A brave new world

The world of media and communications is changing, not slow deliberate change, it is moving at break neck speed. Strangely that is not the part that keeps me up at night, it is the direction that scares the crap out of me. The direction seems to be like a dart without feathers, hard to aim, even harder to follow and the target is elusive. Earlier in my career this would have been heart stopping but I have taken a new approach to this uncertainty.

You see when you are a middle aged communicator you realize that even though things are not what they were and the destination is unclear the fundamentals still apply. So what is the difference? It is the delivery methods that have changed and the exciting part is they have changed for the better.

It is better because previously as a communicators we always had to try to get my messages out through others. We pitch, will they catch? was it to the right person? by the right method? with the right message? at the right time? So many variables and although we had some control there was so much left to chance. Was there another story that was similar? Something BIG that took everyone's attention?

Today we still pitch but with less desperation, we have options, not for every client, not for every story but along with our pitch we can publish the story on our own. We post a youtube video, a blog, a picture gallery, the release is on our site or the client's site and we tweet it and link it to Facebook. These are not all perfect solutions and we still very much appreciate the support of the media but some of the control is in our hands.

It feels good and I strive to consider how we can take this to the next level, not to elimate the media but to work in cooperation so that news is news and soft news that still has an important place for a specific audience can be shared. The key to this is we may not send it out to a cast of thousands but the people who do see it likely care and pay attention. What a novel concept.

This takes me back many years where I started, the right message to the right people at the right time delivered in wonderfully rich new ways that develop new insights into the heuman condition.