Nancy Brinker of the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure - Original photo by Jason Pier, posted to Flickr.com under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license permitting "remixing," which is what Mother Jones apparently did to the photo.

One of the biggest lessons coming out of the Komen Foundation’s recent high profile policy and communications failures is the importance to corporations and organizations of having some voices of dissent in their circle of advisers.

A major problem of our technologically flat world is that we have the ability to tune out voices that we don’t agree with more easily than ever before.

If we are conservative, we can watch Fox News and not worry about hearing a liberal point of view.

If we are liberal, we might read The New York Times and never look at The Washington Times.

This is a mistake. You need to be listening to voices that don’t agree with you.

For example, boards across the country should be reading and discussing every article in  Mother Jones magazine about their industry.

This well-known publication happens to do some of the best investigative reporting around today, and offers insights into the social and political issues that your organization WILL need to deal with in the coming months and years, whether you like it or not.

Unfortunately, most business people would recoil from the thought of even looking at Mother Jones, because of  its rich political history as a publication of the far left liberal wing of American politics — but you’d better look at the MoJo article, “What Would It Take to Trust Komen Again?”

The article, by MoJo co-editor Clara Jeffery, does a brilliant job of dissecting the Komen Foundation’s insular and single-minded board of directors.

She does a careful job of distinguishing between the many Komen advisory and volunteer boards around the country. She is talking about the wealthy, conservative core of close friends and family members that Nancy Brinker has surrounded herself with. They think alike, they send their children to the same elite private schools, they raise money for the same conservative GOP candidates.

They are, to put it bluntly, a lot like corporate boards — and other nonprofits — all around the country. People like to be friends with people like themselves, and they like to have those people around as advisers.

Boards like the Komen board, which are elitist and insular in their thinking, almost never take good advice from their communications counselors. Let’s be honest. We can blame the PR department for a screw-up here, and maybe they had something to do with it.

But I will bet you that the PR department tried to tell the Komen board what the possible outcomes were from their policy change, and that information was suppressed.In a big corporation — and that’s what Komen is, after all — there are many simple ways to keep information from getting to the board.

Either they made the presentation to someone in management below the board level who decided it wasn’t “important enough” to bother the board with, or they did bring it to the board, which just all clucked their tongues and just patted the PR people on the head, thinking, “we are so much higher than you, we know so much better how things work, now go back to your office and send out more press releases about our pink merchandise.”

The problem is, such an incestuous board becomes an “amen corner” for what they think. They don’t get real outside opinions. They usually either demote, fire or push aside anyone who gives them contrary advice, or heaven forefend, bad news. Ask anyone who took bad news about Bank of America to Ken Lewis what happened to them. It doesn’t take long for the troops to get the message that the best way to survive is to keep your mouth shut and don’t tell the boss.

On 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl did a profile of Admiral Mike Mullen, the recently retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recalled that when he got his first star as a Rear Admiral, he received a note of congratulations from one of his Annapolis classmates that read, “Congratulations, from this day on, you will always eat well and never be told the truth again.”

Boards will always eat well, but they need to create an environment in which they can be told the truth — and the messengers will not be muzzled or fired or telling the truth.

And of course it made me remember this joke, which is way too long to tell in the 140 character limit of Twitter.

(Overheard CB radio conversation)

CB Operator: Breaker 1-9 for a 10-36?
Translation: can someone on channel 19 please tell me what time it is?

Response: Hey, guy, I’m not going to give you a 10-36 because if I give you a 10-36 then you’re going to ask me for my (10-)20 [my current location] and if I tell you my 20 you’re going to ask me for my home 20, and if I give you my home 20 you’re going to ask to have a coffee break at my home 20, and if you come to my home 20 for a coffee break you’re going to meet my sister, and if you meet my sister you’re going to want to date my sister, and I won’t have any son of a bitch date my sister who can’t afford to buy a wristwatch!

BA-dum ching!

Steve "@PodcastSteve" Lubetkin; Judy "@MorahToMorah" Lubetkin, and Shel "@ShelIsrael" Israel together at the Dancing Camel Pub, Ha'Tasiya Street, Tel Aviv, during the Tel Aviv Beer Tweetup November 28, 2011

Here’s another story about why it is essential for you and your business to be involved in the use of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter.

We are travelling on assignment in Israel last week and this week. When I checked my news feed on Facebook this past Sunday, I learned that one of my colleagues from the Society for New Communications Research, best-selling author Shel Israel, was in Tel Aviv the same time that we are, making a speech to an Israeli marketing conference. I also learned that there was going to be a “TweetUp,” a meeting organized by using Twitter and Twitter tools, at which Shel would be one of the guests of honor.

We had no problem adjusting our evening plans so that we could meet some inspiring young Israeli high tech startup entrepreneurs, see our old friend Shel, and visit the Dancing Camel Pub, a funky brew pub (run by an expatriate from New Jersey!) in a part of Tel Aviv we might not otherwise have gone to.

Without Facebook and Twitter, we never would have known Shel was in the vicinity, nor would we have known about the TweetUp.

This is how social media can connect the dots — even six thousand miles from home!

May I please just say, “Ugh!”?

If you are going to record podcast interviews at all, you ought to at least learn one rule for production. Get the interview subject’s bio ahead of the interview, and either turn it into an intro script so YOU tell your audience who you are speaking with, or do the research yourself. don’t make the guest also be the host.

Listen to NPR or CBC, Terry Gross or Brian Williams, it doesn’t matter. The pros do not open an interview by asking the guest those basic questions. If you want people to think you know what you are doing, act like you do know.

Prepare for your interview, and introduce your guest properly to your audience.

Kevin Cummings, president and CEO, Investors Bank

A few days ago, a story in one of the major business publications here in New Jersey caught my eye. It was about how Short Hills-based Investors Savings Bank has rebranded itself as Investors Bank. It’s a subtle but important separation from its heritage as a savings bank into a new and more dynamic form as a local bank aiming to attract small business and consumer customers dissatisfied with the service they get from the giant superregional and national banks that have devoured most of the banking market in New Jersey.

As you can see elsewhere on this site, it also happens that we just produced a video podcast for the New Jersey Bank Marketing Association, in which the president and CEO of Investors, Kevin Cummings, described the rebranding of the bank in extensive detail for an audience of bank marketers and business leaders.

Partly as a promotional effort, but mainly because it was content relevant to the business publication’s story, I added a comment to the story (by the way, I pay for my subscription to this publication) pointing out that readers of the story might be interested in hearing more about the bank’s rebranding by viewing the video. The comment included a link to the podcast.

I received a terse email from the publication’s editor that informed me that “comments like this will not be approved on our site.” I wrote back that it was a shame the publication was so worried about posting links to outside content that it would deprive its readers of any opportunity to get more information on a story in the publication.

I haven’t received any answer to my response. I suspect I won’t, either.

Ironically, this publication has gratefully accepted –  for no compensation — my digital images of various executives appearing on  regional economic panels in the past, and once, even paid me to license photos of a state official for use in the publication. And in fairness, I have tried on several occasions to forge a formal partnership with them that would enable their readers to benefit from the audio and video content we produce.

One of the challenges for mainstream, traditional publishers, is going to be deciding how to deal with independent content producers like me. We produce what we think is pretty good content for our clients. A lot of it is straight reporting, no commentary, just a recording of a seminar, what people said and what questions were asked. Why wouldn’t a publication want to amplify its own reporting by linking to content like this?

So what if it sort of promotes the content producer a little bit? Isn’t that why they invented bylines, anyway?

What do you think? Should mainstream media be willing to let independent content producers link content that relates to their stories or not?

Along these lines, we thought it might be appropriate to revisit the ethics panel discussion we videotaped several years ago for the Philadelphia Chapter of PRSA.

Panelists were:

• Christopher Bauer, president of Bauer Ethics Seminars

• Former Philadelphia Managing Director Phil Goldsmith of Goldsmith Kahn and Associates

• Dave Frankel of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP

• David Kirk, APR, Fellow PRSA, President of The PR Guy, Inc.

Moderating the panel was Jonathan Morein, vice president and chief ethics officer, PRSA/Philadelphia.

You can watch the program here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There is also an audio podcast of this program.

The Society for New Communications Research has issued a call for entries for the 6th Annual SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. These prestigious awards honor the work of organizations that are innovating the use of new communications tools and technologies, social media, ICT, and mobile media in business, media, and professional communications, including advertising, marketing, public relations, corporate communications, and CRM, as well as entertainment, education, politics, and social initiatives.

Entrants are asked to submit case studies detailing their initiatives and technologies. Winning case studies will be published on SNCR.org, and will be honored at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala, which will be held November 3-4 at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.

Submission guidelines and the online entry form can be found here. Deadline: September 9, 2011

The app provides access to four of our popular podcast series:

Lubetkin on Communications – our podcast on communications, public relations, and journalism, featuring interviews, panels and other news.

Middle Chamber Books and Music Podcast – interviews with authors, musicians, and other creative professionals.

Compuschmooze Podcast – The audio and video podcast series supplementing Steve’s monthly newspaper column in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.

RatingAgency.com Podcast – Our occasional podcast on the people making news in the debt ratings business.

Please visit the Android Marketplace to purchase!

Dick Martin

In this episode of the Middle Chamber Books and Music Podcast, we speak with marketing expert Dick Martin about his most recent book, Secrets of the Marketing Masters – What the Best Marketers Do – and Why It Works. Because the topic area, corporate branding and marketing, overlaps with our interests in public relations and communications, we’re crossposting this podcast to the Lubetkin on Communications blog too.

In the book, Martin, a former AT&T public relations executive, explores the best advice of a variety of marketing gurus from headhunters and ad agency heads to academics, consultants, and the masters themselves.

You can hear the complete interview in this podcast player, and you can purchase Martin’s book at the link below. Read Dick Martin’s blog here.

See larger image Secrets of the Marketing Masters: What the Best Marketers Do -- And Why It Works (Hardcover) By (author) Dick Martin List Price: $24.00 USD New From: $0.03 In Stock Used from: $0.03 In Stock

With the low entry level cost of digital photography, many companies and organizations want to cut costs and just buy inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras so they can make their own images from events, avoiding the expense of hiring a professional photographer to create graphically appealing and dynamic images from the event.

Are you really doing the right thing for your business — or for your clients?

We see many advertising, event planning, and public relations agencies sending their untrained employees out with automatic digital cameras to capture images.

We have even had these nonprofessionals hand us their cameras during a shoot where we were engaged to produce high quality images from the event and ask us to make a photograph with their camera (so they can get the benefit of our training and expertise for free? Sorry, we decline.)

Look at the images we produced at the Jersey Shore Public Relations and Advertising Association’s summer beach party. You can watch a video slide show we created, or you can examine the individual images in our portfolio on Flickr.com. (By the way, all of our images are copyrighted, so please ask if you want to use them for something, don’t just grab a link to them without permission, ok?)

You won’t see red-eye from improperly placed flashes. The photos are in focus (that’s because we take the time to focus the camera manually, not relying on the automatic features that often fool a point-and-shoot camera.

JSPRAA 2011 Beach Party.Our images are exposed properly, they are sharply focused, they show pleasing casual or formal poses. The colors are correct, the lighting is great.

There are thousands of professional photographers out there who can do this, but you need to hire them if you want to improve your image.

You will not build a great brand image by cutting corners and stuffing a cheap camera in your pocket — or your intern’s pocket — for important company and client events.

Take a hard look at the pictures your staff is bringing back from your events with your customers or client companies.

Are you getting the same quality as our photographs, or are your pictures running the gamut from barely acceptable to really awful?

Ask yourself if you are you really saving money or if your efforts to make your own images are just damaging your company’s reputation?