It feels good to have bench strength. That thought occured to me this morning as I was in the middle of writing a proposal to do a brand audit for a large organization. My bench strength comes from my partners: companies and individuals I work with regularly to deliver expert advice on everything from market research to how well your web services are performing. They complement my skills and experience in issues management, public relations and marketing.

Brand audits are useful exercises to go through from time to time. They force you to take a critical look at your organization, how it is communicating and how it is perceived. So when should you hire someone to conduct a brand audit? (And you should always outsource this to ensure you’re getting an objective report.) Here are some signs that may indicate you need an audit:

• Your market share for a product or service has started to slide.
• You see evidence that you’re not reaching your target market (ie. you see grey hair in your store when you want to see pink!).
• Your industry has experienced a major technological change recently (and whose hasn’t, come to think of it?).
• One of your product lines seems out of step with the rest of your organization.
• You are about to enter a brand new market.
• You haven’t changed your marketing since 1995.

A brand or communications audit will take a critical look at what you have been doing, why and where it’s been succeeding and failing. Using quantitative and qualitative data, a good brand audit will start with your organization’s core purpose and values. It should investigate your business goals and then turn a trained eye on your strategy and tactics.

Audits should also make effective use of research. That may mean a combination of focus groups and surveys… and it most certainly should include analyzing how people are reaching you online. How do they find your site? Where do they go once they’re there? What’s your conversion rate?

In the end, a good audit should be therapeutic. It should give you a diagnosis of your current challenges, explain how you got to where you are today, and prescribe solutions for the future. It takes courage to call for one, but that’s a sign of a leader, isn’t it?

Adam Dooley.

WINNIPEG, May 22, 2008 — Adam Dooley, president of Dooley Communications, finished his term as president of CPRS Manitoba yesterday, capping a highly successful two year presidency which saw the chapter launch the Manitoba Communicator of the Year award, host a well-attended conference and more than double its membership.

“It was my privilege to be president during a time when we had excellent and energetic boards of directors,” said Dooley. “I’m very proud of the things we accomplished during my term and I look forward to contributing to the chapter as past president as well.”

Last year, CPRS Manitoba hosted its first professional development conference in more than decade. It attracted registrants from around the country and received very positive feedback for those who attended. This year, for its 50th anniversary, the chapter launched the inaugural Manitoba Communicator of the Year award to recognize excellence in communications.

“It’s more important than ever to have good, solid communications strategies today,” said Dooley. “It’s high time we recognize that contemporary business, government and non-profit organizations can’t survive without well developed and well executed communications and public relations plans.”

Dooley Communications offers strategic public relations and corporate communications services to businesses, government agencies and non-profits. Services include media training, communications audits, event management and the production of a wide variety of communications materials from print to web.

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CPRS Manitoba had its annual general meeting yesterday at which a new board was elected with John Hamilton as president. That means my two year term is up and I move into the pasture of past presidency. I really enjoyed my time as president of CPRS Manitoba and I know the organization will do very well in the future. Here’s my report to members:

President’s Report

Adam Dooley, president

This year is the 50th anniversary of CPRS Manitoba and I’m pleased to report that the chapter is stronger than ever before with a growing membership, a healthy bank account and very bright prospects for the future.

Last year at this time we were coming off the success of our On the Verge conference, ready to take on new challenges to keep our momentum going as one of the fastest growing and most innovative chapters in the country. Since then, we’ve continued to increase our membership, our financial position grew even stronger and we launched the first ever Manitoba Communicator of the Year award to celebrate excellence in communications.

The Communicator of the Year award was the centerpiece of our 50th anniversary celebrations. Awarded during a luncheon in February this year, the award attracted an outstanding field of nominees and deserved attention to both our chapter and to our profession. Our inaugural winners were Gail Asper and Kim Jasper who together lead the communications efforts for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The museum promises to be our province’s crown jewel, cementing Canada’s place in the global community as a centre for peace, tolerance and multiculturalism. I can’t imagine a better choice for our inaugural award.

Our chapter is very well positioned for more growth as it embarks on its next 50 years. The role of communications continues to rise in importance in public, private and non-profit sectors, and CPRS Manitoba is helping to advance the profession and the professionals who work in it.

2007-08 Objectives

Our goals for the year remained consistent with years past. First and foremost, we wanted to continue to demonstrate that CPRS Manitoba is the leading organization for public relations and communications professionals in the province. The principal way we have aimed to achieve this goal is by delivering value to our members by providing quality professional development events, by employing good member communications, and by being promoting the added value of being members of the national CPRS.

In addition to the Communicator of the Year Award, our chapter ran a highly successful and well-attended series of luncheons, staged a professional development seminar, and built on already solid relationships with our province’s two main public relations education programs at Red River College and the University of Winnipeg.

We reach out to Red River and the U of W by providing scholarships to each program’s top PR student. We also invite PR students to sit on our board of directors and act as liaison between their schools and CPRS. This is the third year in a row that our student directors organized a special event to bring senior CPRS members into the classroom so students have a chance to learn from their professional experiences.

We also made a few furtive steps to reach out to communications professionals outside of Winnipeg. It is my hope that the contacts we’ve made will in the years to come blossom into more activities and a growing membership from outside the perimeter highway.

Our board of directors continues to make improvements to our member communications with a high quality newsletter, regular email bulletins and our website. We have also been actively participating on committees at the national level, helping pave the way for new professional development opportunities, better national programs and a new national job bank.

Chapter sponsorships

We could not have staged last year’s conference or the Communicator of the Year luncheon without the generous support of our sponsors. Both Marketwire and CNW Group have been enthusiastic supporters of our chapter and I thank them for their support and for the leadership they are each showing in Canadian public relations circles.

I’m also pleased to note that Marketwire has agreed to return in 2009 as title sponsor of the Communicator of the Year award. At the same time, our chapter continues to enjoy warm relations with CNW Group and we look forward to working with it on future events as well.

Awards

I was very pleased to accept two major awards on behalf of CPRS Manitoba at the national CPRS conference in Edmonton last June. We received an award for membership growth for chapters under 75 members. We also received the Lectern Award which is given to the Member Society demonstrating the greatest advancement in its purpose and goals through membership growth, meeting attendance, development of Member Society sponsored educational programs, initiation of PR for PR activities, and growth in accreditation. Together both awards brought us $1,500. Your board decided to use that money to help celebrate our 50th anniversary, first with the staging of the Communicator of the Year Award and also by offering free luncheon passes to members.

Looking ahead

The last two years as President have been very satisfying professionally and personally. I was privileged to be at the head of the table during a time of great growth and success for our chapter. Our finances are stronger than ever; we have more members than ever; and we are fulfilling our role as the premier professional association for Manitoba communicators better than ever.

The main reason for this success has been our board. This chapter has been graced with successive boards of great skill, dedication and energy. None of our success would be possible without their tireless efforts. They deserve our chapter’s thanks and will always have my highest esteem. Thanks go to each member of this year’s board for their great support and industry:

Brenda Jasper, Vice-President
Adele Stevens, Past President
John Hamilton, Treasurer
Siobhan Kari, Secretary
Shawna Forester, Membership
Everett Martin, Communications
Breanne Talbot, Communications
Lee Crawford, Programming
Pam Gramiak, Programming
Jennifer Verch, Professional Development
Terry Aseltine, Accreditation
Linda Warkentin, Student Director, University of Winnipeg

Finally, I thank our members for their support during my tenure as President. I have enjoyed my term immensely in large part thanks to all of you. I like our chats at our luncheons and have always appreciated the encouraging emails and phone calls that came my way. I look forward to maintaining the relationships begun here at CPRS in the years to come.

I also look forward to what the future holds for our chapter. The incoming board, led by John Hamilton, is filled with a good mix of veterans and new faces, all of whom will bring their considerable skills and experiences to work for our mutual benefit. I wish them the best of luck and know our chapter is in excellent hands.

What have you done for them lately? 

When even the human resources managers are griping, you know you have a morale problem. That’s just the case at the City of Winnipeg according to the city auditor (Mass retirements expected to hit city, Winnipeg Free Press, May 7, 2008) and it doesn’t appear that it’s going to change any time soon.

A vibrant, energetic workplace needs leaders to provide a vision for the future and to give direction on how the organization will achieve that vision. I don’t know if Mayor Sam Katz has that vision or not, but I do know he and the senior bureaucrats at the city are doing very little to communicate it.

In fact, the City of Winnipeg has done the opposite by gutting its corporate communication function in recent years. In 2004, there were more than 20 people working in communications for the city. Today, there are four.

Morale is not solely dictated by the skill of your corporate communications activities, but employing good communications practices is one important way that successful organizations get their employees moving every morning. Business objectives should be distilled into concrete messages that organizations repeat until they become part of their corporate cultures. Long range goals need to be broken down into increments and milestones celebrated along the way.

Don’t let your employees start asking what have you done for me lately? Tell them what you’ve done; tell them what you will be doing; and tell them why you’re all doing it together.

If you have a highly motivated workforce, then I’d bet dollars to doughnuts you have strong corporate leaders and an active and accomplished corporate communications department. Part of the job of communications and public relations is to emphasize the key goals of an organization and to persuade people of the importance of those goals. Our tools for internal communications are Intranets, email, department meetings, special events, videos and even the lowly corporate newsletter. Today, we’re also seeing progressive use of blogs and chat rooms within workplaces to help ensure problems are resolved and that everyone is marching towards the same goals.

But if you don’t have anybody working in communications, you don’t get those things done. Workers are left wondering what’s going on. Nobody knows what the goals are. Programs flounder. Policies are ignored. No success stories are highlighted. No milestones are celebrated. All of that invariably creates a vacuum into which steps low morale.

In the city’s case, its decision to slash its roster of communications personnel means that taxpayers have been left in the same situation: no one is telling them what’s going on. Important programs are left under-promoted and poorly explained. Complaints multiply and staff morale plummets further.

I am not saying that communications is a salve for all wounds, or that it can create well-oiled workplaces all on its own. You need substance behind policies and you need credibility behind announcements. Imaginative and well-executed communications campaigns are tools that make sure good policies are supported, announcements are welcomed and, ultimately, visions are achieved.

The City should be a place of high morale. It should be a place where people are proud to work. As a starter it would be nice if the city began to see communications for what it is: a vital component of the organization. Then maybe it could start reminding its employees about some of the good things it does – and there are many. Perhaps a little bit of optimism might creep in. But then, you need a communications department to do that.

Adam Dooley. 

The Winnipeg Free Press ran an interesting article yesterday about a Queens University professor’s efforts to develop ”spin detecting” software. The professor, David Skillicorn, is working on software tools that will detect ’spin’ by measuring the level of political rhetoric. 

Ultimately, Skillicorn says he wants to use the tool to detect terrorists and other nefarious people who are trying to hide their true goals from the rest of us. In the meantime, he’s testing it on politicians such as Stephen Harper, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Of those three, Harper scores the lowest on the ’spin-o-meter’ because of his propensity to use short, first person direct sentences. McCain’s famous straight talk also scores well. Clinton rates in the middle and Obama is rated as having the highest level of rhetoric.

Funny then, that Harper is almost universally cited in Canadian media circles as untrustworthy and Obama is credited by much of the United States as being nothing short of the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.

This tells me that speech writing is only one part of the equation when it comes to generating credibility and trust. Speechmaking is equally (or even more) important. Keep this in mind whenever you’re getting ready to give a big speech or if you’re just preparing for an interview. The best presentations are practiced over and over again before the speaker takes the stage or the cameras are turned on.

Skillicorn’s ’spin-o-meter’ also tells me just how poorly he (and many others) regard rhetoric. Rhetorical tools improve communication, they don’t impair it. I wonder, for instance, just how well Lincoln’s Gettysburg address would score in Skillicorn’s software. I suspect it would rate very poorly. What a shame. If only Skillicorn could develop tools to detect sophistry and empty promises, then he’d be on to something. 

Adam Dooley