I did what most would, and got out the trusty yellow pages, and with my laptop open beside me . . . → Read More: Why you?]]> After almost losing one of my small children to a particularly rambunctious dust ball coming out of a heating register the other day, I resigned myself to finally getting our dusty, dirty ducts cleaned professionally before fall hits.

I did what most would, and got out the trusty yellow pages, and with my laptop open beside me as backup, I started going through the listings and calling the professional duct cleaners of Victoria. I got most of what I was expecting, and something I wasn’t.

What I was expecting was a range of quotes, along with an estimate on when they could come and do the job. Being the guy who likes to ask the big dumb questions though, and knowing nothing about the duct cleaning industry, I also asked each person I got on the phone why, other than price, should I pick them over the rest of the duct cleaners in the city. That’s when I got what I wasn’t expecting.

If I got a buck for the collective seconds of silence I received on the line, I’d be buying the next round. Hello? The answers I got went from “well, we have happy customers” to “um, cause we do a real good job”. Not that those things aren’t important, they absolutely are, to the point of being a given. But the way they were presented made them sound about as special and unique as the newspaper that got thrown on my step today.

There were two companies that answered the question with gusto. Both were keen and sounded appreciative that I had asked (something other that price?…well!).

For me it drove home the reality that many businesses just don’t know why they stand out from the crowd, and for those that do, well, they’ll really stand out from the crowd.

“Communication focuses on how PEOPLE use MESSAGE to . . . → Read More: What is communication?]]> Textbook Definition:

Communication n.  1: An act or instance of transmitting 2 a: :information communicated  b: a verbal or written message 3 a: a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior; also: exchange of information.
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983)

Better:

“Communication focuses on how PEOPLE use MESSAGE to generate MEANINGS within and across various CONTEXTS, CULTURES, CHANNELS, and MEDIA.”
National Communication Association (1985)

Even better:

“Communication is a transactional process of sharing meaning with others.”
Rothwell (1998)

“Communication is the management of messages for the purpose of creating meaning.”
Frey, Botan, Friedman, & Kreps (1991)

Much of today’s business communications are getting lost in the definitions closer to the top of this page. The last two have the words which I believe should always be top of mind when creating a business communication (or any for that matter.)

Transactional, sharing, and meaning.

We search for relevance in everything we do, and the things around us. . . . → Read More: How relevant am I?]]> A chair spoke to me from across the room today. It asked me why it was relevant. Sitting in my office, over in a corner, nobody ever sits in it. It’s terrible on the back, quite old, and lost its original cushions long ago.

We search for relevance in everything we do, and the things around us. It’s something that provides for a need we have to be part of something larger, something more…connected. And when there’s no relevance, things feel a little empty.

What’s the matter at hand?

So like everything else I’m trying to understand better, I Googled it. According to Webster’s online relevance is:

1a “relation to the matter at hand” or

1b ” of practical and especially social applicability”

The matter at hand? That’s a good question.

I guess it’s knowing what your priorities are, or your objectives or goals, right now. Sometimes that’s easy to determine, like when my two year old has fully wound up to clock his big sister with a toy truck. Other times it’s harder, like when I’ve spent the entire afternoon processing little bits of paper ala David Allen, and I’m swimming in all that needs to be done.

Right message, at the right time

Everyone trying to interest someone else in their business or project (marketing) is hoping their message has relevance. In the course of writing this post, while listening to a podcast from Susan Bratton who was interviewing Alex Bugusky of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, he made an interesting (and timely) ramble around relevance from a marketers perspective. He said,

“Culture’s going in multiple directions at any one time, and pop culture specifically, is always having this conversation with itself about where to go. To me, relevant is to be in the conversation that pop culture is having, about any particular topic. But, if you’re going to be relevant, you’re going to be somewhat controversial, because culture hasn’t decided “OK this is the direction now”. To be part of that conversation you have to be OK with the heat that comes with being relevant.”

Obviously being relevant requires knowing your customers and being part of the conversation they’re having right now, but I think what he’s also getting at is that being relevant to your audience is very dependent on timing. Your message, just a little too late, or too early, can lose valuable relevance.

Something to think about next time I’m planning to interrupt a customer in the middle of their day.

And the chair? It was my dad’s first real piece of furniture as a bachelor, from back in the mid fifties. Most of the time, it has little relevance to the matter at hand, but one day, it’s relevance will be immeasurable.

M