Who Dat? Is it a New Hire or is it a CEO as….Undercover Boss?

Immediately after the Super Bowl, when most of America is schnockered and full of the euphoria of a win, or doldrums of a loss, CBS launched the premier of Undercover Boss (full episode here).

Let’s face it; many of us (I can’t stand it either, but there are fans of American Idol and Real Housewives out there) are tired of reality programs with useless values (and minimal relation to their real lives). Can viewers really learn from some of the topics and antics of the majority of the contestants?

Undercover Boss really gets to the heart of the matter.

Larry O’Donnell, President & COO of Waste Management is the PR pro’s dream. A C-Level executive who actually knows – or, let’s say in this instance, NOW KNOWS – as he experienced a day in the life of the worker bees in his company. For one week, he shucked the luxuries of his professional and personal life, left the corner office, and got a firsthand look (AND appreciation) at what everyone in his company does. He was on the proverbial battlefield in combat vs. sitting in a cushy chair at command center.

Often in our field of PR, we are working with executives who have great ideas to propel their business model and company to profit. But their vision comes from afar and they really aren’t at 20/20 when the bubbles hit the surface. Many of them come from a business background without direct experience in the day-to-day life of the rank-and-file employee. Larry was one such executive. He didn’t realize that many of his policies on his watch were the cog of employee unhappiness and strife. Essentially, he was asking “Who Dat?”

Is it a flaw of Corporate America? Hard to say. If a company is very big, it is virtually impossible to be involved with every facet, but it’s a management defect if you don’t care or attempt to drill down. (A nice story of an executive, Gordon Bethune, Continental Airlines, who did visit employees: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/03corner.html  ) In a smaller company, with everyone on site in one location, it almost becomes imperative for the top executive to get MORE involved. Undercover Boss as a program is good validation of extrapolation best practices.

Larry, posing as “Randy” at several Waste Management venues across the US, got his hands dirty, his pride sullied, his handkerchief wet (with tears) and experienced many A-HA moments. Let’s take a quick look:

• One region docked workers 2 minutes for every minute they were late to punch in.

• A supervisor, Walter, who went to dialysis 3x a week. Walter really wanted to help other people with the same problems. (In an ironic twist, Walter “fired” Randy because he couldn’t get enough trash in the bags in an allotted time. From a second view, a CEO was too inept to do a menial job).

• Witnessed how Jaclyn, a woman who had a series of medical problems - 5 types of cancers before age 29 - was a huge multitakser with high energy. She even invited him over to meet her family and have dinner on his “first day.” They were struggling to keep their house.

• Cleaning Port-o-Let toilets at an amusement park in Texas, he was amazed that his supervisor had a lot of pep and enjoyed what he was doing. He took a not so fun job and turned it into a positive experience. His comments on doing the job were “This is a lot more to his than I really thought. ” His supervisor said he needed to be faster and clean on average 15 of these standalone stalls per hour to be efficient.

• Saw that Janice, a female garbage collector had a lot of friends along the route, yet had to rely on a – forgive me dear reader – a pot to pee in. One poignant moment was when Karen, a disabled woman paid tribute to Janice with a little ode. It particularly hit home as Larry has a daughter with special needs.

So, throughout his experience, Larry showed a bit of humbleness along with physical and mental weakness. He actually saw that people are hard workers and not just numbers or cells with dollar signs in an Excel sheet.

Larry came to an epiphany to change the way they do business. He would investigate many of the present bad policies which he implemented and get the employees more involved, have input and help them charter a course to rise in their careers.

As we all know, PR can creates a favorable view of a company both internally and externally. If I were a CEO I would want that to mirror that people WANT to work here and that companies WANT to do business with us. For PR practitioners, this is a great example of what can be learned by upper management. A telltale comment: “I had no idea this job was physically demanding and mentally exhausting.”

I would challenge all CEOs that you represent to take some time to get to know the employees, their roles, their true feelings. There can be many stories generated and best practices gleaned that the media would never otherwise know about. Corporate messages can be tweaked a bit better and you will help propel the image of your company a lot better. In the mean time, I think CBS is on to something.

Personally, I’m hooked.

J.D. Salinger + PR = A Study of (Anti) Social Media

J.D. Salinger was indeed the bizzaro factor for public relations.

A man of great writing talent, he was able to capture his reader's attention and make them want more. All with words. (We as PR folks should be envious!).

Authors want to sell books, have them fly off the shelves and get royalties. Then, the logical step is to write more based on the success of that first novel. The passion to write is contagious. For Salinger, the art of writing and the personal satisfaction it brought him was why he was doing what he did.

Early on Salinger followed that course of PR recognition, but hit a major tsunami when Shirley Blaney, a high school student wrote an interview with him and put in some personal info in The Daily Eagle. J.D. took the proverbial scissors and severed himself from the world.

As a man in reclusion, he wielded a lot of power what could be said about him. It was impossible to adapt any of his work, put his image on a T-shirt or do anything commercial. HE seemed to control the press. Witness the only interview he gave in the early 80s and from what details I have, it was a short one with The New York Times.  Mr. Salinger was quick with the lawsuit too, protecting his name, image, and writings.  As a matter of fact, he was rarely photographed and this picture that accompanies this blog is one of the few that are found on an Internet search.

Yet, the Salinger mystique built an empire of fans who just craved, craved, craved - and never caved. Every word he wrote was coveted. When you don't hear from someone for a long time, especially one who had prominence and the limelight, the natural inclination is "Out of sight, out of mind." Here it worked the opposite.

From a PR draw, it was a reverse vacuum. The more reclusive, the more we wanted to know.  In an ironic twist, Facebook has a fan site.  Social media meets an anti-social icon.

Interestingly, we can tie a link here to the newly launched iPad.  (Besides that poignant part of iPad being born and J.D. dying) Steve Jobs has created a product line, the i-EVERYTHING and after the initial launch to market, draws a cult following with users, fans asking the predictable, "What's next?"  The response that comes back is an unexpected product.  I'll leave the bells and whistles for the iPad for the techies, but what I saw of it is extremely cool. Much like Salinger's writings.

In the mean time, iPad is embracing social media - the launch was covered live by many tech blogs.  Salinger, when he made a rare appearance somewhere, was relegated to one line, often in the past.

So, what can we learn from J.D. Salinger's mystique and apply it to PR?  Simple. Keep your audience and fans hungry.  Be accomodating and keep your offering relevant and in the limelight.  And, most important, communicate to your client that without engagement, you will lose fans and customers.

Salinger was the lone exception to the rule, and he pulled it off flawlessly.  Let's take notice over the next few days what develops around the mystique of Salinger.  Will there be people close to him "spilling the beans" or will it be another story shrouded in mystery?

Either way, we want to know!

It ALL Comes Down to the Kicker (or) Tell The Story NO ONE is Telling

Yesterday two exciting football playoff games graced CBS and FOX and like millions of diehard Americans, my iris and pupils were Krazy-glued to the TV. 

The hype coming into the two games all centered on the following:

• Quarterbacks:  Favre, Favre, Favre – Age, ability, going against his favorite team growing up.  Peyton – Best QB Ever? Sanchez – Rookie QB following the path of Broadway Joe.  Brees – stellar year for a team whose region was decimated by Katrina
• Running Backs, Wide Receivers:  Peterson. Bush. Addai – All Unstoppable.
• Teams: Colts, Saints, ALMOST undefeated.  Jets – Happy and lucky to be there.
• Coach:  Rex Ryan making the playoffs (and beyond?) in his first year at the helm.

These story lines plus countless others are good, but time and again, the position that gets overlooked because it is not sexy to the media is the kicker.

You can see where I am going with this.

In the Saints-Vikings game, the score see-sawed and went into sudden death. The plays on the ground and in the air failed to produce a score for both teams.  When the Saints were in field goal range, they brought in Garrett Hartley.

Who?

Yes.  You read it correctly, Garrett Hartley.  An undrafted guy who wound up getting picked up by the Broncos, essentially for the practice squad, then subsequently cut.  And it didn’t stop there.  Earlier this year, he was given a 4 game suspension for utilization of a banned substance.  That put the kibosh on his starting job and it wound up going to the aged John Carney.  Fast forward and Hartley gets his first opportunity 12 games into the season.

Yesterday, Hartley kicks four routine points after touchdowns -- merely doing his job.  Then, the dynamics of the game changes with the opportunity to win.  He’s called upon with 40 yards, separating heroism and being a goat (sadly, Favre got that award with the errant pass in the 4^th Quarter with a few seconds remaining).  Hartley plies his craft and the pigskin sails through the uprights.  Saints win.

Now, prior to the game, Hartley’s name, if mentioned at all was in passing.  Yet, he was an integral member of the team that was overlooked.  If any reporter sat down and spoke with the kickers instead of going after the glamour stories that everyone was covering, they would have been thought of as a genius with keen insight.

We often have the same conundrum in PR.  Trying to tell the obvious story is easy.  Looking for a nuance that isn’t obvious, yet palatable to the media is the hard part.  When we find it, and they bite, we are on to something and that is the key to success.  Sometimes it is pure luck, but good PR requires GREAT thinking.

So, take the extra time when working on a pitch or an idea for a client.  Take a 360-degree approach and then take another 360-degree approach to the idea you came up with.  A good tangent is better than a run-of-the-mill story.  If you can get the media target or analyst to admit (usually to themselves), “why didn’t I think of that?” – then you have done your homework.

Remember, as PR professionals, we are always 40+ yards away attempting to get our good story beyond the uprights of our intended media target.  Our clients know we score the points and when it comes down to pressure and skill to craft a good story.

Kick away!  (But with accuracy).

Silents & Social - Leaping the Hurdle of Communication

The names Dorothy Janis, Barbara Kent, and Mickey Rooney may not ring a bell to most of the people today (save for Mssr. Rooney) but these three folks are the last surviving stars from the silent movie era.

It dawned on me how Hollywood, towards the end of the Roaring 20s, was going through what PR is today - the transformation or upheaval from one known and accepted form to a radically different one. One purported to be better, yet, for the most part, untested. And, may I add, with many skeptics.

Our field of PR has the same growth pangs. Go back to the beginning of the 90s and take a look. What did we pitch? Newspapers, magazines, trades and broadcast. Online wasn't even in the picture and the words Social and Media probably never even sat next to each other in a sentence.

Hollywood was plagued with talkies that failed because the actor's voices were "funny," "didn't fit their on screen image," or just sounded stilted. Many careers were jettisoned from star to obscurity when their natural voices replaced the omnipresent title card. Crossing over, this trend continues today. We all heard something to the effect of 300+ newspapers and countless magazines ceased -- uh, went "silent" -- in the last year. Most met their demise for lack of advertising revenue, not lack of popularity. (Mark Penn cites in Microtrends that an audience of 1% is one that can generate $).

Social Media is today's version of the "talkie." But, I won't make any assumptions about it being awkward. Innovators, pundits and believers such as Chris Brogan, Mashable, Jeremy Owyang, Josh Bernoff (and since we are citing Hollywood, Tara Settembre's "When Tara Met Blog") have conveyed the merits, nuances and opened audiences from the professional and personal level for all readers. News is disseminated a lot different than even five years ago - INSTANTLY! It has become the in vogue way to communicate. It's fun, interactive, instant and to the point.

We are at a crossroads now where learning, practicing and actively participating in social media is now a must rather than a luxury. While sound movies replaced the silents, all forms of media since were complements vs. replacements. The TV was supposed to replace the radio. Now there is cable and satellite radio - and we all know how TV expanded. Sidestepping here for a second, Alexander Graham Bell's phone now is mobile and can access the Internet. OH, and you can also access the many social media vehicles while on the go. We morph, we hurdle and on to the next..,as it becomes part of the accepted mix.

Analogous to movies being streamed to your desktop, you don't have to walk down to the corner store and get your paper to find out what happened yesterday. Everything is instant. We may have cut out the paper boy down at the corner who yelled "EXTRA, EXTRA, Read all about it..." but we still have an insatiable quest and thirst for news.

Social media has cleared the hurdle faster than the silent/talkie transition period. We Twitter. We Facebook, We Connect. What's next? I don't know, but I know I'll like it.

I am wondering what it would be like to have Dorothy, Barbara and Mickey in the same room as our social media experts. (Future topic..Flappers Meet Generation X)...?

Welcome to My Blog - Titanium PR

First, I want to thank you for visiting. There are millions of blogs out there. Some with relevance. I hope to elevate this one into one that will make your bookmark and RSS feed.

Why Titanium? Several reasons.

First, it is the "IT Metal", in my view. Many cool items are made from it including bicycles (a passion of mine). While I confess I don't own a Titanium bike frame, they are known to be solid and a great ride. The color is also cool and the name resonates a positive image.

And, that brings us to the crux of this blog - PR - public relations. The field has changed a lot in many ways, but it remains a solid profession. Even as the economy loses $, jobs and more, the field never has lost its luster or shine.

As cited in Wikipedia,"A metallic element, titanium is recognized for its high strength-to-weight ratio.[7] It is a strong metal with low density that is quite ductile (especially in an oxygen-free environment),[2] lustrous, and metallic-white in color.[9] The relatively high melting point (over 1,649 °C or 3,000 °F) makes it useful as a refractory metal.

While it sounds a bit complex, let's face it, all of us in PR have been melted at times by somewhat unreasonable demands (part of the job, not a gripe). But we are resilient and we are full of strength.

I will look at trends and items in the news and share my viewpoint and experience. I welcome comments, suggestions and ideas.

Thanks for visiting and Happy 2010!

- Paul Macchia