If you have worked in communications for some time, you might be used to schizophrenic scenarios…

The findings of the European Communicator Monitor 2010 will come as no surprise to you then.

The majority (72%) of comms professionals in Europe believe that their function has become more important since the recession.

However… only 22% have been able to increase their resources. 37% have lost compared to other functions.

What is it that business leaders still don’t understand about communications? What do we need to do to educate them?

The communication departments that have fared best are those with strong focus on supporting organisational goals  (for example engaging employees).

68% of the respondents believe websites and intranets are important tools for addressing different publics (compared to 59% in 09). But less than 1/3 of the organisations have already introduced social media. Open dialogue without control and the ease of spreading information are still perceived as threats.

And yes… in case you were wondering. . The glass ceiling in comms still exists. The average salary of women is still lower than those of their male colleagues… on every hierarchical level.

Had it been Lehman Brothers & Sisters, would it have failed?

We have all heard this question… many of us know the answer… but how many people out there are really ready to hear it?

I met Linda Tarr-Whelan the other night, former US representative for women’s issues to the United Nations during the Clinton administration. Linda has written a book “Women Lead the Way” which makes the business case for balanced leadership.

According to Catalyst, corporations with at least 3 women on their board have higher profits.

Linda believes that if we want a 21st century management style, one that includes consensus building and collaboration, we either have to teach a different style in business schools or we have to bring more women into the board room. 

Linda is the founder of Demos, a New York-based NGO, whose goal is to have 30% of corporate board seats held by women by 2020.

While doing research for her book, she conducted focus groups with women all over the US and identified a number of issues women have with leadership… such as confidence and the inability to visualise themselves as leaders when they are actually already leading. 

I am sure that sounds familiar. How do you empower women who are already in a position of power?

My recommendation would be awareness and a support network. They have worked for me.

“We are not dealing with a recovery from a recession, but with a reframing of the world. Our world has changed for ever.”

I heard Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, speak at my livery  yesterday.
He believes that brands are dead. They have been commoditised. These days what communicators need to create are lovemarks, able to command loyalty beyond reason.
Social media are here to help. If our message is strong enough, consumers will spread it over the interactive web and do all the work for us.
I know it’s difficult to give up control of our brand but – Roberts is convinced - it is the only way.
Think of Obama and his election campaign. Roberts believes that he was not elected by marketing but by the creation of a “viral movement”.
Lovemarks  are built on respect and love. To create them, you have to use:

• Mystery: keep it fresh, collect compelling stories
• Sensuality: in our world our 5 senses are engaged simultaneously not in sequence (think iPod and what makes it irresistible)
• Intimacy: show audiences that you really understand them and care about their problems.

Communicators these days are asked to deliver sight, sound and motion simultaneously. Kids are the best example of an audience that lives in a sisomo world.  And mobile phones are still hugely underused. Roberts calls them the “emotional landline”.  Are they going to be the future of corporate communications? Will Web 3.0 be entirely about them?

The WB expects the global economy to contract for the first time since WWII in 2009 and world trade is to decline to the lowest level in 80 years.

A trade dispute has just exploded between Washington and Beijing following the imposition of tariffs on Chinese tires imported into the US.

China’s internet community has gone viral on the topic. And many in the West are thinking. “Isn’t this type of reaction a bit out of date? Given China’s economic power, if they want to sell tires in another country, they can just go ahead and buy a tire manufacturer there. The West has enough broke businesses.”

With the G20 summit opening tomorrow in Pittsburgh, people are wondering what kind of world the aftermath of the financial crisis is likely to produce in the years to come.

The tendency, as we have seen, is to go tribal.

Forbes is heralding the end of Thomas Friedman’s “Flat World” and the beginning of a new “era of decreasing trade”.

I can’t help sensing a strong feeling of hysteria around the whole thing.

Yes, the world is changing. May be much faster than Friedman or anybody else had predicted. But the answer is not to find refuge in protectionism.

Times call for much more creative solutions. Let’s see what comes out of tomorrow and Friday.

I used to find index charts soothing.

You might think I’m strange. But when I worked as a financial journalist, they would stimulate my thinking….

Like a mandala, I would look at them and they would give me a sense of clarity…. After a while, sentences would start flowing in my mind.

I haven’t found financial charts soothing lately.

But yesterday, I was glad to hear at a seminar that markets are showing signs of normalisation. Which doesn’t mean that the recession is over. But markets have at least stopped to be out of control and are experiencing some sort of stabilisation.

However, analysts believe that the UK and Europe will not be able to attract significant investment for a while.

The spotlight has moved to the East.

Most Asian countries already had their financial crisis in 1998. It enabled them to clean house and left their banks with strong balance sheets. On top of this, they were able to create high levels of self-generating demand.

China and India are continuing to grow, and most importantly, their middle-classes are growing. International capital is being lured by the prospect of huge sales volumes.

Communications and marketing are right at the core of this trend.

With little growth to be expected in the West, many of the companies we are working for are increasingly looking at China and India.

One of the first tasks they will have to master is reaching out to audiences and engaging with consumers in these markets.

I am going to escape from London tonight.

What I am trying to escape from is all the talk of financial gloom and doom that has been following me everywhere this week..…even at my hairdresser’s.

I heard a joke last night at a function. It’s apparently a Chinese joke: “There is no point in economising on candles if the result is twins”….

I am not sure I get the connection with the financial crisis.

May be, my jet-lag and staying up all night to watch the candidates debate has made me a little dense.

I will be flying to Italy for the weekend… where they still believe that the banking crisis is only happening in America…

Who said that ignorance isn’t bliss???

Remember Nick Leeson?

I worked as a financial journalist in the 1990s and used to hang out with a lot of bond traders.

It was the middle of the winter of 1995 and one of them had invited me to a “Nick Leeson party” to celebrate the fall of Barings Bank.

It was the kind of party I would have no chance of surviving today (not even by spending the following week in the hamam…).

I don’t remember what exactly we were celebrating.

Was it Schadenfreude?

Was it the fact that, having spent so much time interviewing the mighty and powerful in the “ivory towers” of different banks, I had discovered just how vulnerable (and may be irresponsible…) they were?

For my friends, used to take orders from the “towers”, it was the exhilarating feeling that it had been one of them to bring down the house and that the “towers” were no more.

I lost contact with my party-prone friend who, his trading days behind him, went on to become a board member of one of Eastern Europe’s leading banks (I won’t name names and no,…. he did not manage to bring down the bank).

But I wonder what he must be thinking right now.

After 158 years of history, Lehman Brothers is no more.

The financial sector is a cosy place. I spent years in it. Everybody speaks the same language and you get that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from being part of a cast.

The danger is that you start sharing the same mythology and end up believing in things that don’t exist.

This week’s meltdown is not the first one we have been through.

But somehow I’ve got a feeling that my old friend in Prague won’t be celebrating.

Photo: thanks to yaliban.com