Luminis Blog: Illuminating Communications

Another bruise in the Apple

Shel Holtz, in his a shel of my former self, blogged last Friday about yet another communications misstep by Apple that again bruises its reputation. 

This time, Mr. Holtz writes, it's the failure of Apple personnel to follow through on the company's commitment, apparently made at the request of Mr. Jobs, to update postings to the MobileMe status pageevery other day.

This failure comes on the heels of the company's dreadful handling of the "kill switch" news.  See my August 13 post, A bruised Apple.  We now could be left with the impression not only that Apple has something to hide, but that it does't do what it says it will do.  Two (very fundamental) strikes against Apple.  We'll be watching for a third.

The honesty's too much

You'll find that honesty in communications is a recurring theme in my posts.  On rare occasions, however, more grace than honesty is called for.  The following obituary, originally found here, is a great example.

Dolores Aguilar
1929 - Aug. 7, 2008 Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby. She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing. Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again. There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

A bruised Apple

Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs in an interview published Monday in the Wall Street Journal confirmed the existence of a blacklisting "kill switch" mechanism built into the new iPhone 3G.  News of the mechanism, which ultimately enables Apple to disable a potentially malicious application on our iPhone 3Gs, was first broken last week on iPhoneAtlas.com.

You will not read an argument here for or against the inclusion of the kill switch capability in the new iPhone, though on its face it makes sense to me.  That is for others to argue.  What is for me to argue is that Apple has bruised its reputation by not revealing it at or before the product's launch.  While the bruise may not lead to permanent damage, it raises several important issues that are worth a close look.

Steve Jobs is a remarkable communicator.  Anyone looking to improve his or her presentation skills would do well to watch Mr. Jobs in action.  His keynote address at Macworld 2008 is a great example, in both form and content.  A QuickTime video of that presentation is available here.

But Mr. Jobs and his colleagues have stumbled in this instance.  What could have been a positive for the company (providing added protection to security-conscious iPhone 3G users like me) has injured it in at least two ways.

First, we are left with the impression that Apple has something to hide.  We can give Mr. Jobs credit for the straightforward, transparent way in which he acknowledged the existence of the kill switch.  But it was reactive transparency.  When an organization seems to be hiding something, the assumption, unwarranted as it may be, is that something foul is afoot.  In addition, the question for a company like one in Apple's situation can quickly turn to "what else are they trying to hide?"

Second, I have been surprised by Apple's relative silence about the kill switch outside of Mr. Job's comments to the Wall Street Journal.  During the past week, Apple has had the opportunity to reframe the discussion to its advantage.  Apple's calculation may be that the discussion has not risen to a level needing an answer delivered wholesale.  See my July 23 post on this general topic here.

Nonetheless, Apple has not availed itself of that opportunity, at least so far.  In the absence of further explanation from the company, there has been speculation, particularly among those concerned about privacy, about what the kill switch really does and the potential existence of additional, remotely controlled mechanisms on the new iPhone.

These are valuable lessons to both Apple and corporate communications practitioners.  Perhaps a more fundamental lesson -- one at the intersection of corporate communications and operations -- is this: never underestimate the ability of customers, investors or other constituencies to find exactly what you think they should not or cannot.

What the Packers should have said

Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com and Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal got it right.  The question, of course, is what the Packers -- Mr. Thompson and coach McCarthy -- could have done differently to save them from the fate to which Mr. Oates seems to believe they are resigned.

It's simple: the Packers should have talked about value from the very start.  In an earlier post, I argued that value is the most important thing any organization can talk about.  The Green Bay Packers are no different.

From the first whiff of controversy, the Packers should have framed their position in terms of Mr. Favre's value.  This would have allowed them to kill several birds with one stone.  Talking about Mr. Favre's value would have, all at once:

• Acknowledged the quality of Mr. Favre's many contributions to the franchise and complimented him in the process.
• Buttressed trade discussions with the Bucs, Jets and others.
• Provided a strong rationale for why the team could not simply release him outright.

Instead, the Packers talked about "protecting a legacy" that needs no protecting, insisted they were "moving on" to a squad of quarterbacks who between them have not a single NFL start, and questioned whether Mr. Favre had the commitment to play football again, a risk the Bucs and Jets were more than willing to take.

It's true that the Packers needed to make an argument beyond Mr. Favre's value.  But regardless of what they said after it, they always should have led with "Brett Favre is an incredibly valuable football player." And they should have said it over and over again.

For those who think it ends here: think again.  Though the immediate saga has come to a close, our perceptions of who were the good guys and the bad guys in this ordeal won't be fully formed until at least the end of the 17-week NFL regular season and, perhaps, into the playoffs.  And for better or worse, those perceptions probably will rise and fall each Sunday with the on-field performances of Mr. Favre and Mr. Rodgers.

The difficulty for the Packers -- and where perceptions about how they handled this situation will land -- is that Mr. Favre's performance this season, unless it is downright awful, will be framed in part by what they said leading up to his departure, not by what they didn't say, but should have.

Quick thoughts: The Pack, Brett and Ari plus NewPage

One more comment on the Packers
The Associated Press reported yesterday that Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, has been hired as a consultant to the Green Bay Packers. Mr. Fleischer, the AP said, will help the team with its public relations as the Brett Favre matter continues to unfold.

The hiring of Mr. Fleischer strikes me as a lot like the continuing requirement that we take our shoes off and have them screened at airport security. While the potential for disaster may still exist, the biggest threat of damage probably has past. Most of the damage that's done in situations like the Packers-Favre drama is (self-)inflicted in its earliest stages. As a result, help of the kind Mr. Fleischer is now offering the Packers is best sought sooner rather than later. An even better approach, as we've discussed in past issues, is having a plan (and a designated spokesperson) in place before the action begins.

Ultimately, the Packers shouldn't be faulted for hiring communications help -- how can we fault them for that? -- and there is much to be learned from how both sides have communicated in this situation. But it remains to be seen if the help the Packers recently engaged is coming too late.

A difficult announcement
NewPage Corp. (NWP), the largest manufacturer of coated paper in North America, last Wednesday made a difficult announcement when it said it would close the company's Kimberly, Wis., mill, affecting 475 employees. There's a lot to be learned from NewPage's news release.

All of the pieces for a well-crafted announcement appear to be there. But the release isn't as clear as it can be, and the announcement becomes gangly and less effective than it could and should be. Several thoughts...

• Don't place the cleanest and most easily-understood explanations for shuttering the plant in the last paragraph ("...a result of a weak economy, the continued effects of low priced imported products and sky-rocketing costs....) and second-to-the-last paragraph ("...it [the Kimberly mill] doesn't have a pulp mill to support the paper operations.... the cost to run that facility is much higher than making the same products at our fully-integrated, lower-cost locations.").
• Don't provide the vast majority of the information in the announcement as quotes from multiple company executives. Facts -- as opposed to an individual's perspective or opinion, which quotes often are or are mistaken for -- can and should be presented as such in news releases, particularly of this kind. Several portions of the executives' quotes, including the percent increases in raw materials and transportation cost alluded to in the second paragraph and the example of the Escanaba and Rumford mills in the third, should have been presented as "unquoted" facts.
• Insert the name and title of the quoted executive after the first sentence of the quote. After the quote goes on for several sentences without attribution, one wonders who is being quoted and why he seems to be hiding from the quote.

We have a problem, or do we?

My hometown barber had a saying that I heard virtually every time I was in his chair.

"We can always take more off," Ken would say, "but we can't put it back on."

It's a long way from Ken's Barber Shop in Glen Lake, Minn., to the corporate board room. But companies and other organizations with public profiles would do well to emulate Ken's strong sense of proportion as they plan and execute their communications. Ken's advice rings particularly true for organizations that find themselves in a crisis.

Any organization can become involved in a time-consuming, uncomfortable and, ultimately, reputation-damaging crisis. There are two important watchwords that should guide any company's crisis management efforts: planning and perspective.

Planning The moment a crisis hits should not be the first time an organization considers how it will respond to one. Managers should develop and put in place a plan that details how the company will ensure that its communications response to a crisis is clear, consistent and proportionate -- equal to the seriousness, breadth and depth of the crisis. Among other questions that should be addressed in the plan are:

• Who will manage the communications response and who will serve as the company's spokesperson to the media, if the situation calls for it?
• What is the group of managers who will gather and provide information about the crisis from disparate parts of the organization, assess the scope of the crisis with that information (see Perspective below) and provide input about the response?
• Have the lines of communication for gathering and providing information within the organization during a crisis been clearly delineated?

Perspective While planning is important, perspective is paramount. Simply because something bad has happened, the phone at the front desk is ringing more frequently than usual or both, doesn't necessarily mean you have found yourself in a full-scale public crisis. Your ability to quickly gather and analyze information about the situation (see Planning above) -- and put the size, breadth and depth of the crisis in sound perspective -- will make or break the success of your response.

It may be that the situation calls for a wholesale, shotgun response. But it is just as likely that the crisis calls for a very careful dissection of which of your constituencies is being affected and how. Once those questions can be answered, the best communication channel(s) can be indentified for a rifle-shot response that will attempt to confine the crisis to those discrete constituencies.

Another important consideration in formulating your response is its potential "opportunity cost." One of the chief tenets of crisis communications is to avoid at all costs regurgitating the argument or bad news that is being made about you. You must ensure that your response to the crisis does not introduce the crisis to new audiences or constituencies, or introduce new and damaging information through your explanation of the crisis to those already being affected by it.

All of these are tricky questions, made all the more tricky by how quickly they must be answered. If the crisis in which your company finds itself truly is one that calls for a wholesale, public response (a scandal, product recall, accident or the like), then make that response early, aggressively, clearly and consistently. If the crisis is at all nuanced, though, recall the approach of my barber, Ken: you can always communicate more broadly and aggressively after making a focused, rifle-shot response. But it is impossible to confine your response once you have broadcast it broadly, found that crisis is more limited than first thought and introduced the crisis to audiences that hadn't known about it before your response.

"To be honest,...."

When I was a boy, someone told me to always be suspicious of what anyone said after he or she offered: "To be honest,...." Anyone who needs to preface his or her honesty by calling attention to it, I remember being admonished, may not be that honest after all.

I recalled that admonition earlier this week as I was reading about one of the trends in business and communications: "authenticity." Authenticity, its proponents tell us, involves "saying what is real" and making your company's offerings "really real" by "rendering authenticity."

This is, of course, nonsense.

On its face, the authenticity movement would appear to be helpful and healthy; encouraging companies to be honest and true to themselves is laudable. But this relatively new notion of authenticity seems to suggest that creating the appearance of it is enough. It is not. It is never enough to render honesty or create an illusion of it. A good company must be it.

Here are just a few of the things that good and successful companies knew about honesty in business communications long before they were told that they need to render it.

• When the news is good, be content with what it is. Don't inflate it, artificially extend it or attach exaggerated meaning to it. This sort of deceit also creates expectations that, when unfulfilled, do added damage to the organization's credibility.
• When the news is bad, be the first to talk about it. Get out in front of it and stay there. Offer details of the plan you're taking to remedy the source of the bad news and be prepared to talk later about how you've executed it.
• Don't hide when the news is bad. The frequency of your communication should have no connection to the present quality of the news you're conveying. If you talk with your company's investors after the results of each quarter are announced, for example, keep that schedule regardless of whether those results are good or bad.

While these suggestions focus on how an organization handles its news, the authenticity movement also hopes to inform how a company develops and manages its brand(s). We'll deal with issues of branding and authenticity in a future entry. Whether in strategic or tactical communication, though, it will never be enough to create authenticity. It must be real.

Your first priority: communicating value

Whether we mean to or not, we communicate about value every day. Companies communicate about the value of their products, their stock and, in far too few cases, their employees. Non-profit organizations communicate about the value of their services, and their members and other donors. Even in casual conversation, each of us communicates value by what we say (and don't) and by how we react to what we hear.

One of any organization's top communications goals should be to communicate about value, both inside the enterprise and out. If your organization isn't, your value as its perceived by key constituencies -- customers, investors, employees, members or donors -- is probably being defined for you, by someone else.

val-ue n. relative worth, utility or importance

Value must be consistently and clearly communicated to a range of constituencies, each with a potentially different measure of it. But value is often one of the least understood and most poorly communicated aspects of an enterprise.

Ask yourself the following questions about your organization:

• Do we understand what is truly and uniquely valued by each of our key audiences? Chrysler recently made a bet that drivers of gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs would value $2.99/gallon gas over the usual cash back when purchasing on of their trucks. It lost that bet. Not only are consumers not taking advantage of the offer, they're buying fewer Chrysler trucks altogether. Sales of those trucks during the first month of the promotion were down almost 20 percent, according to one industry analyst.
• Do we communicate about what we sell or the service we provide beyond simply describing it? My experience in the bioscience industry has routinely exposed me to companies that are selling their great science without helping customers and investors to understand why it is valuable. A company should help us to understand how and why their product works, of course. But the most successful companies tell us why that makes their product -- and the company -- more valuable than others, e.g., it provides the company unique access to a valuable market, it allows customers to increase efficiency, save money, etc.
• Do we measure and quantify value to aid in our communications? The organizations most adept at communicating value are those that can quantify it in meaningful ways for their key constituencies. They not only understand what is valued by those constituencies (a vehicle with good gas mileage versus cheaper gas for a less fuel-efficient vehicle) , they know where to measure that value: in something as big as a market opportunity expanded by millions of dollars through a company's novel technology or as small as time saved by consumers through the use of a company's product. Once they quantify value that is important to key constituencies, it becomes an important part of their communications.
• Do we understand that if we do not aggressively define own value with key audiences, others will define it for us? Perhaps the best example of this is how publicly-traded companies must help investors define their value. In absence of a company defining for analysts and investors what to expect about its future value through revenue guidance or guidance about other measures of company value, those same analysts and investors will make assumptions of their own about those same measures. This creates a dangerous situation in which expectations about a company's future performance and, therefore, its future value, are being set without the benefit of input from those who know the business best. As we have seen many times, a company that misses expectations is often punished by Wall Street. Investors don't give a pass to companies that miss earnings because they haven't actively managed expectations about their value. Quite to the contrary.

It's no coincidence: Third Wave's story

My last entry, entitled "That's my story and I'm sticking to it...," asked two important questions:

Why don't many organizations take the time to plan their communications and connect it with their strategy and objectives?

Why don't many organizations stick to their message the same way they stick to their strategy?

Third Wave Technologies (TWTI) is the best example I know of a company that does both. This morning, Hologic Inc., a Bedford, Mass.-based company, announced that it will acquire Third Wave for approximately $580 million or $11.25 a share. This represents a 278-percent increase in value since late December 2005, when Third Wave's current management team assumed leadership of the company.

I encourage you to take a look at Third Wave's communications during the past two and a half years. The company systematically undertook a communications plan that was tied directly to its strategy and objectives. It never wavered from either, successfully executing on its business strategy and delivering a consistent message to investors and other important constituencies that was tied to that execution. The company's shareholders are being rewarded significantly as a result. It is no coincidence.

Congratulations to Kevin, Maneesh and their team for an outstanding performance and a terrific outcome. There are great, positive communications lessons to be learned from Third Wave's success. I'd like to think that's not a coincidence, either.

That's my story

The corporate strategy that you and your organization are executing probably doesn't change very frequently. You've arrived at the right strategy for your organization through a planning process and you're prepared to stick with it over an extended period of time.

Why is it that many organizations don't take the time to plan their communication and connect it with their strategy and objectives? Just as important, why don't many organizations stick to their message the same way they stick to their strategy?

I was on the track team when I was in high school. I wasn't very athletic, but I was immediately assigned to the 440-yard dash, a ridiculous and excruciating race that, I thought, should involve some kind of pacing.

I asked my coach how fast I should run at what points in the race. He told me to run as fast as I could -- to sprint -- through the entire race. "How will I know if I'm running fast enough?" I asked. (I guess I had already foreclosed on the idea of leading the race.)

"You'll know you've run fast enough if you get sick after the race," he told me.

There's a reason that you'd hear the same speech seven or eight times if you followed one of the presidential candidates around for a day. It is the same reason that you'd hear the same presentation from the CEO of a public company if you followed him or her on the road to meetings with investors.

Good communicators know they must connect their messages to the organziation's strategic objectives and then deliver them clearly, consistently and over a long period of time.

How long is long enough? My high-school track coach could counsel you on this question. If you're sick and tired of delivering your message over and over again, you've probably just begun to make a dent with your key audiences.