Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
This is a prime example (2:40) of what separates the old age of PR and the new.
The old PR would see this video and say that his glasses are his image. He can build a reputation from those glasses, he can build an audience from those glasses, he can build an enterprise from those glasses.
The new PR would see this video and say that the fact he took his glasses off makes him real. It makes him human, and in this digital PR revolution, that is priceless.
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Who has heard about the lizard brain? No one? Well I’ll have to change that.
The lizard brain is what makes us not do what we say we are going to do. It’s what stops us from checking tasks off our to-do list, it stops us from writing the book we want, stops us from sending that application in, it stops us from living a meaningful, adventurous, exciting life. The lizard brain can also be referred to as the Amygdala, the part of our brain which registers fear. This fear has a voice and it tells us to compromise, to play it safe, to stay where we are comfortable. This reference to the lizard brain was coined by Seth Godin, author, marketer, and revolutionary starter.
During this mass media age, I believe Seth Godin to be one of the most insightful and helpful authors to us digital natives. Seth Godin has written more than 14 books that have all been best sellers and translated into over 30 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. Even if a five-mile wide meteor struck the earth today, you could still say that Seth Godin has made a larger impact on society.
You may think this author is important because you imagine him to be the motivating type. He is no more motivating than a rock. He is however a person who can bring you to understand why you do what you do, rather, why you don’t do what you don’t do. He explains in his most infamous book, Linchpin¸how the closer you get to delivering something, to accomplishment, to taking a risk, the harder the lizard brain works to stop you. This ability, to make us aware, is what makes Seth Godin so important.
If it’s not clear already, Seth is an idol of mine. Heck, I flew out to New York to see him and wrote about that experience here. Seth has taught me how to build a tribe, inspired me to keep shipping, and has helped me realize the inner workings of my brain and ego in such a simplistic manner. I continue to read his books and build off his ideas and will do my absolute best to get a one-on-one interview with him over the holidays because I am planning a trip to NYC. I truly owe it to Seth for getting me to where I am today. (HT to Seth Godin)
Side note: If anyone has someone they can introduce me to through email/phone/person that either lives in New York or has other contacts in New York, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan on spending the summer in New York to find an opportunity to become more of a writer and to connect with some of the most brilliant minded people. Michelle being one of them, she’s something special! Thank you!
Stay Positive & People Help People, Who Help People, Who Help Other People, Who Help More People …
Garth E. Beyer
Public Relations is a lot about reaching out to a specific group, your target audience. When you reach out to your audience, you want to develop positive awareness that turns into an action that everyone takes.
A big problem before going out with a press release or other form of an announcement is that there is more than one thing you want your target audience to do.
Don’t just buy the new iPhone 5, tweet about it, tell us what you think about it, write a blog post about it, get someone else to buy one, show it off to your coworkers, try our app on it … the list goes on.
At times, yes, PR is about target, precision, and getting your audience to take one action at a time, but this current digital revolution has created the 100-focus-mind. Everyone can and does focus on a hundred things through the day and never is there a time that only one item is focused on. It’s a two-or-more interactive world.
Every digital native audience is capable of handling it, so why do PR specialists still focus on one-group-one-action strategies? It seems to me that you can reach out to each individual member of your audience and give them the option of what to do. As a result, you will have created sub-audiences – people who are taking the same action (listening to the same tune) bundle together and then you can focus on their progress.
Basically it’s about letting every member of your audience dance to their own tune. Whether it is communicating to the entire audience or subgroups, they are all still dancing.
No! Wait! Don’t do that! You’ll lose your business unless you accommodate their desires!
NOT
When you ignore your customers, you make their experience a memory they want to share. Take for instance every single local or hotel pool.
I have been in a myriad of pools in my lifetime, all of which were cold. I can’t recall one pool that was room temperature or warm, it was always chilly to where you need to keep moving to counter the freezing temperature. I’m positive that plenty of people have complained to hotel services and management that the pools should be warmer or at least more bearable. Why have they all refused our demands? Because a cold pool makes it an experience, a wickedly fun one.
Don’t tell me that after you touch your toes in the water and realize that the water is freezing – of course it is! – that you don’t lie to your friend or parent saying that the water is warm and to jump right in. For some psychological reason, the cold water feels even more cold when you jump in thinking it’s warm. What a laugh you get! Okay, okay, back on topic.
What would happen if every hotel pool raised its temperatures and made it a manageable temperature: no shivers, no rushing for a towel once you exit, no need to keep swimming just to prevent yourself from freezing. Sure, it may be a bit more relaxing, but it surely wouldn’t be fun. Imagine it. “Hey, jump in the water first, its warm!” – the person jumps in – “Yes, it is.” What a memorable experience! (sarcasm)
As it is with hotel swimming pools, every business needs something that creates a buzz, an experience, something that people talk about, remember, but also complains about. What does this mean to you? People complain a lot more than they talk about a positive experience and if you can give them something to complain about that goes right along with a positive experience, you have something truly remarkable, truly worth talking about; it’s about adding the complaint to their pool of experience.
Stay Positive & I Flat Out Thought This Was Awesome: Fake Swimming Pool
Garth E. Beyer
As you have likely heard, a KFC in Lebanon was torched on September 14th by those opposing the anti-Islam film that ridiculed Mohammed. As deep of research as I could do online, I could not find a single action taken by KFC in response to it. Where is their PR team? What an incredible opportunity to turn the level of buzz up even more!
I’m not the only one that thinks KFC needs to step up their PR efforts. Clearly their choice to produce their meat according to Sharia Law didn’t stop them from torching the building. They (Muslims) must have seen, as I just did, that the certificate is only valid from May 11, 2012 to November 11, 2012 – just two months away. From the outrage created by the film, I guess it seems alright to cut burn it short.
Other than this short agreement, KFC’s PR team has done little despite that they have a grand opportunity to stand out, to make a voice, not just an image. KFC has the opportunity to represent all of America. KFC has the opportunity to respond in whatever way they feel best. Yet they remain silent. Where is the PR?
The way I see it is that everyone expects the President to be the intermediary between Islam and the U.S. He won’t. He can’t. There are too many repercussions with whatever action he takes, he’s better off doing nothing. KFC though, can take that position. KFC can leverage themselves by taking a stance where no one else will, by responding globally, with a statement, with a response, with a comment, with anything!
Oh yea … and it’s worth a note … I really liked KFC … now I can’t go out to eat there! #muslimrage
The question was brought up whether anyone in class had any previous knowledge about the Watergate scandal. I’ve heard about it, in middle school we glided over it in history class, it gets referenced from time to time, but I couldn’t give you an actual summary about it.
I thought I would gain further background knowledge on the subject by watching the film “All the President’s Men” (1976), but, being blunt, I was disappointed. I thought that watching this movie would lead to a better understanding of what actually happened with the Watergate scandal, thus instilling me with an emotional reaction that I could use next time the scandal was referenced or brought up in conversation. In turn, and in playing increasingly close attention to the movie, I learned more about journalism than I did about the actual scandal.
To ease into what I learned, take for instance the immediacy that the reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward took in writing notes as soon as a conversation with someone ended. In fact, and if they could, they did their best to pull out notebooks during a conversation. While it’s not unexpected, I do recall reading a passage in our text “Telling True Stories” which hinted at being careful as to when you pull the notebook out and how you want to make the person you are interviewing think that it is not even there. As a side note of my journalism geekyness, I mimicked the reporter’s immediacy to writing the story after getting their notes, in writing this paper.
On a similar note (pun intended), there were a few interesting tactics which I noticed that Bernstein and Woodward used to acquire information. After all, there is no note taking if there is no information to write down. The first technique was quite obviously; get the person to like you. In one scene Bernstein had complimented and connected with a girl who in turn gave him some leads to follow. A second strategy was patience. During one phone conversation Woodward simply remained silent while the person on the other end would continuously add on to her story after a few moments of hearing no response from Woodward. She had felt obligated to continue talking. The last tactic I noticed was the infamous guilt trip. In a couple of scenes you found Woodward saying something similar to “we don’t want you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable.” As a result, the person does what she was asked.
While on the subject of communication, there was a scene in which Woodward was speaking to someone who only knew Spanish. I feel there is an even greater need to know multiple languages in journalism. While there are plenty more translators, it’s a common understanding that people are more friendly and open to you when you attempt to speak to them in their language, when they feel that you are part of their culture and not an outsider.
Something that I feel that the majority of people underestimate about those in journalism is the level of critical thinking, philosophy, and reason in communication that the vocation requires. Woodward and Bernstein took an entirely different execution of good cop, bad cop in their interrogations. They had played off of each other to get the information they required to get answers or confirmations. As you likely noticed, there is an incredible amount of guess-work in reporting, but guesswork is perfectly fine when you can get confirmations. In order to get those confirmations, what do you have to do? Yes, you have to be persistent, but you must have an in-depth knowledge of how a person’s brain works.
All in all, the movie “All the President’s Men” clearly had the intention to divulge the lifestyle of a Journalist at the time, much more than communicating information of the Watergate scandal. The movie felt nothing like a documentary. To top this response off, here are a couple of my favorite lines.
“If you got’m by their balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
“How do you keep going with something you don’t believe in?
You just have to start over again.”
H. A. Rey, if you can’t guess from the picture, is the author and illustrator of the children’s book Curious George. Today we are celebrating his 114th birthday! Most people dream about living to 100, let alone, past 100. H. A. Rey has done it.
Let’s think about George for a moment, we can learn a lot from the stories. For instance, there are a lot of questions, and specific questions at that! The books – through George – also continuously preach that it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission; a trait often attributed to the successful risk-takers of the world. But wait, we are not celebrating George’s birthday, we’re celebrating his creator’s.
You’re obviously not falling for the idea that H. A. Rey is 114-years-old. No. You know, as well as I, – if you haven’t Googled it already – that H. A. Rey died 35 years ago! This act of celebrating someones birthday, long after they have passed, is indicative of a legacy.
Rey had focused on creating something that would be remembered long after his death. That is what sets him apart from thousands of other children’s book authors and illustrators, no matter how successful any of them may have been or are now. To create a legacy like that of H. A. Rey, you need to know what legacy you want and use that as your focus point for creation. While you may have a dozen books published or be taking in an annual 1.2 million, if you truly want to know your degree of success, ask yourself the type of question used on every second page of the book; a question that intrigues you and encourages you to turn the page and keep moving forward.
When you die, will your work be remembered?
Stay Positive & Everyone Dies, But Your Work Doesn’t Have To
Garth E. Beyer
