Credible Voice in Corporate Blogs and Communications

Cluetrain Thesis #28:
Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

I wrote yesterday that I've clouded the issue of authenticity and transparency in marketing and communications by using the term "authentic voice". There's a distinction between authentic voice, credible voice and intimate voice. In my blog, I speak with a credible voice that's informed by my authentic voice - but it's certainly not my authentic voice directly. In rare instances, I relate to you in my intimate voice.

The credible voice is the one that most corporate blogs will speak in. The credible voice is the voice that savvy corporations will move towards.

Judging by other conversations (see also comments), these distinctions are a little muddy.

Rather than write a 5000-word post (whew, you think), I'm creating a new category called "Credible Voice" so I have plenty of time to expound and thus it doesn't have to be shoehorned in today.

For clarification, I'll post more on the authentic voice in the "Awareness" category (as well as other categories). This is the wee voice that Hugh writes of. It is your inner compass. And it isn't necessarily a voice at all - but rather a form of communication that transcends language. It more closely aligned with music than words, as touched on in this resonance post.

I'll speak about the relation between authentic voice, intimate voice and credible voice in subsequent posts. For now, let's focus on this "credible voice".

Most corporate communications today do not speak in a credible voice. They speak in a perfected, artificial voice. Quite often a washed out voice.

I notice this comment from Christopher Coulter in Scoble's blog.

Guess watching (or dozing thru) the DNC has made me snarpy. John Kerry has the personality of spray paint. Just no excitement anywhere, he will lose big just on that account, politics aside.

I know people that have met Kerry in person or in smaller group settings prior to his rise as a presidential contender. They say he is charasmatic and magnetic. Anyone's personality will tend to resemble 'spray paint' when then try too hard to be perfect. When we try too hard to win approval. When we're fearful they won't like us as we are. The safe thing to do is to fit in and squash out any real spark or vitality or edge that might not appeal to everyone out there, right? The end result most often is a washed out voice. Dozing is right.

The book, You are the Message, does a good job explaining how people enthusiastically respond to real, credible voices. (And the authors have advised presidents including Ronald Reagan, executives and celebrities.)

Let's look for a moment at PR.

The story state of PR is only partly the fault of PR organizations. Much blame can be placed at executive doorsteps. For a variety of well-understood reasons, many only want to distribute highly favorable information. This is a short-sighted tactic, proven again and again in business. Ultimately, either the information emerges anyway, or a credibility gap emerges between a company and its customers, employees, and investors. A FusionBrand based on trust and loyalty can never be built by hiding information. - FusionBranding: How to Forge Your Brand in the Future, by Nick Wreden

I wrote to Elizabeth Albrecht of CorporatePR privately sharing some frustrations around PR (not blog-specific). The email exchange was in reference to the fact that smaller companies need references from their larger company customers. But large company PR typically won't allow employees to speak. She gives me an answer to the question on her blog, but more interestingly adds insight into the credible voice:

Some companies live in horror that their product weaknesses will be found out and splashed across the front pages. They endeavor to keep all secret. Customers who are taking a risk on a new, unproven product, don't want to be exposed either. Everyone is afraid of public mistakes, public failure. This is another assumption that needs to be broken down as well. No product is ever perfect. Why not acknowledge the weaknesses that exist and actively seek advice on how to make them better? Adopt some portion of the open source movement. If you acknowledge issues, and demonstrate that you are addressing them, I think this buys you more credibility than if you keep them hidden (as they always come out anyways).

Credibility is not built on a facade of perfection in order to win everyone's approval. You win very few hearts this way.

Think back to a first date encounter in your mind. Or possibly the last pushy salesperson. Not meant to be a condemnation of all first dates or salespeople ;-) Do you remember a specific case when the person on the other side of the table appears as if they were trying way too hard to tell you what they thought you wanted to hear - or, at least what hooked their last partner/prospect. Did it feel like they were 'feeding you a line'? We just don't buy it. Well, that's your built-in finely honed B.S. meter at work. On the converse, try noticing your reactions to people that are openly - refreshingly - honest and pay attention to how you respond to them. Not necessarily bare-your-soul honest (that's the intimate voice), but confident-why-exaggerate honest.

In a September 2004 Fast Company review (subscribers) for the book, Authentic Leadership, by Bill George, the reviewer states:

"The author, the former CEO of Medtronic, is really candid about his own mishaps in a way that's a model for credibility. It's not antiseptic; there's no theorizing, no cliches, and no spin. Just want you want in a leader."

"Authenticity and courage go hand in hand...you need one to have the other." - Former CEO of Medtronic, Bill George

Comments

[JamesJayTrouble]

I forget who you are, not that I ever knew, actually. We've posted on same threads before, and I thin' you're one of the 20/30-something wunderkinds.

All that to say, I was impressed but sometimes I impress over-easily. However, I rarely reflect that in public.

"Do you remember a specific case when the person on the other side of the table appears as if they were trying way too hard to tell you what they thought you wanted to hear - or, at least what hooked their last partner/prospect. Did it feel like they were 'feeding you a line'? We just don't buy it. Well, that's your built-in finely honed B.S. meter at work. On the converse, try noticing your reactions to people that are openly - refreshingly - honest and pay attention to how you respond to them."

What I see as far as voice is just that. Seeing, smelling, tasting what a person is saying they're saying. That's what I try to do, sniff out the other persons ulterior motives. That goes for people like companies.

What I see in this post is an attempt to take 6-dimensional parts of 10?!?-dimensional reality (according to my lame understanding of String Theory), and squarshing it down to 3-dimensions moving through time. Because, that is what the brain and body of a human being (and mebbe all animals?) does.

That is all that can BE perceived, is three dimensions moving on a graceful curve, according to my non-understanding of time and zip-understanding of Einstein's Relativity.

Still, what it is is what it is and it is (to me obviously apparent) 6-dimensional or more trying to be made something that the rational mind can make sense of. (That'd be the difference, in my mind, between Homo Sapiens and other species that we've located and studied. Other's don't hafta deal with the schism of rational mind vs. reality quite so much. Not that other species don't, at all, but the difference in degree is SO vast that it is, for all practical purposes, the same as a difference in kind. PETA don't get that, nor much of anything.)

As far as PR, and courage and all that. What goes on in first dates (and I've only asked 2 women for a 'first date', iirc, sooooo...) is what goes on in every interaction ((cough) "transaction") in life. "Would you be willing to take a bullet for me??????" Men and women BOTH play that 'game'.

Same question in politics, which is why actions in war 30 years ago seems to come into play. (Meaning, appear to have relevance, when they may or may not.)

Problem is, most all people of all kinds are like 'Bulldog' on Frasier when it comes right down to it, and would hide behind their Mother if/when a situation comes right down to it.

The only people ACTUALLY willing to LITERALLY take a bullet are those with little to lose, or a desire to be 'done with it all', or some strong desire to ignore the potential for 'ulterior' motives. That's a partial 3-way type-a explanation of courage and leadership.

Leaders of bigger companies have both more to lose by a mistake, have spent more of their careers specializing in cut-throat politics, and more responsibilities to those they are leading. It is this latter which is usually overlooked, as well as (by convention) bad news travels quicker and farther than good news.

So most suggestions about how to do proper PR are suitable to small organizations, but don't even come to bear on large organizations. Easier to pick on the large ones, also by convention.

The Press, therefore, is the PR arm of most companies. And The current Press has been influenced by Libertarian bloggers to SUCH an extent that they may not even know this. Mixing up the authentic voice, the credible voice, the intimate voice...

..effective PR, but corn-fusion of ways and means is ONLY that..

.effective Propaganda-'Reality' which is almost always closer to the opposite of reality than anything resembling realITy.

So to, in the pseudo-common parlance, 'speak'...;-D

All that to say, some good points, but nobody's "finely honed B.S. meter" CAN EVER be turned off even in sleep, afaik.

"...try noticing your reactions to people that are openly - refreshingly - honest and pay attention..."

It's good to note how you respond to things, and anything in the environment can act as a sounding board.

People that do NOT make muchuvan attempt to "just say what you want to hear" can't even BE heard. As awful as I come frequently across, so I should know, I know that it's impossible to NOT try to say what the other person wants to hear, entirely.

Hopefully:

"This concludes this test of The Emergency (NOT EMERGENT, SHEESH) Broadcast System (ie, blog).

You will now be returned to your regular programming."

;-D

[JamesJayTrouble]

"Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company."

All that to say, this is one of THE most clueless memes going around. May have been semi-true at one time.

That was then.

The above clearly shows the difference between advertising and marketing, because marketing is a little more involved. It involves ALL facets of public-interfacing. Each and every interaction between customer/freeloader and company/"sick-joke" is a form of marketing.

Focus groups and a website-as-rude-salesperson (ie, blog) are just a few of the examples of marketing that the above "cluetrain" quote doesn't even begin to incorporate.

(Blind lead the blind, doing nothing much other than looking for elephants (in the non-political/literally sense) to wholly and entirely misunderstand...;-)

Buy for now...;-D

[Wayne Nelson]

I'd like to hear you talk more about the differenceyou see between the "authentic voice" and the "intimate voice." I've always like the idea of what the Cluetrain calls the "human voice." I think that's what you are talking about when you talk about the authentic voice.

[Wayne Nelson]

I'd like to hear you talk more about the differenceyou see between the "authentic voice" and the "intimate voice." I've always like the idea of what the Cluetrain calls the "human voice." I think that's what you are talking about when you talk about the authentic voice.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Wayne: What I (and I emphasize I) call 'authentic', 'intimate' and 'credible' voice are ALL human voices. They are finer levels of distinction within that category of 'human' voice. They often are distinguished by levels of revelation. How much do we reveal of ourselves, our thoughts, our feelings and how much is even necessary. Note that none are washed out, artificial, stilted, contrived voices that Cluetrain eschew.

Yes, I will definitely write more.

James Jay: I'll take 20-or-30-something wunderkind as a compliment...but I think you may have me confused with someone else ;-)

Another post(s) are in order to touch on these comments fully. Will do...

[JamesJayTrouble]

Perhaps Adina Levine (sp?). A pic helps me match up names with background, but mebbe thaz jes me.

I just looked at about, and yeah it wuz you.

:-D