The comments are really interesting, and even though I mentioned it in my comment, it reminded me of Mary Barber’s post (also published yesterday) where she pondered aloud on whether we all see the world through our own respective filters.

My short answer: yes, but that’s not what I was thinking about when I sat down to write today’s post.

Shanan said something in her post that I wanted to riff off of:

“Initially I followed close friends and had a locked profile. Why? Because these were the days when we weren’t sure how Twitter was different than Facebook. So, we treated Twitter like Facebook, something for select eyes only.”

“Let’s connect …”

I started my fourth year of teaching at Johns Hopkins a couple of weeks ago, and as part of the “getting to know you” exercise, my students had to introduce themselves. I’d asked them to also post their Twitter handles and Google+ profiles, so that I could create a list and circle respectively for them.

When I clicked through to their Twitter profiles, I was struck by how many of them have protected profiles. That is, profiles where you can’t see their tweets easily, and have to send a “follow request” in order to be able to follow them (and thus, communicate with them).

I asked why, and of those who answered, they all said basically the same thing: that they were protective of their privacy, they wanted to separate personal from professional, they wanted to control the “spam” that showed up in their streams.

I think this is a really bad idea, particularly if you are a communication professional.

Now, I understand the desire to keep certain updates protected/private, but frankly, there is an easier solution to that … just don’t post anything that would have a negative impact on you.

I was not a fan of Twitter at first, and now I love it.

It has been the single-most important tool/medium in widening my circle of acquaintances and friends, growing my business, bringing me new clients, speaking opportunities, media opportunities … and none of that would have happened if I had a protected profile.

” … but don’t talk to me”

With a protected profile, the impression you’re giving to people is that you don’t want to talk to them. And Twitter is all about talking to other people.

There was a time I used to go through who was following me pretty regularly, so that I could follow them back. My M.O. used to be to click through to their profile, read their bio, follow their site/blog link, look at their timeline, and if, after doing all that, they seemed smart/interesting/unusual, I’d follow them.

(I’ve stopped doing this now and basically just follow back people who engage with me… and no, they don’t have to be following me first.)

If their profile was locked down, it didn’t matter how smart/interesting they might turn out to be.

The impression I had was that they either had something to hide, or that they weren’t really interested in what other people – perhaps out of their comfort zone, going back to Shanan’s post – had to say.

So why should I waste my time sending a follow request, only to find out it’s someone I really wouldn’t have been all that interested in to begin with?

There is only one way to start a conversation, and that is to talk to people.

And if you want people to listen to you, you have to give them a reason to do so. Say something interesting (which they won’t see if you have a protected profile), or show that you warrant interest (which they won’t know if you have a protected profile).

So if you are adamant about being on Twitter with a protected profile, I’d suggest you create a different (protected) profile for your really good friends/family/whatever circle you want but do not publicize that as your “real” Twitter profile.

Instead, make your current profile public – since that is already publicly associated with you – from which you talk to “everyone else” every day, from which you engage in relevant discussions,  etc.

Or, if you’ve already posted stuff to your protected profile that you wouldn’t want all and sundry seeing, reverse the above. But you get what I mean.

Personally, this would drive me crazy … what, manage another profile?! (Btw, Sanjiva Persad wrote a very interesting post on having two Twitter accounts last year, and an update to that will be coming your way soon.)

No matter which social network you choose to spend time in, the primary reason is to get to know other people, right?

So why shoot yourself in the foot before you’ve even stepped in the door?

Image: maramillo via Flickr, CC 2.0

What do you think? Do you think there are advantages to having a protected Twitter profile? Do share, maybe you’ll change my mind!

Why Protecting Your Twitter Profile is a Bad Idea

A recent visit to our campus by journalist Chantal Hébert and her lecture “Missing the Forest for the Trees: A Look at the State of Political Coverage in the Social Media Era” had me thinking about how I use these tools.

For those unfamiliar with Hébert, she is best know for her work as a weekly participant on the political panel At Issue on the CBC’s The National (in Canada The National is like … if it was food you’d spread it on toast and have it sustain you for life. It’s a big deal here).

She is also a national affairs writer with the Toronto Star, a guest columnist for Le Devoir and L’Actualité, and has been covering the major moments of Canadian politics since I was old enough to have a driver’s license.

One of the key messages of her lecture was that – in her experience – social media tends to narrow people’s perspective, not widen it.

The reason for this is that it is a tool that makes it very easy for people to customize the information they receive … and people, not surprisingly, tend to choose information that reinforces their own views.

“Once you are on a tour and covering a campaign you are looking on Twitter but the people who are on Twitter, they are junkies and so your mirror is not a window to the world,” said Hébert.

“It’s a mirror and it’s reflecting you to yourself. I have rarely seen the guy who delivers my mail and the person who takes my blood at the clinic tweet in between the two blood tests. And I haven’t noticed the teachers stop teaching to tweet.”

(SIDENOTE: That last line made me smile. I wanted to make the stage spin around like on the Price is Right to reveal the professors here who are using social media in the classroom. They are mindblowing. Anyway …)

Hébert’s comment made me think about how I use Twitter.

Initially I followed close friends and had a locked profile. Why? Because these were the days when we weren’t sure how Twitter was different than Facebook. So, we treated Twitter like Facebook, something for select eyes only.

That changed fairly quickly though. The value of public profiles was hard to ignore.

I started to look at social media as a powerful communication tool that could help me in my work, so I started following communication professionals to learn how best to do that.

Pretty soon the vast majority of the people I followed were communications, marketing and PR professionals. Sure, I jazzed things up by following people from different sectors (Higher Ed, corporate, not for profit). But, for the most part they were all people in my industry.

It certainly wasn’t a bad thing. I learned a lot. But, as the group got larger and larger the content in my feed became homogenized.

There was a handful of thought leaders and hundreds of people echoing them. Even though they were echoing intelligent things, it was still an echo.

Hébert described the people she was seeing on Twitter as a “super engaged, super interesting, but super disconnected audience.”

I’m still working out how to diversify my Twitter feed.

For now I’m following more people from my offline community: faculty, staff, students, people who live in my city.

How about you? What are you doing?

Image: chantel beam photography via Flickr, CC 2.0

Shanan Sorochynski manages the University of Regina’s first official blog: YOURblog. Previous to this she was the managing editor of U of R Report, the University’s faculty and staff internal publication, and a print journalist in Manitoba.

Are You Using Social Media to Talk to Yourself?

I know, everyone is talking about the Giants winning the Super Bowl, but aside from Madonna’s dismal half-time show (what was she trying to prove, exactly?) I didn’t watch it. So I have nothing to contribute on that front, other than congratulations and sympathies respectively to Giants and Patriots fans.

Last month, we were all in the throes of setting New Year’s resolutions (ok, some of us were). I didn’t set any resolutions (I stopped doing this a while back) but I did talk about my three words for 2012.

About a month later, I thought I’d share how I think those three words are working for me, and what helps me:

1. Attention

I’d said I wanted to give attention to everything I do in equal amounts. That is, not overly focus on a couple of things, and let a slew of others slide by feeling sorry for themselves.

So far, this is going well. I’m an inveterate list-maker, so every day, I make a list of what I’d like to do that day, and then highlight (check mark or mark with an asterisk) what really needs to be done.

I also create “events” on my Google calendar if something needs to be done by a particular time/day, or if something is coming up, and set reminders for those “events” to pop up at least a couple of days before.

Sure, sometimes everything doesn’t get done on that particular day, but it does get done by the deadline (if there is one).

Helpful tools: pen & paper (for the list), calendar entries & reminders. I’ve also started blocking off at least one entire day each week where I don’t schedule calls or meetings (learning from Gini Dietrich’s post last year about working on your business and not in it).

2. Intention

as in intentionality of purpose.

For me, this is an extension of “attention.” If I have the intention of doing something, or seeing something through, I have to give it my full attention, else it doesn’t get done, and I start stressing (which is not good).

So I’m trying to be more intentional about what I’m doing, what I’m taking on… and not taking on.

On a personal level, this has meant intensifying the focus on wellness. For the last week (and intermittently before then), I’ve worked out at least five days out of seven each week (that includes non-#mybootcamp days where I take one of my dogs for an hour-long walk in my neighborhood when the weather is good), and I’ve been making an effort to cook every day.

On the work front, this has meant getting up early (typically 5-5:30 am) and clearing out email while the world is still quiet. It has also meant cutting off playing in social media from time to time, which I’ve learned I have to do particularly if I’m focused on writing… and much of my work revolves around writing.

I’m also becoming stricter about not going online after a certain time (unless I absolutely have to). This makes me get “work” done in “work” time.

If it doesn’t get done in that time… well, I have to make a new list for the next day, or really ask myself if what I’m looking at as “work” is really necessary… or whether I’m just making my own life more difficult by listing stuff that doesn’t really need to be done, but would merely make me feel better because I can check something off that list.

Helpful tools: a dog as a walking buddy, and my own, objective mind, which gives the non-objective side a spanking when needed.

Also Boomerang for Gmail, which I love, and wrote about a couple of years ago (I’ve since purchased a “personal” subscription for $49.99 a year, which is very reasonable since it works out to just over $4 per month and doesn’t limit how many emails I can schedule).

3. Retention

This really follows from “intention.” Because if I’m intentionally trying to learn and retain what’s good for me, I’m going to have to let go of what’s not.

Last week, I joined Lisa Byrne, Vanessa French and others, spurred on by Samantha Dublin, in committing to going #dry (or on a #drinkstrike) for the month of February. I even started early, on Monday, Jan. 30.

I enjoy a glass of wine as much as anyone else, but seeing as how I’m trying to reach a certain weight, it really doesn’t make sense. Over and above that, what alcohol really does is make me want to eat crap. And as a society, I think too much of our socializing revolves around alcohol, when it really should revolve around getting to know, or catch up with, people.

So I’m #dry, definitely through February and perhaps the foreseeable future… and I’m feeling pretty good.

Work-wise, it is very interesting to see how this word is manifesting in me. It’s making me really stop and think about opportunities that come my way, and whether “retaining” them will be good for me in the overall picture.

Sure, they might mean some money, but will they add to my experience? Will they do me more harm than good by stressing me out more than normal?

If the answer to Q1 is “no,” and to Q2 “yes,” then I say “thank you, but no thank you.”

Helpful tools: listening to my gut, and remembering that “no” is not a dirty word. Doing a quick mental opportunity cost analysis any time I feel conflicted.

How are you doing with your three words? Are they working for you, or have you found you’ve had to change them? What tools do you find helpful, conventional or unconventional? Do share!

Image: kevin dooley via Flickr, CC 2.0

How the Three Words are Doing in February

Update at 11:40 am ET: Since this post was published, Komen has restored funding to Planned Parenthood, which you can read via this statement they released today. Special thanks to Jen Zingsheim for noting in the comments that she learned this via Jezebel, which is how I found out.

I’ve been fascinated by the way the Komen drama – over its new grant policies resulting in withdrawing funds for most of the Planned Parenthood programs that were formerly recipients – has been unfolding.

Kind of like watching a train wreck, isn’t it? That’s what it feels like to me, at least.

Before we go any further: I do care about women’s health (I have my own issues that I deal with every day), and have donated to Komen by supporting friends who’ve participated in their walks, but not directly. I have friends who’ve survived breast cancer (among other cancers). I briefly met Nancy Brinker some years ago, when I was a “scrub” on a client event, and the American Institute for Cancer Research is a former client.

But I’ve never bought into Komen’s “pink ribbon” deal, because its Goliath-like domination of the cause marketing world, not to mention the month of October, made me want to root for the underdog.

The first post I read was a couple of days ago, by Kivi Leroux Miller, on what she called the “accidental rebranding of Komen for the Cure.” Kivi has been keeping the post updated, and if you haven’t yet read it, I suggest you do. She says,

“This post is about what happens when a leading nonprofit jumps into a highly controversial area of public debate without a communications strategy, stays silent, and therefore lets others take over the public dialogue, perhaps permanently redefining the organization and its brand. Watch and learn, so you don’t make the same mistake on whatever hot button issues your organization might be wading into.”

Some of the other commentary/reporting/activity that has stayed with me:

Yesterday, Bill Sledzik also took a look at how this might change the way cause marketing is approached.

Beth Kanter, who got me involved in the Komen Kan Kiss My Mammogram! cause that Allison Fine created, set up and then invited me to join her Pinterest board of the same name, as an exercise in “Pinactivism.” In her post, Beth also touched on “newsjacking” and Komen’s ham-handed handling of the issue thus far, though it seems someone at their Communication team has finally been woken up (or fired-and-hired).

Nancy Schwartz has been writing a series on Komen’s “busted brand.” And Joe Waters wrote a terrific rant on why “Komen sucks… but so do you.”

There’s no point in my rehashing what some very smart people have already said, but I will say this:

1. Transparency is everything

Yesterday, I tried to give Komen the benefit of the doubt. I thought, “Let’s assume that all this is indeed the result of new granting rules.” So I went onto their website (couldn’t even load the blog, still can’t), to read what those policies were, and what they are. After all, surely they’d be on the site, right?

Nope. At least, I haven’t been able to find them, and I spent a lot of time looking.

Finally, I clicked through to some of their affiliate sites, and there they were. But why isn’t there at least an overview of their old and new grant policies on the main site?

Had Komen posted this when its board voted to do this, as the New York Times reported, at least they would have had their own point of view on record before they had to resort – late – to the video response from Nancy Brinker.

2. Staying on message doesn’t help if you don’t address what people really want to know

In all their statements, Twitter responses (again, late), and so on, Komen has tried to reiterate that their decision is not about politics, and that they are staying true to their mission.

That’s all well and good, but what people really want to know is why Planned Parenthood has been singled out; yesterday Mother Jones reported that Penn State appears to be in violation of Komen’s new grant policy.

If Komen had been upfront earlier – on its website – with exactly what this new policy is, then it might douse some of the flames. Note, I said “might.” But now, by digging their heels into the sand, all that’s happening is that we (at least, most of us) are taking their position with a huge sack of salt.

3. Walk the talk

The NYT article I referenced earlier quotes a Komen board member:

“The organization’s longtime support of Planned Parenthood had already cost it some support from anti-abortion forces, Mr. Raffaelli said. But the board feared that charges that Komen supported organizations under federal investigation for financial improprieties could take a further and unacceptable toll on donations, he said. ‘People don’t understand that a Congressional investigation doesn’t necessarily mean a problem of substance,’ Mr. Raffaelli said. ‘When people read about it in places like Texarkana, Tex., where I’m from, it sounds really bad.’ “

So what is this really about, then? Is it about staying true to its mission, as Brinker has repeatedly tried to say, or is it about assuaging those for whom it “sounds really bad”… and not losing significant donor dollars in the process?

And if, according to one of Komen’s own board members, “a Congressional investigation doesn’t necessarily mean a problem of substance,” why not try to educate those who might not understand this, instead of throwing a single – as seems to be the case – organization under the bus?

4. Punxsutawney Phil or not, prediction is part of the job

Yesterday, Dan Cohen published a terrific guest post here on WUL riffing off of Groundhog Day, where he made the point that “communication is more about mastery than about prediction.”

Yes. But, as I noted in my comment on the post, that mastery also means that we develop the ability to anticipate how our publics are going to react and, therefore, plan and act accordingly.

I don’t know who runs Komen’s communications, but boy, have they been asleep on the job. Especially given how acrimonious conversations around Planned Parenthood can get, how could they not have anticipated what would happen… and prepared for it?

Perhaps they did, and were shot down by senior leadership… I don’t know. But whatever happened or, rather, didn’t happen, I’m left with the impression that Komen was so convinced of its own invincibility, thanks to its ocean of pink ribbons, that it simply never assumed people would take it to task.

Did you see Andrea Mitchell grill Brinker on MSNBC (Kivi linked to it in her post as well)?

Note how Sen. Boxer says, “to change the story is not going to work.” That’s exactly what I mean in #2 above. Brinker stuck stubbornly to her point, and to me it was pretty sad that only at the end of the interview did she acknowledge “communication issues.”

I don’t know if the furor would have not have raged as high had there been some forethought put into how Komen would communicate the new policy. But at least they would have had a shot at shaping the public dialog. No matter what happens hereon out, this is one battle they’ve lost.

5. If your affiliates are distancing themselves from you, you need to worry

When I couldn’t find anything about the Komen grant policies on its main site, I clicked through to a couple of its affiliate sites, as I said.

And while I found the policies there, what really struck me was the lengths Komen Maryland went to to distance itself from the national organization’s policy:

“The new granting criteria announced by Susan G. Komen for the Cure® that now makes Planned Parenthood ineligible for funding was a decision made on the national level. Many of the Komen and Planned Parenthood partnerships that began in 2005 provide women in remote areas with access to breast health services. To date, Komen Maryland has not received a grant application from Planned Parenthood requesting financial assistance.”

Several of the other affiliate sites don’t have as current statements (or any), but if you look at their Facebook pages, you can see how they are trying very hard to reassure their fans that they weren’t part of this decision-making process while trying to toe the party line.

Komen Connecticut:

Komen Charlotte:

Komen Northern Nevada:

Several of the other affiliates are toeing the party line, but when your chapters are trying to convince their stakeholders that even though they’re you, they’re not really you, you have a problem.

6. Pull your head out of the sand and reply

This point has been made over and over and over again. And yes, I will say it too: replying to your audiences, inquiries, even attacks, is not an option. Today, conversation is the norm.

Komen was exceedingly late out of the gate in its responses. It’s been roundly criticized for that, as it should be, and yesterday, when I couldn’t find information on their grants on the main site, I wrote into the “media” email address, asking for a link. I still haven’t received it.

Perhaps as a tiny blogger I didn’t warrant attention from the media department. The problem is that no matter how tiny we are, we’re all connected in some way, shape or form, to people who might listen to us. And if enough of us make a noise, that can cause problems… and you might get “newsjacked,” as Beth mentions in her post.

Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, gets that. It walked all over Komen with the way it went straight to the people, generating not just media and public attention, but more support and donations.

7. What goes online doesn’t stay in Vegas

One thread of the still-unfolding story is that Komen’s new policy has been driven in large part by its SVP for Public Policy, a former Georgia gubernatorial candidate who has been vocal about the fact that she doesn’t support Planned Parenthood (see the Atlantic story that ran yesterday).

Brinker and others have denied this with the “it’s not about politics” line.

But the problem is that Karen Handel, the SVP in question, seems to have been a little too click-happy in retweeting this:

Once you’ve seen this, does it really matter what Ms. Brinker, Mr. Raffaelli (as quoted in the NYT) or anyone else at Komen says about the new policy not being politically motivated?

I searched for the tweet in Ms. Handel’s profile, but couldn’t find it, so I assume she deleted it. However, thanks to @WentRogue‘s Twitpic, there is now a permanent record of it.

What goes online doesn’t stay in Vegas.

I told you at the outset of this post

that I’ve always viewed Komen’s marketing machine with some skepticism. That does not take away from the fact that I believe there are many, many well-intentioned, sincere people working at the organization, and that regardless of how they’ve done it, they’ve brought huge awareness to the issue of breast cancer.

It makes me sad that they are probably feeling really upset right now, and fighting their own internal battles because of the ham-handed way this issue has been managed. Or, I should say, mismanaged.

And it makes mes sad to see how crushed the men and women who have supported Komen are.

Is Komen going anywhere? Probably not. Will Planned Parenthood find a way to cultivate the groundswell of supporters it has gained in the last couple of days? I hope so.

But regardless of the organizations involved, and the politics that may or may not be involved, I hope you will remember that breast cancer is a big issue, and find a way to talk about and support efforts to cure it.

I also hope that if you work for or with a non-profit organization, you’ll use this post, those I’ve referenced and what I’m sure will be many more to run, to put together your own crisis communication plan well before you need it.

And oh! I have my first mammogram next Friday. Wish me luck, won’t you?

At almost 2,000 words, I’ve certainly had my say! What’s yours? I’d love to know. And many thanks to several non-profit/social media friends who shared links online that helped me put this post together.

7 PR Lessons Komen for the Cure Didn’t Know It Was Giving You

Happy Groundhog Day, WUL readers!

If you are anything like me, you’re a big fan of the once famous Bill Murray movie surrounding one of the littlest celebrated holidays in American culture.

It’s a day when a small number of people in Pennsylvania wait to see whether or not a rodent of the family Sciuriade “thinks”certain meteorological conditions will persist for six weeks or if inhabitants of the northeast US will be able to break out their flip flops a little early.

This annual ritual, if taken seriously, leaves a slew of questions for any hard-nosed reporter who can’t take a joke:

• For starters, how do we know if Punxsutawney Phil is afraid of his shadow or something else?
• Have scientists developed some unusual way of communicating with groundhogs or translating their grunts or gibbering into language as we know it today?
• And who exactly are the top hat-donning handlers, known as the Inner Circle, who take care of Phil?

And why do we listen to a groundhog when it comes to weather conditions?

Wouldn’t a bird, a creature who spends everyday in the higher portions of the atmosphere, or a fish, who might have a chance at reading ocean currents, be a better representative when it comes to animals predicting temperature in the near future?

To be clear, I’m not taking a cheap shot here. Phil’s got a 39% batting average, which would make him the best hitter in baseball history, but a piss-poor weatherman. He’s also a pessimist and a coward, having seen his shadow 99 out of 115 times.

To be fair, he is a cute little bugger. Furthermore, I’m not sure humans are all that much better when it comes to prediction. Oh sure, we may be a bit better when it comes to long-term weather forecasts, but a groundhog doesn’t raise crops. Human beings have been waiting for flying cars and moon colonization for years, all to no avail.

In fact, prediction itself has come under plenty of criticism in recent years.

Famous author and former finance trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb has most famously shellacked Wall Street thinkers and modern economists for models that supposedly represent reality. Taleb sold plenty of books, as professionals have come to realize that guessing the performance of the 2012 orange crop in Florida isn’t exactly sound grounds for a bet on which the retirement savings of thousands of Americans may rely.

So what does that have to do with PR?

Essentially, our industry is in the best position to take an agnostic approach to uncertainty. Communication is more about mastery than it is about projection.

While the executives we represent are saddled with the perhaps impossible task of charting organizational futures, we take charge of charting organizational message.

Does that take some degree of foresight and an attempt to guess where public dialogue is headed? Certainly. Presenting a message that goes stale is never good for anyone.

But if we are good at our jobs and see communication as a skill set (and I’m guessing most of us do), then we ought to be able to make messages interesting, adding inherent value to the approach of our clients in ways that require little to no fortune telling.

This is great news. I sympathize with the sleepless PR agent who has to explain the rather pathetic misdeeds of organizational mismanagement or ethical lapses, just as I sympathize with those the organization has wronged…

… but at least I know I have better sense than to attempt clairvoyance, trust a shadowy cast of characters in top hats or run away from my own shadow.

In other words, at least we’re not Phil.

Image: faz the persian via Flickr, CC 2.0

Daniel J. Cohen has a Masters Degree in public relations from the University of Houston and serves as a copywriter and communications specialist at BrightBox Marketing in Houston, Texas. A master wordsmith of the modern PR era, Cohen constantly seeks out innovative message strategies and uses them to get his clients the best results.You can read his insights on the BrightBox Brand Marketing blog.

Black Swans and Ground Hogs: Communication, Not Prediction