Geoffrey Tumlin (pictured here), author of the new book Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life, argues that expediency—not comprehension—has become the crux of our communication exchanges today. “We want to plow through our inboxes, respond to new text or voice messages as soon as they come in, and get face-to-face conversations over quickly so we can move on to the next thing.”

There’s even expediency in getting products out to the market. It used to be you could take time to get a new product in the marketplace, but today, it’s better to roll it out, listen to the feedback and make it better. That makes sense. But Tumlin would want you to be careful:

“The glut of messages we process on any given day encourages us to think of communication as something we do mechanically, when, in fact, communication is how we make our life. Smart communicators slow down when forming a message and consider whether or not the other person is likely to understand what they’re communicating. Without understanding, there’s no communication.”

Tumlin’s thing is that digital communication has let us pretend that overall communication is now better whereas it may just be faster. “…no matter how fancy our devices may become, they’ll never be able to eliminate the misunderstandings, the confusion, and the errors that occur when people talk,” he said.

There’s another interesting parallel: “…communication gets much more difficult as you increase the number of people [you’re sending to],” says Tumlin. “More people means more perspectives to consider. When we fail to account for these additional viewpoints, we run the risk of talking, texting, or typing right past each other…It’s not practical to think through every possible perspective before posting to Facebook or sending a group email. But we should take the extra step to consider key viewpoints…”

So what’s the answer?

1. Involve everyone from the start. If your marketers and editorial people—and even those who may answer the phone—understand the product, there’s a much better chance the customers will as well.

2. Start or propel your community/forum. This will give people a place to air their concerns and you a chance to listen and respond.

3. Communicate your vision of the product well to your customers. Perhaps send out a couple test emails to customers who you know well. See what they say.

4. It’s not about you; it’s about them. “Technology has encouraged communication on our terms and led to an explosion of self-expressive, me-first messages,” says Tumlin. Survey your customers early on or call a few one-on-one. Find out what they need to become better.

5. Think about rolling it out at a live event. “Our devices can’t handle anywhere near the amount of interpersonal nuance and complexity that human interaction entails,” Tumlin said. This might be a way to get your “champions” on board (and social media-izing). “If we put people back at the center of our conversations, this really could be the golden age of communication.”

6. Empathize with your customers. Teachers are harried, health workers may be lost in a sea of red tape, HR people are drowning. “Our technical capabilities have raced ahead of our actual abilities,” Tumlin said. Be realistic about your audience.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA website.

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

Here are some interesting notes:

1. Here comes mobile. Tablet usage has doubled in the 10 months since the last survey. In many countries, smartphone users are now in the majority, and most of them use these devices to access news every week. Across all the countries surveyed, 46% use a smartphone and 31% say they used the device for news at least once in the past week. (See the next Mobile Essentials webinar Oct. 24.)

2. Get to know your audience better. “In all countries we asked if people agreed that they preferred to get news from sites they know and trust. The figures were universally high, with 90% supporting the proposition in Brazil, 82% in the US, and 77% in the UK.”

3. Twitter, etc. may be as important as SEO. Social media is now rated more important than search among the ‘under 45s’. In the U.S. 47% of under 45s use social media to find news. (How’s your social media involvement?) In the U.K. it’s only 27%. (Hear a social media case study at the Las Vegas Marketing Conference.)

4. Encourage your audience to share. In the UK 18% had shared a news story in the last week by email or social network but among those actively interested in news the figures are much higher. Almost a third of those with a high interest in news share a news link at least once a week.

5. Publishing information daily (and maybe at various times of day) makes sense. Only older people are staying on any schedule for accessing news. Younger people tend to access news at all times, and “even the 35–44s seem to be losing the commitment for appointment-to-view news bulletins in the early and late evening.”

6. Americans like local. We have the highest interest of any country in news about our city or town (59%). (More women indicated that as an interest than men.) We are near the lowest to be interested in news about technology or science (26%). Wonder if that has anything to do with our students’ test scores in those areas.

7. Find tablet users. While smartphone users say the convenience not the experience draws them, tablet users like the experience more than PCs. Tablet users are also more likely to pay for news than smartphone users.

8. Americans consume video and audio. Are you using any? Only Brazil was higher (64%) for consuming news through video and audio than Americans (55%). (See a hands-on video session in Las Vegas.)

9. Check your analytics. People in the UK find news more by trusted brands, where in the U.S. people use more social and search. In both countries, the number of people who use search does not vary much by age. Of course, social does vary by age when it comes to search, but it again differs by country. In the UK, under 45s are three times as likely to use social for search; in the U.S., the numbers are much closer (38% to 23%).

10. Have you built your app yet? Those who use smartphones and tablets are more likely to go straight to a news brand. “The data also indicate that certain mechanisms – like social newsreading apps and ‘push’ news alerts – are disproportionately used on these devices to discover news content.”

11. Appeal to smartphone users to reach out. Of those who share news in the UK, 56% do so through Facebook, 40% through email and 26% through Twitter. In the U.S., Apple smartphone users are 41% more likely to share news than other digital news users.

Interesting stuff. Again access it here.

 To subscribe to SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA site.

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

When: February 13, 2014
Where: The Westin, Washington DC
Who: ISVs, cloud service providers, systems integrators, IT services companies, and Government decision makers

“The landscape of federal agencies continues to change as they transition to data-driven cloud computing,” says Rhianna Collier, Vice President of the SIIA Software Division. “SIIA’s Public Sector Innovation Summit will provide critical insight and intelligence into the government’s movement towards cloud platforms and services and how ISVs can capitalize on this transition.”

For sponsorship inquiries, please contact Rhianna Collier at rcollier@siia.net or +1.408.884.3834 or Mike Hettinger at mhettinger@siia.net or +1.202.789.4456..

Tempting August NUSA Specials!
Your April Website Stats
MotorCycling Magazine Reader Survey
Final reminder for complimentary entry to attend the West Freelands BCI Cluster Conference 2006
Preliminary Floor Plans for Southern Village Neighborhood Circle members
SALE ends soon – up to 50% off all bras at Kara!

MailChimp just updated their second big email subject line study, revealing some interesting dos and don’ts for getting high open rates. Here’s a hint for you: You should also be aware of your own behavior. Which emails do you open? Where does your eye go first? Mine often looks at the From line (see number 6).

Here are eight more of their guidelines:

1. Keep subject lines fewer than 50 characters. “The exception was for highly targeted audiences, where the reader apparently appreciated the additional information in the subject line.”

2. Personalization does not increase open rates much. You’ve seen the subject lines, “[your name], this webinar is for you!” Their research says that personalization does not increase open rates very much. Providing a city name helps more. That makes sense. If I saw, “A new restaurant in Falls Church, Va.,” I would open it.

3. Don’t repeat subject lines. So maybe my SIPAlert Daily Week in Review should always have one or two words describing what follows—SIPAlert Daily Week in Review: Branding and Digital Ads. “While it is important to establish continuity and branding of the newsletter, ideally each new campaign should provide a clear indication in the subject line of what is inside this newsletter that is of interest.”

4. Build a good list. You’ve heard that before.

5. Valuable information tops promotion. There’s a reason content marketing is all the rage (and one of the four tracks at our Marketing Conference in Las Vegas, Dec. 11-13). But, if you are sending promotional emails: “Keep the message straightforward and avoid using splashy promotional phrases, CAPS, or exclamation marks in your subject lines. Subject lines framed as questions can often perform better.”

6. The From and Subject lines should work together. As much as possible, the “From” entry should not change and should concisely convey who you are. Save any humorous phrases or concepts for the subject line.”

7. Don’t sell what’s inside, tell what’s inside. People are currently being bombarded with email. Don’t be vague, don’t be too constant—although some will say that it does work for webinars, especially if you remove the people who already signed up—and be careful about using “free.”

8. Three words to avoid: Help, Percent off and Reminder. (That gives you a strong hint on one of the above questions.) Funny about “reminder.” I think we’ve all probably used that one—I guess we just ignore it.

Oh, about the subject lines up top. Here are the results:

Tempting August NUSA Specials! - .9%
(“Special” and exclamation points test poorly.)

Your April Website Stats – 92.6%
(Timely and useful information)

MotorCycling Magazine Reader Survey – 88.1%
(High affinity to activity/experience)

Final reminder for complimentary entry to attend the West Freelands BCI Cluster Conference 2006 – .5%
(“Reminder” is bad and subject line in this case too long)

Preliminary Floor Plans for Southern Village Neighborhood Circle members – 93%
(Timely information. Implied benefit for quick action. Over 50 characters in length – which is good for this targeted audience)

SALE ends soon – up to 50% off all bras at Kara!  – 1.9%
(Percent off and exclamation point are not good)

Now I need to come up with a good subject line for this. Definitely not, “[your name] Reminder: Get % off help from us!!!”

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA site. 

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

Here’s the storify of what delegates and speakers said on the day so you can catch up on what you missed..

Can’t see the storify? Try this direct link: http://storify.com/siiauk/siia-digital-content-and-media-summit

Of course, you want to be seen, heard and found, and building a mobile app is a good way to do that. “Mobile Internet traffic is building very quickly and desktop access is falling off,” Schwartz said. Apps now account for 82% of all mobile access. He suggested that you look at the percentage of your traffic that is coming from mobile. It’s probably growing.

[This webinar with the full presentation is now posted on the SIIA website for SIIA/SIPA/ABM members to access.]

Schwartz then proceeded to lay out the various business models that should drive a publisher’s mobile strategy:

1. Mobile extension to desktop product. The purpose is not to replicate your desktop product, but to provide a mobile product to complement it. For example, CQ did this and it has enhanced the value of their content. The app is free to download from the app store, but users need a log-in and password from CQ.

2. Newsstand subscription. If you publish your content no more than once every 24 hours and bundle your content into issues, then the Apple newsstand app may for you. Your app will be available in both the app and newsstand store. “Our experience is you should publish at least four issues per year,” Schwartz said. Apple charges 30% fee, but they handle all the side issues. “If you’re interested in expanding to the international market, Apple’s a great way to do it. I think they’re in more than 225 countries now.”

3. Freemium model. It’s designed to drive awareness and interest in your content in a free app while generating upscale opportunities to the free version. The Guardian uses this model for their mobile app. You can access content on an ad-supported basis or pay 69p for their premium tier (the lowest price allowed in the U.K.). The key to success is that the free version must be able to stand on its own, Schwartz said.

4. Digital Print Bundle. This is a current favorite among publishers because it provides a means to extend the life of your print to figure out how to replace those dollars. It allows publishers to experiment. A magazine like Consumer Reports will give their print subscribers access to their digital tools—a kind of best of both worlds.

5. Sponsored or ad-supported app. These treat mobile as a specialty product. The CQ Roll Call app, for instance, is ad supported and can be downloaded free from the Apple store. Banners can be placed in the story. You must think through the design for this to work. Size and placement do matter here.

6. Native ads. These are effective but controversial—indeed, the FTC has started to look into them—because the advertiser seeks to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user experience. Native ads match the form and function of the content. If they are publisher produced, then it’s similar to an advertorial. The intent is to make paid ads feel less intrusive.

7. Transactional or In-App purchase. Allows you to download a free app and then make a purchase to keep using it or to upgrade the app by using Apple’s In-app system. Amazon has also just launched a system. LexisNexis offers a free trial and then you choose a subscription level. It’s also very international and you can sign in on multiple devices.

Schwartz offered one last tip: Smart App banners. When a user comes in on their IOS device using Safari, they would see a pop-up banner that shows the app on their iPad. If they have the app, it comes up. If they don’t, it tells you to download it.

Next up was Ed Keating, chief content officer for BLR and in charge of new products. BLR has a long history of experimentation, first with the HR Daily Advisor. “Luckily, we’ve migrated to a new [mobile] platform,” Keating said. “It just launched over the weekend—covers all of our verticals.”

What process did BLR use to get to that stage? There were three steps:

1. They researched their customers, checking their mobile traffic and what people said they want to use.

2. By working with an established provider—in this case, Newstex—they learned a lot.

3. They debated business models. How were they going to pay for this and how is this going to work within BLR’s business?

They did a lot of surveys and found differences in the breakdown of devices being used. The critical question they asked was, “What are you using mobile for?” They were reading news, taking training, keeping records. “What kind of workflow thing might we want to be thinking about?” Keating said they next asked. Interestingly, there was not a big difference between their paid and unpaid audience.

What were the challenges? “On the strategic side, are you mobile first or mobile second?” Keating asked. “We were probably mobile third. We have been digital for a long time and still have print products and need to support those. But our mobile traffic is up.

“How do we integrate mobile platforms into our overall strategy? The challenge for BLR products is that their use is episodic,” Keating continued. “They answer questions. If people are not getting a lot of questions, what do you do? Mobile allows us to be in their forefront all the time. We can be more pervasive in their day. Trying to own your customers share of day is a good goal and metric.”

From the operational side, here were BLR’s concerns:

1. How do you budget? It’s like the Internet. You just need it.

2. Content readiness. Self-explanatory.

3. Not built here. BLR had some mobile expertise in Tennessee. But because no one there owned it, it “did not get in [their] way.”

4. Ignorance. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” Keating said.

5. Timeline. That was tough. Who owned it? “It took us forever to get the thing launched,” Keating said. “Where in the organization should this thing live?” You need your top people to communicate.

6. Business model. How do you pay for this? “We got caught up on that one,” Keating said. “We played around with a couple ways to make this work for us.”

The sponsored and ad-supported model proved most appealing. “BLR has been building an ad business here—growing quite well,” Keating said. “It was great to have something else to put in the bags of our sales reps. Having mobile was a logical extension. And maybe it could grow towards [a] Freemium [model].”

The ad-supported model was also the easiest way for BLR to get new names to follow. “It’s incredibly trackable and metric oriented.” BLR was already offering some free content to potential subscribers. With the added capabilities of the platform, they could ask for an email address and give a lot more functionality. That would make them more alluring.

Keating also had a final tip. At first, he said BLR looked around at what others do. “The most, well-thought out strategy came from the head of mobile at Thomson Reuters,” he said. “’We are striving to design and develop best-in-class platforms to facilitate agility, quality and consistency across products that will help people work as efficiently while mobile as they are in the office—and seamlessly no matter what platform they use.’

“For many of us in the SIPA, ABM and SIIA world, that is something to strive for. Can we match where our customers want to go?”

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

I think any writer in today’s age has wondered that at times. Why am I hearing from people on this topic and not that one? The story on that one is better! It used to be, said Geneva Overholser, Pulitzer Prize winner and former director of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, that journalists published what they thought the public needed to know. Now the mechanisms are in place to find out.

“Fundamentally, journalists do need to care about what [their audience] is interested in,” Overholser said. “You have to care about what people want.”

The occasion for this discussion was a talk this week at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs on Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective. How do we maintain that level of professionalism for journalists in this new age when everyone is a writer? People may not want to pay for great journalism, but they probably won’t pay for bad journalism either. May’s story—plus the ensuing discussion—led to one of today’s fundamental questions: Are we trying hard enough to find out what our audience wants?

Specialized publishing has the advantage of a niche community that you are helping to foster with resources and information. Building that community and providing it a forum then becomes a huge factor. How are you listening to your audience? Are you getting comments from articles or blog posts? Are you testing? Are you talking to them at your live events and through social media? Are you monitoring Twitter? Do they have their own forum? Are you surveying at the end of webinars? It’s probably worth an incentive or two to get that feedback.

The panelists still believe in the power of good journalism. However, they did wonder aloud, “How do you make that part of someone’s everyday routine?” Columbia Journalism School Professor Michael Schudson said he was surprised that when he visited a music school, they were not just teaching musicianship. They were also teaching entrepreneurship. It’s something journalism can learn from, he said.

“It’s still a great moment to be a journalist,” Overholser said. “I don’t think professionalism has been undermined [by citizen journalism].” You would just hope that people will realize the value of “having a professional journalism source as part of their daily diet.” This is also part of the reason that building your mobile business becomes essential. If you are to succeed at supplying a “daily diet” to your community, then it has to look appealing on every platform.

Overholser said that the most important element today is the “collaboration between journalist and reader.” Do they trust us? Are we telling them what they need to know? Do they follow you? It may just be that the definition of good journalism has changed. Yesterday it was more about ethics and fancy prose. Today, good may just mean helpful.

She ended by using a Churchill quote to defend journalism: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Journalism may not be perfect any more—indeed, citizen journalism can make us cringe at times—but it’s still what some of us signed up for and remain passionate about. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

One of yesterday’s responses recommended Evernote’s Clearly for a “Zen like reading experience” (no ads or disruptions). Clearly makes blog posts, articles and webpages clean and easy to read. Publishers need to monitor this type of tool, especially ones who depend on digital ad revenue. Evernote is a service that works on your desktop or laptop, on your iPad, iPhone, Android phone, etc., and synchronizes your information across each platform. So if you take a note on your iPad, you can view it later on your smartphone, and vice versa. In addition, Evernote Hello lets you remember people easier—a good Conference tool—and helps to bring in information about those people you meet.

Here are a few more technology tips I’ve heard recommended around our digital water cooler.

- CamScanner turns your smartphone into a scanner. Users can scan documents by taking a picture with their phone’s camera and save them as pdf files. The app has some capability to recognize words in a scanned document, so you can search for phrases…

- I’ve heard good buzz about WalkMe. From its website: It “enables your business to simplify the online experience and eliminate user confusion. Think of it like a GPS, but instead of giving driving directions, WalkMe guides users every step of the way to successfully complete their online tasks.”

- Two tools from Google: First Click Free. If you offer subscription-based access to your website content, or if users must register to access your content, then search engines cannot access some of your site’s most relevant, valuable content. Implementing FCF for your content allows you to include your restricted content in Google’s main search index. Google is calling Helpouts “real help from real people in real time.” It’s a new way to connect people who need help with people who can give help. They’re “collecting” experts for now so might be worth it to “apply.”

- Speaking of Lifehacking, which someone referenced on the Listserv yesterday, Safely Go (free) for Android turns off your ringer and alert tones and sends an auto-reply to people who call or text you while you’re on the road.

- Grid is a new organizational app. Tap on an empty grid square and you can mark out an area of the document that suits your content.

- A new Poetry App lets users find poems by mood, subject and poet, as well as by browsing through online audio files. Might come in handy for your next marketing piece or spouse’s birthday.

I am quite sure that most of these “inventions” did not happen without some kind of group discussion, either in flushing out the idea or helping to develop it. That’s also the idea behind SIPA’s upcoming Fall Publishers Roundtable, Monday, Sept. 30, here in Washington, D.C. The topic is Creating Profitable New Products, and the two leaders, David Foster of BVR and Don Nicholas of Mequoda, will harness the amazing group knowledge that will be present to help you create the next new thing.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

Both Smarter Balanced and PARCC released information on field tests that can help districts and companies prepare for the transition. The results of the field tests will help schools decide what sort of materials will best suit the new curriculum.

A recent webinar outlined expected release dates for future materials from both consortia organizations. It also allowed educators and other interested parties to ask questions directly to the consortia leaders.  Teachers, administrators, and district leaders are all concerned and about the changes and what they can do to make cost effective decisions for their districts.

The “What’s new in Common Core” document gives links and summaries to these August releases as well as a comprehensive collection of important resources released in 2013 so far. SIIA members can download the document to learn more about the resources available to companies and districts looking to navigate the upcoming transition.

Lindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

The moral: Focusing on just one thing may cause you to lose sight of some others. Here are five tips in five areas of your business. Email me if one rings true; might not be best to call or text me today.

1. Build trust with an audience. Ben Heald, CEO of Sift Digital—who will be speaking at SIIA’s Digital Content & Media Summit next month in London—wants you to be more open when you speak to colleagues and audiences. He recounts a talk he gave to local start-up entrepreneurs where he spoke about the issues and mistakes that his company had dealt with. “I could easily have given them a glossier version of events, in which we smoothly got to 130 staff and £8m revenue, but the learning experience wouldn’t have been nearly so strong,” he wrote in his blog. “The audience seemed to be interested—loads of questions and comments, good chats afterwards, LinkedIn requests, personal emails and even an invitation to repeat the talk in Manchester. …once again it was a reminder that if you want to build trust with an audience you need to put your real self out there.”

2. Think global. From Elana Fine, managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business: “Understand every business is a global business. I repeat. Understand every business is a global business and every entrepreneur is a global entrepreneur. For those of you who use the business model canvas as a planning tool—think of your canvas and look at which box represents a global opportunity. Is it a customer segment, a manufacturing partner or a distribution channel?”

3. Market to inspire participation. Ariana Huffington on what Jeff Bezos should do with The Washington Post (from an article in the Washington City Paper): “The first thing…is start to bring the incredible level of consumer engagement that he created at Amazon to the paper. I’ve always said the future of journalism is going to be a hybrid future—one that combines the best tools of traditional media…with the best tools of the digital world, like speed and engagement. Journalism is moving from a mode of presentation to participation.”

4. Improve meetings. Speaking of Bezos, Daniel Pink writes in his book, To Sell Is Human, that the Amazon founder often includes an empty chair at the table in important planning meetings. It represents the customer: “Seeing it encourages meeting attendees to take the perspective of the invisible but essential person. What’s going through her mind? What desires and concerns? What would she think of the ideas we are putting forward?” While you’re looking at that empty chair,” writes Jill Geisler of Poynter, “remember to make sure you think of every possible customer that could occupy it—not just those who look and sound like the colleagues in the room with you.

5. Truly commit to digital first. Writing on the Poynter site, Cory Bergman, GM of NBC’s Breaking News, chronicled Facebook’s mobile turnaround. ”Even at a thriving Silicon Valley startup full of employees in their twenties and thirties, [CEO Mark] Zuckerberg battled a desktop-centric culture. He backed up his ‘mobile first’ declaration with his own behavior. He removed his desktop monitor from his desk. Whenever someone pitched him an idea, he would ask, ‘What does that look like on mobile?’ He urged staff to ditch their iPhones for Android phones to more closely mirror the population of Facebook mobile users.” Note: 85% of Breaking News’ visits now originate from a mobile device.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline