This one for my Megan

There are three things I love the most about working in the world of the webs

• It is dynamic
  The online environment changes so fast so it is never boring, there are always new ideas, and new ways of working through issues and the scope for positive change seems endless. Every job has its good points and bad points, but we get to change the bad points, it’s what they pay us for.
• Forming deep and meaningful personal relationships
  We are all connecting in strange new ways and here on the internet you are all so much more of an important part of my life than strangers on the street, I love hearing your thoughts on twitter, your passions and your dreams. Most of all I love being a part of it all, because IT IS all happening. It is happening right now. It is happening right here.
• We’ve all ended up doing the same thing
  The webs are converging all our different jobs into the one single profession. When people ask me what I do, I still say I am in the media industry, but the skills I use for my job are the same as so many other people, who work in a vast variety of organisations, sectors and industries.

And it is the last point: how all our jobs are coming together through the shared experience of being online that this post is about and as the title of this post says – I dedicate this thinking to my wonderful girlfriend Megan. This is written for her.

Human resources is a hard job

Megan is an HR professional and until I met her, I didn’t really understand what that meant and I had assumed HR are limited to things like paying the salaries - (BTW: it turns out confusing HR with payroll is like confusing my job with a paper boys).

To many people HR is just hiring and firing but covers everything from “performance management” through “organisational values” and “strategic resource planning”. HR is where the meat meets the metal, on the line between systems and subjectivity.

This is all about organisational cohesion and what sorts of thoughts and feelings bind us with our colleagues at work.

Internal communications is boring

Internal communication is seen by many in the news industry as the poor and frumpy cousin of media rels or PR. Dealing with the fast paced world of deadlines and bulletins is exciting, getting quoted in the newspaper is high profile, and how cool is it to be on radio, or TV!

But internal communication is important; and can add a huge amount of value to any organisation by pulling disparate people together into a shared experience of belonging. Internal communication is more HR than PR; and IT own the connections between us.

It’s a sticky little issue

The problem is as our jobs are converging into each other we are left interacting individually on this apex between the responsibility of different departments and often the compromises we reach suits nobody. We have to look for ways for us to work together better.

Working together isn’t a weekly newsletter (sorry PR) and it isn’t a performance management strategy (sorry HR), the best way to work together is across a single, independent, dynamic and interactive platform, which is within IT.

I think the problem is that IT reports closely to the business but core business metrics, particularly HR metrics are not being pushed back into IT planning and to be fair the PR department only just heard the word “metrics” about 18 months ago.

We need to sit down and begin a conversation and discuss how our three departments can work together as a group, for the good of the whole organisation. Maybe we should first think about what exactly “a group” is.

School of fish

Groups are all about belonging, sharing and trusting and what binds us together is our shared experience. This shared experience is built up from all the stories we have and share with each other about working within our organisation. Everybody in a company is woven into these stories, there are heros and villains, victory and tragedy; and sometimes even a little bit of love and occasionally some passion too.

Organisations are the sum total of these shared stories and by agreeing that principle HR, PR and IT will be able to progress.

The shared experience of an organisation defines that organisation

We need a platform to share our organisational experience; and thankfully “sharing experience software” otherwise known as social media applications are plentiful and cheap. Encourage individual innovation, try everything to see what works and replicate success. There are no wrong answers in this area; so the systems supporting the platform need to be able to respond to change quickly.

The first effect the organisation feels following the provision of a suitable platform, is increased cohesion; because if everyone is sharing stories with everyone else, we can work together better as we know each other more. This is the metaphorical equivalent of the organisation taking in a deep breadth; I have seen it happen.

Unfortunately not all of the stories that are shared are going to be good ones, but knowing what is wrong with the organisation is more helpful than knowing what is right. Working together PR can find and write the stories, IT can share the stories and HR can tell us how we are all going reaching our dreams.

After all everyone loves a story with a happy ending.

Teh webs is serious business (for communication)

Pellacor has descended into what I described to someone recently as Sam’s personal playpen on the internet; but as outlets for creative activities and self-absorbed drivel go, I think it serves its purpose well. I am yet to hammer the voice into a cohesive and congruent whole but it is still early days and, to be honest, I already rely on this blog as an intellectual and creative stop gap buffering me from writing bad poetry and listening to power pop songs.

Occasionally, however, I stumble upon an interesting idea, one that is both insightful and potentially useful. I have mentioned meme theory before, and in this post will use it to explore the throw away comment in the last post likening modern communication to r-selection strategy using a metaphor for evolutionary reproductive strategy in biology to tease out some principles for successful communication in the world of the internet.

WTF is “communication” in this context?

Communication here is corporate communication, or communication designed to affect a business result and a business results can be any number of things relating to what an organisation does. Examples include:

• Getting people to buy more widgets,
• Convincing people it wasn’t the widget manufacturer’s fault some widgets have exploded and killed people
• Getting a political party elected by leveraging off the rampant anti-widget sentiment sweeping the nation following the recent spate of widget related deaths

This kind of communication is actually quite complicated and the amount of money spent in this area is probably going to frighten people who are unfamiliar with marcomm’s (Marketing and Communication) budgets. But the process of achieving strategic communication outcomes is well known and basically involves the following steps:

• Identify the business result
  Let’s use the example from above and pretend we are embarking on a crisis management exercise for the Widget Manufacturing Co following a spate of widget explosions which have led to numerous deaths. The business result would be to support the continual sale of said widgets into the local market.
• Identify the target audience(s)
  These are the people who you need to get your message across to: here the audience will be potential purchasers of widgets and also probably regulators who want to ban widgets based on their poor safety record.
• Define the target audiences’ current state
  This is what the target audience thinks now which is preventing the business result and in this example the current state is something like: Widgets are faulty and are likely to explode and kill people when used.
• Define the target audiences’ desired state
  This is what the target audience needs to think to achieve your business result. In our example the desired state is: Widgets are safe to use and perfectly harmless when used correctly/the recent spate of widget related deaths are just a coincidence or a result of operator error.
• Simple equation to uncover key messages
  The key message can is obtained by mentally subtracting the target audience’s current state from their desired state i.e.
  Widgets are safe to use and perfectly harmless/widgets are not to blame for recent widget related deaths
  MINUS
  Widgets are faulty and are likely to explode and kill people when used.
  EQUALS

  • Evidence of a long history of widget safety
  • Information relating to the quality control in the widget making factory
  • Evidence to tarnish the reputation of previous victims to support a theory they used the widgets improperly and are therefore responsible for their own demise

The three messages obtained from the target audience analysis are commonly known as key messages and, insofar as this post is concerned, can also be thought of as memes (I’ll come back to this later).

r-selection and k-selection again

If you really wan to find out a bit more about r-selection and k-selection for reproduction and evolutionary success I suggest you read the wiki article on it, however, basically r-selection and k-selection roll like this.

• k-selection - think koala bear breeding strategy
  k-selection involves having few off spring, but investing in them heavily to train them up with the skills they need to cope with a competitive environment. This is a strategy to use when you are reproducing into a stable environments and competition for resources is tight.
• r- selection - think fish or frog breeding strategy
  r-selection involves having a lot of offspring, not investing in them at all and letting your babies find their own way in the world. This strategy works best when faced with not very much competition, or when you are reproducing into a dynamic environment.

If meme theory is correct, and I think it is, cultural information (the information that codes for humans which isn’t contained in our DNA) evolves through the same process (natural selection) as genetic information (the information that builds your bodies) does.

Sorry guys, I know it is getting a bit tricky here, but bare with me

The process that shaped the development of a coffee mug is the same process that shaped the development of the human hand. This suggests strategies that apply to biological evolution will also apply to cultural evolution.

r-selection and k-selection as a metaphor for communication

The internet has totally and utterly revolutionised the marketing and communications business and what was previously a fairly stable environment with tried and tested methods has been replaced by a seething mass of new connections, communication methods and mechanics, all evolving very quickly.

The way communication use to be (k-selection communications)

The Widget Manufacturing Co have finished the thinking behind their communication drive and have identified their target audience, the current and desired state and have explicit messages. The next step would be to look at media their target audience consumes, and then craft a press release or advertising copy which contains the messages.

A crisis management strategy such as the fallout from widget related deaths is more than likely going to involve a press release and paid placement (advertising copy) the Widget Manufacturing Co CEO and Marketing Director will brief relevant agencies, the agency team would draft a statement and/or advertising copy, and these will be bounced back and forward between the agency and the company.

Finally the press release and advertising copy will be agreed and forwarded to the media.

Hopefully you can begin to see how old media communications is like k-selection: a low number of offspring (a single press release or ad copy) with a large amount of investment; something like 10-15 people would have had input in this press release of only 500 words.

This strategy worked really well when everyone use to sit down at 6pm and Judie Bailey would tell the country how it was, but the internet has changed all of this, people now get information from a thousand different sources that constantly change and if you want to communicate in this new environment betting the farm on a single press release and ad placement, down a single channel is no longer the best strategy.

How it is today (r-selection communications)

The Widget Manufacturing Co completes the same process to identify target audience, current and desired state and have the messages. Like the biological reproductive strategy to tackle dynamic environments r-strategy communications is about getting those messages down every single channel available; facebook, myspace, blogs, twitter, forums, plurk, IRC, AIM, flickr, youtube anything and everything you can get your hands on.

r-selection communication s is getting away from two hours worth of arguing about whether to use 12 point verdana or 11 point arial in the press release; whether to give the story to your old drinking buddy who still works for the Dominion Post, or worry about whether tv3 will send a crew. R-selection communications is a focus on getting the message out to people, visit relevant blogs, get involved in forums; make a YouTube video etc.

Conclusion time

The key to thinking about communication as a mechanism for meme replication is that memes can only replicate in peoples minds. By itself a press release, media article or advertising insertion is worthless; it is the audience (the people who consume the media) that matter.

Professional communicators need to stop focusing on the media and focus on the individuals involved. The social media mindset is recognising the most important parts of the communication equation in the early stages of the 21st century are people.

If you wanted a handy hint for a good first step to engaging people, not just media, with your marcomms messages, I suggest starting with your internal communication. Learn the technology internally and fly from there.

Freak the funk, hype the funk, swipe the funk - and all that junk

Dealing with the back lash of atmospheric carbon increase is, without a global consensus on green house gas emissions, most likely not going to work out and the first victims are undoubtedly the slow evolving multi-cellular life we share this planet with.

I am sure insects will be okay, they have latent (ie unexpressed but complete) genes for: high atmospheric carbon/high temperature/high vegetative growth to cope with the change and (relatively) short generation cycles to ensure evolutionary success.

This is the classic difference between the two reproductive paradigms: r-strategy and k-strategy.

k-strategy is a mammal strategy, it involves investment in the young at the expense of few offspring. It is a strategy of success when faced with a stable environment.

r-strategy is fish strategy, it involves no investment in offspring, but producing thousands of them in the hope a few survive. It is a strategy of success when faced with a dynamic environment.

So let’s dispense with the metaphor and look around us, would you say that the environment for your communication is stable? Or dynamic?

It is of course dynamic. The internet is a revolution for communication and as such an r-strategy for communication will prevail, rss, sound and video at the bare minimum.

Unfortunately without a serious attempt at stabilising the carbon in the atmosphere you need to kiss goodbye to all the mammals as a result of your decision, and probably some bird species too.

The next lecture will involve sex selection, colonization of island environments and peacocks to counterpoint this basic lesson.

The Harbour City capitol, the lights beside the sea

AKA The John Crowley Recipe for Cooking a Mutton-Bird – Step 2 – vegetables and grilling (Step 1 here).

Beans and yams with roast potatoes, seemed like a good idea for vegetables but I feel I need to admit I am also making a rich fig sauce to accompany the mutton-bird, however, due to issues to do with neutrality and not wanting to open myself up to criticism of bias, I cannot detail the sauce recipe here.

These vegetables are about to be cooked including possible future product placement revenue opportunities.

Once the vegetables have been safely cooked in the oven, it is time to get your grill on

The mutton-bird is ready to be grilled.

It isn’t a good idea to get sidetracked when the mutton bird is under the grill, things can go badly wrong quickly, burning, smoking and fire. After a while the mutton-bird will be grilled properly and should look like this.

Mutton-bird ready for carving and eating.

The next step is to dish up the vegetables, sauce and sea bird ready for eating.

The finished product

There you go, now you too are empowered to eat a migratory sea bird that between climate change and human exploitation are unlikely to be around forever.

Get’em before they go the way of the Dodo.

The suits and the briefcases along Lambton Quay

The title of this post should really be The John Crowley Recipe for Cooking a Mutton-Bird – Step 1 – boiling the bird (twice), but I think Salty is the best NZ album ever, and the album name acts very well as an adjective for the band sakes’ taste.

Mutton-Birds are very interesting; they are otherwise known as Sooty Shearwaters, and migrate every year from New Zealand to the north west side of the Pacific Ocean (sub-arctic) fly east and then come back home again. They breed on Stewart Island and according to Wikipedia are near threatened, but unfortunately for them they also taste good, something like chicken stuffed with kippers.

To be fair, the ones you eat haven’t made the epic flights but killed as chicks before they fly, in a tradition that goes back before my family settled in New Zealand.

To get your hands on one you could try the fish shop on Lambton Quay, it is where I bought mine.

The first stage is boiling, eating a mutton-bird is akin eating a seagull, maybe more than akin, maybe is, and a salty one at that.

In the pot with a potato

The potato is really what makes this John’s recipe, you need a new one each time you boil the bird, and you boil it twice, with a new spud and fresh water in each.

Boiled with the potato

Second boiling ready for grilling.

This bird is now ready for Step 2 – vegetables, ovens and grills.

My first IT job eva

[top to write]

[intro]
My IT career started aged 7; on a ZX-81, without the 13k memory expansion. However with the quote machine unquote, I was also given books containing an introduction to programming. My programming skilz increased exponentially, until my first graphic application; unsurprisingly a game.
[/intro]

[build]
No matter what I did I couldn’t get the app to run, I had been through the lines and lines of quote code unquote but there wasn’t an obvious answer; in fact no answer at all. It was weeks. Eventually at 8 an elder neighbour was invited over and the obvious answer was provided – there was more code than the 1k could compile. I remember the moment, it struck me like lightening: my first introduction to reductionist thinking, logic, and understanding when you reduce, sometimes, paradigms prevail.
[/build]

[insight]
This experience made me realise that although I want to work in computers, I can’t handle the structure of code, especially the fact that it is based on hardware, that there are assumptions, ideas, etc that are unknown unknowns.
[/insight]

[result]
This led to an interest in the arts, an area of no knowns – but after graduating from uni it quickly became clear IT is more important and I have worked with them as an quote experienced user unquote. Bridging the gap between an industry, a company, staff and suppliers, it didn’t take me long to realise:
[/result]

[reaction]
Every single job I have had, has had: bad IT.
[/reaction]

[reflection]
So now, with my new job: I join the accused.
[/reflection]

[summary]
My first job in IT eva awaits.
[/summary]

[tail to write]

This is the planet of sound

Some say there are two certain things: death and taxes, and undertaking doesn’t appeal. I don’t know if you have had the time to read it but there is a sentence in my about page which I think defines communication and it reads: Communication is not just information - it explicitly and implicitly defines the relationship between two parties.

This means communication is as much about the receiver as the sender, broadcasting or publishing isn’t enough anymore. So many important people in my experience miss this. It makes me imagine a world without radio and television.

The hardest part for me is going to be adjusting my own consumption; at home I buy the best connection money can get (within reason) and still the internet is so much better at the office. Please understand the need I have for bytes rises like the Zimbabwean Dollar.

I shouldn’t fret yet though, who knows what might happen in the next two months.

A blog post developed using Agile Methodology: Iteration 2

The familiar ping of the office elevator woke Dav, the software/developer writer from his sleep, startled at the morning light streaming onto his desk. The door slid open, and Belinda, the project lead/editor stepped out.

Dav felt sick. The project was terminally late, the user/reader group was due to arrive and the post was well behind schedule. “When did you get in?” Belinda asked sharply, they had argued last night, she expected too much. “I haven’t left”, Dav turned back to the monitor, Belinda’s hard gaze softened in sympathy for a second, then tightened up again. “How is it going? Have you finished the ending yet? Darren is on his way.” Dav’s nausea increased at the mention of the business owner; Darren wasn’t know for reasonableness or understanding.

Dav looked at the words on the monitor where he had got to before he fell asleep and read them

Dav looked at the words on the monitor where he had got before he fell asleep and read them. His stomach tightening as the realisation grew.

Review: A blog post developed using Agile Methodology: Iteration 1

The review of the first iteration of A blog post developed using Agile Methodology has concluded that although the first iteration had all of the function that was stipulated as a must have, it failed to deliver on the spirit of what the project was trying to achieve. The team has been so busy writing words, and joining sentences together into paragraphs that the actual goal of the whole project, writing a blog post that is both interesting and informative, was lost.

But it is still early days.

Feedback from the user/reader character included making sure that the project team was big enough to represent an entire set of stakeholders which could be affected by this project in later iterations.

To try to build from the mixed success of the first post the next iteration of A blog post developed using Agile Methodology:

The post must have:

• Some sense of direction for the characters, the nice to have journey from the first iteration development was not achieved, this has now become a priority for the project.
• Three clear themes that relate to the main theme of the similarities and difference between writing software and writing language.

It would be nice if the post had

• A joke or two to lighten the mood, and remind everyone that while this is an important intellectual exercise, the sun is still going to come up tomorrow morning.
• A twist at the end, something unexpected happening that will make the user/reader think about what has happened in the blog post and increase the engagement and understanding of the ideas that sit behind this project.

Given those parameters the second iteration is due for release at 20:00 on Thursday May 8 2008.

Any and all input on this project is welcomed using the comment interface below.

A blog post developed using Agile Methodology: Iteration 1

The first iteration of A blog post developed using Agile Methodology has been rolled out, and here it is, sure it might not look like much now, but the core functionality agreed is included and the team believe we can deliver a useful and informative piece of software/writing.

Initially the team is made up of four characters:

• Project lead/editor: responsible for keeping everyone together and on track for the project, very experienced with software functionality as a whole and thinks big picture to decide competing prioritise.
• Software developer/writing: the voice of the person who is actually responsible for creating the letters and words within this post. The software developer/writer is experienced in weaving together ideas to make sense and carry the point of this project through.
• User/reader representative: this is the voice of the users/readers of this blog post, and in the absence of any real user/reader feedback using the comment functionality will be the voice of a a user experience expert contracted in to look at how it could be improved.
• Business owner: This is the voice of WTF is this whole thing for and is it worth the time and effort we are putting into it. This is the project sponsor, struggling to get their head around this newfangled methodology of agile.

The story itself will be set up through a series of narrations from the various characters and this functionality should be ready for the evaluation phase feedback due at 20:00 on Wednesday May 7th 2008.

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