A few Chameleons went over to see Damon Jones, director of comms for Obama’s Democratic Convention this morning. He was in town to share lessons that he learned from Obama’s campaign trail. I’ve summarised his ten key learnings below, but before we jump into them, here are two things we found most interesting:

-           the use of online community tools. Obama actually hired one of the co-founders of Facebook to build a community website to empower democratic supporters to reach out, engage and donate. Check out http://my.barackobama.com for a shining example of a very good online community site.

-          the willingness to let people run with their own messaging. They basically gave people the tools to build their own comms (video clips to ‘mash-up’, key messaging which people were free to tailor, logos to play around with and personalise etc..). In Damon’s words, these ‘made millions of people feel like they had a stake in the campaign’.

 So here are Damon’s lessons:

1.)      Begin with the end in mind – start by recruiting supports and get them to buy into the brand promise. After you’ve developed a relationship with them, motivate action (donations, campaigning etc.)

2.)      People adapt messaging to what works for them – the Democrats they gave every state tools to adapt campaign messaging to make it more relevant to their own situation

3.)      From information to empowerment – they created the tools so that people could become their own brand ambassadors. These were available on my.barackobama.com. After registering, others from the new joiner’s ZIP code were alerted. These people were encouraged to email the new joiner and start a dialogue. People engaged with people, not systems or brands.

4.)      The internet is one big glass house – total transparency. You can’t hide from critics – sites like factcheck.com and politifact.com will pick you up on any inaccuracies. These need to be monitored all of the time and people need to be empowered to engage with them (more below)

5.)      The web of influence – a) Bloggers are incredibly influential. At the Democratic conference, bloggers were given the same access as the likes of Fox News and CNN. B) If you want to get news out there quickly, a press release doesn’t cut it, a blog post does.

6.)      Entertainment matters – no matter who you are, entertainment media is very influential e.g. Sarah Palin parodies

7.)      You are the company you keep – be transparent with all of your dealings and prepare for the worst

8.)      Everything is an opportunity – they created a website called fightthesmears.com which gave people information to fight the opposition’s smear campaign. They gave people the facts and encouraged them to fight with them – on forums, in bars etc…

9.)      Time is not a luxury – the days of a the structured news-cycle are over. The media needs to be monitored constantly and a rapid response team needs to be in place to react and capitalise on developments

10.)   Execution, execution, execution – ensure staff have clear responsibilities and ensure they understand their place in making the campaign work

One final point to make - what makes Damon’s work even more impressive is that he worked for free, as a volunteer. He took six months off from his job as director of external affairs with P&G for this role on Obama’s campaign. How did he justify this?.. Damon left us with some parting words that made us wonder what we’d like to achieve in our lives ‘Some people dream worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and make them happnen’.

Thanks to the PRCA for putting this on.

This week, the world’s most promising technology pioneers will be attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland to speak to the world’s great and good about their technology. We’re particularly excited about the WEF this year as our client Sachin Duggal from Nivio will be there. We believe that his technology has the potential to change the world of computing, but don’t just take our word for it - a recent telephone interview which we set up for Sachin, resulted in Business Week describing his ambitions as being those of a ‘true tech pioneer’.

Check out this interview from Robert Scoble on ScobleizerTV with Kevin Barenblat, founder of Context Optional, talking about how his Facebook widget is driving 60,000 users a day to a client’s website. A great example of how big brands should choose the right social network and develop an approach that encourages the members to interact with one another and then the brand.

Update: You will need to click on the “shows” tab on the video window above and choose the frame that has Facebook logo appearing top left to choose the correct video

Alastair Darling has announced that Britain will spend its way out of the recession through focused investment on the things that the country really needs, rather than cutting back and slowing down to a crawl. This theory, applied first by the economist Keynes in the 20th century, focuses on reducing the depth of the fall into recession so that when we are in a position to climb out, it’s easier to do so and we reach the top faster than we would have done otherwise.

The same applies in communications. When recession hits and business is not coming through the door as easily as it should, budgets must be reviewed and cuts must be made if necessary. But do you really want to slow effective communications down to a crawl? What does that say to the market about you? Often cuts are made to less tangible and measurable activities like PR, because the financial brains tell us that these things are less likely to make a difference in hard times. Its funny to me how PR is often the first form of marketing that new start-ups use to generate noise about themselves, but is also one of the first things to be pulled back on when money is tight. Where is the logic in that?

PR may be less measurable in terms of lead generation but what companies really need to communicate in difficult times is that people believe in what they can do and the difference that they can make. Organisations are going to be spending much more wisely so they need to know that what they buy will work, that they will get the support they need. They don’t need to hear this from you, but directly from others like them who have been there, done that, worn the T-shirt and bought the mug (or not as the case may be).

In the current climate companies will scrutinise, correctly so, what value they are getting from PR and all agencies should expect to be having these conversations. But don’t forget the value that PR delivers across the board. In a recession, the believability of an article is even more compelling than it was before. Press coverage, a third party endorsement, communicates belief in what that company does. It shows that you know what you are talking about before you ever get your foot through the door of the prospect. It is the closest thing you can get to word of mouth approval. Now show me a direct marketing campaign that can do that?

What we’re talking about here is what we call ‘advocacy’. Advocacy is defined as the pursuit of influencing outcomes, including public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions. Although its roots are more in social justice, the concept applies to most organisations; they all have some need to demonstrate that people believe in them sufficiently to want to ensure they succeed. To achieve true advocacy therefore, you need to not only look at PR but also under the bonnet at how you do business.

Going back to Mr Darling’s decision to spend the country out of recession, remember that the focus is about spending on the things that really matter. Communications programmes should do the same. It’s not a question of reducing your communications spend but looking at what you should invest in now that will realise benefits tomorrow. For my money advocacy has to be top of the list.

Throughout my career customer references have been critical for successful to PR, but generating references for references sake is different to advocacy and now somewhat out-dated. With the world now well entrenched in social media and citizen journalism it is easy to Google a product or company you wish to buy from and get umpteen personal reviews and opinions from the employees, customers and other stakeholders about that organisation or product. You might have a glowing ‘pre-approved’ reference or case study in your hand but the true words are spoken on blogs and forums which cannot be controlled and, in the eyes of many, do not lie. Put simply, an advocacy based communication programme is about four things.

Making sure your business, products and services do what they are meant to and you are following the rules and practices you have defined. Simple good business.

Giving stakeholders the chance to experience this first hand in a way that is relevant and pertinent to their needs. Communication should be a big part of this, as it underpins what you are saying and how you are presenting what you do to your potential advocates.

Giving stakeholders the opportunity to feed back to you on what you should be doing to improve what you do for them. This could include employee focus groups, customer forums or simple one to one feedback sessions, for example.

Giving stakeholders the tools and information required (if necessary) to be an advocate for your business which means that ultimately they will want to support you and your goals because they believe in them, not because they have been asked to.

In essence the communication challenges are in steps 2, 3 and 4. First, you have to recognise who your potential advocates are and target them effectively to tell them what you’re doing for them as individuals. Then you need to find ways of listening to them so that the dialogue is two-way. With the advent of citizen journalism it’s no longer about force feeding the baby. Thirdly you need to help them tell others about you, although in many cases they will have their own ways of doing this, in the form of blogs, through the pages of magazines, online forums, industry reports, networks and many more.

Advocacy actually brings communication very close to the business, because it relies on a link between showing stakeholders what you’re doing so that they are in a position to communicate either on your behalf or in a way that will be beneficial to you.

When times are hard we need our friends around us and this is what advocacy is about – simple, genuine word of mouth recommendation and support like one friend would give to another. It is this kind of personal communication that is going to impact buying decisions during the recession and after.

When the opportunity to climb again comes do you really want to do so alone, or with others who can help you on your journey?

Here is our advocates top 10 list

·         Customers that believe in your products and services

·         Employees that support you and enjoy their work

·         Partners that rely on you for revenue opportunities

·         Shareholders that are looking for sound investment

·         Journalists and the media that watches your moves

·         Analysts that track your market or financial performance

·         Bloggers with an interest (for whatever reason) in what you do

·         People in the geographies where you operate

·         Your customer’s customer (if you’re B2B)

·         Your friends and family (who will talk to their friends and family and so on)

 Rob Skinner