Interrogative on Technology
New technology is an old idea. We’ve been singing its praises since our caveman ancestors first learned how to grill.
Today’s digital tech is so pervasive that it makes every business a technology company, which makes it particularly hard forth to differentiate based on tech alone. It’s why the most popular tech stories are about people, usually at startups and the occasional billionaire rocket launch. Big, established businesses that tangibly do more with tech that any entrepreneur promises are left out of most coverage.
There are three questions that will help you get in on those conversations:
First, are you changing the world? Tech that enhances, improves, or otherwise makes things better in some incremental way is what drives the vast majority of real business innovation, development, and sales, yet it’s DOA from a news perspective; only your most informed customer cares that your whatchamacallit increases resonance variability by 4 percent, yielding a richer user experience, or that your thingamajig works at the periphery of the value chain instead of midway.
Yet talking in this mixture of gibberish and complacency (“we’re the leader in…” is a kiss of death phrase) keeps most tech marcom content on the sidelines. It doesn’t help that a big company’s stock price is dependent on its ability to reliably make profits, and even the suggestion of a Hail Mary pass could whack said value. There’s no money in dreaming big.
You need to question this assumption, however, and challenge yourself to see a bigger, longer play in what you’re trying to accomplish. Little steps aren’t so little if they’re steps along a bigger journey and are communicated with consistency and meaning.
Second, are you aware of your stakeholders’ interests and concerns? Most technology development happens based on prior tech performance specs and expert analyses of what improvements are possible within the limitations of time and budget. Making it relevant to different stakeholders is an afterthought that usually involves bolting-on references to the IoT, smart (insert industry here), AI, or some other buzzworthy topic suggested by management consultants (who make the same suggestions to everyone).
The thing is, nobody cares about technology except technology people; the rest of us are happy using streaming movies and flying in airplanes with limited to no understanding of how those miracles are even possible.
This means that your stakeholders probably aren’t interested in your latest tech announcement, so the media outlets they consume aren’t, either.
Instead, what if the comms planning for your next tech news started with a deep understanding of what issues a particular stakeholder group cared about, we’re hearing about in the media, and then imagining how and where your content might fit into that construct?
Third, are you willing to talk about people? Anybody who innovates for a living knows that it can be challenging, scary, thrilling, rewarding, dumbfounding, demoralizing, and then all of it all over again. Even the most inarticulate engineer feels deeply about her or his work, maybe never using the word “passion” but certainly revealing it by doing things like working at home or forgetting to bathe.
How is it that corp comms manages to produce content devoid of any of this humanity?
Before you produce that next glossy video or try to erase your spokesperson’s personality with corporate messaging, consider letting people talk about their technology journeys, not just your corporate destination. Let them share hopes, dreams, successes and failures. Let them be themselves, whether in front of a camera or simply getting their names pasted on top of expertly produced blog posts.
Like I said at the beginning, technology stories are people stories, and there’s no reason your comms have to be stuck inside a box that is separated from goals, stakeholder needs, and authentic personal voices.
It’s time to think outside the box. Now there’s a new idea!
