What Happens to Traditional Tools?

In Neville's description of our panel, he asks the following question:

What does this mean for the press release, the web site, the brochure, the employee newsletter or the investor conference call?

The "this" in this case being, "radical change to the traditional centralised model of creating and distributing news and information, the receivers and consumers of that news and information look as though they now call the shots".

I have seen far too many people calling for the death of press releases, forecasting the end of employee newsletters and generally stating that PR/marketing as we know it is feeble, toothless, and should be abandoned.

I don't agree.

The new communications tools and strategies that we are adopting are ADDITIVE in nature.  They don't replace anything, particularly in the short term.  In fact, you will likely see a hybridization of elements, where you have a print newsletter supported by an eNewsletter that has blog and/or forum-like elements for interaction and supporting podcasts.

Given that a press release is an important legal document, particularly for public disclosure purposes, it won't be disappearing any time soon.  Besides, I would argue that it is important to have a single document that spells out any announcement clearly and precisely. Now, one could state that many press releases don't meet this requirement, but done well, they serve an important purpose.

I personally would like to see static brochure-style websites and documents adopt more collaborative frameworks using tools like wikis, forums, blogs and so on.  That will take some time to work their way through technology adoption (and cultural adoption) cycles.  But companies are starting to take baby steps towards adding collaborative aspects, which is a heartening thing.

The most important difference between the traditional and the new collaborative or conversational tools is voice.  The new tools generally adopt a more human, informal voice vs. the third part "voice of god" found in most traditional releases, websites and so on.  This is not an easy task for companies, and we'll be talking about the topic during our panel session.

So, bottom line? I think a pragmatic approach, where companies figure out how to insert these new tools and strategies into their already-existing portfolio will be the best one.  Some will do this successfully, many won't.  But we shouldn't get discouraged yet.  Rather, we who understand these tools need to help others understand them better and learn from the mistakes already made.  I hope that during our session, we can provide some clarity on all of this.