HELLO? (with no apologies to Adele)

The telephone is dead.

Not so much the cell/smartphone, since our fingers twitch to text and tweet and reply-all email.

But the Alexander Graham Bell invention is moribund (especially according to statistics from Nielsen, claiming that we’re moving to a landline-less and voicemail-less society).

All of which we mourn.  To us, it signals an increasingly isolated population, at home and at work.  [Though for the life of us, we can’t figure out who’s talking to whom in our commutes.] 

It shows our determined individualism:  “Hey, we’re communicating on our own terms and in our own timeframe.”

And it points to an ever-decreasing competency in being willing to talk and understanding how to hold a conversation.

According to Miss Manners, phone calls are rude, disruptive, and awkward.  They interrupt our workflow, our home lives, and generally create havoc for those around us.  In fact, it’s become de rigueur to ask, in an email, if it’s okay to call.

Much of that could be due to the constant ‘dialing for dollars’ from robocalls or from groups we’d just as soon not hear from.  And much of that could be a lack of energy to speak with those who want to talk with us; after all, it takes a lot of energy to text and message and scroll through Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and Pinterest and other social media.

Some say back-and-forth messaging is simply the new century’s conversation. 

We’d hang up on that.

TAG. WHO'S IT?

Confused about the sell by and use by labels on grocery foodstuffs?  As well as the “I’m all natural” claims?

Rest assured.  You’re not alone. 

According to a recent Consumer Reports survey, nearly 2/3rds of respondents believe, for instance, that ‘natural’ implies the item is a better food and that it contains no artificial ingredients, chemicals, pesticides, or GMOs.  It’s food that is simple, less processed, and genuine (whatever that means).

Wrong.

Why?

The US Food & Drug Administration hasn’t defined it yet.

Which, of course, got us to thinking:  What about the labels we in the marketing and communications biz blithely toss around, like logo and tag line and slogan and campaign and … ?  Do our key audiences (for example, the C-suite) really understand what we’re talking about – and are we all on the same page?  And do all our labels result in further confusing the folks we’re trying to reach – and persuade?

You get our drift.  Obviously, we apply labels to simplify a complex world.  The words and phrases we use to describe things and ideas, according to a 1930s’ linguist (and proven true for decades and decades after), actually determine what we see.  Think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Twizzlers is a low-fat snack.  Natural cheese is simply that, without cellulose powder to keep it from sticking.

So is time to clear up our own noise – and, perhaps, set a great example for the manufacturers of this world?

OF SAGACITY -- AND LEADERSHIP WORDS

Bookstores overflow with ‘how to be a leader’ tomes, often with conflicting advice.

Never a month passes when the likes of Harvard Business Review or Fortune magazine doesn’t opine on the best ways to manage a merger or what to do during the first 90 days as an executive.

And then the consultancies go forward to conquer … (how could we forget?).

Yet there’s one recently published, probably overlooked modest collection of memos, penned by one of the original Mad Men, that we heartily promote browsing.  And remembering.

It’s Keith Reinhard’s Any Wednesday, one pagers written almost weekly to his colleagues at DDB Worldwide (now part of Omnicom Group) for some 23 years, covering not just advertising topics, but also musings around careers, communications, and the truth. 

Like this:  “Our management priorities should be … people, product, profit … in that order.”

Or acquiring new skills:  “… because the marketplace of the future will be one where advertising alone is not the answer to every client’s problem.”

And delivered with humor:  “The greatest human drive is not food, water or shelter.  It’s the obsession to edit another person’s copy.”

It’s not often (okay, almost never) that we recommend a read.  But it’s one that will net you a true ROI, in Reinhard’s words:  Relevance.  Originality.  And Impact.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Rex,

Not so long ago, you penned a Chicago Tribune column about the issue with corporate wellness programs, the fact that fewer than 50 percent of employers formally evaluated the results.  [Courtesy of a Kaiser Family Foundation report.]

You then admonished businesses to communicate, to spell out the whys and wherefores.  And you also noted (and we quote):  “[Companies] love to take pragmatic programs like this and dress them up in peppy buzzwords and then market them to employees.”

So, Rex:  You’re wrong.  Big time.

What your opinion fails to consider:

• There’s something called ‘cognitive dissonance,” when people deliberately go out of their way to avoid information about behaviors that need to be corrected, or subjects we just don’t wanna read about/listen to.
• Factor in the phenomenon called the ADHD syndrome; each of us spends about eight seconds perusing info before we get distracted.  [And that’s the latest statistic!]
• Few of us communicators ‘market’ plans and programs and initiatives to employees.  We know better.  Usually, we look at behaviors and attitudes and the role of change within the company – and then develop a compelling, consistent, and clear plan to achieve the results needed.  Which could include training, change agents, executive consensus and sponsorship, and all the smart channels you failed to mention.

So, please Rex, do us a favor:  Check out what we do before you dismiss it as ‘peppy buzzwords.’