The|Intangibles

Twitter as Journalism

It had to happen . . . the navel gazing about the impact of Twitter on journalism is now in full Zen musing. Rob Paterson at Fast Forward points out that Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post is now twittering the White House. David Schlesinger of Reuters has been sending tweets from Davos and inquiring about its impact on the future of journalism

Athough I like what Schlesinger has to say ("I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers."), the question for me about whether tweeting can be journalism . . . It's Who cares?

When you have 142 characters to say what you want, there is little to distinguish the tweets of social media consultant Rahaf Harfoush from Davos from those of Schlesinger, except Harfoush's tweets are more fun.

When it comes to following Twitter reports of events, the question is who is the best eyewitness. If the real events at Davos are happening in plenaries and in conversations in the halls, bars and restaurants -- and not in staged news conferences -- then the more witty, insightful and diagnostic witness, whose point of view is closest to 'mine', and who is the one moreover ready to respond to an @ reply, is going to get the tweet "readership" . . . journalist or not.

By the way, although Cillizza has about 2000 followers on Twitter, he follows only six. I guess others who might Twitter about White House proceedings (and may not be journalists) must not have anything interesting to say. Doesn't that speak much about the myopia of some journalists who use social media tools?

Bush's Departure

With all the parsing of the implied criticisms of George Bush in Barack Obama's inaugural address, few  noticed the VISUAL affect of the cameras lingering over the outgoing president's departure.

An acquaintance of mine who runs a public relations agency in Paris, Christophe Ginisty, noticed this about the long goodbye to Bush and read into it an oblique (or stage managed?) wish to demonstrate that Obama's inauguration finally brings to an end eight years of "cauchemardesques" (nightmares):

"Le deuxième élément est la longueur de la séquence qui a accompagné Bush dans son départ. D'habitude, les télévisions se concentrent assez peu sur le sortant. On voit la sortie, on s'attarde sur la poignée de main, le départ de la limousine (ou de l'hélicoptère) et puis on revient au nouveau Président. Hier, j'ai trouvé que les télévisions avaient vraiment consacré du temps au départ de Bush, comme s'il était aussi important de montrer que ce sinistre chef d'état partait bel est bien, que c'en était vraiment fini de ces huit années cauchemardesques."

Imagery can be telling, whether planned or not.

Digital Communications in a Tough Economy

Josh Reynolds, global head of H&K's technology practice, is one of my smartest colleagues, otherwise I would avoid the blatant corporate self-promotion of suggesting you spend 15 minutes watching this interview by Robert Scoble in which Josh talks about why our current economy is making digital the preferred marketing and corporate communication tool. (I have included the link since the embedded video below is only working intermittently.)

And just so you don't think that Josh is acting with such expressiveness only for the camera, I can confirm that he is like this in person . . . especially in client presentations.

Yahoo Board Gets it Right?

Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo, has started the public facing aspect of her job on the right foot.

The New York Time reports today that Bartz believes "that Yahoo had some great assets that 'frankly, could use a little management' and that she would "spend her first few days at Yahoo talking to employees and customers, not to investors or reporters."

According to TechCrunch, she also said "It’s been too crazy. People outside Yahoo deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn’t do. That’s got to stop."

Blunt, decisive, transparent and evidently a  CEO with her audiences properly ranked.

Texting Apologies - Crisis Management in a Few Words

Beleaguered Chinese dairy companies have used an unusual method of apologizing to 300,000 children and their families in China harmed by milk tainted with melamine. China Daily reported that on January 1st, the Sanlu Group and 21 other dairy firms sent a text message apology to the mobile phones of millions of Chinese citizens. The message read:

"We are deeply sorry for the harm we brought to children and society. We offer our sincere apology and plead forgiveness."

In an email, my colleague Chris Gidez commented that "On the one hand, this demonstrates how technology enables direct-to-consumer communication. On the other hand, it can be seen as intrusive, gimmicky and insincere if the underlying problem isn't addressed."

As much as I believe that social and mobile media are undervalued as tools for managing crisis communications, and that apologies are essential to bringing about closure when harm has been caused, I have to agree with Chris that effective communication (online and offline) and sincerity are not enough to ensure an organization's reputation recovers from the crisis.

What else needs to be done? At a minimum, a company or organization must:

1. Demonstrate it has changed the process or behaviour which led to the damaging event and that it will work tirelessly to ensure it doesn't happen again;
2. Provide adequate restitution for the harm caused (in the U.S. this will likely be determined by class action suits anyway);
3. Be prepared to work openly and honestly with regulatory bodies to find sector-wide solutions and protocols to prevent and mitigate similar events;
4. Offer a recovery plan to demonstrate to other stakeholders -- especially the investment community if the company is publicly traded -- that its business and operations will be made whole again.

Although in some countries, like China, even this may not be enough. According to another colleague based in Hong Kong, the CEO of one of the Chinese companies involved is facing execution.

M&A Blogging

Thanks to a post yesterday by Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research I was directed to what may be a first (?) . . . a merger blog. The Wells Fargo - Wachovia Blog has been live for about four days. It is meant to keep customers up to date on how the merger between the two financial institutions is taking place.

Both Wells Fargo and Wachovia people have posted and there have been 11 comments, mostly from customers. Although the tone is one would expect -- a little hyperbolic ("Both our companies take pride in the fact that we have focused – and continue to focus – on you, our customers. We believe in doing what's right for you because, quite frankly, without you, we wouldn't be here.") -- the transparency in opening up a conversation with customers about the progress of the merger, and perhaps its hiccups, is admirable.

This one is worth watching.

Trusting the Street . . . Or Any CEO

 

(This picture is mine . . . taken in Paris behind Les Halles. I find it gentle and thoughtful.)

I wonder if popular trust in business may be taking a bad rap. Or, rather, I would ask the question whether our current lack of faith -- or trust -- in Wall Street, Bay Street, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and our own Canadian financial leaders is in danger of being projected on to any business leader who misses a forecast or suffers a poor quarter?

Writing today in The Globe and Mail, columnist Derek DeCloet says:

"In 2008, skeptics, doomsayers and non-believers on Wall Street and Bay Street were vindicated. This was not because the wizards of finance proved to be corrupt or dishonest (though there were enough accusations of that - Bernard Madoff's alleged monstrous Ponzi scheme being merely the worst). Nor was it because the Street's paid gurus made big mistakes. Errant forecasts by professional soothsayers are expected. What was so surprising is that the people closer to the action - the ones at the top of the world's largest banks and corporations - proved, time and again, to have so little idea of what was just around the corner. Most of them wildly underestimated the depth of the financial rot and economic dysfunction. Publicly, they appeared too complacent, especially before September." 

DeCloet is, of course, right about the surprising lack of foresight (although some say it is willful "blindness" in the face of friends all around them making astonishing money) among financial leaders in North America and Europe.

But we should be careful not to attribute this same obduracy to CEOs in other sectors who have a good sense of their competitive and market frameworks, who look clearly at the impact of exogenous factors like commodity prices and currency fluctuations and who, therefore, revise forecasts more frequently than shareholders might like.

If they are forthright, honest and clear in their analysis, humble about what they don't know or can't predict, and willing to shoulder responsibility for what they can control (and bypass the rich bonus when they fail), then they and their companies are deserving of our trust. And, perhaps humility about what is unknown, and candor in the expression of that ignorance, is something the wizards of Wall Street -- and many politicians -- can learn from the best leaders in the manufacturing and commodity sectors.