Matt Eventoff

Challenge Day – The Power of Words

Challenge Day – The Power of Words

This video was taken a few years ago at Yuba City High School (CA). It is one of the most powerful clips I have seen, and illustrates the power of words and messages in a way that very few speeches or presentations can.

Challenge Day is the organization that created and operates the Challenge Day program at schools across the United States – check it out.

There is also a communications lesson here – Challenge Day effectively illustrates how to a) craft a very powerful message and b) make it very easy for everyone who comes in contact with the message to personalize and internalize it.  Very powerful and very effective!

Politics 101 – Define yourself before your opponent has an opportunity to define you.

This simple rule applies to message development and messaging as well.  Define your message before your opponent/the opposition can define your message.

Then Senator Obama was masterful at this, defining his message as one of hope and change while his primary opponents scrambled between varieties of different messages.  By the time the field had narrowed, Senator Obama owned the hope and change “space” and controlled his message all the way to the Presidency.

That same messaging strategy has been lacking in the current healthcare debate. Take this week’s hot button issue – a public option in health care reform. What has the Administration said about a public option?

June 15 – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs – “…That’s why a strong public option is necessary to ensure that competition.”

August 15 - President Obama – “The public option, whether we have it or don’t have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform.”

August 16 – Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius – …a government run health insurance plan was not the essential element of Obama’s program

August 17 – Press Secretary Gibbs – “…the president, his position, the administration’s position, is unchanged: that we have a goal of fostering choice and competition in a private health insurance market. The president prefers the public option as a way of doing that.”

August 18 – Secretary Sebelius - “We continue to support the public option.”

Right now the President is in dangerous territory in that he is a) almost entirely on defense and b) entirely off message because c) there is no clear message.

What the President can do:

1. Develop a message — what does this reform look like, why should American’s care, and what is in it for the; Get every Cabinet member and Administration official on message immediately

2. Utilize a primetime “Clear the Air” address – not a town hall, not a question and answer; an address, using plain language and basic concepts to outline exactly what the plan he envisions will do and will look like; go back to what got you there — simple concepts that everyone can understand; do not read off of a teleprompter – if you are making an emotional appeal, speak from the heart (and note cards with bullet points)

3. Consistency – The hole is pretty deep due to the lack of consistency; however a consistent, compelling, clear message, championed repeatedly, will help dramatically

4. Shift the Battlefield – Once a message has gotten distorted to the point that this one has, you need to shift the battlefield as the current battle is lost.  Drop terms like reform, steer the argument away from public option, and refocus the battlefield to whatever your central message may be — major medical coverage for working poor, plugging the “hole in the donut” in Medicare, etc.

5. Finally, once all of this has been done, then take it to the town halls…

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As a teenager, I still have vivid memories of rushing home from wherever I was to see if my latest crush had called and left a message.

Times have changed.  Teenagers today don’t have to wait by the phone or check an answering machine — they might get a text or call ”on the cell” immediately after the school day ends.

The point is, just as the frame of reference of a teen today is significantly different than that of a teen a decade ago,  so are the outlets that teens use to communicate.

The past few weeks have seen a number of articles and studies discussing this.  A few weeks ago Matthew Robson, a 15 year old intern at Morgan Stanley, wrote a highly touted paper on how teenagers consume media.  Highlights included:

• Most teenagers are not regular listeners of radio
• Teenagers do not read the newspaper
• Teenagers do not utilize yellow pages
• Teenagers are annoyed by advertising on websites
• Teenagers do not use Twitter, instead focusing on Myspace and Facebook
• Teenagers all have cell phones and finally…
• Teens text

To anyone who has  a teenage child or regularly interacts with teenagers, no huge surprises here.  What was surprising is that a Nielson study released a month earlier found that “teens read newspapers, listen to the radio and even like advertising more than most.”  One area where both were in agreement was that teens tend not to “tweet.”

Since then, the internet has been buzzing, debating how teens consume media.  One of the pieces I enjoyed the most was written by a teenager (yes, real life teens did enter the debate).

What does this have to do with how to communicate with teenagers? Quite a bit.

What I gained from all of this discussion is that, from a communications perspective, teenagers overwhelmingly prefer interactive and personal mediums of communication – texting and Facebook  –  rather than broadcast based mediums such as radio and Twitter (generally).

What are the lessons from all of this new information in our changing society?

In essence, the lessons are the same as when I was a teenager, and the same as it was decades ago:

• Teenagers prefer to be talked to as opposed to talked at
• Teenagers are individuals first, members of a demographic group second — very important distinction
• To successfully communicate with a teenager, you must first learn how to listen to a teenager

Stay tuned for Part III…

When you figure it out, please tell me.

In all seriousness, in order to effectively communicate with someone, you need to have a basic understanding of that person’s frame of reference.

Through extensive lecturing at high schools and universities (as well as my niece torturing me by continuously friending and de-friending me on Facebook) it is very clear that the experiences for a teen growing up now is very different than it was for me.

How different?

Thanks to Beloit College, these differences are very clear.  Every year for the past decade, Beloit puts out an annual Mindset List, which “provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college.”   The preface of this list illustrates how different a teen’s world is today:

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

Some additional gems from this year’s list:

• They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego
• GPS navigation systems have always been available
• Gas Station have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino
• WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling
• Films have never been X rated, only NC-17
• Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism
• Students have always been rocking the vote
• IBM has never made typewriters
• There has always been Pearl Jam
• They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib
• Caller ID has always been available on phones (as has voicemail as opposed to an answering machine)
• They never heard a (gas station) attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
• 98.6 has always been confirmed in the ear

The first key to being able to communicate effectively with someone is the ability to relate, and therefore connect, to that person in some way.  In order to relate, you must first understand, and in order to understand, you must have some frame of reference.  Beloit has done a wonderful job establishing the frame of reference for today’s teen.

Stay tuned for Pt. II….