A Tutorial on Messaging from Derek Jeter
To honor the start of another season of Major League Baseball, and my family’s impending visit to Tampa, Florida, to catch some New York Yankees spring training games, I thought I would start this month’s blog on messaging with a tribute to legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera from his teammate, the equally legendary Yankees shortstop […]
Telling Your Story: Smart Grid Communications
Every now and then I get a call from a client, a colleague or a prospective client about how to effectively communicate with the general public about a highly technical topic — nuclear power, price increases, advanced digital meters, strengthening the grid, and so on. Think About Your Audience Regardless of the specific topic, my […]
Speak Up! What Do You Stand For?
Two sayings — “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” and “an educated consumer is our best customer” — ran through my mind recently as I listened to a panel discussion at a conference organized by the American Public Power Association (APPA), of which I am an associate member. The panel focused […]
ICYMI: Regifting our Best-Read Content of 2018
The holiday season is a time for utility communicators and marketers to reflect on the year’s accomplishments, spend time catching up on reading and begin planning next year’s activities. Our holiday present to you is a respin of our best-read content from 2018. Perhaps you had your head down finishing a project when some of […]
Gas Utility Needs Better Crisis Communications
$800 million, and sure to go higher. That’s the cost, so far, for the gas utility responsible for a series of home explosions that occurred in three suburban Boston communities in September. Crisis Communications Playbook It doesn’t appear that Columbia Gas of Massachusetts read the crisis communications playbook or learned the lessons of the Tylenol […]
Organizational Change? Be Prepared to Communicate Until You are Blue in the Face
I’ve always loved the saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I first heard it 20 years ago, in business school. Since then, I’ve been able to personally experience the truth of that statement, and I have spoken to innumerable people who have similarly experienced culture’s bite. Whether it’s a leadership change, a reorganization, a merger, […]
Time to Rev Up Your Clean Energy Communications for Customers
California’s decision to go to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, passed late last month by the state legislature and awaiting Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, means electric utilities and electric cooperatives in the Golden State will have to up, yet again, their clean energy communications. That applies to electric utilities and cooperatives located outside California, too, […]
Customer Communications: Reaching Customers’ Brains Through Their Hearts
“Poles and wires are boring, but people are interesting,” a utility communicator once told me. I agree completely: The best way to feed your audience, especially customers, the information you want them to know is to embed it in a compelling story focusing on people. Whether it’s still or video photography, the image draws the […]
Better Public Speaking: 6 Tips, 6 Sins and 1 Golden Rule
Does the photo look familiar? It might. I used it five years ago to illustrate this blog post on how to become a more effective public speaker. I attended several industry conferences earlier this year and found the same public speaking sins were still being committed that caused me to write this piece back then. […]
Utility Communications: How to Stay Out of the “Smart-Talk” Trap
When was the last time you did a 540°? What hill are you willing to die on? Have you ever used “architect” as a verb? Do you have enough bandwidth to growth-hack the analytics? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may have fallen into The Smart-Talk Trap. Some organizations reward people […]
