Beyond a Reasonable Doubt?

I don’t know… I’ve been seeing a little of the apparent outrage over the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial. To be honest, I’ve avoided a lot of it. I didn’t follow the trial so I really don’t have an opinion one way or another about her, but clearly she is a polarizing figure.

What does bother me is the vitriol that has been leveled at the jury for coming back with a “not guilty” verdict even though many of them have said that reaching that conclusion upset them. I believe one even said that she felt sick to her stomach.

The jury in this case does not deserve the lambasting and name calling that they’ve received. I, for one, applaud them.

Why?

Because the job of a jury is to evaluate the evidence presented to them by the prosecution and the defense. To evaluate that evidence fairly and without personal bias, and decide if guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If it has not – if there is a question as to a defendant’s guilt – then a jury must vote to acquit. They cannot – at least they should not – render a verdict based on their own gut feelings.

Maybe Casey is guilty, maybe she isn’t. The only one who really knows is Casey herself. If she did kill her daughter, then I don’t think the justice system failed. I think the prosecution failed to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof rests with the prosecution (and I’m not particularly impressed with the prosecutor – he lost most of my respect with the “snickering at the defense” incident. Seriously? Try to be a little professional. Perhaps then there might have been a different outcome.).

However, I digress… If she is guilty, then I believe that she will get what is coming to her in whatever afterlife she believes in. And if she is not, then all of those who are still accusing her will need to answer for that.

But stop slamming the jury. They did their job the way the law intended them to do it. They should be thanked for their service even if you don’t agree with their conclusion.

You’re Unemployable

I was skipping through some headlines while I was online today and – since I am in the job hunt – one caught my eye. It was titled “10 Things HR Won’t Tell  You About Your Resume.” Most of the time, these are pretty generic lists but I figured, why not? Maybe there will be a tip that will be helpful.

When I got to number 1 on the list, I got offended. A woman by the name of Cynthia Shapiro, a former HR exec and author, had this to say: “Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered pretty much unemployable. We assume that other people have already passed you over, so we don’t want anything to do with you.”

Wow.

I have to wonder how many great people Ms. Shapiro and her minions overlooked because of this narrow-minded, elitist and – frankly – unfounded view?

There could be a number of reasons someone took more than six months to find a job. The economy stinks, for starters. Maybe they took some time off to go to school and get an MBA or other degree. Maybe they have a limited geographical area or cannot relocate. Maybe they’re in a specialized field that doesn’t have a lot of openings.

In Ms. Shapiro’s defense, I’m sure there are some people who do fall into the category of “unemployable,” but to paint everyone with that broad brush is unfair and unprofessional.

I am beyond six months in my job hunt. Should I give up? Clearly by Ms. Shapiro’s standards I’m no good for anything. But she’s wrong. I have a great skill set and a lot to offer a company when the right opportunity comes up.

I will find another job, but I can guarantee you one thing:

There’s no way I’m working for Ms. Shapiro.

Vicious Circle

Okay. I’m well aware that I’m not the only one looking for a job. I get that. I get that the competition is fierce and employers have the luxury of being very, very picky. They can pick a candidate who really does match every item on the job description.

I have many years of experience in an internal communications role and – unfortunately – many of the roles I am interested in are in corporate communications groups, and they want you to have media or PR experience. This is something I just don’t have. In my old company Internal Comm was in HR, and PR was in Marketing. I hear now that they are combining the groups. Doesn’t do me much good now.

I also take responsibility for not putting as much variety into my career as I could have. That’s on me and I’ve learned my lesson. No one in a corp comm function wants someone who only has internal comm experience. Non-profits don’t want me because I’ve never worked in the non-profit sector. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested because I don’t have healthcare or science experience.

I won’t bore you by continuing the list; you get the picture.

Right now, I’m working on my Master’s Degree in Communications Management. I’ve taken several classes about PR and PR management and Public Affairs… I understand the fundamentals. I also know that an academic understanding is not the same as real-world, professional experience. So, I need a role that will give me that experience.

So, I have been sucked into a vicious circle: I can’t get a job without the experience, and I can’t get the experience without the job.

Anyone else out there swirling in the vortex with me? What do you think?

Hollywood Has Nothing To Fear From Me

I am not the reincarnation of Federico Fellini.

I learned that very quickly this week as I attempted to create a documentary for my Public Affairs class in conjunction with Campus MovieFest. For those of you who don’t know what CMF is: it is the largest student film festival in the country. If you participate, they loan you a video camera, Apple laptop, tripod and send you on your way. You have five days to create, shoot, and edit a five-minute video.

The first thing I learned? Well, relearned. When faced with a new situation, I have a small freak-out before I can settle down and focus on what I need to get done. It is just how I am wired. After shooting my footage (and discovering that some was unusable), I found myself lying awake in bed, wonder what the <expletive deleted> I was thinking when I signed up for this project.

But, as I lay awake in the dark, fretting, I finally came up with Plan B.

But back to what I learned about making this movie.

Lesson 2: The wind is not my friend. One person I interviewed on a windy day. I figured the microphone would pick up some of the wind, but I had NO idea how loud it would really sound (sub-lesson here, remember your headphones). It was so bad, I couldn’t use the footage.

Lesson 3: I can take good photographs of horses, but video? Not so much. I thought I got some good footage of the horses, but because they’re dynamic, active animals, I had a lot of trouble with the zoom. Minor lesson, but I definitely need to practice.

Lesson 4: Being a team of one is tough. It is really hard to worry about the interview questions, listen to the person’s answer, worry about the camera image, worry about the audio, and keep an eye on the time. In my past professional life, I’ve gone on shoots but I’ve had a crew to help me with the audio and video parts. I always appreciated how good they were at their jobs, but now I have a much deeper understanding of how much they helped me.

I could go on with the lessons, but then I wouldn’t have much to add to my class debrief… but despite the stress and some of the hard lessons, I’m really glad I participated in this!

Promoting Understanding With Student Exchanges

I read a very interesting article for my Public Affairs class: “Applied Public Diplomacy: A Marketing Communications Exchange Program in Saudi Arabia” by Craig Hayden.

The article reviewed the an exchange program where students from the United States worked with students from Saudi Arabia to create a marketing communications plan to promote a Formula 1 boat racing event. I found a couple of things particularly interesting about this program.

First, I liked how the students were able to come to a deeper cultural understanding of each other through their efforts on the marketing program. Having the cultural understanding be an underpinning for success and not the overt goal of the program went – in my opinion – a long way to making the program a success. This is the kind of grassroots diplomacy that will be particularly effective in promoting cross-cultural understanding and cooperation.

The other thing I enjoyed about the article was learning more about how the Internet played a role in breaking down some of the barriers to understanding. The students interacted several times online before actually working together in person.

While some people may feel the Internet is impersonal, it also provides a safe forum for communication. The lack of visual clues makes it easier for people of different cultures to converse. Understanding comes from written communication only, and it also promotes “listening.” You can’t carry on a coherent online conversation if you’re not reading what the other people are saying, if you aren’t “hearing” them.

How much different would our world be from a perspective of cross-cultural communication if this type of program was replicated across the globe?

The “R” Word

In my Public Affairs class last night we talked quite a bit about relationships – the “R” word – and their importance in the whole PR/PA arena. It is also something that’s come up in the other reading and research I’ve done.

When I interviewed my former manager, Karen, she pointed out that she’s had to do a tremendous amount of relationship-building with fellow professionals and with politicians in order to really feel like she is accomplishing something through her office’s advocacy efforts. When I interviewed Mass. State Senator Brewer, he talked about the way social media has changed the types of relationships he has with his constituents.

Relationships surround us every waking moment. We have them with friends, family, colleagues, teachers. We even have them with our pets. Because they surround us so completely, it might be easy to take them for granted but we can’t do that. These relationships help us navigate through the world, through life.

Embrace the “R” word.

Make sure you’re paying attention to all of your relationships, whether they are personal or professional. Keep your current ones active… and maybe it is time to revive a few. Who out there haven’t you talked to in a while? Drop them an email. Give them a call. Tweet them. Poke them on Facebook.

Do something.

A relationship can’t survive without attention.

Too Much Sharing; Not Enough Thinking

Yesterday, I had a phone conversation with Senator Stephen Brewer of the Mass. State Legislature. I asked him several questions about his perspective on the state of public affairs today as well as about some legislation he is sponsoring.

He characterized the state of public affairs today as acrimonious… a state we’ve reached because of political malfeasance and distrust that goes all the way back to Nixon lying about Watergate and Johnson lying about Viet Nam. The senator noted that “a healthy mistrust of power is important” but once that distrust reaches the point of abject cynicism, then we’ve got a problem because there also needs to be a certain amount of trust in the decisions that government makes.

I also asked him about the influence of social media on public affairs and discourse. Senator Brewer hit on two topics that I’ve mentioned before in other blog posts: the speed by which information is distributed via social media, and the ease of spreading misinformation. He mentioned an old adage: “A rumor can get around the world before the truth even gets out of bed in the morning.”

This completely ties back to our desire to hear the truth, yet our apathy towards actually working to discover what the truth is.

He also noted that “you can vilify an individual very rapidly without a lot of accountability.”  Telling lies and spreading misinformation is nothing new. It has been done throughout history. The practice is not new but the technology we have today – that is the variable. Rumor and innuendo have always been spread but the speed with which those rumors spread today? That’s the game-changing element and all the more reason why we ought to make even more of an effort to understand the truth (or lack thereof) of the messages we are spreading.

I’m guilty of it myself – I’ve forwarded emails, Tweets, and other communications and realized later that I didn’t have the whole story. I’m not proud of it, but I like to think that now I try to be a little more discerning with what I share and what I say.

It would be nice to think that others think before they speak or share as well, but I think I’m in the cynic camp on that one.

Five Questions For Public Service Announcements

I had a really great phone conversation yesterday with Michael Goldsmith. My Public Affairs professor at Emerson suggested I call him because I’m considering doing a public service announcement (PSA) for one of my projects, and Dr. Payne said that Michael would be a great resource.

He gave me a lot of great information, but one thing that stood out were the five questions he recommended you ask yourself about your PSA.

What are they? Well, I’m glad you asked:

Who says so? Will your targeted public know who the spokesperson is? Or will you have to ID them? Credibility is a big factor, and the public can and will assign a level of credibility to your spokesperson. For instance, if your PSA is about a medical topic, you could have a spokesperson from the American Medical Association (AMA) or from a pharmaceutical company. The AMA person will probably be considered more credible by the public.

How do they know? This question ties directly to the “Who says so” question and the idea of credibility. Is the individual an expert in the field? Do they have first-hand knowledge of a situation or event? Or are they someone who was hired for other reasons?

What’s missing? The topics of PSAs are usually complex, but when you’re creating one for television, you only have 30 seconds to tell your story. It will be impossible to put all of your information into the spot. Be aware of what is in your PSA but also what is missing from your PSA. Are you certain that you are presenting your strongest argument?

Did someone change the subject? Keep your goal clear. Often, because the topics covered by a PSA are so complex, you start out trying to make one point, but somewhere in the middle of the spot, you divert onto another point. Make sure you don’t change the subject!

Does it make sense? Look at your PSA as a whole and ask yourself if it makes sense. Is it believable?

Now, believability opens up a whole other can of worms (as they say) because we all have our inherent biases. The PSA may make COMPLETE sense to me but if it runs counterintuitive to your beliefs, then there’s really nothing I can say that will make you believe it. When you come in with an intrinsic bias, nothing will change your mind instantaneously. Beliefs are changed over the course of time – look at the time it took to change public opinion about smoking.

So, when you make your PSA, ask yourself these questions. Do your best with it but understand that you can put the message out there, but you have no control over your audience. Some will believe it, some will not. But if you present a clear and compelling spot, you may help your topic take one more step forward.

More Than Just Skin Deep

“If I’m ever going to be taken seriously, I need to take a much deeper dive into policies and politics.”

This is what an old friend (and former colleague) said to me today when we were on the phone discussing her perspective on public affairs, and it really gave me pause. She went on to say that many times, things seem like good ideas but when you dig deeper, you discover how complex things really are… Sometimes people can’t do that digging, sometimes they won’t do it and it is easier to vilify something than understand its complexity.

But as a public affairs professional, you have a responsibility to be more informed about politics, about policy, and about where funding comes from.

She also brought up several other interesting things that she said which gave me some different perspectives on public affairs…

One of the biggest challenges is balancing stakeholder groups you need to work with and cooperate with.

Seems like that might be a no-brainer, but when Karen mentioned it I realized how difficult that could probably be. Every stakeholder group is not going to have the same needs or priorities, and it may not always be easy to build the cooperation you  need on an issue.

You need to balance public and vocal statements about issues with the times that you need to work quietly and behind the scenes.

It is easy to simply box public affairs with the word “public.” It is easy to interpret that as out in the open, and in many cases it is. But Karen brings up an important point when she mentions behind the scenes work as well. As a PA professional, you’ll need to develop a sense for which is the appropriate method.

It was great to have the chance to catch up with Karen, and also to get her insights on public affairs and what it entails. What I really took away from the conversation was that there is much more nuance involved in public affairs than one may assume when looking in from the outside. I think this information is invaluable for anyone who is considering this area of communications for their professional future.

Does social media help or hurt grassroots advocacy?

We had an interesting speaker in our Public Affairs class this week. Dr. Peter Anderson spoke to us briefly and then fielded some questions. I asked him about social media and grassroots advocacy.

Now, recently I think we’ve seen it in stellar form: the way it was used in the recent uprising and action in Egypt. But at the same time, there is just so much communication going on, I wondered if it could actually hurt grassroots advocacy because it makes it harder and harder to cut through all the noise.

Dr. Anderson seemed to agree that it was an issue. He pointed out that while social media allows information to be transmitted almost immediately, it also opens the door to the fact that rumors and misinformation can spread the same way. In nanoseconds, in fact. And all of this just adds to the noise we’re experiencing in our lives, making it harder to discern the most important – and accurate – information.

As a communicator, what does this mean to you? Well, for starters, I think it makes your job (and mine) harder. But it makes it so much more important that you clearly communicate the critical point of what you’re advocating for… that will cut down on misinterpretation. And make sure that your information is coming from the best sources possible. Don’t go the Fox News route and use the “people say” preface. Tell people WHO says it and make sure that “who” is someone with a high trust factor.

If you’re interested in grassroots advocacy, make sure you understand the mission of the organization you’re supporting. Make sure you know what they are trying to accomplish so that your efforts help that mission, and don’t undermine it by diluting the message and taking attention away from the real cause that’s being advocated for.