Archive for the 'Communications' Category

This post first appeared yesterday on the EuroComm Blog, where I am the lead blogger.

Not so long ago, when you organised a conference - especially an international one - it was a matter of course that you’d have a conference website to act as a portal for conference information, queries, accommodation and registration. Having a presence like that on the web has become a given. You don’t even question it.

Having a conference blog is a relatively new idea that’s probably only really taken hold during the last year to 18 months, with US conferences leading the way. Silvia Cambie and I spoke about “the conference website and blog” in one breath from the start as we talked about all the things we had to do to organise the EuroComm conference in Barcelona. We were comfortable with the idea of having a blog because we’re both bloggers.

Getting comfortable with an idea. It’s a key factor, I think, in whether or not a concept or a tool actually gets used by the wider world beyond the first adaptors. We just have to think back to the early 1990s, just 10-15 years ago, when businesses were trying to assess whether it was worth investing in word processors and computers. I remember joining a law firm in that time when the secretaries were still using electric typewriters and were stressing out whenever I asked them to make a change to the text of a document - because it meant pretty much typing the whole thing out again. Now, word processing is a necessity - and legal documents have unfortunately ballooned to hundreds of pages in some cases….

Back then, Tim Berners-Lee had only just invented the World Wide Web and hyperlinks so it would be another few years before businesses would get comfortable with the idea that a business website was a good thing to have. In 1995, the law firm I was working for did not have a website yet. In 1998, it seemed a daring thing for me as an individual to acquire my own URL domain name and have a website for my novels - only the biggest names in writing had websites back then. Now you can pick one up for under £10 a year and parents are even buying domain names for their children in the way that they would reserve a place for their kids at the best schools the moment the little darlings are born.

While talking to many business people and communications professionals, I’ve had a sense that there is still a residual uncertainty and even resistance to engaging in social media for business purposes. But overall, I am also seeing more and more businesses and enterprises start to use interactive online tools, even if it a small step like signing up to Facebook. My sense is that before long, the idea of social media will become more comfortable in people’s minds and it will become ubiquitous to have at least a blog alongside business websites - if nothing else, used as a way to add updates of company news.

What do you think? Do you think blogs will never work for some businesses? Or do you think that blogs are “so fifteen minutes ago”? Please add a comment and share your views.

Photo: thanks to ~aidan from flickr.com under Creative Commons Licence

Following on from my post about the preparations for the EuroComm Conference in Barcelona last month, I’m pleased to report that we have just launched the website and blog for the Conference.

The IABC EuroComm Conference in Barcelona will take place on 4-5 Feb 2008. The website is at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/.

The blog will feature articles and posts on the theme of Innovation through Communication, which is the theme of the conference. We would very much like to engage in discussions and shares view around this theme even before the conference starts so we hope that you’ll come along to visit the blog at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/blog/.

Guest-bloggers include business communicators who will be speaking at the conference - they will be sharing their personal views on the blog in advance of the conference. There is also a core team of bloggers, including IABC members Marc Wright of simply-communicate.com, the online communications magazine, Kevin Keohane of SAS, the branding agency and Yang-May Ooi of ZenGuide, the social media consultancy as well as web usability expert, Giles Colborne of cxpartners, the usability professionals.

We are also inviting business and communications professionals to submit articles around the theme of the conference, Innovation through Communication. You do not have to be a member of IABC and you do not need to be going to the conference to submit an article. We’d just like to hear your views if you have a story or opinion piece that is relevant to our theme. You can find out more through our Article Submission Guidelines

The programme for EuroComm Conference is available at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/programme.html

Registration for the Conference is now open - find out how to register at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/registration.php

For information about discounted accommodation during the Conference, go to http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/hotel.html

The dark side

“The online world can lead to isolation and anti-social behaviour. It’s all very well having all these virtual friends on social networks but they can’t give you virtual hugs. You need real people for that.”

“Facebook and social networks are dangerous because you can lose your privacy. I would never want to put my details on Facebook.”

“I don’t read blogs. They’re not relevant for businesses, are they?”

“What’s social media? I don’t like computers. It’s all much too modern for me.”

These are a some comments that came up recently in a number of conversations I’ve had over the last year with some business people, intellectuals and professionals. It seems there are many people who have not yet had the time or readiness to be introduced to the remarkable opportunities for human communication that is available through social media tools. One of them even said to me, “It’s so refreshing to come across someone who is so positive about social media for a change.”

I felt like I was the odd one out at these particular gatherings. For awhile now, many of my closest friends and colleagues are happy social media campers like me and I’ve met numerous business people and professionals who are engaged and curious about the possibilities of online communications. So it has been a surprise from time to time to have been the lone voice of enthusiasm. It got me thinking. Why am I so positive about social media?

The bright side

There used to be an ad for BT, British Telecoms, the phone company with the tagline “Reach out and touch someone”. In my mind, social media offers exactly that experience. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to such opportunities, having lived apart from my family since I was 12. All the way across the vast globe, my parents and family were home in Malaysia while I grew up during my years at school and university here in England. The only communication used to be letters that arrived a week after they were written or through echoey, expensive phone calls once every few weeks. It could be lonely, counting the days till the next holiday when I’d be able to see my Mum, wondering what my family was doing just at that moment, imagining them having dinner together in Malaysia eight hours ahead while I was in a Maths lesson.

So, how amazing it is now to be able to email a message within seconds, type out an instant message - well - instantly, speak with my family online free or for a few pence and even see the other person face-to-face online as you do so. How fantastic to make new friends through blogging about shared interests even though you may be on different continents. How incredible to be able to follow each moment of another’s life through Twitter or Facebook status updates.

Existential crisis

And I don’t think it’s just me trying to recover from childhood loneliness. The reason so many millions have engaged so intensely online is because of the very human urge to connect with others and to express ourselves.

Yes, there are people who isolate themselves in their rooms all day playing on the internet. In India, universities have become increasingly concerned about increased suicide rates which they link to too much time spent on social networks. In Japan, a young girl blogged about killing her mother and her public journals were only investigated after the mother died - and it was found that she did indeed kill her mother. For me, the question is what kind of society drives young people into isolation because they feel they can’t talk to real live people right there next to them so that they feel that they can only engage online? How are those live people right there next to them not engaging with them, not hearing them, not understanding them?

Facebook

Using blogging and Facebook, I keep in touch with my family and friends in Malaysia and all over the world. I have made new and interesting friends whom I have met subsequently in real life and who continue now to be real as well as virtual friends. OK, I can’t get a virtual hug but I can get a verbal one through their written, audio or video messages - which must surely be better than the silence of being offline and disconnected from this global neighbourhood. In my real life, I still have my friends and family in the flesh who give me the real hugs and I reckon a lot of bloggers and social networkers enjoy that, too. It just means that my friendships and relationships are no longer all bound by having to physically being in the same place with those others.

Yes, you can lose your privacy on Facebook. But only if you choose to upload your personal data like your date of birth, your mother’s maiden name, your social security number etc. No-one is forcing you to do that. And, yes, employers are now checking Facebook profiles before they hire and an inappropriate photo of you can affect your chances of getting the job. With Facebook, the key is to use it judicously and to look at the privacy options you can set. It is prudent to think of it as a public space rather than a private one. There are advantages if you navigate your way through such a public space wisely - for example, you can ask for introductions from friends to other friends - which is particularly useful in a business context, replacing the old-fashioned letter of introduction.

Beware FUD

Crime, suicide, isolation, murder and loss of personal privacy are important issues and I am not dismissing concerns about them. It’s just worth stepping back for some perspective and context - and for the other side of the story to be offered up. There are millions of blogs and millions of people engaging in social networks and online games. In most cases - ie in millions of cases - these experiences are positive and the new technology is helping people connect with each other. Traditional media like newspapers and broadcast media thrive on FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - no-one buys the paper to read that everything is fine and dandy. So newspapers etc will naturally pick out the doom and gloom stories. If you rely on the traditional media to tell you about social media, you’re only getting one side of the story.

Social media is here to stay and I think it’s a shame for those who choose not to engage out of FUD. They are losing out on ways to connect with friends, colleagues and family that can enrich their personal and business life. If you met your friends in a public place like a restaurant or on the street, you’d be sensible - you wouldn’t leave your handbag in an easily snatchable place, you wouldn’t give out your private details to a stranger walking by and so on. So it’s the same with social media - be sensible and you can get the best out of the time you spend online.

Photo: thanks to Ondra_L from flickr.com

Following up on my promise to list some great blogs for you to explore as a disprove the theory that “it’s all rubbish out there”, here are some intelligent blogs that make worthwhile reading:

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Marketing

http://marketing.corante.com/ - a hub for blogs on marketing by A-list marketing professionals.

http://bpr.typepad.com/a_view_from_abroad/ - An intelligent French view on marketing and social media: how much more French can you get than a blog post entitled Social networking causing personal existential crisis?

Business and Economics

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ - by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt, the co-authors of the book Freakonomics and part of the New York Times suite of blogs, this blog continues the book’s exploration of “the hidden side of everything”. Well-written (as you’d expect), topical as well as personal.

http://accountancymatters.accountancyage.com/ - Accountancy blog from Damian Wild, Editor-in-Chief of Accountancy Age magazine. I don’t read this one avidly I have to confess but the occasional dip into it reveals a mix of accountancy and business related commentary, personal opinion and newsletter style notices about the magazine.

http://nakedlaw.typepad.com/naked_law/ - UK technology law laid bare by Cambridge lawyers. Informative and clear discussions on topical issues on their area of expertise, including posts on Facebook, Skype and copyright as well as more specialist tech topics.

http://www.businessethics.ca/blog/ - A blog about business ethics. Well-written and intelligent, with blog posts like “Evolutionary Psychology and Corporate Philanthropy” - so much to chew on.

Brain Candy

http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main - the blog from the Encyclopaedia Britannica has the tagline “Where Ideas Matter”. Their mission statement is to be “a place for smart, lively conversations about a broad range of topics.” Their categories include Culture, Science, International Affairs, Movies and Humor. High quality discussion and writing.

http://anthropology.net/ - using blog technology to create “a cohesive online community of individuals interested in anthropology” with great tagline: “Beyond bones and stones”. Fascinating articles at expert level on anthropology including discussions of human genetics, neanderthals and using algorithms to trace human ancestry - all still readable and understandable by a lay person.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/ - the blog of the British Psychological Society brings news and commentary on latest research in that field, complementing their subscription only magazine.

Pic: thanks to Peter Gene on flickr.com

The IABC UK SpeedExperience session last Tuesday evening offered up five round table discussions to members and their guests, including Change Management, Brand Engagement and Social Media. Each discussion lasted 20 minutes and then everyone got a chance to swap groups and go to 2 other discussions of 20 minutes each.

I was invited to host the Social Media discussion, “To Blog or Not To Blog?” and we had three very meaty and engaging discussions. The visitors to my group brought up a range of key issues that I think is worth discussing more widely here as the issues are relevant to both businesses and communicators. So, in no particular order, here’s what came up:

# Many comments boiled down to: corporates and big business find the word “blog” very unnerving. It conjures up images of unsavoury types that “we shouldn’t be associated with” and it’s all self-indulgent personal outpourings of no interest to anyone but the author. I offered a counter view that blogging technology is just a tool that enables you to have an easily updatable online site that you can use as a communication tool. If calling it a blog doesn’t help, you can call it an online magazine, journal, resource, discussion space etc. For a more detailed discussion of this, see my post A Blog by Any Other Name

# “There aren’t any good blogs out there. What value can our organisation gain by having a blog?” . I agree that there’s a lot of rubbish out there - out of millions of blogs, it’s unlikely that all of them are great! Equally, it’s unlikely that ALL of them are rubbish. If your company has a blog, its value lies in what you make of it, how you use it, who you use it to engage with. There are leading thinkers, public figures and business people who blog. There are also those who are experts in their field but who may not be famous who blog to share knowledge and engage in discussion. I’ll be posting links to some great blogs in the next few days - and maybe you’ll be inspired!

# “There’s nothing worse than a blog that’s not been updated for ages - people who blog for their business need to commit the time and energy to maintaining its output.” I wholeheartedly agree. There are ways to manage that commitment - it’s better to write something once a week regulary than over-commit and give up after a few days. If you are going to update just once a week, then say so clearly on the blog and keep to that commitment eg “I will blog every Wednesday”

# “Who is going to read our CEO’s blog? What’s he going to say that’s going to be of interest?” My view is that a commitment to your blog is a commitment to your readers. If your readers are you customers, then it is a direct commitment from the CEO to your customers. If your are thinking of an intranet blog and your readers are the staff, then it is a direct commitment from the CEO to your staff. How valuable is that to the company? Start with identifying you want to engage with and the what will come. Put yourself in your readers shoes and ask yourself what do they want to hear about.

# “My CEO wants a blog but doesn’t have time and wants someone to write it for him. I don’t think ghostblogging works. And it’s not authentic.” I agree. If the CEO is not committed to real communication and merely delegates someone to write something for him/her in his/her name - as if this was just like speechwriting, it’s going to be a failure. However, I believe there is a model where you can facilitate a CEO whose strength may not be in words or storytelling to convey his opinions and vision effectively on a blog. It takes a lot more time and work than the speechwriting model and it’s important to be upfront about the facilitation involved. But it means that someone who may not have the gift of the gab but who has a worthwhile message to convey can participate in this medium.

# “We send out an email every couple of weeks to staff internally. The directors want a blog but we did a survey and the staff want the email and don’t want a blog.” If an email model works, there may be no need to change it. However, bear in mind that emails can get lost under “the crease” after a day or so. It’s also difficult to remember they are there and unread or find them again if you want to refer back to something. You could set up a blog fairly cheaply where the same email message is made into a blog post, with the RSS feed set to deliver email notifications to staff when the blog is updated every couple of weeks. The advantage is that all messages will then be one central, searchable, archivable place. Different departments could post to the same space with categories like “HR”, “Marketing”, “IT” etc, each using different feeds to send out the email to different recipients. This would also be a way to preserve the company’s memory/ knowledge.

Also, be aware that if you ask people if they want something they already have or something they don’t know much about, they will invariably choose the thing they know. If the directors are keen to have a blog, it may be an idea to trial it for a few months and then gauge the feedback. To ensure maximum return on the trial, you’d need to make sure you have a proper business case and project management structure in place - and get advice from someone who knows how to run a blog from a communications perspective, not your tech guy.

# “I’m starting out building my freelance business. Can a blog help me?” Most definitely. It can help you showcase your expertise and engage in discussions about the hot topics in your field without relying on begging the traditional media to publish your article or interview you. Traditional media is still important but having a direct way to communicate with your clients and potential clients has a lot of value. It’s also a great way to network globally and let’s face it, networking is a very important way to get new business and keep existing relationships going.

Getting proper social media advice

My final impression is that some companies and businesses seem to be interested and excited about engaging in social media but they are being advised by communicators who do not know enough to give them all the rounded advice they need - and communicators are keen to find out more about what’s out there. Some who are looking to engage online don’t read blogs and don’t blog themselves - you need to start reading blogs at the very least if you want to take your first steps in social media. If you’re not sure where to start, you can try my Beginner’s Guide.

Whether you are a business or a communicator advising a business considering engaging in social media, you need to know what the technology can do but you don’t necessarily need an IT/ tech expert. In fact, I would go so far as to say your online communications policy should not be led by your IT department. You need someone who understands communications and how to take advantage of social media online to best engage with your customers, staff or other stakeholders. Social media is not going to replace traditional communications but will complement it and is definitely here to stay - so you need a rounded communications team with both advisors who understand the real world media and those who specialise in online media.

Pic: thanks to estudioquimbaya from flickr.com

spdex

I’ve been invited to chair one of the discussion round tables at this event organised by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), UK later today.

Here is the blurb:

“Have you ever asked yourself:

# Is it really possible to manage change?

# Can our employees also be our brand ambassadors?

# To blog — or not to blog?

#Engagement — just the latest word for motivation/ commitment/loyalty?

#Can internal and external communication ever be aligned?

# Where can communication help in a crisis?

Come along to Speedexperience—Share the Knowledge to discuss these and other issues with experienced practitioners…

The date: Tuesday 9th October
The time: 5.45

The format: welcome drink, speed experience table discussions start 6.30 and end 7.45 with the opportunity to continue the discussions/informally and network over a glass of wine and nibbles.

The place: The Churchill Room (HMRC Parliament Street in Whitehall). From its historic balcony Sir Winston waved at the cheering crowds at the end of World War 2

The cost: £20

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How to book: http://iabcexperiencenetworking.eventbrite.com”

It may be a bit late to book online but if you are keen to come, contact Susan Walker via email: commevaluation[at]hotmail.com

Photo: thanks to wikipedia.org

spdex

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is organising a regional conference for its European and Middle Eastern communicators with La Salle University in Barcelona on 4th and 5th February 2008. The theme is Innovation through Communication.

I recently joined IABC and I’m delighted to be part of the organising board for the EuroComm conference in Barcelona with the responsibility of implementing and running the conference blog. The website and blog are being developed by La Salle’s inhouse team and I spoke with their key conference organiser Alejandro Beya and web developer Carlos Ramil last week about infrastructure and design elements. They’ll be using Wordpress and I’m very excited to see what they are going to create.

The website and blog will be launching during October. I am pulling together our core blogging team and we are also inviting guest bloggers to contribute posts around the themes of innovation and communication. For example, we have invited the speakers to blog about the topics that they will be speaking on at the conference - from a more personal point of view than they might perhaps be able to offer in a conference room with scores of people, powerpoint slides and miked up to the sound system.

So far, the line-up of bloggers looks something like this:

Blogging Team/ Blog Management

Yang-May Ooi, communications & social media consultant, ZenGuide (UK)
Angie Macdonald, web writer & blog management specialist, ZenGuide (UK)
Marc Wright, internal communications expert, simply-communicate.com (UK)
Giles Colbourne, web usability expert, cxpartners (UK)
Kevin Keohane, brands expert, SAS (UK)

Guest Bloggers

Silvia Cambie, business communications expert, Chanda Communications and President, EuroComm Organising Board (UK)
Andrew Riley, assurance reporting and communications specialist, Harrison Riley and President, IABC UK (UK)
Ulrich Gartner, Vice-President of Communications Europe, AB Electrolux (Sweden)
Ian Anderson, Head of the Communication and Information Unit, European Commission (Belgium)
Martin Crocker, Marketing Communications Manager, Gemalto (France)
Rauf Hameed, Communication and Environment Manager, Tetra Pak Arabia (Saudi Arabia)
Ulrike Bleistein, Head of Pharma Informatics Communications, Hoffman La Roche (Switzerland)
Velin Velkov, President of IABC Europe and Middle East Region (Bulgaria)

We are still in the preparation stage so the list is likely to change and evolve. I’ll be blogging more about that and all the other news about the conference on the EuroComm Blog once that is up and running. For now, I just wanted to share this heads-up with you here while we’re waiting for the main site to go live.

Photo: thanks to danntara from flickr.com

I’ve been researching the history of the internet and the world wide web as part of an introductory chapter on the relevance of the cyberworld to international public relations and communication. These days, we use the internet everyday to browse websites and communicate with each other that it is almost unremarkable. So, it’s been almost Zen-like to stop a moment and contemplate the amazing revolution that quietly took place in the 1980s and 1990s through the work of scientists and researchers who were then unknown to the wider world, building applications for their own use.

It all begins with defence and the military back in the 1950s and 1960s during the Cold War. The Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957 and the space race began. America saw the need for a nationwide network of communications as part of gaining the technological advantage. Over the next twenty years, computer-based communications networks were developed across university faculties and research facilities, connecting first universities in America and then including those in Europe.

Larry G. Roberts, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf and Radia Perlman are some of the scientists who developed the networks, protocols and algorithms on which development of the internet was founded. They paved the way for the interconnected infrastructure of computers and cables that we now refer to as the internet.

It was only in 1990 that the first website appeared, building on all the technology and research that had gone before. Tim Berners Lee and Robert Cailliau, scientists working at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), developed hypertext in 1989, the links system that allows us to click on text on a webpage and be immediately taken to another webpage - and that we all now take for granted .

Tim Berners Lee is also credited with inventing the HTML mark-up language and the HTTP protocol that are the building blocks of dynamic webpages. At their very simplest:

HTML is the code that gives the instructions for the creation of a page eg. for the layout and functions. For example, to make text bold, you preface it with an instruction in brackets “< bold >” and end it with “< / bold>“. To make a link, you preface the link with “< a href= [insert the site you want to link to]>” and then close it off again with “.

The HTTP protocol gives us the address of the webpage - take a look at the address of this and any webpage and you will see it begins with “http://”.

Taking hypertext, HTML and HTTP together, the world’s first website was put up in 1991 and you can still see it today at http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
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It explains what the WorldWideWeb is - initially the phrase was conceived without spaces and referred to as W3 for short - and in a bold statement set out the founding ethics of the web: “The project is based on the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone”. That core statement still resonates today in many of the debates about how websites, social media, information and creative products are used, shared and accessed online - all of which I will be exploring in more depth later as part of the book.

For now, let’s think back to 1991 and what we were doing back and how we were working while Berners-Lee and Cailliau were creating what seemed to be some fairly unremarkable few pages of text. I remember writing short stories on my Amstrad at home and watching as they installed computers running DOS at work so that the secretaries could learn how to word-process using WordPerfect. For communications, we relied on telephones, post and couriers. Faxes were fairly new-fangled and my friends laughed at me when I bought a fax for personal use. They also shied away from leaving voice messages when I bought an answer-machine with one large sized cassette tape for my outgoing message and another for incoming messages. Businesses sent out print brochures and hard copy mail or bought advertising space on print or broadcast media or billboards.

Within 10 years all our lives would be changed forever.

Photo: of Tim Berners-Lee thanks to hwsw.hu

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This post is part of my research project for the book New Trends in International Public Relations that I am co-authoring with business communications expert, Silvia Cambie. I am focusing on the social media aspects while she is working on the wider public relations issues.

You can find all my posts relating to this book project by clicking on the link in the sidebar New Trends in International PR under ZenGuide Projects.

If you have any comments or thoughts on any of the issues I’ve discussed in my posts, please do add a comment or email me. In particular, if you have any additional information or expertise that could add to the book, I would love to hear from you. Also, if you think that there are errors or inaccuracies in what I’ve said, I’d like to learn from you. I’ll credit you, of course, if your contribution is used directly in the book - you can check out my ongoing list of acknowledgements online. Please note that all contributions in respect of the book are subject to the terms set out in contributors release notice.

This is a cross-post from my writing and cross-culture blog, Fusion View

We see news items about politics and military operations in Iraq almost daily but sometimes, it can all seem very far removed from our daily lives.

The Alive in Baghdad project shows the ordinary lives of Iraqis affected by the conflict there. Their mission statement says:

“Alive in Baghdad is empowering Iraqis to share their stories with the world, and provides a place of education and interaction for global citizens interested in the real life political, military, economic and social situation in Iraq.”

This video features child artist, Sameer Muhammad and is father, Muhammad Rubaie, who are now refugees living in Damascus. “They, like many Iraqis, have been forced to flee their country and taken refugee in Syria. They talk about their lives as artists, and how they are continuing their work despite the circumstances.”

You can support this important project by donating via PayPal - go to their site at www.aliveinbaghdad.org to find out more.

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This is a powerful example of the use of social media to spread a message. These stories and narratives would not be so easily available a few years ago before YouTube and user-generated technology, when we were all more dependent on conventional news media as conduits for telling our stories.

This project is going to form part of my research for the book that I am co-authoring on New Trends in International Public Relations.

If you know of any other similar projects where people have come together to share their stories in this way through social media, please email me or leave a comment. I’ll credit you, of course, if your contribution is used directly in the book - you can check out my ongoing list of acknowledgements online.

Laurence van der Posts book “The Bushmen of the Kalahari” instilled in me an awe for the skills of the bushmen trackers in the eternally magnificent African landscape. Now in the 21st generation, their ancient skill that has been passed down through generations is being enhanced by PDAs - personal digital assistants. According to the International Trade Forum:

The high-tech wildlife trackers have been used against poachers, in ecotourism, environmental education, research and monitoring. The free software that links up traditional knowledge to electronic data mapping has been applied around the world to social surveys, organic farming, integrated pest management and disaster relief.

I love this photo that shows how comfortably the uber-modern sits with the traditional.