Scaling API-first – The story of a global engineering organization
Melina Morrison: Delivering our Message for a Co-operative Decade
1. CAPE TOWN 2013
THEME C: THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION
C4: Delivering our message for a Cooperative Decade
PART A: Global Communications Messaging
Melina Morrison and Kate Askew
Sommerson Communications
2.
3. BLUEPRINT FOR A CO-OPERATIVE DECADE
BLUEPRINT FOR A CO-OPERATIVE DECADE
IS A
IS A
STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE
STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE
4. BLUEPRINT FOR A CO-OPERATIVE DECADE
BLUEPRINT FOR A CO-OPERATIVE DECADE
IS A
IS A
STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE
STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE
Good afternoon
Thank you for coming
This is a workshop about the messages that have been developed to support the ICA Blueprint … this is an interactive workshop with my colleague Kate Askew on the line from Germany (Hi Kate), and Anthony and Giles from Coop News.
This workshop will include a live cross to New York by Skype, with guest speaker James Slezak, co-founder of consumer movement peers.org.
Hi I’m Melina Morrison, from Sommerson. Sommerson is a communications firm that specialises in the cooperative movement. We developed the strategy for www.stories.coop, the global digital case study portal. Last year we assisted with the International Year of Co-operatives communications strategy as part of the ICA media team.
Over the past year the ICA has been focused on internal positioning of the Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade with members and friends. The adoption and endorsement of the Blueprint has been tremendous.
The ICA recognised that the next step was to take the Blueprint strategy outside to the public, media and policymakers. To ensure that there was a set of messages based on the themes of the Blueprint and supporting its objectives, the ICA asked Sommerson Communications to help identify the key messages that should drive our external communications strategies in the coming years. The result is the ICA Blueprint Message Platform and Storybook.
What is the Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade?
The Blueprint is a roadmap; a strategy for the future of the co-operative movement.
There is an important reason to have a roadmap for the future
If we all know where we are going, we can plan ahead, and we can all work together to get there.
3 reasons to work together:
Co-operation - by working together we utilise the same principle we use in running our businesses
Economy of scale – we will get more bang for buck
Resources – we can unlock the potential of our greatest asset – 1 billion co-operators
We are a global network of independent, autonomous, democratically governed businesses with 1 billion agents of change.
What is a storybook?
Now that we have this roadmap, we need to communicate about this plan and engage the co-operative moment around a common set of objectives.
We know that cooperatives are an excellent business model because they bring people together. People working together for their common good can be highly successful – even more successful than working for individual or corporate good.
Think of a messages house as a house with the roof containing one overarching theme or idea.
And, under this big idea are supporting ideas.
Before I go go quickly through the messages, there are three things to know about them.
Messages are ideas not slogans
They belong to you and you will develop them to suit your needs
They only work through transformation, through your stories.
When people hear stories that reach them on an emotional level their brains do something special, the neurons are sparked and the story is remember.
This is why you are seeing such a change in the way big brands communicate with their customers and potential customers – they try to reach them emotionally in order to get them to act – to buy something they make for example.
As these video examples show
Let’s look at someone who is good at delivering messages.
Don’t tell me words don’t matter. Words matter, because they communicate idea.
(Obama speech)
Listen to the ideas that are communicated in this speech – what are the messages behind the words?
When you communicate something simply with authenticity, it can be very powerful.
The messages are the ideas that are expressed powerfully in our own words or through our own stories.
“Because of your greed my future is in danger”
“Who will pay the price? our children will”
Now, let’s look at some one who is not so good at communicating a message.
…. What is he talking about? What audience is he trying to reach? What is his message?
Is this engaging – NO!
These are the supporting messages.
What we want to do next is to work in groups and each group will take a message.
We want you to spend 10 mins together discussing the message and coming up with some stories which support this message.
There are many ways we can communicate our stories. For example, through media channels and social media platforms. Or through thought leadership and public events.
Use real examples, small details, plain speaking – for maximum emotional impact that lasts.
EXAMPLE: Let me tell you the story of Mondragon.
When the global financial crisis hit, Mondragon didn’t lose workers, it kept them by sharing labour between the group of businesses.
Mondragon inovated to make sure that it retained its people-centred focus.
Now as we look through the rest of the messages, Anthony and Giles are going to give each group a message to work on.
Don’t overthink it
.
It’s only by working together across the global cooperative movement that these messages will begin to resonate outwards.
It is by telling your stories that you will engage people’s emotions and force them to take action, to change their behaviour.
In the next workshop you will take these messages and work on building a social media campaign around them.
Later in this workshop we will be joined by James Slezak via Skype from New York. James is co-founder of peers.org (a social movement based on the ‘sharing economy’).
James will discuss how they are using social media platforms to populise this social movement
Now to see how someone is engaging audiences in a very active way. We are joined by James Slezak via Skype from New York to discuss how they are using social media platforms to populise this social movement.