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Article for Digital Media Magazine: CEO as Chief Communicator

April 16th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Public Relations, Social media

I wrote the following article for Digital Media Magazine. It ran in the newsletter yesterday (April 16th) which you can download here.

Links have been added for the benefit of this posting.

CEO as Chief Communicator

Current economic challenges have lead to intense scrutiny of executive decision making, corporate culture, compensation, risk management and due diligence in business.

This close examination by Government and the media of corporate largesse has highlighted a vast chasm between senior executives and the general workforce leading to unprecedented levels of mistrust towards the business sector. It has highlighted the urgent need for cultural change within the corporate sector in the developed world.

A January 2009 survey by a rival PR firm – Edelman – found that 38 percent of American respondents between the ages of 35 and 64 said they trust business. This is the lowest rating in the survey’s 10-year history. The corporate sector must act quickly and decisively to address deteriorating levels of trust between itself and the pool from which it must draw its customers and employees.

The question is: whose responsibility is it?

The buck must surely stop with the CEO. Research conducted by Burson-Marsteller in 2005 found that perceptions of the CEO represent 65 percent of a corporate reputation.

The role of the company CEO is to set the company vision, values and direction. They then must develop the plan of actions. The critical step lies in the effective communication of the strategy, and the consistent demonstration and reinforcement of the stated values.

The rise of digital media has had a major impact on corporate communications since 2005. It has provided the opportunity for corporations to establish an ‘authentic voice’. This singular, human voice enables corporations to engage in meaningful two way conversation with individuals in the media, customer base, bloggersphere and so on.

Interestingly, that authentic voice is rarely if ever the voice of the CEO. A 2008 research project by Burson-Marsteller found that just 18% of CEOs have used social media to communicate with stakeholder groups.

There are exceptions, most notably in the technology sector, but typically the engineer, product strategist, technician or designer is perceived as the authentic voice.

CEOs are overlooked for a wide variety of reasons; they don’t have time; they are not close enough to the detail; they are generalists; they don’t see the value in mass-communication; they are constrained by corporate disclosure guidelines.

This must change.

Businesses find themselves less trusted than ever before. This fact is a critical business issue and will be a major inhibitor for many companies in the years to come, more pressing in some industries than others. One time, one directional communications will not re-build trust. Businesses need to engage in a continuous dialogue.

The good news is that CEOs today have a wide variety of communications tools at their disposal and these tools will be second nature to the next generation of CEOs. These individuals assisted by corporate communications experts will recognise the need to communicate their vision and values for the company as well as encouraging and facilitating transparency across all operations.

There will continue to be a place for the ‘at the coal face’ bloggers within organisations – those individuals that discuss their daily challenges, share insights and generate ideas with likeminded people. In doing so, they generate goodwill, enhance reputations and engage various audience groups.

The organisations that recognise the need to re-instate and re-equip the CEO as the Chief Communicator will be the first to begin the process of re-building trust. Those businesses that deploy a strategy and the tools that enable continuous CEO communications will invigorate their reputation and establish refreshed relationships based on trust.

Tags: Blogging, CEO, change, corporate, digital, Media, relationships, trust

Internet Ends Monopoly on Journalism and News Content Production Says Alan Kohler

April 2nd, 2009 by Daniel Young | 1 Comment | Filed in Media

Alan Kohler, Business Spectator

Alan Kohler argued that the Internet has put an end to the cartel which existed between a small number of publishers in the era of print media as it eradicated the high barriers to entry such as printing presses and licenses (in the case of broadcasting).

Print is a highly ineffecient means of conveying news, he said, adding that the Government would be mad to support ‘public trust journalism’ via print publications. He viewed the recent increase in subsidies for print media legislated by Sarkozy as the latest example of ‘loopy French economics’.

Kohler – as an online publisher – strongly supports the trend towards digital media stating that the industry is in a transition mode. These points formed part of a panel discussion for the ABC’s Saturday Extra program on Radio National entitled, Quality Journalism: How Pays? Does it Matter?

Alan Kohler is the publisher of Business Spectator (online business and finance news) and The Eureka Report (subscription based investor news service). He said that the Business Spectator – founded 16 months ago – would ‘make a profit before too long’.

Philanthropic support and/or Government funding could help protect public interest journalism in Australia, according to Eric Beecher, publisher of Crikey.

The panel also included Wendy Bacon (Centre for Independent Journalism, UTS), John Hewson (Liberal Party Federal Leader, 19901-994) and Campbell Reid (Group Editorial Director, News Limited) with Geraldine Doogue, as moderator/presenter.

I have mixed feelings about the decline of newspapers. I agree that traditional mass media is effectively a monopoly but its also representative of national consciousness (imperfectly but as close as we know), it leads and sets the agenda. Digital media lets the audience set their personal agenda and that has inherent limitations (you don’t know what you don’t know).

I’d like to think that the power of the Internet to mobilize large numbers of people around campaigns and ideas will be effective in holding our institutions to account in the future but this still requires instigation, leadership. The danger is that we lose print media and have nothing to fill the void and each individual retreats into their own echo chamber of self determined media, opinion and content.

Tags: Blogs, Internet, journalism, Kohler, Media, news, Print

Media Industry Luminary Predicts Closure of Two Major Australian Metro Broadsheet Newspapers

April 2nd, 2009 by Daniel Young | 1 Comment | Filed in Media

Crikey's Eric Beecher

Eric Beecher (Publisher of Crikey) painted a dark future for the print versions of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspaper during a panel discussion for ABC Radio’s Saturday Extra program earlier today. The discussion ‘Quality Journalism: How to Pay for it? Does it Matter?’ focused on the future of print journalism in Australia, new business models and the concept of public trust journalism.

Pointing to the fact that few cities internationally are able to sustain two daily newspapers (many are struggling to sustain one), Beecher made the point that News Corporation with The Australian and its tabloid dailies in Melbourne and Sydney would take the opportunity to ‘wipe out’ the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. A ‘not unlikely scenario’, he said.

Tags: ABC, Age, Beecher, Crikey, democracy, Extra, journalism, Media, news, Print, Publishing, SMH

Reflections of a day immersed in social media of one type or another #atsyd Ad:tech09

March 11th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Social media

Regular readers will know that I attended the Ad:tech Sydney 09 conference today. It was an enjoyable and interesting event. Later in the pub, we talked about Facebook quite a lot. Even later, we talked about social media or at least I did. We were at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills to see Pivot. Pivot were supported by a group called Seekae, strangers to me this group rocked and made themselves a hard act to follow. I found out about the secret concert via Facebook, funnily enough; Pivot who are from Perth were performing under the name of Fire Island (presumably a reference to the Red centre of Australia).

I think I thought quite deeply through both acts. I almost texted this line:

It’s time that we re-assessed what Media actually is?

Much later I believed that we are ultimately moving towards a confrontation between Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and we are on the side of Biology. Convergence is the dominant theme in time. Discuss.

This begs the question. Can convergence every represent the individual?

I am off track.

Taken from another angle I wondered whether the speakers and organisors at Ad:tech Sydney 2009 represented the intelligensia of the marketing industry. One has to wonder, when the discussion is focused completely on what commercial advantage we can gain from social media.

Coming back to the question of what is media I believe that what is occurring is a progression of sorts. Fly on the wall documentaries and Reality TV represent a metaphorical highway which We took on the road of Media Fragmentation.

Today every individual IS THE ‘Media’.

Taking a quick tangent, I also pondered the proposition that social media is the latest tool of class and control.

In theory, social media is a wonderful but if I was asked to explain my point of view in the most simplest terms, I would say that the things that we describe as a ‘the Corporation’ and ‘Government’ will come to control social media in the medium to long term.

To summise:

If this were a film, I would advise people not to continue watching if they disagreed with this statement:

“If you put 20 Monkeys in a room for infinity, they would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.”

But this thought process a.k.a. theory presents an opportunity for the commercial sector and Government to demonstrate that they genuinely mean well.

One thinks that they will fail to take the opportunity.

Tags: adtech, democracy, Media, pivot, power, seekae, society

Implications of Digital News Media in the Context of the United States Presidential Election

October 1st, 2008 by Daniel Young | 3 Comments | Filed in Blogging, Politics, Social media, Technology

Utilitarianism: More votes to clever people

In 1861, the philisopher John Stuart Mill wrote: the exercise of any political function, either as an elector or representative, is power over others.

We live in tumultuous times. The United State Presidential Election is scheduled to take place on November 4 this year.

The question remains relevant today: Do voters have a moral duty to be informed about politics?

The majority of Americans rely on the television for their political information, not realising that most news networks are highly partisan, owned by corporations and biased.

John Stuart Mill argued that the impact of political ignorance should be offset by giving extra votes to the most highly educated portions of the population.

Who is responsible for generating an informed population? Is it the moral responsibility of the individual? Perhaps – It’s rarely (if ever) in the interests of the political elite or governing party to educate the electorate about its shortcomings and failings.

Edmund Burke coined the term, the Fourth Estate. He is quoted in Thomas Carlyle’s book:

“Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all”.

Journalism is seen as having a critical role to play as an institution that holds the other institutions to account. Sadly, our society has lost faith in the media.

2b or not 2b informed

A Pew Research Centre Study found that 66 per cent of people consider the press “one sided” while only 9 percent of journalists are concerned with the media’s credibility.

Technology is challenging and transforming the Fourth Estate.

The Internet is perceived to have democratised information. It has placed the means of production in the hands of the consumer, hence User Generated Content. It has enabled the audience to engage in conversation, to provide feedback and to challenge one sided arguments and vested interests.

The Internet presents fantastic possibilities and potential as means of sharing information and mobilising communities around a cause or issue but I don’t think its safe to assume that this potential will necesarily be realised to the benefit of all.

I think we can draw parallels between free markets and de-regulation and the impact of the Internet on media and information. Recent events clearly demonstrate – if proof were needed – that a laissez-faire attitude does not always lead to a positive or sustainable outcome. Fundamentally, free markets (of information or finance) may be self correcting but often that process is too painful to bare.

We cannot claim that traditional print media has been effective in establishing an informed population (whatever one of those is) but my fear is that new media, digital media will have a downward effect on the degree to which the community as a whole is achieving an acceptable level of informed-ness.

Contained conversation

Sure, it will expose active and aware audiences to a much wider and active array of content and opinion but that’s an echo chamber. A situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an “enclosed” space. This was one of the primary objections to the role of the media in the lead up to the Iraq War.

History tells us that the general public has no inclination and accepts no moral obligation to be informed about events in the world and in the world of digital media where the reader is the editor this concerns me.

For the majority of the population, the Internet means memes, it means funny videos, it means games, it means shopping, it means entertaining news and opinion. It has little or no relationship with political consciousness.

The following table captures the characteristics of traditional print media as I see them and compares them with that of digital and new media.

My fear is that if we move to a world where the characteristics of the media and the way that we engage with media reside in the right hand collumn we will utlimely become less informed and not more.

I don’t know what the solution is to this problem given the fact that media is moving irretrievably along a digital path but I think it’s worthy of discussion.

Tags: Biden, Burke, Bush, digital, election, Iraq, journalism, McCain, Media, Mill, Obama, palin, PEW, Presidential, social

Six Reasons Why Corporate Australia is a Social Media Laggard

September 25th, 2008 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Public Relations, Social media

Where the bleeding hell are you?

OK, I want to start this post with a disclaimer. There are plenty of companies operating in Australia that are active in social media. I have seen some great case studies…

Examples include – wikis at Janssen-Cilag, BlueTube for the Victorian Police Force and the ever present case study: Now We Are Talking.

And I have worked with companies in this sphere.

As a side note: It seems to me that Telstra entered the social media space with a very specific agenda (T3) and objective. The approach delivered value and has since permeated other areas of their business in a positive way.

For the purposes of this post, I want to focus on externally facing social media projects by Australian corporates.

Laurel Papworth recently posted on the topic of CEOs that use twitter, as a follow up to a BusinessWeek story about tweeting chief execs in the US. The list is made up by the leaders of web 2 and tech companies on both sides of the Pacific.

Talk to any PR in Australia and they’ll tell you that the corporate sector remains unwilling to dip its toe into social media in a meaningful or strategic way. Maybe that’s an exercise in PR business development, either way I’d like to suggest a few reasons why this might be the case.

1. A small corporate sector which remains well connected via traditional offline networks
That sense of the old boys network in Australian business still feels very prevalent to me. That concept of mateship and personal connections comes through quite strongly. The people that run Australian businesses are not using social media as a prmary means of communication.

2. The retail sector has not led the way
Amazon and eBay were the Web pioneers in many ways. Their success gave the Web a lot of credibility in a market (the US) which has a very rich catalogue mail order retail culture. The Australian retail sector on the other hand has been very cautious and reticent when it comes to establishing an online presence, resulting in a lack of leadership.

Too many cultural stereotypes for one post?

3. The old chestnut: Australia the follower
Why would we expect Australia to lead the rest of the world or even be up there when history tells us that this market is typically a follower? Corporate Australia is watching to see what happens in the US and Europe before it dives in.

4. Abscence of high speed national broadband
Internationally, Japan leads the way when it comes to national broadband speeds. The NBN project in Australia has a long way to go still – a nationwide broadband network in Australia is five years away, at the very least. This has impacted the sophistication, the uptake of Web applications, interaction etc. Australia is way down the rankings in terms of broadband quality, as this study shows.

5. There has been no high profile reputational crisis on the Web in Australia
Corporates will only recognise the power of the Web when they see one of their peers suffer major reputational damage as a result of online activity. Until then, corporates will sit back and focus on the risk of getting involved.

6. Corporates aren’t being sold on the benefits effectively
Marketers, consultants, PRs have to accept some responsibilty for the current state of affairs. It’s their job to educate decision makers. It’s their job to prove the business case. Marketers and communicators in Australia aren’t strong on this stuff.

As I said at the beginning, there is activity out there. It’s happening but Australia continues to lag behind the rest of the world. My sense is that the multi-nationals operating in Australia are leading the way. It can only be a matter of time until we see the large corporates follow Telstra and usurp the telco as the outstanding Australian corporate in social media.

Tags: australia, Blogging, cilag, corporate, Media, social, telstra, twitter, victoria

Journalists and blogging

June 17th, 2008 by Daniel Young | 1 Comment | Filed in Blogging, Public Relations, Social media, Technology

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) put on event tonight entitled ‘Freelance Journalists and Blogging’. Laurel Papworth spoke on the topic in the glamorous surrounds of the Orient Hotel in the Rocks, Sydney.

Papworth’s presentation provided an overview of well known social networking sites and blogging platforms and instructions on how bloggers and content creators can promote their product via social media. It dealt with some of the implications for the freelance journalist community.

The content was relatively rudimentary but well matched to the level of knowledge and experience among the audience of freelance writers.

I have seen Papworth speak a few times. Tonight, I again learnt about some new stuff, fact and figures:

The biggest concern for 50% of the journalists that participated in a PEW survey (State of the News Media) ranked economic concerns as their biggest professional issue
MySpace = the third largest country in the world
More on corporate activity within Facebook: Salesforce has created an application that links Facebook activity with its CRM application. More on this here.
Glassdoor: A site that provides an environment for employees to anonymously rate their employer. More from Ms. Papworth here.

The take away was basically: Freelances need to get theirs head around social media and learn how to use it to their advantage because in the future an editor is just as likely to commission a blogger with a ready made audience and some degree of authority on a specific topic.

I don’t think there is any doubt that this is true.

The evening got me thinking about journalism and how this compares to blogging. Surely good journalism is mainly but not totally about objectivity, as defined by Yahoo! Education:

The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.

Clearly, journalists and publishers have biases and political leanings but famous papers got that way because they were objective. The skill in journalism comes from researching and understanding an issue before gathering credible sources together to present a balanced analysis of that topic.

Bloggers have an agenda. They shoot from the hip and more often than not they promote themselves and their point of view. There is no requirement for objectivity. They know that their audience either already has an interest in their favoured topic or agrees with them or just finds their personal going-ons interesting.

They operate within echo chambers (at least to some extent) and their success and the degree to which they entertain and inform is rarely determined by their ability to deconstruct relevant and topical issues.

This begs the question: Is it better to have an understanding of what’s going on or to know what somebody else thinks?

A combination of Opinion and Objectivity would be ideal but as Papworth said during her concluding comment the US newspapers are placing more and more blog content on their home pages and she expects this trend to be repeated in Australia.

The last questioner of the night pondered the issue of time; where might freelance writers find time to blog and manage and extend their social networks? A valid question because now it’s my bedtime.

You’ll find the presentation from tonight’s event here (soon).

Tags: Blogging, facebook, freelance, journalism, MEAA, Media, myspace, Papworth, PEW, Saleforce.com, social networks

Posts Tagged ‘Media’

Internet Ends Monopoly on Journalism and News Content Production Says Alan Kohler

Media Industry Luminary Predicts Closure of Two Major Australian Metro Broadsheet Newspapers

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