Canuckflack

Oh lord. I go to sleep hoping that some combination of technology and ingenuity will result in a presentation tool that outstrips powerpoint.

But that would likely mean a thorough and fundamental failure of the MS Office franchise.

But one can hope.

I present to you three powerpoints. All delivered recently. One is twelve pages long. Another is 162 pages long. And this is one is called “Death by Powerpoint,” and is 61 pages long.

I argue that the shortest presentation is the worst - and probably would take the longest to present as well.

First off, a geography lesson. The McDonald’s near my house has a giant two story play area. Big enough that the party room is in a second floor loft, hanging over the play area.

Scene, twenty minutes ago: a clutch of McDonald’s employees in full uniform, including the assistant manager, march through the play area in single line, on their way to the party room.

Following behind, some guy in a hundred dollar shirt and forty dollar pants. He was carrying a cerloxed document, something like the reports prepared by consultants.

He was also carrying one of those oversized personal organizers. You know, the black ones, woven of high tech polymers, with an oversized zipper around the edge. Sort of like a Trapper Keeper for adults.

Looking at the dirty floor and misplaced chairs scattered around the play area, Mr. “From Mitch And Murray Downtown” turns and asks a shift employee trailing behind him:

“Wow. Don’t you have someone working lobby?”

No answer. He repeats himself. Still no answer.

That meeting is NOT going to go well.

Which popular game is a stunning combination of multi-level marketing, addictive design and the worst of subscriber-based advertising on the ‘net?

That would be Roll the Brim to Win, which boldly plays off the popular Roll up the Rim to Win from Canadian coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons.

In the Tim Horton’s game, each coffee purchase gives you a chance to roll up the rim of your paper cup to win prizes like free coffee, donuts, coffee cards, boats and cars. The chain asks you for no personal information and does not sign you up for subscription services.

In the Facebook application, gullible - even stupid - users sign up for an app that rewards you with “Brimbucks,” which are used to buy the online cups needed to “roll the Brim.”

Am I being harsh? No.

In order to keep playing the game, you are provided with several options to earn Brimbucks:

• recommend the app to friends
• invite friends to install the app
• become a fan of the app
• return every 4 hours to “earn” more
• vote for Brim as the app of the day
• fill out “surveys”

What kind of surveys? What about “want to know what your future holds“? Clicking on the link takes you to a site that offers your daily horoscope by text message - all you have to do is enter your mobile phone number.

Stop and read the fine print, though, because you’ll also be signing up for your daily horoscope, delivered by text message for only $1.25 a day.

Or sign up for a book club - or a DVD club - anything that commits you to repeated payments.

Oh - and you’ve already agreed to let Facebook share your profile information and Facebook activity with the application developer - a second year college student from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario and his friends.

At its best, this game gives you several minutes of mind-numbing clicking and the false promise of gift cards “for your favorite coffee shop.”

Roll the Brim to Win player = sucka!

With 49,000 users and 17,000 fans … that’s a lot of morons.

I can’t decide if the corporate folks at Tim Hortons should be worried about this or not. A solid number of the comments on the app page refer to Timmies and Tims - common colloquial references to the chain. The fan photos are almost all images or products featuring Tim Hortons trademarks.

Still, it may not be worth the effort to shut down this app, especially given the millions of real Roll Up the Rim to Win cups distributed during each Tim Hortons campaign.

Technorati Tags: Tim Horton’s, Timmies, donuts, Brim, rim, contest, facebook, mlm

Well, I’ve finished work on it. A handy little guide for exploring the world of social media and building support for social media in a large organization.

I think the advice in this 23 page guide to secretly implementing social media in organizations could be equally useful for any government employee looking to try out new technologies - I’m pretty certain on that point, since I’m a government employee in real life.

You can find the guide at this link, and please feel free to share it with your friends, colleagues and bosses.

Here’s an excerpt, from the introduction:

How do you do it? How do you bring a spirit of innovation and experimentation to the communications shop of a large organization?

I’ve worked in a large organization – the government – for the last ten years. You can find bright, creative and resourceful people around every corner, in every department.

During the course of their careers, many of these people have thought of a move that could improve their work or their environment.

From experience, we all know that small changes in process or presentation are easily won. After all, it’s just another line on an approval sheet, or a tweak on the website.

Large organizations can also be convinced to launch a large-scale overhaul of their systems – whether it’s a supply chain, assembly process or online order system.

But it’s a real pain to get them to rethink their relationship with humans outside the security fence. After all, our customer service reps seem to be doing a good job, right? That sales force really does have a handle on the needs of the community, doesn’t it?

In speaking to hundreds of workers and managers for large organizations (government and private sector), I’ve been asked the same questions, over and over:

• How do you convince your boss to even experiment with social media?
• Doesn’t it mean a lot of extra work?
• Isn’t this sort of stuff blocked by our organizational policies?

This Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organizations is meant to help you answer some of those questions.

Technorati Tags: guide to social media, instruction, dummies guide, introduction, organizations, government

In-store television channels are not a new development, but I will grab an opportunity to riff on a tactic wherever possible. Kroger has just announced that they have built a television network (KTV) to serve the internal communications needs of their central division.

“… Each store has two servers with storage capacity and on-demand video, Kroger spokesman John Elliott said. Programs will include anything from quarterly financial messages from the company president to safety instructions for meat cutters …” (Rockford Register Star)

This may be some programming you could expect on similar channels:

• The 5 Second Rule and the Safe Handling of Meat
• Your 401(k) and Your Future: We’ll always have hours on the night shift
• Wax on, Wax off: Entry Level Jobs
• Channeling Bob Ross in Bathroom Decoration
• Creative Accounting in Determining Expiry Dates
• Our New CEO is Better Than Our Old One
• Cashier and Stockboy: A Story of Forbidden Love
• The Grocer’s Chiropractor: One Box Too Many
• How To Spot A Mystery Shopper
• My Barbie Oven is My CoPilot: a Food Sampler’s preparation guide
• Bleach and Ammonia: A Shortcut to the Cemetery
• How to Detail a Buick - your manager’s Buick
• That Market Analyst Is A LIAR
• One Lick Too Many: One night shift employee’s mastery of Guitar Hero 3 - and resulting unemployment

Technorati Tags: in-store tv, internal communications, grocery

Barack Obama’s big banners for “Change” rely on an apt font: Gotham. The folks over at Helvetica noticed this, and pulled out an interview they conducted with Gotham’s designers:

“…Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones spoke about the creation of Gotham during our interview for Helvetica, and looking back at their description of what GQ wanted from the font, it sounds surprisingly Obama-esque. “GQ had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it,” says Hoefler. It also needed to look very masculine and “of-the-moment.” Mission accomplished. (Helvetica: A font we can believe in)

h/t to Jeremiah

Corporate communications specialists would recognize a lot in the tactics and strategies of old line Communist apparatchiks.

Fidel Castro, Ken Lay, Bernard Ebbers, Roger Smith, Yuri Andropov - who doesn’t remember the stonewalling, the suspicion and the sense of entitlement that seeped through their public words and actions?

When threatened, they would respond with indignation and counter-accusations.

Pity poor Fidel. He’s finally gotten so sick he can’t manipulate the tendrils of power and propaganda anymore. Even he (or his nurse) has recognized that the glorious facade has faded, and people were doubtful he would ever reappear in public.

Another Communist lion fades into the brush.

That leaves the Chinese, the Vietnamese and the North Koreans. And a gaggle of former Soviets.

Not a whole lot of effervescent personalities in that bunch.

What has happened to all the old Communist apparatchiks? Gray suits, gray hair, a posse of similarly gray doppelgangers, all piling out of four door sedans to appear at a Worker’s Rally or May Day parade.

A real cottage industry had developed around interpreting the symbolism of their spoken and written word: what did that headline in Pravda really mean? If the Second Assistant Prime Minister delivered a speech live on prime time television, did that mean his career was on the upswing?

These kremlinologists were our guides through the thicket of jargon, gestures and grimaces in search of political, economic and social insight.

I seem to remember watching former Soviet leader Yuri Andropov looking sickly and weak at a May Day parade - the resulting speculation about his tenure as leader was confirmed when he died within a year.

What’s the modern equivalent? A financial analyst? In many ways, their professional value is built from the implied ability to read the movements and twitches of the market.

There’s been discussion this week of a gentleman who’s built a habit of inflitrating quarterly earnings conference calls, simply to ask semi-literate questions about Six Sigma and process re-engineering.

Financial analysts are genuinely puzzled by his behaviour: it isn’t overly disruptive, and doesn’t appear to be prompted by malice.

If we lived in a more suspicious time - and if his interventions were more inventive - we might suspect this mystery caller of disinformation or economic espionage.

Instead, we’re simply wondering out loud why anyone would want to play in the dry world of financial communications.

Still, it’s notable that some analysts are disturbed that someone is toying with their conventions, processes and playground.

Difference is, this guy won’t get grabbed off the street, bundled in the trunk of a four door sedan, and get buried under the Louisiana Superdome.

Technorati Tags: kremlinologist, financial analyst, corporate communications

Mitch has nailed it. A lot of companies being slammed by online controversies - like Hasbro - just aren’t used to dealing with emotional, irrational and impetuous humans.

Their relationship with the marketplace is framed by the work of their distributors, an import/export firm, or a licence holder.

The issues involved are often complex, with plenty of lawyers involved. Corporate positions frequently cannot be distilled into blogger-friendly language without affecting corporate interests in liability, finance or intellectual property.

Any corporate public relations pro will recognize their dilemma.

As Mitch points out, it’s hard for a company built to a fifty year-old model to adapt to a new business flow chock full of eddies, breakers and dangerous rapids.

Increasingly, though, they are trying. People like Petro Canada or Ford are dipping their toes into the social media swamp - and taking the punches and expanding their influence.

The transformation of the corporation demands participation and understanding at many levels - not just in the marketing and communications department.

As Doug Walker points out in a comment to Mitch’s post, the simplest point of contact may just be the customer service representative - if finance, facilities and human resources help you expand your CSR force to deal with the pressures that can be generated by social media.

And that means finance, facilities, human resources, and the call centre manager will all have to understand the needs and challenges of playing in social media.
Oh - and Mitch’s other point, about bloggers demonstrating the same qualities they demand from corporations? I agree as well.

Anyone can build a bully pulpit, whether they’re a fascinating storyteller or simply a demagogue.

It takes a level of dedication and transparency to actually maintain relationships and effect change in a community - small or large.

“Act like you just quit” - fantastic advice from Advertising for Peanuts.

That’s doesn’t mean flip your boss the bird, or burn down the Initech division where you work.

Instead, challenge the conventions, the traditions, the ingrained habits that have held you back.

Do you have a great idea gnawing away at your soul? Are there business processes you are certain can be improved?

Or do you just feel disaffected and detached from your work? Chances are, your colleagues and boss have noticed as well.

Think about that period between an old job and a new one. What’s your normal behaviour? You:

• immediately forget all the petty interpersonal conflicts that took up your workday
• begin forecasting the work environment, work projects and personal relationships you want to develop at your new job
• maybe even take a stab at career planning - imagining two or three steps into the future

That’s right. You embrace the opportunity to change, the opportunity to abandon all your old habits and your less-than-favourable practices.

Why not do that now? Change does not require packing boxes. It just demands a level of confidence and a willingness to risk the status quo.

You’ll be surprised by how others welcome your willingness to change your life and your performance.

Quitters may be dismissed out of hand, but you’re rarely faulted for trying your hardest.

It looks like a fun snow tubing park, with a webcam, but Chicopee Tube Park has one of those easy-to-misread URLs: www.chicopeetube.com.

I think that’s an episode of Chico and the Man that I missed.

You may have seen this. The Singapore Media Authority commissioned - and participated in - a corporate rap.

You have to admire their gumption and their verve: Singapore is making a play to be one of the top players worldwide in telecom and technology, and it’s obvious that senior management is willing to take a risk.

Technorati Tags: corporate rap, Singapore

You know, a blog council is just like a big, fuzzy, comfortable blankie. In a moment of uncertainty and perhaps confusion, a blankie can be a touchstone, an easy gateway to a simpler and more secure time.

Especially if that blankie smells like your mommie, or good times in the park with all your friends.

Which explains the need for a blog council dedicated solely to the problems and achievements of large corporations entering the social media space. Some social media evangelists have jumped on the idea as too rigid or naiive, dismissing the idea that a large corporations could benefit from such an arrangement.

What they don’t seem to understand is that a “council” is an easy concept for senior executives to buy into. These people already belong to industry councils, economic councils and foreign policy councils. They understand the framework, they understand the cost structure and they understand the potential benefits.

And THIS is where our colleagues are right to question the impulse to create a council. Brian Solis moves around this idea in his post.

Councils are not created to convene coffee klatches and an excuse to fly into a new resort once a month.

THAT is called a seminar.

Councils are not pulled together to discuss common process challenges and develop best practices.

THAT is called a working group.

A council of senior executives, united in a common goal, is created to share influence. To increase the authority of council members in what can seem to be a fractured environment with little real leadership.

Even a Parent-Teacher Council dreams of expanded influence and increased authority, if only expressed through reams of volunteer lists and pizza orders.

I’m probably unnecessarily aggrandizing the influence that could be wielded by the Blog Council.

Still, the “benefits” a generic membership often include:

As I look at the children’s playground of competing cliques in social media, a council of Fortune 500 companies that happen to blog seems to be a good idea.

An idea that, if managed effectively, could influence how fundamental decisions are made about the role of blogs, podcasts, vidcasts and ephemeral communications like Twitter in regulated environments like:

Which might be of some concern to a social media universe currently obsessed with nodes rather than the network as a whole.

Or I might have taken too many poli.sci. courses in university.

Technorati Tags: Blog Council, corporate blogging

When I’m sitting on the bus, I sometimes think about my fellow travellers. You may have noticed that. I suspect we’ve all had thoughts like these:

“Passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus, please accept they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers.”

“Passengers should note that the bearded man’s rucksack contains the following items only: some sandwiches, a library card, and a picture of a bare ankle, and is no cause for concern.”

“Passengers are reminded, like mosts voice-over artists, I probably look nothing like you imagine, and may turn out to be somewhat of a disappointment.”

That’s the work of Emma Clarke, the voice over artist who used to record the announcements for the London Underground. She was recently fired for comments she made to a London newspaper - and not for her gently mocking spoofs, the Underground says.

“Some of the spoof announcements are very funny, but Emma is a bit silly to go round slagging off her client’s services. London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Ms Clarke are experiencing severe delays.” (London Times)

Technorati Tags: London Underground, voice over, satire

The BBC is rolling with news that cutbacks and layoffs are imminent, and significant television and radio personalities are speaking out about the impact on the hallowed institution.

The BBC is criticized for its split personality: a world class news gathering organization, and a melange of popular television and radio channels. Canada has a similar national network, albeit funded in part by commercial advertising.

In a moment of intense media scrutiny, a spokesperson can find himself fielding questions and interview requests from three different media (radio, television and internet) and five or more provinces - but all from the same network, the CBC.

Sort of like what the head of the BBC is experiencing:

“…In a particularly convenient moment of irony, BBC director general Mark Thompson notes that, after announcing the restructuring, he received 37 separate interview requests from various BBC news outlets.” (Toronto Star)

Technorati Tags: BBC, CBC, spokesperson, integrated newsroom, multi channel universe

Barbara Faga is an urban planner who has participated in hundreds and hundreds of public meetings - meetings that attempt to build a dialogue among many different factions on a highly sensitive issue: what will be built/destroyed/grown/paved over near my house or business?

Imagine two ferocious Not In My BackYard opponents chained together and locked in a 900 square foot room - with bad coffee. That’s right. A NIMBY faceoff of epic proportions.

And you are the referee.

Barbara Faga is well-acquainted with this environment. Which is why she was well-qualified to write this blog post last month: A guide to Taser-free public meetings.

She has also written a much longer book, Designing Public Consensus, that discusses the process of urban design and public consultation. Of particular interest is her observation that a good public consultation will stray from a linear, factual and dogmatic presentation of the proposal and options.

“…Rather than a scripted reading, managing a public process is much more a continuous improvisation. This is another image that came to me in Boston, about halfway through the 19 months it took to get final approval of our design for the Wharf District Park. As we debriefed after a particularly fractious meeting, our colleague, Lynn Wolff, insightfully described this series of public meetings as a form of “civic theater,” an entertaining way for involved and curious citizens to spend an evening.

At this point, we felt like lion fodder in the Roman Coliseum, so the metaphor seemed particularly apt. The power plays, emotional outbursts, bitter arguments, tiresome soliloquies, comic relief, sudden plot twists, and dramatic resolutions of the typical public process somehow seem better suited to the stage than to the hardheaded realities of designing and building our public spaces.

As I participated in the public drama that played out in Boston, I couldn’t help noticing the strong parallels to soap opera, Kabuki, and a three-ring circus. Some of our most important work will be performing (not acting, precisely, though a little dramatic flair doesn’t hurt) for audiences we have to win over. If we design and planning professionals think we can stay safely in the wings, ensconced at our comfy desks or drafting tables, we’ve got it wrong.

It’s like the old vaudeville act in which the guy gets all those plates spinning at once, in time to the music. That guy has nothing on us. (Foreword, Designing Public Consensus)

Technorati Tags: consultation, public meetings, town hall, public debate

Another international organization is hitting the beaches of Second Life. On October 26, the World Bank is releasing the latest report from the Doing Business group:

“…“Second Life, as a global community with residents from more than 100 countries, is an ideal venue to host a virtual launch of a report that compares how easy it is for people to start and operate a business in 178 economies,” Dahlia Khalifa said.

“Second Life is on the frontier of collaboration and technology. It brings people from around the world together by removing boundaries,” she added. …(news release)

It’s a noble effort and an example that the World Bank and its’ partners are looking for new ways to communicate their ideas - but Second Life has not proven its worth as a communication tool.

Earlier this year, Eric Kintz at HP argued why he still needed convincing about Second Life. Bandwidth and computing power were among the factors he identified for his reluctance to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak.

Those are very big issues for most government departments. Even OECD members have to evaluate the capacity of their network to deliver content over a service like Second Life - but also their network’s capacity to deliver that content back to their own employees.

I suspect that many organizations with outposts in Second Life (like Sweden) have set up separate networks and better equipment for their in-world representatives.

More on the event:

“…The event will be an open forum where policy makers and the public from around the world, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, can ask questions, challenge the findings, and contribute to a global business dialogue aimed at stimulating reforms that improve the business environment, and ultimately create more business startups, job opportunities, and economic growth.

Digital copies of the report’s overview, as well as World Bank–IFC virtual apparel and products, will be available to Second Life residents who attend the event.”

How are the clients of the World Bank - many of them living in remote corners of the internet - supposed to sign on for this report launch?

Technorati Tags: Second Life, World Bank, Doing Business, third world, international organizations, multilateral

Depending upon the topic, it seems that people define the role of public relations practitioner, corporate communicator, and marketing fairly loosely. What exactly is the difference between the three distinct professions?

This graphic tries to separate them by indicating specific “benefits” of working in marketing communications (like travelling on business, having access to Super Bowl tickets) and then presenting the proportional odds of that benefit being available to one or all of the professions.

Technorati Tags: marketing, communicator, corporate communications, public relations, schwag

Wow. If Simon Dickson is right, the folks at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the U.K. are about to blow government blogging right open. And maybe even corporate blogging.

Forget restricting your corporate blogging to just C-suite executives. Opening blogging to everyone? Fine for tech companies, but not very workable for CPG companies.

How do you find a balanced and reasonable voice to represent your organization? Maybe by identifying three or four strong voices spread out throughout your organization, and giving them the tools to communicate. Foreign Minister David Milband is leading the charge, just like he did at DEFRA.

“…Miliband himself is joined by Jim Murphy, his Minister for Europe who ‘wants to hear your views on how the EU is doing, and to encourage discussion through this blog’. So whilst you’re not likely to get your referendum on the European treaty / constitution, you will at least have one outlet for your support / anger. Good luck to whoever’s moderating that one.

Then there’s Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO, currently Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Afghanistan; and Lindsay Appleby, a First Secretary (ie relatively senior) in the Brussels office. Reporting from the front line, there’s Maria Pia Gazzella, from the Embassy in Chile. But most remarkable of all is Sarah Russell, who doesn’t even work for the FCO yet - she’s a Fast Streamer due to join in October 2007, so presumably we’ll be following her progress as she learns the ropes…” (Simon Dickson)

It’s important to remember that EVERY member of a diplomatic service is trained - extensively - in skills essential to a blogger:

• the comprehension of complex ideas and themes
• the synthesis of debates and positions, often conflicting
• the rapid creation of understandable but nuanced subject briefings
• and, most importantly for a government blogger, an acute awareness of the influence and impact of their words and writing.

Technorati Tags: government blogging, corporate blogging, diplomatic corps, diplomat

Thanks to Google News, your spokesperson or technical expert may have another opportunity to present their case in the news - AFTER the journalist has filed.

Google’s about to add a comment feature to Google News - but with a twist. Only people directly involved with the story, like those quoted in it, can submit a comment to be moderated by the Google News staff.

“We’ll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we’ll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as “comments” so readers know it’s the individual’s perspective, rather than part of a journalist’s report.”(Google News Blog)

This signals another shift toward the corporate interpretation of how social media should be managed.

For those of you following on the home game, the comments appended to a Google News story will have gone through TWO filters - the original reporter’s judgement of who should participate in the story, and Google’s own test of authenticity.

How about that? You can just throw the egalitarian nature of comments under the bus now. Traditional media, as interpreted and annotated by the gatekeepers.

For public relations specialists, this opens up a whole new channel of communication: pointing readers to your evidence and your record of the interview.

Especially for you paranoid and obsessive types that make it a habit of recording every moment your senior executive comes within a restraining order of a journalist.

And, judging from the FAQ on the new comments policy, your comments may have greater longevity than the story itself:

“However, we’ll try to be in touch with you and possibly include your comments in future stories that mention you. “

Communicators and media relations experts now have another channel to consider when evaluating the impact of their media coverage.

Why not respond to how your interview, fact sheet or news release were interpreted in the article?

Technorati Tags: Google News, comment policy, retaliation

“I just have to tip my hat to the Yankees and call them my daddy.”

So uttered Pedro Martinez (in a semi-lucid moment) after losing a 2004 game to the New York Yankees.

Is it time for internal communications - as a profession - to curtsy and walk off stage? Year after year of newsletters, blast emails, cheque stuffers, programmed voice mails and desk drops have never succeeded in building the sorts of networks that are developing spontaneously on Facebook.

I mean, the Government of the NorthWest Territories has a network of 557 people!

Putting the hyperbole aside, what do internal comms teams have to offer in the face of self-assembling employee groups?

Well, except for pre-approved corporate messaging, I mean?

Who will be the role model for the internal comms function in this new connected world? Vicki Stubing?  Bailey Quarters? Andrea Zuckerman? or Paris Hilton?

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social networks, internal comms, internal communications

I’ve taken the Gartner Hype Cycle, and interpreted it by applying the typical objects you might find in a company office or cubicle during each phase of the cycle.

The key to continuing customer loyalty is never stop delivering on your brand and product promise. Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee and donut chain, knows this and delivers in spades.

A year ago, Tims opened up an outlet at the  Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan. There are 2500-odd Canadian troops operating in Afghanistan, as well as other international troops.

The company’s regular Roll Up The Rim promotional campaign gives away thousands of prizes at outlets across Canada: cars, bbqs, free drinks, donuts and cash prizes are up for grabs. The campaign has become a pseudo-cultural event for many Canadians.

Winning codes can be found under the waxy rim of each paper coffee cup. (There’s even a custom tool for rolling the rim.)

This year, Tim Hortons has launched a custom Roll Up The Rim campaign designed specifically for the troops in Afghanistan. The cup design incorporates modern camouflage patterns, and the in-store promotional posters are in several international languages. 5 prizes of $1000 are available to be won, as well as caps, digital cameras and the usual donuts and coffee.

That’s a customized promotional campaign, built on the existing material, for ONLY ONE OUTLET.

This is a company that understands its brand and product promise - and knows it has to deliver this promise at every outlet.

Have you ever wondered what a combat zone coffee shop looks like? Take a look at this Canadian Forces Combat Camera footage shot by Sgt. Ed Whitmore (15 meg .mov)

Photo by Sgt. Roxanne Crowe, Canadian Forces Combat Camera.

Thanks to David Akin for the pointer.

Technorati Tags: Tim Hortons, Roll Up The Rim, Coffee Shop, Donuts

Cardinal Edward Egan is featured in the NYT, and one of the topics of discussion is his financial management of the Archdiocese of New York. Egan claims to have eliminated the Archdiocese’s deficit, and is paying down the debt. Still, he won’t release financial records - a step already taken by Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Brooklyn.

” … Will this white-haired prince of the Roman Catholic Church follow the lead of other large dioceses and release the archdiocese’s financial reports to the public?

Cardinal Egan considers the idea for a second or two, and offers a smile more suggestive of steel than humor. Wall Street titans sit on his finance council and study his ledgers. The cardinal sees no point in public inspection.

“I am transparent to the best possible people,” he said in a rare interview in his 20th floor office on First Avenue in Manhattan. “So when you say, ‘We don’t know,’ well, my ‘we’ knows.”

When you speak to the other 90% of the world that barely understands the concept of social media, is your rhetoric more Anthony Robbins or Rush Limbaugh? In your pitches, are the benefits of social media innovation balanced against the potential risks to corporate information?

As corporate consultancies begin to play in the arena, this type of analysis will become more prevalent. And it will sway corporate decision makers without the appropriate level of preparation by social media evangelists.

For example, Clearswift recently conducted surveys in Britain and the United States to examine use of social media and “Web 2.0? sites in the workplace. Their news release highlighted the term “data leakage,” and the U.S. news release emphasized that the “Growing popularity of Web 2.0 sites put corporate information at risk and drains productivity.”

The data points being fed to corporate clients, as a result, emphasize three points:

• without a plan to deal with social media use, corporations risk the loss of valuable corporate information, either intentionally or inadvertently;

• employees, especially the younger generation, are already online A LOT during work hours; and

• use of “Web 2.0″ sites can significantly affect productivity in the workplace.

Key to these arguments are two separate sets of findings:

United States

• 46 percent of office workers have discussed work-related issues on social media websites;
• 71 percent of office workers use Web-based email at work for personal reasons;

Britain

• 42 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 have discussed work-related issues on social media websites
• 59 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 believed that employees should be entitled to access Web 2.0 Internet content from their work computer for personal reasons, compared to 38 per cent of employees aged 30+.

It’s hard to compare the two sets of surveys, as their methodology is different in each country. Still, the results are similar and reinforce the message being driven by Clearswift:

“More than half of the people we surveyed feel that they are entitled to access the Internet and social media sites at work, and 27 percent of them work at organizations that don’t have an acceptable use policy or don’t know if one exists,” added Ian Bowles. “We have become way too casual with the Internet; this despite the propagation of viruses, bugs, spam and scams that plague the Internet and can harm an organization. We urge businesses to take a sensible approach to the risks posed by the Internet and social media sites.”

As a social media evangelist, what’s your prophylactic response to all these viruses and icky web dwellers? What materials have you prepared to relieve executive concerns and help push adoption on a corporate level?

h/t to the Melcrum Blog, and cross-posted to SoSaidThe.Org

In London, WPP”s Sir Martin Sorrell is dragging his former country chief for Italy, Marco Benatti, into the dock for libel. In Chicago, Lord Crossharbour is being tried for fraud and racketeering. His wife, Lady Barbara Amiel Black, is along for the ride and moral support. One side is enjoying the spotlight. The other appears to be barely holding on.

“At one point, Mr. Sorrell bounds out of the courtroom declaring, “I love to see lawyers wriggle.” Later, he mischievously taunts journalists by saying we were “missing a treat.” (AdAge)

It’s easy for Sorrell: he’s chasing payback for some apparently scurrilous allegations Benatti and a colleague posted about him.

For the Blacks, this is a trial long in the making. Lord Crossharbour’s media empire started falling apart three years ago, and the lawsuits began flowing soon after.

It seems that Lady Black finds the constant attention from an international corps of journalists a little more offputting than Sir Martin:

“Forced to travel from the courtroom in a lift packed with journalists, Lady Black said: “You journalists are vermin. I used to be a journalist and I didn’t doorstep people and I didn’t hold my nose in the elevator.”

It was a producer from the Canadian television broadcaster CBC who appeared to trigger the tirade. Lady Black shouted at her “you slut”. Alana Black, who is Lord Black’s daughter from his first marriage, giggled during the incident.” (Independent)

She lost me when she pandered to her 24 year old stepdaughter’s sense of humour. Much less Oscar Wilde, much more Dan Akroyd. On top of that, she ins