The|Intangibles

Twitter's Biz Stone on How it All Started

Short video on how Twitter came about by one of its founders - Biz Stone (Admission . . . Hill & Knowlton, which sponsored this event, employs me.)

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?

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.

Random Reputation, CSR, & Social Media Predictions for 2009

In spite of Casey Stengel's warning to "Never make predictions, especially about the future", I will anyway.

1. Companies will continue to struggle over the question of creating a corporate blog. In fact, there will likely be only minimal incremental uptake, at least by North American CEOs. The risks are frankly great and the perceived benefits too marginal. A CEO would have to accept three things in order to blog: There is value in being seen as a leader who is willing to have his or her personality, ideas and quirks on show; Freedom from weakness, miscalculation and error are not commodities valued by citizens, markets and employees -- honesty is; Disagreement, discussion and criticism are necessary for progress. (All three ideas are at the core of Web 2.0.) 
2. Trust in corporations will continue to decline, although it is hard to imagine it getting any lower given recent examples of the manipulative shenanigans of U.S. financial industry executives. The latest evidence? Researchers at Forrester found that when it comes to trust " Only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say they trust them." Yes, this says something about corporate blogs (see #1). But it is really about the endemic mistrust of corporate executives given their propensity to ignore ethical lapses.
3. Corporate social responsibility will not decline in 2009. Even the most obdurate CEOs will recognize the trust deficit won't be chipped away if they sidestep expectations for sustainable business decisions and ethical conduct.
4. Further, more companies will recognize that business strategy can benefit from assimilating care for the impact of products and services on the environment. As Peter Drucker pointed out in 1968 “Social responsibility objectives need to be built into the strategy of a business, rather than merely be statements of good intentions.”
5. Twitter, which for me is a means of staying surrounded by smart ideas, will not be the social media panacea dreamed of by marketers. Attempts to get people to "follow" product-based tweets will be ignored unless, like @jacqsava at Soak Wash (not a client), you bring the person behind the product to the dance.
6. My posts will cover the same subjects, but will feature more creative presentation. Think charts, diagrams, pictures and videos.

Only number six is in my wheelhouse to do something about . . . show me how and you can hold me to it.
 

CSR Communication: Web Reporting

I will be posting something over the next week or so, either here or on forceforgood.com, about the value of moving corporate responsibility (CR) reporting to some form of social media facilitated platform rather than the traditional print CR report.

In the mean time, my Washington colleague Chad Tragakis directed me to a report in Environmental Leader from the Natural Marketing Institute which ranks the most effective sources of communication about corporate responsibility programs. Interestingly, the chart below ranks a company's website as a legitimate and effective method of communication on equal footing with reports from independent third parties or independent ratings and well ahead of a company's CSR report:

 More on the implications of this soon.

Coming Clean on Costs

There are two words that dominate reputation discourse these days -- transparency and authenticity. Both are beginning to feel worn out, as dogma has a tendency to do when it lacks substance and proof.

But some companies give the words meaning. Writing in The Globe and Mail a couple of weeks ago, Fabrice Taylor congratulated Gold Fields Ltd. CEO Nick Holland for "revolutionizing the way the industry (gold mining) portrays itself. Here is what Gold Fields has decided to do:

"So Gold Fields management has decided to buck the industry trend and tell the company's owners the total cost of mining an ounce of gold, from operations (labour, power and so on) to capital investment (the cost of buying long-life equipment, extending a mining shaft etc.)"

So what's the big deal? From a financial perspective providing information on "total cost" gives shareholders a better sense of projected cash flow since you have to make capital investments with, well, cash. (Naysayers will point out, as one analyst does, that this may allow you to game the numbers in the future simply by altering capital expenditures.)

The important issue here is that Mr. Holland's actions are evidence of the transparency we have all been talking about at least dating from Don Tapscott and David Ticoll's book The Naked Corporation. Mr. Holland (disclosure - not a client) recognizes that admitting total costs gives a better picture of potential revenues, especially when gold prices are rising.

As my colleague Niall Cook writes in his new book Enterprise 2.0, some believe that transparency "simply doesn't reflect the real world" in which companies have no choice but to keep business secrets. The point, though, is that some like Mr. Holland are apparently looking for ways to gain trust, if not advantage,  by pushing reporting boundaries. The effect on share price, or buy-side analyst recommendations, may be slight, but the "trust" will stick to Gold Fields' reputation at least among some mining industry watchers and critics. And that in itself may mean being open around total costs will be worth it.

Twitter Uses - The Corporate and Personal Perspective

It is hard to take Twitter seriously with a name like that . . . but I do, and can think of a number of serious (as opposed to 'fun' or 'social') applications of a micro-blogging platform.

Last year there were some useful posts about various uses for Twitter. A couple of the more complete lists were:

• Web Worker Daily's "Eight Ways Twitter is Useful Professionally"
• DoshDosh's "17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners"

But this post was prompted specifically by a John Dickerson article in Slate addressed to journalists called "Don't Fear Twitter".  Chief political correspondent for Slate, Dickerson addresses the idea that with the traditional "space" for journalism shrinking (read fewer publications, reduced lineage, serious writing replaced by celebrity gossip and other trashy amusements) no journalist would want to take up a medium restricted to 140 characters.

On the contrary, says Dickerson . . .  

"If written the right way, Twitter entries build a community of readers who find their way to longer articles because they are lured by these moment-by-moment observations. As a reader, I've found that I'm exposed to a wider variety of news because I read articles suggested to me by the wide variety of people I follow on Twitter. I'm also exposed to some keen political observers and sharp writers who have never practiced journalism."

So here three personal reasons for tweeting on and off throughout the day, all of which suggest uses for Twitter in a corporate context:

1. Similar to Dickerson, I get exposed quickly and without much editorializing to a variety of links -- some worthwhile, others trivial -- from people whose ideas I generally respect and whose knowledge adds to mine. Since I "follow" people who share an interest in social media, politics, public relations, literature and film, the tweets are nearly always 'productive'.
2. Similar to reason one, Twitter democratizes the sharing of ideas. There are no inferred hierarchies, only that derived from the value to me of the content posted. The focus is content and point of view, not position or role.
3. The possibilities of Twitter as a form of instant, broad communication to different groupings and 'classes' of people are made manifest each time a subject is picked and pursued. Twitter reveals the potential for quick discussion, concept sharing or action by cohorts of people sharing common cause. I can see activists creating dedicated Twitter groups to synchronize action, or companies constructing Twitter crisis management teams for coordinating emergency response.

Yes . . . it is also fun to know that @leahjones in San Francisco is standing at the bus stop smelling cotton candy at 7:00 a.m. on a Monday morning (a tweet from five minutes ago) . . . someone who I have never met.

Niall Cook on Enterprise 2.0

Congratulations to my U.K. colleague Niall Cook on the publication of his book called Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work.

It is, to quote WPP's official book site, "one of the first books to explain the impact that social software will have inside the corporate firewall, and ultimately how staff will work together in the future."

It is only available for pre-ordering on Amazon.com. But I know Niall so I can say with confidence it will be a thoughtful, contemporary and practical read.

Social Media and Grammar

I make it a habit to read Jeremiah Owyang's blog nearly every day, in addition to those of my colleagues Brendan Hodgson, David Jones and Anil Dilawri (who blog less frequently unfortunately).

Mr. Owyang is a  senior analyst at Forrester Research and celebrates his second anniversary of blogging at web-strategist.com with another useful 'how to' post on making a blog successful. His three most valuable ideas:

1. "Create focused content"
2. "Publish frequently" 
3. "Interact"

Point taken. I will try to do better.

Starting next post . . . because as something of a grammar Nazi, I do want to point everyone to a post called Loosey-Goosey Latin by Todd Defren. He reviews the provenance and usage rules for “i.e.”,  “e.g.”, “etc.” and “et al.” My only comment, other than complete support for defending decent usage, is that the post would have been thoroughly invaluable if he had taken some of his readers to task for verbalizing 'etc.' as 'eckcetera''.  Awful.

Random Social Media Notes

Note One:

One of the questions asked by corporate communicators about corporate blogging is how you handle negative comments. The answer is straightforward . . . with grace, patience and diplomacy, even if what you feel like saying is screw you. There is an instructive example of how to do it right in a response by Adam Nash of Linkedin to a nasty live blogged post at Web 2.OH really?(By the way, the blog's subtitle is 'A skeptic's guide to emerging web 2.0 technology.') On Nash's reaction the blogger commented "He started with a compliment and shifted into a clarification that reframed [and corrected] what I’d written. He ended with another compliment . . . This is a near-perfect display of best practices when responding to a negative post."

Note Two:

Steelmaker Arcelor MIttal today is holding its first in a series of investor and analyst meetings in the Second Life virtual world with the goal of reaching potential investors in a different demographic than its current pensioner retail investor base. Future intentions include offering Second Lifers the option of buying shares in Linden dollars. According to ArcelorMittal (Disclosure . . . a former H&K client) investor relations head Julien Onillon said the company will be happy if even 10 people turnout to the Second Life meeting. I hope ArcelorMittal will report publicly on whether this target is exceeded or at least reached. 

Note Three:

To provide a little balance to social media evangelism (including my own), here is a post with cautions about using YouTube as a corporate social media tool. The tone is off-putting. But the cautions and recommendations are useful.