Writing
It’s a lot easier to think of bad Oscar acceptance speeches than good ones. That is why the acceptance speech of best supporting actor Christoph Waltz at last night’s 2009 Oscars was such a delight. Waltz started off with a great scene-setter, an opening sentence that reminded us of his already-classic line from Inglorious Basterds, referring to the combination of the Oscar and presenter Penelope Cruz as an “uber bingo.” He then wrapped the usual recognition of his colleagues into a metaphor about discovering a new continent — thanking Quentin Tarantino (”this fearless explorer”) for “putting together an expedition” and producers Harvey Weinstein et al for equipping it, and then again praising Tarantino for his “unorthodox methods of navigation.” Waltz ended on a gracious note, saying to Academy members ”there’s no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you.” Read
Training
A national meeting of the best and the brightest in the field. A day of powerful research on a topic of urgent importance.
All far less meaningful than it could have been because almost every single one of the presenters–to a man and a woman–made three simple mistakes.
–They arrived with many slides, in some cases more than 40, for presentations that were to be no longer than 15 minutes.
–They crammed their PowerPoints with enough words and bullet statements to fill a book.
–They insisted on reading their slides, instead of engaging in a conversation with the audience. Read
Digital Services
Seth Godin spoke before the American Express OPEN conference and explained when social networking is useless.
It boiled down to basically, it’s useless when it’s fake. Just like in the real world, networking is only worthwhile when real substantial relationships are being cultivated.
Now, I’d add one grain of salt. That is that for some applications of social networking, you are looking for volume and you can get away with have “less real” relationships by making up for normal symbiosis with other items of value (contests, discounts, etc).
Watch the two minute video after the jump. Read
Litigation Services
Have you seen those new Toyota ads? The ones in which the company apologizes for letting quality slip. These are very unusual for a corporation facing product liability suits — and they are exactly the right thing to do.
Typically companies in Toyota’s position, clam up. Statements are defensive and evasive. Maintaining such a posture during the long life of a litigation will leave a company’s reputation in badly compromise.
Yet public opinion studies have shown that companies that publicly speak to their problems — that defend themselves but also that acknowledge faults and both pledge and work to fix them — build the trust of potential jurors, not to mention customers and suppliers.
Toyota is right to put corporate reputation first, and is likely to do better in court as a result.
Writing
As I write, Mr. Obama has just finished delivering his first State of the Union Address. We can debate the policies later, but for style, I felt he missed a key grace note of leadership. Over and over he used the word “I”. But the essential word of leadership is “we”. Nothing is about me. Everything is about us, the people, whom I, the leader, serve.
Digital Services
Digital social media has been a growing phenomenon for a long time, but 2009 marked a new high in terms of traditional businesses and media interest in the field. As 2010 begins, companies that are looking to begin their foray into social media should do so carefully.
A good consulting firm will not recommend the same social media approach for every client. Depending on your objective, there are a broad range of levels of engagement that could be appropriate.
Brian Solis has a helpful post today outlining his 10 steps of integrating social media into your business.
Practices Public Affairs Research Services
We often see clients who ask us to defend them against studies that make unsupported connections between their products and health or environmental claims.
Alex Lundry of TargetPointConsulting shows how scientific-looking charts can suggest outcomes that are nonsensical. For example, the universe of data you select is critical. (One of his charts shows that President Obama, when compared to every president going back to McKinley, is the all-time “pirate killer.” His record is sadly diminished, however, when you go back to Jefferson and Madison.) Read
Services Writing
Statistics are like a birthday gift. You never know what you’ve really got until you unwrap them. Take today’s unemployment data (for December). It shows the unemployment rate at 10 percent. That’s still lower than the rate at the peak of the 1982 recession — 10.8 percent in December of that year. But any experienced speechwriter knows that topline numbers are only a starting point, not a finishing line. Read
Digital Services
Taking a new look at old assumptions is as difficult in the digital world as it is elsewhere — something Wikipedia is currently discovering. The stewards of the open source site have started asking themselves if they can increase the accuracy of their entries.
As the Financial Times reports, the site’s stable of voluntary editors has not grown apace with its increasing volume of articles. The result, says the FT, is that entries “will be harder to monitor quality — and vested interests will find it easier to make alterations that reflect their own views.”
Not that the site lacks for accuracy challenges now. The FT notes that “even optimists… agree with the more skeptical observers on this: that in terms of reliability and service, Wikipedia still has along way to go.” Yet attempts to “subject changes by newcomers [i.e., new contributors] to approval by more experienced editors and flagging any revisions” have run into intense resistance in the hyper-egalitarian Wiki-corps.
The communications problem here is a familiar one: The world has changed. The organization needs to adjust. But both members of the organization (those most involved with Wikipedia are volunteers, not employees) and many of those it serves see the adjustments as violating the values and standards that got the organization where it is today and that they believe in. Part of leadership in a time of change is to communicate how fundamental values are being preserved, not thrown over, by recognizing that circumstances have changed.
Services Training
Surveys have found that, for most people, fear of public speaking exceeds fear of death. How does one in its grip deal with this fear? Former Microsoft executive and current professional speak Scott Berkum says just keep in mind that your audience dreads listening to you. They expect to be bored silly, so they won’t be disappointed if they are. For a witty review of his new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, read this article.