I can do this.  I can conquer this addiction. I know it’s for the best.

But my e-dealers – PC, iPad, iPhone – keep tempting me.  Their beeps and buzzes whisper seductively, “check us, check us, you might have missed something really important.”

Emails. Tweets. Facebook messages. Texts. Linking In. The urge for a hit can take over rational thought. It impacts relationships, impedes concentration, limits careers, costs money.

But let’s face it, it is really fun. Who knows what’s coming next? Likely work, but maybe an online bargain or social titbit… And they make us feel needed.

With our collective attention span heading in gold-fish direction however, I believe it’s increasingly important to resist the e-urge.

Plus it’s seriously impacting our social intelligence. Out for dinner with friends? Spend the time texting those who aren’t there. At the movies? No-one will see your bright screen light.

Texting while driving is also common. Recently I have witnessed a driver giving into the e-urge on a freeway at 100kms (in the fast lane, obviously) and another on a moped.  Darwin’s theory at work there.

At our recent staff love-in, the suggestion was made to disable the “new message” popups and check our emails only at set times of the day, in the interests of managing distractions. Radical!

Now, this concept is raised at every course and in every article dealing with time management, so why was it such a revelation to the Currie team?

For the consultant, it’s a fine line between being responsive to client needs and bouncing between them like a pinball.  Instinctively we all know that focusing attention on one task at a time gives a better result for all, but in the technology age, considerable self-discipline is required to execute this policy.

At the end of our Currie love-in, the team committed to group rehab – that is, turning off our emails for short periods during the day so we can concentrate on specific job tasks.

iThink iCan.

The t-shirt, while a cynical view of the business of fixing-up houses, made me laugh and got me thinking about when I heard my six- year-old being asked by her friend if she was renovating.  “Yes, yes, we’re getting bunk beds,” was the reply.

It seems the whole world is painting, tiling or re-upholstering.  Whether this is due to tools like Pinterest, blogs like Design Files, or shows like The Block or Grand Designs – or a society driven by a desire to up the value of their home, we can’t be sure.

The television show Neighbours is also getting on the bandwagon and announced a few weeks ago it is spending $1million to do up some of the backyards on Ramsay Street.

Recently Currie carried out some media relations work for L.C. Williams & Associates based in Chicago, a fellow member of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN). They recommended Currie to American firm, Trex to launch a new  building product into Australia.

Our experience was very different to the t-shirt’s message, lots of media wanted to speak with me about the pro and cons of Trex Transcend®, a wood-alternative decking that is made from 90% recycled material.

We found a targeted campaign, with clear product benefits outlined, was just what the lifestyle media are looking for.  It seems a deck is part of the quintessential Australian dream and if there is a low maintenance product that allows people to enjoy them more, then it has a place in this market.

Even if some people are sick of hearing about your house plans (or products), don’t despair there are many others who are not.

a. Make consultants sound smarter than they are; and

b. Make clients spend more for something worth less.

Remember these from 2012: “crowd sourcing”, “content marketing”, “shared value” and “socialising business”?

So, in the infamous words of former Australian Prime Minister John Howard: “Be alert, but not alarmed”.

Here’s a checklist to assist you to ‘keep watch’ during 2013:

1. Tell stories: that’s when people listen. We’ve been doing it this way for millennia. If you or your advocates don’t have a genuine story to tell, save your breath (and money). Be warned, “branded content” doesn’t always make true storytelling.

2. Be authentic: don’t make yourself (or your brand) out to be something that you/it ain’t. After all, in the fickle world of social media, a liar no longer needs a good memory. These days a liar requires 24/7 monitoring and an ”online dashboard”.

3. Seek insight: in the era of “big data”, it’s vital to make sense of the mountain of knowledge that is being gathered. Information and insight are two different things. Insight only comes from people who can tell the difference.

4. Think intelligently: “digital integration” – no matter how exciting it seems – won’t deliver commercial outcomes across every media platform. Select channels that are proven to achieve tangible results which support organisational goals.

5. Value relationships: No organisation has a need to achieve “social engagement” with the entire world. Target stakeholders with proven influence and customers who drive growth. Be prepared to spend more time with more people in fewer places.

There you have it, in a nutshell, a practical guide to taking guard against corporate jargon.

So, what new additions to business lexicon do you expect during 2013?

As we begin a new year, now seems timely to look back on some of the changes that marked Australian media in 2012 and will shape its role in 2013.

News Ltd and Fairfax each shed hundreds of staff from their newsrooms; both channels 9 and 10 returned from the brink lighter and leaner and umpteen smaller outlets closed their doors for good.

All the while, the hum from the blogosphere grew louder, the proliferation of social media wore on and media consumption, in line with access to the net, increased.

And that’s a good thing, the leader of this country’s biggest selling print newspaper told last year’s ultimate Melbourne Press Club gathering.

“My first point is a prediction which shouldn’t really surprise us but it still sometimes does – the printed newspaper will be here for a good while yet. It may not comprise the whole newspaper market as it once did, but it will remain vitally important because consumers love it,” Mr Williams said.

And therein lies the answer: what Mr Williams so keenly acknowledges is that despite the traditional “newspaper market” becoming increasingly splintered, Australia’s appetite for media is undiminished and the role the media plays in feeding it larger and more important than ever.

He went on:

“News Ltd alone sells more than 11 million newspapers every week and we distribute an additional five million community papers a week. Together, our Sunday newspapers are read by at least five million people every Sunday.

“The fact is, when it invented the iPad, Apple did not un-invent paper.”

Nor did it ‘un-invent’ news; quite the opposite.

But what access to a never-ending stream of information has done is quicken the news cycle, give voice to more opinions and create greater market segmentation. Consumers have never been more spoilt for choice.

And yet, when our clients conduct audience research before embarking on a campaign, they invariably find consumers to be time-poor, stressed, unsure and seeking ways to cut through the clutter of life.

Print media knows this all too well and has shaped its approach accordingly with rapid-fire and increasingly opinionated reporting on the front and back pages and more tailored solutions in the middle (i.e., media that focuses on lifestyle, design, fashion and technology).

Other mediums have similarly shifted to provide reporting with ‘cut-through’, precedence and pace.

Why? Because the same digital technology that is being blamed for the decline in traditional media has exponentially increased demand for the words and images that we use to make sense of this world.

And who better to collect, collate and present those words and images than the media?

* Gemma is a former News Ltd journalist.

Compared to even four years ago, the amount of information on the US election we can access in Australia has ominously increased.

Unfortunately, much of it has mirrored US politics itself – that is those opinions that are heard are those who have clearly picked their team and then made up reasons to hate and fear the other side.

I’ve little doubt that historians will look back on this period and cite the decline in civility as the defining characteristic of the age. What we’re going to remember is how intensely we hated during this time.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than social media.

I’m usually a fan of social media, but on Election Day it was the medium of choice for the self-absorbed

Twitter and Facebook is where people go to build their ‘brand’, and during the election, my personal observation was a lot of people were building their brand by clearly defining themselves with one side of the political fence and then proceeding to let fly with 140-characters or less of biased opinion to support this brand.

Whenever I meet someone who openly identifies themselves as a Republican or a Democrat, my immediate thought is always, well, this person might be interesting, but they’ll never say anything about politics that’s remotely useful to me.
- Chuck Klosterman (IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas)

As I grow older, I find myself less prone to have an opinion about anything, and to distrust just about anyone who does.I subscribe to Klosterman’stheory that the world’s stupidest people are either zealots or atheists and that “if you want to truly deduce how intelligent someone is, just ask this person how they feel about any issue that doesn’t have an answer; the more certainty they express, the less sense they have”.

Certainty only comes from dogma, and honestly, social media is full of it.

A naiveté reading the Facebook and Twitter posts on my feed could’ve easily drawn the conclusion that the world is going to end if the other guy gets elected (in most instances Mitt Romney, although the same applies here in Australia with Tony Abbott). If not end, then an adverse result would see a lot of people leaving the country.

If it weren’t so ridiculous, it’d be funny.

For most of us, I’d hazard to say that our lives don’t change dramatically due to an election result. If we turned off our television and stayed off the net, it would take months, maybe years, to guess who won.

But instead we get whipped into a state of hysteria by a media which now report politics as sports entertainment, and by themselves – by freaking out and firing off vitriolic Facebook status updates and tweets.

Thankfully, this week, there was one tweet that prevented me from pulling the plug on my computer altogether.

It was from the Sydney Morning Herald’s Richard Hinds: West Wing pyjama party for local politicos. They love the process and tend to ignore the outcomes.

Spot on.

When we’re so caught up in the process and harnessing the fear and loathing, which comes with picking a side and coming down heavily on it, we don’t have the space or time to focus on what really counts.

That’s incredibly sad.

It all started in July when Australia Post’s media team were looking for an extra set of hands  so Fiona joined them inhouse three days a week.

For six weeks, she enjoyed the view above. She also provided day-to-day support responding to queries and developed a suite of media materials to help the team in the future.

Barely had she returned from the Bourke Street head office, when Murray Goulburn identified a need for some general communications support. You’ll now find her two days a week in MG’s head office on Dawson Street, Brunswick assisting with communications planning, writing and editing right up until summer, when the warm weather will blow her back in our direction – we hope!

Luckily, you can always track down Fiona online.

What has interested me is this constant call from all corners of agricultural industry for agriculture to have a “sexier” image, for rural Australia to connect with urban Australia.

It got me to thinking…
1. Why don’t the cities connect more with the country?
2. Why does this request come so often from farmers?

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.”

In re-awakening an interest about how food is produced, Australian agriculture invites more scrutiny from consumers. So, we need to ask ourselves. ‘Are we ready for a closer level of examination?”

Often, I join #agchatoz on a Tuesday night, and I know the reaction I’d get to this question if I posted it. There would be the handful of usual suspects who would argue ‘yes’. But I’d argue ‘no’!

Most farmers are not ready for this level of scrutiny. There are practices which occur daily on almost every farm across the country that we do not want examined closely by people in cities. Yes, many of these are a tried and true ways of doing things and often there are few alternatives.

Yet, if we are going to invite scrutiny, then we need to recognise the days of such practices are numbered, that industry needs to step-up and execute a plan for a future without them.

That’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t invite scrutiny. Maybe that closer examination will force stragglers to move more quickly to adopt what are considered ethical and sustainable practices.

Once started, there will be no stopping consumers’ desire to know more about what they are eating, and in a community where food is plentiful, many will be quick to take the moral high- ground.

Many consumers will not hesitate to question how well we treat our animals and the planet (although you’d have to question the double-standards employed by those in cities who drive 4wds to work).

In protecting a reputation, in promoting a reputation, you need to be prepared to stand by what you do, you need to have a plan to improve what you do and you need to know your story stacks up.

Unless agriculture can tick each of these three boxes, it’s not ready for the scrutiny.

Currie’s work with Australia Post on the Kids Teaching Kids campaign won both the Corporate Communications and Event Communications categories of the international competition. Currie consultants (pictured L to R) Katrina Walter, Fiona Davis and Julia Balderstone were instrumental in the campaign.

The PRGN Best Practice Awards are judged by our peers from among 900 consulting professionals at 44 public relations agencies on six continents. The judges vote on criteria which take into account strategy, creativity, execution and results.

It’s dorky, but true.

Most of the time, my love of history operates separately to my writing and editing work at Currie. Yet, occasionally the two come together in interesting and rewarding ways.

The Australia Historical Association’s annual conference in Adelaide was one such time.

As part of the conference, I was lucky enough to be included in a workshop run by history greats Penny Russell and Richard White.

Richard shared with us his ‘rule of three’, which can be applied to any history paper, but which has relevance to my professional role in corporate communications, also.

In its most basic form, Richard’s ‘rule of three’ is this:

1. Put forward no more than three major parts to your argument
2. Use three pieces of evidence to back up your major claims
3. Use no more than three paragraphs in your introduction

His argument is that it’s difficult for your audience to keep in mind more than three things as they read your work.  Three pieces of evidence, moreover, is convincing. And an introduction that runs more than three paragraphs does become unwieldy.

Like any rule, there are exceptions. For instance, when presenting your paper (or in our case, writing a media release), three pieces of evidence can be too much – just the one can be perfectly fine.

Richard’s ‘rule of three’ translates well to the case studies, conference presentations and the other communications materials we prepare at Currie on behalf of clients. Although we’re not writing academic papers, our clients – like historians – are seeking to make a point.

Unlike academics, however, we have far fewer than 8000 words in which to do it.

I was struck by two separate emotions when I listened to Susan’s message on my voicemail. The first  was horror: my passport had expired. The other was excitement mixed with puzzlement that editing would ever be considered an emergency service.

The first emotion – horror – was quickly replaced with another – mild anxiety – as I made an appointment for fast-track passport processing the following morning. Apparently two business days is all you need to get your passport renewed. Yet, when you only have two and a half business days before you leave, room for error is limited.

Dealing with the second emotion was more of a ‘slow burn’. The clients and I spent two, full work-days at the University of the Philippines (shiny new blank passport having arrived) thrashing out how the project would work. Or at least, they thrashed. I listened. At the end of the first day, we divided up writing tasks and got to it.

The next morning, while the nitty gritty discussions continued, I set to working my editing magic on what we had created. No pressure, simply a document that would explain clearly how this part of a five-year international marine research program would work.

My puzzlement receded in direct proportion to the number of pages edited. Having someone come in from outside, unburdened with background knowledge and immediate concerns, particularly relating to the day-to-day running of the program, gradually made sense.

As a writer, editor and story-teller I could see what content needed to be included, how it needed to be structured and what was superfluous to our immediate needs.

Sustained by a hearty lunch and a take-away halo halo*, I presented the revised document to our group that second afternoon. While tweaking still remained, on the whole the feedback was very positive. The room, in fact, was filled with palpable relief.

I arrived home two days later buoyed by the progress we had made and the thought that I did, perhaps, have skills that justified last-minute, whirlwind international visits to exotic locations.**

Another week having passed, I’ve moved now to the hopeful stage and am considering putting a little note on my email signature. Have skills and passport, will travel. Please.

* Warning: halo halo is not an ideal snack in a professional forum – it melts when you are speaking and its delicious, gloopy consistency forces you to take large mouthfuls.

** Disclaimer: The above photo is more aspirational than actual. In fact, my editing experiences took place within four walls. Perhaps something to try for next time, however.