As we are currently experiencing a significant (insert “long-overdue”) office build-out, it’s a bit nuttier these days at Matter in Newburyport than usual.  We’re expanding our space here at the Tannery to accommodate our growth and acquiring an additional 2,500 square feet.  And, simultaneous to our expansion, we are reworking 2,000 square feet of existing space so it better serves our needs.

In addition, as if the build-out isn’t enough office environment change to manage, two weeks ago we welcomed Mandy Mladenoff, a wonderful and experienced PR professional to our team. Mandy, who joins us from SHIFT Communications, is the new general manager of this office. (I’ll be blogging specifically about her soon, as I can already see that she’s going to make a serious and positive impact on our business!) Mandy arrived prior to my office being built in our new space, but I decided to surrender my current spot to her immediately so she would be most comfortable. She’s the new boss here in Newburyport, so I thought she should have the boss’s seat.

To that end, I’ve been a bit of a nomad for the past two weeks. I have roamed from one open desk to another while trying to keep things moving and, as I should have expected, that experience has been both enjoyable and challenging.

Without reservation, the part of the gypsy-like role that I’ve most enjoyed has been sitting (even closer than I usually do) to the smartest, savviest, hardest working gang of PR people that can be found anywhere.  In typical times my office door is wide open and I’m proud to say that many from our staff come to see me daily. We talk about clients, the agency, the world around us and often, complete nonsense, and I enjoy all of it. However, those conversations tend to be brief and it’s much different when you are sharing an office for a day…or three.

I spent three days last week at Mendo’s desk as he spent that time at a client event. My office mate, temporarily loaned to me by Mendo, was Melissa, and she was tremendous company and had me laughing all week long.  (In fact, we gabbed so much that we both ended up having longer than usual work days to catch-up on things we didn’t get done earlier!) Far beyond her quality of chat, it was excellent to see how Melissa worked with her colleagues and managed her to-do list. In addition, it was awesome to see how she counseled her clients and creatively pitched her client’s story. It was outstanding, really, and Melissa knows how much I enjoyed it because I was looking for the same seat earlier this week when I needed to find a temporary home.

It’s also a significant change of gears when you swap your window seat for an open doorway on the agency’s main drag. There is a lot to see – and you see it all. I saw bodies hustling by from one meeting or call to another, and I witnessed a countless number of ad hoc client-related conversations. I overheard congratulatory encouragement and harmless but obligatory jest between staff. (You need a good sense of humor to work here at Matter – it’s been a key to our success.)  In addition, I witnessed a seemingly countless number of coffee runs made by colleagues, and fortunately for these folks our office is well-situated among a number of coffee shops for just these situations.

When you roam office to office like I’ve been roaming, you need to have a great deal of focus. (See the earlier paragraph: I didn’t focus like I should when sharing an office with Melissa.) And, you need similar laser-like focus when you work amid stacks of boxes and in earshot of walls being built. I commend the group here in Newburyport for maintaining their outstanding results during a nuttier time than usual. We have new clients, new and dynamite people, and we are focused on our path ahead. And while I’m looking forward to having my new office completed, I’m even more excited at the opportunity to work so closely with the best team in the business here at Matter.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein

I am a runner. To grossly oversimplify: I run because it makes me happy. There are a lot of other reasons too, that are pretty well summed up in this post from a fairly new runner with great perspective.

For me, running is a joy, a break from real life, a way to achieve. I set goals, and pat myself on the back when I accomplish them: “I ran 35 miles this week” or “I ran four miles in 30 minutes!” Besides me, nobody is paying attention, and the rewards for my big races are Finisher’s Medals and cotton, race-logo-emblazoned t-shirts I’ll never wear.  My kids, since learning to talk have asked me “Are you gonna win, Momma?” followed by: “But… then why are you running?”

My aching body echoed those questions recently as I slogged through the Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon. It was wretchedly humid, and around Mile 10, there were a lot of fellow racers who stopped running.

I thought to myself in that Mile 10 moment (actually, I had to yell to my own brain to get a thought heard over the Foo Fighters screaming in my ear asking “is someone getting the best of you”… you really can’t make up this kind of irony): why should I keep going? My legs hurt. I have a dehydration headache, but I’m so sweaty my sunscreen is sliding into my eyes and blinding me. A lot of other people are stopping.

You can see why I love running long distance races. Who wouldn’t pay to feel that way? But wait, there is a point coming.

For me, that Mile 10 moment is an object lesson in how to deal with those times in life and work when what you’re doing seems very nearly impossible. Public relations is rife with Mile 10 moments: the blogger event has more action items than your team can possibly handle; you can’t get a prospect to come on board as a client no matter how perfect your agency is for them; a reporter just doesn’t think the story you’re telling matters; your client’s Facebook page has become a full-on weekend job for a hard-working team of bright, capable people who really should be able to have a life and you don’t know how to make it better without jeopardizing the program. Those moments happen, and when they do, unless you are made of iron, you probably think about finding an easy way out, about finding a way to stop. Just like in a distance
race.

In races when I’ve hit my low point, the way I hit reset is to imagine the regret I’d feel the next day if I quit. Twenty-five more minutes of running will NOT feel worse than the nagging, unrelenting regret I’ll have about quitting, and so I find the strength to keep going. The reward may only be a fake medal, but inside, I feel like anything is possible after doing what I thought I might not be able to do.

In PR, persevering through Mile 10 moments can lead to similar feelings of victory, and also to breakthroughs in the way we work. When we hit the wall and find a way to keep moving forward creatively, we become better at asking, at telling our clients’ stories, at managing events, at finding effective social media management strategies. Perseverance pays off in that moment, for our clients, and for us as PR professionals, it pays returns throughout our careers.

If you follow Matter on Facebook, then you already know that our much beloved office manager, Ellen, recently left our company – after six years! – to pursue another professional opportunity. (Noteworthy is the fact that only Ellen could arrange a summer on the beach followed by a return to higher education!) While missing Ellen’s fun and engaging personality, we’re also missing her in-office functions.

A paper jam in the agency’s most important output device reminded me recently of how important it is to have everything in the office working smoothly in support of our work. In addition, a paper jam is one of those situations when it’s important to roll up your sleeves and solve a problem, rather than hoping someone else will do it.

Anyone who regularly works in an office knows that a serious paper jam is a funny thing, as your options for solving that issue are usually limited at best. You open every door, lift every lever, stare intently into the guts of the machine to see what you may be missing and do everything you know how to do yourself, or you call printer service guy to fix it for you. And, let’s be honest, the latter isn’t really an option unless you live in a world that tolerates downtime.  Our office simply doesn’t handle downtime, so immediately after recognizing the problem – two of our guys literally had their sleeves rolled up, gave the machine a pretty thorough inspection and fixed the thing.  It didn’t take long – Matt and Tim are smart guys – and a “minor” office crisis was averted.

Fixing the printer is the barely visible tip of the iceberg when it comes to solving problems here at Matter. Clients engage in a relationship with our agency because we have a proven track record of successfully executing challenging programs.

We are hired to overcome obstacles, and consistently we do exactly that. Need to crack a high-profile outlet? We likely have a relationship that can be leveraged for your benefit.  Having a hard time getting your message across? We are experts in crafting content and bringing key messages to market. Is your PR generating business? That’s what we do – no matter how challenging your situation may seem.  In high tech and consumer public relations, I’d stack Matter up against anyone.

Knock on wood; I’m pleased to report that the printer is still functioning properly. And while I’ve typed this post, our team worked closely with another fortunate client to diagnose a challenging communications or business situation, find a way to clear that jam and keep the PR machine humming along.

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I read an article a few weeks ago that gave an account of the last two living speakers of Ayapaneco who won’t speak to each other. Because of their refusal, when they die, their language will too. As a proud four-year student of the most famous of dead languages (Latin) the story caught my eye and took hold in my mind.

The death of a language is fascinating if you’re into that sort of thing (I happen to be – can you imagine that there are 6000 languages currently spoken in the world, and that 3000 will die out in the next century?), but beyond that, the story made me think about human communication in general. When it works, why does it? Is it something we can control by saying something a different way?

Since communication is the cornerstone of public relations (and of human interaction, but let’s not go all Philosophy 101 here), you can understand my interest.

In public relations, it’s our job to communicate our clients’ stories to any number of key audiences; bloggers, traditional media, analysts, customers. Sometimes our attempt to engage the right audience works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’d argue that 100% of the time, when it works, it’s because we’ve made sure we understand the person we’re talking with– who they write for, what they tend to use in their stories, whether they prefer to hear about speeds and feeds, or business benefits – before we try to tell them a story. So our job isn’t done when we’ve worked with our clients to find their most compelling story. We have to uncover the story, but also find the places where the story intersects with the interests of the people with whom we share it.

That challenge isn’t restricted to PR. It exists in the simplest of interactions…the sort I see at my other job, where the people I work with are just learning the intricacies of human communications.

My beautiful littlest boy, Will, is four, and communicates clearly, with an emperor’s attitude that has earned him the nickname “Napoleon” in our house. His older siblings are not always interested in his imperious requests for their participation in the game of his choice. Undaunted by their apathy, Will perseveres in his requests without changing his script, until – rejected repeatedly – he reaches a point of extreme frustration and bursts into angry tears accompanied by some variation of the bellowed complaint that “THOSE MEANIES AREN’T LISTENING TO ME!” Lately though, Will is learning that if he asks first to play a game the older children like to play, he’s more likely to persuade them to play his game afterwards.

The lesson Will is learning, and that I re-learn every day, is that everybody has their own language, their own history, their own motivations, and their own reasons for opening up to communication, to a request, to a story. Part of our challenge as PR professionals is trying to understand what language the other person speaks, and then communicating in it, shaping our clients’ stories into the place where interest and key messages can intersect.

Language matters. But the core of communications is the honest attempt to understand and then to speak. And that’s true whether you want your big brother and sister to play tag with you, or you’re aiming for a great story in the Wall Street Journal, or looking to hit a new fan/follower high on Facebook or Twitter.

Nope. Not this time.

Despite the predictions of Harold Camping, the California preacher and religious radio broadcaster, the world did not end last month.  And, as a result, two to three percent of the Earth’s population has to wait a few more months to be taken to heaven.

In some strange way, waiting five more months doesn’t seem so bad.  A baseball seasons is almost twice as long, and a school year is close to the same.  I’m a patient guy and I’ll gladly wait four months for my trip to a better place. However, I’m also confident that we’ll be waiting for doomsday’s arrival long after October 21, the recently adjusted expiration date.

Calling the end of the world is an extraordinarily bold prediction.  Among the gutsiest, really.  This is much different than picking a horse to show in Saratoga, or predicting the weight of new born baby in an office pool. This is big time. Literally, it’s life-changing stuff.

It made me think about how important words and messages are.  The PR business revolves around carefully chosen words and messages that affect key audiences.  Counseling clients about what to say and how to say it is what we do and credibility is the currency we use.  When credibility is destroyed, it’s not easy to get it back and it would seem Reverend Camping has a serious credibility problem.  His fallback position (it’s still coming…just wait for it) has to have lost some of its PR oomph; though I’m sure there are still those who put their faith in him.  Talk about your loyal customers.

I read that some unfortunate believers spent their personal fortunes in the days leading up to the predicted doomsday and I can only hope they are able to make ends meet between now and the apocalypse in October.  (Maybe Camping can predict how these folks will provide for themselves in the short-term?)

Much of this topic is uncomfortable, particularly when you have devoted following and you publicly put the world on notice. That’s certainly uncomfortable. Perhaps, however, we should take solace in the fact that we have time (at least four months – but I’m betting even longer) to mend our ways and get our messages straight despite any predictions to the contrary.

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There’s not much that’s more frustrating than feeling like you’re not being heard, unless it’s feeling like you’re not being understood.
And when the person who isn’t hearing and understanding you is also writing about your company in places where tens of thousands of people (customers, stockholders, analysts, employees) are reading about you, frustration is layered with fear that your story is being misunderstood by the market. Here’s a comment I have gotten from almost every new client I’ve worked with over the course of my PR career.

“Lois Lane, with the Daily Planet, really has it in for us. She never includes us in stories about our industry, and when she
does, she makes us sound like we don’t know what we’re talking about.”

Here’s my advice. And though it is exquisitely simple, it can be anything but easy. But it’s a common-sense approach to a familiar challenge
that I’ve used with many different clients over the years, and it hasn’t failed yet.

1.  Hit the reset button on your emotions. Frustration and fear are two feelings that have no place in the effort to re-engage and build a relationship with Lois Lane. Remember that the goal is for Lois to understand your story, not to prove you’ve been wronged or to win a debate with her.

2.  Be dispassionate, and reassess the situation. Sit with someone who doesn’t work with your company (or who is new to it), someone who will give you an honest opinion on whether the articles you’ve interpreted as negative, are in fact negative.  Be open to the possibility that you are too close to the situation to be assessing it accurately.

3.  Re-engage meaningfully. Remember, a problem in communications very rarely falls on only one party’s shoulders. This process is designed to help re-open communications in a productive way.

If the assessment reveals that Lois’ coverage is not truly negative, but perhaps is missing some key elements of your company’s story, then you need to recalibrate your storytelling. Your goal is to re-engage on an education mission – sharing your story in ways that will matter to the Daily Planet’s readers. Do they like to hear customers’ perspectives? Do they want financial analysts who can speak to your business? Give Lois all the tools she needs to give her readers the best story possible.

If Lois’ articles really are negative, you need to assess all the reasons why. Does she rely on an analyst’s opinion of you, and that analyst dings you regularly? Is she mistakenly comparing you to a company that isn’t actually a competitor? The answers to these kinds of questions
will help you craft a plan for engaging in a direct, but not hostile, conversation about how you can work better with Lois to ensure that her readers are getting the whole story. Remember that this isn’t personal. It’s all about ensuring that Lois’ readership understands your company.

 
4.  Consider Lois a valuable contact, not a potential mouthpiece for you. Read what Lois writes, even when it isn’t about you. If your customers read her articles, you should too. And if you have a statistic or a friend who can help her with a story she’s writing that isn’t about you, you’re building trust with Lois by providing it to her. If it’s something you’d do for a business colleague, you should do it for your friends in the media too.

 
5.  Remember that Lois is a person. This isn’t personal, but it is human, and understanding Lois’ pressures can help you to communicate better with her.  Here’s Lois’ life: She has conversations with hundreds of people every week. She has probably been assigned at least two new industries to cover in the last year. She has multiple deadlines and office politics just like everyone else. She is predisposed to be cynical, because that’s what a reporter is supposed to be. She doesn’t want to look like she’s being snowed by a company line. You need to work to give her something more than a corporate positioning statement – give her time with your customers, let her understand your story in a way
that is credible to her, and to her editor.

In our house, that phrase is the last thing the kids hear when Daddy is on duty for bed time. Our children associate “flip” with “lights out.” As of April 12, 2011, so did Cisco: announcing, to the surprise of many, that it was discontinuing its little-video-camera-that-could.

Just two months’ earlier, I had been sitting in a client meeting here at Matter hearing the term “Flip” tossed around like “Kleenex” — no longer just a brand name, but reborn as a verb. “We’ll just Flip the customer interviews and then we can get them online….” said the client. And all heads nodded — everybody knew he meant the video camera. Simple, cheap, efficient, the Flip made “grassroots” video campaigns e-a-s-y.

So, what happened?

Evidently, marketers and PR people weren’t Cisco’s key customer demographic for the Flip. Rather, the (sensible) goal was for the Flip to win the hearts and dollars of the general consumer. Or at least, that’s the presumption most people have. It’s hard to say for sure what the real goal was, since over the short years of its existence, the company didn’t invest in significant upgrades to the camera that might have helped it compete when iPhones and Androids appeared with video cameras as standard apps. And the general consumer got on the smart phone train with enthusiasm, leaving Flip looking like a one-trick pony.

Now, let me fully disclose what should already be apparent: I have no special insight into Cisco’s marketing goals for the Flip. But as a person with a fine appreciation for the use and evolution of words, it just seems impossible that the Flip couldn’t be successful when its brand name was being tossed around, with easy comprehension, as a verb.

Oh, wait. I’m having a flashback to 1992, and my first public relations job, and being asked (often, but I’m not complaining) to go and Xerox something (so we could fax it to the client…but that’s another technology evolution story). In fact, when you sit and think about it, there are plenty of examples of brands with incredible awareness, whose products couldn’t keep up.

It seems likely that the Flip’s introduction, rise and demise will become part of the study of consumer marketing courses in years to come. Did Cisco pull the plug too early? Or was the company business-brilliant, eliminating a soon-to-be-or-maybe-already-technologically-outstripped product that wasn’t central to its core mission? Or could Cisco have found a way to make the wildly popular product more central to its “human network”? And finally: if a company like Apple, with its elegantly aggressive consumer marketing and packaging had made the Flip, would it be the other i-gadget people like me carry around with their iPhone and iPad and iPod?

The fact is, there’s no way to know for sure — which is why these questions are interesting to those of us who enjoy the challenge of marketing. Unless Apple introduces the iPhlip (please, focus on the iPhone 5 first, Mr. Jobs).

In the meantime, good-night, little video gem — see you on the Flip side.

While not nearly as satisfying an experience so far as we had hoped, our much-beloved Boston Red Sox have begun their 2011 campaign. Having crept over .500, and even into or near first place in the division, they are far from the dominating juggernaut many expected them to be, yet they are equally far from where they were when they began their season so dismally a few weeks back. Fortunately for all of us fans of the game and of this year’s team, the season is a long one. Our boys have the opportunity to use much of the spring to move forward in the standings and, fingers crossed, the rest of the summer to pull ahead.

If you too are a fan of the Sox, then you likely felt that the 2011 baseball season was different than any in recent memory. Powered by an aggressive winter of new player acquisitions, we were, as a favorite blogger says so often, “cueing the duck boats” for another World Series rally. Like our favorite team’s payroll, expectations were correspondingly high.

Often our PR process reminds me of baseball. Like the Red Sox, we execute well-planned programs over a long season. We dip into our deep roster and use all of the weapons necessary to achieve success. And, while we pride ourselves on furthering a brand and moving the business needle on behalf of a client, rarely does significant success occur overnight. (It needn’t be 162 games plus the playoffs, but having some time to build momentum and positively impact key constituencies is a necessity.) We work hard at it each and every day – just as the Red Sox will do in the coming weeks and months.

If the program needs adjustment — and occasionally this is the case — we make changes to improve our team’s performance. However, like we’re hoping to see from Theo, Tito and company, we don’t make wholesale changes unless the evidence is clear that it’s absolutely necessary. We stay the course and achieve results. Like the Red Sox, we rely on talented individuals who have consistently delivered the goods over the course of their careers. While slumps happen and nobody hits a home run each time at the plate, we know that both the Matter team and the Sox are stacked and that eventually the key “hits” (media or otherwise) will come.

Like the Sox — we’re just at the start of a few campaigns of our own here at Matter and I’m absolutely confident that both teams are going to deliver in the clutch.