Readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast, “For Immediate Release,” know thast I focus primarily on the impact of online media on organizational communications. As a blogger and a podcaster with an audience, companies routinely reach out to me with their news and information in the hopes that I’ll find their content interesting enough to share. It’s only about 9:30 a.m. here in the Bay Area and I’ve already received about a dozen such pitches today via email.

Forrester Research is one of the organizations that engages in such outreach—and, candidly, it’s one of the few organizations whose content actually is of enough interest for me to share it with my community. When Forrester issues a report that deals with social media and communications, Forrester graciously offers me a copy of the report. These reports sell for hundreds of dollars or more, and as an independent consultant, I couldn’t possibly justify the cost of purchasing one. Because Forrester shares its intellectual property with me at no cost, I’m able to opine on the research and share the findings I believe are most significant.

All of which I do on my own blog and my own podcast. As a result, readers and listeners learn about the research who otherwise may never have known it existed. Some may become Forrester customers. Which is exactly why Forrester engages in such outreach: Its IP is only worth as much as people are willing to spend on it. The more people who pay for it, the more it’s worth.

Which is why I’m so completely dumbfounded at Forrester’s much-discussed analyst blogging policy. The company is confining its analysts to blogs that reside on Forrester’s own platform for posts about research. The reason, according to Forrester and several of its analysts, has everything to do with intellectual property (IP). In a recent post, Forrester VP Josh Bernoff (for whom I have enormous respect and admiration) explained:

What people need to understand is that Forrester is an intellectual property company, and the opinions of our analysts are our product. Blogging is an extension of the other work we do—doing research, writing reports, working with clients, and giving speeches, for example.

...for Forrester, it serves our clients better to be able to get to all our blogs from one place, and to know the opinions of analysts that they see are part of the other opinions they read in our reports, in press quotes, and in everywhere else we talk.

The revelation of the policy has ignited controversy with opponents and proponents lining up with their various arguments. But for me, the underlying IP argument is perplexing. Consider this comment from Dana Baxter, left to the SageCircle blog that first reported on the policy and kicked off the whole debate:

I regularly read Bruce Tempkin’s blog “Customer Experience Matters” and it’s one of the best blogs I’ve run across. He seems to regularly refer back to Forrester. I didn’t even know that Forrester had research in customer experience until I read his blog. I know I’m not a client of Forrester, so they aren’t making money from me, but I’ve been trying to make the case based on his work. But if they’re shutting down his blog, then I don’t really want to read what Forrester has to say.

This is the key issue. When analysts have their own blogs with dedicated followings, their discussion of the research with which they’re involved can reach people the official Forrester blogs won’t reach. (If you think that’s not true, go back and read Dana’s comment again.) And if keeping the IP on the Forrester site is so all-fired important, why share it with the likes of me so I can report the same IP on my blog and podcast?

(Of course, after reading this post, maybe they’ll stop sharing their IP with me.)

I’m not the only one making this observation. Writing on GigaOm, Mathew Ingram says:

In his blog post, Bernoff defended the new policy as a necessary step, saying Forrester is “an intellectual property company, and the opinions of analysts are our product.” But a strong analyst who connects with readers and builds a following, wherever that following might occur, is a benefit to the company they work for, even if he or she eventually leaves to pursue other opportunities. That is the nature of a web-based business—something the research industry is becoming, whether it likes it or not.

Trying to confine analysts and control the access they have to readers through the web is not only wrongheaded (in our view) but ultimately futile. Strong analysts who are treated in this way will leave anyway, thus defeating the purpose. We believe that social media tools can be used both to build personal brands and to benefit the overall corporate brand, and that is what we encourage.

Why not aggregate content?

The IP distinction is one that Forrester’s proponents raise repeatedly in the debate. The notion seems to suggest that analysts who write about their work on their own blogs are somehow sapping Forrester of its IP. Maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t see how, particularly if those blogs link back to Forrester, bringing the company to the attention of new prospects.

Other companies with bloggers don’t compare because, Bernoff argues, their products aren’t about IP. I would argue that Microsoft and IBM are entirely about IP. Both companies encourage their employees to blog wherever they like. The companies link to those blogs on a page that links to all of the company’s bloggers. (Here are links to Microsoft’s and IBM’s employee blog directories.)

Thomas Nelson Publishers goes one better, pulling the content from each of its employee bloggers into a chronological display of the most recent posts from company bloggers. Admittedly, these posts don’t deal with IP at anywhere near Forrester’s level, but it seems a logical solution, one Tac Anderson suggested in a comment to a post about the policy by Cliff Condon, Forrester’s VP in charge of the company’s social media efforts. Condon replied that too few Forrester analysts are blogging to justify such an effort. ” I feel it’s up to Forrester to help more analysts start blogging by providing them a platform for doing it (rather than creating it on their own).”

In fact, Condon never even mentions IP in his post, asserting instead that the policy is designed to give Forrester analysts a tool designed to get them more involved in social media, to provide each analyst with a personal blog and to make it easier for Forrester clients.

I have no argument with these goals. After all, Hill & Knowlton provides a platform for its counselors to use for blogging. The difference, though, is that Hill & Knowlton doesn’t require its staff to use the platform. Many of the PR agency’s staff maintain their own blogs; their posts are aggregated on the same platform along with original posts.

Is it about control?

Forrester’s representatives argue that the policy isn’t about wielding control over what analyst bloggers write. In fact, they argue, analysts are being encouraged to stretch with their blogs.

Still, one defender of Forrester’s policy—Edison Research Strategy and Marketing VP Tom Webster—thinks control may well have something to do with it, pointing to a post former Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang wrote on his Web Strategy blog that required a follow-up apology. Writes Webster:

This could have (and maybe did) hurt Forrester right in the wallet. It’s not my intent to rehash that particular incident, but let’s all agree it was a significant black eye for the company and indeed the analyst industry as a whole. Forrester can afford to lose an analyst here and there -– but they can’t afford incidents like this.

(Webster, by the way, is a terrific dinner companion.)

I’m inclined to take Forrester’s word for it that the policy isn’t designed to keep a tight rein on its bloggers. After all, a well-communicated policy—like the one Hill & Knowlton implemented—would prevent virtually all such mistakes.

A policy would also preclude analysts from giving away more of Forrester’s IP than they should. But on this point, it’s worth looking at an article appearing in the March 2010 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, “Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead, and a quote from lyricist John Perry Barlow:

What people today are beginning to realize is what became obvious to us back then—the important correlation is the one between familiarity and value, not scarcity and value. Adam Smith taught that the scarcer you make something, the more valuable it becomes. In the physical world, that works beautifully. But we couldn’t regulate (taping at) our shows, and you can’t online. The Internet doesn’t behave that way. But here’s the thing: if I give my song away to 20 people, and they give it to 20 people, pretty soon everybody knows me, and my value as a creator is dramatically enhanced. That was the value proposition with the Dead.

Yep, that’s intellectual property Barlow’s talking about.

So I’m still befuddled about this notion of lost IP. I still don’t grasp how an analyst blogging about the research he’s engaged in on his own blog, informed by Forrester’s blogging guidelines, represents a tangible loss to Forrester. Do they not grasp what Barlow does? Are they less savvy about social media than they’ve been claiming they are?

The Altimeter equation

Most of the speculation by those aghast at the policy suggest its origins rest with The Altimeter Group, founded by former Forrester vice president Charlene Li; Owyang and Ray Wang are both partners who joined Li and Altimeter after leaving Forrester. In his SageCircle post, strategist Carter Lusher writes:

Forrester CEO George Colony is well aware of that savvy analysts can build their personal brands via their positions as Forrester analysts amplified by social media (see the post on “Altimeter Envy”). As a consequence, a Forrester policy that tries to restrict analysts’ personally-branded research blogs works to reduce the possibility that the analysts will build a valuable personal brand leading to their departure.

I’d be more inclined to call this “The Scoble Effect.” Uberblogger Robert Scoble built his audience and his personal brand while blogging about Microsoft on his personal blog. He became Microsoft’s de facto spokesperson, its voice in the social media space. When he left Microsoft, he took that brand with him to each of his subsequent ventures. No single Microsoft blogger has been able to capture the share of attention that Scoble enjoyed, while Scoble ceretainly benefitted from the personal brand he had built based on Microsoft’s IP.

(Side question: If Scoble had been forced to blog on a dedicated Microsoft platform, would the company have deleted that blog upon his departure? One high-tech company—I can’t recall which—was called out in the blogosphere for doing just that and had to reinstate the posts in the face of accusations of altering history.)

I’m not inside the heads of Forrester’s leaders, so I can’t say how much of a factor the fear of losing analysts who build strong personal brands played in the decision. I’d be disappointed if it was a major consideration, since it seems petty and mean-spirited. In his post on the kerfuffle, C. Edward Brice cited David Armano’s brandividuals, “people who represent your brand and their own, balancing the two may be something we see more of, not less as companies and brands try to figure out how to engage on a web that’s become increasingly social and personal.” Brice, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Lumension Security, writes, “Basically today when you hire someone you bring their on-line social network into your company, and when they leave they take it with them.”

And if you already had a blog?

One of those defending the policy is new Forrester analyst Augie Ray, who will abandon his “Experience: The Blog” in order to comply with the Forrester policy. Ray isn’t thrilled with dropping the blog that has accounted for so much time and energy.

But I also understand Forrester’s reasons for the changes.  There are obvious benefits to the company of aggregating intellectual property on Forrester.com, including Search Engine relevance and creating a marketing platform that demonstrates the breadth and depth of analysts’ brainpower and coverage.

I appreciate Ray’s measured response, but I think it misses the point. He has developed a following on his blog and not all of them will necessarily follow him to the Forrester platform. That represents a considerable number of people Forrester won’t reach with its message, limiting the exposure to prospective new paying customers.

Consider Scott Monty, who brought his considerable following with him to his job managing Ford Motor Company’s social media efforts. He has used the blog effectively as a means of telling Ford’s story to a large audience than he could reach if he had been forced to scuttle his blog and start anew on a dedicated Ford platform.

The value of Scott’s Ford-focused posts still accrues to Ford (even as he continues to build his personal brand), just as the value of a Forrester analyst’s post on her own blog would still accrue to Forrester. Sure, it can also serve to build the blogger’s own brand, but even Forrester’s Bernoff admits that his brand has been built just fine without his own blog. So what’s the difference?

From a personal perspective, had Joe Jaffe told me that I’d have to give up my blog and podcast before joining crayon, I would have declined the offer. While a lot of prospective Forrester analysts may agree to drop their blogs in order to work there, it’s impossible to know how many may never apply in the first place knowing what the policy is. Some have argued that nobody would pass on the job to salvage their blog, but if I would, I’m probably not alone.

Did Forrester conduct a cost-benefit analysis?

I wonder if the powers that be at Forrester engaged in a cost-benefit analysis. What is it truly costing in terms of lost IP? (To reiterate, I can’t figure out where they’d lose a single nickel.) What is the cost if an analyst builds a personal brand and then leaves, taking her blog with her? (You’d also have to factor in how many of those analysts would have left anyway.) And what is the benefit of the expanded reach of Forrester’s messages and stories, the same reach that leads marketers to offer the IP free of charge to people like me?

I may have just answered my own question. If a cost-benefit analysis had been done, I can’t believe it would have led Forrester to adopt this policy.

So why, then? It’s either a provincial and wrong-minded understanding of IP or a knee-jerk reaction to the Altimeter Group situation.

Either way, it’s a mistake.

It’s also Forrester’s call, not mine. The company produces terrific research and I hope this all works out for them and their analysts in the long run.

In case you’ve just emerged from a coma and aren’t aware of the show, the premise is simple: Company leaders go undercover on the front lines of their companies to discover what it’s really like to do the heavy lifting. Surprised at what they see—from abuses to the horrific consequences of their own policies—their humanity bubbles to the surface and they initiate changes to improve the lives of front-line workers.

(As of right now, you can watch the full episode on the CBS website.

The concept isn’t particularly revolutionary. Hertz used to require its senior staff to spend time working rental counters in order to stay in touch with the customer and remind themselves of the challenges faced by employees who are the human face of the company. JetBlue’s former chairman Dave Neeleman used to work as a flight attendant from time to time for pretty much the same reason.

The wrinkle in “Undercover Boss” is that the employees with whom the executives work are in the dark as to their new colleagues’ identity.

It makes for entertaining television, and the number of tweets I saw from communicators I follow on Twitter proclaiming “Undercover Boss” their new favorite indicates that the show resonated with people who work for a living.

Of course, it “Undercover Boss” is a network reality program, which means it’s superficial and contrived. The footage CBS requires for an hourlong show isn’t going to result in a comprehensive overview of the company’s operations and it won’t reveal most of the significant issues affecting the organization’s performance. But that’s okay. It’s just entertainment. If the executive hitting the road with a camera crew really wanted to uncover the conditions that are holding the company back, this isn’t the approach he’d take.

Ultimately, though, the program could do the company more harm than good.

Organizations need committed, engaged employees. Unlike loyalty, we know a lot about what leads employees to be committed and engaged. One driver of commitment, according to research, is the certainty that pay and benefits are handled fairly and equitably throughout the organization. This belief in fairness and equity is far more important to employees than the actual size of their own paycheck when it comes to inspiring employees to deliver their best work and to put in discretionary effort on behalf of their employer.

I once worked for an organization facing a dilemma. One of their rising stars, already a member of the management team, was pregnant and had decided to resign so she could be a full-time mom. To convince her to stay, the company made arrangements to make room for a crib and a rocking chair in her office and told her she could bring her baby to work and take all the time she needed to care for the child. The executives who concoted this scheme were proud of what they viewed as their forward-thinking solution.

Of course, the news got out to hundreds and hundreds of women at lower levels who struggled with child care but didn’t have the resources that would have allowed them to quit. Their thoroughly understandable reaction: Pay and benefits at this company is unfair. We who work our asses off get no help while the company pulls out all the stops for a highly compensated director-level executive. Morale plummeted.

Waste Management, the company featured in the premiere episode of “Undercover Boss,” could suffer the same backlash. One employee, Jaclyn, is supporting an extended family in the home she’s about to lose while she does the work of three or four people at the landfill where she works. The undercover boss, Waste Management President and COO Larry O’Donnell, risks breaking cover to tell Jaclyn’s boss that something needs to be done to help. At the end of the show, when O’Donnell reveals his true identity, he sees to it that Jaclyn gets promoted from an hourly to a salaried position that pays better; the company also hires a couple people to fill the vacant positions to relieve Jaclyn’s workload.

Then there’s Walter, O’Donnell’s supervisor at a landfill. Walter has been on dialysis for years but still works hard and has a positive attitude. At the show’s conclusion, we learn that O’Donnell has made Walter a health mentor for the company.

Yes, it’s emotional and satisfying television. But Waste Management employs tens of thousands of people. Jaclyn and Walter are not the only employees struggling to pay the bills, coping with a “do more with less” mentality, or overcoming health issues just to be able to get a paycheck. But they are the only ones O’Donnell spent time with on camera and they are the only ones whose issues were addressed by the company.

And make no mistake: There are very few Waste Management employees who didn’t watch “Undercover Boss.” Every admin doing the work of three people, every employee who isn’t making enough to save their house from the current mortgage meltdown, every employee with health issues who still needs to work or lose their health insurance watched the show and wondered, “What the hell? What about me?”

And their levels of commitment and engagement went right down the portable toilets Waste Management manages at outdoor events.

Even the resolution of a time-clock issue at a recycling facility could cause bad feelings if the problem (or similar problems) aren’t addressed at other company locations.

I’m hardly alone in recognizing the problem. Time magazine’s review notes:

Sure, he handed out promotions and raises to the few people whose stories we saw. It was moving to see a woman with overwhelming family and job responsibilities get a bump up that kept her from losing her house. But is there anything reason to believe anything is better company-wide?

The time review also notes that the policies that led to some of the situations O’Donnell encountered were the result of shareholder demands for higher ROI. Should O’Donnell alter those policies to the extent that ROI suffers, it wouldn’t be the first time a company found itself a new president. (Just ask shareholders at SAP.)

I have to admit, I’m not a fan of reality shows. I’ve never watched a single episode of Survivor or American Idol. There is one reality show I do watch: chef Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares.” One of this show’s regular features is an update. The crew revisits a restaurant where Ramsay worked his magic to see if the initial success wrought by the changes stuck. It would be nice if “Undercover Boss” went back to Waste Management in a year to see if anything changed company-wide.

But don’t hold your breath. It wouldn’t be good television to show a company with lower morale as a result of the undercover experience.

Stupid, out dated information.

We have users that repeatedly get infected with viruses and spyware no matter what level or type of antivirus and antispyware software we install. It’s rather odd that ONLY THOSE particular users get re-infected day after day and that they all have MySpace accounts, FaceBook accounts, or whatever. Their employers have to continually pay us to come and clean these infections.

My reply was a bit terse. I asked Jones if he believed all the companies that don’t block access were lying about not encountering the problems he cited. (And no, I wasn’t snarky enough to point out that “outdated” is one word.)

The security issue does, however, appear to be supplanting productivity concerns as the main reason companies block access to Facebook and other social media sites. Among the dominant social networks, Facebook presents the biggest risk to company security, according to 60% of the respondents to a survey of 500 companies conducted by Sophos, an IT security organization. No other network comes close. MySpace ranks second, with 18% of companies identifying it as a concern, followed by Twitter (17%) and LinkedIn (4%).

The concerns are not illegitimate. The incidents of reported malware and spam attacks through social networks has jumped 70% since April of last year. Social networks have become common launching pads fore a couple of particularly nasty worms. The risk of infection, though, is not the only security issue that keeps IT staff up at night. Employees’ individual behavior represents a risk, particularly as web-unsavvy employees fall prey to phishing and other devious ploys. And then there’s the fear that employees will share information they shouldn’t.

Sarah Perez goes into considerable detail on the Sophos report in her post on ReadWriteWeb. Perez also notes that even Sophos isn’t advocating an outright block, despite the study’s findings:

Unfortunately for those in charge of enforcing corporate security, simply blocking Facebook and other social networks via URL is not a realistic solution anymore. The networks are often a large part of a company’s marketing and sales strategies, notes Sophos, meaning they cannot be blocked outright. Instead, companies are encouraged to use a unified approach for mitigating threats that combines data monitoring, malware protection and granular access for their employees.

A Financial Times article (free registration required) has the same advice, noting that organizations have too much to gain from employee interactions on social networks. The article, penned by the head of an information risk management and e-discovery firm, rightly notes that letting employees access social networks from work gives them “the ability to locate the right people, information and expertise quickly, but they also greatly aid external networking, sales and marketing activities.”

The article (which I discovered on the Idea Peepshow blog, notes that 89% of businesses in the UK have no policies governing employee use of social networks and calls for companies to establish and enforce such policies.

As I’ve noted before, protecting the company is a matter of ensuring the proper network safeguards are in place (such as anti-malware/spyware software and the latest virus definitions) and that employees understand their responsibilities.

It works in a lot of companies that don’t block access. It can work in yours.

Content summary: MediaFunnel FIR interview is up; Help A PR Pro Out; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: what Vodafone did when an employee tweeted obscenely, wide and mostly negative reaction to Forrester Research plans to stop analysts from blogging personally; listener comments discussion and FIR Friendfeed Room round-up; news about Thursday’s show; music from Antiqcool; and more.

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For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for February 8, 2010: A 65-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

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So, until Thursday February 11…

Back in 1995, “Snow Crash” author Neal Stephenson teamed up with his uncle George Jewsbury under the pseudonym Stephen Bury to produce a potboiler titled “Interface.” The premise: A presidential candidate suffers a stroke and has a chip implanted in his brain. The chip features a wireless connection to feedback from thousands of watch-like devices distributed to a representative sample of Americans. These devices gauge the wearer’s reaction to political speeches, allowing the candidate to make mid-course adjustments and bolster public reaction to his candidacy.

To me, this bit of speculative fiction defines the notion of a real-time feedback loop.

As the Web proceeds along its evolution into a more real-time network, a idea of a real-time feedback loop is becoming a popular topic of discussion. I attended a panel discussion on Thursday night, part of Social Media Week here in San Francisco, that focused on these loops, defining them as “a method for capturing ideas as they arise and bringing them back into the group for examination through the use of social media.” Promotional copy for the event asserted:

When an idea’s expression generates a creatively relevant or insightful response, a well-organized listening/engagement practitioner captures that flash of brilliance, and feeds it back to the originator as an enriched question, thus creating a real-time feedback loop.  In this transformational moment, a thought-leader may have a second opportunity to be heard and have their expression innovatively re-cast. 

With social media we facilitate this process ever more effectively. It is like cold fusion—when used properly, it creates more value than it consumes, lowering the carbon footprint of innovation.

The idea of real-time feedback loops have been rattling around in my brain since Thursday night’s discussion. Then it occurred to me: What better place to organize my thoughts than my blog?

Where do real-time feedback loops begin?

The Internet didn’t invent real-time feedback loops. The thunderous applause of an audience that leads to a multiple curtain calls is a real-time feedback loop; so is tepid applause followed by a rush for the exits. The Grateful Dead’s symbiotic relationship with its audience influenced the band’s live improvisational music. The crowd’s response almost always affects a standup comic’s routine.

The Net, however, has added two dimensions to real-time feedback loops: specificity and reach.

Specificity—The aggregate response of the crowd is pretty simple. They love it, they’re into it, they disagree, they don’t think it’s funny, they hate it. The Net has provided individuals a voice that allow the performer or communicator to analyze why the crowd is reacting the way it is and respond to specific observations or alter behaviors in order to influence opinions. This is nothing new: For at least a decade, probably longer, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has provided the infrastructure for backchannels, on which conference attendees discuss presentations with one another in real time. In some instances, these backchannels have been projected on a screen where a speaker can see and react to it. Now, Twitter’s hashtag convention—along with some other tools—have made backchannels available to more people than just the geek crowd who knew how to tap into IRC.

Reach—Streaming media and Twitter have expanded the reach of events—from keynotes and panel discussions to product launches and press conferences—to people who can’t be there in person. Again, this is nothing new. The presidential State of the Union address is one example of a speech that is available to larger audiences than just those who can squeeze into the chamber of the House of Representatives. The Net’s streaming capabilities, though, have made it possible to extend this ability to speakers and events that don’t warrant mainstream television network coverage. The most recent LeWeb, for example, was streamed to an audience hungry for presentations they couldn’t see in person due to the event’s cost (expensive) and location (Paris).

Combine these factors and the significance of real-time feedback loops becomes clear. Not only can an executive speaking at a product launch hear specific feedback in real time, but the audience is now expanded to customers or stakeholders from anywhere in the world.

Generally, this feedback comes in two forms: the general chatter of individuals expressing their opinions or talking with one another and targeted questions from individuals to the speaker. Both were in play last Thursday night as people watching a live stream of the presentation (courtesy of Justin.tv) talked among themselves and posed questions for panelists that were relayed by an in-person moderator.

All eyes on real-time

It’s clear that the Net has altered and expanded realt-time feedback loops. Google has incorporated real-time results into its search results. A new category of real-time search engines has emerged sporting names such as Collecta, Topsy and Scoopler.

Prominent people are writing about the real-time web, including the authors of influential outlets like ReadWrite Web, GigaOn, Mashable and TechCrunch. Jeff Pulver, Stowe Boyd and Jeremiah Owyang have written about it. It found its way onto many 2010 prediction lists.

Protocols are being developed to support it. RealTime RSS—from RSS godfather Dave Winer—sends updates when they’re added to a site rather than waiting for an RSS reader or other utility to poll feeds to find what’s new. Google’s PubSubHubbub is similar although not necewssarily a competing standard; the two can work together. Chris Messina described PubSubHubbub’s function this way: “Let’s say (you write) a new blog post; the blogging software then pings any number of hubs with a message: ‘Hey, new content here.’ The hub says, ‘Great thanks,’ grabs the content, and then pushes the content to everyone on its ‘subscriber” list.’

These two protocols expand the opportunity for anyone to get real-time feedback. A marketing executive introducing a new product to a live audience and a virtual one watching the stream can hear back instantly from those engaged over conversational channels (Twitter and IRC, for example) as well as those writing for online news outlets and blogs.

As a result, the focus on real-time feedback has become intense. Some have proclaimed the ability to assess sentiment through real-time search a replacement for costly polling that has been the province of organizations like Harris and Gallup.

But how important is all this real-time feedback?

Is it accurate?

What you think at the instant you hear something may not be what you think after you’ve had time to digest it. Consequently, your immediate feedback may not reflect your long-term view.

This is one of the issues many speakers have with members of the audience live-tweeting their talks or with journalists live-tweeting events.

Much of the tweeting of live events is objective, though, rather than subjective. It’s more like note-taking than analysis. And even the opinions tweeted in real time have value. After all, you’re presenting in real time and people are reacting. Before, you could only see them shifting uncomfortably in their seats, or maybe actively booing or walking out. Now you can assess exactly why they’re reacting the way they are.

But in some respects, the critics have a point. Consider the widely-covered Apple iPad announcement. Information from Steve Jobs’ presentation was made available in real time through a number of channels and a lot (though certainly not all) of the real-time feedback suggested Apple had another sure-fire hit on its hands. But then came the analysis. Tech journalists, bloggers and others began producing the more thoughtful, detailed reviews after they had a chance to internalize the information, consider it, chew on it. FOr many members of the audience, digesting these views, then sharing them and discussing them with each other, led to a shift in their opinions. In the end, their early tweets didn’t reflect their ultimate views.

Is it representative?

During Thursday night’s panel, the point was made repeatedly that only about 10 percent of your audience will offer real-time feedback. And your larger audience—the customers for the product you’re launching, for instance—won’t even watch the event.

Reacting to real-time feedback, then, could mean that you’re taking action on information that isn’t representative of your customer base. In fact, those who pay attention to the live stream or real-time tweets of your message could be as far from a statistically valid sample of your population as you can get.

Is it contextual?

As I sat in the room where the panel was presented on Thursday, I was able to take in everything at once. There was the reaction of other panelists to what one panelist was saying, panel moderator Jennifer Lindsay‘s reaction, the panel’s reaction to Lindsay’s questions and the reaqction of the audience.

Those watching the stream, on the other hand, saw only what the camera allowed, and the camera was almost always focused on whoever was speaking. Those watching the stream got only a sliver of the experience had by those in attendance. IT’s even worse with those who see only the 140 characters broadcast by those who are live-tweeting the event. The reactions of those receiving these messages, then, could be based on incomplete or out-of-context information. It could conflict with the opinions of the people whose opinions you’re really trying to understand.

When real-time feedback matters

Of course, recognizing the limits of real-time feedback doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paying attention to it, only that you should be cirumspect in terms of what you do with it.

In a crisis, for example, you’d be foolish to ignore commentary emerging in real time. By monitoring public sentiment, you can determine the depth of reaction to the situation and quickly develop a response strategy. Real-time feedback in response to change initiatives is equally important. People resist change for a variety of reasons and listening to feedback can help you shape your efforts to overcome that resistance.

As for other feedback—to speeches, to announcements, to events—organizations will have to develop processes to determine which feedback requires immediate internalization and action and which becomes just additional information to factor into longer-term thinking. After all, how much can you really do with real-time feedback? We have no brain-implantable chips to help us adjust our comments in real time based on listener feedback. We can’t alter the presentation in mid-course when CNN’s cameras are on you. You can’t redesign the product if it’s already on trucks heading to retail stores. In most instances, real-time feedback won’t be more important than other forms of input, including the articles, reviews, blog posts, tweets and other consumer-generated content that will trickle out over days, weeks and months in response to your company’s message. Your best bet will be to add it to the mix in order to figure out your next steps, whether it’s a version 2.0 of your product, an enhancement to a program or a response to a query or criticism.

None of which means that engaging people through social channels is less important than it was before the real-time web became a hot topic. Engaging individuals through social channels isn’t necessarily the same as participating in a real-time feedback loop. Engaging in conversations, responding to questions and participating in communities is all part of an effort to establish strong relationships that will pay off over the long term.

Nor does this suggest that the real-time web isn’t important. The instant delivery of news means organizations have less time to prepare and more information through which to sift.

But when it comes to taking immediate action on the instant feedback to your message, tread with care. You could be solving a problem that doesn’t really exist.

Related post from Tom Foremski, who was on the panel (and is in the photo above): The Real-Time Web Turns ‘Conversational’ Media Into Noise

MediaFunnel is a web-based platform for managing team contributions to an organization’s social media output. Initially developed for teams contributing content to branded Twitter accounts, it is expanding into Facebook and other social media channels.

In this FIR Interview, co-host Shel Holtz speaks with one of the platform’s co-founders and its business development adviser about the potential uses of the platform and how it works.

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• Download the MP3 file (10.3Mb, 25:42)
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About our Conversation Partners

Andreas Wilkens is the founder and Managing Partner of Companity Group. Companity Group specializes in SaaS software development, IT outsourcing and consulting as well as VPN solutions

Michele Dundas Macpherson is Managing Partner of Macpherson & Associates, a firm that provides strategic positioning, fundraising and general management for clients in retail, entertainment, self-serve kiosks, technology and social media.  With over 12 years of general management consulting and venture capital experience, she has been instrumental in defining and implementing strategy for dozens of clients. Previous, she was Vice President of Entertainment for NCR Corporation, where she served as the general manager of the retail consumer business operating more than 2,000 DVD/media rental kiosks across North America.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Roberts: ...when a consumer base needs some compassion and needs some hand-holding, as you say, that conflicts with legal advice to admit no wrong. So how do you tread that line between admitting error but also apologizing to your consumers?

Dezenhall: You’re hitting what the great tension is. I mean, whether it’s Tiger Woods or anything, you’re always hearing these very silly PR people when a crisis hits dive in front of the camera and dish out this ridiculous cliche that if you just fessed up, the problem would go away.I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that’s true. Okay, it sounds wonderful in a high school PR class. I don’t see evidence that it’s true. If all of these people start confessing to things and apologizing to things, you’re vulnerable legally.

Well, I suppose if you shut your eyes really, really tight, you won’t see any evidence. My question to Mr. Dezenhall is simple: Have you ever looked for such evidence?

Here are a couple nuggets from a post I wrote last June:

In a study conducted 12 years ago, the year-end closing stock prices of companies that experienced crises were compared. Those that responded well saw their share value 4%, then rebound and remain 7% above their pre-crisis close, while those responded badly (that is, did what their lawyers told them to do) experienced initial declines of 10% with share prices remaining down, closing the year 15% below pre-crisis levels. That’s a 22% difference in year-end share value between companies that responded honestly and candidly versus those lawyered up over the possibility of lawsuits.

(The Oxford Executive Research Briefing that reported these findings is detailed in this Wharton Leadership Digest, a PDF file.)

Another study, this one from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that companies taking responsibility in a crisis outperformed those that blamed someone else by 14-19%.

(Note to Mr. Dezenhall: The “American Heritage Dictionary” defines “evidence” as “a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment.”)

In the same blog post, I referenced Jim Golden, a negotiation counsel for a Tennessee law firm, who said that doing the right thing and telling the truth results in fewer cases going to trial and smaller judgments from those cases that do make it to the inside of a courtroom. Why? Because the truth that was hidden and denied on advice of counsel is revealed in court to a judge and jury who then perceive the organization as the bad guy. As I wrote in June, when companies “fess up” (as Dezenhall puts it) “there’s nothing left to be proven in court. Golden’s clients that have taken this approach have had their insurance premiums reduced by up to 30%.”

See? If you look for evidence, you’ll have a much better shot at finding it.

There’s even more evidence in FIR Live featuring Golden and New York-based crisis expert Fred Garcia.

To be clear, neither Golden nor Garcia recommend an organization take responsibility for something it didn’t do. But if they know they screwed up, they’re able to get it behind them faster by just admitting it, rather than allow information to continue to dribble out over weeks or months.

Content summary: New FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast is up; upcoming FIR Interview with Marc Wright; Dan York’s report; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: new Pew study on social media/mobile internet use among teens and young adults, where does social media fit into Toyota’s global recall crisis?, trust in peers plunges and bad news for social media mavens says Tom Foremski, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz tweets his farewell; listener comments discussion including a CIPR statement on the ‘An Inconvenient PR Truth’ campaign; music from Billy; and more.

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Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for February 4, 2010: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #523 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

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So, until Monday February 8…

Content summary: Chris Christensen, former Executive Vice President of Engineering and Operations for LiveWorld and host of the Amateur Traveler podcast, spoke at the February 3, 2010 Social Media Breakfast/East Bay. His remarks focused on the various approaches different organizations and brands take to building online communities focused on their products. Among the companies he addressed were Campbell’s Soup, HBO, TVGuide.com and Mini Cooper.

Chris’s remarks were recorded using the Griffin iTalk app for the iPhone.

• Download the file here (MP3, 10.8Mb, 26:54).

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve thrown in the towel and renamed my Twitter account from @shel to @shelholtz.

If you think this is because of the number of people who have been tweeting to me when they meant to tweet to Shel Israel, that’s not it. I’ve met some great people while directing them to Shel’s account, and I’m happy for any excuse to touch base with my namesake.

No, this was another problem, one I just couldn’t tolerate any longer. Here’s what was happening:

Somebody would tweet something like this:

Note that the first four letter of @Shelton_Scott begin with “shel.”

Now, somebody copies that message, adds some commentary, and tweets it without checking the character count. It comes out like this:

Which means all these messages come to me even though they have nothing to do with me. And they drive me nuts trying to figure out why the hell I’m getting them until I see the ellipses. To make matters worse, 90% of these messages are in Tagalog.

It happens 15, 20 times a day.

So I finally decided, the hell with it. I’ll sacrifice the five extra characters in order to get messages that are meant only for me.

I still have the @shel account and will be watching it for a while to make sure everyone knows where I am now.

(Note: A tremendous shout-out to Laura Fitton—@pistachio—for helping me figure out how to make the change considering I already owned both these accounts; all the instructions I found called for creating a new account.)