The Secret to Success: Impact and Experience

Commencement Speech Given to Virginia Commonwealth University Mass Communications School December 10, 2011 By Geoff Livingston (http://geofflivingston.com) Today is an exciting day! Today the adventure begins. Maybe you will be a journalist or in an agency or in corporate communications. Perhaps you will forgo traditional jobs in favor of becoming a digital voice for change or an entrepreneur! The media field is so wide open now. You can literally do just about anything. Some of you may be experiencing a confluence of emotions. There is a sense of relief and accomplishment, well deserved, for achieving a notable goal, one that will stay with you the rest of your lives. Only 30 percent of working-age adults in America have a bachelors degree. If it was easy, everyone would do it! You probably feel a sense of excitement. This is it! You have been thinking about this moment for years. There may be a sense of bewilderment, What should I do? What happens if I dont find a job? Or worse, you may have a sense of trepidation. You are afraid about what is to come. Political leaders, business men and women, philosophers and everyday folks like you and me have been troubled by the uncertain future since ancient times. All of these feelings and more are valid. It is a time of change. The Map Is Not Clear Some of you have focused on public relations, some on journalism, some on advertising. You know some things, perhaps how to develop a strong pitch, or write a great story, or create a compelling brand. Some of you have jobs lined up, some dont.

Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com): VCU Mass Communications Commencement Speech, December 10, 2011

What is clear is that we are all faced with a dramatically changing media landscape. The map to the future is not clear. Everyone working in this field faces this uncertainty, regardless of experience. Most of you may not even remember when the digital revolution was set ablaze in the 1990s by Tim Berners Lee, Marc Andresen and the group of programmers who created Internet technologies and languages like HTML, Mosaic, and the Netscape browser. The .com era was born. It was a fantastic time full of excitement with many new communication tools. Then there was recession. And things quieted down, but slowly weblogs began taking off. In 2003, the social media revolution began in earnest when a blogger named Robert Scoble took the cold face of Microsoft and added a human element to it through the video blog Channel 9. To this day companies, nonprofits and communications professionals struggle with social media. Professionals used to communicating en masse are suddenly confronted with a relational media. People talk back, and its not always pretty. The current mobile revolution further empowers the individual to participate with brands on a strictly opt in basis. Estimates show more than 40% of U.S. adults are using smartphones now. Social TV is a new revolution with people watching shows while commenting on their phones, tablets and laptops. It shows an unprecedented real-time integration of different media types, and we are just beginning to understand its impact. In the past year we have seen dramatic change can occur with online media. The Arab Spring with successful revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and most recently Yemen were empowered by young activists who used Facebook, YouTube, blogs and more to circumvent state-run media. In the U.S. we saw the rise of the amorphous Occupy movement, initially fueled and still sustained with social media. While criticized as a movement without an answer, it has exposed and highlighted problems, from the abuses of the very rich to militant pepper spray happy police forces.
Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com): VCU Mass Communications Commencement Speech, December 10, 2011 2

Traditionally, the media has been dubbed the Fourth Estate the watchdog of government, dating back to the French Revolution. We have seen this in modern times, most notably with the Watergate scandal and the fall of Richard Nixon. But in the current era we have seen the decline of print media outlets, in large part because of digital competition. This change has empowered new voices, smaller voices, the Internet activist or blogger. The social media empowered activist is the Fifth Estate. We are all members of this Fifth Estate, capable of making our voices heard. That is a powerful force if a groundswell of community voices is touched off. Regardless of which Estate we as communicators belong in, there is ongoing media flux. Change is our constant. Evolution via Kindle Fires, Apple TVs, or just a plain iPhone app called Instagram is inevitable. How much do we continue on the course of traditional media, and how much do we commit to these new digital and mobile media? Why You Need Experience You probably groan when you hear the words, You need experience. Theres nothing quite like a talking down to from an old guy about your inexperience. Yet consider the question, How does one succeed in this kind of environment? Again, the map is not clear. But there are two things you can always bank on. Your ability to deliver impact. And the role experience plays in helping you deliver impact. Let me share my experience. My first jobs as an in house writer at the now defunct Electronic Industries Association were to write stories about Mosaic, and program some of the Associations first web sites. As a young PR executive, I experienced the booms and busts of the dot com era, even going so far as to live briefly in California and losing my shirt in 1999 when my dot bombed. Later, I had some great
Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com): VCU Mass Communications Commencement Speech, December 10, 2011 3

mentors, Victor Watts and Ellis Pines, who taught me about branding, advertising, and business development. The digital media era has been good to me. In the past 6 years, Ive been fortunate enough to publish a couple of books on the topic, and sell one social media company, and sell my shares in a second company. Along the way, I helped raise more than $2 million in a fundraiser called Give to the Max Day. I helped draft the Ford Mustang social media strategy when the current model launched in 2008. I built the United Ways first social media plan. I trained a team of Procter & Gambles brand managers on social. I helped Google for Nonprofits relaunch. I have keynoted more than a dozen conferences. Sounds good, right? Let me tell you the secret of my successes: To this day, the ability to apply the lessons learned from my experiences as an in-house writer turned PR pro turned marketer distinguish my digital campaigns. Clients are not left in the dust of conversations that dont have business outcomes, nor are the objectives stand alone without value to the stakeholder. Integrating tactics across media form is a signature. The ability to understand different media traditional and digital -and how they work together has become an essential formula for success today. When we work in a silo one discipline or another we are working in an antiquated method, one that served a past industrial era. Networked communications in the information age transcends silos. Multichannel communications or integrated marketing is not a theory. Rare is the pure play social media, PR or advertising success. It still happens. You have all seen the Chrysler Eminem ads. But it sure is easier when you are able to work across disciplines. Consider the Old Spice guy campaign, often dubbed a social media success, but in reality it was a masterful mix of traditional ads, PR and social content. You can study all of these media, and I am sure you have, but you must also learn to work with them. A carpenter can study how to hit a nail with a hammer, but in reality without practice, she or he will be a poor carpenter.

Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com): VCU Mass Communications Commencement Speech, December 10, 2011

How does one get experience? Maybe you dont have a job. Internships are hard to find. Or you are limited to a certain role or function at your job. Experiment on your own. Use your social media tools to become a part of a community that interests you, and make a difference. Remember, you, too are the Fifth Estate. You can literally use these media to achieve any purpose. You can volunteer for a nonprofit. They need the help, you need the experience. Volunteering will allow you to experience a wide variety of disciplines. Similarly, a great way to cut your teeth is to work at an agency. These places can be both fun and tough, but you wont find a better place to work on multiple projects at the same time. If you target well, you can work at a multi-disciplinary agency like Ogilvy or some of the fine firms here in Richmond. This exposes you to many types of media quickly. When you experience the tools, you see how they work. You are even inspired to innovate with them. You may have some spectacular failures. I certainly have. All of them made me the communicator that I am today, and I dont regret them. I refer to them frequently, innovating based on those experiences. Dont become wed to your experience either. As media changes so do the dynamics of each media form. Newspapers were invariably affected by social media, and now portable media, as we have seen with the many great tablet applications that have been created. But if you were absolutely certain that there was only one way to write and distribute news based on 20-year old experiences, youd be out of a job. Unfortunately, many journalists have experienced this truth first hand. Some have adopted to become bloggers, digital media creators or embedded corporate communicators. Change media flux is the only thing you can be certain of. Thats why approaching your career with a sense of curiosity is not only adventurous, but smart. It keeps you relevant. Focus on Them
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Going back to our carpenter metaphor, certainly with a sharpened saw, you will be able to cut wood. But to build what? This is the question you should keep in mind. One thing the fractured media environment has created is an attention economy. This is best typified by the reality TV boom, but also by the personal branding movement and the popular Internet voices it creates. For some of you, attention will yield opportunities. And there will come a time when people will question what all of that attention did. What was the outcome? Is it like the dot com bust, all hype, or is there substance to your effort? As many have learned in the social media era, attention doesnt necessarily equate to results. If you focus on serving stakeholders and helping companies or nonprofits achieve their objectives, you may be less well known. But you will develop a reputation for delivering results. That is impact for them, for your customers, both inside the organizations you work for, and their buyers and donors. Focus on them, not you. Impact is greater than attention. If you deliver impact more than once in multiple roles you will always have work. You will be able to pick your projects, and choose your own career path. Thats what repeated impact does for you. That is the recipe for career success: Impact and experience. Go get it, and good luck on your journey! But most of all, I hope you will take some time this weekend to reflect on your significant achievement, one that you have worked on since your first days of school here at Virginia Commonwealth University. Congratulations! Thank you for having me.

Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com): VCU Mass Communications Commencement Speech, December 10, 2011