Communications - 102

What is NOISE?

 

This is the second part on my series on Corporate Communications

 

 

THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS - (discussed in earlier entry - Communications 101)

http://aseemseth.blogspot.com/2010/05/communications-101.html

THE FIFTH ELEMENT - NOISE

There is a 5th component of communication, that though not directly, but indirectly has a HUGE EFFECT on Communication - it is referred to as NOISE (N).

However, unlike the other elements of communication, this one hinders rather than helps the communication process. 

It causes the Message to be distorted and misunderstood by the Receiver.

Let is use the example given earlier in Communications 101,

You (the Sender) needs a report from your accountant(the Receiver),  so you walk up to him and ask him "Can you give me the XYZ report?" (the Message).

But there is a carpenter in the room, whose trying to fix a windowpane, banging away loudly in the room. 

The accountant replies " the ABC Report? Sure!" (the Feedback)

The Feedback received by you (the Sender), indicates that your accountant(the Receiver), did not receive the message correctly, due to the NOISE, so you raise your voice (modify your media) and resend the Message - " NO, NOT THE ABC REPORT, I NEED THE XYZ REPORT"

The accountant replies " Oh! The XYZ Report! Sure!" (Feedback)

The Feedback received by you (the Sender), indicates that your accountant(the Receiver), received the message correctly.

........


The above example uses a very literal translation of "noise" meaning unwanted sound.
However, 
NOISE exists and is INHERENT to all Media

Let us see some more examples of noise under the three broad classifications of media - 

1) Direct Media - One to One Communication using Verbal, gestures, Writing, direct mailers, email, etc.- 
HAS NOISE - like accent differences ( Indian accent, southern US drawl, cockney, etc.), bad handwriting, typos, incorrect language,etc. 

2) Broadcast Media - One to Many Communication using such as Print (newspapers, magazines, brochures, palmphlets, etc), TV Radio, Websites,Seminars, Conferences, Classrooms, etc.
HAS NOISE - like poor TV Reception, to much "bling" on a web page- flash animations, blinking banners, pop-ups, shoshkeles, etc.

3) Collaborative Media-  Many to Many Communication using social & business networking, blogs, wikis, message boards, etc.
HAS NOISE - like having to many applications on facebook, derogatory or abusive comments on blogs, etc.

A WORD of CAUTION - 

Sometimes "Noise" can appear in the feedback loop from the receiver, who has understood the message, but the sender, feels that the receiver has not -

IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AVOID THIS, SO AS TO ENSURE THE RECEIVER DOES NOT GET ANNOYED.

This leads to a very irritating situation for both the sender and receiver of the message, as the sender continues to relay the message, again and again till the feedback he receives is without noise.

For example, you keep repeating yourself loudly on a telephone call, because you have bad reception (and therefore assume the other guy has the same problem, even if your voice is crystal clear)

Feedback may be obtained via different complementary media, such as a verbal okay, followed by a confirmatory "thank you" email, third party research (Market Research, TRPs, surveys, etc)

We will delve deeper into the subject of Corporate Communications - the art and science of how an organisation interacts with its stakeholders. It is the method of communicating and aligning perceptions of stakeholders with the actuality of the organisation's activities and views.

Which I discuss in my Next Entry "Corporate Communications 103".

Keep Smiling :)

Cheers!

Communications 101

In my 9 years in this field, I've come across many misconceptions of what Corp Comm is, can do, and is capable of doing.

This will be a series of articles explaining the concept of Corporate Communications and how it can be best leveraged.

Corporate Communications, is the art and science of how an organisation interacts with its stakeholders. It is the method of communicating and aligning perceptions of stakeholders with the actuality of the organisation's activities and  views.

What IS Communication?

Before we understand Corporate Communications, we must understand "Communication".

What is Communication? When does it happen? what is required for it to be effective?

Simply put, Communication is the "Activity of Conveying Information".

There are 4 Elements of Communication - 
1) The Sender (S) of the Message
2) The Message
3) The Recipient or Receiver of the Message, and
4) Feedback/Confirmation from the Receiver to the Sender 

The Process of Communication starts when the Sender (S) has a Message (M) that he wishes to convey to the Recipient(R). This is Best Understood in a graphic - 

The Sender of the message to The Receiver, who acknowledges that the message has been recieved through Feedback, thus completing the communication.

For Example - 
You (the Sender) needs a report from your accountant(the Receiver),  so you walk up to him and ask him "Can you give me the XYZ report?" (the Message)

The accountant replies " the XYZ Report? Sure!" (the Feedback)

In this example the Medium/ Media used is "Verbal Communication"

There are 3 Broad Categories of Media that can be used for communication - 

1) Direct Media - One to One Communication using Verbal, gestures, Writing, direct mailers, email, etc.

2) Broadcast Media - One to Many Communication using such as Print (newspapers, magazines, brochures, palmphlets, etc), TV, Radio, Billboards & Hoardings, Point of Sale (POS) Merchandising, POS LCD Screens, Websites,Seminars, Conferences, Classrooms, etc.

3) Collaborative Media-  Many to Many Communication using social & business networking, blogs, wikis, message boards, etc.

So communications, can be extrapolated to any degree, 

For Example 
in TV Broadcast Media, There is one Sender (the TV Channel Programme) and has multiple receivers as illustrated below, The feedback is obtained through TRPs (TV Rating Points), audience polls, viewer market research, etc. 

Collaborative media's best example is this forum - google knols, and wikipedia, though myspace, facebook and orkut are also good examples.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT - NOISE

There is a 5th component of communication, that though not directly, but indirectly has a HUGE EFFECT on Communication - it is referred to as NOISE.

Which I discuss in my Next Knol "Communications - 102"

Looking forward to Seeing you Next Week!

Keep Smiling!

Is the IT Age a Mimic of the Industrial Revolution?

Many similarities seem to reprise the personas and stages of evolution of the Industrial Revolution – the parallels between Personalities, Society & Economics, that I’ve found make me think, is History Repeating itself?

Personalities

Is Steve Jobs = Henry Ford?

Henry Ford, the master of mass production, the creator of the first affordable motorcar and profitable assembly line, has been famously quoted - “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black”. In addition, Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration.

A similar feeling of personal greatness and Ego can be seen in Steve Jobs, who single handedly changed the music and telecom space. For instance, Fortune magazine famously wrote that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs."

Moreover, Jobs rises to the occasion by saying things like, “There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘ I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will."

Both Ford & Jobs had Vision and a sort of egoistic pompousness, which drove them to go against the grain, and revolutionize the world.

That been said, Ford is no longer the leader of the pack… either in its own country of origin or worldwide…. And probably Apple will suffer a similar fate, with its “walled garden” philosophy in the Open Source World.

Society

 Is ASmallWorld.net = Free Masons (Masonic Society)?

There is a small, secret community, the stratospheric society of the “Über Riche”, that meets in cyberspace… Luxury brands, like Mont Blanc, advertise their limited collectors’ editions on this network. The network is so exclusive, it is almost impossible to enter… people desperate to get into this cloistered club write tomes in their blogs, post their request on various forums and their status messages. There are barely a handful of people from India on the website (Coincidentally, currently I am not one of them).

The Free Masons were formed as a group of Expert Builders, who knew the secrets of architecture, such as how to place the Keystone of an Arch. The group or guild, kept its architectural knowledge a closely guarded secret and formed a secret society to keep it so and gained tremendous power and profits by this.

As their influence grew, so did their ranks, and started to include, experts from all fields (read any Dan Brown novel to know more about such secret societies)… and reached it’s peak in during the industrial revolution with memberships ranging across –

Gustave Eiffel, Designer and architect of the Eiffel Tower,

German philosopher and Poet - Goethe,

The famous musician Louis Armstrong,

Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin,

Aviator Charles Lindbergh,

Doctors including Alexander Fleming a developer of penicillin, Dr. Edward Jenner who developed the small pox vaccine,

Politicians such as George Washington, Winston Churchill, Silvio Berlusconi

and even Hindu Spiritual Leader Swami Vivekananda,  

all pledging allegiances to this secret, invitation only society.

Are we seeing the growth of a similar society online at ASW?

Economic

Is 2008 Recession = The Great Depression?

The similarities of the economic distresses faced during the Great Depression of 1930-40s and the current 2008 Recession are remarkably similar – Job Cuts, Layoffs, Downsizing, Bankruptcy Cost Cutting, shifts in society & social paradigms (it’s ok now to have been laid-off) …. Are these some of the parallels that can be correlated?

So is history repeating itself… has not the world learnt from the past?

∞

Are we destined to continue this never-ending cycle?

What do YOU think?

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Links in this post –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

http://aseemseth.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-it-bird-is-it-plane-noooo-its.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/walled-garden

http://opensource.org/docs/osd

http://www.asmallworld.net/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

http://www.asmallworld.net/about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Freemasons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_depression

Authenticity v/s Immediacy - Marketing in the Digital Age

I recently attended a very interesting Marketing Conclave conducted by IAMAI, in Delhi. I share with you some of the main my outtakes from this event, which saw an extremely illustrious set of Panelists.

My CEO was to participate and moderate the 3^rd session as well; however, due to a regrettable illness he was unable to make it.

While the title of this post appears to state that Immediacy and Authenticity are mutually exclusive, it is not so. Immediacy and Authenticity of content exist in a continuum… ranging from Twitter & Mobile communications to TV & the printed Newspaper, Magazine and Trade Journal.

Media formats are not antagonistic but coexist in an increasingly connected world, which seeks both instant information and in-depth analysis – at different junctures.

The main learning for me, was that there are three models of content consumption patterns, each of which has its own flaws and strengths –

1)     Subscription Based – People pay to use or consume

2)     Advertising Subsided – Brands pay to assist and build their usage or consumption

3)     Free User Generated – The basic human tendency to share and be heard or noticed

The first category has existed from the first Gutenberg Bible, most currently familiar media fall into the second category (newspapers, TV Channels, etc), and the third category (SMS/MMS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs) is what has been spawned by the Digital Age.

While the first 2 categories have happily co-existed since the Industrial Revolution, it is the emergence of the third category in the last 2 decades, that brands are grappling to leverage and society-at-large is trying to assimilate.

Another intelligent marketing concept was Return on Objective (ROO) as opposed to ROI (Return on Investment), which is about defining a goal and a time frame, and measuring success on the basis of the objective/goal and not on the investment.

This was illustrated with a simple example – A Business (B) has 5x to invest and wants to make it 20x (return) in a fixed time period (T), there are 2 investment models (P & Q) –

Model I (P)– spend 3x and get a return of 15x in time T

Model II (Q)- spend 4x and get a return of 18x in time T

While (P) is higher on ROI; (Q) is higher on ROO, because Q was closer to the goal of 20x.

Some other interesting India-centric and empirical take-aways from the meeting –

Ø       There are pros & cons to 360 degree marketing plans –

o        Pro – consumers don’t live in silos, and consume more than one medium

o        Con – Targeted & Selective communication is missing, as the advertiser has no focus, and want to be everywhere

Ø       Quality Content will not be free-of-charge forever in any medium. But, it will take time for Indian Consumers, Advertisers and Producers to find an acceptable exchange value.

Ø       Digital needs a Robust Common Currency – CPC, CPM, CPA, are not accurately valued measures.

Ø       All Non-Digital Media was Passive Lean Back – Radio, Broadcast TV & Print. Digital is the first interactive media – from Digital TV Recording to Mobile Internet.

In India -

Ø       The perceived editorial validity and authority of Print remains above Digital

Ø       A newspaper is a “Nation in Conversation with Itself” while Digital is personalised and localized – “Me, Myself & I”

Ø       When focusing on the Youth market – it’s “Print for Parents” (for credibility) & “Digital for Youth” (for action)

Ø       The Time spent by SEC ABC in top 15 metros on TV and Online is the same.

Ø       There is not enough political will to incentivize DTH TV over Cable TV

Ø       Online delivers a predominantly male audience.

Ø       The current number of competitors in both DTH and Mobile is unsustainable (similar to the early days of private participation in Indian Aviation)

Ø       The main uses of Mobile and Internet are for transactional purposes – the final Action or Purchase

Ø       Online Text based Ads on Search Result Pages provide the greatest effectiveness in terms of Immediate Action, while, display ads and ads on content pages assist to build awareness, interest and desire.

On Mobiles –

Ø       Mobiles are the new medium for Text, Audio & Video – BUT will not replace any other medium (TV did not replace the newspaper)

Ø       Mobiles hold more promise than the Internet, as Indian consumers expect everything online free, but are used to paying for mobile VAS (Value Added Services)

Ø       We are going to rediscover WAP  - With multiple phone OSes (Android, WinMo, Symbian, MacOSx, etc)  - WAP will be the new “APP”

Ø       3G is going to be the panacea for Mobile growth and technology development in India

Ø       Vernacular SMS is still a distant future – no visible timeline

Ø       NFC that converts Text to Speech for illiterates is still a distant dream

UPDATE - Speaking of Technology - I found these two articles very useful in understanding this - our "Age of Communication"

A Simple guide to UNDERSTANDING BROADBAND - http://bit.ly/aVfAVT 
And 
The Simple Guide to UNDERSTANDING MOBILE BROADBAND - http://bit.ly/9EX30l

End Note: -

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

- Albert Einstein

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Links in this post –

http://www.iamai.in/

http://ievents.iamai.in/marketingconclave/speakers.php

http://ievents.iamai.in/marketingconclave/agenda.php

http://www.apple.com/webapps/whatarewebapps.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Field_Communication

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10774406

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/mobilebroadband.html