I also got substantial party of my book written, with the help of Cate Newman-Marshall, as already written earlier. I proved that it is not only possible to work from here. It also had advantages for some clients for whom I do Issues Monitoring and Management. Due to the time zone they had their reports in their mailbox long before they started working every day. On the personal level I could see AC/DC two times, ride a Harley for a couple of days through the wine areas, dance a lot of tango and enjoy a few weeks of summer. Being in Melbourne this time was a success on all levels. I will definitely come back next year and just move my office and home for a month.

Campaigning ist eine Methodik, die immer wieder Furore macht, weil sie sich dazu eignet, auch unter schwierigsten Bedingungen anspruchsvolle Ziele zu erreichen. Allgemein bekannte Beispiele sind die Präsidentschaftskampagne von Barack Obama, die Greenpeace-Kampagnen der achtziger Jahre und die Produkte- und Marketingstrategien von Apple.

Im Zertifikatslehrgang (CAS) Campaigning lernen die Teilnehmenden anhand des business campaigning® Modells, wie man in den Bereichen integrierte, strategische, politische und Produkte-Kommunikation, sowie Marketing, Public Affairs und Change Management auch unter schwierigsten Bedingungen messbar seine Ziele erreichen und sein Budget in eine Investition verwandeln kann, die sich nachhaltig lohnt.

Der 20-tägige Kurs richtet sich an Mitarbeitende der genannten Gebiete. Der Kurs wird anerkannt durch den Branchenverband pro:campaigning und ist neu als ein Modul des MAS Communication Management der Hochschule Luzern – Wirtschaft anrechenbar.

Der CAS Campaigning findet dieses Jahr zum vierten Mal statt. Kursleiter ist Peter Metzinger, Campaigner seit 1982, Autor des Buchs Business Campaigning (Wissenschaftsverlag Springer 2006, zweite Auflage), Dozent an verschiedenen Fachhochschulen, sowie Urheber des CAS Campaigning. Das Dozententeam ist international. Darin vertreten sind auf ihrem Gebiet anerkannte Fachpersonen aus Corporate Identity, Geschichte der Strategielehre, Präzision im Texten und Formulieren, Message Development, Logik und Analytik, Wirkungsanalyse, Balanced Scorecard, International Public Affairs, Finanzierungsplanung, Krisenmanagement und Issues Monitoring. Prominentestes Mitglied im Team ist Prof. Dr. Albert Stahel, Professor für Strategische Studien an der Universität Zürich.

Kursbeginn ist am 8. April 2010
Anmeldeschluss ist der 15. März 2010

Weitere Informationen:
www.cas-campaigning.com
peter.metzinger@businesscampaigning.com

Become a fan of CAS Campaigning

So, it is a natural part of a book on a concept like business campaigning®, that a lot of time is spent on definitions, which then form the  ground on which to build a stable concept that will not be blown away so easily. A few examples:

Changerator: (this word is our own creation) Anything that can be used to change a mindset, behaviour or outcomes and thus help you to achieve your goal(s). Changerators can be found within your profession, sector, or experience and also from external, different or unconventional sources. Examples for changerators are: flyers, billboards, marketing, psychotherapy, organisational development, product development, PR, internal communication, online campaigning, networking, interventions, legal action etc. It can be one sentence spoken at the right time to the right person.

Communication: The result of conscious or unconscious exchange of information between at least two people, parties or entities, involving various levels of interaction. The highest form of communication is reached when it creates a connection between these people, parties or entities.

Competitor: Anything or anyone that interferes negatively with the process of achieving your goals.

Complementor: Anything or anyone that interferes positively with the process of achieving your goals. Through their success they naturally complement your success. And/or through their operations they create greater demand for what you do.

Guidelines: Rules and/or principles that are used to guide or direct your decision making, behaviour and/or activities.

I had a sentence “Campaigning is all about achieving goals effectively at minimum costs.” Cate’s feedback showed me that there was one important point missing, which is so clear to me (but maybe not to others): Campaigning is also about motivating people. And, and this is most important: it is not about  cheapness. Campaigning can be very costly indeed. But it delivers a real and measurable Return on Investment (ROI), and so it is about maximizing ROI. The discussion went on to the fact that campaigning is also about generating new insights that take you to a higher level of understanding your business and integrate a wide range of tools, domains, fields and disciplines.

When she asked me what I meant with “To be able to find the most effective and efficient tools you need to be aware of any possibly helpful tool, approach, tactics or technique.” I explained it by the help of a real example. A few years ago the owner of a small headhunter agency met us, because she wanted us to do PR or advertising for her. (She had heard, campaigning was cheap PR or advertising…) Her business had been going down since 5 months, starting in April that year. We discussed various options and decided to sleep one night over it and make a decision next day. However, during the next 24 hours I could not get out of my head that she had mentioned four times during that meeting of one hour, that she had a car accident in March with a whiplash trauma as a result. My guts were telling me there was a connection. (Today I see it more clearly: such a trauma can have a huge impact on a person’s appearance, which in turn can have a huge impact on her staff’s performance in such a small agency.) So, I took all my courage, called her and told her I had a feeling she should wait with a PR campaign and instead try a trauma therapy. I also gave her the number of a friend of mine who is a trauma therapy specialist. I never heard of her again and gone was the new business… But… a few months later my friend told me that I had been right. After a few sessions the lady’s business was back on track. I had chosen the right tool.

At this point Cate intervened and asked about the right expression. She said, trauma therapy was not a tool, rather an approach or technique. I said “Yes, that’s why I keep talking about the wide range of tools, techniques and approaches that a campaigner needs to know”. Cate said correctly that this was pretty complicated. But we came to the conclusion that our languages (English and German) do not provide any expression that expresses exactly what I was meaning to say. Maybe we need to create a new word! (Like the word motorbike as created when there were motorbikes etc.)

After playing around with the different words we came to “changerator“, derived from change generator. Because every tool, approach or technique is about delivering the change that you aim for.

So, what do you think about this? I am curious to know!

After finding out that they had asked others, too, I thought first, they were just another organisation trying to get ideas for free by asking agencies to pitch against each other. I declined the request, by explaining in detail that no serious agency would be able to deliver a serious proposal without a profound understanding of the situation; which costs.

But then a conversation developed that the potential client called very valuable and it turned out that they are just a bit inexperienced. Then, maybe, business campaigning Switzerland is indeed the best agency for them to cooperate with, as our business model is based on fees, not on percentages of the overall costs. As a consulting campaigner and campaign manager I earn by effectively helping them to make the best out of their budget, not by executing a campaign as expensive as possible. I decided, if I get the time while I’m here, I’ll work out a proposal for them that focusses more on the question how to find out what’s best, rather than pretending to know it already. And maybe I even get some time to do some research, so that I will be able to present them with some concrete ideas that could work.

Now why do I write about this? Not to expose anybody or speak about our business model. I am writing about it, because there is a lesson in here. Did you realize what happened? I got a request that would tempt anyone into making a proposal not based on a proper analysis, which means: not strategic, based on pure guessing and depending on good luck, not good strategy. In fact many colleagues complain again and again about how often they are forced to do so, because otherwise the competitors would win the job. I chose another option. I declined the offer and explained in detail, why I did. All of a sudden there was a profound discussion with the potential client that made him really interested. Now he is actually very curious about what I’ll come up with. I am already better positioned than any other competitor. I can tell that from the communication we had (between Switzerland and Australia), but I can’t really tell you why. Because that is confidential. However, the lesson is very simple:

When a client asks you for a proposal without giving you all the necessary information or at least a budget to make a situation analysis, SAY NO! And explain politely, why. If he is worth to work with, he’ll come back and do his homework or at least take responsibility if things fail later. If he doesn’t come back, then it’s better anyway to decline. The more agencies follow this advice, the less such requests we will get from now on.

St.Kilda Beach, watching the sunset and taking notes for a concept paper

Between 5th and 28th of February – right now – I am working from Melbourne. Melbourne is an awesome city, that I like a lot, and I have a number of really good friends here. I get to see them only if one of us travels around half the globe. After having been here for the first time in late 2006 / early 2007 I decided to try and come back every year. Not to make holidays, but to work from here and spend time with friends, in nature or at the beach during the evenings and weekends. In Melbourne I also had my first private tango lessons, and I am slowly starting to make friends there, too. Funny enough the world is so small, that I met herea tango friend from Zurich on Saturday night. None of us knew we were here at the same time…

Well… One major thing I am doing here is writing an English short version of my book Business Campaigning. In German it has 300 pages and is so specific for the German markets, tha

t it’s easier to write a new one from scratch than having all those pages translated and rewritten. Apart from that, it was “easy” to write 300 pages but then I didn’t have enough time left to shorten the book. Today I know how to limit the number of pages to maximum 100. So, that’s my goal for this month.

But I also do other work. Friday night, one hour after my arrival, I got a call from a client back home in Switzerland. She needed a concept paper until the end of this week. Back home it was 3pm, here it was 1am – but being a late night person (and worker) I don’t care if clients call me at that time. And when I do the work for them and deliver at 4pm, it is 6am back home, so they come into the office and find my email as one of the first things. That’s really great. Especially when the job is issues and media monitoring and the reports on media coverage is on my client’s desk even before she or he starts working.

Art work in Fitzroy.

Of course I cannot attend meetings in person. But with today’s technology (Skype and iChat) it is so easy to set up a video conference and attend the meeting virtually. That is almost as good as in person. I even did it this winter when I was having a cold that might have been a flu. I did neither show up at the meeting nor cancel it. My business partner, who was at the meeting, had his MacBook with him and we had a Skype conference. Most of the work that I do, I can do anywhere. All that I need is my brains, my MacBook and an internet connection. And, of course, my iPhone. I even have an Australian number, so that I can be online all the time without going bankrupt due to roaming costs.Last not least, there is one factor that has to be said loud and clearly. Travelling and working from different places is inspiring, expands one’s horizon and causes you to meet new people who might become important strategic business partners. On Saturday at Nineteen Squares, owned by my two friends Jeff and Katie Wong, I met Cate Newman Marshall,  a marketing coach who seems to share the same ideas and approach on marketing and communication. This meeting was so inspiring that I decided to start my book with writing aboutit.

Dinner in Fitzroy, a centre for arts, architecture and creativity

Mit einem Klick auf mehreren Accounts und Pinnwänden posten

Zürich (pte/21.01.2010/06:10) - Das neue Networking-Tool Sereive http://www.sereive.com soll die Betreuung von multiplen Accounts bei Facebook, Twitter und Co vereinfachen. “Mit Sereive gibt es erstmals einen Dienst, der das zeitgleiche Posten von Informationen auf multiplen Pinnwänden, Accounts und Social-Networking-Seiten ermöglicht. Zeitaufwändiges Copy & Paste von Textbausteinen bei den diversen Web-2.0-Plattformen ist damit Geschichte”, erklärt Peter Metzinger, einer der beiden Sereive-Erfinder, im Exklusivinterview mit pressetext.

Metzinger, als Campaigning Manager (http://www.businesscampaigning.com) selbst seit längerem auf der Suche nach einem vergleichbaren Dienst, entwickelte Sereive zusammen mit dem IT-Spezialisten und Programmierer Samuli Hiltunen (http://www.kiwicustom.com), nachdem beide im Internet nicht fündig geworden waren. “Es gab und gibt zwar einige Tools, mit denen man Informationen zeitgleich etwa auf Twitter und Facebook veröffentlichen kann. Dies ist jedoch nur mit genau einem Account pro sozialem Netzwerk möglich. Das gleichzeitige Posten auf mehreren Facebook- oder Amazee-Walls wird bei den etablierten Diensten überhaupt nicht unterstützt”, so Metzinger.

Sereive, das sich aus den Worten “Send” und “Receive” ableitet, ist als Web-2.0-Cockpit konzipiert, über das sich alle relevanten sozialen Netze steuern lassen. Neben Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn und MySpace können über Sereive auch die eigenen Accounts auf den Plattformen wer-kennt-wen, hi5 und Amazee zentral verwaltet werden. Weitere Social Networks werden bei entsprechender Nachfrage hinzukommen. Die Bedienung ist einfach gehalten. Nach dem Log-in bei Sereive wählen User einfach die jeweiligen Accounts bzw. Pinnwände aus, auf denen das gerade verfasste Posting zeitgleich erscheinen soll.

Auch iPhone-Applikation geplant

Derzeit ermöglicht Sereive nur das Senden bzw. Posten von Informationen. In weiterer Folge ist laut Metzinger allerdings geplant, dass über Sereive sämtliche Aktivitäten der eigenen Networking-Accounts übersichtlich verfolgt werden können. Besonderes Augenmerk haben die Entwickler dabei auf die Nutzung über die aktuellen Smartphones gelegt. “Der Webauftritt ist so konzipiert, dass Sereive schon jetzt problemlos über die jeweiligen Handybrowser, also etwa über Safari auf dem iPhone aufgerufen werden kann. In naher Zukunft wird es zudem im App Store eine iPhone-Applikation geben”, so Metzinger gegenüber pressetext.

Der Networking-Dienst zielt auf professionelle Networker, PR- und Marketing-Verantwortliche ab, soll aber auch private Power-User ansprechen. Die Registrierung und Nutzung ist prinzipiell kostenfrei. Dabei kann die verfasste Information aber nur auf jeweils einer Plattform publiziert werden. Da der Vorgang mit dem gerade verfassten Text aber beliebig oft wiederholbar ist, entfällt auch in diesem Fall das mühsame Copy & Paste.

Für User, die mit einem Click bis zu 20 Accounts und Walls bedienen wollen, fallen Kosten von sieben Euro pro Monat bzw. 60 Euro im Jahr an. Die ersten 365 User, die sich bei Sereive registrieren, kommen in den Genuss eines kostenlosen Accounts auf Lebenszeit. Die Anmeldung erfolgt unter http://www.sereive.com. (Ende)

Aussender: pressetext.schweiz

Redakteur: Martin Jan Stepanek

email: stepanek@pressetext.com

Tel. +43-1-81140-308