Brazilian way of doing communication

My inspiration for writing this latest blog post comes from the people I met and the insights I gained at the 2008 International Association of Business Communicators Conference, held in New York City from June 22 to 25. (Before writing more, I should point out that I don’t intend to offer a journalistic overview of the conference here – if it’s journalism you’re after, I suggest you head straight to the source: www.iabc.com.)

Curiously, inspiration for writing this post also comes from the song of a certain Englishman. Among the 1,700 business communication professionals who attended the IABC 2008 International Conference, only 20 were from Brazil, and of these, just one (me!) represented an agency. No wonder I felt – as Sting sang in his lovely “Englishman in New York” – like an alien… a Brazilian alien in New York.

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Além de muitas referências e alguns insights interessantes, captados na conferência internacional da IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) realizada em Nova York de 22 a 25 de junho, foi, curiosamente, a música de um inglês que me inspirou a escrever este artigo que, aliás, não tem nenhum propósito de fazer qualquer tipo de cobertura jornalística – quer saber o que aconteceu na conferência? Vá direto à fonte: www.iabc.com. O combustível criativo deste texto surgiu da constatação que, entre os parcos 20 brasileiros presentes entre os mais de 1.700 participantes, eu era o único representante de agência, o que me faz crer, como canta Sting na linda canção “Englishman in New York”, que eu realmente devia ser uma espécie de alien, um alien brasileiro perdido em Nova York.
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During my 20 years in business communication, I’ve heard my colleagues make the same complaint over and over again: too many companies think the communications department is irrelevant to their overarching business strategy.

This has become a virtual Wailing Wall among business communicators, and you’ll find all sorts of messages tucked inside: “when the time comes to cut costs, the communications department gets hit first”; “they (the board) don’t understand how important business communication really is”; “business communication is looked at as an expense, not as an investment”; “I have a hard time showing how business communication has affected business results”; and so forth.

The truth is, with each passing day, more and more businesses are investing in communication. On one hand, this is encouraging; while on the other, it is alarming. I say encouraging because this shows us that businesses have recognized they must communicate to survive; and I say alarming because, here in Brazil at least, this has brought about a process of “juniorization”.
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Here’s a true story: the other day I got an e-mail with the subject line “Please reply to this urgent message.” I’ve trained myself to delete SPAM, but curiosity got the better of me and I opened the e-mail to see what it had to offer.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that my company had received a Top Qualidade Brasil award. The author of the e-mail identified herself as Sabrina Mello, saying she worked for the ONEP events department. Sabrina offered details about the awards ceremony: where and when it would take place and the name of the master of ceremonies (a respected Brazilian TV journalist).

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Olhem só que coisa: outro dia, recebi uma mensagem com o assunto “favor retornar esse e-mail urgente”. Por mais que eu esteja treinado para evitar SPAM, é difícil ficar imune a esse tipo de abordagem. Por isso, resolvi conferir o que o e-mail trazia para mim.

Qual não foi minha surpresa ao descobrir que minha empresa havia sido laureada com o prêmio “Top Qualidade Brasil”. Assinado por uma pessoa que se identificava como Sabrina Mello, do departamento de eventos da ONEP, o e-mail trazia detalhes sobre o evento de premiação, como local, data e até informações sobre o mestre de cerimônias – um jornalista conceituado da televisão brasileira.
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Do you remember the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? Your mother or grandmother probably told it to you when you were growing up; or maybe you’ve shared it with your own son, daughter, nephew, or niece. This 19th-century story by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen is in fact more than a fairy tale; it’s a metaphor – in this case, a metaphor about vanity. In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” two swindlers pass themselves off as tailors and sell the Emperor a suit made from a special cloth they claim is invisible to anyone who is stupid. The Emperor can’t see the cloth, but for fear of appearing stupid he puts on the non-existent suit and goes on parade through the crowds. Only a small child has enough courage to cry out the truth: the Emperor is naked.

So what does this metaphor have to do with communication?
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Você se lembra da fábula “O Rei está Nu”? Provavelmente, sua mãe ou sua avó deve tê-la contado para você em sua infância ou você mesmo já fez isso com um filho ou sobrinho. O fato é que a história escrita no século XIX pelo dinamarquês Hans Christian Andersen é, como toda fábula que se preza, muito mais do que um conto infantil, uma metáfora – no caso, uma metáfora sobre a vaidade. Em “O Rei está Nu”, uma dupla de trapaceiros se faz passar por tecelões e vende para o rei uma roupa que seria feita com um tecido especial, só visível às pessoas inteligentes. Claro que não há roupa nenhuma e, quando o rei desfila pela multidão, apenas uma criança tem coragem de se levantar e dizer, em alto e bom som, que o rei estava nu.

O que esta história tem a ver com comunicação?
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A few days ago I wrote about Brazil’s shameful pirating market, highlighting music CDs and film DVDs. But obviously this knack for copying other people’s products isn’t exclusively Brazilian. After all, it weren’t for some degree of pirating, China wouldn’t be the powerhouse it is today.

Another field in which Brazil has become a master imitator is reality TV. Let me give you four examples of how this kind of program has been wholeheartedly embraced by the Brazilian public:
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According to a December 2007 report issued by Internet World Stats, 42.6 million Brazilians use the Internet. But since Brazil has a population of 190 million people, our Internet penetration rate is just 22.4%. Other South American countries fare better: Peru (25.5%), Uruguay (31.8%), Argentina (39.7%), and Chile (43.2%). Nevertheless, Brazil accounts for nearly half (46.3%) of the region’s Internet users.

While Brazil’s reliance on the Internet is substantial by South American standards, we rank poorly when compared to other countries around the world. The Global Information Technology Report 2007–2008 places us 59th on its Networked Readiness Index, which measures a country’s ability to take advantage of information and communications technology. This index considers factors such as regulations, infrastructure, and market conditions – while also evaluating readiness among individuals, businesses, and governments to make use of the Internet.
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Brazil is among the ten countries with the highest rates of music piracy. An estimated $20 billion in taxes goes uncollected each year because of piracy — and this problem also affects the sale of games, watches, perfumes, electronics, shoes, clothing, and even medicine.

Many try to justify this practice by arguing that these products are too expensive for most Brazilians. But though forgery in itself is a crime, what makes matters worse in Brazil is the indifference of our authorities — especially when we’re talking about intellectual property rights. This explains why during the 1970s and ‘80s many global pharmaceutical companies did not release their newest drugs in our country. We only started to recognize and respect pharmaceutical patents in the 1990s; but even today the Brazilian government will break a patent if it thinks a company is charging abusive prices. We saw this happen in 2007 with the anti-retroviral drug efavirenz, a component of the AIDS cocktail. Lula issued a “compulsory license” to the government, breaking a patent that belonged to Merck, Sharp & Dohme. This pharmaceutical company had been resisting pressures to lower its prices, and ended up losing everything in the bargain.
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