Friday, February 24, 2006
The "Other" Olympics Stories –- Power of Being Specific
No guns, no knives, no bombs, no nail clippers... no Pepsi.
Their cans of Pepsi (one carried it in her purse, another in his knapsack) were confiscated as they passed through security.
Sharing their adventures at the Olympic Games, two friends called me on different days to laughingly tell their separate stories of "corporate tyranny."
You see, Coca-Cola is the official soft drink sponsor of XIX Winter Olympics. Coke rules there. But my outlaw reporter friend was undeterred. On subsequent days, he changed to plastic and put his bottles of Diet Pepsi at the bottom of his knapsack to successfully smuggle them through security at the Main Press Center.
Corporate sponsors are spending millions for high-toned visibility here and are taking a strong stand against any advertising party-crashers. But the Olympic spirit for "firsts" survives, as you'll see later in this story.
Mmm, mmm good. Mmmm, mmm good. That familiar company slogan popped into my reporter friend's head each morning when another Olympic sponsor provided breakfast: two cups of chicken noodle soup at five bucks each. Office Depot gave reporters small empty backpacks (good for Pepsi smuggling).
While nonofficial products seem to be banned from most places inside the games, corporate advertising is muted, my friends report.
Apparently after the schlock fest that was Atlanta 1996, the IOC, already tainted by scandal, put the clamps on aggressive immersion marketing. But Delta Airlines must be secretly gloating.
They somehow got the IOC to ignore the large "Delta Center" logo outside the building where figure skating and short-track speedskating are held. IOC doesn't allow advertising on or in its venues, so Olympic officials call the Delta Center the Salt Lake Ice Center.
Most everyone else is still calling it The Delta Center. Imagine how many times visitors and reporters are saying and hearing that name.
But millions of corporate bucks can't buy the priceless exposure, good will, and friendships attracted at the games by a thoughtful former reporter and her friend, a part-time simultaneous interpreter for the U.N.
Sitting down their light aluminum portable chairs across from two African runners, they began their ninth media coaching appointment of the day.
Coaxing from a runner the bits and pieces of his story of training through wars, family starvation, and village support, they helped him hone the nuggets of his story that could catch the attention of time-pressed reporters.
Afterward another volunteer would introduce to him several reporters from the United States and elsewhere who had been warmed up to hear his story.
Then he would be taken to yet another volunteer's cell phone to participate in other interviews with freelancers who were not at the Olympics but had seen a human interest angle for a story.
The Rest of the Story
Later, shortly after September 11th, this former (laid off from work) reporter and her friend the interpreter asked friends and strangers to volunteer to work with them on their "Olympics Stories for the World" media-coaching support for athletes from the smaller countries where athletes must raise their own money for training. So far, this spirited and disciplined team has coached 62 athletes and connected them with over 200 writers and reporters.
I won't get more specific now because I don't want to steal their thunder. They will be writing about their adventure in an exclusive that will appear next month.
"Say It Better" suggestion: They didn't need a big funding effort or corporate sponsors. What did they need to do?
Get vividly specific – and their goal and the story they wanted to tell.
Forge compatible partnerships
You, too, can have less stress and more satisfaction and adventure in your life whenever you get more specific about something you want to happen.
Once you get specific, you can picture the set of steps on your straightest path, with the right people you need to succeed –- and how to suggest to potential allies THEIR benefits in participating WITH you.
Back to the story: First, the women became specific about their goal: get more global media coverage of the remarkable athletes from the smaller countries while there was a huge news hook –- their participation in the Olympics.
Then it became easy to picture the volunteer help and resources needed.
Thus they knew how to be brief and appealing to potential volunteers so they could see their brief part in a powerful story and want to get involved.
Volunteers jumped on this Olympic bandwagon and are forging new friendships in their shared adventure.
Three families in Salt Lake City provided their homes for the volunteer team, a Tunisia-born VP at a wireless service provider donated ten cell phones and their use for a week, three other interpreters partnered with reporters-cum-media-coaches, a college journalism professor recruited ten students to set up media appointments and act as eager gofers, and five former reporters put together the media contact list of colleagues we thought would be interested in some angle of these stories.
Several of us became so invested in the project that we volunteered more help.
Tip: Having a hot idea and a hard deadline helps your recruit SmartPartners sooner.
Their cans of Pepsi (one carried it in her purse, another in his knapsack) were confiscated as they passed through security.
Sharing their adventures at the Olympic Games, two friends called me on different days to laughingly tell their separate stories of "corporate tyranny."
You see, Coca-Cola is the official soft drink sponsor of XIX Winter Olympics. Coke rules there. But my outlaw reporter friend was undeterred. On subsequent days, he changed to plastic and put his bottles of Diet Pepsi at the bottom of his knapsack to successfully smuggle them through security at the Main Press Center.
Corporate sponsors are spending millions for high-toned visibility here and are taking a strong stand against any advertising party-crashers. But the Olympic spirit for "firsts" survives, as you'll see later in this story.
Mmm, mmm good. Mmmm, mmm good. That familiar company slogan popped into my reporter friend's head each morning when another Olympic sponsor provided breakfast: two cups of chicken noodle soup at five bucks each. Office Depot gave reporters small empty backpacks (good for Pepsi smuggling).
While nonofficial products seem to be banned from most places inside the games, corporate advertising is muted, my friends report.
Apparently after the schlock fest that was Atlanta 1996, the IOC, already tainted by scandal, put the clamps on aggressive immersion marketing. But Delta Airlines must be secretly gloating.
They somehow got the IOC to ignore the large "Delta Center" logo outside the building where figure skating and short-track speedskating are held. IOC doesn't allow advertising on or in its venues, so Olympic officials call the Delta Center the Salt Lake Ice Center.
Most everyone else is still calling it The Delta Center. Imagine how many times visitors and reporters are saying and hearing that name.
But millions of corporate bucks can't buy the priceless exposure, good will, and friendships attracted at the games by a thoughtful former reporter and her friend, a part-time simultaneous interpreter for the U.N.
Sitting down their light aluminum portable chairs across from two African runners, they began their ninth media coaching appointment of the day.
Coaxing from a runner the bits and pieces of his story of training through wars, family starvation, and village support, they helped him hone the nuggets of his story that could catch the attention of time-pressed reporters.
Afterward another volunteer would introduce to him several reporters from the United States and elsewhere who had been warmed up to hear his story.
Then he would be taken to yet another volunteer's cell phone to participate in other interviews with freelancers who were not at the Olympics but had seen a human interest angle for a story.
The Rest of the Story
Later, shortly after September 11th, this former (laid off from work) reporter and her friend the interpreter asked friends and strangers to volunteer to work with them on their "Olympics Stories for the World" media-coaching support for athletes from the smaller countries where athletes must raise their own money for training. So far, this spirited and disciplined team has coached 62 athletes and connected them with over 200 writers and reporters.
I won't get more specific now because I don't want to steal their thunder. They will be writing about their adventure in an exclusive that will appear next month.
"Say It Better" suggestion: They didn't need a big funding effort or corporate sponsors. What did they need to do?
Get vividly specific – and their goal and the story they wanted to tell.
Forge compatible partnerships
You, too, can have less stress and more satisfaction and adventure in your life whenever you get more specific about something you want to happen.
Once you get specific, you can picture the set of steps on your straightest path, with the right people you need to succeed –- and how to suggest to potential allies THEIR benefits in participating WITH you.
Back to the story: First, the women became specific about their goal: get more global media coverage of the remarkable athletes from the smaller countries while there was a huge news hook –- their participation in the Olympics.
Then it became easy to picture the volunteer help and resources needed.
Thus they knew how to be brief and appealing to potential volunteers so they could see their brief part in a powerful story and want to get involved.
Volunteers jumped on this Olympic bandwagon and are forging new friendships in their shared adventure.
Three families in Salt Lake City provided their homes for the volunteer team, a Tunisia-born VP at a wireless service provider donated ten cell phones and their use for a week, three other interpreters partnered with reporters-cum-media-coaches, a college journalism professor recruited ten students to set up media appointments and act as eager gofers, and five former reporters put together the media contact list of colleagues we thought would be interested in some angle of these stories.
Several of us became so invested in the project that we volunteered more help.
Tip: Having a hot idea and a hard deadline helps your recruit SmartPartners sooner.
