First published on The Drum: 26/07/2011

Great tabloid scandals develop their own lives; like bushfires they move on from the original outrage to the cover-up to the failure of institutions, as the hand wringing becomes a form of interpretive dance.

The scandal provides the spark, the media the oxygen, but the real heat comes from our reaction as paying customers who keep the issue rolling as long as we keep buying the papers and tuning into the news.

The News of the World scandal has tightened this loop by cutting out the middle man, the tabloid coverage of a tabloid scandal driving a tabloid reaction: demands that someone should pay and that this should never happen again.

Australians have been watching the News of the World saga unfold with special interest; after all, Rupert Murdoch has been wearing the yellow jersey in the media world since before Cadel Evans was dreaming of his first BMX.

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Two not-for-profit campaigns have caught my attention this week and I wanted to take a minute to highlight what makes them so great.

WSPA’s “Dollars for Collars”

The idea
Donate to support action against dog cruelty in targeted countries.

The execution
Simple but stunning imagery with a clear call to action:
“Love dogs? Help save one. Buy a collar”.

Why it works
There are some great concepts at work to pull this together. For a start, the entry-level donation is brilliant. $10 per collar, buy as few or as many as you like. I am a strong advocate of not setting your entry level too high, as it can be off-putting. By allowing people to buy multiple collars, they can very simply tweak their donation and will probably be more likely to give $20 than $15 if you let them decide on their own.

Then there is the imagery…seriously. The eyes have it.

Instant gratification
When delivering a campaign to rally support or donations, you are selling a “feel-good” factor. There’s no tangible element that people are receiving for their time or money, so you want to find another way to give them instant satisfaction and pride for what they have done.

The WSPA campaign uses a visualisation of the collar to do this. When purchasing your collar, you can add your name, colour, suburb and photo to the collar at the bottom. This gives you an instant confirmation that you have made a contribution.

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First published on The Drum: 19/07/2011

The future of the Gillard Government lies in its ability to untangle one of the most diabolical knots seen in recent Australian political history.

From a distance it just seems like an ungodly mess, but look closer and the carbon pricing scheme is a series of public policy SNAFUs all snagged around each other, that pull themselves tighter with each attempt to free up a strand.

Talk about national leadership and the line leads to pre-election lies; talk about science and the deniers claim two sides to a story that has long been settled; talk about investment in renewables and the fears of workers in carbon-exposed industries ring out.

This is indeed one hell of a knot. And the killer at the core of this tangle is the way talk of household compensation actually seems to fuel rising anxiety around cost of living pressures.

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Google is unquestionably the biggest player on the internet, yet the “search giant” has never quite cracked the lucrative social market. After the failure of Google Buzz, they are making another attempt with the launch of Google+.

At the moment, Google+ looks like a bleak version of Facebook, causing a lot of speculation and online chatter about whether or not Google can take on the social network.

For a moment though, I want to consider Google+ not as a potential Facebook killer, but rather a LinkedIn killer.

One of my initial thoughts before using Google+ was that if it integrated in nicely with the services I already use (Gmail, docs, calendar) then there’s a chance I would use it, but if I had to log into yet another social service, it probably wouldn’t happen.

That is one of the things that stops me from using LinkedIn very often. I have my profile, my resume, my professional contacts and occasionally chime into group discussion. However with a small network, I have little incentive to log in on there regularly and don’t have the need to share with that particular network often. It’s a great resource, but it is a little on the clunky side.

Google on the other hand, is something I can’t live without at work. Search aside, I run Gmail for my personal account and work is run off Google Apps. I share documents with Google Docs and all of my calendars and contacts are synced with Google. Using ‘Circles’ (the Google+ grouping of contacts), I can now also set up work contacts and split up my PR networks from my Digital networks – sharing different information with each.

Suddenly, Google+ is looking very appealing.

Do I want to replicate all of my Facebook info over there? Nope. Do I necessarily want to worry about splitting everything up and double posting while people migrate? Not at all. At this stage, I much prefer Facebook but could happily walk away from LinkedIn if I could have easy access to my professional networks along with my documents and appointments. LinkedIn has a great audience but has always failed to impress me as a platform. I’ll be watching with keen interest to see how this plays out!

One more note on how this competes with Facebook – I think web comic xkcd has summed it up nicely; “on one hand, you’ll never convince your parents to switch. On the other hands, you’ll never convince your parents to switch!”.

In busy organisations, taking the time to talk to members and supporters about what’s going on often falls off the bottom of very long to-do lists.

But member organisations that don’t talk to their members – about their successes, their challenges and their day-to-day work – run the risk of losing valuable support.

It’s a complex environment for member communications. Once, newsletters were printed and mailed as a matter of course and it was just assumed people read them.

What we’ve learnt about interest levels and attention spans in the digital age, where we know exactly which stories are clicked on and how long people spend reading them, is a good reminder that people are busy and we need to earn their attention.

While many people still like to receive a printed magazine in the letterbox, the expense of printing and mailing together with the rising engagement with online communications tools, is leading many organisations to look for alternatives.

EMC has developed the ‘Express’ model with two divisions of the Rail Tram and Bus Union representing train and bus drivers.

Loco Express and Bus Express are not your regular static organisational websites.

They are content driven, with stories – including photos and videos – posted regularly during the week as events unfold in workplaces across the state.

They are tailored to members’ needs, with features including ‘update your details online’, links to enterprise agreements and workplaces standards, and photo galleries.

They are interactive, with moderated comments and polls allowing members to have their say on industry issues.

They are also popular, with usage data showing high open rates for subscribers who receive the emails and officials receiving positive feedback from members.

Loco Express and Bus Express provide a great model for other member-based organisations looking for a new and dynamic approach to their member communications.

First published on The Drum: 05/07/2011

Australians are losing faith in their economy just as the experts are telling us that things are looking up.

In an eerie echo of the climate change debate, this week’s Essential Report picks up a massive disconnect between public sentiment and expert opinion; just like those pesky climate scientists, economists are presenting a world at odds with the average punter.

Across a range of benchmark indicators we are seeing a sharp deterioration in economic confidence, with pessimism about national and personal economics heading back to where they were at the height of the Global Financial Crisis.

On the general direction of the economy more people think Australia is heading in the wrong direction rather than the right direction, a drastic change over the past 12 months and even since the May budget. This question is a key indicator for any government, as it reflects the electorate’s attitude to the broad direction of its economic policy rather than any specific issue.

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