Up and Down (3 page)

“Let me walk you through pretty well all the information we have on this opportunity and you can all hang on to your questions till I’m done, if you don’t mind. Okay. Because of a contact of mine on the inside, we’re one of three multinational agencies invited to pitch for a nice little project … with
NASA
. Yep,
the
NASA
. So rule number one is that none of us ever, ever, cracks a joke that includes the line ‘
Well, it’s not rocket science
.’ At
NASA
, everything is rocket science and they take it very seriously. Here’s the deal in a nutshell. To try to tackle our mountain of debt, this Republican Congress, bless their hearts, is threatening to turn off the funding tap to
NASA
, and to many other outdated and unnecessary agencies. And do you know why they feel comfortable telling
NASA
where they can put their precious space station?”

Nobody said a word, which was just fine with Blake because he seemed to like owning the floor.

“I’ll tell you why. The public no longer cares about space exploration.
NASA
has been polling for more than fifty years. Back in the early sixties, when we were racing the Russians to orbit and then to the moon, the average American was obsessed with space travel. Nobody went to work when there was a launch. We were
glued to our radios and
TVS
. I’m just barely old enough to have hazy memories of the late Apollo lunar missions and I can tell you, this country was moon crazy. Our family would gather around the
TV
in the rec room and watch for hours on end. With that kind of public support, Congress kept sending bigger and bigger cheques to
NASA
and felt good doing it.”

Blake paused to catch his breath, but only for a moment.

“Well, my friends, times have changed. Citizens no longer care. A
Simpsons
rerun now draws a larger
TV
audience than a shuttle launch. In fact, one of the key tracking questions
NASA
has been asking Americans since the start of the shuttle program in the early eighties is whether you’d rather watch the launch of the shuttle on
TV
or go out for lunch. The lunch option wasn’t even on the landscape until the mid-nineties. But it’s definitely on the scene now. In the latest tracking study, for the first time in over thirty years, the majority of survey respondents would rather go out for lunch than watch a shuttle launch. I kid you not. That single finding has pushed
NASA
off the deep end. Hence their call to us.”

“Crawford, Diane here again. Can I just ask whether the public opinion trends are the same here in Canada?”

“Good question, Diane.
NASA
didn’t care much about Canada until you all built that funky mechanical arm for the shuttle. So the polling sample has only covered Canada for the last decade or so and your numbers have also been steadily decreasing, but they’re not on as steep a decline as here in
U.S
. of
A
. That’s one
of the reasons
NASA
wants this to be a continental program. So here’s the challenge, put as simply as I can. We need a big-ass
PR
program to rekindle the public’s passion for space flight. We’ve got to arrest the free fall in our citizens’ interest in, and support for,
NASA
and the important work it does on behalf of all Americans … and you all freezing up there in Canada, too. And we’ll make a pile of dough while we’re doing it.”

This guy and his ignorant cracks about my fair country were starting to get on my nerves.

“I’m just about done, but we don’t know which other two agencies we’re up against, nor do we have any sense of budget for the program, but
NASA
has their ass stuck between a rock and a very hard place. So I say we go big but not too off the wall. This is still a stodgy group. We’ve got about two weeks to pull this off. We’re pitching
NASA
here in Washington on the twenty-third and they want a joint American–Canadian team. Okay, I’ll shut up now and throw it open for initial ideas.”

I’d been watching Amanda for much of Blake’s briefing. She was not hard to look at, quite the opposite in fact, and I was intrigued by Diane’s description of her as a very dedicated employee who was consumed, perhaps even defined, by her job. She looked like she was dying to say something, anything, just to get into the mix. There was a brief lull after the boss had stopped talking. Cue Amanda.

“Um, it’s Amanda Burke here in Toronto. Knowing only that
NASA
was the potential client, my team has gathered and analyzed
the last three years of
NASA
media coverage here in Canada, including mentions of the shuttle program and the International Space Station. The amount, tone, and placement of the coverage are heading very much in the wrong direction. Even in the social media space, ahhh … no pun intended,
NASA
is not a big topic of conversation. I think we need a more creative, more robust, and more sustained media relations effort to reanimate the public’s interest.”

She actually had quite a lovely voice.

Her comment triggered a full discussion about what might be done to generate more media coverage. Ideas came thick and fast, including astronaut media tours, more
IMAX
space movies, weekly news releases, allowing reporters to follow rookie astronauts through their training, even building a mock-up of the space station and touring it across the continent. True to Diane’s suggestion, I just listened, but I was not particularly impressed with what I was hearing. It all sounded to me like a bunch of tactics in search of a strategy. I turned my mind to what I thought was really being asked of us. But the unexpected sound of my own name brought me back to the discussion.

“It’s Diane again here in
TO
. Sitting very quietly here in our boardroom this afternoon is the newest member of the
TK
Toronto team, David Stewart. This is David’s first day – he has just joined us fresh from the political staff of the Minister of State for Science and Technology, where he handled media liaison and the government’s relationship with the Canadian Space Agency. Even
though I suggested he just listen today, I’m going to put him on the spot.”

Great, just great. There was a sudden drought in my mouth. Here I am, minding my own business, trying to get the lay of the land in this strange new world, and all of a sudden, Diane decides to toss me my first anchor. With nowhere to hide, I shuffled my chair up to the board table as a condemned man might climb the scaffold stairs.

“David, you’ve been listening to the ideas fly back and forth, but you’ve kept your own counsel so far,” Diane commented. “Given your experience and expertise, are we on track?”

All eyes in the room and all ears on the speaker phone turned to me. What to do, what to do. My heart rate soared. I’ve often heard that in moments of high stress, everything slows down, the fog clears, and the perfect response comes into sharp focus. Yes, I’ve often heard this – I’ve just never actually experienced it. I knew what I had to do. It was obvious. The path of least resistance was simply to leap on board, ingratiate myself with my new colleagues, build a bridge to Amanda, and support the heavy media relations play being proposed. Yep, all aboard the bandwagon.

“Are we on track? Well, we’re on
a track
, I just don’t really think it’s the right track” were the words I heard coming out of my mouth.

Bandwagons were usually easier to board. I had somehow missed the big fat open door and managed instead to throw
myself under the back wheels. By the looks I was getting in the room, no one would be helping me back to my feet.

“What do you mean we’re not on the right track?” snapped Amanda. “We’ve just kicked around dozens of great story ideas here. The media will be lapping it up.”

Now that I was out on the limb, it was time to reinforce my branch and hook up a safety line.

“I have no doubt that we could generate a giant stack-o-coverage, but
NASA
is asking us to re-engage the public, not manufacture news clippings,” I explained, not yet knowing exactly where I was headed, other than being ostracized, isolated, and perhaps even unemployed. “More articles and news items will not re-animate the average citizen’s fascination with space exploration.”

“Okay, new guy, what will?” Amanda threw down the gauntlet.

At that point, I had nothing to lose.

“Well, if we want the public to care about space, we’ve got to put the public in space, literally. So we run a contest to send a citizen up to the space station where they won’t just be
PR
ballast but will actually have a role in the mission,” I said, my words only a hair behind my thoughts.

“We promote it heavily through the social media platforms and use some of the good ideas already discussed to drive some media coverage. But the storyline is about the possibility that you or your next-door neighbour might be heading into orbit. Another
shuttle mission to the International Space Station is no longer news. But put a plumber from Edmonton or a nurse from Montreal on board and then you’ve got a big story, real news.”

I decided to quit while I was behind and shut up.

“
NASA
will never go for that,” Amanda interjected. “There’s no way we can …”

“Whoa, whoa, Amanda,” Crawford Blake leapt in. “This is a brainer, honey, so our standard rules apply. There is no ‘bad idea’ in a brainstorm. We want the team to get creative, so go easy on –” I heard someone on the line prompt him with my name. “– David. It’s his first day, after all.”

Amanda’s face flushed.

“Of course, Crawford. I was just mindful of our time and the need to move us forward,” she explained. She looked at me as she said it and nodded. I gave her my best “No worries” look while she responded with a very convincing “Thanks, jerk” expression.

The brainer continued with other ideas advanced and discussed, most of them back in the realm of traditional media relations. I eased myself away from the table and returned to quiet mode. After another thirty minutes or so, the flow of ideas had dwindled to a trickle, so Diane took the reins.

“Crawford, I think we’ve got some good stuff to work with here. I assume we’ll handle blowing out a Canadian approach here and your team will do the same for the U.S. market there. Then we’ll bring them together.”

“My thoughts exactly, Diane,” he agreed. “But let’s stick to what we do best, driving earned media coverage. In my experience, the
NASA
guys are very conservative and easily spooked.”

Amanda caught my eye again, this time with what looked like “nannannabooboo” plastered all over her face.

“Just one more thought from north of the border,” Diane added. “I’d like David Stewart to flesh out his contest idea a little more and throw together a few slides. Then next week at our status meeting he can walk us through it before we decide on what to include in the final deck.”

“Up to you, Diane.”

Ten minutes later I was back at my desk in my very own cubicle when Amanda Burke arrived like an Exocet missile, only more explosive. In the classic power play, she placed her hands on my desk and leaned down from above before unleashing her tirade. She was no longer using her “lovely voice.” Rather, she spoke in a crazed whisper that carried only four cubicles away in every direction.

“Thank you for shitting on my plan from a very great altitude!” she hissed. “Don’t you ever do that again in a boardroom packed with people, let alone with Blake and Diane right there, too. You made me look stupid and I’m running this program, not you. You come here with your vaunted political experience and think you’re something special. Well, I couldn’t care less if you
were actually the minister and not just his lowly media lackey.
NASA
is my ticket so you’ll have to earn your way onto the team. And after today, you’re beginning the race well behind the starting line.”

“Her” was all I said.

“What?” she snapped.

“You said ‘his lowly media lackey’ but I was ‘her lowly media lackey.’ Our Minister of State for Science and Tech is a woman.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m sorry about what I said. Diane threw me under the bus. I wasn’t expecting to be called upon and when I was, all I had was my gut reaction. I had no time to shape it or frame it in a way that didn’t appear to, as you so elegantly put it, ‘shit on your plan from a very great altitude,’ ” I explained. “But even though I regret what came out of my mouth in the heat of the moment, it is what I believe. I know your approach will net us the coverage, but unless there’s a new and bigger story angle in the play, I don’t think we’re going to move the needle. I’m very sorry my view emerged in the way it did. But it is what it is.”

I spoke quietly, trying to lower the temperature in the room, and smiled once or twice for good measure. To my surprise, Amanda collapsed into the tiny guest chair in front of my desk, which meant it was partly outside my partitioned space. She closed her eyes and rocked slowly.