Phew, well I’m glad that’s over.
9-weeks of excruciatingly numbing political meandering that delivered………… well, not much.
One of the aspects of the campaign that we have been discussing internally has been if we learnt anything. The answer is a general ‘Yes,’ however the content you could treat on a take it or leave it basis.
Polls
Dare I say it, they were one of the highlights of the Aussie campaign.
Despite the general twitterings of the media, the polls were pretty much on a consistent ‘knife-edge’ across the campaign; the end result? A cliff-hanger.
Based on the musings of our esteemed daily papers one could have been excused for thinking that our pollsters were as reliable as their British counterparts (or the BoM forecasting Melbourne weather) with their ‘forget the numbers, Turnbull’s got it’ commentary.
Messages
It helps to have them.
Attempting to bore your target audience in to submission clearly doesn’t work.
Hopefully the last couple of months’ acts as the lethal injection that obsolete sloganeering without substance needs.
It could have been worse I guess: Cheap Cheap anyone?
The Greens
Surprising? Not really.
Well performed? Not really.
Going places? Most likely.
I would have thought that in the absence of discussion void of any real substance regarding a pragmatic (forget about visionary) forward-looking agenda for the nation, that there was a huge opportunity for The Greens to appeal to the abiding Australian sense of egalitarianism.
This ‘third force’ in Australian politics also appears to have been sucked in to a narrow (and narrowcast) script, despite the ample areas of opportunity (climate change, asylum seekers, homelessness, re-balancing Commonwealth infrastructure spending to include more public transport, the cost of living etc etc) for the further ‘Left’ of pour political landscape to carve out more ground.
The Greens campaign I would describe as overlooking the bigger picture; bicycle super highways have cool renders tho.
Our preferential voting system
Is it time to give it the boot?
As it stands all seats in the House of Reps come down to a two-horse race. Why is it that the jockey of every beaten horse then gets a say in the eventual winner, even though their mount dropped out before the home straight?
The ‘One Vote, One Value’ principle seems to be undermined when a vote for one set of values (or whatever substitutes for them these days) ends up in a camp with a different set of principles.
Preferences don’t even seem to make much difference. As a case in point, the ALP received its second lowest primary vote in history and was a kick of the footy from winning this election.
Which leads me to the……
AEC
I read earlier this week that India can count 800 million votes in a day.
Brexit was confirmed in 7-hours.
In Australia our measly 10 million votes are only approximately 70%. Sure we have the complexity of preferences and the use of the postal system etc, but surely we can speed things up a bit.
A move to first past the post voting, or maybe even using that futuristic thing called the internet could help?
Scare Campaigns
Work.
If, the target of said campaign permits them to.
With a week or more to go before the poll, a robust disaggregation of what was being considered for Medicare (and why), contrasted against the scaremongering may have enabled our soon to be re-sworn in PM to make a statesmanlike speech on election night.
Split the ‘Right’
Given the ‘conservative discontent’ within the broad church of the Liberal Party, will it be an ALP strategy over the course of this, and subsequent terms of government, to try and foment this unhappiness with the view to seeing ‘Team Cory Bernardi’ become to the Libs what The Greens are to them?
Perhaps, but unless we did away with preferential voting such an achievement wouldn’t make any tangible difference (based on where I presume preferences would flow).
What did we learn?
If you want to bring people with you, one needs to understand who they are, what’s relevant to them, and speak to them in their language. Ideally, this process won’t take any longer than necessary.
If you have an opportunity, take it. Never expect that it will exist forever.
Keep things simple, clear and efficient. No one has time, nor are interested in reasons/excuses why the apparently simple is actually not simple. In short, understand and meet expectations.
If, and when something incorrect is said; correct the record. Keep correcting the record until the record is correct. If you don’t do the work you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself.
Strategy. A lot of strategies look great on paper and over sound great over a cup of coffee, but said strategy is going to deliver the same result as would have been the case prior to developing, investing in, and implementing it why bother? Better to spend the time identifying what you want to achieve and develop a plan that will actually deliver difference rather than same same.
So………
As things stand today, let’s hope that Sir Peter Cosgrove extends his French sojourn a little longer to allow the dust to settle, and for us innocent Australians to focus on the important stuff in life like football, kids going back to school, and paying bills. You know, the things that need to be considered by every Australian, every day (and yes, that includes football).
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Social Media Pushing For Crisis Management Change
Within one minute of a Boeing 777 crash-landing at San Francisco International Airport in 2013, it was on Twitter with a photo from an eye-witness observer. Within 30 minutes the number had risen to more than 44,000 tweets with photos and videos taken by survivors.
The wave of social media coverage illustrated three phenomena which have vastly complicated the challenge facing communication professionals in the aftermath of an incident.
Firstly, the sheer number of people actively using social media platforms each month is now passed the two billion mark; potential “citizen journalists” or 28% of the world’s population.
The second is mobility: more than half of all internet access globally is via mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets, and notebook computers.
Thirdly, the impetus to interact more with communities (stakeholders) through social media directly derives from dissatisfaction with traditional media.
More than half the planet now owns a mobile phone, with unique users now exceeding 3.6 billion. Globally active mobile subscriptions now exceed 7.1 billion, suggesting that the average phone owner maintains almost 2 active subscriptions.
If an incident occurs in a populated area, or at a highly visible location, eyewitnesses or participants can now capture and share images of the event, upload videos or post comments via their mobile devices before any organisation, or government department concerned may even be fully aware of what has happened.
Once the story breaks on social media, the opportunity to provide factual information and influence the developing narrative is reduced to minutes.
However, social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook, provide organisations with an equal opportunity to reach the news media and other audiences quickly and to provide constantly updated information in an emergency.
Effectively harnessing the power of social media should be a top priority for all organisations and, therefore be an integral part of any organisation’s plans to respond to an accident or major incident. It goes without saying, that the time to prepare for an accident or serious incident is before it occurs, and these preparations should be exercised on a routine basis.
RMK+Associates has the background, experience and front-line history to help governments and organisations with their crisis management plans and responses to ensure they are fully prepared for, and capable of responding to any incident.
Matching Vision with Action
The key task of leaders is to explain what the future should look like and to build consensus around this shared vision.
This means setting setting objectives to achieve the goal; in other words, developing a great plan to deliver the goal.
To deliver the Mandela principle requires the actual delivery to be entrusted to experts who have delivered such projects before. Great leaders do this and delegate successfully. Poor leaders want to do everything themselves – micro manage. Great leaders also ensure that everyone knows that they care about the work and expect success.
This approach has led to the re-emergence of I CARE values (Integrity, Courage, Accountability, Respect, Excellence) in programs across the PR industry focused on stakeholder engagement.
Although these values are not new to RMKA – it has been adhering to them in programs developed and delivered for almost two decades in the public and private sectors. The effective use of new technology tools in communication now allows such values to be systematically applied across multiple programs.
The outcome is the efficient delivery of important information in a timely manner and to defined audiences and consistent with the initial expressed central vision and objectives.
It also enables efficient, values driven, responses, both internally and externally, to unprecedented events; being proactive with responses; being prepared for all possible outcomes; and readiness to address questions about the legitimacy of the events.
The current Victorian Government appears to be going down this path in an effort to deliver better outcomes for the community.
Unfortunately, all governments can get drawn into the agenda of sectional interests resulting in a piecemeal approach to policy development and communication resulting in damage to the central objective of effectively communicating a vison. This is where ministers and officials must work together and resist the temptation to address minor, but loud, and negative stakeholder voices in isolation.
RMKA’s stakeholder management technology (Stakeholder Matrixtm) helps avoid this trap because it enables the user to effectively manage total program communications whilst ensuring adherence to messages that clearly outline how the desired vision can be achieved.
Stakeholder Matrixtm enables the segmentation and understanding of stakeholders and the determination of the best methodologies for engagement. The aim being that all stakeholders, particularly objectors, understand the broader picture and the objective of better outcomes for the community.
Spare the politics………puh-lease.
Phew, well I’m glad that’s over.
9-weeks of excruciatingly numbing political meandering that delivered………… well, not much.
One of the aspects of the campaign that we have been discussing internally has been if we learnt anything. The answer is a general ‘Yes,’ however the content you could treat on a take it or leave it basis.
Polls
Dare I say it, they were one of the highlights of the Aussie campaign.
Despite the general twitterings of the media, the polls were pretty much on a consistent ‘knife-edge’ across the campaign; the end result? A cliff-hanger.
Based on the musings of our esteemed daily papers one could have been excused for thinking that our pollsters were as reliable as their British counterparts (or the BoM forecasting Melbourne weather) with their ‘forget the numbers, Turnbull’s got it’ commentary.
Messages
It helps to have them.
Attempting to bore your target audience in to submission clearly doesn’t work.
Hopefully the last couple of months’ acts as the lethal injection that obsolete sloganeering without substance needs.
It could have been worse I guess: Cheap Cheap anyone?
The Greens
Surprising? Not really.
Well performed? Not really.
Going places? Most likely.
I would have thought that in the absence of discussion void of any real substance regarding a pragmatic (forget about visionary) forward-looking agenda for the nation, that there was a huge opportunity for The Greens to appeal to the abiding Australian sense of egalitarianism.
This ‘third force’ in Australian politics also appears to have been sucked in to a narrow (and narrowcast) script, despite the ample areas of opportunity (climate change, asylum seekers, homelessness, re-balancing Commonwealth infrastructure spending to include more public transport, the cost of living etc etc) for the further ‘Left’ of pour political landscape to carve out more ground.
The Greens campaign I would describe as overlooking the bigger picture; bicycle super highways have cool renders tho.
Our preferential voting system
Is it time to give it the boot?
As it stands all seats in the House of Reps come down to a two-horse race. Why is it that the jockey of every beaten horse then gets a say in the eventual winner, even though their mount dropped out before the home straight?
The ‘One Vote, One Value’ principle seems to be undermined when a vote for one set of values (or whatever substitutes for them these days) ends up in a camp with a different set of principles.
Preferences don’t even seem to make much difference. As a case in point, the ALP received its second lowest primary vote in history and was a kick of the footy from winning this election.
Which leads me to the……
AEC
I read earlier this week that India can count 800 million votes in a day.
Brexit was confirmed in 7-hours.
In Australia our measly 10 million votes are only approximately 70%. Sure we have the complexity of preferences and the use of the postal system etc, but surely we can speed things up a bit.
A move to first past the post voting, or maybe even using that futuristic thing called the internet could help?
Scare Campaigns
Work.
If, the target of said campaign permits them to.
With a week or more to go before the poll, a robust disaggregation of what was being considered for Medicare (and why), contrasted against the scaremongering may have enabled our soon to be re-sworn in PM to make a statesmanlike speech on election night.
Split the ‘Right’
Given the ‘conservative discontent’ within the broad church of the Liberal Party, will it be an ALP strategy over the course of this, and subsequent terms of government, to try and foment this unhappiness with the view to seeing ‘Team Cory Bernardi’ become to the Libs what The Greens are to them?
Perhaps, but unless we did away with preferential voting such an achievement wouldn’t make any tangible difference (based on where I presume preferences would flow).
What did we learn?
If you want to bring people with you, one needs to understand who they are, what’s relevant to them, and speak to them in their language. Ideally, this process won’t take any longer than necessary.
If you have an opportunity, take it. Never expect that it will exist forever.
Keep things simple, clear and efficient. No one has time, nor are interested in reasons/excuses why the apparently simple is actually not simple. In short, understand and meet expectations.
If, and when something incorrect is said; correct the record. Keep correcting the record until the record is correct. If you don’t do the work you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself.
Strategy. A lot of strategies look great on paper and over sound great over a cup of coffee, but said strategy is going to deliver the same result as would have been the case prior to developing, investing in, and implementing it why bother? Better to spend the time identifying what you want to achieve and develop a plan that will actually deliver difference rather than same same.
So………
As things stand today, let’s hope that Sir Peter Cosgrove extends his French sojourn a little longer to allow the dust to settle, and for us innocent Australians to focus on the important stuff in life like football, kids going back to school, and paying bills. You know, the things that need to be considered by every Australian, every day (and yes, that includes football).
The Trouble with Hollow Men
There is much dispute around the who actually first said “If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything” but the implication is clear. A lack of conviction will leave one highly susceptible to group-think, demagogues and charlatans.
A lack of demonstrable conviction is also what appears to drive the disillusionment with our current political leaders and process.
The developed world appears to be beset by a twin crisis of confidence, moral relativism -driving lack of core values and total cynicism when it comes to our political leaders.
It can be argued that Trump, Brexit, the revolving door of Australian Prime Ministers and the retreat from the two party system are all symptoms of this lack of conviction and erosion of trust.
The electorate appears to crave conviction politicians and clear, visionary leadership. Yet, the combination of constant media scrutiny and ‘analysis’ and the cacophony of special interest demands pushes politicians, with any survival instinct, to move with the mood. Ultimately demolishing any credibility regarding principle.
Devising the solution to that dilemma is truly the modern conundrum.
For business the challenge is that the populace now uses the same cynical and sceptical filter when considering anything those with commercial power have to say them. This presents a significant barrier to effectively interacting with any stakeholders.
A vital step in getting through that filter is to own and live by a set of values that the community views as contributing to both the effective and principled delivery of products and/or services and to broader societal benefit.
How many businesses try to engage with stakeholders yet either don’t have a clear set of values to measure their interactions against or act in a manner that gives the lie to any claim to be living by such?
Spending the time and energy to formalise and inculcate a set of values is an investment that will deliver manifold benefit. All business leaders should first engage with their core management team and figure out what they all stand for. Then live it.
To fail to do so is to allow your enterprise to appear as hollow as the populists who may have their moment in the sun only to, sooner rather than later, have it shine through them.
RMKA has worked on developing relevant, beneficial and enduring values for many organisations. It is the core of any sound communication and engagement strategy.