1N1. Wide-spread panic was unleashed amongst parents and families.

As the media splashed around images of well-heeled soccer-moms mobbing the few vaccination clinics in operation, cracks started to appear in the communications strategies of the myriad of government agencies tasked with managing the health crisis.  

While the authorities had clearly embarked on an emotive campaign, they had obviously not planned for such high levels of ‘success’.

Here are a few things for professional communicators to consider when embarking on an emotion-driven approach:

Plan for the outrageous: consider every possible outcome – even ones that seem far-fetched can make you better prepared for instances of extreme success, unparalleled failure and everything in between.

Remember NIMBY: while people respond to different motivators, emotions always run higher when the issue hits close to home. Always consider the potential for a radical response from those most affected.

Emotion trumps logic: you can’t simply stick to logic when dealing with an emotional audience, so don’t even try. When up against a sensitive issue, a good strategy is to find areas of mutual agreement and work to build trust from there.

Beware the runaway train: by the same token, communications strategies based on emotion can quickly snowball or be hijacked by a competitor. Be vigilant in monitoring the progress of your strategy and continuously course correct as required.  

At the end of the day, professional communicators may find the most consistently successful and predictable strategies are those that mix a healthy dose of logic with a splash of emotion… stir and serve as needed.

Need help with your communications strategies? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca

Web 2.0 and the rapid adoption of interactive web-based technologies could be the greatest thing to happen to your company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program.

This week, we examine a few free and easy ways to harness Web 2.0 to reinvigorate your CSR initiatives.

Blogs: CSR programs lend themselves well to a blog format. Blogs allow the writer to be descriptive, emotive, passionate or even outright promotional without the restrictions that normally come with traditional communications vehicles like press releases. At the very least, CSR Leaders should maintain an internal blog to enhance employee engagement, increase participation and drive awareness. Better yet, an external blog can be an excellent way to interact with the local community, showcase priority initiatives and reinforce your company’s brand.

While internal CSR blogs can focus on recognizing small groups of employees or divisional events, external CSR blogs should represent the collective and be written from the corporate perspective. 

Social networks: Let’s be honest – most company’s CSR programs don’t really justify a full MySpace page or Facebook profile. Social networks require a constant stream of new content, so unless your organization announces or participates in at least one CSR initiative a week, you might consider a more subtle approach: recognition through association.

Here’s an example: Company X maintains a Twitter profile, with about half of their employees signed up as ‘followers’. The Company is a long time supporter of the Canadian Cancer Society and is itself a ‘follower’ of the Society’s Twitter profile. Company X’s CSR Leader uses the company’s Twitter account to re-tweet the Society’s upcoming events and announcements to employees, who then re-tweet these messages out to their friends and clients. This allows Company X to not only increase employee participation and awareness, but also gain exponential recognition by leveraging their employee network.

File sharing: According to ComScore, YouTube recently surpassed Yahoo as the world’s second most popular search engine. There is no doubt that peer-to-peer (P2P) video and images can be powerful vehicles for delivering and reinforcing a message, but they can also be great tools for enhancing your company’s CSR program. Many organizations have already set up ‘shared space’ on their servers to host company photos and webcasts, but should consider creating an in-house web-based file share system aimed at highlighting CSR programs.

To really harness the value of file sharing, try encouraging your employees to capture images while participating in a community or volunteer event and help them to share their footage on YouTube (then consider tweeting the best examples out to your employee network and further).

While a few companies are still blocking employee access to social networking sites, the most successful organizations are finding ways to embrace new technologies to drive real business results. For more information, check out our recent post on leveraging Social Networks to drive employee engagement.

Need help with your organization’s social networking? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca

While growing up in Africa, I had a friend in the French diplomatic corps with a unique communication problem: while he and his household staff all spoke fluent French, they couldn’t understand each other.

You see, my friend had been educated at the Lycée in Paris and had a lovely Parisian accent, while his staff were from Côte d’Ivoire and spoke a local vernacular. Complicating things further, his new wife was raised in Haiti, and used that country’s unique French dialect. So great were the communications barriers that they may as well have been speaking Greek, German and Mandarin.   

It’s a common problem. Many professional communicators at global organizations agonize over deciding which version of a language they should use for their global communications initiatives.

In fact Mr. Gates’ most recent edition of Microsoft Word offers us 21 different versions of Spanish, 18 English dialects, 16 local Arabic options, and some 15 regional French languages.

There are no right or wrong answers. Regardless of which language or dialect your organization chooses, it is essential to formalize the decision and create a style-guide that will be relevant and appropriate for the long-term. The key is to provide a consistent and recognizable voice. 

Here are a few basic fundamentals to help you decide which dialect might be the right one for your organization:

• National or local companies should stick to local practice and grammar;
• Global companies should use the language prevalent at their Head Office or that of the country where their shares are primarily listed; and
• Companies looking to communicate in a foreign language should cater to their largest potential market.

However, the best strategy will always be one that recognizes and adheres to local custom whenever possible. Large multinationals may have the bench-strength to customize materials locally, but many organizations will need to maintain a network of regional communicators to provide those services on an ‘ad-hoc’ or as-needed basis.  

Winston Churchill is said to have quipped that Britain and America were “two nations divided by a common language”, but in reality there are now more than 80 nations who claim some version of English as their official language. Clearly, not every Anglophone is beholden to the Queen’s English.

Need help customizing your communications tools? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.