So, while this particular blog started as an idle play thing off to the side, I’ve been shamed into relaunching it in the coming weeks. It will from now on focus on internet and social media issues.

Of course that shouldn’t be too hard given that it’s about the business I’m in. But I will be giving this quiet little backwater a big spruce-up and talking about the internet and social media issues that are really useful and important right now.

Tomorrow I’m conducting a workshop on social media in Levin, so hopefully some of the attendees will come by and say hi afterwards. I’m also inviting anyone with a burning question to throw it my way right here. If I can’t answer it immediately, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way, or someone who can.

Let’s talk again soon.

However while our civil defence authorities may be congratulating themselves on a job well done when an emergency didn’t eventuate, a full emergency is the real test and is likely to have exposed some serious communications deficiencies.

If loss of life is to be avoided in a real emergency, particularly if precious hours are available to make warnings, clear and concise information is crucial. On Sunday morning, if a serious tsunami had occurred, I believe that it’s inevitable that a lack of relevant, localised information would have contributed to a loss of life.

Let’s consider what most peoples’ concerns would have been on Sunday morning?

1. Was there a threat of a tsunami in my area and how serious was the danger?
2. When and where was the danger likely to occur?
3. What should I be doing, if anything, as a result of the possible danger?
4. Where is the official place I should go to get information that is completely reliable and not just a reporter’s musings?

On Sunday morning, Civil Defence’s reliance on traditional broadcast media could not adequately deliver answers to these questions, when it’s commonly accepted among communications professionals that the internet is the ideal medium for such circumstances. Yet it is inexplicable that our Civil Defence authorities have yet to develop an adequate communications strategy that uses the internet fully and more centrally in such emergencies.

At no point while I was listening to Radio New Zealand National or, television bulletins on TV One later in the morning, was I directed to the Civil Defence website, which I only discovered to be the ‘official’ information site once I’d searched for it on Google. And by the time I did find the website, it failed to deliver sufficient quality information to satisfy my needs if a serious tsunami was about to occur.

Traditional broadcast media’s deficiencies in an emergency are obvious. Newspaper reports are generally at least a day late and while television and radio can broadcast highly current information, the format does not deliver in a manner that gives useful information when needed.

Broadcast media simply doesn’t have the ability to give people emergency information that is precisely relevant to their urgent needs. Instead on Sunday morning, if I listened for long enough, I received periodic reports about the level of danger and some generalised local reports. But mostly listeners were subjected to irrelevant stories to fill the space about campers evacuating a camping ground north of Auckland, or people still fishing off a beach in Dunedin.

So what should broadcast media be doing? It should confine itself to reporting only essential information relevant to the emergency and constantly repeat the Civil Defence website address where viewers and listeners could be directed to local and relevant content.

And what of the rest of Civil Defence’s web strategy. My Google search using the word “tsunami” failed to bring up the Civil Defence website on the first page, when it should have been presented at the top of every relevant search. And once the website was found, the information presented was seriously inadequate for the purposes of any citizen action.

On Sunday, no one in New Zealand died from the tsunami, but once again we have been warned. My hope is that our Civil Defence authorities don’t tell themselves that they did a good job when they should be learning the lessons the rest of the world has – to harness the power and speed of the internet and to properly coordinate it with other media. Your life might be at stake.

Against this backdrop, the Prime Minister came out swinging yesterday with a threat to sack boards and trustees who refuse to introduce the policy – see Stuff.

The government also announced a $200,000 information campaign on National Standards, apparently targeting parents.

I’ll leave the pros-and-cons of National Standards to others, but the question about the government’s communications plan is interesting.

Of course successive governments have used tax payer money to promote their programmes. Opposition parties, including National many times between 1999 and 2008, often accused the government of political propagandizing. Now Phil Goff is accusing this government of the same.

It is a nonsense to say that governments should not sensibly spend money on promoting government programmes, if it means that people gain an understanding of what the programmes are about. Equally, campaigns to assist people avoid injury or access services are useful, although there can be some debate about the extent of it in this country.

In this case the motive for the government seems different. Firstly, there has been a build up of fairly serious opposition to the government’s plan from many educational experts, parents, principals and teachers. Secondly, the government appears to have hastily cobbled together a campaign which simply looks like a reaction to the building opposition.

If the government had simply wished to inform everyone about the proposal, it would have been planned long ago as part of a process of consultation and implementation. Instead it’s a reactive response, expressly targeting parents with the obvious intension of winning the public debate.

Imagine if, on the other hand, the government had the buy-in and support of most teachers and education experts. That would provide a sound platform for communicating useful information about the programme where no one should quibble about spending a million dollars or more! As it stands however, they’re spending a mere $200,000 of tax payer money, which probably buys them a public relations consultant and a few leaflets!

But that’s what happens when you’re under attack and forced to respond.

Yes, I’ve grown up with the idea that we have leaders who are smart because they’re older and wiser than the rest of us.

It seems that so many myths are evaporating in today’s world that it has become difficult to know what to trust and what not to trust. We live in an age where everyone wants to know – and can discover – how everything is done and made. So many of us give ourselves the licence to know all we need about our own health, our kids’ education and the rubbish collection.

In the world that I inhabit, I’ve been a working professional for more than 30 years in communications where the creator of a message has had considerable control over all aspects of the message. But unfortunately, the communication was largely only in the hands of those who could afford to own it and the communications were in one direction.

But thankfully that has now changed. Anyone can have access to media channels that allow huge opportunities to promote ideas and issues, and have conversations about those ideas and issues. It’s empowering for individuals and for those who are more community minded about things.

The phenomenon that is ‘social media’ is demonstrating that communicators (read that as ‘everyone’) need to abandon the power-and-control model and enter into the world of conversations that is revolutionising community, business and personal life.

Don’t just take my word for it, the evidence is everywhere – one of the many blogs I follow is by Jeremiah Owyang, a Silicon Valley social media ‘guru. He and many others are not merely evangelists, they’re proving over and over that the benefits of this social revolution is here to stay.

So roll on the ‘conversation age’. I wonder if George W Bush is on Facebook? I’ll check right now!

In 2001 I was asked by the then mayor of Hutt City, John Terris, to attend an all-day meeting with a local childrens and families charity. John called the meeting of business people who he thought could brainstorm ideas to assist the charity through some tough financial times.

In a nutshell the problem went like this; the charity relied heavily on contestable government funding to stay afloat. But at best this funding would always leave a significant short-fall, so the organisation needed a top-up from the community or other sources.

Add to this scenario the escalating demand for the charity’s precious services, together with a diminishing ability by the community to commit voluntary support, the picture was grim.

The good news however was that the meeting of business people and charity officials worked out a way to rescue the organistion through its immediate dilemma. But the longer term problems remained largely unresolved.

The sad news for charities almost 10 years later is that little has changed, except that the demands on charitable services have increased, and the resourcing issues remain as difficult as ever.

One of the key lessons for me from the 2001 meeting was the benefit that can be derived from bringing community skills to the table that are often freely available. After all, those involved at the coalface of charities are often not accustomed to working with strategic planning and money matters.

But there are other key areas where it’s clear that charities and all not-for-profit organisations can profit. The internet is now one of the most valuable resources available for communicating, building support, organising and fundraising.  But it still needs an appreciation of the opportunities, the online tools and the skills to use them.

That’s part of the reason at FRESCO we’ve developed Issues.co.nz as a free resource to help charities with these very things.

Maybe John Terris’s inspired request can still have longer term benefits.

But the man did have a point when he recently told of getting his grandchildren to programme his TV.

He apparently said: “To work out how to operate a TV set you practically have to make love to the thing. They put the TV controls on the bottom so you have to lie on the floor, and then if you wanted to record something the recorder was underneath, so you ended up lying on the floor with a torch in your teeth, a magnifying glass and an instruction book.”

The 88-year-old gent was laughed at by most media accounts I saw, but he was clearly lashing out at the design of modern televisions, claiming they are too hard to use.

We all know people who communicate so that no-one can understand what on earth they are saying. In individuals I’ve assumed it has something to do with the mixed-communicator’s perverse need to control relationships or attract attention to themselves, even if only for petty scorn. The mentality seems to be; if others are set up to fail because they’re confused, you can be the winner.

But why is it that so much commercial communication is incomprehensible – text in a brochure that’s eye-strain small or graphics that scramble the brain? And why is it almost impossible to tell the difference between the ‘shampoo’ and the ‘conditioner’ when standing in the shower with soap in your eyes?

I’m sure that the answer is not a perverse one. Communication that doesn’t communicate clearly is bad communication and it results from a lack of care and judgement.

Grumpy old men complain about nearly everything, but in this case, Prince Philip communicated with great clarity.

In a future post I’ll raise another issue on the subject of loony communication – billboards.

I didn’t know him from a bar of soap, but clearly he got into my consciousness and now he appears to be everywhere.

The seminar paraded a range of speakers, most talking on the subject of social media. Many presentations covered the theory of Facebooking, Tweeting and viral campaigning together with a scattering of case studies.

Carey turned up with a lively virtuoso performance hewn from the edgy world of residential real estate. Here’s a man who is discovering how his blog [www.careysmith.com] and social media activity is merely an extension of his lifelong need to have rich relationships with his family, friends and of course… business clients and prospects.

Refreshingly, Carey’s enthusiasm for social media seems to see it as a huge opportunity but not something to gaze at in gob-smacking bewilderment.

Praise be! Social media is spawning a bevy of overnight gurus who will have us believe that the processes are more important to understand than the ideas that are needed to make it work. I’m sure that when the telephone was invented, there were people offering themselves for “how to best dial to make the telephonic experience a rich and rewarding experience.”

It seems that a blog and Facebook were invented for Carrie Smith. Good on him and he sets a fine example for us all. Next time I sell a house, I might just call Carey.

Call me old school, but successful communicating is about making sure the messages are the right ones for a particular audience, then making sure to use appropriate communications channels to those selected audiences. There is also the not insignificant factor of timing and resources to consider.

But I won’t be complicated; let’s just stick to the question of appropriate messaging.

My daughter, a very media savvy 18 year old, watched the 2Degrees TV commercials and laughed her approval for the way it connected her with the essential messages via a very kiwi sense of humour. The use of Reece Darby created an inspiring and simple vehicle for 2Dgrees to promote a completely new offering to New Zealand consumers.

What is Telecom doing in the same market space? Let’s not forget that Telecom is the firmly entrenched ‘old foggy’ in this market with a corporate reputation as something of a big, slow dragger. Telecom’s answer is Richard Hammond from the BBC’s Top Gear programme.

I can just here the logic at Telecom – high tech innovation demands a smart young presenter from a leading international car programme. Well that’s not what my daughter thinks. She compares the humour and kiwi slant of 2Dgrees communications with Telecom’s offering and there is only one winner.

Telecom need to get out more and work out that New Zealanders, not just 18 year olds, are no longer conned by flash-harries from aunty BBC TV shows talking about how you can get 3G reception from a shipping container sitting in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf.

The old rules remain the same. Appropriate communications can never be improved with the kinds of big corporate budgets and production values Telecom throws at its marketing.

Hey, and I’m not the only one less than impressed.

A wide range of speakers and panelists presented on a wide range of subjects from the social media revolution to crisis management in public relations.

A theme that occured time and time again was the subject of ‘traditional’ mainstream media and the impact of the internet and, in particular, social media. It’s an area that is a particular focus for us in our FRESCO business and in our web enterprise sites, Issues.co.nz and Wotzon.com.

It struck me during the discussions how much history repeats itself with every new media development. Early adoptors may imagine that the processes involved in the new medium have never been seen before – rather like teenagers thinking that they are the first to discover sex. Think of the printing press, telephone, radio and television? Each ones early development had people obsessed with the processes rather than the real benefits once people settled down and learnt how to use it intuatively.

But of course, there never has been anything quite like the internet and we young teenagers may just be right to be so excited. Social media promises to enable people as never before and connect them to a world we are just starting to imagine.

Let’s fill our boots?

This week my company, FRESCO, released a new website. Issues.co.nz is live but not yet formally launched while we load in more content – I expect a launch within the next week.

 The website has been an idea of mine that has simmered for years as we witnessed the explosion in current affairs online. But while many newspaper websites leave control with the media, and ‘citizen publishing’ is diluted with a mass of fragmented blog or information sites, Issues.co.nz brings much of the fragmentation together and, in doing so, gives ordinary people a chance to be heard.

 The Issues.co.nz website is completely unique in New Zealand. In a nutshell, we’re setting up a platform where anyone has the chance to run their own website on a burning issue and run it within a large online community.

 Take a sneak look at www.issues.co.nz and let me know what you think?