Strategic Public Relations

Presentation Trap #234: The (Slow, Boring) Build

A payoff slide kills the boring build, letting you assert first, support later.

There are more than 100 ways to deliver "death by PowerPoint." One death blow I've wrestled with lately is narrative flow.

We tend to build a case for assertions before making them. It's even built into the standard "problem, solution, results" case study. But building up to an assertion risks losing the audience before you can make your point.

The Payoff Slide
Depending on the presentation, I start out with a "payoff" slide in my deck -- not unlike the payoff sentence that kicks off this post. It's my main assertion -- a 140-character elevator speech that can be tweeted by the audience. And I spend the rest of the presentation proving out the assertion. Here's an example on the second slide.

As I've said before, you still need to tell a story that your audience wants to tell after your presentation. So you still need to end on a high note. But if you save it all until the end? You lose the audience before you get there.

Payoff To Stop Walk Out
Losing an audience is literal these days as presentation attendees are more serious than ever about investing their time. An extreme example is South by Southwest Interactive. I've seen SXSWi speakers flame out as people leave during the presentation -- in droves. It's not polite. But it's based on the content they're getting (or not getting) from a presentation. And it reinforces the need to capture and keep the audience's attention.

This guy is boring uploaded by Narisa 

#NOCincyBananaSplit & #bananasforCLT -- a tale of two hashtags

Can Twitter sway an international brand and its potential relocation plans?

That remains to be seen. But I’ll argue it can’t hurt.

#NOCincyBananaSplit
A few weeks ago, Twitter’s J.B. Kropp contacted me and expressed his desire to get organized around what is now known as #NOCincyBananaSplit. It’s our Twitter-based campaign to make sure Chiquita knows that Cincinnatians want them to stay in town.

It was inspired by the news that Charlotte, the other Queen City, was being considered along with a third city as possible spots for Chiquita to relocate. And it’s great to see how quickly we were able to tap into Twitter and show our support.

Here’s how a phone call turned into an online dialogue with Chiquita’s CEO in less than 36 hours.

On September 16, 2011 at 9am J.B. Kropp contacted me about the Chiquita news. As a Cincinnati native, he saw the opportunity to tap into Twitter to make a difference.

Within an hour, a colleague and I came up with #NOCincyBananaSplit and an initial email from J.B. went out to a small handful of local influencers. From there it snowballed into 140 character calls to action. This initial burst of activity got Ad Age’s attention. This in turn got the local media’s attention.

And by the end of the work day, the news had taken place, it was covered by the media and we all moved along with our lives.

Twitter a CEO Tool
That next day @FdoAquirreCEO responded to Cincinnati's show of support, via Twitter of course. And it’s important to note that, while Chiquita’s CEO’s use of Twitter is not unique, Fernando Aguirre is definitely more evolved than the average Twitter user. He understands more than the basics and uses it to engage with other users and not to simply broadcast messages. It’s a potentially humanizing tool and he’s using it to put a face with a large company.

Tweets continued off and on. And a week later, on September 24^th, @BrianDFrancis turned the Cincinnati campaign into a friendly competition by getting Charlotte organized for its own Twitter campaign.

CLT or CVG TBD
#BananasForCLT did as much to underscore the importance of these efforts as it did to make their own side of the story heard. In addition to giving #NOCincyBananaSplit a second wind, this whole exercise has reinforced a few things.

1) Offline & Online: While the vast majority of this, including media coverage, took place online, it all started with a phone call and an email. The need for more direct and personal contact should never be overlooked. And making sure online and offline complement each other is the easiest way to make this happen.

2) Less Can Be More: We talked about supporting the Twitter campaign with everything from a Facebook page and a microsite to larger, offline expressions of our love for bananas. But it didn’t make sense. @FdoAguirreCEO’s use of Twitter was proven and doing anything more would simply diffuse our efforts.

3) Professional vs. Personal: If this was more than a friendly-competition, I’d take several steps to generate a bigger impact. Creating a Twitter landing page to make avatar swaps and creating tweets of support dead simple for people to join the cause would be my first step. Paid ads, most likely on Facebook, would help drive folks to the page. And an offline way to express your support would also be made available.

4) Don’t Be a Jerk: With most any online effort, there will be trolls trying to take over your bridge so to speak. But it was great to see how friendly competition helped both sides out in the long run. It would be easy to get into trash talk with 400 jobs on the line. But there were even cases of members from each side policing their own supporters.

Twitter’s ability to sway the relocation of 400 jobs is still up for debate…even after Chiquita announces its selection. But it’s a humanizing platform and it’s helped @FdoAguirreCEO connect with consumers nationwide in this example. And its helped two cities make sure Chiquita knows exactly how much their presence is appreciated. Mission accomplished.

Marketing, Hoarders & Throw-Aways

For one reason or another, I always seem to uncover items that are being kept around even though they no longer hold value. Items become obsolete -- from this diskette I hung onto for years at my last job to time-sensitive marketing materials that have an expired date or use the old brand identity.

But we hoard these items because of nostalgia perhaps or, more likely, because time or money was invested in them. Whether it's a well-intended “just in case” security measure or otherwise, it's usually overlooked or generally accepted.

Loaded Down with Ideas
Hoarding happens with more than just objects. Marketing practices, and internal processes, are sometimes clung to because “that’s how it’s always been done.” It can be understandable due to the success these intangible assets have achieved in the past.

We’ve all been guilty of hoarding at one time or another. Practices or processes don’t take up extra space. But without changing or reevaluating them, they can slow down organizations, impact productivity and over time they can lead to obsolescence.

Stay Close to the Shiny New
I’m not suggesting we change for change’s sake. I’m also not suggesting we flock to the shiny new. But as our industry is in a constant state of iteration, I am suggesting a balance. Even the longest-held practices or processes should not be off limits when considering what’s working, what’s not, what can improve and what needs to be thrown away.

Facebook: Will You Subscribe?

Despite this post and my last parody post, I'm NOT trying to be the Weird Al Yankovic of social media (emphasis on trying).

But I was thinking about the new subscribe feature on Facebook. And thinking about "I will subscribe" reminded me of "I will survive."

So apologies in advance for all of the various federal and international laws of good taste I'm breaking. Just do me a favor and hum the song when you read the lyrics? Trust me.

** "I Will Subscribe" **
First I was annoyed
I got snarkified
Kept wondering why Facebook changed
its interface design
After I spent so many nights
Making custom Facebook tabs
They looked wrong
But iframes forced me to carry on

And now you’ve changed
You’re all f8
I just logged in for Spotify and
Scoble’s timeline’s in place
I want to cancel my account
Praying 750 million leave
But who are we really kidding
I meant the g-damn site is free?

Go on now Zuck, walk out the door
Take Parker with you
Cause you’re not welcome anymore
Weren’t you the ones making friend a four-letter word?
Our cookies crumbled
Web browsers laid down and die
What can I do?
I will subscribe
It’s the one big change they made
Keeping my Facebook love alive
I’ll get on my wall to moan
how the old design did pwn
But I’ll subscribe
I will subscribe.

If you thought I was mad
about the new design
Just wait till Apple fan boys
see the iPhone and say “SQUIRREL!”
and they'spend oh so many nights
just sifting through the iPhone pr0n
That phone may pwn
I’ve already got my own
and you see me
with iPhone 4
Chained to another contract
some time before I’ll renew
Until then I’ll save my hipster angst
for one more site tragically free
In fact I may unleash my snarking
for someone on Google+

3 LinkedIn Hacks

A recent upgrade of LinkedIn’s iPhone app made it look simpler and prettier. And while it's gotten some good reviews, I've heard some folks are left wanting more. Regardless of how you're using LinkedIn from a mobile perspective, there are other ways to get your fix without visiting the site.

Outlook Integration
As the defacto email platform for coporate America, odds are good you're also using Outlook. I've installed the LinkedIn/Outlook integration at work and it's pretty slick. Of note is that it's easy to install and setup, unlike RSS feeds in Outlook.

And for every person you address an email to their profile pops up at the bottom of the email with some of their latest LinkedIn activity, as this screen grab shows. It feels a bit like Gist's social CRM platform.

Cardmuch(ing)
LinkedIn bought the Cardmuch app and it's a free, dead-simple way to turn any print business cards you've recieved into LinkedIn/iPhone contact info. It works amazingly well. The only thing missing for me to give it two thumbs up is there's no obvious way to export all of this content.

Visualizing 
LinkedIn's API is being tapped in some more trendy ways as well. Visualize.Me lets you turn your profile into an infographic. You can customize it and create a public link to the outcome so you can show people how #winning you are -- instead of tell.

These are just three ways to extend LinkedIn and help your business networking efforts. What are some of your favorite ways to leverage Linkedin?