Management Newsfeed Update

I have been on the road this week, presenting key findings from our 2008 Trust Barometer in Seattle, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. I was fortunate to team with top thinkers in politics, media and communications theory, including Jeff Berman of MySpace, Chris Kelly of Facebook, Katie Hafner of the New York Times, author Bob Cialdini, as well as Dan Schnur and Tony Blankley of Edelman. One of the interesting conversation threads during the last three days was how to achieve trustworthiness by admitting imperfection.

Bob Cialdini said that an effective communicator uses the technique of mentioning a drawback in his/her position before delivering the strongest argument in the debate. “You establish credibility by admitting weakness. You gain a moment of persuasive power that opens the listener to really hear the best feature of your argument.” He used Avis car rental’s tag line, “We’re #2 but we try harder” as the classic example of this theory. He went on to say that trust is premised upon a combination of knowledge/expertise linked to the perception that the information is being delivered in an honest way.

Tony Blankley observed that during a recent debate among Democratic candidates John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, a question was asked, “What is your worst personality trait?” Edwards and Clinton gave the tired responses of “I care too much” or “I work too hard “, Obama, by contrast, said, “I lose my work papers.” Blankley noted that with that totally human response, Obama might have risked more, but “in giving something away, he sets the viewer up for his major point of difference, his ability to relate.”

Chris Kelly noted the trend toward use of real names in social networks, replacing the screen names of the early days. “You cannot build trusted relationships on Facebook without your real identity out there,” he said. “Why should you accept an invitation to be a friend unless you can trust the other person?” Berman of MySpace noted that, “Everybody is with us for 15 people, not the 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame. But some of us are more willing to share in a public manner.” He also pointed that the Obama campaign’s approach to phone banks is more authentic– “young Obama supporters are asked to call up their friends and tell them why they are supporting the candidate; no more cold calls or taped robo-calls.”

Katie Hafner of the NY Times ended our panel at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley on Tuesday night with the big question, “Are companies really committed to transparency?” I believe the answer is increasingly they are because it is both smart and necessary. Back in 8th grade after I threw an interception that was run back for a touchdown, my football coach told me “Get back out there and throw another pass. But don’t look at your receiver the whole time so everybody on the other team knows what’s coming.” Trust is achieved by honest behavior over the long run; if you make a mistake, admit it and get back in the game with a better plan.

On Saturday evening, my youngest child, Amanda, will be celebrating her bat mitzvah. This joyous event has sparked the usual last minute scurrying, from seating arrangements to a slide show of childhood pictures to rehearsals with both her Rabbi and Hebrew tutor.

To calm her nerves, I told her about my disastrous Bar Mitzvah experience, so that she knows how low the expectations are for her. As the eldest in my immediate family but fourth in the line of Edelman male offspring (sons of my father’s siblings), I knew what was ahead, with three successful services completed by my cousins. My grandfather had retired as a lawyer just after World War II to study the Torah. He was a serious man, committed to his religion and to his family. My father, though raised in an Orthodox home, had moved toward the less demanding Reform branch of Judaism, but really knew his stuff.

I went regularly though not enthusiastically to religious school on Sundays, learning more about Jewish history than the Hebrew language. As the great day inexorably approached, I visited the rabbi of Temple Sholom with my parents. Rabbi Binstock was a quite intimidating fellow, solemn and formal, as he walked me to the lectern that overlooked the 2,000 seat sanctuary. I was convinced that he had a blue glass eye (that rumor was rife in Sunday school) that followed me in my dreams, as if I were in an Edgar Allen Poe story. To prepare for the Bar Mitzvah, I opted to memorize my Torah portion in two parts, rather than really becoming facile in the language (note that the Torah has no vowels and is therefore harder to read than a normal prayer book with vowels).

My grandfather and my father flanked me as we walked onto the stage to begin the Bar Mitzvah service. My grandfather walked first toward the ark holding the Torah, up the stairs, and took the sacred text in his arms. As we stood and prayed, I alone noticed how he was rocking backward, as if to fall. I ran over to brace him as the service continued. Then we walked to the lectern, opened the Torah, and I began to chant in Hebrew. I noticed my grandfather frantically pointing at the text, gesturing with the silver implement designed to aid the reader, while my father impassively looked on. I realized to my horror that I had begun with the second part of my Torah portion but just proceeded as the lesser of two evils, hoping not to see the Rabbi’s glass eye. I raced through my required Torah text, then mumbled my way through my speech, gratefully taking my seat with my friends from Latin School who had endured the lame performance. Later that evening, my parents decided that it was best for me to go off to prep school for 10th grade; they needed more than divine intervention for this case.

Each of us has moments which you seek to recover later in life. As my two older daughters have celebrated their Bat Mitzvahs, I have read my portion from the Torah, not sung brilliantly but adequately. I have every expectation of doing so again on Saturday, having rehearsed on the subway for the past few months on the way to work. So Amanda, go for it kid and know you can’t do any worse than your old man did forty years ago.

The Financial Times has recently amended its on-line business model to maintain subscription revenue while opening its walled garden to the general conversation on-line. Any reader can get access up to five articles a month for free. After five articles, you must register, enabling you to read another 25 articles for free. After 30 articles, you must be a subscriber to FT.com or to the print edition for $99 or $199 to include mobile news reader. The theory behind the pricing policy, like that of the Wall Street Journal’s digital effort is to preserve a solid subscription base while ramping up advertising, to assure that the high quality journalistic standard is preserved. The registration also tells the FT about their audience for targeted advertising.

According to James Montgomery, who is the editor of the FT.com, the business model was put into place with the particular aim of being “in the blog conversation.” The FT.com and main FT reporters have been merged into single entity, tasked with creating print content for the web, for the print edition, as well as commissioning and appearing in video content for the web (finished by professional video editors). The reporters are given the option of putting out short versions of breaking news, then adding to the story based on talking to sources, or using Reuters wire copy for the initial break and then posting a story when fact-finding is completed. Montgomery noted that FT.com is not averse to receiving b-roll video material from PR firms as long as it is short and visually arresting (no talking heads, please). Though they do not currently use any video from PR firms, and don’t foresee using b-roll footage extensively in the future.

Blogging is a key part of the FT.com strategy, with nearly 20 of the reporters as regular bloggers. There are also industry blogs for technology, energy, UK politics and EU politics, as well as their flagship finance blog: FT Alphaville. FT journalists “get quite a few comments on their blogs and on their stories,” Montgomery said.

Why does this continuum matter for mainstream media? I had lunch today with Josh Spear and Aaron Dignan of Undercurrent, a digital consulting firm advising Fortune 500 companies on Generation Y. I learned that on a Sunday morning, Gen Yers are inclined to sit on their beds checking out news on a wireless basis, from the Drudge Report to Treehugger.com to Gawker to Seth Godin. The Sunday NY Times is also on their list for the Sunday magazine, for Rob Walker’s Consumed column, but also to check out Walker’s blog on NY Times.com, where they post comments. When researching current delegate totals for the two Democratic presidential candidates, they choose among BBC.com, WSJ.com, NYTimes.com and ElectoralVote.com, sharing insights with friends on Facebook or other social media. Spear and Dignan skip advertising, whether ignoring pop-ups or fast forwarding on DVR. They integrate peer recommendation with journalist observation.

As accountability media asserts its credibility based on resources, experience and excellence of team, it is important for PR to involve regular people through social media to provide observations that humanize and connect, so that the ‘voice of authority’ is friend and confidante. In this light, PR must facilitate the links to experiences while providing authoritative background material that can improve the conversation.

Today is Super Tuesday, likely decision day for the Republicans (McCain) and another step toward resolution of the Democratic Party’s contest between Senators Clinton and Obama. What has interested me about Campaign ’08 is the change in communications mix, away from traditional advertising and toward public relations.

Karl Rove’s op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday made two important points. First, TV ads don’t matter as much as they used to. “Voters are discounting advertising…relying more on personal exposure, information from social networks, alternative information sources like talk radio and the Internet and local media coverage.” Second, he suggests that the PR person is more important to a candidate than the advertising person. “The 20th century’s closing decades saw the rise of the TV ad man as the most potent operator in presidential campaigns. The 21st century’s opening decade is seeing the rise of the communications director and press spokesman as the more important figures on the campaign staff.”

I reflect on my own experience in this cycle. As an early donor to the Obama campaign, I have been kept fully up to date through emails from campaign manager, David Plouffe. I receive digitized video of stops on the campaign trail, easily forwarded to friends. I saw a terrific video over the weekend from a variety of artists supporting Senator Obama, at www.dipdive.com. All of this on top of the aggressive campaign in “free media,” in particular maximizing endorsements by Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy. This stands in vivid contrast to the costly decision by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to forego the early primaries, thereby dropping out of the news cycle, rendering him irrelevant despite saturation advertising in the Florida primary.

While at the World Economic Forum, I spent time with Steve Grove, Director of news and politics for YouTube. His job is to screen and organize the user-generated content by candidate and by issue, so that all Americans are able to vote in an informed manner. Apparently while in his second year at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Grove approached the school with a request for a grant to do exactly this type of work; now it is a key part of the media for the campaign. Note the effective Romney campaign video of the candidate’s son making a prank call to his father mimicking Governor Schwarzenegger as the Terminator.

As the world moves toward technology, some things still don’t exactly work well. The voting machines in our precinct in New York City on the Upper West Side were not operating today. So it was back to the paper ballot and the “make your mark” instruction from the nice woman in charge. My only request of all of you; whether your machines work or not, get out and vote.