Les Potter blogs on Strategic Communication/Public Relations and Integrated Marketing Communication...plus Life in General

A roll down my career memory lane

[ 27 Aug 2010, 9:47 pm ]

Comments to my previous post like Donna Popacosta’s about showing her daughters her old electric typewriter remind me of what tools were like when I started my career.

Here’s a roll down that memory lane:

• When I began my career, I had only manual typewriters. If you made a mistake, you started over with a clean sheet of paper, or you used messy and ugly correction fluid. My first computer was the original, the first Apple computer. As primitive as that computer was, I thought I was in Heaven. I could write and edit copy on the screen, then print it only after everything was perfect. But the ease of use was costly. That first Apple computer was many thousands of dollars. Today, a few hundred dollars will buy you technology that could not have been imagined back then.
• Telephones were all land lines, fixed permanently in one place. To make a call while you were out and about, you used a public telephone, if you could find one, after depositing the proper coin. Now, we are free to call anyone from anywhere at any time via the cellular telephone. My first cell phone was the size and weight of a brick, and it was about as costly as a gold brick. And according to the Law of Unintended Consequences, the cell phone created that ubiquitous phenomenon that we see so regularly today — walking and talking/texting. How un-evolved we were way back then; we actually stayed still in one place while we talked on the phone. So primitive!
• You did your math with a pencil and paper. The hand-held calculator was not yet readily available or affordable. When I bought my first hand-held calculator, which was very expensive, I instantly became a mobile math whiz. But when I learned to use a financial spreadsheet on my first Apple computer, I was Einstein!
• If you did your own work-related photography like I did back then, you probably used a lot of Tri-X 400 black and white film for photo layouts in publications.  You shot the film, and unless you had a darkroom, it was sent out for development, then transferred to a contact sheet from which you reviewed your work. The contact sheet was sent back to show the processor which shots you wanted printed and what size to print them. The entire cycle took many days. Now, I can shoot a photo with my Canon 40D, connect it to my Sony laptop computer, edit the photo on-screen, then print it anywhere on my portable Canon printer. The entire process takes only minutes and can be accomplished on location.
• In my early career, I shot a lot of Kodachrome for color slides. Slides could be used as, well, slides for presentations, but you could also pull color prints from them, making Kodachrome more versatile and cost-effective than shooting only color print film. Producing audio/visual presentations was much more involved back then, necessitating the handling of every individual slide and the use of bulky equipment to show slide presentations. Then along came tools like PowerPoint and Animoto. Again, viewed from the perspective of my early career, the capability of digital photography and laptop computing is simply astounding. Due to the dominance of digital photography, Kodak stopped manufacturing Kodachrome in 2009.
• To prepare a publication, you wrote your copy and sent it to a typesetter, marked up with type style and size. When you got the typeset copy back, you did your page layouts by hand on a layout table. You ran your copy through a waxer, then you cut and pasted up page mechanicals. You scaled photos by hand and marked the size and page placement on the back. The page mechanicals went to the printer, who made negatives from which plates were made that went on the press. You got a blue line page proof for one final check before printing.  With the advent of desktop publishing and programs like PageMaker and Quark Express, the time savings and additional capability of producing publications was simply amazing. For a complicated and important print project, like an annual report, you could lay out the entire publication right there on your large computer screen, complete with colors, artwork, design details, copy, photos, and captions. Then, the entire publication file could be sent electronically to the printer. While this is so commonplace now, viewed from the technological perspective of my early career, it is almost unbelievable. Additionally, just consider for a moment that I am blogging about this. The mind boggles.
• If you wanted to write someone in my early career, you used pen and paper, or typed a letter, affixed the proper postage stamp, then trusted it to the U.S. Postal system. Days or weeks later, your message was conveyed. Excuse me, but I received and answered a text message on my cell phone while you read that.
• And finally, after a hard day’s work (and I worked many long hours back then without the benefit of the time-saving technology we take so for granted today), I could go home and relax in front of my stereo. The stereo component system I had back then covered a wall. The Kenwood speakers alone were the size of two Smart cars. In additional to vinyl records, I was also futuristic enough to have a reel-to-reel tape, with tape reels the size of pizza pans. Now, my small Bose Wave Radio has bigger and higher quality sound than that entire system. You are probably listening to music via your iPod as you read this. Enough said.

Looking back is entertaining, if somewhat unbelievable. With today’s technology, being a communication/public relations professional is in many ways easier and allows a much higher degree of personal capability, creativity, and productivity. The fundamentals are the same, but we can do so much more with less today than in past decades.

More with less — I like the sound of that.

We (carefully) welcome the Class of 2014 to fall semester

[ 20 Aug 2010, 9:55 pm ]

As we college professors welcome incoming  freshmen,  the class of 2014, it is nice to have the Beloit College Mindset List to guide us.

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has compiled the Mindset List, which provides cultural information that shapes the lives of the year’s incoming college freshmen. According to Beloit, the Mindset List “was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation.”

Dated references? Does this assume that the typical college professor could ever be out of date? Evidently so, for there are 75 items listed by Beloit to keep us from making generational gaffs.

For example, Item # 1: few in the class know how to write in cursive. Do you mean to tell me that this group has keystroked every word it has ever written? I guess the handwritten thank you note is officially dead. Why write a note by hand  that has to be put into the “always going broke post office” (Item # 69) with a stamp when you can email a quick “ thanks”?

And just when we are universally celebrating the tech-savviness of Millennial Generation students, the Mindset List says in Item # 2 that incoming freshmen view email as just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail. Yep, the handwritten thank you note is in fact dead, perhaps replaced by the texted “thx”.

For Mass Communication professors like me, Item # 26 really hurts: Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides. Ouch! And, Item #44: the dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.

Being a Vietnam Era veteran, Item # 41 really hits home: American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

And of course, music figures prominently on the list. Item # 46: Nirvana is on the classic oldies station. Say it isn’t so!!!

One last item for the gearheads out there; Item # 75 says Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.

Tempus sure does fugit.

When Onion-Slayer sings her death song, no zucchini is safe

[ 2 Aug 2010, 1:27 am ]

“While he was unbalanced, I stabbed Serpent-Breath forward and the blade pierced the mail above the hollow of his elbow and his ax arm dropped, all strength stolen from it. “

That was Uhtred of Bebbanburg describing how he defeated the fierce Dane Ubba Lothbrokson in hand-to-hand combat during the battle of Cynuit in 878. This fight scene was from the book, The Last Kingdom, the first in Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Tales series. Serpent-Breath is the name Uhtred gave his custom-made sword.

I do love Bernard Cornwell, the greatest writer of historical fiction ever. I am now on break before the fall semester begins at Towson University, so I can enjoy reading for pleasure.  I am currently reading the second of The Saxon Tales, The Pale Horseman.

Cornwell’s research is meticulous. For example, he provides a vivid, accurate description of Serpent-Breath’s construction. If you wish to see what Serpent-Breath might have looked like, visit Museum Replicas Limited, go to swords, knives, and daggers, then one-handed swords, and take a look at the Damascus Viking Sword.

I’d like to go through hypnotic regression to see why I love European history so much. I love reading about the period from the year 800 up through the 1500s. Did I live then? Was one (or more) of my past lives set in that period? If it has swords, horses, and shields in it, I love reading about it. When I read excellent historical fiction like Cornwell’s, I surround myself with period maps and weapons catalogs. I really get into it.

While I love reading about it, it is hard to imagine living (for very long anyway) back then. About the closest I come to handling anything like Serpent-Breath is when I use  my J. A. Henckels International 8″ Spanish steel kitchen knife to chop things for my world-class cook/wife, Marilyn. She does the thinking part of meal preparation, the part that requires skill, and I do the kitchen knavery.

I call my kitchen knife, “Onion-Slayer”. When Onion-Slayer sings her death song, I can dispatch all sorts of vegetables in short order — celery, tomato, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, and of course, onions. They are no match for my speed and agility with Onion-Slayer.

I must go. Time to take Onion-Slayer into battle with some Vidalias.

A question for my summer session 2010 PR Writing students

[ 24 Jul 2010, 5:36 pm ]

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

Challenges and opportunities: Employee communication at BP

[ 18 Jun 2010, 6:49 pm ]

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?

[ 11 Jun 2010, 6:42 pm ]

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

[ 30 May 2010, 7:55 pm ]

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

[ 27 May 2010, 2:41 am ]

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

[ 6 May 2010, 2:40 pm ]

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

[ 24 Apr 2010, 4:22 pm ]

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.”