Lisa Walker

How do you define professionalism?

Lisa Walker — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:07:00 GMT

What is true professionalism? We know it when we see it, and when we don't. It's easy to come up with a laundry list of traits we consider unprofessional, but how do we capture the elements of what makes for a true professional?

David Maister states that professionalism is, "...believing passionately in what you do, never compromising your standards and values, and caring about your clients, your people, and your own career."

Together with my colleague - Ilyse Smith - I've been asked to speak about professionalism at an internal training program next week. Ilyse and I have been pondering the nature of true professionalism for the past few weeks. The server at my morning coffee shop epitomizes true professionalism for me; he is caring and friendly without being intrusive, seems to love his job, remembers my name and order, and by doing all this ensures I'll keep coming back. According to Maister's definition, he qualifies.

With apologies for the self-serving blog post after a few months on hiatus, I'd like to hear from you if you're interested in this topic:

1. How do you define professionalism?

2. Is this a skill that can be taught in business school? Is it?

3. Do you have any examples of professionalism (or generic examples of the lack of it)?

Social media & PR event exhaustion

Lisa Walker — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:08:00 GMT

Some of my PR blogging buddies have called for a moratorium on PR & social media events - there have been too many in Toronto recently. Most of these events are similar - same messages, same case studies. But I just finished watching a great CPRS-hosted presentation on social media & PR featuring Eli Singer - someone whose name was familiar from my Second Life CaseCamp experience. Firstly - kudos to CPRS for hosting this event online so we didn't need to spend time travelling. And Eli did a good job of providing new and interesting content, making this one worth the time.

Eli presented a case study on blogger relations for the Frank Gehry exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Two noteworthy points:

1. In a post-event survey, the AGO found that the Internet and word-of-mouth drove the majority of awareness of the exhibit, specifically:

38 % - Internet
32 % - Word of mouth
21 % Information in mail
13% Membership newsletter
5% Newspaper

2. Bloggers and media each have different reasons for attending press events, and this translates in several ways. For example, many bloggers invited to the Gehry exhibit asked that they be allowed to bring dates - indicating they see this as a social event. It's a good reminder that a lot of bloggers have full-time jobs unrelated to their blogging actvities, and are genuinely passionate about the experience. In fact - blog coverage on the Gehry exhibit focused specifically on the event, while media coverage picked up the angle that Gehry was supporting a sport celebrity going through a minor scandal at the time. Media pick up the angles that will hold greater mass appeal. Bloggers seem to stick to their select audience.

Eli stated that this was the first time RocketBoom had been invited to participate in a press event. That surprised me as I've watched Rocketboom for a long time and am pretty sure I've seen them invited as press to other events.

The technical difficulties had some of our group leaving the room in frustration and I couldn't stick around to hear the second half. But otherwise it was a thoroughly enjoyable presentation.

YouTube as the entry point

Lisa Walker — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:05:00 GMT

YouTube is in the news today for creating a user-generated video awards contest to be judged by community members. No big surprise. But it's a different mention of YouTube that caught my eye this weekend and speaks volumes about its state in today's culture. Student Jana Edwards comments on the need for owning a television in the Globe and Mail (March 17), "Though sometimes a prof will ask you to watch a program for school and it's not something you'd be able to track down on YouTube."

If you're reading this then you don't need to

Lisa Walker — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:04:00 GMT

I love this nugget from Seth Godin, What smart bosses know about people who read blogs, dividing the business world into those who read blogs and those who don't: business blog readers being those who thirst for insight. Bit of a generalization - sure - there are a lot of thirsty people who haven't been sufficiently exposed to blogging yet. But it makes sense in that I don't know a single blog reader who falls into Seth's 'I'm doing fine, leave me alone' category.

From Mass to Grass: Canada's Word of Mouth Conference announced

Lisa Walker — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:16:00 GMT

For those Canadian marketers wondering about all the recent buzz on word of mouth marketing, you can find out at From Mass to Grass, the Canadian Marketing Association's word of mouth conference on April 12 in Toronto. I'm particularly keen to hear keynote speaker Kyle MacDonald, the One-Red-Paperclip guy who traded his way up from a paper clip to a house. How could anyone not want to hear that story? We've also got Jackie Huba, author of Citizen Marketers, speaking about "the motivations of amateur content creators and how they influence purchase decisions for products, brands and companies."

I'm on the organizing committee of this conference and we've worked hard to come up with speakers from companies such as Lululemon, Nike, HarperCollins and Evian who can tell their stories about what's worked and what hasn't. We want people to leave full of ideas for implementing their first, or next, word of mouth campaign, whether offline, online, or a combination.

Thanks to my very smart (and fun) co-organizers including Mitch Joel from Twist Image, David Jones from Fleishman Hillard, Sean Moffitt from Buzz Canuck, Louis Gagnon from Monster.ca, Stephania Varelli from Sweetspot, Mirabel Palmer-Elliott from Rogers, Rob Kozinets from Schulich, Kiran Balladin from the CMA, Michael Seaton from Scotiabank and Cindy Mielke from West49.

Pitch me, I’m a blogger now, I have no ethics!

Lisa Walker — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:42:00 GMT

Thus spake Mark Evans – tongue firmly in cheek and successfully getting his final laugh of the night as he leaped from the podium at Third Tuesday last week.

Mark is a journalist-turned-blogger. He left newspaper writing at a surprising time in his career as a youthful but highly regarded senior tech reporter for the National Post. Today he is a pure blogger at online start-up b5media. When I heard about his move, Web one-point-oh words like bubble, start-up, VC, dot com and uh-oh crashed into my brain. But things seem to be going well for him.

Ably hosted by Michael O’Connor Clarke on the beery Third Tuesday Toronto stage last week, here are three lessons Mark gave to PR people who want to pitch bloggers on story ideas, products, etc.

Familiarize yourself their style, tone and interests first, just as you would with journalists.
Build relationships. Start with a couple of bloggers who you know and trust. Get involved in the blogosphere before pitching. (Couldn’t agree more. It seems to run counter to the spirit of the blogosphere to write an occasional blog, or to pitch bloggers, when you don't read or comment on other blogs).
Simply ask if they're interested before pitching. Most bloggers want attention; they check their stats frequently. Odds are they will say yes, send me stuff, and you’ve established friendly grounds just through the ask.

All common sense for a by-the-book PR type, but it’s good to hear it validated from someone with Mark’s unique perspective. I asked his opinion on free media passes for bloggers at paid events. I’m not satisfied I’ve found the answer yet. I manage media relations for an annual event of 1,500 participants and 80 journalists. The event has grown over five years only because of the wonderful bloggers who understand the sense of humour with which the event was created. Every year we have bloggers show up requesting free media passes. We’re at limited capacity and the event relies on ticket sales. How can one ethically decide which bloggers are allowed in?

Mark clearly respects organizations that incorporate blog relations appropriately into their communications strategy. It was one of the more enjoyable presentations I’ve seen at any social media event in the last year - partially because he was so accessible. Thanks again Joe and Terry for another great TTT.

50 Canadian organizations with blogs

Lisa Walker — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:34:00 GMT

Dave Forde at Profectio has done a lot of work to come up with a list of of Canadian company blogs divided into categories such as legal firms, marketing service firms, PR agencies (Hill & Knowlton and Thornley Fallis), advertising agencies, media (of varying types), technology firms, and post-secondary schools. I'm sure he'll get some more suggestions for additions and categories. I know I plan to take a thorough review to see which feeds I can add.

Social media get-together next Tuesday in Toronto

Lisa Walker — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:38:00 GMT

If you’re in Toronto next Tuesday, Jan. 23, and interested in chatting to a diverse group of ad and PR people about social media, please feel free to drop by Throng, held informally at 7pm at Paupers Pub (Bathurst and Bloor).

This Month's Topics (to discuss or ignore as we choose)
1. "You" as Time's Person of the Year, and "The Consumer" as Advertising Age's Agency of the Year.
Is this an important way for the social media message to get through to the mainstream? Is it just two magazines copping out from having to make a real decision? Have you put "Time's 2006 Person on the Year" on your resume yet? Mary Keating, head of our national tech comms practice, comments on the two proclamations here.

2. Biggest Word of Mouth stories of 2006.
Let's review the most interesting WOM stories, viral marketing initiatives, social media successes and failures. What does 2007 hold in this arena? Come armed with some examples if you can.

Show up whenever you can, leave with your brain full. No formal speaker, just conversation among a smallish group of marketing and PR types. Please let me know if you plan to drop by so I can hold the table size.

Second Life conference feels just like the real thing

Lisa Walker — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:08:00 GMT

Second Life reminds me of the old MUD (multi-user dimension/dungeon) online games I played ten years ago, just far more sophisticated. For a while I've thought of SL as a fun way for gamers-who've-grown-up to interact while doing business. Based on my experience watching the first CaseCamp on Second Life hosted by Crayon last night, I still think that. But I found out some real benefits including how a Second Life conference can be a pretty close recreation of an in-person experience - more so than any other technologies I've seen used to save travel, event hard costs, and time.

CaseCamp - usually held in real life - is a place for presenters to discuss case studies and get feedback. Second Life's CaseCamp registration was limited to 40 delegates so I withdrew my name from the waiting list when my husband was selected as a presenter. That let me watch over his shoulder so someone else could take my spot.

I genuinely felt like I was at a real-world conference; reading delegates' nametags (in SL they pop up as text boxes), seeing live Q&A, checking out outfits (great dress on Kate Trgovac) and watching people network. It was easy to forget we were in virtual reality. There were the same technical glitches and speaker delays you'd see at any conference: in fact this was better run than many. I was at a conference recently where most presentations had a technical glitch. The speakers, who included Michael Seaton from ScotiaBank, Eli Singer on World Wildlife Federation and John Wall from Accurev, were engaging and clear. Presenters were limited to five slides so we didn't get the dull glaze that comes from over-use of PowerPoint. As a presenter, Doug got the same back-slapping "Great job Doug" comments he'd get from leaving any real stage.

Doug obviously felt the same pressure of presenting there as anywhere else. In fact he seemed more nervous speaking to 40 avatars than he was when he spoke to 500 business executives two days earlier at the WOMMA conference in Washington. Probably had something to do with the lack of ability to read faces - most avatars just sat there. At one point we thought we heard a yawn which threw him off a bit.

Great experience, even over-the-shoulder. If CaseCamp continues in SL, I'm signing up again and hopefully Starbuck Serdyuk will get to participate next time.

For sale; one customer - gently used

Lisa Walker — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:15:00 GMT

There’s a department store in my neighbourhood which I’ll call Zippy. Every time I approach the check-out counter, the cashier and I greet each other, then the conversation goes something like this:

Me: (nicely) “Just want you to know upfront that I don’t have a Zippy card, I don’t want a Zippy card, and I don’t believe in department store cards so please don’t offer me one.”

Cashier: “Did you know that by purchasing a Zippy card you can get 10% off today?”

Me: “Yes, but I don’t want one. Thank you though.”

Cashier: “Do you have an air miles card?”

Me: "No. I don’t use automated loyalty cards."

Cashier: “Are you sure you don’t want to sign up today? There are lots of benefits.”

Me: “I tried to tell you I didn’t want one and I know it’s your job to try to sell me one...”

Cashier: “Actually we’re not on commission when we sell Zippy cards.”

Me (still being nice-ish): “Then why do I have this conversation so frequently? What do you suggest I say upfront to avoid wasting everyone’s time? I genuinely want to know.”

Cashier: “We’re actually trying to help our customers by giving them bigger savings. We’re doing them a favour.”

Me: “But I don’t believe in department store cards. I don’t want you to have my information, and I don’t like the massive interest rates."

Cashier: (quietly): “You have to understand that our employees have to ask you even when you tell them not to. There’s a customer form which queries whether the customer was asked to sign up for a Zippy card. If they weren’t, the employees hear about it.”

Me: “I feel bad for the employees. But why are you asking your customers to do employees a favour? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I’ve been coming here less frequently just to avoid this conversation. I don’t want to feel guilty with every shopping experience.”

Cashier: Swipes my debit card a little sharply and doesn’t respond.

Well, I tried. We the shoppers need our own vendor management system so we can figure out how much our attention and shopping habits are worth. And companies should seriously consider and adapt to the needs of their customers rather than forcing customers to adapt to them.

The "Five Things You Don't Know About Me" Meme

Lisa Walker — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 20:01:00 GMT

Tamera Kremer just tagged me with the 'Five Things You Don't Know about Me' meme. It's the kind of thing you want to do right away so no-one else picks your next targets. Here are my five things:

I have met and failed to recognize Mickey Rooney, Catherine Oxenburg, Keanu Reeves among other celebrities.
I have had a sick sense of humour since very young. When I was ten years old, I helped my Mom bake fortune cookies for a school fundraiser. I wrote on the outside of each fortune 'Don't read till you get home', and on the inside 'You will die on the way home.' I think I'd read that scenario in a Roald Dahl book somewhere. Fortunately I confessed before we left for the fundraiser, and had to spend a lot of time writing new fortunes.
I'm a huge sci-fi fan. Currently in love with Battlestar Galactica, and have always loved Asimov.
I broke my left leg exercising a race horse when I was 14. No-one told me the horse hadn’t been ridden for days. David Hasselhoff (my Knight Rider hero) was visiting the South African children’s hospital and signed the cast on my leg.

My three-year old daughter and I have about 10 minutes of airtime on a documentary. On the same subject as the documentary, I have a book dedicated to me that sold 20,000 copies around the world.

And now I'm tagging Martin Hoffman, Leona Hobbs, Ted Graham, Leo Bottary, and The PR Girlz.

The permanent record

Lisa Walker — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:06:00 GMT

In 1987 I was a first-year student studying journalism at Rhodes in an apartheid South Africa. On my first day of classes we learned the same thing as j-school students everywhere; get the facts down - who, what, where, when, why. On my first night out with a few fourth-years we learned something different; be careful what you write about as left-leaning students - there are government plants in every tutorial session waiting to watch-list budding journalists (scary music here). Once you're on that list, you don't come off. I'm sure it wasn't as bad as that in reality, but anything was believable in an environment where our campus hall played host to illegal underground ANC gatherings, and I would frequently participate - understanding the spirit if not the words. We were lambasted by our profs if we attended class instead of joining whatever political protest was on campus that day. My sisters studying at Wits University were tear-gassed at their political protests on campus. Nothing seemed too far-fetched that year.

Nine years later at my first PR agency job, my manager - Carolyn Luke - told me never to write anything that I wouldn't want the whole world to see. She learned that lesson in grade school passing a note that the teacher made her read aloud to the class. A few years later, a Toronto Star tech reporter told me about an email written about him by a PR agency consultant. The consultant sent the email to another consultant in her agency, but put the journalist's name in the CC line instead of the subject line, so he got to read their opinion of him. Oops.

Since then I've burned myself a few times by writing things that I didn't intend for others to see. And I've seen emails about myself that I shouldn't have.

The notion of the Permanent Record - a hot topic with blogs - is making me cautious about what I write in any space. I'm also deeply aware that my opinions on politics, the environment, social issues and religion have gone through radical changes about every five years. And I look back at things on which I was deeply passionate and how foolish I feel for those opinions now. That doesn't mean I won't keep giving my opinion, but I do feel the weight of self-censorship.

Nineteen years after my first day at Rhodes, the permanent record is absolute. Privacy is dying. The Internet caches things forever. My brain is permanently on caution when I have conversations as I wonder if they'll appear on a blog the next day. Last Friday I was at Tamera Kramer's party where a couple of the guests were bloggers, and I found myself mentally going through my conversations just as I would an email or blog post before I hit send.

Someone is watching and waiting to tell the world about your foibles. Michael Richards (Kramer) will never live down his unforgiveable racist rant. Fifteen years ago he might have been sued, but it's unlikely his career would have been ruined as it is today because the whole world gets to sit in judgement as first hand witnessess. Bank of America's singing manager was really not such a bad thing, but it becomes a big deal when we're all allowed to judge.

Today I'm thinking a lot about ethics around blog posting. In the past week, two people told me they received private emails in response to a blog post, and both wanted to post those private emails publicly. Bloggers are also publicly posting information on who has visited their site. Personal conversations are showing up online. We're going to - eventually - start seeing more self-censorship. Blogs are sort of like tattoos. People will start thinking twice before permanently inking something that might not be representative 2, 5 or 10 years from now.

Throng 4 meets in Toronto

Lisa Walker — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:38:00 GMT

Earlier this week was the fourth Throng; a monthly get-together of social media types over drinks in downtown Toronto. Despite competing for the time-slot with Geek Dinner, we had a couple of new PR and blogging faces including Maggie Fox, and four High Road staff Martin Hoffman, Heather Anderson, Nicole Flippance, and Natasha Compton, as well as regulars Boyd Neil, Sean Moffitt, Ketchum’s Melody Gaukel, Mark Daley of MacLaren McCann and Doug Walker.

The planned topic was whether we’re going to see a new communications agency model emerge in Canada to deal with the needs of companies looking at web 2.0 strategies. Something like Crayon, which according to its launch press release, “...will help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today's dynamic and complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards marketing communication.” As far as I can tell, Crayon is primarily virtual (based in Second Life), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar agency with its feet on real ground, comprised of former heavy-hitting ad and PR agency types, pop up next year. Social media, online, viral, word of mouth, communities, etc could become the anvil that a new communications model will be forged upon. What's the name of that agency going to be in Canada?

So much for that conversation; it didn’t happen to the extent I was hoping because we got too excited about finding out what our new bloggy joinees are into. Got into a discussion with Martin Hoffman (of Canuck PR toolbar fame) about a topic recently discussed on Joe Thornley's blog; the employer’s dilemma around supporting personal business blogs when those bloggers sometimes leave the agency which helped them build blog fame, and whether there are differences in freedom of writing for each of those models.

Also had a chat with Maggie of Social Media Group about the agencies leading the social media charge. Maggie is a former on-air broadcast journalist with a great presence and clear thinking about communications. I suspect she knows what makes for a good media and blog pitch. Next time I want to talk to her about how PR and disciplines like word of mouth, advertising and direct are meeting in the social media blur. I'm not sure whether Canadian companies care what type of agency executes their social media strategies, and I suspect many types of agencies are offering similiar solutions. Surely it all comes down to who you trust to figure it out on your behalf?

Boyd wanted to discuss whether blogging helps build political consensus or creates too many diverse opinions to be effectively synthesized in public policy. Doug is continuing that discussion over here.

Next Throng is in January.

What's new in Word of Mouth marketing

Lisa Walker — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:59:00 GMT

It feels like everyone is talking about Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing – so I guess the WOMMY cobbler's kids have their shoes firmly laced up. Last week I went to the ‘Word Up!’ WOM conference organized by Profectio with a diverse speaker list which included Andy Sernovitz of WOMMA, Rick Murray of Edelman’s me2Revolution, Maxine Friedman of BrandIntel, Brent Hill of Feedburner, and our own Ted Graham speaking about influencer networks.

Not surprisingly about 80 per cent of the day focused on online opportunities. Is this in synch with the real needs of our clients? I think it's where we're going, but judging by the audience Q&A most marketers are still focused on traditional needs.

Two sessions I really liked were Andy Sernovitz’s overview of the industry and Matchstick's case study on seeding products with bloggers, which included an analysis by Professor Andrea Wojnicki at the Rotman School of Management. I'll write up the blogger case study in a future post, but here are some points from Andy's presentation.

Andy feels we're in a WOM revolution. Eight-two per cent of Fortune 500 companies say they plan to start a WOM campaign next year...but...people are asking for it without really understanding what it is.
The trust of people (the word 'consumer' was banished by one of the speakers) is the medium that WOM marketing uses. If marketers pollute that trust, they destroy their own credibility.
Word of Mouth means genuine two-way dialogue. It's no longer about shouting at people, or dumping ads on them. It's executed by giving people a reason to talk about your stuff and making it easier for that conversation to take place.
WOM is earned by being remarkable and staying remarkable. Krispy Kreme had great WOM marketing when they were hot out of the oven. When the product became available in gas stations, it was no longer remarkable.
Our new reality is that consumers are in control. UA the UE: 'You are the User Experience'. It’s not what your ads are, or your press releases say, it’s what your online users say about you. You can't hide, and there is a permanent record.
Tools like blogs and emails make the conversation much easier as they're all about forwarding and linking, compared to static web sites or marketing material.

So...thanks Andy, and I'm sure I didn't do it justice. It was an excellent opening for the conference, and I learned some funky new acronyms.

Update: For more on the conference see Buzz Canuck's summary of the day and Dave Forde's link to speaker presentations.

I don't care about your brand jargon, I just want a coffee

Lisa Walker — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:08:00 GMT

This morning at Second Cup (a high-end Canadian coffee chain) I accidentally asked for a Grande instead of a Medium. Second Cup's major competitor in Canada - Starbucks, labels its coffee sizes Tall, Grande and Venti instead of Medium, Large and Extra Large. The server reacted to my Grande gaffe with a smiling, 'That's a bad word around here'. When I did this a few years back at a different location, the server responded with a cold, 'I don't know what you're talking about.' Today's incident was benign but the first one ensured I didn't visit that outlet again. These were missed opportunities for the coffee servers to take the higher road by translating what I asked for rather than acting insulted.

Some thoughts:

Embarrassing your customers who mention a competitor is not going to force them into loyalty.
When a customer uses a competitor's language, translate and go with it. It's your responsibility to understand your customer's language, not the other way around.

Employees really do guard the brand. I can't blame the coffee chain for how its servers respond in such a high turnover industry, and I usually have a great experience at Second Cup. But I'm surprised some servers are willing to embarass existing customers for the sake of getting across the brand jargon.