Elbow Grease

Ethics & digital PR: what should we discuss?

Steven Noble — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:01:00 GMT

On March 13, I'm leading a breakfast seminar and workshop on ethics in digital PR.

(It will be a busy day in which I'm also on an ad-tech panel on the broader topic of digital PR in general.)

If you'd like to see any particular ethical principles or dilemmas discussed in the morning session, please let me know. Likewise, if you can point me to additional case studies that illustrate any of these points.

At this stage, the principles I'm planning to explore include:

When participating in communities, identify yourself and anyone you represent
Work within clear parameters agreed to with your client
Only take on projects you have the ability to execute
Before moderating comments, draft a reasonable comment policy, announce it to all users and apply it impartially
Respect the privacy and contact preferences of individuals
When using online services, adhere to their terms of use

Personality type and social media strategy

Steven Noble — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:21:00 GMT

Imagine two organisations.

Both realise that their customers, employees and other stakeholders are using social media. Both place an emphasis on being open, and on listening and learning. Both are ready to increase their use of social media. Both decide that starting a corporate blog would be an excellent way of beginning this journey.

In one of these organisations, someone volunteers for the role of corporate blogger. Why? Because it excites them. Blogging made sense to them when they started their popular personal journal about alpacas. After a year of personal blogging, it feels even more right to them today. The organisation appreciates their enthusiasm, values their track record, trusts their judgment, and invites them onto the corporate blog.

In the other organisation, management picks the blogger. The person they pick for this role is smart and senior, but not genuinely excited by blogging. Intellectually they can see that it makes sense, but when they sit down to read and write, it just doesn't feel right.

The first organisation wins, every time. Why? Because success is dependent on what this person actually does when they become a blogger, and personality type is one of the main determinants of how we use social media.

For example, in the Myers-Briggs system, I'm an ISTP. Quoting Wikipedia, folk of my type are:

"...masters at using tools of every type — artistic, technological, martial. Although they are introverts, they are authoritarian in their interactions with others and can be forceful at influencing people. They focus on accomplishing tasks efficiently and skillfully."

(Ignore the bit about being "authoritarian". That hurts!)

With this analysis in mind, it's easy to see why I'm attracted to blogging. I'm the kind of person who thinks that blogging software is a doddle to use (not everyone does) and who takes great pleasure in the soapbox that it provides. I also enjoy analysing the world around me, which is helped by absorbing a continual stream of challenging, insightful blog posts from my peers.

My personality type also goes a long way towards explaining why I prefer the efficiency of Facebook to the expressiveness of MySpace, why I watch and share many more YouTube videos than I create, and why I'd much rather read about the recent Twitterstorm that participate in it.

You may be different. In fact you almost certainly are. That's part of the beauty of being human and the power of personality typing. And these differences will affect your use of social media.

So what does this mean for our work as professional communicators? For a start, it highlights the importance of supporting individuals in their search for tools that make sense for them. Rather than encouraging them to all use the same tools in the same way, try supporting them to be their best in the social environments that make sense to them. You'll be floored by the contributions they often make to conversations that are relevant to your organisation.

B&T on the “YouTube election” we never had

Steven Noble — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:56:00 GMT

Thankyou to B&T for publishing my op ed on the YouTube election we never had. B&T trimmed the copy to fit the available space. Here's the full version as I submitted it:

If you believe the talk, Australia is entering its first “YouTube election”, but why has anyone bothered?

This question seems strange, because most aspects of an election campaign have a very clear purpose and are scripted to within an inch of their life. For example, the parties only decide how to dole out their promises after they’ve determined exactly which voters are most likely to hand them the seats they need to win office. Likewise, they don’t sign off on a statement until they’ve predicted how everyone from the press to rival politicians will react. Nothing is left to chance.

Compare this precision to the way these parties are using social media in their campaigns. At best, they seem to have decided that social media is another way to get their message out. At worse, they look like they’ve been forced into MySpace by their own kids. Either way, the tremendous effort that we associate with most election campaigning is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, we have web marketing on a wing and a prayer: “Just whack your press releases up on MySpace — she’ll be right.”

It’s too late for our fearless leaders to change their approach to social media in this election, but for our own curiosity, let’s imagine what could have been done.

In this election, John Howard must convince us he still has new ideas. That involves focusing on areas that we don’t usually associate with his government, such as Aboriginal affairs and the environment. His government’s take-over of the Murray-Darling Basin could have been the basis of a sensational social media campaign.

Imagine if a Coalition campaigner slowly travelled from one end of the Murray-Darling Basin to another, taking photos of people who were affected by the drought and uploading their stories to Flickr. Of course, the photos would be print quality and cleared for use by the press. The campaigner would find farmers and conservative environmentalists and video them for YouTube. They’d keep a diary of their travels on Blogger, and used Google Earth to map their journey and scientific data. They’d collected signatures as they ventured from town to town, finally stopping at Victoria’s state parliament. There, they’d camp on the steps, camcorder in hand, until they personally delivered the petition to the last Labor premiere to resist the Federal take-over. The result would have been months of online buzz, on-the-ground goodwill and priceless media coverage.

Meanwhile, Kevin Rudd must convince us he will invest in Australia’s future — economically as well as socially. Personally, I can’t think of a better issue on which Labor could brief members of Australia’s blogging community than its proposed National Broadband Network.

The Labor party could fly passionate, savvy bloggers from around the country to a Hunter Valley retreat. The bloggers would spend some of their time with Senator Conroy and his advisors, but they’d also mingle freely with independent experts and each other. During the day, the Labor party would reveal details of the plan that previously had not been public. At night, they’d hire a country cinema and screen sci-fi classics. From start to finish, it would be clear that the bloggers were free to write what they liked — or nothing at all. The Labor party would devote as much of the event to listening as to talking, and would keep the lines of discussion open with these bloggers long after the end of the event. Online opinion would shift sharply towards Labor.

Imagine wikis about weapons of mass destruction. Facebook groups for polling booth volunteers. The possibilities are endless, but instead we are being served press releases on MySpace and speeches on YouTube.

If either major party had treated social media as an essential part of their campaign strategy, they could be enjoying some extra mileage at the moment. Instead, they have approached it as a last-minute tactical add-on. In a few years, social media marketing will be ordinary and both parties will struggle to get an upper hand, but if either had stepped up during the 2007 election campaign, they could have had a clear run towards success.

The digital election in Marketing magazine

Steven Noble — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:02:00 GMT

A huge thanks to the team at Marketing magazine for allowing me to be one the panelists who answered their "Around The Table" question for the November 2007 issue: Should politicians market themselves on MySpace?

My response was trimmed to fit within the available space. Here's the slightly longer version that I submitted:

MySpace is the largest social network in Australia by a country mile, but politicians in Australia have failed to mobilise the MySpace generation. When you read their MySpace pages, it’s easy to see why.

Most Australian politicians on MySpace have used it to do little more than rehash media releases and newspaper columns — as if the MySpace generation doesn’t know how to find The Australian’s website without their help. When politicians try to distribute weighty information in the online equivalent of a high school cafeteria, is it any surprise that they’re either ignored or caught in a food fight?

To mobilise the MySpace generation, politicians should provide resources, training and a scary amount of freedom to the Young Liberals and Young Labor. With this encouragement and material support, they’d create the kind of MySpace pages that politicians could never imagine.

Why wasn’t there a competition to see which branch of Young Labor could enroll the most 18-year-olds to vote before John Howard called the election? The first prize of course would be backstage access to a gig. Why didn’t the Liberal students societies at every university use camcorders to video their new members during orientation week? The topic would be “what young people really want”. How hard would it be to grab a laughable quote from any side of politics, remix it in rap style and make it available for free download as a ringtone? This is not happening on MySpace, despite the obvious opportunity — because this kind of thinking is not obvious to most politicians.

There are plenty of places on the internet where young and old can debate serious issues, from Senator Andrew Bartlett’s excellent blog through to sites like National Forum. MySpace reaches more voters than both of these sites, but if politicians can’t engage with MySpace users on their own terms, they should encourage Young Labor and the Young Liberals to do it on their behalf.

The digital election is about what voters say to each other

Steven Noble — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:16:00 GMT

The concept of "the digital election" has been attracting a lot of attention in Australia, but too much time has been spent answering the wrong question: how will social media affect the political parties and their campaigns?

If we focus on that question, the answer probably won't be that exciting. Sure, some candidates are obtaining small donations from more contributors, thanks to the internet. Certainly, others are reaching voters in new ways using new tools. However, the shift is evolutionary not revolutionary.

Likewise, if we focus on a related question — how is social media allowing voters to speak to politicians? — then the signals are mixed.

On the one hand, there have been some extraordinary public campaigns that have allowed voters to speak their minds. For example, GetUp used online microdonations to fund a scathing anti-government climate change advertisement that screened during the 2007 Australian rules football grand final.

But on the other hand, these examples are still the exception in Australia. At a roundtable discussion we hosted at Hill & Knowlton today, both Tanya Plibersek MP and Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said they must speak directly with people who are affected by their policies, many of whom are not using the internet to express their views. Ms Plibersek talked about the urgency of having someone walk into her electoral office because their welfare payments had been suspended, and the time required to assist them. She and Senator Fierravanti-Wells said they were inundated with direct approaches from the public, and were lucky to carve out much time at all for online reading.

No, the biggest change in my view is in the answer to a third question: how are voters speaking with each other?

Until recently, voters held their political conversations in private spaces, from the bus stop to the kitchen table. These conversations were separate from the public realm that's occupied by politicians, journalists, PR practitioners and other members of the political class. They sometimes changed how individuals voted, but they almost never became part of the public record.

Today, any voter can hold a conversation in public. Every blog post can be found through a Google search. Every statement is part of public debate. Increasingly, these conversations will affect how our nation makes up its mind on election day.

Certainly, focusing on voter-to-voter conversations is the approach we've taken with Election Predictor, which allows individual voters to share their personal polling predictions with their friends, especially via Facebook. It's not designed to showcase the expertise of professional pollsters; it's designed to liberate everyone's inner pollster.

Likewise, this is the approach taken by organisations like iVote Australia and Election Tracker, who spoke at the roundtable about how young people are using the internet to talk about the issues that matter to them, rather than the "mortgages and interest rates" that dominates mainstream coverage.

Social media is just a tool, but so were the printing press and the wheel. In my view, we're in the earliest stages of a social revolution. In time, democracy will become a conversation.

Australian Election Predictor: embracing user feedback

Steven Noble — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:58:00 GMT

One of the fantastic aspects of launching software using social media is you receive immediate, invaluable feedback from your user base.

Based on this feedback, we changed the interface to the Facebook version of Election Predictor a few days ago to make it easier to understand.

Today, we also changed how the Election Predictor applies swings, especially in seats where the Australia Electoral Commission has changed the boundaries. Of course, this cannot be science — our voting system is just too complicated, and some critical factors like the distribution of preferences won't be decided until much closer to election day. However, while you're having fun with Election Predictor it's nice to know that we've put as much time as possible into ensuring it generates indicative results.

So, if you've tried it before but not touched it for a while, now is the time to take Election Predictor for another spin.

Australian Election Predictor: print and web-quality pics

Steven Noble — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:04:00 GMT

We've loaded pictures of the Australian Election Predictor onto the web, where they can be used by journalists, bloggers and anyone else. Just click any of these images to visit the download page. Enjoy!

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Access Australian Election Predictor via Facebook or via the Election Predictor website (electionpredictor.com.au), which does not require Facebook.

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Enter a swing to Labor or the Coalition (versus the 2004 election outcome).

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Election Predictor shows which seats will be held by Labor, the Coalition and independents as a result of the user's prediction.

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Election Predictor shows how many seats will be held by Labor, the Coalition and independents if the user's prediction comes to pass.

Australian Election Predictor: first questions from media

Steven Noble — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 04:36:00 GMT

On the back of the release of the Facebook version of Election Predictor, we've started discussing it with media.

The initial questions are interesting:

Does H&K Australia do PR for Facebook?

No, Election Predictor is a H&K Australia initiative. It's available in a web version, and now in a Facebook version. This is possible because Facebook has created an API that allows third-parties to create Facebook apps. In the future, we expect other social networks to create similar APIs.

This is cool. Why have you done this?

Because we're passionate communicators, election-watchers and social media users. Election Predictor is our way of showing who we are and sharing the experience with anyone who wants to play.

Did you build this all in-house at H&K Australia?

We're the third office in H&K's global network to release an Election Predictor. We worked closely with one of H&K Canada's software development partners to localise Election Predictor for Australia, and to add important new features — especially in the Facebook version.

Here comes the Facebook election

Steven Noble — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:02:00 GMT

Just as we were getting used to headlines about "the YouTube election", Facebook has skyrocketed into everyone's attention.

Today, we unveil the Facebook version of our Election Predictor, along with a Facebook group. Already, voters could use the Election Predictor to analyse the impact of a two-party swing to Labor or the Coalition. Already they could drill down to particular states, territories and electorates, and view the results using maps, lists and charts. Already they could share their predictions using email or their blogs. But now, they can also share their predictions with their friends via Facebook. We expect the Australian Election Predictor for Facebook to grow virally, and we'll keep you informed of the numbers.

Meanwhile, we were delighted to see that Brendan Shirlaw has released a Facebook application call Aus Politics, which has a number of neat features. We like the way Aus Politics can register a vote for a minor party. (For predictor, the only way we could predict what would happen to Lower House seats was to work with two-party preferences, for Labor or Coalition, not with primary votes, which could be for any party or candidate.) We also like the way Brendan's app allows you to see how your friends voted, and provides links to all known Australia federal candidates and parties on Facebook.

Meanwhile, we note that some of the parties are creating simple applications that add a poster to your profile along the lines of Kevin07 and Vote Greens. And there's much more activity besides. Bring on the Facebook election!

Add a mini-predictor to your blog

Steven Noble — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:10:00 GMT

As mentioned earlier, we're hoping that many bloggers will use the Election Predictor to showcase their thoughts about the upcoming campaign.

One way of doing this would be to link to the predictor after configuring it to showcase their predictions. Another way would be to add a mini-predictor to their blog.

For example, Simon Jackman recently described a sudden increase in Labor's lead in a particular Newspoll as "statistically significant". At the time, Labor's lead appeared to jump from 55/45 to 59/41. The latter figure would look like this in a mini-predictor:

The next day, John Quiggin talked about how the poll results were jumping all over the place. He estimated that on the whole, Labor's two-party preferred rating was probably sitting at around 56 to 57%, which would look like this:

Like they say, a picture tells a thousand words. Hopefully Election Predictor will help more bloggers to share pictures along with their priceless words.

Australian bloggers and their election predictions

Steven Noble — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:41:00 GMT

In the future, we hope that more and more bloggers will use Election Predictor to create charts and maps for their websites. To show how this could be done, we thought we'd highlight a few bloggers and bring their predictions to life.

Daily Flute writes that "If all [other seats] less than 10% go, we’re looking at an ALP majority of 54 with 15 odd former ministers on the block, including: Howard, Turnbull, Pyne, Brough and Costello." To create a swing of 9.9%, we entered a Labor party two-preferred vote of 56.2% into the Election Predictor Split window, delivering this result. The Labor majority is 54 seats, just as Daily Flute predicts.

Meanwhile, Possum Pollytics claims the Coalition now considers seats held by a 10% margin to marginal. Here's what a 10% swing looks like in Election Predictor.

Corporate Engagement compares the way different newspapers reported on a poll that had Labor leading by 55/45, down slightly from previous highs. The result is still a wipe-out.

Fair Crack Of The Whip uses the "Sawford Crystal Ball" to predict a Coalition victory, because inflation is low and the incumbent always has an advantage. With a 4% swing to Labor, the Coalition retains its grip on power — just!

There are just a selection of the political blogs we're reading. Through the course of the campaign, we'll write about more of them.

And me? Well, I agree with Truepolitik. My personal, non-expert view is that the Coalition will claw back some of Labor's lead, but not enough to prevent a change of government.

Australian election tools we like, Part I

Steven Noble — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:50:00 GMT

In the lead-up to launching H&K's Election Predictor in Australia, we spent a great deal of time playing with other tools that are designed to bring power or joy to the voting public.

Chief of these must be the Oz Politics website.

For a start, it contains an Election Calculator with some similarities to our own Election Predictor. But that's just the start of the resources on this site.

Hands-down, my favourite must be his tool that tests your political views and then tells you which of the parties agree with you most. Of course, Oz Politics points out that there are many factors other than policy alignment that affect how we vote, such as the perception that one candidate is stronger or more trustworthy than another. However, it's still a fascinating tool to try in the lead-up to the next Australian election.

Introducing the Australian Election Predictor

Steven Noble — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:03:00 GMT

Please welcome H&K's Australian Election Predictor.

With this tool, you don't need a PhD in politics, a party membership or a press pass to start playing with the numbers. Using H&K's Australian Election Predictor, anyone who thinks it might be fun can guess the outcome of the next Australian Federal Election and then share colourful maps and charts with their friends — via email, their blog or website, or Google Maps.

This is version one. Additional features will be unveiled in the next few days.

Of course we consulted influential tools like the Mackerras Pendulum when customising H&K's Election Predictor for use in Australia. But unlike the work of Australia's leading psephologists, the Election Predictor is not science. In our view, this is a chance for all of us to have some fun, inflame a debate, and have another say about the upcoming election. So please visit electionpredictor.com.au and give it a go.

Update: ranking Australian blogs

Steven Noble — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:53:00 GMT

A quick update to my post about tracking the Australian blogosphere: Ratified is now ranking Australian blogs too.

(Link via Lee Hopkins.)

This list is good fun and a good way to find a few new blogs for your reading list. However, I'm surprised by the number of people I meet who view these lists as providing a sound, scientific basis for online PR. They're not.

For example, Ratified counts Feedburner RSS subscriptions. What if a "top blogger" doesn't use Feedburner for whatever reason?

Ratified, like many other systems, uses Technorati's Authority ranking as a proxy for online success. But what if Technorati is splitting a "top blogger's" Authority ranking because their blog can be found via more than one URL?

This system, like many others, requires the blogger to self-register. What about the many Australians who never get around to registering their blogs with all these trackers? And will Ratified be able to stop all overseas spammers from registering their blogs as Australian?

No, if you're looking for numbers to justify speaking with some bloggers but not others, you're barking up the wrong tree. Use these lists, enjoy them and share them with your friends. But remember: decisions about how to engage with a particular blogger should be based on a true appreciation of their work as an individual.

Working with journalists in the age of social media

Steven Noble — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:11:00 GMT

As a digital specialist, I am sometimes challenged to defend the idea that social media will soon abolish the role of mass media in our society.

But I always decline, because that idea is ridiculous.

Social media is not replacing mass media, but it is changing the world that mass media writes about, as well as how journalists go about their work.

Likewise, it is starting to change how PR interacts with journalists. Or at least it should be — especially when it comes to working with technology journalists, who are the most likely to be using RSS readers and publishing personal blogs of their own.

For anyone in PR who wants to take this journey, here's a step-by-step guide.

1. Starting blogging. Once you start putting your own views on public display, you'll find more humility and complexity in your writing than in most media releases. You'll also be ready for Step 2, which is...

2. Start reading. Chances are you were already skim-reading every blog written by every journalist you work with, but now that you're a blogger yourself, you'll really read them. Slowly.

3. Start conversing. No, I'm not talk about the sycophantic comments I've seen some PR practitioners leave on journalists' blogs. I'm talking about really discussing an issue — being ready to change, but also challenging what some journalists have written when that's warranted.

4. Share this with clients. By inspiring them to become bloggers too, we're helping them to be more effective spokespeople in all situations.

5. Pitch less. The more confidence you have that the media sees your clients' blogs, the more selective you can be in bringing each story idea to their attention. This will make you a more valued source of usable leads over the longer run.