Writing For Public Relations: Why SWOT Is Not Enough

You've heard the old saying and so have I. You can't compare apples and oranges. Yeah, sure. All that is fine and good, unless you happen to be in business.

In business, being an apple among apples leaves sales to nothing more than random chance. So, to help distinguish people and products, many agencies invest a good deal of time and client money in developing unique selling points. Sometimes they use SWOT.

As a strategic planning method, SWOT can be very useful. Except, it tends to be too introspective. And therefore, it's not enough.

Writing For Public Relations: Simplifying Messages

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink..

The above deck is a supplement deck for Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The intent of this deck is to provide students with an understanding of SWOT, but then demonstrate how CORE message systems further help identify people, products, services, and companies in the marketplace. You can find a written comparison between the two here. Enjoy.

Finding Intention: Because Passion Is Everywhere

I haven't thought about it in some time. But one of my favorite under-the-radar movies of all time is a 1984 film, The Razor's Edge, based on the book by W. Somerset Maughan. It was Bill Murray's first starring role in a dramatic film.

Murray had an incredible passion for the project: writing the screenplay with director John Byrum, including his farewell speech to friend John Belushi in the script; and taking a hiatus from acting after the film's disappointing reception and financial disaster.

There are several moments in the film that stuck with me, but the scene I've been thinking about since reading Bill Sledzik's post on passion is one where Murray's character Larry Darrel first meets Raaz, played by Saeed Jaffrey.

While Raaz is washing dishes, he mentions to Darrel that it might be enjoyable to be rich. Darrel confesses that he is not rich, offering that he worked in a coal mine to earn enough money for his journey. Raaz considers the answer, and then asks Darrel what was the intention of working in a coal mine. Darrel doesn't know what he means, because he worked in the coal mine to earn money to travel. No, Razz says, that was the reason, not the intention.

If work has no intention, it is not work at all. It's an empty motion.

While it might have come from a film adaptation, I've carried the lesson with me since I first saw the film. Whereas most people advise that people find their passion and pursue it, I casually disagree. It's the other way around.

Be passionate in everything you do. Otherwise, you'll find yourself drifting along in a series of empty motions, fooling yourself into thinking those motions are somehow a temporary situation before you finally have time to pursue your real passion. It's also why so many people, especially in the United States, felt unsuccessful as they jumped jobs every two years in the 1990s or early 2000s. Most had reasons, but few had intention.

I more or less told the students in my class the same last night, without mentioning the film or the greater context of my meaning. (It's not a philosophy class, after all). It was my takeaway after reading their news releases, written around a fictitious CPR class offered by a recreation center in cooperation with the American Heart Association.

I give the assignment, year after year, for one simple reason. Event releases are very common. They are so common that most students, especially those who are working professionals, tend to look upon them as among the most boring. The scores, a range of 50-78, reflect the problem. Almost none of the releases demonstrated that the students had found passion.

Except, there was plenty of passion to be found. The outcome of such a release is to encourage people to learn CPR, which could eventually save lives. And if you cannot find intention in such a purpose, the real challenge isn't learning about passion as much as it might be to find some semblance of empathy. Not to mention, if you cannot find passion in the context of any communication, chances are that the journalists, bloggers, or consumers won't either.

This doesn't only apply to writing. It applies to life in general. There is a reason I choose to clean my home every week rather than hire a maid or surrender most of it to my wife. I found intention in the action. Much like Raaz, despite owning several boats, found intention in the simple act of washing dishes. And Murray, unfortunately, forgot his intention when moviegoers passed on his portrayal Larry Darrel. Fortunately, he seemed to rediscover it in later films like Lost In Translation, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Broken Flowers.

Success doesn't come from fame, fortune, or untold wealth as there are plenty of people who have all those things and never feel successful. Real success comes from living life without empty motions.

Choosing The Truth: Take Your Pick

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” — Galileo Galilei


Except, fewer and fewer people seem the least bit interested. Take the recent settlement between the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 35 state attorneys general, and a company accused of deceptive business practices for making false claims. The outcome is cast in a rainbow of colors. If you happened to catch them all, you can pick and chose a truth for you.

There is the FTC truth. The LifeLock truth. The other LifeLock truth. The David Cowen truth. Confused? Here's a summary of the links sourced above.

The FTC Truth.

LifeLock, Inc. has agreed to pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general to settle charges that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection services, which it widely advertised by displaying its CEO’s Social Security number on the side of a truck.

In one of the largest FTC-state coordinated settlements on record, LifeLock and its principals will be barred from making deceptive claims and required to take more stringent measures to safeguard the personal information they collect from customers.

“While LifeLock promised consumers complete protection against all types of identity theft, in truth, the protection it actually provided left enough holes that you could drive a truck through it,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.

“This agreement effectively prevents LifeLock from misrepresenting that its services offer absolute prevention against identity theft because there is unfortunately no foolproof way to avoid ID theft,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said. “Consumers can take definitive steps to minimize the chances of having their personal information stolen, and this settlement will help them make more informed decisions about whether to enroll in ID theft protection services.”

The LifeLock Truth.

LifeLock, Inc., the industry leader in identity theft protection, today announced that it has signed an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several State attorneys general which closes a compliance inquiry by setting advertising standards for the company and establishing regulatory guidance for the identity theft protection industry.

"LifeLock is pleased with this agreement, which, for the very first time, works to set advertising guidelines for the entire industry. We welcome federal and state efforts to regulate our industry, because doing so helps to protect consumers from the risks of identity theft," said LifeLock Chairman and CEO Todd Davis.

"Because of LifeLock's marketing efforts over the years, many more Americans now know of the risks of identity theft," said Davis. "More than one and a half million consumers rely on us 24 hours a day to help protect their identities."

The Other LifeLock Truth.

LifeLock cofounder Davis said yesterday that the company had already abandoned most of the practices outlined in the FTC's complaint and settlement agreement.

"Today's agreement makes absolutely no impact on our business as it runs today, in our service or our advertising," Davis said in a phone interview.

Davis said LifeLock's revamped service, in place since the fall, didn't rely on fraud alerts. Instead, he said the company had partnered with other technology companies to develop "our own unique LifeLock identity alerts" designed to give customers early warning of identity theft and related frauds.

The David Cowen Truth.

The truth is that the FTC doesn't care whether consumers need protection from LifeLock's ads. The FTC has clear direction from President Obama to demonstrate its dominion over financial services as he campaigns to establish a consumer protection agency, and so the FTC is prepared to enforce and potentially litigate even in cases it knows it can't win. LifeLock understood this, and so even though $12 million is a LOT of money, it's nothing compared to what the lawyers will charge over the next five years to successfully defend against an FTC crusade.

A Recap Of Choices

So which is it?

Was LifeLock barred from making deceptive claims and required to better safeguard the personal information it collects?

Or, did LifeLock work hand in hand with the FTC to set new regulatory guidance for the identity theft protection industry?

Or, did LifeLock agree to a $12 million settlement to atone for past mistakes that it had already self-corrected last year?

Or, was LifeLock singled out because the FTC is following a mandate by President Obama to demonstrate dominion?

There are plenty more truths if you turn to the press. However, the vast majority of stories seem to be simply rehashing what everyone else said. How does this serve the public? We have no idea.

Based on these stories, please help us find the answer by choosing what you think is the truth below. The poll will close next Wednesday, and then we will publish the results along with our best assessment on what the truth might be. Vote for one.

Defining Social Media: It's Different For Everyone

The recent Unity Marketing survey — that suggests few affluent consumers connect to brands on social networks, research purchases, or look for coupons — goes well beyond the single demographic. It underpins the problems with most platform strategies, program measurement, and the trappings of crowd-sourced connections.

Highlights From Unity Marking Surveys

• Only 26 percent feel the country is better now than three months ago.
• Affluent consumers spent 50 percent more on luxury items than one year ago.
• As many as 78 percent of affluent consumers have at least one network profile.
• As many as 70 percent of affluent consumer over 40 have at least one network profile.
• Approximately half of affluent consumers view brand pages at times, but do not "friend" them.
• 30 percent of young affluent consumers (under 45) have visited a shopping site in the past three months.
• Only 7 percent sign on to sites to look for special offers; only 6 percent share purchases with friends.

Even among the affluent consumers, Unity Marketing breaks out survey information in subsets, which demonstrate differences by wealth, age, and other social factors. A January 2010 Edelman report produced similar conclusions. Fewer than 25 percent of affluent consumers trust their friends' opinions on purchases. Smart marketers will segment their social marketing efforts, customizing their communications and offers based on the audience.

People are different. They interact differently. They use the Internet differently.

In 2007, we were fortunate in covering a fan-organized outcry over the cancellations of Jericho, Veronica Mars, and The Black Donnellys. It gave our firm evidence that different groups and demographics interact, organize, and share information differently across the Web.

These fan groups weren't the last. Every social media program we've worked on since, including a club for affluent consumers, uses various online technologies and outreach tactics differently. They focus on finite specifics, and not mass generalizations.

For example, volume traffic doesn't apply when a purchase includes a $2,500 to $5,000 membership. Ten thousand fans who cannot afford a membership can be beneficial but never produce outcomes. Even crowd-sourcing window shoppers could be dangerous as their input might not represent the customer, a detail some social media experts seem to forget.

"Social media seem to be experts at attracting each other," noted one of our agency clients. "We're more interested in attracting our customers."

The overanalyzed Motrin case study comes to mind. The majority of the public wasn't offended by the snarky online ad. However, that was a small consolation given that the majority of customers the ad targeted were offended.

The Reality Of Social Media Definitions.

When I present information about social media to classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or any number of associations where I have spoken, I offer a working definition of social media. Mostly, I do it because the definition provides a context.

Social media describes online technologies that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media.

However, I also invest some time in breaking the definition down (it is people and technologies) and then breaking it into pieces. You see, nowadays, if you ask people to define social media, 80 million of them are just as likely to say social media is Farmville as they are to describe it as a "business" or some sort of "collective stream of consciousness." In short, even social media experts have about as much chance of defining what people do on the Internet as they do planet Earth. It's not scalable.

Fortunately, businesses do not have to understand what all people do within any given environment. They only need to know what their customers want (or don't know what they want). And then, they have to deliver it, online or offline.

After all, if every successful communication program could be defined by a list of bullet points, then traditional communication would have deciphered the right mix of bullet points a long time ago. Considering no one did, it might stand to reason that while we'll see an increasing number of cookie-cutter social media programs, we'll only find a few that are relatively tasty.

Looking Glass: Los Angeles Times Dives In

It seems the Los Angeles Times (L.A. Times) has chosen short-term publicity over long-term branding in a one shot advertisement that not everyone appreciates. As described by the New York Times, the newspaper allowed a garishly multicolored image of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, in the film “Alice in Wonderland,” to occupy the paper’s cover page, complete with the L.A. Times masthead and a rerun of recent articles.

According to the story, Russ Stanton and several deputies vigorously opposed the ad but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives. John Conroy, spokesman for the L.A. Times, likened the ad to the common practice of having an ad cover part or all of a Web site’s home page for a few seconds.

Why Russ Stanton Might Be Right.

Everyone knows that the print editions of daily newspapers are struggling as their online versions have yet to retain a suitable level of replacement revenue. So some might say $700,000, the amount paid for the ad, is simply a badly needed boost.

But what the business executives at the L.A. Times might not be considering is long-term erosion of the brand. As the old saying goes: if everything is for sale, then everything is for sale. And given this isn't the first time that the daily has surrendered editorial space, that might be the case. Eventually, the willingness to supplant the brand for promotional revenue will define the publication.

It may have already. The L.A. Times promoted the sale, calling it a groundbreaking move. Certainly, the move might be groundbreaking, but not for the L.A. Times. While the newspaper is attempting to minimize the move by calling it a wrap, giving up the masthead (along with stories penned by serious journalists) means something else entirely. They may as well put a wrap around their building.

What is groundbreaking is Disney winning the bid to do it. Putting the Mad Hatter everywhere has resulted in a real coup for the movie that is outpacing Avatar with a $116.1 million opening weekend. For the L.A. Times, the publicity is a net loss.

Anytime you elevate awareness, you have to consider the sentiment that comes with it. And the question that might be asked over the long term is that if the L.A. Times doesn't take itself seriously, then why would anyone else? Usually newspapers want to be known for Pulitzers over the same sort of publicity stunts they often criticize.

The timing couldn't be worse, either. Forbes reported on a study that that while Web ads will grow another 10 percent this year, magazines are expected to see a small 1.9 percent increase in spending to. What does that mean for dailies?

Strongly branded dailies will survive in better times, especially with fewer of them. And that means the L.A. Times ought to keep taking its temperature while it experiments with being a tabloid. Tabloid competition is even tougher, I hear.

A Round-Up Of Opinions On Selling The L.A. Times

• Times Sells Disney Its Front Page for $700K by Sharon Waxman

• The Los Angeles Times Sells Out The Front Page by Donald Douglas

• L.A. Times Splashes Mad Hatter Across Fake Front Page: No Harm, No Foul by Si Cantwell

• L.A. Times sells Disney Front Page For Movie Ad by Steve Gorman

• L.A. Times Runs Cover Wrap for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by MediaBuyer Planner

Looking Forward: Social Migrates To Mobile

Need another reason to keep your eyes on the mobile market? A new study from comScore, Inc. found that 30.8 percent of smart phone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browsers in January.

The number is not static. It's up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. And some networks are experiencing even more growth with mobile. Mobile access to Facebook grew 112 percent; Twitter access jumped 347 percent.

"Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser," said Mark Donovan, senior vice president of mobile for comScore.

More than 25.1 million agree. That is the number of people who accessed Facebook from their phone, which means Facebook mobile users surpass MySpace users. Twitter attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January. These numbers do not include mobile consumers who access social network sites through a mobile application.

When combined with another study released by Euro RSCG Worldwide PR today, it underpins the next migration of social nomads. The study might be specific to a small group of teenage girls (ages 13-18), but the numbers are compelling.

• Seventy-eight percent of teenage girls use social media to keep in touch with friends, while three-quarters report being in "constant contact" with friends through texting, Facebook, iChat, AIM or other social media services.

• They show a clear preference for approaching a brand to find out about sales and promotions rather than having the brand approach them. But when they do approach a brand, 40 percent sign up for e-mails.

• Sixty-five percent say when their favorite brand or store has a sale, they want to share the information with friends and family with a preference toward one-on-one communication (texting) over social networks (Facebook and Twitter).

The original release can be found here. Only 100 girls were included.

The trending toward mobile suggests that most social media programs will have to be revamped within two years to include for a greater emphasis in reaching increasingly mobile consumers. Jokes about the product aside, the release of the iPad will likely stimulate an increased emphasis on mobility over sociability as technology gives consumers more flexibility in communicating publicly (one to many) or privately (one one one). Stay tuned.

Stacking The Deck: Fresh Content

The topics might be reoccurring — measurement, popularity, persuasion, media musings, and customer experience — but each of these fresh content picks brings something new to the table instead of rehashing what most people already know.

All five posts focus on application and insight, helping you understand why things work the way they do. In some cases, you might walk away and wish you didn't know. Sometimes the truth is like that.

Measurement can be easier than you think. Popularity does command attention. Conflicts do create allies. Media is much less serious than the news it reports. And customers do rate your company based on expectation and experience. See for yourself.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of February 22

• Putting the Public Back in PR Measurement.
With 88 percent of public relations professionals believing that measurement is an integral part of the public relations process, most executives would think that there is some sort of standard. It's simply not true. Most firms measure it differently and column inches prevails as the end-all cost vs. exposure analysis for clients. Valeria Maltoni provides some insight into how measurement might be done right.

• Popularity Matters – Ignore It At Your Own Peril.
Anyone who knows me might be surprised to see this land in the fresh pick project basket. However, there is a difference between discounting popularity and ignoring it all together. Adam Singer provides a tempered and objective view on how popularity helps propel some people, companies, and messages (whether the work or product has real merit).

• How to Use “Us vs Them” Stories to create Social Media Evangelists
Dan Zarrella pens a great post on how to identify one of the oldest and most powerful persuasion tactics on the books: "Us vs. Them." Zarrella uses Apple as his quintessential example, but the tactic is ripe with case studies across social media. Several people have leveraged "Us vs. Them" scenarios to create online followings. If you are the underdog or side with consumers, you will likely win. Simple.

• The Mcarp Guide To Sweeps Series Planning
If you haven't been following the republishing of Michael Carpenter's series on Occam's Razor, you are missing out. This post takes a peek inside the networks as they prepare for sweeps and the mad dash to juice the numbers. It's a humorous and revealing look at things inside the newsroom. Check out the entire series too.

• Creating Remarkable Customer Experiences is About Two Things
Jay Ehret provides three purposes of a planned customer experience — meeting brand expectations, creating loyal customers, and sparking word of mouth. The post emphasizes the importance of customer service, which is especially timely given the state of the auto industry. When was the last time you really, really loved your car or airline? Ehret reveals why or why not.

Writing For Public Relations: The Importance Of Planning

Planning is one of the single most important functions of public relations and/or corporate communications, and yet it remains the single most neglected function. More than half of small companies operate without it (CDW Report, 2009). Of companies that have plans, most do not update them regularly. Fewer measure performance against the plans they create.

Small companies are not alone. Medium and large companies have plans that are often outmoded or ignored. Even companies that do have plans seem to have little faith in them, given that fewer than 15 percent measure external communication (IABC Research Foundation). And only 15 percent of internal communicators say they can demonstrate a return on investment.

So, every year, I provide students with a basic communication outline. This year, I created a supplement deck using Toyota as the model. The supplement is only a sketch of a strategic communication plan, but it still manages to pinpoint communication challenges, opportunities, and failures experienced by the company in recent months.

The Importance Of Planning from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink.

The above deck is a supplement teaching tool for Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The intent of this deck is to provide students with an applied case study to underscore elements contained within a handout.

Picking Roads: Personal Brand Or Persuasive Persona?

When it comes to personal branding, there are plenty of roads that people can take to reach a destination. Unfortunately, most personal branding tips and discussions prompt people to take a different road than the one they prescribe. In fact, most directions have very little to do with being real and very much to do with developing a persuasive persona (intended or not).

Personally, I don't agree with developing a persuasive persona because it seems to be the polar opposite of authenticity. Even when I think to write about this subject, I always wonder if some people will use the tools for agenda over best intent. At the same time, good people probably need to know the ingredients to identify which is which. So here they are...

Three Ingredients For A Persuasive Persona.

This isn't communication theory as much as it is a psychological proof. The tactics are well known in psychology. They have been applied and studied for as long as there has been formalized propaganda. They were employed by con artists well before that.

• Credibility.

Communicator credibility, the degree someone can be believed, depends on how much expertise they appear to have. Appear is the operative word. Credibility can consist of pure fiction, provided someone has the right fact, message, position, affiliation, frequency, or mass following.

All of these things lend to perceived credibility, which creates a persuasive persona. Whether or not there is any verifiable evidence that they are an expert, such as experience or results, hardly matters. It's the platform that Tac Anderson talks about in his post on personal branding.

• Attractiveness.

By attractiveness, I'm not talking about physical qualities as much as charisma. Simply put, people tend to seek out and gravitate around people they like and admire. It's the basis for most social media tactics: People will like you if you make it about them. Everybody loves to be noticed. It's the rule of reciprocity.

There are dozens of posts that could be written on this subject. It can be influenced by any number of factors: schematics we create about people, the primacy effect, pre-existing stereotypes, sense of personal attachment, dispositional bias, self-serving bias, self-attribution, and all sorts of other stuff. But, the bottom line is still the same. People tend to like the ideas of people they like, whether or not those ideas are right.

• Context.

Every group, over time, begins to develop implicit and explicit sets of beliefs, attitudes, ideas, and protocols. The more you adopt or pretend to adopt those beliefs, the more likely you will receive social approval from the group. It has worked this way for a long time. It will likely work this way for a long time to come.

A tribe, as some people call them online, like any other group throughout time, establishes its own set of rewards and punishments for accepting or not accepting social norms. It's also the basis of most social media outreach programs — listen first and then adopt the norms established by that group. By doing so, agents hope to increase their likability until they establish enough credibility to persuade the group.

Persuasive Personas Aren't Always Real.

These tactics are precisely what social media detractors do not like about some social media personas. Intangible credibility, likability over earned respect, and faux belongingness seem all too apparent to them. They say the public is being duped.

Of course, the detractors are only partly right. There are some very smart, experienced, and like-minded people involved in social media. And, of course, some are not. The latter only seek out the endearment of others to elevate their credibility in order to sell products or launch a paid service space to be staffed by volunteers who will do the work for free.

There is nothing wrong with that, per se. Everyone has to eat. All I'm saying is that there are fundamental differences between personal branding, reputation management, and persuasive personas. And in developing your online presence, I hope you take the high road as opposed to the one I've outlined above. Good night and good luck.

Being Entitled: O'Dwyer's Directory

There is one word that ought to be avoided in any position, profession, or personal activity. The word is entitlement.

If you want to know what it looks like, take a peek at the post penned by Jack O'Dwyer, publisher of O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms. Entitlement, not ethics as Ann Subervi suggests, is the word that comes to mind with a capital E in this case.

O'Dwyer has made the decision to change his business model. Because compiling the rankings and posting them for a year is expensive, he believes revenue fat public relations firms ought to pony up more and support his publication. Associations too, for that matter. And if the firms don't pony up, then they will no longer be listed.

They all owe him because he paid his dues, did the work, and built a ranking system described as "epidemic" on Google. Many of them owe him because the rankings were once responsible for doubling public relations firms leads any time they popped up on the top ten. Others benefited when conglomerates bought them up.

Everybody, it seems, has benefited. Everyone, that is, except the publisher. His reward for a strict ranking system was increased competition from lax ranking publishers, being snubbed by associations, and being shut out by advertising agencies because they don't need to be ranked anymore. It's tough love when you produce a better product and take on the role of being a outspoken contrarian.

Entitlement Is The Worst Enemy To Innovation, Success, And Happiness.

Entitlement doesn't only afflict O'Dwyer. It afflicts companies that build better mousetraps that no one ever heard of. It afflicts dailies, lamenting the loss of revenue. It afflicts nonprofits, with proven track records but faced with budget cuts. It afflicts bloggers, droning on about how they write better content but can't break the popularity barrier. It afflicts professional associations, with volunteer board members considering past contributions as the measure of their righteousness within an organization. It afflicts spouses who forget relationships require daily refreshers over years together. And so on and so forth.

But entitlement, beyond its formal meaning associated with benefits because of rights or by agreement through law, is a killer. No one is deserving of some particular reward or benefit or authority or payment for simply doing what they chose to do. It's the individual's responsibility to demonstrate a tangible value proposition that sells itself or accept that few will buy in.

The Communication Surrounding The O'Dwyer Brush Up Is Silly.

For a group of communicators, journalists and public relations practitioners alike, the whole of the communication is rank with non-communication. Gawker calls it extortion. Waggener Edstrom Worldwide is irritated because they were singled out. I already included a link to Subervi's take.

None of it has much value, but it is interesting to note that the so-called controversy has given O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms more attention than it has received in a very, very long time. That in itself can be an indicator that the age of the publication isn't holding up as a relevant source of information, regardless of how objective or valuable it may or may not be.

After all, that is the real question isn't it? The public relations industry has to decide if the ranking has value. If it does, they will fund it at the new rates. If it doesn't, then they won't. And O'Dwyer has to accept the outcome or prove a value beyond the measure of years in business.

And if he doesn't accept the outcome? Well, it seems pretty pointless to continue firing off public commentary that isn't much different than the one we picked up yesterday. Because if that were to continue, then the Gawker, Subervi, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, et al, would be right. Attacking non-advertisers (listed or not) breaks well away from the business of journalism that O'Dwyer had previously held in high regard. It would go well beyond pay for play. It would be pay for protection from the ranking system.

Of course, I could always be wrong. But if I am wrong, I need to know where to send the invoice for contributing a link to O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms. If Google juice has that much value, then I certainly am, gasp ... well, you know.

Changing PR: Customers Are Media; Complaints Are News

Never mind all those customers on your company's Facbook page. Don't forget the customers standing right in front of you.

That seems to be one lesson learned by the vice president of Evergreen Entertainment LLC, which operates St. Croix Falls Cinema 8 in St. Croix Falls, Wis. His chain of five theaters is now the target of a Facebook BOYCOTT page that has drawn 5,100 fans and counting, after he wrote the following response to a complaint (* are mine):

Sarah,

Drive to White Bear Lake and also go fuc* yourself. If you dont have money for entertainment, get a better job, and don't pay for everything on your credit or check card. You can also shove your time and gas up your fuc*ing a**. Also, find better things to do with your time. This email is an absolute joke. We don't care to have you as a customer. Let me know if you need directions to white bear lake.

Steven
Steven J. Payne - Vice President

Payne has since apologized, but the apology came too little too late. It seems other customers have had complaints about the theater, but never had a forum to complain. From our viewpoint, they represent the most dangerous loss of revenue for a company —customers who never complain but never make another purchase.

Not everyone who comments on the boycott page is sympathetic to Sarah Kohl-Leaf of Taylors Falls, Minn. They say her original letter was the catalyst for the response. I cannot agree with that. Retail customers write impassioned letters all the time. Her complaints:

• Lack of an ability to pay with a credit or debit card.
• An ATM cash machine that was out of cash or service.
• A movie interruption to check ticket stubs against the count.

Payne didn't need to be offended by the complaint. They are all valid, and might explain why more customers are not visiting the company's establishments. Sarah deserved a thank you more than she deserved a fu*k off letter.

Everyone has the potential to be the media.

As the Facebook boycott page takes off, mainstream media is starting to pick up the story, including The Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune, Consumerist, and The Sun in Osceola, Wis.

A few customers are even concerned that the theater chain might not survive. While larger operations might fire an employee for such an infraction, this chain seems to be a family-owned theater.

Three other takeaways to consider: Customers do not have to be celebrities like Kevin Smith to gain traction. The lack of a social media presence may one day come back to haunt your company because you won't have any loyalists to lift you up like Toyota, which did far worse than Steven Payne. And, as always, the initial mistake (with the exception of gross negligence that affects public safety) is never as impacting as how we respond to it.

Ergo, we might not be reading this story today if Payne had accepted the criticism and offered up a free popcorn. And we might not be reading about it today if it wasn't for social media. But nowadays, anyone can become a publisher and every manager has to wear a public relations hat now and again.

Helping Others: Sustainability Is Critical

There seems to be a near frigid reaction toward new relief efforts in Chile. The quake killed 700 people, left two million people homeless, and caused widespread devastation across the country. Chile needs immediate assistance, but there seems to be a near tragic lack of empathy in the United States.

Fewer Americans are thinking about Haiti too, where yet another crisis looms. According to UPI, only 40 percent of the homeless population there has received tents, tarps or shelter tool kits. It's a significant issue as most temporary shelters are ill-equipped for the rainy season.

Are Action Plans Matching Attention Spans?

At first, I was inclined to join others in wondering when United States action plans started to match attention spans. But in doing the research, it became apparent that there is a different problem. By helping everyone, our country is struggling to help anyone.

When you consider approximately 16 percent of our population is employed by the local, state, and federal government; 8-13 percent employed by the nonprofit sector (depending on the state); 10 percent are unemployed; and 13-17 percent are falling below the poverty line; it becomes pretty clear that we're running low on people who can help. So what can we do?

The Gift Of Sustainability And Succession.

One of the best aspects of BloggersUnite is its ability to bring together diverse bloggers for a common cause and then direct them and their readers toward organizations already doing the work. Doing so helps maximize the impact with minimal means. It also doesn't compete for limited nonprofit resources.

Let's consider Haiti as an example. While I didn't have a hand in the Haitian campaign (Jason Teitelman organized it) beyond lending participatory support, he did a fine job in helping people help Haitians. There are hundreds of posts. Here are a few...

PSA: Superheroes Needed — Apply Here at Entrepod.
Atlanta Haitian Group Galvanizing Support at Execumama Online.
Action Summary at Pawcurious.
Have you moved on yet? Haiti hasn't by Berkman for BloggersUnite.
Lapli ap tonbe... at Real Hope for Haiti Rescue Center.

All of those posts have specific calls to action and support existing and sustainable programs. It's also why I liked one story that went deeper than a post. It was created by Gylon Jackson of San Antonio, Texas.

We interviewed him several weeks ago for our business giving blog. And we learned for Jackson, a post wasn't enough.

He developed an online campaign, including a blog and two social networks, to provide action in an effort to collect 100,000 pairs of lightly used shoes — an idea that promises to last much longer than the dollar equivalent of the donation.

A week ago, Shoes for Haiti Now shipped 900 pairs. There is still more work to be done, but Jackson tells me they have 2,000 more pairs of shoes ready to ship in mid-April. Stay tuned. I'll revisit this story again.

The Measure Of Sustainability Exceeds The Investment.

Incidentally, the Haitian earthquake isn't my first experience helping people in Haiti. In 2001-02, I worked with Kenneth Westfield, M.D., in improving upon his longtime support for Friends of the Children of Lascahobas (Haiti) to develop a sustainable art fundraising event.

The program, while no doubt overshadowed by the earthquake, has thrived, expanded, and earned additional support. As a best practice, it demonstrates how short-term investments can lead to long-term sustainability.

It's also how we've been able to provide support to scores of nonprofit organizations since 1991. Our support is often a short-term investment with an emphasis on long-term sustainability. Without sustainability, programs have a propensity to unravel, especially as they become too reliant on a single donor.

Developing Sustainable Actions Takes Patience And Planning.

Nobody wins when contributions require too steep a sacrifice. Volunteers tend to become burned out. Donations dry up. And organizational objectives shift from long-term sustainability into jumping from the last crisis to the next crisis, degrading the ability to help anyone with every new commitment.

If you want to make sustainable investments, individual and organizational giving works best when it's planned.

Set aside a comfortable amount of time and/or money for giving every month, and save a small percentage of those funds for unplanned events such as Haiti or Chile. In choosing organizations, favor those that have long-term sustainability elements for individual empowerment or succession. (Keep in mind, some worthwhile organizations may not have an empowerment element, given the nature of their cause.)

This will allow you to maximize your contributions. And, for some, the lesson need not only apply to donations and volunteer work. The concept works on that micro or macro level. All that is required is your ability to balance selfish and selfless.

After all, working too many hours tends to diminish productivity. Engaging children in too many activities can jeopardize quality time as a family (especially among working parents). Allowing government to fund too many external programs limits its ability to fund local programs.

Reversed, with each level of our infrastructure investing at comfortable levels, then maybe companies, organizations, and government might be in a better position to help without confusing cause marketing and social responsibility. Or maybe nonprofit organizations would work harder to empower and not enable. Or maybe we can find alternative solutions that still allow our generosity to shine through, like sending shoes to Haiti.

Breaking News: It's Not Your Grandpa's PR Environment

The Pew Research Center study that finds 59 percent of all Americans get their news from a combination of online and offline sources isn't breaking news as much as it solidifies the shift in how people seek information and how information spreads. Even reporters are relying heavily on online content, making some of them online curators more than they are offline investigators.

Sometimes the results are absurd. CNN recently ran a story about a 140-year-old hot dog. Even after the story was revealed as a hoax, it still spread across social networks because people want to believe such things to be true.

What's more, people might use multiple platforms for news, but they continually choose from a relatively narrow field of Web sites. Fifty-seven percent rely on two to five Web sites for their news. Twenty-one percent say they get their news from just one site. Often times, those singular sources of news are the same outlets shared on a different platform.

What Americans Consider Their Source For News.

78 percent get news from their local television station.
73 percent get news from networks and cable news stations.
61 percent get news from online sources.
54 percent get news from a radio news program.
50 percent get news from a local newspaper.
17 percent get news from a national newspaper.

The study also reveals that online news consumption is increasingly portable (cell phones), personalized (customized news outlets), and participatory (shared via social networks). It also seems to be search reliant, with the most popular subjects searched: weather, national events, health and medicine, business and the economy, international events, and science and technology. The study can be found here.

Typically, what we've found from in-house research is that public will hear about an event online, search for content, and then pick among perceived trusted sources, headlines, and summaries. There is some difference in the type of content searched among different search engines.

How It Has Changed The Public Relations Environment.

With an increasing number of possible outlets, companies can no longer be satisfied with public relations firms that turn out lists of random runs from a variety of news outlets captured via lists. New stories need to be increasingly targeted to reach specific outlets, which requires a better understanding of the publics those firms hope to reach.

After all, with the average person being exposed to approximately 112,000 words of communication every day, the chances that a one-time run story in a local outlet will be seen, remembered, or acted upon is relatively small. The average niche blog can reach more people and have a greater impact.

Digging Deeper: Fresh Content

Do you think you know why people share your posts? How to fool search engines? How to leverage personal brands for business? How to manage a crisis? How to gain exposure by pretending to do good?

You might want to think again.

Here are five posts to remind you why bullet points, best practice duplication, and pat answers are not the end-all to communication. They are only the beginning. They also make up five timeless and compelling fresh content picks.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of February 15

• The Psychology of Influence and Sharing.
John Bell believes that psychology is the next rediscovered territory for marketers, and he is right. (Whether marketers will truly understand psychology is a different question all together.) Inspired by new information from a column sharing a study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Bell adds value to New York Times trends that suggest people tend to share positive, long-format, and challenging topic articles.

• 3 Reasons PR & Communications Pros Need to Know SEO.
Not many people know more about SEO than Lee Odden, which is why we were thrilled to see a shift in optimization thinking. With 91 percent of journalists, editors and reporters surveyed using standard search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing to do their jobs, Odden's three divisions of optimization can be summed up as considering people first.

• Your Business Is Worthless if It Depends on You.
With so many people talking about the importance of personal connections, it's refreshing to see John Jantsch remind entrepreneurs that a business only has value when it can stand on its own. He doesn't mean that individual-reliant businesses can't be profitable. He simply means that if you ever want to sell it, you have remove yourself from the sales and marketing first. (Maybe that explains why the Zappos success story is often told in past tense.)

• Brand Crisis: 10 Crisis Response Myths.
Shel Holtz might have hated it, but Bob Conrad's post perfectly debunks patented assumptions often employed in modern crisis communication. Sure, using the proven points of crisis communication are worthwhile, but unless public relations practitioners are prepared to see how that stacks up in unique situations, the prescription might fail. My personal favorite among his points is number six. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to crisis management.

• Authenticity in Corporate Social Responsibility.
Corporate giving and strategic communication have been around a long time. What has changed, however, is the visibility of these various programs via social media. Geoff Livingston suggests companies might slow down before they turn otherwise good corporate citizen programs into thinly veiled marketing campaigns. Given that 90 percent of organizations cannot discern the difference between cause marketing and corporate social responsibility, he might be right.

Writing For Public Relations: On Spreading Messages

Since people first learned to speak, they have attempted to master the art and science of persuasion. Throughout history, new methods to manipulate, control, and manage information have always followed every single innovation designed to set it free.

Think about that.

The adoption of social media is no different. Today, public relations professionals and communicators are tasked with balancing the opportunities that come with infinite reach as well as the new challenges it creates. Part of the job is to manage organizational communication; not with an intent to manipulate it, but to ensure misinformation doesn't overshadow the truth.

How can they do it?

Writing For Public Relations: On Spreading Messages

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink..

The above deck is one of the teaching tools I'm using this year for Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The intent of this deck is to help students understand the opportunities for and threats to organizational communication in the modern world. Enjoy.

Exploring Validation: Do We Need It?

Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, can be considered a colorful thinker of sorts. He has argued that Asian cultural traditions inhibit Asian scientific creativity; poor health in some countries is related to lower IQ and not poverty; and that beautiful people are 26 percent less likely to have male offspring.

On more than one occasion, his conclusions have been wrong. And yet, there is some buzz over his new theory, published in Social Psychology Quarterly, that liberals and atheists are more intelligent — here, here, here, and more than two dozen others. Why?

He believes it. And others want to believe it too.

Most recently, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid claimed on the Senate floor that "women aren't abusive, most of the time. Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive." There are more than 16 groups calling for him to issue an apology for misrepresenting 250 scholarly studies. Why?

He believes it. And others want to believe it too.

Brian Solis writes about a similar phenomenon. He calls it the Verizon Network Theory, which suggests that we gain confidence with online interaction, reinforced by updates, followers, retweets, etc. In sum, people seek out validation and hope for validation on the Internet. He cites several surveys that demonstrate it, with a growing percentage of the population wanting to be noticed. Why?

He believes it. And others want to believe it too.

Understanding the increasing need for validation.

With increasing regularity, people are seeking out sources that validate their beliefs. Kanazawa seems to do it with research, which is readily lifted up by people who want to believe in it. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid did it, which reinforces his erroneous gender stereotypes. And Solis is right that people lean toward validation activities online (and, increasingly so, offline too).

You can see some similarities in Robert Cialdini's book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which Fortune Magazine lists among the “75 Smartest Business Books.” In it, Cialdini centers his idea on six key points that we also see in social media.

• Reciprocation. People are likely to share information from people who have shared their information.
• Credibility. Although nowadays, online, credibility is associated with popularity over expertise.
• Friendship. Salespeople have always understood that people tend to buy from people they like.
• Scarcity. Items with a perceived scarcity have greater value. Online, this amounts to a number of followers.
• Social validation. People are predisposed to follow the majorities rather than minorities.
• Commitment. Once people are engaged, they tend to become more brand loyal over time.

But the question that needs to be asked is: given the increasing regularity of misinformation and the proliferation of self-validated theories, is this increasing need for self and social validation a good thing? Albert Einstein, IQ estimated at 160-180, didn't think so.

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice." — Albert Einstein

Branding Advantages: Credit Suisse Links Brand To Market Performance

Credit Suisse Research Institute, which identifies and provides insights on global themes and trends for Credit Suisse AG, released an in-depth analysis of how a company's brand can be one of the few true competitive advantages remaining in modern industry. The study focuses on industry and company conditions that are vital for brand success as well as a model for brand lifecycle that suggests key entry and exit points for investors.

"We believe a strong brand is one of the most powerful and sustainable advantages a company can have, but one that is often ignored by the financial markets," said Omar Saad, director at Credit Suisse. "We believe brand stocks will continue to outperform the market, and our proprietary framework analyzes brand lifecycles to determine how and when to invest in brands for optimal returns."

Key Findings From "Great Brands of Tomorrow."

• Stronger brands consistently generate out-sized long-term growth and returns for shareholders.

Companies that invest at least two percent of sales revenue on marketing outperform the S&P 500 by more than four percent annually. The top one-fifth of strongly branded companies outperform the market by 17 percent.

• Some industries are more brand friendly than others.

The study demonstrates that brand power is strongest in industries that have the closest proximity to the customer. This suggests that even B2B companies benefit from some direct-to-public communication. The study also demonstrates that reputation is one of the most important roles in customer purchasing decisions.

• Most brands follow a sustained arc with five distinct stages.

These stages include: emerge, hit the wall, transform/proliferate, dominate, and reinvent. For investors, this means spotting companies that transform from a niche player into a powerful brand that can be proliferated across new markets and categories.

• Tough financial times are often the most opportunistic backdrops for great brand companies.

As weaker competitors scale back and new entrants delay riskier plans, strongly branded companies emerge out of a weakened economy and outperform the market by as much as 18 percent within the first six quarters of recovery. According to Credit Suisse Research Institute, brand stocks are already beginning to outperform their markets by seven percent since March 2009.

In addition to its report, which identifies brands and their relationship to the market, Credit Suisse released a list of 27 brands that it believes will outperform based on their brand advantage. They include: Alibaba.com, Almarai, Amazon, Apple, BIM, Capitec, China Merchants Bank, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Enfamil, Facebook, Hyundai Motor, Indian Hotels, Julius Baer, Li Ning, Mahindra & Mahindra, MercadoLibre, Mercedes-Benz, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sonova Holding, Swatch, Tiffany & Co., Tingyi, Trader Joe's, Tsingtao Brewery, Under Armour, Uniglo, and Yakult Honsha.

Going For Gold: How To Win With Social Media

Social media experts, social network managers, and bloggers could learn something from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. There are 2,636 athletes from 76 countries competing in 15 sports, which have additional variations in form and technique. All of these athletes are different.

Each and everyone of them has a different attitude, approach, skill, technique, style, and degree of teamwork. And yet, they share a common bond in that they all represent the best of the best in winter sports. So does social media.

Every time I read a well-meant post about how social media should be approached, I cringe a little bit. Should doesn't really have a place in communication, let alone social media. In an environment where more than 69 million people might define social media as playing Farmville, who's to say what should or should not be done? Either it works or it doesn't.

Sure, there was significant back and forth when Forrester Research reset its analyst blogging policy. You can find one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful summations offered by Shel Holtz. However, while his conclusion may or may not line up with what works for Forrester Research (it's too soon to tell), his conclusion certainly doesn't work for social media. Here's why...

How To Win Online Like An Olympian.

Know Your Sport.

Can you imagine what might happen if figure skaters approached pairs like ice hockey? I doubt Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China would not have taken home the gold in figure skating pairs for a body check. I also doubt that Jarome Iginla of Canada dreams of a reverse rotational lift with Alex Ovechkin from Russia.

Social media is much like that. Different niches develop their own sense of the sport. Foodie bloggers and mommy bloggers are different from business bloggers and communication bloggers (though some blend the elements). Even in communication, there are variations. Advertising, public relations, marketing, social media, and communication education all approach social media differently (and the best of them tend to manage client social media efforts differently too).

Know Your Game.

Not everyone believed that Evan Lysacek from the United States could win gold without the all-important quadruple jump. He did. Lysacek edged out Yevgeni Plushenko from Russia with an overall routine featuring better jumps, spins, and footwork. Meanwhile, Daisuke Takahashi from Japan employed a much more playful style to win bronze.

Social media is much like that. Long format or short format, lists or no lists, personal or formal, pictures or no pictures, comments or no comments, video or no video — all of it is as diversified as various sports. What really matters is that any individual blog or online community excel at whatever sport it might be similar to.

Know Your Team.

In the Olympics, not every team is the same. It takes a different kind of team to be part of a four-man blobsled than it does to play hockey. Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue had to consider each other's strengths to win gold in figure skating pairs. Shaun White didn't have any partner limitations in landing a gravity-defying double McTwist 1260 in snowboarding.

Social media is much like that. One of the things that Forrester Research did was reconsider how it views the team. Holtz doesn't have any such limitation. He is an all star, even when he plays for a team. Seth Godin has a different style too, one that is much more independent and isolated. Yet, it works for the people who read his books and blog.

Know What Matters.

Apolo Anton Ohno is one of the most popular Olympians on Twitter, with almost six times the followers of Lysacek. Does that mean Lysacek might consider giving up his gold medal figure skating success in favor of the short track? Does it mean he is less of an Olympian?

That would be silly to think so. And yet, it's not so silly to some people in social media who adopt a prevailing thought among communication bloggers. Some are torn between being more conversational or controversial because their colleagues seem more popular. The truth is that their comparison neglects that they might be in a different sport with a different style and a different team approach.

When bloggers align themselves with what the most popular people are doing based on perceived success, they've lost. In most cases, with some exceptions, the most popular reach a perceived success by knowing what sport, game, and team approach they want to take. And then, they play it perfectly.

Sure, some copycats can duplicate what those who came before them did. (It's very simple to do in social media circles, if all you care about is numbers.) But they will never quite measure up with compelling ideas because they are trying to be something they are not. So, popularity aside, maybe people ought to do what works for them or their organizations.

After all, the best sky jumpers don't dream of being figure skaters, they set their sights on being the best jumpers that they can be. How about you? Do you feel a disconnect with the sport you chose because it's less popular, flashy, or self-reliant? Don't be. Just be the best you can be. Or, if you're working in social media for an organization, make it the best it can be.

This is how I've come to view the Forrester Research policy change and the conversation that lingers on. Forrester Research is trying to be the best it can be.

And when you look at the Forrester Research case without the emotive buzz of taking something away from all-star analysts, then you realize Forrester didn't change sports. What it changed was the team approach and style of play.

Instead of picking star players from NHL teams, Forrester wants to play like the Herb Brooks' 1980 Miracle team. Does it matter? It doesn't matter if they continue to score shots for their clients. Conversely, it might matter if individual players feel less empowered to take opportunity shots that still score for the team. Time will tell.

Sharing Happiness: Coca-Cola

By now, you may have heard about the viral video, Coca-Cola "Happiness Machine," on YouTube that generated 1.5 million views in about a month. Some pros keep asking me how they hit 1.5 million views, but they're asking the wrong question.

Even reading the write up by Christine Kent doesn't tell the full story. Atlanta-based interactive agency Definition 6 shares its tactical and technical goals, and reveals that neither Definition 6 nor Coca-Cola pushed the production with a publicity campaign (an all-too-tempting component of anxious agencies and clients). They let their considerable fan base find the video and share it on their own.


Coca-Cola's "Happiness Machine" Celebrates The Brand Relationship.

The video works. It doesn't focus exclusively on the product (it even shares non-Coke products). It doesn't center on customers or demographic examples (as many social media proponents claim). Instead, it focuses on the relationship between the product and the customers, and what happens when the two come together, underscored by the social aspects — sharing Coke — between friends in a setting where spontaneity is a welcome distraction.

Two weeks ago, I shared a presentation that discusses the elements of great writing, with an emphasis on how communication needs to be accurate, clear, concise, human, and conspicuous. The Coca-Cola video hits all of these elements, effortlessly, without the need for a script beyond the concept. It also captures many of the elements that make up news — stories that people need to share.

Sure, not every company packs the power of the Coca-Cola brand nor is every brand relationship a celebration. But that is part of crafting the right message for the right audience. You have to consider every strength that can be conveyed within the context of a single memorable message.

Running two minutes in length, the Coca-Cola video does something else too. It demonstrates that advertising can easily adapt to an online environment. It might require thinking different, but that is part of the profession. Virtually every wildly successful advertisement in history broke more conventions than they followed. And that's not by accident.

Revealing Research: The Future of the Internet IV

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released its fourth Internet expert study on Friday. The Future of the Internet IV compiles survey responses from almost 900 prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers, and technology developers around five key Internet related topics.

The five topics included (paraphrased): the value of online content, the impact on the written language, the extent to which innovation can be predicted, the freedom of access and information, and the protection of privacy.

Dominant Themes of Discussion For The Next Decade

The value of online information.
• 76 percent believe more information leads to smarter people who make better choices.
• 21 percent believe the Internet could be lowering the IQs of the people who use it.

The discussion, spurred by Nicholas Carr, is underpinned by the thought that people are moving away from a meditative or contemplative intelligence and toward a utilitarian intelligence. (The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking, he says.) There is some truth to the argument, with content being distilled into little nuggets of easily accessed information (sometimes incorrect information). Many arguments against the idea suggest the Internet will change cognitive capacities so people won’t have to remember as much, but will have to have better critical thinking and analytical skills.

It seems that any real direction has yet to be set. With the emphasis on short popular content, the depth and accuracy of information has diminished. However, this seems to be a short-term problem as objective human editors may eventually have a role in vetting information on the net much like yellow journalism gave rise to objective journalism around the 1920s. Of course, Gordon Lightfoot might have a different view.

*Amazingly, many newspaper headlines have actually sold this portion of the study as evidence that the Internet makes us smarter, which makes us wonder if anyone read it.

The Internet enhances reading, writing, and knowledge.
• 65 percent believe the Internet has enhanced reading, writing, and the rendering of knowledge.
• 32 percent believe the Internet has endangered reading, writing, and intelligent rendering of knowledge.

Almost all of the survey respondents seem to agree that the written language is suffering as a result of online communication. However, how the two sides frame the outcome is where they part company. Some suggest language is shifting to be more visual and/or simply different with communication becoming more fluid (but not necessarily better written).

Without question, the acceleration of communication, quantity of communication, and format of communication tend to have consequences. The quality of the communication is often diminished. However, long-time content creators consistently suggest that their writing has improved as a result. It could be that the Internet has simply invited more people who would otherwise not write to write more often, which means the abuse of the language is short term or format related. Time will tell.

The hottest gadgets of the next decade are already evident today.
• 17 percent believe that the applications of tomorrow will not take people by surprise.
• 80 percent believe that the applications of tomorrow cannot be anticipated today.

With rare exception, almost everyone agrees that predicting future technologies beyond broad conceptual thinking is futile. Nobody can accurately guess what the breakout applications and gadgets will be by the year 2020. Only a handful believe that trend spotting provides an accurate glimpse of the future.

Given the advancements over the last 20 years, it seems likely that innovation will follow two paths. There are innovators who enhance existing models, making them more efficient. And then there are innovators who create disruptive leaps forward that undo those enhancements. For example, Photoshop recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Few predicted the explosive growth of Facebook.

The Internet will be dominated by an end-to-end principle.
• 61 percent believe there will be minimal restrictions over online access and information.
• 33 percent believe there will intermediary institutions that control significant amounts of content.

While most believe that public pressure will keep the Internet mostly free, the public will only succeed if they remain vigilant in guarding against government and network takeovers. Pessimistic views point to China and even the United States. In the U.S., the net neutrality debate has only temporarily restrained cable and telcos from exerting centralized control.

With the exception of government intervention (which varies by country), scalability and scarcity will likely be the deciding factors of whether the Internet remains free as people see it today. Mass content creators, not distributors, will likely be those who determine to what extent information and content remain accessible. With more publications attempting to return to subscriber-based content, this stands to be the more viable threat to limiting communication.

The future of online anonymity will evaporate.
• 41 percent believe there will be tighter, more formal controls over the Internet, including scanning devices.
• 55 percent believe it will be relatively easy to remain anonymous without public disclosure.

There is greater and increasing pressure for authentication online. Ironically, proponents of an authenticated world do not always appreciate the severity of privacy abuses nor how such a move hinders concepts such as freedom of speech. The minor majority believes the Internet is well past a need for authentication.

The reality is that online privacy is collapsing under the weight of uncoordinated, unrelated, and unlikely allies. There is pressure from communicators who chastise anonymity, pressure from governments and businesses to investigate dissent, and a general willingness of the public to surrender privacy for the smallest of carrots. The question is not whether online privacy will no longer exist, but when and to what extent.

The full study, The Future of the Internet IV, can be found at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The project is supported by the Pew Research Center, which is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.