Trafcom News

Highlights from the IABC International Conference in New York

When I heard that the IABC International Conference would be in New York this year, I registered immediately, because I never pass up a reason to visit my home town. I really do like living in the Toronto area, but I’ll always love New York (as this sculpture on Sixth Avenue says).

Over four days, I met hundreds of people, attended some great sessions, spent time with friends outside the conference, and walked miles around Manhattan. Yes, I felt like a tourist gaping at the Empire State Building, meandering through the cool greenness of Central Park and wearing out my MasterCard at Bloomingdale’s.

Here are some of my impressions:

• Two years ago, at the IABC International Conference in Vancouver, social media was seen as a sort of odd duck. Blogs and podcasts were  new and different, and communicators weren’t quite sure what to make of them. Now, presenters would mention an employee blog or podcast as an integral part of a relaunched intranet without blinking an eye. We’ve come a long way, baby.
• If Bill Marriott can find the time to blog, so can your CEO. In his speech accepting the IABC’s EXCEL Award for Excellence in Communication Leadership, Marriott said that he dictates his blog content into a recorder, and someone on his communications team actually writes it up. Visiting 300 hotel properties per year, he’s a busy guy, yet  he invests the time to tell stories using this medium. That’s because he values storytelling as a way to engage employees and reach out to the public. He also acknowledged that his blog has generated millions of dollars in hotel bookings via a link on the home page.
• Seth Godin never disappoints. His high-energy closing keynote was sure to fire up some of the savvy communicators in the room and frighten the pants off those who don’t appreciate the way marketing has changed in the last few years. If you can’t be remarkable, then get out of the way.
• The conference parties will be hard to top at future IABC events. Kudos to Deloitte for the gorgeous food and drink at the opening reception at the Rainbow Room, and to CNW Group for the fantastic Canadian party at the Pegasus Suite.

And on a more personal note:

• Do Tokyo department stores not have nice washrooms? I ran into a gaggle of giggling Japanese girls photographing the ladies’ lounge at Bloomies. I guess I should have taken their picture.
• Speaking of stores, the level of service in New York is extraordinary – from the waiters in restaurants, clerks in retail establishments, even the woman selling subway tickets (who let me purchase a single ride, even though it’s against the rules).

Were you at the IABC conference? What did you think?

A restaurant of a different color

No, I’m not turning Trafcom News into a restaurant review blog. I’m hardly qualified to write about gastronomy. However, we discovered a fabulous restaurant in New York last night, a place with an interesting story and marvelous food, and I wanted to share it with you.

Colors, at 417 Lafayette Street, is said to be Manhattan's first restaurant cooperatively owned by former workers from Windows on The World at the World Trade Center. Six of us last night enjoyed the global menu at Colors – fried calamari, avocado salad, shrimp, skirt steak, salmon and pork – all served with creative combinations of veggies and sauces. Service was impeccable and the ambience was warm and inviting, as you can see from my lousy photo.

If you’re in NY, perhaps for the IABC International Conference, check out Colors and let me know what you think.

An interview with the Queen of PR Measurement

Katie Paine of KD Paine and Partners, the Queen of PR Measurement, was in Toronto recently for a Third Tuesday meetup and the Roundtable on Social Media Measurement. I was fortunate to get a quick interview with Katie, in which she touched on the value of measurement and how it's often misunderstood in the business world.

You can listen to this 18-minute podcast at the Trafcom News Podcast blog. Please let me know what you think!

Corporate podcasting -- on the inside

By popular demand (a few emails, really!), I'm publishing my article on podcasting inside the corporation right here for you.

If you're using a podcast inside your organization, I'd love to hear your story.

The feast for independent communicators

Stan Didzbalis, co-founder of AgencyLink, impressed me when I met him a few weeks ago at a meeting of the Alliance of Independent Practitioners (AIP), a subgroup of the Toronto chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Stan was there to deliver a talk called “The Feast Before You,” in which he shared an overview of current business trends that favour nimble independents. He knows his stuff, having devoted his career to making things happen in journalism, marketing and PR.

AgencyLink, his new venture, aims to bring together PR clients and firms in a new, more productive way. In a short interview you can download right here, you’ll hear Stan briefly talk about this, but the main subject of this quick podcast is the world of independent communicators and how they can specialize to survive.

By the way, this audio file is part of a pilot series I’m working on for AIP. It currently lives behind a firewall at the IABC eXchange, but in the future, we’ll be making some of this content public.

If you’re an independent, be sure to check out AIP Toronto.

Here are the show notes:
00:45 Intro of Stan Didzbalis of AgencyLink
01:20 About Agency Link and its mission
01:57 Independents must specialize; if you try to be a chameleon, you’ll end up a charlatan
03:10 Corporate clients want people who understand their business, who can come in and provide value from day one. Specialization also helps you to target your marketing.
04:00 Being a trusted advisor
04:20 Value of networking and building alliances
06:09 Comments from members at the meeting

Remember typewriters?

This lovely story in the BBC News brings back memories of my old typewriter. I wish I could say that I once possessed a vintage Underwood, but my first machine was actually a Smith Corona electric, which my parents delighted me with at Christmas. I guess I was already a nerd in eighth grade, looking forward to handing in neatly composed reports in high school. (Wait a minute, I asked for go-go boots, too, so I wasn’t too much of a geek.)

An expert typist herself, Mom gave me little stickers to cover the letters on the keys, and I dutifully taught myself to touch type. In grad school I owned a Brother electric, but it didn’t have the beautiful feel of the Smith Corona.

Years later, when my kids were little I remember hauling the Brother machine up from the basement before selling it. They looked at it curiously: “But what do you DO with it?” After I explained, they asked: “But where is the SCREEN?”

Some writers still swear by the typewriter as a way to boost creativity, but the Mac has spoiled me, ever since I replaced my electric typewriter with my first Apple in 1984. Do YOU own a typewriter?

NOTE: I am attempting to post this using TypePad’s mobile blogging service, so if it looks funny, that’s why.
UPDATE:  It did post, but the formatting was off and I couldn't add a category, so I've gone into the app to fix it.

Why clear communication is like hand washing

You can’t help notice all the stories in the Canadian media about drug-resistant germs in hospitals, rampant infections, and a low rate of handwashing by healthcare workers. As reported in the Globe and Mail:

With only 40 per cent of health-care providers in Canada properly washing their hands, experts say, infection prevention has become a hot-button issue.

As a consumer of healthcare, I wonder: Geez, I wash my hands before I prepare a ham-and-cheese sandwich, so why aren’t these hospital people scrubbing up before poking and prodding people with sharp instruments?
 
Here’s the answer, again from the Globe:

The problem of poor hand hygiene has confounded some of the best scientific minds in search of a solution. There have been poster campaigns and buttons... Some of the problem has been attributed to a perception deficit: Many health-care workers think they are already doing a good job of washing their hands.

So that’s it: They think they’re already doing it. Just like clear communication. If you were to ask the typical corporate employee if he communicates clearly, I’d bet he’d say: “Of course I do.” Then take a look at his latest email, report or PowerPoint presentation. What do you see? Meaningless subject lines, noun phrases of five words or more, the passive voice, a main point buried in the fourth paragraph of turgid text, run-on sentences, and stunning vagueness.

What’s the answer here? I wish I knew. Just as hospitals are running campaigns to boost handwashing (some with dubious incentives – doughnuts, anyone?), perhaps organizations need to focus on educating employees to communicate clearly, and reward them for doing so. What do you think? What do you see in YOUR company?

Pick your podcast style and format

What should your podcast be? Commentary, one-on-one interview, or script and clip? If you need help choosing, listen to this interview with Victoria Fenner, a talented radio and podcast producer.

Victoria and I  sometimes collaborate on podcast production, particularly for my conference podcasting business, PodcastYourConference.com. Check out Victoria’s Web site and blog.

You’ll find the 27-minute podcast and the show notes at the Trafcom News Podcast page. Please listen and let me know what you think.