The Persuasion Business

Suspended animation

2008-04-14T21:45:00.002-02:30

The Persuasion Business is in suspended animation.

Changing the face of the news release

2008-04-11T11:39:00.001-02:30

Compare this Ontario government news release with this example from the NewfoundlandLabrador government.

The traditional news release evolved from a print format news story. There is still tremendous value in the style, format and content if it is used properly.

The problem comes in situations where, despite drawing most of its communications directors straight out of news rooms, the overwhelming majority of provincial government news release are turgid, boring drek. They may contain some of the most exciting and innovative ideas on the planet but the format in which the information is conveyed seems calculated to put people to sleep.

Now, sometimes news releases are deliberately written and distributed in a way to avoid telling things, but that's a whole other issue. Burying information is not communications; it's grave digging.

The Ontario approach breaks the conventions but it does deliver the information the government wants to convey in a way which people can take it up quickly and easily. Reporters will likely find it easier as the starting point for putting their pieces together since it breaks everything down in tidy bundles. The rest of us will also likely find it easier to scan and, frankly, that's the intention.

With so much information coming in so many formats and through so many channels, people who want to stay informed have become browsers.

They scan.

Here's a heatmap picture [Source: Jakob Neilson's Alertbox] of how people scan web pages of different types.

The red bits show areas of most eye activity. Yellow is less activity and the grey bits are places where people don't look at all.

Some people spend a lot of time looking at these things since it tells us how to present information in a way that people will pick it up.

Take a look at the web page you're looking at right now. Notice that the posts - the things you should be reading are presented in the upper left, that is where all the red activity would typically take place. On the right are things that are considerably less important, not by the reckoning of your humble e-scribbler, but by the results of studies into the reading patterns of people just like you.

Don't worry, by the way. You aren't being monitored, scanned or otherwise probed, at least not by this site.

Since people do learn to look to the right for other useful bits of information. On the google page on the right of the picture, that's where those google ads appear with links off to some other site. People spend a lot of time figuring out what attracts google attention in order to get a site into that red zone on the upper left. Alternately, they just buy space on the upper right.

At Bond Papers, the stuff that the top of the right-hand column gets moved about a bit depending on what needs to be highlighted. The whole idea, though, is to put stuff where you are more likely to look so that you'll be more likely to see it.

The Ontario government news release doesn't really conform to this eye scan approach but it does at least reflect the shifting patterns in how people take in information.

Let's see if this idea catches on. We shouldn't look locally or expect change any time soon, though, since the local market is fairly conservative. The provgov's a good example; the site only recently started posting photographs with releases and it's unimaginable that the provgov or one of its agencies would try youtubing stuff with decent quality video.

Doing more of the same when the environment changes makes it less likely your communication will be successful.

Take, for example, the campaign to promote composting. Boosting the number of people composting successfully would require a shift in popular culture. The most effective way to do that would be through creation of a support network either within a physical community or through online communities and blogs.

Go find the official government composting blog.

Keep looking.

You won't find one.

That's because the project was approached as a typical flogging project. We've got these bins and we need to move them out the door. Therefore, run some advertising. Print some brochures. Find a price point at which the bins will move.

The key metric for success should have been the number of people composting successfully which in turn would reduce the amount of food matter heading for landfills. Now the advertising mentioned the problem and how wonderful things would be if people composted, but nothing created the support system needed to actually have people composting.

The metric for success seems to have been the number of bins moved.

By that record, the project was a success.

Has anyone checked to see how many bins are not just taking up space in the corner of backyards?

Probably not.

But traditional news releases make wonderful fodder for a compost bin when you print them out.

In too many cases, that's about all they are good for.

-tpb/srbp-

Lords of the blog

2008-04-11T10:49:00.001-02:30

Some members of the House of Lords are co-operating on a blog.

The official description:

Lords of the Blog is an experimental project to encourage direct dialogue between web users across the world and Members of the House of Lords. Commissioned by the House of Lords, the pilot project is conducted by the Hansard Society who are working directly with Members of the Lords to bring their blogs to the wider online audience.

Views expressed by the authors or ‘bloggers’ are their own and do not represent the views of the House of Lords, its authorities or its other Members (including parties and other groups of Members) or the Hansard Society.

There is a slightly more elaborate description.

If the notoriously conservative if not a tad eccentric crowd known as the British peers are blogging, then surely others will notice the value of frank, informal dialogue for government and business purposes.

-srbp/tpb-

Timely blog discoveries

2008-04-10T13:55:00.001-02:30

Comprehension, the Public Relations Society of America blog.

crisisblogger, the blog for crisis managers and communicators.

-tpb/srbp-

Healthcare Crisis Public Relations - what makes a crisis?

2008-04-02T07:32:00.002-02:30

While the specific details of a crisis may be unique, the fact that crises occur and need to be properly managed is a well accepted notion.

Many organizations have some sort of emergency or crisis plan for certain types of events and the literature on the public relations aspects of crisis management is wide. These tend to focus on natural disasters like fires or floods and in more recent times, organizations have become aware of the potential for manmade disasters like terrorist attack.

Oddly enough, there are more than a few organizations - especially government ones - that seem to miss the examples of policy-related or similar crises and realize they fall in the same general category.

But if one considers the typical definition of a crisis from the crisis management literature, it gets pretty clear the problems at Eastern Health in 2005 fit the bill. Take for example, the definition of "crisis" contained in Crisis communications in healthcare: managing difficult times effectively, a 2002 publication of the American Hospital Association's Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development.

A healthcare crisis is anything that suddenly or unexpectedly has adverse effects on a healthcare organization or its patients, staff or community. (p.7)

The book also contains a useful tool for assessing the type of crisis. It's not an absolute system but it gives some idea of what the problem is and, as the book subsequently lays out, the sort of responses that experience shows work more effectively to:

respond to the crisis;
maintain or restore public confidence; and,
restore normal operations.

The following table is adapted from the assessment tool with some wording changes to save space.

Assessing the severity of a crisis

	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Geographic scope/duration	Single facility or location	Affects more than one location but for short period	Affects org. or region for indefinite period
Impact on operations	Temporary. Confined to one dept. Normal operations restored within 24 hrs	Significant. Routine operations may shut down temporarily.	Extremely serious. Affected organization may be closed or operate indefinitely at fraction of normal capacity
Employee Involvement	Handled without many problems. May divert from normal routine	Employees require support from senior management and may require external resources.	Level 2 + Total workforce involved. May need support of healthcare professionals from other organizations.
Regulatory, accreditation,law enforcement impact	Minimal concern. Phone call or written report may be required.	Appropriate agencies will investigate and may sanction/fine. Sanctions are minimal to moderate.	Sanctions are serious: closure of unit etc.
Public Concern	Limited to parties directly involved in situation	Some public anxiety. Relatives of patients, community residents and others may contact hospital for information on an urgent basis.	Substantial public anxiety. Volume of calls strains normal capacity of organization.
Likely media coverage	Maximum publicity limited to one day of local news coverage.	Regional press plus trade publication.	National and/or international media interest. major newspapers, television, radio, magazines cover issue.

This table is by no means exhaustive nor is it complete. There is some possibility for overlap from one crisis level to another, however, it is intended purely as a rough guide. It doesn't have to be perfect.

For our purposes, though, it's interesting to take the evidence from the Cameron Inquiry to date and apply what was known in July 2005 by government officials to this matrix.

There's no question that what occurred at Eastern Health was a crisis.

Geographic scope and duration: Level 3. The laboratory problems themselves were confined to one site but their impacts involved patients from the whole province. While the start date for problems was identified as possibly being 1997, there was no indication of how long the problems might last into the future.

Impact on Operations: Level 2. The whole hospital wasn't shut but that section of the laboratory was. Several departments were affected by the situation.

Employee Involvement: Level 2. External resources were required - outside labs - and there is no question that senior management assistance was needed in several ways to cope with the incident.

Regulatory, Accreditation, Law Enforcement: Level 2/3. There's not enough information to judge the potential impact of these problems on Eastern health's accreditation. if we add to this section the potential for litigation from affected parties, this one becomes a Level 3 crisis. A minimum of 100 people seriously affected, all of whom may become party to a lawsuit raises the potential of legal costs stretching into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Public Concern: Level 2 - Eastern Health clearly anticipated some anxiety and a volume of telephone calls from patients and relatives that may affect operations. In practice, Level 3 - the incident caused significant public anxiety over a prolonged period.

Likely media coverage: Level 3. A story involving breast cancer, testing problems and hundreds of people couldn't be kept local if money changed hands. It's big and everyone knew it was big from the outset.

Now that we've established that fairly obvious point, in our next posting in this series, let's look at a typical set of crisis responses and compare them to what senior officials at Eastern Health and the provincial government decided to do.

-srbp/tpb-

Healthcare Crisis Public Relations - what makes a crisis?

2008-04-02T07:30:00.001-02:30

While the specific details of a crisis may be unique, the fact that crises occur and need to be properly managed is a well accepted notion.

A healthcare crisis is anything that suddenly or unexpectedly has adverse effects on a healthcare organization or its patients, staff or community. (p.7)

respond to the crisis;
maintain or restore public confidence; and,
restore normal operations.

The following table is adapted from the assessment tool with some wording changes to save space.

Assessing the severity of a crisis

	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Geographic scope/duration	Single facility or location	Affects more than one location but for short period	Affects org. or region for indefinite period
Impact on operations	Temporary. Confined to one dept. Normal operations restored within 24 hrs	Significant. Routine operations may shut down temporarily.	Extremely serious. Affected organization may be closed or operate indefinitely at fraction of normal capacity
Employee Involvement	Handled without many problems. May divert from normal routine	Employees require support from senior management and may require external resources.	Level 2 + Total workforce involved. May need support of healthcare professionals from other organizations.
Regulatory, accreditation,law enforcement impact	Minimal concern. Phone call or written report may be required.	Appropriate agencies will investigate and may sanction/fine. Sanctions are minimal to moderate.	Sanctions are serious: closure of unit etc.
Public Concern	Limited to parties directly involved in situation	Some public anxiety. Relatives of patients, community residents and others may contact hospital for information on an urgent basis.	Substantial public anxiety. Volume of calls strains normal capacity of organization.
Likely media coverage	Maximum publicity limited to one day of local news coverage.	Regional press plus trade publication.	National and/or international media interest. major newspapers, television, radio, magazines cover issue.

For our purposes, though, it's interesting to take the evidence from the Cameron Inquiry to date and apply what was known in July 2005 by government officials to this matrix.

There's no question that what occurred at Eastern Health was a crisis.

Impact on Operations: Level 2. The whole hospital wasn't shut but that section of the laboratory was. Several departments were affected by the situation.

Employee Involvement: Level 2. External resources were required - outside labs - and there is no question that senior management assistance was needed in several ways to cope with the incident.

-srbp/tpb-

The power of apology, part the second

2008-03-30T16:44:00.001-02:30

Lawyers don't like apologies.

Perhaps they need to read more widely.

From The Intangibles, a public relations blog, a brief note with a link to an article from 2003 on the legal implications of apologies.

-srbp/tpb-

Why did the reporter cross the road?

2008-03-10T21:25:00.001-02:30

Geoff Meeker poses an interesting question in a couple of posts at his Telegram blog. Meeker himself is a former journalist who crossed over to what many reporters refer to only half jokingly as the Dark Side.

Geoff's asking for some comments and with any luck reporters and people from the communications/public relations world will join the conversation.

He poses some questions to get things started:

What is driving this exodus? I suspect that it’s primarily a matter of money. Do governments and corporations pay that much more than the media (okay, I know, but how much more)? What should news outlets do to stem the tide and keep their people (and can they afford it)? Is this migration diminishing the quality of journalism in the province? Is the supply of young people coming into journalism enough to meet the demand? If you’ve recently made the jump, do you have any regrets? Or are you feeling good about the move? What do journalism students think about this issue?

To help stimulate the conversation, here are some observations from the perspective of someone in the public relations business who isn't a former reporter or a graduate of a public relations program.

1. Why did the reporter cross the road? Because he/she can.

Over the past four or five years, the number of reporters crossing to public relations in this province has been astonishing. It's not unusual to see people walking straight out of a newsroom and straight into a mid-level position that was advertised as requiring a minimum - a minimum -of five years experience in public relations including experience providing issues management advice to senior management.

If there is no perceived difference in being a reporter and being a public relations practitioner, some people will switch careers just because they can.

There is no set path into the persuasion business. The track Jamie Baker is taking makes perfect sense. he's going from writing copy for a newspaper to producing an in-house magazine for a local union. There are plenty of communications jobs working for a university or a business that are essentially the same as working for a news outlet.

Public relations does require a massive shift in thinking, though, and in many cases requires a skill set for planning and management a reporter working in a newsroom wouldn't have.

PR isn't rocket science, but that doesn't mean it's easy either. It comes with its own problems and pressures, just the same as any other job.

Many organizations make the mistake of assuming that PR is about media and therefore the best person to handle the job of fending off reporters' calls is another reporter. Managing media relations is only one part of a broader set of public relations responsibilities.

Fundamentally, though, the shift is from being an observer to being an advocate. Ideally, journalists gather information and present an account of what they found usually in a specific medium.

Public relations is about persuasion. It's about having a point of view and presenting it fairly and with integrity. Picking the medium is just a small aspect of the overall job.

2. The flow is one way. At the same time, and at least in the local marketplace, while reporters cross effortlessly to communications jobs, the same isn't true the other way. That's not something confined to Newfoundland and Labrador; it's common across Canada. A former communications director for the American president can wind up with a Sunday morning news show, but try to find a single example of the same thing happening in Canada.

Columnist maybe.

But PR professional to reporter? How about to an editor's job?

Keep thinking. You might recall one.

Now think of the number of reports who've moved from the newsroom to a PR management job.

3. The money is better. Townie Bastard Craig Welsh offered some observations on the cross-over phenomenon in January. The post was prompted by a former colleague of his who was quitting the reporting game to take a job in a hardware store. The back story - which he didn't share in detail - is appalling but undoubtedly money and time is a factor.

As Craig notes, in his own case the switch was driven by a family move to a new locale. There are many reasons for switching jobs.

4. The stress is lower. Okay. That one is just funny.

5. The switch from "hack" to "flack" isn't a local phenom either.

Here are some relevant links:

- From journalism to PR to teacher.

- The National Press Club (Washington, DC) had a professional development session on the topic.

- A profile of three cross-overs, courtesy of Kings J school alumni magazine.

- A profile of Susan Murray, in which Susan uses the "s" word approvingly.

- Another profile of reporters who made the switch, again from Kings.

-tpb-

The Johnny Cab Minister

2008-02-27T14:12:00.001-03:30

Johnny Cab is a clever character in the 1990 movie Total Recall. It's an automated taxi, voiced by veteran character actor Robert Picardo. You may recall him as the doctor on Star Trek: Voyager or as the witch Meg Mucklebones in the cult-hit Legend.

Taxis in the move are entirely controlled by on-board computers. To give them some semblance of normalcy, Johnny Cabs have robot drivers consisting of just a head and torso. The computer is programmed with stock taxi driver lines like "Please state your destination" or "Helluva day."

if you don't ask a question to answer one that fits into the programming, the Johnny Cab will fall back on one of its stock lines.

You hear the same sort of thing with some people being interviewed by news media. Either they've had no media training, bad media training or the good training they had never took. No matter what the question, they refer back to their talking points or scripted lines. That's all the say.

talking points are a standard feature of interview preparation. A media relations officer will give three or four major points or ideas for the person being interviewed to make. There should be some background or detail to expand on the point. no set of talking points will ever be complete but good preparation means that someone being interviewed can make the points they want and nothing should be asked that comes as a surprise.

If the media person is doing his or her job, they already know the subject inside and out. He can anticipate questions and provide sensible answers that convey meaningful information. The person being interviewed should also have more information; he or she should be knowledgeable about the subject. If they aren't the interview will be incredible and the whole idea is to present credible, believable information from someone who knows what he or she is talking about.

After all, a media interview is a stock part of the persuasion business. You want to gain support - not from the interviewer but from the audience - and the way to do that is to present information in a way that people can relate to and understand.

A couple of times over the past week or so, provincial environment minister Charlene Johnson has wound up sounding like a Johnny Cab Minister.

In an interview with CBC's Ted Blades, Johnson was asked repeatedly over the course of a seven minute interview why her department didn't conduct regular structural inspections of 125 bridges over which thousands of people on the island pass ever week. She really never answered the question. She fell back on her talking points, referring to a single bridge closure in 2006, or referring to her department's reliance on public complaints to know when a bridge needed some expert attention.

Now it's not like Blades was asking a bizarre or overly aggressive question. Johnson herself said that public safety was paramount, that a human life was very important. Blades' question gave Johnson a chance to give a concrete example or a convincing statement of how her department would put that sentiment into action. After all, actions speak louder than words in the persuasion business.

Johnson could have easily said that the report from Transport Canada had caused her to re-examine the policy. She and her officials would now work with the public works department and incorporate her hundred odd bridges into the others inspected annually by another department.

Her talking point - her aide memoire - would have been something like this:

"Public safety is extremely important. It's so important that even though we had thought our policy was working, it isn't. Now we'll be doing regular inspections." And if hit with the question again or asked how they might have thought no inspections was a good idea, her response would be: "You know, we all make decisions that make sense at the time but experience shows something else. So now we are inspecting these bridges and we'll do regular inspections by civil engineers to make sure the bridges are safe. Public safety is that important."

But that's not what she had and, even though she is a cabinet minister responsible for running a department, she couldn't stray from the confines of her programming. As a result,she sounded incredible, insincere or at the very least laughable.

She did much the same thing in an interview on Wednesday with Chris O'Neill-Yates on the collapse of a paper recycling program in St. John's for want of $100,000 a year in operating cash. A request to the provincial recycling agency was turned down even though, as CBC had earlier reported, the Multi-materials Stewardship Board had a surplus of $2.0 million last year.

Johnson couldn't commit to reconsidering the policy of not funding operating grants, even though she is the environment minister and recycling is a key part of government's waste diversion policy. Nope. better to send it to the dump, supposedly, as Johnson had earlier said when confronted with the issue.

And when asked about possibly reviewing the mandate of the decade-old recycling organization, Johnson talked about the board's "wonderful" work and the need to give news media a briefing on what "wonderful" work they were doing.

Yes.

Wonderful work.

Even though, as a result of an old policy, a recycling project has collapsed and tons of recyclables are now going to the dump instead of to the recycler where they are supposed to go as part of the government's waste diversion, management and reduction policy.

It doesn't make sense.

But it was in the talking points.

And when you are a Johnny Cab Minister, the programmed talking points are all you've got.

-tpb-

Attack of the publicists

2008-02-25T21:17:00.001-03:30

From the New York Times, on the Oscars.

Executives have publicists. Stars have publicists. The tiniest movies will arrive in April at the Tribeca Film Festival with publicity teams, often three or four of them. Sometimes, it seems, even the publicists have publicists.

Ask one to lunch, and, likely as not, he or she will bring an associate to make your acquaintance. At one such meal in Manhattan a couple of years ago, no fewer than eight bright, young promoters from the powerhouse firm PMK/HBH showed up at Blue Fin to put in a word for their movie clients. The big, beige booth got pretty crowded.

-tpb-

Has province hired litigation PR counsel?

2008-02-22T18:53:00.001-03:30

More than 1,000 women have been re-tested as part of the breast cancer testing scandal at Eastern Health and of those, 322 have died.

That's more than double the number previously announced.

The new figures come from a high-level government committee which was appointed last year to co-ordinate the provincial government's participation in the Cameron Inquiry.

Take a look at the scrum tape, posted with CBC's story on the government announcement.

Notice that reporters asked direct, relevant questions about the number deceased patients who were tested and what their test results showed. The reporters are asking more informed questions because they are more informed, but notice that neither health minister Ross Wiseman nor Eastern health's chief operations officer could answer the question.

Well, not that they couldn't answer the question. They just wouldn't. They decided that sorting out the answer to the commission to answer the reporters' question on a case by case basis.

Take a look at the terms of reference for the Cameron Inquiry, though and you won't see a direction to undertake such a detailed examination. Notice that when David Cochrane puts the hard question again about 12 minutes into the 15 minute session, Wiseman shifts his answer. Now, Wiseman says, there is a process involved and that a certain update is being provided. Additional detail will follow.

Those are two dramatically different answers.

One is that the information and analysis is for someone else to prepare.

The second is that we'll do that work next and there will be further updates as analysis is finished.

Bear in mind that this newser wasn't intended to release hard news about the revised death numbers.

Take a look at the official government news release. As we've seen with the workers comp infosec leak, the news release is structured to bury hard information down the page. The news release wants to draw attention to the $2.3 million being spent to create organizations and policies that were - obviously - seriously flawed or previously didn't exist.

Watch Wiseman when he gets the question about patients. He speaks about the impact on families and the desire to make sure that no one else goes through this kind of thing.

That it never happens again.

The standard Williams administration response once a problem is exposed.

You'd never know that Wiseman and his predecessors have been involved in this entire process since it was first discovered internally, let alone since it became public.

That's the conflict of interest that sits behind this newser and every other comment Wiseman makes about breast cancer screening. The Cameron Inquiry will be examining what Wiseman and his predecessors did in this matter. He's being very careful about what he says publicly since he will likely have to deal with questions under oath at some point. he's also likely to be deposed in the class action lawsuit that sits out there.

He's working to polish the public perception of him and the administration in advance of the legal work to come. It's a nice - if a bit obvious - bit of litigation public relations.

And that Mr. Thompson they keep referring to in the scrum? He's part of the issues management campaign as well. The former top civil servant was sent in last May to run the health department and - at the same time - to serve as secretary to cabinet for health issues management.

It's in that job - issues management related to Cameron and the breast cancer law suit - that led to the numbers released today. Government is trying to figure out the extent of their liability. And to some extent or other they are managing the flow of public information to put themselves in the best possible light.

Government has been kicked around a bit and they've started to counteract that. There are new faces at Eastern Health, an old face returned from Environment and Conservation and a reportedly closer relationship between the top levels of government and Eastern Health's comms branch. They've started to talk out radio interviews with sweet talk, for example, or inject the concern and compassionate face you saw Wiseman offering. They want you to see Wiseman the fixer rather than the guy who bumbled his way through the announcement of the Cameron Inquiry by sticking Fred Kasirye out there as a sacrificial offering.

And it's that history of bumbling that makes you wonder: has actually taken on outside counsel - litigation or crisis PR experts - to help with the damage control.

You see, they might be doing this stuff on their own, but government's never shown an ability to polish a knob with quite this degree of subtlety. They've usually resorted to shooting off a toe or two.

[cross-posted to Bond Papers]

-tpb-

Why hold a newser?

2008-02-20T22:25:00.001-03:30

According to NTV's Jodi Cooke, reporters who attended Eastern Health's newser on Wednesday could only video tape the opening statement by medical service vice-president Dr. Oscar Howell.

Eastern Health released the external reviews of the health laboratories involved in breast cancer screening that it had earlier tried to keep confidential. A Supreme Court Justice ruled that the reviews were not peer reviews or quality assurance reports and therefore covered by the Evidence Act.

None of the question and answer portion could be taped.

Reporters did manage to catch Howell in a scrum situation.

Whatever the comms people and lawyers thought they would avoid with this excessive level of control didn't work.

Well, that is, unless they wanted people to continue to doubt Eastern Health.

-tpb-

Silence isn't golden

2008-02-15T08:19:00.002-03:30

Neither the province's recycling board nor the environment minister will talk to CBC's Zach Goudie about paper recycling in St. John's.

Specifically, they won't talk about a request from the local recycler who'd been looking for $100,000 to fund the project.

The recycling board had a surplus of about $2.0 million last year so it isn't like they are short of cash.

More and more people are finding that the provincial government's communications people may have the word in their title, but it isn't in their job function.

In fact, as in the environment case, non-communication is the primary job or if it isn't a complete lack of response, it's a delayed, incomplete, super spun or generally useless response.

- Environment.

- Multi-Materials Stewardship Board.

- Public Service Commission.

- Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

- Department of Health and Community Services and its subordinate bits.

- Attorney General on the privacy breach at the worker's compensation board.

One is an anomaly.

Two is curious.

Three is troubling.

Four is a trend.

Five or 10, as we have here?

That pretty much establishes obfuscation as government policy.

So much for "accountability" and "transparency".

-tpb-

When political spin trumps public interest...

2008-01-31T21:09:00.001-03:30

It's a fairly well established convention that news releases ought to be written - like news stories - with the important information at the top.

Information is then provided in decreasing order of importance.

With that background, consider the latest update on the information security breach at the province's workplace health, safety and compensation commission.

Is it really the most important thing to tell us that the minister involved today released more information?

Is it the next most important thing to tell us that - as the minister is quoted as saying - we all live in a tiny village on the globe when it comes to information?

Would it then be important to remind us of the general situation that led to release of further information we were told about a few paragraphs ago but still have not received?

Would it then be appropriate to tell us in the fourth paragraph that the external review is complete? Perhaps we might have deduced that from the notice of impending information given in the first paragraph but thus far undelivered. After all, when the province's attorney general got around to letting us know of the security breach - three days after it occurred - he was clear that he knew little at that point but that it might take three to five days to get the external review done. There is news buried in this paragraph, by the by, namely that the external review took longer than originally planned, but it's not really what people have been wondering.

Nope.

Workers comp clients have been sweating bullets for more than a week to find out - in the fifth paragraph - that in fact:

- 694 files containing information on 153 individuals were exposed to the Internet;

- 108 of the individuals (but an undisclosed number of files) were clients of the commission;

- two individuals were employees of the justice department and one was employed by the provincial human resources department;

- 42 were clients of the consultant; and,

- the information included names, address, medical history, work history, sex (erroneously called gender) and date of birth.

Skip down two more paragraphs to find a truly chilling piece of information:

the potential for identify theft exists for those affected by the exposure

Yep. You'd have to get halfway down the release to even begin to release just exactly how severe are the implications of this security failure by the workplace commission.

Now it isn't unusual to see news releases coming from some government departments that suggest the people drafting them have no idea what they are doing.

In this case, though, it's more likely that the drafters of this release knew exactly what the issues were and chose to bury the crucial information - the stuff that's truly important to people affected by the security failure - as far down the release as possible. Sharp-eyed reporters may get it, but the kernel of hard fact and sharp-edged implication is buried in the padding of politically- and legally- inspired puffery designed to distract from what news is really in here.

Butt-covering is becoming the order of the day for the government these days when it comes to just about anything. This news release is no exception.

If someone were to hand in this news release to a public relations writing course, they'd get a failing grade.

However, this document wasn't released as part of a professional public relations effort: it's spin and that's all it was ever intended to be.

Update: Anyone doubt that the release on this was spun the way it was for a reason? Get a load of the quick report done by the otherwise thorough Telegram. Boring recitation of numbers followed by the attorney general's self-congratulatory quote about officials doing a commendable job finding the people affected by the cock-up. The headline is almost verbatim from the government news release which only referred to the minister providing an up-date.

Ho hum, one might think if they hadn't read the release itself.

Let's see what the full story carries on Friday.

Update, update: And then there's this.

Updated update update: CP gets the point. Their lede found the news in the release.

-tpb-

The secret of life, comedy...

2008-01-19T13:56:00.001-03:30

and now marketing, is timing.

Ask Ford Canada.

But here's the thing: Manitoba televisions stations may be deprived of ad revenue, but it's doubtful that Ford is going to can the entire campaign and the huge media buy that went with it.

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Better health through booger flushing?

2008-01-19T13:52:00.001-03:30

One of the posts at Persuasion Business that garnered the most e-mail attention was a piece on a nasal irrigation device that had managed to score some big attention in the United States, despite what one public relations blog had termed a bad pitch to news media.

Well, the craze has hit St. John's. One of the flyers that arrived in the mailbox this week included a small ad, right, offering 20% off the price of a little blue teapot-shaped contraption. The idea is that the spout end goes up your nose and by rinsing out your nasal cavity, you can reduce the symptoms of allergies and colds.

Lovely concept.

The original post included the picture at left showing a charming young woman with what appears to be a porcelain gravy boat jammed in her nostril.

Maybe that's what helped generate the e-mails, most of which included the question "Where do you find this stuff?".

No. No.

Not the bidet.

The post on it.

Anyway.

Those who want to be early adopters of the latest health fad can find the little teapots at your local Shoppers Drug Mart. They may be in other places, but this ad appeared in the weekly SDM flyer.

If you still haven't been convinced - *sigh*- of the value of this little marvel, then check a website for one outfit that has been plugging the idea of plugging a teapot in your snout since 1972. The Himalayan Institute has what they describe as an award winning instructional video.

You'll find the official netipot video at youtube, but if you search you'll also find enough amateur demo vids to make it clear that the thing is obviously a bit of a cult craze.

Yes, yes, we have entered a world in which proboscal lavage is a means of self expression. Notice that in the marketing shots, everyone is having a good time.

Notice that in the amateur stuff, people are having a good time, but for entirely different reasons.

None of this should be a surprise though. people have been hunting for supposedly natural or holistic health things for decades. If someone could come up with the idea you could live a healthier life with regular "colonic irrigation"using coffee, it was only a matter of time before a less-adventurous but no less dedicated New Ager thought of pouring fluids into another part of the anatomy where fluids don't usually go.

Frankly, there are better uses for coffee and a decent whiskey.

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Moving beyond media relations

2008-01-19T12:39:00.001-03:30

An interesting saga from Australia.

There's a marketing undertone, but the fundamental story is worth pondering whether you do public relations or you are a client. Even in the marketing context public relations is fundamentally about more than media relations.

''The traditional definition of PR is dead. PR has always typically been publicity and media relations. My definition of PR now is a strategic approach that calls upon communications methods beyond media relations,'' Abels says.

''This change has been driven by a really cluttered market and marketers and CEOs have been looking for better ways to cut through.''

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Two New Year's thoughts on measurement

2008-01-07T21:16:00.001-03:30

1. From India - isn't the Web wunderbar? - a quickie checklist of ways to measure the effectiveness of your public relations project.

2. From Fleet Street PR, which is actually coming from Toronto and not London, a short post that raises the question of how to measure the impact of youtube vids more than it provides any definitive answer.

That's fine.

There's plenty of debate about how much these things influence opinion or about the way they contribute to shaping opinion.

The only thing Dave Fleet says flatly is that the number of views is not the most important metric even though it's the one that most people tend to look at.

He's right.

People do tend to look at the number of "views", heck your not quite so humble e-scribbler has done it countless times at Bond Papers.

One of the commenters said:

Dead simple - what's the call to action? If you make a video you expect to do well, put in a unique URL and track to see how many people take an action from it.

Brilliant input from a marketer.

Call to action.

Everything related to communications must have a "call to action", mustn't it?

Well, if I am trying to flog a product then yes, it must. in the simple stimulus-response framework, the effectiveness of the call to action is measured by the number of units sold. one can refine that to measure the rate of sales and/or product inquires before the ad hits, then track the same indicators once the ads have aired.

Job done.

It's so simple.

But, if the communication has another goal, like say informing someone on a point, then having a unique URL is marvellous.

But there's no way to measure the impact of the information flow based on action when - explicitly - the vid doesn't start from the premise of generating an action.

*Gasp!*

That was Dave's point. youtube vids, particularly in a public relations context, offer some challenges when it comes to measuring the effectiveness or impact of the communication.

For those looking for a definitive answer from this corner, you'll be disappointed.

Maybe we need to go back to the basics of measurement, but that will have to wait for another post.

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When you're in a hole...

2008-01-04T12:59:00.001-03:30

the best way to get out is to stop digging.

Usually.

However, the province's Eastern Health authority seems intent on pushing through to see if they can reach China instead.

The issue - in this instance - is an effort by the authority's lawyers to block access to two report on its lab facilities that are at the centre of both a lawsuit and public inquiry. The story broke before Christmas and, apparently, was poorly handled.

The authority's position is given virtually no prominence and the reason they offered is a bit of a nose-puller.

The hole that was pretty wide and pretty deep got bigger.

Now that the holidays are over, someone at Eastern Health decided it's time to get back to the pick and shovel work by having the acting chief executive of the authority call a local open line show and repeat the same basic information, yet again. As vocm.com reports,

Acting CEO Louise Jones told VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms the reports have already been provided to the Commission of Inquiry, but they have concerns that the results of a peer review would be made public. [Emphasis added]

Tactically this might seem like some sort of good idea. heck, the lawyers might even feel this is necessary for some reason.

But in the big picture - the strategic picture - what it appears to be is what it will be taken as: an effort to withhold information. The key word in public inquiry is "public". Even allowing the commissioners to see a report or two is pointless if they are not permitted to quote the report or, as the original CBC story indicated, even speak with anyone involved in the report about the report and its conclusions. this is definitely not a smooth move in an inquiry that was created largely out of concerns about a lack of disclosure or inadequate disclosure of information to patients and the public.

And all of that - obviously - further damages both the legal case and the public relations case for the authority. The whole thing only gets worse when the comments are made on local talk radio where, among other things, the story gets parsed down to something essentially meaningless as in this case. All the story says is that the authority has unspecified concerns so it wants to restrict who can see reports.

Better to have killed off the legal tactics early on in the management decision-making cycle. Failing that, the authority should have taken on a pre-emptive strategy by discussing the reasons for the legal action thoroughly and in detail with the media in the first place.

As it is, the commissioners have been handed a live-action example of how Eastern health's decision-making process works. They can dissect and should dissect it in detail. They would see what public relations and media relations advice senior management has been getting and how they have been working through a major problem. They can look at the internal relationships of the management team and, if they really want to look close take a gander at the staff structures and human resource issues.

All of these play a role in how things get handled. The comms section could have a raft of highly qualified people giving expert advice. It's useless if they get ignored by management. They could have a bunch of good people with solid experience but who lack certain crisis management expertise. The staff might be simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem they face coupled with . Again, the road to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. Then again, they might have a bunch of people lacking the skills to manage the high profile cases like this one. Nice website and brochures but not up to the heavy slogging.

That's the range of possibilities and there are likely other combos.

But no matter what the reasons, the public inquiry into the breast cancer screening crisis has in front of it a text-book example of how not to handle a high profile, controversial case.

It's provided by the very authority the inquiry is examining.

And for the authority? Well, surely someone has figured out by now that the best way out of a hole is to stop digging and climb out, possibly using the shovel you came with.

China's a long way down and in between here and there, things get mighty hot.

Melt careers and people kinda hot.

Get the picture?

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Save the BS. Get the speaker you want.

2008-01-02T09:24:00.001-03:30

For those planning conferences on any subject, this guy finally lays it on the line: pony up for the presenters.

No disrespect, but I’ve had enough of “this will be wonderful for your profile” shite. Ask any presenter who has ever presented for free on the promise that wondrous amounts of business will follow… it doesn’t.

I’m good. I know my stuff. I’m quite happy to stay at home and work on my doctoral research. I don’t need your conference to add value to my life. You want me (because it adds value to your conference), you pay for me. Simple as that.

Seems pretty straightforward.

Amazing how many conference organizers will try and get the presenters to come and pay for everything themselves, including full conference registration. For some conference participants that makes sense. For others - the 'stars' - it's sheer bunk.

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Self-inflicted wounds hurt most

2007-12-23T09:13:00.001-03:30

What's worse than a public inquiry and a class action lawsuit over a health matter in which the words "cancer" and "faulty tests" get used a lot?

An application by the health authority to keep confidential the results of not one but two external audit of laboratory practices at the authority. And if that wasn't bad enough, the authority also wants a court ban to prevent the inquiry from interviewing the people involved.

On the face of it, this external review would appear to be a crucial part of both the inquiry and the lawsuit. No doubt it is, but whatever the reason Eastern Health is seeking the ban on these reports, the cbc.ca/nl news report and every other news report on it in the province puts the health authority in the worst possible light.

Heck, CBC doesn't even give the stated reason for the legal move until the very last paragraph. In news, the stuff at the end of a story is considered the least important information of all. It's the stuff an editor might consider hacking out, if there were space limitations.

But take a look at the reasoning, as presented by CBC:

Officials with Eastern Health say they made the application to protect the health authority's quality assurance program, adding Eastern Health promised the auditors their reports wouldn't be made public. It said it fears auditors won't be candid in the future if their comments aren't protected.

Now if you've had anything to do with auditors, you'd know that it's hard to get any professional engaged in an audit in any subject to pull his or her punches based on the possibility of disclosure. After all, the comments contained in an audit don't affect their reputation: it affects the person being audited.

And seriously, if you find an auditor who wants his or her name to be kept out of it, then find yourself someone else. Audits are supposed to judge performance impartially against a set of established criteria. If you want to run a profession operation - from a laboratory to a public relations office - the auditor is your best friend. The reviews identify strengths and weaknesses in a honest way and recommend improvements. It is intended to improve performance so that your office doesn't commit a series of Homer Simpson moments, for example.

That's what makes this explanation - if it is an accurate precis of the Eastern Health argument - seem like Eastern Health should be testing staff for pinocchiosis. It seems like a nose-puller. Keep the audits secret because Eastern Health promised the auditors a confidentiality? A court ban on the inquiry so one of the most senior judges in the province and her staff can't even speak to the people involved? The auditors won't be candid if they know people will read their comments?

Huh?

If this is a sample of what's to come, the court case and the inquiry are going to be extremely painful for Eastern Health officials individually and collectively. They keep taking steps to make the matter worse and in the process reveal what are likely even deep problems in aspects of the authority's overall management and organization.

Maybe it's time to audit the rest of authority management and organization.

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The blogger who came in from the cold

2007-12-14T12:18:00.001-03:30

From ABC News, last July:

Are bloggers part of the news media? The U.S. government -- led by two of its most secretive agencies -- is increasingly saying, "Yes, they are."

Despite the rap that bloggers simply "bloviate" and "don't try to find things out," as conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak once sniffed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have altered policies to indicate they're taking blogs seriously, and a growing number of public offices are actively reaching out to the blogosphere.

It's only a matter of time until someone pens the online book Tinker, tailor, blogger, spy.

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The blacklist approach

2007-12-14T11:51:00.001-03:30

A comment on Geoff Meeker's blog space at The Telegram is generating considerable comment. The post is based on a series of e-mails in which it becomes clear local journalist Craig Westcott has been blacklisted by the Premier's Office, at least as far as one-on-one interviews go. Persuasion Business discussed the matter a couple of days ago.

The sad truth is that blacklisting - or blackballing as it is sometimes called - is an approach some people take when dealing with reporters they don't like.

Like the Maldives where in January, a self-described independent news service in the tiny Indian Ocean country reported that two of its staff had been blacklisted by the government and forced to leave the country.

Thailand has been known to blacklist foreign journalists for "national security" reasons.

Major companies, like Sony have been known to blackball and in one of the more famous recent cases google inc. blackballed CNET - not just a single reporter but the entire organization.

In 2004, then Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich blackballed two reporters for the Baltimore Sun.

Ditto Pacific Gas and Electric.

Blackballing isn't rare and opinions vary among public relations practitioners on the propriety of it. There'll be more on the issue in the days and weeks ahead, but for now, here are some examples to stimulate some thoughts.

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"Serial exaggerator" an interesting MR tactic for Williams' office

2007-12-12T13:30:00.001-03:30

Buried in the exchange between journalist Craig Westcott and the premier's comms director is a reference to a piece that appeared in macleans.ca in April, after Westcott's now (in)famous speech on the Premier.

In a piece titled "Questioning the Williams juggernaut", one finds the following line:

As for Williams himself, a spokeswoman dismissed Westcott as a serial exaggerator who has been "incredibly, incredibly critical" of the premier in the past.

The critical part is accurate, but the use of the term "serial exaggerator" is curious. Try searching for it on the Internet search engine of your choice. Enjoy the hits you get.

It's not like there was any proof that Westcott's reporting - as opposed to his commentaries and opinion pieces - contained any exaggerations or other serious errors.

In the meantime, it isn't like the unnamed spokeswoman's boss isn't a serial exaggerator himself.

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Media Relations 101 Meltdown

2007-12-12T12:21:00.001-03:30

No matter what people tell you, there is nothing that is ever really, truly off the record.

In the case of this e-mail exchange between Craig Westcott and the Premier's communications director over the course of a couple of years, you'd think that the most simple rule of media relations would be foremost in her mind.

Apparently not.

Then there is this comment from an e-mail dated in the middle of 2006. it leaps out for two reasons, both of which are discussed below.

I feel compelled to point out that for two and a half years, you did not seek the premier out to gain his perspective on issues (despite the fact that the premier personally called you to offer himself up for a chat).

First, this comment is clearly incorrect - and the comms director knew it was wrong - since there is a clear record of Westcott seeking interviews with the Premier and being told flatly that the Premier would not be accepting any of Westcott's interview requests. Consider this line from the e-mail sent the day before the comment quoted above: "As per previous correspondence, the premier is not available for your interview requests."

How could Westcott have failed to seek out the Premier's comments when the same person knew that the office was rejecting all interview requests from the reporter?

Second, take a look at the comment in brackets, namely that the Premier had called Westcott personally for a "chat". There's no discussion of the chat, like what it was about, why the Premier was calling and why they didn't connect. Given that Westcott was trying to get the premier on the phone, but the Premier's Office was refusing Westcott's requests, this seems highly unusual.

Of course, cynics out there would be familiar with this "chat" thing. A recent, former Premier used to practice "the chat" approach when there was a reporter or editor whose work the Premier of the day didn't appreciate. "The chat" may have started with a bit of charm, but usually it was usually a tongue-lashing that was intended to intimidate the editor or reporter into getting on board with whatever media line the government was pushing at the time.

At the very least, "the chat" made it clear that the highest political office in the province was personally displeased. That's a powerful thing and only the ballsiest of the ballsy wouldn't be impressed by the call. That's why the call gets made. It's intended to intimidate.

In other instances, the recent former Premier would berate reporters in the course of a scrum. he lashed one reporter for daring to ask if it was true that the Premier's wife had recently been hired in a government-related job during the time of a hiring freeze and layoffs. It was a fair question, but the emotional reaction it gained was a purposeful way of marking territory and showing dominance in a very aggressive fashion.

Media relations (MR) is no place for amateurs, the naive or the faint of heart. it's also often not a job for former reporters, but that's another story.

At times, MR can be an extremely unpleasant world. Nasty things get said. Underneath it all, however, must be some kind of mutual respect or at least a mental framework in which the individuals can deal with each other professionally.

The biggest thing is to keep personalities out of it; sometimes even when you have to deal with arguably the biggest idiot on the planet (either as the comms person or the reporter/editor) you have to find a way of getting on with the job.

Take a look at the list the Premier's comms director cites as examples of Westcott's supposedly "malicious" reporting. They are editorial comments where opinion is accepted. The biggest thing, though, is that the comments are personal. The Premier's comms director no doubt took her cues from her boss as to what constituted "malice". That's fair. People on the receiving end of personal criticism usually get upset.

The comms director's job in that case is not to act as the instrument of the boss' rage. Rather the director is a buffer between the understandable, emotional outbursts and the larger interests that need to be managed. It's the director's job to sympathise with the boss but talk him or her off the ledge and keep them from doing something monumentally stupid like picking up the phone and having a 'chat' with the object of his or her anger.

You see, the more personal and the histrionic dominates MR, the more likely it is that one day the long sorry history of the exchanges will wind up in print or on the air somewhere.

And, as in this case, it isn't the reporter who comes off looking like a twit.

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