Opening Night

This is another personal plug for the play I’m in, but it also has a point – so don’t bail on this post too quickly. We held our last dress rehearsal for “Meet Me In St. Louis” at Juan Diego High School last night. As is typical in community theatre (probably even professional theatre) there were plenty of rough spots that we hope get fixed before tonight’s opening performance. Microphones didn’t get turned on when needed, the monitors that feed the sound back to the actors on stage blared out feedback occasionally, a few actors missed music cues and were about a measure off with the orchestra (that’s related to the monitor problem, which made it so the actors couldn’t hear the cue), and a piece of the set was dropped on top of the trolley in the final scene. We were fortunate no one was hurt with that last one! Still, I think it’s going to be a show worth seeing (go to the Draper Arts Council Web site for ticket and show information).

I thought about the dress rehearsal in light of corporate events that we in public relations often get involved in. A lot of students I teach ask me about getting specifically into event planning. They don’t like my response, which usually includes a turned up nose and arched eyebrow. I liken it to my daughter, who three years ago wanted to try out for the play “Brigadoon” because we saw the production at Hale Center Theatre in Orem. She saw the final production and thought it looked fun. What she didn’t see was the amount of work that went into preparing the final product in the months preceding performances.

Looking at the end product of some events – trade show participation, product launches, event sponsorship, even employee events – can be enticing. What a great sensation it would be to put something together that so many people see and brings success to an organization! I admit, it is fun to see that end result. But the reality check here is that there is a TON of work with myriad details that go into even fairly simple events. For every fun success story of events I’ve been involved with I have three nightmarish stories of problems with events.

My intent with this post is not to discourage people from event planning and management, but to set the reality of the amount of work that’s involved. Planning and managing events is not all fun and games and glamour. In fact, the role of public relations is usually such that other people get the glamour while you do all the work. For me, that’s one of the things I like about PR. I like creating opportunities for others to succeed, whether it’s seeing a business leader look good in a media interview, watching crowds gather at a tradeshow booth, or seeing people congratulate the CEO on a great speech. My name may not be out there, but I know the role I played in the success.

Finally, just as theatrical performances always include dress rehearsals, when or if you do manage a corporate event, take the time and effort to run through it before you “go live.” Video tape a mock media interview with your president before she gets on camera with the news station, then review the tape for ways to improve. Have your CEO rehearse his speech on the stage where he will present it with all the microphones and technical equipment he’ll need. Walk through the employee awards ceremony so everyone knows who shakes the recipients’ hands first. Make all the mistakes you want during the rehearsal so you’re not making them in front of the key public. In opposition to theatrical performances, you usually only get one shot to get your corporate event right. There’s no “we’ll get that right tomorrow night” for most corporate events. Set yourself up for success by taking the extra time to practice the event in advance.

If you love details, enjoy managing emergencies, and don’t mind other people getting most of the credit, look for those jobs in event management. If you don’t, then learn to deal with those things at least on a limited basis because somewhere in your PR career you’ll likely manage some kind of event! Just remember that the devil is in the details, and while practice doesn’t always make perfect, it sure gets you closer.

Airline Oddities

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the airline industry. So many airline policies and decisions are contrary to standard economic philosophy. For example, businesses with goods that will expire soon typically drop the prices on those goods in order to sell them and make some kind of profit – or at least reduce losses – on those products. But airlines are the opposite. The closer you get to a flight – which means the closer you get to the expiration of the available product – the MORE an airline charges for that seat. It’s as if empty seats aren’t a problem, which it should be for an airline. If the plane is going to fly from point A to point B anyway, why wouldn’t you want every seat filled? Even if some of the seats were discounted, at least they would be filled and would give the airline more money to defray costs of that flight.

The other oddity is overselling flights. Of course, I’m writing this while sitting in the Boise Airport because I was bumped from a flight to Salt Lake City that was overbooked. (Quick sidebar: The Boise Airport has the BEST wireless Internet connection of any airport I’ve ever been in. And it’s completely free!) Back to overbooking – other businesses would get hammered for bait-and-switch tactics if they sold a customer a product, customers came to pick up the product, and then were told, “Oh, we took your money for that specific item, but we don’t have that anymore. We’ll give you a different one.” But that seems okay for the airline industry.

Another odd part of overbooking flights is that an airline sells more seats than are available, then they have to put someone on another flight AND give that person credit for future flights. Sometimes they have to pay for the person’s dinner and a hotel stay. In essence, the airline is adding to its expenses for those extra seats. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how that’s good business practice. Then again, maybe that’s why the airlines are struggling to remain profitable!

Finally, since overbooking ensures the airline will have to bump someone to another flight, the airline seems to be saying it’s okay to dissatisfy customers. The credit for a future flight a traveler gets by offering to go on a later flight doesn’t make up for having to waste time in an airport, where the seats are not comfortable, the food is excessively overpriced, and blaring announcements about security are broadcast every five minutes. Overbooking seems an overt way of saying, “We really don’t care if we disappoint our customers.”

If someone can straighten me out on these airline issues, please do. None of the arguments for these practices have made sense to me in the past.

Pitch for the Arts (and a promotional plug)

You know I have an interest in and a passion for the arts. I played in symphony orchestras (including the Mormon Youth Symphony and the BYU Philharmonic Orchestra) in my younger years (dates not disclosed). I’ve also acted in several plays over the years. Some of my fondest memories from high school came from participation in musical and theater groups. I’ve seen my two boys – one a high school graduate, the other a high school senior – find the same kind of passion and pleasure in music. The elder (who is now on a mission in Portugal) participated in choirs. The younger is a percussionist who plans to pursue a career in music education and performance. My freshman-aged daughter plays piano and participates in the middle school percussion ensemble.

As we went through our daughter’s registration for her sophomore year in high school, it’s bothersome to me that the state educational system is almost forcing the arts out of high school education. The board has added so many requirements that in order for my daughter to fit in a music class of any kind, she has to take seminary before school (which she is doing this year for the same reason). There is only room for one elective class in her sophomore year. I understand the need and desire to ensure children have adequate foundation in scholastic subjects, but I also believe a large part of education – especially in high school – is experiencing a variety of activities that help youth see where their interests and passions lie. This variety also teaches youth a principle that is being lost in today’s frenetic world: a balanced life is a happy life.

Which brings me to the promotional plug. I’m in the last stages of rehearsal for Draper Community Theatre’s production of “Meet Me In St. Louis” right now. For those of you who are not familiar with this musical, it focuses on a family in St. Louis around 1904 when the city was preparing for the World’s Fair. The popular holiday tune “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” comes from this show (a bit of trivia you can use to impress friends and family). I’m playing the father of the family, which is more a supporting role than a lead. If you’d like a chance to make fun of me, you’re welcome to come. Bring friends; support the arts! Performance dates are March 28, 29, 31, and April 2-4 at Juan Diego High School in Draper. You can get more info at this Web site: http://www.draperartscouncil.org/.

Seriously, I do believe in the arts in the community. I love to support these productions (more as an audience member than a cast member usually). If you want a relaxing, wholesome evening of entertainment, come see the show. Making fun of me is just a side benefit!   

The Reality of Perception

My wife and I were sharing a parmesan cheese bagel with our dinner. She cut the bagel in half, gave me the top and kept the bottom. I enviously eyed her plate. I love the bottom half of these bagels because the cheese melts through and pools around the bottom edges (makes your mouth water, doesn’t it!). So, I braved the important issue and asked if she had a preference for the top or bottom of the bagel. She said, “Oh, I just gave you the top because I thought it had more cheese on it and knew you’d like that better.”

So here’s my question: which half of the bagel really had more cheese on it? The answer: it doesn’t matter. What matters is each of our perceptions as to which side was better. We traded halves of the bagel, and we were both happy.

Too often in our business efforts we think we know what is in our key publics’ best interest more than they do. We provide them with a product or service and tell them how important it is to them. We get so caught up in how cool WE think the offering is that we forget to ask THEM what their need and want or how they would use the product or service.

I ran across this repeatedly working in the computer software industry. Software engineers love to create new, cool things for computers to do. Often, they get caught up in the coolness of what they’re creating before asking the question, “Will our customers want this?” That’s why computer programs are often frustrating to us; they perform as the engineers want us to think instead of as we really think.

This is why research is so important. It doesn’t even have to be formal research. But know your audience and ask for their perceptions before you start telling them what their perceptions are. After all, they may think the other side of the bagel has more cheese.

The One Big Thing

You may remember the scene from the movie “City Slickers.” Jack Palance holds up his index finger to Billy Crystal to indicate it was “the one thing” he needed to discover while herding cattle. It seemed so simple; just identify “the one thing.”

I was recently asked to write a post for www.thebettyfactor.com on “the one biggest challenge facing marketing communications students.” Easy, right? I thought so initially. My problem was narrowing down that “one thing” with so many challenges new professionals face today. What did I come up with? You’ll have to go to www.thebettyfactor.com to find out.

What’s In A Name?

When it comes to branding, there’s a lot of value in the name you choose. I’m sure you can pick out examples of brand names that don’t work in businesses today, but to keep myself out of trouble, I’m going to pick on two companies that no longer exist. I have personal knowledge of both because I worked at both. But please don’t try to make too much of the connection between the fact that I worked for these companies and they no longer exist!

I enjoyed my time working at PowerQuest Corporation. For those of you who do NOT know who or what PowerQuest was, try to guess what types of products or services the company offered based on its name? What did you come up with? Something supporting electric utilities? Something to do with batteries? Those are common guesses. But no, the company made computer software to manage computer and server storage systems.

What does that have to do with the name PowerQuest? Absolutely nothing. The product names were things like PartitionMagic (software to safely and easily partition a hard drive), ServerMagic (same thing for a server), and Drive Image (software to make an exact duplicate of a hard drive for easy disaster recovery). Those names make sense and had good brand recognition.

At one computer trade show a customer was wandering down our aisle looking at signs and appearing lost. A PowerQuest employee said, “Can I help you?” The man said, “I’m looking for the PartitionMagic company.” “That’s us; PowerQuest,” the employee replied. “No,” the customer said, “I’m looking for PartitionMagic.” The product brand stuck with him; the company brand did not.

In some cases, this is fine. Many companies keep the focus on the product brand instead of the company brand. But if the time comes that you want to focus on the corporate brand, it’s hard to make the shift away from a strongly branded product to a weakly branded company name.

Another technology company I worked for was emWare, which created embedded device networking software (it’s complicated; but that’s not important in the point I’m making). The name fit okay with the technology, but the spelling and pronunciation left me correcting editors and writers all the time. The lowercase e to start the name was the first stumbling block. It was hard to get writers who are accustomed to capitalizing proper names to write emWare. And when they wanted to start a sentence with the company name, it was almost impossible! In addition, the company pronounced the e and the m separately, so it came out ee-em-ware. But most people read emWare as em-ware. Imagine that! I was in favor of letting it go with the em-ware pronunciation, but the CEO insisted that was wrong.

The point? When choosing a company or product name, be considerate of your key publics and the media. Don’t make it hard to figure out who you are and what you do. Instead of focusing on how “cool” the name can look or sound, think of how intuitive it is for someone who doesn’t know anything about you. Branding is a balance between art and science. If you get too caught up being artistic or scientific, however, you merely confuse people. Like good writing, make it easy, make it clear, make it connected and you’ll come out ahead.

The Value of Specific Praise

I recently read an article by Kerry Patterson of VitalSmarts in his monthly “Kerrying On” column about how highly workers value a little appreciation. I learned a long time ago the value of being specific in the praise you provide to others. A general “good job” has much less impact than “Thanks for helping me create those charts for the presentation. That made a huge difference in the quality and saved me a lot of time. I appreciate your willingness to help out and share your expertise.” Yet we often don’t take the few extra seconds to be specific about praise.

I hope you’ll indulge this personal example. When my son Bryan was in fourth grade, we went to a parent-teacher conference and heard his teacher explain how helpful Bryan was with other students in the class. When we got home, I was talking to Bryan and told him, “Your teacher told us how happy she is that you’re willing to help other students in the class. Mom and I appreciate that, too. It shows that you’re trying hard to learn, and it’s a great example to other students when you’re willing to help the teacher like that. Thanks for being the kind of person who wants to help others.” Bryan walked over to me, put his arms around me, and said, “I love you, too, Dad.” Note that I didn’t use the words “I love you, Bryan,” in this conversation. But that’s exactly what he heard when he received specific praise about his performance.

While we may not want co-workers to think “I love you,” the message that comes with genuine, specific praise is one people crave. You are valued. You are important. You belong here. That’s a message that people cannot hear enough, whether they are your employees, your family members or your neighbors. When you praise, praise specifically. The results are worth the few extra seconds it takes.

Personal Note: Farewell to Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

I join with many of you in mourning the passing of Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who died on Jan. 27, 2008. While his death is not terribly surprising and he now reunites with his beloved wife, we will miss his leadership, his humor and his example. He leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten and will be difficult to match. His example in reaching out to nations of the world, expanding missionary work, instituting the perpetual education fund, building the Conference Center, and building temples closer to members of the church throughout the world have led the church’s growth at the beginning of this century.

He also was a strong supporter of public communications and working with the media. Most people would shrink from an interview with Mike Wallace or Larry King, but Pres. Hinckley stepped up to both of them with positive outcomes. His leadership expanded the role of the church’s public affairs department, including the growing use of new media to share the gospel message and clarify the position of the church. Who can forget the images of Pres. Hinckley during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games as he welcomed the world to the LDS Church’s home town.

On a personal note, I got to meet Pres. Hinckley and shake his hand near the end of my mission. As some of you know, I was fortunate enough to serve the last six months of my mission in Nauvoo, Ill. Pres. Hinckley, who at the time (1982) was a counselor to Pres. Spencer W. Kimball, came to Nauvoo to dedicate several historic sites, including the site of the original Nauvoo Temple. Check out the photo below (but don’t laugh too hard at how young and geeky I look; it WAS the 80s!). This photo was taken where the Nauvoo Temple now stands again. It was a great honor for me to meet him even briefly. At the time, he was the only healthy member of the First Presidency. I remember him saying that in the 30 days before the dedication in Nauvoo, he had traveled 30,000 miles for the church. His dedication and service to the church would fill our collective lifetimes of service!

Join me in remembering his example of dedication and service, both to the church and to public relations and communication. His life is a great model for sharing the truth boldly and lovingly. He addressed tough issues directly and without apology. He defended the truth by correcting misstatements of others about the church. Many people provide good role models in specific areas of their lives. Pres. Hinckley is a model for all areas of life.

Power of Specific Praise

I recently read an article by Kerry Patterson of VitalSmarts in his monthly “Kerrying On” column about how highly workers value a little appreciation. I learned a long time ago the value of being specific in the praise you provide to others. A general “good job” has much less impact than “Thanks for helping me create those charts for the presentation. That made a huge difference in the quality and saved me a lot of time. I appreciate your willingness to help out and share your expertise.” Yet we often don’t take the few extra seconds to be specific about praise.

I hope you’ll indulge this personal example. When my son Bryan was in fourth grade, we went to a parent-teacher conference and heard his teacher explain how helpful Bryan was with other students in the class. When we got home, I was talking to Bryan and told him, “Your teacher told us how happy she is that you’re willing to help other students in the class. Mom and I appreciate that, too. It shows that you’re trying hard to learn, and it’s a great example to other students when you’re willing to help the teacher like that. Thanks for being the kind of person who wants to help others.” Bryan walked over to me, put his arms around me, and said, “I love you, too, Dad.” Note that I didn’t use the words “I love you, Bryan,” in this conversation. But that’s exactly what he heard when he received specific praise about his performance.

While we may not want co-workers to think “I love you,” the message that comes with genuine, specific praise is one people crave. You are valued. You are important. You belong here. That’s a message that people cannot hear enough, whether they are your employees, your family members or your neighbors. When you praise, praise specifically. The results are worth the few extra seconds it takes.

Alarming Behavior

I’m one of those alarming people. Whenever I walk into or out of certain stores – Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Walgreen’s to name a few – I set off the security alarm. I finally figured out it’s the electronic lock for my car that sets off the alarm. I’ve learned to just keep walking.

And I’ve never been stopped, which is curious to me. Employees look up when the alarm sounds, but they never stop to see if I have stolen merchandise. This raises two questions for me. First, how do they know the alarm is innocent when I set it off? Second, if they don’t know and let everyone go when the alarm sounds, then what good is the alarm in the first place?

When this alarm situation happened again recently (at the post office), it set me thinking about the alarms we run across in public relations. I once had an employee come to me terribly upset because of some bad publicity one of our products had received in her region. How would we respond? What should we say to the employees in that region? How should we address this with management? After reading the negative article, my response was to do nothing beyond what we’d planned for the product launch.

Why? To me, this was an innocent alarm. The one article did not set off a hailstorm of negative commentary around the product. The positive press we eventually got dramatically outweighed the negative. Making a fuss over the one bad article would have called more attention to the negative press than was deserved.

The key in public relations is knowing when to respond to an alarm and when to let it ring for a few seconds and then shut itself off. Weigh carefully the impact of responding to an alarm. If the response will bring more attention to the negative, let it go. If the alarm is loud and potentially harmful, act quickly before the bad news spreads. Knowing your industry, the media, your key publics and your client/management, will help you make the right decision on which action to take.