A question for my summer session 2010 PR Writing students

Why is writing skill the fundamental core competency of the communication/public relations professional?

Challenges and opportunities: Employee communication at BP

Good morning, and welcome to job hell.

Or is it? A compelling case study for employee communication is British Petroleum, or BP. Since the accident on BP’s oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, as much oil spews out every few days as the total of the Exxon Valdez spill. BP’s external communication efforts, derisively called its “PR” by the media, have been discussed at length, but what about internal communication? What if you were in charge of employee communication at BP?

BP is one of the world’s largest energy companies. It provides fuel for transportation and energy for heat and light, plus retail services and petrochemical products. Sales were $239 billion in 2009. BP has 80,300 employees and 22,400 service stations. BP has active exploration and production  in 30 countries. In 2009, BP had production throughput of 2.9 million barrels per day with 16 wholly or partially owned refineries.

Oh, and BTW, BP is now one of the most reviled companies in history.

Internal or employee communication professionals are hired to help employers achieve their missions. It is not easy on a good day, but faced with extreme situations like the BP oil spill, the work of the employee communicator is extraordinarily difficult yet crucial.

Right now, BP is in full crisis communication mode. But what about long-term employee communication?

BP employees are probably pretty much like employees anywhere. They want to do meaningful work for an employer who values it. They have financial obligations and need their jobs to meet them. I imagine you could plot BP employees all over Maslow’s Hierarchy. Each has his or her own needs. And, to be fair, many if not most, are probably sickened by the sight of what their company’s accident is doing to the Gulf of Mexico and its coastal residents’ lives.

Understanding employee needs is a requisite for building communication strategy. While we might sit here and speculate on what BP employees are thinking and feeling, if we are to be truly professional and strategic, then we would need to conduct research to know for sure. Interviews, focus groups, and surveys/questionnaires must be used to conduct our own primary research. Then we would know what we are facing. Then, and only then, could we formulate strategy — goals, objectives,and tactics —  to address the situation.

Organizations succeed and fail. Organizations do good things, and they do bad things. But through it all, the need for the skills of the communicator remains constant. Considering this one important aspect of BP’s current situation, its employee communication, provides an instructive, if radical, look into what the role of employee communicator just might bring. Can we ever be prepared enough to face what may come?

Yes, we can. And as the BP incident illustrates, we had better be.

IABC World Conference for 2010 is history: are we communicators history, too?

I attended the IABC World Conference in Toronto, June 4 through 9, in order to answer the pressing question: are we communicators still relevant?

To address that question, I attended a variety of presentations, held endless hallway conversations, chatted over coffee/tea/beer/wine/meals, and in general, poked around looking for answers.

Did I find any answers? Yes and no. Some specific things came very clear. Others are left to be answered another time, if at all.

I pose the question of relevance because conferences like this seem to devote extraordinary amounts of time and energy in justifying what we do as a profession. It seems a bit paranoid to me. If we feel compelled to question our own relevance, then something is wrong. We should know.

I know that communication is more relevant now than ever. As an example, consider the exchange I had with John from Ottawa, who works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We were sitting together in an afternoon general session called, “Why should anyone trust you? Lessons from leading change in international organizations.” John leaned over and asked, “Is it just me, or are we talking about the same things we talked about five, ten, even fifteen years ago?”

Yes, we are still talking about many of the same things. Why? For several reasons:

1. We have not sufficiently solved the problem, like improving employee engagement or gaining the ability to write clear and compelling copy or successfully integrating social media into our overall strategic communication plans or communicating organizational change effectively or making employees brand ambassadors.
2. New people enter the communication field and seek answers to important questions they encounter on the job. For the neophytes, these questions, however fundamental, are new and exotic and demand answers. That’s a competitive advantage for professional development providers like IABC. It constitutes a source of recurring revenue.
3. New answers arise to old questions. For example, three phenomena that have risen in importance over the past few decades:  strategic planning in communication; the need for high quality research on which to base strategy; and the impact of social media on society in general and communication management specifically. These phenomena all help to keep communication relevant and serve to make it even more competent.

Several presentations targeted the fundamental questions we must answer in order to practice communication management effectively. Then there were unfulfilling presentations that promised to explain what communicators must know, then didn’t.

Thankfully, I attended presentations that were insightful, practical, and immediately useful. One notable presentation was “Integrating multimedia into your social media campaign,” by Toronto-based consultant and ace podcaster Donna Papacosta. In a world consumed by what Neil Postman termed, “technological adoration”, Donna’s down-to-earth treatment of technology used to support and enhance overall communication strategy was refreshing.

Speaking of technological adoration, I blogged last year about the obsessive use of Twitter at IABC’s World Conference in San Francisco. Everything was Twitter; everywhere you looked, people weren’t talking face to face, they were tweeting — in sessions, in the hallways, at meals, and who knows where else. The obsession with technology, especially Twitter, was all-consuming. It was not so much so this year. There seemed to be a more mature approach to the use of technology, especially Twitter.

Perhaps we are evolving. Perhaps we are transforming our technological adoration into practical managerial applications. I hope so, for evolving and transforming is the only way the profession of organizational communication will truly stay relevant.

Tupperware: the highest form of loving tribute

I was part of something yesterday that was at once sad, beautiful, instructive, and uplifting.

The event was a memorial service for my brother/bff Robert J. Holland’s departed mother, Meda Rae Branham Holland. She died May 19 after a long and debilitating illness.

The event was called “a service of praise and remembrance”. It was all that and much more. The memorial was conducted by Robert and his father, Joseph Holland, at their Baptist church in Mechanicsville, Virginia. The church was packed, a commentary on the lives Robert’s mother had touched.

 Joseph, 77, but looking all of 60, was a rock of loving strength. He and Meda Rae had been together for 61 years, raising three daughters and a son, Robert. They have 11 grandchildren. 

Joseph’s words of tribute and remembrance were not only sweet and loving, but were instructive and uplifting to anyone who heard them. His words held great lessons  — of life and death, life after death, and living fully in the moments we are given.

Joseph said you can describe some people as porcelain or as Tupperware. With a playful but loving smile, he said with excellent comedic timing, ”Meda Rae was Tupperware,” to laughs of understanding from the audience. “She was flexible, strong, useful, and sturdy,” Joseph said.  To an outsider, the “Tupperware” characterization might seem callous, but after 61 years together, it was proof of love and understanding that transcends all space and time.

Robert spoke on his childhood with his three sisters. Their’s was a loving, Christian household, but there were rules, too. Robert’s parents never wished to be “best friends” with their kids. They were parents, responsible for bringing up their children to be responsible adults. Born and raised in West Virginia, Meda Rae Branham Holland knew good from evil, and she raised her children with a firm but loving hand.

Regarding their work with my best friend Robert, a first class father in his own right, Joseph and Meda Rae Holland succeeded admirably.

We play hurt

I am watching the Yankees play the Twins. It is interesting to hear about the injuries that baseball players receive. A player might be put on the disabled list for such things as a bruised heel or a sprained index finger.

That’s quite different from football. In football, the injuries seem to be much more severe before they will even be acknowledged.

For example, in football, imaginary starter Vladimir Turftoe might be put on the disabled list and miss a game because someone tore off his left leg.

“But, I kin pley de game!” Turftoe might assert. However, a sensitive and caring team-mate would helpfully point out, “Vlad, you can’t run! That defensive guy tore off your left leg.”

“But I kin hop, dimmit!”

Heck, Dancing With the Stars stars get hurt worse than baseball players and still dance. I think I heard Maks and Derek both say “we dance hurt” on more than one occasion.

You’ve got to be tough to make it in this life. You have to work hurt, play hurt, and live hurt. But after all, it’s only pain.

Ask Vladimir Turftoe.

A question for my Millennial Generation students

I am interested in the influence of Web 2.0 technologies on my Millennial Generation students, those born between 1981 and 2001.  Also known as the “Net Generation”, as a group you are reputed to be the most computer-literate generation ever.

But at what cost?

My question to you Millennials is this: given the fact that you are daily users of Web 2.0 technologies (for example, instant messaging, text messaging, cell phones, social media, etc.), do you think it has an effect on your skill and ability to communicate face-to-face?

Discipline and the road Les traveled

It’s a rainy and cold Saturday here in Vienna. Faced with endless stacks of work, it’s the kind of day that I just want to watch back-to-back Anthony Bourdain ”No Reservations” shows and eat stuff that is bad for me,  unshaven, wearing my raggedy-ass black sweatshirt. 

Yes, I am having a discipline crisis.

Like most of you, my work  is demanding. I work every day. If I don’t, I easily and quickly fall behind.

I chose this path, the road Les traveled, if you will. Maintaining the pace requires strict discipline. I usually do pretty well in the discipline department, but there are days when I would just as soon goof off and spend the day in mindless frivolity.

I remind myself that what I do is not difficult physical work, like coal mining. But sometimes simple, even difficult physical work, allows you to suspend your mind and exercise your body. My work is not like that. Everything requires precise thought, planning, and execution on deadline. It’s all mental. That can be much more tiring than physical work.

It is relentless. For those of us who do work like this, it never seems to be finished. With some physical work, like building a wall or clipping a pasture, you can finish it and look back at the completed work. Mind work is seldom like that. It seems to never be quite finished. There is always an improvement to be made, some random embellishment that makes the work better.

And on and on it goes. A good  example is the literature review for my dissertation. Having finished a first draft, I must continue to refine it. In truth, it will never really be finished. The research will continue, and the writing will be a regular part of my life.

Lao Tzu said, “A journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.” The way I see it, the statement should be, “A journey begins with one step, but take your lunch because it ain’t gonna end anytime soon.”

Easter holiday overshadowed by iPad idolatry

Tomorrow, April 4, the faithful world over celebrate the highest holy day of the Christian calendar, Easter, and the resurrection of Jesus.

But today, the worship is for a small high-tech device, yet another piece of techno-wizardry that promises to transform our lives.

Hail Steven Jobs, the iPad is here. We are saved.

This $500-to-$800 device is the latest in a line of popular, high quality products from Apple, which has received 240,000 advance orders for the iPad. Part laptop, part smartphone, part book reader, the iPad is everyone’s darling at the moment.

Given Apple’s track record at producing excellent, advanced products, the iPad should be a huge seller. Apple — and Steve Jobs — represent the best of American innovation, product design, and high quality. Apple creates useful, elegant, and user-friendly  products that people want.

If the line of people I saw early this morning at a nearby mall waiting to purchase an iPad is any indication of what is happening in other places, the iPad is off to one heck of a launch.

Apple rocks, but ironically, I am writing Apple’s praises on an ancient Dell laptop. It gets the job done, and that is really all that matters.

Forget the rubber duckie, pass me a Ziploc bag

I was looking out a restaurant window last Wednesday evening when an SUV pulled up and stopped in the parking lot. Mom was apparently letting her two daughters out to enter the restaurant while she parked the vehicle.

I could see one daughter, a high schooler I’d guess, opening the side door to help her younger sister out. They both came around the back of the SUV and crossed the parking lot in route to the front door of the restaurant.

Like ducks in a row, the older led the younger. The older girl, about 15 or 16, was texting like crazy as she walked unconcerned across the parking lot. Her little sister, who could not have been more than 4 years old, was doing the same thing on what I assume was a toy cell phone.

There’s the future, I thought. That is, if fortunately for them, no speeding vehicle shortens their days, because each was too absorbed in her texting to notice little things like oncoming traffic.

But it’s not just young people. A dear friend from Canada told me that at an early movie this past Saturday night, her party noticed a young man sitting alone using his Blackberry throughout the movie.

In Japan, 20 percent of high school girls have not only one, but two, cell phones, and some own even more. These teenagers stay on the phone “all the time” as one of them put it.

The Pew Research Center finds that 75 percent of Americans ages 12 to 17 own a cell phone, and the age at which kids  gettheir first phone is dropping. If what I saw at the restaurant is any gauge, it is dropping really low.

Pew reports that 66 percent of users use their phones for texting. It is sometimes carried to extremes, like the Japanese teenagers who use Ziploc bags to keep their phones waterproof while they use them in the bath.

Web 2.o technologies are extraordinary. We are able to communicate in ways we could not have imagined just a few years ago. But what does it all mean? Just because we can text in the shower, does that make it a desirable thing to do?

What concerns me most is how technology is used by my mostly Millennial Generation students now and in the future. Web 2.0 technologies are exciting and capable, but harnessing them to be useful in strategic communication/public relations is essential.

There is much to know about such topics as using social media to successfully support integrated marketing communication programs.

The conflict will accelerate: businesses believe Millennial Generation students are inherently tech-savvy and hire them expecting quick results. Not so. They are not.

And to be honest, college prep is lagging way behind. We must find more and better ways of preparing students for the real world of work they will face.

Innovative waterproofing to allow shower texting is funny, but not being able to deliver the requisite technological skills on the job isn’t.

Doctoral waterboarding: The Literature Review

My father would be proud. After five years of course work for my doctorate in Instructional Technology at Towson University, I am beginning to write the literature review for my dissertation.

I devoted this week — spring break — to the project. I have spent the entire week at my computer searching peer-reviewed journals online for research that relates to my area of interest, then writing my first draft.

Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. I was making good progress, then my computer keyboard died. The space bar cease to work, so there was no spacing between words. My lit review copy came out like this:

“communicationisareciprocalprocessofexchangingsignalstoinformpersuadeorinstruct…”

I’d write a sentence, which smunched together, then go back and add spacing between words, a tedious chore to say the least. I wonder if the great scholars whose work I am now reading ever had to go back and add spacing between each word? I think not, because there is a huge amount of research out there. The inability to space words in sentences would be detrimental to their prolific output, I think.

It sure was detrimental to my efforts. But that was then, and this is now, writing on my new keyboard. You can’t be a scholar without some practical tools. Now, what I need is research materials related to my topic. It is hard to find relevant and timely research that relates well enough to be instructive. One might think it would be easy, but I am  finding it difficult.

Perhaps the problem lies with my Boolean logic.  Conducting an advanced search through Towson’s excellent Cook Library databases and subject gateways appears to be at once art and science. I have not mastered it yet, but I keep at it.