Arunav Sinha - PRAXIS 2019
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1) The document discusses the erosion of trust in technology companies and the media due to issues like corporate missteps, media sensationalism, and the rise of social media personalities. 2) It argues that Chief Communications Officers have an opportunity to help rebuild trust by shaping internal and external narratives, highlighting different viewpoints, and acting as a strategic advisor focused on transparency. 3) The document provides examples of how CCOs can develop a "techlash radar", own caution and restraint as a role, and re-establish dialogue to influence conversations that restore purpose and bring trust back.
Arunav Sinha - PRAXIS 2019
- 1. Rebuilding trust The new mandate for Chief Communications Officers Arunav Sinha | Head of Communications, Coursera
- 2. 2 A brief history of access and trust “A wonderful thing about the Homebrew Computer Club is every computer company would come together. It was this random access period where people would share corporate secrets... It was the original culture of Silicon Valley.” The Homebrew Computer Club. Founded 1975 John Markoff, New York Times reporter
- 3. 3 The changing tone of tech reporting ● Tech coverage moved from ‘largely favorable’ in the 1980s and 1990s, to ‘pessimistic’ by the 2000s ● Gradual shift seen from ‘advantages’ of technology to ‘ill effects’ (ITIF findings, 2017)
- 4. NYT’s campaign for ‘factual, evidence-based reporting.’ Photo: NYT 4 The age of news mutation ● The worsening news deluge ● Pressure of the ‘click’ web Truth or Share? False news spreads much faster than the truth on Twitter. (No fake news this!)
- 5. Number of U.S. Newsroom Employees 2008 2018 Newspapers Broadcast TV Digital Native Radio Cable TV Written By Fewer Journalists Long-term engagement Publishing More Than Ever Stories and Videos Published Per Day The New York Times BuzzFeed Early 2010s 2016 Unmet Media Needs Source: The Atlantic & Pew Research
- 6. Stories each week Unmet media needs 33% write 7+
- 7. Reporters have a tendency to rely on the same small pool of experts. This is not surprising when reporters are on deadline, but it’s problematic. The Golden Rolodex is losing shine - Phil B. Corbett, Editor at The New York Times Unmet Media Needs Source: Poynter
- 8. 8 First LinkedIn influencers The end of old school Comms Early Twitter adopters 2007 - Richard Branson 2008 - Brian Chesky 2009 - Satya Nadella 2010 - Elon Musk Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Meg Whitman, Arianna Huffington
- 9. Unfettered, instant channels ● To shape conversations online ● Reach a single customer or thousands ● Engage with journalists ● Set the record straight 9 New-age ‘access’ shifts to CEOs
- 10. “Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it.” But there’s a downside 10 Chris Pirillo, blogger & tech expert
- 11. Tesla CEO’s Twitter tryst Over 5,000 tweets and counting “My tweets are literally what I’m thinking at the moment, not carefully crafted corporate bs, which is really just banal propaganda.” - Elon Musk The tweet that cost Musk $20 million 11
- 12. Trust in platforms such as social media feeds & news apps decreased in 21 of 28 countries The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer shows a "trust crash" in the US Tech’s massive trust deficit is growing 12 In 2019, people are relying more on ‘reputable brands’ compared to last year. - Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019
- 13. What’s accelerating the trust crash? 13 Breakdown of relationships Corporate hubris Media distrust Rise of the personality cult
- 14. 14 Stakeholder relationships: Cracks deepen #GoogleWalkout #LogOutFacebook #DeleteFacebook #SocialMediaStrike #hq2scam #NoToAmazon #DeleteUber Photo: AP Photo: ReutersPhoto: AP
- 15. 15 Corporate hubris: How far is too far? “Susan Fowler’s letter was the tipping point for us. We had been trying to get the company (Uber) to address this behind the scenes. But with Susan’s blog post, it was — that is enough… it is time for drastic action.” Uber investor Freada Kapor Klein, in the Financial Times Photo: Reuters
- 16. 16 The media-tech trust chasm grows Reuters
- 17. 17 Personality cults usurp the narrative ‘...The SEC's settlement with Elon Musk is overshadowing beefed-up Model 3 production’ - Business Insider Not your average rockstar. Images: Rolling Stone
- 18. 18 Rebuilding trust: The opportunity for CCOs
- 19. ● Draw insights on hot-button issues ● Reframe the narrative in the right context ● Be part of checks and balances internally Reality check: Exit a windowless world 19
- 20. Tech employee protests are surging. Photo: AP Shape conversations that matter internally 20 ● Spot fault lines early ● Surface different viewpoints, start a dialogue ● Script an authentic, transparent narrative for your colleagues
- 21. User ire: Google Duplex sounded human, but didn’t disclose the fact ● Scan for brewing storms ● Be sensitive to ethical gray areas ● Proactively include messaging on sticky issues Develop a techlash radar 21 My spidey sense is tingling!
- 22. ● Isolate messages that don’t belong in the core narrative ● Be the voice of caution and restraint ● Advocate transparency but with clarity 22 Own the role of strategic advisor Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Photo: Reuters Customers’ negative perceptions of Uber tripled from 9 to 27 percent, post a damaging news cycle
- 23. 23 Be the bridge ● Re-establish dialogue ● Influence conversations that bring trust back ● Don’t sacrifice context for social media reach ● Bring back purpose in communication
- 24. Coursera | Expert Network Joe Warren Rice University Chuck Severance University of Michigan Aric Rindfleisch University of Illinois Maya Adam Stanford University Daniel Egger Duke University Peter Fader University of Pennsylvania Michael Mannino University of Colorado Stephen Webber Berklee College of Music Kasim Candan Arizona State University Ian Harris University of California, Irvine
- 25. Expert Network
- 26. Thank you
Editor's Notes
- #2: I am really excited to be here, among such a vibrant group of comms professionals from all over the world. It’s an honor to share some of my observations with a community that is shaping stories of many brands in India. Trust is the foundation on which institutions collaborate. But world at large is experiencing an unforeseen level of mistrust, ironically at a time when corporate profits are at their peaks. If recent developments are any indicator, the relationships between governments and companies, employees and companies, media and companies -- are all experiencing unprecedented levels of turbulence. I want to caveat this by saying that my observations are primarily based on what I am seeing in the valley, and situation in others parts of the world may be slightly different.
- #3: -- The culture in Silicon Valley was open and collaborative, unlike in more traditional industries. Journalist John Markoff had access to the club. Steve Wozniak, shared his design for the Apple I computer here in 1976. -- By the 2000s, the culture of the valley had changed unrecognizably. Launches were closely guarded secrets. Social media rewrote access norms.
- #5: Media itself faced a complete disruption, hit by possibilities and challenges of digital publishing and social media. 2005 is when Techcrunch was founded, followed by Veturebeat, The Verge etc. Mainstream papers started having big sections on tech reporting. David Pogue of NYT because a celebrity. When newspapers where measures by clicks, traffic became the main consideration. And this led to news mutation, a cycle of 24/7 reporting. The news deluge and ‘click’ web News outlets are publishing an astounding number of stories online today. Behind this proliferation of news is: News of the moment: With ‘continuous news desks’ and a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week news cycle, Journalists / publications are under extreme pressure to break stories and go viral with a web-first approach. Stories are thinly sourced or sometimes unverified. The push for traffic means that clicks rule – even if the facts don’t check out. See this Guardian article - How newsroom pressure is letting fake stories on to the web Too much news? Blame the medium. Digital publishing takes away the 'real estate' constraints of print and offers a range of tech tools and format choices for unlimited publishing (mixed reality, multimedia, slideshows, video, articles, blogs...). With stories breaking and updated in real time, when you type a search, you find conflicting accounts and / or various versions of the same story all over the internet. The truth is based on the version you see. Equally, social media sites are pathways to news, aiding the proliferation of news, especially fake news. Facts are distorted, the veracity or authenticity of a story, when and where it originated, is lost with news traveling fast online. These are major challenges for brands trying to build a narrative and keep it on track. Truth or share? Lies spread faster than the truth. MIT researchers (who published their findings in Science magazine) found false news on Twitter reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of ‘false news cascades’ diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people.
- #6: The New York Times publishes 35 percent more daily content than they did in 2010 + BuzzFeed publishes 6 times what they did in 2012 Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/how-many-stories-do-newspapers-publish-per-day/483845/ And we all know newsrooms aren’t growing in size: employment in U.S. newsroom has dropped by 25% from 2008 to 2018 Newspaper staff shrunk by 47%. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/09/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-dropped-by-a-quarter-since-2008/ More than a third of journalists are working on 7
- #7: With fewer people working on more stories, journalists are always racing the clock on their next deadline. More than 1/3 of journalists publish more than 7 articles per week (Source: https://www.cision.com/content/dam/cision/Resources/white-papers/2019_Q2_SOTM_report.pdf) Time is of the essence -- and every minute counts. They need to find a source for their story fast.
- #8: When reporters are crunched for time They rely on the Golden Rolodex -- the experts they already know Source: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2013/lack-of-female-sources-in-new-york-times-stories-spotlights-need-for-change/
- #9: Comms’ defined role - to get the story out, ensure positive press, act as gatekeeper - changed when CEOs discovered and began channeling social media and networking sites.
- #10: Every CEO can now communicate directly and instantly MITSloan Management Review study, shows twitter can help CEOs to shape conversations online. Tim Cook tweets customer stories, Brian Chesky asks for ideas
- #11: -- Social media is not risk-free. Apologies or clarifications can only follow after the fact. --“Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you're thinking before you've had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo, blogger & tech expert. He’s the founder and CEO of LockerGnome, Inc., a network of blogs, web forums, mailing lists, and online communities.
- #12: When social media makes a bad situation worse, Comms deals with the fallout http://graphics.wsj.com/elon-musk-twitter-habit-analysis/
- #13: Trust is falling world-wide, and tech companies seem most vulnerable to this trend. There’s a trust crash in the US, but this is spreading across the world. People say they are relying more on ‘reputable brands’ than this time last year - Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019
- #14: Breakdown of relationships: customer, employee and regulator mistrust is growing. (eg for customers: Data privacy / for employee protests - google, microsoft, amazon / antitrust investigations for regulator mistrust Corporate Hubris: Uber’s damaging news cycle that spanned years. Media distrust is open now, and changing the dynamic of how news is shared and disseminated. Personality cult: Elon Musk’s fight with the SEC
- #15: Emotion is not a noise of human body A look at these trending hashtags tell you the kind of strained relationships tech companies need to mend with major stakeholders. Breakdown of relationships: customers, employee and regulator mistrust is growing. (eg for customers: Data privacy / for employee protests - google, microsoft, amazon / antitrust investigations for regulator mistrust
- #16: Uber went through well over a year of turbulence spurred by corporate hubris -- from spying on passengers, CEO travis Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, to Susan Fowler's post on the toxic bro culture of the company. It took a while and a new CEO to course correct.
- #17: Tech and the media share an uneasy relationship. Access isn’t what it used to be, neither is the balance of power, with tech leaders now owning major media brands. This may raise questions on accountability, but it doesn’t guarantee or improve trust.
- #18: Tech founders are larger than life personalities. The broader company narrative is often sidelined with news of founder’s personal missions, or sometimes misadventures. ‘A Wall Street analyst just toured the Tesla factory, and says the SEC's settlement with Elon Musk is overshadowing beefed-up Model 3 production’ Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.in/a-wall-street-analyst-just-toured-the-tesla-factory-and-says-the-secs-settlement-with-elon-musk-is-overshadowing-beefed-up-model-3-production/articleshow/66032391.cms
- #19: Opportunity to go beyond traditional Comms goals. To play a more nuanced role, to own a more critical mandate.
- #20: In a guest column for The New York Times, Recode's Kara Swisher asks whether a Chief Ethics Officer might be the answer for Silicon Valley (Who will teach Silicon Valley to be ethical?) "Grappling with what to say and do about the disasters they themselves create is only the beginning. Then there are the broader issues that the denizens of Silicon Valley expect their employers to have a stance on: immigration, income inequality, artificial intelligence, automation, transgender rights, climate change, privacy, data rights and whether tech companies should be helping the government do controversial things. It’s an ethical swamp out there." Companies and CEOs have to have a point of view on sticky, hot-button issues
- #21: Discontent is no longer restricted to the annual company survey Employees and management are on opposing sides. Companies have to deal with protests and activism on a global, public stage. Communicate transparently and unapologetically. (Satya Nadella response to employee criticism against AR headset Pentagon project)
- #22: Eg: When Sundar Pichai demoed Duplex, Google's new voice calling AI system, users were appalled by what they called out as ‘deception’. In the demo, Duplex sounded human, but nowhere did it reveal that it was a machine
- #23: The call to change Silicon Valley’s culture is growing louder, and as CCOs, we have a role to play in this change
- #24: With the way comms has evolved, it’s easy to sideline context and analysis. But that is disservice to your brand and audience To rebuild trust, we have to play a much more critical role as strategic advisors, with a seat at the table Social media has not replaced traditional media for a reason. Most brands have not succeeded in generating the loyalty, the credibility and trust they seek through these direct channels. It's clearly not enough to be indiscriminately seen and heard out there. To rebuild trust, the challenge is to rethink / streamline the purpose and reason of our PR efforts. CCOs have to make every conversation worthwhile and of value to customers, for employees internally and stakeholders of the company externally.
- #25: Instructor w/ highest # of learners reached from each attending partner in EN
- #26: Demo: Start: Lead with the value prop Do brief intro on how 250+ instructors were chosen Primary criteria: #1 leading authorities in their domain #2 most popular among Coursera learners #3 have expertise aligned with media trends Secondary criteria: pas media coverage, presence on social media, number of published works, previous awards + achievements, prominence on Google. Have two main functions of the site: search and curated content Both of which lead to the same outcome: filling out a media request form Demo curated content Really excited about this section During the profile: showcase #1 filling out media request; #2 clickable search buttons Currently on blog due to budget constraints + technically-time restraints Value to learners if they find this Demo search Show clickable buttons here also End: We’re incredibly excited about how Expert Network can educate the world + inform public conversations by showcasing the voices of bona fide experts -- both in the press + the short-form content.