Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Today, H&K Canada announced that it had been retained by WestJet, Canada’s leading low-fare airline, to provide crisis communications preparedness services and media training. As my colleague and senior crisis counsellor, Boyd Neil, said in the release: “Our approach to crisis centres on helping clients focus on what’s important – engaging key stakeholders and establishing processes so clear-headed thinking is in command during a crisis situation. Today this means integrating digital and social media strategies into crisis communication planning and execution – a philosophy which WestJet shares.”

Working for any company that understands the changes unfolding in our business is always refreshing. And in an industry where body-blows to reputation can have potentially tragic and fatal results, the ability to communicate openly, transparently and as compassionate human beings is essential.

From one who participated in the actual pitch, I was both surprised and exhilirated by WestJet’s clear grasp of the importance of social media as an integrated component of their crisis preparedness plan, and their willingness to embrace it. And while they challenged our thinking, and continue to do so, they freely acknowledge that the communications dynamic in times of crisis – which now includes Blogs and Facebook, Youtube and Flickr, among others - has changed dramatically from what it was even 18 months ago, and continues to change… and that they need to be prepared for it.

Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting to another client on crisis and digital, and speaking to issues where lives may also be put at risk. I hope this audience is equally receptive.

I asked the question a few weeks ago: What’s an election without an election predictor?

And with the Ontario election campaign officially getting underway today, so too have we launched the Ontario Election Predictor (with some new and exciting special sauce. So read on).

As with previous versions, we continue to add some bits and pieces to give it more of a social flavour. This includes:

• The ability to blog your prediction
• A blog hosted by my colleague and fellow blogger, Meghan, who will provide regular updates on the campaign trail and how digital and social media is being used (or abused).
• A Google Mapping function so that you can showcase your predicting skills and see those of others (simply register and save a prediction)
• Finally, and perhaps most interesting from this practitioners perspective, we’re giving users the choice of platform to save and share their predictions: from the site itself or from a rather novel mash-up with Facebook (click here to access the Predictor App). 

We hope that we have the right ingredients and, as always, the right formula, to build on past successes. Granted the re-distribution of ridings did add a degree of complexity, so we can only hope the algorithm can withstand all the messiness that created (here’s how we dealt with it). Don’t hesitate to send us any thoughts and recommendations.

So, once again, into the breach! Now we just need to figure out what we can do to up our game for the next Federal election – Fantasy Politics anyone? Bueller?

Last Friday, fellow Canadian blogger Kate Trgovac posted on Petro-Canada’s latest foray into the social media space with “Pump Talk“, a corporate blog dedicated to issues around gas pricing and fuel efficiency. (Disclosure: Petro-Canada is an H&K Canada client on this and other initiatives… meaning, I may sound a tad biased, though I’ll do my best to curb it).

I won’t re-hash what Kate so eloquently stated in her post, other than to reinforce her points about the importance of acknowledging the people behind the blog (each of whom I’ve met and – in Jon and Michael’s case – have worked with previously), and of not underestimating the challenges associated with making an initiative such as this a reality, particularly within the context of a large, publicly-traded company. And that speaks not only to the passion of Jon and his team to champion this approach, but also to the willingness of Petro-Canada’s senior executive team who elected to step beyond their traditional comfort zone and try something different. As it stands, and with the exception of Chevron’s “Will you join us” campaign, I’ve not yet seen a similar exercise here in Canada or elsewhere within the oil and gas space (though happy to be shown otherwise).

In my view, part of what makes this exercise truly fascinating is its commitment, compared to most other corporate blogs, to provide content in both of Canada’s official languages. As it did with its original Pump Talk video series (launched on its website and on Youtube in 2006), Petro-Canada has essentially created two blogs – Pump Talk and Pleins-gaz. For the most part, content will be shared across both. As always, however, the challenge is most acute as it relates to linking to third-party content. As their language policy states: “We will search for links to third-party content in both official languages, however, in cases where materials are only available in one language, we will err on the side of providing quality information to users of the blog and provide a link.”  Not the most perfect solution, perhaps, but the most practical by far.

Equally interesting, and contrary to its blog posts, Petro-Canada has elected not to translate comments to the site in order to “respect the original intent of comments made on the blogs”. Some might wonder how such a decision might impact the “flow” of the conversation. Likewise, it’ll be interesting to see if such a policy also impacts the “immediacy” of the blog – given the time required to translate posts – particularly during times when the issue is front-and-center in the mainstream media (usually when gas prices and emotions are both spiking).

Petro-Canada’s publication of an employee comment policy as it relates to the blog is also a fascinating (yet, I would suggest, essential) exercise, one that underscores the increasing “voice” of the employee – no matter who they are or what they’re role – in the social media space, and the need for organizations to set clear expectations as it relates to such participation.

What do you think? Are Petro-Canada’s policies too hot, too cold, or just right? Have they missed anything, or is it simply too early to tell?

As with other corporate blogs, the proof will, in large part, be driven by Petro-Canada’s ability to create and sustain a meaningful dialog around these topics, and in their ability to respond appropriately to those who will undoubtedly question the motives behind such an exercise.

In the meantime, congratulations to Kate and her team, and to Jon, Sneh, Mike and Corinn for stick-handling this truly innovative initiative. And while getting it to where it is today may have seemed like hard work, I’m thinking there’ll be even more interesting days ahead. 

In the eyes of many, Google’s latest deal with the wire services simply hammered another nail into the traditional media’s coffin. And, for sure, this does nothing to halt the long, slow descent into night of the mainstream media’s 20th-century business models… and yet I can’t help but think (and hope) that these guys are gonna figure it out. Like it or not, we need professional journalism…and we need to find a way to ensure somebody, somewhere can pay good journalists to do the job they do. But that’s not my point (or not entirely).

Why will traditional media survive? Well, for a lot of reasons. But I think part of it is that they will ultimately get “it” (and, in many cases, already are). They will see that they can do things that others cannot, and do them well, and do them creatively… in a way that will attract the eyeballs needed to ensure they keep doing it. Newspapers, for example will see that they cannot try to keep up with “breaking news”. But rather, what they can do is provide a good dose of the in-depth analysis that is still required to make sense of this mad-cap world.

Case in point: Politifact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly.

Although a variation on a common theme, what I like is the blend of entertaining visuals (gotta love the pants on fire) with powerful, relevant content that has less to do with being first and more to do with delving beneath the spin and uncovering (what I believe is) important information that most Americans (and others) would not know, nor have time to uncover for themselves. This is, in my view, a glimpse into the future of 21st-century journalism.

If judged only by my travel and speaking schedule for the fall, I would suggest that the desire to learn more about the social web – the opportunities and the risks – is gathering speed across corporate Canada. Equally interesting, however, is the various contexts within which I will be speaking, and which highlights the increasing sophistication of how social media is (and should) be used, and the emerging niche applications and impacts of social media (and therefore communications) across different industries and organizational functions. Examples of the topics I’ll be speaking to over the next few months include:

• On crisis and social media as it relates to disaster preparedness and recovery
• On social media and corporate reputation management (specific to issues management and community relations)
• On the risks and opportunities of social media on a key manufacturing sector
• On strategies corporations can use to help employees navigate the good and bad of social media
• On citizen engagement and social media
• On labour relations / employee communications and social media

And while telling people what not to do is generally easy, the challenge is always coming up with “best practices” within these niche areas, particularly given that broadbased corporate adoption has yet to truly catch on (despite the efforts of a select few) and that this space is constantly in a state of flux. While some are obvious, others are less so. Luckily, the blogging community has been generous in sharing its own insights and case studies (e.g. Southwest Airlines, Vancity, Scotiabank, etc.). In addition, we’ve got a few programs now under our own belt that provide useful first-person insights into such areas as Facebook applications, blogger relations, and niche applications (such as our election predictors and other consumer-driven programs). 

And yet, much of what we base our assumptions upon is the shared wisdom of myriad social media experts who, smart as they are, are for the most part in the same boat as the rest of us – simply trying to keep up. And that’s what makes this area so exciting: the constant evolution that is taking place, what with new applications emerging almost daily, new models that are challenging the mainstream (Google’s latest deal with the wire services being yet the latest), and the changing perceptions and expectations of the general public as they become more comfortable with, and more reliant upon, these technologies. We can only hope to keep pace with it all.