PR and Corporate blogging. Hiding in plain sight
Here is my letter to Amy Joyce, Washington Post regarding her story,
More PR Than No-Holds-Barred On Bosses' Corporate Blogs
This is from Saturday, March 19, 2005. Kudos to John Byrne at Raw Story for highlighting this.
Hi Joyce:
Nice article, you covered a lot of ground, you can expect to get lots of bloggers linking to it. Based on my observations, I also think that there are two things about "corporate blogging" and PR that you might consider covering the next time you write about this topic.
1) Lawsuits against companies because of employees’ blogs that revealed insider or material information will increase. A friend in Investor Relations said blogging would fall under the corporation policy for message boards and chat rooms that most companies developed in the 1980's. What he didn't know was how many of the employees who were blogging were aware of these guidelines. This is really an important internal education issue for companies. Is it good enough to give them a handbook and expect them to read it? What if a stock shorter finds a chatty blogger who talks about his product not shipping on time? Google has already dismissed a blogger for revealing financial information. Sun had a suit filed against them when a product was revealed first in a blog. Two years ago Delta fired an employee for blogging (www.dooce.com http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/02_26_2002.html)
I recently went to a conference on blogging and PR in Silicon Valley. None of the people there who represented corporations had corporate policies for blogging. Of course this isn't a scientific sample, but I've talked to several others at corporations and they didn't know their company’s policy's about blogging.
2) In addition to having PR people write some executive blogs, expect to see more fake blogs or "flogs". Here is a list of a few that were busted. http://www.fakeblogs.info/HomePage?show_comments=1
Here is the link to a fake blog created by McDonalds http://lincolnfry.typepad.com/blog/
Companies will try to create buzz about their product or services by putting up a phony blog. They are already hiring people to go to hot blogs and create buzz about products or services by posting in the comments section (not to mention the whole blog comment spam issue!). I've already caught PR and marketing types hyping a TV series called "The 4400" in the comments sections of some blogs and I recently spotted someone promoting an indy movie on a popular blog.
Blog and blog comments will be the next hot method to get the product, service or political message out there. Is it legal? Yep. Ethical? Depends on who you talk to. Might the people who were fooled be upset? Sure. Might they know when they are being fooled? Sadly, no. I’m not sure how big of an issue this is, but it will add to the level of garbage people need to sift through in their online lives.
How do I know this is the next big thing? Here is a blurb from a Bulldog reporter upcoming conference. Note the headline.
How PR Can Exploit Blogs, Ezines, RSS and Consumer-Generated Media
New "self-publishing" technologies create exciting opportunities for
PR pros — but how can you herd these new breeds of cats? Venture to
the cutting edge and learn what you can do today to tune in and
harness the explosion of commentators expounding on your company and
products.
Pete Blackshaw, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Intelliseek
Sally Falkow, President, Falkow, Inc
Dawn-Marie Yankeelov, President, ASPectx
Eric Schwartzman, CEO, iPressroom Corp
http://www.bulldogreporter.com/mr2005/sessions.html
3) The last issue is trickier. What if the employee blogs about interests and issues that have nothing to do with revealing inside information about the company, but are in direct opposition to some political views of the owners or stockholders? What if they write about their private life and the employers feel that it reflects poorly on the company and they fire them?
My political views (progressive liberal) and religious views are very different from some of my clients and potential clients. When a company is hiring someone it is standard practice to do a search on their name in Google or other search engines. What if in addition to the things that get picked up about people professionally, they also pick up some "out there" postings on their blogs?
For example, the New York Times wrote about my blog in a story about blogs, but I didn't choose to reveal who I was. Why?
1) I know for the rest of time that the NY Times story would be linked to my blog and me and it would come up when people are searching for me. The topic, "Friday Cat Blogging", wasn't damaging, but it also wasn't about what I do professionally.
2) It is getting harder and harder to control information about yourself in a world of searchable records.
I also know that some people like to send hate mail to people they don't agree with. I really don't enjoy arguing with people. I'm more of a persuading kind of guy. So I created a pseudonym, Spocko. I named my blog Spocko’s Brain because like the classic episode of Star Trek my thoughts are trapped in a machine. I could communicate with the outside world, but people looking at the machine wouldn’t know it was me.
One of the disadvantages of creating a pseudonym is that I can’t bring my previous credibility with me. In real life I can name drop and remind people of the work I’ve done as a way to establish my credentials, but unless I want to reveal who I am people can only judge me based on what they read. I’ve come to realize just how much people use your personal history as shorthand for credibility. As a journalist you might want to talk to an “expert” on the topic. How is that defined? It is very easy to create fake blogs, fake identities and post under fake IDs to blogs. Frankly the situation is ripe for “exploitation” as listed above. The old cartoon, “On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.” is both an opportunity for free expression and an opportunity for marketing and PR types to subvert the new publishing medium like spammers subverted and clogged the email system with spam.
Sincerely,
Spocko. Author of
Spocko's Brain, the blog that is sweeping the nation. Now with 13 readers!
More PR Than No-Holds-Barred On Bosses' Corporate Blogs
This is from Saturday, March 19, 2005. Kudos to John Byrne at Raw Story for highlighting this.
Hi Joyce:
Nice article, you covered a lot of ground, you can expect to get lots of bloggers linking to it. Based on my observations, I also think that there are two things about "corporate blogging" and PR that you might consider covering the next time you write about this topic.
1) Lawsuits against companies because of employees’ blogs that revealed insider or material information will increase. A friend in Investor Relations said blogging would fall under the corporation policy for message boards and chat rooms that most companies developed in the 1980's. What he didn't know was how many of the employees who were blogging were aware of these guidelines. This is really an important internal education issue for companies. Is it good enough to give them a handbook and expect them to read it? What if a stock shorter finds a chatty blogger who talks about his product not shipping on time? Google has already dismissed a blogger for revealing financial information. Sun had a suit filed against them when a product was revealed first in a blog. Two years ago Delta fired an employee for blogging (www.dooce.com http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/02_26_2002.html)
I recently went to a conference on blogging and PR in Silicon Valley. None of the people there who represented corporations had corporate policies for blogging. Of course this isn't a scientific sample, but I've talked to several others at corporations and they didn't know their company’s policy's about blogging.
2) In addition to having PR people write some executive blogs, expect to see more fake blogs or "flogs". Here is a list of a few that were busted. http://www.fakeblogs.info/HomePage?show_comments=1
Here is the link to a fake blog created by McDonalds http://lincolnfry.typepad.com/blog/
Companies will try to create buzz about their product or services by putting up a phony blog. They are already hiring people to go to hot blogs and create buzz about products or services by posting in the comments section (not to mention the whole blog comment spam issue!). I've already caught PR and marketing types hyping a TV series called "The 4400" in the comments sections of some blogs and I recently spotted someone promoting an indy movie on a popular blog.
Blog and blog comments will be the next hot method to get the product, service or political message out there. Is it legal? Yep. Ethical? Depends on who you talk to. Might the people who were fooled be upset? Sure. Might they know when they are being fooled? Sadly, no. I’m not sure how big of an issue this is, but it will add to the level of garbage people need to sift through in their online lives.
How do I know this is the next big thing? Here is a blurb from a Bulldog reporter upcoming conference. Note the headline.
How PR Can Exploit Blogs, Ezines, RSS and Consumer-Generated Media
New "self-publishing" technologies create exciting opportunities for
PR pros — but how can you herd these new breeds of cats? Venture to
the cutting edge and learn what you can do today to tune in and
harness the explosion of commentators expounding on your company and
products.
Pete Blackshaw, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Intelliseek
Sally Falkow, President, Falkow, Inc
Dawn-Marie Yankeelov, President, ASPectx
Eric Schwartzman, CEO, iPressroom Corp
http://www.bulldogreporter.com/mr2005/sessions.html
3) The last issue is trickier. What if the employee blogs about interests and issues that have nothing to do with revealing inside information about the company, but are in direct opposition to some political views of the owners or stockholders? What if they write about their private life and the employers feel that it reflects poorly on the company and they fire them?
My political views (progressive liberal) and religious views are very different from some of my clients and potential clients. When a company is hiring someone it is standard practice to do a search on their name in Google or other search engines. What if in addition to the things that get picked up about people professionally, they also pick up some "out there" postings on their blogs?
For example, the New York Times wrote about my blog in a story about blogs, but I didn't choose to reveal who I was. Why?
1) I know for the rest of time that the NY Times story would be linked to my blog and me and it would come up when people are searching for me. The topic, "Friday Cat Blogging", wasn't damaging, but it also wasn't about what I do professionally.
2) It is getting harder and harder to control information about yourself in a world of searchable records.
I also know that some people like to send hate mail to people they don't agree with. I really don't enjoy arguing with people. I'm more of a persuading kind of guy. So I created a pseudonym, Spocko. I named my blog Spocko’s Brain because like the classic episode of Star Trek my thoughts are trapped in a machine. I could communicate with the outside world, but people looking at the machine wouldn’t know it was me.
One of the disadvantages of creating a pseudonym is that I can’t bring my previous credibility with me. In real life I can name drop and remind people of the work I’ve done as a way to establish my credentials, but unless I want to reveal who I am people can only judge me based on what they read. I’ve come to realize just how much people use your personal history as shorthand for credibility. As a journalist you might want to talk to an “expert” on the topic. How is that defined? It is very easy to create fake blogs, fake identities and post under fake IDs to blogs. Frankly the situation is ripe for “exploitation” as listed above. The old cartoon, “On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.” is both an opportunity for free expression and an opportunity for marketing and PR types to subvert the new publishing medium like spammers subverted and clogged the email system with spam.
Sincerely,
Spocko. Author of
Spocko's Brain, the blog that is sweeping the nation. Now with 13 readers!
7 Comments:
Spacko: 1) What kind of Commie are you that you want to regulate blogs. Keep free speech, free. Bring on the tear gas
2) You definitely need to lighten up. Re-read the Wall Street Journal Style Handbook so you can write headlines to make your dry stuff seem as if it might be interesting, like, “What if there were no hypothetical questions?” - That a great Journal favorite
Or try this on your mid-western readers, “Name what was the best thing before sliced bread?” Now that’s Journal journalism.
Where’s the hook. Got to make it interesting. And forget about the New York Times, Teen People is where the future is being decided.
Dear Anonymous hack (if that is your real name.)
Clearly you haven't read some of my classic headlines like,
The Pickle Project: Vlasic Stackers and Me.
(Nobody writes funnier letters to pickle product managers that I do!)
Or how about his classic: In fact, nowhere in the bible does Jesus say "In heaven there is no beer"
Lighten up? Lighten up! I'll lighten YOU up! If Spocko's Brain is ever going to crack the critical 13 reader mark I've got get into WaPo! I need to be ignored and shouted at by a better class of people. People with real jobs, people who have spreadsheets and budgets and mind numbing messaging sesions!
(Actually Teen People is a good suggestion. I suggest you take this week's quiz, "Are you stuck up? http://tinyurl.com/6peqw)
If you are such a clever smarty pants blogger then how come you aren't quoted on CNN like Wonkette or better yet, the guys from Powerline! They are lawyers And bloggers. Blowyers! (oh and they are homophobic and kinda racist, but they still get on TV, and that's what matters!)
Just you wait Mr. Anonymous! My serious letter will get all kinds of attention! My snarky lite emails get deleted in 34 seconds. This one won't be deleted for at least 59 seconds! She will have to take me seriously because I quoted sources! I spell checked. And then well see who's laughing!
Ah, who am I kidding? I'll just go back to writing about pickles.
Thanks for commenting. I'm always eager to hear the musings of other crackpots. You have really cheered me up, Debbie Downer. I guess I'll just go drown my trashed self esteem in a bottle of Sarian Brandy.
Don't forget the Microsoft employee who was laid off after a blog post. The blogger believes it was his own mistake that lead to his unemployment (Microsoft was just defending their security), but this is a definite warning to the other bloggers out there along the lines of what you mentioned. The post is dated to 2003.
Spocko, perhaps you better watch your back around pickle executives (or make sure shields are up).
~Prisoner 7104
Strangely enough, I was railing against Usenet's being used covertly, in "whisper campaigns" back in the good ol' days. Even wrote the FTC about it, and got quoted in an O'Reilly & Assoc. book, and a GQ article.
.
Prisoner 7104
That's some excellent advice there.
By the way, years from now these years you are spending in prison will be considered by many to be the best years of your life. People who think that way PEAKED in Prison. Personally I think I haven't peaked yet. I'm just on a long plateau until my next peak. Luckily Vulcan's live a long time. Hopefully you can some to Star Fleet some time and I can show you around the base.
Jeffraham Prestonian said...
The more stuff you post the more I'm impressed by you. Of course in typical human fashion I'm sure you aren't appreciated in your own time. Why humans continue to elevate stupid people to political office and pay more for works by dead artists rather than living ones who could use the money better continues to puzzle me.
As with most people who come to Spocko's Brain, you are one of the clear thinking humans that show the potential humans represent.
You of course spotted a trend early on Usenet because of your solid observation skills. It is often easy to see the difference between authenic and fake, if only because fakers are so often "ham handed" If they were more subtle they would't be spotted. If they are clever enough NOT to be spotted they also might be clever enough to find a better medium. Or, they are so clever the people reading the forums DESERVED to be fooled! I think that the Ham Handed are usually the majority of the people trying to subvert.
It wasn't anything so glamourous or important, Spocko -- and my friends all get a good laugh out of the GQ quote (if you knew my wardrobe selection, you'd know why!)
It was sexy, since it was pre-9/11, and about the music industry and this newish thing called the "Innernet." Back then, the media thought all Internet users were evil hackers and pornographers, so I graciously declined to be interviewed by the GQ writer, who then used my online dialogue for the quote... even managed to get the context right, an' everything, so I was pretty happy about that.
This is the O'Reilly & Assoc. book, which is now out of print. If you look at the "index" online, you'll see a name in there that looks suspiciously like mine. ;) I was really jazzed by that one -- a geek, getting a mention in an ORA book? Heh.
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