Dick Martin Blogs

Beyond Buzz

2013-04-24T11:33:19-04:00

I've written a number of articles for the Conference Board Review over the years, most related to a new book I'd written.

Starting with the spring issue, I will have a regular perch in its pages. I have agreed to write a column that will "explore what executives should know about PR and corporate communications, looking closely at how companies do it right—and, just as often, wrong."

My first column deals with the most basic of questions -- just what's PR really about anyway? Hint: the column's title is "Beyond Buzz."

You can read my first column here. And don't miss the rest of the magazine, which covers topics from bribery to counter-intelligence.

Goldman Sachs & Reputational Risk

2013-04-13T14:03:22-04:00

Goldman Sachs issued its 2013 proxy yesterday and it propmpted stories in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The Times' headline focused on the raise Goldman Sachs' directors gave themselves.

"Goldman’s directors, who were already among the best-compensated corporate directors in the country," the Times tut-tutted, "will receive an additional 500 shares, for 3,000 shares a year in compensation, according to a regulatory filing submitted Friday."

That was pretty standard outrage-laced-with-envy-and-superiority for the paper of record, at least for a story on Goldman Sachs.

The Journal story took a more interesting twist.

Online, its headline read "At Goldman, Renewed Focus," implicity reprising last year's big proxy season story -- that Goldman Sachs had listed reputational risk in its inventory of things nvestors should watch.

The Journal led with "Goldman Sachs Group's lead outside director, James J. Schiro, said in his first letter to shareholders accompanying the firm's proxy on Friday that the board is 'very focused' on the reputation of the firm as he broadens his role on the board."

Frankly, as tittilating as blow-out compensation is, I think the Journal had the real story.

Last year, Goldman Sachs said it considered reputation risk worthy of concern. This year, the firm is describing what it's doing about it.

This is either great PR or good governance. Maybe both.

Goldman Sachs, which once had a tin ear for reputational issues, is singing a meoldy her companies should emulate. To wit:

The firm changed the charter of every Board standing committee to include protecting the firm's reputation among their responsibilities.
It explicity made the Board's Governance Committee responsible for overseeing the firm's reputation as well as its relationships with major external constituencies.
The Governance Committee, in turn, established a subcommittee to review the firm's philanthropic and educational initiatives, as well as to oversee the implementation of recommendations made by the Business Standards Committee established last year.
Perhaps most telling, Goldman Sachs made Bill George chairman of the Public Responsibilities sub-committee. George, a management professor at the Harvard Business School, was formerly CEO of Medtronics and has written extensively on corporate responsibility.
Finally, the firm has made "reputational judgment" an explicit factor in the evaluation and compensation of all senior executives, including the CEO.

These steps are promising and, on their face, suggest Goldman is approaching the issue seriously and methodically. You can see the whole proxy for yourself here.

Of course, the Journal couldn't let compensation pass without at least a mention. The second graph of the story repeated the already old news that Goldman Sachs CEO, Llyod Blankfein received $21 million in total compensation last year, the most since 2008.

And for those who didn't get to that graph, it ran a photo of Mr. Blankfein over a caption reading: "CEO Lloyd Blankfein had total compensation of $21 million in 2012."

If Blankfein follows through on his promise to improve Goldman Sachs' reputation by paying more attention to its public responsibilities, he'll have earned it.

Holy Week

2013-03-29T10:53:22-04:00

Millions of Christians are celebrating Holy Week, remembering a man whose singular message was one of love. So it's a little disconcerting to see how some of his nominal followers are interpreting his message.

The Wall Street Journal today carried a lovely little story about Pope Francis' decision to wash the feet of 12 prison inmates in the traditional Holy Thursday ceremony. All of the inmates were young immigrants in an Italian detention center. Some were Muslim and a couple were women.

Traditionally, the pope washed the feet of retired priests in some Roman basillica. But Pope Francis has been going out of his way to show that he intends to focus the church on the poor and the downtrodden. I think he means it.

His plan to live a simpler life by moving into a Vatican guest house may be no more successful in reforming the people who report to him than Jimmy Carter's decision to carry his own luggage. But I think his heart's in the right place.

Sadly, the online comments to the Journal story suggest that it will be hard to get everyone on the same page.

The very first comment criticized the pope for washing the feet of a woman. "Many of us are shocked and appalled," Joe O'Leary tutted. "Many of us hope the pope sees the error of his un-biblical ways and issues an apology."

Another commenter wrote: "Thank God the Pope is not a Nazi anymore."

Still another accused the pope of naivete. "The obviously well-intentioned [and staged?] gesture of a pope washing the feet of a Muslim will backfire.... with very nasty and crude remarks from mainstream Muslims, who wouldn't ordinarily acknowledge an ecumenical outreach, and couldn't tell the difference from that and one of their scimitars."

To be sure, several readers took these folks to task.

But I've noticed the same pattern in the comments section of both the Journal and the New York Times -- a knee-jerk reaction to fill the slightest partisan opening.

The same issue of the Journal carried a story that the Obama administration may include entitlement reform in its upcoming budget. That stimulated dozens of comments. The very first one was typical: "And Lucy is holding the football," wrote Jonathan Rourke, suggesting it's all a devious trick. To which one reader replied, "Bingo!"

If Obama walked across the waters of the Potomac River, some people would say it only shows he can't swim. To be fair, some people would say the same thing of George W. Bush in similar circumstances.

We're all entitled to our opinions, of course. There's even such a thing as justifiable anger. But those opinions and anger shouldn't become the very lens through which we see the world or they become biases and bigotry.

As Pope Francis put it in explaining why he washed the inmates feet, "So what does this mean? That we have to help each other…Sometimes I would get angry with someone. But we must let it go and if they ask a favor, do it."

Ethics in flight

2013-03-22T10:07:08-04:00

My editor once told me that anything with "ethics" in the title was destined for the remainder pile.

So I write this with some trepidation.

But reading the newspaper these days reminds me that, despite the backlash in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, common ethics doesn't seem to be that common in many companies.

Instead of asking "is this right or wrong," some companies seem to be asking "will this work?"

Example: following highly publicized battery problems in its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing seems to have moved into a "limit the damage" phase of its crisis management plan.

When lithium batteries burst into flame on several flights, Boeing was quick to halt deliveries of the new airplanes, saying any fire on an aircraft is a serious issue.

The company cooperated with invesitigations into the causes of the battery malfunctions and ultimately won approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on a plan to test and certify improvements to the 787’s battery system.

Meanwhile, the planes remain grounded and the company is subtly changing its public stance.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, in two recent press briefings senior Boeing managers downplatyed the battery problems.

The 787's chief engineer told reporters that "in the last 10 years, there have been thousands upon thousands" of battery malfunctions on commercial planes, making such events a reality of airline operations, adding that "many of them have resulted in smoke and fire."

Another veteran 787 engineer said fallout from battery failures "happens on our airplanes week in and week out."

In other words, batteries bursting into flame are no big deal. Get over it.

Apparently, the new tack stems from company research into peoples' attitudes toward the Dreamliner following heavy coverage of the battery fires.

Some industry experts warn that the strategy is dangerous, especially if another fire breaks out. Others say that the public has a short memory and this too shall pass.

But the real question Boeing should be asking isn't whether or not this Redemption Startegy will work. The real question is whether or not it's right.

Is it designed to give people the information they need to make an intelligent decision about flying on a Dreamliner? Or is it designed to minimize the chance that they'll even ask the question?

Journalism's slow death

2013-03-18T15:20:10-04:00

The Pew Research Center's report on "The State of the News Media 2013" should be very troubling to PR practitioners.

The report portrays an industry that is "understaffed and unprepared to cover complex stories" or even to "question information put into its hands."

"At the same time," the report says, "newsmakers and others with information they want to put into the public arena have become more adept at using digital technology and social media to do so on their own, without any filter by the traditional media."

Some corporate flacks will welcome this news. No more pesky reporters to gum up the works, they'll say. What's wrong with that?

Here's what's wrong with that: it doesn't mean someone isn't going to be writing about companies; it just means the people writing about them are going to be less qualified, have less time to do a thorough job, and be more prone to parroting what others say.

It's a bad omen for business journalism.

Just look how the same trends affected political journalism.

The Pew Center's analysis revealed that in the last presidential campaign, "reporters were acting primarily as megaphones of the assertions put forward by the candidates and other political partisans." Instead of investigating what the candidates were saying about each other, or putting it in context, reporters simply repeated it. And the more outrageous, the more it got repeated.

So what, some will say. Companies now have a digital connection with their own customers. True, but so do their opponents. And companies have not proven particularly adept at blunting online attacks.

Indeed, the candidates' experience in the last election may be informative on this score too. A separate Pew study showed that Facebook and Twitter comments about both Obama and Romney tended to be overwhelmingly negative (more than 60% for Obama and more than 70% for Romney).

Meanwhile, an analysis of Census Bureau data by Robert McChesney and John Nichols found the ratio of public relations people to journalists grew from 1.2 to 1 in 1980 to 3.6 to 1 in 2008. It's probably even higher today, judging by the number of ex- and even current journalists taking PR courses in night school.

None of this is good news for the practice of PR. It portends a world with fewer honest brokers to help people understand business. A world of conflicting claims and greater polarization. Just like the political world.

No reasonable business leader should want that.

Balancing home and work

2013-03-12T12:56:52-04:00

As the father of two daughters, I'm glad Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In, kicked off a healthy discussion about gender bias.

I passed up such a discussion in OtherWise to focus more on sexual orientation. Now I'm sorry I didn't cover both.

First, it's obvious we all suffer some degree of gender bias. Sandberg herself described the famous Heidi/Howard experiment in which students were asked to read the case study of a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist. In half the cases, the VC was named Heidi; in the other half, Howard.

The students thought Heidi and Howard were equally competent. But they liked Howard more. They thought Heidi was too "selfish" and said they wouldn't want to work with her.

Who knew having two X chromosones could be such a deadweight?

Nilofer Merchant, over at the Harvard Business Review, quantifies the resulting disparity in male and female achievement. "Women hold just ... 18% (of seats) in the US Congress," she points out. "Just 21 of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, a measly 4%. Women hold just 16% of board seats."

The same is true further down the executive food chain: although women hold more than half of professional and managerial positions in corporate America, they account for only 14% of C-suite executives. (More: here.)

Corporate executives have two principal excuses for the under-representation of women in top jobs.

The first is that there just aren't enough qualified women in the pipeline.

But when reminded that more than 50% of college graduates have been women since the early 1980's, they hasten to their second excuse: women aren't willing to put in the hours necessary to get the top jobs.

Being a top executive -- or partner in a law firm -- is a 24/7 proposition, they say. Women want to have kids, and then they want to spend time with them. Men's most enthusiastic involvement in chidcare centers on the period of conception and quickly cools thereafter.

Ms. Sandberg's solution to this dilemma is to suggest that women "lean in," i.e., make their ambition known, take on tough assignments, etc. Then develop a strategy to split time between work and home.

Now, I've worked for women, and I've had women reporting directly to me. They all leaned in as far as I would let them.

Indeed, I promoted several of them because they were not only more intelligent, conscientious, and energetic than their peers (male and female), but because they were driven.

I knew that I could count on them to put in long hours and to take on big challenges. Apparently, others came to the same conclusion because eventually they all ended up in C-suite positions at other companies.

Most of them had kids and a working spouse. I have no idea how they balanced work and family life. And I didn't care. Because I wasn't particularly concerned about the balance in my own life.

And that, friends, is the real problem.

The issue isn't how to carve out more space so women can fit in their kids. It's how to organize work so men and women can have a life outside the office. Jody Greenstone-Miller had some practical suggestions in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

The business model of most law and accounting firms is based on paying associates for 40 hours work a week and getting 60 to 80 hours of billable time out of them.

Corporations have adopted a similar approach. Since the 1970s, management ranks have been downsized to the point that the managers left are doing the work of one and a half to two people.

It's time to recognize that having a fulfilling home and work life shouldn't only be a woman's goal, but everyone's.

That's my hope for my two daughters and for my son, as well as for my four grandsons.

On Deadline

2013-03-11T14:46:08-04:00

Two friends and former AT&T colleagues -- Carole Howard and Wilma Mathews -- just published the fifth edition of their book on managing media relations.

On Deadline quickly became the standard college text on the subject when it first came out in 1985.

This edition likely will be just as successful since it's been updated with new case studies and to reflect the implications of globalization, technology, and social media.

This is not a guide to dodging reporters' questions. On the contrary, it's point of view is that media relations people's primary job is to help reporters do theirs.

It's the most thoughtful, practical, and insightful book I've seen on the subject.

(Full disclosure: I was honored to be asked to contribute to the book and I'm quoted several times. Still, it's a good and useful read.)

Amazon doesn't seem to have the fifth edition in stock yet, but it's available directly from the publisher or from CourseSmart at a nice discount.

Time to go

2013-03-09T15:40:12-05:00

The older I get, the more I relearn the same lessons.

Luckily, these days, it's usually at someone else's expense.

Case in point: Time Warner's decision to spin off its publishing unit, the venerable Time, Inc.

It's not hard to understand why the TV and movie company would want to rid itself of a declining business like print magazines. It doesn't need the drag on earnings growth. Plus, spin-offs are a golden opportunity to beef up the balance sheet by extracting a special dividend and casting off debt.

The more interesting question is how Time, Inc. got itself into this position.

Some say it was inevitable -- much of the advertising that sustained magazines like Time, People, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated were siphoned away by the likes of Google.

But I think Time, Inc.'s problem was more fundamental: the company never really understood what business it is in. It bought AOL because it saw a natural fit between its business (content) and AOL's (electronic delivery).

But in fact, AOL was in three businesses -- dial-up Internet access, communications services such as email and instant messaging, and a portal or home page from which unsophisticated users could begin their exploration of the Internet. At the time of their merger, the first of those businesses was about to go the way of buggy whips, the second had no relevance to Time, Inc., and the third hid behind a "walled garden" that was easily -- and quickly -- displaced.

Time, Inc. didn't even understand its own business, which was more than raw "content" as defined by copyrights and trademarks. The company was actually in at least three businesses -- branded journalism, advertising sales, and magazine distribution.

When the Internet came along, the company shoveled all its branded journalism onto a single platform called "Pathfinder," as if it was the electronic equivalent of its print distribution network. Its storied titles wern't allowed to build their own presence on the 'net. And the audiences that trusted them went elsewhere. So did advertisers.

The spin-off of Time, Inc. represents an opportunity to correct those mistakes. But the company's success depends on two things. First, that the new management really understands what businesses it's in. And two, that it has the financial capability to invest in them.

I hope the company learned those expensive lessons from the likes of AOL and AT&T.

Bring in the clown

2013-03-01T16:01:13-05:00

One of America's most respected journalists looked like a hyper-sensitive clown this week.

Bob Woodward took offense when White House counselor Gene Sperling told him he would one day "regret" writing that Obama was "moving the goal posts" in the debate about budget cuts.

Woodward was so incensed he breathlessly recounted the story to Politico and to his own paper, the Washington Post. Initially, the Beltway media huddled protectively around Woodward, suggesting he felt "threatened" by the remark.

But Woodward began to look a little foolish when the email containing the "threat" was released. It turned out to be a benign, friendly exchange.

So he took to the airwaves to declare he never said he felt "threatened." Only that he didn't think the White House should "operate" that way. Meaning, I guess, they should simply clam up when they think a reporter is getting something wrong.

I dealt with lots of reporters during my PR career. I even lost my temper with a few. But I can't remember anybody suggesting I "threatened" them.

And it doesn't seem to me that Sperling did anything of the sort either.

As it turns out, Woodward should regret claiming that Obama "moved the goal posts" by insisting any deal to avoid today's budget cuts include new tax revenue. It's clear in remarks Obama made way back in the fall of 2011 that he always said closing the deficit would require both increased tax revenue and spending cuts.

Which gets me to the PR lessons in this sad episode.

First, try to be measured when responding to a reporter's story, no matter how loony or off the wall it was.

Stick to factual information, provide context, but don't question the reporter's competence. Ask for a correction if some of the story's facts were objectively wrong. But don't ask for an opportunity to rebut the story unless correcting the record is really critical. Even then, ask yourself if it's worth keeping the story alive, considering how few people will pay any attention to your rebuttal.

Second, focus your response not on the reporter, but on your customers, investors, and employees.

They're the audience that really matters. The media is just one of many channels to reach them.

Third, resist the temptation to to engage in what's been called Hard Ball PR, i.e., complaining to whoever the reporter works for, pulling advertising, denying the reporter further access, etc.

It won't work and could even give the story a longer life, besides inviting unwelcome scrutiny.

Just ask Bob Woodward.

Lies, damn lies, and PR

2013-02-27T13:23:16-05:00

Faced with a tricky judicial question, a first century Roman governor named Pontius Pilate was quoted somewhere skeptically asking "What is truth?"

It's a question public relations people face nearly every day.

They're seldom -- if ever -- asked to lie. But they seldom -- if ever -- know all the truth.

And even when they do, they have to figure out how much to tell.

Apparently, when Robert Gibbs was President Obama's press secretary, he was told to not even admit the U.S. was conducting drone strikes in foreign countries.

Curiously, as far as I can tell, no one in the news media has taken him to task for it, other than fake newsman Jon Stewart and Gibbs' fellow MSNBC colleague, Rachel Maddow. (But Maddow's heart didn't seem to be in it, while Stewart held nothing back.)

Technically, Gibbs didn't lie. He simply refused to respond to certain questions. Or is that a kind of lying?

In today's Wall Street Journal, the Chairman of RSA Security described the criteria a company should use in deciding whether or not to disclose cyber attacks it suffered.

"If an attack on you has the potential to hurt somebody else, then you likely have an obligation to disclose it," he says. "And for your shareholders, you have a responsibility to disclose if you suffered an economic loss." Then he continues, "If an attack on you might be a source of embarrassment, but nothing is lost then perhaps you don't need to disclose it."

We'll never know how much Gibbs was arguing behind the scenes for greater transparency. But on the face of it, it seems that RSA's chairman has a better grasp of what should be revealed (though he leaves himself a loophole big enough for a few whoppers to pass through).

The rule of thumb I tried to follow in my career is relatively straightforward: people deserve to be told everything they need to know to make an informed decision, whether it's buying the company's stock, working there, doing business with it, or letting it operate in their community.

I can't say I followed that rule flawlessly. So I'm willing to cut Mr. Gibbs some slack.

But unlike Governor Pilate, PR people can't wash their hands of their obligation to the truth, even if it's uncomfortable.

Got fiction?

2013-02-23T10:51:48-05:00

In OtherWise, I refer to research showing that today's college students are less empathetic than they used to be.

Some people think it's because college kids read less than they used to.

Getting wrapped up in a fictional narrative, it's been suggested, transports readers emotionally. At least one study claimed that "fiction is a simulation of social experiences, in which people practice and enhance their interpersonal skills."

Of course, that was just a theory. No one had figured out how to distinguish cause from correlation. And we all know how misleading correlations can be.

But now there's experimental evidence of the connection between reading fiction and the ability to empathize with others.

Two Dutch scientists have conducted experiments showing that reading fiction can actually increase someone's empathy if the story is good enough to involve the reader emotionally.

Chalk one up for romance novels.

But more to the point, if you can get your kids to pick up another good novel when they put down Harry Potter, you could help make the world a better place.

I measure, therefore I am

2013-02-06T11:38:10-05:00

In a time of tight budgets it's not surprising that many PR people are obsessed with measurement.

After all, they have to justify their existence.

Unfortunately, outputs are easier to capture than outcomes. And while a pile of news clippings might impress some executives, others are skeptical about its real dollars and cents value.

So the search for the Holy Grail of PR measurement -- how to quantify its bottom line impact -- continues.

As someone who stumbled through the dark in that very quest for more than three decades, I can only admire the efforts of such organizations as the Institute for Public Relations, which claims to do research in, on, and for PR.

Research "in PR" deals with planning and measurement. Research "on PR" is all about benchmarking and best practices.

But the further I get from the need to justify what I do, the more I see that the real payoff is in research "for PR," into the social sciences underpinning the practice.

Ironically, the practice of PR at the turn of the last century used many of the then-new discoveries of psychoanalysis, as this NPR story about Edward Bernays. For more, see the Museum of PR.

Though the practice of psychoanalysis isn't as popular as it once was, it stimulated more than a century of psychological research. Recent years have seen a flowering of new discoveries in human cognition and behavior through the application of everything from new survey techniques to functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The question for PR practitioners is whether they are taking full advantage of these new discoveries to shape their work. Or whether they're spending more time counting newsclips.

Davos Post-Mortem

2013-02-05T17:01:20-05:00

Bjorn Edlund used to run public relations for Royal Dutch Shell and is now with the Edelman public relations agency in Europe.

Our paths didn't cross when I headed PR for AT&T, a fact I regret every time I read one of his postings on the Arthur W. Page Society web site.

His thoughts following the World Economic Forum in Davos are just another example.

You can read the whole posting here, but his four key takeaways for communications professionals pretty much stand on their own:

First, uncertainty breeds a need for deeper, rich-context public relations. Understanding the societal dilemmas in which a corporation operates – so that it can mitigate its risks, operate with less friction, and spot and capture new openings – is a contribution that the CCO is uniquely placed to focus on.

Second, a fragile recovery is a chance to work on behaviors. Any economic trough brings a “back to basics” momentum. As we climb out of the trough, let’s not forget the basics, but codify and cement the good habits of leaner times to build better behaviors.

Third, storytelling remains the core of our job. As the global conditions for business change – how to stay both locally anchored and authentic is a balancing act which we need to address in the narrative about our company’s place in the world.

And finally, purpose is key. Knowing how to live your purpose so that CSR is not an add-on – as The Economist largely sees it – but your company’s way to create shared value is another opportunity for the CCO.

Something tells me Edlund got more out of the Davos meeting than most of the CEOs who were there just to rub elbows with other CEOs higher on the food chain.

Government control

2013-01-31T14:39:52-05:00

The Pew Research Center issued a report today that may help explain why so many people are willing to believe "news" like that reviewed in yesterday's posting.

For the first time, a majority (53%) of the public says that the federal government threatens their personal rights and freedoms. Only 43% disagrees. A full analysis of the report is here.

Nearly three quarters (76%) of conservative Republicans feel that way. But so do more than a third (38%) of Democrats.

Not surprisingly, people who own guns are much more likely to believe the federal government is a threat to their personal freedom -- 62% of gun owners feel that way versus 45% of people without guns. But that figure hasn't changed in three years.

So why the fear that the federal government's ultimate goal is to control people's lives?

My theory is that attitude is the unintended consequence of the Reagan Revolution. It was Ronald Reagan who once said: “Runaway government threatens … the very preservation of freedom itself.”

He was referring primarily to the size of government, as well as to its increasingly frequent intrusion into people's lives. And he hit a responsive chord.

Freedom, after all, is one of the most basic American values.

Many people resent being told they have to wear a helmet when they ride a motorcyle, that they can't fill in wetlands to expand their home, that they can't smoke at work or in restaurants, etc. They consider "nanny state" regulations like those an infringement of their freedom.

In fact, many people now believe government and freedom are mutually exclusive. And the giant deficits the government has run up in recent years have convinced them that government -- the enemy of freedom -- has become too big.

There's more than a little irony in this. Under President Reagan, government spending increased 2.5% annually. By the end of his term, the national debt had more than doubled. Still, people remember what Reagan said -- "Government is not the solution; it's the problem." -- more than what he did.

Joblessness, stagnant wages, rising wealth inequality, and a perception that the government works harder for some than for all have exaggerated the healthy skepticism with which Americans have traditionally viewed government.

At the extreme, those feelings lead to a willingness to believe the government was involved in everything from the 9/11 attacks to the Newtown tragedy.

Reality Check

2013-01-30T17:40:17-05:00

In case you missed it, you should know that President Obama is purging the military of any officers who will not fire on U.S. citizens when asked to do so.

This is in preparation for the coming effort to confiscate everyone's guns. Which is motivated by the fear that armed Americans will rise up when Obama completes his plan to impose Marxist socialism on America.

This "shocking information" is courtesy of Dr. Jim Garrow via a posting on his Facebook page and an interview with the Next News Network.

If this is news to you, you probably don't read media on the outer fringes of the far right. Like me, you may not even know such media exists.

Sadly, it does. And it appears to be thriving. Dr. Garrow estimates that more than 375,000 people saw his interview on the Next News Network alone.

He did a similar interview on the Alex Jones radio show. And stories have appeared everywhere from Patriotic Moms and the Reagan Coalition to the Sleuth Journal and the Tea Party web site.

In fact, a quick Google search for "Garrow, military, shoot Americans" spits out more than 500,000 results. Curiously, not one is a story in the mainstream media. CNN, NBC, Fox, New York Times, Washington Post -- you guys awake?

Maybe word hasn't reached the old media yet. After all, it first appeared only a week ago.

Even Snopes seemed to be caught flat-footed. Its relatively brief report focused only on the so-called "litmus test," questioned Garrow's credibility, and concluded the claim was "probably false."

(When I reported this news to my nephew -- who had posted Garrow's claim on his own FaceBook page -- he replied, " 'probably false' means 'it could be true'.")

If you're shaking your head at this point, consider this: Dr. Garrow may have only an honorary degree from an unaccredited school of theology in North Carolina, most of his credentials may be phony, and he may even be a Canadian, but lots of people are inclined to believe him.

In fact, many are also worried that FEMA is building concentration camps around the country to house dissidents like themselves. They're worried the federal government plans to insert microchips under our skin so we're easier to track. And they're pretty sure the 9/11 attacks were staged by our own government to make the public more pliable.

The man who interviewed Dr. Garrow -- Gary Franchi -- happily ascribes to and promulgates all these conspiracy theories.

Anyone who has tried to discuss these theories with a true believer knows how frustratingly pointless it can be. But I wonder, do we really understand what motivates them?

They often seem to live in an alternate reality. Well, maybe they do.

Maybe if we could figure out the contours of that reality, what shaped it, we could find common ground.

It won't be easy. Those are bullet scars on the sign above.

Spin

2013-01-28T11:27:04-05:00

PR people are often called "spin doctors."

I've always considered that a slur because it suggests PR is all misdirection and manipulation.

Good PR people don't engage in illusions. (And by "good" I don't mean "virtuous." I mean "effective.") Their goal is not to hide the truth, but to ensure that it sees the light of day.

By "truth" I mean the information people need to make informed, rational decisions. That's not as easy as it sounds. Ask UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

I was never asked to lie during my PR career, but I often had to struggle to figure out what the truth was. Not because people were hiding it, but because it was seldom evident. Carl Berstein defined journalism as "the best available version of the truth." That's often true even for the people inside a company.

A brief article in the winter issue of the Conference Board Review does a good job of putting the issue in the right perspective, using a crisis communications as their example. (Disclosure: I've written several pieces for the magazine myself.)

Finding the truth in a crisis is especially difficult, even for the people closest to it. But some version of the truth begins spinning through the media even before all the facts are known.

"Instead of emphasizing the positive and de-emphasizing the negative, recognize the value of transparency," the authors advise. "Rather than releasing self-selected information to the public, commit to openness when you have information that is ready to be released." And then, obviously, release it. All of it. As quickly as you can.

They call this "counter-spin."

I think it applies whenever communicating on behalf of an institution, especially if its prominent or in the news.

Whatever such an institution says carries two meanings: the semantic and the pragmatic. The semantic meaning is the literal answer to the question, "what did they say?"

The pragmatic meaning answers the question, "why did they say it?" which is always colored by "who are they?"

The pragmatic meaning always trumps the semantic, giving whatever you say a spin all its own.

So counter-spin is the proper attitude if you really want to communicate the truth. Or at least the best available version.

Practical philosophy

2013-01-27T11:22:32-05:00

Aristotle drew the fuzziest of lines between ethics, rhetoric, and politics.

In fact, he put the three disciplines under an umbrella he called "practical philosophy."

Were he alive today, he would call it "public relations."

I was reminded of that by a piece in today's New York Times on David Plouffe's departure from the White House.

Plouffe held the position of "senior adviser" to the president, a somewhat fuzzy title in itself. Based on interviews with Plouffe and presidential historian Michael Beschloss, the Times described the job as "equal parts counselor, confidant, strategist and truth-teller."

Plouffe had his own twist on it. “An important thing is to view decisions through the prism of ‘Is this true to who we are?’” he said. “And that’s kind of an instinctive thing, a judgment on ‘Is this consistent with what we campaigned on, and who he is?’” That's not a bad basis for making ethical judgments -- deciding the right thing to do.

For his part, Mr. Beschloss said the job shows how the modern presidency has become kind of a permanent campaign. “Presidents have come to recognize that they do not have to worry about politics and their message only in election years,” he told the Times.

The same could be said about any institution. Consumers vote at the cash register for one company or another nearly every day. In a world where consumers have unprecedented knowledge about the companies they deal with, their votes depend more on what those companies do than what they say. Wasn't it Aristotle who said, "We are what we repeatedly do"?

And in all that doing, every institution needs someone who takes the long view, while others worry about the day-to-day activities that get summed up in a quarterly report. As Plouffe put it, “It’s hard to describe. The role is really to make sure you’re thinking about things strategically, you’re thinking about the next move or two or three, you’re providing some guidance on messaging.”

That sounds like the job of a senior public relations counselor to me. Equal parts ethics, rhetoric, and politics. The institution's practical philosopher.

What good's PR?

2013-01-25T11:42:01-05:00

Most of what passes for Public Relations these days is either promotion or crisis management.

Occasionally, the two intersect, as in Lance Armstrong's recent forgiveness tour.

But in reality PR's ability to create a good reputation is quite limited. And it's capacity to restore one is even more dubious.

Reality always trumps perception, even though many people confuse the two.

That doesn't mean I think PR is irrelevant to reputation management. On the contrary, it's essential.

But good PR flows from what you do, rather than what you say. A good reputatiton is built in the doing, not in the saying. And the same goes for restoring a battered reputation.

I explored these ideas more fully in a recent piece for the Conference Board Review's web page, which you can read here.

Nobody likes their dirty laundry exposed. But rinsing it in bleach after the fact is hardly a cure.

Tin Foil Hat Alert

2013-01-24T15:23:48-05:00

There are times when you have to wear a tin foil hat to keep your brain from boiling.

This was one of those weeks.

I spoke to a group of retired business executives about OtherWise. They were very attentive and asked great questions.

One or two challenged some of my assertions, not only proving they were listening, but also giving me something to think about.

One man clearly wasn't thrilled with the large number of non-English speaking immigrants in the country. He cited a number of questionable "facts" -- most immigrants are here illegally, they're all on welfare, they've caused an increase in crime, they're stealing jobs from citizens, etc.

If you've read OtherWise, you know that I debunk most of these claims in the first two chapters.

WARNING: DON YOUR TIN FOIL HAT BEFORE GOING FURTHER

But then he claimed that President Obama had conspired with the president of Mexico to encourage more illegal immigration by promising they'd get "free food stamps." That's why the number of people on food stamps climbed so dramatically since he became president. You can't make this stuff up.

I had to admit I hadn't heard that. I promised to look into it.

When I got home, it took about 20 minutes to figure out the claim was based on a Fox News story healined "Obama administration held dozens of meetings on food stamps with Mexican officials."

It seems that the United States Department of Agriculure -- continuing a program begun in 2004 under the Bush Administration -- was meeting with Mexican consular officials in U.S. cities for advice on how to make Mexican immigrants aware of the food stamp program.

Since undocumented immigrants are not eligible for food stamps, there was never any question of promoting the program to them. And since Obama has deported more undocumented immigrants in 4 years than President Bush did in 8, it would have been a crazy strategy on its face.

I emailed the information to the man who brought the conspiracy to my attention, knowing it would make absolutely no difference. He didn't disappoint.

To him, I had proved that Obama wanted Mexican immigrants to know that they might be eligible for food stamps. The fact that President Bush had the same goal cut no ice with him. It's still wrong.

But I learned something. His problem wasn't "illegal" immigrants. It was all immigrants. (And he isn't crazy about the food stamp program either.)

Some people fear their world is being changed by forces beyond their control. Because 80% of immigrants are now people of color, and a large number of them speak a language other than English, those changes seem even more sinister.

Telling them assimilation is a complex, two-way generational process does nothing to allay their fear. And tying that fear to a program they believe coddles freeloaders just makes them angry.

There are a lot of people who feel exactly that way. Some of them are in Congress. Real immigration reform means finding a way to address their fears and anger.

Which will take more than a tin foil hat.

Round Two

2013-01-21T10:40:38-05:00

President Obama will be officially inaugurated today.

He's probably more aware than anyone that his first term fell short of his supporters' expectations and played into his opponents' most sinister narrative.

Somehow the widely acclaimed "post-partisan president" allowed himself to be portrayed as our nation's most divisive.

In Secrets of the Marketing Masters, I had predicted something quite different.

I suggested that Obama's use of social media was more than a campaign tactic. It was part and parcel of his style of governing.

His style of problem solving is to involve people at every level, not only because he’s open to new ideas (which he is), but also because he knows the solution to the thorniest problems will require broad consensus and participation.

The Obama transition team seemed to confirm my belief when it launched the Change.gov web site to encourage online discussions about issues such as the economy and healthcare.

Alas, the web site was shut down when Obama moved into the Oval Office. The grassroots movement that got him elected was redirected to the standard WhiteHouse.gov web site.

Well, it appears that the Obama team realizes they missed the boat. Or rather ran it aground.

The people responsible for the 2012 campain have launched OrganizingForAction, a web site specifically designed to support the president's legislative agenda.

Team Obama drew the right conclusion from his first term. The president won't get anywhere with his legislative agenda unless he has popular support behind him. Members of Congress aren't swayed by invitations to a White House barbecue or a round of golf with the president. But they do listen to what the people at home are saying, emailing, and tweeting.

The president has decided to get more people in his corner for Round Two. It's the right move.

Department of irony

2013-01-20T10:09:50-05:00

Irony lives.

I headlined my last post "Shoot." It seemed an appropriate way to introduce Gun Appreciation Day.

Now I fire up my laptop and discover that some people took the headline literally.

According the numerous reports, five people were injured in accidental shootings at gun shows in North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio.

Reportedly, one of the shows was shut down afterwards; another decided to ban personal firearms.

Now that's irony -- a gun show that bans loaded guns. Haven't they heard of the Second Amendment?

Shoot!

2013-01-18T11:57:34-05:00

Shoot an AK-47 into the sky.

January 19 is Gun Appreciation Day.

A new coalition of gun rights and conservative groups is urging Americans nationwide to show their support for gun ownership on that day by turning out en masse at gun stores, ranges, and shows from coast to coast.

The plan is to send a message to Washington two days before Obama's second inauguration. The hope is to rival "Chick-fil-A Day" as a public statement of protest against government policies.

So let's celebrate what guns have given us.

On the plus side:

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 13.7 million people went hunting in the U.S. in 2011. (By contrast, the NRA has 4.25 million members.)
Even though there are 93 guns for every 100 people in the U.S., there are fewer than 1,000 accidental firearm deaths a year. Statistically, that's good news.
Although reliable statistics are hard to come by, a 1997 survey by the Census Bureau indicates that victims use guns against offenders approximately 65,000 times per year. (A survey cited by the NRA suggests guns may be used as a deterrent as much as 2.5 million times a year, but the methodology is suspicious and the results don't conform to crime statistics.)

On the less-than-a-plus side:

Guns kept in the home for self-protection are three times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance than to kill an intruder, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Guns were used in 67% of the 12,664 homicides committed in the U.S. in 2011. (Poison barely made the list.)
There were seven mass shootings in the U.S. in 2012 alone, with 138 victims. Since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii.
Of the 142 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. Nearly two-thirds of the weapons used were semi-automatic handguns or assault rifles.
Many of the killers displayed symptoms of mental illness before undertaking their rampage. More than half committed suicide at or near the scene, including some who died in police shootouts they had little hope of surviving, regarded by some experts as "suicide by cop."

These statistics, and others like it, suggest that the best way to celebrate Gun Appreciation Day is to urge your member of Congress to:

Pass a law requiring universal background checks on all firearms purchases,
Ban the sale of automatic weapons, high-capacity ammunition clips and armor piercing bullets that have no legitimate sporting use, and
Sharply increase funding for affordable and accessible mental health clinics, as well as for studies on the causes of gun violence.

Here's where to get the email address.

How to apologize

2013-01-16T00:42:00-05:00

Everyone screws up from time to time.

What separates the miscreants from the misguided is what happens afterwards.

An apology requires more than puppy dog eyes brimming with tears.

A sincere apology has three components: admission, contrition, and action.

And for anyone to chalk up a mistake to human fallibility, the apology has to sound like it's coming from a human being, rather than a faceless legal entity.

Here's how The Atlantic handled criticism that it published content sponsored by the Church of Scientology.

"We screwed up. It shouldn't have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we've made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It's safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we're working very hard to put things right."

Trust has two components -- sincerity and competence. People not only have to believe you're capable of keeping a promise, they have to believe you intend to.

They will forgive rare incompetence if they believe you're sincere. The Atlantic won the benefit of the doubt thanks to a response that reads like it came from an honest human being.

Proud to be humble

2013-01-15T12:08:43-05:00

David Brooks started teaching a class on humility at Yale today.

According to the Yale course catalog, the class will examine the "premise that human beings are blessed with many talents but are also burdened by sinfulness, ignorance, and weakness."

In an interview with New York magazine, he admitted that he chose the course title to "provoke smart-ass jabs." If so, he chose wisely.

Rolling Stone magazine, for one, accused the "notorious diploma-sniffing aristocrat-apologist douchebag" of committing "one of the most pretentious moments ever."

The web editor of the Washington Monthly opined that the course was "particularly questionable, given that Brooks is known in some circles for his arrogance (to say nothing of, well, Yale itself)".

Even USA Today joined the melee, with a thoughtful exegisis that traced Brooks' thinking on the subject through his past columns and speeches. Having to choose between "those who see human nature as fundamentally good and those who see humanity as inherently fallible," the newspaper observes, "Brooks places himself on the side of the pessimists."

That sounds right to me. But even though I disagree with Brooks on that dichotomy, he's still my favorite conservative.

And whichever side you land on, the syllabus for his course could guide a year or more of thought-provoking reading. If you're humble enough.

The perils of exaggeration

2013-01-04T14:10:27-05:00

I've posted before on the difficulty of correcting false information.

People's attitudes always outlive the "facts" they're supposedly based on.

Now there's new research that shows the danger of false positive information.

It seems that positive information generates a “punishment effect” when it's discredited. People overestimate how much correction is needed.

As a result people end up with a more negative opinion than they otherwise would have.

(By contrast, people underestimate how much correction is needed to adjust for false negative information, leading to belief perseverance.)

The research suggests that bogus credit-claiming or other positive misinformation can have severe repercussions when it's discredited (as it almost always is).

So watch those claims, all you anglers. Not to mention corporate advertising and PR people.