Gates Arguments and Good Cop/Bad Cop

Tonight the long-awaited Beer Summit on American Race Relations is being held at the White House. Where you stand on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates kinda depends on where you sit.

Because after all the discussions, arguments, jokes, whatever ... most already have made up their minds about what happened last week when the Cambridge Police were called to the home of the famous Harvard professor.


There are a couple of dominant narratives at work here:

The Police are Racist!

This is the easy one. Yes, law enforcement professionals tend to struggle with race. Anybody who wants to call me anti-police on that point should duck when they do. Google it if you must. Either way, the experience of African Americans -- and a good many others -- with law enforcement is not the same as mine. I accept that.

Many of those people heard the news of Gates' arrest and immediately understood it ... they knew it ... to be a simple case of racial profiling.

911 Call.
Black man.
Arrest.

Tinker to Evers to Chance.

But there's a counter narrative at work, too.

Just Say "Yes, Sir; No, Sir"

Those are the rules, right? This is what we still tell our kids and our irresponsible friends.

Generally it works for me, too.

No kidding.

No matter what your standing in society, it's easy to imagine yourself being popped for speeding or walking a line after three beers at happy hour. Yeah, bloody cops just trying to make quota, right?

But how many of us has ever been accused or even questioned about a brurglary? Or a robbery? Or a missing bike?

Yeah, I imagine it changes things.

The public relations point here is just this: You are not changing anybody's mind on l'affaire Gates.

Just not gonna hap'n.

But you might help them make up their mind.

Let's say 40 percent of Americans already think, nay, KNOW that this was a case of racial profiling or an overzealous cop.

Let's say that another 40 or so percent are positive this was case of a guy copping an attitude and thinking he's above the rules.

Still leaves 20 percent who just. don't. know.

That's where dominant narratives ... and elections ... are won and lost.

Just Kill a Guy

Early (well, earlier) in my public relations career I was confronted with the client or boss we all know.

In this case he was the CEO of his organization. He leaned across the conference table and, with his eyeglasses in one hand and the other hand clenched in ball pounding the table said, “Your job, young man [I was] is to get my name in the paper.”

I was just young enough that I couldn’t control the impulse to say: “Just kill a guy.”

After an eternal pause I explained that if all you want is your name in the paper, killing a guy … preferably in public … is the best way to ensure success.

Too many organizations mistake awareness for success in public relations. Too many professionals do too. They’re the agencies or consultants who promise to “tell your story” or to “make you famous.”

The power of your story should not be discounted, but it’s only part of the deal. What is your objective? What do you want to accomplish by having your story told, your name in the paper, by being ‘famous’?

Getting that client’s name in the paper was a means to an end. Unfortunately, it was an end he couldn’t articulate.

There was a time when just getting your name – or your preferred narrative – in print or on the air was enough. That’s where the audience was and news coverage was the most efficient way to reach decision makers, whether they were homemakers or CEOs.

The higher objective of public relations always should be just that: RELATIONS, or rather relationships. Name awareness counts, but does that work in other relationships in your life?

Or do you need a little engagement, too?

Awareness is a means …

Triumph of the Punditocracy

Lots of comparisons are being made in the news between Michael Jackson’s untimely demise and the loss experienced by previous generations when first Elvis Presley, and then John Lennon died unexpectedly.

There is no comparison.

First, the obvious: Artists of previous generations dominated their medium is ways that nobody ever will dominate again.

But here’s the biggest difference: When Lennon and Elvis died, fans immediately went to their radios. There was the usual silliness (I remember my local DJ interviewing via phone George Harrison’s cousin about Lennon and she hadn’t seen the man in years.

DJ: How was John the last time you saw him?

C: Well, he was seventeen years old …)

Yeah, it was like that.

And it’s like that again.

But where is the music?

Stations with a formats even tangentially related to pop music went into overdrive, playing anything and everything by the late-great.

Michael Jackson died (as I write this) three and a half days ago.

I have yet to hear a single Michael Jackson or Jackson Five song on the radio. I have yet to see a single Michael Jackson video on the teevee machine.

Bits and pieces, sure. Usually interrupted for commentary by Donna Summer or Smokey Robinson or Corey Feldman (!) or somebody else whose opinion is … well, you decide. But the news media has a single narrative:

what is said about the man … or the event … is more important than the event itself.

Weird.

Everybody Knows Trial Lawyers are Out of Control, Right?

We are a litigious society.

We all know that. It barely gets noticed when someone says it anymore because, y’know … sky blue, water wet. Some lady got $3 million for spilling coffee for crisakes.

Yeah, we get it. So much of our national productivity is sucked away by lawyers trying to score a big judgment and a hefty one-third lawyer’s share that if we only could rein this in we’d all have briefcase helicopters.

Or something.

The poster case mentioned above, as dubbed by ABC News several years ago, is the McDonald’s coffee case. A woman who ordered hot coffee from a McDonald’s drive-through and instead got REALLY HOT coffee that, when spilled, resulted in third degree burns.

As Bugs would say: What a maroon.

It’s coffee after all. It’s HOT. A jury awarded the victim plaintiff almost $3 millon.

Let me say that again: THREE MILLION DOLLARS!

How long would you sit in hot coffee for that kind of money?

But think before you answer. Few remember that the judgment subsequently was reduced to less than a quarter of that amount based on proportional liability, comparable cases … lawyer stuff. They also tend to omit phrases like “skin graft” and “labial separation.” Few reports mention that anymore.

But $$THREEMILLIONDOLLARS!!! is a great headline and that’s where the narrative went.

That narrative is what remains. It’s what we call a … wait for it …

Dominant Narrative

The litigious society remains a problem for the American economy. That’s why you’ve probably already agreed to give up your right to sue your credit card companies, insurers, parking lot attendants, maybe even your employer. You did sign a lot of stuff on that first day, didn’t you?

Before you sleep too well,you should listen to this.

There's only ONE Original

Not the best version available but the best without embedding disabled.

So far.

Media Relations Making Lemonade ...

And that's how a shiny new narrative is born.

As Americans grow accustomed during the recession to spending more time at home and living in the same places longer, home-improvement companies are regaining momentum.

See the rest here.

Try to get it out of your head

Happy Friday

When Catholics Attack!

There’s a big stink up in South Bend over whether the University of Notre Dame should or shouldn’t have invited the President of the United States (!) to address its graduating class of 2009.

Really, what institution of higher learning wouldn’t love to have a commencement speaker who, aside from being a constitutional scholar, the holder of a juris doctor from Yale, also happens to be a guy with a two-thirds public approval rating in the U.S. (it’s actually higher in many places) provide the keynote to the highlight of its academic year?

Apparently, a bunch of people.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the image of Randall Terry appointing himself spokesman for Notre Dame alumni.

Or Catholicism.

Or any religion based on compassion.

Let’s also leave aside the whole presbyterian (small p) authority over institutions in their dioceses.

Finally, whether or not you think President Obama or Bishop D'Arcy is right on their respective interpretations of the United States Constitution, we’re left with a single question:

What went wrong?

It doesn’t seem that anybody – the president, the bishop, the university – wanted this controversy. The president was reaching out to new audiences and the university was seeking the prestige of just about the best “get” of the commencement season.

So who screwed up and where?

The smart money is on Father John Jenkins. He’s the president of the University of Notre Dame and a heck of a lot smarter than me. Maybe even than you. But here’s where he made the mistake:

Fr. Jenkins is a leader.

One of the cardinal rules of leadership is that those whom you seek to lead must at least understand your decisions. If you get too far out in front of the parade, you’re just a guy with a baton.

Another guy smarter than me, who happens to be an alumnus of Notre Dame, told me that the university sees itself as America’s “elite Catholic university.” He said that the real question is whether they put the emphasis on “elite” or “Catholic.”

Not sure that’s the last word. A university must accept, even invite divergent points of view. That’s what universities do.

It’s an oxymoron to call an institution elite if it turns away the elite.

It’s incongruent to call an institution Catholic – or Christian – if it’s not compassionate.

It’s nonsensical to call an institution a university if it can’t tolerate dissent.

There are more constructive ways to bring prestige to an institution without alienating significant audiences. The good father could have created a forum for discussion of the borders between morality and legality. He could have invited the president to address the faculty or to speak to a collection of legal scholars.

Where Fr. Jenkins missed a step is in awarding a specific honor to an individual that some part – probably a minority but a very vocal one – of his constituency simply cannot abide.

And I Shall Smite Them with My Social Media Hammer of Justice

The second great narrative about PR is the shiny tool. In the last two decades there has been an endless supply of new tactics and applications that have changed the profession forEVAH.

Seriously.

Many of them have to a degree: at least in the sense that where practitioners spend most of their time – at least as a team – has changed dramatically. For example, PR pros very rarely walk into a newsroom and sit next to a journo’s desk to pitch a story anymore. When was the last time you ran 400 copies of a news release? Or licked a stamp?

Yeah, it’s like that.

Today the shiny new (NEW!1!) tool is something called … wait for it … social media. Social media will bring on the golden age of public relations. Or, social media will destroy and/or replace public relations as a business discipline.

Or something.

Todd Defren touched on a little bit of this several weeks ago. What Todd misses is that many organizations will accept the “PR is soo over” narrative and shoot themselves in the foot. While he and I have to let good people go write crappy blogs like this one.

See? Nobody wins.

We can’t worry too much about what propeller-heads think about what we do. Historically the people who create technology either vastly overestimate or underestimate its impact.

Short version: They have no idea.

The point here, is that if the value you deliver to your clients or your employer can be changed radically by a new a technology …

wait …

If YOU have changed radically the way you support or advise your clients or your employer because of changes in technology, be afraid.

Be very afraid.


Fear change because you are using a distribution model. Channels of distribution for information always have evolved. Right now, we’re picking up the pace. If you or your agency sees public relations as a tactical exercise, you’re … well … screwed.

You’re focused on HOW.

Public relations is about WHAT.

The other Ws (who, when, where, why) remain. This is where you live because it’s the basis of your relationship with all the audiences that influence your mission.

Because I get angry emails I’m compelled to point out that I’m one of the organizers of something called Cincy Social Media. I don’t hate the technology, I embrace it. But while technology changes, the basics do not.

These are simple truths:

People trust people more than they trust organizations.

People are social animals: they like to be with a crowd of folks that seem to be like them whether for support or affirmation.

Sharing is fun: Everybody likes to feel smart, whether they’re teaching the neighbor kid how to grip a slider or telling a co-worker about the hot new club.

Face-to-face interaction trumps any electronic interaction. That’s why in the face of iPhones and MySpace we still have MeetUps and TweetUps.

There are plenty more, but they come down to this: Real life matters.

But what matters most in real life is your message. And your message had better be based on What. You. Do.

Public Relations is absolutely not (just) about Telling Your Story. Neither is it remotely related to how many people follow your Tweets. Or fan your FaceBook page.




Image Cred: ripped from Ross Training who actually offers cool ideas on how to work out on the cheap. No kidding.

Hey, boy, where you been?

This is the question one of my older colleagues asked me a couple of weeks ago. After showing him how the RSS machine worked, I think I implied a more consistent level of activity here.

Hoping to fix that shortly.

In the meantime, Cincinnati Social Media really has taken off, both as a movement (love that word … so vague …) and as an organization. I make a point to avoid blogging about teh social media, at least to the extent possible. On one level, it’s a bit like blogging about the fax machine or, as Pete Blackshaw would tell us, the phone.

Even so, it being the shiny new tool and all, I find myself talking about it all day – internally and externally – and that leaves less time for thoughts about the whole dominant narrative thing.

Still, I have enough material in the analog notebook to fill another year or so. The only challenge is finding those moments to organize and upload them.

You have been warned.

Anyway, for the dozens or so of you remaining, my apologies and stay tuned. Especially tomorrow morning, when I finish that thang I started a month or so ago.

Image Cred