Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Even the blarney business can’t keep a straight face

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I always laughed at IABC and PRSA's accreditation programs, with their secret tests purporting to prove passers proficient to practice … public relations. It was amusing, listening to "Accredited Business Communicators" gas on about how much they learned about themselves from the process of studying for the test, and so forth.

But now that PRSA's APR program seems on the wane and IABC has suspended its ABC accreditation program altogether, I suddenly see the value in having some common standard of excellence—even if the "common" part of that phrase is more important than the "excellence."

In an industry as nebulous as communication, it's crucial to have, if not common tests, at least common texts. Communicators used to subscribe to trade publications, and have some regular reading in common. I worked for some of those publications, at Ragan Communications.

When I started at Ragan—a few years before anyone heard of the Internet—we published two kinds of newsletters:

1. Trade publications for PR people—The Ragan Report, Speechwriters Newsletter, Editor's Workshop Newsletter, Corporate Annual Report Newsletter and even a desperately dreary one called Techniques for the Benefits Communicator.

These weekly or monthly eight- and 12-pagers were filled with interviews with leaders in the business, case studies about successful communication campaigns, essays by top practitioners and survey stories that asked various communicators to weigh in on important issues and problems in the business. The editors of these publications were serious about their work, and performed to the accepted standards of journalistic integrity. And if people canceled their subscriptions or complained to our publisher about our critical coverage, it was tough shit for them, because this was serious business. It had to be, to command hundreds of dollars for a subscription, as these newsletters did.

2. "Tips newsletters" full of cleverly written commonsense ideas for middle manager types. With names like Manager's Intelligence Report and The Working Communicator, these publications offered bulleted lists of tips, like: "At a cocktail party, hold your drink in your left hand so that when you meet someone your shaking-hand is warm and dry." To a one, the publisher, the marketer and the editor of every one of these publications were cynical about the purpose and contemptuous of the audience, which they saw as faceless masses of fools who believed that wisdom and competence could be achieved by merely compiling tips from sharpers like us.

Within a decade, the Internet had all but eliminated those cheap, silly tips newsletters.

And within 15 years, it eliminated the expensive, serious trade newsletters, too.

And what's left? A limp combination of both. A website that purports to offer "news and ideas for communicators," but really only offers generic tips that sound much like The Working Communicator (and worse). One day this month, here were the headlines at Ragan.com:

"The Winnie-the-Pooh guide to social media"

"6 secrets to create a powerful LinkedIn summary"

"8 foods that PR people should avoid"

"What communicators can learn from farmers"

"5 ways to make your brand sound human online"

"12 quotes about readers to inspire writers"

"The craziest excuses employees use to call in sick"

And so on. The only article approaching a case study was a thing on how a pizza chain "deftly" responded when a nude photo of a woman was uploaded to its Facebook contest for children. And what was this "deft" response? They immediately pulled the photo down and issued a corporate apology: "We were disappointed last night to see a shocking photo in our Mini Monsters contest …."

We don't need a trade publisher to tell us to do that any more than companies need to hire a professional communicator to do that.

I'm not criticizing Ragan; I'm assuming Ragan.com editors are watching traffic patterns and serving their readers what their readers like to eat.

But here's the question that tortures my afternoon naps: When everything is bullshit, who will pay the bullshitters?

What was your happiest moment as a communicator?

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The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, gives more speeches per year than I do, and I'm counting the ones I give to my daughter.

Four writers help with his speeches. They all sit a one row of cubicles, with two assistants right around the corner. I spent time with them last week before my talk. A more congenial crew I have never met. Three men and three women, all sophisticated, thoughtful, hard-working, funny, candid—and, apparently, happy.

Actually, more than apparently. I actually asked a couple of them them. Yes. They are happy. They each can rattle off the particular strengths of the others, and though I'm sure they're aware of one anothers' weaknesses too, they don't seem at all inclined to dwell on them. The work itself means too much to them to waste time infighting. And the work—which occasionally involves all-night writing sessions on trips around the world with the Secretary General—is demanding and usually stimulating too.

"Everybody," said David Simpson, whose (wonderful) title is First Officer of the Speechwriting Unit of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, "is on top of their game."

The whole thing almost—almost—made me want to work in an office again.

More importantly, it got me thinking about times in my career when work has been play.

But there were a few stretches at Ragan: When I took over as editor of the weekly Ragan Report, after years as an understudy. And then I became a managing editor there, thrilled to teach the young kids all the skills that I'd learned only a few years before. I was happy when I went off on my own and found myself writing communication commentaries one day, reporting magazine stories the next. And these days, come to think of it, as I write and speak about communication, saying and writing things that could only have come from a son of my writer mother and adman father, I'm pretty happy too.

There have also been down years in there, of course. Times at Ragan when I wanted to leave but couldn't figure out where else in the world that eccentric place had prepared me to work. (Happily, the answer was, "anyplace.") Times later in my freelance career when I realized with great anxiety and sadness that some of the journalism that I once felt privileged to do, didn't even stimulate me anymore. And times all along the way when I allowed myself to think: Goddamn, this world demands a lot of energy from its workers. And wonder, about that energy: Do I have enough?

This is all a way of asking you to tell me: What was the best stretch of your career? And remembering how good you felt then—how might you go about feeling that way again?

Employee communicators are more liberal than PR people

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That's the crux of an argument I made a few years ago in a column in Ragan's now-defunct Journal of Employee Communication Management.

Wanting to rerun the column at Ragan.com, Ragan editors asked me if I stood by the sentiment.

Sure, I said.

Actually, I wasn't sure at all.

But I was interested in the debate.

Have a read and weigh in here or there.