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/