http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html
While reading through my backlog of old Wired magazines I didn’t have time to read while my mum was alive, I came across the above article by Clive Thompson suggesting that all companies can benefit by being absolutely open about everything they’re doing.
He calls it radical transparency. But is it for everyone?
Well, on the plus side:
- It has the potential to build trust with customers and potential customers.
- It allows crowdsourcing-type input to new product development (NPD) and customer relations processes.
- It encourages your whole organization to live by its stated values.
But the potential downsides are many:
- It could damage trust with other stakeholders like commercial partners and suppliers if you reveal things they’d rather you didn’t.
- It’s clearly not an option for everyone i.e. the MoD, MI5, firms which rely on technological innovation or ones with dark secrets to hide.
- The flashback if found to have lied or hidden something bad would be worse than if you’d not pretended to have been a saint in the first place.
- It risks damaging any competitive advantage you may have in things like NPD, R&D or customer processes if you’re too open about them.
- The most transparent PLCs pay the price of share price volatility for offering up info on their failures while the least transparent are rewarded with stability. Maybe anything which could be price-sensitive could be treated in the usual fashion.
So, overall, it looks like a bit of a non-runner for most firms. But for challenger brands trying to impress target customers in an area not known for transparency, it might be worth a look, but with carefully defined limits.
If you had to measure the chances of News Corporation recovering from the whole phone hacking scandal by the performances of the three leading players in Parliament today, you’d have to say they were good.
I, for one, was very much convinced of the sincerity of Rupert Murdoch (if he wasn’t sincere, he should get an Oscar) and only slightly less so by that of his son James.
Rebecca Brooks? Considerably less so. There are just too many awkward questions she can’t firmly and confidently answer. But it’s still possible she’ll be cleared of clearly knowing about what went on.
If I were doing their PR I’d feel things had taken a turn for the better today. Under intense scrutiny, they seemed to do all the right things. Most of all by being there and answering as fully as they did. Repeating the ‘taking the 5th’ strategy of the Maxwell brothers years ago would have been a disaster. They were absolutely right to speak as fully as they did.
But there are still lots of awkward questions to deal with and, most importantly, be seen to deal with properly
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jul/13/newsoftheworld-local-newspapers
In looking at your brand’s relationship with its customers, I feel it’s useful to think of how a decent person you know might react to some bad news.
If they’re in the wrong, any decent person will say sorry and offer to do something to make up for the wrong.
What’s the result? Probably a better relationship than there was before the problem.
You not only feel you can trust that person, you know it.
It’s a simple truth but one that many organizations still need to learn.
Even if it means temporary embarrassment, saying ‘sorry’ is the best thing if you’re in the wrong and you want to maintain the relationship.
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2011/news/council-sets-up-web-page-to-put-record-straight/
It’s rather sad to read that this council has felt the need to set up its own web page to correct and complete its coverage in the local media.
It seems to me that the paper may have ‘sexed up’ its coverage of the issue a bit too much, especially as it’s one of safety that might frighten a lot of readers. So it’s only reasonable that the council should go to such efforts to get the full facts across.
It would be good to know if the paper’s going to run a correction or clarification. It probably should.
From a PR point of view, it would be easy to do this if you feel your client has had the same treatment, but how do you get it to the paper’s readership? Asking the paper to run a follow-up with a link to it would be a good starting place.
Adding it to future comms to residents would help too and wouldn’t fall foul of the Pickles limits.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/21/national-newspapers-newspapers
This is an interesting question in the light of the ever-decreasing circulations of papers in the UK.
Though for many years papers like The Sun have loved to claim that their backing of one party or another has been pivotal in it winning the General Election, the reality, as this study shows, has not been a true positive correlation.
But despite that they’ve managed to retain their influence over the national leaders by acting as if it is true (and which leader would risk going against them in case it was?).
Whatever the truth of how much they can tip voters one way or another there are two undeniable things here — the news agenda is still set a lot of the time by stories in the Press and that the constant drip of coverage for or against parties and their leaders must have an impression, unconscious or not, on the perception of parties and leaders and that it’s that which party leaders fear most.
And when that’s going on to as many readers as the Press have daily (still an impressive number) then it’s fair to argue that while the Press in print is on its way down, its influence is still huge.
Unless and until new media separate from the Press titles establish an equivalent level or credibility and readership, the Press will remain influential, if not masters of what we think.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/15/local-newspapers-twitter
I’m absolutely amazed that this council PR, not just a junior but the body’s comms chief, tweeted what he did.
While the paper’s response had been more than a little po-faced and OTT, the initial act was at worst silly in its tone.
Maybe the PR chief got lost in the informality of a tweet. But you would expect someone at that level to think before hitting Enter.
More than that, isn’t it surely his job to build close relationships with the media so that spats like this don’t happen? If that had been the case, the reaction would have been less serious in its tone.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/08/nhs-local-newspapers
It really can’t be in the best interest of any NHS trusts, and certainly not in those of the public who pay for them, for them to hold all of their board meetings in private.
There are, of course, some matters which have to remain confidential, but to not be seen to absolutely transparent about everything which isn’t confidential doesn’t do them any good.
It’s one thing to be above board, but you have to be seen to be, especially as a public body. Like Caesar’s wife, they have to be above suspicion by being as transparent as possible.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/st_thompson_technophobes/
I thought it worth sharing this piece by Clive Thompson on the possible role of late adopters, as opposed to the much-vaunted early type, in the success of new products.
The argument certainly seems cogent and the addressable market is pretty big.
But how do you convince the laggards that it’s time to upgrade? Find out what can you make your new thing a tipping point for them. And see if you can work out when they, as a group, last splurged on leapfrogging to the latest thing.
As he says, early adopters make up their own minds. Marketing to everyone else could do your marketing ROI a power of good if you can come up with the right sticky message and use mavens and connectors to get it to the late folks.
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2011/news/editor-hits-out-at-pathetic-fergie-over-bid-to-ban-journalist/
Like most observers of football I greatly admire Sir Alex Ferguson’s record as a footballer manager. But he should leave managing the side’s PR to someone else.
Trying to ban a reporter who asks an awkward question (in fact it wasn’t nearly as bad as you would think from his reaction) only throws petrol on an ember and therefore certainly isn’t a good way of managing the reputation of the club.
If he wants to manage his players in that kind of way that’s between him and the club, but relationships with the media have to allow full and frank exchanges in a professional manner. If you don’t like a question, do your best to answer it and move on. And don’t shoot the messenger.
