Welcome to Germaine Theory

  Why We Need Strategic Communication & Must Understand Emerging Media                When we think about how far we’ve come since the beginning of this course, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that we’ve all learned more about how technological advances have aided, or in some cases hindered, the overall progress in our daily lives depending upon one’s perspective. Social media is a truly phenomenal weapon for strategic communicators when correctly utilized. On the flip side, it can be devastating ammunition used to the detriment of your organization if mismanaged. Sometimes, silence can be more impactful than a response. Other times, a swift, calculated response is not only the best course of action, but absolutely necessary. When we think about the effects of technological advancements on our children, our future, we have to be careful about the content absorbed by them; we must be hypervigilant. Predator...

  The Importance of Surfing Lessons The children are the future. They are the legacy of the men and women of today’s society. With that being said, we must be cautious of what we allow them to digest, both figuratively and literally. Technological advances have become the norm for children growing in contemporary societies. They are learning how to process information at a much faster rate than their parents. Many children are first introduced to the internet by their parents, usually with games on their phones or tablets. The internet provides them with the ability to expand their reality exponentially. They can virtually visit foreign lands and discover cultures previously unknown. Information is at their fingertips and schools have taken part by introducing computers into the curriculum. Children at many public schools are loaned laptop computers; these computers are necessary to take full advantage of the curriculum. With technology reaching into almost all facets of our chil...

  "I’m Not a Businessman, I’m a Business…Man!"  (Jay-Z)                Your brand is the thing that sticks. It is the intangible commodity that represents what you are as a person or organization. If your brand is weak, obstacles that arise will have an increased negative impact. Conversely, if your brand is strong, troubles that arise will not have as much effect. It’s much more than a first impression. Your brand involves the integrity of the choices of your organization. If you are known for things like, volunteering, mentoring, philanthropic efforts, activities, or undertakings considered positive impact actions, your brand will be synonymous with virtue. “A positive brand reputation establishes authority, builds trust and loyalty with potential customers. Ultimately, it also drives sales and growth”. (Newpath, n.d.) Things that can hurt your brand are negatively reviewed products or services and/or th...

How Effective Is Crowdsourcing Really?                Crowdsourcing is an effective way to get a desired outcome from a collaborative effort. Its approach can look very different, but at its core, it all seeks to achieve the same general result; a better outcome than the individual or organization could have produced on its own. Merriam-Webster defines crowdsourcing as “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers”. (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) There is irony in the concept of crowdsourcing as being positive. Before the internet and the onset of crowdsourcing the idea of an individual soliciting at an establishment was considered a nuisance. Some businesses went as far as placing ‘No Soliciting’ signage at their businesses; the word always carried a negative...

  Do Your Own Due Diligence                ‘Trust me bro’ , is a phrase used in the world of financial vloggers that describes an individual making a claim with no supporting evidence. Now, the fact that this individual does not provide any supporting evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that what he or she is saying is invalid, but it doesn’t help them in the credibility department. There are reasons for sources to not be directly cited. The information may have come from a whistleblower with firsthand knowledge, but this person does not want the organization to know that they are the potential leak; their identity would be considered protected information. There could be an issue of personal safety that calls for discretion but it’s imperative that the news gets out to the public, this could be a reason as well. If there is no official, legitimate reason, and no source is conveyed upon request, it’s highly like...

  The Understated Importance of the Social Media Sensei I am a self-taught social media user. I would rate myself as an intermediate skill level on Facebook and a beginner level in pretty much everything else. I am also a 44-year-old Army Recruiter in the twilight of his military career. I am obligated to use social media for prospecting efforts in recruiting and I do not have a highly successful rate of return from that form of prospecting. Recruiters receive blocks of instruction to show uses and best practices but many of us are stubborn and stuck in our ways. I am among the stubborn, but I am also aware enough to realize that this is the future of business. If I go into marketing, public relations, emergency management or any of many other career paths, they would all involve some form of social media management at the professional level. This is something that is only going to grow and become more of the norm as organizations come to realize the importance of social media ma...

    Mobile First, but Who’s Last? What’s better than best? Digital media has severely altered the course of the newsroom. It made the newspaper, along with other forms of media seem antiquated. It is faster and more efficient than the previous methods. However, digital media is not one giant communication organism; it is comprised of many different facets and actors, all trying to out-do one another. Facebook and Google have seized so much advertising revenue from utilizing content from local media that governments have been forced to step in and create legislation to effectively save the journalism industry in their respective countries. (ACCC, 2021) There are many different online firms and organizations all jockeying for position using consumer centric data. They are looking for anything that can set them apart from their competitors. Organizations that have adopted the mobile first ideology have come to the realization that more people, globally, use their smartphone...

  The Evolution of Media is a Good Thing, right?   The adage, ‘Everything must change’ does not exclude communications; media has come an extremely long way. Behold, the printing press. The newspaper allowed people to deliver different types of news stories regularly. At this point, messages were reliant upon the speed of man or animal. Industrial change brought about trains, the locomotive, cars and boats. This vastly increased the efficiency and effectiveness of communications. The telegram followed and changed the game. Messages were transmitted electronically and life altering change followed. Just when you thought you’ve reached the pinnacle of communications, the telephone came along and made the telegraph inadequate. You could actually speak your message and get a verbal received understanding of the message; it was a game changer. When you are living with a process, it is everything until the next better process comes along. Each improved method of communication ...

I was asked an interesting question this week; are we currently watching the death of newspapers or the re-invention of the print industry? What do you think? There are different metrics we can use to attempt to quantify the current level of success achieved by newsrooms across the country as a whole. We can look at newspaper sales, we can look at customer satisfaction surveys and we can even speak about our own personal accounts and opinions. The Pew Center is a think tank that compiles data regarding trends and attitudes towards many different facets of life. They are a non-partisan organization that has done some of the work for us. "More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes,” including 60% who say they do so often". (Shearer, 2021) Eighty-six percent is a staggering number. To put it into better context, television was 68%, radio was 50% and print was the low man on the totem pole coming in at 32...

Hello All, To those of you who don't know, my name is Samuel Germaine Powell. Welcome to Germaine Theory. In this blog we will deep dive into Strategic Communication and Emerging Media. We will discuss new and exciting methods of news delivery as well as some of the tenets of the older forms of media delivery. We will look at which forms of media are more effective and explore things that can be done to rejuvenate the current methods of news and media distribution. This blog will be published weekly by no later than Sunday, 11:59pm for the next 8 weeks. The blog can be found at the following address: https://germainetheory.blogspot.com/ I created this blog to discuss Emerging Media Methods. These will be contrasted and compared to the older, tried and true methods of communication. We will look at the effects of new media on its predecessors and see if anything can be done to transform these methods to make them more effective, efficient and desirable to the current news...

 Thanks for the Memories The Leadership and Media Strategies course, from which this blog was born, is coming to an end. I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you and hope that you have enjoyed reading them. Blogging is something that is a bit scary at first because sometimes sharing how you feel can be unnerving. I believe all people, no matter how accustomed to it they may become, have an innate disdain for rejection. With a blog, you’re potentially inviting rejection every time that you hit the publish button. However, we bloggers, must endure. I say we because I now consider myself one of the many. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me and I intend on learning and recreating until I find my niche. I will publish another blog, that’s for certain, I just have to decide on a topic that I am passionate about; that is currently to be determined. If you liked the blog postings and are interested in the new direction of the blog, continue t...

You Sank My Battleship How does the strategic communications professional measure the success of a campaign? One way to do that is to follow the money, right? If the campaign is a success the revenue should increase, the polls should move in your candidate’s favor, etcetera, etcetera…you should see evidence of the win. However, in some instances, before the needle is moved, there are intangible results that can be seen as progress; the click of a hyperlink embedded in a social media ad, a spike in views at a time directed by a campaign to potentially win a prize. These are examples of changed behaviors. They were not necessarily the desired end result but what they show is market engagement. Market engagement can lead to revenue. As a strategic communication professional, you can take this information and adjust your approach to maximize your reach and pinpoint your target audience. It’s like Battleship, you keep firing at different grid squares and eliminating what doesn’t work un...

The Vanessa Guillen Tragedy Fort Hood, Texas was a place that many people in the Army have heard about, largely due to the fact that it is one of the Army’s largest bases. However, outside of that, Killeen is a smallish Texas town that wouldn’t hold much interest for anyone outside of its city limits. The relatively recent news that has exposed the disturbingly unconscionable behavior (to say the least) of some of the soldiers stationed there sent shockwaves through the ranks of the entire Army. The murder of SPC Vanessa Guillen was an unimaginable incident that the Army Public Affairs Office was exceedingly unprepared for. The nature of the incident is somewhat different than some other business related public affairs crises in that it is of a criminal nature. This fact largely restricted the amount of information that was authorized for release. At the outset of the incident what was known was that a soldier was missing and that further investigation into the background of the so...

I Know You’re Listening As technological advances in advertising methods have increased the efficiency in targeting market segments almost down to the cellular level, one has to ask, is this good business or an invasion of privacy? Depending on whom you ask and the day of the week the answer will vary. I have an Alexa Echo and two Alexa Echo Dots. I primarily use them to play music and for mundane morning tasks like checking the weather or traffic. I also have an Amazon Prime membership that is fairly active (we’re always ordering things). There have been times that my wife and I have had discussions about a product or service, with no mention of the activation word, ‘Alexa’, but we would get a notification about a similar product or service without prompting the machine. The light would turn green to alert us to the notification (for all non-Alexa users, the light is normally blue). Other times the conversation would lead to an immersion into the topic of the conversation on our A...

Leaderment; an Analysis of Leadership v. Management   Which is more important, leadership or management? It’s an age old question that has helped many leaders of industry better understand their roles and missteps, and guide their companies into the winning side of history. Those that misunderstand the concepts and continue to perform within the status quo are doomed to celebrate a life of mediocracy, at best.   In my beginnings as a young Noncommissioned Officer in the Army I received leadership 101; leadership is and management does. That was my crash course. I thought I had an understanding of what it meant, but as a young NCO trying to impress my boss, I said nothing, just smiled and nodded. What he was trying to tell me was as important as any lesson that I would ever receive. His words stayed with me throughout my career and are still applicable, and will be beyond my days as an Army NCO. The relationship between the leader and the manager is one of irony. The two...