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Strategic versus Prescriptive Communication – YES Digital Needs Both
Image Courtesy of Paul Foreman via www.mindmapinspiration.com
Understanding why you should do something is critical to the process of learning how to do something. In order to responsibly and critically use communication tools an individual must first have a strong foundation for why this type of communication is important in the first place. This foundation is large reason why I went back for my MA in Strategic Communication.
Sadly, there appears to be a disconnect between understanding communication theory and relevance and digital media users. Peruse any digital bookstore and you will see thousands of titles on how to blog, Twitter for Dummies and grow your business by using Facebook. However, what is lacking among the enthusiasm to use digital communication tools is the simple question of whether or not they should be used and if so why.
I recently read Jeff Jarvis’s Public Parts. The book was excellent on many levels and it did a superb job of providing detailed information on both the theoretical and practical side of digital communication. Instead of seeing a forest and focusing on a tree, Jarvis choose to discuss a species within the forest of digital communication; the idea of public versus private information. This is an important topic as governments and people determine ethical and legal ways to manipulate the internet for profit and commoditization. If more people would approach the subject of digital communication by looking at it from a fifty thousand foot view then perhaps we could answer questions about how to better prepare our communities, children and even ourselves to communicate in this new and exciting space.
With these thoughts in mind, I set out to create a digital media experiment that combined several important theories using new online communication software that wrapped the why and the how together in a simplistic design and format.
There are lots of communication theories and all of them have their validity and purpose. However, as I have studied theories on strategic communication, digital literacy, information and experience design there have been three that stood out and noticeably shaped the way I view strategic digital communication. They include:
- Habermas’ Public Sphere: The idea that an elite group, usually comprised of the bourgeois (or the upper middle class), comes together by gathering consensus through intelligent discussions of the public good.
- Bolter & Gromala’s Windows & Mirrors: Is the idea that design is both transparent (like a window) and reflective (like a mirror).
- Shedroff’s Information & Experience Design Continuum: Data is organized into information which is presented to create knowledge and reflected upon to create wisdom.
With these theories in mind, I researched several different tools online and found a wonderful resource called LearningThroughDigitalMedia.net. They have a very comprehensive toolkit with a variety of different online software products categorized. To access their toolkit click here. Using the toolkit, I found Mindmeister.com. Mindmeister is a mind mapping software that allows you to map ideas and collaborate with colleagues. Eureka! What better way to culminate my digital media experiments then by creating one that interactively outlines all of the important information I have learned about digital communication.
Using Mindmeister I can create an interactive public learning environment that allows information to be shared with anyone who has an internet connection and an account. In doing so more people have access to and can disseminate the information furthering the internet revolution’s main achievement in communication; the deconstruction of Habermas’ elite and the rise of the proletariat public sphere.
Additionally, using Mindmeister allows the information to serve as both a window and a mirror. Anyone can view and peruse the mind map getting lost in the information or they can reflect and use the tool to add their own perspective.
Finally, using Mindmeister allowed data to be culled into information and knowledge. By using a tool that allowed collaboration, as a class we can generate wisdom by reflecting and sharing all of our knowledge with each other; thus creating a more comprehensive communication piece.
For a PDF of the strategic digital communication mind map click here
Digital_Communication Experiment 3
References:
Bolter, J. D. & Gromala, D. (2003). Windows & Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art and the Myth of Transparency. The MIT Press. Cambridge, MA.
Habermas, Jürgen (German(1962)English Translation 1989), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger, Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press, p. 30, ISBN 0-262-58108-6
Shedroff, N. (2009). Experience Design 1.1. Experience Design Books
Dress Rehearsal Needed: Training for a Crisis
I am a big believer in plan, plan and plan some more. Regardless of the situation you should have back up plans. Some people inherently are able to think quickly on their feet. Others, however, struggle to know what to do next when plan A goes awry.
In my tradeshow management days, I realized quickly that not all employees have the problem solving skills they need to be strong team members. This didn’t mean they weren’t good at their job, they just weren’t trained to respond quickly to problems. To combat this issue, I developed a training program to help flex their critical thinking muscles. (Download your free copy of This is a Test to help you proactively manage trade show calamity)
Training is also critical to crisis communication. In crisis communication, anticipating a crisis is a large part of the crisis team’s responsibility. In order to ensure that the organization is protected, and the stakeholders and community are communicated with effectively, you have to create contingencies and form a game plan using scenarios. Companies typically have a generic crisis communication strategy in place. This is a great start, but I believe that you need specific crisis communication scenario plans that enable you and the crisis team to quickly mount an offense without hashing out how the generic plan doesn’t fit the current circumstances.
Image Courtesy of Millennium Broadway
Once you have some specific crisis communication scenario plans in place, then you can create training and simulations around the scenario to help the crisis team learn how to respond and think quickly on their feet. There is a reason theater performances always have a dress rehearsal. It is because of Murphy’s Law, “What can go wrong will go wrong.”
Below are some strategies for developing a scenario based training program for your crisis communication team. Creating training simulations will allow everyone to be on the same page, employ similar tactics and allow the team to manage the crisis instead of the crisis managing them.
How to Develop Crisis Communication Training Simulations
- Develop detailed scenarios in advance for your team to work with. Create scenarios that have the potential to occur so that actual best practices and learning can be achieved.
- In order to simulate a true crisis environment you need to create frenzy. You can do this by:
- Provide information in pieces
- Use multiple channels: Facebook, Twitter, phone, email, in person…. IMPORTANT: Do not use company accounts for the simulation or your actual company’s name.
- Set time limits for each scenario
- Set aside a ½ day or a day for your team to participate in the exercise. Making the exercise a priority will help to create active and engaged participation
- Debrief: In order to get the most out of the training exercise you need to debrief with your team, discuss what went well, what they would have done differently and then record best practices. Later incorporate these best practices into your crisis communication plans.
Read More in the Crisis Communication Series:
- Your Opinion Needed: What is the Most Shocking Crisis of 2011
- What Apple Should Learn From Wendy’s Regarding Identity Crisis
- Excellence Theory & The Evolution of Crisis Communication
- ‘Learning to Lose the Least’ – Important, But Difficult Lesson for Organizations
- SWOTing Away Organizational Crisis Through Monitoring Mechanisms
- In Crisis Communication the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple
- Charlotte’s Potential Identity Crisis – Does Wells Fargo Even Care?
- In Crisis Follow Condoleezza Rice’s Advice; Be Firm!
Creating User Experiences: A Window & Mirror Approach
In experimenting with digital messages, format limitations can often hold you back. The personal goal I set for this experiment was to create a digital message that allows for user interaction. I wanted to create an opportunity for the message to be both a window (the ability for the format to be completely transparent to the user) and a mirror (a self reflective style where the user has to see the format in order to use it) (Bolter & Gromala, 2005). This type of interface design was much easier to imagine than to actually achieve. My first thought was that I should create the experiment in HTML or Flash because both easily allow you to create user interfaces. One caveat, I would need to be experienced enough to use Adobe Flash or code interfaces in HTML. There goes that idea.
After talking about it with several people and gaining some insight on other ways to achieve the same dynamic, I begin to explore creating and coding the piece in Power Point. Power Point is boring as a traditional presentation, but if I could enhance it with some code then perhaps I could achieve the desired user interface I wanted. What followed was a leap down the digital rabbit hole. The graphics, animation and flash object codes used weren’t always compatible with other web tools.
- I had to edit the video using iMovie. However, iMovie files are not compatible with PPTX or YouTube. Therefore, I had to automatically upload them from my iphone or convert them to QuickTime files in order for them to function before embedding them in the presentation.
- Originally, I planned to use Slideshare.net in order to embed my presentation in my blog. However, it butchered my graphics in the first conversion. Continuing to use Slideshare would have meant that the technology would have gotten in the way of the message. See example below.
View more presentations from kbconway
- AuthorStream worked much better at converting. The problem however, was that it would not embed into WordPress. The link allows for a wonderful user experience creating the mirror and window effect. View link: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/kbconway-1226826-dml/
- I found an HTML code stream which allowed flash players to be placed into WordPress blogs, but it cut off the buttons at the bottom. Code was [ gigya src = insert URL ]. This made the user interface less intuitive. The disruption in the user interface hurt both the transparency of the window and the self reflection of the mirror philosophy. See example.
- There is a WordPress plugin for AuthorStream, but your WordPress site must be independently hosted. Converting my site over to independent hosting was not within the project time frame. Not to mention something I could not accomplish on my own. Ensuring the databases are configured correctly in a SQL backend is easy if you know where to look. I don’t.
In the end, creating the message on this project was much simpler than the actual execution. I was able to easily story board my ideas and create copy/content. The much longer process was crafting the original content and then making it web presentable. In the end I needed over seven different tools in order to finalize a fairly simple digital media message. The take away is that it takes a lot of skill and digital savvy to create a message that can function simultaneously as a window and a mirror. I believe that the knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to use digital tools will begin to define what people can accomplish in the future. For a full list of the tools I used to create this digital experiment see below.
- Power Point – physically create the presentation
- ToonDo.com – create original graphic
- Illustrator – create original graphics
- iPhone – shoot video
- iMovie – edit video, add titles and insert royalty free music
- iTunes – purchase royalty free music
- AuthorStream – upload presentation for Flash conversion
References:
Bolter, J., Gromala, D. (2005) Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency. Cambridge, MA.
In Crisis Follow Condoleezza Rice’s Advice; Be Firm
October 25, 2011 Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, spoke at Bluementhal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte, NC as part of Queens University’s Leadership Series. She describes, quite eloquently, a moment during 9/11 after the third plane hit the Pentagon. President George W. Bush told Condoleezza Rice that he was coming back to Washington. Rice explained it was the only time she ever spoke firmly to the President saying, “You stay where you are. We are under attack.”
Rice’s account of 911 brings up an excellent point about crisis management. There are times during a crisis that the leader is going to have a difficult time stepping back from the situation and seeing what is best for the company, organization or country.
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image courtesy of Queens University of Charlotte
When in crisis it is important to think clearly, quickly and effectively plan ahead for multiple types of occurrences. I know that I have even had to sell crisis to my executives in order for them to understand the magnitude.
Although Rice did not divulge the rest of her conversation with the President it is plausible to think that she presented the problem for Bush by explaining that due to the level of attacks and the targets he, and therefore the perception of the US, was in danger. This technique of presentation is called framing. By framing the crisis in this manner, Rice was able to sell Bush on the idea that DC was not the place for him to be because of the terrorist attacks.
If we could speculate, I would also suggest that she followed up by explaining the importance of him being able to remain in command during this difficult time. She probably went so far as to describe the uncertainty of when and where other attacks would occur and the immediate need to evacuate all major buildings in Washington, DC. By providing the dimensions of the crisis in this manner she was able to sell the appropriate course of action to the President; despite it potentially hindering his effectiveness. In doing so Rice aided in preserving the perception that our country would prevail even in time of great and significant crisis.
In order to ensure that crisis are managed effectively are there ever times where you had to be firm with your executives? Perhaps, you have even had to sell your executives on a crisis? Please share…
Read More in the Crisis Communication Series:
- Your Opinion Needed: What is the Most Shocking Crisis of 2011
- What Apple Should Learn From Wendy’s Regarding Identity Crisis
- Excellence Theory & The Evolution of Crisis Communication
- ‘Learning to Lose the Least’ – Important, But Difficult Lesson for Organizations
- SWOTing Away Organizational Crisis Through Monitoring Mechanisms
- In Crisis Communication the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple
- Charlotte’s Potential Identity Crisis – Does Wells Fargo Even Care?
Your Opinion Needed: What is the Most Shocking Business Crisis of 2011?
Crisis communication is an amazing phenomenon. Just turn on the news or open a web page and we are bombarded with business crisis. From Netflix loosing 800,000 members to the European debt crisis. Nothing sells newspapers like the world is ending headlines. The reality is that not all of the crisis news we read is really a crisis. So what are the crisis that shocked you the most this year? Take the poll, or write in your own answer.
Read More in the Crisis Communication Series:
- What Apple Should Learn From Wendy’s Regarding Identity Crisis
- Excellence Theory & The Evolution of Crisis Communication
- ‘Learning to Lose the Least’ – Important, But Difficult Lesson for Organizations
- SWOTing Away Organizational Crisis Through Monitoring Mechanisms
- In Crisis Communication the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple
- Charlotte’s Potential Identity Crisis – Does Wells Fargo Even Care?
Charlotte’s Potential Identity Crisis – Does Wells Fargo Even Care?
Never has the changing Charlotte landscape been more noticeable. The 2nd largest banking city in the country has been refaced with red and gold. Last week all of the Wachovia signs were removed and replaced with the very bright red and gold of Wells Fargo.
This poses a question for me. Is Charlotte under an identity crisis? I never realized how the calm of Wachovia’s blue and green so highlighted our cities personality. A combination of First Union and Wachovia, both North Carolina based banks; there was a rich heritage that existed that is now lacking. Not to seem melodramatic, but I feel lost. Just walk in Uptown Charlotte any day or night and the whole area has a different feel. Wells Fargo’s yellow and red clash with the beautiful architectures and intermingle with Bank of America’s red and blue. I even have to do a double take when I approach and ATM.
I don’t think I am alone in this feeling. Many people have commented that they are leaving Wells Fargo, or that they hate the “new” brand. Interestingly, most of the naysayers are local to the area.
In reflecting on these issues as a Wells Fargo customer, it makes me wonder if they did their crisis due diligence. Did they think about corporate social responsibility and how these changes would impact the Charlotte community?
Corporate social responsibility states that citizens of a community expect four key things from the companies that share their space:
- Pride – An organization should have pride in the community and create pride for the community
- Stability – An organization residing in the community will exist with permanence and without mass change
- Participation – An organization will be active within the community
- Aesthetically Pleasing – An organization will enhance the communities appearance not detract from it.
Wells Fargo spent two years transitioning the brand. They slowly transitioned the name by adding a division of under the original logo. Additionally, Charlotte was the last market they transitioned. Finally, they over communicated that the change was occurring to all customers. However, I think they underestimated the graphical power that a brand possesses and what those symbols mean to people in a city or region.
I don’t think there was a good way to change the logo and brand elements. Perhaps Wells Fargo recognized that it was impossible to retain the level of corporate social responsibility Charlotte was accustomed to from Wachovia. Charlotteans would naturally feel a sense of loss. Wachovia was a major company; an entity intertwined into the fabric of Charlotte’s society. Therefore, transitioning slowing could have been Well’s way of losing the least (‘Learning to Lose the Least’ – Important, But Difficult Lesson for Organizations). My only question is did they even think about how the brand changes would impact the city and did they strategically review the potential for crisis?
Have you thought about how graphics or logo changes could affect your society, employees, or other external stakeholders? Comments always appreciated!
*picture credit: http://sanatogapost.com/2010/12/05/wachovia-change-to-wells-fargo-coming-quickly/
*Corporate social responsibility information taken from an interview with Dr. John McArthur in October of 2011.
Read More in the Crisis Communication Series:
- What Apple Should Learn From Wendy’s Regarding Identity Crisis
- Excellence Theory & The Evolution of Crisis Communication
- ‘Learning to Lose the Least’ – Important, But Difficult Lesson for Organizations
- SWOTing Away Organizational Crisis Through Monitoring Mechanisms
- In Crisis Communication the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple
What Apple Should Learn from Wendy’s Regarding Identity Crisis
There is a lot that Apple can learn from Wendy’s. (Though, you could argue that Apple is off to a great start. Read In Crisis the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple) Both companies’ founders died, leaving them without their iconic visionaries. Prior to their deaths, both companies had to pull their founders back into the fold in order to right the ship after several organizational missteps.
When in crisis of identity, sometimes the simple approach is the best. Forget all of the theories (Read post on crisis communication theory here) and get back to the organization’s core values.
When managing the identity crisis created by Dave Thomas’s death, Wendy’s made the mistake of going off script. They paid tribute to Dave Thomas organizationally, but did not keep his values at the core of their operations or marketing strategies. This created chaos and a floundering franchise that took a decade to correct. In the wake their interim CEO left bad product decisions and crafted one too many men dressed in Wendy’s wig commercials. After asking the question: “What would Dave do?” They have been able to regain market share and consumer confidence. Using an animated version of Wendy, Wendy’s created nostalgia to recapture the consumers’ imagination. Additionally, they recently named the first hamburger after their founder: “Dave’s Hot N’ Juicy Cheeseburger.”
As Apple embarks on a journey without Steve, they should keep the following ideas in mind.
- Create a legacy narrative for your founder that resides permanently on your website, within your organization and in other mediums.
- Stay true to the original mission and message. Iterate and pivot when necessary, but don’t ever lose the organizations core values.
- Channel your inner founder when strategic decisions are being made: “What would Steve do?”
- Pay tribute to your founder and use nostalgia to increase brand confidence. They were iconic for a reason. Use, don’t lose, the special magic they were able to create.
*Graphic courtesy of David Owens-Hill. Follow him on Twitter @owenshill
Read More in the Crisis Communication Series:
In Crisis Comm the Answer is Always Classy – Just Look at Apple
On the crisis communication front, this was not a great week for Apple. They launched their iphone 4S. Although it received amazing reviews, there were definitely disappointed consumers and tech fans who felt their expectations had been mismanaged. “Where was the iphone 5?”
The day after the iphone launched, Apple’s iconic founder, Steve Job’s, died. Just hours after his death news outlets were asking the question, “Can Apple Survive Without Steve?”
So the quandary becomes, how does a company address the launch of a new product, and the death of an icon that is synonymous with their brand in the same week?
The answer is: with grace. Apple handled Job’s death with a grace and beauty rarely seen in the corporate world today. Despite the iphone 4S launch, there is no mention of the iphone 4S on their website home page. Instead they simply pay homage to their Founder & former CEO.
In the area of crisis communication, I give this strategy and A++. It has endeared me to Apple. It makes me proud to own a product made by a company who cares more about its people than promotion or the bottom line. I may not buy the iphone 4S right away, but I am definitely a bigger Apple fan.
Digital Experiences: The Importance of Simplicity & Context
Trying to create messages in a digital space is not easy. In fact I have failed just as many times as I have succeeded. The great thing about usability testing is no one knows you fail unless you tell them. In a master’s class I am taking on digital communication and information design, we had to create a digital experience by changing the meaning of a piece of chosen text through images and sound.
My original goal was to use applications, creating the piece completely on my iphone. I am particularly interested in how the ubiquity of smart camera phones are changing the way we communicate. Photographs are sometimes the only message and photography applications are one of the fastest growing downloads for smart phones. Everyone is picture crazy.
Understanding this phenomenon and wanting to explore it further, I set out to use two applications. One called LifeCards, which allows you to create photo montages, and one called Fotobabble which allows you to add sound to a photograph and share it. What I thought was going to be an experiment in learning these applications and the sharing process for them instead turned into a complex communication conundrum.
Pumped Up Kicks was my first project foray. I wanted to visually showcase the irony of how high school students are portrayed as happy care free kids, when we have what could be considered an epidemic of school shootings occurring. I used a song by Foster the People called “Pumped Up Kicks,” In order to juxtaposition a happy upbeat tempo with an eerie dark message. The song is about a student planning a school shooting. The photographs I included are the cover album with the band obviously at a party, a familiar school yearbook photo of two students smiling (the students were the Columbine killers), a photo of the popular Kicks shoe, and another photograph of two students mourning. The idea was to create an experience that married the irony of the way students are portrayed with the mounting societal pressure that exists. I used text from the song to underscore the message: “All the other kids with the pumped up Kicks better run, better run, outrun my gun.” What the digital experience ended up being was a mess. The message was too complex, the ideas to foreign. I asked friends and colleagues their opinions, and they thought the images were familiar, but didn’t recognize them. They also didn’t know what the song “Pumped Up Kicks” referenced. When I explained the lyrics of the song and each photo to the end user they understood the message and seemed to believe that I had created some irony, but the problem was the digital experience should be able to stand alone. See the Pumped Up Kicks Digital Experience Here
After pondering why the message failed it dawned on me. The audience did not have readily available context. Just knowing the lyrics of the song would have helped people understand the meaning a little bit better. Additionally, although the high school yearbook photos were familiar, no one remembered they were the Columbine killers. This created confusion and prevented the digital experience from being effective.
The second reason the first project failed was because of simplicity. The goal was to create irony about how high school students are portrayed as happy care free individuals when in reality there are many issues involving violence, bullying and suicide. The digital experience used too many images that were not well known or recognizable by the end user. This created a hard to understand, disjointed experience.
Armed with the ideas of simplicity and context – I sought to develop a new project ensuring that both of these existed. I took a very well known verse from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” I then placed this verse below one large solo photograph of a man losing his hair. The goal was to create a play on words using parting. Finally, I used a very old Jerry Lee Lewis song to underscore the fact that the man was getting older and losing his hair. In constructing the message this way I told a succinct story. Allowing the user to empathize with the picture and then chuckle after seeing the text and hearing the song. The result is complete comprehension. When I showed this piece to friends and colleagues they immediately understood the references, the text, the song and the idea that as men grow old they worry or lament over losing their hair. See the “Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow” Digital Experience Here
The photography medium I choose may have hindered my ability to tell the first story. If I had to recreate the first digital experience again, I would probably do it using more text, and a movie format so that the passing of time could be used to help create context, simplicity and comprehension.
