NevOn

Murphy's Law and smartphones

One of the downside elements of being away for a couple of days and not online at all is the time you then have to spend going through email and RSS feeds.

It always seems to me that the high volume of stuff is directly proportional to the length of time you're not online. Definitely part of Murphy's Law.

Last night I returned from the UK where I'd been in Sunderland in the north-east of England for the past couple of days participating as a speaker in the Making the News: Blogging, RSS and the New PR (PDF) one-day conference yesterday at the University of Sunderland, organized by Philip Young.

A tremendous event with over 90 participants. Everyone who signed up to come actually did. That's the first conference I can recall being part of where everyone who signed up, showed up. Not a single no-show. There will be a post here this weekend about the conference. Plus perhaps a photo or two.

Speaking of Murphy (in a highly positive sense), I had the pleasure of finally meeting Tom Murphy, one of the key influencers in the PR blogging community and a fellow speaker at the conference. One of our conversations has got me thinking hard about the need to be online no matter where I am. I don't think anyone really can just be out of virtual touch for a couple of days. Not so much because you then have big email catch-ups to do; it's more to do with being reachable and being able to keep on top of what's going on in your areas of interest. This is especially important if you're a consultant, no question about it.

Tom has a very neat Qtek Smartphone that has many of the features in my mobile device wishlist.

I've looked at quite a few such devices in recent months but haven't been that impressed. What makes the major difference with this one is talking about it directly with someone who has one and hearing how he sees the benefits.

Could this be the one I should get now?

No more email guilt

BBC News: Live8 organiser Bob Geldof has revealed his contempt for e-mails, blaming them for tying up people's time and stopping genuine action. Mr Geldof told a conference in London that e-mails "give a feeling of action, which is a mistake".

Here's the best bit:

[...] He told delegates that what workers achieve each day will be linked to the number of e-mails they ignore. He explained that the "doing part" of a job is proportionate to the amount of e-mails you do not answer. "E-mails get in the way of serious consideration of what you want to do," Mr Geldof said.

Right on, Bob. No more guilt!

The characteristics of a great employer

A terrific feature in the Financial Times on what makes a company a consistently great employer uses US companies such as AG Edwards, Goldman Sachs, Nordstrom, SC Johnson, Whole Foods Market, Cisco Systems and Microsoft as their classic examples of such great employers.

And what makes a great employer? With frequent reference to Built to Last, the 1990s bestseller by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, and Collins’ 2001 follow-up, Good to Great, the FT examines the cultures and leadership behaviours of such companies and says great employers have all of these characteristics:

• Trust their staff to make the right decisions
• Take customer service seriously
• Cut jobs only as a last resort
• Share rewards with everyone, not just senior management
• Tend to have longer-serving chief executives
• Offer benefits well beyond what is required by law
• Respond to emerging trends, such as demands for flexible working, or networks for minorities
• Have been around long enough to establish a strong culture and sense of belonging

Financial Times | The measure of a great employer (paid sub)

The easiest way to record and email voice messages

In the last couple of editions of FIR: The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast, we've been going on about Waxmail, a very cool new tool for creating and sending voice email messages.

There are other apps out there but this is the easiest and simplest one to use that I've seen. I've been playing with it for the past week and it is very good indeed. Dead easy and really outstanding sound quality.

Works with Microsoft Outlook for Windows: you just run the installation and it adds a toolbar to Outlook that means you're just a single click away from recording. You click and speak, and Waxmail automatically opens a new-mail window with your recording already in there as an attachment when you're finished. It saves the recordings as MP3 files, so universal appeal.

One great use I can immediately see - a very simple and easy way to record and send quick audio comments to podcasters (like Shel and I - hint, hint). Just click, speak and send, that's it.

There's a free version and a pay version. The difference: the free one appends a line of ad text to every email. From the same Australian company who developed Skylook, the app for recording Skype conversations straight into Outlook.

If you try Waxmail out, you'll see why Shel and I were going on about it. Heh! Waxing lyrical, so to speak ;)

FIR Interview - Jonathan Mast and Aidan Hagood - October 24, 2005

In this edition of For Immediate Release podcast interviews, Shel enjoyed a 24-minute conversation with Jonathan Mast and Aidan Hagood. Jonathan is a senior communications specialist with Sedgwick Claims Management Services; Aidan is the communications department admin. Together, they host "QuickCast," arguably the first completely internal podcast.

Download the conversation here (MP3, 9MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and our future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need software such as the FeedDemon RSS aggregator, or the free ipodder or DopplerRadio).

Interview Segment Time Points:

• 00:20 Audio clip of the intro to "QuickCast"
• 00:38 Shel introduces the interview
• 01:35 Shel introduces Jonathan and Aidan
• 01:52 Jonathan provides some background on Sedgwick CMS
• 03:02 A look at Sedgwick's traditional communications
• 03:44 The motivation for producing a podcast for employees
• 04:15 The strategic planning behind the podcast
• 05:35 They conducted research on digital media player ownership among employees
• 06:17 Sedgwick PCs have audio capabilities
• 07:12 A look at the content of "QuickCast"
• 08:45 An opportunity to get employees closer to the customer
• 10:02 How the podcast was marketed to employees
• 11:25 How "QuickCast" is distributed and plans for RSS feeds
• 12:58 How "QuickCast" is recorded
• 13:50 They try to keep "QuickCast" to no more than six and a half minutes
• 14:30 Employee feedback on the podcast
• 16:00 Measuring listenership
• 17:35 Jonathan and Aiden on developing a co-hosting relationship
• 19:04 What it costs
• 19:21 Future podcasting plans
• 20:27 Final comments
• 21:07 A clip of a "QuickCast" featuring Sedgwick CMS President and CEO Dave North
• 21:35 Shel wraps up the interview segment
• 22:03 General information on "For Immediate Release"

Links for the individuals and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the conversation:

Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Audacity audio recording and editing software, Lawrence Ragan Communications Inc.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel's and my podcast blog.)

Lessons from Interpublic's global financial chaos

The Financial Times reports the sobering story of marketing and ad agency group Interpublic who, after over 400 acquisitions and global expansion, found itself having to restate its accounts for the past ten years and be the subject of an SEC investigation into its accounting practices:

[...] The company discovered "instances of deliberate falsification of accounting records, evasion of taxes in jurisdictions outside the United States, inappropriate charges to clients, diversion of corporate assets, non-compliance with local laws and regulations, and other improprieties." In terms of their impact on Interpublic’s restatement, the biggest problems were in Turkey, where the company has said it might fire senior local managers at its McCann and FCB agencies.

And if that wasn't enough:

A more subtle issue facing Interpublic involved legal local business practices. One such question turned on vendor discounts or credits – cash that agencies receive in return for buying large blocks of advertising time or space on behalf of clients. In Latin America, the Mediterranean and other regions, agencies often keep this money.

Interpublic’s problem was that this practice was difficult to reconcile with some of its global contracts with clients and with its obligations under US GAAP. It is clearly trying to make amends. Paying back this money accounts for most of the $250m that Interpublic has set aside to compensate hundreds of counterparties under the restatement.

[...] Advertising agencies face the risk that their more distant outposts will not produce enough revenue to justify the cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. This is a big issue for Interpublic. While discussing the earnings restatement, Interpublic executives said overall professional fees – mostly for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley – represented 4.7 per cent of the company’s $2.9bn in first-half revenues. If that trend continues, and the company suggests that it will, Interpublic could end up spending an astonishing $300m this year on accountants, lawyers and other professional service providers. That compares with professional fees of $28.5m as recently as 2002.

The lengthy FT feature considers the role of Michael Roth, Interpublic’s chairman and CEO, and what he's been doing to clean Interpublic's house since he assumed the top job last January. The FT reports that Roth's learning experiences include:

• Get accounting systems in place before you go global. Interpublic’s financial woes have been compounded by a failure to unify its operations' IT systems.
• Beware of "local business practices". Interpublic has found it hard to reconcile legal activities in foreign countries with the demands of US accounting standards.
• Think hard about Sarbanes-Oxley. Interpublic could spend as much as $300m this year on professional services. Not all foreign opportunities are worth the accounting costs.
• Follow the clients. More big corporations are giving global advertising assignments to streamlined networks. Marketing services holding companies should take note.

Financial Times | When globalisation goes wrong (paid sub)

IBM's credible message: Blogging means business

Two senior IBM executives are featured in an informative and engaging series of audiovisual presentations that present the case for blogs as strategic business tools.

Presented by Harriet Pearson, IBM's Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President for Corporate Affairs, and Willy Chiu, Vice President of IBM's High Performance On Demand Solutions Group, some very interesting facts are included in this communication about IBM's own blogging initiatives:

• IBM now has between 12-14,000 active employee bloggers from 73 countries
• The company's internal Blog Central has over 12,000 users who post regularly
• Over the past year, the number of users and blog posts have quadrupled
• "Blogging is the glue that brings all the experts together within the company"

Neither Pearson nor Chiu are bloggers themselves, as BL Ochman points out: "The credibility issue with these executives discussing blogging: neither has a public blog. If they believe in the value of blogging, why aren't they doing it?"

I don't think credibility is an issue here at all. What I get from this communication is seeing and hearing two senior executives who talk about a topic in the broad context of building communities in the marketplace in a way that leads me to believe that they know what they're talking about. And it's not about blogging itself - it's about an enabling tool. Think of the primary audience this message is directed at (large enterprises) and then think about communicating with that audience about a topic in a way that is likely to appeal to them. Likely, too, is the fact that the majority in that audience won't be bloggers either.

Mind you, if both executives did have blogs, that might add to their credibility with some in the primary audience. It might also enable anyone to engage in dialogue directly with both executives as well as get a sense on a more personal level of who they are. (Actually, you can get one sense of that - one clue is to look at the 'about' information on each exec which includes a brief list of which blogs they read. My podcast co-presenter, Shel Holtz, would be pleased to note that among the blogs Harriet Pearson lists is Shel's.)

Nevertheless, this is powerful communication delivered by credible people on a topic that many in large companies don't see as a valuable business tool at all. I'd say the information IBM is presenting will help them see the light.

Nice work, IBM.

IBM | Blogging Means Business (Flash-based or static HTML pages)

Related NevOn posts:

• FIR Interview: Mike Wing, IBM - May 20, 2005
• IBM publishes guidelines for employee bloggers
• IBM creating an army of evangelists

The rise of individual credibility

A challenging assessment of the differences between executive blogging and business blogging and which are best blogs, by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, writing in The Long Tail:

[...] It's a huge mistake to equate executive blogs with business blogging, just as it's a huge mistake to see the world only through the economic and culture lens of stars and hits (what I call "headism"). The best business blogs come from the employees, not the bosses. They have more time, and are less prone to marketing gobbledygook and gnomic platitudes. And those kind of blogs are on the rise, not the decline.

Chris' post is in response to one by Stephen Baker, who wrote in Business Week's Blogspotting last week that the business blog backlash is nigh.

Stephen's probably right where he says "it's the rare CEO who has the time and energy and openness to blog." Yet as with any blogger, lack of time, energy and openness are factors, yes, but I think more important are those related to actually having something worthwhile to say and the ability to be able to express yourself credibly, whether you're a CEO or anyone else, in a way that produces a positive reaction from those who read what you write (ie, talk, comment, link).

And that is at the heart of Chris Anderson's prime point:

[...] Simply put, we're starting to trust what executives say less and what employees say more. And if given a choice, as is the case with companies that let their employees blog, we'll take the word of an articulate engineer in the belly of the beast over the double-speak of a press release any day. As institutional credibility declines (from Enron to the White House), individual credibility is taking its place.

Read Chris' complete post and see what you think.

Also, see two good articles posted as part of Global PR Blog Week 2.0, which provide perspectives of both sides of the coin as far as CEO blogging is concerned - Why CEOs shouldn't blog by Dave Taylor, and Why CEOs should blog by Jeneane Sessum.

Blog network aids graduate recruitment

Reading a review of corporate blogs in the Financial Times the other day, I spotted a new gem mentioned in the feature - a series of blogs set up by Cadbury Schweppes in the UK as part of its graduate recruitment activities.

From Cadbury's press release:

Cadbury Schweppes, the world's largest confectionery company, has opened up a new channel of information for potential graduate employees by piloting a new internet 'blogging' initiative to give candidates a first hand insight into the 'day in the life of' current graduates at the Company.

[...] Current graduates from each business unit are encouraged to write freely about their experiences on the graduate training scheme, as well as discussing how their day to day working lives are shaped within the company. Their blogs are then posted on the Company's graduate internet page, where applicants can read the blogs and communicate with the current graduates at www.cadburyschweppes.com/ukgraduates.

[...] By piloting this new initiative, Cadbury Schweppes hopes that potential graduate employees are allowed a very authentic and personal insight into the company, adding to the success of the Cadbury Schweppes graduate recruitment scheme. Anthea Marris, Cadbury Schweppes's graduate resourcing manager added: "We want to help potential candidates to make an informed decision about whether we are the right Company for them. Our graduate blogs offer a window right in to the Company and will enable potential applicants to get a first hand feel for what it is like to work at Cadbury Schweppes and the type of work they can expect to experience."

So far, Cadbury Schweppes has six blogs covering sales and marketing, finance and business audit, human resources, operations management, information technology, and project and process engineering.

A terrific example of how blogs can be a dynamic and complementary channel for engaging with particular groups of people, in this case potential employees, in a new and interesting way.

Very nicely done, Cadbury Schweppes.

An alternative to email catchup

Light posting ahead until the weekend as I'll be travelling, meetings, etc.

Then, a massive email and post-comments catchup.

Do I really mean "catchup"? Comments to blog posts, definitely, but email? My email inbox looks truly horrendous. Boy, do I identify with this:

[...] My email inbox is totally out of control, with more than 8K messages to wade through (that's *after* the spam filter--I might need to just set fire to it and start again!) [...] the usual demands of our accelerating red-shift modern lifestyle means that my email inbox has become obese and should probably be put out of its misery. Does anyone have a match?

Tom Foremski has a way with words!

Related NevOn post:

• Handling the email guilt trip