I’ve taken a big risk.

I’ve decided to merge two separate groups of people: people who subscribe to this blog, and people who subscribe to my increasingly infrequent but more formal html newsletter.

This could either see a mass ‘unsubscribe’ as the expectations of one group are not met, or else it will be ‘Business As Usual’.

I have/had 275 subscribers to the newsletter I ran on my main website, Hopkins Business Communication Training.com. But this evening I ported them across to this blog’s email service, run by Feedblitz.

The instructions weren’t 100% clear (or I wasn’t reading them clearly) and so I gave the subscribers some confusing information; I told them that they’d need to re-subscribe and so needed to click on a link.

In fact, they/you need do nothing to receive emails from me — my fault entirely. They/you do need to click if they/you want to unsubscribe.

If you are one of the subscribers to my main website’s newsletter and you received a confusing email from me, my apologies. If you want to keep hearing from me, then do nothing and all will continue as normal, albeit with a lot more frequent contact from me.

If you don’t want to hear from me anymore, then please ‘unsubscribe’ by clicking on the link at the bottom of the email you received.

Again, my sincere apologies for any confusion I may have caused you.

p.s. and ‘Welcome!’

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M y friend and colleague Shel Holtz is the latest in a lengthening line of Comms bloggers singled out for criticism by La Strump.

In his rather erudite post, Hiding behind the facade, Shel goes to some length to politely rebuke a personal attack.

The Strump then decides to attack not only Shel, but one of his blog’s visitors:

Shut up Alice.

Comment by Amanda Chapel on 26-04-06 at 16:25

First Crescenzo’s attack on Jenkins, now La Strump’s attack on Shel. Whatever happened to good manners?

Well, I’ve taken a stand against such nonsense and put La Strump’s IP address into my spam blacklist file. I don’t see why my readers should have to weather the slings and arrows of La Strump’s outrageous spelling, grammer and childish temper tantrums. I call it exercising my editorial and publishing rights.

Let the firestorm of immature invective about me start, but it won’t be starting on this blog.

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T his joke is millenniums old, but worth repeating, as Anders did a couple of weeks ago.

But it was Merry Elrick’s comment/follow-up punchline that cracked me up!

Herewith the joke and Merry’s punchline:

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You go up to her and say, “Hi, I’m great in bed, how about it?”
That’s Advertising.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You talk to a friend about it. She goes up and says “Hi, my friend over there is great in bed, how about it?”
That’s Media Relations.

You go to a party and see an attractive girl across the room. You recognize her. You walk up to her, refresh her memory and get her to laugh and giggle and then suggest, “Hi, I’m great in bed, how about it?”
That’s Public Relations.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You stand straight, you talk soft and smooth, you open the door for the ladies, you smile like a dream, you set an aura around you playing the Mr. Gentleman and then you move up to the girl and say, “Hi, I’m great in bed, how about it?”
That’s Selling.

You go to a party, you see an attractive girl across the room. SHE COMES OVER and says, “Hi, I hear you’re great in bed, how about it?”
Now THAT is the power of Branding.

To which Merry replied:

You go to a party, have a few drinks, and then you walk home. You climb to the top of a rooftop and shout at the top of your lungs, “I’m great in bed!”
That’s Spam.

BRILLIANT!

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I’m willing to try anything at the moment.

Now that Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is out and about, I’ll use it to replace my frustrating experience (yes, another one!) with Firefox.

Firefox works perfectly for about a month, then simply ceases to function. It opens up to a blank screen, no buttons work, no menu items, nothing.

Nothing left for it but to reinstall and (thankfully) it keeps its old settings.

But having to reinstall it every month is frustating, so since I have (almost) never had any problems with Uncle Billy’s toys, I’ll test out the latest one.

Looking forward to it, and thanks, Neville, for the heads-up.

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Brad Whitworth over at the IABC employee comms blog points to a new book by Susan Scott, Fierce Conversations.

I haven’t read the book myself, but Brad reckons that the sort of in-your-face, open conversations that Susan suggests might be the way to go…

“Some people are ready for that sort of personal or organizational conversation. Look at the impatience of some of the Y-Gen crowd that’s entering the workforce today. They ask, “Why should you and save up our thoughts about my performance for some staged, annual review. Let’s talk about it right now.” They grew up on video games, operate at twitch speed and are ready to handle good and bad news.”

Susan’s ‘Seven Principles’ are:

Perhaps the newest entrants into the workplace can handle confrontational conversations, but many of the first and second jobbers at the places I visit are a bit shy and scared of the ‘bosses’ and anyone significantly older than them. Perhaps its just a cultural thing.

Susan garners an impressive list of ‘people of notable redoubt who get paid to read books and review them’ and a clutch of fabulous comments like:

• Fierce Conversations is the perfect gift for anyone you care about, and above all yourself!
  {gag me with a spoon}
  
• The conversation is the relationship. This book will help you gain the insight and skills to make every conversation count. Are you ready?
  {tell that to corporates who believe web2.0 is ‘nothing for them to worry about’}
  
• When the authentic conversations so clearly described in this book catch on everywhere, it will be the end of gossip, corporate politics, bad marriages and 360° feedback.
  {from the guys who wrote FISH! and FISH! Tales}
  
• She encourages readers to reach for their more authentic growth tendencies and ultimately to see the rewards of self-actualization

Now, I can throw up at vacuous Corporate/Literati Americanisms as well as the next person, but Brad asks a useful series of questions at the end:

What about your organization? Is it ready to hold the fierce conversation? What about you? Are you ready? Can you handle the truth?

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My mate Trevor Cook has a chapter in a soon-to-be-released book on, guess what…

Okay — blogging and PR!

Darn, you guessed

If you want anyone to review it, Trevor, you know the address (but just in case, here it is again, in a shameless pitch for a freebie/review copy)

PO Box 1129, Stirling, 5152

“This is a broad, but deep look at the social, political, business, and academic effects that blogging is having on our society. Highly recommended!”
Robert Scoble, Corporate Blogger, Microsoft Corporation

I wrote the book’s chapter on PR, so I’m very happy that the project seems to be going so well.

Plug: You can preorder at Amazon and it will out in two months or so.

As you can see the cover image emphasises the multiplication of voices through a phalanx of advancing microphones.

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Courtesy of some dear friends that I’ve known since high school (some 30-something years), I got hold of a long-cherished album on cd.

I only had the vinyl version of ‘Status Quo Live’ and hadn’t listened to it in years.

But with the arrival of the borrowed cd version I could load up my mp3 player, jig my head up and down on the bus and cause worried glances from my early-morning bus-riding colleagues.

What’s this got to do with business comms?

Well, the beginning of the cd is a classic ‘opening’, the sort of opening that, at a concert, has you shouting and cheering your lungs out before the band has even walked on stage, so that when they do the whole place erupts…

I only have to hear the opening few bars and Frank Rossi’s “Ow are ya then, awright? Can we have a bit of bounce, eh?” and I can imagine the crowd bouncing up and down in time, just as I have done at many a Quo concert myself from the mosh pit.

It’s the same sort of powerful opening that graces my son’s Slipknot live cd, albeit a completely different style of band. The MC, from the cover of darkness, apologetically announces that due to illness the gig is cancelled, and that the ticket vendors will be organising refunds or alternatives. The crowd, probably not comprising your average church goer, goes mental with frustration.

And then the band walks on… and you can imagine the noise!

Again… what’s this to do with business comms?

Well, what sort of opening do you have to your comms pieces? Do they make the audience want to join in the fun before you’ve even started? Do they make the pulse race? The heart beat faster? Your eyes widen in anticipation?

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W OW! It sure got heated for a while…

I was ready to put on my boxing gloves and wade into very murky mud in defence of Allan… I detested seeing a colleague and friend get slandered by another colleague who has the oxygen of newsprint. The flames coming out of Crescenzo’s mouth were pretty large and extremely ugly.

But at the end of the discussion all had kissed and made up, which helps. But the bad taste left in my mouth and the olfactory assault will be harder to erase from my memory.

Crescenzo ‘respectfully’ shows that he and Murray can be huge jerks. Boy, must make Ragan conferences “good ol’ boy” fun places to be at…

Allan, you have my permission to tip a beer AND a table over the both of them. In your original post you only mentioned ‘why’ you chose not to pay attention to Crescenzo — Crescenzo out and out slandered you. With malice aforethought.

Gosh, I can hardly wait to grow up to be a REAL business communicator, so I can slander as many people as I like and then grin inanely, put on my stupid boyish smile and say,” sorry, but we’re all jerks.”

Lost any respect I had for Crescenzo, that’s for sure.

I think Shel’s comments were ‘on the nail’ — but Crescenzo wasn’t interested in hearing them, unfortunately.

But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a nobody…

An open letter to Steve Crescenzo

Here’s the comment I posted in reply to Steve Crescenzo’s post.

” Interesting post, and I thank Eric Eggertson for bringing it to my attention.

Steve, you misrepresent me in your post, but I am sure it’s friendly hyperbole. But I’d like to clear up a couple of points for your readers who don’t know me.

First, while I responded tartly to David Murray on my blog, the message should be clear: I know of no credible communicator who sees social media as immediately revolutionary, but I know a hundred who are fitfully working toward an idea of what it will mean for internal communication over five to ten years.. In short, I answered “We don’t know what it means, yet, but you are welcome to come out and help.”

Ragan Communication could, if it wanted, help that discussion. As Robert French points out, the Global PR Blog Week could be an inspiration.

Second, I know of no credible communication blogger who disses any medium for conveying a message effectively. There may be bloggers out there who claim “print is dead”, but not anyone I know. I challenge you or your readers to find a professional communicator who writes anything close to that on their blog.

Instead, the professional communicators I know embrace any medium that helps their client send a message effectively and listen to the audience. If we focus on social media in our blog posts, it is because they are new media — the first textbooks are just now being written. Our interest in new media is not a dismissal of old media.

Third, as others have pointed out, I didn’t come up with the “Nobodies” idea. But, if nothing else, 25 communication professionals linked up to share ideas. IABC Fellows, Gold Quill winners, PRSA leaders, Ragan Seminar speakers — these are all somebodies who are happy to be nobodies in David’s book if it suits him. But if you are are communicator on a budget, just read those blogs… saves you the price of a conference, and it’s free.

Finally, Steve, I apologize unreservedly for any offense I caused you in my post. I have edited the paragraph in question, and inserted a “mea culpa.”

I better buy Steve and David a button.

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