The Valerisa Blog

For the semanticists among us, modern English can be maddening. Anyone who lists Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style” among their favorite books probably relates to this notion. (Strunk & White’s explanation of the distinction between “nauseous” and “nauseated” is particularly entertaining, but I’m tipping my hand.)

Set aside for now the confusion that accompanies homonyms (or “homophones,” as they’re now called). We’ve become accustomed to folks writing “your” when they mean “you’re” and “there” when they mean “their” and such. Big deal. If I invite you too my party and hope you’ll be their, the world will keep turning and you’ll probably still show up, if only to make fun of my grammar to my face.

We can also overlook the most common misuses of words, such as “got” and “eloquent.”

“Got” is the past tense of the word “get,” which means to acquire or receive. So why are we so fond of saying things like, ”I’ve got it made?” Do we really mean “I have received it made?” No, we mean “I have it made” but apparently it’s more emphatic to say “I’ve got…” even though it really makes no sense grammatically to do so.

“Eloquent” means persuasive, not articulate. But how many times have you heard someone describe an articulate speaker as eloquent even though the speaker is doing nothing to persuade anyone of anything except, perhaps inadvertently, the quality of his or her own speaking ability?

But again, if an articulate speaker is called eloquent and, thereby, has got it made, most people aren’t going to lose sleep over the degradation of the language.

We’ll even grant special dispensation to the only occurrence I know of in modern English of an adjective actually being placed inside the noun it modifies, but that’s a-whole-nother topic.

But I have to draw the line when it comes to treating plural forms of words as being singular just because they don’t end in “s.”

The plural form of “datum” is “data.” So please don’t ever say, “This data is bad.” No, your grammar is bad; these data are perfectly fine, thank you. Even if these data are not fine, they are plural. And I hope this represents a datum you can and will use.

The plural form of “medium” is “media.” So please don’t say, “The mainstream media is biased” regardless of how true this may be. The mainstream media are largely thought to be biased, and this may have a dramatic impact on how our society responds to the issues of the day. But don’t lose sight of the fact that the mainstream media are plural. The New York Times is a medium. The Washington Post is a medium. Newspapers are media, as are cable news channels, magazines of all sorts, and blogs.

For the record, blogs can be biased, to. I mean, too.

When you work in strategic communication, you tend to see the world differently than most persons do. For example, when someone reads in the newspaper a story about a great new consumer product, a typical response is to consider whether that product is worth trying. When I read in the newspaper a story about a great new consumer product, I try to figure out what strategy the publicist representing the product used to get a story written about it in the newspaper. It may sound a bit neurotic, but it sort of comes with the territory.

So as you might imagine, when a communicator finds himself in a customer service conundrum with a company, he’s not just trying to resolve the issue at hand but simultaneously considering the reputation management issues the company should be addressing. It‘s a bit if a collision of worlds. Here’s a case in point.

I recently found myself on the can-somebody-please-help-me-and-have-some-kind-of-compassion? end of a customer service dialog. I made a flight reservation online for my child, then realized six days later that I reserved the flight for the wrong date. (I’m a communicator, not a travel agent.) Hey, I made and paid for the reservation two months in advance—no problem, right? Wrong. The flight cost $162. To change the date by a week calls for a $150 penalty. (I’m a communicator, not a mathematician, but that’s a 92-percent penalty.) Feeling like a kid who’d been sentenced to having his hands amputated because he stole a candy bar, I asked several times for some consideration of the punishment-to-crime ratio. I was courteously rebuffed. Doesn’t this company realize its reputation for customer service is going down the tubes?

I did get some unanticipated help along the way from another blogger, an informed and conscientious communicator who seems to serve as online accountability for the travel industry. This of course represented another collision of worlds: a blogger getting help from another blogger. But I digress, even as I thank Christopher Elliott for his professionalism and support.

Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that my child’s travel plans were worth more to me than a $150 itinerary-change penalty, no matter how bloated the penalty may seem. So I called the airline, my tummy bloated from humble pie, and asked to change my child’s flight to the very same flight one week later. “I’m sorry, Mr. Steimer, we can’t do that. As an unaccompanied minor, your child cannot be booked to fly alone on a flight that includes the last connection of a day.” Translation: The airline cannot assume the risk of a child possibly having to spend the night in Atlanta because of a missed connection. But I held a reservation for my child on the same last-connection-flight a week earlier.

This of course led to my rendering several thousand dollars worth of consulting services—at no cost—to the airline for uncovering a glitch in their online ticketing service that violates their own corporate policies and possibly federal regulations. And I held a reservation for my child to fly on a flight the airline won’t allow her to fly on. But since I was changing the date on the flight the airline should not have sold me, I still have the privilege of paying the $150 penalty.

As a professional communicator, I know I’ve gone on too long and so I’d better summarize and get lost. So here’s what the airline’s actions communicated to me:

“When you save us money by booking online instead of requiring help from an employee, and pay us up front for a service we won’t deliver for two months, and help us uncover a flaw in our online ticketing system that violates our own policies and possibly federal regulations, and poses significant legal and financial risks to us, but you make a small scheduling error along the way, we won’t show any gratitude or compassion. Instead, you’ll have to pay us an exorbitant fee so we can invest the three minutes it will take to correct your error.”

The world of common sense just collided with my professional sensibilities and my wallet.

Remember the television show Seinfeld? Many viewers considered it a show about nothing, and yet it compelled large numbers of us to tune in weekly for almost a decade. Why would so many of us be so taken with such nothing? Perhaps a lesson from direct mail, an oft-misunderstood corner of the world of communication, may shed some light.

In direct mail, sometimes disrespectfully referred to as “junk mail,” success is said to hinge upon three inputs: the package, the offer, and the list (audience). If all three work well together, the campaign will probably be successful. Even if one is relatively weaker, the other two can carry the campaign if they’re strong enough.

The package refers to what is actually delivered to the prospect. A friend of mine who’s an absolutely incredible photographer recently put together a beautiful direct mail package. It included a retro View-Master viewer adorned with his studio’s logo and two View-Master reels, one showcasing his commercial photography and another featuring some truly breathtaking photos he shot during a trip to Ireland. The point was to show, in a fun way, that he was not only a dependable commercial photographer but also that he brought to his work the eye and heart of an artist. It was all neatly packed in a small box that also contained crisp written language explaining what he was sending and why. It was a very strong package.

His offer was simple: Enjoy my creativity and work and, when your assistant tells you I’m waiting to speak with you on the phone, be kind enough to take my call. The offer wasn’t as compelling as the chance to win a million dollars, but it was exactly what my friend needed for his audience.

He sent his direct mail package to the creative directors at some of the top advertising agencies in the United States. I’m not clear as to how he obtained their names and contact information, but he was confident enough with his list that he put together an expensive package with an easy-to-accept offer and his campaign was very successful.

What does all this have to do with our apparent attraction to nothing, a la Seinfeld? Just a hypothesis that communication is not always about the just the offer, but also about the package and the list/audience.

In public communication, this means that what is said (the offer) is not all that matters. Who is saying it in what context (the package) and to whom it is being said (the list/audience) count as well. While strategic communication always seeks to ensure all three are just right, other forms of communication, such as political speech or artistic performance, may only focus on two. Dance, for example, has nothing verbal to offer, but it speaks very loudly through its package—the dancers, their costumes, the set, and the music. Politicians are famous for speaking much and saying nothing, yet their audiences so admire the package that they often overlook any substance vacuum. Sometimes we even happily buy into offers that we should be giving much more scrutiny because we like the package.

Anyway, a blog entry about nothing doesn’t really need to make any substantive points. But the next time you’re taking in a package and offer from a public official, your favorite artist, or an entertaining television show, just for kicks see how much you, the list/audience, are carrying weight for the package and offer. If you can take yourself out of the situation, there’s a good chance you’ll hear things a little more clearly.

This is a blog that shares communication perspectives on current events. Inasmuch as a best-selling book in our society constitutes a current event almost as much as it constitutes a communication effort, we believe a blog entry that in some ways resembles a book review is hereby in order.

Have you read The Shack by Wm. Paul Young? From its back cover, “The Shack wrestles with the timeless question: Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” Any communicator willing to take on such a monumental (and controversial) topic as this deserves support, and will likely be exposed to a fair amount of criticism. Then again, criticism is really just support filtered by judgment.

Judgment, at least for this reader, was one of the key theme’s in Young’s poignant book. He specifically made a case for judgment being something that sullies relationships and basically makes life less enjoyable—for those doing the judging as well as for anyone who comes into contact with these judges. Ouch. Sometimes a communicator’s key messages can be hard to swallow. Need another example?

Young also takes on the notion of unforgiveness in a context where most of us would be very sympathetic to the person not doing the forgiving. But, again, Young is eloquent in his point that not forgiving even those who cause us the deepest pain wounds us more deeply than it wounds our offenders. There’s another key message that’s hard to receive.

The fact that Young’s perspective is decidedly Christian, though purposely not religious, may also be hard for some to receive. On the other hand, here are some other things that also began as decidedly Christian initiatives in the Western world: freeing people from government oppression, educating children, caring for the sick, helping people overcome addictions, feeding the hungry, sheltering the destitute, and loving one another. So try not to toss out the baby with the bath water.

A brief bio says that Young “suffered great loss” while growing up as the son of missionaries in the wilds of New Guinea. The Shack is apparently his way of telling his story (or perhaps someone else’s) in a manner that allows readers to share in the main character’s emotional healing. Even readers who don’t carry any emotional scars will likely enjoy the tenderness with which he handles one man’s journey from tragedy to repentance to forgiveness, and ultimately, to wholeness.

By the way, here’s a public nod to my wife who recommended the book to me. Darling, you’re the best. But where on earth did you get the idea that I might benefit from reading such a book?

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of helping to judge end-of-semester projects for a group of public relations students from the University of Maryland (my alma mater, in the interest of full disclosure).

While it was sobering to be among so many bright, young, up-and-coming communication professionals, the experience overall was exhilarating.

Each team of 3-5 students approached the same communication challenge in a unique way. They all started by flexing their clearly impressive research muscles, showcasing the secondary research they’d done to get smart on the topic at hand, revealing their subsequent SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) findings, and showing how these informed the primary research they would undertake before beginning to communicate.

The teams took very different approaches, focusing on different identified audiences, with a budget spread that went from the hundreds of dollars to the millions. Some built their programs around events and personalities, while others relied on published materials or technology. All revealed realistic views of media relations and what could be promised to a prospective client in this regard. All paid careful attention to how their success would be evaluated.

Their thinking was solid, their programs creative, and their confidence admirable. And what impressed me probably most of all was their teamwork. Without exception, each group found a way to ensure every team member made substantive contributions to both the program and the presentation.

The scary part is that I’ll be competing with some of these young people in the not-too-distant future.

Best wishes to all the public relations students at UMD, and to their instructors who are clearly going above and beyond the call to turn bright students into promising young professionals. 

I was talking the other day with a friend who’s involved in promoting a major college bowl game, the Eaglebank Bowl.

Sounds like a sweetheart assignment, doesn’t it? The NCAA finally plays a bowl game in the Nation’s Capital, honoring the dedication and sacrifices of those who serve the United States in the military. The game will feature the U.S. Naval Academy from nearby Annapolis, Md., representing the military, against a (to-be-announced) team from the Atlantic Coast Conference, all of which have big fan bases in the Washington metro area, which not surprisingly is also home to tens of thousands of current and former military personnel.

A big college bowl game. A built-in fan base. A major metropolitan area with an affluent population plus a proven love for football. Promoting such an event should be cakewalk. Except…

- The NCAA had to schedule the game not on New Year’s Day or even New Year’s Eve, but five days before Christmas.

- Washington’s a political town, and the game will be played just beyond the midway point between the presidential election and the inauguration.

- It’s a tough year economically, which tends to put both individual and corporate expenditures for events such as this on the list of lower priorities.

- This being the bowl game’s first year, budgets are likely tight and there’s no history of achievement or goodwill to leverage.

The game’s promoters will be relying on their smarts and creativity to make sure no stone is left unturned. The related communication questions are equally challenging.

Are there local luminaries who are alumni of one of the schools playing in the game who would be willing to make a public statement about the value of the game? Are there government officials at either the local or federal level who can ethically endorse what the game means to the city? Are there corporate entities supporting the game as sponsors that might also be willing to issue a quotable statement through a spokesperson? Do any of the Washington Redskins players have a connection to one of the competing schools and thereby an interest in supporting the game’s success? Are any of the starting players in the game from the Washington area? Are there local reporters who focus on NCAA football who would welcome information on the game? The answers to these questions will help promoters to formulate an achievable communication strategy.

The game this year will likely be a success, providing great buzz and some real momentum for subsequent years. We wish all the best to the sponsors, promoters, players, and fans.

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama became president-elect of the United States, the first African American ever to do so. Congratulations to him and to the American people who collectively elected him to lead their nation. A major campaign is over, and for Obama the work of governing will soon begin amid an environment of lofty expectations that arose during the campaign.

Campaign rhetoric is what it is. Regardless of what a candidate says, what his or her supporters hear is what must be addressed by communication. Obama’s supporters heard some monumental promises—perceived pledges that any president would have a difficult time delivering. As a result, there’s a very high probability that a notable subset of Obama’s 62 million supporters will begin to feel disappointed in the not-too-distant future. This is not a criticism of a candidate who worked hard to win an election, or of his supporters who not only gave him their votes but also placed their hopes and dreams in his hands. It’s just a simple matter of emotional dreams being easily dashed by objective reality. Remember the words of the old Air Supply song?: “American hearts, so filled with emotion; American hearts, so easily broken.”

For the Obama administration and the Democrat party, one of the critical communication challenges will be to address the disconnect between perceived promises and what the realities of governing will allow Obama to actually deliver. This will require understanding what supporters’ expectations are, whether supporters feel their expectations are being met, and if not, then why not. With this knowledge, the president and/or his party will surely continue pursuing political remedies. And they’ll also need to provide their supporters with reports on how expectations are being met as well as the reasons why some may not be met. Based on how the Obama campaign functioned, this critical two-way communication will likely leverage the Internet and other new media. If such communication does not occur, the disappointed supporters could well look for someone else in whom to invest their hopes and dreams.

For the Republican party, the same scenario calls for a different communication strategy. The GOP and its future candidates will need to solidify existing support through communication. At the same time, they’ll need to identify Obama voters who feel like their expectations have not been met and convince them of this: You are welcome here and we/I will work hard to earn your vote and your trust. The Republicans will of course need to build a home that feels welcoming to these disappointed voters. If they build it and communicate, the voters will come. This will call for some highly trustworthy candidates and credible spokespersons who can communicate in person as well as via new media.

It’s a fascinating time to be an American, and to be a communicator. For American politicians, the times are indeed a-changing.