This just in . . . breaking news on the political front!
When asked by CNN Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper if he ever aspired to be President, House Speaker John Boehner replied: “I don’t want to be president. This is not anything I’ve ever thought about.”
Boehner reportedly has also never thought about being a unicorn, a wizard, a leprechaun, a kangaroo, or a woman . . . all of which he has a better chance of being than President.
In related news, other people who say they have no interest in being president include Kim Kardashian, Charles Manson, Carrot Top, Dennis Rodman, and Ted Bundy, the serial killer who was executed in 1989.
But . . . even with those people out of the running, however, there is no shortage of people who do want to be president. In recent weeks, the people have gone on the record as saying that they do, in fact, want to be president include:
Oprah Winfrey (“Dr. Phil would make a great VP, because he’s as useless as a bucket of spit.”)
Bill Clinton (“I managed to have oral sex in the Oval Office four times a week and still run the country better than these last two yahoos.”)
Tim Tebow (“God told me I’d be a good President. Of course, he also told me I’d be a good quarterback, but I doubt He’d be wrong twice.”)
Ryan Seacrest (“The only way to guarantee gay rights is to put a damn gay in the White House.”)
Rick Santorum (“The only way to guarantee gay rights is to put a closet gay in the White House.”)
Hilary Clinton (“Admit it, you all wish you voted for me in 2008, don’t ya? Don’t ya?”)
Rick Perry (“People think I’m crazy, but that’s just because I say a lot of stupid crazy shit.”)
Reverend Jesse Jackson (“I think this country is ready for a black President.”)
Michelle Obama (“I think this country is ready for a strong black female president who just looks like she could kick the living shit out of that little dude from North Korea.”)
Charlie Sheen (“What this country needs is a little Tiger Blood in the White House! Yeah, Tiger Blood! And cocaine. Butt-loads of cocaine. And hookers.”)
Barack Obama (“What? FDR had three terms, and that dude was in a wheelchair. I can do three terms. Shit, I could do five terms. It’s gonna take me that long to clean up Bush’s mess anyway.”
Stay tuned to this space for further updates on the 2016 election, and ongoing political news as it breaks.
All the modern-day presidents had their own style of governing.
Reagan used his charm, personality, and relentless optimism to win over the so-called “Reagan Democrats.” He even managed to get some things done with his adversary Tip O’Neill, who once called Reagan “the most ignorant man who had ever occupied the White House.” (And you think today’s Republicans hate Obama!)
Clinton made his famous “move to the middle” and by doing so, was able to work with people who hated him enough to try and impeach him to accomplish things like welfare reform and balance the budget.
And, alas, George W. hitched his wagon to the neo-conservatives, and governed with a fierce loyalty to their beliefs, despite what the polls showed or popular opinion. Which, while it didn’t turn out that well for us, is admirable in its own way.
And now we have President Obama. After five years, we can finally start to get a sense of his governing style. Now that he has settled into the day-to-day governing in his second term, you can start to see a definite pattern, a strategy for governing. I call it the “Obama Five Step Shuffle.”
Here’s how it works.
Step One: He either creates a crisis (Draconian sequester spending cuts) or takes advantage of one (fiscal cliff) to try and get what he wants. Peggy Noonan calls this Step “Politics by Freakout,” and Obama has it mastered.
Step Two: Obama then rides in on a white horse and outlines his plan for digging America out of this crisis, and saving “Main Street, U.S.A.” That plan, of course, is raising taxes on evil rich people. While outlining that plan, he is sure to let everyone know that his plan is all about Main Street, and any plan offered by the Republicans, even plans he hasn’t seen yet because the hasn’t actually talked to them in months, is all about bailing out “Wall Street.”
Step Three: This is the step where most Presidents roll up their sleeves and, after having set the public relations strategy, they get to the governing strategy, and actually sit down and negotiate with the other party to get something done.
But Obama hates negotiating. He hates that part of politics, which unfortunately for him is 90 percent of what politics is. So he skips that phase and sticks with the public relations strategy. He leaves Washington, and goes on a campaign-style whistle-stop tour to drum up public support for his idea (singular), hoping that will sway the polls and the Republicans will cave in to his demands.
Obama is very good at Step Three. He ha mastered the little things, like using human props. At one recent speech, he surrounded himself with firemen. At another, he surrounded himself with defense workers who might lose their job if the spending cuts go through.
Throughout the “campaign,” in every speech, he uses scare tactics, class warfare tactics, and smear tactics to make people believe that he is for the “little guy” while Republicans want to give everybody’s money to billionaires, eat small children, burn the elderly alive, and destroy the Earth.
Step Four: Obama returns to Washington, still refuses to sit down with Republicans, and starts complaining about how everything bad that has happened to this country has happened because House Republicans refuse to work with him. He pisses and moans and cries and complains and does everything short of trying to actually negotiate with the enemy.
Step Five: He sits back and hopes America is dumb enough to believe his bullshit.
So far, the Obama Five Step Shuffle seems to be working. In fact, he won reelection using it.
But let’s see if he can keep it going. I mean, it’s easy to fool people for four years. It gets a little trickier after six, seven years, when nothing seems to ever change.
It’s official. Just got the call from the Vatican. They want me to be the next Pope. I agreed, providing they make a few small changes to their doctrine. Ten tiny changes, to be exact:
1. Reverse their stance on gay people, and encourage people to be who they are. I figure they’ll go for this one, since many of their priests are gay.
2. Reverse their stance on birth control, so people in poor countries like Mexico don’t keep having kids they can’t afford, just so the Church can continue to grow. I checked the bible. Nothing in there about not wearing rubbers, so they should pass this one, too.
3. Reverse their stance on women not being allowed to be priests, because anything men can do, women can usually do better. The Democrats talked about the Republican War on Women, but that’s nothing compared to what the Catholic Church is doing to them.
4. Reverse their stance on allowing priests to marry, because it’s inhumane to tell someone they can’t have an intimate relationship for their entire adult lives. Plus, you tend to attract more perverts that way. Again, there’s nothing in the Bible to support it. The only reason they outlaw marriage is the almighty dollar. If you allow priests to marry, they’re going to have children and want their own places to live. Which means you’ll actually have to pay them.
5. Speaking of perverts, change the culture so that instead of protecting pedophile priests, and allowing them to continue to rape little boys, they must turn over all pedophiles to the authorities immediately. The immediate shortage of priests that will happen as a result will be offset by provision #3 and #4.
6. Shorten the Mass to seven minutes. Start with a prayer. Have the priest give a short homily, and end with a song. That’s enough religion for anyone. All the rest is bullshit. And all that chanting gives me the creeps. “Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith . . . “. Let us not, okay? Catholics know what they believe in; they don’t have to chant it every week.
7. Knock off this whole eating Jesus and drinking his blood stuff. It’s creepy, and cult-like, and way too medieval. Catholics make their communion in second grade. So you’re telling 7-year-olds that they are eating a human. What the hell is the matter with you.
8. Don’t make priests wear dresses anymore. It probably adds to the perversion factor.
9. Get rid of all the bishops and cardinals who live lives of incredible luxury. All they do is suck money from the local churches that need it more. As Pope, I won’t need them. And I can’t stand their hats. As Pope, the only hat I’ll wear is a Cubs hat.
10. Move the Vatican to Chicago until my son graduates high school. Then we can move it back to Italy, since he’ll be away at college anyway.
I’m still waiting to hear back from them . . . but I’m sort of assuming it’s a done deal. When it happens, I’ll keep this blog, but change the name of it to either “Papal Matters,” or “Papal Infallibility My Ass.”
Here’s my latest feature from our new monthly newsletter: Low Hanging Fruit.
The obstacles to being creative inside an organization are many, varied and tough to overcome … but it all starts with taming the approval process.
Writing for organizations is hard. Being creative inside organizations isn’t easy.
Sometimes, it seems as if everything is set up to prevent us from creating the kind of content that people will actually read and pay attention to.
A recent informal survey of communicators at one of my writing seminars revealed six common barriers that people face as they labor to create better content. In no particular order, here they are:
1. The approval process
2. Fear of creativity or “doing something new”
3. Audiences who don’t care that much about our stories
4. Internal clients with the wrong agenda
5. Lack of access to important people
6. Boring subject matters
On their own, any one of those things can suck the creativity out of even the best communicators. Taken together, they can suck out your soul. But out of all of them, the hardest one to deal with is the beast at the top of the list: The dreaded approval process.
Which is a shame, because approval processes are supposed to be good things. They are supposed to exist to keep people out of trouble and to make sure we get our facts right. The approval process should, more than anything else, be a fact-checking process.
But it’s not. Instead, most approval processes turn into a group editing exercise. It’s writing by committee. Everybody gets to take a crack at the article: Subject matter experts, managers, executives, HR, legal, compliance . . . everybody is lined up with red pens and their own agendas.
Try to imagine this conversation taking place inside an organization:
Scene: An architect’s office at a major construction company’s headquarters. An architect sits at his desk, poring over a set of blueprints for a new building. There is a knock at the door. It’s the corporate communicator.
Communicator: “Uh, Ed? You got a minute?”
Engineer: “Not really, Bill. What’s up?”
Communicator: “Uh, it’s Phil, actually. And I was just wondering if maybe I could take a look at that blueprint for a second.”
Engineer: “Why would you want to do that?” You can’t run anything about this project in your newsletter yet.”
Communicator: “I know. But I think I have some suggestions for you on how to improve it. See, in fourth grade, I won a statewide Lego competition. I built an entire Hobbit village. I think I can probably give you some good advice.”
That conversation would never happen, right? And yet once the story on the new building iswritten, and it’s given to the architect for his “approval,” he’ll feel qualified to change the headline, tinker with the lead, massage the quotes, and otherwise butcher the article and render it almost unreadable.
Why? Because everybody can write! Everybody took writing classes in high school and college! Everybody can do what we do, right?
WRONG!!! And we need to start saying that out loud. We need to start sticking up for what we do. We need to have confidence in our expertise, and our talent. In short, we need to take control of the approval process and make it work for us, rather than against us.
I know, I know. It’s easier said than done. And maybe you’ll fail if you try. But the problem is, too many communicators have given up on even trying. They assume it is what it is, and let whatever mess the approval process churns out be the final version. Even though we know it’s a version that nobody will either a) read; or b) understand.
That has to stop. And it’s up to us to turn things around.
Putting the approval process to work for you
In our “Write & Rewrite” webinars and customized writing seminars that we do on-site at companies, my partner Jim Ylisela (the “Rewrite” half of “Write & Rewrite”) and I always carve out time to talk about the approval process.
And after talking to hundreds—if not thousands—of communicators over the years about the topic, we’ve come up with some practical advice that has worked for people in various organizations.
Now there is no guarantee that any of it will work for you. But it’s worth a shot. Here are two of the best pieces of advice we’ve heard:
1. Do more on the front end, so there’s less work on the back end. The idea here is to avoid the “shock syndrome” that conservative corporate people get when they see something differentor new or, God forbid, creative.
If you’re going to take a different approach to something, let people know in advance. Let’s say, for example, that you have to write an article about a safety program. But rather than focus the story around the program itself, you’re going to focus the story around one person’s experience with the program. How it’s helped that person stay safe, maybe. Or how, by not paying close enough attention to the program, the person was nearly hurt. Or maybe he or she was hurt.
Now, this might upset the lawyers. It might upset HR. It might upset the manager of the person you’re profiling. So go talk to these people in advance. But when you do, remember these two important things:
A. Build a business case for doing it differently. You’re not being creative just to be creative. You want to build awareness of an important new program, and your expertise in the field of communications tells you this is the best way to do it. The end goal is to help the organization, not just to tell a good story. Hammer that point home.
B. Remember that you’re not asking for permission. People will say no to a concept before they ever even see the article. You’re the expert in your field. You know the best way to achieve the objective you’re trying to achieve. You are simply alerting the people who need to see the article that you’re doing things a little differently.
Now, they still might freak out when they see the article. But maybe they’ll freak out a little less. And maybe, just maybe, they won’t freak out at all.
2. Define roles and tasks, so everybody knows what they’re supposed to do. For some reason, many communicators fail to do this. And since nobody knows what their role in the process is, they assume they are supposed to hack away at the article with a red pen.
In any given piece of content, three things need to be “approved:” 1. Facts. 2. Tone. And 3. Style.
Checking facts is the role of the subject-matter experts—you know, the architects and engineers and marketers and salespeople and doctors. But that is their only role, and they need to understand that. They’re not there to mess with tone, style, quotes, headlines, leads, or any of the other story elements that fall into your area of expertise.
Checking tone is where managers and leaders come in. They can help you determine if the overall tone of the piece is suitable to the corporate culture and the audience you’re trying to reach. But you have a say in this, too! If, in an effort to adopt a certain “corporate” tone, leaders keep stripping all the voice and personality out of your content, then you need to step up and fight that.
Finally, checking the style is up to you. The grabby headline; the compelling lead; the quotes that sound human; the conversational style of the writing. These are our blueprints. These are ourtools.
Getting these elements right is your contribution to the process . . . and it’s an important one. And one you need to fight for.
By doing a little more work on the front end of the process, and by clearly establishing roles (and making sure people stay in those roles), you can take back control of the approval process.
It won’t be easy. It might not happen right away. You may step on some toes and get your own toes stepped on . . . but the alternative is to let things go the way they’ve been going.
Posted By Steve | September 18, 2012 | No Comments
A tale of two communicators . . .
Something good comes out of it when a “Strategist” and a“Tactician” get drunk at the office holiday party . . .
This is the final installment in our series on the evolving role of the modern communicator. In this episode, we introduce to you the model for the future of communications: “The Creative Strategist.”
Pull up a chair and pour yourself a cocktail, for I have a story to tell you. It’s a story that starts in the past, and finishes in the future. And it has important lessons for communicators everywhere as they try to redefine their role in the modern organization.
It’s a tale of two communicators . . . both of them very good at what they do, and both of them abject failures in their jobs. How can that be, you say? How can two people excel at what they do, yet fail at their jobs? Easy: They may be good at what they do . . . but they aren’t doing the right things. Sound familiar? Then read on . . .
Our first communicator is Timmy the Tactician. Timmy is absolutely brilliant when it comes to embracing new communication tools. He is an excellent writer. He has a voice for radio, and an eye for video. He is an early adopter of all things social media, and he oozes creativity from every pore.
Timmy loves his channels . . . oh, does Timmy love his channels!! He creates laugh-out-loud corporate videos; employees actually listen to his podcasts at home, after work, because they’re so entertaining; he writes a blog on the company’s intranet, and it’s loaded with personality, and generates hundreds of comments.
So why is Timmy the Tactician a failure? Because nothing he does is tied to the goals of the business, and he doesn’t work from a communication plan. Meaning, he doesn’t do research to uncover the business objectives he should be focusing on; he doesn’t develop communication goals and messages based on those objectives; he doesn’t develop content designed to deliver those messages, and achieve those goals; and he doesn’t measure anything he does.
Timmy just . . . communicates. He does it very well. Nobody has ever done it better, in fact. If Timmy’s only job was to entertain the workforce, he’d be a huge success.
But Timmy’s job isn’t just to entertain the workforce. Timmy’s job is to help the organization succeed. His job is to communicate with a strategic purpose. His job is to educate and motivate employees, and align their behavior with company priorities.
Timmy doesn’t do any of that. He just sort of entertains people. And he’s great at doing that. But he’s a lousy communicator. And he’s a failure.
Now let’s meet Sally the Strategist.
Sally is the exact opposite of Timmy. Sally is the most strategic communicator you’ve ever seen. Her communication plan is bigger than the King James Bible. Her matrixes have matrixes. She lives and dies by the spreadsheet. She does executive interviews every month, to determine what her leadership wants her to communicate. She won’t do anything if she can’t measure it.
But Sally has a problem, too. By the time she’s done being so strategic, she doesn’t have any time to be creative with her tactics. So she churns out boring, dry, sterile content about this initiative or that initiative. Her Town Halls are Death by PowerPoint. Her intranet is an electronic graveyard, where boring stories go to die. She writes in what she thinks is the language of the business, constantly referring to “core competencies” and “paradigm shifts” and “low hanging fruit” and “proactive world class solutions.”
Sally has the Strategy part down pat. Her messages are tied directly to the objectives of the business. They are part of an integrated communications plan. They are created with an end goal in mind.
And nobody reads them. Because they’re boring. And in this day and age of the 24-hour news cycle, FaceBook, Twitter, blogs, reality TV, podcasts, and the hundreds of other entertainment options, the one thing a modern-day communicator can’t afford to be is boring.
And because nobody pays attention to her tactics, Sally is also a failure.
So there you have Timmy and Sally . . . both of them toiling away, both of them convinced that they are good at what they do, and both of them failing miserably.
And that’s how the story would end . . . except . . . one year, at the Official Company Generic Holiday Celebration, Timmy and Sally got drunk together. And against all odds, they had a romantic interlude in the elevator. And suddenly, Sally was with child.
So Timmy and Sally got married. And they had their baby, a darling little cherub they named Christopher Steven.
And early on, Timmy and Sally noticed something odd about Christopher Steven. He seemed to have Timmy’s creativity, but Sally’s focus on strategy and results. One morning, when Christopher Steven was about six, he was doing a finger painting. Both his parents wandered over to watch.
“Hey, that is a terrific painting,” said Timmy. “Very different and creative. People will love it!”
And Timmy was crying a little, because it was obvious that Christopher Steven had inherited his Dad’s creative genes.
“Thank you, Dad,” said Christopher Steven. “But I don’t care if people in general love it. I’m painting it specifically for Taylor, who sits next to me in school. I did some initial research to determine what she likes, and found out she’s into unicorns. So I decided to craft a unicorn finger painting, because my end objective is to get her to like me. After I deliver this, I’ll conduct additional follow-up measurement to see if a) she liked it; and b) whether or not it changed her opinion of me. I won’t judge it a success unless it changes Taylor’s behavior.”
“Oh . . . my . . . God!” Sally cried, the tears streaming down her face. “My little baby is measuring outcomes!! He’s establishing measurable goals and then communicating to achieve those goals!”
“But look at how creative this picture is!” sobbed Timmy. “He’s an artist, a free thinker . . . he realizes that without creative tactics, all his measurable goals in the world don’t matter!!”
“But he can’t be both!” cried Sally. “He can’t excel at tactics and strategy. It’s unheard of! They are entirely different core competencies! It would shift the entire communication paradigm!
“My GOD,” said Timmy, the shock evident in his face. “Maybe not. Maybe we’ve given birth to a . . . a . . . Creative Strategist!!!”
At which point, Sally faints, Timmy throws up from shock, and Christopher Steven leaves to make a pee pee.
Fast forward 20 years. Christopher Steven graduated college with a double major in journalism and business. He’s working as a communicator at the same company his mom and dad worked for, before the pressures of the corporate world drove them insane and they quit their jobs and joined a nudist colony.
Christopher Steven does all the things his dad used to do. His holograph blog is watched by 91 percent of employees. His videos, which people watch on their HD, flat-screen credit-card sized computers, are the number one source of information about the company for 87 percent of the workforce.
As a throwback to a previous era, he still “writes” regular “articles” on the company’s intranet, which employees can access just by shutting their eyes and concentrating. But those articles are fun and creative, with great quotes, limited jargon, and tons of benefits to employees.
But Christopher Steven doesn’t do anything without a reason. Like his mama before him, Christopher Steven works off a communication plan. He identifies business objectives, and then builds measurable communication goals based on those objectives. Then, and only then, does turn on his creative side, to create the kinds of fun, interesting tactics that he knows people will pay attention to.
And he measures the outcomes, and adjusts his plan accordingly.
Christopher Steven is a Creative Strategist. Christopher Steven is the future of the communications industry. Are you?
Are you a writer or a translator? Today’s corporate writers need to think of themselves as translators—professionals who can take the gobbledygook coming out of so many organizations and make people want to read it. Steve shows you how to make the important interesting—and easily understandable, too. Register today!
June 19, 2013
Ragan’s 2013 Intranet Summit
Bellvue, Washington • Pre-Conference Workshop • 3 p.m. – 5.pm
Building a great intranet . . . when you’re not Cisco, IBM, or Dell The big companies get all the attention when it comes to intranets, but what if you don’t have a 40-person IT department, huge budgets and a massive editorial staff to maintain your intranet? No worries, Steve will show you how.
Employee Communications 3.0 . . . and what it means for your intranet Regardless of whether you’re a multibillion-dollar Fortune50 company or a small health care concern, your intranet can be the cornerstone of your employee communications 3.0 strategy. Steve walks through tried-and-true tactics to revolutionize your intranet.
June 25, 2013
Ragan’s Content Summit for PR, Social Media and Marketing Professionals
Chicago, Il • Special Keynote • 4:20 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Winners and sinners in content marketing
You can learn a lot about content marketing and brand journalism from the organizations that do it right … and the ones that do it wrong! In this fun keynote session, leading communication expert Steve Crescenzo will take you on a romp through the best and worst that content marketing has to offer.
