Track Record for Our Bonus Set of Predictions

Here's what we're calling our Bonus Set of Predictions:

1.  The media landscape will change in 2018. We got some details wrong, very wrong. We expected the AT&T-Time Warner deal would not go through (it did, despite a DOJ lawsuit) and we expected the Sinclair Broadcasting purchase of Tribune Media to get approved (it did not). We got one deal right: Disney’s acquisition of Fox’s TV and movie studios (but not Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox TV channel). The media world changed in another way, thanks to Netflix, which receives a lot of coverage, attention and awards. We expect more consolidation in the media world, more attention to Netflix and other streaming services, and more layoffs and closings among local media. Grade: B-.

2.  Artificial Intelligence and robotics, now interconnected, will continue to be “hot.” We got this right. A.I. and robotics got a lot of attention in 2018, and we expect that to continue in 2019 and beyond, including scare stories about a “robocalypse” in which A.I.-enabled robots replace human workers as well as more-reasoned articles that debunk the scare stories. We’re not as worried because there we think it will open other types of jobs, and that implementing A.I. seems inevitable because the potential benefits could be so significant. Grade: A.

3.  Innovation often will come via business models. We expected, for example, that upscale restaurants with a delivery-only business model (relying on mobile-ordering apps) would be a bigger trend than it turned out to be. There was some coverage of that sort of innovation – not so much of technology but in the use of technology – but it wasn’t a top story. Grade: C.

4.  Bitcoin and blockchain is hitting it big time. This was our surest best of any of our 2018 predictions. We do expect more bumps in the road for bitcoin and blockchain, but overall, it will continue in 2019. Grade: A.

5.  Is the internet dying? There have been articles about the internet dying, including in the October issue of Wired. But it really wasn’t a “thing” in 2018. Grade: C-.

6.  The first amendment becomes a battle-ground issue. We got this wrong. Grade: F.

7.  Millennials’ impact will change how companies market products and services. Millennials are having an impact on products and services but there wasn’t as much coverage of it as we had expected. The layouts of newly built homes is changing, for example, but it’s not entirely clear that the reason is due to millennials (it could be because of boomers, too). Overall we overstated the amount of news coverage this would generate in 2018. Grade: C-.

8.  Smart-Home automation will gain acceptance but still a niche offering. We said the biggest aspect would be intelligent personal assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Overall, we were on target for this. Grade: B+.

9.  The ranks of unicorn startups will grow but expect a backlash because unicorns are difficult to sustain. We didn’t see the term “unicorn” as much as we expected but in October, there was a big splash that Uber’s bankers value the company at $120 billion. We did see more articles about unrest in Silicon Valley between employees at startups and regular people who live there — so that’s something of a backlash. We continue to see the challenge as stated by New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo is right when he said, a continued threat for startups is that just “fewer than 1 percent … end up as $1 billion companies” and that the Frightful Five (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft) can out-pay key employees (an issue in the A.I. space), out maneuver or just invest in startups and co-opt them. Grade: C.

10. Religious nonprofits will be able to publicly make political endorsements, but doing so will change how they are perceived. We got this wrong for 2018. However, it may be a problem down the road, particularly with people who oppose the political endorsements made by a particular religious nonprofit.

3 Tips for Pitching Nonprofits/NGOs During a Crisis or Trendjacking for a Good Cause

When a crisis hits, NGOs and other nonprofits often seek to raise awareness of their missions and how they are helping people in need. The term for this is trendjacking or news-jacking, capitalizing a trending topic to bolster one's brand in the marketplace," according to an article, "Does Trendjacking Work: And Should You Be Doing It?" on the TweakYourBiz site.

Trendjacking can be a good way to leverage existing interest in a topic -- but it's not without risk. The main risk is for an organization to look like it is exploiting a trend or crisis -- and that can damage the organization's brand.

But there are times when a worthwhile organization should at least consider whether or not to leverage a trending topic. If you do decide to move forward, there are some logistical issues to address.

We have advised several terrific NGOs and charities, and here are five lessons we learned. 

1. It's not enough to have experts, you need to have spokespeople with specific expertise on the ground. A nonprofit that helps with adoption from Africa seemed one that reporters would want to speak to as they wrote about children who were orphaned by Ebola -- but the media wanted someone they could interview in an Ebola-infected community. The media all felt the organization was doing good work but the organization didn't have specific information about what was being done for Ebola orphans and had no one who could talk about specific adoptions that had taken place in which a child, whose parents had died of Ebola, had been placed with a family in the U.S.
2. Speed matters. It's amazing how fast network news can work to pull together stories. By the time you’ve read or watched an article about it, the producers will feel they’ve already told the story; there’s nothing more to pitch. To get the media's attention, you need to develop and implement your strategy, tactics and messages at the start of the crisis. You basically need someone on the ground or with direct expertise in the first few hours, especially someone who can do an interview over Skype. 
3. Bring something strikingly new to the game by uncovering what the media hasn’t covered. Make sure to differentiate the charity from what others are doing, and from what the media perceives the story to be. Otherwise, reporters’ basic response will be, "Good to know there’s another organization that can talk about conditions on the ground but we've had already covered that angle."

Unfortunately, to get the media's attention, it takes more than doing good work to help people in a crisis. The point of helping an NGO during a crisis is to help further NGO's mission, which can include offering tips for others facing the crisis or offering additional ways for people to help those caught up in the crisis. 

The above tips assume you are working with an above-board organization. It might be worthwhile to develop a trendjacking plan to help you move more quickly in the case of a situation in which your organization's spokespeople can provide useful information that can help those caught up in the crisis.

Non-apologies and Non-answers Don't Help Non-profits

The well respected nonprofit Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation is now embroiled in a scandal of its own making. The reaction to the news that the foundation had decided to cut funding of $700,000 of grants to Planned Parenthood has generated a storm of front-page coverage, angry editorials, tweets and Facebook comments.

The organization, which has built up tremendous goodwill and strong brand recognition with its iconic pink ribbon, has a right to distribute its $93 million in grant money as it sees fit, consistent with its mission, fiduciary and legal responsibilities.  However, the foundation has clearly miscommunicated an apparent policy change with regard to Planned Parenthood.

Critics are claiming that the reason Komen cut grants to Planned Parenthood is due to politics -- specifically the desire to placate some anti-abortion donors who have been targeting Planned Parenthood, which provides breast-cancer screenings along with privately-funded services, which may include abortion.

In its attempt to explain the change in policy, the foundation issued a statement, followed up by a video by Komen founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker, that it continually measures the impact and that  the organization "has the highest responsibility" to make sure "these donor dollars make the biggest impact possible." 

At the end of the video, Brinker invokes the promise she made her sister, Susan G. Komen, in explaining the foundation's mission. She does a good job in articulating the passion she feels for the organization, its goals and its impact.

Unfortunately, though the video is intended to provide background on the organization's policy changes, Brinker never actually mentions Planned Parenthood by name. Nor, in stating the organization revamped its guidelines and policies in terms of grant-giving, does Brinker explain what new criteria Planned Parenthood and others organizations now must meet in order to continue to receive grants from the Komen foundation.

Ultimately, her explanation is neither an apology -- Brinker's a bit to defensive here -- nor a direct response to the questions people have.

And because she doesn't provide a true answer about its decision that impacted Planned Parenthood, Brinker has actually flamed the fires, enabling people to assume that the decision was motivated by anti-abortion politics that has spent the past year targeting Planned Parenthood, investigating it for possible misuse of government funding (which is kept separate from any abortion services Planned Parenthood provides).

The lesson here is that goodwill takes years to build up but can be damaged in a heartbeat if communications are mishandled.  I don't know if the Komen foundation will see long-term negative impact on its programs and fundraising -- just as I don't know if Planned Parenthood will see a long-term positive impact to its fundraising and its support.

But I do know this damage is self-inflicted, even if unintentional. Policy changes don't have to be scandals. But it shows, yet again, that in the social media age, organizations need to be more sensitive than ever to the impact of its decisions and to the way those decisions are communicated and responded to.

UPDATE: After this article was posted, the foundation actually reversed its decision,and did a better job of explaining its new policy:

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation.  We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

This information was not communicated well before -- which meant that the conflicting information coming from inside the organization and from former employees was getting significant play as people were trying to make sense of things.

That said, the tone of part of the response is more defensive than it might have been: "We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood.  They were not."

At this point, the question remains: what long-term impact will this blunder have on this worthy organization. Let me know what you think.

Supreme Court Rules 5-4 Against New England School of Law

At the top of the hour, WBUR-FM did its minute of thanking listeners who support the station, including New England School of Law, touting that four Supreme Court Justices will visit the school this year, its centenary.

That's nice, I guess. But a more provocative way to get mileage from that could have been to say: "Supreme Court Rules 5-4 Against New England School of Law -- find out why at..."

The school could then announce that it is appealing the decision -- and invite other justices to visit the campus.

Actually, I just had lunch with a person in charge of communications at a nonprofit client we've worked with, and we talked about the reticence of some nonprofits from engaging in active PR. Look, every organization has to be comfortable with the type of PR before, and there may be some great strategies and tactics that just aren't right for the organization. So you don't do recommend reluctant organizations to take on a PR campaign that goes against their culture. But it can be fun to imagine what they could do with it.

Good Lessons on Leveraging Events for PR

I know a lot of organizations are cutting back on events. But there are still times when they are necessary.

In the current issue of Fast Company, Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something, a nonprofit, provides an instructive postmortem of an event that Do Something held.

Key points from the article, Stinking it Up: We had a big party, but got no buzz. Lessons from a PR failure," included:

• Find a good story happening at the event -- not just who's being honored. Lublin's example: Boys Like Girls (a band playing at the event) has "a pet turtle named Dorota, named after the Gossip Girl character, and they met Zuzanna Szadkowski, who plays Dorota, at the event.
• If you have celebrities, be exclusive with the media to get bigger play.
• Don't forget to work with bloggers and others in the social media space (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
• Make sure to get a photographer, and then to send photos to appropriate outlets.
• Strategize after the event. What worked, what didn't.
  
• Follow up. Not just to make sure articles hit, but to leverage those articles by bookmarking them (via Digg), tweeting about them, etc.