△ MENU/TOP △

Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
SearchClose Icon

Messages and channels

Mary Matalin and James Carville were the opening keynoters at the first general session of the IABC conference and, God love ‘em, they kept their remarks focused squarely on communications. Carville’s comments in particular struck a chord, particularly in light of my earlier posts on the idea that PR could be replaced by blogs.

I wasn’t taking notes, so this isn’t a precise quote, but it captures the spirit of what he said. “There are two parts to communication. There’s the tool you use to deliver it, and there’s the message. I’m not going to talk about the tools, because those can change in a year or five years. What’s really important is the message.”

Carville talked about the value of sound bites. Sound bites are held in low regard in many quarters, but Carville insisted that a well-crafted sound bite is all about clarity. “Don’t let anybody tell you that a message is too nuanced or layered for a sound bite,” he said. He used the example of telling children how to lead their lives. A pretty textured concept, right? How about “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If only everybody lived their lives by that simple, clear notion, the world would be a far better place.

And who will produce this clarity? Who will understand the message and the outcomes it is desired to produce? The power of the message to resonate with an audience? The blogosphere? Come on, folks. What will the hot communication tool be in five years? Blogs didn’t exist five years ago. Are we so damned sure that they’ll be the dominant tool in another five? We’re focused way, way too much on the tool and we’re forgetting the importance of the message.

I know, I know, I know that the audience controls the message today. That doesn’t mean organizations cannot put messages out there, kick off the meme, then participate in the conversation—again, with the outcomes firmly in mind.

PR people also know how to tell stories. Stories resonate with audiences. Carville noted that John Kerry told people what he stood for. George Bush, on the other hand, told the story of finding religion and setting out on a path and so on. He’s right. I remember another speaker at another conference uttered this phrase: “Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”

Professional communicators—good ones, anyway—know all of this. They know the models. They know the strategies and the ways to know if their work is paying off. They also know how to make communication really work, through reptition (often via multiple channels), relevance, and other tricks of the trade.

I’m not diminishing the importance of blogs by any stretch of the imagination. Blogs represent and enable a fundamental shift in the balance between institutions and audiences. The nature of the most basic communications exchanges is undergoing irreversible change. Organizations must recognize blogs and other social media as vital grass-roots communication channels, and they must be embraced if organizations are going to engage with those audiences. But in the end, blogs are still a tool and not the message. The message—clear, concise, understandable, actionable, sustainable—is still the most important thing.

Tag:

06/30/05 | 4 Comments | Messages and channels

Comments

  • 1.Great point, Shel. We communicators do tend to get caught up in talking about the media rather than the message. But that's nothing new. What about all those seminars and workshops and conference sessions over the years that have focused on how to make a better publication and how to develop a cool intranet site and how to run a face-to-face program? The focus on tactics over strategy is as old as the hills.

    And I hope my friend David Murray of the Ragan Report is reading because he is always first in line to criticize communicators who focus on strategy over tactics.

    The point is this: Strategy must come first. The message must support the business goals, the message must be clear and stated in a way that will resonate with audiences, the message must come first. That is strategy. How we communicate the message - that is, the tactics - is also important, of course. But if you have nothing to communicate, how you communicate it really doesn't matter.

    Robert J Holland, ABC | June 2005 | Richmond, VA

  • 2.Robert, please don't bring me into debates that don't involve me and then set me up as a defenseless straw man who thinks communicators shouldn't think. My view is more nuanced than that, as you'll be forced to see once again when you read Ragan Report conference coverage (finally) comes out July 11.

    On another note, an amusing blogospheric irony here: Carville and Matalin had IABC draw up an agreement that went into the press kits forbidding press to quote directly from the presentation.

    The IABC people didn't know what their motivation was--were they afraid of controversy coming out of the session? did they want to protect their canned speech from being exposed to the air and made stale?--could be either, I guess.

    The point is, you didn't get the memo, nor, to my knowledge, did any of the sanctioned IABC bloggers on IABC's site.

    So how dumb am I going to look in The Ragan Report grumping off about how I wasn't allowed to quote Carville or Matalin, when their quotes are all over the place?

    Real dumb. (And, real late.)

    David Murray | June 2005 | Chicago

  • 3.David, of COURSE the entire issue of strategy and tactics is multilayered. It really isn't a matter of strategy vs. tactics. It is a matter of thinking and planning strategically before deciding upon and implementing tactics. So why does Ragan Report and others continue to portray the issue in sound bites as a black-or-white argument? (Recent headline in Corporate Writer & Editor cover story: "She says strategic, he says schmategic - A longtime CWE editor argues that 'strategy' is sucking the life out of employee publications; a veteran corporate editor begs to differ.") Even the way seminars and workshops on the topic are marketed focus on there being two camps - one that believes strategy is king and the other that believes tactics rule.

    I and others have been saying for years that excellent communicators must do both. But I'll say it 'til I die: strategy must come first because great tactical execution in the absence of sound communication strategy is worthless.

    Robert J Holland, ABC | June 2005 | Richmond, Va.

  • 4.Robert, all I can say is that headlines and marketing brochures are necessarily sound-bite oriented.

    The point I am making in my broken-record on this subject is that the "great tactical execution" you seem refer to is a higher and more difficult-to-master art form than many strategists acknowledge, and much of the communication material I see is strategically sound and tactically lame--the product, I believe, of an overemphasis on key messages and an underemphasis on how to get those messages across with compelling language, graphic design, photography, etc.

    Along the way, I'm defending the masters of those increasingly lost arts and advocating their teaching.

    I'm also questioning the all-too-common definition of strategy: What smart management wants to get across to dumb employees, and urging communicators to assert their own point of view about what empoloyees AND management need to hear and know about.

    But it's summertime, and I'm taking off on a long vacation?from strategy, from tactics, from blogs and from all other nuanced barroom arguments.

    David Murray | June 2005 | chicago

Comment Form

« Back