The events surrounding the Keystone and the Northern Gateway pipelines point to the emergence of social licence as a key business consideration.

When evaluating large scale development projects, decision-makers focused on the economic and regulatory aspects of the project. If both of these conditions could be satisfied, project leaders would feel confident with the decision to proceed.

Social licence – people consenting to a project in their community – has emerged from the regulatory shadow to become the third leg in decision-making on large scale infrastructure and energy projects.

The concept of social licence is not new. Municipalities have a lot of experience in this field as do natural resource companies. Yet, what was once a secondary consideration has become a primary consideration.

Why is social licence evolving?

The evolution of social licence is a function of the convergence of social, technological and political forces overtaking mature democratic societies.

1. Our concept of community has evolved

People accept the environment as something beyond borders or jurisdictional limitations. In many respects, we are all astronauts looking down at the earth and seeing it as one. When you add the Internet and the social network to the mix, community has moved beyond the purely local/regional to include national and even international.
Securing social licence once meant working with the local communities, often indigenous, to get approval to proceed. With today’s massive energy projects, organizations seeking social licence must now engage on a mass level. Keystone’s community is North-American. Northern Gateway’s is international.

2. Web 2.0 makes it easy for people to learn, organize and mobilize

People concerned about an issue or a project have access to low-cost or no-cost social networking tools that make it easy for them to find and join like-minded groups. There are over 600+ million Facebook users and Canada is number 10 on the Facebook users by country list. If you Google “Northern Gateway Pipeline” today, you’ll find “Pipe Up Against Enbridge” on the first results page. Canadians are connected and they know how to mobilize digitally.

Decision-makers who fail to understand the web 2.0 dynamic will find themselves facing an army of David’s with web 2.0 sling shots. “Spin”, the Goliath of public relations, is no match for the social web.

3. Our public processes don’t connect with popular expectations

Our current public consultation processes are based on public meetings and submitting letters. These processes have failed to adapt to people’s expectations around communications in the web 2.0 world. The websites that do offer consultations are seldom user friendly, often constrained by the imperatives of a corporate “common look and feel” and fail to offer the opportunity for authentic and open dialogue. In today’s communications environment, when concerned citizens and organizations come up against antiquated and poorly designed public engagement processes, they can easily set up their own.

4. Our regulatory processes have become lightning rods for public policy

Governments’ failure to engage in substantive and open conversations about complex public policy issues are pose a challenge our regulatory processes. We find ourselves in a situation where people passionate about environmental, social and economic issues are looking to participate in government-led conversations. In the absence of conversations about energy policy or climate change, our regulatory processes have become the lightning rods for social licence activity.

The Trinity Develop Group has published a few site plan diagrams for the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park on their website. 

They look pretty decent to me. It will be great to get that area cleaned up and modernized.

I am frequently asked by PR and communications students how they can stand out to potential employers.

Yesterday, I came across this blog thanks to one of my colleagues (@vincentwhite) on the CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau Board.

How smart is this idea by these seven Algonquin College PR students? I guess pretty smart as it got the attention of the President of a PR and communications agency and enough so for me to take the time to write a post about it.

#ACPR Networking is a blog for Algonquin College PR students to share their experiences about networking with communications professionals in Ottawa.

Laura, Derek, Famia, Daniela, Meg, Omar, Lacey: Great idea and initiative!

Of course, now you have the challenge of keeping your site up to date with new posts and updates on a regular basis;)

I will offer you one tip. Each of you should include a link to your CV, your email adddress and links to your online profile, that is, the social media properties you use such as Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. so potential employers can contact you directly.

Yesterday a colleague noted that the front page image of a major Canadian newspaper was credited to Facebook, the social media site that many use to keep in touch with friends and families. Birthdays, family vacations and pictures from a golden wedding anniversary are the stuff of social media lore. Long-lost high school chums finding one another on Facebook were, for a time, a staple of soft journalism.

In an earlier era the Personals section of daily newspapers often carried short ads from people looking for lost loves, estranged family members, past neighbours and so forth. There was an element of sympathy for the person who placed an ad encouraging someone to “call home, all is forgiven” or wondering whatever happened to the boys from the Cub Pack.

We read these ads knowing we would never know what happened to long-lost Uncle Joe, or if John and Marsha patched things up.

The Viet Nam War—a miasma of grief broadcast to hundreds of millions of living rooms on the evening news decades ago—created the modern take on the storied war correspondent. Images from the battlefield, field hospital or ruins made war real, and perhaps routine, to the audience back home. Given the media consuming habits of the Viet Nam War generation (tune in at 6 for the evening news, with a trusted anchor) the war could be presented, positioned and edited for public consumption.

Someone, somewhere, was exercising final approval on what made it to the network. Brutal images (still available all over the internet) from Viet Nam played no small part in sickening public opinion and helped turn its tide.

In due course the public lost their appetite for the war and the confrontation ended, after too many years, with a whimper and not a bang. Perhaps the audience had seen too much?

The image on the newspaper yesterday was not edited. It was real, raw and as unscripted as life itself. The growing bank of images—of mind-numbing devastation coupled with the awareness that Haiti is a place of poverty, struggle, dictatorship, crime, violence and a complete lack of hope—are reaching a new audience.

The audience today has countless options for information. Social media updates about the earthquake in Haiti will continue to proliferate as NGOs, news organizations (legitimate and illegitimate), charities, support groups, interested bystanders, family members and the  public reach out online for information, images, context and, most importantly, understanding of the events in Haiti as they unfold. Moment by moment.

I believe that this change is a good one. Unhindered by an editorial bias, citizen journalists are at their best when presented with a story that begs to be shared with others. Sharing the images, stories, experiences and developments in Haiti using social media tools empowers us. It is impossible to ignore the suffering of strangers when our knowledge of that suffering comes from a stranger.

The late Walter Cronkite was often called “the most trusted man in America.” I trust the citizen journalists, social media users and others “broadcasting” from Haiti just as much.

We have watched the destruction and its aftermath. Social media tools and citizen journalists will enable us to watch the response and reconstruction. We will know what happened to the people affected by the earthquake; watch hospitals, schools, police stations and presidential palaces reopen and—thanks to strangers on the ground—remain involved.

I enjoy newspapers and still read—or at least scan—a few each day. The content is as interesting to me as the advertisements can be. Savvy readers today will note that there are fewer advertisements for high-end jewelery items and that car prices have dropped. Precipitously.

The Globe and Mail for Monday March 23rd (Globe Life Section; page L1) published an article outlining the pitfalls of social media tools used injudiciously. Net-net: Share judiciously. One citizen of the Twitterscene slagged a client (not a good idea) and another insulted a city that happens to be home to his client and their head office; also a bad idea.

Careeristinas with a past will recall—perhaps fondly—a time when office deportment was more strictly outlined. There were definite expectations for “professional” and “personal” spheres of life. It was not uncommon to know little about the private lives of colleagues; one woman I worked with some years ago kept her engagement and subsequent marriage so carefully under wraps that knowledge of both escaped notice until she arrived at the office on Monday sporting a wedding ring.

Social Media tools have changed how we communicate and how we expect to communicate with one another. Immediate communication tools, strategies and needs trump the now charming, decorous professional demeanour of yesteryear. There are no secrets on the Internet and exposing your life—in all its normal glory—is now commonplace.

The concept of the much-dreaded “personal phone call” at work is obsolete. Never mind a call from your physician, sibling or family lawyer: wide-open work spaces and team-based cubicles mean that co-workers often share intimate details merely by having ears. (Personal phone calls, fyi, are obsolete because cellular phones take up the slack.)

Social Media tools—from MSN as an inter-office yakker to the Biggies like Twitter and Facebook—enable people to indulge in sharing, posting, commenting and more from the relative comfort of their keyboard and an ergonomic chair.

Social Media tools are, however, forever. Each tweet, update and notification is a public announcement.

The ability to instantly communicate is wonderful. It is also powerful in more than one sense of the word and it includes the ability to have your thoughts spread like wildfire across a digital network of untold numbers of people. Publish for sure, but don’t publish and perish because you hit “send” before reflecting on your post.

Readers can consider this a blog post by popular demand. The blogosphere and twitterscene (a word I hope I just coined) are small places; look around and you’ll see a familiar handle.

Futurecasting—something I enjoy as a mild hobby—is a career byproduct. Most PR counsellors practice it at some level. As a lazy blogger (I want to, but I find I don’t make time for it) I have been encouraged to blog more, worry about it less, and go for broke.

This, therefore, is broke. This is what I am following, noticing, observing and paying attention to across various media, scenes, sites and places:

The world’s greatest ponzi scheme is unfolding; Bernard Madoff (which google) is in jail and the legal entities of the United States and Elsewhere are now eyeing his family’s assets with narrowing eyes and a sceptical expression. In a time when many people are questioning how oversight bodies (SEC et al) failed to catch a theft of such magnificent proportion it behooves government agencies to now—perhaps “at last”—step in and show that they are up to the job at hand. That means that la famille Madoff can expect a large team of forensic accountants to exhume every cheque, chit, IOU and other financial instrument going back to who-knows-when and—I hereby predict—confiscate anything that isn’t nailed down. (Even the family piano, according to one report, is under threat of immediate confiscation.) Taking possession of Mrs Madoff’s piano will not nullify her husband’s crimes, but it looks good (the optics of it, if you will) for a public eager to see justice served no matter how late or cold.

Live cheaper to live better? When times get tough people turn to kith and kin for solace and comfort. What is more comforting than a home-cooked meal? A pleasant stroll through a local bookstore conglomerate reveals the new reality of kitchen fun: Cookbooks promoting casserole cooking, slow cooking (see: Futurecasting) and all manner of delectable meals on the cheap are currently in vogue. The very notion of “cooking” is now back in vogue after a long-ish hiatus as a pleasant pass time for busy people. Cooking—the dreary need to prepare meals for yourself or family—was a basic fact of life through much of history. In the latter end of the 20th century, however, cooking—the bane of housewives for eons—morphed into a soci0-economic totem of the good life. Cooking became an activity for couples to share as they entertained on weekends with artfully turned out meals paired with the proper wines, artisan cheeses and unique appetizers. By the turn of the century (that is, 1999 into 2000) fast food, take-out, home delivery, personal chefs and “assembled meals” had taken precedence at the family table and cooking was firmly established as a hobby.

Luxury that shows is no longer desirable. Famous brands (Royal Daulton, Waterford Crystal, Wedgwood) that reigned for the longest possible time in the finest homes and dining rooms are facing the sad fact that they are in trouble. Public Luxury—which used to something most people aspired to—is now unfashionable. While it is possible to hide your luxury at home (you can drink beer in a Waterford goblet if you draw the curtains) it is impossible to hide your luxury in public. Famous automobile marques (Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bentley and so forth) will sit longer on the showroom floor while a careful public reconsiders its values. Marketing luxury in an economic storm requires a deft touch; the focus needs to change to “value” and “craftsmanship” and there can be no references to ego-features (custom stitching on leather seats, say, or engines with 8 more cylinders than are strictly required) as in the good old days of joyful and exuberant conspicuous consumption.

This blog is dedicated to Jason Ashton.

More knowledge from the recent Social Media for Government conference that took place in Ottawa this week.

Following demographic developments is a fascinating study. Society is changing as new technological advances change the face of one generation and redefine how that group interacts, understands, consumes and advances their culture.

From a presentation from some thinkers at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum I learned about Millennials (for more on the ROM surf this). Intrigued by this demographic, I did some research.

Millennials are broadly described as being born post 1980 (say, between 1982 and 1994) and only know a world with digital technology. They signal the largest shift in media and behaviour since the dawn of television, which separates them in numerous ways from an older generation of media consumers.

Millennials have some interesting characteristics that further define them as a demographic group.

Socially expressive and inquisitive individuals, Millennials are the product of a society that included high rates of divorce and two-income families. Some theorists believe this translates into Millennials lacking an automatic deferral to authority and a new take on romantic and personal expression.

The ability to recreate, remix, retrieve and reconfigure the past (through technology) is expected. Millennials are resourceful and collaborative and have proven to be innovative thinkers.

Highly social and interconnected, Millennials work well in teams but are not considered highly loyal to employers, work places, or even–it is believed–romantic partners. There is no broad consensus if this “lack of loyalty” stems from social conditions (for example, divorce rates) or from some other factor. Millennials expect–and subsequently create–challenging and stimulating work experiences and places with a strong focus on the “team” and social life. (That is, they work and play together.)

This is an interesting demographic now assuming positions in the workforce and in the broader community of consumers. It will be interesting to watch them and their impact on society, consumer culture, communications and social media development.

Yesterday I substituted for Joe Thornley and chaired a conference in Ottawa about Social Media for Government. The conference was hosted by the Advanced Learning Institute under the direction of Kelly Flynn, who put together a one-of-a-kind event.

The attendees were engaged, interested (and interesting) and all were either operating with social media tools now or preparing to launch them in the near future. It was a high-energy day with ideas, innovation, thought-leaders and learners collaborating together in sessions, presentations and meals. (Kudos to ALI for creating dynamic lunch and supper sessions that offered both choice and networking.)

Joe has a following among innovators who are active with social media tools and there were a number of people who already interact and communicate with him now plus a new cadre of people who joined social media sites–for the first time–yesterday and learned directly from Joe how to make these cutting-edge tools a part of their work lives.

This was a connected day. I was learning myself while chairing the day and I made some great contacts among the crowd.

Today (Weds) Thornley Fallis was again present; Joe is back to chair and lead the day while John Sobol and Nick Rusczkowski (my colleagues) presented at the morning session.

I will be adding more information about individual sessions as soon as I touch base with the presenters. As a teaser, however, I can announce that there are a number of federal government entities who are planning to launch social media tools in the near future. What I would like to do is post some Q&A sessions on CapitalPR with these innovators and share their message and knowledge with  an even broader base.

Blogs, links, jumps, sidebars, comments and emails. Spend enough time on the Internet and you will come across hundreds of thousands of each one.

This one lead me to this.

Then I saw this and I encourage you to read it. It is important, it is Canadian, and it is good. I am even going to encourage you to forward the link to people you know.

Then I read this.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks the spirit of these discussions will not go away. Even the requirement that foreign journalists will need to apply for access to Tiananmen Square 24 hours in advance if they want to interview, broadcast or film in the plaza won’t turn this story off. (Intrepid journalists will, I believe, find people to interview, film, record and photograph at other venues. I’ve visited Tiananmen Square and it isn’t the only venue in Beijing where one can reasonably expect to find citizens milling about. It is, after all, a big city.)

It is just not possible, you see, to shut the Internet down. Nor can true public conversation be silenced. Shouts might become whispers but never silence.

I have been labouring under the misconception that people (youthful ones, usually) were “running the Internet” but it appears now that I have been wrong. All this time the ‘net has been under the control of the Chinese government.

If you don’t believe me click here.

Promising journalists one thing and then delivering another is never a wise move.

Quoted:

HE SAID:
Jacques Rogge, IOC President

“I’m not going to make an apology for something that the IOC is not responsible for,” Rogge said. “We are not running the internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the internet.”

SHE SAID:
Giselle Davies, IOC Spokeswoman

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies blamed Rogge’s use of the words “no censorship” on the fact that English is not the Belgian’s first language.

“There’s been no change in the IOC’s position,” she said. “Again, I think we are trying to hang on every single word often spoken by people whose mother tongue isn’t English. Let me be clear again: The IOC would like to see open access for the media to be able to do their job.”

HE CLARIFIED:
Kevan Gosper, IOC Press Commission

IOC press commission head Kevan Gosper has said that open reporting may not be possible with the Olympics in a “communist society.”

“I guess there will be some debate as we move toward the games if there are sites that may or may not be open,” Gosper said.

“And the line between what could be considered as a national-interest issue might be a bit blurred. But we’ll work on it and we will deal with any potential grievances.”