Marketing Riser

The world’s most innovative leaders have proved to be extraordinary “social seismologists.” They have shown a rare ability to detect tidal shifts in the world order long before such harbingers are recognized by lesser leaders. 

Years before the introductions of Facebook and Twitter, Bill Gates was predicting something called “social media,” a concept that many could not grasp at the time. Ted Turner envisioned a cable news network that operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, never signing off. As a result, CNN completely changed news consumption forever. Joan Ganz Cooney envisioned a children’s educational television show that would harness the addictiveness of the tube to engage youngsters in a new way. Subsequently, millions of children learned to read and count from Sesame Street, changing America’s concepts of preschool learning and online education.

The renowned leaders of the digital economy have grown massively successful companies from seeds born on the winds of change. Steve Jobs transformed desktops into laptops and mobile phones into encyclopedia/mapping/photography/communication devices. Jeff Bezos brought information and products literally to the fingertips of shoppers with the Amazon concept and its new delivery models. Elon Musk and Richard Branson challenged the idea of space travel as the exclusive purview of government agencies, potentially opening space frontiers to everyone.

More recently, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders recognized a huge and unanticipated shift among the electorate, one in which the conventional platforms of political parties no longer matched large segments of constituents. Both ran innovative campaigns, with Trump poised to blow apart a Republican party massed against him and Sanders attracting millions of donors and voters with his call for a political revolution.

Those who are among the first to understand the economic and social impact of cultural and technological upheavals invariably succeed in building brands of innovation. Identifying such leaders often is difficult, but I have delineated five characteristics that all winning innovators possess. 

 To explore these traits, Essentials for Building a Brand of Innovation, view my video that summarizes these characteristics, accessible below. ​

The Wall Street Journal recently made a small change in its format that reflected a big transformation in the world of business. The newspaper re-branded its venerable “Marketplace” section as “Business & Tech,” a move much more substantive than those of earlier days when other papers refashioned their “Women’s Section” as “Living” or “Movies” as “Entertainment.” The Journal’s business editor, Dennis Berman, suggested the new banner affirms an expanding trend, observing:

"It reflects the fact that every business is a technology business, whether it's farming or mining or consumer packaged goods or travel. Tech is permeating every industry."

The tech that Berman is talking about goes beyond automated machines, assembly and all the other more traditional business technologies that emerged in the 20th century. He’s acknowledging that what we used to call “high tech” is now the norm in every business. It’s digitally dominant, Internet-driven, massively connected technology that is changing every aspect of business operations.

I would go further, in fact, and argue that every business is or soon will be a consumer-technology business. Certainly business-to-business marketing and commerce will remain critical to our economy, but increasingly it’s being carried out with technology originally designed for consumers.  

In a new white paper called Bye-Bye to B2B, I contend that the growing convergence of consumer technology with every aspect of life and business is rapidly making the distinction between B2C and B2B technology irrelevant. When we market to businesses today, we’re marketing to consumers within the business who rely on consumer tech.

Offices, labs, plants and warehouses bristle with B2C devices, software and networks, from iPhones and iPads to mapping and video apps.

“Bring your own device” has become a policy for employees in many companies; Gen Y workers trust their personal mobile devices and clouds far more than their company’s computers and clouds.

Corporate customer service departments are intently focused on Twitter, Facebook and other social media to track and respond to complaints.

Look around your own office; you’re certain to see many more ways consumer tech is directly impacting your processes and your products.

This new business landscape demands new marketing methods, using technology in smart ways to reach tech-savvy audiences. Marketers must develop an understanding of technology to be able to compete effectively in a world where the first definition of IP no longer is “instrument panel” or “intellectual property.”

Airfoil has helped shape the tech PR and marketing profession throughout this 21st century. This year we’re celebrating our 15th anniversary, a milestone on a course that has taken many sharp turns at breakneck speeds. When we founded Airfoil as a tech PR firm in 2000, the nation was riding high atop the tech bubble, which burst just months later. Yet, Airfoil remained aloft and continued to rise while many other tech agencies dropped from sight. Over the years, we’ve earned the confidence of many of the world’s most noted brands that sought to gain a foothold among traditional businesses and consumers, as well as U.S. and European brands seeking to open new local and national markets.

In more recent years, it’s been gratifying to note that a wide array of businesses not generally considered to be rooted in tech have sought and benefited from Airfoil’s insights, analysis and market engagement. That’s because, as the Wall Street Journal has recognized, all businesses today are tech businesses. Companies that we wouldn’t immediately consider to be part of the tech sector–Starbucks, Brookstone, Walsh College, Thomson Reuters and Armaly Brands (which markets Brillo products, among others)—have joined our client list alongside more traditionally tech businesses, like Microsoft, Altair, Faurecia, Creditera, Parrot, eBay Motors and Comcast. They’re all tech companies now, and they’re all driven by consumer tech that is pulling more B2C technology than ever into their business operations.

The people who assign SIC codes to America’s businesses must be feeling a little sick themselves these days. The whole idea of a “standard industrial classification” feels a bit slow and archaic somehow in a massively connected economy where brands and entire industries now are constantly reinventing themselves.

This idea of reformulating companies as something larger than a mere business may have begun in the 1970s, when Penn Central famously failed in its attempt to solve the railroad’s problem by becoming an even bigger railroad. Businesses in that industry subsequently realized that, to be competitive, they needed to position themselves as entities much larger and more all-encompassing: “transportation companies” that embraced intermodal shipping and more comprehensive logistics services.

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Join a discussion about “The Next Big Thing” and you most likely will be talking about computing and digital communications—the next phone, the next tablet, the next connected watch. But consumers have a dismal record of anticipating The Next Big Thing when they look at the world beyond their mobile devices.

At one point, for example, flat-panel displays seemed to offer the ultimate in TV watching, but then HDTV emerged and changed everything. Today, rapidly evolving Ultra HD offers four to 16 times the resolution of HDTV. The same “failure of foresight” can be applied to DVDs/streaming video, automatic coffeemakers/K-cup pods and two-day home delivery/same-day drone delivery.

Now many of us seem to be suffering this same limited vision in the way we perceive the transportation industry. The focus of media and consumer attention has been drawn to autonomous vehicles, the self-driving cars that companies like BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Google are racing to get on to the world’s highways and autobahns. But while driverless cars may be the next big thing, the next next big things in transportation already are taking shape.

Uber has led the parade of consumers who suddenly have taken up car sharing. What we once thought was the ultimate convenience of taxis and limos is being supplanted by tapping a smartphone to request a ride that, according to Uber, is better, faster and cheaper than alternatives. The next big thing for car sharing will be technology from auto suppliers that automatically adjusts the unfamiliar car-for-hire’s seating and environment to match the individual needs of each passenger. We can envision this personalized, spur-of-the-moment type of transportation extending in the future to everything from motorcycles to private airplanes and train cars.

Just off the highway, the next big thing in railroad transportation is likely to be high-speed bullet trains zipping Texans between Dallas and Houston, a distance of 240 miles, in just 90 minutes for a fare that is 70 to 80 percent of the cost for a regional flight. Planning is well underway by Texas Central Railway, which hopes to begin operations by 2021. While hopes for similar trains in other parts of the country have derailed or diminished considerably, the private funding of the Texas train is propelling it forward.

But wait—don’t fail to foresee the next big thing beyond bullet trains. Elon Musk, the innovator behind Space X and the Tesla, is working with partner developers to create what he calls the Hyperloop. This transportation system that seems to have materialized from the pages of a science-fiction novel consists of a steel tube through which passenger-bearing pods are propelled by linear induction motors along the track to speeds of 600 to 800 mph. The pods float on a layer of air like the puck on an air hockey table. Musk anticipates a Hyperloop in California could shoot megacity commuters from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes—about the time it takes to drive to downtown Detroit from the city’s outer suburbs. Just 18 months after announcing the concept, Musk is ready to build a five-mile test track for the Hyperloop (again, most likely in Texas) as a place for companies and student teams to test out pods.

The Next Big Thing is lifting personal transportation off the ground, as well. Despite a disastrous crash during a test flight last October, Virgin Galactic continues to promote its SpaceShip Two as the flagship of the world’s first “spaceline.” It’s designed to carry anyone who can afford the $250,000 fare on suborbital trips into space, just for the thrill or for more substantive purposes, like conducting research and experiments in zero G. Virgin Galactic expects to launch a replacement ship later this year to move its spaceline system forward.

Anyone who believes that the art of communications can be reduced to a science should consider the ways in which best practices have evolved for crisis communications. Communicators for manufacturers, food producers, technology companies, financial institutions, universities, public schools, police departments and a broad range of other sectors have contributed to these practices largely through trial and error.

Businesses are still discovering the horrendous impact of hiding potentially fatal errors (see Takata, GM, Peanut Corporation of America, et. al.), decades after Johnson & Johnson showed the value of being candid with the public during its Tylenol tampering crisis. The nation’s universities quickly learned the importance of immediately alerting everyone on campus to an active-shooter situation, a result of mistakes made during the 2007 crisis on the Virginia Tech campus. Hospitals are taking cues from the communication errors made at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas that set off a nationwide Ebola scare in 2014.

These data breaches—and their repetition—are not isolated incidents. For example, in a 2012 Ponemon study, 94 percent of healthcare organizations reported they suffered at least one data breach during the previous two years, and 45 percent were victims of more than five such breaches. In a recent test, cybersecurity firm FireEye examined 1,217 organizations around the world and found that 97 percent of them had sustained data breaches, despite their deployment of standard intrusion prevention systems.

Getting it right in the arena of crisis communications has been no less difficult, as practitioners examine a series of lessons learned the hard way. For the most part, today’s communicators have believed they’ve had best practices for crisis communications well in hand, focusing on people before property, controlling the spread of the crisis, monitoring and correcting inaccurate reports or rumors, communicating frequently, being as candid as possible. 

The concept of autonomous automobiles freaks me out a bit.I envision thousands of these driverless cars commuting with me, relying solely on high-tech radar, lasers, video cameras, GPS and computer processors to ensure they all stay on the road, in their lanes, off my bumper and on the correct route to their various destinations. Surely nothing can go wrong. Just as nothing ever goes wrong with automated elevators or automated train switches.

Equally problematic for me as a public relations and marketing professional is the increasingly popular idea of relying heavily on automated digital tools to publish, monitor and control communications via the Web. After only an initial push from the practitioner, these applications decide what to send to whom and when, how to respond and how to tally the results. 

As brands increasingly turn to automated Internet tools to narrate their stories, authenticity and empathy are being pushed into the margins. 

Without someone at the wheel, however, these self-guided programs can steer digital communications far from their intended course and either approach their destinations with completely the wrong message or never reach their intended audiences at all. 

Even when the messages do arrive as planned, their impact more often than not is devoid of a human touch. As brands increasingly turn to automated Internet tools to narrate their stories, authenticity and empathy are being pushed into the margins. 

The digital toolshed is growing crowded with these cloud-controlled platforms employed by marketers to reach mass audiences with supposedly customized messages. 

The growing convergence of consumer technology with every aspect of life and business is rapidly making the distinction between B2C and B2B technology irrelevant. It’s all B2C.

The Digital Era has just entered its third decade, and many of the terms we once used to describe the foundations of the online experience have become quaintly—and thankfully—obsolete. Boomers and Gen Xers may look back more with a shudder than with nostalgia on such phrases and icons as “dial-up,” the Apple bomb, “MS-DOS” and “You’ve got mail!”

This idiom reflected a time when we struggled to find a way to connect with the Web.  Today, the Web finds us, and connectivity dominates our homes, our cars, our workplaces, our schools, our travel destinations, our shopping and our entertainment.

In 2015, this reality is generating much more than simply a change in the terminology we apply to digital tech; it’s transforming the conventional ways that product developers and marketers always have thought about their place in the buying and selling process.

An immutable fact of business life has been that tech-related products and services fall into one of two categories: business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B). Considering the massive convergence of consumer technology with every aspect of our lives and businesses, however, this dichotomy has become as irrelevant as CD-ROMs and Netscape Navigator. B2B is dead; it’s all B2C.

Consistency has its privileges. Take Norm Peterson from NBC’s Cheers– named one of the greatest shows of all time by TV Guide –  whose personal brand was reinforced and validated every time he walked into the bar and was greeted with a resounding, “Norm!” from patrons. Cheers was, literally, a place where everybody knew his name. Sure, other regular patrons (though perhaps none so regular as Norm) had first-name-only recognition, but the reason Norm inspired such an unwavering and warm response is a lesson for anyone building and guiding brands, today.

Norm was deceptively simple. Watches could be set by his timely arrival at the bar, each day. Bets could be made, and won every time, on the fact that he would be wearing an oversized, disheveled sports coat and an unhinged tie. But against a canvas of all of his sameness was a blank slate for painting his brilliance. In fact, his routines allowed him to get away with much genius -- a droll yet biting wit that kept viewers thirsty for whatever he would serve us up, next:

“Hey Norm, how’s the world been treating you?” “Like a baby treats a diaper.”

“What’s shaking, Norm?” “All four cheeks and a couple of chins.”

And maybe most apropos of a branding discussion:

“Beer, Norm?” “Have I gotten that predictable? Good.”

Good? Yes, good. The fact is that consistency affords brands the freedom to create, test limits and surprise and delight their audiences, because those audiences have been reassured that underneath what’s “new,” is what’s trusted and true. This is critical for brands in technology and other segments where product differentiation and innovation is a must, but brand loyalty (driven by a consistent message and experience) is vital.

Of course, consistency is so much easier to blog about than to execute in a social and digital marketplace where brands no longer have ultimate say over their portrayal – consumers shape brands as much, if not more, than businesses themselves do. Despite the power of online content marketing to promote and direct a brand’s direction, both consumers and business customers flex tremendous muscle in a brand’s ultimate trajectory.

Imagine if a v.2014 Cliff published a Vine video of Norm falling off of his bar stool, or if Diane took to her Twitter account to share a favorite Normism, and in turn set off a firestorm of either positive shares or viral mocking. Would Norm keep being Norm? Chances are, yes – his currency wasn’t pleasing a paying consumer base, it was simply showing up, pleasing his belly and connecting with the barroom. Consistently. Rain or shine. Hell or high water. That beer, in that seat, with those people, would be his. And in return, they could count on his unmatched and hilarious world view.

I closely followed what Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had to say during their years as tech reporters for The Wall Street Journal, but it wasn’t until January 1st that I felt I really “got” them. They announced the launch of their new tech website, Re/code, and in doing so revealed something incredibly intimate about themselves: they’re entrepreneurs, just like me. And just like many of you.

Coverage of Mossberg and Swisher’s split with WSJ – and their new venture – has been significant. They’ve gone on record as saying that Re/code is going to reimagine tech news as we know it, as well as allow them to “reinvent” themselves. As two of the nation's most daring tech journalists, each with sky high brand equity, I’m fascinated by this desire to begin anew. Not only because it reflects the drive for change shared by Airfoil and our clients, but also because it signals how we might move forward working with this new media entity.

I can only speculate so much, for Re/code – now only in its infancy – has so far handled news in a way that’s reminiscent of AllThingsD (the property the 2 helmed for WSJ). The new era of Mossberg & Swisher has yet to fully realize itself. But if Re/code ultimately proves to be a new journalistic model for the digital age, I can make some early educated guesses about what this reinvention could mean for our work here:

New spirit, same people = controlled risks. The entire staff of AllThingsD followed Mossberg and Swisher to Re/code. This means that we can start fresh with people we already know – it’s a best-case scenario. Media with whom we’re already connected, telling us that they’re expanding who they are and how they cover the news? Sounds like an open invitation for creative pitches, for brainstorming, or – at a minimum – reaching out and saying, “Tell me more about what you’re doing there, and how I can help you.”

It’s a serious chance to show our stories.  Per Mossberg,“…we will be able to finally have added resources, so we can grow in new and exciting ways, including hiring more journalists and doing much more video.”  It’s a reference to a content partnership Revere Digital, Mossberg and Swisher’s holding company, has entered into with NBC Universal News Group properties, including TV networks such as NBC, CNBC and MSNBC.  Everything Re/code covers online has the potential for a broadcast extension, so our teams should always think in terms of multimedia content when storytelling with these folks.

Their events will still matter. A lot. In fact, it’s going to be very interesting to see how these events evolve under the Re/code brand.  AllThingsD was originally launched as a series of conferences on business and technology, and although WSJ appears ready to abandon the ATD brand, it is still holding a signature tech event in October. So, Re/code’s conferences – the first event happening  May 27 - 29 near Los Angeles – present new marketing opportunities in both quantity and quality.  It’s entirely possible that we end up with 2 sets of competitive events from Re/code and WSJD (the new Wall Street Journal Digital) unlike anything we’ve seen prior – each media property has an urgent and vested interest in separating itself from the legacy of AllThingsD conferences (as successful as they were).

Merriam-Webster defines “legend” as “a famous or important person who is known for doing something extremely well.” A good start, but when it comes to legends in the PR industry, it’s only the beginning. In an industry that doesn’t merely survive change, but by definition demands it, legendary communicators are known for doing something new.

Bud Liebler is known for doing just that, and I recently had the privilege of helping induct him into PRSA Detroit’s Hall of Fame. During his time in corporate communications at Chrysler he was a force behind the then-novel concept of theatrical product introductions at major auto shows. At the 1996 North American International Auto Show, new model Chrysler minivans made a dramatic debut:  Chrysler executives delivered the story of the new vehicles from giant storybooks, then watched as one – with Kermit the Frog in the driver’s seat – soared over an artificial pond. It was Chrysler’s way of expressing that it would “leapfrog” the competition…and it was a moment of fearless marketing made possible under Liebler’s bold leadership.  

PRWeek recently introduced a group of six “Legends of PR” as inaugural members of its Hall of Fame and, not surprisingly, each one gained permanent legendary status for daring to be agents of change.  These men and women forged careers full of brave decisions and bold moments, including:

Harold Burson: Elevating the role of PR.  Burson-Marsteller’s founder started practicing the concept of integrated marketing decades before the term was even invented. He brought PR into the advertising business at Young & Rubicam as an equal, and some would say it’s never been as successfully achieved since.

Al Golin: Raising the citizenship standard. The founder and chairman of GolinHarris pioneered the trust bank concept in 1957, which has served as the foundation for many companies seeking to give back to communities which contribute to their success. A vivid example is the Ronald McDonald House Charities, which operates more than 300 "homes away from home" near children's hospitals allowing families to stay close to their children receiving treatment.

Jon Iwata: Setting a powerful agenda. IBM’s SVP of marketing and communications was pivotal to the creation of the company’s Smarter Planet initiative, widely recognized as a brilliant and cohesive campaign selling IBM and its services by framing the importance of, and the need to, harness the intelligence in the world's and a company's connected data.

Charlotte Otto: Overhauling a mammoth communications machine. The former global external relations officer for Procter & Gamble spearheaded the external relations concept for the consumer products company. Synchronizing the efforts of each of the corporation’s externally facing communication disciplines required galvanizing 1200 employees worldwide, but the massive undertaking paid off by increasing dramatically the business value of communications for P&G. 

Marcia Silverman: Making the case for women in power. The former global CEO for Ogilvy Public Relations was one of the first women to serve as CEO of a global PR firm. While this is a great distinction, what really set her apart is what she did in that role: during the staggering economic collapse of the recession, she pushed her staff members to reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs, enabling the agency to meet client needs and target areas of growth.

Marilyn Laurie: Raising the collective consciousness. The former EVP of PR and brand management for AT&T left perhaps her most indelible mark before joining the company, as a nationally recognized environmentalist who led communications for the first Earth Day and helped create the Environmental Action Coalition.

“Inforum is the leading professional organization focused on creating strategic connections and accelerating careers for women throughout Michigan and the Midwest.”

I recently attended the InForum Detroit event held at AIREA STUDIO located in the beautiful Compuware building in Detroit to offer support to the ACTiVATE® program as a mentor and advisor. After a casual mixer the event moved into a ‘speed dating’ format where I met each of the women entrepreneurs for 2-3 minutes and heard their 1-minute elevator speeches. In turn, I offered advice and insights based upon my own experiences as an entrepreneur.

During the rounds of introductions I met several fascinating women who blew me away with their great ideas and a relentless drive to push their businesses forward. Among them was Emily A. Hay, founder of HayThereSocialMedia.com. Hay There Social Media helps companies and people to use social media strategies and campaigns to move their businesses forward. As a public relations and marketing communications firm, Airfoil conducts calculated searches for influential journalist and bloggers using social media, so Emily and I shared an instant connection and her vision quickly intrigued me.

It’s a small world after all. I also met Marlin Page who launched Sisters Code, an organization whose mission it is to educate and empower women of all ages to explore the world of technology. Through talking, we discovered Marlin has worked with Airfoil in the past on a project for Microsoft. She had nothing but great things to say about the people at Airfoil, and she is someone whose passion absolutely shines through her personality.

Cynthia Grubbs is another women whose desire is impossible to ignore. She is the VP of public affairs for Mavin Global, a for-profit social enterprise created to develop IT-solutions that empower public and private intuitions as well as individuals to address the challenges of our time. Mavin Global believes its software could help address social issues more effectively than legislation. Cynthia’s focus and determination were clear and she was a pleasure and inspiration to speak with.

My participation with InForum Detroit was an uplifting experience and it was exciting to serve as a program mentor and advisor to this next generation of business leaders. It was refreshing to see so many women championing truly unique start-up concepts and pushing the envelope in the business world.   

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and I look nothing alike (truly: check out my headshot), but I see him in me. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, or whether you’re a devotee of Microsoft products and services, or whether you lead a team, a department or an entire corporation: if you’re in a position of business leadership, I hope you see him in you, too.

Full disclosure, Microsoft is a client of Airfoil, the technology marketing communications firm I co-founded and lead today. In fact, it was our first client. Steve Ballmer assumed the top spot at Microsoft in 2000, the same year Airfoil launched. We are members of the same fateful Class of 2000, embarking on amazing new technology journeys at the precise time the dot-com bubble up and burst. And the fact that we weathered these crazy, thrilling, unsettling years together bonds us – not personally, but in personality as leaders.

Have you seen the video of Ballmer’s departure speech at his last annual employee meeting? There’s weeping, high emotion, fist pumping, but above all else, unadulterated passion. He may have accumulated as many detractors as advocates during his CEO tenure, but through an objective lens it’s clear this is a man who cares profoundly. About his business. His employees. His responsibility as a leader. Our world.

I argue that profound caring is perhaps the most critical of leadership characteristics. If you’re not prone to high fiving your team or having it broadcast to the world over the Internet, it doesn’t mean a fiery passion goes undetected – or unrewarded. Your inner Steve Ballmer – that deep and intense caring for what you do -- manifests in the DNA of your services and products, client confidence and employee dedication. It’s what compelled me to start up a technology marketing communications firm at perhaps the most ill-advised time in the history of the industry, and it’s sustained us through the well documented highs and lows of both the tech industry and our global economy.

So, announcement of Steve Ballmer's retirement triggers nostalgia for me. With every retrospective of his career at Microsoft, I also see Airfoil’s journey and mine as a leader. Microsoft under Ballmer’s leadership and Airfoil have experienced very different, but equally intense, roaring successes and stinging failures over the last 13 years. It’s all relative, so despite the fact that Microsoft and Airfoil are on different planes, there are distinct parallels in our experiences as businesses:  

Knowing thyself is good. Microsoft recently implemented a reorganization of the company to “enable us to innovate with greater speed, efficiency and capability in a fast changing world.”  Since he first took the helm, Ballmer’s strategy has been to put technical people in management systems, a self-effacing nod to the fact that while he is a business visionary, he’s never positioned himself as a technologist, per se. Leveraging what I’m very good at and acknowledging head on what I’m not – and surrounding myself with the people who fill those deficits – has been crucial to keeping Airfoil moving forward, rather than stuck at the mercy of ego.

Sometimes reinvention is necessary to remain true to yourself. For years, Microsoft’s position has been that it’s in the business of helping people and businesses reach their potential through technology. While software is what built Microsoft, under Ballmer’s leadership the company is now openly revising its technology offering while still enabling customers to “reach their potential.” In this way, the move to becoming a devices and services leader helps Microsoft be more of what it’s always wanted to be. Airfoil has restructured the way we organize teams and practice areas and added new service offerings as research, the marketplace and our clients seemed to dictate numerous times. It hasn’t always “worked,” and sometimes it has but as times change, so have we. But we have never instituted an organizational change that changed us into something we weren’t.

Making the abstract real and meaningful is hard work…and we’d do it all again.  The business of selling the high concept is, frankly, hard. Whether that concept is of something tangible but complex – like enterprise software, operating systems, or the cloud – or something intangible but critical – like brand awareness or competitive intelligence or social media engagement – it’s a challenge to sell that vision, but so meaningful when you do. Helping customers and clients identify previously unrecognized needs (let’s remember there was a time not long ago when the average household didn’t have a single computer) is possible when you consistently share proof of practice and communicate a genuine belief in its value. Bringing innovative but important ideas to life is a mission Airfoil shares with Microsoft, each of us approaching it through our respective areas of expertise…and passion.

Leadership transitions can range from frustrating to fulfilling, long-anticipated to out of left field, motivating to downright scary. Consider how the mood and conversation of the country shifts when we transition to a new president, or how a team’s entire approach to the game can be altered when a new coach takes over a football squad.

The emotions and the internal changes are just as evident when a business transitions its leadership. For example, the recent announcement by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer—only the second person in the company ever to hold that title—that he will be retiring within the next year was both sudden and impactful, as would be a transition for any major corporation with its logo embedded in virtually every desktop and mobile device around the globe. With some certain changes ahead for that organization, based on my decades of experience in public relations, it’s apparent to me that a leadership transition can be an energizing and positive development for a business that communicates openly both internally and externally.

Here are five ways I see that a transition can be beneficial to a company’s presence in the marketplace.

First of all, new leadership often brings with it innovative approaches to doing business and forming partnerships. Importing outside perspectives into the business, or elevating internal leadership, offers new views on the marketplaces and often new successes.

Second, although new leaders may import new members of a leadership team, current managers and other executives frequently discover they have a new set of ears to hear their ideas for new products, services or processes. Incoming leaders, by the nature of their situation, are more inclined to be good listeners, wanting to hear about the issues that should be resolved and the observations that can lead to improvements in the company’s offerings.

Third, a leadership change brings a marketing advantage to a well-known company, because every move it makes and every product it releases in the months immediately following the changeover become newsworthy. Reporters are trained to look for the potential impact of transitions on businesses, so they will follow the business more closely and report on it more frequently than they otherwise would. With strategic messaging, the business has a picture window of opportunity to make an important positive impact on its market through news media.

Fourth, social networks will continue to hum about the business as the transition takes place. A business that feeds social streams with news about the transition, new leaders onboarding, thought leadership from the new top executive and product news will for a time dominate the online conversation in comparison to its competitors. Online influencers will be listening and watching, providing a prime opportunity to engage them in conversations.  

Finally, industry analysts are likely to discuss at length the changeover in a large company, impacting the brand and its stock price. If the business has maintained a strong analyst-relations program, it will have the connections required to inform analyst commentary and arrange meetings between analysts and the new CEO that can bring more awareness of his or her intentions for the company’s future. Building relationships with analysts in advance of leadership transition is critical to leverage their insights during a time of heightened need.

You know that table that we all wanted to be invited to in the C-Suite? Big Data has entered the room and smashed it.

In the opinion of the New York Times, this week’s announcement of merger plans between Omnicom and Publicis “signals that advertising is now firmly in the business of Big Data: collecting and selling the personal information of millions of consumers” as the agencies react to the table-turning data-collection capabilities of Google and Facebook. But the announcement and the entire process appear to me to be a setback for the public relations firms under the roof of these agencies and elsewhere.

Besides the fact that smaller PR firms in these holding companies may be merged, the strategic role of PR in their future seems to have been smothered by Big Data’s intrusion. For decades, PR professionals have complained that they play only a secondary role to advertising in integrated marketing agencies, when in fact PR should take the lead in many marketing efforts. Now advertising appears to have been kicked down a notch to that secondary position, supporting the aggregation and analysis of online data habits that today can be rapidly pinpointed for each consumer. PR finds itself in a tertiary, marginalized position under all this weight above it.

The role of public relations strategy didn’t even earn a mention in the merger announcement. Worse yet, why haven’t we heard anything from those PR firms and the public relations industry? For many years, PR professionals have argued that they should have a place at the table in marketing agencies, and now that table has been demolished.

Why are these practitioners so silent now?

Is the prospect of what this means too overwhelming?

What is the future of the PR firms within the merged holding companies, which are transitioning into the world’s largest ad-buying engine?

What is PR’s role in a commoditized, re-engineered world of data-driven marketing?

I would argue that our role as PR professionals is more essential and urgent than ever. Data can focus marketing efforts, but it brings no content, not context of its own. Once targets are identified and segmented, creative messaging—storytelling—will be essential to complete the process. We’ll be seeking to reach many more different audiences with many different stories, and that’s where PR can climb out of the pile and stand tall.

As Detroit works its way through the bankruptcy process, many of those most concerned about the city are asking, “How should we rebrand Detroit?” and “How do we convince people and businesses to return to the city?” I believe such questions fail to appreciate both the magnitude of the issues confronting Detroit at this moment and the stage of crisis that we’re in after decades of governmental mismanagement and deficit spending.

Asking right now how we should rebrand Detroit is akin to huddling in the New Orleans convention center on August 29, 2005, as Katrina’s floods and winds roar around us and asking how we should rebrand that city. It’s like climbing through the rubble of Haiti as the January 12, 2010, earthquake rumbles across the landscape and asking how to rebrand Port-au-Prince.

Detroit at this moment is in the midst of a mighty battering, an unnatural disaster with destruction and impact as extensive as any other city its size has sustained. Amid this hurricane of problems, it’s too early to start rebranding, because first we must rebuild Detroit into a viable city with a strong foundation and future. Brands are built, not proclaimed, and the next Detroit’s brand must be built on the new foundations that are about to be set in place by the bankruptcy and all that it engenders.

Successful branding will follow a successful bankruptcy. The leaders of the recovery effort - Gov. Snyder, Manager Orr and Mayor Bing - have set out on the right foot. They have done a great job of communicating the bad news; now they - and we - need to focus on how to communicate the good news embedded in the rebuilding effort.

The most important thing that public relations professionals can do at this point is to ensure that the best possible communications continue through this long process.  What I mean by “the best possible communications” are clear, factual communications that are relevant to the hundreds of thousands of stakeholders in the process, including tens of thousands of municipal retirees concerned about their pensions, 100,000 of the city’s creditors concerned about their own viability and 700,000 residents concerned about survival.

Many of these residents are confronting disasters far worse than darkened streetlights. Like storm refugees in New Orleans, large numbers have no food, and their living conditions may be horrendous. How will bankruptcy affect them? It’s our job as communicators to help lead this conversation, to let citizens learn the answers to life-or-death questions that plague them every morning and every night.

We have heard our leaders say, “Detroit deserves better; Detroiters deserve better.” As communicators, we need to explain what that means, to residents, to school children, to businesses, to visitors. Exactly how will Detroit be better as we emerge from the bankruptcy process? That’s a question we can’t answer yet, but it should be at the top of our list as we move forward in communicating with the city’s constituencies.

Another message we should affirm is that voters and potential candidates for city offices should not be discouraged by the process. While an emergency manager is making all the big decisions currently, when Detroit emerges from bankruptcy, the city will have an urgent need for strong leadership. Communicators have a responsibility to help keep civic-minded individuals remain engaged and help prepare them to take action once the next Detroit takes shape.

Finally, city leaders must adopt 21st century communications channels, using social and digital media extensively. They must reinvent the way they’re communicating, getting good news out instantly as it happens.

A voice of reason. A lode star. An anchor in rough seas. In a communications environment that’s experiencing unprecedented change and an economic, technology and social era where there no longer appears to be the briefest moment of “status quo,” things that are stable and reliable can feel really good. This, coming from someone whose life’s passion and work is working with businesses in the highly  volatile technology arena. But as rapidly as our firm adapts to changes in the innovation marketplace, it’s a controlled chaos because we’re grounded by fundamental PR and marketing best practices that transcend the crisis of the day.

And beyond marketing communications, we as Americans have just come off of what can only be described as one of the most challenging weeks in terms of threats to our security and our psyches. Regardless of your spiritual leanings, most of us had to rely on some sense of world order ensured by a higher power in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, followed by the massive plant explosion in Texas and ricin-laced letters being sent to President Obama and suspected of being sent to several senators and one justice official. But when faced with uncertainty and, even, fear, I also look to role models who have weathered professional and personal storms with focus, conviction and elegance, like the late Margaret Thatcher, as reminders to “keep calm and carry on,” as best we can.  

Margaret Thatcher is one of my all-time leadership and communications heroes. When she became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Britain was teetering on disaster, threatened by total collapse. Ultimately forced out of office in 1990, she left a sound economy and an optimistic, well-ordered society. The achievement was remarkable, beginning with the fact that she was the only woman Prime Minister in British history, up to that point and since.  

The secret of her success was thanks in large part to the stoic courage of her convictions and her determination to be heard, which provided the people of Britain a sense of direction amidst economic and political upheaval. In observance of the impact she had on the formation of my philosophy toward steady, reassuring leadership and communication on behalf of clients, even in the most turbulent of times, I’m sharing three invaluable lessons I take from the rational, dignified example she set, in her own words:

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” Whatever truth you want to be known about yourself, your brand, your country, it needs to be self-evident. The actions and values of an individual or organization are only crystallized and publicized – not created – through communications. In both the way we run our business and the counsel I provide clients regarding the authenticity of their platform, as much as I respect the power of words, talk isn’t enough. Especially salient in troubling times, because an entrenched reputation for consistency and transparency goes a long way in reassuring staff, clients, and clients’ clients that we are still under control.

“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you would achieve nothing.” Rather than relent to severe pressure to change course every time public opinion swayed,  Margaret Thatcher without fail stuck to her ideals. The very unexpected, and often rapidly evolving, nature of a crisis means messages for the public must remain somewhat organic, but a company’s already established mission and values are the pivot point for creating those relevant, adaptable messages. Like the Iron Lady, strong brands and businesses don’t change who they are when challenged, they reinforce who they are in the context of the crisis. 

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” At the risk of being the bearer of bad news, every executive decision we make isn’t going to be the right one. And at the risk of a client seeing this statement attributed to me, every marketing and PR plan, campaign and relationship isn’t going to go smoothly. But Airfoil has made it an internal priority to celebrate – and learn from – what we call “successful failures.” As communicators and business leaders we must approach our work with a sense of confidence, but we also must find the courage to recognize “failures” as opportunities to grow, not cause for paralysis. Margaret Thatcher didn’t allow political failures to extinguish the flame of the torch she carried, which inspires me both personally and professionally to keep moving forward on the heels of a setback.

It’s very possible that “status quo” is a turn of phrase that the folks over at Merriam Webster will eventually vote to remove from the dictionary, because it just doesn’t feel achievable any more. More than anything, this prospect energizes me because it presents exciting challenges in the world of communications. Against a backdrop of change, our clients need us more than ever to help keep their reputations, messaging and public activities in alignment with their values and objectives…something Margaret Thatcher pulled off like a champ.