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SmartSims - business, marketing and advertising levels

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:03:26 +1100

Relates to format of 2008 Shopping Centre assignment

http://www.smartsims.com/

Consumer Behaviour: Karl Marx article

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:52:18 +1100

As Karl Marx rightly said

Henry Ergas
From: The Australian
November 14, 2009 12:00AM

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WILL we run out of things to consume? John Maynard Keynes thought so. He explained his reasoning in an essay, Economic Prospects for our Grandchildren.

Written in 1929-30, with tens of millions out of work and the world economy mired in the Depression, that essay is striking for its message of hope. It is the mark of a great social scientist that he is willing to make statements that are precise enough to be proved wrong. In that essay, Keynes met that test, boldly predicting “the standard of life in progressive countries 100 years hence will be between four times and eight times as high as it is today”.

A four to eight-fold increase implies an upper-bound annual growth rate of 2.1 per cent. This is very close to the unweighted average of national annual growth rates of per capita gross domestic product for the period from 1929 to 2006, which is 2.04 per cent. Keynes may not have got it precisely right, but it is difficult not be to awed by the brilliance of his attempt, especially when the credibility of our economic soothsayers lies in tatters.

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Keynes erred, however, in assessing the consequences of rising living standards. Greater wealth, he thought, would bring a time when needs would be satiated; when our desire for greater consumption would reach itslimit.

The conclusion was that with all important needs met, production could be undertaken “with a quarter of the human effort to which we have been accustomed”. Working time could fall to 15 hours a week, leaving ample time “to pluck the hour and the day”.

How far that seems from the world of today. As the willingness of Australia’s population to engage in frenzied consumption clearly shows, satiation of human desires is no closer now than it was in 1930, not only in the economies where poverty remains pervasive but even in the world’s richest countries. As we seek to finance our consumption habit, working hours, far from shrinking, have lengthened in many countries and only declined slightly in others.

How did Keynes get it so wrong? Simply put, he greatly underestimated the ability of markets to devise new goods and patterns of consumption.

In the pre-capitalist era, luxury was the jealously guarded preserve of the few. As economic growth got under way in the 17th and 18th centuries, after millennia in which per capita incomes averaged less than $2 a day, the aspirations of the emerging urban middle class to share in better quality goods were viewed as a threat to good order.

Sumptuary laws, such as the edicts of Louis XIII prohibiting anyone but princes and the nobility from wearing gold embroidery or lace, became widespread, and philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau deplored the urban taste for frivolous objects of little utility, for which he coined the term colifichet.

The genius of capitalism lay in transforming those aspirations into opportunities. As the prohibitions on consumption collapsed, the road to riches came to involve providing ever more elaborate goods to ever wider parts of the population, rather than in pandering to the the elite. Although there may be limits to how many goods each of us can consume, there are no obvious limits to their quality and performance. The result has been a race without an ending, in which competing suppliers strive to identify and exploit new sources of willingness to pay.

Unbounded, too, has been capitalism’s ability to devise new means of distribution that increase the efficiency with which we consume, that is, that reduce the time and effort required per unit of consuming. From the development of packaging, branding and advertising in the 19th century, to the invention in 1916 of the first self-service grocery store by US entrepreneur Clarence Saunders with his Piggly Wiggly chain, the history of capitalism is that of making it steadily easier for people to meet goods and finance purchases. Internet shopping is the latest in that long line of innovations, harnessing ingrained hunter-gatherer instincts while sparing us the risk of becoming the tasty morsel of savage beasts.

At the same time, the ever greater scale of markets, now global for manufactured items and services that can be provided online, makes for ever greater product variety, as it allows suppliers of highly differentiated products to recoup their costs from users worldwide. The result has been an emancipation of minority tastes.

Karl Marx, who opened Das Kapital with the observation that “the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities”, proved far more discerning of these potentialities than was Keynes. Marx saw the development of mass consumption, and the incessant efforts of the capitalist to “give his wares new charms and to inspire (consumers) with new needs”, as lying at the heart of capitalism’s “civilising moment”, because they were inherently democratic, universal and unbounded.

Yet that dynamic creates an ever starker contrast: between boundless improvement in the supply of private goods — the goods we consume individually — and the difficulties that characterise the supply of public goods.

Milton Friedman best captured the underlying predicament when he said it is “the great advantage of the market that it permits wide diversity. It is a system of proportional representation. Each man can vote for the colour of tie he wants and get it; he does not have to see what colour the majority wants and then, if he is in the minority, submit.” In contrast, “the characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to require or enforce substantial conformity”.

Inevitably, that collective action creates disappointment, as fine aspirations give way to shabby compromises, while its outcomes, far from hoped-for ideal states, dissolve into less than satisfactory halfway houses. Little wonder then that we tend, in that wonderful phrase of John Kenneth Galbraith, to private affluence amid public squalor. And the fact that good governance remains the most stubbornly untradeable of goods — try benefiting from Swiss public administration while living in the Sudan — means those improvements that there are, are spread glacially, if at all.

Albert Hirschman, economist and historian of ideas, may have been right to say “no disappointment with a specific meat dish, no matter how severe it may be, can fully explain the decision to become a vegetarian”; but it is surely understandable why experience with collective provision turns us into (at times painfully naive) supporters of privatisation, all the more so as the search for better ways of providing public goods remains a will-o’-the-wisp.

Will we run out of things to consume? Not as long as we live in market economies. But will public goods keep up private needs and hopes? Not in my lifetime.

It is that tension, between private dynamism and public inertia, that will continue to frame our lives in ways not even Keynes could have imagined.

Think on feet

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:23:41 +1100

http://searchwarp.com/swa6672.htm

Marketing Simulation

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:46:19 +1100

Google: Marketing Simulation

http://marketplace-simulation.com/products/intro-to-marketing.php

Christmas Hope

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:20:45 +1100

http://www.christmashope.com.au/

Hot Tomato

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:18:47 +1100

http://www.mygc.com.au/

Charging for content debate

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:36:05 +1100

Chief’s talk of ‘free content’ on ABC is inaccurate

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Richard Freudenstein | October 19, 2009

Article from: The Australian

SINCE indicating its intention to start charging for some of its online content, News Corporation, publisher of The Australian, has been the subject of much misguided commentary and criticism, but none quite so peculiar as that of ABC managing director Mark Scott in his A.N.Smith Memorial Lecture last week.

It is worth starting by saying that I agree with much of what Mark said about the state of the industry. The media world has undoubtedly changed forever, and his five prescriptions for future success make much sense.

However, he seems to ignore that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch, along with numerous News executives, have been saying similar things for some time. Here in Australia, News chief executive John Hartigan talked at length on the subject two years ago in his Andrew Olle Media Lecture, where he embraced this change, saying it would better our industry.

Regrettably, during the course of his speech, Mark made several bold — but entirely inaccurate — claims, which demand correction.

First, as the head of a company that takes in excess of $800million every year from Australian taxpayers, his claim that the ABC’s online news content “will certainly be free” is as laughable as it is disingenuous.

Similarly, he has some gall to criticise the “old proprietorial model”, which he says “operated as a form of protection from harsh realities the businesses might otherwise have faced”, since this precisely describes the ABC’s government-owned model.

He then railed against Rupert Murdoch’s “demands” that people start paying for content, presumably hoping his audience would overlook the fact that it is the ABC that gives people no choice whether to pay or not.

To top it off, he inferred that News’s success has been built on a lack of competition and choice. This is a bizarre comment, given some of News’s greatest successes — Sky in Britain and the Fox Network in the US, to name but two — have come in the face of the toughest competition around: in these examples, the BBC, ITV, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Coming from someone who is exempt from competition, this is a particularly egregious argument. Mark speaks from a rare and privileged position. Guaranteed his annual $800m-plus taxpayer income, he can operate with little concern to what his audience actually wants.

He takes the money and decides what to give back, which more often than not is targeted to a very narrow section of society.

Meanwhile, commercial operators such as News live or die by the value of their content. Unlike the ABC’s content, which Australians have to pay for whether they want it or not, people can choose whether or not to purchase our content.

Shielded as he is from this commercial reality, Mark does not understand that advertising alone can’t support the growth of online journalism. Every single commercial news publisher in the world is facing this reality, and as such something has to change.

Charging for a product, even when there is a free alternative, is not a radical or outrageous proposition. If your content has real value, and you deliver it in the time, place and manner people want, then it is not unreasonable to ask them to pay for it. From the research undertaken by News and other organisations across the world, there is every indication that the general public understands and agrees with this.

Quality journalism comes at a price. Although they play a key role in the digital age, even the best-intentioned citizen journalists and bloggers cannot provide the same service. Journalism is not a commodity, as Mark thinks it is.

He says it’s just about news, but journalism is so much more. It is analysis, judgment and comment. Its value must be recognised. I wonder how the ABC’s numerous fine journalists feel when they hear their boss saying their work only warrants being given away free?

For those of us who actually have to earn our keep, we have to make a compelling enough case to the public that what we have to offer is worth paying for.

This is not new to News — it applies equally online as it does to our newspapers, magazines, movies, books and subscription TV packages. News has built its business by being customer-focused, continuing to innovate and evolve, engaging with its audience and providing information and entertainment that our customers are willing to pay for.

Contrary to what some might think, News fully recognises the scale of the challenge. We know our business has to evolve, but we have been constantly evolving throughout our history.

Does anyone want the sole provider of news to be a state-owned organisation? I am not attacking the ABC’s content or its right to exist, simply advocating a plurality of independent voices, which I believe Australians deserve. But if those voices are to survive, let alone thrive, they must be justly recompensed for the expense of creating their content.

Richard Freudenstein is the chief executive officer, News Digital Media, part of News Corporation

*Areas of Responsibility - Production Manager, 1WAY

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:23:00 +1100

Production Manager

Reports to: Canberra Christian Radio Limited Board of Directors in the short term then Station Manager, General Manager or CEO in the longer term

Job purpose: Manage all areas of the production of on-air content for 1WAY FM community radio station. Manage team leaders working on different aspects of production and assist them in coordinating their work in line with the vision and mission for 1WAY FM

Job structure: Full time

Remuneration: Base Salary of $40,000 + 9% superannuation

Key Results Areas and Major Tasks

Uphold the Mission, Vision and Values of Canberra Christian Radio Limited and be committed to 1WAY Forward and the Strategic Plan 2009-12

Manage all aspects associated with the production branch of 1WAY FM

2.1 Areas of expertise include: Programming Content, Announcers, Music Direction, Announcer Training and Program Scheduling

Assist and support team leaders in development of their programs in line with the Strategic Plan

3.1 Assist them to develop systems and processes for volunteers who work in their teams

3.2 Work closely in formulating programming content going to air

3.3 Bring leaders together regularly to discuss innovations and ensure consistent program formats

Ensure that all who work in Production get the training they need to carry out their work effectively

Assist with Announcer training and provide the correct number of training courses throughout the year in line with the Strategic Plan

5.1 Ensure that the processes and guidelines presented in the training courses are adhered to by all announcers

5.2 Monitor the work of announcers for consistency in performance and content

Ensure programs are scheduled 24 hours a day and 7 days a week

6.1 Build up the number of announcers to cover the different segments for daytime listening, having announcers live to air whenever possible

Competencies

Knowledge of Policies and Procedures of 1WAY FM
Knowledge and experience in the production of programs for radio
Ability to manage staff and volunteers
Ability to continually evaluate and improve the production of radio programs
Ability to communicate effectively with people
Ability to work as part of the overall team and solve problems
Ability to work within the constraints of the budget for the production branch
Be an ambassador for 1WAY FM and liaise well with everyone

Selection Criteria

Qualifications

Nil

Essential Criteria

Be a follower of Jesus Christ
Show a willingness to uphold the Mission, Vision and Values of Canberra Christian Radio Limited
Have experience in managing staff and volunteers
Have proven experience in production work for radio
Demonstrate the ability to be a self-starter and show initiative
Have the ability to understand and develop technical concepts
Have a proven focus on excellence and attention to detail

Desirable Criteria

Experience in being part of a team
Experience in the use of Startrax or other scheduling software

Library renewal

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +1100

Marketing insights from A to Z : 80 concepts every manager needs to know Kotler, Philip. Due:

21/10/2009,23:59

Kyle Sandilands

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:40:42 +1000

Harmer speaks out about SandilandsKATHERINE FIELD September 22, 2009 - 3:08PM Former top rating 2Day FM breakfast host Wendy Harmer says she sympathises with embattled radio star Kyle Sandilands - saying he’s not a bad person and is sure he’ll bounce back. Harmer, who led the station’s breakfast show The Morning Crew for 11 years, says she feels for Sandilands, who has been suspended from his job without pay until October 7, after two on-air stunts gone wrong. “He’s not a bad person at all. He’s a very personable human being and I know he’s a thoughtful person,” Harmer said. “But sometimes, if you’re on the top things can get out of whack. “And you can see it in any personality that’s doing really well.” She said radio was an “ego game” and presenters had to find balance. “The jeopardy for any successful performer is not to let self-confidence become arrogance or humility turn into grave self-doubt,” she said. Sandilands has been widely criticised for two incidents on his Sydney radio show. The first was a segment in which a 14-year-old girl was attached to a lie detector and quizzed about her sexual history, while in the second stumble, earlier this month, Sandilands said comedian Magda Szubanski, who has been trying to lose weight, would get thin if she was put in a concentration camp. Harmer, 53, said the lie detector incident had been a “serious breakdown” in the 2Day editorial process, while the Szubanski comment was “unfortunate”. She said Austereo’s requirement that Sandilands undergo counselling could only be a good thing for him. “Creating a bit of time to have a bit of self reflection is not a bad thing, and I’m sure he’ll bounce back,” she said. “I hope that he finds some confidence and is able to go on. I never want to see Kyle crushed and humiliated and driven out.” Many radio personalities have been quick to criticise and poke fun at Sandilands, but Harmer, a stand-in for Adam Spencer on ABC 702, said there wasn’t a breakfast radio presenter who hadn’t made “hideous blunders” and would reflect on some “idiocy” on the drive home from a shift. “It’s a high wire act,” Harmer said. “The medium is live, live, live, and sometimes the mouth is in gear and the brain is being towed along behind the vehicle. “All of us, if we’re honest, would like to take back something we’ve said.” Dominic Knight from the satirical group The Chaser - who have been reprimanded in the past for their stunts - has also questioned whether condemnation of Sandilands has gone too far. Harmer says she knows too well how criticism feels, after she was caned in the media for her 2002 Logie Awards hosting. After Harmer resigned from 2Day FM in 2003, she had a brief stint on radio station Vega at the end of 2005. The mother of two is a contestant on the upcoming celebrity MasterChef series, while her popular Pearlie children’s books have been made into a TV animation to launch early next month on Network Ten. AAP

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:22:33 +1000

Written by: Mark Haddon

Read by: James Meunier

Jetstar

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:34:53 +1000

Jetstar surges but expects virus to cause a lull

Steve Creedy | July 31, 2009

Article from: The Australian

JETSTAR became Australia’s second-biggest international carrier by passenger market share in May but expects to temporarily lose its crown because of the impact of swine flu.

Transport Department statistics released this week show the Qantas low-cost offshoot captured 9 per cent of the international passenger market for May, putting it ahead of Singapore Airlines (8.8 per cent), Air New Zealand (8.7 per cent) and Emirates (8 per cent).

Qantas retained the lion’s share of the market, with 22.4 per cent, but this was 3.7 percentage points down on May last year.

Singapore’s share fell by 2.4 percentage points, while Air New Zealand dropped 1.3 points and Emirates 0.7 points. Jetstar’s 2.8 percentage point market increase meant that the slice of the pie held by Australian-designated carriers rose from 33.8 per cent a year ago to 35.3 per cent in May.

It also boosted the percentage of the market held by low-cost carriers by 7.1 points to 17.4 per cent. Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said the airline’s figures for June and July were expected to drop because of the carrier’s decision to pull out about a third of its capacity on routes to Japan, due to swine flu fears.

Jetstar’s international business would continue to grow, however, with more services from Perth expected in the coming months and another Airbus A330-200 due to join the fleet in December, he said.

Kyle Sandilands

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:32:15 +1000

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/media-stunt-was-unacceptable-20090731-e4do.html

Responsibility goes off the air

Melinda Tankard Reist | July 31, 2009

Article from: The Australian

DON’T humiliate kids for radio ratings.

THE lie detector incident on 2Day FM involving a 14-year-old girl who revealed she had been raped at age 12 was not a case of a radio stunt going horribly wrong as some have put it. It was horribly wrong before it even started.

Austereo’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O had planned to interrogate a child about sex and drugs on live radio. That was ethically questionable even before the shattering disclosure.

A vulnerable girl, at risk and deserving of protection, became a media plaything. Listening to the audio of the girl’s live-to-air ordeal is like witnessing a forced confession.

Jackie O: Has she told you she’s had sex before or do you think she’s avirgin?

Michelle (mother): … I think she might have had sex before.

Jackie O: All right, we have her hooked up to the lie detector.

Kyle Sandilands: Ohhhh!

Jackie O: She’s not happy!

Sandilands: How are you Rachel?

Rachel: I’m scared. It’s not fair.

(She is asked about sex.)

Rachel: I’ve already told you about this and don’t look at me and smile because it’s not funny!. Oh, OK! I got raped when I was 12 years old!

Sandilands: Right. And is that the only experience you’ve had?

Michelle: I only found out about that a couple of months ago. Yes, I knew about that.

Rachel: And yet you still asked me the question.

While it is Rachel who is the one on trial, her answers resonate with truth and an insight lacking in her interrogators. Astonishingly Sandilands tries to gouge more from her as though the rape of a child is just one item in a buffet of possible sexual experiences. She is silent. Suffering the forced violation of her body, her abuser walking free for the past two years, she is given an on-air mauling; her human rights violated a second time. It didn’t matter that she was scared. Nothing should stand in the way of a young girl’s public shaming and the audience’s titillation.

Jackie O said the team never intended to stage a “sick stunt”. “There is no way we would want to go down that path or put that girl in that situation,” she said. But Jackie, you did put her in that situation.

Research shows that sexually active children of this age are often dealing with serious problems such as family breakdown and parental dysfunction, substance abuse, psychological problems and coerced sex. The radio show hosts barging in with their intimidating lie detector were never going to be able to sensitively handle any of this. Sandilands seems unable to accept responsibility for what happened. It’s all about nasty people out to get him and spoil his fun show.

This episode is not an unfortunate slip-up. The program has a sordid history of sexual stunts. According to MediaWatch, in past lie detector episodes “contestants have had their honesty tested on subjects like STDs, masturbation, anal sex, threesomes and eating faeces during sex.” One lie detector segment featured a man asked to identify his girlfriend’s vagina from three images. On May 6, Sandilands and others (in a show syndicated around the country) held a competition in the station office to see who could masturbate the fastest and who had the largest sperm count. With armloads of porn, they were sent to cordoned-off toilets. One returned and wiped his “sticky” hand through Jackie’s hair.

Perhaps someone should take another look at self-regulation. There’s not much of it to be found in the Kyle and Jackie show where children like Rachel are preyed on, treated as mere fodder for entertainment and ratings.

Melinda Tankard Reist is the editor of Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls to be released in September by Spinifex Press.

Austereo

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:20:27 +1000

Profile on Bnet

http://www.bnet.com/2435-27082_23-0.html

* Runway: Allen System

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:56:00 +1000

Kiss your workload goodbye

By Kath Lockett
The Sydney Morning Herald

Smart workers know how to get the job done and still make it home for dinner, writes Kath Lockett.

Research shows 90 per cent of managers drown in the classic time wasters such as meetings, dealing with crises, mediating disputes and micro-managing instead of delegating, outsourcing or ignoring them altogether.

Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal’s research in the Harvard Business Review found only 10 per cent of managers spent time on work that had a long-term benefit to the business.

To prevent joining that 90 per cent, here are some tips that will help reduce your workload without committing career suicide:

Say no more often

Most of us hate saying no at work because we don’t want anyone to be mad at us or we’re afraid of refusing a request in today’s gloomy economic climate.

But it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. If the request is unfair, you can say no politely while giving your reasons and sweetening the blow with a helpful suggestion: “Why don’t you try asking Jack, he was working on that last week.”

If you’ve already said yes to too many things, you can go back and say no. Just be honest with people and explain why – that you have some important and urgent projects to complete and can no longer do theirs.

Program manager Anne agrees: “This happens sometimes and it’s always better to hear about it sooner than way after the due date when you’re chasing them and it’s both our butts on the line.”

Love your lists

Leo Babauta of blog Zen Habits admits: “I still have long lists of things to do but I don’t look at them much any more. Now my list is basically three essential things I want to do today.” He recommends spending at least half your working day on these because they are your major goals — what you’re paid for.

Do these first and don’t let them fester or get pushed back to the end of the week or month. Also write down the smaller, still-important tasks you need to do and set aside a chunk of 30 minutes to get through phone calls, emails and letter writing.

Make sure they are all relevant to your bigger goals. “You might have a few left at the end of the day,” Babauta concedes.

“Better to leave the small tasks until tomorrow than the big ones.”

Cull your information

Eliminate outdated or irrelevant email newsletters, RSS feeds and snail mails. You’ll save time by not automatically ploughing through junk in order to find the gems.

Avoid distractions like emails by training yourself to only check them twice a day.

Likewise, book a time once a day to check your voicemail and return phone calls.

Turn off

Laptops, mobile phones, PDAs, the internet and conference calls mean we can work anywhere, any time.

This technological convenience can unfortunately translate to “all the time”, so that you’re checking your emails at 6am and texting at midnight.

Mike Gunderloy of Webworker Daily asks: “Why should you encourage your co-workers to expect you to be working at 11pm just because you work at home? Decide what your working hours are and stick to them.”

Delegate

Work-life balance expert Carolyn Clarke says: “Always delegate when possible. Prioritise those tasks that are vital, those that are needed and those that are desired … and work first to accomplish the vitals before going on to the others. Hire out when possible as well.”

Managers should delegate as much as they can to their staff. The more things you can get off your plate, the easier it is for you to manage your workload. Don’t forget to give the staff member a reasonable time frame and enough information to do the task properly.

Even if you have no one working for you, you may still be able to delegate. Explain to your boss all the projects you have and decide together which ones are highest priority and how long it will take to do them. Delegating back to your boss or colleagues not only reduces your workload but gives others the opportunity to try new tasks.

Published: 01 August 2009

Twitter

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:37:41 +1000

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204482304574215492496724738.html

Tools for Tweets, Wall Street Journal

Michael Jackson

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:30:00 +1000

Extended story published in the Herald-Sun:crime editor Janet Fife-Yeomans

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Janet+fife-yeomans+michael+jackson&meta=&rlz=1R2GGLL_en&aq=f&oq=

For Jackson, music’s crossover king, it really didn’t matter if it was black or white

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/for-jackson-musics-crossover-king-it-really-didnt-matter-if-it-was-black-or-white-20090626-czrz.html

True Local

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:27:12 +1000

http://www.truelocal.com.au/

Stakeholders

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:25:34 +1000

Update your relationship status

By Ann-Marie Moodie
The Sydney Morning Herald

It’s not just the boss who needs to be nice to company stakeholders.

You don’t have to be employed in corporate communications or investor relations to be involved in selling the company’s message these days.

Managers across the business are increasingly finding their role includes stakeholder relations ranging from face-to-face contact, email and blogging to old-fashioned media releases and newsletters.

Stakeholder management might not be in your formal job title – or even in your job description – but your performance is likely to be judged by how well you sell the company’s message.

“The stakeholder relations manager can’t be the only person in the business who’s building relationships,” says Natalie Toohey, a former stakeholder relations director for a listed public company.

“Every manager, no matter how senior or junior they are, is increasingly being asked to be involved with developing and maintaining relationships with the company’s stakeholders.”

Stakeholder management varies widely. It can be a complex job, encompassing strategy, corporate communications and, if the company is listed, investor relations as well.

Stakeholders include employees, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, community groups, regulators and federal, state and local governments.

“Stakeholders are not everybody you know, or can think of,” says Toohey, who now works as a Melbourne-based stakeholder relations consultant for public companies and not-for-profit organisations.

“It’s better to think about communities of people who have the power to impact your business significantly, for better or for worse.

“It’s not going to be the same group of people for every issue or for every point in time in the journey of the business. It’s a very dynamic list that is specific to an issue and to the business.”

Neither is stakeholder management all about cocktail parties and dinners in private dining rooms of exclusive restaurants. It’s about what Toohey describes as “below-the-line” activity.

“A common mistake is to rush straight into the ‘above-the-line’ activity without knowing why you’re doing it,” she says.

“And that’s where you get a generic, ineffective and unauthentic stakeholder activity. When you haven’t done the homework to understand who you’re trying to engage and why, your stakeholder relations will suffer.

So at every point of the process, it’s important to ask: ‘What’s the business reason for this?’” Leisa Prowse, the Brisbane-based regional executive for stakeholder engagement for national infrastructure firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, says the most valued attributes for anyone involved in stakeholder relations are active listening skills, flexibility, open-mindedness and authenticity.

“When you’re engaging with stakeholders, my advice is to be proactive, seek stakeholder input early in the process and keep seeking it,” she says.

“Be prepared to listen and to be open to what people have to say. Be honest, genuine and respectful … be very clear about what stakeholders can influence and what they cannot.”

The projects that Parsons Brinckerhoff is involved with often mean the company is negotiating with regulators, government, lobbyists and community groups.

No one person can be the central contact for a client, so many people outside the stakeholder relations role are involved. Managing stakeholders in difficult times is particularly testing.

“The key impact of the [global financial crisis] is that some clients now don’t have as much money to invest in stakeholder engagement activities as they used to,” Prowse says.

“There is a need to engage with the community in a completely cost-effective way.” Companies are exploring a range of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, SMS and websites as a cheaper way of engaging with stakeholder groups.

But in the end, the message is more important than the method of communication that’s used. “Stakeholder management is really an art rather than a science, because you’re dealing with people and complex agendas and you can’t direct how everything is going to be in relationships,” Toohey says.

“It’s about making sure that you’re deliberate, strategic and thoughtful and that the quality of the communication and of the relationship that flows out of that is as good as it can be.

“You’ll go through times with certain stakeholders where it’s always going to be difficult. That’s the reality – but it’s not a failure.”

Published: 22 August 2009

Barack Obama

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:13:59 +1000

The Republican party, on the defensive since its crushing defeat in November’s presidential and Congressional elections, sees health care as a first sign of Obama’s vulnerability. Much of the damage to the health package is being done by Christian pastors such as Rick Joyner, of the MorningStar ministries based in South Carolina. Joyner, who has a large following, on his website raises the spectre of Hitler and Stalin, a comparison that has entered the mainstream of arguments by opponents of health reform.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=22536