Is your company ‘jumping the shark’?

Content marketing, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

A bit late in the day, I’ve recently come across the phrase ‘jump the shark’ – so called after the episode in TV’s Happy Days (younger readers ask your older colleagues) when the Fonz literally jumps over a shark on water skis.

This was the sad point when Happy Days had passed its best and the script writers started to resort to the ludicrous to mask a general decline in script quality. My own personal ‘jump the shark’ favourite would probably be Bobby Ewing ‘resurfacing’ in the shower in Dallas. But there are numerous others to while away your next coffee break.

Is your business jumping the shark?
Businesses too go through their own ‘jump the shark’ moments when particular initiatives pop-up that should probably have been resigned to the cutting room floor. As communications professionals, we’re often called upon to communicate these initiatives or work on the best way to communicate corporate messages that have a distinctly ‘sharky’ whiff about them.

As painful as it can be, it’s our job to call out those ‘jump the shark’ moments that are often lost in the echo chamber of corporate life. Failure to do so can mean anything but a happy day.

And it’s goodbye from me…

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How do you sign-off your email? And, why does it matter?

I’ve noticed recently that my preferred ‘kind regards’ seems to have fallen out of favour – according to this post from Mashable, ‘regards’ or ‘best regards’ only work for Victorian ghosts –  and my use of ‘cheers’ (when I know the lucky recipient of my email a bit better and have loosened my metaphorical tie) should be consigned to the same box where I keep my old tartan lined Harrington jacket and Complete Madness tape.

It seems that ‘thanks’ has become a more common sign-off – even when the writer has nothing to be particularly thankful for.

Of course, it does matter how you sign off your email but it doesn’t hurt to be flexible. Like any communication, you should perhaps think about how you tailor it for your audience rather than rigidly sticking to your usual method. There’s a bit of ‘mirroring’ psychology of in all this and adapting to the intended recipient’s style rather than slavishly sticking to your usual sign-off. Try and experiment with a few different sign-offs and see if anyone notices.

So, farewell then, (too much?). Back at ya (worse!). All the best (better)

Why not go ‘off grid’ with your communications?

Talking to your employees

There’s something very appealing to me about going ‘off-grid’. Of course ‘off-grid’ means different things to different people. For some it just about sticking some solar panels up on the roof, while others go the whole hog; farm a small holding, install some compostable toilets, dig a borehole for their own water supply…

IMG_1586[1]Kicking away the crutches of modern life’s conveniences – or inconveniences depending on how you see them – can be quite inspiring. So what if you can carry through the same ‘Good Life’ approach for communicating to your fellow employees?

 

 

The law of diminishing communications returns
“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate…” said Joseph Priestley. And he has something there if you think about how technology dominates how we communicate. In effect, the online tools at our fingertips, while very powerful, can risk making our communications increasingly ineffective. It’s the law of diminishing communications returns. The more you do of it, the less people listen to it.

What if you abandon the corporate intranet, do away with email, text messaging, instant messaging, and any other social tool like Yammer, and decide to do a little ‘off grid’ communication? Dig out your pre-online age communications toolbox and have a rummage and see what you can find:

Where
Not everyone can hangout online all the time; have a think about where your fellow employees physically hangout at work;

  • Reception areas
  • Kitchen/drinks areas
  • Lifts
  • WCs
  • Meeting areas
  • And of course, at their desks.

How
Now think about how you can use those areas;

  • Talk to each other…there’s an idea. What forums exist to promote ‘talking’? How are those regular soapbox presentations going? Email free hour? Team meetings, road shows…
  • Deskdrop – one guaranteed way of getting everyone’s attention for those really big announcements. Send a letter…in an envelope…addressed by hand…
  • Notice boards – not just one way communication; use a whiteboard and ask questions. You’ll get responses.
  • The rumour mill – great for finding out stuff but think how can you use it to push messages too.
  • Guerrilla tactics – how can you hi-jack existing ‘offline’ communications. Staff get a Christmas gift every year? A great opportunity to communicate . Or at the Christmas party…
  • Posters – people love pictures, so how can a series of posters help your internal comms campaign?
  • Newsletters – don’t underestimate the power of the hardcopy newsletter. Could be a one-off related to a particular event for example.

Let’s offroad!
Set yourself the challenge of running a communications project that’s entirely ‘off-grid’. You might be surprised at how successful it can be when you abandon online tools.

Mind you, the compostable toilets are still a terrible idea.

Where’s your bite?

Content marketing, Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

I’m no design expert but it struck me the other day while looking at my phone, how brilliant the Apple logo is. Yes, it’s obviously an apple – I told you I was no expert – but it’s the bite out of the apple that is the really clever bit.

There are all sorts of stories, myths and legends weaving around the web as to why the ‘bite’ is there. According to one media report some think it’s a play on ‘byte’, others relate it to the famous code breaker Alan Turing who apparently died by eating a poisoned apple. The truth is likely to be the more prosaic suggestion that the designer just saw it as a great way of differentiating the logo from a cherry.

AppleHowever it got there, the bite makes what would be a rather routine outline of an apple into something far more interesting. It suggests movement, action, even intrigue.

My point?

Writing can use the same trick to liven up a piece that might otherwise get lost although this time the ‘bite’ could be humour, creative language, a great picture to accompany the piece, or even an Unconvential. Grammar. Approach.

Next time you write something, take a moment to step back and ask yourself, “Where’s the bite?”

Good PR according to Taylor Swift – it’s ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room’

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So, I was at the Taylor Swift gig last Friday at Wembley Stadium – either I’m a fan or I have a tween and a teen who are, or both…you decide.

Taylor Swift 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s called the Reputation tour after her last album and, as she talked about the name, I thought she gave the best definition of public relations that I’ve heard in a long time. Of course she didn’t call it public relations – not many do any more – but she talked about reputation as: ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room ‘.

Most of the definitions of public relations from various industry bodies are quite stiff and go something like ‘the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics’. I’m picking on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations here but you get the point. Not very memorable and quite dry.

Taylor’s version though strikes home the power of PR over other marketing disciplines. Get your reputation management right, get people talking good things about your business when you’re not even in the room and you can avoid all that Bad Blood, get it wrong though, sour your reputation, and you’ll never Shake It off.