Rob Cottingham

Category: Communicating

  • Waaaay off-message

    The big issue right now in U.S. federal politics is the future of social security. (Everything you want to know about how this is shaking down is covered diligently at Talking Points Memo.)

    The Republican mantra as they plan to privatize large swaths of the program has been that it’s the only way to save Social Security.

    So listen to the chant by Young Republicans serenading Senator Rick Santorum… and ask yourself if Karl Rove isn’t banging his head on his wall today. (Or an assistant’s head — Rove’s an extrovert.) (Get the details on the incident here if you don’t have time to download the video. All this by way of TPM.)

    The lesson for Americans: Young Republicans sure don’t think the Bush plan is about saving Social Security.

    And the lesson for spin doctors: your allies can blow you off-message just as surely as your opponents.

  • Damage control: how to do it

    Not 24 hours after a media spitstorm, Her Excellency comes out smelling like a rose… and shows the rest of us how to handle a bad-news day. Here’s how:

    • She responded immediately, and made herself available: “Hearing the story on CBC Radio Thursday morning, Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson called to give her view of the events.”
    • She stated her position in clear, simple terms: “‘Anyone who comes to this house is welcome to ask a question. There’s no such thing as an inappropriate question … There’s only inappropriate answers,’ she told CBC Radio.”
    • She showed transparency and generosity: “Clarkson has invited Patfield and his father back to Rideau Hall for tea, and promises to answer his questions.”
    • She took action to address the problem: “Clarkson said she’s talked to staff about the incident. ‘We will make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ she said.”

    The result: the story’s protagonist, Grade 8 student Jeremy Patfield, tells the media, “She sounds like an awesome person. So down to earth. So kind.” Hard to think of a better-case scenario.

    True, not like every bad-news story can be defused with a cup of tea and a friendly chat …although that’s the case more often than you might think. But next time you’re hip-deep in headline hell, you could do a lot worse than to ask yourself what Adrienne Clarkson would do.

  • The dreaded “send” button

    By way of the transplanted (and much-missed) Erin, the tragic story of a spin doctor, a Blackberry and two naughty words.

  • How not to handle a screw-up

    You might want to think twice before booking with Jetsgo, if Penney Kome’s tale of stranded passengers at Pearson is any indication:

    Other airlines called in more staff (and presumably paid overtime wages) to respond to the crisis. Not only did Jetsgo lack crew members for its plane, it had hardly anybody on the desk to deal with the throngs of angry passengers.

    Worse, there was nobody answering phones at headquarters. Jetsgo is accessible only by a 1-800 number. Re-book? Return? The Jetsgo website is not equipped for those tasks. It is necessary to talk with a real live person. The only contact my family members heard from real live Jetsgo staff was a brave staff person who finally came out and told the waiting passengers that the flight was cancelled, and that they should leave and phone the airline the next day to rebook. Then she fled in tears.

    I’ve had similar experiences — for example, when an entire flight’s luggage goes astray. Hours go by without a word from anyone in authority while tempers rise and patience evaporates.

    There’s actually a lesson here for communications pros as well as discount airlines: don’t run from your screw-ups. Pratfalls happen, sometimes because of something you did or failed to do, sometimes because of factors completely outside your control.

    Screw-ups are a chance to earn back a customer’s trust and a voter’s allegiance. Had Jetsgo sucked up a little overtime, they could have earned a place in passengers’ hearts as the airline that moved heaven and earth to get them where they were going, even if it was hours or days late.

    And similarly, a politician or organization can earn a reputation for integrity and directness — not to mention the trust you generate when you own up to a mistake and then correct it.

    Either way, half the battle lies in communicating what’s happened and what you’re doing to fix it.

    Unfortunately, the first instinct most organizations have when something goes wrong is to sever the lines of communication. That IBM ad a few years ago captured it perfectly: two IT guys realize they’ve screwed up; their phones start ringing madly; one asks, “What do we do?” and the other says “Lock… the… doors.”

    So politicians vanish behind tight-lipped spokespeople, corporations issue terse “no comment” statements, airlines leave stranded passengers to their own devices… and the story that gains momentum is the error, not the correction.

    I hope StraightGoods runs a good distance with this story. Apart from the sheer karmic satisfaction of seeing Jetsgo suffer a little for the hell they put passengers through, it might actually teach them something about damage control.

  • Come one, come all

    The as-yet-not-really-confirmed trend of post-Enlightenment Americans flocking across the Canadian border may yet translate into a real flow of traffic if the folks at CanadianAlternative.com get their way.

    The site promotes the Canadian advantage in Medicare, foreign policy, environmental sanity, human rights, drug policy and more.

    It’s not that they’re actually trying to provoke a mass U.S. exodus:

    This site is not meant to provoke a wave of immigration from the US. We strongly encourage progressive Americans to stay in America and keep working on important issues. However, many of our American friends are considering moving to Canada and have been asking for information on the immigration process. Our goal with this site is to provide useful information on how to settle in Canada, what life is like here, and why we love it so much.

    Created by the fine minds at Communicopia, the site is a bracing antidote to the torrent of business-lobby commentary you can expect in the run-up to the next budget cycle, most of which will boil down to a plea for importing regressive American tax policy. Me, I’d much rather import progressive Americans.

  • Speechwriting: the next generation

    Just got a message from a public relations student asking me for advice on a speechwriting career. I resisted the competition-stifling urge to invent some dire reason why she should go into some other field (“You’re very brave, given all that media hysteria about Speechwriter Syndrome. If you ask me, it’s way overblown – I hardly even miss my pancreas. What’s that? Why, yes, polling can be an even more lucrative field. No thanks needed; happy to be of help.”) and instead offered the following, which I’m posting in case anyone else finds it useful:

    The single best advice I can offer on speechwriting is to do it. Find volunteer opportunities to write speeches: community agencies that are making presentations to city council, a parents’ advisory committee that wants to appear before the school board, whatever grabs you. Start small, with speeches that are maybe five or six minutes long, and then work your way up to longer ones.

    There are all sorts of books on speechwriting, some of them great (Peggy Noonan’s first book, the title of which escapes me — I think it may be “On Speaking Well” — is wonderful, even if she does come from the opposite side of the political spectrum from me) and some of them less so. (Avoid anything with the words “1,000 Great Jokes For Wedding Toasts” in the title.) There are also some great resources online, such as the American Rhetoric site.

    But there’s nothing like reading and, ideally, listening to great speeches to really hone your craft. Check out Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama‘s addresses to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Martin Luther King, Aung Sun Suu Kyi and others. There’s also the terrific Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches and Dennis Gruending’s Great Canadian Speeches.

    My writing tips, in skeletal format: keep your sentences short and simple. Vary your pace for focus, emphasis and variety. Use humour freely. Parallel structure and groups of three (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) are your friends. Cliches aren’t. Set out at the outset what your speech will entail, and give at least an implied outline, with subtle cues along the way so your audience knows how far they are from the end and the bathroom. Concrete examples, visual images, conflict and drama will all trump statistics, but a carefully-chosen compelling number can still help make your case. End with some kind of call to action, whether it’s simply to consider what’s been said or to storm the Legislature with torches and pitchforks. And begin and end with a needle-sharp focus on your message: exactly what it is your speaker wants to say, wants the audience to believe, and wants the media to report.

  • Where I’ll be this weekend

    The International Association of Political Consultants is holding its world conference this weekend here in Vancouver, hosted by my amigos at NOW Communications.

    Should be an interesting time. I’ll try to resist the urge to buttonhole every American I trip over – “How in hell did Kerry lose? Tell me! Tell meeee!!” – and instead try to get a sense of what’s happening in other parts of the world.

  • Fast, Cheap and Not Yet On the Air

    Errol Morris, the film-maker who gave us The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control — and turned Ellen Feiss into an icon for people switching to Apple — has now posted a series of campaign ads for MoveOn.

    If you caught Ellen or any of the other switchers, you’ll recognize the style. Real people who voted for Bush in 2000 explain why they’re voting for Kerry in 2004. Quite apart from the politics, there’s something eerily compelling about watching everyday people explain how they came to a particular voting decision.

    Not that these folks haven’t been selected for their congruence with the overall Kerry message, of course. But they still have an unrehearsed spontaneity that’s rare in the increasingly stage-managed world of election campaigns. Be sure to have a gander. (All clips are in — you’ll be shocked to hear this — Apple Quicktime format.)

  • Insolent swine!

    Just watching The Last Samurai on DVD. One of the samurai warriors who have captured Tom Cruise’s character has just barked “Insolent swine!” at him.

    The writer must be especially adept at stifling his gag reflex to have penned a line like that. (So far, nobody has shouted “After him, you fools!” But it may just be a matter of time. This is, after all, the guy who may have killed Star Trek’s movie franchise for a generation with “Nemesis.”) I hope he wrote it reluctantly after a studio executive insisted on the line in a script note.

    Then again, sooner or later, anyone who writes for money probably has to fall back on an “Insolent swine!” or two sooner or later. I’ve written my share of “Let me be clear” and “It’s great to be back here in insert name of city here!” lines in speeches. And I’d like to say I’ll never write another one, but I’m not sure that isn’t a promise I won’t break. (Much like my pledge years ago to avoid triple negatives.)

    Not on purpose. It’s just that when a deadline is looming, and “Let me be clear” or “Insolent swine” comes more easily to mind than “Four score and seven years ago,” well… let’s just say the fight against mediocrity demands eternal vigilance.

  • Blatant self-promotion

    You never know when somebody on the other side of the spectrum (waaaaaay on the other side) might take notice. (Scroll down to “Canada Votes, Day 3”.)

    Sure, I disagree with him on the issues. But jimminy, the guy’s written for a U.S. president. So he’s gotta know something about speechwriting, no?

  • Radio Free Rob

    Ever wondered what happens when you get three speechwriters from three different parties in a room together? (Pretend for a moment that the answer is “Gosh, yes.”)

    CBC Radio’s smashing morning show The Current did just that today, with yours truly holding up the NDP end.

    I liked the other two folks. We were all a little guarded in our responses to some of Anna Maria’s questions; answering “What’s the best line you’ve ever written?” raises certain professional issues, after all. (Esprit d’escalier: My favourite line should have been “It’s a pleasure to be with you today.” I could have claimed ownership of that sucker and demanded royalties.)

    Hear for yourself what transpired here.

  • Just a guess: you’ll never see these ads

    A fearless prediction: at least one of the two Liberal attack ads featured on the front page of the Globe and Mail yesterday will never appear again.

    It’s the ad attacking Stephen Harper for urging Canada to jump into the war in Iraq. And it’s just plain indefensible — not because it’s inaccurate (it isn’t) but because it’s stunningly hypocritical.

    Here’s the ad:

    “In 2003, Stephen Harper urged Canada to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” the on-screen text reads as the sound of machine-gun fire and fighter jets plays in the background.
    “He said, ‘There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein operates programs to produce weapons of mass destruction.’
    “Oops.
    “If Stephen Harper was prime minister last year, Canadians would be in Iraq this year,” it reads.
    “Choose wisely. Choose Paul Martin and the Liberals.”

    Yuh-huh. Now here’s Paul Martin a year ago:

    “I don’t think there is any doubt about just how evil Saddam Hussein is. I don’t think there is any doubt, if there ever was — and certainly there was none as a result of the discoveries of last week — that he does have weapons of mass destruction.” (National Post, March 7, 2003, page A7)

    As the ad says, “Oops.” And here’s Martin’s shiny new defence minister, David Pratt, back when he was just another Martin supporter sniping at Jean Chr?©tien from the back benches:

    “We were prepared to say, ‘If the UN doesn’t approve military action in Iraq then we’re not going.’ I think that’s an abdication of national responsibility.” (Ottawa Citizen, January 15, 2003, page A1)

    “We seem to bend over backwards to differentiate ourselves from the Americans on international issues… What right to do we have to make any criticisms of American foreign policy when we don’t accept the costs of pulling our weight?” (Kingston Whig-Standard, January 17, 2003, page 10)

    “I think it’s unfortunate that this is the first time where the Australians and the British and the Americans have been involved in a conflict that we haven’t as Canadians.” (Edmonton Journal, March 24, 2003, page A4)

    None of this is to say that Harper isn’t being particularly weaselesque as he now tries to make the case that, yes, he wanted Canada to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq but heavens, no, he didn’t mean by committing troops.

    “I was thinking more like sending, you know, muffins and cookies and letters saying ‘Attaboy,’” Harper now says. “Or self-esteem-boosting audiobooks, slenderizing mirrors, mugs that say ‘World’s Greatest Sole Remaining Superpower’ — you know.” (Well, okay, no he didn’t. But hell, if he can reinvent his positions on the fly, I can too.)

    In fact, here’s what Stockwell Day — Harper’s foreign affairs critic — had to say a year ago:

    Canadian Troops Must Join Allies in Gulf
    More Canadian troops should now head to region to help enforce UN resolution, disarm Saddam

    OTTAWA – Canadian Alliance Foreign Affairs Critic Stockwell Day called on the government to deploy Canadian forces to the Persian Gulf to help enforce United Nations resolution 1441.

    “Canada must work with the multilateral coalition of the willing to help enforce the consequences if Saddam continues to defy the United Nations resolution,” said Mr. Day. “It is time for Canada to show its support for the United Nations disarmament process, by deploying greater forces to the region, along with our allies including Britain and Australia.”

    “Saddam has shown he will not disarm unless under the threat of serious consequences. If Canada is truly committed to his disarmament, we will be part of enforcing those consequences.”

    Moral outrage and astonishment aside, here’s what amazes me about seeing this unfold:

    Who in the punditocracy would have thought last year that opposing Canada’s participation in the war in Iraq would turn out to be such highly desireable political real estate today?