RonAmok!

I looked around the crowded restaurant for any sign of my friend, who caught my attention with a wave of his hand. As I got closer, I noticed two other gentlemen sitting at the table with him. He introduced us, then apologized, explaining that their meeting was running a little long, but that I was welcome to stay until they finished.

Who doesn’t like being a fly on the wall, right?

It took me a few minutes to lock-on to the conversation, but I finally understood that they were discussing the development of a new reality television show. You gotta love LA!

I sat there like a mute, listening intently. One volunteered to write the treatment. Another would scour his contacts to find the right people to pitch. As they wrapped up, one of the gentlemen looked to me and asked, “What do you think, Ron?”

Uh-oh. There’s nothing worse than being asked a question by a perfect stranger who has no idea who you are. Add the fact that you’re a guest at the table, and the complexity of the social situation compounds itself exponentially. I looked to my friend for guidance. If he had given me the waive-off signal, I would have bit my tongue. Instead, he smiled and gave me the green light.

“Why do you need them?” I asked.

“Need who?”

“Whoever you’re pitching the show to. Why do you need them?”

He looked at me as if I had two heads.

I explained that if they truly believed in the project–if they wanted to maintain control of their own destiny, why not consider producing the show themselves and releasing it online?  I offered a litany of benefits to consider, including creative control and the ability to find the right audience as opposed to the biggest one.

They listened politely, asked a few more questions, and then wrapped up their own conversation.

I don’t think that they’ll change their plans, but online publication should at least be a consideration. Our networked world has opened all sorts of possibilities for indie producers.

What story have you always wanted to tell? What’s stopping you?

Photo Credit: Library of Congress on Flickr

It’s time for those wedded to the old ways of publishing to admit that the world of communications has evolved, forcing content creators to change the way we do things. It’s time to admit, once and for all, that the Golden Age of centralized influence is gone, that Mega-publishers no longer control eyeballs, and as a result, they no longer hold the same amount of clout as they once did.

With the help of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying, I’m going to demonstrate the five stages that every journalist/editor/PR/ marketing professional must experience in order to become productive members of our new communications economy:

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Denial: New Media? Pshaw, just a fad. User-generated content? Ha! Too unprofessional. Blogs? Gimme a break. Nobody wants to read some feety-pajamas-wearing-teenager rant about the New World Order from his parent’s basement. Youtube? Sure, let’s all gather ’round the computer screen to watch skateboarding dogs and candy-powered soda fountains.  Facebook and Twitter? Pahleeze. As if I care what some pipsqueak in Peoria is doing right now. C’mon people. Communications is serious business that must be left to the pros.

Anger: WTF? I got a pink slip because some blender manufacturer got over six-million views for grinding up an iphone? Are you serious? You call that professional marketing? And what in the name of Walter Cronkite happened to news reporting? A couple bloggers get lucky with a  Trent Lott and Dan Rather story, and I’m filling out forms for unemployment insurance? Some dude on a ferry beats CNN and MSNBC by publishing the first photo of a plane crash on the Hudson and I’m playing eenie-meenie-miney-moe with COBRA health insurance plans? Damn the amateurs. Damn them to hell!

Bargaining: Have you come to your senses yet, boss? I’m a professional (fill-in-the-blank). I write objective/balanced stories. I leverage my relationships with the media to get my company/client stories covered. I write and blast snappy marketing messages at our customers. I’ve got awards, dammit! Please take me back. Pleeeeez? Stella! Stella!

Depression: Everything on the Internet is crap. Nobody reads the newspaper anymore. Who wants to curl up and read with a portable media device for cryin’ out loud?  Nobody wants to pay for the pros anymore. How will society survive without paid professionals covering the world for us? Where’s the money? Where’s my newspaper? Hey kid, get off my lawn!

Acceptance: It’s over. The audiences have moved. For better or worse, consumers have changed their behaviors. They get their news, information, and entertainment from different places than our parents did. And they aren’t willing to pay for much for it, either. Newspapers are bankrupt; the journalists that I used to pitch are all unemployed; and the trade shows that I used to spend a King’s ransom on are almost empty. I need to look in different places, talk with different people, and offer different types of content creation services.

Because it’s not about me; it’s about my audience. If I focus on taking care of them, they’ll take care of me.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Thanks to Julie Wright for the inspiration for this post!

Tags: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Death and Dying Intervention New Media Evangelist denial anger bargaining depression acceptance

For the past four years, your New Media Evangelist has had the privilege of helping hundreds of business leaders wrap their heads around the profound changes that new communications technologies are inflicting upon corporate communications processes. During my talks, most agree that the world is changing, but there’s always someone in the audience who says something like:

“I hear you, Ron. But my customers don’t use social networks.”

In the past, I’d try to reason with them. Today, I just restate the observation as a question. “None of your customers use social networks? Seriously? Isn’t that like saying that none of them talk, eat, or breath in and out?”

People are social beings. We crave connection and have always used the tools of the day to satisfy that need. In the past, we’d gather physically, through  faith communities, sporting events, and trade organizations. Over time, we adopted new technologies that allowed us to network without a physical presence through devices such as the telephone, CB radios, and email. Today, web-based social media tools simply offer us more choices to network.

Do all of our customers have a Facebook page, use Twitter, or read blogs regularly? Of course not.  But the odds are that they know someone who does and then it’s only a matter of time before they watch a YouTube video, get an email with a hyperlink to a user-generated product review, or receive an invitation to Linkedin. In any one of these cases, a customer is a simple mouse click away from adding a social media tool to their existing social networking outlets.

I’ve found that those who claim that their customers don’t communicate with other humans using Internet-enabled tools are actually making a comment about themselves. They don’t want to change, preferring to complete today’s tasks with yesterday’s tools.

Read the history books. That strategy has never been a winning one.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Tags: New Media Social Media Social Networking Traditionals Old School