Setting Agendas: Kony 2012

When most people see the Kony 2012 communication campaign, they immediately think of it as an unprecedented success. With 76 million views and counting (50 million in the first four days), the YouTube video that relaunched a greater mixed media campaign has generated more awareness about the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda than any other time in its 25-year history.

To be accurate, the campaign has had many successes and setbacks, but it has yet to be successful as there is only one measurable outcome: bring Joseph Kony to justice. Everything else is a means to an end. And that is how communication campaigns ought to be measured, regardless of other successes.

A Brief Summary Of The Kony 2102 Campaign.

Employing a communication strategy very similar to that of several early and successful campaigns used by Bloggers Unite to shape public opinion, Invisible Children has set a specific objective that has since risen to become a global agenda. How are they doing it?

• A communication campaign with a clear objective and definitive deadlines.
• A launch point that clearly articulates and humanizes its overall mission.
• A call to action to solicit partner support; benefactors, sponsors, and advocates.
• A visible level of commitment to working alongside volunteer participants.
• A wide range of tools and tactics that participants can choose from to help.

Specifically, the Kony 2012 campaign was initiated with a YouTube video as its primary introduction, which was supported by an existing presence across several social media networks. The intent was to drive visitors to a website where they found a tiered call to action: sign a pledge of support, purchase action kits that in turn can be used as marketing materials in support of the overall campaign goals, and sign up to donate to the campaign organizers, which also run several programs beyond the Kony 2012 campaign.

Some additional tactical components include asking participants to solicit/compel targeted celebrity and policy influencers to get involved, blanketing key urban centers with campaign material next month,  encouraging activists to create clubs and street teams, and continuing to introduce people to the video.

A Brief Summary Of Successes To Date.

Prior to the launch of the film, Invisible Children had succeeded in raising awareness about the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Its support contributed to the United States becoming involved in 2010 despite having no real interests in the area. This included sending 100 U.S. combat troops to central Africa as advisors and military trainers. The new campaign is more decisive with a clear measure of success.

Since the launch of the Kony 2012 campaign, Invisible Children has substantially increased awareness, recruited more volunteers than it can manage, obtained several new high-profile supporters, and raised more funds than it has in previous campaign years. It has also earned significant media attention, although not all of it is kind.

A Brief Summary Of The Setbacks To Date. 

What began as a few questions about the initial message — specifically the poor choice of language which calls to make Kony famous as opposed to infamous — has since spiraled out of control for the campaign organizers. Invisible Children is in the hot seat as much as it is being hailed as a hero for heightening awareness.

Criticisms over the campaign have escalated to include accusations of imperialistic meddling, government propping, misguided targeting, nonprofit profiteering, and decentralizing the area by elevating the risk of retaliation. Some of the stiffest criticism comes from other activists, even those who have similar goals. Certain media outlets have pushed the organization out of favor too, especially those with a liberal slant, claiming that the campaign is fleeting and doesn't fit their own priorities.

The World Hasn't Changed; It's Still A Crummy Place.

If criticisms of the Kony 2012 campaign begin to outweigh its success, then this campaign could become a social failing more than a social success story. Invisible Children could find itself responsible for empowering the Lord's Resistance Army (or like-minded organizations) instead of empowering those who might defeat him if any number of other political intrusions disrupt the effort.

And then, even if the campaign does succeed, its own communication (prior to the launch of this campaign) says that it will make little difference. There are many branches of the Lord's Resistance Army that operate with near autonomy. While a singular achievable objective is smart, one is right to wonder if that singular objective is the right one or to what degree foreign assistance is welcome.

But don't mistake those observations as my personal opinion. Personally, I find the campaign backlash more boorish than any mistakes the campaign organizers have made, except one. Like many awareness campaigns, they're letting all of these early brilliant marketing accolades go to their heads before the outcome is achieved and consequences of achieving that outcome are fully understood.

Living case study ahead. Win or lose, the Kony 2012 campaign is worth following for awhile. In addition to other topics, I'll revisit the campaign from time to time to create a communication composite.

Communicating Internally: Engagement Matters

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association (APA), half of all employees who say they do not feel valued at work intend to look for a new job in the next year (almost three times as likely as those who do feel valued). But this turnover statistic alone doesn't capture the most convincing arguments within the study, given many employers are happy to see unsatisfied employees go.

The real boon comes from valued employees. 

Employees who do feel valued are more likely to report better physical health, better mental health, and higher levels of engagement, satisfaction, and motivation. In fact, almost all employees who feel valued at work say they are more motivated to do their best work and 88 percent say they feel engaged.

Translating this information into tangible measures is relatively easy. Valued employees take fewer sick days, produce better quality work, and are much more likely to refer or talk about their companies.

"The business world is in the midst of a sea change," says David W. Ballard, PsyD, MBA, head of APA's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program. "Successful organizations have learned that high performance and sustainable results require attention to the relationships among employee, organization, customer and community."

The real costs associated with unvalued employees. 

More than one in five (21 percent) of working Americans said they do not feel valued by their employers. And while this number doesn't necessarily seem alarming, it can be if those employees are consecrated within a single company. 

In fact, according to the APA, one of the underlying symptoms of companies in trouble are those with an abundance of employees suffering from chronic stress, especially when it is exacerbated by low salaries (46 percent), lack of opportunities for growth or advancement (41 percent), too heavy a workload (41 percent), long hours (37 percent), and unclear job expectations (35 percent).

Like other studies outside the workforce, the leading complaints among unvalued employees isn't tied exclusively to compensation. Employees, much like consumers, are looking for something more meaningful. They want to have a sense of purpose at their place of work.

Why do employees feel undervalued or unvalued at work?

• Fewer opportunities for involvement in decision making (84 percent).

• Less satisfied with the potential for growth and advancement (70 percent).

• Less likely to say they are receiving adequate monetary compensation (69 percent). 

• Less likely to say that they are receiving adequate non-monetary rewards (65 percent). 

• Fewer opportunities to use flexible work arrangements at the job (59 percent). 

A few years ago, a Gallup study on employee engagement found that about 54 percent of employees in the United States are not engaged and 17 percent are disengaged. (Only 29 percent are engaged.)

Remedies to increase engagement included two-way communication, trust in leadership, career development, shared decision making, and the means to understand the importance every role plays within a company. (Not surprisingly, many of these descriptors also appear on social media tip sheets.)

We've included some of these remedies before in several articles, including: Forgetting A Public, Manifesting Creativity, and Thinking Big. Coincidentally, the first article (conducted by a different researcher) also found that as many as 50 percent of all employees who did not feel valued would be looking for a new job. One of the most common reasons cited by employers who do not value employees was that it was an employers' market and their employees could be readily replaced. (It would not be surprising to learn that many of these companies feel the same way about their customers.)

Interestingly enough, the benefits of developing an engaged, participatory, and valued group of individuals is not confined to the workforce. The dynamic exists within volunteer organizations, social networks, and even families. The more people feel involved — and can better understand that their contributions carry meaning — the better results businesses, organizations, communities, and groups can anticipate in return.

Crafting Character: It Precedes Reputation

Copywriter Brian Beasley recently took exception to the rapid succession of corporate clients recruiting Charlie Sheen to appear in their advertisements. Both Fiat and Direct TV jumped on the measure of eyeballs as they are attracted to one of the top five ways to get media attention.

Beasley's beef is simple enough. Both accounts are elevating the bad boy image, something that is twice as likely to cause a brand blemish than it ever will to drive sales. I dunno. Time will tell whether the aging young gun and his horse have already become too well-worn to ride.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a lesson. And Sheen isn't the only example. 

There are an increasing number of people who are crafting all their communication to catch headlines. They usually do it by wrapping themselves up in the cloak of controversy. They do outrageous things. They say outrageous things. They single out other people and call for outrage.

Most of it is designed to get attention, and sometimes it is aimed at getting a rise out of someone else.

That's what all the flap about Rush Limbaugh was, right? That's why some people are taking shots at The Lorax, right? That's why atheist activist groups put up a slavery billboard, right? That's why the Irish are up in arms about Urban Outfitters, right? And that's why there is controversy over the controversy or lack of controversy about singer Lana Del Rey. Controversy is so commonplace, it's cliche and mostly boring.

Worse than that, people who use controversy too often become so associated with controversy that nobody hears what they are saying when they do have something to say. It's just more controversy.

You can't manage your reputation like you can maintain your good character.

Character is the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing. It's the real deal. Reputation is only what people see, regardless of what is lurking behind the shadows.

Do you remember the The Dead Zone with Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen? When Johnny Smith, played by Walken, shakes hands with a U.S. Senate candidate Greg Stillson, played by Sheen, he sees that this senator will one day become president and order a nuclear strike. Later, Smith botches an assassination attempt, but Stillson shows his character by taking refuse behind a baby.

Reputation is malleable, which is why people try to manipulate it. Character isn't so malleable, unless you make a conscious effort to change it. When you think about the character of people who create controversy or the people who create controversy by claiming someone else is doing something controversial, you see something entirely different than if you focus merely on reputation.

Charlie Sheen made headlines last year by nurturing his out-of-control self-destructive reputation. Since things have slowed down, he's back to cash in on it again, along with a handful of marketers and media outlets who all want to pretend it's unexpected. It's expected. It's boring. And I can't remember the car.

Finding Spin: Bob Conrad Cuts Through The Spin!

Misinformation is a conversation that frequently comes up in my public relations courses, with no single source of information exempt from bias, fabrication, and blatant slant. One could easily argue that it makes up the majority of the information we are exposed to every day and the trend — driven by popularity and shareability — is increasing exponentially, with the media being especially suspect.

Where did all the objective reporting go anyway?

In his book, Spin! How The News Media Misinform And Why Consumers Misunderstand, Bob Conrad captures some of the story, leaning more toward current events than the short history of objective journalism and why it is changing (regressing) today. And missing the history of it all is probably the greatest flaw in an otherwise well-presented thesis book.

After all, one cannot fully discuss objective journalism without discussing Walter Lippman, who set the standard for it. Prior, journalism wasn't even considered a real profession. And why would it be? For all of the good people like Lippman were trying to do, other publishers like William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer used sensationalized news to drive circulation much like media outlets do today. They did it enough so that both are readily linked to helping start the Spanish-American War.

How ironic that 100 years later, with new media on the rise and mainstream trying to drive circulation, we find ourselves relearning the same circular lesson. Unless, of course, you look at it all differently. Although yellow journalism did not get its name until the turn of the late 1800s, it was alive and well in the United States, both preceding the American Revolution (to prime independence) and immediately following it (to mutually ridicule emerging political parties after the writing of the Constitution).

But other than this omission, Spin! tells some of the modern story. 

Based on the assumption that journalists still pine away for objective journalism (they don't), Conrad captures several concerning stories in less than 90 pages. In the telling, he also catches more than one journalist tripping on his own logic.

"Our job is to tell stories, to make facts relevant, but never skew them." — David Baker, State News

Conrad takes the logic to task because he rightfully points out that interpreting and shaping the information is how it becomes biased. And, in fact, it is worse than the front end suggests. Many journalists who put pen to paper in 1960s and 1970s discovered new styles for writing the news — with the aim to set agenda or sometimes entertain with one.

From there, Conrad moves into other stories to demonstrate some of the real challenges that face journalism today: reporter bias, anointed elitism, and defensive posturing. Most of them fall into one of the six divisions of modern media, but a few go further in describing a blatant disregard for the truth, something a few journalists have used to gain attention and awards (e.g., those who make it up).

All of it makes for good reading. And yet, if the real measure of Conrad's book can be found in solutions, then it doesn't seem promising for us in this brave new world of media manipulation from outside and within. His seven solutions, some new and some old, include: creating space for more citizen journalism, reestablishing the barriers between news and opinion, adopting principles from public relations, holding journalists accountable, and raising the bar in expert selection.

Will any of these solutions work to curb misinformation? 

Not one of them is necessarily a bad idea and all of them can be starting points for consideration. But unfortunately, none of them can reach the ultimate goal. They cannot bring back objective journalism.

If we really want credible and objective news, then citizens have to support it while learning to suppress their growing appetite for affirmation news. And right now, feeling freed of inconvenient facts that run contrary to their own individual ideologies, it's virtually impossible for a major media outlet to survive and maintain objectivism.

If I had to guess, I would say that today's media needs a wide-reaching and catastrophic miss that results in massive public outcry. And if we are to avoid such a costly blunder, then we need an emerging voice within journalism like Lippman in his era.

Ergo, someone needs to shame the media into making the truth their ultimate goal once again. And if someone doesn't soon, then it will take something bigger than any of the examples cited in Conrad's book, which is a frightening thought.

I used to think, much like Conrad, that a collective voice might emerge from the ranks of citizen journalists to get the job done. But I don't see this happening anytime soon. As long as popularity and perceived influence are more cherished than the truth, then we will continue to be buffeted back and forth by polarized opinion, popularizing misinformation, and selective facts.

Where Spin! wins despite some shortcomings in research.

While it might not sound like it at times, I would recommend Spin! to anyone hoping to gain a better grasp of where the media are today. Not only does Spin! make a great catch-up primer and indispensable resource, it also sets an agenda for a conversation that needs to happen. Given you can consume it all in a few hours (and then spend weeks chasing down conclusions), all the better.

However, that doesn't mean you can afford to dismiss your own due diligence after reading it. Conrad brings in much of his arguments from what he is exposed to, which sometimes skews his own perspective. While he disclaims some of this in the preface, it's still bothersome to see someone attributed as if they coined "he said/she said" journalism  when they didn't, the omission of a historical context, and his own personal bias (which I have to point out despite agreeing with much of it).

In other words, it's a must-read book for anyone with an interest in media and citizen journalism, but only as a primer for a much bigger pool of knowledge that is out there and waiting to be assembled. Still, I will recommending it to my class. I regularly recommend his blog for good reading too.

I received a complimentary copy of Spin! How The News Media Misinform And Why Consumers Misunderstand by Bob Conrad with the understanding that the book would be reviewed.

Writing By Rubrics: Painting By Numbers

One of the growing trends in education is the rampant application of rubrics, starting around middle school. The concept behind the rubric is that it sets the criteria that students will be graded on, gives the teacher an easy way to communicate assignment expectations, and provides a fill-in-the-blank outline for students.

As an instructor, I mostly like them. As a writer, I absolutely hate them. 

If there was ever a great tool that elevates and diminishes writing at the same time, it's the rubric. It elevates boring writers because it explicitly lists everything that they need to include. It absolutely demolishes writing because it sucks passion, creativity, and critical thinking out of good ones. 

My son brought a rubric home the other day, which piqued my interest because I'm also teaching Writing For Public Relations right now. It also got my interest because he was struggling with it.

The persuasive writing rubric began with a top-down outline of fill-in-the-blanks: introduce with a hook, opinion, or thesis statement; write three paragraphs, with each paragraph focusing on one point; conclude with restatement, summary, and call to action. Then it listed other elements: at least one expert testimony, one concession, 2-3 qualifiers, one cause and effect example, one rhetorical question, and a "statistic." Check for an effective use of voice, transitions, spelling, grammar, and format. 

Do you know what the rubric reminded me of? Paint by numbers. 

Sure, I'll concede that I cannot teach people to write like I do. Some writers do. Some don't. The best of them all develop their own approaches, which tend to be as varied and interesting as individuals. 

My personal process is self-developed. I research as much as possible about a subject, develop a big picture composite of everthing, and grab a hook out of the ether of it all. And then I write, allowing its direction to carry me along, sometimes stopping to pursue a discovery, question, pattern, contrast, or something I stumble upon along the way. And when everything clicks, it virtually writes itself. 

I know when I'm in that space because even though I don't have the benefit of an old Remington typewriter, the weight of my fingers on the keys is loud enough to turn heads. Maybe that's why I consider writing a contact sport whereas rubrics feel more like fuzzy ad-libs.

It's also why my son was struggling. They gave them the blanks to fill in but not the thought process to do it. And at the rate he was waffling, the project was never going to happen. He needed a process.

How to transform a stupid rubric into the process that writing is meant to be.

I told him to forget about the rubric on the front end. And then I gave him a process that would guide him to complete his assignment. Once he had a draft, he could go back and attempt to stick all those nonsensical mandatories that the rubric instructed — at least one "statistic" and whatnot. 

1. Establish A Thesis Statement. He already knew what he wanted to write about so he was done before he started. He wanted to write about why returning to the moon is a good idea. Professional public relations practitioners might think about something else — what is the objective of the communication. 

2. Research For Facts. Then I told him to research as much as he could, writing down and organizing notes under various subject headers — education, energy, economics, etc. I suggested he shoot for ten. The same might apply to writing a news release or some other piece of communication.

3. Prioritize And Analyze. Since he was writing an essay, I told him to look over everything he found and cut out the chaff. He needed three or four support paragraphs, which meant he could prioritize the three or four strongest research areas. The same applies to writing for communication too. 

4. Flesh Out The Facts. While one might assume that his notes would make it easy, I told him not to make assumptions. If any one paragraph raised more questions than it answered, he needed to find more facts. And while he was at it, he could scan the rubric list to make sure he hit all the points. 

5. Find The Lead. Based on the content of his essay, his lead materialized. When I wrote my own piece on the subject, mine centered around the inexplainable defeatist mentality that had embraced so many who liken the idea of a moon colony to wasteful spending and science fiction.

6. Write The Conclusion. This was the one area where the rubric was sort of right. The best conclusions usually summarize, restate, and provide some semblance of a call to action. Tying in the introduction can be a good idea too, assuming it fits. Most people don't struggle with conclusions, unless their entire body of content is weak. However, I sometimes wish writers would sweat the conclusion a little more; weak conclusions are like movies that don't wrap themselves up. They leave you hanging with nothing. 

My son found the process much easier to manage than the empty ad-lib. He also learned more than his essay would teach. But even more than that, the process helped him learn what a rubric cannot teach. It will help him find his passion in his subject, much like painters find a passion in their art beyond numbers and colors or writers discover the good and bad of applying algorithms to everything. 

Hopefully, these six steps will help my students too. We'll see on the next assignment. At minimum, I hope it changes the only stake many public relations pros have in any assignment (in class or at work): get it done and fire it out along with the other 4.3 million news releases that are distributed every day. Of course, there is one bright side. News releases used to pile up in landfills. Now it's just the Internet.

Improving Criticisms: How To Be A Critic Without Being A Cynic

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." — Oscar Wilde from Lady Windermere's Fan (often paraphrased) 

Every year when I return the first graded writing assignments to public relations students, many of them feel trepidation. They have every right to feel it. I tell them in advance that I'm critical about the work.

Some of them don't need me to tell them. Several students have told me that I have a reputation for not being easy, maybe even hard. The words "necessarily evil" are sometimes attached to the unwritten course description.

I don't mind the monikers, but most students would never guess that I feel trepidation when I hand the first assignments back too. The profession requires that instructors be critics. But not every student appreciates the difference between the critic and cynic. (And some instructors forget it too.)

Instructors are not the only ones who have to walk what is sometimes is fine line. Scores of professionals do: reviewers, journalists, bloggers, politicians, business people, etc. And some do it better than others.

How To Be A Critic Without Being A Cynic.

1. Be selfless instead of selfish. Critics lend their experience, expertise, and opinions to help improve the performance or material for the practitioner or for the benefit of others interested in the work. Cynics draw attention to their experience, expertise, and opinions, and often make fault-finding their mission in order to elevate themselves if not in the public eye than to appease their own flailing self-esteem.

2. Be humble instead of egotistical. Critics do not see themselves as the final authority, but rather challenge themselves and others to continually raise the bar and find solutions. Cynics believe they have already obtained the high water mark in observation if not performance, and expect no one else ever will.

3. Be direct instead of directed. Critics keep their judgements focused on the performance or material rather than the performer or author, allowing them to be direct in their assessment. Cynics believe that finding fault in individuals reaffirms their own virtue, and frequently attempt to pin any failings on someone or something. 

4. Be empathetic instead of aggravated. Critics are interested in the effort and the thought process that led to the performance or material because it may influence their overall opinion. Cynics are interested in comparing the performance or material to whatever template of perfection they have constructed, and are easily annoyed when others don't see it as they do.

5. Be democratic instead of dogmatic. Critics see the good with the bad, recognizing that one point of weakness doesn't necessarily invalidate the whole of the performance or material. Cynics are dogmatic, focusing in on any irrelevant imperfection in order to obscure any other merit and invalidate the whole.

You see the differences play out daily. Cynics dismiss good ideas based on nothing other than labels, whether party affiliation and family history or philosophical and ideological differences. Cynics employ diatribe to drown out differing ideas and opinions because other views are automatically invalid. Cynics work hard to make small things look big and big things look small, distorting the truth or initial intent. 

You can see it in politics, public activism, and corporate policy. The lines are usually specific and rigid. 

Critics, on the other hand, tend to be more amiable and lighthearted. And while that sometimes makes them easier to dismiss against the diatribe that surrounds them, they usually benefit over the long term — continually working toward a vision that is further ahead or attempting to pull people forward along with them.

All of it is something to think about, especially if you review the performance of others in a classroom or column, office or blog. Everything has value, and failing to recognize that usually comes with a cost far greater than any perceived price. Now go do the right thing.