Reputation feed

Engage-a-mania

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:03:32 -0800

I always wonder how some words become the term du jour. Lately I have been running across “engagement” everywhere. I think that this word has become as popular in business circles as “innovation.” They might even be rivals. There are good reasons for this occurrence. Social media has pushed many of us to recognize that the best communications practices are about two way conversations or engaging your customers or employees. Talking at an audience just does not work (not that it ever did). To see if I was right about the ubiquitous “engagement,” we did a quick Factiva search of how often “engagement” appeared in all media over the past three plus years. I was not far off track. A 72% increase from 2006 to present day is big.

Of course, engagement leading to a wedding plays a major role in “engagement” mentions but I think that businesses’ affection for the word (vs. the bride and groom) is driving its increase.

Engagement Mentions in All Media

2006——————>113,898

2007—————–>135,403

2008—————–>148,700

2009 to present—->157,864

Source: Factiva, Weber Shandwick

The History Channel is finally delivering on its original brand promise

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:33:50 -0800

Like its siblings in the Discovery Channel programming stable, The History Channel has badly lost its way of late. Rather than broadcasting historical programs that subject matter buffs like me covet, the network has focused instead on such garbage as the travails of Alaska ice truckers and tabloid shows on Nostradamus and his ersatz predictions.

Lately, though, The History Channel has been delivering on its original brand promise: historical programming that provides a unique perspective on the past. Its new series, 'WWII in HD' is world class. It combines the best elements of a Ken Burns PBS documentary with a color version of the legendary 'Victory at sea' to provide an amazing, new look at 'the greatest generation' and its incredible victory against the Axis Forces.

The History Channel has lined up a number of actors (i.e. Rob Lowe) to provide the voiceover narration of real life, if little-known, WWII heroes.

It's absolutely mesmerizing, has stopped me in my usual viewing tracks and led me to hope and pray that the cable network has abandoned its current, mediocre fare and committed itself, instead, to provide higher quality content.

I'm not sure why Discovery, TLC and The History Channel lost their respective mojos but, knowing business as well as I do, I have to believe it was conceived by some hotshot programming whiz kid. I'll bet the kid failed and has been replaced by a new executive who has been charged with righting the badly listing ship.

So, here's a note to The History Channel's new programming honcho: whoever who you are, and whatever you're doing, keep it coming. I adored the 'original' History Channel, dropped you when you lost your way and am now prepared to give you a great, big, welcome back, man hug.

Friday ORM Links 2009-11-20

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:32:00 -0800

Friday ORM Links 2009-11-13 http://bit.ly/49RP0s #
What Are Your Biggest Reputation Management Questions? http://bit.ly/1VPUoF #

We're just finding different ways to not be successful

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:01:48 -0800

We all have our crosses to bear in this life. For me, it's rooting for the Mets and Jets. Each season, each team finds new and different ways to disappoint.

The Mets staged the single greatest collapse in Major League Baseball history three years ago. They followed that up with another, less dramatic, but equally devastating collapse two seasons ago and never bothered showing up to play in 2009.

The Jets haven't won anything since 1969 and, in their own unique way, are even more challenging to follow than the Mets.

This year's squad not only started off with three straight wins, but brought an attitude of brashness and trash talking worthy of a certain best-selling, erstwhile governor of Alaska. Sure enough, though, the team has imploded midway through the season.

The ways in which the Jets lose can be as riveting as the best plot twists in a Colin Dexter 'Inspector Morse' murder mystery. One never knows how they will hand away a game to a lesser opponent. One week, they dominate both sides of the scrimmage line, only to be betrayed by their special teams. This past Sunday, the usually reliable, in-your-face defense completely collapsed in the last seconds of a loss to the Jaguars.

You know things are bad when the head coach, Rex Ryan, admits he '....would make a lot of calls' to friends and mentors in the game asking for advice because he did not have answers. That's comforting. The new head coach has no idea why his team is imploding. He says the situation is 'a comedy of errors, but it's not funny.' Amen to that. Jets fans haven't been laughing about anything since a certain Joe Willie Namath pulled off the impossible dream on January 12, 1969.

So, what's worse? A Mets manager (Willie Randolph) who shrugs his shoulders and says, 'Hey, if it's not your life and it's not your wife, how important can it be?' Or a Jets coach (Ryan) who shakes his head and laments, 'We're just finding different ways to not be successful.'

What Are Your Biggest Reputation Management Questions?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:31:19 -0800

Hey guys and gals. It’s been a while since I’ve actively written on this site. Life is busy with parenting and working full-time for a local interactive agency in Plano.

If you have any questions you haven’t found answers to regarding Online Reputation Management, shoot me your question via comment below or on my Contact Form.

I’m evaluating all of my blogs right now (and believe me, there are plenty), deciding which to devote time to and which to not. Reputation Advisor was ahead of its time, and I chose to focus more on the work than talking about the work. Assuming I can achieve more balance between work and play, I’d like to pick this site back up again and exceed its former glory.

It all starts with you. If you are here and you have questions, let me know. I’ll answer each one, guaranteed.

Newspapers vs. ‘Newspapers’

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:58:48 -0800

Guest Post by Carl Foster, Peppercom UK

"Good morning, Trinity Mirror news desk"

"Hi, I'm calling from Trinity Mirror PR to follow up on the press release I sent you about our new widget"

"Oh, right. When did you send it?"

"Just a little while ago"

"And you're calling from where?"

"Trinity Mirror PR. We sit on the other side of the office from you. Look, I'm standing up and waving - yoo hoo!"

"Oh yes, hi. Can you send it to me again? Or better yet, just tell me where it's saved on the server and I'll copy and paste it from there."

That worrying scenario could play out at a newspaper near you if the suggestion of Neil Benson, editorial director at Trinity Mirror in the UK, comes true. The idea that struggling newspapers should set up PR agencies as an additional source of revenue has set tongues wagging in PR circles, but the notion should be of concern far beyond our little fiefdom.

Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures. We're certainly at the stage where no idea is a bad idea when it comes to saving the newspaper industry from further closures. However, if newspapers were to set up PR agencies, even if they were to operate at arm's length, their very credibility and trustworthiness would be called into question. If the model did prove financially successful it would not save the newspaper; it would simply mean it was replaced with a 'newspaper'.

The newspaper vs. 'newspaper' concept is not new. An Evening Standard column from earlier this year highlights the rise of councils in London producing their own pseudo-newspapers. According to the Standard, more writers in London are now employed by these official papers than by the local independent press. Who is paying for this? The Standard says one of these pseudo-newspapers, the Greenwich Time, has a total gross cost of £708,000 a year, with at least £532,000 of that borne by the public purse.

Apparently Andy Burnham, the then media secretary Andy Burnham said that council newspapers were "overstepping" the mark. But this is too vague. In the U.K. we need an U.S. FCC style proposal that requires transparency for "endorsements and testimonials" by people with "material connections" to sellers of a product or service.

Would a PR agency linked to a newspaper group have a "material connection"? One for the lawyers I think.

So if the credibility of some newspapers is in decline because of the source of their revenue, and the very existence of other newspapers is threatened by a collapse in revenue, where does that leave the citizens in our democracy that need varied but credible sources of news? Well, the ad-supported, free online (and sometimes offline) model doesn't seem to be working - even if the Evening Standard has put all its eggs in that one basket. At the other end of the spectrum we have Rupert Murdoch, who will be putting all News Corp. content behind subscription walls soon, and also possibly block Google from searching its pages.

Another suggestion, put forward by Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, is a state-funded (not state-owned) media. This seems to be one of the few ways to guarantee that the media has the resources to provide credible and thorough news coverage. Dyke puts forward the suggestion in a debate on Al-Jazeera’s Empire programme, which is well worth watching. However, the question of how this funding would filter down from the giants of the BBC and France24 to local newspapers is a tricky to answer.

So, in the spirit of no idea being a bad idea, how do you suggest the newspaper industry save itself from collapse?

A Crisis Simulation Checklist

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:59:00 -0800

Got a random call the other day from a Powerlines reader who asked me how I would critique a Crisis simulation exercise. Here is an extract of my partial response: I try and always facilitate a process with the group after a simulation to process the learning experience after a simulated crisis. This involves each person [...]

Totes>Isotoner Sets High Standards for Customer Service

Elliot Schreiber — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:28:00 -0800

It is not often these days that one is totally shocked by a display of high customer service. I purchased a Totes (they use totes, lower case) umbrella last spring. It is guaranteed for life. At some point recently, one of the spokes of the umbrella broke. I followed the instructions I found on line to not take it back to a store, but rather to send it back to the company with $5.00 for return postage. A new or repaired item would then be sent.

Much to my amazement, I received a letter yesterday from one Helen Baur, Consumer Affairs, totes>isotoner. The letter indicated that "under your circumstances, we would certainly not expect you to pay this fee, having had the umbrella for such a short period of time". My $5.00 was enclosed.

Now, I should note that I did not have a receipt for the original purchase, so Totes was simply assuming from the model of my umbrella that I had purchased it recently.

I teach in a business school and we are always talking about customer service, or lack of it, and the return on investment that it brings or looses. totes>isotoner has gone beyond what I would have expected. I am absolutely impressed with their high consumer standards. They deserve my praise and my customer loyalty. I thought I would pass this on to others in hopes that my story will both inspire other companies to adopt similar standards, and for others in the market for umbrellas, gloves and other items by totes>isotoner, to consider totes>isotoner.

Getting Motown's mojo back

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:23:01 -0800

Five Detroit advertising agencies are donating their collective firepower to a year-long campaign aimed at attracting 'young and creative people' to consider Motown as a place to live and work. Underwritten by Time Inc., 'Assignment Detroit' also involves reporters and editors from Essence, Fortune, Money, Sports Illustrated, Time and related websites.

One marketing initiative involves a proposed web site to be called CreativityLivesInDetroit.com. It will feature such Detroit success stories as Tim Allen and Kid Rock. Another campaign likens seeking job opportunities in Detroit to the crew that joined the explorer Ernest Schackleton in his brutal Arctic expedition. And, therein lies the problem.

Does a massive advertising and marketing campaign designed to attract young people to Detroit make sense when the infrastructure is still so badly broken?

I read somewhere that Detroit has 80,000 empty office buildings and warehouses. And yet, a local ad executive said of Detroit: 'Kids who are coming here find it the land of opportunity' in fields like music and film.' Could both facts be true?

I sincerely hope the Detroit campaign succeeds. But, how can any marketing campaign work when the product or experience is flawed? It's a classic chicken or egg conundrum. Do you spend serious bucks on advertising to attract people who will start businesses? Or, do you wait for the economy to show some signs of life first and then point to current successes, instead of making a vague promise about being part of a turnaround?

Time Inc. is to be saluted for its investment. Here's hoping I'll be able to file a blog in a year's time and say it worked.

Dirty Pool

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:04:27 -0800

I've had the opportunity to judge everything from the Silver Anvils and CIPRAs to the PR Week and Big Apple industry awards. And, while I'm honored to be asked, I have to tell you something: the industry awards programs are badly broken.

They're broken in one, fundamental way: big agencies are allowed to submit as many entries per category as they choose. They pay the same amount per entry as does a small, two-person start-up. And, that's unfair.

Let me cite specifics. I'm currently judging the 'digital/social media' category for one of these awards' programs. If you can believe it, there are no fewer than 75 separate entries for one award! To begin with, that's absurd. Who wants to pay serious money for a one-in-75 chance?

But, here's the real issue. Right alongside 11 (yes, 11!) entries from the world's largest public relations firm is one from a start-up I've never heard of. And, a panel that includes me, and probably four or five other time-pressured judges, has to choose the best. What are the odds the start-up will win?

I've actually tallied up the entries. Of the 75 in total, no fewer than 37 come from the top 10 agencies. Talk about unfair competition! Nearly 50 percent of the digital/social media category entries come from four or five PR firms.

So, here's a question to the powers that be at these awards' shows: why don't you price the entry fees by the size of the agency? Instead of charging every agency $375 per submission, why not charge the Webers, Fleishmans and Ketchums double or triple the fee? They're probably a hundred times larger than some of the other competitors.

If the media properties did so, it would lessen the deluge from the largest firms, level the playing field and, probably, raise even more money for their cash-starved coffers.

I'm amazed more small and midsized agencies don't complain about this obvious inequity. It's dirty pool.

A CEO’s Smart Day One

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:15:11 -0800

The CEO of HSN, Mindy Grossman, did something very smart when she joined the company as its 7th CEO in 10 years. As detailed in today’s Sunday New York Times business section, Grossman said the following:

“For example, my first day, I went through orientation just like everyone else, because I wanted to see what everybody else feels when they come into this company for the first time. There were 15 people — a guy who is in backstage TV, somebody in production, somebody in planning, and I just came in and sat down.

Everybody had to go around the room and say what their job was, including me. There were a couple of abrupt reactions, with people saying, “Really?” But the impact that had, and how viral it was throughout the organization, made a huge difference, because it was a signal of a new management philosophy.”

I have been advising and observing CEOs for a long time now and have to add that this is one smart lady CEO. Talk about sending a message of accessibility and heirarchy-lessness. If all CEOs presented themselves shoulder to shoulder with their employees on day one like this, we’d all have a better impression of CEOs. It should be standard operating procedure but sadly it is not. If it was a normal part of a CEO’s playbook for the first 100 days, this symbolic behavior would not stand out as much as it does.

USA Tops Country Brand Reputation List

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:34:59 -0800

The USA earned the top spot as the world’s highest-ranking country brand for the first time in the fifth annual Country Brand Index (CBI) from Weber Shandwick and sister agency FutureBrand. The USA rose from its previous third place spot one year earlier to snatch the top honor. Although the USA did not win the 2016 Olympics honor via its Chicago bid, in the CBI beauty contest, the USA beat out all other countries. As I expected, the Obama presidential effect of hope and optimism played a major role in the ranking. As it is with CEOs, Obama has become the face of the nation. The same influences that were at work in Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize undoubtedly helped lift the reputational tide in favor of the USA in this widely publicized country brand ranking. The top 10 country brand reputations are:

USA
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
France
Italy
Japan
UK
Germany
Spain

As it has been said, Yes, the USA can.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:42:25 -0800

I was reminded of Shakespeare's classic words as I listened to an extraordinarily strong panel at yesterday's Ernst & Young's Strategic Growth Forum (note: we represent EY).

The panel was entitled, 'Navigating Through Challenge and Triumph: How top leaders do it.' The panelists were: Lynn Eisenhans, chairman, CEO and president of Sunoco, Margery Kraus, president and CEO of APCO (and incoming chair of the Council of PR Firms) and Shelly Lazarus, chairman, worldwide, Ogilvy & Mather.

The trio addressed a potpourri of topics, but the one that struck home was the discussion surrounding 'leader as actor.' Kraus and Lazarus, in particular, spoke about the need for leaders to consistently project positive verbal and non-verbal messages to their employees.

Kraus spoke about APCO's open-door policy and its importance to the firm's culture. One day, though, Kraus decided to keep her door closed for some time. When she finally opened it, there was a gaggle of employees milling about. The closed door had scared them and they were worried that something profoundly negative had just occurred. Instead, Kraus assured employees that the door had been closed only because she'd kept her windows open and was concerned her assistant would get chilly. Case closed. But, a classic example of the roles and responsibilities of leaders in times of crisis.

Far too many leaders hide behind closed doors. Far too many leaders wear their emotions on their sleeve. Far too many leaders over react to short-term setbacks instead of staying focused on long-term strategy.

Eisenhans, Kraus and Lazarus are classic examples of maintaining grace under pressure. In fact, their anecdotes and advice reminded me of another classic quote. This one is from Kipling: 'If you can keep your head when all those about you are losing theirs...then, my son, you'll be a man.'

Natural leaders instinctively know that a smile or an open door will send a critical signal anxious that employees desperately need to see.

We still have a long way to go before the economy bounces back. But, the better the CEO 'acts' and the more she or he keeps her/his head about them, the more reassured and productive the employees. And, the more productive the employees, the speedier the recovery.

Our New Site - Coming Soon

Jarvis Cromwell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:45:00 -0800

Well it's happened. We've become a business consultancy. Readers of this blog know that the Reputation Garage has operated for some years as a "garage band" of chief marketing officers, agency types, training, and performance experts. Our mission has been to create new ways for organizations to build trust and improve reputational performance. As an open source collaborative, we've been posting new ideas, best practices and research on this blog since 2007.

Our apologies to our readers all over the world for having neglected this blog over the past few months as we've concentrated on establishing the new consultancy. But good things our on the say. Our new site will be up in another week. We look forward to connecting with you there!

All best,

Jarvis

The "All-Digital-All-the-Time" Agency Network

Jarvis Cromwell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:43:00 -0800

Andrew Jaffe

Maurice Levy is perhaps the most under-reported, undervalued person in advertising. In the span of 20 years, he has taken a smallish European network of agencies based in Paris and built it into a colossus.

Levy's Publicis Groupe today owns Publicis, Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Fallon, 49% of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Droga5, Starcom, Mediavest and now the digital giants, Digitas, the largest digital agency in the world, with Razorfish and VivaKi, Denuo and on and on.

But though we hear frequently from Martin Sorrell of WPP, Michael Roth of Interpublic and occasionally even from press-shy John Wren of Omnicom, the American business press rarely features Levy. When it came time for Business Week to do a cover story on advertising's current problems, it bypassed Levy for the flamboyant (“Love Notes”), Australian-born CEO of the Saatchi network, Kevin Roberts.

One reason Levy has quietly outdistanced his rivals in terms of turning in solid, quarter-on-quarter revenues and profits, is that he saw the shift coming 10 or so years ago and began buying up digital assets. Today 25% of Publicis Groupe revenues come from digital advertising and media services. Levy saw the future, bet the farm on digital and now is worth careful watching.

A week ago MediaPost.com reported that Levy plans to transform Publicis Groupe into an “all-digital agency.” “We have very good numbers for growth in digital,” he said. “And this is something which is offsetting the decrease of some other activities.”

I've been trying to figure out what Levy means by “all-digital agency.” Was he talking about just letting Digitas and his other digital assets grow and prosper, or was he saying that all his properties were going to become “all-digital?”

And then I started thinking about what that phrase would mean if Levy implemented this strategy across his three big traditional networks, Leo Burnett, Publicis and Saatchi.

If these great monoliths dared to call themselves "All Digital" would they jettison the layers of people still trying to shoehorn clients into big branding campaigns played out in TV, print and radio?

Or did Levy simply mean that he was going to get his agencies thinking digital first, coming up with digital solutions that then could be applied to other platforms and media?

Maybe "All Digital" a new language in branding-so all he was talking about was gaining universal literacy in the new mother tongue. Or is "All Digital" a strategy? Or the natural evolution of where the agency business is going?

When Business Week in the Kevin Roberts' cover story noted the drop in revenues at Saatchi and asked Levy what he was going to do about it, he responded that he wasn't going to do anything about it-that that was Kevin Roberts problem. Quoting Business Week:

[Levy wondered] if a creative agency like Saatchi should continue to manage a client's branding efforts. Perhaps the digital specialists should do it….Levy expresses nothing but affection and admiration for Roberts. But he warns: "It is no longer necessarily the creative agency dictating what's best for the client."

Here I think Levy, visionary that he is, is pulling our leg. Saatchi has a number of major clients-led by global duties on Toyota. Until Toyota is ready to demand an “all digital agency” - I don't think Roberts is ready to change its spots - nor is Levy about to demand it.

Ah me, sometimes we can see the future so clearly. But we have to wait months or years for what we see in our crystal balls to become reality.

Everyone is changing gears as fast as they can, led by clients who helped Internet advertising grow 37.5% in the second quarter of this year. But when and if Toyota is ready to make its big move, say transforming Prius into a separate division rather than a couple of hybrids, will it rely primarily on digital to make the change?

I think not.

I think we are still in the nether world where it's going to take us 10 years or so to resolve these issues. Digital may be a language, which is becoming second nature to all of us. But it may not be a strategy. The strategy still is to create in consumers a need, affinity for, and trust in a brand. We know, then, that the Prius must act a certain way over time - and respond to consumers wherever they connect with the brand, either in an ad, in a call to customer service, in the showroom, on the Web, and (the one Detroit forgot) while on the road.

I think where Levy is going is similar to what Bill Gates did at Microsoft, when he told his charges years ago that from now on everything at Microsoft would be built to live on the Internet. But wait, Windows 7 still comes in a box. You still can buy it in a store (in fact soon you're going to be able to buy it in a Microsoft store). Sure, it must be available on the Web, and everything it does must easily move back and forth within the cloud to other users. But Gates' destination hasn't been reached quite yet.

Setting the right destination and figuring out how fast to go there remains the single most important real-life issue for agency heads, especially now as they re-engineer their agencies and budgets for 2010. Unfortunately there are no hard answers. So they can either follow Levy, and seek to make major changes now, or take baby steps and let the future take care of itself.

All Digital, to me, is an intriguing concept. But tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and the future performance of the world's most important brands depend on each agency head making the right call.

Sometimes the hardest trust issue of all is the future.

About Andrew Jaffe

Reputation Garage Trustmeister Andrew Jaffe is the former executive director of The Clio Awards and a former editor of Adweek. His latest book "Casting for Big Ideas: A New Manifesto fo Agency Managers," published by Wiley, lays out why big agencies are slowly dying at a time when new kinds of smaller firms are giving marketers the relevancy and performance they need in today's marketplace.

Friday ORM Links 2009-11-13

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:32:00 -0800

Friday ORM Links 2009-11-06 http://bit.ly/3WCjAx #
reading this interesting NFL article: RT @dallasprosports Behind Enemy Lines: An Eagles’ Perspective http://bit.ly/1NHtdj #

Resetting CEO Reputation

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:17:16 -0800

One of my favorite all time subjects is CEO reputation. I spend alot of time thinking about how it is changing, are there new shifts, who is doing what, how they can improve reputation and other meaningful and meaningless thoughts. Over the past few months I have mentioned on this blog my growing sense that CEOs are finally leaving their bunkers and starting to engage with stakeholders. They certainly have been communicating internally but signs are pointing to the resetting of CEO reputations.

I was lucky enough to have something published yesterday on the Huffington Post blog site about CEO re-emergence. Take a read.

What has become clear to you since we last met?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:43:09 -0800

Ralph Waldo Emerson was noted for greeting friends with the question, 'What has become clear to you since we last met?' His intent, say historians, was an invitation and a challenge to guests to assess the progress of their thinking.

I find the question profound in its simplicity and thought I'd share what's become clear to me of late:

1) Management by fear is alive and well. Despite countless studies, articles and books extolling the benefits of a great corporate culture, I continue to see our teams take a beating from misbehaving client managers. I also continue to see refugees from other agencies wash up on our shores with tales of shouting and screaming bosses. That said, I remain unclear how or why bullies survive.

2) President Obama is nearly as clueless as W. A great communicator prior to his election, the president has become hopelessly caught up in hundreds of issues that have clearly distracted him from accomplishing one or two truly important and critical goals: creating jobs, ending foreign wars and solving the healthcare mess. And, I don't see him rising above the abyss anytime soon.

3) Far too many businesspeople are jumping on the social media bandwagon without knowing why. The same holds true for 'consumers' who feel compelled to post each and every detail of their mundane daily lives on Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn. The latter two, in particular, have become the bane of my existence.

4) The quality of writing continues to devolve with each passing year. I'm now routinely receiving missives from people holding fairly senior positions that are rife with spelling and grammatical mistakes.

5) There's nothing quite as satisfying as the insights gleaned from a work of non-fiction. I've been on a Malcolm Gladwell tear of late and find many of his observations incredibly relevant to work and life in general.

6) My TV viewing is now limited to two comedies and one drama series. That's it. I no longer go to see movies, since the first-run flicks are absolutely pathetic.

I'd be interested in reading what's become clear to you since we last met. Feel free to post away.

Des nouvelles d’Authentys

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:37:33 -0800

Du nouveau sur le site d’Authentys, société francophone du Personal Branding : 1. Une rencontre le 8 décembre 2009 à Paris : http://www.authentys-personal-branding.com/2009/11/11/rendez-vous-le-8-decembre-2009/ 2. La définition du Personal Branding d’après les membres d’Authentys : http://www.authentys-personal-branding.com/2009/11/10/definition-personal-branding-authentys/

The new girl network

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:33:55 -0800

Take a look around the public relations industry and you'll find a firmly established lower echelon that is almost exclusively female. I call it the new girl network and it's rapidly replacing the final vestiges of its old boy predecessor.

I've noticed it in college lectures, in meetings with interns and in job interviews. It's unsettling and unhealthy because too much of anything is bad. And, too many young women will distort the cultures of our organizations and impact the end result of our industry's services.

I find it interesting that the PR powers that be are ignoring this alarming trend choosing, instead, to salute both the up-and-coming and firmly entrenched women of power.

Women should be proud of their accomplishments in shattering PR's glass ceiling. But, somehow, some way, they are now fostering a different type of ceiling that, while not inhibiting the advancement of young men, is sure as heck scaring them away from our profession.

I think our trade groups, leaders of the largest agencies and top academics need to acknowledge PR's dirty little secret and devise strategies to make us more diverse and balanced from a gender perspective.

If we continue to ignore the obvious, the industry will pay the price down the road (as other, more gender-balanced industries who better reflect our increasingly diverse population, spring up to fill the obvious gap).

Jimmy, forget about being the next Woodward or Bernstein. Mommy and daddy are buying you a slide rule for the holidays

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:48:01 -0800

I knew the newspaper business was tanking, but I had no idea how horrific the current landscape was until checking the stats in a recent O'Dwyer's news piece (See "Newspaper Circ Drops Some More," Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, November 4, 2009, Vol. 42 No. 43).

Did you know there are 44 million newspapers sold each day? That sounds impressive until one learns it's the lowest level since the 1940s!

Subscriptions at papers like the San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and Boston Globe are dropping faster than the post-season hopes of Giants' fans after Sunday's last-minute collapse (the papers reported circulation losses of 25.8, 22.2 and 18.5 percent, respectively).

The Wall Street Journal now has the largest daily circulation at 2 million (it actually increased 0.6 percent). USA Today's circulation plummeted more than 17 percent as it fell to the number two slot. (Note: the same issue of O'Dwyer's carried reports about the Journal's closing its Boston bureau and Forbes laying off 40 more staffers).

I wonder how undergraduate and graduate journalism programs are spinning these dismal results to current and prospective students. I'm proud to say I was a journalism major at Northeastern University and learned many skills that have since stood me in good stead. But, I wouldn't advise any young person to pursue a career in a dying profession.

Pundits disagree about the future of journalism, newspapers and magazines. I'm sure some form of neo-journalism will emerge in another decade or so. But, for the immediate future, I'd counsel any serious writer to run away from Columbia, Missouri, and the other great J-schools. The cost-benefit ratio no longer exists. There are few, if any, new jobs being created, and those that are pay less and provide no security whatsoever.

Instead of reading 'All the President's Men,' it might be wiser for Woodward and Berstein wanna-be's to, instead, crack open a biography of Einstein, Galbraith or Keynes.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the keyboard is no longer the meal ticket it once was. Look for calculators and slide rulers to replace reporter's notebooks and press badges as parents' stocking stuffers of choice this holiday season.

Talk about the client from hell

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:34:23 -0800

How'd you like the task of rehabilitating Joseph Stalin's image and reputation? Well,
according to O’Dwyer’s, Russian Information Agency Novosti is searching for an international PR firm to do just that.

According to the report, the goal is to re-position the Soviet despot who, some historians say, may be responsible for more than 30 million deaths and, instead, highlight his role in defeating Nazi Germany and rebuilding the Soviet Union into a super power.

This is so wrong but, in a perverse way, kind of hilarious as well.

Can you imagine media training the lead 'Stalin' spokesperson?

Agency trainer: “Sergei, baby, you need to stay focused. Put the vodka down. Now, you need to be mindful of negative or irrelevant questions in an actual interview and 'bridge' to the talking points we just developed. Let's practice. Let's say I'm a Reuters reporter and ask you this question: ‘Sergei, how can you possibly call one of history's greatest mass murderers one of Russia's greatest leaders instead?’ ”

Sergei (downs a shot of Stoli): “On the contrary, we're saying Comrade Stalin saved hundreds of millions of lives by defeating the Nazis. Imagine how many Russians might have died if Hitler had won?”

Agency trainer: “Nice Sergei. OK, question number two: ‘How do you explain the way in which Stalin's rivals such as Leon Trotsky not only disappeared, but were air brushed out of official state photographs? Is that the way a great leader behaves?' ”

Sergei (pops another shot): “On the contrary, comrade reporter. We've done some homework and discovered that Trotsky, Molotov and others who you Western media types said were murdered simply took extended sabbaticals. They asked that their likenesses be removed. They'd had enough of the limelight.”

Agency trainer: “Smooth Sergei. Very smooth. One more toughie: 'How do justify the gulags?' ”
Sergei: “How do you justify Gitmo?”

Agency trainer: “You are so ready Sergei! After we're done, the Western press will be listing Stalin right alongside Alexander the Great and Caesar.”

If the chosen agency succeeds with the Stalin image program, I could see them building an entire practice around the emerging discipline. Were we were to do it, we'd call it PepperDespot and probably market it on our Website with such wording as:

“Are you the brand manager of a former Soviet Republic? Or maybe the CMO of an erstwhile member of the Axis Powers? Do you need to burnish the reputation of your local Mussolini, Hitler or Tojo?”

PepperDespot can help. Our efforts saved Joseph Stalin's name from the scrapheap of history (link to AP story: 'Stalin described as warm and fuzzy in new poll.'). And, we can do it for you as well. Just think of the tourism dollars that will accrue to your beleaguered brand once consumers understand the softer, human side of your dead despot. ‘PepperDespot: Making yesterday's scum tomorrow's rock stars.’ "

Compte rendu de la conférence sur les réseaux sociaux au Celsa

Jerome Bondu — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

E-Reputation & réseaux sociaux View more presentations from Jerome Bondu. Magali Grange, rédactrice et animatrice du blog-territorial.com, a écrit un article sur la conférence que j’ai eu le plaisir de co-animer avec Christophe Vattier, cofondateur de l’Agence 9, lors de la soirée Cels&Co [...]

Subprime Leadership

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:31:06 -0800

I attended the Council of PR Firms’ Critical Issues Forum last week. It was terrific from start to finish. The lunchtime interview was with David Gergen, American political consultant and presidential advisor during four administrations. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. I often watch him on CNN too and am always interested in what he has to say. Several of his comments are worth repeating:

Business is on probation. Perception of big business is at an all time low. CEOs are needed who can play a role in rebuilding the image of business. CEOs might give some thought to gathering all their industry associations to attend the ultimate summit on rebuilding this country’s business reputation once and for all.
Subprime leadership, not subprime mortgages, brought down this economy. One way to restore leadership reputation would be to spend more time committing resources and time to the greater social good. Many companies now understand this and should be proud of their efforts to be good corporate citizens. Gergen mentioned how the graduating class of 2009’s Harvard MBAs developed an oath to create value ethically and sustainably. This idea appears to be gaining ground and other universities are committing to its principles. Maybe business leadership can be restored from the ground up.
The death of Walter Cronkite was more than it appeared on the surface…it was the passing of an age. There is a growing viciousness on the blogosphere that is pervading our political culture and media outlets. Gergen mentioned that it is getting increasingly difficult to even know where to advertise due to the unpredicatability of various media environnments. I have to agree with him that this age of name-calling has grown worse under President Obama than it was under former President George W. Bush. And that is no easy feat. Media’s reputation is falling faster than business leaders’ because of the mean-spiritedness that we see all around.
Civility has left the house. Gergen remarked that he heard President Obama mention recently that he had to figure out a way “to make civility interesting.” This is a very big idea that might take the heavens to turn around but would be well worth the try. Presidential thought leadership at its best.

The interview touched on many points that I spend a fair amount of time thinking about. How do we restore the reputation of business to benefit us all? How do we restore the reputation of media that seems to enjoy attacking people’s points of view? How do we build our reputation for resilience when we appear to be so intractable?

Break Down the Silos Inside Companies

Elliot Schreiber — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:07:00 -0800

Companies continued to be siloed, depite the fact that this is counterproductive. Silos may be good ways to move information within an organization, but the infighting between silos in most companies gets in the way of real competitive advantage. Marketing, PR, advertising, sales, customer relations, etc. all remain in silos. Companies cannot afford this anymore, not only in terms of the costs of maintaining the silos and their inefficiencies, but also because it is ineffective in dealing with influencing customers and other stakeholders.

Silos create their own messages, their own organization, etc. They cost the company in many ways. Companies have customers, employees, investors, etc. Those are the important stakeholders for companies. Many companies, however, spend an enormous amount of time managing all the internal squabbles and turf wars rather than focusing on building value.

Look at the traditional value chain in text books. We have inbound logistics, outbound logistics, we have support functions, marketing, sales, etc. All of these are shown in vertical bands. Each is to work on their own activities and contribute to the value of the company. It has the right concept, but has been wrongly implemented in practice.

Some business strategists have been talking about "unbundling" the value chain. This is a means to turn the vertical silos into more horiziontal activities so that organizations inside the company work together toward common objectives. Marketing does not have domain over customers; the entire organization does. Finance is not responsibile for money; the entire organization should be financially oriented. We need stewards (experts) as the guides for each of these areas, but ownership should be done away with.

What if a company were to say the following? We have a number of stakeholders who create value for our company: employees, customers, investors, and others. We want a plan of how we can enhance customer value, investor value, employee value, etc. We do not want 3-4 plans from different functions, but rather one plan that is integrated and consistent. We will incentivize those who work collaboratively and penalize those who continue to want to hold onto their "sacred islands".

If CEOs demanded such an approach, the company would likely see people reaching out and working with others they have little or no incentive to work with currently. I tried a change like this within my piece of the pie at Nortel. Instead of having a VP of Advertising, the person became the VP of Customer Relations. It changed the nature of the activities from advertising to all of the things that were needed to enhance customer relations. It can work. What's stopping companies? What do other think about this?

Public Relations vs. Communications--Are We Still Debating Terms?

Elliot Schreiber — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:54:00 -0800

There are still many people who expend greats amount of enegy to attempting to argue why the term public relations should be used instead of communications. I have heard people claim that public relations is a higher-order than communications, i.e, communications is a sub-set of PR. I completely disagree.

Humans communicate, they do not public relate. The higher term is communications, that subsumes all activities such as PR, advertising, etc. It is a term that should replace promotion. Promotion, which in marketing is one of 4Ps, is a terrible term. It suggests an inside-out or push-type activity that does not have much utility in today's world. We communicate with one another.

Public relations is a totally misunderstood term and has so many wrong associations with it--press agent, events management, etc.--that I get tired of trying to define it. To spend a lot of time arguing for the proper definition of PR seems like a waste of time and energy, at least to me.

I have never been one to be concerned with definitions, because I found them constraining. I wanted to be engaged in things I considered important. If people called those PR or communications or marketing or advertising, it wasn't of great importance to me as long as I was engaged in activities I thought were meaningful to the larger enterprise. Power from my perspective is the ability to leverage influence, not run an organization called one thing or another.

I have never found marketing people getting hung up on what to call themselves. Marketing has been hurt by the misperception that it is about advertising or promotion. It is a strategic function. It also is wrongly classified by those on the PR or communications side as being focused only on selling something to a customer. That may be the case in many organizations, but that is not what marketing should be about.

The great philosopher Humpty Dumpty said: "words mean what I want them to mean, nothing more, nothing less". We all have definitions, some right, some wrong, in our heads. If we find that people we deal with have a wrong definition of a term, we can certainly spend most of our time explaining the proper use of the term, or we can adopt a different term that provides greater latitude of action and activity. I find the latter to be much more productive.

Friday ORM Links 2009-11-06

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:32:00 -0800

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-30 http://bit.ly/4uJTSr #
RT @marketnet Search Marketing Tools for PR Professionals http://bit.ly/4g3xEh #
The Most Eco-Friendly e-Paper is Here! http://bit.ly/RJ7aK #
Fort Hood Shooting Spree: The Blogosphere Reacts http://bit.ly/ONQ74 #
Update: Shooter Still Alive, With 12 Confirmed Dead, 31 Wounded in Shooting at Ft. Hood http://bit.ly/3GgFHB #

Three Key Ratios for Reputation Management

Elliot Schreiber — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:45:00 -0800

I've been looking at a lot of reputation research lately. It seems to me that there are three key ratios that need to be measured and management to achieve reputation enhancement:

Ratio 1: The difference between what the organization wants to be known for and how it is perceived by key stakeholders vis-a-vis competition

Ratio 2: The difference between the attributes the organization wants to be known for and the importance of these attributes to key stakeholders

Ratio 3: The difference between expectations of stakeholders and the experience they believe they have with the organization

If organizations develop reserach that measures these three ratios and develop programs that address these ratios, they will be well on their way to enhancing their reputation.

Who Owns Reputation Management?

Elliot Schreiber — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:29:00 -0800

I was at a meeting in NY today sponsored by Echo Research. Because the meeting was primarily for communicators, it focused on issues related to reputation from the communications perspective. The argument was that communications should "own" reputation management within companies because it is the most suited discipline to do so. The rationale is that given social media, relationship management--a supposed PR expertise--is critical; and that communications looks at more stakeholders than any function other than the CEO.

I agree with the perspective that public relations is better suited to relationship management than is marketing and that it is a function with concern for many constituents. Still, I have problems with the concept of ownership of something as important to an organization as reputation. The equivalent would be to say that the CFO owns finances. He/she is the primary steward, but everyone in the organization owns responsibility for financial management.

Communications should be the catylst for reputation management, if they have the skill set to do so. However, this skill set needs to be more than a constant urging for social responsibility and "doing things right".

The leaders of reputation management will be those who first-and-foremost understand that the primary interest of a CEO is to build value for the organization. Reputation management does that, but I am not at all sure most communicators or most marketers understand what is meant by that. Communications often sees value as "doing good". Somehow these good things are supposed to translate into behavioral intent. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Marketers suffer from wanting everything to have transactional monetary value--relationships take too long.

A blending of the two is what is needed. Reputation management leaders need to help the organization focus on those things that distinguish the organization in the eyes of key stakeholders to build value. When they do that they will be given the "keys to the kingdom" by the CEO.

Often the communications teams are focused on stakeholders other than those who make money for the company. One often hears "that might be good for customers and investors, but what will regulators or NGOs say?" These are good questions, but reputation is most imporatant with stakeholders who matter, not with those who don't.
Every organization has three key stakeholders who contribute to the company's financial success: employees, customers and investors. Other stakeholders can help or impede success and must be managed appropriately. So reputation management is really about making the company distinguised for the key stakeholders and good enough so that the organization is supported or not impeded in its objectives and activities.

It's time that marketing, communications, investor affairs and HR got together and understood that they are in this together and that common goals need to be worked on. Others need to be brought into the mix, but until the organization can work consistently toward common objectives and behaviors with its key stakeholders, reputation management will not work. CEOs shouldn't care who the catylst is for this. It just needs to happen and the leader is the person who "gets it".

CEOs Turning Over

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:28:33 -0800

CEO turnover seems to be topical right now. Perhaps it is because quarterly CEO turnover results are being reported or because everyone is still interested in these captains of industry, despite the poor reputation of CEOs. In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed several articles about why no one at the top is playing musical chairs like they used to. Here is an article that I was recently quoted in on CEO turnover because of my keen interest in CEOs and what’s happening to their reputations.

Luckily I noticed an article on the last page (hard copy) of today’s WSJ “B” section on apparel CEO William McComb of Claiborne. Joann Lublin called him a “survivor chief executive” or what I might rename a survivor-in-chief. This nomenclature is presumably due to the fact that boards are not as trigger happy as they used to be because they cannot afford to rock the markets nor their stock prices anymore than they have been this past year. There are several other reasons why CEOs are remaining in their suites:

Boards are abiding by the proverb: “Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t.” Familiarity does not always breed contempt. It may breed job security and comfort instead.
CEOs themselves are less likely to be looking for new jobs because of the slim pickings and accompanying risk. There are no risk-free companies anymore.
There are fewer mergers and acquisitions. In most M&As, one of the CEOs usually leaves for greener pastures or the golf course. Just being sarcastic. Most CEOs do not want to be seen on the golf course these days.

Everyone is sitting tight right now to weather the economic headwinds. My sense is that CEO turnover will heat up again once the economy stabilizes and boards are willing to take on more risk without angering investors and raising questions from the media.

Prochaines formations / conférences (décembre 2009 & mars 2010)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:17:42 -0800

Voici les dates des prochaines formations et conférences : - 9 décembre 2009 à Paris Conférence organisée par l’ASSOCIATION DES SCIENCES-PO en commun avec le groupe professionnel « Femmes et société ». Début de la conférence : 18h30 (jusqu’à 20h30) dans les locaux de l’IEP de Paris, 26 rue Saint-Guillaume 75007 Paris – Ouvert uniquement aux Sciences [...]

Announcement – Deon Binneman to Facilitate Specialist Reputation Management training courses in November

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:54:00 -0800

During the month of November I will be facilitating the following training courses in Johannesburg. These courses are designed to enhance your reputation management efforts. TRAINING COURSES 10 November, Hotel Apollo, Ferndale, Randburg, Johannesburg MARKETING A CONSULTING PRACTICE (MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES) This challenging 1-day workshop enables participants to acquire the skills and competencies required to market professional services [...]

Reputation Reputate Repute

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:42:57 -0800

REPUTATE

I was a panelist at a thoroughly enjoyable event for NYU masters of communications students earlier this week. Joining the panel was Ray Jordan, corporate VP of public affairs and corporate communications at Johnson & Johnson. He began his presentation on the importance of reputation in this ever changing world and talking about how he was convinced that reputation is not a noun but a verb – something that is done. The three steps to reputating are to make sure people understand who you are, second to do the right thing and third get caught doing the right things. The ideas of getting caught at doing the right things is plain infectious!

At the Reputation Institute, their fine work focus on “reputable” companies and companies of ”repute.” I guess no matter what you call it, reputation is still all about building one’s good name for lasting advantage.

Financial brands' reputation rests on a willingness to play nice in Washington

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:30:00 -0700

Rather than bemoan restrictions and billion-dollar fee reversals, financial leaders ought to consider the value of partnership.

Reputation on Fire

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:39:01 -0700

Crisis is the ultimate reputation destroyer. Rarely does any company exit without a bruise. For those communications professionals at the heart of the crisis, the lessons learned take you to unimaginable places and arm you with irreplacable insights and experience. Jon Harmon, a former Ford corporate communications executive and someone I know, just released his aptly titled book, Feeding Frenzy, about the well-publicized Ford-Firestone crisis. Jon provides more information about the book on his blog as well. Jon tells the tale of the two companies — Ford and Firestone – colliding over deadly tire and safety issues that grabbed headlines and public attention for weeks on end. His minute to minute descriptions of the frenzy keeps you on the edge of your seat (if that is how you read). I remember hearing that the corporate communications department received 800 calls or more within minutes of the news breaking. Managing reputation when your house is on fire is one hell of a job.

For all of us anticipating or living through reputation recoveries and crises now, it is a must read.

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-30

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:32:00 -0700

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-23 http://bit.ly/3xzIW2 #
Vizion Halloween Contest Ends in One Week! http://bit.ly/1XWN3R #
Search Engine Marketing Professionals http://bit.ly/3UOXef #
Top 10 Reasons To Use Article Marketing To Explode Your Business http://bit.ly/3zisVP #
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING http://bit.ly/1SEGTu #
our server is being relocated to a new facility. sites are down for a couple hours. #
How Social Media Benefits Corporate America http://bit.ly/7eJiq #
Raccontami una storia http://bit.ly/1SfmIa #
What Makes An Attractive Interior Design http://bit.ly/36×3qi #
Walmart on DCUC10 http://bit.ly/11Pbov #
You WILL Get Googled…Are You Afraid? http://bit.ly/3B4oOZ #
Former Female Letterman Staffer: I Quit Because Dave "Demeaned" Me http://bit.ly/shnj0 #
Blicke in die Wirtschaft am 2009-10-27 http://bit.ly/pMzjU #
Lee Timeline Video http://bit.ly/14GbUM #
Young entrepreneurs of the world, unite! http://bit.ly/2QLyG #
Use Transient PPC Campaigns To Support Branding Efforts http://bit.ly/2qVJlz #
China curbs solar boom http://bit.ly/m2PBE #

Face Brands Coming Back

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:19:12 -0700

Earlier in the week, an article on who will succeed Bruce Wasserstein at Lazard Ltd. talked about the difficulty of replacing someone so intellectually adept and dynamic. I found it particularly interesting when someone was quoted as saying that it was no accident that leading investment banking firms followed the “faceless brand” model. Certainly there is a case to be made for the collective over the individual but we are now starting to see another shift in light of the horrific past 18 months. You could not say now that JPMorgan Chase is faceless (Jamie Dimon) and from recent reports, Goldman Sachs is starting to draw a face on its brand with its CEO. There have been several articles about burnishing Goldman Sach’s image with its CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Just last weekend in a New York Times’ article by Joe Nocera, there was a focus on Blankfein’s comments at a Fortune event. So it seems that the theory of putting a face on the brand to humanize it and strengthen reputation among key stakeholders might be coming back in vogue. My, how some things come around.

Reputation Woes All the Time

Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:53:53 -0700

The airlines have a lot to tell us about managing reputation and being prepared. I came across an article in BusinessWeek a few months late but I found some of the advice about preparedness and reputation resilience worthwhile enough to repeat here. The gist of the article was that the airline industry “is truly the school of hard knocks.” They are always dealing with immense challenges such as soaring fuel prices, terrorism, storms, horrific events such as 9-11 and the global economic downturn, labor strikes, accidents and government intervention. Plus the airlines have amazingly vocal naysayers who take to the Internet when they lose a bag, dislike the food, miss a connection. American Airlines (Disclosure: Client) reaches out to people on social networking sites, according to Roger Frizzell, vice president of corporate communications, brand and advertising and quoted in an article on Forbes.com about brand detractors or “badvocates” as we call them at Weber Shandwick. “In August, when New York’s LaGuardia Airport closed a terminal due to a bomb threat, American Airlines posted notices on its Web site and sent a Tweet to its followers on Twitter. It leaves general information on lost baggage and canceled flights on its Facebook site. Getting the word out before consumers run into problems at the airport is one way to avoid criticism, says Frizzell.” Reputation management is a daily business in the airline industry.

Here are the lessons from the airline industry that BusinessWeek summarized.

1. You need to prepare for what you cannot control which is most everything today. Executives should be trained to respond to the unexpected and boards should review contingency plans because worst case scenarios do happen.

2. Board members need to be more patient while plans are being implemented as airline executives manage with unintended events. Sometimes the implementation is what makes or breaks a successful crisis response. Stakeholders are more forgiving when the recovery plan works.

3. Get all stakeholders aligned. The airline industry seems to have more than their share of stakeholders and if one segment is not moving in line with the others, beware. “For example, when airline employees oppose management, they take it out on customers, who in turn stop flying the airline, which in turn affects shareholder returns – a vicious cycle.” No one should be overlooked although it takes an army to manage this.

4. Seize the moment. In my book on reputation recovery, I called it Seize the Shift but it is the same idea. Opportunities come around usually only once when massive shifts in business or public opinion are bubbling up. Make them your opportunity because chances are that they won’t resurface in the near term. It is everyone’s job to be alert to those moments when fundamental change can be applied.

Barack Obama, expert en réputation numérique ?

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:08:28 -0700

A lire sur Challenges (édition du 22 octobre 2009), un article sur la réputation numérique : Une image sur Internet, cela s’encadre Informations indélébiles, flux incontrôlables : le Web disqualifie les vieilles recettes de la com. De plus en plus d’entreprises et de particuliers font donc appel à des experts en réputation numérique. Voici les extraits qui ont [...]

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-23

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:32:00 -0700

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-16 http://bit.ly/NnBGR #
Transport for London react online to protect reputation http://bit.ly/kS3ur #
Media 140 event in London looks at how brands should use real-time social media http://bit.ly/1OjLSF #
Hire a PPC Experts http://bit.ly/2KKl7h #
YouTube Tests Real-Time Comment Search http://bit.ly/1gWLUx #
RT @danielthepoet Blogging Question #1: What IS My Passion? | DanielthePoet http://retwt.me/11Jvb #
RT @danielthepoet How Many of the Top 100 Blogs Have You ACTUALLY Read? | DanielthePoet http://bit.ly/Qp5mR #
Pepsi bad buzz: applicazione iPhone Amp Up Before You Score di Pepsi http://bit.ly/3b65sl #
No The TSA Really Didn’t Take Your Baby http://bit.ly/1o4TIX #
Google Shares Their Online Reputation Management Advice http://bit.ly/46nvdh #
The Unlikely Brand Ambassador – My Presentation at the Inbound Marketing Summit http://bit.ly/WSI4W #
Three Tips to Avoid Phishing Schemes on Facebook http://bit.ly/khDkv #
How to Be Proactive About Reputation Management http://bit.ly/weeMF #
A Nickels Worth Of Free Online Marketing Advice http://bit.ly/7Nru5 #
Proactive About Reputation Management http://bit.ly/170flU #
Reputation Disaster Training Simulation Play Through http://bit.ly/JLTjl #
Online Reputation Management Suppresses Negative Feedback And Protects Your Reputation http://bit.ly/eG4pu #
Echo Creator Khris Loux on the Ties That Bind the Real-Time Web http://bit.ly/19T01k #
Echo Creator Khris Loux on the Ties That Bind the Real-Time Web http://bit.ly/1MGYw9 #
Del Mar DataTrac Selects DepthPR for Full Service Public Relations http://bit.ly/SDeOA #
Using Sponsored Blog Themes For Reputation Management http://bit.ly/4wUzd6 #
AT&T Activates Citizen-Shills to Oppose Net Neutrality http://bit.ly/13irbU #
if you live near DFW, answer the poll at the end of my blog post http://tr.im/Cyky #
Social Media Minute: Gen Y's Most Wanted List, SharePoint 2010's Affection for The Social http://bit.ly/UN6or #
Financial technology PR firm, Depth Public Relations, selected by Del Mar DataTrac http://bit.ly/vVX4t #
Driving Sales; Automotive SEO Specialist Looks to Promotional Branding Products http://bit.ly/GpbNh #
Reputation Management TSA Style http://bit.ly/33XNNS #
Online Reputation Management Services and instruction http://bit.ly/2eZ2KA #
Viktor Mayer-Schonberger Discusses His Book ‘Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age’ With NPR http://bit.ly/3JP06s #
Basic Principles In Interior Design http://bit.ly/iurzv #
SEO-värde & problem med publicering av pressmeddelanden http://bit.ly/3eLyn #
The PR battle http://bit.ly/ncVTc #

A Damaged Reputation leaves Scars

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:05:00 -0700

The danger of damaging your reputation is immense. It can destroy people’s trust in you, it can destroy relationships and ultimately shut doors in your face. Yet, many people believe that time is the healer, and that with time knowledge of the incident or scandal will fade. Interestingly, organizational research on the topic varies. Some say [...]

You better be Awake: Searching for Vulnerabilities

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:43:00 -0700

A major activity of reputation management is surveillance of the internal and external environment. That’s what journalists do to report on the news. The chief reason reputation managers need to do it is to search for areas of vulnerabilities. To search for potential issues, trends, patterns or events that might harm the organization’s reputation. To [...]

Towards Managing Reputation in a Formal Manner

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0700

If you consider that organisations spend millions every year in building and sustaining operations, building market share and confidence,should reputation, the organisation’s main perceptual asset and biggest risk, not be managed? Perceptions are reality. What are you doing to manage those perceptions? Answer the following questions objectively to start a dialogue in your company : 1. Are [...]

The Phrases That Kill Creativity

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:35:00 -0700

PR and Advertising agencies are supposed to be creative greenhouses. Yet, the old "Internal editor" in all of us, raises it’s head so easy. The "internal editor" I believe is our internal voice , our conscience, our left brain that can sometimes stop us from progressing. Years ago I worked with a consultant, a retired [...]

Face to Face remains a Vital Tool

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:41:00 -0700

Despite the rise in virtual meetings, business executives prefer face-to-face meetings, according to the results of a recent Forbes Insights study. The study, ‘’Business Meetings: The Case for Face-to-Face,”” was based on a June survey of 760 business executives. It found that 84% prefer in-person contact to virtual because face-to-face meetings enable them to [...]

A Communication “Bill of Rights”

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:45:27 -0700

I recently had to facilitate an improved service level agreement between two parties in the IT field. The particular project was about to be shelved by the client due to severe scope creep. I quickly assessed that one of the root causes of the scope creep was caused by the lack of defining interpersonal and organizational [...]

Friday ORM Links 2009-10-16

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:32:00 -0700

Interview with Brent Csutoras @ SMX East 2009 http://bit.ly/JdbsR #
Friday ORM Links 2009-10-09 http://bit.ly/pn6Fd #
Brent Csutoras Interview @ SMX East 2009 http://bit.ly/GBQJa #
Shillings Win Apology And Damages For Olivier Martinez From The Sun http://bit.ly/4Cmicf #
BIA/Kelsey Webinar: Online Reputation Management http://bit.ly/MFjWV #
Interior Design Principles In A Nutshell http://bit.ly/aASTA #
PageRank Technology – How to Generate Traffic by Increasing Your PageRank http://bit.ly/VdPPM #
Best online directories presented by Evo 2 An SEO Software Evolution Brute Force Seo http://bit.ly/2FrWw #
The Basis For a Good Relationship is Trust http://bit.ly/8WewW #
RT @marketnet 31 Places to Promote Your Podcast « MarketNet Blog http://retwt.me/ASW2 #
Your Life History is Not Private Anymore! http://bit.ly/30i74z #
On My Mind with Chris Abraham – Community Forum http://bit.ly/uyNtp #
Monitoring Social Media 09 http://bit.ly/QP8Bp #
Madeleine McCann’s Father, Gerry, Explains Why He Sued the Press http://bit.ly/yRCgU #
Reputation Management Law is the Next Big Thing http://bit.ly/1a9BG #
Marchex Announces Reputation Management Product Helping Local Businesses Monitor and Increase Their Digital Foo.. http://bit.ly/12q7mO #
Chris Abraham Reviews “Making News” http://bit.ly/KlDRM #
Marchex Reputation Mgmt Tool a Breakthrough http://bit.ly/znght #
RT @marketnet Let Gary Vaynerchuk Shift Your Traditional Mindset « MarketNet Blog http://bit.ly/H5GoG #
Link Building Project. Experienced Link Builders ONLY! by apexSEORM http://bit.ly/18G2Zk #
Marketing, Beyonce not too hot for Hotlink, MALAYSIA, MARKETING … http://bit.ly/3u0786 #
PHA Media take on Cambridge Union Challenge http://bit.ly/ici4q #
To jab or not to jab…that is the question Health PRs have to answer… http://bit.ly/OAh64 #
Online Reputation Management http://bit.ly/3Mnyiu #
Build Your Business by Accentuating the Negative http://bit.ly/rmjeC #
Guidelines for using avatars in business http://bit.ly/aaGpj #
Reputation Management Issue: Fixing Google Suggest Results http://bit.ly/17bXWN #
@warner444 thanks. i've used Trackur before. it's decent. in reply to warner444 #
Cambio en la mesa ‘Una visión desde Europa’ http://bit.ly/w27F7 #
looks like the balloon is losing gas and is slowly making its descent. #fb #
How Brands Should Manage Their Online Reputation http://bit.ly/BC9af #
Marchex Announces Reputation Management Product, Helping Local B… http://bit.ly/1F7SBr #
Google Endorses Reputation Management, Says Stop Asking Them To Remove Content http://bit.ly/s4mCc #
Focus on Creating Quality Backlinks http://bit.ly/3oLy4a #
Factors To Consider In Choosing Interior Design http://bit.ly/1W66Zx #

Stakeholder Reputation Management Master Class Registrations Close Today!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:42:00 -0700

Your chance to register for next week’s Stakeholder Reputation ends this afternoon – Thursday, the 15th October at close of business. This is an ideal opportunity to join friends and colleagues to learn about the important strategic subject of managing stakeholders and their impact on organisational reputation. Here is a quick test for you. Can [...]

Qui je suis, où je veux aller et comment je peux y aller

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:04:02 -0700

A lire sur Cadremploi, un excellent témoignage de Régine Bourg sur sa démarche de Personal Branding. Voici quelques extraits de son témoignage : “Je compare ça à un sablier : au départ, ça paraît large et flou. On ne voit pas trop où ça peut nous mener. Et puis à force de travailler sur soi, on agence [...]

E-reputation : Google SideWiki en rajoute une couche

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:44:48 -0700

Si tu ne viens pas au web social, le web social viendra à toi : nous en parlions l’année dernière, et voila qu’avec le lancement de Sidewiki, Google en rajoute une couche – littéralement.

En deux mots, Google SideWiki est un petit plug-in intégré à la Google toolbar qui « superpose » un fil de commentaires virtuel sur n’importe quelle page web. Tremblez webmasters de sites autistes, la conversation s’invite chez vous par la porte de derrière ! Tout site devient instantanément « commentable » … sous réserve toutefois d’avoir installé l’insidieux plug-in.

Or, on a beau s’appeler Google, le téléchargement volontaire d’une application supplémentaire représente une sacrée barrière à l’entrée, qui a jusqu’ici empêché le décollage d’autres outils d’annotation du web. Il est fort possible que SideWiki connaisse in fine le destin peu glorieux d’autres plantages tels Google Knol, Google Comments, etc. Une semaine après un lancement en fanfare, on peut s’étonner par exemple de ne pas trouver le moindre commentaire SideWiki sur le site d’AIG, General Motors ou sur le site de la Maison Blanche.

Jusqu'à preuve du contraire donc, pas de raison effectivement de s’emballer. Sans adoption massive, les commentaires de SideWiki peuvent aussi bien être écrits à l’encre sympathique.

Voila pour le pragmatisme teinté de scepticisme bon teint. Ceci étant dit, grattons un peu et spéculons beaucoup :

A la différence des autres services préexistants, SideWiki présente la notable différence d’être la progéniture de Google, qui a la fâcheuse obsession d’indexer tous les contenus qui passent, avec la probable ambition à terme de restituer ces commentaires dans les résultats de sa page de recherche. Testez cette requête dans Google site:http://www.google.com/sidewiki/entry/ et vous constaterez que toutes les entrées via SideWiki sont consultables et requêtables (via Andy Beard). A terme donc, les commentaires jusqu’alors invisibles au commun des mortels, pourraient venir s'ajouter à la page de résultats et deviendraient sacrément visibles pour les millions d’utilisateurs du moteur Google. Amis du SEO et de l’e-réputation, bonjour…

SideWiki proposera bientôt son API, qui permettra très facilement à n’importe quel geek un peu doué de récupérer les contenus et commentaires déposés via SideWiki, et de les republier comme bon lui semble sans que l’installation d’un plug-in soit nécessaire. Vu autrement, cela veut théoriquement dire qu’un commentaire n’est plus nécessairement lié ou circonscrit au blog sur lequel il a été déposé, et peut être reproduit, rediffusé, agrègé, « mash-upé » à volonté. Les sites d’avis de consommateurs devraient s’en réjouir. Quant à l’industrie de la veille et du social media analysis, cette API sera une véritable aubaine, facilitant grandement la collecte et l’analyse des commentaires où qu’ils se trouvent. Ca n’a l’air de rien, mais à ce jour, il n’existe pas de bon moteur de recherche sur les fils de commentaires (à l’exception de backtype.com qui est loin d’être suffisant) : avec cette API, les moteurs et les « scrapers » de commentaires déposés via SideWiki vont fleurir.

SideWiki autorise l’html et l’inclusion de vidéos Youtube (exemple) : quel webmaster n’aimerait pas voir en marge de son site, et sans aucun moyen de contrôle, un insert youtube ? Allez soyons positif, il y aura bien des vidéos de fans dans le tas ;-)

Croissez et multipliez semble dire Google aux commentaires déposés via Sidewiki : il est en effet possible de rediffuser son commentaire sur Twitter et Facebook, et pour le coup, pas besoin de plug-in : le commentaire apparait noir sur blanc dans le news feed Facebook ou en accès direct et sans plug-in depuis un tweet (exemple).

Et pour aller un peu plus loin et vous faciliter la vie, imaginez que vous déposiez un commentaire sur une citation d’Obama dans un article (exemple fourni par Google lors de sa présentation officielle), SideWiki aura l’obligeance de reproduire ce commentaire sur les autres sites ayant publié la même citation: "Under the hood, we have even more technology that will take your entry about the current page and show it next to webpages that contain the same snippet of text. For example, an entry on a speech by President Obama will appear on all webpages that include the same quote" (cf. blog de Google). Les trolls apprécieront ce multi-postage automatisé.

Votre site corporate n’attire pas les commentaires sidewiki ? Google, comme la nature, a horreur du vide, et pourra proposer en lieu et place des commentaires dans la marge de gauche, des billets de blogs en rapport avec le contenu de votre site. Merci qui ?

les spammeurs et détracteurs vont s’en donner à cœur joie me direz-vous. Que nenni nous rassure Google, y a un al-go-rithme scientifiquement prouvé pour trier les commentaires substantiels des « ROTFL » et autres perles de sagesse habituelles.

Entre parenthèses, si ca marche a) Google ferait bien de l’implémenter sur les fils de commentaires Youtube b) Google étrenne ainsi une formule quasi-magique pour résoudre l’épineux problème de la gestion des fils de commentaires, ce qui pourrait (spéculons encore) faire de SideWiki le standard technologique de choix pour gérer les fils de commentaires sur les sites à fort trafic, avec tous les avantages que cela représenterait pour Google en terme de data-mining.

Poussons le bouchon encore plus loin : Google étant engagé dans une compétition effrénée avec Facebook pour contrôler le social graph, et sachant que tous les commentaires de SideWiki sont associés à votre identifiant Google, il est tout à fait envisageable que SideWiki « choisisse » les commentaires présentés sur une page en fonction de votre propre communauté d’amis et connaissances (vous savez, ces personnes avec lesquels vous échangez régulièrement sur Gmail et Gtalk). On le sait, l’opinion d’un proche à souvent plus de poids que l’avis d’un expert anonyme : afficher en priorité ces commentaires de personnes de confiance représenterait une impressionnante innovation en matière de « social shopping », un remarquable casse-tête pour les marketeurs et référenceurs, mais au bout du compte une formidable opportunité pour Google Adwords de « sponsoriser la Conversation ».

- Five Google Sidewiki Examples in the Pharma, Retail, Insurance, and Electronics Categories

- Why I’m Not Sweating Reputation Bullets Over Google Sidewiki

- Si tu ne viens pas au web social, le web social viendra à toi !

- Voir aussi Kutano.com, un autre plug-in d'annotation partagée, faisant apparaitre en marge d'une page les tweets qui y font référence (via @gfouetil).