Bloghound

Tony Snow, former White House press secretary who died Saturday, was a true communications professional, devoted to helping people understand even the most complex issues. I will always remember what I learned from him:

• Communications is about making meaning and helping people understand. People may come to a different conclusion and not agree with you, but they will never see your view or agree if they don’t understand the context and relevance of the issue in the first place. Tony was first and foremost a meaning maker, not a political spin doctor.

• Be helpful and open. Tony wanted to be helpful to the press — more so than any other press secretary in recent years. Most others have been defensive and annoyed with the media questions. Not Tony. He answered questions vs. dancing around and throwing empty answers back. He was positive, optimistic, and seemed to genuinely like and respect the media — despite differing points of view. I think he knew that that democracy is based on debating and discussing, not issuing statements and refusing to engage in dialog.

• Living in a world of optimism and possibilities is a good life. Though ill for many years, Tony’s optimism and energy was a constant reminder of how rich life can be. University of Chicago educator Robert Hutchins once said, ‘The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” Tony was the antithesis — engaged, passionate and constantly nourishing.

Who are the up and coming Tony Snows and Tim Russerts? We need them now….

I was recently invited to share my views on the effect of social media on the 2008 Presidential Campaign for an upcoming feature article in the Public Relations Strategist.

Here are a few highlights:

Is the use of social media mainly tactical or strategic?

• If a goal of the candidates has been to convey a message of change, the use of social media represents a clear change from traditional ways of reaching out to and engaging voters.

• If a goal has been to engage with young voters, the use of digital has been a hugely successful strategy. According to Rock the Vote and CIRCLE (Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement), voter turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds has doubled and tripled in almost every state primary and caucus. These young voters’ preferred way of learning about candidates and participating in the campaigns is through social media and word of mouth marketing. According to a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press study that looked at voter behavior, two-thirds of Web users under 30 use social networking sites, and only 25 percent watch television news for campaign news.

• If a goal has been to manage positive and negative feelings about the candidate - and help people connect with candidates’ personal characteristics — social media has been strategic for Obama, but far less so for Clinton or McCain. Obama has shared more about himself- and social media is about people wanting to connect and share with people. He has also used a relaxed conversational communications style vs. speaking in “message points” during interviews and in videos. Clinton and McCain have used social media more as a channel, filling it with traditional “produced” videos and ads. Clinton and McCain haven’t adjusted their content or communications style for the new medium nearly as well as Obama, although Clinton has done a better job than McCain.

How has social media changed the game of the campaign so far?

The three biggest impacts of social media on the 2008 campaign:

1. Fund raising: Changed the game on how candidates raise money, putting more power with the everyday people than in any previous race. In March alone Obama raised $40 million, largely from the campaign’s 1.5 million Internet donors. According to Clinton’s campaign she raised $2.5 million after winning Pennsylvania primary and asking people to go to her site and donate. According to the most recent Federal Election data, 43% of contributions to Obama’s campaign have come from donors of $200 or less, compared to 27% for Clinton and 20% for McCain.

2. Traditional media: Changed the influence and role of traditional media, with more and more people going direct to hear and read about the candidates - viewing speeches on YouTube vs. TV, and going direct to sources vs. reading journalists’ coverage and analysis. For example, after Obama’s speech on race in March, the transcript of the speech “ranked consistently higher on the most emailed list than the articles written about the speech,” according to The New York Times (“Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass it On.” )

3. Advertising: Showed the diminishing effectiveness of “packaged” TV advertising. Leading up to the Florida primary Mitt Romney spent $29 million on 34,821 ads, more than three and a half times as much as John McCain who spent $8 million on 10,830 ads, according to analysis of data through Jan 27 by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. The effect of the big advertising spend? No lift for Romney who soon pulled out of the race.

In addition, millions of people are tuning into candidates via video vs. TV ads - on their campaign sites and on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Obama’s speech on race, “A More Perfect Union,” has been viewed by almost 4.5 million people on YouTube since March.

Hillary Clinton is extraordinarily intelligent, ambitious, and tenacious, but many people just can’t connect emotionally with her. As Prof. Drew Weston, author of The Political Brain, says:

“After party affiliation, the most important predictors of how people vote are their feelings toward the candidates.”

Here’s my view on Hillary’s failure to connect, excerpted from Beyond Buzz:

Bill Clinton gave an inspiring, emotionally charged, off-the-cuff speech at Coretta Scott King’s funeral, peppered with one-liners that the audience boisterously applauded, including “You want to treat our friend Coretta like a role model? Then model her behavior.”

According to many observers, Senator Clinton’s remarks were more formal than her husband’s, delivered in a measured, restrained, and deliberate style. The contrast between the two Clintons was vivid, as was the audience’s reaction. They cheered Bill, while they respectfully listened to Hillary.

“I think Bill Clinton delivers inspiring addresses,” explained Theodore C. Sorensen, one of John F. Kennedy’s best-known speechwriters, wrote in The New York Times. “Hillary is more likely to deliver learned lectures.”

A few years back, I had lunch with the late MIT professor Michael Dertouzos who had just returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he had heard Mrs. Clinton speak.

“She was absolutely brilliant,” he said. “Her understanding of complex issues and her ability to get up and talk about those issues was remarkable. I don’t think anyone else at Davos came close to her in being able to articulate such cogent perspectives on today’s social, political, and economic issues.”

Yet, because Mrs. Clinton speaks formally, in full paragraphs and with little emotion, it’s often difficult to see things from her point of view and to connect with her as a person. Like many CEOs and marketing programs, Mrs. Clinton’s knowledge is substantive, but because her style lacks emotion and the language of conversations, it often fails to move us.
To succeed in a conversational world, we marketers (much like Hillary Clinton) need to reset our style so people can more easily understand our points — and get who we are as people.

Activating change needs an emotional connection.

Sen. Harry Reid , the House Majority Leader, sent me an email today about his new site:

“I believe it is important for you to stay updated on the work I am doing on your behalf in Washington. As part of this effort, my website has been completely redesigned with the latest online tools available to help keep you informed about the issues I am addressing and the services my office can provide for you. “

I checked out the site, but it misses something very, very big: there’s no way for me to talk back. No way to post comments. No way to see what other folks have to say and connect with them. If I want to send Sen. Reid an email I have to fill out a long form. Geez.

Social media has fundamentally changed our expectations. We don’t want to be communicated to; we want to be able to connect with.

Sorry, Harry. Hope you didn’t spend a lot of our money on just prettying up a Web site and adding a couple of videos.

PS — When I have sent Reid emails with questions and concerns, he sends back form emails saying he can’t respond to me as I’m not a Nevada citizen. If you’re the Majority Leader shouldn’t you be willing to listen to more of us?

What is the candidates’ language saying about them? This excellent CBC story provides some in-depth analysis. Here are highlights:

Using his text analysis software program University of Texas professor James Pennebaker, says that:

• Barack Obama, through his use of language, appears cognitively complex, socially skilled, genuine and sensitive, though he appears more emotionally volatile than the other two candidates.
• Hillary Clinton and John McCain seem more emotionally stable than Obama.
• McCain comes across as quite optimistic.

Using his model that determines the amount of deception and spin in candidates’ language, Queen’s University computing science professor David Skillicorn believes:

• Obama is the king of spin.
• McCain is the most forthright.

• Clinton speaks more or less candidly, although lately, she has been using more and more spin.

The language analysis science is fascinating. The question, however, is whether voters will detect the same conclusions as the software and how it will influence their decisions.

(Hint: It did in the last U.S. presidential election, as this post explains.)

Here’s an example of highly persuasive writing and a piece that can light up the word of mouth networks:? “Goodbye To All That (#2)”, from Robin Morgan, author and co-founder of the Women’s Media Center. Her first “Goodbye To All That” was published in 1970, and became a famous essay about women breaking free from politics of accommodation.

This essay is an example of highly-effective persuasive communications — it has a distinctive point of view, backs up those points with facts and examples, and is infused with passion and emotion.

Several people have told me they were leaning towards voting for Obama until friends emailed them this article. Now they are? rethinking Hillary.

On the eve of the NH Presidential Primaries my friend and talented marketer May Kernan has an interesting observation:

“Big question on this morning’s news was whether “just talk” was a sufficient enough demonstration of the ability to be president. If you heard Obama’s Iowa victory speech, it was truly unbelievable. As people (Hillary) question whether inspiring people is enough, you have to ask, isn’t that what leadership is? The ability to inspire and motivate others. Obama’s authenticity and his ability to connect with young people and get them to act (thru social media networks) could revolutionize the way we elect people. Talk about conversational marketing.”

Why is John Edwards lagging Clinton and and Obama in the Democratic presidential race? It may be his use of language. Not the words and “messages,” but his style.

A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality, “Winning words: individual differences in linguistic style among U.S. presidential and vice presidential candidates,” computer analyzed the linguistic styles of Bush, Cheney, Kerry and Edwards during the 2004 campaign across six linguistic style categories related to voting behaviors and political personality characteristics.

Some highlights of the findings, by James Pennebaker, Richard Slatcher, Cindy Chung and Lori Stone:

• Edwards’ language was the most feminine. (Studies show that when asked to describe ” a good president” 61% of the participants characterized the role as masculine and 0% as feminine. The remaining percent were androgynous or undifferentiated.)

• Edwards’ language use was the least presidential. (The Republicans used much more presidential language than the Democrats. Presidential language is has high levels of articles, prepositions, positive emotions and big words.)

• Edwards used more depressive language than Bush or Cheney; Kerry was most similar to a depressed person. (Studies show voters are most favorable toward candidates who are the most optimistic.)

• Edwards and Bush were the least cognitively complex in their use of language. (Cheney was the most cognitively complex — his style being the most concrete, complex, and detached.)

• Edwards and Cheney were similar in honesty of their language; both of the vice presidential candidates’ language was more honest than Kerry or Bush.

According to James Pennebaker, professor and chair of the psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin and developer of the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software program that categorizes words into linguistic and psychological categories:

“Over the years it has become apparent that is far more important to see how people talked about a given topic than what they were talking about. People’s linguistic styles provide far richer psychological information than their linguistic content.”

It is possible that Edwards’ language use has changed since the last election. Yet this scientific use of language analysis does provide some fascinating clues into why he’s lagging.

PS — I’ll be writing more about what our words can say about us, particularly as it relates to business, when I guest blog at the International Association of Online Communicators next week.

A great conversational marketing strategy is to challenge industry assumptions, and change the context of how an industry or group of people think about a topic (or candidate. ) Speaking this week with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” Barack Obama offered a great example of how he’s trying to do just this.

One of his challenges is that many think he’s too inexperienced to be president of the United States. His approach, as seen in this video, is to challenge assumptions about the value of years and years of experience. “Look at the long resumes of Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfield,” Obama points out. “Just goes to show that experience doesn’t necessarily equate to judgment. I need to challenge conventional wisdom and refocus the conversation on judgment. ”

Experience doesn’t mean judgment. Nice strategy. Will be interesting to see how well it works.

Who are many CEOs and sales executives most similar to?

a) Al Gore

b) Bob Kerry

c) Bob Dole

The answer is all of the above. The reason is that most CEOs and sales executives, like unsuccessful political candidates, present litanies of facts, figures, and rational reasoning to try to persuade people, and they overlook (or dismiss) the power of emotions.

They rely on dispassionate logic. Yet, neuroscientists and psychologists have proven that the more “rational” a message, the less likely it is to trigger the emotional circuits in our brains that activate behavior and decisions.

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of a Nation by psychologist and political scientist Dr. Drew Westen is a fascinating read about the science and practice of persuasion in American politics, particularly about how the Democrats, with the exception of Bill Clinton, have blown it so many times by relying on dispassionate reasoning and policy discussions rather than connecting with people on an emotional level.

People decide by how they feel about you. (Or your company or party.) Republicans and many consumer products marketers are masters at this; most Democrats, business-to-business and professional services are not.

Aside from being a political junkie from a communication strategy perspective, I found the book interesting because the principles of political persuasion are the same for business, and are becoming even more relevant in our video, podcasting, blogging world. Most companies obsessively talk about their products, capabilities, roadmaps, strategy du jour ( Six Sigma, anyone?), and obvious trends (“we’re all about helping customers reduce risk and cut costs.”). But they fail to first connect with people, be they customers or employees, in an emotional way that engenders feelings of competency, trust, and liking.

In my book Beyond Buzz, chapter 3 (“Make Meaning Not Buzz”) explores why emotion is the superhighway to making meaning and understanding. Westen’s exploration of scientific research goes much deeper in showing why the mind is hardwired to tune into emotionally compelling appeals vs. rational reasons, and offers strategies on how to appeal to that neural network of often unconscious decision making.

Here are some takeaways from the book that I found especially interesting for those of us in in business.

On getting attention

“We do not pay attention to arguments unless they engender our interest, enthusiasm, fear, anger or contempt. We are not moved by leaders with whom we do not feel an emotional resonance.”

On driving behavior

“Emotion is one of the most potent sources of motivation that drives human behavior. It is no accident that the words motivation and emotion share the same Latin root, movere, which means to move.”

Thinking beyond the message itself

“The implications of these findings suggest that the choice of words, images, wounds, music, backdrop, tone of voice and a host of other factors is as likely to be as significant to the electoral success of a campaign as content.”

The right feelings vs. the best argument

“As decades of survey research demonstrate, people are driven in the voting booth by their feelings, and these feelings reflect the extent to which they believe a party of candidate is attending to their interests and values.”

“The data form political science is crystal clear: people vote for the candidate who elicits the right feelings, not the candidate who presents the best argument

Beware messaging by focus group

“Virtually every word that came out of his mouth [Gore, 200 presidential campaign] had been market-tested using focus groups and hand-dials indicating when listeners liked and didn’t like what he ways saying in practice debates. Unfortunately, the more his words seemed market-tested, the less genuine they seemed. And the less genuine he seemed, the less likable

The appeal of being clear

“Political scientist Larry Bartels found, as expected, that voters prefer candidates whose values and policies match their own preferences. But he also found that voters prefer candidates who are clear on what they believe, even if it is not what they believe.”

4 questions that matter in deciding

“Voters tend to ask four questions that determine who they will vote for…Candidates who focus their campaigns on the top of this hierarchy and work their way down generally win.

1. How do I feel about the candidate’s party and its principles?
2. How does this candidate make me feel?
3. How do I feel about this candidate’s personal characteristics, particularly his or her integrity, leadership, and compassion?
4. How do I feel about this candidate’s stands on issues that matter to me?

Now, take a look at the sales deck your sales reps are using, the speech your CEO recently gave to employees or partners, the marketing messaging “playbook,” the “look and feel” of your company’s PowerPoint style .

• How do they make people feel about your company?
• Do they tell a compelling story in words and images – or are they a rationale laundry list of capabilities, products, competitive advantages and other dispassionate facts and figures?
• Do people like telling your story? Or are they dispassionate and not genuinely engaged with the ideas?