CorporatePR

Shel's Modest Proposal for Ethical PR

A couple of days ago, Shel Holtz offered a modest proposal for increasing transparency in PR practice, with the goal of encouraging ethical PR. I will let you read the post and comments that followed, which are the seeds of a good discussion.  In short, however, here is his idea:

Companies or agencies engaged in a PR or marketing effort should create a page that outlines the elements of the assignment. The page would include the goal, objectives, strategies and tactics. Objectives should include any metrics the project is designed to achieve. Each tactic would include the specifics about approaches taken. For example, if blogger outreach is one tactic, the outline would cover the steps taken, from how bloggers are identified to how they are contacted.

The biggest objection so far in the comments is that this amounts to giving away corporate secrets.  I would disagree (as does Shel).  He goes as far as to say this type of practice is inevitable.

What this brings to mind for me is an idea that was being tossed around security circles in financial services organizations a couple of years ago (I was privy to some very interesting conversations about the state of security with an ex-secret service guy which would curl your hair).  But the gist of it was that in the face of phishing, especially, it would behoove banks to proactively post information about possible phishing scams, security breaches, data losses etc. on their websites - a special security page - that people could check to see if the email they received about said issues was legitimate. This transparency would aid in helping people better understand what they were receiving, promoting trust in their institutions etc.  Of course the objections (howls) was that it would do the opposite, showing that there were problems to begin with, giving competitors insight on the problems etc. etc.   

Transparency efforts often seem to to falter due to the idea that competitors will steal, take advantage etc.  And customers suffer the results.  This must change.

Personally, I think companies should pay just a little more attention to their own offerings and practices than what the other guy is doing.  I'd love to see some information on what actually happened when a company added transparency measures.  Did the competitive mayhem actually arise?  Because when we expect it to happen, that expectation becomes some sort of truth.  But in fact, it is nothing of the kind.

Basing our practices on what we believe to be true, instead of what actually may be the case is what creates and/or supports the inertia that leaves the field open to unethical practice.  Why not take a risk in a positive direction instead of simply dwelling in the negative?

Making Decision-Making Public

Allan Jenkins picked up some of my remarks from the Demos evening last week (posted here) and stated that he didn't think I went far enough in the discussion, writing:

With all due respect to Elizabeth, she started down an interesting path, only to draw back just as the "gettin' was good"

I was speaking about my views on the process of corporate transparency, and how it might be practiced.  That process entails us not only providing truthful (honest, accurate) information, but demands that we also question how much information is provided and when.  It means providing the information behind the information.  Or, to put it another way, it means sharing with our audiences how the decisions we made got made.  So, yes Allan, you are reading me correctly when you say:

If I read Elizabeth correctly (and I may not be), she's arguing that corporations should not only make their decisions public, but the thinking behind the decisions. I'm all for it. But I'm thinking into which C-level suites I can bring that idea and not get thrown out.

I touched only briefly on these ideas in my remarks (I only had 20-25 minutes after all), but I was a little surprised that there wasn't more discussion about it afterward.  We did indeed talk about transparency, but more in the context of choice (does more transparency lead to fewer choices (about products, services etc.)? Is this a good or bad thing?  I'll post more on that conversation later, as it was quite interesting.)  Then the questions moved into some other areas.

There is much more to be said, however, about this idea of making the process of decision making more transparent.  Certainly, I am not going to disagree that the idea of doing this will initially strike organizations as heretical, to say the least.  I doubt we are going to see this become a mainstream activity any time soon.  However, that doesn't mean it is worth investigating, as I believe it shows promise.

For one, given the lack of trust in organizations overall among populations, the current way of doing things simply isn't working anymore.  This lack of trust combined with the problem of gaining attention in a media-saturated environment should at least open up the possibility of doing things in a different way.  Furthermore, legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley is already forcing this type of action, in a sense, by requiring that companies track their information more completely (to put it broadly). In order to rebuild trust (and perhaps even prevent the need for further expensive legislation and regulation) companies should rethink how, what and when they communicate.

But here's a challenge:  decision making is messy.  You should ask yourselves, was, in fact, a decision actually clearly made? Or was it more stumbled into, or made by default by letting certain deadlines pass or information pass by? Who actually made the decision? Anyone? A group vote? Someone up against a deadline who finally just did something because they had to with little or no input from anyone else?

I can speak from personal experience about how many times I made up product positioning during the course of writing the press release, having received virtually no brief from the client.  When they asked how I did it, the answer was often, "I made it up."  Of course, they were usually educated guesses, but still, guesses after all.  And most of them were accepted with little change. 

I have worked with many start-up clients and my first question was always, "May I see your business/marketing plan?" With the answer 8-9 times out of 10, "We don't have one."  Scary stuff indeed!  And let's not talk about the pass-the-buck style of putting off decisions at large companies that I have seen, that often ended in a negotiation between me (PR agency rep) and the corporate attorney about what the final positioning would be, 10 minutes before the release was to hit the wire.

It is worth asking if more disclosure of decision-making practices would actually improve the decisions made.  I suspect it would.  And that benefits everyone.

So here's an experiment for you to try.  Closely track one major decision your company makes.  Maybe it is around a product launch.  Date, timing, naming, launch venue, etc.  Actually document the steps towards decision. Who was involved? What was decided? What was the timing?  I suspect the result will astonish you (or maybe not, sadly).  And if you are very brave, maybe you'll share it with us.

Remarks from Demos Evening

Last Thursday evening, I had the great pleasure of participating in a panel discussion about Web 2.0 at the Demos thinktank.  We had about 40 people, and the discussion was lively, both among the panelists and with the audience.  I enjoyed meeting my fellow panelists Livio Hughes of Headshift and Tom Steinberg of MySociety.org, and the conversations both before and after the event with both of them, and moderator Paul Miller were very interesting.

I don't usually prepare remarks ahead of time when I speak, but I am doing it a bit more frequently these days, as I want to be precise about my thoughts and, in this case, I didn't want to use a PowerPoint presentation.  The risk of doing that is to sound like you are reading vs. speaking.  I hope I did a good job overcoming that.  The benefit is that I can easily make the remarks available to you.  You'll find them below.  I didn't follow them exactly, but you'll get the general drift.  I spoke primarily about persuasion and transparency.  Apologies for not adding all the links and references...I'll try to do so later.

Transparency and Possibility

I read something today that got me thinking about what participatory communications can and can't do.  I am wading my way (painfully at times) through Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.  In his chapter on "Art Beauty: Apparition, Spiritualization, Intuitability" I ran across the following line:  "...this transparentness gnaws away at [artworks'] possibility."  Now, he is talking about the spirit of art, and it gets a little technical from there, but this phrase, and a following one that talked about "the encipherment of the artwork" sparked something for me I wanted to share with you.

I have written before about how I think transparency -- of process in particular -- is necessary for ethical communications.  Others have written about transparency in terms of the truth of what you are writing/podcasting/etc.  The dilemma that appears for public relations, marketing, and, especially, advertising, is that too much transparency might ruin what we are trying to achieve -- "an emotional connection with the brand" is one way of putting it.  In other words, explaining the facts of a razor aren't nearly as powerful as showing a handsome man with his face being caressed by a beautiful woman.  The second contains mystery, possibility.  The first does not.

How, then, can participatory communications tools like blogging or podcasting, create that possibility (assuming this is still a needed item for persuading people to take action)?  A transparent conversation about the facts doesn't seem to cut it.  That's not to say that there isn't a place for that conversation, of course, but rather that we still need the production of possibility, which might -- might -- require more formalized, produced material (ads, commercials, etc.).  I am not entirely sure about this, but I think a conversation about the value of possibility vs. transparency and how the former can be achieved through participatory means could be interesting.

In the Culture Industry Adorno writes about how we as consumers know we are being manipulated, yet even so go along with it (buying the products advertised and so on).  He has a rather dystopian view of high capitalism, to say the least, but he is not really wrong, as far as I can see it.  I tend to think that participatory communications could provide greater freedom for individuals; that is why I am studying it.  As both consumers and organizations become more adept in using the tools, I think that the transparency-possibility conundrum needs to be thought through in more detail.  I welcome your ideas, opinions and comments!

Is an Ethics of Velocity Possible?

That is the question I asked at Les Blogs on Tuesday afternoon.  I was struck by an underlying theme that went through virtually all of the discussions at the show:  how fast everything moves.  From technology, to jobs, to company flips, to trends...you get the picture.  Of course, this isn't a new thought. I think we all deal with it every day on a subliminal level.  But sometimes, it rises to consciousness, and when that happens, I, for one, start feeling an intense anxiety.

Do I know enough?  Am I keeping up?  Am I smart enough? Have I missed something?  These and many more questions fly through my brain and I sometimes find myself paralyzed: unable to think or act for minutes at a time.  Then, I calm down, and say to myself, "just float."  Rather than trying to analyze every little detail, I let the details, the information wash over me and simply try to mentally note those things that stick.  In fact, blogging has helped me make sense of the overwhelming amount of information that passes by.  I blog about what sticks, which helps reinforce my thinking. 

But going back to my question.  Does the ever-increasing rate of change that we face every day have an ethical component to it?  Is the rapid pace of technological change, which often precludes any discussion of social implications, unethical? 

On Civility in Blogging

By now the Mena - Ben faceoff at Les Blogs has become part of blogosphere history.  You can read the posts and comments I just linked to discover the whole story, but here are some thoughts I have, having witnessed it all from the front row.

In short, Mena's speech called for civility in the blogosphere, with a particular rant against people hiding behind anonymity in order to behave as they never would under their own name or in person (i.e., nasty, mean, etc.).  She used the backchannel at the event as an example, and seeing her speech called "bullshit", promptly exploded.  For the record, she called Ben an "asshole" to his face, so, in fact, did not invalidate her argument in the least!  (Of course obfuscating this behind clever headlines is so much more fun.  And am I hearing a bit of JAHW* floating through the commentary?)

I think Mena has a point about civility.  I also think, sadly, that she is tilting at windmills a bit.  It is indeed a social problem as a whole.  But, that being said, it doesn't mean that the topic is an invalid one to consider at a blog conference!  For god's sake, we bloggers are always talking about "conversations" and "we are people not brands" etc. etc.  Yes, we are people.  We are a microcosm of society.  Therefore, talking about an issue like civility or anonymous rants is an absolutely valid topic.  Because if we say that a blogging conference isn't the place to talk about it, where is that place?  By constantly relegating certain discussions to the "outside" of the room, we will never get the chance to discuss them.  (It's like ethics - a few of us brought up the topic and I swear I heard a collective groan.  But more on that later.)

When Mena lost her temper, she got real.  She stopped reading her speech, and therefore it all become much more interesting.  I wish she had started the discussion differently - mainly by not reading prepared remarks, but having a conversation with the audience.  Difficult, I know, but perhaps more effective.  We'll never know. 

I also find it intriguing that the same people calling for corporations to have a more human face are lambasting Mena for creating a PR disaster.  Hey, humans aren't perfect.  We have tempers, we have passions, we make mistakes (and I am not calling her actions a mistake, mind) and we create waves.  But, it seems that perfection is still required for corporate "figure heads", as she was called. (And why do people simply chuckle when Marc Canter falls asleep through much of the conference?  Doesn't that show imperfection too?  I guess indifference is more acceptable than passion.)

My last thought:  If you don't have a true need to be anonymous (e.g., you will get fired, put in jail, killed), you shouldn't be.  Here's why:  Because so much vicious, idiotic crap is done via anonymous postings, more and more of us simply ignore anything that doesn't have a name attached to it.  That means that the voices that must be anonymous will find it harder and harder to break through.   To me, that means that people hiding behind anonymity just for kicks are acting unethically.   But, sadly, they probably don't care.

*Just Another Hysterical Woman

Tags: lesblogs

The Perception of Purity

Where oh where did the perception that bloggers are somehow more pure than ordinary people come to be?  That is my question after reading Tom Coates' post on weblog marketing.  (And who is this "we" he keeps referring to?)

A short history:  Coates' post comes from a history of posts/comments about free wine giveaways to bloggers and the morality of such marketing.  (Read the post to get the history, it's all there.)

The part that confounds me is the assumption of the purity of bloggers Coates' makes throughout his comments.  He writes:

The problem is that - at least at the moment, and long may it last - the weblog community determines its heroes and its trusted and noble citizens from smaller but finer-grained metrics than we do in the wider world.

Earlier, he wrote that:

Weblogs are about authenticity - about people being able to express their voices and opinions. If people get the sense that you're distorting your opinions for your peers because you get free stuffhave to be less inclined to believe you (and think less of you as a person). And quite rightly - it's a demonstration of a lack of personal integrity.

What I object to is the assumption that seems to underlie these statements that our opinions are formed in a sort of bubble where no influence exists and are therefore pure until we are offered something for free.

Let me say it another way:  authenticity by no means implies pure (sans influence).  Authenticity means you own your words and acknowledge your influences.  Pretending you have no influences (product freebee or no) is more damaging to your "personal integrity" than acknowledging them  transparently.

More on Ethics and Transparency

Philip Young and I both wrote articles for Global PR Blog Week 2.0 on ethics. [His, mine]  We have commented to each other's posts, along with some other people.  I think it is a pretty interesting discussion, and encourage you to go add your two cents.

Marketing Commons

I finally got around to reading Pete Blackshaw's intriguing article, "Protect the Marketing Commons."  While I am not sure you can perfectly relate the idea of the "tragedy of the commons" to people's attention (commons in Harden's terms means a finite, bounded resource, like a field, which is certainly far more concete than "attention"), the idea we have reached a marketing-for-awareness saturation point is a valid concern.  Pete says we need to come up with answers to the following questions:

• Definition of transparency. What do we really mean by "transparency"? More important, what do consumers think it means?
  
  
• Seeding and shilling. What's the real cost of artificially seeding buzz or not fully disclosing a consumer's relationship with a brand? Who's accountable?
  
  
• Sponsorship disclosure. How explicit should bloggers be about the nature of blog sponsorships? What's the cost of bloggers being labeled as shills?
  
  
• Product placement. Should there be some level of disclosure in product placement, perhaps starting with children? What's the cost of inaction?
  
  
• Truth in advertising. If a movie is advertised as starting at 2 p.m., when should it actually start? Do we have an obligation to disclose or compensate consumers for their attention?

I have started to noodle on the first one (transparency) here and here.  For a good critique of the "tragedy of the commons" read Elinor Olstrom's book Governing the Commons.

Aside:  I am not sure "transparency" is the right word to use for ethical disclosure of conflict of interests, etc.   Aren't we trying to make things visible, apparent?  Transparent is better than invisible, but perhaps that is just an interim step?  Is transparent actually wishy-washy? A weasel-y half-measure?  I don't know.  What do you think?

Transparency and Ethics

I wrote a piece in this week's New Communications Blogzine about ethics.  In it, I proposed the following:

...that truth and transparency are, in fact, two very different things, and that transparency needs to be pulled apart from truth and examined on its own merits....

Wikipedia has a good working definition of transparency. Here’s the kicker: “In government, politics, ethics, business, management, law, economics, sociology, etc., transparency is the opposite of privacy; an activity is transparent if all information about it is open and freely available.”

Let’s repeat: “Transparency is the opposite of privacy.” Of course, you can’t say that about truth, which drives home the difference between truth and transparency. Truth doesn’t require that “all information…is open and freely available.” It only requires that the information that is presented is honest and accurate. And that gap between the information that is presented and making all information available is the one that PR practitioners have fallen into, tarred with the label of “unethical.”

The conflation of truth and transparency is therefore a problem. While I welcome the increased awareness of ethical practices as a good thing, until we start focusing on the important changes that the increasing demand for transparency is bringing to PR practice, I fear that little will change in terms of the currently dismal reputation of PR.

I am planning on writing more about transparency, truth and the reputation of PR for Global PR Blog Week 2.0.  I would very much like to hear from you about the information/transparency gap I describe above.  Do you agree? Disagree?  I think we really need to delve into what this means and think about guidelines for being transparent.  I look forward to your comments.