We don’t need more information; we need more of each other

In the most simplistic terms, random evolution (RE) entails time + chance and some other impersonal erratic stuff to eke whatever pops out the other end of the process. Kind of like the hit and miss approach and not unlike some communications efforts which miss more than hit.

Intelligent design (ID) entails intelligence and design driven by personality. When ID is applied to communications, what is created is, more often than not, relevant and effective to business or organizational goals.

Even “evolutionary” communication, which is just another way to say that something has changed from one thing to another over time, involves – or had better involve – both intelligence and design, again, driven by personality. This encompasses elements such as intention, purpose, plan, focus, strategy, and the like.

Plus people. Essential to communications is the human, personal factor.

It’s not about bits, bytes, or stuff

What is communications? What communications is not is mere information sharing.
Our friends in IT have co-opted the terms “information” and “communication.” Viewing these as nothing more than bits and bytes, “information” is stuff to be pushed or pulled from point X to point Y, and “communication” is the means for the moving.

True communications is about conversation.

The American Heritage Dictionary offers some wonderfully literate and lyrical definitions for communication: “The exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior. Interpersonal rapport. The art and technique of using words effectively and with grace in imparting one’s ideas.” (Which means, by the way, that writing is essential to all communications.)

Of course, for businesses and organizations, these lyrical ideas easily get quickly kicked aside when the CEO is asking “value” questions:

• How do we increase revenue?

• How do we reduce expenses?

• How do we bring in more customers / donors?

• How do we get more business / support out of each existing customer / donor?

• How do we increase shareholder value?

When responding to the CEO’s questions, communications often goes dark as soon as the PowerPoint presentation is fired up. It becomes all about numbers, charts, statistics, methodology, process, databases, theory, buzz words, and where the cheese got moved.

Are you talking to me?

Companies and organizations often suffer from communications breakdowns without even realizing it. If revenue, giving, or sales is down, they think the problems lie in their customer service, ad copy, web site content or appearance, sales, marketing – and other stuff – anything, they think, but their communications. What’s missed? All of these are forms of communications. In fact, products and services are, in a sense, communications.

What’s happened is that RE rules and ID with humanity is nowhere to be seen, heard, or felt. Yet it is communicating to humans (customers, donors, constituencies) that is the core of why any business or organization exists.

Effective communication is about having a conversation and connecting with a person or a group of people about your products, services, ideas, or values; interpersonal rapport.

For example, web sites (or even e-newsletters) are not about technology. Technology is merely a tool that, used correctly, can aid in starting and maintaining the conversation. Instead of being flashy, technology should be nearly invisible. I guarantee that if you view your web site as “technology” and turn it over to the geeks, it may be flashy but it won’t be effective. Just look at nearly any technology firm’s web site.

RE RE oy!

When I worked at AT&T developing proposals, RE-oy-sis was rampant. A request for proposal (RFP) would hit, a team would be thrown together, then engineers and sales people would start working in a frenzy. But to what end? Well, to develop a proposal, of course. But a proposal for what? What was the sales strategy? Who was the competition? What were the differentiators? What were the benefits? Was this an RFP we should even be responding to? There was little concern about the people who would be evaluating the proposal or the people who would be served by the solution being proposed.

In the end a proposal document was produced and a sale was lost. Why? There was no focus or strategy. There was no conversation. An RFP came in, boilerplate was cobbled together, a proposal document went out. And that was that. Oy!

Eventually, someone figured out this was a bad approach. A new ID-like process was developed that involved, first evaluating which RFPs were the right ones to expend resources on, learning about the customer as well as the customer’s customers, understanding the value of our proposed solution against what competitors had to offer, and focusing the proposal on responding to expressed needs rather than trying to dazzle with technical brilliance. Results improved. Aha!

A pinch of this and a pinch of that

Organizations genesis from great ideas that have energized a few passionate people bursting with the desire to share these ideas. To spread their passion, they try buying a mailing list and sending out a direct mail letter that yields a few responses. Then they turn to a periodic newsletter, hobble together a web site, and try a little of this and a little of that and get a few results. So, to get more results, they try a little more of this and a little more of that. And they get a few results. So they do a lot more of this and a lot more of that. They get a few results. But it gets increasingly harder and more costly and their passion is sucked away under the strain of a moribund RE communications effort. What’s wrong? Aren’t they doing what other organizations have always done?

Instead of an ID-driven, cohesive, coordinated communications effort that speaks to other people that might share their ideas and passion, what they are putting out is a hodgepodge of stuff. It may be a very passionate hodgepodge, but it fails to connect and can actually create confusion about what and who they are. They are pamphleteering rather than sparking a conversation.

Whatza mattuh? Ya got no ID?

How do you increase revenue, reduce expenses, and bring in more customers or donors? You need a good ID! How? You can start by implementing these seven key elements of Intelligent Design into every aspect of your communications efforts:

 1.  Know yourself. You are more than just a company or an organization. Understand your history and the impetus behind the why and how your organization was established. Learn about the people working in your organization; why are they there? If you don’t know who you are as a business or organization, you won’t be able to tell your story to others.

 2.  Know your product or service. What is it that you make or do? How does it work? What makes your product or service better or different than others? Is it right for everyone? Why are your organization’s ideas worthy of supporting? Who might not benefit from your product or service, or affiliation with your group? Do you make doors, exits, or entrances? Do you make books or imagination igniters? Do you sell cars or personal freedom? Do you sell courses or enable dream realization? How you view your product or service, and how well you know it will make a radical difference in how clearly and engagingly you converse about it.

 3.  Know your purpose. Do you exist to make money or to change the world? Is your business about you or your customers? Why are you selling this product or service as opposed to some other product or service? How do you want your product or service to impact and benefit the people who buy or use it? What’s the intention of your organization? If you can’t answer these kinds of questions clearly, your message will be hopelessly flaccid and muddled.

 4.  Know your message. The message of Jesus was, “I have come that [people] may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus wasn’t creating religion or theology. He was bringing himself, a person, to touch other people. Everything he did revolved around bringing his message alive while engaging the culture and the people in conversation and experience.

 5.  Know your resources. What’s in the budget? Before you start planning your communications strategy and efforts, know your limitations. Tight budgets aren’t necessarily restrictive. Like being forced to write a rhymed poem to form, a small budget can actually engender new creativity.

 6.  Know your constituency. I was the editor of Christian Bookseller magazine in the 80s. The magazine, today called Christian Retailing, was specifically targeted at Christian bookstore owners, providing industry news as well as articles on how to increase sales and improve management. At one point I decided we needed to do a survey of our readers to better understand what they wanted. I worked diligently on designing a survey card that we could include in an issue of the magazine and then went to Bob Walker, the publisher, with the idea. He did not brush me off or pooh-pooh the idea, but clearly was not enthusiastic about it. He simply said, in effect, “Stephen, if you really want to know what the readers need and want, go talk to them. There are dozens of stores within a few miles of our office. You’ll learn more face-to-face than you will from a survey.” We did do the survey, and I did visit a number of stores. Bob was right.

 7.  Keep it human. I don’t mean to trash demographics, surveys, market tests, database marketing, and the other tools of communications. These are all useful as long as the human element is never lost. If when you say “customers” what comes to mind is some iconic caricature, you’ve lost sight of the humans you are trying to touch. Expend as much or more time and energy on keeping your mission and vision and message alive with and for real people. If it means getting up from your desk and out of the office, then do it. Go have a real conversation with the people who represent your constituency, and then you’ll know how to refresh, renew, and refocus your communications efforts toward fostering interpersonal rapport and meaningful connection.

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Communications Breakdown at PU
A BRIEF CASE STUDY

This is based on a true story about failed communications, really ugly brochures, and missing the point. Elements have been intentionally obscured to protect the innocent, and, unfortunately, disguise the guilty. If you think you know who it’s about, you’re wrong, and what does it matter anyway. So quit guessing and just read …

Connecting with dreams instead of bodies in seats

I have a friend who worked for a small university as an admissions rep; her job was to acquire students. The college, which I’ll call PU, had a handful of extensions scattered around the region offering continuing education (CE) degrees, from associates to masters. Several weeks into the job she sought advice.

She mailed me materials she had to use at “education fairs” to promote the school as well as a newsletter put out by the extension she was connected to. She knew how I would react and was not disappointed when we spoke later. The brochures were stunningly – breathtakingly – awful. They were cheap and sloppy. The newsletter looked like it had been produced by a child having fun using as many fonts as they could find on the PC.

The “education fairs” were events held inside corporate office cafeterias and other locations where reps from several schools participated. These included well known local, regional, and national schools that offered remote campus and online learning; PU’s competitors. They all brought glossy, first-rate materials and their reps were trained and polished. The names of these other schools were everywhere in print, on the radio and TV, billboards, and more. My friend’s college did no advertising or marketing of any kind and was for all intents and purposes invisible. She also received no training.

Are you beginning to feel my friend’s pain?

But wait, there’s more! An edict dribbled down that enrollments had to increase significantly by the end of one month or someone’s head would roll. By dribbled down, I mean this was mentioned to my friend almost as an after thought during a phone call with someone at the main campus about something else.

When she told me this, I asked, “Did your boss meet with you and strategize how to get more students?”

“No,” she replied.

“Did they give you any additional resources for things like advertising or promotions?”

Again, “No.”

“Were you given a specific goal as your share of new enrollees to go after?”

“No.”

“Did anyone hold a conference call or do anything to rally the troops and offer ideas?”

“No.”

“So, are you going to be doing anything different than what you’ve been doing?”

She let out a long Napoleon Dynamite-like sigh, then said in a sad whisper, “No.”

So where’s the communications issue?

The problems this school faced was not with its brochures or lack of marketing; those are the results, or at best symptoms, of the real trouble.

My friend and I both did a bit of digging into the history of the school and its organizational structure. The issues, as far as we could tell, went all the way to the top. The president apparently was an aging, autocratic individual who had somehow alienated a large segment of primary supporters, and who ruled by fiat; from what we could ascertain, to even appear to disagree was to end your career at the school. So much for fresh ideas and forward thinking, not to mention a solid base of contributors.

The president’s power seemed to reside in the fact that multiple decades ago when his tenure began, he heroically brought the school from the brink of ruin, moved the finances from bright red to deep black, and built needed new facilities on the main campus. And that was that. From then on it appeared that he ruled with a tight, iron, penny-garroting fist while enthroned on his laurels.

There was no marketing or communications person on staff at the main campus, even though all the materials were produced there. They were produced by non-professionals who had no publications experience and were only concerned about spending as little as possible. Collateral had just sort of “evolved” as different people had touched the effort. Quality wasn’t even important. There was no strategy, standard, focus, or even value in what was produced; they were just making copies of pre-existing copies. It was only about toner on paper, not communications.

These were just a few of the symptoms and issues we uncovered with only minimal, cursory research.

The fungus among us?

The honey mushroom is a giant fungus located in Malheur National Forest in Oregon. It is estimated to cover 2,200 acres which is equivalent to 1,665 football fields. All that is visible of the subterranean behemoth are small mushrooms that pop up above ground here and there.

These symptoms we readily uncovered at PU were merely “small mushrooms” masking a much larger, systemic problem. At PU, the root problem was communications, but creating glossy new brochures wasn’t the answer. It would have helped, but it would have been like trying to spit out a wildfire.

The president of PU didn’t appear to view the school as a place where people learned and worked. It was his legacy; his reputation; his trophy mounted on the wall.

Students were not people; they were “bodies in seats.” The web site was not part of a conversation, but something they had to have since everyone else had one. The brochures and materials were “good enough” and what they’d always used. And the way they got new students was the way they’d always done it, whether it worked or not.

Even though the school motto was something like “come in to learn, go out to serve,” from the top down the real mixed message being sent was: status quo at all costs, but get more students. In other words, fill up the boat but don’t rock it in the process.

So let’s get back on message

The fix needed for PU went way beyond just getting back on message. A successful communications strategy in this situation would have to have included significant executive education and probably some change management effort. Not only did the materials need to be brought into the 21st century, so did the attitudes and business sense.

This could include extricating educators from key business functions, refocusing them on education, and bringing in professionals to handle the business, marketing, and communications efforts. And it would mean reminding everyone that they are people having a conversation with other people.

What’s the conversation about?

It is not about education, credit hours, or tuition assistance. Nor is it about text books, professors, or bodies in seats. The conversation is about quality of life, devotion to a personal calling, an individual’s desire to achieve great things, being self-fulfilled while providing well for a family; it’s a conversation with people about dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

Isn’t this the real point of any college or university?

Refocusing PU around this kind of message will help build interpersonal rapport on and off campus. It will drive and guide every decision the administrators make toward positive and relevant results. It will ignite pride in the staff and stir excitement among the students.

It will sing out engagingly through every marketing and communications effort, both internal and external. It will spark, fuel, and enlighten the conversation among all parties with compelling results: human beings in classrooms, hallways, and offices engaged in learning, sharing experience, and enjoying interpersonal rapport.

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