I’m waiting on a phoner for a client in Australia and am also going through my desk and pulling out old photos. So in light of opening up my world here a bit – I’m posting some family photos today and maybe on Saturdays when I work I’ll do that once in a while.
I’m crazy about my family. These are in our younger days.:>) My kids are much older now.
And my husband, who was an IT director for many years for different software firms, at 37 had an early (sanctioned) mid-life crisis and is now an elementary school teacher. He’s also a kids’ musician – here’s a link to a particular favorite song I like that he sings.
Michael Gray at SearchEngineland just posted a very insightful bit titled, "Top 12 Ways to Win Friends and Write Magnetic Headlines" (I particularly like the Moses’ reference).
For business book authors – really take a good look at his musings on different title grabbing headlines and think about how you can incorporate those into your next press release about your book.
And yes…I work on Saturdays!
Just when your knees were all a "twitter" over all the other networking sites, along comes Twitter – and thankfully a great article to keep you in the loop and up to date here.
"Print Death for Life, But Photos Live On(line)
Time Inc.’s umpteenth experiment with the brand called Life — you know, formerly the most successful magazine in the world, until television came along — ended in failure yesterday, as these experiments always do. The newspaper insert version of the magazine was closed on Monday after bleeding money for three years." (Media Bistro)
Here’s the sad thing about Life being shuttered – it was for years one of the most illuminating and dynamic publications to read and more importantly it fostered a remarkable connection to one another.
At the end of the day what social networking, Web 2.0, marketing, wikis, public relations, success stories etc. really should all lead to is the same place – a conversation with a prospect to exchange something meaningful that benefits both entities.
With the celebrity glitterati magazines and the rush to make news at any cost – we’ve lost some of the fundamental part of authenticity that it takes to make that conversation in print, online or in person real.
Life had honest, often startling pictures about real people doing real things. One of my own most beloved heroes Margaret Bourke-White made her fame shooting photographs for the magazine and went on to have her own surgery shot by another famed photographer and put into Life magazine by the editors.
I disagree that Life failed. And I urge you to make it your experiment to not fail in being authentic and real each and every time you have the opportunity.
This interview features Thomas R. Clifford – Corporate Documentary Filmmaker & Story Katalyst - "Breaking patterns…Discovering heroes…Igniting conversations"
Tom’s blog is full of great storytelling insight and in this interview he shares some secrets about filming and creating insightful company stories. Tom also has a superb list of "Ten Tips to Create Your Remarkable Company Video" at this link.
Interview:
Nettie: Tell us about your background.
Tom: here’s the elevator pitch. I’m a documentary filmmaker and my passion is telling remarkable stories from remarkable organizations. I’ve been doing it for almost 25 years. I’ve done PBS, broadcast, commercials, and had some film pieces in the NFL hall of fame.
Nettie: What is important in making and producing a great story in terms of businesses?
Tom: There are many ways to tell a story, I tell stories literally through the lens of the camera. Most of the films are short- under 10 minutes. What I do are short corporate films and they could be for human resources, marketing, sales, diversity issues, recruiting/hiring, raising awareness, correcting misconceptions.
The secret ingredient or the sauce is my crew and how I shoot. I have a unique style of filming that is handheld, no tripods and energetic. I interview people very close and tight, it’s all moving – never a dead moment on the screen.
My mentor 25 years ago said, "If the camera’s not moving or your subject is not moving, you better be a still photographer." The film is always moving.
Nettie: And your films focus truly on the employees of the companies right?
Tom: Yes, that’s number two for the secret ingredient. 95% of my films use entirely the employees of the organization. That is important because of authenticity. To have a top down message come out especially in a film, you can’t hide anything in a film, so you have to have authenticity.
I despise narration for these types of films, coming out of the documentary field, my bias is that when you pre-script something from a top down or marketing department as soon as I roll tape the audience will smell "inauthenticity." My audience is usually people learning about an organization or they’re trying to retain employees and my films typically have a highly driven people focus in them.
To have slick voiceovers or a dispassionate voice in the background tell you the story it doesn’t resonate. And over 100s of films I’ve made, using the voice of the employee is so much more engaging and compelling.
Nettie: Is it because it presents the company’s true meaning?
Tom: When I film the person in that chair in front of me, the person who ultimately views it has to identify with what is going on in the screen. That’s key.
ON PROCESS:
Nettie: What is the process of making the films?
Tom: First you meet the client and you really understand the scope of the job. Meeting with them, you see the hidden agendas and real agendas. Stage 2 is you discover the employees (who I call heroes), I call them storytellers or heroes to tell the company story. They are sharing their truths in front of the camera and their perspective on the world, so before we get to that point, I make it my mission to discover the company’s heroes. That is the most exciting thing. Finding out what makes the company great, what the employees love about it and why they’re all there. Once you have those heroes, the rest is easy – you just have to capture the story.
Those heroes "employees" are the people that the viewer can easily identify with. The polished message crafted perfectly doesn’t resonate. I look for the journey and how the heroes got there. That is the heart and soul of every film I make.
FINDING THE STORY:
Nettie: How do companies get to the place to better tell their stories?
Tom: Here’s the trademark indicator. If the internal actions match the external actions – then they are in true alignment. They walk their talk. You can easily tell that. For me that’s the indicator. Frankly if an organization is trying to present something else, it’s not something that works or that I want to represent.
When I discover the story and the people, that is the true North of the compass. That all comes out when you cast these people and they believe in the dream, and they’re great at telling the story on camera.
Nettie: What are ways to identify a company’s story? How is it separated out from the marketing speak? Do you have surprises as you go through the discovery process?
Tom: Yes, that’s a great question. A few years ago I made a film for a Fortune 500 insurance company. A big huge company and I’ll never forget it, they wanted a film made about their huge department and how they supported the company. And they gave us a 40 page PDF file and all these links on their Web site as a starting point for who they were and I looked at the folks at the meeting and said, "We’re just going to throw these in the trash. I want to know from your heart who you guys are, I don’t care about the upper management, you have hundreds of people supporting thousands of people, what is great about your story? Give me examples of what you do."
The story has to come from heart, past experience, positive moments. Appreciative inquiry is something I’ve really tapped into and that means to ask really affirming questions. If you keep asking questions about the problems, you will keep getting problem answers. If you ask, "What’s the problem here?", you’ll get 10 problem areas.
But if instead, you ask, "What is one success story?" You get a success and then you just keep going further for more positives.
The other stuff that’s important in my filmmaking is quantum physics. Years ago people used to think "We’ll just watch and observe, but we won’t affect the outcome." That’s impossible. Quantum physics has ripped that apart, as soon as the camera is in place, you have totally affected the outcome. So I’m still aware that by engaging the process of making the film, I change the outcome of making the film. So always be mindful of the truth of the story. The story and the message still has to be true at its core. That is the overarching principle and the company needs to know their true story.
Nettie: What still keeps you inspired?
Tom: I have an insatiable quest to understand the world and all the stories that are out there. I get a total charge out of "what’s the next story" and I’ve got amazing clients.
Nettie: Are you doing what you love?
Tom: I can’t imagine doing anything else. I was a rock and roller years ago and that’s all I wanted to do and my dad was a lawyer but he really supported me in my dream and following that passion even though he wanted me to go to college.
In the summer of 75, in New Haven, our band was going to open for Crosby, Stills and Nash and two weeks before the big concert it got cancelled. And so instead that summer, I went into college and majored in filmmaking and here I am.
Nettie: Everything happens for a reason.
Tom: Exactly.
John Backus died this week and while most of us are busy utilizing all this technology – it would serve us well to remember this amazing visionary. As a past employee of IBM, I can say that Backus’ achievements were and still are touted decades later.
I regularly consult with potential business book authors and help ghostwrite book proposals and one of the main things we always tackle first is the sticky question of, "What really makes a good business book? "
Business books have changed drastically from the old days and people want to be enthralled, engaged and enthused about what they are reading.
Business books can be amazing vehicles for actionable learning. You want your readers to have many "aha" moments while reading your work. After the "aha" moments pass, you want readers to feel as though they’ve been armed with a new way of looking at their business and how to empower it.
The more you weave a story throughout your book, the longer shelf life your book will have. It will also have what I term the pass it forward factor. What that means is your book should always compel folks to pass it on or strongly recommend it to their employees, peers and even customers.
The pass it forward factor is espescially useful when it comes to bloggers and their readers. Bloggers are voracious and conscientious readers and they truly will pass it forward if they feel the book is of great value to their readership.
Business does not have to be boring, dry and verbose and neither do business books. The best business books bring great ideas in focus and engage new ideas through the wisdom they impart. They engender insightful and creative methods that help the reader identify any business challenge and gain the tools to overcome it.
Now go and write!
A long time ago I had the great opportunity to interview Ben Stein when he was the host of "Win Ben Stein’s Money" on Comedy Central. Ben Stein is briliant. He is funny and he was a wonderful interview. In fact, at the time, he gave me some very sage advice about writing that has served me to this day so I owe him a great deal actually in terms of my career.
So it’s late (middle of the night) and here I am writing – working on applying for a media fellowship and an avid reader of Ben Stein’s sent me this link to his article. Interesting article on business, the world and money.
Ben was a speechwriter for Nixon and Ford by the way. Here’s Ben’s bio.
Oh…and why do I love him? Because he writes authentically and without remorse, regret or even a hint of dishonesty.
Hello dear readers,
As some of you know I still like to keep the old "typing digits" in the writing game too and one of the places I’ve kept from my ebiz days is writing for PlanetPDF as a Contributing Editor. In doing so, I’m actually getting the opportunity to travel to Disneyworld with my family in May (mother’s day weekend) to cover PDF 2007 – where everyone will gather to talk about how PDFs affect each and every thing we all do in our daily lives. (That’s actually more true than you might gather.)
So I penned an article about what I want to ask Al Gore – who will be the keynote speaker for the conference and have included a link to the article. Please put your e-prayers in that I’ll actually get to interview him, as it would be cool.
Here’s the "Ten Questions I would Ask Al Gore" .
And email me if you want to know the one I had to edit out.:>) It’s the funniest one.
Also – just to be completely off topic – I went and saw Bob Schneider and his Wednesday night band – Texas Bluegrass Massacre at Threadgill’s in Austin. SXSW music fest is officially ON and what a great week of music. In particular, it’s gratifying to be working as the publicist for such a gifted and amazingly talented musician as Bob. His site by the way is www.bobschneidermusic.com . Fantastic performer.
I’m a softie for a great commercial or any emotionally-driven films, tv etc. During both my pregnancies, my husband actually threatened to put a password block on the Lifetime Channel, TLC, Oxygen and if he could have done it, all the Hallmark commercials would have been locked as well.
And my favorite "customer centric" campaign running as of late is Kleenex’s – Let it Out campaign. This campaign is a stunning example of how you can as a company, person or brand, engage your prospects on their level.
At the end of the day, who wouldn’t want to sit on a bright blue couch with a Kleenex box and tell someone an amazing story about their lives? That’s what our lives are made up of, and that’s what Kleenex gets with this series of vignettes of folks on the couch.
The first time I watched the commercial, I honestly felt compelled to dust off my application for a Master’s in Counseling. Now that’s an engaging commercial!
Go and see for yourself here. Keep in mind after you watch it, that there are few things truly in this world that are universal – but emotion is certainly one of the most powerful things.
Ask these questions about your story:
1. What is my company story?
2. What is the emotional hook for what I’m trying to sell?
3. How can I tell the story so it’s truly authentic and engages others?
4. Why is my story different than all the others out there?
5. Is the story strong enough to motivate my customer to take action?
So you want your PR person to get you in the news yesterday? Even with breaking news you have to keep trying. Too many times companies and individuals think the first pitch wins.
The first pitch doesn’t win, unless you’re Oprah’s publicist and you’re breaking news is that she’s finally getting married to Stedman.
With anything else, expect that it will take a while. Kevin Dugan of The Bad Pitch Blog, says it takes up to six months to get a good placement.
"Sending a breaking news release to the media and expecting to go from being a complete stranger to being a trusted source with one email or phone call is ridiculous. You’ll usually make multiple attempts to contact your reporter and pitch the story," excerpt from Dugan’s blog post.
So be patient, Rome wasn’t built in a day (as my mom used to say.)
Getting Your Book Out There!
There are tons of things you can do to garner new PR about your book – so don’t stop with just sending out a press release or making a few phone calls. And don’t stop with, "My publisher’s PR person is doing that."
Imagine one PR person in charge of 500 titles and you’ve got the in-house publicist’ challenge about right. They’re great at their jobs, but they have so many titles to try to get some coverage on, that unless yours is a fantastic out of the shelves best-seller even before it hits, chances are your book is not going to get the coverage it deserves.
Think niche and that’s how you can push your book out. Look at the publications you most read, the organizations you belong to and the peers you correspond with on a daily basis.
There are tons of ways you can push your book out without ever calling someone like me or another PR rep.
Here are a few:
1. Use your existing newsletter and plan a book giveaway.
2. Reach out to bloggers that you correspond with or are in your peer arena and see if they want to review the book or do a short e-interview with you.
3. Repurpose content from the book into syndicated article sites.
4. Come up with a reader’s guide so that book clubs can tap into the book and pick it to read.
5. Make your web page or blog dynamic – keep adding new content at least once a week or more to both so that people come back for more and it helps with SEO as well.
* Tip: Never say no to an interview query. If someone wants to interview you about the book – make time to do the interview.
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