The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival

Fiction is a tough category to write. An author has to create a universe rich in detail, full of subtleties, yet have a broad enough range of narrative arcs to push the story along. The reader also needs to work; we have to suspend our disbelief in order to not get confused between reality and make-believe, especially when an author writes a historical fiction or a fictional story about an actual place.

Ken Wheaton’s debut novel, “The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival” adeptly invents an alternate reality of Grand Prairie, Louisiana (an actual place) with a complex cast of characters (all created from Mr. Wheaton’s vivid imagination) creating exactly what a good book should: a movie for your mind.

Written in a unique, first person present tense (“I look at her and say…” as opposed to the typical first person past tense “I looked at her and said…”), which acutely represents the dichotomy of the main character (and narrator) Father Steve Sibille, Mr. Wheaton’s narrative style does take the reader by surprise. Priests are not supposed to talk, let alone think, in the way Father Steve does. Yet the honesty of Wheaton, through Father Steve’s inner turmoil of balancing his faith with his feelings, portrays a common theme in many religions, especially Christianity: how to deal with the contradictions between doctrine and reality.

Father Steve is not your typical shepherd; he drinks; he smokes; he cusses. However, he loves his flock and is in danger of losing them to the shiny new Pentecostals, who moved in down the block. The story progresses towards entertaining results as Father Steve, with the help of his friends both old and new - Vicky Carrier, daughter of the priest Father Steve replaced; Miss Rita, an old woman who is Father Steve’s conscious and a woman his parents hired as help when he was a child; gay priest and general rabble-rouser Father Mark Johnson, attempts to compete with the over-enthusiastic Pentecostals by conjuring up The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival.

Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to the carnies with the folksy wisdom and giant elephant (I think everybody, at one point in their lives, has always wanted to ride on top of the gentle pachyderm – at least I have) or the mouth-watering cookery of the deep woods of Louisiana (or inspired by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal): slow cooked stuffed hog inside a full heifer.

“The First Annual Grand Prairie Festival” touches on some serious cultural and societal themes, too (note, these two classifications are different and Mr. Wheaton does look at culture and society from an interesting, if not amusing, lens).

Mr. Wheaton tackles the expansionist, everything-bigger-is-better American philosophy through the relationship between Father Steve’s close-knit parish and Brother B.P’s Pentecostal group.

He explores the notions of sexuality through the inner (and sometimes outer) dialogue of Father Steve, who has committed his life to celibacy – even though he is surrounded by physical temptation, as well as the constant, loving nagging to find a woman from Miss Rita. Mr. Wheaton also looks at sexuality through Father Mark, the openly gay priest who descends on Grand Prairie and Father Steve like a flamboyant hurricane.

Mr. Wheaton also asks us to confront questions of faith: Why should a member of the clergy follow certain rules, but ignore others? And if a priest can break a few rules, well, why can’t we? Has the caricature of religion in the United States really become Brother BP, with his grandiose lifestyle and pious outlook on one hand and a closet full of secrets on the other?

There are some very absorbing characters in this book, all of whom seem to be seeking redemption for something. And this could be the best reason to read this book, because who among us isn’t searching for faith or companionship or the introduction of a new way to spell a favorite contraction of the South, "Yall." Well, maybe the best reason is the traditional Cajun recipes at the back of the book.

“The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival” is a carnival and you have a ticket for every ride. Copies start shipping from Amazon and B&N.com and other online retailers on Dec. 29.

Are Lists Good For Social Media?

Twitter has grown exponentially over the past two years and so has the culture that has blossomed around the communications tool. The Twitterverse, through the means of the user, has developed a currency based in thought capital, designated by the few to be spread through the many. As in other cultures, currencies develop and are attributed meaning that change over time.

For example, an early currency of Twitter was the number of followers a user had. The more followers meant the more influential you were, but that seemed to be a fleeting currency, as the purpose of social media isn’t quantity but quality.

Another currency that popped up was the retweet. This still has some value, as it’s a great way to spread information and qualify yourself (by being retweeted) that you have some thought capital to spend.

The most recent, which also means the most discussed, currency is the Twitter List, where you can create lists (public or private) to help navigate through the morass of Twitter or to help your followers learn about others (which kind of negates Follow Friday. But, since our culture is one of habit, we’ll still be seeing Follow Fridays for a while).

I want to qualify the following argument by saying this: Since we’re all still learning about social media in general and these lists in particular, this is just an initial reaction. What one may think today most likely will change tomorrow – especially in such a nascent space. On the face of it, lists appear to be a great tool for discovery. But it also appears to be just another way for people to say (not so much explicitly, but tacitly through the lists they’re on) “Hey, look at me!”

Social media is just like high school and lists are the modern equivalent of the segmentation of the jocks, the nerds, the band kids, the potheads, the Goths, the greasers, the cheerleaders: what/whose list are you on? Social media, as it’s preached, is about community where the sum is greater than the parts. Lists turn that idea on its head by pointing out that the community isn’t as important as the individuals on a list.

There’s a discipline in the communications field that studies how and why we build lists to segregate people in real life, called Constructivism. Constructivism “describes how human perception influences the skillful production and interpretation of a variety of social influence messages (Delia, O'Keefe, & O'Keefe, 1982. The constructivist approach to communication. Human Communication Theory. New York: Harper and Row, 147-91.). Since we put people in lists, we create prototypes and stereotypes, and we try to communicate against the boxes we’ve created for people. Social media is no different and these new Twitter Lists drive this idea home.

Lists create distrust:

I see a list called VIP created by someone I trust. Naturally, I take a look around to see who these VIPs are; there are some very important people on that list, but also some that I would consider the complete opposite of VIP. I now question the list-maker’s decisions, which may lead to me not trusting the content to come from this person in the future.

Lists create segregation:

Constructs are created and people are put into boxes (in this case, lists). When we put people into lists, we are defining them by that list. If I’m on a Brooklyn list, a Jewish list, a musician list, etc, people who don’t know me fall on their prototypes of what it means to be a Brooklyn, Jewish musician. Thus, it sets the stage for biased communication.

Finally, the Twitter list is flawed in the very simple logic that I cannot put together a list of the top 100 whatever because I only follow 500 people. We’re seeing lists out there with those declarative titles, and even though, as someone told me, “It’s the nature of reality,” it’s impossible to create a list that doesn’t bruise someone’s ego or leaves out many qualified people.

While some may argue the reason I’m anti List is because I’m not on any, well, like everyone who plays in the social media space (and life), I just want to be noticed but not defined.

Helping Clients Off Their Deserted Island

There are some days I wish I were talented at something useful – like a scientist who understands the natural world or an engineer who understands the mechanical world. Because let’s face it, playing with words to build perception and influence audiences can only go so far. I mean, if I were stranded on a deserted island, having a communications specialist (or a lawyer or a graphic designer) suggests I would starve. I want a carpenter to build a raft, a botanist to tell me what plants I can eat without dying; a doctor to help me when I invariably ignore what the botanist said and eat something I’m not supposed to. You get the idea: a communications person doesn’t really fit into this extreme scenario.

But is it all that extreme? As I’m learning what it takes to run a business (and a communications company, at that), I’m realizing what a Sisyphean task we communicators have. We’re trying to sell our services to companies who are already on that proverbial deserted island –only their path to salvation doesn’t come from a raft but from clients walking in the door.

At the end of the day, a communications platform doesn’t provide tangible value, something you can grasp or hold on to, like a phone or a tv. A client owes Public Relations Company $50K, but refuses to pay because over the course of 6 months, the client hasn’t seen any business walk through the door.

Instead, what he’s seen has been an increase in media opportunities, speaking engagements and a positive perception built by employing communications tactics. What he hasn’t seen is an increase in clients or project work. The short-sighted business owner, who’s been told before from many PR gurus that articles in trade or mainstream publications lead to clients, not only expects to be on the front page of the New York Times, but once that happens, to get phone calls from prospective clients. The far-sighted business owner understands that over time, a positive perception in the marketplace will increase traffic. Rome, or Apple, wasn’t built in a day.

But today’s ADD/Blackberry-fueled business world focuses on the short-term, the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately philosophy. Building perception takes time, especially when starting with a company who’s been around for a while but has never thought to employ a strategic communications plan.

Our job is to serve as a marathon runner’s coach, not a sprinter’s coach. Unfortunately, a majority of our clients want the sprint, the immediate results as opposed to the strategic, thought out plans. It’s up to us to counsel our clients to look at the bigger picture and employ as many communications tactics that align with their overall business objective, so we can help them of their desert island.

Mentoring is vital for PR

One of the worst kept, dirty little secrets about our industry is that it is a revolving door; from employees to clients, it’s a rare feat when a partnership (whether external or internal) lasts longer than a year or two. Yes, there are some really good firms whose attrition rates are the cause of envy, but there are some really troubled firms whose turnover rate of employees and clients is cause for alarm. One of the common threads that can determine if you’re working for a good or troubled firm is how leadership mentors its employees.

My very first job out of graduate school was an adjunct professor at a couple of New Jersey universities. While academia has a harsh reputation of publish or perish, many seasoned professors challenge and encourage younger academics. Nights of discussion lead to philosophical, theoretical and applicable knowledge; from thoughts on your particular discipline to how to structure your class or how to deal with students play a large role in how young academics are mentored. Without the support of colleagues, a young academic can get lost in the inexperience of running a classroom. Mentorship is sought after for both intellectual stimulus and basic survival skills!

The same holds true in the PR field. When I moved from the academic arena to the business world, I had to simultaneously learn the tricks of the trade (from communications strategy to the tactics involved in order to execute the strategy) while imparting my understanding of how people communicate to clients.

The first agency I worked for fostered intellectual and personal growth. Starting with the CEO and going all the way down to the Account Coordinators, the idea of learning surrounded everything we did. We had team building exercises, bi-weekly staff meetings praising the work we all did and holiday parties. These were not excuses to not do work, but were in fact part of a larger strategy to mentor young (and some not so young) professionals in order for everyone to do their best. In fact the CEO of the firm would often stay late with me to walk me through a project, letting me find out the solution on my own. And when it came time to present to the client, he was the first one to applaud my efforts. His door was always open; whether for quick discussion of a particular client issue or for late night chats about how to be a better professional, knowing that I was learning from one of the best, helped set me on the course I’m on today. He was a mentor.

The second agency I worked at was the complete opposite. In the time I was there, at least 7 people were let go or resigned (compared with 1 from my previous firm) and we lost more accounts than I can remember (I do remember 4 accounts leaving the same week I was laid off). The management styles of this company were non-existent. There was no team building, no staff meetings (unless you counted the ones right after a mass firing) and no holiday parties. While the CEO’s door was always open for a discussion, it was hard to learn from him as he was never in the office. Mentoring takes time and dedication, something this CEO never seemed to have. That said, because the CEO did not mentor, it fell on the more senior employees to help junior staffers learn the intricate play between internal PR (making sure the boss didn’t jump down your throat for a silly reason) and external PR (dealing with clients who took their frustrations about our CEO out on us).

If our industry wants to put a stopper in the revolving door, we need to look at how we mentor younger employees. Are we doing all that we can to foster and nurture growth? Are we explaining why monitoring (our TPS report) is necessary for the overall objectives of a client’s strategy? Are we bringing in junior level associates into the loop when discussing the goals of a particular campaign or the overall communications strategy? Mentoring takes time and devotion, and if you want to see your firm grow, take the effort to mentor. We all have had mentors along the way and it’s a good feeling being able to give back. What are some of your best/worst mentoring stories?

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Beatles!

When I was in 4th grade, we had a talent show. Which, now that I think about it, is kinda ridiculous for a bunch of 9 and 10 year-olds because with the exception of a few rare individuals, most 4th graders aren't really talented enough to warrant a school-wide assembly. Yet here we were.

My friend Danny and I decided to enter. We had no discernible talents at that age (it may even be argued that 20 years later, I still don't -- unless you count watching TV), yet came up with quite possibly one of the best ideas ever.

You see, in 1987/1988, kids my age had no idea about The Beatles; they were all into the glam/hair metal bands of the day: Poison, White Snake, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, etc. Since we both loved the Beatles, Danny and I agreed that we would mesmerize the audience with a roaring lip-synced version of Magical Mystery Tour. We envisioned that a) everyone would think it was us and b) we'd be able to, for every subsequent talent show, lip-sync Beatles songs to standing ovations. We figured that since none of our classmates had ever heard of the Fab Four, we'd be able to co-opt their genius as our own.

I remember being John, with guitar in tow. (Ironically, I had no interest at that time of learning how to play an instrument. It only took me until I was 18 to want to play guitar. Better late than never, I suppose). Danny was, for some reason, Ringo. Once again, we were 10.

We told our 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Sabatini, about the idea and she loved it. For about 2 weeks, everyday after school, Danny and I would play the vinyl of Magical Mystery Tour and "sing" along with the eponymous track. We practiced running up to the mic stands and "woo-ing" like The Beatles did.

When the big day came to actually perform the sketch, we were on. Until the album started to scratch. We were the Milli Vanilli before Milli Vanilli; the Ashley Simpson before Ashely Simpson. I looked from the record player to the crowd to the record player to Danny to the crowd, put my crappy little guitar (which only had 3 strings on it and still sits in my closet!) on the ground and walked off the stage. I felt I was caught and the thundering silence from the audience forced me to walk off the stage. Thankfully, I was 10 and what frightened me the most was going home with a scratch on my parents' record.

Not too long after the Lip-Synch-Gate, The Beatles released their catalog using the brand new technological format, the compact disc. While it didn't revolutionize the way people listened to The Beatles, it offered a glimpse of how, 17 years after their break-up, the band would and could stay relevant.

Growing up, my dad always made me listen to music - classic rock, Motown, doo-wop, etc. And whenever I would try to put on the current artists, his response was always the same: if you can convince me this band/artist will be remembered in 20 years, you can listen to it. Talk about a Sisyphean task.

There have been countless books extolling the genius of The Beatles. We all know why they are considered the most influential band in our pop cultural history - their harmonies, their use of technology in the studio, their songs, their melodies, their lyrics, their messages, their affability, their string of number 1 singles, their record setting album sales, their defining of an age in American (and world) history. Every generation learns about The Beatles in their own way, and this current Twitter and Facebook generation is learning the importance of The Beatles from video games and from the remastered collections.

I thought I knew a lot about The Beatles; both from a conversational perspective and from a musical perspective. I was wrong. After listening to the remastered albums, I'm hearing things I've never heard before. I'm hearing syncopation of Ringo's drums, more pronounced instrumentation, and a much higher fidelity. The music is actually enhanced.

The Beatles will remain relevant in American history because, as noted above, they are intrinsically linked to the tumultuous 1960s (although, I disagree with that moniker, but that's for another post). But also because of their influence in how music is made, merging beautiful symphonic sound with pop-based lyrics and harmonies. Now, for the first time, we, the listener can actually hear The Beatles in all their brilliance.

We can hear the obvious mistakes, as well as the subtle. We can hear instruments that were so low in the analog mix, they barely registered. We can hear the beautiful bass lines of Paul and the incredible comping of John and George. We can hear Ringo play along with Paul more crisply. In short, we can hear The Beatles.

Hopefully, one day, I'll have a 10 year old kid who will listen to these albums on some incredible headphones and discover what music can sound like. And then claim the band as his/her own. Just like I did. Just like millions of us did.

Speak WITH us, not AT us

I watch a lot of TV. From 5pm until 2 am, my TV is on. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m sitting in front of the sleek monitor, but it does mean that I can warm my apartment with the heat that emanates from my LCD. With a lot TV watching comes a lot of DVRing. How else can I watch programs that are on at the same time on different channels? It also means that at any given point during this time period, I am bombarded with commercials.

An hour-long network show is actually only 44 minutes, with 16 minutes of commercials (a half hour show is 22 minutes with 8 minutes of commercials). Multiply 16 minutes by the number of hours you have the TV on (for me it’s roughly 9 hours for a total of 144 minutes or 2 hours and 24 minutes a day) and the messages from companies pile up over a day (let alone a week or a lifetime!).

Throw in the amount of time I sit in front of a computer, say between the hours of 8am and 5pm (although, this is where things get a bit hairy. I have the innate ability, as I’m sure most of you do, to have the TV on while sitting in front of the computer, as well as music playing oh so subtly in the background) and bam! more corporate messages. Only online, it doesn’t have to be in the guise of video; it could be a brand I follow on Twitter or a contextual ad or a targeted ad or an ad on Facebook or even a recommendation from an online friend. No wonder, after a while, everything seems like a commercial.

Historically, one of the best ways to get a corporate message out to the masses has been to have the CEO explain current trends and how his/her company is suited to move forward. This has been an axiom of Madison Ave: get the chief to speak and put a face to the company. This is all fine and good, but in today’s computer-mediated communications world, it’s just not enough to see the CEOs mug on a commercial. Unfortunately, many brands haven’t figured this out. Indeed, I’m seeing a lot more commercials with heads of companies:

General Motors


Sprint


Dominos


Is this the advertising world's response to social media? I hope not. With the advent of social media, the consumer can now participate with the brand. The technology has turned the top-down dictum of a company espousing its message to the masses on its head. It’s now a two-way street with equal (at least perceived equal) push and pull from the company and the consumer. So, where does this two way street lead?

Glad you asked. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most reading this know where that street goes: direct communication with the consumer, not at the consumer. This is not just a semantic difference; it’s the foundation of reform.

Companies need to buttress their CEO commercial with a CEO blog which will shed more light on the messaging campaign, er, commercial. Opening the blog to comments and responding will also create a more compassionate side. Understanding, of course, that there will be plenty of negative comments, the CEO and his/her staff can respond accordingly.

While social media is the new way to get the message out, companies and brands need to realize that advertising on television, where there’s no interaction between brand and consumer, is not the answer to its problems. It’s a band-aid, and a loose one at that.

Organizations and their brands have to realize that conversation happens with people. Communication theorists Shannon and Weaver decided that the term “communication” means this:

(taken from Change.org's article: The Dynamics of Communication)


There’s a lot going on when individuals communicate and when a company engages in conversation, it should look like the above two-way model and not this archaic one-way model:

(taken from Loki Labs)


We live in a two way world and companies need to pull together and marry traditional advertising, PR and marketing with digital, transparent communications. The communications industry needs to work harder to explain to clients why the client needs to participate and not sit on the sidelines.

Communications Technology: power of good or cause of harm

I love technology. I love air conditioning and microwaves, refrigerators and electric blankets. I love being able to write this sentence over 6 times without wasting paper or ink or ribbons. However, technology has numerous negative effects we fail to see because we’re so amazed by the shiny objects in front of our eyes. (And yes, I see the irony of posting this on a technological advancement).

We think in pictures due to the most pervasive technology of the 20^th century: Television. Neil Postman once asked, what’s the first thing to come to mind when you think of Abraham Lincoln? Most likely, it was either his stove pipe hat or his beard. You most likely didn’t think of text, like the Emancipation Proclamation or his Gettysburg Address.

In a hundred years, we’ll all be thinking in 140-characters (hyperbole, people. Of course we won’t. Or will we?). But maybe just as importantly, technology kills motivation. It also erodes original thought and renders individualism useless. Crowd-sourcing, the technologist’s point-du-jour, has helped us to stop thinking for ourselves. If I want/need an answer to something, why would I spend time trying to achieve an “Eureka!” moment when I can just go to Twitter and ask my 1,000+ followers for their help.

But this environment has created a plethora of false prophets who are smart enough to recognize an advantageous situation and capitalize from it. These people exist solely to spout fortune-cookie philosophies in 140-characters, but when someone asks them for a follow-up or more insight, we either get no response or the complete opposite, juvenile name calling.

These are the people that give names like PR 2.0 or Social Media 2.0 because they believe that adding a sequential numeral makes the original concept newer, fresher, more up to speed. Truth of the matter, it doesn’t. As existential as it sounds, all that will happened has already happened.

PR 2.0 is the same as PR 1.0, only with new, shiny tools. What’s different now? So instead of drafting press releases, we draft “social media press releases?” It’s the same idea: get your client’s message out. What would be different, PR 2.0-style, is if a company, say a fast-food company, decided to say, “You know what? Our food isn’t really good for you. It makes you fat, tired, lazy. In fact, our economic system depends on us making sure you keep eating our food. But we’re gonna do something radical. We’re going to tell you the truth. If you want to live, don’t eat here.”

PR 2.0 is another smoke and mirror concept. It pushes transparency while pulling the wool over our eyes. It diverts attention from the core principle of a solid communications platform: have a great message. Today’s communications technology produces a giant echo chamber that is filled with hollow noise. Because technology has destroyed any (and all) barriers to entry, anyone with an internet connection, or cell phone for that matter, can be a journalist or a social media expert.

Technology simultaneously makes our lives easier and more difficult. It’s great that I can use Facebook to find old friends from previous chapters of my life. But, maybe those chapters should remain closed (or at least hidden from the public).

Companies face similar issues with communications technology: they can wisely use social media as a customer service tool (Zappos), but can also be harmed by mob-mentality (Motrin). Companies can also fall into the lazy trap with technology, too, by relying on these self-proclaimed social media gurus. Using technology to buttress and disseminate a message is one thing. Going by the seat of your pants because technology enables you to throw more things against the wall with the hope of something sticking is something else. And this is what makes me nervous.

Corporations use communications technologies all the time. But it’s how they use them that makes them different. As communications practitioners, we need to understand the power of not just the medium, but also the message.