from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith
The lovely and talented Jan Nunley, formerly the director of the Episcopal Church's communications office, currently quite bitter a full three years later over her ouster from that post, points us to some changes on the horizon for her former employer:
The document itself is an oddity: Crudely produced, shot through with new-agey, throwaway marketing doublespeak, and accented with poor word usage. Here's the very first paragraph:
It represents a transition away from a strictly news bureau model – meaning one comprised of newspapers, newsletters, and responses to news reporter inquiries - to a strategic communications model which will proactively enable the growth of Church membership and support.
That's right - "comprised of," "strategic communications model" and "proactive" all in one sentence. You know you're about to read a plan that can't fail.
Anyway, Nunley even tags us in her commentary:
It has come to my attention that the communications director for The Episcopal Church has submitted a new budget to the Program, Budget & Finance Committee of the General Convention for her department. I'm informed that "everyone expects revenues for the next triennium to be way down," hence the budget revisions. (Of course, this must be due entirely to the millions of faithful Anglicans fleeing rampant liberalism and not in any measure to the recent implosion of casino capitalism on a worldwide scale. I thought I'd just get that out of the way so SFiF can just copy and paste this post.)
The rationale for the new budget explains that:
- Episcopal Life will be reduced from a 10-times a year newsprint newspaper to a quarterly magazine format, with emphasis on features
- Printing partnerships will be discontinued. (Dioceses will receive "counseling and advice" on how to "restructure" their individual diocesan communications efforts.)
- The Ambler Episcopal Life office will be closed and the personnel cut from 3.5 to 2.
I'm told that, true to longstanding tradition, the Board of Governors of Episcopal Life was not consulted, nor was the Board of Episcopal Communicators. Because we're all about collaboration and transparency.
Supporting document below. Do have a nice day.
Actually, Jan, I'm not going to say that the communications office's budgetary woes are solely the result of "millions of faithful Anglicans fleeing rampant liberalism," seeing as how there aren't millions of Anglicans - faithful or otherwise - in America. However, it's a pretty safe bet that if the denomination hadn't lost a third of its membership over the last 40 years - a period during which the population of the United States roughly doubled, and a period which spans the most prosperous times of any nation in the world's history - the financial picture at the 815 communications office would be a darn sight better than it is now.
Some thoughts in no particular order:
* I take it that in her sneering remark, Jan - and many of her cohorts such as Susan Russell and Louie Crew, in their snit over the "secret" theology committee - expects us to pile on the "collaboration and transparency" hypocrisy from 815, but it's not going to happen, at least not from me or, I suspect, from my co-bloggers here. My message to them today, as it was Friday, is this: Drink up, Worthy Opponents. Drink it long, and drink it all. As Tim Fountain observed about the theology committee dust-up, "The monster ultimately turns on its maker." Y'all dug this hole, now you just need to lie down and get comfy, because you might be here for a while. Hope it's everything for you that it's been for us.
* The report has this to say about its plans for Episcopal Life Online:
The online publication will continue to deliver the daily news of interest to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. It will undergo a redesign and will develop revenue through an online classified ad section and perhaps some subscription content.
Um... no it won't. You might see a little revenue from classifieds, but you'll get pretty much zero from subscription content, because nobody's buying what you're selling. The only way people are going to pay for what you have behind your subscription wall, is if they know it's much better than what you have available for free; and the fact that you're cutting from 10 issues a year to 4 is all the proof you should need that that ain't the case. The only time you're justified in even thinking about charging for content is when people are demanding more of it, not when you can't even make payroll.
* These two paragraphs are almost all the report provides in the way of what it plans to do in its most ambitious effort, and what is clearly designated as the future of Episcopal Church communications:
In 2010 the digital department will complete the redesign of episcopalchurch.org and implement a social networking strategy. In 2011 and 2012 this work will evolve and grow. A digital designer and a developer will be responsible for the redesign of Episcopal Life.org. Digital also includes the video-taping and editing capability for our live and on-demand webcasting. Most of the work that digital creates is shared with the wider Church. With a budget that does not permit television or other advertising, the website becomes our most important vehicle for telling our story widely. When effectively utilized, it will become our most powerful tool for evangelism.
Staffing will include a director, 2 web designers (1 new), 2 web writers (2 new), 2 web developers (1 new), a multimedia producer/editor, a multimedia design engineer, and a web producer. Additional support in 2010 will be needed from an outside agency for information architecture as the site’s re-design is completed.
Well now. Where do I start?
I shouldn't need to belabor the point about evangelism: If TEC's idea of evangelism is driving away a million members over four decades and almost single-handedly bringing the mother church to the brink of disaster, the last thing it needs to do is more evangelizing.
Let me also explain what the phrase "implement a social networking strategy" means: "We have no clue what we're doing, or what this will entail. We're just hoping for a miracle between now and the next time we have to justify our existence." That much would be obvious from that one statement alone, but the sentence that follows really clinches it: "In 2011 and 2012 this work will evolve and grow."
How do I know this a sure sign of their cluelessness? Because they're stating with such easy confidence that something involving emerging, rapidly-changing technology - an area, mind you, in which they have zero experience, let alone success - will "evolve and grow" over a period of three years, which in internet time is how epochs are measured. It's like a radio show producer in the 1940's casually predicting success in the media market of 1995.
Remember, we're talking about a church that has, by its own admission, a markedly elderly membership, and it can't even keep a flimsy print publication alive. Its own demographic projections predict an audience which in a few years will be even grayer than it is now, and yet we're to believe that not only will it make a successful transition from print to a "social networking strategy," but that things will be clipping along smoothly and growing! in 2012. It's the kind of language that's dribbled out by predatory ad agencies (sorry - redundancy alert) to clients who have no idea about new media technology, and have no choice but to trust that the promise will - somehow - be fulfilled.
Sorry, 815. If your communications office were a stock, I'd be selling it for whatever I could get. If it were an airplane I'd be strapping on my parachute and looking for the nearest exit. Far more likely than your plans to "implement a social networking strategy" growing and evolving over the next three years, is that they'll meet the same sad fate your print efforts are about to meet.
* How it expects to maintain its communications link with those who currently rely primarily on Episcopal Life, I have no idea, but presumably the goal will be to "move" those folks to the wild, wild world of the web. Problem is, when it comes to news about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, that space is largely owned by... errr... other operations.
If this report is any indication of 815's communications vision, or of the decision-making process that guides the office's operations, then I have to say their chances for success are even lower than I had expected, which is saying something. To paraphrase Cool Hand Luke: What we have here, is an EPIC FAIL in progress.
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