Number 41 of 52 Lifelong Communication Lessons: Sometimes you just get lucky.
October 12, 2015 |
| Princess Diana at a Zimbabwe Refugee Camp, 1993 |
The year was 1993.
The World Trade Centre is bombed, Diana Princess of Wales announces her withdrawal from public life (more about dancing with her and Charles coming up in a future blog) and the Queen opens up Buckingham Palace to the public. Woodward's department store closes (I worked with the family and a few of their CEO's over the years).
That was the year I was working with the City of Vancouver in the planning for a new downtown library. Any new public building provides great photo opportunities for politicians and they love to showcase their vision in creative ways. The boring ribbon cuttings or shovels in the ground were passé, even in 1993.
We had already canvassed the public on their design preferences via photos of the architecture models...something a bit risky but a good version of public consultation. Much to the chagrin of a few "design experts", the majority of participants selected the one that stands on Georgia Street in Vancouver today.
We decided to do a ground breaking with a bit of pizzazz. You can never spend too much money on these things as the public does not like to see their dollars spent on grandstanding gimmicks. On the other hand, you don't want to do the traditional shovel in the ground as it is too boring for the media and won't make it to the evening news. For this event, we got the Mayor to operate one of the big construction shovels to dig the first hole. It wasn't a huge idea but different enough to get attention.
After a quick lesson from the onsite worker, the Mayor adeptly dug deep and pulled up a bucket of earth. Ta da. Photo op success. The media clicked away and the Mayor stepped down from the shovel. As he started to move toward the media he noticed a horseshoe in the mound of dirt. He picked it up (wrong way, I found out later) and announced his discovery. I could not have planned it better. Some of the media thought I did plant it but I swear it just appeared from under the asphalt. Let me assure if I had planted the horseshoe, I would have known about the correct way to hold it up. As the story goes, you must hold it with the open side at the top or supposedly the luck runs out. Who knew?!
It took some convincing for the media (and even the Mayor) to believe this was not staged. I was not a gimmicky PR type and I think my past history paid off. I could not even conjure up such a stunt, just not in me.
The Mayor was thrilled, the media did finally believe it was truly a fluke of luck and we all went away happy.
Communication Lessons:
1. The public does want to have their say. Why not let them participate? There is a wisdom of the crowds. That library was pooh-poohed by some architects and designers of that era but the building is a well loved and an iconic landmark in our city.
2. Being creative with your communication does not have to cost a lot of money.
3. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Fast Forward to 2015:
There has been quite a hullabaloo online about the Pope's encounter with a migrant child and how it has now been revealed that Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition had been planning the moment for a year. Well, I say bravo to them for being creative and getting their message heard. Most often you cannot rely on luck.
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