Clive Simpkins

You’re possibly being rude and wasteful without realising it.

Hi there. Please don’t include me in your email unless I need to know something in order to do something.  And then only if it’s short, unambiguous and I don’t have to scroll down to read it.

• We’ve developed, courtesy of digital media, nationwide attention deficit disorder (ADD).
• Partly because we are frequently distracted we have become highly distractible.
• It’s proven that each time we respond to a mail, text message or other interruption, it can take up to twenty minutes to refocus and re-engage with what we were doing before the distraction.
• It takes mental energy to refocus. No wonder many people feel chronically exhausted.
• When you had to physically write a letter you never wrote letters or memoranda with such frequency and ferocity. So, moderate your output.
• Are you copying all and sundry on the mail as a ‘cover your arse’ (CYA) precaution?
• If you have to tell many people similar things, consider a once per week bullet-pointed update.
• Wait until you have several things to say and then say them in one mail. Don’t fire off one mail every time you have a new thought.
• We develop immunity against email bombardment. We stop reading them properly.
• Sending too many mails is the equivalent of spam, which is rude and inconsiderate.
• People pay attention to what you say, based on the quality of your comms – not the quantity.
• Being on the cc list means I don’t really have to pay full attention. The mail wasn’t directed exclusively at me.

Rape is Rape. Abuse is abuse. Don't confuse kids with candy-coating.

This is a mixed bag of tips intended to help kids avoid attack, abuse or getting lost. This is not intended as an exhaustive list. But rather as some trigger points to stimulate a change in possibly well-intended, but overly-cautious or conservative care-giver thinking.

Because of our collective social media-induced ADD, let me cut to the chase. So, in no particular order: Rape or sexual abuse is not “sex”- so don’t categorise it as sex when discussing it with your children. It’s a violent act of assault, often with deadly consequences. Girls and boys need to understand what it is and that it can happen to them.

We need to get over ourselves and stop using euphemisms. It’s not a “willy” or a “vajayjay”. It’s a penis or a vagina. We know that speaking regular mother tongue language to babies and children helps them develop a good vocabulary early in life. So cut the baby talk and diminutives.

Children today are not like children were even fifteen years ago. They are digital natives and are exposed (whether we like it or not) to life in all its beauty and ugliness, way ahead of when we were. Many are playing with and learning from tablet devices at two years of age.

Every day we delay educating a child on sexual and other well-being matters, is another day closer to that child being exploited or abused due to their naiveté. If your child is watching National Geographic, Animal Planet, documentaries or educational DVDs, they will see animals mating. Everything in nature has a reproductive process. You can use flowers, plants, trees and pollination as simple, sensible explanations for reproduction.

Protect your child from explicit Internet porn pop-ups by installing Net Nanny or other software on the consumption devices they use. Better your child hears facts from you than myths from strangers or peers.

Prepare your facial expression and body language, well in advance. If you wince or flinch when asked a straight question about sexuality, the message is, “this must be secret – or dirty”. We fail the kid. When talking about sensitive topics, don’t let your voice change or express stress. Remember that tone and manner are part of non-verbal communication. It’s normal discussion. So keep it normal.

Our children can be taught at a very early age that their body is their private space. We need to equip them in advance with strategies in case that little body is inappropriately touched or invaded. Teach them to say loudly, “inappropriate touch!” or “no touching!”, if they feel someone is behaving abnormally.

Children don’t deal well with ambiguity (mixed messages) about sex or life. We need to be simple and clear.Children are capable of what Dr Natalie Solomon, a wonderful SA child psychologist, calls, “magical thinking”. Example: a peer dies. Don’t say, “they’ve passed on,” or “they’ve gone to heaven” I heard a little guy (at a memorial service) ask his mum, “then where’s heaven?” She pointed to the sky. “How high up in the sky?” A long way. “When will he be back?” Oops. No. Children are pretty literal. They can understand dead. They’ve seen a dead beetle, a bird, perhaps the family pet. That’s dead. Explain it as a very normal part of life. Just like crying and mourning those losses is. Magical thinking is like a video game. People have “new lives”. Avatars. They come back from the dead. They revive. That’s very confusing. Our kids have grown up with virtual reality games and 3D movies. I’ve been asked several times, “is this real?” – when it’s been special effects generated.

Don’t wait for your child to start asking questions about sexuality, abuse, rape, homosexuality, cross-dressing or a host of other topics. Make these an appropriate, well-timed and normal part of your conversation. That avoids them becoming embarrassing. We can’t always protect children from the sometimes ugly face of life. We can only prepare them for it. We’re not doing them favours by misguidedly “preserving their innocence” or over-protecting them. That simply puts them at risk.

Talking to children about sexual matters is not going to lead to experimentation or early sexual behaviour. The opposite is proven to be the case. We don’t need to get into graphic explanations of biological processes (like menstruation for example). Keep the child’s age, mental development, general-knowledge, social awareness and so on in mind. As with most things, we all acquire a fuller understanding over time.

It doesn’t have to be big-bang, all at once. I’ve told my little guy, “if someone comes along and says, ‘Clive has asked me to collect you,’ (for example) you simply say, “No – that’s not true. He would have told me.” Teach the kid to shout very loudly, “Help, help! This person is trying to take me away!” if the person becomes physical or persists. Teach them to kick, fight and scream like crazy, if necessary. Always tell your kids about collection plans. Route messages through the pre-school, school teacher, sports coach or play-date supervisor about collection arrangements. There must be no loose ends.

Can your child easily repeat your mobile number? I made a tune of mine. It helps to repeat it with a rhythm, for little people to remember.

Have you got a current, straight on, full-face picture of your child or children? If not, take it now. If they go missing, it makes publicising the sorry fact a wee bit easier. Teach your kid what to do if she or he becomes separated from you in a store, shopping mall or outdoor event. We’ve all had those heart-stopping, missing kid moments. Have you got a future prevention strategy in place? No? Do it now.

Tell your children never to accept lifts. If cars pull up close to them or pace them on a sidewalk, let them appeal to the nearest adult for help, or run away to safety. They can’t and won’t do these things unless we’ve discussed them and suggested responses, in advance. Reinforce those coping strategies every now and again. Make a “superhero” survival game of it. They’ll get that. If at even 5 years of age, our kids are not equipped to cry foul when threatened, we have failed to equip them with the necessary defences. Do it now and prevent tears later.

There is some wonderful literature available on age-appropriate, child sex awareness and broader education. The Jozikids blog is a mine of useful information. So is google. So is amazon.com. Use all the resources at your disposal.

Final thought: What is forbidden or mysterious is always appealing. Walter Bagshot (pronounced Bad-jit) a former editor of the Economist in the UK, famously said, “do not let in daylight upon magic”. With sexuality and safety for children, the opposite must be true. Let in the daylight. Clarify. Explain. Remove the veil of mystery.

Thanks for your time. I welcome your feedback, comments, suggestion or constructive criticism. Clive Simpkins is a marketing and communications strategist, author and care-giver to an enquiring, high-maintenance and much loved 10 year-old.

http://clivesimpkins.brandyourself.com

Clive Simpkins

If I were Pope Francis, here's some of what I'd do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm capivated with the new Pope. Even as a non-Catholic, I feel excited about the potential for him to move the Roman Catholic church in a direction that will align it better with modern society. Is there an option? Not really. Either it changes or puts ever more Catholics in the position of having to live, whilst compromising their faith as they might see it. So here's what I suggest from the perspective of marketing, communications and reputation management. I may update it as I have other thoughts:

• Acknowledge, as did cardinal Napier of South Africa, that paedophilia or other sex abuse is an illness of the mind and the psyche. But (this part of the Cardinal's interview got confused) that doesn't make it any less criminal when acted upon. So tell the clergy that if they seek help and or therapy for their urges, the church will be 100% behind them. Don't seek help, act on those urges and the church will hand you over to the cilvil authorities and defrock you, if convicted. 
• Create an order of female priests.
• Create a two-tier structure for priests and nuns. Those who choose to be celibate and those who choose to be in a relationship or marry. Rather have a committed married priest than a supposedly celibate one struggling to manage impulses. St. Paul dealt with these issues when talking to Timothy in the Christian Bible. See I Corinithians 7:9. Broadly speaking, Paul said he wished all could be like him (clearly celibate by choice) but if not, they should travel their particular path in a relationship.
• Accept the weakness of people. Yes, abstinence is the greatest discipline. But when it's absent, contraception is certainly less awful than aborting a human foetus. So accept and permit birth control.
• Force the church back to simplicity (as it certainly appears Pope Francis will do).
• Shut down the Vatican Bank or put it under independent, secular management. It's long been a terrible thorn in the flesh of the Catholic Church. Or use a commercial bank and accept the rules of governance and transparency that will go with that.
• Purge some of the Curia. Bring in fresh blood of a spiritual rather than status and position-seeking temperament.
• Have zero tolerance for political in-fighting.
• Create an open and transparent communications climate (Pope Francis appears to be doing that already) to eliminate conspiracy theories and concerns that the Vatican is a deeply secret and therefore sinister entity.
• Put Bishops on down on "performance contracts" in line with secular leadership practice. They should be expected to deliver on certain criteria. If they can't, put someone in the job who can.
• The prime role of the church is to develop the spirituality of its own priests, nuns and devotees and to serve Catholics and the people of this planet. Realign the thinking of the clergy with that.
• Let the focus of the church become what Swami Vivekananda famously said, that: "Service to man is worship of God."

http://clivesimpkins.brandyourself.com/

Rogue South African cops - how do we fix it?

Couple of suggestions: (I may add to this from time to time as new ideas strike me)

1)      Start force-wide psychometric testing to identify potential loose cannons.

2)      Make an extreme example of cops who engage in gratuitous brutality.

3)      Make the price for being a rogue cop so high that nobody voluntarily tries it.

4)      Start stress-relief support groups. And a buddy system for emotional venting.

5)      Bring back up to date public-order policing training. It was evidently scrapped in ’94.

6)      Put video cameras on the dashboards of all police vehicles.

7)      Insist that cops pull up behind suspects as they do in the USA – so all is recorded.

8)      Bring in skilled (or retired) members of the community who can play a role.

9)      Make sure the cops understand that their role is indeed to serve and protect.

10)   Make sure cops have a basic understanding of South African constitutional rights.

11)   Use mandatory polygraph (lie detector) testing for cops found in behaviour breach.

12)   Go for total transparency on corruption or brutality. No cover-ups.

13)   Keep the lines of communication open and buzzing. We want to hear good news, too.

14)   Put station commanders onto an incentive bonus. Cut it when their staff go rogue.

15)   Create community forums where members of public and cops can discuss fears.

16)  Introduce a "silent shopper" concept for members of public to test and report on cops.

17)  Reintroduce higher cop personal discipline. Obesity & sloppiness out. Professionalism in.

18)  Get schools to "adopt" a police-station so the divide between community & cops is reduced.

 

http://clivesimpkins.brandyourself.com/

 

The ugliness spawned by social media

A short post.

 

What is it, I wonder that's feeding the destructive, hyper-critical trend in social media to demean, muckrake and otherwise do damage?

Pope Francis had hardly left the balcony in St. Peter's square after greeting the world, than twitter was awash with people competing to see who could most rapidly trash his reputation.

Even a cardinal in the Roman Catholic church would have to stick to church policy. As Pope, Francis may well become the reformist that the church knows it needs to ensure sustainability. So for goodness sakes (and I'm not a Roman Catholic) give the man a chance to get through his first day.

Remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson had to say: "Taking to pieces is the trade of those who cannot construct." Let's think about it.

 

http://clivesimpkins.brandyourself.com/

Justin Bieber is having meltdowns? Your brand may need one, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Justin Bieber's having meltdowns, according to The HuffingtonPost. Here's the link.

Is it hormonal or brilliant brand re-positioning? I suspect the latter. As he grows older so does his target audience. The androdgynous "pretty boy" look had a limited lifespan.It's essential for his brand to morph into something more "badass" and therefore sustainable. So cue the marijuana incident, smacking a photographer, foul-mouthed rants etc. Clever repositioning strategy. I can almost hear the marketing and reputation people saying, "Justy, babes, you have to go more hardcore!" ;-) Yes, seriously.

Why Bieber as an example you might ask? Simply because his behaviour and brand image change begs the question - what's your brand revitalisation, realignment or reinvention strategy as the world evolves so rapidly? If there isn't one, maybe it's time to sit down, contemplate lint in belly button and give some thought to it. Businesses are going out of business because they're not adapting to a digitally driven marketplace. Let's make sure we don't become a business schoolcase study, for all the wrong reasons.

 

http://clivesimpkins.brandyourself.com/

My interview on the Marikana mine, Lonmin crisis in the South African platinum mining world. With Alec Hogg. Text and audio, whichever suits best.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/content/en/moneyweb-safm-market-update?oid=595132&sn=2009+Detail

Branding and Marketing YOU - a new book by Donna Rachelson

Great new book on the topic being launched by Donna Rachelson on 9th February.

She took a novel tack and video-interviewed nine leading people across diverse fields in South Africa. Specifically Monica Singer (CEO of STRATE), DJ Fresh (5FM fame), Prof. Loyiso Nongxa (Vice Chancellor Wits University), Tumi Makgabo (former CNN broadcaster and businesswoman), Mike Stopforth (CEO Cerebra), Ian Ollis MP, Vuyo Jack (Empowerdex pioneer), Allon Raiz (serial but very successful entrepreneur) and exercise and sports science guru Prof. Tim Noakes.

If you want some really fresh perspectives, this will be the book to deliver them. Here's the review I wrote for RISKsa magazine.

Download Branding and Marketing YOU review in RISKsa mag

Let’s have a look at you

At one stage in the last twenty years, personal image was a big thing for business people. How you looked, walked, talked, behaved, the briefcase you carried (you'll find one of them in a museum!) what you drove – all contributed to the overall impression you created. Colour Me Beautiful and other international absurdities had people slavishly following colour charts, worrying about the 'season' of skin on their wrist (to help choose colour tones) and making sure that the total picture conveyed what they wanted it to. Then, along with the death of 'power dressing' came a pendulum swing. Dress-down Friday gripped many international organisations. The tie was outlawed and even audit firm partners would walk around trying ever so hard to look chilled in their open-necked shirts. The effort at informality became as extreme as the formality that preceded it.

The global financial downturn of 2009 had many organisations and individuals wonder whether looking smarter and better groomed would make a difference to how people behaved and how companies performed. There's been a re-focus on appearance. The only significant change being that it's no longer called personal image but 'personal branding'. However much you hate that concept, fact is that people can indeed be a brand and positioned in a manner little different from Procter and Gamble promoting, advertising and merchandising a can of soup.

There's absolutely no conflict between you taking care of your appearance, dress, grooming, body language, voice and overall impact or impression and being true to yourself. We're all multi-dimensional beings. We display multiple facets – all of which are a part of us but no single one of them is all of us. Yes, we should want to be real. Little is more powerful than authenticity. But 'being you' doesn't have to mean dressing like you selected your clothes from a Salvation Army donor hamper. Or walking around with cracked, broken fingernails or torn cuticles because you're an avid gardener.

Don't get me wrong. I'm truly one of the most unpretentious people I know! J I love nothing better than mooching around at home in an old t-shirt, comfortable, baggy shorts - and (confession) - a pair of Crocs. But in public, we all have expectations of a brand. A brand personality builds either by design or default. If you don't construct and manage it by intention it'll land up attracting perceptions by default - no effort required. This can be downright bad and dangerous for you or your organisation.

We might not like to think so, but it's a rare person who doesn't take an instant 'snapshot' of someone else when they meet them for the first time. Totally automated and subconscious programming will slot the person into a category and we'll tend to respond to them according to that category. Most of us, to some extent judge the book by the cover. If it looks tatty it'll need to be a meisterstück to excuse a dishevelled appearance. Other than in highly creative or outdoors careers (advertising, movie-making, design, wildlife etc.) or at the fringes of business, will we easily accept off-beat, peculiar dress and behaviour without being suspicious or diminishing the calibre of the person in our minds.

I have a pragmatic view on personal branding – particularly the image side of it. It's a marketing exercise. What's your constituency, stakeholder or target audience likely to expect from you? Try to position your appearance somewhere between the two ends of the continuum of those expectations and you'll be placing a safe bet. Don't let your look, clothes or anything else about you get in the way of good communicating. They're only bit players in the process - not stars of the show.

If you wonder why you're not rising quickly enough through the ranks of an organisation, or effectively pitching your small business or services to clients – perhaps you don't sufficiently 'look the part'. You have to be packaged in a way that's aligned with their expectations. If not, they're not going to easily buy you, your ideas or your services.

Originally published in RISKsa magazine, October 2010 issue.

Your company may *have* to use social media

In or out? This is a question many organisations have to face. It's about whether they put a toe into the Social Media pool or dive in at the deep end. Both approaches can be disastrous. The crux of the issue though is – there's little option but to engage. It's not a question of 'if' – but 'when, where and how?'

When socmedia (you can live with that in the interests of brevity?) got even halfway mainstream some corporates via their opportunistic ad agencies thought it was a low-cost advertising medium. There were naïve attempts to peddle their snake oil under the guise of consumer comment or happy customer endorsement. What they discovered, as have many others more recently, is that social media is rigorous in outing dishonesty in any shape or form.

What's delightful and terrifying at the same time about socmedia is the utterly uncontrolled, immediacy of it. Nhlanhla Nene (then Director General in the ministry of finance, now deputy minister and an extremely capable man) featured on SABC Morning Live TV and his chair collapsed. He became an international celebrity within the hour. He temporarily lost his sense of humour, regained it and earned our admiration. Here's the link: http://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog

Nestlé adopted a very haughty stance when Greenpeace queried the origins of the palm oil it used in the production of Kit Kat chocolate products. So Greenpeace crafted a really smart TV commercial. Here it is: http://youtu.be/VaJjPRwExO8 In case you haven't seen it and didn't want to go to the link (I can deal with the depression J) it featured a bored man shredding documents, reaching for a Kit Kat, breaking off a finger and crunching it. But it wasn't a chocolate finger. It was an Orangutan finger. The Nestlé palm oil was being sourced from Indonesia and endangered species jungle habitat was being destroyed. Global negative response was phenomenal. The Nestlé CEO landed up contritely apologizing on international TV and promising that they'd in future verify origins of all raw materials. Given that toxic Melamine was found in some of their baby formula (also due to iffy origin) not too long before the Kit Kat debacle, one hopes Nestlé have learned something.

Tiger Woods took stick on socmedia by dithering for four months before making a half-baked and appallingly contrived 'apology' with a hand-picked, non-media audience. He suffered a flood of derisive jokes and comments as a result.

Tony Hayward, the BP CEO had his worst nightmare when viral footage of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe (no, it wasn't a 'spill' – you do that with a glass of milk) had people around the planet in uproar. Link here: http://youtu.be/O-rJH9xB7fk He suffered from serious foot-in-mouth disease and BP replaced him as media spokesperson with their Chairman. The man is a Scandinavian and instead of saying they had not communicated well with stakeholders, he referred to us as 'the little people'. That phrase was made notorious by one Leona Helmsley of Hotel heiress fame - busted for stealing from the corporate cookie jar. See story here: http://bit.ly/bHCiae

What's the point of all of this? Marshall McLuhan http://bit.ly/c7jf4 legendary media guru said that the medium is the message and predicted we'd be working in a global village. We are. The time to global market is immediate via socmedia and the Internet. The concept of corporate media management has gone out of the door. You can't control it but you can learn to be proactive. Plus respect the vital need for candour and transparency when things go wrong in your organization or with your service.

The biggest paradox is that South African giants like the mobile phone networks have done poorly in their attempts to engage and keep in touch with customers. Vodacom and Cell C admit they don't monitor twitter over weekends. Ah, so they have a part-time socmedia strategy of engagement? Not advisable, not sustainable. The worst 3G outage in years took place on Sunday 19^th September but Vodacom were not monitoring the cries for information from their stranded wireless Internet users. We languished in cyber hell without connectivity. Outcome for me? Tipping point finally reached. I shall have ADSL installed at my home office and downgrade my Vodacom 3G to the bare minimum for when I'm not near a WiFi hotspot.

The lesson for corporates is this: You can't experiment with socmedia. You'd better have a real strategy for using it. Have people who understand it managing it for you. Make sure they're passionate about it. All companies can and should learn from FNB's helpful, ever-present and responsive @rbjacobs on twitter. You can't hide away in your plush offices and hope that angry tweets or facebook posts will evaporate into cyberspace. They won't. They'll just go viral. Think about it.

This post was first published in Memeburn