A Wasted Opportunity!

The United Nations Headquarters sent a formal message to Mali announcing a high-level visit of a President whose country is one of the main troop contributors to the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. The Head of Office convened a meeting to discuss the agenda items and the format. All senior staff were in attendance. A PowerPoint presentation with the challenges that the Mission was facing was retained as the only way to keep the President abreast of the situation on the ground and to inform him and his delegation of a way forward. The security situation in the northern province of Gao, Mali, was very alarming. The United Nations Peacekeeping Mission kept on losing its soldiers/peacekeepers almost every week due to asymmetric warfare and complex terrorist attacks mounted by jihadists. The President’s first-ever visit to the main theatres of military and humanitarian operations was a golden opportunity for the Mission to propose innovative solutions that could help the UN Forces to cope with the situation on the ground. A day before the high-level delegation arrived, all senior staff met again to review the content of the PowerPoint presentation that de facto committee has prepared. “A 45-slide presentation?” I exclaimed. “Those are too many,” I said and made it clear that such a high-level delegation does not have time to listen to details such as the number of civilian staff members the Mission employs, remind them about the mandate of the Mission which they already know. Also, many details contained in the slides could be said, but not written. From my experience, I have learned that at least 2 slides with catchy content e.g., highlighting ways of strengthening our military might could have been the core message,” I concluded. The Head of Office maintained his status and central position in the field of operations and okayed the 45-slide presentation to be used. “It’s an undeniable truth – if you want to stand out from the avalanche of content being produced every single day, you have to focus on quality. It’s one of the best ways to cement your authority within your niche, engage your audience with the topics that matter to them most.” The D-day in the conference room, the delegation looked forward with a constructive and open attitude to receiving key recommendations and follow-up proposals which would enable robust military responses and responses in other ways. Unfortunately, the Head of Office started reading the PowerPoint presentation with details that seemed to be a waste of time for the delegation. Just at the second slide, the President started consulting his iPhone maybe to read messages or simply to avoid listening to stuff he was not expecting. As the Head of Office started reading the third slide, the President stood, interrupted the session, and thanked the Head of Office and his staff. “Thank you for your welcome and our presence and it will be our pleasure to come back again,” he said. Then the delegation left for the airport. The one-hour visit was abruptly shortened to 15 minutes. A wasted opportunity for the Office! At the debriefing meeting, the Head of Office realized he had made a mistake and tried to minimize any impact on the wasted opportunity for the office. “Creating high-quality content is one of the most difficult aspects of a team, but creating the best content you possibly can has been proven time and again the best way to attract the most relevant audience” we all comprehended. Always strive to be the best you can be. You don’t need to chase after skyscraper content or 10X content, or whatever else the latest buzzwords tell you to do. You just have to create content that is better than your closest competitors. Put yourself in a searcher’s shoes. If your article was ranking #1, would that searcher be happy with how that content answers their question, solves their problem, and brings value and utility to their life? The secret to high-quality content is writing to your audience.