Just before Christmas the rather splendid Doug Johnston posted a review on ‘Tinderbox‘, a brainstorming/writing tool that Doug has found extremely useful on one of his projects.

Someone decided to ‘flame’ him, saying that the review smelt fishy because there was also an advert for a business related to Tinderbox on Doug’s site.

Doug’s comment engine is ‘down’ at the moment, so instead I post my unsubmitted comment here:

Hmmm… this appears to be someone who is looking to ‘be controversial’ rather than do some homework, read some of your other posts and recognise you as the true and gorgeously-talented wordsmith you are.

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I’m here at BetterComms Towers, just taking a moment from cooking a barbeque whilst gazing out at the glorious Adelaide hills, drenched as they are by a deliciously warm late afternoon sun, to consider what I am grateful for.

Gosh, it’s been a phenomenally fast year. It was only in March that I first started blogging; April that I started corresponding with Shel and Neville over at FIR (and July when I started presenting semi-regular reports).

Since then I have the following to be grateful for:

• The good friendships of and ongoing conversations with Allan Jenkins, Donna Papacosta and Ben Hamilton
• The joy of seeing Heidi Miller quite deservedly go from strength to strength in her own business
   
• The ongoing contribution to FIR and the very kind support of Shel and Neville. Knowing how much it takes to create a podcast, it continues to stun me that they do it twice per week (at a minimum). They are my online mentors and I look to them as worthy leaders in this new communication environment
   
• The incredible offer by Ben Hamilton to host my blog and podcast on DynamicWebHosting’s servers
   
• Blossoming new friendships with Dan York, Donna Tocci and Sallie Goetsch 
• New consulting opportunities in the Middle East as a direct result of my main website
   
• A personal invitation to converse with techies
   
• An average of nearly 100 regular readers of this humble blog per day, and around 200 listeners to my irregular podcast (and I’m sorry it’s becoming irregular; recent tight deadlines have kept me away from my microphone)
   
• The opportunity to share with a community of like-minded souls my passionate belief in the power of the written word to positively influence business.
   

I have a feeling in my bones that 2006 is going to be a good, even great, year for many of us. I trust you share with me the same optimism and I thank you for joining me on the journey thus far — I will work hard to provide enough good content that you will choose to stick around.

Kindests,

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I’m shutting down my notebook and bouncing off for the Christmas celebrations that start tonight at BetterComms Towers — see you in a post-bubby haze next week!

Whatever your beliefs, may your God go with you.

Kindests,
Lee

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That doyenne of Canadian Comms, Donna Papacosta, points to a conversation she had recently with a Type-A personality who pointed out he definitely keeps his mobile on 24/7 so that clients can do business with him.

Donna quite rightly asks if he answers the phone whilst driving with a mouth full of tuna salad.

I would ask if he takes calls on his mobile while attending to calls of nature.

I knew a chappy who did this — a salesman consultant for a recruitment company who had two mobile phones (one his, one supplied by the company) and he kept them on no matter what.

I once had the amused delight to be ‘adjusting my tie in the mirror’ when I heard a cubicle start talking to me. ‘Twas he taking an incoming call. Then my smile widened as a call came in on his other mobile — which of course he answered.

I wonder if both of his callers figured out why it sounded like he was in a cathedral. Praying for some peace and quiet, I guess…

I certainly keep my mobile on 24/7, but that’s in case my kids call me, and the mobile also acts as my alarm clock. So far no client (no matter where they are in the world) has called me at either 2am or at indelicate moments.

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From ABC News:
Something I have been saying for a long time but been politely smiled at whenever I mention it to clients. Perhaps now ears will be more open once the piece below hits the main papers…

A new study has revealed the true cost of early retirement to Australia’s economy.

The study by the Queensland University of Technology involved 1,000 mature-aged workers, many of whom said they quit full-time work because they felt undervalued.

The university’s Associate Professor Michael Drew says the loss of older workers is costing businesses tens of thousands of dollars in lost production and recruitment and training costs.

He says it is more cost-effective to retain those employees who are both loyal and experienced.

“Mature-age workers are also not just looking at career advancement, they’re also looking at imparting their skills to the younger generation which is an incredible saving for organisations,” he said.

“It retains the human capital and the knowledge in the organisation.

“Some studies have shown that say hiring an MBA graduate straight out of university may only last in that job somewhere around 18 months, where as someone who’s say 55 is certainly looking for a decade of work.”

Image: BrightSmile courtesy chriswatk at sxu

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After all the kerfuffle recently over Typepad challenges, including a recent comment by Dave Lorenzo on my last post about it , Stuart Bruce has moved to the typepad platform.

I understand the logic behind it, but having read of so many ‘challenges’ with typepad recently, I can only say: Good luck, mate!

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This would be incredibly funny, in an ironic way, if it wasn’t so terrifying.

Two incidents, reported in a cross-linking bloggy sort of way by IT BlogWatch, highlight how flimsy is our delusion that the defeat of the Clipper chip was the start of us regaining a sense of privacy.

Firstly, the leading provider of hacker-finding software gets hacked (they store the data unencrypted???), and a stack of personal material about FBI, Secret Service and NYPD folks goes walkabout; then ABN Amro announces a data tape with 2 million customer details on it goes walkabout as well.

Having read Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress a few months ago, my own sense of digital paranoia has been heightened. Today’s read of events I was not previously aware of do nothing to alleviate my nervousness.

If a blog post can come back to haunt you and your job/romantic prospects years later, what hope do you have when hackers can expropriate your identity and life?

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John Wagner and Todd van Hoosear have been commenting on their blogs about my original suggestion that good communications and communicators are ’slightly better nuanced’.

John suggests that the difference between his and Todd’s view may be one of semantics — a difference of opinion as to what I mean by ‘nuanced’.

Courtesy of Dictionary.com:

n : a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude; “without understanding the finer nuances you can’t enjoy the humor”; “don’t argue about shades of meaning” [syn: nicety, shade, subtlety, refinement]

Both John and Todd are right and both are wrong.

There IS no difference, as I see it, between having a communication piece that appeals to or creates unconscious recognition (pereferably positive) in a recipient and having a comms piece that is subtle — AS LONG AS the comms piece achieves its strategically-directed aim.

Todd refers specifically to John’s consideration of my idea regarding his own special area of interest, PR, and highlights the risk of the message being tossed out with the bathwater if it is not focused enough.

I totally agree, Todd — that can happen not just in PR-led initiatives but in ANY communication. The same applies with a communicator — a personable, agreeable and just plain ‘nice’ communicator might be a joy to watch on stage, but unless they focus on the message the message will be lost in the ‘noise’.

My view is more holistic than just PR — whether we are sending out comms pieces, whether we are standing in front of a microphone, camera or audience of thousands, whether we are designing a shop-front sign — we should be very much aware of the environment that surrounds us AND the type of recipient we want our message to appeal to.

By offering the target recipient more unconscious ‘hooks’ to persuade them to act in a way you want them to act, you are creating a slightly better nuanced communication.

Thanks, guys, for making this conversation such a joy to be part of!

Del.icio.us Tags:
nuance, pr, communication, todd van hoosear, john wagner, lee hopkins

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