Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

In an interesting post today at Slow Leadership, author Carmine Coyote describes four laws of information flow:

• First Law: Upward flows will contain only good news
• Second Law: Downward flows will be limited unless they are negative
• Third Law: Sideways flows will depend on trust and liking
• Fourth Law: Bad news travels farther and faster than good

In describing these tenets as based in human nature (we only share with those we like, we always want to be seen in the best light, we never want to be “the bearer of bad news,” etc.), it makes sense that:

“If you want to get good information, make yourself liked and trusted, whether you’re in a boss or a subordinate relationship with the person who has the data.”

And that:

“…there is a continual skewing of data towards the negative, especially over the short term. If a new initiative is launched, the quickest feedback will be the most extreme, whether positive or (especially) negative. That sometimes leads to organizations and people making bad judgments. Ideas are dropped on the basis of quick feedback that suggests problems. The good news takes its time to filter through and by then it’s too late.”

Slow leadership, then, is giving information time to develop, bubble and get to you in its entirety.

But that seems (pardon me) slow. In today’s competitive, information-rich and time-starved economy, I believe there is a better way. And sometime I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m subscribing to the basic law of training:

• Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

Tenets for Enterprise 2.0 Communication Leadership

• First Law: Empower your employees.
• Give them the communication tools that will:
• Give them a voice (like blogs, wiki, collaboration and email tools)
• Track conversations productively (and “just in time”) by subscribing to them (via RSS)
• Set boundaries (legal and ethical as well as brand…) so everyone knows what’s out of bounds to talk about. (Trust me… Your PR group isn’t the only group who needs to know communication boundaries any more.)
• Second Law: Tell the truth.
• Employees can smell inauthenticity and untoward behavior a mile away. Don’t expect them to let inaccuracies (no matter how small) stand. It compromises their integrity and yours. And remember Coyote’s Fourth Law, above.
• Third Law: Expect communications.
• Employees should be required to communicate with you / your customers / your partners / and each other in written form, captured in a knowledgebase. This goes especially for large organizations.
• Fourth Law: Be responsive.
• This is not to say you cut off projects or people at the first negative flow of information. Reach out whenever something bubbles up and do something like:
• Ask for help - in a communicative organization, someone’s likely to have encountered a similar issue, and can recommend options.
• Set the record straight - rumors are often more rampant when ignored.
• Admit mistakes - if something bad happens, deal with it. Again, issues come and go quickly in today’s information rich economy.

I’m a big proponent of quickly capturing, assessing and addressing issues as they arise.

Where does slow come in? Every decision, every word, every communication you build for a lifetime contributes to your communication leadership resume.

Over time, you’ll know information will flow up, down, sideways and absolutely hit the fan once in awhile.

How you deal with it will define you, and perhaps even set you apart as a wonderful example of human nature - evolved.

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I volunteered over the weekend to write a messaging document for a non-profit group I’ve been working with; as they’re about to go into major fund-raising mode, and their material has been maturing (read: polite for changing) over months of collection, creation and collaboration.

A messaging document, in my opinion, is the most fundamental piece of the marketing puzzle. The thing from which all communications goodness (clarity, consistency, and brand integrity) flows.

What is it? A critical ’stake in the ground’ for how you describe (position) exactly what you do… For example, I’m positioning exactly what I do as:

I help businesses:

• generate awareness and demand for their products and services
• help them track and manage their reputations
• safely understand and leverage the “web 2.0″ world of communications

Consistency in delivery across all media is critical - and if you’re not being clear about your purpose, you might as well throw your marketing dollars right down the toilet.

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The last thing I need is another web site to check and update manually.

As a blogger AND a communications professional, I’m always looking for new media influencers and tools. So when I came across PitchWire, a new online community, I was all eyes.

From their site:

PitchWire is…for influencers (journalists, bloggers and analysts) and publicists that promotes responsible pitching and transparency. The results are more successful “hits” and a better relationship between influencers and publicists.

So I signed up (as an influencer) to see what it’s all about. After completing my profile setup questions (which took maybe three minutes - not bad so far) I was taken to my new “home page,” at www.pitchwire.com/janetleejohnson and given my own brand new email address, janetleejohnson (at) pitchwire.com.

The welcome email said:

“”I’ve registered, now what?” Glad you asked. You can do any and all of the following:

• A welcome email has been sent to your email address with a link to verify your email address. Please take a moment to verify your email address with us.
• Visit your PitchWire page by clicking on the “My Homepage” tab where you can update your profile information and add the stories (jj’s emphasis) that you’re currently working on.
• Inform your contacts and the various media contact databases of your new PitchWire account by clicking on “Spread the word”
• See your current list of pitches by clicking on the “Pitches” tab. We’ve started you off by providing a demo pitch so you can see what a pitch looks like in the system.”

Nice! They’re offering me some easy tools to ’spread the word’ about my PitchWire account, branding the service in a lovely, viral manner. I’ve got respect for that. And they have a one-click redirect for my new email address to my best email account. Thank you!
Then reality sunk in. In order to use this thoughtful new influencer resource, I’ll need to:

1. update it as regularly as my blog, and
2. (worse yet) check it frequently for updates.

It seems I can’t subscribe via RSS to changes to my personal home page (where all pitches are posted automatically) for immediate updates/alerts. Attensa couldn’t find any relevant feeds on my new home page. (I love it when my Feeds… button is orange! And it was a still, dull gray.)
I’m irritated at PitchWire (possibly irrationally), because I’m completely spoiled by RSS - and have a tough time imagining a new media communications tool that doesn’t (at least on initial review) offer subscription capability to their users.

I wonder two things:

1. whether someone there would let me influence their product road map?
2. who’s got time to use the service as it is?

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Here is today’s version of the war between the Establishment (anyone over 30) and the Hippies back in the late 60’s… (except gas is 10x more expensive)

Establishment = corporate control Hippies = Enterprise 2.o

Scott from Attensa and I were just talking the other day about the forces that Enterprise 2.0 (or Web 2.0) adoption brings upon organizations.

So when this post from Dion Hinchcliffe at ZDNet came into my inbox via my Attensa RSS reader, I was intrigued by the title:

Enterprise 2.0 as a Corporate Culture Catalyst

On one hand, shaking, you have the management team - likely to be in their 40’s and 50’s - generally wary (Establishment = ‘fraid ee cats) of the loss of control they’re facing. Dion said it very succinctly:

“And the very openness of Web 2.0 platforms, the control and power that must be handed to every day workers for meaningful results to occur, and questions about accuracy, reliability, and security of such open repositories of information often gives business thinkers pause. Never mind that if you’re an average worker over forty years old or so (meaning most of the high-level management in most organizations), the chance that you’ve blogged or used a wiki isn’t very good. And you might view such unfamiliar tools with a fair amount of skepticism and lack of understanding.”

(And lest any reader think I’m casting aspersions to another group - I’m a 50 year old woman who’s been in management for 20 years saying these things about my peers. Gotta love ‘em.)

On the other hand, quaking, you’ve got the people who’ve embraced Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 tools (the Hippies in the 20’s) and want to live the collaborative, creative and connected lives that these tools promise.

Since I’ve been out on my own - apres Marqui - I have enjoyed helping companies like Chockstone, Intel’s Software Network, OpenMake, and others implement more “Enterprise 2.0″ communications strategies to:

• Engage users and prospects in the public domain - building buzz and word of mouth
• Improve collaboration in and around a company
• Understand and expose their knowledgebase to themselves and others
• Develop thought leadership
• Improve awareness and ‘find-ability’ online (and offline too)

And I will tell anyone who asks that the move to Enterprise 2.0 is going to happen in their organizations. I just hope my generation will embrace the enthusiasm of the omnivores and connectors in their organizations and implement the tools to facilitate the work they’re itching to do.

Call me an aging hippie. Peace out.

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I have been talking to advocates and ‘fraidy-cats of enterprise 2.0 tools lately, and the ‘fraidy cats seem to significantly outnumber the advocates at this point. But I was reminded of a post about a year ago by Ross Mayfield where he wrote of the Power Law of Participation.

(As an aside - he twittered that it was the French who noted “the more things change, the more they stay the same” just today. How apropos. Gotta love technology!)

In this post, he spoke of the participation curve (very much a long tail) where most people interact with social media by Reading it, and so few have a high level of engagement by Collaborating, Moderating or Leading it.

Here’s the curve…

Ross Mayfield’s Power Law of Participation Curve

JJ’s Tools for Participation:

1. Most people in business read their news and information, by actively searching for it online, using their favorite (or default) browser.
2. Some people will mark their favorite articles using tools like Digg (where you can vote and promote your favorite stories) and del.icio.us (where you can share your favorites); or by using bookmarks in your browser (if you don’t want to share - but want to reference them).
3. And fewer people tag (or categorize) their articles using tools like del.icio.us (where you can tag articles for yourself and share with others). Smart bloggers tag/categorize their posts so search engines can more easily find them and serve them up as a result in searches.
4. Even fewer people (mostly other bloggers) will comment on stories they either like or disagree with, using the tools provided on most social media sites… you simply enter your comments in the comment box, confirm your identity, and you’re a commenter! (I blogged earlier about the prominence of “lurkers” online.) As noted, most people merely lurk - or read.
5. Subscribing to information is easy, and I have a feeling Ross might change the graph at this point to reflect more subscribers than commenters. RSS readers (like Attensa (for business use) / myYahoo! (a personal reader) are free. Like a magazine subscription, using one is like having news and articles delivered right to you as they appear (vs. searching for them).
6. Sharing can take many forms. Sites like Flicker (photos) and YouTube (videos) make it easy to share information with your friends - anytime you run across an article that invites you to “send to a friend” you’re sharing. Google allows you to share calendars, spreadsheets and more, making it handy to share with those even outside your own organization. And the new kid on the block, Twitter, let’s you tell the whole world exactly what you’re doing right now - should you choose to share it.
7. Been invited into someone’s LinkedIn network lately? It’s probably the most recognizable networking site for professionals. Hint: recruiters comb them regularly to find potential employees - so if you’re looking, get LinkedIn.
8. Writing is surprisingly simple to do - using blogging tools like WordPress, Movable Type or Blogger. Anyone who joins MySpace will automatically be invited to start a blog. Many blogging tools are free, and come with templates you can choose to get started (which is why so many blogs look the same, with their blue bar across the top and white title text…).
9. The best refactor example I’ve seen is what designers and artist have done making logos Web 2.0′ish by updating them graphically. It’s fun to see how they’ve morphed from makeovers. I’m refactoring in a way by blogging about another blog post - and now my readers have the benefit of increased exposure to new voices, newer ideas.
10. Collaboration tools include wikis - which are great for organizing information on a web site - project management tools like basecamp, and others. (Here in Portland, we have a wonderful collaboration software company developing tools for enterprise 2.0 called Jive Software - read their top 10 benefits for companies collaborating here…)

Oddly enough, a year ago Ross reported that in Wikipedia, 500 people, or 0.5% of users (in 2006), accounted for 50% of the edits. That’s moderating - and (I’d add) leadership.

I always recommend that you start understanding social media sites by reading. And that you make it easy for yourself by subscribing. And once you’re ready to put your toe in the participation water, begin commenting. Once you’ve begun to participate, you’ll learn how it feels to share, network, write, and collaborate effectively online.

Leadership (in this moment, in every business) is just that. Spread the cheer. Just try to do it online.

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May 6, 2007   |  Posted by Janet Johnson  |     (2) Comments