Now that the panic is over, what’s the next stage?

As business and marketing communications writers we must steer away from catastrophic and apocalyptic thinking – the spectre of doom and gloom is counter-intuitive.

Companies that engage our services are now looking at the turnaround.  Now that the sky isn’t falling, where do we firmly plant our feet? I think it behooves us to provide counsel where it’s needed.  One of my mediation friends gave me some good advice about dealing with chaotic and uncertain situations:  Stay resolutely constructive!

When things get better it tends to be a maturing process.  Our illusions get a reality check, but our courage and determination to survive no matter what the cause, give us the stamina and resilience to change and adapt.

Look for ways your clients have strengthened their brand and positioning, how they’ve let go of what doesn’t work anymore, and become aware of strengthened belief in their product or service.  Faith isn’t about omnipresence, it’s simpler than that. No, faith is about what’s left after we go through a harrowing experience and everything has been stripped away.  It’s the key to a true identity and for that reason, it’s golden. 

DeSmog is excellent blog authored by David Suzuki Foundation Chair, Jim Hoggan. DeSmog posts examples of green spin made by politicians, PR industry and think tanks. His aim is about “clearing the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.”

Recent revelations that the Heartland Institute – a U.S. think tank had misrepresented 500 scientists supporting the denial of the human role in global warming made front page. The story gained even more traction when 5 New Zealand academics spoke out saying they were publicly distancing themselves from the Heartland statement because their science supports the claim of the human impact upon global warming.

DeSmog unravels the misinformation of this story and other examples of how politicians, corporate apologists and supporters within the media are twisting the language, using misinformation and distorting the truth in an effort to deflect responsibility for the environment.

This environmental issue surely has its skeptics, but Hoggan of DeSmog is a seasoned PR practitioner and knows green washing and spin when he sees it. The DeSmog blog is an ethical exercise designed to illumine us on the tactics and techniques that highlight how the PR industry can and does cause more harm.

This is a good example of how writers need to be vigilant about their sources for stories on the environment. It may be a good idea to check your research out at DeSmog before committing any more misrepresentation. It's always good to know who to trust!

By all accounts when communicating about green practices, it must be done well. More and more, as customers want to buy brands that demonstrate a responsibility towards the environment. The communicator’s role is becoming pivotal in communicating how our companies/clients inform the public about green efforts, products, and services. Although these are early days and more work needs to be done, some leading edge best practices are already emerging.

It’s a relatively new field. Because of this fact, experienced communicators remark that leadership has often come from within the corporate communications team. Their collective advice:

• Resist getting trendy. Stay on a message that’s tangible and real, backed-up with facts
• Work with and keep NGO’s onside by including them in the information loop
• Harness everything you’ve got and leverage different media and channels, different styles to find the right mix for your audiences
• For the best PR results, work locally and keep your environmental messaging honest and meaningful
• Get your executives out to media events
• Align with sector benchmarking that goes beyond industry regulation
• Do involve others in your sector who don’t have an environmental track record
• Internally, use impact and influence. Make your S.W.O.T. count with an environmental argument that’s relevant to improving the bottom line
• Listen to employee’s ideas, specially when they call you on wasteful practices towards the environment

When communicating, keep in mind that environmental values embedded within your company’s culture count more than any aspirational messaging with customers and employees.

There’s some important work yet to do on greening our communications practices. We need to influence the mainstream media on running more stories about environmental responsible action. We must find effective ways to open up channels and harness the power of social media to talk to customers about our environmental report card. And we must ensure that the environment isn’t the wonder child of any particular department, that there’s consistency throughout a company. Finally, we have to find ways to reward employees who bring their passion for environmental sustainability to their place of work, as well create an awards system, validating companies that are making a difference to sustaining our earth’s environment.

Taking the leap into being an independent writer and consultant after years working in the media, government and corporations is all about living my work with purpose — bringing who I am to what I do. Which is fine when I’m actually fully engaged on a project. But when work is thin on the ground, that’s the time to get out and knock on doors by following up on qualified leads and referrals.

In approaching clients with our writing/consulting services and offerings, we’re often advised to “sell ourselves.” For many people, including me, this has a whiff of unpleasantness, conjuring up images of a sleazy salesperson, willing to say anything to get a sale. Naturally, this approach has me cringing, because the aim of the sales pitch is not to deceive or mislead, but to instill trust in our client.

So it came as a revelation at a recent IABC workshop on No pressure prospecting - the 25 most powerful rules, with guest speaker Tim Rooney of Rooney Earl Associates that when selling to a new client, being oneself to get to the root of a client’s problem is the best strategy.

I have to admit, that for years I’d been treating selling as a performance, which is completely the wrong direction. Ouch! According to Rooney, the best approach is to listen. But listen in a particular way – to their pain.

Here are some examples of scenarios I’ve encountered. My clients in the health care sector are usually sensitive people with tons of soft skills. This helps when getting down to the root problem. Too little capacity for large projects is often the story they tell. Running on empty as far a resources are concerned is mission critical in the E-Health sector. With implementation taking off, telling the E-Health story to multiple audiences means putting on one's running shoes to keep up. In the corporate world, there’s often a specialist skill set or an overflow of projects requiring a specific consultant/writer’s services. Government clients usually issue an RFP before making their decision. Each of these client’s scenarios is its own particularly bothersome situation.

And we have our own too. Rooney has put his finger on the pain many writer/consultants experience when selling our services. Protracted decisions, budget restrictions, getting information out of the client, and not getting to the decision-maker, often plague us. This means that selling becomes a chore. It certainly isn’t about having fun!

If no one’s enjoying this, why continue with a behaviour that doesn’t work? Working for oneself has it’s own rewards, a balanced life, autonomy and the freedom of choosing the right clients with the right fit. So why not risk one’s authenticity when entering the selling arena? Rooney as some good news, there are innovative rules of engagement. This means more listening, more intimacy. But mostly it provides the tactics for choosing to work with the right projects and people. Which brings me back to my opening remarks. Isn’t the reason most of us went independent in the first place, because with this approach comes joy and freedom of knowing we have found purpose in our work?

With Wrinkle Rap as a Nom de Plume, it's easy to speculate on my age. I'm old enough to remember churning out copy on a manual typewriter, long before faxes were invented. But I'm proof positive that an old dog can learn new tricks!

Recently, I attended an IABC Toronto seminar with Tod Maffin, the technology futurist. Maffin didn't invent blogging and social media, but he is one of those people who figured out early how social media affects business communicators and the way it impacts and changes our mindset.

Listening to Maffin describe the world of blogging, also known as the blogosphere, as “wild, highly viral, uncensored and unedited”, it's easy for a writer to get into some anxiety about navigating this blogosphere. I found it easy to imagine a swarm of bees congregating, abuzz and feral with activity, but was feeling a little perplexed about taking my first step. After all, writers are by definition critical readers. We read for truth, style, content, value, zing. As a writer I create order, sense and meaning where others often blanch and recoil from doing so.

Theories of collective behaviour and the social interactions that bind individuals to one another are familiar to communicators in the field of corporate communications. Using the image of a flock of geese with a solitary leader to illustrate his idea, Maffin illustrates the interaction between corporate messaging towards our audiences with journalists conveniently following behind. Our strategy? To be the top bird.

He is convincing in urging us to consider that messaging within social media is much more complex, and in its social interactions is more like a swarm of bees, operating by handing off leadership to other trusted leaders. In the blogosphere, a trusted leader is someone who is already in the swarm.

This is good news and bad news for writers. Some of us will likely never join the swarm, let alone become a leader! Because we're conditioned to writing top down messaging to stakeholders, customers and publics in corporation speak. If we're really honest - it often misfires more times than meets its mark.

The good news is that we're now given an opportunity to write to bring these strengths to many audiences in a new tone and with a new voice that reaches these new, younger and technologically savvy audiences. It will be a challenge, but I think a mighty adventurous one. As writers we come from the tradition of publishing that gives the printed word credibility, and thus value. That tradition involves ethics, editorial review, criticism, fact checking — all steps to keep it real. Perhaps the challenge for writer-bloggers is to pass that discipline on to e-readers?

Of course, this will mean new practices based upon a new model of trust. The blogosphere is a place to print whatever goes through your mind, like a diary or journal. But learning new ways to trust is a necessary phase of any coming of age. There's a burgeoning new identity that's giving the old one a swan song. Here's an opportunity for writers with courage to get into the blog buzz. After all, isn't it the business of writers to define trends and practices as well as reach and motivate our readers?