Think Again News

I’m not really a fan of new technology.  That may come as a surprise to the hundreds of people who’ve paid to hear me going on about the wonders of social media and the effectiveness of digital marketing, or the friends and family who’ve had to put up with me talking up the virtues of (most) Apple products.  But I don’t like new technology for new technology’s sake – only for what it can do for me.  Whether it makes my life easier or my work more effective.  I don’t – despite what people may think – like new things because they’re new or technically impressive.  I love the iMac and the Macbook, but I won’t be buying an iPad until I’ve worked out whether it’s any use to me, and at first sight it’s not.

But earlier this week I was shown a piece of kit – new to me – that I immediately fell in love with.  The X-Mini range of speakers are about the size of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, perhaps smaller,  but through some miracle of modern electro-acoustics make a sound that fills the room.  They look like an air-freshener, but their sound quality is not far off the heavyweight studio monitor I’ve been dragging round to media training sessions for years.

It’s fun watching people trying to work out where the sound is coming from; it reminds me of some amazing parabolic speakers I saw on  advertising hoardings at Oslo airport this year – which focused sound down to an area the size of a soup-bowl, so the billboards seemed to be speaking to you and only you.

Check out the X-mini speakers, you’ll be impressed.  And if you want to know how to use all kinds of technology to get your message across more effectively, give us a call.

One of the great things about helping people to get their message across effectively is when you see it being put into action – especially with digital or “new” media.  Although sometimes it can be a bit unnerving.  Digital media aren’t just changing the way we communicate, they’re changing the way people react and feedback when you’re training or working with them.

Yesterday, we had a great session with the team at Tameside Music Service – helping them to come across better on TV and radio. A few months ago, we’d convinced them of the value of using social media to promote their work. They were obviously listening because by the time we got back to London, the films of their interviews were up on their Facebook page, attracting loads of positive comments and discussion – along with a photo taken, unknown to us, on an iPhone during the radio session.

Today, I was explaining the benefits of Twitter and other social media to a conference at the Cass Business School attended by representatives of Black and Asian charities and campaign groups.  Highlights from the presentation were tweeted live by some of the people attending, some of the people I mentioned were notified (on Twitter, of course) of what I’d said and I got live, digital feedback straight afterwards. Thankfully, the audience and the feedback were really positive.

If you’d like us to enlighten or inspire you on digital media or any other aspect of your messaging and communication – drop us a mail.  Or just Tweet @ianparkinson or @jaffreyman

Our work is all about words.  Choosing the right ones, saying them at the best time in the most effective way.  Sounds simple, but it’s anything but – as we’ve been reminded several times this week.

The Toyota recall crisis has been intriguing, especially for those of us who had to sit through business school lectures in the ’90’s explaining that Toyota’s processes and procedures were the world standard by which everyone else would be judged, and found wanting.  On the evidence of their handling of the sticky accelerator issue, Toyota management should be back in school now, and at the back of the class.

Toyota’s message in today’s newspapers is late in coming, and oddly worded: “apologising to our customers for any concern we may have caused”.  Presumably lawyers had a hand in drafting it, but the overall impression for Toyota owners is not a reassuring one.

An article in today’s Observer Sports Monthly also reminds us of the value of the right words – deconstructing  the football manager’s half-time talk, the mythical process by which a failing team can be lifted and sent back out to victory.  It debunks several myths.  Most people assume that Rafa Benitez must have delivered the speech of the century to his Liverpool side, 3-0 down against Milan in the final of the Champions’ League, inspiring them to go out and level the score, and then win on penalties.  Sadly, Benitez can’t remember what he said, and the players who were there don’t agree either. One of them claims Benitez was so emotional and confused that he tried to send twelve players out for the second half.

The article also suggests that the half-time dressing down, the legendary “hairdryer” tactic employed by Sir Alex Ferguson and so many others in the game, is rarely successful – and usually counter-productive.  Criticism, abuse and humiliation rarely make people perform better; carefully chosen words of support, belief and inclusion usually do.

Not always the case, of course – and the American cycling team manager Jon Vaughters may yet have cause to regret a casual insult this week against his former team-mate Lance Armstrong.  In an interview in the Times, Vaughters suggests that, in last year’s Tour De France, Armstrong’s team had to “soft pedal”, or take it easy, in order not to embarrass him by leaving him behind.

Armstrong is a man who’s turned grudge-bearing into a lifelong passion, and whose career has been driven by anger and revenge.  So far, he’s simply “tweeted” a warning that he “won’t be forgetting the comment any time soon”.

Vaughters is intelligent and thoughtful, and it’s possible that the insult was a calculated piece of gamesmanship, designed to unsettle his rival rather than spur him on, but if I was him I’d be a bit more careful about choosing my words in future.

A lot of media training focuses on TV and video. Rightly, because getting your message across on TV is a powerful and sometimes complex skill. We spend a lot of time helping our clients perform well in front of a camera. But we don’t forget the importance of radio, especially BBC local radio – which often allows you a longer, more relaxed and very different way of making your case.
So we always offer the chance to recreate a radio interview – even a phone-in if required – in all our sessions. And digital technology has made radio even simpler and more immediate. In this rucksack is the Think Again broadcast-quality radio studio, checked and ready to go back on the road for another round of client visits next week.
Give us a call, and we’ll put you in the picture – and on the air.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign changed elections forever, in particular the way his young team used digital media and social networks to mobilise support, spread their key message and help voters feel they could make a difference.

We’ve been using his campaign as an example of good media practice with many of our clients; and it’s clear his success and tactics have not gone un-noticed; the Conservative party are using many of them in preparation for next year’s UK election and more examples will emerge as polling day approaches.

One of Obama’s campaign insiders Rahaf Harfoush has written an intriguing guide to how the tactics developed. Essential reading for anyone involved in getting a message across to a wide range of audiences.

Get it here on Amazon.

Not one, but two great examples this  week of how digital and social media are changing the world of campaigning, and taking a battering ram to the old gatekeepers.

First, the Trafigura injunction story showed the futility of thinking that anything can be kept truly secret when communication is instant, global and in the hands of the users. On the face of it, a victory for free speech and open-ness, although it’s worth reflecting also on the dangers it reveals  – well captured in this post by PC Pro’s Barry Collins.

 Second, the comment article by the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir , originally headlined “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”.   Within minutes of it appearing in first editions and online, the backlash had begun.  A record level of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission – a Twitter campaign and a Facebook group headed “The Daily Mail should retract Jan Moir’s hateful, homophobic article”.  

Her assertion that “healthy and fit young men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa never to wake up again” had also angered those organisations campaigning to raise awareness of the many conditions which cause exactly that. 

Several companies, including Nestle (no stranger to the power of online campaigns), Visit England, Kodak and National Express asked for their online advertising to be removed from pages featuring the offending article.  

The Mail didn’t retract anything, but they did change the headline to the apparently less controversial “A strange, lonely and troubling death…” and publish a “clarification” from Jan Moir.   Her claim that she was the victim of “an orchestrated campaign” and that many of those complaining had not even read her article will have raised wry smiles from anyone who remembers the Mail’s own campaign against Ross and Brand a year ago.

It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for Jim “Falco” Fork, whose anguished blog has been reprinted in national papers today as part of an ad campaign by UK Music.   His band, Future of the Left, had their album stolen and published online before they themselves had even got a finished copy.  In amongst the raw anger and the strong language, you can sense the outrage and hurt felt by all  crime victims; anyone who’s been burgled will know how he feels.

But we shouldn’t allow anger at a straightforward criminal act to confuse the discussions over digital sharing of music, and a new business model for the music industry. That, I fear, is what UK Music are attempting to do.

The digital distribution of music has brought benefits to a wide range of musicians, artists and smaller labels, making it easier for them to reach audiences around the world and by-pass many of the gatekeepers of the old order.  If the music industry at large has failed to capitalise on that, then it has precious few others to blame.

It has attempted to block progress and reasonable negotiation at every turn, solely in the cause of defending its existing, doomed business model.  When I was at the BBC, I spent many largely fruitless hours negotiating with, and discussing digital developments, with senior figures in the “record” industry.

As late as 2002, a very high-ranking figure in the BPI told me in a meeting that digital downloads would never be a threat to CD’s, and he was confident that his lawyers would put a stop to file-sharing within months.

Falco paints what he sees as a gloomy future for music – populated only by “hobby” bands and corporate superstars milking arena tours.  Quite aside from the sneering dismissal of “hobby” bands (is music only worthwhile if it’s made by someone validated by a record company?), that’s not the world of music I see and enjoy online every day.

Please let’s not return to a world where access to a wider audience and reward for your work was dependent on a small group of so-called experts at the record labels and mainstream radio stations.  They’ve had their day.

In our training sessions and presentations, I often cite the American cyclist and cancer campaigner Lance Armstrong for his exemplary use of digital and social media.  Armstrong has had a difficult relationship with journalists in the past so, for his comeback this year, he largely bypassed conventional media and spoke to his fans and supporters direct – around 2 million of them on Twitter alone.

The British Olympic Champion and Tour De France hopeful Bradley Wiggins has clearly been learning from the Armstrong experience but, judging by today’s events, there’s a way to go.

There’s been speculation for months that Wiggins would be leaving his current team (Garmin) to head up the new Sky-sponsored British superteam next year.  It’s a delicate business, though – with raging egos, big money and legally binding contracts in the mix.

So there was inevitable interest today when Wiggins was quoted as saying “it’s like trying to win the Champions League, you need to be at Manchester United, but I’m playing at Wigan at the moment”, widely interpreted as a strong hint that a move was on the cards.

Wiggins was quick to rubbish the rumours though, on his own Twitter feed.

Well, up to a point Bradley.  Because anyone who was interested could also visit the BBC Sport Website and watch the full video of the interview in which he said exactly what he’d been quoted as saying.

So hardly bollocks, Bradley.

He may have not meant it to come out quite the way it sounded; he may now regret having said it, but it’s not bollocks – and it’s unhelpful to both fans and journalists to suggest that it is.

Digital and social media don’t do away with the need to tell the truth, or the need to have one clear message and express it as clearly as possible. In fact, it’s harder to dissemble and fudge online because any discrepancy is so much easier to spot, lasts for ever, and the blogosphere can be very unforgiving.