Two articles about making the world a better place caught our eye this week. One is about a legal marketer telling law school grads to succeed by focusing on helping people – the other is about a CEO tackling the difficult subject of diversity.
We also have some witty dissents from the man poised to join the Supreme Court, the closest thing to teleportation you’ll likely ever see, new thoughts on Elgar’s Enigma Variations and some trends popping up in recent Medium posts.
With that, here’s Recent Reads.
An Interview With Cole Silver: How to Succeed After Law School – This is a worthwhile read about legal marketing, based on an interview with a unique member of the marketing team at Blank Rome, Cole Silver. Cole was a GC for 25 years before joining Blank Rome to help with client development. I love his punchline: “Forget sales. Forget business development. Forget marketing. Just go out and help people, connect with people, serve people. That’s it. If you do that, you will have a very handsome book after a few years because people will understand that you have their best interests at heart and they will reciprocate.” – Steve DiMattia
Tim Ryan’s Awakening – PwC CEO Tim Ryan takes an unorthodox and uncomfortable approach to driving the diversity conversation. While his method and lexicon would be lacking authenticity for many leaders, his Boston blue-collar roots make it real. What’s more, he’s using PwC’s expansive platform and relationships to issue a call to action to Fortune 500 CEOs to join him in a refreshingly different – and dare I say, smarter – conversation on the topic of race. Those who know Ryan best think he just might pull it off. – John Corey
The 4 Wittiest Dissents By Gorsuch – No matter what you think of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, we’ve read again and again that he’s a good writer with clear, mostly concise thoughts, which often come with a creative punch. I think our clients who are inclined to write – op-eds, bylines, written statements on news items, etc. – can learn something from Gorsuch’s style, especially his dislike for the passive voice, his “old nemesis.” – Agatha Howland
Meet the Students Racing to Make Elon Musk’s Hyperloop a Reality – Teleportation is happening! OK, maybe not teleporting, but you won’t have to get in a fighter jet to hit 600 mph once SpaceX’s hyperloop competition wraps up. The first round of tests happened earlier this week in California, where teams from universities around the world demoed their pods and, ultimately, learned from one another’s designs. It’s a unique competition, inspiring a drive to innovate, yes, but also collaborate. And as someone who learned how to drive on the hyper-congested, Colonial-era highways of New England, I can’t wait to see the final product in action. – Megan Duero
The cult of the paranoid Medium post – Anyone can post to Medium, and it has hosted some great think pieces by authors who might not have had a strong platform otherwise. But it also can provide some credibility to (likely) well-meaning people whose ideas are more cathartic than convincing. As the Washington Post smartly points out, “There’s a weird sort of relief that comes with believing you understand, at least, why a bad thing is happening, even if you’re powerless to stop it.” – Paul Wilson
Breaking Elgar’s Enigma – For those of you who liked Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle,” you’re in luck. In Daniel Estrin’s piece in The New Republic, he undresses composer Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”), an orchestral work comprising 14 variations on an original theme, and widely believed to involve a hidden melody, through the eyes of a devoted musical aficionado. If you have an appreciation for the classics, you might enjoy this piece. – Christian Erard
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There’s a new dynamic in Washington, D.C., in which critical issues are arguably debated with unsupported claims and promulgated by sources who intentionally refuse to correct them, while the media is denounced with open contempt at the highest levels. Even for organizations not directly involved in politics, it’s worth wondering whether the ground rules for thought leaders are changing – and changing dramatically.
This is an important question at Greentarget, where we promote and protect our clients’ brands and reputations. Because what many of our clients sell is their own intellectual capital, we spend a good portion of each day helping them participate skillfully in influential conversations on the belief that their ideas, if articulated clearly and disseminated effectively, will drive meaningful interactions and business.
But even if Washington has changed (dramatically) in a relatively short period of time, I’d argue the thought leadership rules we regularly preach to our clients haven’t changed; in fact, they are more important than ever.
We tell our clients that the core tenets of basic decency must continue to guide their thought leadership. And we believe adherence to the canons listed below will distinguish their messages and help them truly contribute to a smarter conversation.
- Be honest.
- Be smart.
- Be kind.
We’re really not trying to make Recent Reads all about politics, dear readers. But with the crazy amount of news coming out of Washington these days, much of our collective attention is almost necessarily focused on what’s happening in the Beltway.
We hope our national gaze will turn to other matters – pitchers and catchers report in about a month! – as 2017 progresses. But we’re not holding our breath.
With that, here’s Recent Reads:
BuzzFeed’s decision to publish dossier reasonable – There were plenty of articles this week supporting and decrying BuzzFeed’s decision to publish an unsubstantiated intelligence report alleging that the Russian government had compromising information on Donald Trump. This article probably didn’t garner the most attention, but it’s interesting in that it comes from a PR consultant who works for Republicans and who explained BuzzFeed Editor Ben Smith’s thinking by way of a 15-year-old conversation. I’m not sure where I come down on BuzzFeed’s decision, but this is definitely another instance of the norms of our society changing, and changing rather abruptly. – Paul Wilson
Trump, ‘Lies’ and Honest Journalism – Gerard Baker, The Wall Street Journal’s editor in chief, wrote this piece in response to criticism of his comments on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that he would be careful in using the word “lie” in regard to comments made by Donald Trump. Bottom line: Baker is concerned about certain words and their moral implications, particularly in this tumultuous era. – Abby Moriarty
Brands Start Planning for Unexpected Criticism of Trump – For years now, smart companies have scenario-planned for activist investors, predictable crises and operational snafus. However, they may not have planned to have their actions – positive or otherwise – scrutinized in the blink of an eye in the Twitterverse. That potential is becoming a reality for many companies, particularly given the big changes in Washington. – Larry Larsen
One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die – This story is about B.J. Miller, a doctor who has a unique perspective on living and dying due to a near-death experience that left him a triple amputee. We often talk about grit at Greentarget; he has exemplified it in his recovery and now in his work to change the way we approach palliative care. It’s a moving and beautifully written account of his life and mission. – Stephanie Burke
Wearables Could Soon Know You’re Sick Before You Do – Depending on your point of view, this news (which is basically explained in the headline) is either really cool or extremely creepy. But we’re apparently not that far from a time when wearables can tell you you’re coming down with something, allowing you to take action. Here’s hoping technology doesn’t make hypochondriacs act even more like hypochondriacs. – Jackson Pillow
An Experiment in Radical Empathy – After gathering a group of 16 strangers, half vehemently pro-gun, half gun opponents or victims of gun violence, New York magazine put them in a room, paired them off and asked them to share their personal gun stories with one another. Then each had to tell the other’s story – from their partner’s perspective, even using the first person. The results provide a moving, revealing glimpse of the power of empathy – and its limits. – Brandon Copple
In the days immediately after one of the most contentious (and shocking) presidential elections in American history, we attended Social Media Week in Chicago. As you might expect, the election — and social media’s role in it — were the talk of the conference.
After a race in which voters relied on candidates’ social media posts more than their websites and emails as campaign news sources, the conference provided some valuable takeaways.
Personal Versus Professional Divide
Social media, obviously, has professional and personal uses. But millennials — particularly those who’ve grown up with social media — often have difficulty operating effectively in both worlds. Personal posts are often quick and fun, while work posts must be more deliberate and strategic. This is something we think about a lot at Greentarget, where we emphasize thoughtfulness in writing social posts about (sometimes extremely) complex topics.
It’s important for companies to encourage appropriate social posts. Social media is a big part of the digital workspace, where employees are expected to seamlessly collaborate around the world, allowing the diversity of ideas to foster innovation. Unfortunately, employees and leaders at many organizations see social collaboration as a nuisance — when they should see it as a new way to communicate internally as well as with clients and prospective employees.
With the election fresh in our minds, we couldn’t help but think of Donald Trump as someone who effectively blended professional and personal social media messages. While Trump’s critics might find his style troubling, he has pushed boundaries on Twitter and has changed social media’s role in the public discourse. And, of course, he notched an Electoral College victory.
Measurement
As our colleague Pam Munoz wrote recently, measurement will likely continue to dominate conversations about PR strategy, especially those focused on how social media supports and elevates a brand or message. The challenge is that, thanks to relentless change and innovation, social media metrics are constantly changing.
Traditionally we could only measure impact by counting clips and mentions because there was no way to measure the dialogue around news stories. But social media affords opportunities to measure reach and engagement with new metrics like shares, reviews, sentiment and advocate engagement. What hasn’t changed is the need to identify metrics for success at the start of any campaign. Today we can determine the impact of content across social channels by measuring our actual results against what we defined as success factors.
The impact of strong (and measured) results in social media was also on display in this year’s presidential election campaign. Last summer Forbes measured Trump and Hillary Clinton’s followers, social engagements rates, sentiment, SEO, visibility, ad spend and media coverage across a variety of social sites. The article revealed concentrated efforts to leverage social media channels more than candidates had in past elections. The metrics are important because the numbers allowed each candidate to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s important to note that Trump was winning the social media war when the article was written — months before he would win the election.
Social Listening
At Greentarget we pride ourselves in being able to help our clients engage in smarter conversations, and a big part of that is taking a step back and understanding contrary opinions.
This relates to social listening, a theme across several panels, including this one, during Social Media Week. Social listening involves assessing what is being said about a specific entity on various platforms and using it to discover what people are actually talking about. It requires going beyond just monitoring Twitter mentions or Facebook comments; you must dive deep and expand your search past your own personal pages and feeds. It is particularly helpful when trying to pinpoint trends, insights and conversations that matter to specific audiences, something we do frequently for our clients at Greentarget.
Given the prominence of social media in the campaigns, we wondered whether improved social listening could have prevented the shock after the final result. In addition to dominating the social conversation, Trump had more “pro” hashtags than Clinton according to research compiled by Tracx, a social media management platform. The same research also showed that similar trends played out in the swing states, where Trump pulled in nearly four times as many positive hashtags as Clinton.
Keen observers could have spotted these trends in the weeks and months leading up to November 8.
