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5 terms to leave back in 2012

One of the best pieces of advice I've seen this year-end season is to read more broadly. As you may know, I couldn't agree more.

If I'm asking people to read more, it follows that writers should up their game. More precise writing is high on my list of New Year's wishes, which hopefully would lead to less of the following terms:

Fiscal cliff. This is a masterful phrase because it gives a Washington, D.C. budget standoff the drama of a Roadrunner cartoon. Nevermind that the reality is more of a fiscal slope, with a gradual drop in spending, and that voters support more progressive taxation in general. The breathless will-they-or-won't-they news stories are a disservice because they create a false equivalency between the two sides.

Somber reminder during a wet holiday season

I recently attended a fundraiser for a cause that almost everyone ignores: homelessness.

That's where Operation Nightwatch comes in. The group provides basic services and housing for people who don't have shelter -- more than 2,500 people on an average night in Seattle.

Read that again: that's TWO-THOUSAND FIVE-HUNDRED people. The equivalent of six fully loaded 747s without shelter.

The group's annual luncheon was held in Seattle's ornate Union Station and drew some 450 people, which qualified it as a garden-variety luncheon downtown. Homemade sandwiches, cookies and Tim's chips passed around each table were a distinctive touch.

But the real impact was in the simple message that we must take care of each other.

That's a stretch in our new Gilded Age, where everyone aspires to great wealth even if their chances of achieving it are diminishing. More than 11% of Americans live in poverty, according to the OECD, though you'd never know it from the topics discussed during the recent election season.

Poutine, great bagels and smart development

Imagine a growing mid-sized city just south of the 49th parallel that has a booming technology sector, a diverse, international population and innovative approaches to transportation and land use.

My family and I recently visited this place: Montreal.

Seattle and Montreal are roughly comparable in metro population and economic size (Montreal: 3.8 million people vs Seattle: 3.5 million; Montreal GDP: $148B, Seattle: $235B). But one seems to be making strides when it comes to livability.

Last time I visited, in the early 90s, the economy was slumping as Quebec bled business, the city’s population was declining and infrastructure was uneven.

What "Cathedral" can teach about communicating

One of the dirty secrets of the PR and communications business is that many people who do it can't really write. PowerPoint and "talking points" are no substitute for crafting paragraphs.

One of the best ways to get better at writing is to read, and read widely -- from all kinds news to literature. It was frustrating to see the lunch table at a corporate communications department where I worked littered with US Weekly and People -- and no sign of a New Yorker, Economist ... or even a Vanity Fair.

This has been on my mind recently while taking a short story reading class at Seattle's Richard Hugo House. Instead of focusing on high school English topics like symbolism, the idea is to focus on how a writer assembles a story, their word choice and approach to dialog. We've read great writers from the U.S., Germany, Argentina and elsewhere. (Note: I'm on the board of Hugo House so I love the place.)

Anyone who cares about writing needs to be reading and pushing their personal boundaries.

When critics lack the courage to sign their name

Anyone who sticks their neck out knows one of the downsides of modern media: anonymous online comments.

"They are ugly, they are racist," said former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels during a conversation on KUOW radio. Until recently, "you had letters to the editor where you had to sign your name and they checked whether you actually existed. I think we need to bring back some of that civility back to our civic discourse."

People don't think twice about saying something online that they would never dream of in person. So what do you do about it?

5 communications lessons from my campaign

My campaign for Seattle City Council was a fantastic professional development experience. And it offers several takeaways that can help anyone get their message out.

I learned to better articulate policy ideas, of course, by doorbelling thousands of households and speaking to community groups across the city every day. At first I was terrified to go in front of a crowd (imagine me nervously reciting my speech as I drove to introduce myself at a community center), but 10 months later speaking to 200+ people was actually fun.

After being involved in campaigns for years I had thought I knew what I needed to, but the adage that you lose 50 points of IQ when you become a candidate may well have been true with me. Don't let the same happen to you.

Here are five communications lessons to follow:

Why the death of newspapers is a good thing

Today's announcement of big changes at the venerable New Orleans Times-Picayune -- cutting 1/3 of its staff and printing just three days a week -- is the latest in a long slide for metropolitan newspapers that once tried to be all things to all people. The industry downsizing has cost thousands of jobs and left a void in news coverage.

Yet what matters is journalism, and that's no longer synonymous with newspapers. In fact, the demise of big newspapers will disrupt a broken industry, allow new entrants to thrive and, hopefully, lead to better reporting and writing.

I used to have ink running through my veins, so this has been a big adjustment. I started my first newspaper in elementary school and eventually worked to become a foreign correspondent. When I lived in Asia I would purposely route return trips to the U.S. through LAX so I could buy a print metro edition of the Los Angeles Times -- then America's best newspaper. I still get the Sunday New York Times in print and have paid subscriptions to many periodicals.

Yet, the downfall of the metro newspapers, which for decades held quasi-monopolies in their areas, exposes major flaws and uneven quality. When he was editor of The New York Times, Howell Raines realized that it needed to be faster (have a "higher metabolism," in his phrase) and more rigorous in order to be truly national. His missteps (e.g., Jayson Blair) caused his downfall, the pace of change slowed and, as a result, the paper is still not as good as it could be.

Advice for Amazon

Amazon is discovering a truism: the more successful you become, the more you're a target.

In Seattle the company is increasingly criticized for keeping a low community profile. The hometown daily recently spent four days amplifying criticism of its philanthropy and business practices, adding to a string of controversies.

Amazon shouldn't ignore this. Remember that Microsoft focused on building its business in the 1990s, thumbing its nose at public perceptions until the Department of Justice threatened to break it up. The resulting dramatic shift in strategy arguably blunted its "hard core" edge.

Does this mean that Amazon needs to change its culture, plaster ads all over public spaces and hire legions of lobbyists and flacks? Assuming it fundatmentally doesn't want to change, here are some suggestions:

What matters more than "likes" in social media

Shell has received promient attention for its efforts on Facebook, including laudatory coverage by The Wall Street Journal. It looks like another company confusing tactics for a true strategy to engage with its stakeholders.

Since May 2011, when the oil company launched its Facebook page, it's gained 946,000 "likes." This sounds impressive but the quality of those followers is suspect. Apparently 224,000 come from Malaysia and only 1,000 from The Netherlands, where the company has 10,000 staff, not to mention families and friends. It's impossible to know who is behind the current "likes." The FB page is a smorgasboard of not particularly coherent content.

For a more holistic approach, consider McDonald's. This story in the New York Times Magazine is one of the best I've seen about social media recently because it talks about social media as part of a comprehensive strategy, not a goal on its own.

Making it easier to be a Shadow Driver

This video from Mexico City shows two types of drivers: the Everyday Driver, who drives no matter how much it costs, and the Shadow Driver, who drives only when it’s the most convenient option. Imagine the benefits if we made it easier to be a Shadow Driver.

This is the sort of easy-to-understand demo necessary to illustrate complex, counterintuitive concepts. I love the video: it's not flashy. Viral marketing like this should be part of every organization's toolkit. It could have been used more effectively to show alternatives to big road projects and a vision for more livable neighborhoods.

No way to run a school system

Now that two of three candidates to lead Seattle's public schools have dropped out of contention, the appointment of a new superintendant is a mere formality

As with Seattle's national search for a police chief two years ago, when our interim chief was the last man standing, this was really no choice.

Obviously any process that can't encourage top talent to Seattle highlights problems, but the important thing is moving forward. The new superintendant has a huge job and will need to put a premium on communications in order to succeed.

As the parent of a toddler in neighborhood that's often called "transitional," it's clear that nothing is more important to the future of the city than quality schools. I know parents who are moving away (or plan to) because of the perception that local schools fall short. Some say they can deal with elementary school but no way will they send their kids to city middle or high schools. Others come to the Seattle area for work and immediately settle in the suburbs. We need these people and the economic base they form to make the city stronger.

Assuming the new super is on top of the management basics, strong communications will make or break the job. Here are a few ideas:

What's the matter with Walmart

It's tempting to shrug off the report that Walmart illegally bribed government officials abroad in order to open new stores as yet another scandal around a company with a rapacious reputation.

U.S. companies are bound by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal to bribe foreign officials. That law originated partly in response to the 1970s scandal where Lockheed bribed Japanese officials in order to sell its L-1011 aircraft. As in that case, it looks like executives at Walmart tried to cover up $24 million in bribes to Mexican officials in order to thwart competition.

But it's a lot more complex than that to me personally. I started my career at Panasonic, working with Japanese colleagues who did business every day in Indonesia, Tanzania, Peru and other places where there were plenty of temptations to fudge the rules. As a reporter, I wrote about Weyerhaeuser's operations in Uruguay, where it competed with less scrupulous rivals. For the right price, it's easy for officials to ignore safety warnings on pesticides or look the other way at labor violations.

Now as a communicator I see this sort of thing as a new challenge. So far, two issues seem most interesting:

Why it's not crazy to root for Sony

I ought to be feeling a little schadenfreude at the struggles of Sony, the legendary electronics firm that just projected its biggest ever loss of more than $6 billion.

My first job out of college was at Panasonic (formally called Matsushita Electric) which is a bigger, older company that always had arguably better technology but lacked the marketing pizzaz of the upstart. I was taught that Sony wasn't much more than a few trendy products.

But over the years I've been secretly hoping that Sony management would somehow find a way to integrate hardware, software and content to create a serious competitor to Apple, Microsoft and the others. That sure didn't happen. After years of drift, Sony just named a new CEO, who announced some restructuring and recalibrated direction.

Seattle's police crisis: Thanks for the feds

With Seattle's police under federal scrutiny for using excessive force you would think everyone's top priority would be solving the problem.

You would be wrong, apparently.

It's a struggle to find something positive to say about Seattle's response to the police crisis. There's fault among the city council, the mayor, the media and unelected community leaders. It's an example of playing politics while fundamental problems fester.

The city council. Sally Clark, Tim Burgess and Bruce Harrell (who I challenged last year) publicly sent a letter to the mayor complaining that they've been left out of the city's response to the Justice Department. All three have talked about running for mayor next year. Burgess, a former cop who oversaw the police department while the acts of excessive force occurred, only outlined a package of reform ideas on the day he rotated out of that post in January. And Harrell, who replaced Burgess as head of the public safety committee, criticized the mayor's "top-down approach" after working with the council failed to get anywhere. During the campaign his main proposal was to put a body camera on each cop and he used frustration with police as a racial wedge. Harrell reportedly didn't attend the meeting with the DOJ, mayor and other councilmembers yesterday.

What it takes to transform a city

It's exciting to see construction cranes popping up across Seattle's skyline. But it will take more than a handful of building projects to transform the city and make it sustainable.

Projects such as housing in the parking lot of Seahawks/Sounders stadium and a new ferry terminal may make Seattle a "resilient city equipped to thrive in a challenging future," according to a local blog that I follow. Unfortunately most of the projects are on extremely long timelines and there's little political will to complete them to their potential.

I'm optimistic about Seattle because the city is growing and attracting new human and economic capital. But we need to think bigger and act with a sense of urgency in order to seize on the opportunity.