PS&L Blog

I sucked you in with that headline, didn’t I?  It is the title of the first chapter of Bob Garfield’s new book, The Chaos Scenario.  His headline is a bit of a red herring since he doesn’t really talk about the death of everything, just the death of mass media; newspapers, magazines and TV.  He is also editor-at-large for Advertising Age and co-host of NPR’s On the Media.

“Newspapers, magazines and especially TV as we currently know them are fundamentally doomed,” he says.  The internet and social media are changing the game before our eyes.  The latest pawn to be played in this great chess game is Jay Leno’s move to 10 o’clock.

All the media mentioned above pay to create content. It is expensive to make content that they “give” to us, the audience.  The profit in this transaction comes from charging advertisers massive amounts of money to reach us, the “mass” in mass market.  Only problem is: the audience is fleeing to YouTube and Facebook.  In an effort to stay profitable, the networks, including Leno’s, are giving us programming that is cheaper to produce.  And that is the downward spiral that dooms these media.  As the programming becomes less creative, the audience flees, and the accountants force even cheaper programming on us; the circle continues.  The iTunes store with its season 1 of the Mentalist for $4.95 is looking pretty good.

While most colleges and universities do not make major use of the mass media markets, they do communicate to their audiences using the same top down tactics.  Problem is, in this new micro-media/micro-marketing world, the old way doesn’t work.  Garfield says, “Survival means institutionalizing dialogue with all of your potential constituencies, and sometimes total strangers, for the purpose of market research, product development, customer relationships, corporate image and transactions, themselves.”  That sure doesn’t sound like something mass media does.

Here is Bob’s list of what we need to do in the new world.

1. Listen to the conversation
2. Better yet, host the conversation
3. Offer that community a stake in your enterprise
4. Practice jujitsu
5. Sneeze in public
6. Have a story to tell
7. What’s in it for us?  Not you.  Us.
8. Behave yourself
9. Remember Siegfried & Roy, especially Roy
10. Pray for serenity

Sneeze in Public?

OK, some of the items on this list look like more red herrings.  Not to worry; here are some “definitions.”

1. Listen to the conversation: Learn what your buzz is.  Visit Google Blog Search, Technorati and BlogPulse and type your school name in the search window to see what is being said about you.
2. Better yet, host the conversation: All schools have web sites and many have student bloggers, but have you really made it easy for your audiences to come together and have a conversation?
3. Offer that community a stake in your enterprise: All the good colleges and universities we know about already do this by listening and communicating with students, faculty and their town.  It’s also what good alumni relations is all about.
4. Practice jujitsu: Learn from your missteps and go with the flow.  Remember the last time you took the time to complain at a store, probably in a huff and some manager actually listened to you, apologized and not only fixed the problem but gave you something for your trouble – I bet you are still a customer.  Is that what your school does?  Does it fix the problem for good, not for just the squeaky wheel?
5. Sneeze in public: The problem with word of mouth is, it just works better with bad news.  Do something wrong and that story will get told 11 times.  Do something right and it will only get told three. Good buzz, and all that comes with it, is not the Ebola virus, it is more like the common cold. You need to work at spreading your own good news.
6. Have a story to tell: However, think “Relevant Content,” as in what’s relevant to your reader. Nothing worse than hearing a story that you can’t relate to.
7. What’s in it for us?  Not you.  Us.:  Give your audience something.  Think Knowledge@Wharton, or Drexel’s The Smart Set Think a web site that is really easy to use, one that does not hide the answers to those questions that are at the top of the list for your audience, one that is built to reflect users intuition not your hierarchy.
8. Behave yourself: As in, do what you promise to do.
9. Remember Siegfried & Roy, especially Roy: Siegfried & Roy are the Vegas entertainers that worked with tigers.  Word of mouth is like working with tigers.  It is exciting when it works, but tigers are wild animals and even with the best trainers like Roy, they can turn on you no matter how well treat them.  Because word of mouth cannot be controlled, be ever vigilant to its whims.
10. Pray for serenity: Know when to let go. God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.