One of my students commented that “awareness” can seem like a weak campaign goal, particularly in contexts in which action is urgently needed. So what are the reasons for building awareness? Why stop there?

In public relations, a good campaign plan requires an evaluation component. Evaluation is based on a plan’s objectives. If an objective is to raise awareness, then evaluation of how successful we are is based on how much awareness we have raised.

This leads to three points:

1.We should not promise something we can’t deliver. When we over-promise and under-deliver, we make a good case that we are incompetent, public relations is ineffective, or both. This could harm our employment and our public relations budget.

In some cases, changing behavior is more than we can do. It’s much easier to raise awareness, and it’s a step in the right direction. How much we can inspire people to change what they’re doing is going to depend on the case. Having an awareness goal can be a cop-out when public relations practitioners are capable of inspiring action; the point is that we’re not always able to do this, so our goals and objectives must fit the situation.

2. People have the right to make their own choices. By making people aware of the facts, we have done our jobs in some cases. We are not in the business of coercing people to do something.

Health Scenario
If some people decide not to floss, that is their choice. It might be our job to raise awareness about the consequences of not flossing, but ultimately, people can make an informed choice to do things that are not good for them, and that is fine in some cases.

Product or Service Scenario
We might not be doing PR for the best product or service. There could be a competitor that is better than us. Ideally, we will be able to have a seat with the “dominant coalition” (the informal group of decision makers in an organization) and persuade them to take actions that will make our products and services the best. Public relations practitioners are “boundary spanners,” helping organizations adjust to what people say, but some organizations don’t listen. If your organization doesn’t listen, you’ll likely have the most success sticking to awareness goals and looking for an employer who listens to PR people. At the very least, if you can demonstrate that your audience is aware of your product despite low sales, then clearly the problem with sales is not awareness. This can lead to a productive conversation in which a company does listen to PR people to find out what it needs to do.

3. Awareness can be a reasonable first step before tackling a goal to change behavior. In some instances, changing awareness is a triumph, and it can be a critical initial achievement that sets up future campaigns to influence people’s behavior. According to the extended parallel processing model, successful health messages require response efficacy (the belief that a solution is effective) and self-efficacy (people’s beliefs that they are capable of implementing the proposed solution). So health campaigns should always carry a recommended behavior, but it might take repeated awareness campaigns before people actually start doing something differently, depending on the case.

Suzi Steffen and I held an online panel titled “Extra! Extra! Tweet All About It” with professors and journalists on CoverItLive. Due to the number of participants (more than 200), the discussion was like “chat on steroids” as described by Kathy Gill of University of Washington. The drawback of using CoverItLive was that we couldn’t organize our discussion into separate threads, so keeping track of the path of each discussion topic was challenging.

I’ve taken excerpts from our transcript and organized it by threads. Below is an excerpt from one of the threads.

Tiffany Gallicano Q6: What is your advice for aspiring journalists with regard to Web 2.0?

Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith):  BE CAREFUL.

Suzi Steffen:  Ryan, you’re scaring me.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  Advice to aspiring reporters: Don’t post photos of yourself on Facebook holding a Mickey’s or Boone’s or whatever.

kathy:  LOL! Ryan’s PSA re Facebook is spot on.

[Comment From Meghan Grall]
Ryan, good advice. Seems like it would be common sense… but apparently not.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  Twenty years from now, there will be naked photos of everyone on the Internet and we’ll all just yawn and move on. Until then, they will get you fired.

[Comment From Tyler] I think anyone that is “credible” in society should never put themselves in a situation for a picture of drugs or hard liquor.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  I think that reporters are now targets. You may not realize it, but people will search through your Facebook profile, your online life, etc., in order to “damage” your brand and discredit reporting that they disagree with. Even if you keep Facebook personal, you should post on there as though it were going out to every subscriber or viewer of your employer.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  Nothing is really protected on the Internet. Remember that.

Dora Valkanova:  Yes, it is interesting because both Twitter and Facebook seem deceptively private when you are alone with your laptop but really, the whole world is watching (reading).

Ryan Teague Beckwith: Everyone is a celebrity now, in a sense. We’re all just waiting to be discovered. I think a lot of people don’t realize that they’re just a news story away from having their online life scoured and devoured.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  It’s not about “personal” and “professional” per se. It’s about your representations of them. I don’t really post “personal” things online, though I do occasionally reference the fact that I’m eating lunch at a certain place or working on my house. But it’s not really my personal feelings.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  As a journalist, you have set yourself up as a person with more credibility than the average person. You give up the rights to certain things, such as expressing your ill-thought-out opinions, when you do that. It’s like being a monk.

Mark Hamilton (@gmarkham):  Q6: You need to participate to really grok it, even if only at low levels. It’s the understanding that matters.

[Comment From digiphile] Answer to Tiffany’s question – register your name or (more likely) preferred nom de plume on relevant social media platforms ASAP. Get a Google voice account. Learn how to use a Flip camera. And choose a second major, like comp sci, science or the like. Niche is where it’s at.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  I second digiphile.

[Comment From Greg Miller] Related to the advantages of a “second major”: once you develop an area of expertise, try tweeting exclusively about that subject for a while. Try to build a reputation.

Mathew Ingram:  At an event I was at recently, Andrew Keen (@ajkeen) said that journalists of all kinds should be thinking about how they can build their own “brand” in a specific area, and using social-media tools to do that — I think that’s a good point.   You need to know how to use these tools at the very least.

[Comment From LydiaBreakfast] Agreed Mathew, @ajkeen’s self branding advice is prescient. We all need our own brands in addition to the one we carry from the publication(s) we contribute to.

Carrie Brown-Smith (@Brizzyc):  Q6 Yes, be careful, but experiment with these new tools and don’t be afraid. Twitter is especially nice I think to help teach students a) what is news and b) how to write with brevity and wit.

[Comment From LydiaBreakfast] Journalism students would do well to establish relationships with seasoned editors and reporters from all over via SM. Not just for seeking work but to expand their professional community and find possible mentors.

[Comment From anblair2] I think Twitter has given a lot of young journalists the chance to meet new people. I never realized how many connections I could make.

Carrie Brown-Smith:  Good point by Amber anblair2. I have to say I wish that when I was in school I had the chance to learn from so many professionals and connect with them via Twitter!

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  More advice: Whenever you think of responding to an angry reader, write out what you would say, take a break, go get a cup of coffee, chat about the weather, come back and delete it. Then just answer the factual question or assertion they made and ignore the mean spirited attacks.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  Respond to them as though they had phrased it how you wished they had phrased it.

[Comment From Alicia] @Ryan Teague Beckwith – That’s good advice about responding to an angry reader. With new media technology it is often so easy to quickly respond to people that we don’t think things through clearly – which is one of the reasons there are so many posts at the end of news articles online that are simply rants.

Suzi Steffen:  Ryan, that is SUCH great advice.

Ryan Teague Beckwith:  Final words of advice to aspiring journalists: You are living in one of the most exciting times to be a young reporter in the history of journalism. Enjoy it.

A repetitive finding in my research, from my dissertation about an advocacy organization’s volunteers to my current study of Millennial agency professionals, is that getting along with the people one works with or volunteers for is critical to one’s satisfaction with a work or volunteer experience.

I serve on the board of directors for the Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope, an entirely voluntary non-profit. We give life grants of $5,000 for young adults with life-threatening illnesses to engage in a project that makes a difference in people’s lives. With our annual event around the corner, we’ve been in high gear.

What has been fundamental at keeping us together is that we’re all Landmark Forum graduates. This means that we have all been through extensive training in how to relate to each other, how to communicate when we’re upset with each other, and how to resolve the conflict and move forward. It makes an enormous difference because instead of having things build up as people continue to upset us, we handle things and protect our professional relationships.

Being confrontational is no walk in the park, but it’s much easier with training on how to do it, and it’s much easier because we all have the same expectations about how to handle a situation when someone makes us upset, what the person who is upset should communicate, and how the person who upset the other should respond. We rarely upset each other, but when we do (which is bound to happen within two years of closely working together), we have strong training in sorting things out, and it makes a world of difference.

What do you think about organizations providing interpersonal training?

Resources

Landmark Forum
(life skills)

Vanto Group
(affiliated with Landmark education, provides interpersonal training for organizations)

Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope
(our organization’s information and a place to buy tickets to our event)

Facebook Event Page for the Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope
(a place to RSVP for our event)

Facebook Fan Page for the Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope
(please consider joining)

If you’ll be in the Southern California area, I hope you’ll join us for our event on Sept. 26 at 6:30 p.m.

Here is the pitch from our fan page and our invitation. Our theme this year is a night of magic and miracles:

Ladies and Gentlemen! Children of All Ages! It’s Spectacular…It’s Fantastic…It’s for Charity!

Join Cameron Siemers and guest hosts Courtney Cox and David Arquette for an evening of magic and miracles at the second annual fundraiser of the Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope.

THE MAGIC
Be mystified and amazed by the wizardry of Magic Joe Reohm.

Thrill at the unforgettable spectacle that is the Zen Arts Performance Troupe.

Witness the wonder of Wisdom…Norton Wisdom and his luminous live paintings.

THE MIRACLES
Come face-to-face with pure inspiration when you hear from our Life Grant winners.

Look into the future with our founder Cameron Siemers as he reveals what’s next for the foundation.

Come one, come all for an evening of breathtaking performances, music, dancing, appetizers, a cash bar, raffle and silent auction. Contributions support young adults with life-threatening illnesses as they fulfill a dream, goal, or project that makes a difference in their lives and communities.

From time to time, I will highlight academic studies that I think are particularly interesting.

Tim Penning started a discussion on PR Open Mic about whether undergraduates should read academic public relations studies. Barbara Nixon, Gareth Thompson, and I expressed agreement that upper-level students should read academic journal articles. Here is a summary of an interesting study.

For this first academic feature, I am summarizing the findings from a study about the effects of labeling video news releases (i.e., “Video supplied by [organization name]“).

This study was conducted by

• Michelle Wood, University of Minnesota
• Michelle Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Lucy Atkinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Julie Lane, University of Wisconsin-Madison

and was published in the Journal of Public Relations Research.

Method

• 151 undergraduate students participated in exchange for receiving extra credit in their journalism and mass communication courses for participation.
• Nearly half of the participants planned to become public relations or advertising professionals, which suggests that they could be more favorable to VNR messaging.
• Students were assigned to one of four conditions:

1. reading about VNR practices and then watching a labeled VNR during a newscast
2. reading about VNR practices only
3. not reading about VNR practices and then watching a labeled VNR during a newscast
4. not reading about VNRs or watching a newscast with a VNR (the control group)

Participants then answered questions about

• the credibility of the newscast
• the credibility of the VNR story
• who the source was of the VNR story (e.g., the company, the news station)
• attitude toward the VNR message
• attitude toward the featured company

Findings (people who did not read about VNR practices first)

• Participants who did not read about VNR practices and then watched the labeled VNR story did not think the newscast or VNR message was less credible than the participants who viewed the unlabeled VNR.
• Participants who did not read about VNR practices and then watched the labeled VNR story did not have more negative attitudes toward the VNR message or the VNR company than the participants who viewed the unlabeled VNR.
• Labeling the source of VNR stories slightly improved people’s ablity to remember who the VNR company was.

This means that for people who have not read about VNR practices,

• labeling VNRs helps the VNR organization by slightly improving people’s ability to remember the organization.
• labeling VNRs does not hurt the credibility of the VNR sponsor or attitudes toward the VNR sponsor.
• labeling VNRs does not hurt the credibility of the newscast or attitudes toward the newscast.

Findings (people who read about VNR practices before watching the VNR)

• Participants who read an article about VNR practices and then watched a newscast with a VNR thought the VNR was less credible than participants who had not read an article about VNR practices.
• Participants who read an article about VNR practices and then watched a newscast with a VNR thought the newscast was less credible than participants who had not read an article about VNR practices.
• Labeling the VNR intensified the loss of credibility for participants who had read about VNR practices.
• However, participants who read an article about VNR practices and then watched a newscast with a VNR did not have more negative attitudes toward the VNR company or VNR message than participants who had not read an article about VNR practices and watched the newscast.

This means that for people who have read about VNR practices,

• a VNR message will not have a lot of credibility, especially if it is labeled.
• use of a VNR lowers the credibility of a newscast.
• a VNR will not necessarily hurt attitudes toward the sponsoring organization.

Guidelines to Which the Authors Refer

• Public Relations Society of America: Use of footage or VNRs provided by organizations other than the station or network should be labeled by the media outlet when aired.
• Radio-Television News Directors Association: Reporters should “clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders.”
• Federal Communications Commission: News stations are only required to label VNRs when the subject matter is a contested issue of public importance, a political topic, or a topic for which stations receive payment for airing.

My Take

• Professional communicators are responsible for providing audiences with information that is needed to make an informed decision about the message. Thus, professional communicators should label VNRs.

Citation

Wood, M. L. M.,  Nelson, M. R., Atkinson, L., & Lane, J. B. (2008). Social utility theory: Guiding labeling of VNRs as ethical and effective public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research 20(2), 231-249. doi:10.1080/10627260801894405

At Edelman’s Third Annual New Media Academic Summit, I spent the first day listening and taking notes, and I spent the second day live tweeting. Some of my colleagues and students expressed interest in following the twitter coverage, and I wanted to deliver insight to people who did not attend. I also wanted to see what it was like to live tweet an event to help me decide whether to have my large lecture class live tweet during some of my class sessions.

I found that I missed information by live tweeting. Thankfully, I could watch the second day sessions to see what I missed.

Why was Listening Interrupted?

While listening to the speakers, I

1. followed other conference attendees’ live tweets on our conference hashtag

2. responded to other attendees’ live tweets

3. tweeted and proofed my tweets

4. engaged in discussion with non-conference attendees who commented on my tweets

It is no wonder that I did not hear everything the speakers said. Les Potter identified someone with similar problems at an exclusive session of the IABC conference. His discussion of this detached live tweeter is worth reading.

Is Live Tweeting Bad Manners?

I also felt uncomfortable looking at my computer screen while speakers were talking. I think that talking to someone who is not looking at you can be difficult, and I felt like it was bad manners to be looking at my computer screen. Perhaps it would not have been so bad if I had sat in the back of the room, but I generally find this area to be noisy, making it difficult to listen to the speakers. I prefer to sit toward the front. In a comment to Les Potter’s post, Robert Holland referred to live tweeting as an “obnoxious distraction.” His comment resonated with my experience.

I like the idea of being able to discuss what speakers are saying via Twitter; I did not like doing it while our speakers were giving presentations.

I think it would be great for meeting planners to designate staff members to live tweet a conference for those not able to attend. This way, conference attendees would not even need to consider live tweeting so that others could follow the conference from a distance. Discussion via Twitter could be appropriate during designated break times.

I don’t plan to live tweet again. Instead, I will be fully present and listen. I can post updates to twitter during a break and write a substantive blog post at night.

What Do You Think About Live Tweeting?

Conference Notes

Videos from conference sessions

Slides from Richard Edelman’s presentation

Bill Sledzik’s discussion of the conference

Karen Miller Russell’s discussions of Richard Edelman’s address, a panel from the first day, and a panel from the second day.

Christine Smith’s discussion of the conference

Twitter coverage

Thank you, Edelman, for a wonderful conference! The sessions were engaging, and it was a treat getting to spend time with the participants.

(Cross-posted to PR Profs and PR Open Mic)

The swine flu outbreak is an opportunity to discuss basic principles of risk communication. Risk communication includes encouraging people to take preventive measures in the face of risk (anything from evacuating before a flood to taking daily vitamins) and helping people cope with risks, such as terrorism. Below are guidelines for risk communication.

1. Think through your word choice. Does the situation warrant the label of “pandemic,” or would “outbreak” be appropriate? You don’t want to scare people unnecessarily or have the opposite problem of leaving people unprepared.

2. Look for aspects of the risk to highlight, depending on whether you want to heighten or ease the sense of risk.
If you want to increase public concern about global warming, your message strategy would differ from what you would do if you were developing message points about the swine flu outbreak. Based on Peter Sandman’s research, people feel more comfortable with risks that have the following features:

• People choose their chances of exposure to the risk (e.g., whether to travel to Mexico).
• The risk is naturally created, rather than resulting from human actions.
• The risk is easy to detect, such as an illness that has identifiable symptoms.
• The problem can be eliminated.

3. Acknowledge uncertainty when speculating. For credibility, risk communicators needs to be accurate in their communication, which usually involves using tentative statements. Also, for situations like the swine flu outbreak, Peter Sandman shared the following sound bite with reporters: “Everyone needs to learn how to say, ‘This could be bad, and it’s a good reason to take precautions and prepare’ and ‘This could fizzle out.’ They need to simultaneously say both statements.”

4. Give people something to do to lower their risk. However minimal it might be, give people something to do to reduce their risk (see here and here for examples). When the Washington, D.C., snipers were in my area in 2002, I followed police recommendations featured in The Washington Post to walk briskly in a zig zag pattern. Even though I felt silly walking zig zag, I felt like I had some measure of control in reducing my risk. Also note that people tend to feel more comfortable with risk when they choose to expose themselves to it. Even providing the threat level for air travel gives people some amount of choice in deciding whether the risk is worth the trip. For more information about the importance of this guideline, see Kim Witte’s extended parallel process model.

5. Give frequent updates and repeat core messages through various forms of media. An example of this is CDC’s Twitter account (hat tip to the In Case of Emergency blog). Here is a quote from a communication expert I interviewed for my dissertation: “Nowadays, you have to over-communicate… The information doesn’t filter. We have nine or 10 ways of communicating.”

6. Consider cultural barriers. At the University of Oregon Conference on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Pauline Peters, a lecturer at Harvard University, discussed cultural considerations for HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in Malawi. Simply telling people to wear condoms to protect themselves would not work well in this environment. Many people there viewed condoms as poisonous and associated condoms with illicit sex. A best practice in developing messages is to partner with representatives of the community to determine message design and delivery.

Interested in teaching a risk communication class?
Feel free to use my course schedule for graduate students as a resource, which includes a list of journal articles and other resources. We are reading two books for the class, which I strongly recommend:

• “Effective Risk Communication: A Message-Centered Approach,” by Timothy L. Sellnow, Robert R. Ulmer, Matthew W. Seeger, and Robert S. Little
• “Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future,” by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.

I reviewed many risk communication books before selecting these two, and I also paid attention to book cost when making these selections. These books as a combination work well; their different approaches can result in rich class discussion.

Update
I received an insightful comment from Peter Sandman to the PR Profs copy of this blog post. If the swine flu becomes a pandemic, the discussion points here will be important: http://www.psandman.com/ (see the top story).

We are the early birds of Advanced Public Relations Writing! We gather on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 a.m. to discuss social media and other topics in our Advanced Public Relations Writing class. Over the next few days, my students will respond to this post with a link to their blogs. They are eager to dive into the blogosphere, join the conversation, and meet public relations students, educators and practitioners.

Picture from Travel Portland, Creative Commons Attribution License

I found this news release about Portland’s Twisitor Center:

NEWS RELEASE
February 9, 2009
Contact: Deborah Wakefield, Travel Portland, deborah@travelportland.com
Contact: Martin Stoll, GoSeeTell Network, martin@goseetell.com

Nation’s First “Twisitor Center” Launches in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Ore., has become the first U.S. city to launch an official “Twisitor Center.” This cyber-style cousin to the more traditional walk-in visitor information center relies on Twitter technology to connect travelers with those who can answer their questions and help plan their trips. (Twitter is a free social networking service that allows subscribers to send and receive short, real-time updates, messages and questions.)

“Other cities are connecting with visitors through Twitter,” explained Martin Stoll, CEO of GoSeeTell Network, the company that created Portland’s Twisitor Center concept. “But Portland is the first city to set up a virtual visitor center to which people can direct travel questions just by adding a simple tag to their tweets [messages].”

Twitter-users seeking information on Portland can add #inpdx to their questions. Tweets tagged with this code (also called a “hash tag”) are sought out by Twisitor Center staff members who then send back suggestions. But the beauty of Twitter is that other users who aren’t affiliated with Travel Portland can also chime in with additional tips. So, if a traveler tweets “Need a good BBQ place in Portland #inpdx,” she could end up with suggestions from not only the Twisitor Center but also from anyone else – Portland residents, foodies, fellow travelers – in the Twitter community.

“With Twitter we can be more conversational and responsive,” said Jeff Miller, Travel Portland’s president and CEO. “And this is how a lot of people make travel and entertainment decisions these days. Twitter lets us talk to travelers who prefer social networking and who wouldn’t normally visit an official travel website.”

In addition to responding to questions from visitors, Travel Portland’s Twitter stream will include several proactive tweets per day, covering such pre-defined topics as dining, green travel, special deals and recreation.

Because Twitter is relatively new to many travelers, Travel Portland’s website features a Twitter page that explains the service and connects to Twitter in Plain English, a fun, two-minute video that covers the basics. The page also links to Travel Portland’s Twitter stream, where visitors can see what others are tweeting about and sign up to “follow” Travel Portland.

The Twisitor Center is one of several online initiatives that Travel Portland is undertaking. Another among these is GoSeePortland, a social-networking website where Portland residents and visitors share tips, ratings and reviews – as well as get customized travel recommendations. GoSeePortland launched in 2008.

For more information on Travel Portland’s Twisitor Center, go to www.travelportland.com. To follow Travel Portland on Twitter, visit twitter.com/travelportland.

Link to Twisitor Center images: http://flickr.com/photos/35211583@N02/
Link to Twisitor Center video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uLPX3NPkY

Travel Portland is the official destination marketing organization for Portland and the Greater Portland Region. Its mission is to strengthen the local economy by marketing the metropolitan Portland area as a preferred destination for meetings, conventions and leisure travel. For more information on Travel Portland, visit www.travelportland.com.

###

Readers, what do you think of Travel Portland’s social media efforts? What other exciting uses of social media have you seen in the travel and tourism industry?

If you have a graduate degree, a professional background in communication, and university teaching experience, consider applying for an instructor position at the University of Oregon’s George S. Turnbull Portland Center.

The university is looking for someone for the 2009-2010 academic year. This is a full-time, nine-month, renewable appointment, based in Portland, beginning on Sept. 16, 2009. A part-time summer appointment is attached to the position, which begins on Aug. 1, 2009.

The instructor will arrange internships and supervise students in the Portland Senior Experience program. He or she will also teach undergraduate courses in public relations and graduate courses in our strategic communication master’s program for professionals. The successful candidate will have a graduate degree, a professional background in communication, and university teaching experience. Familiarity and connections with the Portland media market are preferred.

To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by April 24, 2009. The search will remain open until the position is filled. Please send a letter of interest and qualifications, resume, and contact information for three references to

Alan G. Stavitsky
Senior Associate Dean and Professor
Director, George S. Turnbull Portland Center
University of Oregon Portland
70 NW Couch Street
Portland, OR 97209
ags@uoregon.edu

School of Journalism and Communication
The School of Journalism and Communication offers doctoral and master’s programs in communication and society, as well as professional master’s programs in news/editorial, magazine, strategic communication and literary nonfiction.

The undergraduate program serves more than 1,400 majors and pre-majors in four majors: advertising, communication studies, journalism, and public relations.

Accredited by ACEJMC, the School is nationally known for its commitment to teaching excellence.  In 2006, the School opened the George S. Turnbull Center in Portland, where it offers undergraduate and graduate classes, workshops, and seminars for students and for the professional community.

Portland Programs
The University of Oregon’s Portland programs include journalism and communication, architecture, digital arts, product design, law, business, and continuing education. They are housed in the White Stag Block, a refurbished, 103,000-square-foot facility, in the city’s Old Town Chinatown district, which is LEED Gold certified and has been honored for both sustainability and historic preservation. The Portland metro area is noted for its high quality of life, vibrant cultural environment, and access to outdoor activities, including the scenic Oregon Coast and the Cascade Mountains.

The University of Oregon is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse institution and seeks candidates with demonstrated potential to contribute positively to its diverse community. We are an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

By Tiffany Derville Gallicano
Cross-posted to PR Profs

Reader-friendly terms of service can give organizations a business advantage; plus, they are a gesture that readers will likely appreciate. Since the brouhaha over Facebook’s terms of service, several bloggers (most recently, Todd Defren) have discussed the importance of reading the terms of service.

The problem is that terms of service tend to be difficult to read. They can be steeped in legal language, they can be impersonal, and many of them are formatted in ways that inhibit reading (e.g., all caps, white font on dark backgrounds).

I say this having surfed yesterday through several terms of service pages from royalty free music sites for my students’ podcasts.

I don’t think that terms of service should have to be painful to read. I suggest having a reader-friendly version that summarizes the main points and links to the legal language. The terms of service for WordPress are a great example. There are three well written, understandble paragraphs that summarize the terms of service, followed by the legal language. Here is an example from Alton Brown of a fun terms of service policy (granted, it’s short, which helps).

Should we teach our students to be proactive in their future workplaces by creating a friendly version of their organizations’ terms of service? Do you have examples to share of exemplary terms of service or ones needing improvement?