Double Dawg DARE You!

By Helen Vollmer, President

I am a serious word wonk. Language is music to me. Want to make me happy? Introduce me to a new word or turn of phrase I’ve never heard of before. Which is why I am thrilled that after 50 years, the final volume (Volume 5) of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is seeing the light of day, thanks to Harvard University Press.

This amazing linguistic project traces how Americans speak and reflects how we’ve communicated past and present. The dictionary, with its 60,000 terms, also shows that while we have become mobile and many of us live far from our roots, some of our phrasing is “dyed in the wool,” proving that home is not necessarily where you live but what you take with you.

Cases in point:

Do you say “soda” or “pop” or do you simply ask for a Coke, like we do in Texas?

If you order a slushburger, you’re probably someone from the Dakotas who wants a sloppy joe.

If you’re from Wisconsin, you may want that burger with a wapatuli, a potent punch.

Will you vote for a snollygoster this election year? In the South, this is a term for a self-promoting politician.

The point of all this is that as life gets more homogenized and one WalMart pretty much looks like another as you traverse I-10 from sea to shining sea, the way we communicate and the words and phrases we use are details that make us distinctive and point to how we relate to the world around us. It’s how we tell stories about ourselves, serving up clues in word form.

In the days ahead, I DARE you to think about unique words clusters you use to engage with others. Oops—gotta run and clean up that Coke I just tumped over on my desk.

Picket Signs, Drums and SEO

By Rob Discher, Vice President

For what seems like the past six months, we’ve had a group of protestors waving picket signs and banging buckets outside our office every morning. They’re angry, it seems, about something. Or maybe they’re just interested in collecting the $10/hour they rack up for braving the frigid Austin winter outside the Omni building. Either way, they’re remarkably consistent. Come 8 am CT, the chants fire up, the drum sticks start connecting with the cheap plastic receptacles and the sings start bobbing up and down.

Here’s the problem – despite all the noise and commotion, I don’t think anyone in our office could tell you what these people are asking for? What are they so pissed about? What’s moving them to this point of action? What is their desired outcome?

I joked with someone in the elevator last week that these protestors needed a PR firm. I was only half kidding. We had both just walked past the blaring drums and shouts, coffee and laptops in hand. I asked my fellow elevator-mate if she knew what the protests were about. After months of walking past the picketers, neither of us had an answer.

What does this have to do with PR? Is Edelman breaking into the organized protest business? No, we’re not opening up a new practice group, but at a fundamental level, the argument about noise versus clarity is incredibly relevant.

Think of all the pitches, press releases, events, blog posts and speeches you’ve written over the past year for a client. Think of the last time you picked up a phone (I know, old school) and called a reporter.

…or pitched a blogger on an event you wanted them to attend;

…or hit up a third party to sign an op-ed.

How central was that action to what your client really wants to be known for? I say this as someone who has spent years chasing down client deliverables assigned on a whim, some of them well thought through, most of them well-intentioned, but not all of them with logical ties back to our initial mandate.

This is why I’m excited about SEO and why at some level, it’s relevant to every piece of work that comes through our doors.

First, a little background. One of my college economics professors hammered us on the concept that economics was more a model for looking at life than a way to dissect FED rates and fiscal policy. We were encouraged to use concepts like opportunity cost and sunk cost to weigh decisions in everyday life. When do you consider something “done” and move on? What do specific actions…specific uses of your time…REALLY cost you? Where else could those resources have gone? The older I get, the more the economics mindset makes sense.

Search Engine Optimization has a similar potential. Right now, most people look at SEO in terms of linguistics, as copy on a web page or an inbound links strategy. The full potential for SEO goes well beyond that tactical approach, and it’s a lesson our friendly protestors with their lack of message clarity could use next time they hit the corner of Brazos and 8th.

SEO is rooted in the ability to discover what a company really wants to be known for and where its competitive advantage sits. You start the SEO journey by landing on a set of keywords… short and long tail phrases that the company stands behind…and you build the campaign around them. You pull together paid and organic search strategies, and you begin to see all the places that these key terms should be living – places that previously were the domain of a scattered strategic exercise or a one-off campaign.

What started as a site linguistics exercise now impacts the press releases you’re sending out. The content for the blog you help write for a CEO comes not from his late night rambling emails but from an intentional set of concepts you’re working to build the company’s reputation around. Pitches to reporters and bloggers are influenced by the topics you’re looking to drive traffic around and the credibility your site gains via the “vote” you get from that outlet writing about you.

These campaigns are more effective, more measurable and better aligned with business objectives….yes…but more simply, these campaigns based around a strong keyword strategy, founded in SEO best practices, are clearer. They’re cleaner. They’re better defined. They’re the equivalent of the well-spoken friend in an elevator calmly and simply explaining a situation, contrasted by the screaming protestor whose messages and tactics send you in a thousand different mental directions.

It’s time we start thinking a bit differently about SEO...and maybe about our picket line strategy.

March Madness: Start the Insanity

By Jimmy Egeland, Creative Services Manager

Now that March is here I have officially succumbed to the Madness. I’m talking of course about the Big Dance, the Tourney, the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. Whether for money or fun, office notoriety or bragging rights among old college buddies, filling out a bracket and following the tourney can be an awesome experience—even if you don’t like basketball. Don’t believe me? Check out these surefire ways to populate a bracket and stay glued to the games all month long.

The Mascot Method
Forget the stats, the rankings and the records—this method relies purely on which mascot would win in a real-life battle. Only the most ferocious or tactful mascots will survive. Bears, Gators, Trojans and Lions all duke it out in a gladiator-esque showdown and you decide who advances. Are you not entertained?!?

Alma Mater Matters
Do you bleed burnt orange? Did you paint your house Carolina blue? Picking your favorite school to win it all (and your rivals to lose in the first round) gives you something to root for. Sure, Virginia Poly Tech may not be the odds-on favorite, but just imagine how cool it would be if your favorite team wins…and you called it!

A Cinderella Story
It’s fun to root for the underdog. Unfortunately, the fun promptly ends after four quarters. Since 1985, when the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams, 16-seeds are a paltry 0-108 against 1-seeds. That’s right—not one measly win for the little guy. A few dogs have come close, most recently the 1996 Western Carolina (16) squad that lost 73-71 to Purdue (1). If you don’t have the gall to call the first ever first-round upset, the 15-seed vs 2-seed matchup offers slightly better chances. 15-seeds are 4-104 all-time. The odds aren’t in your favor, but calling the upset of the century instantly makes your bracket look like a winner.

Copy and Paste
Inevitably your bracket will match up with someone else’s in certain spots. There are only so many combinations. Why not take chance out of the equation and simply duplicate the picks of a favorite celebrity or public figure? President Obama went a very respectable 43-20 last year, although he failed to pick any of the final four teams. Every year there are droves of celebs publishing their picks online for the year’s madness and thanks to Twitter, you can just ask them for it. Target your favorite celeb, make contact and get copying.

Top Dog
Since seeding began in 1979, all four 1-seeds have made the Final Four in the same year only once (2008). Still, history shows that teams ranked by the loneliness number are pretty good at making a run at the title as the 1-seed has won the tourney 16 times since 1985. Even if they don’t end up winning it all, they still get pretty close. There’s only three seasons where a 1-seed didn’t make the Final Four—1980, 2006 and 2011. As far as winning it all, no seed lower than 8 has ever won the National Championship. The one and only 8-seed to do it was the Villanova Wildcats in 1985.

Unplugging for Spring

By Danielle Allen, Senior Vice President

Like many Americans, I love to watch a good old-fashioned competition. Whether its chefs out-cooking their culinary brethren, two-person teams racing through all corners of the globe or plus-sized Americans dramatically changing their lifestyles to shave off pounds by the hundreds, it’s good spectator sport.

And so I was especially fascinated to observe client Grid 21’s Biggest Energy SaverSM Campaign, a competition challenging Texas-based CenterPoint Energy and Oncor customers to use smart meters to reduce energy usage and lower their electric bills. Interestingly, a number of the winners made dramatic reductions in their energy usage —we’re talking upwards of 20-30 percent reductions—with really simple changes (they’re things even I can do).

Turns out none of us can escape the vampire craze. We all have them lurking in our homes in the form of “energy vampires.” These appliances draw power even when they are turned off and are responsible for unnecessarily running up our electric bills. Thanks to insights from their smart meter, the Biggest Energy Saver contestants were able to discover which appliances were the biggest offenders—items like our laptops, cellphones, DVRs and entertainment systems.

After learning how small changes can make a really big impact, I now go around unplugging appliances as soon as I’ve finished with them. Practically all of my outlets are desperate for attention. Gone are the days when blenders, hairdryers, printers and “orphan” chargers with nothing on the other end get to lounge in a plug all day.

Other easy tips I learned from the contestants—aside from obvious things like switching to CFL light bulbs, turning off the lights when unnecessary, reducing dishwasher/washer-dryer/microwave/TV usage and closely monitoring the thermostat—include utilizing a power strip with a timer for big ticket energy offenders to easily reduce the energy load and taking advantage of crockpot instead of the stovetop (easy with the help of blogs like this sharing a handy recipe for every single day of the year).

The smart meter is designed to put power in the hands of consumers and according to Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Efficiency, in just a few years, half of all U.S. households will have a smart meter, making them as ubiquitous as the DVR is today. That’s good news since according to a national survey commissioned by GE, 88 percent of Americans said they would be willing to use a smart device such as a meter, thermostat or appliance if it would better help manage their energy usage.

Full disclosure: I don’t have a smart meter (yet). Most of the people I come across at work and play do not either. We’re obviously missing something and based upon the Biggest Energy Saver, it looks like we’re missing out on some green.

So, what are we waiting for? It’s a little late for a New Year’s resolution, but we may be just in time to do the earth and our pocketbooks a favor this spring and deciding to unplug.

Privacy & Security: The New Drivers of Brand, Reputation and Action

By Morris Denton, Executive Vice President, General Manager

Data security and privacy have moved from the backroom to the boardroom. Data breaches, security incidents and privacy missteps are making headlines worldwide and have become a focal point for social media discussions and legislation. In fact, President Obama last month called for stronger privacy protections for consumers, outlining a proposed "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights."

As a result, managing data security and privacy effectively is essential to businesses today. The growing volume and sensitivity of information being shared, stored and used is driving demand for greater transparency about how it is being managed and protected.

Edelman recently conducted a global survey, “Privacy & Security: The New Drivers of Brand, Reputation and Action Global Insights 2012,” to gauge consumer perceptions about data security and privacy. The study shows, for the first time, why managing data security and privacy impact business success by revealing the gap between consumer expectations and what businesses are actually delivering. Our survey also reveals a relationship between effective data protection and business success and shows that data security and privacy considerations do impact purchasing decisions. Following are key findings from the survey:

• 32% of consumers agree that their privacy is adequately protected by today's business practices.
• 85% of consumers say businesses need to take data security more seriously.
• A majority of people globally (57%) report either no change or a decline in the security of their own data over the last five years.
• A majority of people globally (70%) are more concerned about data security and privacy than they were five years ago.
• 68% of consumers globally agree that, "consumers have lost control over how online personal information is shared and used by companies."

The resounding takeaway from the survey is that consumers care about the security of their personal information more than ever before but feel they are powerless to exert control, which leaves companies that collect information with the responsibility for protecting it. These concerns present both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses.

So what can businesses and organizations do to help ease their customers’ fears? They must learn to manage privacy and security issues effectively – much like a core competency. Otherwise, they will lose consumers’ trust – and ultimately, their business.

For more information about the Edelman Data Security & Privacy Group or “Privacy & Security: The New Drivers of Brand, Reputation and Action Global Insights 2012,” visit http://datasecurity.edelman.com/.