My experience over the last two or three years in New Zealand government has taught me that one of the biggest hurdles that public sector communicators face is convincing senior management of the seismic shift in the public affairs function that the Internet is causing. All too often we encounter attitudes like, Yeah, but it’s just technology
, or – even better – It’s just not relevant.
So I have developed a couple of arguments that I wheel out — to wildly varying effect. The first I ran through recently, and it is one that appeals to those managers that like to deal in statistics. Painting them a picture of the numbers of people using social media generally helps them to visualize the enormity of the change and, with any luck, will help you to focus their attention on the need to adapt to these changes.
There are two others that I also fall back on. The first is inspired by Charles Darwin and the second by very large primates.
Darwinism
Today, New Zealanders – both here and offshore – can choose to receive all of their mass media content via the Internet. They can listen to Radio New Zealand streamed live to anywhere in the world, access newspapers via their websites or, even better, via RSS feeds to their desktops or personalised home pages, watch TV shows (including downloading torrents of programmes that are not scheduled to appear on NZ TV for months, if at all).
Not only is it possible to access all of this content via the Internet, but in almost every case, you can access it when you want to. In other words, you don’t have to listen to Mediawatch on Sunday morning, you can download the podcast and listen to it on the train home on Monday evening. You don’t need to wait for the DomPost to land on your driveway to read the latest breaking news and you certainly don’t have to wait for distributors to determine when you can watch the latest Batman film.
Now, faced with these realities, how long do you think it will be before everybody (or at least those people with access to broadband) just give up on the old model entirely? It is already extinct, it is just that the body still seems warm to the touch…
That is natural selection at work.
The 800lb Gorilla
Ask most comms people who they think is the largest media player in New Zealand and you will get a variety of answers. Fairfax. Independent News & Media. News Corporation. CanWest. Yet, apart from Murdoch’s News Corp, none of these companies is in the same financial league as Google: and Google is currently significantly more profitable than News Corp.
And it is not just the financial weight of Google (although you would be naive to ignore it), when you also consider that all of the content that the other media players produce can be served up through Google search – complete with their advertising, you begin to see how important understanding Google is. Understanding how it works, in terms of SEO and more importantly, in terms of reputation management.
Conclusion
These aren’t intended as knockout arguments, rather they are designed to start people thinking about the changes to the media landscape and how that will affect their business. As communications professionals, it is up to us to ensure that senior managers are briefed on what this will mean for our organisations and how we can take advantage of these changes or mitigate against some of the risks.
Whatever course of action we decide on, one thing is clear: complacency is not an option.
5 Comments
[hands goes up] i’ve seent his type of “ostriching” in two separate organisations.
frequently the issue is that the decision-maker doesn’t want the interweb working for their workplace, the issue is that they’re not conversant, or not users.
i think you’re right when you say we should get one or two web tools working for organisations, demonstrate their potential, then share the results with other organisations.
I think that the internet is just a new medium, “just technology” – as management argue. Similar to the invention of say - music recording.
With the invention of music recording musician’s audience was no longer limited to who they can play in front of, but expanded to everyone with a phonograph, anywhere in the entire world.
Similarly, with the invention of the internet, public sector organisations are no longer limited to public scrutiny by making mistakes in front of journalists or politicians, but can now have their dirty laundry aired through social media to everyone with a internet connection, anywhere in the entire world.
Of course it can work the other way with positive news as well…just not so often.
Thanks Sam: I can’t agree. Yes, it is technology, but not just technology.
What is really happening is social change on quite an unprecedented scale – because it is not just about how content is disseminated (ie., the music in your example) but the fact that anyone can play now. The failure of some managers to recognize this is what has my, and Che’s, hands in the air.
Don’t forget many hands (in the air) make light work.
As Sam has rightly suggested this is a great way for Govt to share the positives, and at least partially start to address the cynicism associated with a stereotypical public service. This is not a cause the mass media will trumpet.
An excellent blog and I look forward to reading it !
Thanks for stopping by Frank.
Yes, I didn’t mean to gloss over the positives. If anything, these will come from the social – as opposed to mass – media. The utility of all this stuff will be the degree of engagement with our publics, not the approval or sanction of the press (although they may come around eventually…)
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