Misguided

by Roger Pynn

Poor Rupert Murdoch, all those millions poured into newspapers and an attitude like this: papers have an edge over bloggers and other newcomers because readers trust them more, according to a story by Associated Press.

Rupert, old boy, if you haven’t noticed public confidence in the media is at an all-time low. Why? Could it be that many in the news business have abandoned the basic tenants of journalism and become so comfortable with prefacing their comments with the words “I think” that they’ve forgotten altogether that journalists shouldn’t express their personal opinions?

He’s right. There are huge opportunities for papers that pursue online markets for news. We don’t need to argue whether or not there is a market of people like me who still enjoy the feel of newsprint as they sip a morning cup of coffee.

But if you truly believe there is a difference between “organized journalism” such as what used to and should be practiced by newspapers and the online personal editorial pages that blogs like this represent, why not create a continuing education program for your editors and reporters to remind them that just because Woodward and Bernstein uncovered Nixon’s complicity in Watergate doesn’t mean everyone in the newsroom should be on a mission to prove that every news sources or “public person” or organization carrying the postscript initials “inc” ought to be pursued as a public enemy.

Just report the news. If you need a reminder, you can get your people to start with “who, what, where, why, when and how?” instead of language resembling the best opening argument of a state attorney before a grand jury.

Truck Stop Research

by Roger Pynn

We had just finished a presentation to a potential client with massive land holdings that wrap around numerous rural communities … towns as simple as Sheriff Andy Taylor’s Mayberry in many ways, but we assured them as complex and sophisticated as any urban center.

We’d talked about the importance of due diligence … the process of knowing … before ever thinking about seeking to do anything with their land that may be perceived to change those communities’ way of life or need their approval for such new use.

On the way home we stopped for lunch at an interstate truck stop café (by the way, always the place to stop for real food) and saw first hand a reminder of how the due diligence process works. It was a deja vu moment reminiscent of the many days over the years that we’ve sat in small town diners and learned what really matters to townsfolk.

If you want to know where this economy is headed, who is really being affected by what’s happening on Wall Street, you won’t find it on Main Street as fast as you’ll find it at The Country Café off Interstate 75 at Wildwood in Florida.

The young truck driver who sat down in the booth behind us, after scanning the menu, gestured to the manager and quietly said, “You know me and you know I spend a lot of money here but I’m tapped out.”

“Just go to the buffet,” said the manager. It made you want to give the manager the 2008 Award for Customer Service and Compassion. There were no other words. It was that simple.

The grateful driver – a gregarious and friendly guy – quickly engaged us and wanted to know what we do and whether business was good in public relations. “Tougher than usual but good,” was the reply. But his response was a story of truckers losing jobs every day because goods aren’t selling and producers aren’t shipping because there’s no place for inventory. “Guys who own rigs are losing them. Doesn’t matter if gas has been cut nearly in half. They’re going out of business.”

So how and when will the bailout help this guy? What will it cost for him to be out of work? He doesn’t even want one of those homes with inflated prices and a mortgage no one should ever have given him. “All I want is three acres, a double wide and big high-wheel pickup.”

You don’t necessarily need to conduct statistically accurate sampling to find out how people feel. Often you just need to listen.

What’s In It For Me?

by Dean Hybl

Remember the “.com” boom? For nearly two years, if your company was a “.com” some venture capitalist would throw money at you regardless of whether you had a defined purpose, a business plan or an actual product.

Today, as we find ourselves in a major economic slowdown that makes us long for the mild tremor we experienced at the end of the “.com” period, it is becoming evident that the exact opposite is now true. People are being so cautious and close-to-the-vest with time, energy and resources that whether you are asking someone to invest in a company, purchase a product, feature your business in the media or go to a Web site or blog, you better be able to quickly and succinctly illustrate the benefit for them.

In a new post to her blog: “Talk it Up,” Heidi Miller, who has created a successful business around illustrating for companies what is in it for them when it comes to social networking, recalls a recent encounter she had at a networking event.

A young woman approached her with a business card and told Heidi that she and her partner had created a Web site and were “trying to grow their audience.” When Heidi tried to draw out more details, the woman played coy and without giving any hint about the purpose or content of the site said that they wanted their audience to create their own responses.

There may have been a time when it was fashionable to be mysterious and create an interest for a product or service without immediately telling people what the exact benefit would be for them, but that time is over.

Whether you are targeting the media or consumers, in today’s market it is all about ensuring that you accurately and quickly communicate the content or purpose of what you are promoting and why your audience should care. According to Heidi, “You have to give me a reason not to throw your business card in the trash can on my way out the door. Give me something, some motivation to check it out later. Tell me what’s in it for me.”

When working with clients on message development, we always ask four simple questions: Who do you want to communicate with? What do they know about you? What do you want them to know? What do you want them to do?

With competition increasing and resources decreasing, it is now more important than ever to make sure that you target your messages to the appropriate audience and clearly illustrate to them “what’s in it for me.”

It may sound simple and basic, but as Heidi reminds us, it is a lesson worth remembering and likely one that will help make the difference between success or failure.

Not Every Picture

by Roger Pynn

Not all pictures tell a story as the old saying suggests, but most do. But it is important they not be “interpreted” like modern art when they clearly show a moment in time. Blogger Khoi Vinh – Design Director at NYTimes.com – shared a meaningful moment in time captured outside The New York Times building yesterday as people joined a long line outside for the chance to buy what will no doubt become a collector item: the Times’ front page coverage of Barack Obama’s victory.

It was a leap to suggest that the line proved “print is not dead,” and it spurred a conversation on the blog of whether what the people were waiting to buy was a newspaper or the news it contained.

My take on it all was that people were buying the Times’ rendition of the story. Turns out the same thing happened in Chicago, and it would be a fair bet it happened elsewhere. Here in Orlando, for instance, the Orlando Sentinel created a front and back cover wraparound “Page 1” by printing a double page image of Obama’s massive Grant Park Celebration. That event, too, was news.

So perhaps the message that comes from the rush to buy these “history books” is that newspapers will be relevant as long as they stick to news, putting analysis in its proper place and staying true to their mission of gathering and reporting the facts. Sure, they may need to continue morphing a product for Internet consumers, but it, too, must be first and foremost a news product. Let the other toys of the Internet take the place of the funny pages – nice but not necessary.

As Timothy Mills of the Chicago Tribune Interactive Department, who also joined Vinh’s conversation, put it … “you can’t make a memento out of a Web site.”

1600 Sunset Blvd.

by Roger Pynn

Boston Legal has to be one of the smartest shows on television… a never-miss in our household. William Shatner’s seriously comic character and the interaction with James Spader his soulmate and master trial closer is classic TV.

 Alas, last night’s episode may have been my last because it is abhorrent to me that any show on any network is used blatantly as tool to advance a political candidate when many who watch may so relate to the show’s characters that they become an undue influence. There’s been a testy ongoing debate between the two about Shatner’s unwavering support for John McCain, and Captain Kirk has played beautifully his bumbling role as a sex-addicted old legal warhorse suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Spader, the eloquent orator who likely could have argued Jesus of Nazareth’s life should be saved in Pontius Pilate’s court, has tied him up each time with a fast-paced recitation of some position or another that left Shatner unable to respond.

But last night it came to a head that should have the Federal Elections Commission questioning whether Obama for America paid for the episode or if it should be considered a donation by the producers and the ABC Network.

Spader went into a furious staccato attack on Shatner in a monologue that hit every one of Obama’s key messages. It was, in no small way, an obvious, unabashed and unfair Obama for President commercial, regardless of the fact that it played out in an hilarious paintball shootout between the two as their anger boiled over.

It has nothing to do with “who,” but rather “that” a political candidate’s bidding is being done for him or her in this way. It would have been equally offensive if Shatner had won the argument by repeating McCain talking points until Spader gave up. Oh, and did I mention that in the show’s signature closing scene with the two sharing a scotch and a cigar on their shared veranda that Shatner’s character Denny Crane looks sheepishly to his pal and confesses he had succeeded in convincing him, too, to vote for the other guy?

Interestingly the Boston Legal Web site episode summary doesn’t even mention what was arguably the highlight of the show, but rather says this:

“Mad Cows” – Alan Shore and Denny Crane sue the government when cattle rancher Carol Hober – who, Crane believes, is the spitting image of actress Valerie Bertinelli – accuses the USDA of not allowing her to test all of her cows for Mad Cow Disease, an affliction that’s close to Denny’s heart. But Denny continually irritates Carol when he tries to make her confess that she really is Valerie Bertinelli. (Casting note: Carol Hober is played by Valerie Bertinelli). Meanwhile, Jerry Espenson is up for partner at the firm, but his quirky social inadequacies could lead to his downfall with the firm’s panel, which includes Paul Lewiston (Rene Auberjonois).

If conservatives and Republicans are looking for a legal challenge on Wednesday, Nov. 5, you’d have to wonder if they’d be faced with questioning whether on the eve of the election a major national network had slipped one over on them.

Then again, as a colleague said, “after all, the show may be called ‘Boston Legal’ but it comes from Hollywood.” Regardless, if producers are going to use their influence this way, perhaps we ought to make The West Wing permanent and move the seat of government to the Left Coast.

Taking Aim at Abstention

by Dan Ward

Bob Schieffer broadcast an excellent editorial comment this weekend on Face the Nation, reprising a message he had shared in previous campaigns in which he questions the reasoning of journalists who choose not to vote in order to prove their neutrality.

In short, Bob thinks this decision is misguided, and I wholeheartedly agree. Journalists have a professional responsibility to remain objective, but those who are also American citizens have a personal responsibility, a duty, to vote. We all do.

In their day job, journalists must stay objective, but afterwards they go home to the same obligations as the rest of us … paying the bills, taking the kids to school, volunteering in church or in the community. When they make the decision not to vote, it doesn’t show objectivity; it shows that they haven’t learned from the stories they’ve covered. It shows that they put professional responsibility above their responsibilities as mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, friends and neighbors.

This is the day when all of us, regardless of profession, family obligations or client relationships, are able to take aim for ourselves and vote for the candidates we believe in, in complete anonymity (if we so choose).

I may have clients who will be better served with Barack Obama as president. Others may be better served with John McCain. But my vote is just that … mine.

No Cost to Quality

by Roger Pynn

My business partner Kim Taylor’s blog post about Ken Blanchard’s 15-year-old Book “Raving Fans” took me back many years earlier to one said to have influenced Bill Gates’ book “Business @ the Speed of Thought” in 1999.

In 1979 the late Philip Crosby authored what many consider the definitive book on quality. “Quality is Free” changed the way business and industry defined and looked at the topic. In fact, it so influenced General Motors’ successful struggle to refocus on quality issues that GM bought Crosby’s company, later spinning it back out and still operating as Philip Crosby Associates.

You will never attract and retain raving fans unless you follow Crosby’s advice. His book actually outlines, in detail, 14 steps but I always believed Step 1 and Step 14 said it all. Make a management commitment. Do it all over again. In other words, it is a continuing process, and if you live it, you’ll find there is no cost to quality, it is free because you never have to do things over again.

I had the distinct honor and pleasure of studying directly under Phil and coming to know him as a friend and eventual client. I took it as a great compliment that he trusted us enough to do work for him … because he knew we had made the commitment and kept doing it over-and-over-and-over.

It was the best business read of my career.