Spooking Stephen King: Convergence

If someone asked Stephen King "what scares you" a few years ago, he might say never being able to write again (or perhaps lament that he might be asked that same cliche question in every interview). Nowadays, there seems to be something else weighing on King's mind.

"When crap drives out class, our tastes grow coarser and the life of the imagination grows smaller. ... It ain't coming back, son. That's what I'm really afraid of." — Stephen King

Writing for Entertainment Weekly, King questioned convergence, noting that the changes taking place in the entertainment industry are accelerating. The very media the article appears in is facing rapid change. Although faring better than most publications, the graph tells the story.

Entertainment Weekly's print circulation is flattening, enough so that that an arrow had to be added to create the illusion of consistent growth. With a circulation of approximately 1.8 million and a hopeful pass-on readership of 6.7, Entertainment Weekly doesn't pull as much as it once did (its online site tracks well, especially with younger audiences).

So what are King's concerns?

• If great publishers fail to e-books, what will happen to the quality? Who will pay advances?
• If radio stations succumb to all talk and air, what happens to the music industry?
• What is happening to the movie industry and why are quality movies being squashed?
• Will network television drop entertainment for talk shows and reality television?

"Why should we care? Simple: Because right now there are no replacements for the quality that looks to be on the way out — for entertainment that really moves us." — Stephen King

Answering questions for Stephen King.

While predicting the future is always fraught with disappointment, King's concerns represent a possibility in that there probably is already a parallel universe where Mike Judge's Idiocracy isn't fiction. The other possibility, of course, seems a bit brighter in that as crap becomes overwhelming, new vetting processes emerge to help guide the public toward quality.

However, it's a two-way street. It requires innovators and consumers working toward a middle as opposed to against each other.

• Publishers need to return to the business of finding and marketing quality talents as opposed to searching for talents that may market them because over the long term, e-book price points will increase and printed books will eventually be considered a delicacy. What have publishers done to engage, educate, and entertain readers online?

Penguin is working it, but has a lot more to learn about the online space.

• Radio stations need to remember that music formats don't make them great. It's the portability of the experience they produce that makes them great. More than 86 percent of listeners want stations to guide them toward new music in addition to playing their favorites and 36 percent listen while they are online. Why not employ social media to reinstate passionate people who know about the music?

We have a PowerPoint specific to radio stations, which we augment with specific station and area research upon request.

• Movie producers want to make great films for a public that has always seemed to wax and wane between escapism and timelessness. While that might not explain the industry's pass on Creation reportedly over content, limiting theatrical distribution will be the likely trend until the people calling those shots are proven wrong by consumer post purchases.

The film industry is still learning social media; it will represent a dramatic positive change, especially among independents.

• As long as networks chase ratings without appreciating their online prospects, quality programming will continue to slip under the mainstream radar. There are enough choices out there right now that dominating viewership just isn't the right model. It hasn't been for some time. Jericho, Veronica Mars, Black Donnellys, Journeyman, and more recently, Kings (for the exact opposite reason Creation cannot find a distributor), all could have had longer runs if it wasn't for mishandled marketing and being slaves to a ratings system they know is broken.

Nothing will save them unless they can save themselves. The big three will continue to slip and slide along until they realize that Hulu and iTunes only work if you have assets to put on them.

So no, Mr. King, the crap won't drive out the class. It will only make it harder to find in the short term. Or not.

"Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.” —  Charles Bukowski

Defining People: How Publicity, PR, And SM View The World

The Buzz Bin's Geoff Livingston wrote an open letter to PR execs entering social media that caused a stir among various communication professionals. It's an interesting piece that helps to pinpoint various emerging views on social media.

At the core of the letter, Livingston suggests everyone wants better outcomes, but the methods are different. But for anyone not immersed in communication, the question that remains unanswered is why are the methods so different?

It may have something to do with how publicity, public relations, and social media see the world. Or, more specifically, it might be better to say how they see their audiences or publics, which is not always the customer.

An oversimplified perspective of how professionals see the world.

Publicity.
• World View: Publicity sees the world as its oyster, with every person on the planet as a potential customer or, more correctly, if you reach more people, then you are more likely to reach your customer.
• Method: Do something, anything, that will be covered by as much mainstream media as possible to maximize the exposure. There are bound to be potential customers who see it, somewhere.
• Why It Works: Reach is a powerful, often overemphasized, part of any communication equation.
• Why It Doesn't Always Work: Maximizing exposure for the sake of maximizing exposure is often at odds with branding. It tends to see people as mindless masses whose only purpose in life is to be spammed to death, along with the medium that has readership/viewership.

Public Relations.
• World View: Public relations sees the world as a collection of publics, which the organization attempts to develop a relationship with through various programs.
• Method: Plan immediate and long-term communication programs that strengthen the relationship between various groups and the organization. Bonus if the professional can do it in a mutually beneficial way.
• Why It Works: It's planned, measurable, and can change behavior and public opinion.
• Why It Doesn't Always Work: All too often, the people practicing public relations are really practicing publicity as if they are the same thing. Another common problem is some public relations professionals forget their publics are fluid, which means any message that reaches one public may not be isolated to that public. The result is that some messages work with one public (like consumers), but alienate other publics (like shareholders and employees). (I once even had one pro tell me that shareholders are never considered a public because that's an investor relations function ... as if.)

Social Media.
• World View: People are individuals looking for personal relationships; and customers are kings.
• Method: Make friends with as many people as possible and those people will do things for you like tell all their friends too.
• Why It Works: It creates relationships, sometimes on a scale of one-to-one and develops a deeper sense of trust between the organization's representative and those individuals.
• Why It Doesn't Always Work: It's not easily measured (it is, but many experts claim it isn't or measure the wrong stuff); personalities attract people beyond customers; the organization becomes secondary to the rock stars they fund; lack of leadership (management) leaves brands open for interpretation; and individual blunders reflect on the organization. Too often, some PR pros who really practice publicity attempt to push market people to death in this space. If it can be gamed, it will be gamed.

All three world views can benefit companies, with an integrated approach and minus abuses. Marketing and advertising fit into the equation as well, but there are an equal number of world views in that communication sector as well. (We'll save those for Thursday.)

Unfortunately, an integrated methodology seems to remain in the far off future for most firms as they attempt to transplant their view in an environment where it doesn't belong (or worse, claiming ownership), with publicity crunching numbers, public relations mistaking the Internet as a single public, and social media kissing more BFF butt than Jordon Dizon, according to Eric Cartman. And with this understood, is it any wonder why some executives have a hard time taking communication seriously?

Losing Leadership: Where Collectives Begin

Sangeeth Varghese re-raised an interesting question at Forbes, one that was also raised by Harris Collingwood in the Atlantic last June. Collingwood seems to draw a conclusion. Varghese leaves the answer open ended.

Of the two, the original is the stronger piece, better explaining the cornerstone of a study conducted by sociologists Stanley Lieberson and James O'Connor and published in the American Sociological Review in 1972. They argued that leadership accounts for a mere 14.5 percent, with the balance accounting for the marketplace and historical place in the corporate pecking order.

Varghese then goes on to cite Leo Tolstoy, who seemed to make the case that Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest great men of all time, wasn't really the cause of all the momentous things that happened under his name and banner. Collingwood offers J. Richard Hackman, a psychologist at Harvard, who has done extensive work on leadership within small teams, and he has found that leaders do exert measurable influence on their team’s success or failure.

So which is it? And why are these questions surfacing now?

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The why may simply be a sign of the times, much like the anti-authority sentiment of the 1970s when Lieberson and O'Connor conducted their studies. This time around, the sentiment is different, sometimes framed up as collaboration trumps individual thought in social media or the collective public good supersedes individual choice regarding choice in health care.

While perhaps unintended, both trends tend to diminish leadership, and with it responsibility. It's easier to defend the position of customers than it is an original idea just as it's easier to raise the banner for the public good against freedom of choice at a time when most people are willing to make and impose sacrifices for a false sense of security.

If there is any irony, it is that neither path is purely right.

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." - Michelangelo

What Lieberson and O'Connor might have missed in their original number crunching is considering how many of the 167 companies they studied helmed leaders at the time. A good number might have held the position of CEO willing to set the aim too low, but only a handful were true leaders, setting the bar much higher. Or, in other words, the majority was inclined to do little more than allow markets and pecking orders to dictate their fate.

The minority, those who reshape the world like Steve Jobs, J.W. Marriott, Henry Ford, Ray Kroc, Estee Lauder, or Jack Welch, tend to account for much more than 14.5 percent. It is their very ability to move forward despite environmental conditions that leads to success (e.g., while some companies suffer through the economy, Apple posted its best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in history).

Sure, there are times that the crowd demonstrates wisdom, but there are an equal number of times that those crowds will never produce any clarity of thought like an Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, or any business leader mentioned above. So where do crowds come into play? Generally, the wisdom of crowds is most likely to prevail when there isn't any leader available.

The symptoms are easy enough to spot. When authority figures begin selling security and charging individual sacrifice in exchange, they are no longer leading but simply attempting to herd the mass. Leadership, on the other hand, requires something different, beginning with individual thought.

Remembering 9-11: Retrospective

In remembrance of 9-11, we thought it fitting to republish an experimental cover story about the atrocity from the perspective of concierges in Las Vegas, New York, and Washington D.C. The piece ran in a global hospitality executive and concierge trade publication the month following the attacks.

It was considered experimental in that some of the story telling was intentionally chaotic, weaving back and forth between people and locations, as a metaphor to the events that took place. What struck me about digging up the piece was that most of the communication we could employ today — message services, social networks, blogs, and front line e-mail access — didn't exist.

***
Just before 9 a.m. (EST), Michael McCleary, chef concierge at the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel in Washington D.C., was told a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York.

Had it been any other day, the report could have ben dismissed as a bad joke from the bell captain. It was not any other day.

"We didn't believe it," said McCleary. "So we looked on the Web and turned on CNN just in time to learn a second plane had hit the World Trade Center."

At the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, located on 57th Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue, concierges tried to retain their composure and calm guests.

In Las Vegas, concierges getting ready for work fixated on the atrocity as it unfolded.

"Having worked in hospitality for 17 years, I knew I had to get to work immediately," said Lorley Musiol, chef concierge at the Four Season Hotel in Las Vegas. "Details don't matter right away. Anytime there is a disaster, guests will immediately turn to concierges for reassurance and information."

As Musiol made her way to work, the details became self-evident: America was under attack.

Judith Becker called Copywrite, Ink. president and then Key News * Las Vegas editor Richard Becker, who had learned about the attack minutes before, to tell him his father had just called: McCarran International Airport has just been locked down, no one in or out.

Back in Washington D.C., the bell captain came running back into the hotel to report "The Pentagon's been hit!"

"There was a genuine concern because planes had been seen overhead," said McCleary, noting the hotel is half a block away from the White House and less than two miles from the Pentagon. "Guests were worried and confused. We remained calm under stress, got as much information as possible, and took turns running to the telephone."

Jaci Zweig, corporate concierge for The Howard Hughes Corporation, called her mom in Indiana before leaving for Las Vegas' major financial district.

Concierge Sunny Marsicano walked through the front doors of the Stratosphere, the tallest free-standing structure west of the Mississippi.

Margo Tully, who works on McCleary's team in Washington, tried to get a phone line out of the hotel.

Leslie Lefkowitz, director of public relations for the Four Seasons in New York, said her concierges did what everyone in Manhattan tried to do — comfort each other as one disaster led to the next.

Another crisis was in the works. Transportation was quickly grinding to a halt. Millions of people were suddenly stranded. And the front line for many hotels and resorts quickly became the concierge desk.

In Washington D.C., Willard Inter-Continental management made a decision to temporarily move more than 200 guests into the ballroom where they had set up a big screen television and message boards. Concierges remained at the desk, fielding as many incoming calls as possible.

"The phone lines were jammed with people trying to call and see if loved ones were okay," said McCleary. "We took calls and posted all the messages."

Outside, the Secret Service closed all vehicular access because of the Willard Inter-Continental's proximity to the White House. The hotel had implemented security measures, including guest-only access. As concierges, Tully said "Our priority was making sure our guests were accommodated by trying to keep some semblance of 'business as usual.'"

But business was not as usual.

In New York, concierges worked round the clock as dinner and theater reservations shifted to transportation inquiries. It would be days before concierges could help stranded guests leave, so they tried to help them make the most of it.

"One guest wanted to leave Manhattan as soon as possible," said Lefkowitz. "It wasn't easy, but the concierges somehow found a car that could take him to a luxury inn in Connecticut and then drive him to Atlanta the next day."

In Las Vegas, Musiol made the decision to provide as much information to guests as possible. A television was immediately brought over to the concierge desk and a flip chart with containing all pertinent information was posted as it happened. Within hours, management delivered a letter to every room advising guests to stay and turn to concierges as a primary resource.

"We had a guest receive a call right after the attacks to find out his son had been in a go-cart accident and could lose his hand," said Musiol. "We found him a car and helped guide him across the country. As soon as the first flights resumed, we helped him find an airport so he could fly the rest of the way."

Without air travel or Amtrak (there is no station in Las Vegas) and only limited Greyhound routes, car rentals became rare and then impossible: most companies imposed a Nevada resident-only and no one-way travel restrictions on the few remaining vehicles. It would be days before such restrictions relaxed. When they did, the Four Seasons and Bellagio Las Vegas teamed together, proving guests an opportunity to drive home with someone. Similarly, when Stratosphere guests had family from other cities arrive to pick them up, extra seats were extended to others headed toward the same destination.

"At first, everyone was in disbelief," said Marsicano. "We didn't have time for anything except caring for guests; some needed prescriptions, everyone needed information. We had to get it."

As Southern Nevada Hotel Concierge Association (SNHCA) members established a phone tree, Becker suspended all commercial assignments in favor of developing a centralized crisis communication center for concierges, with blast faxes released every two hours.

The information included reports from inside sources, unreported wire news, sales associate-turned-reporter updates, and most importantly, SNHCA members news: the Hyatt Regency reduced rates before the citywide hotline was established; Bellagio Las Vegas became a consistent and reliable source for show updates; Stratosphere and Northwest Airlines became the first to offer specific flight information; and dozens of members contributed something anytime they could.

"I have never met a more dedicated group willing to make personal sacrifices to help others ... hundreds of thousands of visitors," said Becker. "The ability to establish a week-long communication network linking more than 30 properties with shared information in less than one hour is a confirmation that this profession works for Las Vegas. I can only hope that properties recognize the value and that properties without concierges reconsider their importance ... not only as professionals dedicated to serving guests but also as an important component in any strategic communication plan. These professionals are the best suited to serve on the front line of any crisis, regardless of the size, scope, or circumstance."

Since September 11, concierges have continued to show resolve, assisting in everything from fundraisers to grassroots letter writing campaigns to encourage travel to Las Vegas. Zweig has even taken to selling patriotic buttons made by acting head of security Jerry St. Vincent. All proceeds are donated to the American Red Cross.

"We sold 20 or 30 the day after and have since raised more than $750," says Zweig, who serves tenants that include companies that suffered the greatest losses on September 11. "It is not a lot, but it seems to lift spirits."

It is everything. It is another ray of light shining out of the darkness; one of many efforts Zweig has supported. And for every person touched by similar seemingly simple acts that truly represent courage, hope, and clarity by concierges, more will benefit. In service through friendship.

***
Never forget, not only for those lost but for all those who showed resolve for a brief moment in history when the country, and the world, was unified. Remember it, because we haven't seen such much unification on any issue since. And many fail to remember the simplest details, such as that 9-11 wasn't a tragedy, it was an atrocity. Good night and good luck.

Creating Crisis: Consumer Experience

Last month, Maytag faced some fallout when it recalled about 46,000 refrigerators under the Maytag, Magic Chef, Performa by Maytag and Crosley brand names, due to a fire hazard. The recall comes on the heels of about 1.6 million similar refrigerators being recalled in March, according to one Associated Press story.

In the wake of the latest recall, Heather B. Armstrong was having a problem with another Maytag product, as she described in her colorful post about life in general. For the most part, and this is not a criticism, it was the kind of post many social media experts or public relations professionals operating in social media would have dismissed (at a glance, unless they have had some experience with mommy bloggers, especially influential ones).

It might have remained dismissed despite Armstong being a popular author and one of the most influential women in the media, but then Armstrong took her complaint to Twitter after a customer service provider shrugged off the warning. On Twitter, she has 1.2 million followers. And on Twitter, Maytag listens.

Every customer service issue is a potential public relations nightmare.

While there are many ways to view the story, ranging from how customer service yields better results or never underestimate who might be on the other end of the phone line or even the concept of "blogger blackmail," the broad based lesson has very little to do with any of that and much more to do with communication integration.

While it used to be companies could assume that customer service calls were private and celebrity/media push back was recoverable by knowing who was placing the call, information is seldom isolated to a single experience. On the contrary, any experience can be shared in real time with hundreds or thousands or millions of other consumers.

Right. That person standing in a long line as two clerks chat up the weekend? There is a near equal chance that they could be tweeting or posting the experience as they wait. Sometimes they do it to kill time. Sometimes they do it to be heard. And sometimes they do it to lead a charge against companies for no reason at all.

This isn't a new challenge as some people claim (investigative news used to do all this for us), but it is growing with frequency and ferocity, even when some claims are unfounded.

Take the recent Feedburner outcry. A small computing error resulted in hundreds of bloggers speculating that Google was no longer counting Friendfeed subscribers because Friendfeed is now owned by Facebook. Or the hype from social media and media coverage about a "massive" boycott against Whole Foods. It's safe to call it hype given that the group has long since puttered out. If anything, it's helped Whole Foods find new customers.

The real questions to be considered are threefold.

Companies might consider that customer service and frontline communication is bumping up against public relations more and more often. Public relations professionals might rethink cheering this direction on because as it will eventually make their service a mere commodity (if everyone is responsible for social media/public relations, then what value will professionals bring to the table as opposed to the call center/online teams that are being developed at some companies). And, long term, consumers might eventually lose as the credibility of orchestrated mass movements occur with enough frequency that tweeting "bad service" becomes as mundane as fire drills at public schools.

None of this is meant to suggest that Armstrong wasn't justified in sharing her experience. (She was, though it might have seemed more genuine had she not warned the company that its lack of action would result in an action.) But just as post-Jericho and -Veronica Mars show cancellation protests lost steam, there may be a day when customer complaints and public outcry become so commonplace, they just don't resonate.

Who knows? That might already be becoming the case, given the outcry over Ikea fonts.

Flailing Buzzwords: Accountemps Survey

A few weeks ago, Accountemps released the results of a telephone survey that asked senior executives "What is the most annoying or overused phrase or buzzword in the workplace today?" The winners are all those you might expect, with eight of the eleven most frequently employed by social media advocates.

• Leverage
• Reach out
• It is what it is
• Viral
• Game changer
• Disconnect
• Value-add
• Circle back
• Socialize
• Interface
• Cutting edge

How does buzzword fatigue come about anyway?

The two most common culprits are innocent adoption and lazy communication. Clients, ad agencies, public relations firms, etc. read or hear someone use a buzzword (sometimes correctly) and misapply it so they can "sound" equally important or begin to adopt it, unknowingly, into their own language until so many people use it that our ears get tired.

While general adoption is harmless and unavoidable (the result of a living language), communication duplication is costly. For example, once upon a time, being a leading company used to mean something. Unfortunately, after every company in every industry included it in their definitions by qualifying it (one of the leading companies), narrowing the definition (a leading company in Acme City, west side), or downright lying about it (a leading company ... based on floor space, heh). Those folks undercut our ability to use "leading" even when a company really is the leader.

After all, some company, somewhere, really is the leader. Some people really do practice strategic communication. And Apple, for example, really did apply cutting-edge technology to produce an iPhone (whereas Palm Pre really did not, at least not its own.) And so on.

In general, there is a simple enough solution. If you notice everyone in an industry is using a particular word, unless it's a recognized definition, just drop it early. Chances are if it isn't compromised as a buzzword when you adopt it, it will be in a few months.

Any guesses on what might be next? I have a few ideas, but I am always looking for new ones too.