Commentary

Companies that will win in 2012 will be the ones that create an agile, lean working environment where employees are trained, equipped with the tools to succeed and fully engaged to seize growth opportunities. On the other hand, those hampered by productivity challenges will at best stagnate, and may find the year is one they would rather forget. So it is promising that our recent Randstad World of Work Report 2011/12 found that training and development, job re-alignment and succession planning are currently prominent in the minds of business leaders. Fifty-five percent of employees will up-skill current employees and almost half (46%) will realign job roles as a way to improve workplace productivity in the year ahead. The good news for business leaders is that employees show great readiness to help meet the productivity challenge, as their own top interests include leadership and career development (26%), and a strong understanding of how their role contributes to achieving organisational goals (21%). Nevertheless, anticipated increases in employee mobility will present a significant challenge. Three-quarters of employers surveyed say filling critical vacancies created by increased employee turnover or business expansion is the biggest productivity challenge for the next 12 months, followed by developing leadership skills for the next phase of growth (59%). Approximately a third of employers (30%) are also concerned about a lack of specialist skills to drive innovation, as well as downtime and knowledge loss created by employee turnover (32%). Business leaders know innovation will be the key to unlocking competitive advantage and it will take genuine product and service innovation to fuel demand and drive expansion again. Innovation lies at the heart of addressing barriers to productivity. What’s required goes beyond the technology, infrastructure and micro-economic reforms that created productivity highs in developed economies in the 20th century. A great deal has changed about the way we live and work since then. In a globally connected world, the next wave of productivity will be created by people and communities. Fifty-six percent of employers surveyed say they have ideas that could improve productivity, but more than half (53%) believe their organisation doesn’t have effective processes for capturing ideas for business improvement or innovation. This reinforces the importance of collaborating with functional leaders, human resources teams and frontline staff to design and implement successful productivity strategies. Communication is at the centre of this process. With ongoing adoption of external communication tools for internal purposes, leaders now have the opportunity to capture knowledge and ideas through the likes of internal social media, forums and blogs — however, the importance of face-to-face communication should never be overlooked, especially at the leadership level. Now more than ever, it’s important to walk alongside your teams and the key is to never stay too far away from the ‘front line’. With productivity challenges expected to affect all industries, it is clear business leaders will need to keep employees happy, skilled and focused to meet goals and reduce potential bottle-necks or distractions. Ensuring employees are ready to hit the ground running, with a full understanding of the market, their organisation and their stakeholders, will be critical. The winners in the year ahead will be those with the right people in the right jobs, motivated and ready to grow the business.

A day doesn’t go by in Singapore without reading about the doom and gloom, the economic uncertainty, the Eurozone crisis, china’s inflation and the US government empty coffers. Even our PM is prepping everyone to be ready for what is to come and expect only a 1% - 3% growth in 2012. This is a forecast before any actual bad news materialized. During the 2009 recession, forecast was adjusted to a 6% to 9% contraction. We were ultimately hit with a 2% contraction.

Singapore is one of the most technically advanced countries on earth. Singaporeans are some of the highest interactors with modern technology of all kinds in the world. They are also some of the fastest early adoptors of new technology and how to use to to benefit them in personal and business relationships. However I wonder whether Singaporeans actually spend too much time with technology and not enough interacting with real people. Consider some of these stats from various sources from The Straits Times to The Singapore Government to Global Research Companies :  

If there’s one person I wouldn’t want to be right now, it’s the CEO of SMRT.

Affecting more than 130,000 train passengers, last week’s 3 major MRT incidents over a period of 3 days has spurred public backlash. The recent wave of negative publicity that has surrounded SMRT is a lesson to larger organisations to ramp up their Crisis Management Strategies - if indeed they do have one.

Many companies in Singapore ask: “Is digital marketing really for us? Isn’t social media a marketing gimmick that targets youngsters?” However, the question to ask is no longer “Should we?” because it is rapidly becoming a ‘We must’.

I believe Singapore will eventually experience a severe earthquake. I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist. You can't live 400 hundred kilometers from a major earthquake fault and say there is no risk of earthquake.

I was at a coffee shop in the Aljunied district of Singapore enjoying a nice plate of braised duck kway chap. The duck rice stall owner (let’s call him Ah San) came over with a frown and sat down with me and he lamented over the gloom future ahead in which the media was reporting.

Imagine if you could communicate to all your staff with a tool more productive than email? Where your staff in Singapore could watch, learn and communicate with colleagues in the next office, next building or your regional HQ half way across the globe.

Born in Singapore and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area (don’t worry, I came back to complete my National Service), I guess you can say that I’m pretty familiar with the two places. Although there are obvious and discernible differences between Singapore and the Bay Area, they’re quite similar for the most part.

So, you’ve got this fantastic product or service – and you want everybody to know about it. But you are not sure how to get your message across to the general public or specific audiences. You’ve asked yourself the question Public Relations or Advertising? The relative impact and objective of each are very different. Public relations can benefit over time from—and is designed to work in conjunction with—advertising and specific marketing initiatives. One major and obvious factor that differentiates advertising from public relations is that advertising is paid placement. Public relations, on the other hand, is free editorial placement. Public relations campaigns leverage the power of the media to promote your business and products to the general public. The difference between the two rests in your ability to weigh the benefits of a PR campaign against the benefits of traditional advertising. If a newspaper or magazine decides that your product is article worthy, you will enjoy publicity with no out of pocket costs to the media. The media outlets themselves bear the expense of air time or print space because in their eyes, they are reporting a newsworthy item to their viewers or readers. There is a myth which says the media will most likely only run your story once. Not true. An expert PR consultant can ensure that the story can be spun into new angles. A great story can snowball. Imagine getting nationwide or international exposure, absolutely free. This can be done by issuing a well written press release, writing a feature placement or pitching a story that appeals to the editor. Writing a press release is usually accompanied by the essential key messages, FAQs, a company profile, a fact sheet with succinct information, your Biodata etc – all packed together in a Media Kit (file folder) which is then presented to the journalist. Sending off a well-written press release with the right information has a lot of advantages. It can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. You also have content control over what is published contrary to the myth. The journalist that takes on the assignment or decides to interview you may have all the say in the length, word choice, and format of what is being reported about your product or service. But an expert PR consultant can help you spin the story so that the information is presented in a fair and accurate manner. The expert PR consultant is also able to prepare the client for an interview by pre-empting many of the questions to be expected from the journalist. In some cases, the PR Consultant can even ask the journalist the questions in advance. At times the journalist may not provide specific questions but the PR consultant will be told that the interview will hover around a certain topic, making it easy for the PR Consultant to pre-empt the questions. Be honest with yourself: How many times have you seen an advertisement in a magazine or a newspaper and you show skepticism about the product's reliability? Advertising is all about the hype but is there any truth in it? Even if it’s all true, how would anyone know if there’s no third-party endorsement? When you read an article about a product – say for example, a new luxury car or a computer - in a printed media source, you are usually more inclined to think that the product is trustworthy especially if it has been reviewed by a journalist. So are you going to belief the advertiser word by word or would you prefer a third-party endorsement from a journalist? Readers trust independent authority figures including reviewers, columnists, journalists and broadcasters. An article about your business has far more credibility than an advertisement ever could have. The article carries more information and depth, and everything you wanted to know has already been answered in that article. This is public relations. It takes the value of advertising and builds upon it based on enhanced impact. Editorial is third-party opinion, so the impact is considered three times that of a paid advertisement.  

Take care of your employees’ safety and health and they’ll take care of your business.

Just for a moment, I'd like everyone to take off their advertising hat and become a consumer, with passions, needs and preferences. Think about a brand which you feel a particular connection with, one that helps you fill a need in your life. Not only that, it has to be one that has stood out from the competition because of the creative messaging used to promote it so that it connected with you emotionally. In fact, you feel so strongly about this brand that you rave about it to your friends and family, because you want to share that feeling with them.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Singapore over the last few months, presenting at sustainability and energy conferences. From SMU and SIEW, to EnviroAsia and the ‘Eco Ideas’ forum, I’m greeted with the same query, “what is a sustainable business?” Good question!

Are you frustrated by countless attempts to receive media coverage? Do you hear crickets after approaching a publication with an article or pitch to cover an event? Trying to secure editorial coverage can be a frustrating process, but one that is essential for the growth of most companies. Editors are inundated with phone calls, emails, press release and media packs every day, so you need to ensure you stand out from the masses. Obviously, different media outlets will be on the look-out for various approaches, but these 10 tips could help see your article, event or product launch finally hit the headlines. 1. Do your research. This is the Golden Rule. You absolutely must understand the publication you are seeking editorial coverage in: their target demographic, their average reader, their style, etc. Read up on their 'regulars', usually columns or sections, which are repeated in a pattern each edition. If you tailor your pitch to fill these regular spots, you're likely to get noticed faster. Find out if the publication prints seasonal articles or if they do any themed editions. If you don't do your research, it is painfully obvious - and your email is going straight into 'deleted' folder. 2. Don't be impersonal. Addressing the editor as “Dear Editor”, “Sir/Madam” or, “Media Friend” in an email is mostly seen as laziness. It’s more or less understood in a bulk emailing situation, but will still feel impersonal (hence why it’s a good idea to pick and choose who your press releases go to). It takes 30 seconds to Google or phone the publication to find out the editor’s name. Even worse? Getting their name wrong. 3. Approach them with multiple unique and relevant angles for your pitch. Editors need to know why it is important for their readers to know about something; and not simply because you believe it's important. Who is their publication targeted to? If a magazine's average reader is a 35-year-old mother, then pitch your story with an angle that relates and includes them. Steer clear of re-hashed materials and unimaginative ideas that play to clichés. 4. Don't fill your press releases with jargon. Keep it simple. Most editors want to be approached with ideas that are easy to understand. It sounds strange, but editors don't want to have to 'think' about what you're trying to convey. If it's too hard for them to wrap their heads around quickly, it's unlikely their readers will be able to either. 5. Know the publication's deadlines. There's nothing worse than receiving an interesting and unique pitch for something time sensitive, after the relevant edition has already gone to print. 6. Catch the editor's attention in your first sentence. Ever picked up a newspaper or magazine article, read the first sentence and thought, "I'm bored out of my mind"? That's what it's like when an editor receives a dull, dry and non-creative pitch or press release. Grab their attention! Go on! 7. Be polite, don't spam and don't get attachment-happy. It sounds so simple, but the number of times editors are greeted with a hasty "hello", followed by a flurry of information without so much as a "how are you?" is phenomenal. Everyday manners are important, and a professional, friendly and relaxed phone manner is even more so. In addition, don't clog up the editor's inbox with press releases and don't ever send multiple large attachments in the introductory email. It's almost certain they will get trashed or put in the "I'll read it later...maybe" folder. If an editor is interested, they will contact you for more information. 8. Try to build a professional relationship with the editor. This is not difficult to do, but many people don’t go the extra mile to build beneficial, professional relationships with key media players. Networking and contact building is one of the most important parts of an editor's job. If an editor shows an interest in your pitch, suggest meeting up for a coffee to discuss it further. If you get a good response, you can start to ditch the formalities and continue to pitch stories, many on an exclusive basis to sweeten the deal. Don't disappear once you have got the coverage you want - continuing the relationship will only serve to benefit both parties. 9. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you don't know, ask. It really is that simple. Do you need to find out the print deadlines? Do you want to know why your pitch was ignored? What material might a publication be looking for in the future? Yes, many editors will be extremely busy and may struggle to answer all your questions right away, but if you explain that by further understanding the publishing process you will be able to cater better for their readers, you might get noticed next time. 10. Keep trying. If it doesn't work the first time, keep trying and don't be discouraged. Make sure you change your approach each time - it will most likely pay off in the end. 

Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine – Lord Byron. I was walking in morning on the beach in Mumbai, India. I saw a group of people standing in a circle, with one person acting as a leader. I found that someone will cut a joke or tell a humor; and everybody will laugh loudly. This was a laughing club whose members try to meet at least twice a week.