Questioning PR: Bruce Buschel At Southfork Kitchen

While traveling through Europe, Bruce Buschel, who now owns the Southfork Kitchen (Southfork), was struck by the abundance of restaurants that served food with locally grown or raised ingredients. He believed opening a New York restaurant based on that idea would be a winner in the Hamptons.

The idea isn't as novel as it sounds. Celebrated Houston Chef Clive Berkman always tells me the same thing. If he cooks while traveling, he always leans toward making a menu based on local ingredients. But that's neither here nor there. This is a lesson for PR, especially my students.

A Rehash Of The 'Public Relations' Problem.

What makes Buschel interesting is his New York Times column about opening and managing a restaurant. The last two columns were especially interesting to anyone in communication: The Problem With Public Relations and Do P.R. People Have To Like The Food. They offer an unabashed glimpse inside how the restauranteur views public relations.

Buschel was originally dazzled by a local public relations firm's pitch and just as easily disappointed when they didn't produce a single story before the opening. When he called them on it, they pushed the err on him. His restaurant was "too hip to be square and too fishy to be hip," they said. And specifically, as Buschel lists in his column, these were the firm's primary issues:

• The New York Times blog was a problem, scooping PR or getting in the way.
• Area restaurants were equally sustainable and/or organic (no contrast).
• We have to taste your food in order to get excited about doing our jobs.

Buschel really took exception to the third point. He thought it was ridiculous that paid help would have to like the food. So he sacked the first firm and tried a second firm whose principal blogged for the the Huffington Post and appeared as a judge on Iron Chef. Except, go figure, the second PR firm eventually left a bad taste in Buschel's mouth too. He was especially unhappy after receiving a list of everything his restaurant did wrong after the guru/principal dined there with a fellow critic. The guru didn't even like the name anymore. The name?

So Buschel wrote a post about it and criticized PR. Of course, as you might imagine, the mostly neutral story drew the ire of public relations professionals on both sides of the line — those who sided with Buschel and those defending their industry. (It almost always happens that way.) Then, Buschel cherry picked one response for a follow up — a parsed point-by-point rebuttal.

The Real Problem With Public Relations.

The real problem with public relations in this case is that Buschel didn't want public relations and the first PR firm didn't promise public relations. He wanted publicity — high-priced cheerleaders without sexy legs. They promised publicity too, but then couldn't deliver it. So they invented excuses like all faux public relations firms do.

The tell is in the third excuse. The firm promised pre-opening buzz and accepted a check without tasting the food. But then when they failed to deliver results, they wanted samples. Dopes.

The second PR firm wasn't much better. Buschel still wanted publicity and the second PR firm promised publicity. But after what seemed to be a promising start, that PR firm stopped offering publicity and started offering consult beyond public relations.

The tell is in claiming the eatery has the wrong name. It seems likely the name game was stolen from the food critic's notes because if the name was so bad to begin with then why wouldn't the firm had mentioned it before? Baloney.

All this leads me to believe that the real problem is in the definition. It's a common problem too. People say public relations but they really mean publicity. Here are some thumbnail versions of longer definitions to provide the basic context.

Public Relations. The job is to provide counsel on the exchange of mutually beneficial communication between the organization and various publics.

Media Relations. The job is to maximize positive coverage in the mass media without paying for it directly through advertising.

Publicity. The job is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject, which often includes an emphasis on media but is not limited to it.

At a glance, it might seem that the second PR firm was attempting to offer some semblance of public relations. However, the approach in how they passed along conversational notes after dinner with a critic was more confrontational than mutually beneficial. The story sounds more in line with what we might expect a celebrity social media ego to do — act as paid adversaries to their own clients, beating them with customer comments.

All in all, despite the propensity for public relations professionals to jump into one camp or the other, there are no camps. Everyone looks equally foolish, but not everyone looks fraudulent. Buschel might be like hundreds of other clients in that he was hoodwinked by non-performing publicists into accepting an erroneous definition of the trade, but his intent seems pure.

Bolstering Southfork Kitchen Would Benefit From Integration.

It seems to me that there are a variety of real and perceived challenges that the restaurant might want to overcome. First and foremost, forget the babble about the name. You can call a company anything and it will stand the test of time once it earns a reputation. One of the most talked about computer companies in the world is named after a rather generic fruit, after all.

Some of the other conversation threads are clutter too. PR firms can do ground work before tasting any food; most of them assume they will for awhile, especially during a pre-opening period. The New York Times column was not and is not a liability; it is an asset. (Even if there were some cannibalized stories, plenty of other stories remained.) Even most of the opinions pushed back on Buschel could be chalked up to bringing in the wrong audience.

With all of these tidbits out of the way, there is only one potential problem left on the table: the unique selling point. If this argument is valid, then the solution needs to come from marketing more than public relations. Specifically, Buschel might consider re-prioritizing his contrast points. I wouldn't abandon organic, but maybe it's not the number one focus or perhaps some added clarity would help make it distinct.

Other than that, the problem may have nothing to do with the restaurant. The real problem may have to do with the liberal use of terms. Mixing up public relations and publicity always creates a breakdown in client-vendor communication. It's an industry problem.

If either PR firm really did public relations, the local farmers would be promoting the restaurant, area associations would be booking luncheons, and the sudden interest would have attracted the interest of foodies and faux foodies because those folks hate to be left out.

As for additional media exposure, there are enough stories to sell assuming the firm would work beyond their normal lists. They may need a new one for this unique venue. And, if select critics didn't like the food or service, the firm would be charged with finding common ground and providing feedback. They would not simply bleed the client as if they were the owner.

Then again, I'm not convinced Buschel wanted public relations help. It seems to me that he wants publicity help even though he is doing a fine job on his own. The truth is that he already nailed one surefire way to get publicity — if you want people to write about you in a social media world, write some smack about public relations.

Any time anyone writes smack about public relations, the entire bubble blows up in a public debate between those who claim to know and do not versus those who might know but never do more than communicate tales of industry woe. Buschel said he finds this ironic, but ironic isn't the right word. The right word is pathetic.

Forgetting A Public: Employees, Again

Employers who assume that the sluggish economy will keep their employees in check might be surprised in the months ahead. Almost 50 percent of employees have considered leaving their jobs. More than 21 percent have already applied elsewhere in the last six months.

The study, conducted by MarketTools, Inc., a feedback software management firm, mirrors another released by the Conference Board in January. It found that 55 percent of employees were dissatisfied with their jobs, which represents the lowest morale point in the last two decades. Other studies conducted last year revealed largely the same findings.

The Cause Of Employee Dissatisfaction.

According to the study, the most common complaints from employees suggested 47 percent were dissatisfied with their salary, 24 percent were dissatisfied with their workload, 21 percent were dissatisfied with their opportunities for advancement, and 21 percent were dissatisfied with their immediate manager or supervisor. However, before jumping on any knee-jerk solutions — raises, staff support, and management shifts — there is something else to consider.

When people answer job satisfaction surveys, they tend to provide misinformation. Sometimes you have to look at unrelated surveys to gain a greater appreciation for what employees are thinking.

For example, a USA Today poll taken earlier in the year asked a different question. Instead of asking "What are you most dissatisfied with at your job?" they asked "Which of the following is most important about your job?" The answer they received paints a much different picture. About 21 percent cited job security, 20 percent said health benefits, 14 percent said work-life balance, 14 percent said salary, and 11 percent said retirement benefits.

But no matter what they say, there is something else. Most employees will accept less of everything if they are satisfied with their jobs. They do it all the time. (Even in education, private school teachers make less but outperform their higher paid counterparts.)

The Culprit Of Communication.

In many cases, the foundation of employee dissatisfaction is communication. In general, employers either communicate too much about challenges beyond their control, ask employees to look for problems, or do not communicate enough about the greater scope of external conversations outside the workplace. All three reinforce employee dissatisfaction.

• Communicating Challenges. Even companies that are outperforming cannot resist the urge to mention the weak economy. Both companies that have had to resort to layoffs and cutbacks and those that grew mention it all the time.

We've read it in several company reports. Almost every one of them has a sentence that starts "Because of a weak economy" or "Despite a weak economy" within the first three paragraphs of their openers. Every time they say "weak economy," the mind immediately jumps to questions about job security.

• Focusing On Problems. The same can be said about customer surveys, but employee surveys are even worse. Inexperienced communicators send out surveys that few employees want to take, most employees don't trust, and almost all of them set unintended agendas.

When you ask people to point out problems, they will instinctively find them. Ergo, the aforementioned surveys underscore the point. Ask employees what they are dissatisfied about with their jobs elicits a much different answer than what they value about their job the most.

• Ignoring News Babble. Of course, employers don't always think about it, but sometimes their worst enemies are people who have very little to do with their companies. Politicians and newscasters continually pelt them with problems that demand more focus.

It's not a coincidence that health benefits struck a chord in the USA Today survey. Every time the health care debate comes up, people start to wonder how their health benefits stack up in comparison to everyone else, if they have enough, and what would happen if they had a major problem. Just wait ... in a few months when Social Security becomes a hot issue, employees will start listing retirement as a top two concern.

In all three cases, employees are being pelted with negativity. And the question employers ought to be asking themselves is whether they are contributing to the negative speak or doing enough to address the negative speak bombarding employees everywhere else. If you do not, then expect things to get worse — bad news and doubt spread faster than good news and promise inside any workplace, community, and social network.

The Cost Of Employee Dissatisfaction.

There are some employers who dismiss employee satisfaction outright. Some even stand by an adage that if an employee doesn't like working somewhere then they can show themselves the door. I agree that there is a certain percentage of employees who will never be happy no matter where they work. However, with employee dissatisfaction crossing 50 percent, it's safe to assume that a few bad apples aren't spoiling the bushel ... the bushel is spoiling the few good apples.

There are tangible costs associated with dissatisfaction in the workplace. You can do the math several different ways. How many customers does a dissatisfied employee come in contact with on a daily basis? How many people (family, friends, associates) do they mention their dissatisfaction to? What is it like to work in an environment where one of every two employees points out unaddressed problems within the company or reinforces their disdain for the supervisor?

It's one of the lessons I share with communication students. In addition to conducting customer research, I tell them to consider the client workplace. If the employees seem unhappy, stressed, or demoralized, it is likely even the best marketing plan will fail because the conversion rate will be ridiculously low. In some cases, they might even be destined to fail.

How To Begin The Reversal Process.

As anyone who works in social media knows, no one can control a conversation. You can, however, manage it. While this only scratches the surface, communication can help reset the mood.

Avoid negative speak (if a weak economy isn't an impact, don't bring it up unless it's brought up). Skip the surveys and encourage productive team meetings (dialogue is more meaningful than multiple choice). Take public conversations and turn them into conversational opportunities — if health care is the political hot topic today, then use it as an opportunity to remind employees what and why you offer what you do. In some cases, it might even be worthwhile to improve it, even a little bit.

Consider the impact of the latter. While the nation debates health care, your employees might offer up how their company is covered rather than assuming they aren't. Just remember to avoid negative speak packaging. You don't have to reinforce what others don't have or include something like "despite the lack of health care at most companies" or "because of the out-of-control costs" to convey the point. They'll get it.

Of course, all of these solutions are proactive. From the original study mentioned, most companies aren't even reactive. Three-quarters of all employees say their companies do not solicit employee feedback. And of those who do, most only solicit it quarterly or less.

The irony is that while employees continue to be ignored, customer feedback models are leaning toward real time. That doesn't make too much sense when you think about it. If you think knowing more about your customers will improve sales performance, doesn't it stand to reason you might want to know something about the employee they have contact with? Maybe.

Farming For Quality: The Best Content Is Not At The Top

When applied to social media, organic doesn't resonate with everyone. There is a reason it doesn't. It has become one of several analogies that have been distorted to fit any number of new meanings (much like sustainable did). And most of those distortions were all aimed at making fake look better.

The original meaning as it was applied to content is much more holistic. Let's stick with its content origin today; the analogy came from food. Applied to blogs, it draws a distinction between processed and organic much like Hollywood draws a distinction between a celebrity and an actor/actress. One is popular; the other has talent. Sometimes, but rarely, one can be both.

The Three Types Of Content Farmers.

Processed Content. Convenience food is commercially prepared designed for ease of consumption. While often popular, most convenience foods contains saturated fat, sodium, and sugar. They provide little to no nutritional value but tend to have enough flavor to appeal to a mass audience. To keep up with demand, some farmers might use pesticides and chemical fertilizers to speed things along.

It applies to social media in that some of the most popular blogs on the Web become automated over time. Their owners have formulas for almost everything they do, including how to pick topics, write posts, and distribute to more consumers. Many of them have a following of distributors; people will promote anything they do regardless of quality. A few of them cut corners.

Organic Content. Organic foods are produced using environmentally sound methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers. They do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives. Not only is it better for you, but is tastes better too. The only downside is that it takes much longer to prepare.

It applies to social media in that some of the less popular blogs carry superior quality content, with every post being well thought out and original. Sometimes these authors pick up on other people's ideas and expand upon them, but always with their own research and added value. In general, they tend to be equal parts: inspired by offline events and trending topics. The advice they share is almost always grounded in communication strategy.

Private Label Content. This is where most farmers started hundreds and thousands of years ago. The results are often mixed. Some gardeners have green thumbs and some do not. There are any number of reasons for the variations. It could be the climate, soil conditions, seeds, talent, or perhaps just never finding whatever it is that they may become passionate about.

It applies to social media, with the exception that we can capture a snapshot of where they start as opposed to real farms that are in operation today. Most bloggers start with a few posts, testing various crops to see what what works best for them. If one sticks, they start sowing a field. Not all of these private farmers do, nor will all of them stick with it. The bulk will give up for whatever reason.

The Fresh Content Project.

In tracking about 250 blogs, daily, for almost a year, we found something interesting but not surprising. The analogy of processed vs. organic vs. private label fits. It even fits as a mix of the blogs we covered — originally about 100 and eventually about 250.

Specifically, about 10 percent of the blogs covered were processed (A List), 20 percent organic (B List) and the bulk, 70 percent, were made up of private gardeners (C-Z Lists). This was not by design. It just happened to break out this way.

The original list was compiled from several dozen social media lists that had been previously published by people we knew. From these lists, we built a Twitter list with two purposes.

First, all their blogs were reviewed for consideration. Second, blogs that they tended to recommend with some frequency were also considered. We also added some additional blogs after we were introduced to new authors who wrote guest posts for one of the blogs we were already covering. There was a vetting process.

We also did not make any distinction between multi-author blogs and single-author blogs. Instead, we considered these authors a variation of sharecroppers. Or, in other words, they might have been private gardeners but planted a fresh idea on real estate owned by someone else. More people are exposed to their stock, but everybody remembers the blog they write for as opposed to who wrote the content.

Content Farmer Consumption.

While this is an extremely rough snapshot (something we'll revisit before any final report), we estimate that more than 50 percent of the content consumers rely on A-List content farmers for information. Specifically, they are popular authors.

It's not surprising. Consumers tend to bookmark, friend, follow, and subscribe to people who seem popular. You can only read so many blogs no matter how you stack them. So people gravitate to reading what their friends or associates read, quality content or not.

Popular content providers usually have another leg up too. If they speak regularly or have a book published, they attract more followers much in the same way samplers do at supermarkets. Familiarity attracts readers, even if that familiarity is thin.

In contrast, private gardeners are very different. Many are happy with sharing content between a handful of colleagues. Most, but not all, believe that once they have found the right content mix that more and more people will eventually place orders, subscribe, and follow them too. They capture approximately 30 percent of traffic.

Ironically, many private gardeners are also responsible for sending more traffic to the processed content farmers. It might seem odd, but private gardeners are continually telling consumers who enjoyed their cherry tomatoes to follow the A-lister who inspired them. Conversely, few A-List content farmers credit private gardeners in the same way.

Quality Content Comes From Everywhere.

While I won't say that every private gardener can produce quality content, I can say that any private gardener with experience and talent is capable, whether they own their own space or want to be a sharecropper. In fact, during the experiment, even authors with no prior experience were frequently picked as having written the best post of the day.

It's much like any garden with a talented gardener. You might not find their brand at the supermarket, but you will enjoy the salad they serve. Collectively, although many are hit and miss, private gardeners served up 35 percent of all fresh picks.

Sometimes A-List providers can too. Much like every vineyard has select wines, some A-listers maintain the private garden that preceded their massive operations. And occasionally, though only a sliver in comparison to the quantity they produce, you can usually find some quality from time to time. They served up 20 percent of all fresh post picks.

The bulk of fresh content picks came from organic farmers. They generated more than 45 percent of the highest quality posts. And, even when their posts were not "fresh picks," we frequently shared their work as an "also read" pick across various social networks.

Why Popularity Does Not Produce Comparable Quality.

Once upon a time, almost everyone who wrote a blog could be considered a private gardener. But as social media became mainstream, many were faced with a choice much like farmers — automate or retain the quality that made them popular.

Some remained private gardeners or dropped out. Some shifted the priorities of their business with more time to expand while retaining quality. And others became automated, propelled mostly by popularity. The tells are relatively apparent.

Processed content inevitably includes a post or two or 20 about how awesome the author is or how some lesser blogger picked on them or how they captured 5,000 followers in a weekend or how you have to have as many followers as them to be taken seriously. If posts like that still manage to be shared by 250 people or more, their blog can rightly be likened to processed yellow American cheese singlesconveniently packaged in individual wrappers.

While I am not suggesting abandoning the popular communication bloggers outright, the fresh content experiment did find that organic authors invest more time to produce quality content for a significantly smaller audience share. Proportionately, in terms of quality, most people are following the right people.

The best place to find quality content is to start stacking the deck with more organic content providers and frequently sampling private gardeners who have the potential (if not the passion) to become organic farmers. The only downside is that it takes a little more time to find them. However, it seems a small price to pay considering we all know what too much processed content can do over time — it could make your entire communication strategy flabby and reactive.

This is the fifth lesson from the Fresh Content experiment, which tracked 250 blogs for almost a year. The experiment focused on the quality of the content and not the perceived popularity of the authors. Next week, we'll conclude with a list of picked authors and any plans to produce a short e-book.

Writing Tight: Simple Never Meant Short

You can find the same advice all over the Web. Many people suggest the best posts are about 200-300 words. Some even set the max amount at 600 words. But no worries on the final count; they say keep it short. Short and sweet, even.

Why?

Ghazal Alvi says it will save time. Bob Anderson says you can turn one post into three. Chris Brogan says brevity rules. Kevin Kane says nobody reads anything else. Scott Williams says he learned it from Seth Godin. Jim Estill says shorter is better. Steinar Knustsen says short. Rob Birgfeld says keep it short, stupid. James Chartrand says it works.

Whew.

That's 100 words and I'm already tired. But if I write 100 more, perhaps I'll hit some magic number and make my point. Blog posts should be short. The shorter the better (but more than 100 words). Never mind that other thing. You know the one.

All of them are wrong.

Writing short is lazy writing. Writing tight, on the other hand, takes discipline. It also assumes you have something to say, at least something worth more than ten minutes of writing before spamming everyone in your social networks.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not advocating for long posts either. The right length of any blog post is precisely the length it needs to be. Not a sentence more or less. For example, this post now includes 250 words. And it's still not right.

How did short writing come into fashion anyway?

The same way all "short" rules come into existence. Boorish writing.

Boorish writing is why corporate videos are limited to three to five minutes (make that two minutes), news releases are confined to one page (skip it, just pitch it). And ad copy turned into some cheeky image of a skinny chick holding up a product. When writing starts to fail, we just want it to be over.

Case in point. Go back for a minute and reread any of those posts that claim short is better. Could you stand any of them if they were even one sentence longer? Probably not. I could even make the case that some of those take too damn long to make the wrong point.

The trick is to toss the entire question of length out the window. A good book makes you lament when it's over and long for another. A good movie can make you wonder where three hours went even without an intermission. A solid post or article might make you think of so many new ideas that you can't fathom what to add with merely a comment.

And even this post, at around 600 words, might stick a bit more than those who stuck you with their short post arguments. But even if it did not, that's all right. I'm unconvinced that this paragraph is the right ending. It might be more worthwhile to leave you something new to think about.

Don't think about short. Think about tight.

Writing tight is the art of readability. It changes little annoyances like "he stated" to "he said" or "it is our company's practice to" to "we try to" or it "must be returned to this office" to "please return." For posts, especially, it's about chopping unnecessaries down to how people speak: "at the present time" (now), "due to the fact that" (because), and "are of the opinion" (believe).

Words are tools, you know. Their job is to convey thoughts, not obscure meanings. Collections of words work the same way.

The real secret to solid writing is never to confuse simplicity with condescension. Your goals ought never be to save yourself time, improve your back links, or double down on the frequency of your posts. All those tips do is make the post about you.

It's not about you. All words are a direct conversation with your reader. If you care about them, then it is in their best interest that you invest as much time as it takes to make a point, make it clearly, make it concisely, and make it in such a way that they might stick with them longer than those popular and equally forgettable quick-serve social snacks.

And then what? Well, once you accomplish that ... you stop, without any worry that you broke 800 words several sentences ago.

Communicating With Youth: Educational Impact

Every few days my son mentions it. He isn't very fond of his computer class, even though he is very fond of computers.

"I have no faith in our future, knowing your generation will one day run this country," his computer science teacher frequently reminds the class. "Things are going to get worse, much worse, and you're not up to the task. I might go live in the wilderness."

Along with these revelations, he frequently loads them up with misinformation. He says Spanish is the most spoken language in the world. (It's not.) He preaches that the Chinese had iPhones twenty years before Apple. (They didn't.) And he claims that most countries are better than this one, despite lamenting that the U.S. ought to provide for them. (A contradictory hyperbole.)

My son is in the sixth grade.

There is a fine line between critical awareness and learned helplessness.

His teacher isn't alone. There are plenty of people who claim everything is broken beyond repair.

Sure, the existing social-economic-political climate could exacerbate the challenges ahead for this country and the world. At its best, people probably expect the continued erosion of the middle class. At its worst, well, it's just the worst.

Then again, in 1970, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient predicted a similar fate, with overpopulation set for 1990 (Lawrence Journal-World). In 1952, Allied commanders were concerned that Japan had already exceeded its carrying capacity by 25 percent (United Press). In 1920, newspapers published articles about overpopulation in Europe and estimated America could only sustain 250 million people (New York Times).

Overpopulation isn't alone. You can easily trace all of our current hot topics back for decades and centuries. Education failings to the 1600s. Class warfare to the 1700s. Catastrophic pollution to the 1800s. The end of the world to the 1900s. Climate change to the 1930s. The key word here is "easily." The truth is that these conversations are as old as civilization. The only difference is that some people seem not only inclined to accept it but think we somehow deserve it.

And it is this, more than any measure, that concerns me because the burden is heavy to place on the heads of children. Based on test scores and graduation rates, it might even be that they are starting to believe it.

While my son shrugs it off, mentioning that every day he doesn't have that class is a good day despite having an A, some of his friends do not. Some already exhibit the symptoms of learned helplessness. Not only do they believe the world is getting worse and they aren't up to the task to fix it, but a few of them believe that even if they could afford to go college they won't be able to make ends meet (not in those words, of course).

They're in the sixth grade.

There are critical components to a better life, none of which include cash or status.

When some teachers feel a need to commiserate with sixth graders, I kindly remind my son that while some people would like to see it differently, he is still the master of his destiny. So far, he is the only person that can enslave himself to circumstance.

• Education. Most people know that for all the good Leave No Child Behind might have done, it is being misapplied at the local level. Teachers and schools invest too much time attempting to pad tests scores and not enough time making sure that the students can apply what they learn. The socio-economic gap might be tightening, but it is tightening in the wrong direction.

What works better than memorizing math formulas cold is cross-curriculum education that applies math to future occupations like business, engineering, mechanics, and rocket science. What works better than memorizing parts of speech off poorly written study sheets are lessons dialed in to history, world events, and literature. What works better than reward-based programs, "spirit" periods, and teaching kids how to "guesstimate" answers are critical thinking skills and a lifelong love for learning.

• Empowerment. No matter how teachers, parents, or role models might perceive the future of this country or the world, the pursuit of happiness only requires people with a passion to be exceptional. It doesn't matter how they define it.

Exceptional comes in many different forms. I would count several youth-managed recording studios among them. Two of the newer studios struck me because one of them was started in New Jersey by a 17-year-old student. The other was started by two teenagers, ages 14 and 15, in Baltimore. The latter reports many participants go on to pursue business degrees.

The challenges some of them will face have little to do with the business climate. There comes a point when even the best intended business regulations simply become barriers that makes it impossible to start one, especially with capital reduced by taxes and labor laws that make every employee cost two-and-a-half times their pay scale.

• Self-Worth. I recently read an article that proposed the individual doesn't matter. Martin Luther King Jr. might disagree. Every individual deserves an opportunity to be treated as an equal without any preconception that they might have limitations.

For the people who preach that, I might ask that they walk in and work at any homeless rehabilitation program. What they will find is that the first steps toward rehabilitation are to let go of guilt, recognize they deserve a better life, and then be given the opportunity to regain their confidence to try.

Beyond that, they learn there is no dishonor in being an educated janitor. (My father-in-law is a retired educated janitor; my grandfather was an educated painter.) The world needs janitors to be the best janitors they can be, even if they study quantum physics in their spare time. Or, as some authors eventually prove (with Charles Bukowski in mind), there might be more to a person than sorting mail.

This might seem one off from the topic, but it really isn't. The first step is still communication. People, like my son's computer science teacher, aren't very mindful about the impact they might have. So I might offer a few facts for him to consider.

North America is still home to the most millionaires, even though some rapidly-developing countries are starting to produce more than this country does per year (although we still produce some). The United States still logs more international patent filings every year (almost twice as many as the next closest nation). And the United States is responsible for more medical breakthroughs, even though the cost of care drags down global quality ratings.

That's not to say we're perfect. But with the exception of education, we still manage to add value and help fuel economic growth in other countries too. I'm even optimistic to think that some of our greatest accomplishments will be ahead. All we need are more problems and fewer problem protestors.

Thank goodness we have some in the sixth grade. And younger.

Writing Content: Lessons From Fresh Pick Authors

Every writer has a punch list of sorts. Elements that help them transform good writing into great writing.

My punch list consists of five — accurate, clear, concise, human, and conspicuous. I don't always hit the mark, but that is what I shoot for on good and great days. Many of these characteristics seemed to fit in while running the Fresh Content experiment. However, there were some other qualities — originality, insight, and an expansive view — that added quality to the content we read.

If you want to become a better writer, someone who offers up quality content on a regular basis, these seem to be among the top five characteristics of quality posts. Almost every fresh pick post during the course of the experiment included them. While there were exceptions (especially the fifth point or on particularly slow days), the majority included these five characteristics.

The Five Characteristics Of Quality Posts.

1. Accuracy. The content has to be accurate in terms of what it is trying to teach. And the most common failings in communication lessons tend to happen on two extremes — overt generalizations and elevating exceptions.

For example, we had little patience for top ten lists that included rules such as limiting every post to 250 words. It's not true. Economy of language has nothing to do length. It has to do with telling a story in the right amount of words.

Conversely, we're hardly convinced that every viral video needs to look amateurish because one or three or fifty examples did. There are hundreds of videos that prove the opposite. This is one of the failings of best practices in general. While they can be useful, circumstances and outcomes vary.

2. Originality. The content had to be original, with originality taking two forms. It had to be original in that it couldn't steal the best content from several solid posts without attribution. And it had to be better than a "pile on" topic post.

Although I've known it to exist, plagiarism is surprisingly common among communication blogs, even popular ones. It becomes more obvious when you're scanning several hundred. We had no patience for it and dumped any blogger from the list when it became obvious their spun content was something more than collective unconscious.

Pile on posts are different. There comes a point when you have to ask yourself if the world needs another Kenneth Cole Twitter post. Unless you have some exceptionally unique insight to offer on the topic or want to refute a colleague's conclusion, let the media follow the media.

3. Insight. More often than not, posts that tended to rise to the top offered exactly what I mentioned in the second tip. They frequently went against the grain because better communicators gave considerable thought to the communication challenge.

There are dozens of examples that pulled from the greater collection of fresh picked posts last year. A few that come to mind include The Flow of the First Mover by Ike Pigott, which fused analogy and truth; Digital Case Studies: Punch Pizza by Arik Hason, which adds analysis to a promotional success story; and The Five Ways Companies Organize for Social Business by Jeremiah Owyang, which detailed communication structure not unlike we did for fan groups a few years ago.

The primary point is that playing follow the leader like the media often does isn't very valuable unless you can add something else to the story. For example, while everyone was writing about the Gulf Coast oil spill last year, I always tried to focus on less covered topics related to the crisis. On the front end, I didn't write about the topic du jour but rather how all stakeholders were handling the communication differently.

4. Humanity. Throwaway posts and bullet lists usually don't include any semblance of humanity. They're not memorable. There is much more power in sharing a singular story, especially when the story telling is as unique as the content.

Last year, Erin Greenfield shared her first-hand experience at creating a promotional video; Rachel Kay shared her thoughts on how people react to earthquakes; and Geoff Livingston saw the damage caused by the oil spill first hand. You can't fake the passion exhibited by each author. There is no formula.

While it's unlikely to happen every day someone sits down to write, there is something to be said about finding the passion and purpose in the topic you want to cover (and by that I mean beyond any organizational objectives). Don't just write about what you know — write about what makes you passionate. And, when your personal interests don't fit the organizational goals, look for links that help tie them together.

5. Expansive. Too many myopic posts become boorish. It's one of the reasons why links generally lend a little more to any story. It shows evidence that the author isn't considering their point of view to be absolute and helps create content with more depth in fewer words.

While there were some exceptions, the greater majority of fresh content picks were inclined to share supporting and conflicting points of view. It might be worthwhile to point out that this wasn't a condition for inclusion, but rather a post-experiment observation.

One thought of caution: Simply dropping in links to draw the attention doesn't work in the same way. The links included have to be as thoughtful as the content. All too often, we had to brush aside posts that recapped the same private bubble lists that raved about the same three people day after day after day. Sometimes I was tempted to leave a comment — you're friends through thick and thin, we get it.

There are no rules to social media.

I might like to stress that these five all provide a solid guide, but there are no rules to great writing (blog posts included). And while there is something to be said about design, positioning labels, post times, and share times, focusing on quality content will pay higher dividends over the long term than over analyzing all those details some people prescribe.

I also hope this helps guide some of the people who have asked me to share "all" the blogs that were included so they might learn what not to do as much as they can learn what to do. While I will be including a master list of all those picked some time after the fifth lesson next week, I'm hesitant to include those who were never picked because the intent was never to disparage, popular or not.

This is the fourth lesson from the Fresh Content experiment, which tracked 250 blogs for almost a year. The experiment focused on the quality of the content and not the perceived popularity of the authors.