Neville Hobson, ABCwww.nevillehobson.com

Manchester, July 1, 2008

Signs of Encouragement on the Horizon

Consumers, citizens, and employees (the same thing) have changed

They don’t trust company-speakThey fast-forward their PVRs through

the interruptionsThey pull content that interests themThey create their own content,

original and mashupsThey pay attention to (and are

influenced by) word of mouth

The emergence of a new digital information commons

The reality of a global economy

The appearance and empowerment of myriad new stakeholders

1. The product or service being pitched by email is obviously not one that the recipient would have much interest in

A fact that would be very easily apparent if the pitcher had taken even a cursory glance at the recipient’s blog

2. The email includes an unsolicited Word document attachment

And not everyone uses Word

3. The pitcher writes a pseudo-friendly greeting but it only looks like a bad database mail merge

My favourite: “Hi, Neville ,” (notice the space between my name and the final comma)

A close second is the simple “Hi ,” with that same space (yes, I’ve had lots of emails like that)

4. The email contains nothing but the text of a press release

That sin is compounded when the email subject line says ‘press release’ or ‘latest announcement from XYZ Company’

The nail’s in the coffin when the email also includes the press release as a Word attachment with lots of font and other document formatting

Consumer promotes brand41 Talk at the consumer 2 Consumer interacts with message 3 Consumer interacts with brand

Consumer

2

3

4

1

Conversational

One-way Messaging

Experiential

Two-way Communication

1. Channels have fragmented

2. Sources of trust have shifted

3. Social media have arrived

4. The consumer is “in control”

5. Content creation and distribution have been democratized

6. You must reach the new influencers

7. Transparency is essential

8. Engage in the conversation or fail to communicate

1. Leadership in defining and instilling company values

2. Leadership in building and managing multi-stakeholder relationships

3. Leadership in enabling the enterprise with “new media” skills and tools

4. Leadership in building and managing trust, in all its dimensions

The Chief Communications Officer must now assume a leadership role: