No bypassing of good critics

New York Times Virginia Heffernan dissected President Obama’s YouTube strategy and asked if his success in leading the conversation in the “new media” unsettling. You can find the article here http://tinyurl.com/dcyeq3

The question to me is – unsettling for whom?

Obama’s success in engaging the public directly through digital media has been studied and emulated worldwide by now. This week in Toronto, the city’s mayor David Miller discussed at a conference why he started using Twitter. His reasons were as compelling and intelligent as Obama’s digital strategy. Mayor Miller said Twitter enables him to share his personal point of view of the city and his interpretations of current issues. He humanizes the communications experience. One difference between Mayor Miller and Obama’s strategy is that Obama doesn’t have the same level of luxury to improvise.

Are these politicians attempting to bypass the press to get their message out to the public? They simply can’t because a YouTube video from the White House office or a Twitter message from Mayor Miller’s blackberry is a public statement and is subject to criticism. Yes, Obama’s avid digital communications team understands how to package a video as well, or according to Heffernan, better than CNN. Yet, it is up to reporters to scrutinize the message and help the public become more sophisticated information consumers, exactly what Heffernan was trying to do in this article.

So is Obama’s success unsettling for the American public? I don’t think so. Is it unsettling for reporters and communicators who can’t keep up with the fast development of digital media? You bet.

New Creations, new inspiration

I attended the last night of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s (TSO) New Creations Festival. Contemporary music has always been a hard sell for orchestras. Clearly not tonight. 

It was amazing to see a full house for a contemporary music concert and even more amazing was the demographic of the audiences. Tonight’s success shows orchestras, and arts organizations in general, can attract young people and cultivate new audiences.

The TSO’s  TSOundcheck program and Facebook efforts account for some of the success in bringing in young people. The orchestra has successfully found new communications channels to engage younger audiences who are active online and enjoy sharing their opinions as well. It has also found a right price point to attract these customers. I suspect with two of the University of Toronto music faculty members playing in the concert tonight may also account for some of the young faces in the hall.

It’s also interesting to see how the orchestra is reaching out to the Chinese community in this city. Information is now available online and in print in Chinese. And the orchestra’s ethnic marketing effort is clearly working. Tonight I saw Chinese families bringing young children to the show and everyone had a good time.

As a marketer, it’s heartening to see that an organization that is willing to take risks and to seek new ways of communication is reaping its rewards. Check out http://tso.ca to see its online activities.

Signs of shared responsibilities

Further to my post yesterday, here’s a sign of shared responsibility. http://tinyurl.com/af8pfr

Regaining public trust

Edelman’s Trust Barometer was announced at Davos. Public opinion of corporate America is all time low.

On her blog Conversation Agent, Valeria Maltoni discussed what companies can do to regain that trust. Not surprisingly, listening, open communication and demonstrating accountability are all part of the “must-dos”.

Interesting, she also pointed out the notion of Shared Sacrifice. She said,

Shared sacrifice – I’ve seen evidence of people at every level inside organizations putting in long hours and making personal sacrifices for the good of the company. In my experience with mergers and acquisitions, where stress is at an all time high and layoffs are imminent, sharing more information about what people can do to help the business is vital to sustaining a high level of energy and engagement.

Obama in his inauguration speech also asked the American People to expect to make sacrifices so that their fellow colleagues’ job can be saved. But what about corporations? What sacrifices can they make?

For publicly traded companies, maximizing share-holder value is a top priority. Microsoft laid off 5000 employees this week (Jan. 23, 09) after announcing a 2% increase in profit in Q2 09, over the same period of the prior year. The decision arguably was a fiscally responsible one even though Wall Street still penalized the company following the announcement.

What is the new balance between financial and social responsibilities, and goodwill?

Are companies prepared to lower their profit gain to preserve jobs? Are consumers ready to pay more to keep the jobs in North America, to prevent exploitation of overseas workers? Are investors satisfied with lower dividends to save families from losing homes?

What is good will now in our society? And without good will, where is the trust?

Wynton Marsalis’s thoughts on Martin Luther King Day

Came across the excerpt below in Alex Ross’ blog: The Rest is Noise

Wynton Marsalis: “At the root of our current national dilemmas is an accepted lack of integrity. We are assaulted on all sides by corruption of such magnitude that it’s hard to fathom. Almost everything and everyone seems to be for sale. Value is assessed solely in terms of dollars. Quality is sacrificed to commerce and truthful communication is supplanted by marketing. The type of gamesmanship that separates races, genders and ages by ‘preferences’ is a most cynical brand. The integrity and dedication shown by American artists throughout our history provides a most needed and unequivocal counterstatement. On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, let’s recognize the pernicious effects of separating people by generic categories.”

Fellow marketers and PR professionals, what’s your response to Marsalis’s sentiment?

Relevance of an insider

In his latest blog entry Audience Atomization Overcome, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen explains why traditional media covering politics are losing their authority and relevance. It’s a brilliant article and it inspires a few questions in my mind.

One of his arguments is that journalists covering politics have their own system to decide whom should be their credible and valuable sources.  In the past, the media had the power to legitimize an issue or the credibility of a source by including them in the “legitimate” discourse.

People now have the power to connect with each other online and make themselves heard by producing enough volume as well as fine arguments and analysis. They don’t need the media to legitimize their voice.

This is a fair argument. We have witnessed how interest groups have motivated people through social networking techniques to make themselves heard directly by the government, bypassing the media completely.

The question remains: is the lack of access to different political insiders with different agenda an intrinsic disadvantage? To what extent can one’s opinion be still valid and timely without such access?

We see peer reviews of restaurants and consumer goods becoming more and more influential. Zagat now probably has as much influence as one’s local newspaper in determinig the popularity of  a restaurant. When it comes to politics, does that formula apply?

Exciting day at the Canadian Opera Company

Added a new entry to my personal blog for my fellow music lovers. See http://amateurarts.blogspot.com/

Seeking guidance in a sea of opinions

Virginia Heffernan’s article in the Sunday NY Times Magazine argued that traditional media format doesn’t necessarily work well in the Web 2.0 world. Is it a question of growing pains?

We’ve seen that kind of evolution before when TV was first introduced. It took a while for content providers to realize the theatre or radio formula couldn’t work with the new medium.

What’s different this time, as Heffernan rightly puts it, is that advertisers can now bypass the traditional media filter, and reach their customers directly. At the same time, people who have an opinion can make themselves heard loudly, proudly and easily.

In other words, the wisdom of the crowd is overtaking the authority of the traditional media. You think?

Like any open ended argument, my response is, it depends.

The wisdom of the crowd argument works well for topics that require low or no barrier of entries. Take the success of the Zagat restaurant guide as an example. We all eat out and we all have an idea what’s good. Few of us are trained chefs or restaurant owners but our opinions can still be meaningful for like-minded diners.

Can the same arguement be made about more complex topics such as politcs when only accredited journalists can have access to government officials and information? One can argue the success of many grassroot movements show the power of democracy at work and how people can be mobilized to challenge a democratic government. However, those grassroot groups may not be your primary sources of information if you want a clear assessment of a situation. For that traditional journalism still plays an important role.

Add to the mix is the complex question of sources of information, influence and motivation. To Heffernan’s point about advertisers reaching out to customers directly with information you can use, that’s an age-old approach,  amplified by new communication technology. Surely information such as recipes, software user manual, Q/A, supplied directly by vendors, is valid because the vendors arguably know best how to maximize the value of their offerings.

However sources of information and influence are not always transparent. Is the onus now on us individual consumers to assess and question the validity of every piece of information we come across? Is it a realistic expectation? If not, what new filters are people using?

Personal preference seems to be a prevalent one.  News aggregators allow us to personalize our news diet. While the technology is convenient, I can’t help but hear my mom’s voice saying “eat your vegetables.” We don’t like to be told what to consume, but sometimes an authoritative voice is good for us.

The question becomes, who has that authority any more?

Music to my ears

YouTube announced this week that it is partnering with Chinese-born composer Tan Dun (an Academy Award winner for his soundtrack for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000), San Francisco Orchestra conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Carnegie Hall and London Symphony Orchestra, to create the world’s first YouTube orchestra. The objective is to seek and assemble talented musicians from around the world to form an orchestra to debut Tan’s new work in Carnegie Hall, conducted by Maestro Thomas.

The initiative is groundbreaking on two levels. First, most orchestras enforce a blind audition policy, requesting musicians to play behind a curtain, to eliminate bias against visible minorities and women. The YouTube initiative is inviting musicians to submit two video recordings to the committee for consideration.

Secondly, musicians are typically selected by the maestro of an orchestra, supported by a small professional committee. In this case, however, a group of leading musicians form a committee to shortlist the candidates who will then be voted by YouTube users.

One can expect this initiative is an attempt to attract younger audiences to the classical music world by using a medium and voting style that they embrace. It’s too early to tell how many candidates and voters YouTube will attract but already the project poses two interesting questions.

How valid is public opinion in the classical music world when a performance is the result of the singular vision of a conductor? Will public opinion contribute or hinder artistic excellence?

By asking the YouTube generation to select musicians for the YouTube orchestra, do we believe the younger generation truly embrace equality in a workplace?

Information, knowledge & wisdom

The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) recently released a paper on “Overload! Journalism’s battle on relevance in an age of too much information” in the Nov./Dec. ‘08 edition. In the paper Bree Nordenson explored many pressing issues, including consumers’ expectation of media coverage and how established, trusted sources can engage audiences by providing insightful interpretation of the world’s affairs.

I remember attending a communications industry event two years ago, when a successful blogger made a flippant remark in his discussion, saying he would rather be the first to write about a story and to risk reporting erroneous information than to be behind his competitors in his posting. Even then his response caused some stir.

How times have changed! That same year when “slow blogging” was at its infancy as a movement is now featured in the New York Times this week. In the age of information overload, people are not necessarily demanding more facts, but perspective, opinions and context to help them make sense of issues that are relevant to them.

That means, more and more people are thinking for themselves. They are no longer passive consumers of information.

My take-away from the CJR paper and other related reading this week is that I can contribute a particular point of view, stay relevant and persuade people to include my argument in the public discourse. However, individuals will have limited control over the manifestation of a discourse. The verdict of a debate will truly be in the court of public opinion. In time, we may become wiser…