Politics is a mean, nasty, filthy business.  Trust me, I know – I have been around it most of my working life.  Much of the process of getting elected is pushing your candidate’s positives while attempting to raise the negatives of your opponent.  But a Cardinal rule is don’t help the person opposing you by doing something stupid (read: don’t be Michael Dukakis riding in a tank).

As I have stated again and again in this space, the first rule of crisis communications is to avoid the crisis to begin with. Anticipate contingencies.  Plan for FUBARs.  Don’t step in it.

And above all, don’t leave yourself open to attack – and don’t shoot yourself in the foot.  And all of this is why Congressional candidate Jane Corwin’s social media person should be waterboarded.

Jane is running for Congress in New York’s 26th district special election.  Good for her.  She has a pretty nice looking Web site that, when you get past the usual campaign-speak is attractive and fairly informative.

Done, right?

Nope.

One of Jane opponents must have did a little background research of his own and discovered that the campaign’s social media person neglected to register all of the possible domains, leaving them exposed to a parody site.  And that’s exactly what happened.  The campaign staffer registered .com, not .org.

Hence, meet the parody site, www.janecorwin.org.  Consider that this URL is just a hair from being the URL of the campaign site – AND – many campaign sites have .org domains because they are not considered companies.

Both sites have a virtually identical look and feel and navigation, so if one is not paying attention, until you carefully read the copy, it’s hard to tell them apart.  Here are some comparisons:

On the campaign site:

• “Challenging the status quo and protecting your tax dollars.”

Parody site:

• “Protecting the status quo and taking your tax dollars.”

And it goes on and on.  You can read all about the real campaign site here, but the embarrassing and (to be honest) gut-bustingly funny items on the parody site include:

• The welcome pop-up screen:  “Together, we can make delicious soup from the bones of the poor. Sign up now to be served by Jane Corwin.”
• The lead campaign news item on the home page: “In response to her heroic support for Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which would end Medicare in favor of an innovative program called ‘widespread human suffering,’ Jane Corwin has been given an award by Pat Boone, spokesman for the 60-Plus association. Boone was a famous singer in the days before it was learned that music could convey human emotions.”
• Instead of “volunteer,” “donate now” and “contact” on the campaign site, the parody site lists “surrender,” “give us your money,” or “get brain implant.”

Finally, the real campaign site does, in fact, integrate Facebook.   As I write this, 809 “like” Jane.  On the parody site, instead of the “like” button, it is replaced by “coronate,” and those who like Jane include Kim Jong Il, Donald Trump and Muamar Gadaffi.

Yes, this is funnier than hell, but it’s serious too.  When someone sent me this article, I got curious to see how much coverage this has gotten beyond Jane’s district.  Jane:  ouch.

No less than the online version of Time magazine wrote about the parody site on May 6, calling it “ruthless,” but nonetheless, quoting some of the funnier lines.    The Atlantic wrote about it, calling it “…in fact, a parody site that rips the state assemblywoman as a corporate shill and hilariously mocks the stock photography and conventional political imagery on her campaign’s actual website, JaneCorwin.com.”

Double ouch.  And the irony is no lost on me that this special election is taking place to replace Rep. Chris Lee (R), who resigned from Congress in February after half-naked photos of him surfaced on Craigslist.

Going back to my original point, the best way to carry out crisis communciations is to avoid the crisis to begin with.  I mean, it’s what, like $39 bucks a year to register a domain?  When I was in the agency world, we once spent about $2,000 registering all possible domains (and I mean ALL) for the company, it’s senior executives, and even those that could represent acronyms.  Any time that a client balked, I would ask if they have business insurance.  The answer was inevitably “yes,” and I would tell them that while they cannot stop web sites that attack them, they can make it harder for people to quickly and easily find the negative information.  That’s your online reputation management insurance.

So dear social media person at Jane Corwin’s campaign:  your mistake to spend maybe an extra $150 bucks got your candidate lampooned online and created an echo chamber in Time magazine, the Atlantic, as well as others.

As for punishment, here’s my idea: there have to be some out-of-work waterboarders just hanging around the faucets at Guantanamo – and – information to whack Osama may have come from one of the enhanced interrogation techniques, so why not waterboard the idiot whose neglect caused this flap?  Negative aqua-reinforcement.  Or have “.com, .org, .net., .info. and .tv” tatooed on his/her forehead.

Just think: we could video it and make it into a parody site.

Mark

I have written in this very space – harshly – what I think about Osama bin Laden and his heinous attacks on innocent civilians.   I also, although not lately, have written much more about social media.  And despite the name of this blog, for me, there is no intersection. Nor should there be.

Enough, already.  Stop going for the cheap headline.

It’s nauseating to read the accounts of many who attempted to find a social media angle to Osama’s killing.  It was  tragedy that the man lived to carry out his attacks on innocent people.  Not a history lesson. This is not a story about social media, it’s a story about the most evil man of this generation being, as so many have said “brought to justice.”  Here are some of the headlines that bothered me yesterday:

• Osama bin Laden dead: Twitter records broken during Obama address
• Twitter user unknowingly reported bin Laden attack
• Bin Laden is Dead; Twitter Buzzes

And the one that I found most nauseating:

• Social Media Lessons from Bin Laden Death Coverage

I could go on and on, but here’s my point.

First, one of history’s most evil figures has been killed – and that is newsworthy, to an extent. But it does not need to turn into a social studies lesson on Twitter and the dissemination of news.

Second, not everything has a social media angle. Sure, it exploded on Twitter.  So did the Mumbai attacks and so did the last election.  So did the Japanese earthquake.  But this is different.

As one of my Facebook friends detailed yesterday, Bin Laden and his organization have killed people in African embassies in 1998, the London tube bombings, the Madrid train bombings, the Bali bombings,  thousands of people killed in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places where al Qaeda slaughtered Muslims in the name of their jihad.

Let’s not turn this into, as one of my Facebook friends lampooned, yesterday “What The Killing of Osama Bin Laden Can Teach Us About B2B Marketing.”

Leave it alone, social media colleagues.  Leave it alone.  It’s too raw and not suitable for a classroom lesson.

Mark

P.S. – After note:  When I finished typing this post, I went upstairs in my house to get ready for work.  The TV was on.  The headline on Fox Business was “What Bin Laden’s Death Means for Business.”  See what I mean?

As promised,  here is the fourth post (and third tip) in a series on how to build a first-class online reputation management group or at least one that doesn’t suck.  I am attempting to offer what I think are the keys to success in establishing, promoting or defending your company’s issues or reputation in the online environment.  And we haven’t even gotten to the actual reputation management yet.  You gotta build a house on firm foundation first.

In the last post, I talked about (probably revealing too much pent-up frustration in the process) how I think that it should scare the hell out of management in government, organizations or agencies that your assets walk out the door every night.  You need to do everything possible to keep those valuable assets in place.

This next topic is also near and dear to my heart – something that should be a no-brainer for an agency, a corporation or a government agency:

Tip #3: Give your employees the software, hardware and online tools to be successful.  Don’t ask people to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.

Provided that you have recruited and are doing your best to retain your staff, you need to give them the tools to be effective.  And by “tools,” I mean hardware, software, access to social media tools –  and training.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had to engage in a battle for software, a faster computer, access to social media tools through the firewall, or even back in the day, a LAPTOP so I could actually do work during non-work hours.  So here’s a few bits of advice aimed at the employer:

1. This is an example of hardware, but if your employee wants a Mac (or a better computer), listen to the business case. If you do a lot of audio or video or high-end processing, this is what Macs are made for.  And don’t give me the “support” issue.  There are many businesses that are specifically designed to support Macs in a remote environment.  Sure, I think that Macs are cool, but if you want one, be prepared to make the business case for getting one.
2. Know that BlackBerries cut like a double-edged sword.  We are past the era (whether it’s good or bad) in which only “upper management” got BlackBerries.  It seems that IT and the Powers That Be decided that it was, in fact, a good thing to have employees tethered to the Mother Ship at all hours.  But from the employee perspective, do you really want to be responding to an email at midnight, thus creating the expectation that you will continue to do so?  And management:  do you reserve the right to get ticked off if your employee DOES NOT respond to an important email sent at 10:00 at night until the next day?
3. Software.  Again, if your employee can make a business case why he/she needs a software like Adobe Creative Suite or even an HTML editor to make changes to a site that perhaps got past the coding team, you need to understand that it benefits your business.  It benefits you if your employee has the skills to produce better looking work products like reports, proposals, client deliverables and even good-looking content that you can deploy on the Web.  It’s been my experience that most employees who ask for software want it to do their jobs better.  I can remember editing code by hand in a hotel room in São Paulo for a Web site that had to go live the next morning.  I was able to avoid potential embarrassment by catching the mistakes before it went live.
4. Social media.  Yes, I freaking get it that many, many tweets are about people’s cats.  But that does not mean that ALL tweets are about things that most people don’t care about.  Major companies tweet.  Major news organizations tweet and follow others.  Government agencies tweet.  There is enough “there there” so that you know that Twitter is for real.  And blocking?  Shel Holtz’s excellent “Stop Blocking” effort was, I think, borne out of frustration that so many organizations are unwilling to give their employees access to social media tools that will help them be MORE EFFECTIVE.  Google Wave?  It’s in beta phase, but why the hell do you block it?  Let your employees be intellectually curious to find out if something has a business application, like Shel said in For Immediate Release #498, Google Wave has the potential to be an excellent crisis communications tool.  And if I hear the “employees wasting time” argument one more time, I am going to go postal.  Know what, Mr. CEO?  If you have loser employees who want to waste time like the entire staff of Dundler-Mifflin, they are going to find ways to do it, with or without YouTube.
5. Conferences and training.  This is probably the most contentious one of all, but I point back to my original post that one of the best ways to retain employees is to keep them intellectually challenged.  And that means training and conferences.  Again the employee has to make the business case, but conferences are about more than room service and booze-induced Tweet-ups.  Your employees will learn.  Your employees should stretch their own intellectual capacity by learning from like-minded individuals.  And perhaps equally importantly, he/she will be grateful for the opportunity and trust afforded.

All of this comes down to two things:  productivity and competitive advantage.  And oh – these are things that benefit  organizations.  The right mix of tools help companies do what they do – squeeze every last drop of productivity while structuring payroll in a way to make a profit.  Competitive advantage?  If you are in-house in communication for an organization, perhaps building a WordPress site for the daily news clips will benefit your colleagues and senior management (vs. the 75-page tome that most companies send out) by increasing productivity.  Maybe Adobe Creative Suite will enable you to put together a better looking proposal that will help you win business or a report that will, in one page, catch the eye of a C-Suite person.

Productivity.  Competitive advantage.  Without these things, your highly recruited staff will be fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.  And you WILL, most likely, suck.

Mark

As a devotee of Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson’s “For Immediate Release” podcasts, I listened to a recent episode in which their soon-to-be correspondent, Eric Schwartzman, was interviewed.  He mentioned the name of his podcast and blog, so I subscribed in iTunes.

And that’s where it went south.

I want to be clear about this post:  it is in no way intended to denigrate Eric’s body of work (impressive) or even the podcast.  But I could barely believe what I was hearing from Eric guest, Lou Capozzi, Chairman Emeritus of Publicis Public Relations and Corporate Communications Group.

Eric interviewed Lou on about his luncheon keynote at the PRSA International Conference on restoring America’s connections with the world.  This took place in Detroit at the end of October.  So, caveat #1:  I was not there to hear the speech and #2) Mr. Capozzi was presumably limited in the amount of time that he had on Eric’s show.

The premise of the podcast was the issue of America’s declining reputation throughout the world, one week away from the presidential elections (hmm…).  But I have to tell you, as I was listening to the podcast while driving to work and I had several of those moments in which I stared at my stereo in the car thinking, “did he really just say that?”

Here’s what I thought was bat-shit crazy:

Immigration People Suck

• Mr. Capozzi first stated reason why people don’t like America/ns anyway is “our visa and immigration policy.  We make it very difficult for people to get into this country.”   Mr. Capozzi cites long lines at immigration and even the “..tone, very threatening and foreboding” of the workers who process people.Mr. Capozzi:  with all due respect, you might remember the incidents of September 11, 2001.  You sound like someone who must travel a lot and lines in immigration counters and surly immigration workers are, in my mind, a given.  But I would much rather wait in long immigration lines than let someone in who is going to fly a plane into my building in Washington.  It’s the cost of doing business, literally.He also says “if you are in McDonalds and you are trying to get your guy in from Dubai, you’ve got your hands full.”  (stare at stereo moment).  So if I get it right, getting an executive from one international city to another constitutes and company “having [its] hands full?”  One would think that more pressing matters like the state of the global economy would constitute having one’s hands full.  Getting Bob from Accounting from Dubai to New York?  THAT is having your hands full?  Second, presuming that people don’t like America because we don’t have shiny, happy people at America’s Front Desk, I can’t imagine that a) the percentage of people who travel to this country is so significant that they go back to their home countries, trash us and spread the word so that entire countries hate us.  What I heard was a Chairman who is tired of waiting in immigration lines projecting this sentiment to one of the reasons why people hate America.

There Has Been a Broad Cooling Towards American Culture

• The above are Mr. Capozzi’s words, not mine.  “Music and art used to be a beacon, and American culture is not as widely embraced as it once was.”  I will caveat this statement by mentioning that I was not able to attend the PRSA conference at which Mr. Capozzi spoke, but upon what is this premise based?  Music sales?  Box office numbers in foreign countries?  Where’ the Beef?

The “Ugly American”

• (Stare at the stereo moment).  “The third thing is the ‘ugly American.’ Picture the guy in Bermuda shorts with a camera and his hat turned to the side walkin’ down the Champs Elysee. We just aren’t as sensitive as we need to be to the way that we conduct ourselves.”  Ok.  So the world hates America because of our Bermuda shorts and the way that we wear a baseball cap?  Come on.  Come up with a better reason than this.  Say that we should learn a few phrases in French.  Say that we could or should study some French culture before traveling to Paris.  But to state – and I quote – “Picture the guy in Bermuda shorts with a camera and his hat turned to the side walkin’ down the Champs Elysee” is beyond oversimplification.  It’s just downright stupid.  Maybe Mr. Capozzi could offer American tourists some sartorial advice, but one must think that the Chairman Emeritus of Publicis Public Relations and Corporate Communications Group likely has more spare cash to spend on clothing that is, presumably, less offensive to our French brethren out for a stroll on the Champs Elysee.

Globalization Sucks

“There is a broad perception out there that globalization has been fueled by America…Our reputation is really in trouble.”

• (stare at stereo moment). Mr. Capozzi states that companies like Coca Cola, McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken have led the charge that American is fueling globalization, a concept that “is not accepted universally.”  Mr. Capozzi, I would assume that a veteran of 40 years in the PR business and now the Chairman Emeritus of Publicis Public Relations and Corporate Communications Group, would understand that law of supply and demand.  If we build a KFC in Moscow and they reject it, the basic tenets of capitalism will kick in, no one will go there and the store will close.  To state that the “Kentucky Fried Chicken effect” is why people hate America is, a best, naïve, and at worst, stupid.  If people do not want American products and services, they won’t buy them.  Period.  And one more note:  for your employees’ sake, I sincerely hope that none of the agencies in the Publicis Group have as clients Coke, KFC, American Airlines, Nike or any other of the global brands that you malign as the cause of why people hate America.  If they are, you just shot yourself in the loafers.

WAIT- Globalization Doesn’t Suck – When I Benefit From It

What I found amazing about this is that Mr. Capozzi then talks about the importance of diversifying his international portfolio of agencies: “We weather downturns in an economy with upturns in another.”  Through globalization of your business.

Eric,  I mean no disrespect to you whatsoever in this post and understand completely that it is  your job to ask questions in a podcast – and no necessarily unscripted follow-up questions.  I further caveat what I am about to say by stating that I sincerely hope that Mr. Capozzi offered some statistics to back up his assertations.  But here is why what his guys said makes zero sense to me:

1. He denigrates American culture and states that it is in decline.  How about iTunes sales?  How about box office numbers?  How about Web site hits?  Without hearing hard statistics to back this up, it is pure supposition.  And Mr. Capozzi also waxes poetic about the “cultural goodwill tours, like when Louis Armstrong when to France.”    In under two minutes, I Googled Louis Armstrong, found You Tube videos and also grabbed “What a Wonderful World” on iTunes.  We have this thing called the “Internet” now which I think comes on computers.
2. When I looked up contact information for the Publicis Groupe, I’ll give you three guesses where they are headquarted…ok.. time’s up. The Champs Elysee in Paris!! By denigrating the “ugly American…in Bermuda shorts walking down the Champs Elysee” this reeks to me of pandering to the corporate masters.  I guess you need to stop going out for lunch, Lou.
3. The Publicis Group has, according to their Web site,  “44,000 employees in 196 cities in 104 countries,” and you are criticizing globalization?  Globalization is paying your salary, Mr. Capozzi, and you just bit the hand that feeds you.   And as I mentioned above, you should pray to God that none of your employees represents any of the global brands which you denigrated in your interview.
4. At the end of your interview, you mentioned depending upon the digital portions of your agency portfolio.  The Publicis Web site is a mixture of French and English – not in separate parts, but together.  Fox example, the English search game me “resultats” including “28 Octobre 2008” of “Third Quarter Revenue.”  How do you expect clients – or any client – to think that you take social media or even basic Web site development seriously if you cannot even separate French and English on your own site?
5. Finally, and the point that scares the hell out of me, is that Mr. Capozzi is on the Board of Directors for Business for Diplomatic Action, “…a private-sector a-political non-profit directed by “preeminent” [quotations added for sarcasm] communications, marketing, political science, global development and media professionals. BDA’s mission is to enlist the U.S. business community in actions to improve the standing and reputation of America in the world. The organization is leading the private sector effort to provide constructive business solutions for public diplomacy programs and initiatives.”

So to review, BDA:  your Board member suggested that:

• If we change the way we look and act, lose the Bermuda shorts and baseball caps turned sideways, people will like us better.
• Immigration people suck and are surly.  If they were nicer, people will like us better.
• Globalization sucks, yet you have made your fortune out of climbing to the top of – umm..a GLOBAL agency.”
• Many of your members, including representatives from Microsoft, Cola-Cola, McDonalds and Pepsi, all sit on BDA’s Board, elbow-to-elbow with the guy who just threw your companies under the bus.  The next get-together should really be interesting if they heard this podcast.

Dear BDA:  you need better than this.  I have a few ideas beyond sartorially challenged “ugly Americans.”

My contact form is here.

Mark

It’s not just political candidates who are being thoroughly researched these days.  At a conference a couple of weeks ago, I sat next to a senior executive at one of the few remaining, solvent investment houses and the conversation drifted to social media.

Somehow, we got on the topic of hiring.  She flat out stated: “When I get my list of final candidate when hiring, the FIRST thing I do is Google them. And then I look up their profiles on Facebook.”

And this is not at all unusual.

I have said for years that Google’s largest step was not their IPO, but when their company name went from a noun to a verb.  Like Xerox did a few years ago.  But Google has indeed become part of our lives, our work, and an important tool for HR people.

Think about the hiring process.  I was an executive in the employment industry (beginning in the pre-Internet days) before we could Google someone, but I can promise you that, especially in a down economy, the front-line person whose job it is to go through a bazillion resumes is to carry out a search for the negative. To get through the pile, you usually start by eliminating people you don’t want so you can get to the people you do want.

As an applicant, your exercise is to put your best foot forward and make yourself look like you walk on water.  It’s a bit of a dance, but the rise of search engines and social media tools have changed the employment dynamic.  As you are pressing your suit and combing your hair, that HR person is likely doing an extensive online search on you.  So it’s important to think about the following:

1. What have I written out there (blogs, comments on other people’s sites) that I would not want someone to see?
2. What, if anything has been written or posted (like um…photographs) that I would not want someone to see?  And speaking of pictures, is there a Flick account out there that needs some editing?
3. Is my Facebook profile public?
4. Is my Twitter account readily identifiable?
5. What have I bookmarked on del.icio.us?

I could go on an on with other social media tools, but you get the picture.  Most employers are, by nature, cautious.  It used to be that they would get a chance to find out about you by asking tough questions during the interview.  Now, if you do not have good answers to the above, they may well already have some of the answers.

I am by no means saying that people should not be active on social media sites.   Just remember that what you write, the pictures you pose in, and the seemingly flippant comments you might make on someone else’s site are already in your employment profile.

Mark