New Media Open New Doors for Communicators

Communication World, August, 2000 by Richard Nemec

Welcome to the world of the new media, and hold on tight if you're past age 35! There is culture shock no matter how communicators make the shift from traditional workspace to cyberspace.

Sharon WoodsonBryant is a consummate professional communicator.

Although satisfied for the moment with her media relations manager's position with a California-based bank, Bryant answers occasional headhunter calls and takes occasional interviews to keep her options open. This spring she found herself agreeing to an interview with a four-year-old dot-coin retail firm based in a Los Angeles suburb. As a veteran of the pre-Internet, pre-PC communication days-before the '90s in other words -- she decided to take her first plunge into the world of so-called new media, an online environment with which she deals in her banking job.

She has working news media, corporate communication and governmental PR experience, involving the banking, telecommunication, automobile, utility and transportation sectors. Bryant has a resume that most start-ups or agencies would drool over.

What she found was a definite gaping fissure between her more than two decades of communication experience and the chaotic world of Internet start-ups.

"When I first walked in the office, I was struck by how young everyone looked," says Bryant. "They all looked like they were 17 years old, dressed very casually. I could have been at the beach.

"They had little stuffed pets in the entrance; it was a completely open room like a bullpen: no partitions. Three people were seated having a meeting in the open space; the receptionist had a big bowl of candy, and people from time to time would stop by to get their sugar fix."

The human resources vice president with whom she made the appointment turned Bryant over to his assistant -- an HR professional who had just started with the firm that day. Both the VP and his new hire were Disney refugees. The new HR person and Bryant found space in the only conference room in the firm's quarters, but staffers needing a room kept interrupting, thinking they could use the space.

Part of the interview eventually was conducted by the marketing director, who was Bryant's prospective boss. He was older (about 30) and looking for quick, concise answers. Precisely 30 minutes into the interview, the session was concluded.

"The interview began at a very fast pace: 'hello, how are you, what is your media strategy for us?, what web sites do you visit regularly and why?; how would you make us have a higher profile?' It was like a pop quiz. At that point, I realized that (a) this was not something I was prepared for, and (b) the job was not really something I was interested in.

"Overall, I just saw what I felt was a whole different work environment. I wasn't really prepared to see this 'bullpen'.

No phones, no desks. The things that are important to me--that are old school, like consistent, credible information for news media -- they don't care about," she says.

What Does All This Mean to Communicators?

Communication, promotion, writing, reporting and editing skills are essentially transferable to new media, and that may become more apparent as the pipe or conduit-the bandwidth- increases so video conferencing and downloadable products become more easily accessible. The so-called new media are essentially no different from the old media, other than their focus on real-time, online distribution of the content.

"Currently most video clips are watched after the fact because of bandwidth limits," said Mark Reilly, with Issue Dynamics Inc., to a group of communicators gathered at a Ragan Communication strategic media relations conference in Chicago earlier this year. He predicts that the new media will continue to increase as bandwidth increases, which in turn will increase reporters' and organizational communicators' acceptance.

Reilly and many other early online communication pundits find themselves increasingly talking to groups of traditional communicators who are honing their Internet-based skills so they can be more effective internal and external communicators, and so they can develop new efficient ways to communicate with traditional and online news organizations, all of which increasingly rely on e-mail and web-based information resources.

Newstream.com is an Internet-based resource center for journalists; organizational communicators can have access to it for a fee. Journalists need only register to tap into the resources, which have been developed by organizations seeking to tell their stories online as they have traditionally done through Business Wire and other electronic distribution services.

In a sense, Newstream.com provides virtual press kits and press conferences with information and illustrative materials that can be used by print, electronic and web-based media alike. Even though the channel of communication is the Internet, the content providers and users don't have to be "new media."

I am an example myself: a mid '50s-age energy trade writer and opinion columnist in daily newspapers, I registered in a matter of a minute or two. "New Media" would not accurately categorize my work or me. Only a few of the publications for which I write regularly have online editions, but that promises to change.