Morningstar Communications Luminary Blog

Yesterday, I attended KC/IABC’s  monthly professional development lunch at Brio on the Country Club Plaza. These lunches are always fantastic networking opportunities combined with good food and great learning from our speakers. Yesterday we were lucky enough to have Nate Hancock*, leadership development consultant and facilitator for Black & Veatch University Corporate College, share tips on how you can tap into your potential, become a leader in your organization, and grow professionally.

*Quick note for sports fans, Nate’s father, Bill Hancock is executive director of a small organization you might have heard of. It’s called the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS.

As Nate discussed key competencies and how you can recognize your own, one example he shared stood out as something I think all professional communicators should value. This is the concept of strategic agility. Sounds like quite the corporate buzzword, but drill down and take a look at its meaning. For me, strategic agility means adaptability. It looks at how well you can adjust when things go awry. And they will.

For example, our team recently handled a major rebranding announcement for a client. We contacted a top-tier media outlet and arranged an embargoed story. The story was scheduled to run on a Monday. Friday afternoon, we get a call from a media outlet in the client’s home city asking about a cryptic story the reporter had just seen online. Turns out the media outlet broke our embargo (accidentally, but still broke) and published a story devoid of major details about the rebrand.

Now, faced with a situation like this, you can panic and exacerbate the problem, or you can adapt and, as the phrase goes, use the lemon to make lemonade. Our team was able to hustle and inform the client (their website wasn’t even live yet), get correct information to puzzled media and generally gain back control over a situation gone bad.

I’m sure there are many horror stories about similar situations out there. Feel free to share your best, or worst. Or, share what characteristic you think is most important for professional communicators.

I attended Social Media Club Kansas City’s monthly breakfast this morning and was both shocked AND thrilled by the turnout. On our Facebook page, we had more than 130 confirmed/maybe attending (I’m terrible at guessing crowd numbers, but I bet we had 70 or so people at The Kansas City Café this morning. That is a huge turnout for a group that not long ago thought 20 people at a breakfast was a huge number.

However, this event shouldn’t come as a surprise to those interested in social media for work or play here in town. Kansas City is fast becoming the Midwest’s answer to San Francisco and Boston, the two coastal bastions of all things tech. I, for one, am happy to see the growth. I use social media primarily for business (helping create online communities is fascinating work), but you’ll find people who have integrated it into their lives outside 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. I’ll leave the sociological examinations of this trend to Brian Solis, but suffice to say social media has become WAY more than just a Facebook page.

Illustrating this point was the social media team from American Century Investments, a financial services company with deep roots here in KC. Brent and Jaime shared a case on how their team used social media to enhance engagement and drive TV viewership of the 2009 American Century Championship golf tournament. Working with LIVESTRONG and other event partners, ACI was able to build a social media presence around the tournament, basically from scratch, in five weeks and achieve some pretty impressive results. In fact, during the tournament and immediately after, Twitter was the 17th referring domain to the ACI website. That’s a tangible move of the needle resulting directly from social media efforts.

You can check out some videos from the 2009 tournament here or learn more about the 2010 tournament here.

What’s your favorite example of social media usage in Kansas City? Sound off below!

Most people seem to think creative thinking is a skill you’re either born with or you’re not. Granted, some people do tend to have a talent for it, but like any other skill, creative thinking is something you can work to improve.

To help members sharpen the saw, the Kansas City chapter of IABC brought in Dan Coleman, creativity expert and author of Fresh Bursts of Fresh Squeezed Ideas, as the speaker for our April lunch. Dan gave a high-energy presentation stuffed with research about creative thinking along with practical, real-world applications. I’m sure he shocked some at first (including a woman sitting at my table who never seemed to think Dan’s jokes were as funny as he did), but in the end he gave a highly informative presentation that challenged everyone in attendance to change the way they look at creative thinking.

My takeaway quote from the session was, “Smart people don’t use tools.” When applied to creative thinking, this means most people rely on their intellect to come up with ideas. They don’t stop and use various tools to help them generate out-of-the-box ideas. Dan workshopped two of these tools with us in the lunch: reverse hidden assumptions and the SCAMPER method.

Reversing hidden assumptions means taking the obvious assumptions about a subject (taxi cabs are yellow) and flipping them (what about purple cabs?). The SCAMPER method is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, Rearrange. I’ll use the cereal example from the lunch. Looking at packaging, you could eliminate the box/bag method and instead use a jug as a way to keep cereal fresh for longer.

Dan also shared great insight on idea quotas, characteristics of a creative space and how bad ideas can evolve into great ones if you ask the right questions. So, what tips would you share to help others think creatively? Were you at the lunch? What were your thoughts on Dan?

As PR pros, it’s part of our job to work with members of the media in order to secure coverage for our clients. Frequently, this involves coordinating interviews for our chosen spokesperson. The responsibility for prepping that spokesperson also falls on us. We have to account for everything from what the person is wearing to how they should handle questions totally unrelated to the topic at hand.

Conducting a media relations campaign without a properly media-trained spokesperson is like planting a seed and forgetting to water it. Sure, it may still grow, but won’t ever reach its full potential. Why would you want to put in the hours on the front end to see the story fall apart due to a bad interview?

With the proliferation of social media, new avenues like webcasts, podcasts, Twitter interviews, and live blogs are being opened for PR pros. You shouldn’t treat these mediums differently from more traditional outlets, and I’d argue you need to do even more in order to ensure a smooth experience for both your spokesperson and his or her audience.

The good news is the steps to conducting a successful social media interview are similar to those for traditional media. Here are five tips to keep in mind:

1.    Get your tools in order. Social media means technology will be involved. As the saying goes, technology can make life easy when it works, and difficult when it doesn’t. Make sure your computer is hooked up to a reliable high-speed internet connection. If you’re on a laptop, check your battery life and plug in if you don’t think you’ll make it through the interview. Check your web cam connection and ensure it is functioning properly.
2.    Eliminate the extras. As with any interview, you’ll want to remove anything that can be distracting. Try to find a quiet, well-lit place. Close out any programs on your computer except the browser window or program you’ll be working in. Turn off or silence your cell phone. You need your attention to be totally focused on the task at hand.
3.    Share your information. Make sure you’ve exchanged contact information with the person interviewing you. It is essential they know how to contact you offline should something happen and you get disconnected.
4.    Practice makes perfect. Doing a live web show or podcast without having some degree of familiarity with the medium can cause even more stress. If possible, practice before your interview so you’re comfortable with the set up, the technology, and how the interview will flow. And, this will help with troubleshooting should issues arise.
5.    Have fun! It should go without saying, but too often we forget that interviews don’t have to be terrible things filled with worry. For most spokespeople, nine out of 10 interviews will be positive. Remember, the person you’re speaking with wants to hear what you have to say.

Have you done media training for a social media interview? What tips and tricks would you add to the list?

 Hopefully overshadowing Tiger Woods today is a great event organized by Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon called Help a PR Pro Out. You can read more about the event here. 

So Kansas City, let’s do a bit to help our fellow man (or woman) today? Have a job opening at your company? Tweet it, blog it, post it, shout it from a mountaintop or let Justin Goldsborough (@jgoldsborough) know about it. Or all of the above.

Looking for a job? Get your resume in tiptop shape and get out there and follow the #happo and #happokc hashtags on Twitter. Share your most creative personal pitch and let employers know who you are and why you rock.

I’m looking forward to hearing all the success stories from today, especially here in town. Maybe your story will be OUR story, as we need interns. We have an immediate opening for a full time paid intern and accepting applications for two full time paid summer interns.

Have a success story? Share it below.

 Last Thursday I attended KC/IABC’s Business Communicators Summit. It was my second time attending this all-day professional development buffet, and I would classify this year’s event as another success. We were treated to two great keynote speakers, Steve Crescenzo and Chris Brogan, as well as many breakout sessions on a wide variety of topics. Here are my key takeaways from each session I attended throughout the day.

Photo courtesy of KC/IABC

Steve Crescenzo kicked off the day with a brilliant presentation on creative communications. He was engaging, funny and shared some killer content. For me, the main takeaway was the idea that communicators must continue to push the envelope rather than settle for the status quo. We’ve all heard the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” mantra, but I like Steve’s take on it, “Proceed until apprehended.” As a new pro, I need to be more vocal with my ideas for new processes and/or opportunities. And, I need not be hesitant to just go out and do it, then show others how it worked (or didn’t). After all, I really don’t want to end up, as Steve said, a “Pudgy white man in a suit spewing corporate boilerplate.”

The first breakout session I attended featured Chuck Caisley and Katie McDonald of KCP&L discussing the company’s introduction of the Connections program. I admit I went into this hoping to learn a few tips on reducing my electric bill, if nothing else. Luckily, Chuck and Katie shared some great information on how they were able to create executive buy-in for their program using specific research generated from a customer survey. It was great to see research data used so effectively to demonstrate a need.

Phil and Alex from Spiral16 shared some wonderful insights on the benefits of data virtualization. This process reduces noise to help you tell an effective story and improves the speed of data processing. It is especially helpful when considering conversations in different social media and determining which are the most influential.

I’m a daily reader of Chris Brogan’s blog, and was looking forward to what he had to say. To me, Chris has a speaking style and tone reminiscent of the late comedian Mitch Hedburg. Very relaxed, though not near as spacey or staccato as Mitch’s trademark delivery. Chris shared some nuggets of brilliance, and not just his admission that 60% of his business comes from Twitter. (It CAN make you money!) My favorite quote was, “Corp Comm sells the dream, while customer service implements the nightmare.” I’ve blogged before about social media policies and the need for companies to empower all employees to act as brand ambassadors. Companies need to remember that TV interviews and newspaper quotes aren’t the only times their brand is in the spotlight.

The final breakout session I attended featured Jonathan Mast of Black & Veatch discussing his company’s efforts in the social media space. Black & Veatch was able to launch a successful internal CEO blog and a Facebook fan page for recruiting in just six months. Recent stats show B2B usage of social media continues to grow, though examples of success remain somewhat under the radar. The biggest takeaway for me here was his reasoning for implementing social media. For Black & Veatch, social media is about brand establishment and relationship-building.

Did you attend BCS as well? What were your key learnings?

Today is Friday, which means Follow Friday is in full effect on Twitter. The Follow Friday hashtag (I prefer using #FF to save characters) is a weekly meme on Twitter where users suggest other accounts to follow. I’ve been exposed to many informative and entertaining new people on Twitter by monitoring mentions throughout the day.

One troubling trend I’ve been keeping tabs on, and doing my best to nip in the bud, is people tweeting long lists of usernames without an explanation of who they are or why we should follow them. A better way to participate is to pick one or two people you want to recommend, and use your remaining 130 characters or so to tell us WHY we should follow them.

For instance, my #FF recommendation this week is @jpgardner for the great work he’s done on the new AMC Theatres website  and Facebook fan page. That’s 129 characters and clear insight into why I think he is worth following.

Twitter is all about enabling conversations, so let’s hope we see less talk and more interaction on Fridays in 2010.