Feeding Back
There has been much discussion around the language used to describe The New Communicators event since we launched this site. We appreciate the feedback from the community and your voices are heard loud and clear. In fact, it’s this kind of engagement that is at the heart of the New Communicators concept. Putting out an idea, being open to discussion, and then taking the feedback and evolving the idea to be something better.
As the person who wrote the content on the site, I ask for two things: Patience and contribution. The idea of the New Communicators is still new and evolving. I have had many fantastic writing partners in my career, so I fully recognize that I am an art director and not a writer. Anyone who is interested in working with us to improve and clarify the message, including the description of the event and how to participate etc., is welcome to contact us, info@thenewcommunicators.com.
In the meantime, a conversation has begun about how to best describe the event. So, let’s try to distill this thing to its barest essentials. Here I go:
The New Communicators | Evolving Conversation
A series of events held over 3 days in which the community generates content about new and traditional ways to engage in conversation with an audience.
Phew. Well, what do you think? Still stinks? Just right? Not even close? In the spirit of collaboration, how would you describe The New Communicators? Leave your description as a comment below.
Thanks Erin for the continued to commitment to an open collaborative approach to building something for people looking to harness and promote the good thinking that is happening in Portland.
I work as a User Experience Designer and Information Architect. I’m not creative. I don’t do concepting, copywriting, or design, but I do work on projects that have a message to get across, as I’m sure most of us in this conversation do, and I think I do a lot to support the creative process,.
There is almost always some debate – between the creative team, the stakeholders, managers, whoever. Public projects are, I’m learning, no different. What seems to help, when you come to a crossroads, is to look at any subjective debate as a good candidate for an experiment, to do some good user testing, and find the right answer by getting supporting facts.
There are I’m sure many ways to go about this, but the way I would do it would be to start with a little old fashioned persona development. It might be basic, but it always helps to identify the specific traits of the people you’re talking to. Are they professionals, successful entrepreneurs, early adopters, hobby bloggers, etc. I’d get more specific than that doing this for real, but you get the picture. Recognize that some people aren’t going to be the audience, and speak to the ones that share your motivations.
Once you know who to target, you can pick out some people matching that description and do some simple user testing. There are lots of low commitment, low cost ways to do this, so it’s not as big a deal as some people think it is. Come up with several taglines or paragraphs to test-you wouldn’t have to look to strike gold with just one, and send it to people and ask them to tell you what it means, how they would describe it to their friends or boss or parents. The main thing I would try to do would be to get enough people involved so you can determine what is statistically significant feedback. You won’t get everyone to agree, it’s not a realistic expectation, but with enough people involved, you can pick up on common trends, and refine as it makes sense for your target audience. You’d want to develop screening criteria for your test so you get impartial responses. For example, you’d look for people that are likely to attend or host gatherings (probably treating them as two different test groups and asking them different questions), eliminating those with personal connections to the people involved to weed out impartial responses. From there, you’d have a good indication of what, if anything, you need to work on with your message.
I think I made it sound more involved than it really needs to be. This could probably all happen over a couple days, and could give some good clarity and insight. I’m up for helping out with that if it’s something you want to try out.
Hi Megan,
Great suggestion. Stephen wrote up a few takes on an “Elevator pitch” version of the New Communicators description. I’ll post them here to test the waters first:
A series of events, created by you, to be held in Portland, Oregon from October 28th to the 30th.
A crowdsourced series of events held in Portland, Oregon on October 28th, 29th and 30th around the concept of how we communicate.
Exploring conversation through a series of crowdsourced events held on October 28th, 29th and 30th in Portland, Oregon.
A series of events about the way we communicate. A conference created by you, for you, in Portland, Oregon from October 28th – 30th.
A series of events created for you, by you, exploring the ways we communicate. Portland, Oregon / October 28th – 30th
Hi erin, nice work on the personas and elevator pitch. I’ll do a little informal user testing with people I can find that might match your persona audience, which you may or may not find helpful. It’ll probably be longer than a blog comment might ideally be. If you want to shoot me an email, I can send results to you that way if that would be better.
That’s great, thanks for doing this. You can email me at erin@findsubstance.com. I look forward to your findings!
Oh, and Megan I must disagree with you on one point. User Experience Design and Information Architecture takes an immense amount of creativity. You certainly are creative.
I think Dane tweeted this but just in case. P2 would be a great tool for you guys to use here.
http://ma.tt/2009/05/how-p2-changed-automattic/
The underlying thread of my issue was this (and it still kind of applies to the above): The statement as written doesn’t tell me who the community is, or why anyone should care.
It’s been stated that the genesis of this was that “what’s happening within the Portland comm arts scene, and the industry in general … is a problem for a lot of us”. But there seems to have been a problem just stating in plain language what “what’s happening” means and why it’s “a problem”.
Trying to define/describe the event itself seems like the proverbial cart before the horse. The event, it seems, it meant to address “what’s happening” and the fact that it’s “a problem”, but that doesn’t tell anyone stumbling across The New Communicators why they should care — or, for that matter, prevents them from deciding if they even happen to agree that “what’s happening” is “a problem”.
My sticking point from the beginning of my own stumbling upon this via Twitter is that people involved seem to be having trouble speaking in plain and straightforward words. Which is weird to me, because presumably when the idea first came up, they were speaking in plain and straightforward words to each other.
The reason why several of us reacted with a kind of visceral violence to the site copy, I think, was because it read like those involved were so focused on branding and identity and tag lines and messaging, they skipped over the step of just talking like regular people to explain why you were bothering to try whatever this is meant to be.
Everything reads like marketers talking to other marketers, but if you’re actually interested in conversation, you need to be speaking in ways that aren’t exclusive to the circle, and I think that’s why there’s been the pushback there’s been.
Of course, I’ve now drawn this comment out in a far less concise manner than I intended to myself.
Definitely, point taken about the “plain, straight forward words.” Perhaps in trying to translate the initial conversations we had into an actual description of “what it is” we got too grandiose or lofty too quickly.
I don’t think it is stated that there is “a problem” that needs fixing, necessarily. Simply that it would be great to hear both success and failure stories from people who are using both new and traditional communication channels to engage their audience, and we’d like help to provide context for presenting their stories. I don’t feel that we are “reacting” to something bad that’s happening, just excited by stories we hear everyday about people finding an audience for their…whatever they do…and feeling like it would be cool for those people to share those stories with others in an effort to inspire others.
Actually, aside from the run-on sentence, that’s pretty good.
Well, it was Justin who said there was a problem. I can only go by what the TNC team is saying about why TNC exists in the first place. Heh.
Erin, I completely agree.
I am really looking forward to hearing what this means to the community, and seeing a different perspective on how to communicate this concept to the audience. This is part of what The New Communicators is all about.
For me, The New Communicators is about collaboration, pushing the limits, and learning from each other. For me, The New Communicators is about addressing things differently this time. We want input. We want to be challenged. We’re inviting it. I believe that’s truly the only way to grow.
Erin I think you put it well when you said we’re expecting things to evolve. We have all accepted that this may not may not run perfectly the first time around. I don’t want to speak for everyone else, but personally, I’m pretty excited that it won’t.
This is the fundamental reason I was so determined to get involved in the first place. The team was so welcoming to the possibility of failure it was refreshing! We want to work together to move forward toward the greater good. We want to learn from our mistakes. That, to me, is the fundamental key to success.
I’ve said this or tweeted it many times, but for me it really seems appropriate here: The New Communicators IS: work together. Challenge each other. Collaborate. Break the molds. We are the new communicators. join us.
I really like this succinct version, however … “in which community generated content about new and traditional ways to engage in conversation with an audience” is what?
is explored?
is shared?
is exchanged?
I also really appreciate that you are opening up the description of this group to the community. I am definitely interested in how some of the writers would put it.
My hope for this group is that it embraces a spirit of exploration. I am not interested in a group that is going to lay down a rigid format that will be “the royal road to success,” only to have it go stale within a few years. At the same time I understand that if the structure is too open, nothing will happen.
What I would like to see, and it seems as though this is what you are encouraging as well, is a sense of personal-ness. I feel as though the essence behind the success of new media channels is its flexibility in being able to communicate on both the impersonal and personal levels fluidly.
ie. One moment we are reading a blog that was meant for a general audience, the next we are engaged in a one-on-one conversation with the author.
That dynamic shift between impersonal to personal is amazing, and I feel as though communication about “media” is still heavily impersonal. I would hope that the new communicators would be educated about media forms, and strive for reaching the community at the personal level.
The impersonal level is powerful in it’s breadth, but skillful personal communication transforms people because it reaches them exactly where they are at. This kind of intimacy is the secret ingredient in my view.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for your comments. I feel the entire concept of The New Communicators is about exploration, experimentation and a consideration of how we connect with others. Seeing what works, recognizing what doesn’t and engaging with people in an authentic way no matter the communication channel.
We fully expect this thing to evolve and grow, become more or less rigid, more or less succinct, more or less personal, based on the feedback we get.
In the coming days and weeks you will see more and more engagement from the team on this site and, I hope, many conversations happening. This thing is just getting started, I invite everyone to stay tuned and contribute.