Too Big NOT to Fail: Lessons in Internal Communication from “Undercover Boss”
I’ve never been a fan of large organizations, companies and (especially) governments because I frequently see decision makers screw up when they are so far removed from the lower levels of management.
These fault-filled bureaucracies often frustrate employees by making them feel that “the man upstairs doesn’t know what’s going on down here!” Indeed boardrooms, financial statements and policy meetings are extremely different than assembly lines and low-level cubicles, so unless “the man” comes downstairs to have a look around every now and then, how would he know what’s going on?
I’m a student at Boston University, and I’ve been surrounded by uproar this school year from both students and faculty at the budget cuts the university made restricting students’ printing on-campus. The University forced restrictions on the number of pages students are allowed to print free of charge and the number of printing labs for students. These changes have left many members of the BU community wondering if the decision makers upstairs really know what’s going on down here.
Internal communications snafus are everywhere. So when I saw previews for CBS’s post-Super Bowl premiere “Undercover Boss,” I thought, “This is great.” But I also realized how this show just proves how much of a problem internal communication gaps are! Can you imagine working for a company and not knowing what your CEO looks like? I would like to think that if I were working in a large organization, I would recognize the CEO if he/she came to me pretending to be a new worker bee.
Then I think that if this guy…
walked into one of my classes pretending to be a professor, I wouldn’t think anything of it. When he didn’t understand students’ weekly schedules, I would shrug it off and chalk it up to him being another academically-minded teacher. This is Boston University’s President Robert Brown, and I have never seen this man before in my life.
I don’t want to make him out to be the bad guy. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one making the printing decisions. His university is just another victim of current management trends.
I hope “Undercover Boss” draws some attention from executives. The first episode featured Larry O’Donnell, COO of Waste Management cleaning toilets, driving garbage trucks, and learning “a heck of a lot” in the process. When his undercover stint was over, he said “I didn’t realize the impact [I had]. [These policies] came right from my office…I had no idea.” He vowed to fix the problems he witnessed. Maybe the “faces” of these large organizations will become more recognizable someday soon.
After a 3-month hiatus, my blog and e-portfolio is back up and running. I took it down for a couple of reasons. First and foremost the platform I was using before was unreliable and suffered from constant technical issues. WordPress, I find, is much more dependable.
Secondly, I realized that I had some branding issues. I classified myself as a “Future PR Star” on my old blog. I went to a PRSSA National Conference in San Diego in November and realized that the reputation that comes with “PR” isn’t something with which I want to brand myself. Too often people think “media relations” when they think “PR.” That’s not me. Yes, I want to establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. That’s “PR” by textbook definition. But times have changed for those two letters, and the reputation hasn’t kept up. Now we call what I want to do terms like “marketing,” “social media marketing,” “corporate communication,” and dozens more.
“PR” has expanded, so my personal brand needed a face-lift. One of my favorite PR professors asked on the first day of class, “Why are you here? You want to be hacks? Flacks? Spindoctors? Liars? That’s what people say when you tell them you’re in PR.”
No; I don’t want to be any of those things.
My goal with this newly redone blog and e-portfolio: Establish myself as a credible and experienced communicator with a passion for content creation and new media marketing. So check in on me every now and then. I just might accomplish that goal.
There have been only two experiences in my life when I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. The first incident happened when I was 3 years old and my parents took me to a 3-D nature show in Disney World. The second occurred last week when I saw the video of Kanye West stealing Taylor Swift’s spotlight moment on MTV’s website. I thought, “This can’t be real.”
The more I hear about this incident, the more I doubt it’s sincerity. Even now, I am a disbeliever, and my partially-trained PR mind is drawing the line between reality and publicity stunt.
First, understand that award shows are what one of my professors calls “pseudo-events.” They aren’t actual events. They only exist for the PR bonanza surrounding them. The Academy Awards only exist because in the 1930s, the Academy wanted to drive people to the movie theaters. Add in the hours of press coverage that go into these shows: the wardrobe designers, the red carpet parties, the advertising revenue, thousands of entertainers packed into a theater to honor each other. You have a pseudo-event.
The very fact that Kanye’s little stunt happen at a pseudo-event makes me doubt its validity.
Second, Viacom instantly shifted into profit mode as soon as Kanye gave that mic back to Miss Swift. Consumers started uploading the clips of the exchange to YouTube as quickly as Viacom ripped them off the videosharing site. Maybe Viacom is a fast-acting organization, but maybe they knew what was coming and were ready for it. The only place you can see the video is on mtv.com, surrounded by two fat advertising spaces.
Finally, look at the attention both artists have gained from their interaction. I’m sure iTunes sales for both artists shot up after the VMAs, perhaps for more reasons than this one. Attention. Attention. Attention. During the show, Kanye and Swift were both trending topics on Twitter.
Could it be that multiple parties take advantage of a highly publicized and controversial incident? Sure. But I believe it is also possible that one or more parties planned Kanye’s interruption and banked on reaping the benefits.
I just saw this video by The Onion posted on Facebook. It’s a satire, of course, but there is an underlying truth to Disney’s magical marketing. Disney seems to have developed a formula for child star success. The conglomerate uses multiple channels (television, radio, the Internet) to promote its stars.
If you watch for a progression in Disney Channel shows over the past six or seven years…you won’t see one. The shows are variations of each other with similar sitcom-like situations played out in various environments. The characters in each show follow archetypal Disney formulas. Can you blame the writers, directors and producers? Kids and young teens love the Disney stars. They scream for Miley Cyrus concert tickets, wish to wave a wand on Waverly Place, and dream of being adopted as the fourth Jonas sibling. The formula works.
My question is, “For how long?” We saw record companies perfect a formula for selling CDs with the rise of the late-nineties boy band craze. That formula peaked when *NSYNC’s album No Strings Attached sold 2.4 million records in the first week. Internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing programs brought that industry to a screeching halt. Never again will so many CDs be sold so quickly.
The Long Tale author Chris Anderson says the marketing formula that sold the *NSYNC albums was extremely similar to the one that made Elvis so popular in the fifties: sell sexed-up young men to eager young women. So a change in demographic-tastes had nothing to do with the downfall of the CD industry; rather, technology made more variety and versatility available to music lovers.
So will the Disney formula last forever? If not, when will technology (or something else) force the Disney “Imagineers” to imagine something new?
This week, I went to see “District 9.” After reflecting on it for a bit, I saw that the movie’s downfall has some valuable lessons about the unity of messaging. It’s failure to appeal to a single mass audience by blending different movie making styles provides further evidence for the need to segment audiences.
Synopsis
(I’ll try to do this without giving too much away, though I wouldn’t recommend this film to anyone who isn’t a blood relative of the cast members.)
District 9 chronicles the story of a government agency’s attempt to relocate over a million aliens living in a fenced-off district near Johannesburg, South Africa. We follow Wikus, a well-meaning and naive agent heading up the operation. The film documents the historic removal of the alien mothership and the events leading up to it.
What’s wrong?
The movie has multiple personality disorder. It begins as a documentary, sprints into an action film, flirts with being a love story, and then jumps back to documentary-style. At first, I thought this movie was going to provide a thoughtful commentary about who we are and how we treat each other. It changes its mind away from that goal about 20 minutes in, though.
So what?
Some people like mockumentaries. Some people like action. Some people like both. The lesson learned is that you can’t mix and match elements of different previous successes to create your own. That’s what “District 9″ tries to do, and it fails. It is the result of too many creative people sitting in a room dreaming up a screenplay without a down-to-earth realist to keep things in balance. Is it entertaining? Yes. Are the special effects great? They’re spectacular. Does it deserve to be at the top of the box office? Sure. But it will be soon forgotten; stashed away from movie greatness with the likes of “Cloverfield” and Spielberg’s “AI.”
What if…
The movie got me thinking about what it would be like to release several cuts of the same movie. What if “District 9″ came out as one cut true to the documentary-style through and through and was showing in the theater next door as the action movie. Like the college website that has different landing pages for different audiences, (students, parents, athletes, alumni, etc.) what if “District 9″ created the same story with different genres to appeal to different crowds. Might the movie be just as significant? Maybe. Might it make more money as well? Possibily. I would pay to see both versions after seeing the first one. I suspect others might too.
I’m not trying to change the movie industry here, I’m just asking “what if?”
Michael Vick has been on a short leash since his meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a few weeks ago. He was released from prison last month after serving a two-year sentence for running a dogfighting ring. Looks as if he will be “fighting” his damaged reputation for a while.
This story reminds me of a lecture from last semester’s PR class on image restoration. At the time, we were discussing how Michael Phelps’ publicist could boost his popularity back from the bong-gate scandal.
I stumbled across an article on Vick last night that struck me.
Apparently, Vick spoke to Atlanta-area youth about the devastating effects of dogfighting. However, very few members of the media were allowed inside to hear Vick speak at the community center.
The PR choice is obvious: Get Vick involved with the community, but keep him out of the limelight. Do Vick’s people think he’s had enough spotlight for the time being? Are they trying to keep him on the down-low? Vick is going to do a “60 Minutes” special interview soon, so what’s the point of keeping his community work a secret?
They’re the professionals, not me. I’m just curious to see what the next move will be. Vick’s mentor Tony Dungy said tonight that Vick will likely have a home in the NFL within the coming week so this story is far from over. I’ll be wagging my tail in excitement waiting to hear what happens next.
Recently, I’ve come to a realization. Twitter wants me to answer the question, “What are you doing?” with my updates! I completely forgot! Twitter was originally based on the idea of status updates? Who knew!
All right, I’m being facetious. I only partially forgot about the “What are you doing?” question. But can you blame me? Very few tweets directly answer that question anymore. If my Twitter stream were the blue screens in Jeopardy and I had to guess what question the tweets were answering, I’d probably shrug, “What’s up?”
Bottom line: Twitter has evolved away from its original concept. The real value of it lies in the fact that it has become a place to share and spread ideas in an interactive manner. In an interview last year, Twitter founder Biz Stone said this about Twitter’s interaction model:
But Twitter users don’t need that “little push” anymore. They’re tweeting just fine on their own. Here’s a random shot of my Twitter feed. Notice that only one out of six tweets addresses Twitter’s inquiry:
Facebook acknowledged this shift in demand from sharing statuses to sharing thoughts. The new question “What’s on your mind?” is much closer to the way people are using status updates and Tweets.
So to wrap it up, I’ll tackle the video from Asylum at the top of this post. No, I don’t think it was created by someone who doesn’t use Twitter. Although it does reflect the impression many non-Twitter users have of Twitter. The video is one of many parodies on Twitter’s concept.
Last semester I went out on a limb by criticizing the lack of attention paid to bloggers. I’ll respectfully disagree with my current employer this time, in the hopes of clarifying the right way to use social media marketing.
Disclosure has long been an issue for PR professionals. In the social media world, that issue is even more prevalent. If you’re going to speak on someone’s behalf, people want to know who you are and who’s paying your bills.
Monday, my boss had me post answers to questions on LinkedIn and Yahoo Answers claiming I “found this survey/white paper while researching” when in actuality, I was trying to drive leads to our client’s site.
Am I walking on shaky ground in misleading potential customers that way? I think coming from someone who claimed he isn’t “morally pliable enough to be a journalist,” this is an interesting conundrum. I’ll take away the moral dilemma and looking at the big picture.
Imagine two comments on a blog post or discussion board read:
1. Hey I found this in my research, what a great article! <link>
2. I’m representing a company that will fit your needs perfectly. Here’s a link to some of our content. <link>
I think I’m more likely to click on a link from a representative. Yeah, it doesn’t have that peer-to-peer sharing credibility, but I know I’m not getting spammed, and I respect the complete transparency. Also, I recognize someone who is ready, willing and able to make a meaningful contribution to my life or fulfill my needs and wants.
I'm a Public Relations major and Business minor at Boston University graduating in June 2010. I'm into marketing, social media, content creation, speaking, writing and communicating. In my free time, I am a speech coach and amateur chef. Oh yeah, and I'm looking for a job!
