GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATORS WHO CAN'T COMMUNICATE

GOVERNMENT NEEDS DRASTIC TRAINING IN COMMUNICATING
They have an entire department dedicated to it. They have thousands of employees paid to do it. Their public are waiting to hear it. The media are dying to be part of it. But unless it has anything to do with where, why and how a particular minister spent his day or which country our president is visiting – if it’s Wednesday it must be Japan – then they don’t do it – COMMUNICATE!
A perfect example is the communication around the xenophobia issue. One minister says xenophobia doesn’t exist it’s all down to criminality – whilst her colleague ten minutes later in the same building refutes this by saying ‘xenophobia is live and well and living in South Africa’. Another minister says if only they had known something about this problem beforehand they could have taken action – whilst our information minister says ‘yes, of course he knew something about it beforehand’. Pity he didn’t tell his boss Thabo, before he went on television and even smiled (a rare occurrence) when he said ‘If we knew about nobody told me – shame someone should tell him’.
This will be my third year taking part in the Wits Business School’s Government Communicators Course – teaching them about dealing with the media. It’s a little depressing facing yet another group of these people, when I know that despite what myself and other trainers teach them, they’ll probably be blocked by red tape a mile long within their respective departments anyway. At least that’s what they tell me.
But perhaps I should take hope because during a conversation I had with the CEO of Government Communication and Information Systems, the genial Themba James Maseko he did assure me that things would change. But then again a colleague said he made the same statement two years ago…

A POSITIVE VIEW OF SA FROM A YOUNG PROFESSIONAL

AWESOME SA
Yesterday I had the amazing experience of interviewing 28 year old Durbanite Julia Holley, a brand manager at Unilever SA. From the minute she came on the phone I could feel the energy and enthusiasm she has, not just for her work, but her life.
I was interviewing her for a piece I’m doing to go with the June 16th commemorations by interviewing different young professionals and how they see their lives today. Julia told me how, quite soon after finishing her studies, she landed a job with SA Breweries as international marketing manager and found herself living and working in London, being sent around Europe to promote such trendy brands as Peroni and Brutal Fruit and of course Castle. For a young girl in her early twenties this should have been paradise – but was it?
“From an experience point of view it was amazing, but the life there… I felt in London you live for your holidays whereas here your life is like a holiday! Here’s an excerpt from an article she recently wrote for the website: www.homecomingrevolution.co.za.
Whilst I had a great time, I missed the sunshine, the smiles and the generous spirit of our people. I missed Pronutro, Ouma Rusks, hadeda’s and the simple freedom of space. I missed giggling at the physically disabled beggars at the robots who occasionally forget their disabilities and run with ease to the side of the road to count their collections! Most importantly I missed the opportunity to be an active part of a country the rest of the world is eagerly watching. It is a known fact that the brain drain is a big problem in South Africa. I came home after a year in London because I didn’t want to be another skilled South African who chose to leave our country and criticise the government and talk about the atrocities of crime from a million miles away.
The truth is that South Africa is not the same country that it was in the past. Gone are the days when people could scrape past in school and university and then expect a top job at the best corporate. It’s a competitive market out there and there are thousands of previously disadvantaged individuals who are really hungry to make it big. I can guarantee you there will always be jobs for talented and ambitious individuals, no matter your skin colour. If you have the right attitude, with energy and enthusiasm there will always be opportunity for you.
South Africans have chutspa and vavavoom. South Africans love life. We are not afraid of laughing at ourselves. South Africans are innovators and adventurers. We challenge convention and are not afraid of standing up for what is right.
What a pleasure and inspiration to meet such a young woman – I really needed to share this with others.
www.mediamentors.co.za

Cape Town's short power crisis

CAPE TOWN – WHAT DID THEY DO RIGHT TO ESKOM?

I’m currently at my Cape Town flat and this morning had what us Jo’burgers are getting used – a power outage. But this was different to Jo’burg ‘cos it went off at 8am and came back on at 10am. And we did what most normal Capetonians would do in such a situation. Find a café that has gas to have a long breakfast and wait ‘til the lights come on before going back to work.

Now when you think about it this is ironic ‘cos everyone knows that Capetonians don’t work as hard as we do in the city of gold – so how come they have shorter power cuts? Is it to do with the proximity of the sea and much loved mountains? Or is it just that most of our politicians are down here? And that brings me to a pressing question – do they have blackouts in parliament? Noone’s asked that – or perhaps they have and it went in a David Bullard column for this week’s Sunday Times. Anyway the power’s back on, the sun is shining and with a two hour breakfast behind me I’ve kinda lost the urge to work. That’s what probably happens to our politicians also – again the ocean and mountains could be to blame. After all take them away and what’ve you got – Capetonian drivers!

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS

Being blessed to be a mother to one of each sex has been an interesting journey. From the minute they're born you notice the difference - not just the obvious biological one! Little boys reach out to toy cars and go brum, brum before they can even say mama and little girls will pick up a doll and hug it to their chests lovingly, while muttering unintelligble things in its ear. Then as they grow up the differences grow - little boys don't mind being dirty, in fact the dirtier the better, whereas little girls like to be clean and care about what you dress them in. I thought this would change as my son got older but taking, my now 20 year old son shopping, I realise nothing's changed. We wonder through Edgars and I say "Isn't there anything you need". Giving a cursory glance around he answers "No, not really." This is repeated in about three different shops - we were in fact looking for flip flops which is his general shoewear all year around, along with his tatty shorts. What struck me as so different is if I'd had my 18 year old daughter with me and taken her through the same shops my credit card would have been seriously damaged. He did give in to some new underwear, which was odd as I'd bought him some quite recently. "Where was it," I enquired? Not in some girl's res room as I was wondering, but "with all the lost socks - wherever they go". Girls would never lose their underwear - at least not in this way...

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COOKING BY PHONE..

It had to happen - son moves from res to digs at UCT and the inevitable phone call comes. "Mum, how do you cook mince?" Now this, as any self respecting cook will know, is a tricky question. After all having grown up on school lunches in the UK, until I was around 20 I thought all mince was grey... It turned out he was making his six housemates tacos, so at least he had some vague instructions on the box, together with a packet of herbs and some sauce. "Ok, Rob chop up three onions and cook them slowly 'til they're brown." "That's easy," came the confident reply. "Good - then when that's done add your mince, turn up the light and cook 'til it's brown and then add some chopped tomatoes, tomato puree".. and I gave him the rest of the recipe. An hour went by before my phone beeped with a 'please call me' - students don't actually make phone calls to their parents, just please call me's. "How do you know when mince is brown?" came the question. Now to most people this would be obvious, but unfortunately my son inherited my father's colour blindness. "How long have you been 'browning' boy?" "Quite a while," came the reply. I could almost see the greyness before me. I then advised him to immediately chuck everything else him, turn it down after it had come to the boil and hope for the best." A while went by before the next phone call "How do you know how much salt to put in". An emergency light went on in my mind with a vision of him adding it by the tablespoon - I quickly asked "You haven't put any in yet have you?" "No, not yet". He was quite surprised when I suggested adding it very slowly. A couple of hours later I got an sms "Dinner worked out well" luv yu, Rob." Can't wait for the next lesson - hope it's not curry.

Jargon - the curse of the 21st century!

Just recently I gave a workshop to the communications department of one of SA's top companies. Before the course they sent me a sample of their in house publications which I ploughed through - ploughed being the operative word here. Apart from the usual dreaded 'hatched, matched and despatched' there was a collection of jargon second to none. When I went through these with them they were rolling about laughing - but when I told them I took them from their publications they looked a bit surprised. Is it because we've got so used to using these ridiculous expressions in our everyday lives that we don't even notice them anymore? Here's just a sample of some of them.

•deployed – exacerbated – full complement of – interventions – channel contributions – integral – culture of inclusion – sustainable – diversity - inclusion on a global basis – meritocracy – embedded – impacted severely – non-conformances – tasked with – economic imperative.

Can you imagine if we all talked this way. You'd say to your partner 'So darling, do you think we should have a little diversity tonight and have the Jones's around - or maybe we should just stay embedded at home, but this could severely impact on our economic imperatives and lead us to a culture of inclusion - so maybe we should look at something more sustainable...

Doesn't anyone speak English anymore?

The silly season

THE SILLY AND COSTLY SEASON

Ok – so we all know about the silly season – but how do we let it happen? For a start it was definitely the wrong time for me to go on diet for a start, but hey, who’s perfect? But apart from going to wall to wall ‘end of year’ parties – not Christmas anymore, that’s politically incorrect (read Primedia aren’t even having a year end party for fear of offending religious minorities) what about the money spent on pressies? Now I’m not talking pressies for family here – just gifts for clients and people who do services for you during the year. The problem here for me is there just doesn’t seem to be anywhere between a classy Carol Boyes gift and Mr Price Home and Clicks! My poor credit card has motion sickness and I’m scared to go online in case when I ‘log on’ to my bank site it starts flashing red at me…

I don’t know if anyone saw this snippet that was taken from the Bus Times Money Club section a few weeks back but I thought someone might like to use it:

“I have received your rather stern letter demanding payment from me for the last month. I would like, however, to inform you that I have many such organisations to whom I owe money and am unable to meet all these payments each month. I therefore place all my creditors’ names in a hat and draw those out for whom I can pay that month. I wish to advise you that, due to the rather rude tone of your letter, you will now not be included in the next three draws.”

For more on Marion go to www.mediamentors.co.za