On the road through Europe

I am actually on a road show through Europe with David Weinberger who is doing some talks for us in various countries. We began with France on monday, yesterday we were in Germany and today we are flying in Italy where I'll stay two days.

It is amazing to see that whatever the country is, the same questions or should I rather say "fears" remains: people are scared to loose "control" on information.... ( I am back now to continue this post and just saw that David blogged a summary of our two days, so have a look there, he is a much better writer than I am as everyone knows...;o))

So now I am really back on this post (3 hours later...), and you know what, I am out for my first night in Milan and I just forgot my luggage at the office...;o) Yes I know, it's silly, but we went out for diner following a meeting, and I didn't even think I wasn't in my city, it's only while I was reaching the hotel that I realised I might have forgotten something useful... Well... I've also been lucky in another way because as the men at the reception desk learned that I had nothing with me (except by chance my laptop, thanks God, I can blog !), so he gave me a 60 m2 appartement...;o) Hey, italian guys are really cool, are they ? By the way, if you go in Milan and need a hotel, should go in this one, Una Tock hotel !

So, back to this three days tour in France, Germany and Italy. Loose of control, getting bad comments, legacy issue, are the three main fears that people have been showing. But this is it: as soon as you decide to engage conversation with an audience, you're exposing yourself, you're taking the risk to not been appreciate by everyone, to get critics, perhaps even injuries if you're handling strong position on a sensitive topic. But it is all what real life is about and here the question is also to get back to some human voice. Perfection is so boring, no one will ever read you because there is nothing to ad to perfection.

More over, every company or brand should not obviously launch a blog. But at least, every company should listen to the online world. Then, depending of brand culture, your market, your actual situation, you might want to choose another channel that might be more appropriate and less "risky": begin by adding RSS feeds to your website to let people decide themselves if they want to get information about you, have a look on blogs related to your market, and engage the conversation through the comments. When you feel comfortable with this new way of communicating, you can consider blogging yourself first of all perhaps internally, then invite some partners, customers you trust to participate, go step by step, no one requires from you to launch an employee blogging portal just now...

Another question that came out was related to opening comments and the risk to get insults or racism messages who would be then hosted by the brand... Ok, as you have to define blogging policy, you also have to announce which kind of comments won't be allowed and accepted, as soon as you're transparent since the very beginning, no one will complain, it' s just about  giving the rules of the game... Opening comments doesn't mean you have to tolerate any kind of comments, but it means that it belongs to you to explain what you will not tolerate, since the very first beginning of your blog.

So these were three great days and to meet some more bloggers, I am looking forward to the next tour, and now, back to my 60 m2 "room"...;o)

Technorati Tags: david weinberger, Edelman

Comments

[Amy]

Thank you very much for your comments on these common "fears" of blogging and public relations. I am a public relations student at Auburn University and I have just begun to blog within the past couple of months. It is not a surprise to me that one of the main fears is the loss of control. For the most part, I have noticed, people in the field of public relations don't mind if things get a little chaotic or if unexpected events take place as long as they still feel like they have everything under their thumb. The minute that things are out of our control is when things start to fall apart. This goes for presentations, crisis management, or even simply pitching a campaign. It is comforting to know that there are certain rules and procedures that are followed to prevent chaos from taking place. I am keeping my eyes and ears open everyday to become more and more familiar with these procedures so that the loss of control is no longer a concern of mine.

[Guillaume du Gardier]

Hey Sheila, thank you for this great input, you're giving another very good exemple of how blogging brings people to a permanent improvement, and by the way why comments should be rather open than closed.
The tour has been different in every country: France was much more as a workshop, people have been invited to contribute and propose their own answers, in Germany, it was much more a traditional presentation but very smart thanks to David's talent to engage with the audience, Italy has been estonishing as people have been listening with a lot of attention during 2 hours ! We then have had a little break prior to listen (no one left during the break) and answer their questions, but they have shown a strong interest in the blogosphere as we've been describing it to them.

For sure, as soon as we organise a more "workshop" oriented tour, I won't miss to drop you a line !
Thanks for making a stop here ! ;o)

Photos of the tour are available in my moblog Winks, http://prplanet.typepad.com/wink/

[Sebastian]

Hey Guillaume, very nice meeting you. I hope we stay in touch.

[Shaula Evans]

Guillaume, the "loss of control" concerns sound just like the emotional responses of people who are starting theatre sports (i.e., theatrical improvisation) for the first time.

How can I do this with no script or rules? What if I do something wrong while people are looking at me? What if things get out of hand?

It is the feeling of walking on a tightrope without a net.

But improv is also like blogging in that there are best practices that minimize the risk and optimize the chance to succeed. (To an audience, improv may look like it has "no rules" but there are actually standard improv conventions that train actors use to make improv look easy.) The rules are the net.

I do a lot of presentations, and I always like to get the audience out of their chairs and moving around.

In your situation, I would be tempted to run a scenario like this:

Tell them you are going to give a demonstration about loss of controll.

Ask for some really brave volunteers. Tell them you are going to embarass them.

Put three people in front of the room, tell them they have 20 seconds to improvise a scene, and then yell "Go". Chaos should ensue.

Then, give them a simple theatre sports game. Explain to them how it works, and how, within those constraints, they can improvise whatever they want. They should make a great scene out of it.

Thank them heartily, and get the room to applaud. Sit them down.

Explain how the exercise is an analogy for the improvisational nature of blogging.

That's a bare bones explanation, but I hope you get my drift.

And, if you ever want to give something like this a shot, drop me a line, and I'd be delighted to point you towards some great online resources on theatre games, and suggest some "rules" that essentially guarantee your volunteers create a winning scene on the second try.