Looking For Miracles: Retailers

Most retailers are looking for an economic turnaround miracle. And as early back-to-school sales fizzled, many of them aren't sure if they should look for another traditional peak shopping season or push off hope for the holidays.

The bad news for retailers hit when monthly figures for July showed only modest growth over last year. Overall, retail sales increased 0.4 percent in July, and rose 5.9 percent over sales in July 2009. It's movement, but most fear that the movement isn't sustainable.

"Retailers continue to persevere in an uncertain economic environment, relying on cost controls rather than sales growth to maintain profitability," noted Sandy Kennedy, president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. "Retailers continue to deal with considerable market and regulatory uncertainty."

With the exception of automotive, retailers saw a decline in virtually every category. Department stores, clothing, furniture, and building materials were all slightly down. The most common reason for the sales slump is attributed to 14.6 million Americans remaining out of work.

Finding New Solutions In A Down Economy.

In days of old, most retailers relied on location. It was the reason that malls were mapped out all over the United States. As a retailer, you wanted to choose high traffic areas in order to capitalize on pedestrian traffic. The same was true for high traffic streets and urban centers. The people were already there. You only had to be there among them.

One change seems certain in this economy: people need a reason to visit beyond location. In a tightening economy, most consumers are trying to cut back on necessities in favor of occasional luxuries. So maybe, just maybe, retailers need to stop waiting for the people to show up and start trying to find them.

Proximity mailing and online market penetration are good starting points, but even those alone are not enough. You have to do something and that something has to be more than host a sale. Mini-events, new line launches, and educational series are smart starting points.

I'm not making this up. Two of the retailers we work with have seen the most success building connection-centric communities online (helping consumers meet each other) and complimentary or low cost events that people cannot find anywhere else. They don't have to be huge events. Some can be as simple as a local chef hosting a cooking demonstration or authors signing books.

As long as the marketing that accompanies these events includes traditional event listings (citywide), proximity mailers (store radius), and online (interest focused), more people are likely to attend than if the establishment simply handed out in-store flyers to a dwindling walk-in consumer base.

As for the freeze created by regulatory uncertainty? I don't blame retailers for being concerned. However, at some point, you have to forget what the emperor is doing and get down to the business of milking cows. The day to worry about future regulations is best saved for the day they happen. And the day to wait for a miraculous economic sales surge is, well, never.

Decoding Data: Fresh Content Project

Something happened in between social media being considered a fad and full adoption. When companies asked people to prove social media worked, they obliged by providing any number of measures. It didn't matter what these measures were. Most of them include anything with numbers.

Never mind that numbers lie. It seemed to be what executives wanted to hear. All five of these fresh pick posts poke holes in most commonly accepted beliefs. If you think that the number of retweets conveys trust and/or transaction, that social media is different from strategic communication, that free platforms don't carry risk, that B2B and social media doesn't mix, or that Facebook is isolated from the Internet, then please read on.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of July 30

• New Experiments Question The Power of Social Proof On The Web.
While one of my passions has been to debunk "reach" on social networks, I'm not the only one conducting experiments. Dan Zarrella recently ran an experiment of sorts on Twitter. In one experiment, a post showing "0" tweets was clicked on more than one showing "776" tweets. In another, "15" tweets earned just as much traffic as "776" tweets. In yet another, he tested subscribers, discovering no significant difference between "0" and "62,172" subscribers. When you add it all up, the measures most marketers look at nowadays are extremely poor indicators of success.

• 7 Common Business Pitfalls that Impact Social Media Strategy.
Valeria Maltoni offers up seven excellent ideas to help keep social media programs on track. Rather than look at raw numbers, she suggests you consider everything much like you would any marketplace: changes in the competitive landscape, customer attrition rates, focus, vision, product problems, goal misalignments, and channel issues. The point, of course, is that any number of factors cold be outstripping your performance on a day-to-day basis. And often times, it might not even be what you think it might be.

• The Sharecroppers Are Revolting.
Becoming too reliant on one network or platform without a backup plan is always a bad idea. Ike Pigott, with his flair for analogy, sized the issue up as something akin to sharecropping. There are many different forms of sharecropping, ranging from people who build their social presence on networks to those who utilize platforms with extensions (Typepad, Wordpress, etc.). He's right and, personally, I wish he would have been right years ago. I've personally lost three content assets: one when a network closed; one when a network shredded data; and one where YouTube didn't realize a production company owned the rights to its own clips.

• The Case for Social Media in B2B.
Every time I read about B2B excuses for not engaging in social media, I always shake my head. First and foremost, I shake it because the people who tell me this read my blog (marketing/communication is B2B). But even more bothersome, I always envision some account executive telling a prospect in a restaurant that he can't talk business in a restaurant. In a much more eloquent fashion, Valeria Maltoni outlines her thoughts on B2B social media, after sharing projections that B2B online marketing spending could reach $54 million by 2014.

• 6 Facebook Search Engine & Data Visualization Tools.
After Lee Odden noted a significant increase in referring traffic from Facebook to Web pages over the past 6 months, he decided to pull together a list of six Facebook tools that could prove useful. All of them rely on Facebook search functions and range from fully functional to visually interesting without any other substance. One of the most interesting ones, in my opinion as well as Odden's opinion, is Touchgraph Facebook Browser. It reorganizes your friends and fans to display what might be mini niche networks on their own. It lined up mine perfectly. Check out the other ones too.

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Stereotyping: One Bad Habit Social Media Needs To Dump

Earlier this week, I checked up on a Twitter chat session about blogging, but could only sit through one question. The question seemed innocent enough. Who do you target? Bloggers who are consumers or bloggers who are influencers?

The session quickly broke down into defining influence, with the most commonly accepted definition being a combination of "reach" (total followers) and "credibility" (engagement and RTs). Most people know how I feel about that definition. It fits in nicely with personal branding.

Here's a short answer so you don't have to read the personal branding post (unless you want to). Focusing on influence sucks. It can be summed up with an alternative title for this post: How I stopped chasing influence and became a better person.

Have Some Social Media Pros Taken To Trees Instead Of The Forest?

Before social networks, when blogs were the primary source of communication, the general likability of social media was that everyone had an equal voice regardless of reach. Sure, some people benefited from knowing a bit more about a subject, were better writers, or learned a few things about SEO. But let's not split hairs.

Everyone was at square one.

Most people involved in blogging were excited because they could present their ideas with an equal opportunity to be heard. They didn't need any reach, authority, or influence. They only needed to share their insights and, occasionally, they would capture more interest than major media networks. There was ample chaos, but chaos is kind of fun too.

Chaos is not very sustainable.

Most people think nature has a propensity toward chaos. It doesn't. It has a propensity toward organization. Even after the very messy Big Bang, entire universes and solar systems slowly began to organize themselves into pinwheels or other designs. The same thing happens in tiny ecosystems. Move ants to a new home and they will organize shortly after the initial confusion.

People are prone to stereotyping.

For people, part of our organizational structures include stereotyping. It is one of the things I've always found interesting about watching online behaviors. Many of the people who once celebrated the chaotic nature of the Web are now those trying to create a whole new hierarchy to replace experience, credentials, authority, and expertise.

The new hierarchy is kind of an unintentional scam with reach, interactions, associations, and time online as replacements. These things frequently creep into every communication decision being made on the Web — who to read, who to follow, and who to retweet or acknowledge. It's a load, and I don't mean Tootsie Rolls.

Kayne West Already Disproved All Those Influence Theories.

With a few simple clicks, Kayne West disproved everything some social media pros teach about influence.

He decided to only follow one kid named Steven Holmes. So overnight, everyone started following the kid. Even members of the media bombarded Holmes with questions and messages, hoping he would pass them along. West has since stopped following the kid after learning he unintentionally disrupted the kid's online life. (Or maybe Holmes deleted the account as he said he might. I didn't look and it doesn't matter to make this point.)

Holmes' temporary influence didn't have anything to do with reach, interactions, associations, time online, or even trust. It had to do with perceived access. It's something I already knew from covering a few tenuous fan movements and running campaigns for independent films, causes, and other such stuff. Influence can be created overnight and dumped just as easily.

In some ways, it has a negative value. And the reason I'm starting to think making decisions based on reach, interactions, associations, or time online is nothing more than a new form of stereotyping caused by ego, naivete, or scalability.

Skip The Stereotyping And Create Community.

When I was working on a social media campaign for an independent film, I connected with the fans of select cast members. I didn't care how many followers or friends or "influence" they had. I connected with them based on their enthusiasm and our mutual potential to become friends (most of them are still friends, one year later, by the way).

These two dozen or so people often received insider news first. It wasn't always intentional. Sometimes it was because they asked questions and my team answered them as quickly as possible. As a result, their "influence" grew, often at a faster rate than the film. (Doubly so when translation was involved.) And, after the campaign ended, most retained their "influence."

Of course they did. While it wasn't formal per se, the community we created placed them at the center, and not us. That concept was by design. I didn't want to become a quasi-celebrity on the back of my client. Influencers don't always operate that way.

While I don't think it's intentional, the only people propping up influence these days are those who stand to gain something from the illusion of being influential or are trying to create relationships based on efficiency because of social media scalability. Good for them. As a rule, however, I just don't see the value, but only because my team knows better.

Selling Offsite: Delta Airlines

When it comes to social media, Delta Airlines is ready to go all in. Today, it launched the industry's first social media 'Ticket Window,' which is a fancy way of saying you can now book tickets on the Delta Facebook page.

After the page slurps your Facebook profile data and is able to secure a private connection, a process that takes a considerable amount of time, you'll be able to book flights off Facebook. How long? I started this post while waiting and quit waiting after I finished this post. Clearly, there are some bugs to be worked out.

More importantly, however, the concept kicks dust on the rented land cautions. When there is money to be made, companies don't care.

Facebook is only the beginning. Delta plans to expand its Ticket Window to other sites, including online banner ads to allow full booking capabilities within the airline's advertisements and without requiring you to leave the site you are on. Delta also has plans to provide a fully functional app that does everything its Web site and the Ticket Window can do.

Who Cares? It's An Airline.

This idea is a leap forward, because despite shortcomings, the company is doing something few have thought of — it bypasses the quest to drive visitors somewhere other than where they are. It creates an opportunity to skip the sales funnel and move directly to outcomes.

It's hard to say whether people will book flights while reading an article on The New York Times or playing Farmville, but there is a non-linear quality that can't be ignored. It demonstrates just how far social media will transform not only how we communicate, but how we sell, shop, and share.

That is not to say everything is all roses for the airline industry. Most still struggle with their basic brand promiseds. Added-value on-time flights without additional charges and some assurances nobody is busting up your luggage on the tarmac. The actual flight experience is where some innovation needs to be made and Delta still has some communication rough spots.

Communication Rough Spots.

For as much investment in the concept of a mobile Ticket Window, it's difficult to find the official Delta page on Facebook. Enough so that I had to visit the site to get the Facebook page, which defeats the purpose. Add another problem.

For creative flair, Delta altered its logo on the Facebook page (pictured left). I didn't recognize it. Sure, the new look launched earlier in the week was a step up over what most airlines offer online. (Most have websites like their service. Lacking.) It's a nice, simplified and streamlined site. However, it didn't include a new logo.

Over time, I suppose people will be able to distinguish the Delta logo no matter how they fly it onto various communication pages. But in the interim, it's disruptive in a negative way. It also assumes the airline has a huge following of fans. Maybe they do. The press release sure made it sound like they are on par with Virgin, Southwest, and JetBlue.

"Our customers are spending more time online and are looking for new ways to connect with us," said Bob Kupbens, Delta's vice president - eCommerce. "We're now delivering technology where our customers are - from our own website to our Facebook page to Internet news sites and beyond."

Like many airlines, they seem a little bit stuck on themselves. It was also a little spooky that they decided to launch on Facebook because "We already know Facebook is the most used website by inflight WiFi users on more than 2,000 Delta flights every day."

Nitpicking aside, the real thrust here should send any marketer's or communicator's head spinning with ideas and applications. While making every ad a storefront could diminish branding applications, there is something to be said for being able to book flights, buy products, or even line up speakers with customized topics wherever your landing page happens to be.

Inviting A PR Disaster: Hewlett-Packard

If there is any doubt that Hewlett-Packard implemented the wrong crisis communication strategy, look no further than abundant speculation. Speculation doesn't happen by accident. It happens when the public doesn't have any semblance of clear, authentic communication.

Stanford scholar and longtime Hewlett-Packard watcher Chuck House has come out strong for HP. He says chief executive Mark V. Hurd's resignation is tied to red herrings. The real reason, he says, is Hurd, nicknamed Mark Turd by ex-HPites who worked directly for him, was a thug.

The Los Angeles Times has taken a different tact. It reports that the HP board of directors ought not to flash a high standard of ethics too liberally. They cite how employees and top brass are treated differently when it comes to compensation, including an unusual formula to calculate the lump sum value of pensions that increased John H. Hammergren's pension from $11 million to $85 million.

James B. Stewart, a columnist for SmartMoney magazine, takes yet another approach on The Wall Street Journal, claiming that the HP board of directors didn't disclose enough. He writes that "by withholding information, the HP board is only prolonging the agony and feeding the press a juicy mystery." Perhaps not on the front end, but certainly now, HP has bought a crisis communication plan that caused more pain than if it would have not reacted to the threat of scandalous publicity.

Bad Crisis Communication Plans Magnify, Multiply, And Amplify.

There are more than 10,000 HP speculation stories across the globe today. And by the looks of things, it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Even if we just look at these three stories, they are all bad, even the pro-HP piece penned by House. It makes you wonder how powerless the board of directors was, waiting for a misstep to bring the "evil" executive down. The Los Angeles Times makes it look like the board is engaged in selective ethics. And the Stewart write-up makes it look like they are holding back, perhaps even lying.

Any time the crisis flies in more than several hundred directions, you know it's botched. Now, business reporters (people who are always looking for exciting stories because the daily stories aren't always so exciting) are looking at every angle. They are making mountains everywhere and they are doing it well beyond the scope of the initial crisis, which was a mole hill by comparison.

Situation Analysis Is Always The First Step In A Crisis.

If there were any internal politics as some suggest, they do not belong on the boardroom table at a meeting to discuss disclosure in order to avoid a public relations disaster. Handling a crisis can only have one objective: minimize damage.

So, if we take the board of directors' word that there is nothing more than what they disclosed — that Hurd was engaged in a non-sexual close relationship but fudged expense reports to hide the relationship to avoid the perception of an affair — then there is no other conclusion than they botched the plan.

In this scenario, a better course of action would have been to clear the chief executive's name, make him pay the $20,000 back (which becomes a personnel matter), manage any crisis in the event it becomes a crisis, and move on. After all, in this case, there was no evidence that Hurd's transgression (which isn't even clear as a transgression) would have been as big of a blip on the media radar. Even if it was, it seems the intent — if it was to avoid a crisis — has backfired exponentially.

This leaves us with two possible outcomes. Either HP created a crisis out of nothing or there is much more to the story.

I'm not big on crisis communication rules other than treating them as situational. I look at the classic tenets of crisis communication and see guidelines that help us ask the right questions given the readily available information we have.

However, if you do want a rule to hang on your shingle, I might suggest this one: in for a pinch, in for a pound. And once you are in for a pound, you'd better hope your only motivation was to articulate the crisis as authentically as possible.

Evaluating A Living Crisis Communication Situation.

Almost every time we evaluate a living crisis communication case study, someone inevitably says that it is too soon to conclude anything. In general, I agree with that assessment. For example, I would be doing you a disservice if I said this will kill HP.

I don't think it will (operative word is "think"). I buy HP products because the hardware is good. The ink, on the other hand, is very pricey. But I suppose it's possible.

However, public relations professionals and crisis communication managers ought to know by know that they have to draft crisis communication plans based on readily available information (not all information) and build in dozens of contingencies if and when that information turns out to be inaccurate. It happens all the time.

Sometimes the people in the field make a mistake. Sometimes public perception turns bad regardless of the facts. And sometimes, clients aren't always forthcoming. They might not lie, but I have heard "Oh, I probably should have told you ..." enough times that charging clients one dollar per utterance would have meant my retirement.

Running Into Fire: Hewlett-Packard

Ask most public relations professionals what is the first thing to do during a crisis and the pat answer is "get ahead of the crisis." That was the advice given to Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) board of directors as it related to chief executive Mark V. Hurd.

And now everyone on the board is under fire, with an unlikely charge by Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle. According to Ellison, he was familiar with the sexual harassment claim against Hurd. He was familiar with the debate that raged between the board of directors. And he was familiar with the fact that the board had investigated the claim and found it to be false.

So what happened? APCO, the public relations firm advising the directors, advised that the company would face a firestorm if the accusations of sexual harassment were made public, regardless of whether or not they were true. They went so far as to make mocked up newspapers to show what the damage would be like.

According to Ellison, the board was originally split 6-4 over disclosure. On Friday, board member Marc Andreessen said the decision was unanimous.* Andreessen joined the board last year. He is co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz and co-founder and chairman of Ning (another social network that has made questionable decisions recently). He reportedly played a key role in the ouster.

What Went Wrong With The Mark V. Hurd Public Relations Debacle?

Some public relations pros are still second guessing the backlash against HP. They stand by the principle to get ahead of the problem and disclose everything. They obviously don't understand media relations whatsoever.

While Hurd had allegedly been found padding expense reports to hide a questionable relationship (approximately $20,000), most members of the media would have found the sexual harassment charges a non-event if they were false. There might have been a firestorm or not, no matter how juicy the story might have been.

Michael Holston, HP's general counsel, told investors on the conference call Friday that Hurd "had a close personal relationship" but Allred's law firm clarified "there was no affair and no intimate sexual relationship between our client and Mr. Hurd."

Stated plainly, it seems like the board of directors created an illusion of a unanimous disclosure vote to show solidarity to disclose what amounts to a non-event. The tension this caused between the board and Hurd was insurmountable, ultimately leading to the resignation (despite the breach in conduct).

The fudged expense reports could have been a quiet personnel matter, easily resolved as Hurd paid them back. It was certainly a lapse in judgement to fudge them in order to hide a relationship. However, the $20,000 compared to the reported millions in severance. Some people are baffled by this settlement. Don't be. The amount is reflective of the mistake.

What One Quote Stands Out As Grossly Misguided?

It didn't come from Hurd. It was Andreessen who said "HP is not about any one person." But unfortunately, that is precisely what the new message seems to be. Andreessen has suddenly risen to become the face of the company. And, he is already named as one of the people deciding on a replacement.

That may smell funnier than anything Hurd did. But that aside, if politics and public relations pat answers weren't involved in the decision making process, this might be be a good time to ask how differently it might have played out. We'll explore this in a second post tomorrow or Thursday. In the interim, PR pros ought to consider that crisis communication is situational.

I often illustrate the point in classes by contrasting up real life crisis situations between a tiff between a homebuilder and a handicapped elderly woman and also a tiff between a homebuilder and a vandal. Students are frequently surprised at the outcomes. We handled the one that turned out right.

HP did it wrong, and now it will still face months (and maybe years) of unflattering media coverage. You know, the stuff they wanted to avoid. Worse, we suspect it may become uglier, depending on who they pick as a replacement and how well that person performs.

* Having served on many boards, directors often revote on issues to show solidarity, even if the minority has reservations. Ergo, they knuckle.

Challenging Marketers: 65 Percent Say Social Media

Almost two-thirds of advertising and marketing executives say it is somewhat to very challenging to keep up with social media trends. And, according to a recent survey conducted by The Creative Group, about 41 percent of advertising and marketing pros say the easiest way to keep up is offline.

This survey is based on more than 500 telephone interviews with approximately 375 marketing executives and 125 advertising agencies. Marketing executives tended to work for companies with 100 or more employees. Agency executives with more than 20 employees.

What Makes Social Media Challenging For Marketing Pros?

A good portion of the challenge has to do with the constant changes taking place in the space, prompting complete tactical changes within the individual networks. To remain competitive, every social network is constantly updating and adding new features. Some are small. Some are complex. And some take social networks down.

Not all of the changes are tied to platform developers. Some networks suffer from their own success. For example, growing popularity with Twitter has led to increasing challenges caused by over saturation. With a random review of the last 20 tweets on my stream, 18 of them were links to other sites and posts.

One second later, the same. One second later, the same. One second later, a hashtag conversation session claimed half.

This doesn't even consider all the new platforms, networks, sites, forums, and apps emerging daily. But what's worse for marketers is this weird standard to continually drive "demand" on the most popular networks at the moment.

For example, marketers on Twitter have to explain why the company account stays flat for a week or two (never mind they are creating relationships on other forums). When url shorteners are accidently flagged as spam on Facebook, people temporarily panic. If two people stop following a feed or Facebook page, they blame it on the last little bit of content shared.

The Most Common Problem With Social Media Programs Today.

We see it daily. Knee jerk, reactive thinking that keeps marketers chasing the latest tactics, tricks, tips, and changes on whatever the most popular social media program is today. And, somewhere along the way, they've created an erroneous expectation that not only do they have to convince people to visit their sites, but they also have to be the most "popular" on every social network they join.

It's possible, but not probable. Some companies, products, and services are better suited for one network than another. But beyond the obvious, the real mistake is to continually case tactics without considering strategy. Strategy has nothing to do with social networks. It has to do with communication.

If there is any irony in the findings from The Creative Group, it's mostly that marketers and agency pros answered their own question. When they want to learn something about online marketing, they aren't looking online. They're looking offline. But even offline, they aren't looking to learn the right stuff.

Thinking First: Fresh Content Project

If someone asked me right now what is the most important skill set a marketer or public relations professional needs to learn today, it would have nothing and everything to do with the Internet. It's called critical thinking.

Critical thinking is the foundation upon which all of their other decisions will be made. And, more importantly, it will help them realize that everything they thought to be true or learned from a teacher (or speaker) is almost always wrong for the needs and situations they will face once they work in the field.

After all, if circumstances didn't continually bend the rules that came before, we'd still be running vintage duotone ads to peddle other people's junk. Well, all right, maybe that's a bad example. Or maybe not. The campaign I'm linking to might work for Skype, but not for AT&T. And that's the point of several fresh content picks listed below. Think before you believe tip links.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of July 26

• Sentiment Analysis And The Problem With Computational Analysis.
When Jed Hallam opened a much needed discussion on sentiment analysis, people took notice. And while most of them noticed his follow-up post more, the initial post has much more meat. The slickness of computational analysis — spitting out that a brand has a positive sentiment — based on supposed online mentions, has little to be desired. Without vetting the analysis, you really don't know what is going on with a brand, especially if it happens to be those stacked up with a common name. Think before you report.

• 10 Ways Geolocation Is Changing The World.
Guest posting and cross content posts certainly have advantages. I may have never seen Rob Reed's post on geolocation marketing had it not also appeared on Collective Thoughts. I'm glad it did. Reed, who is also the founder of Max Gladwell, provides ample examples and ideas around mobile or proximity marketing. We've often said that mobile is the future of the Web, but when you look at Reed's post, you realize that geolocation is also what will usher in most brick and mortar to the Internet in any number of creative ways.

• Digital case studies: Punch Pizza.
One example you won't find on Reed's list was recently featured by Arik Hanson. Punch Pizza doesn't waste time playing by social media and social network rules. Instead, it looks at the platform and wonders how those various networks might help introduce its pies. Flickr became its coupon corner. It gave away pizzas for football fans when their teams lost. They've also capitalized on current events and hosted several creative contests. What makes this case study great isn't the numbers as much as the thought behind the campaigns. Punch Pizza asks "why not?" instead of "why?"

• Brand Crisis Revisited: The Silence Of The Crisis Police.
One of the reasons Bob Conrad resonates is because he doesn't bend to convention, especially when it comes to how to handle a crisis. In this post, he tackles the apology, empathy, and getting ahead of the problem, all three of which have become the pat answers for almost everything in the crisis communication arsenal. When some people critique a crisis going afoul, these are the most mind-numbing of the bunch. It's not that they are wrong, but they deny any semblance of situation analysis. Sometimes the laundry list that is taught is not the right laundry list to employ because the shirts aren't really dirty.

• Social Media Spending To Double This Year.
If there is any doubt whether social media is already mainstream for modern marketing, take a look at the report racap from Brian Solis. Almost 20 percent of most marketing budgets are now dedicated to social media. In fact, Internet marketing has taken over the top skill sets that employers are looking for from marketers. They simply cannot exist without some semblance of social media knowledge. It doesn't even matter if you are talking about B2B or B2C businesses. Most companies have finally figured out that they must market where the people are and the people are online.

Want to review more Fresh Content picks? Click on the Fresh Content label or join the Fresh Content Project on Facebook.

Branding: Personal Branding And Reputation Are Illusions

The more people read about personal branding, the more confused they get. It's especially true for public relations professionals and their clients, given how many coach spokespeople to supplant their own name with the company name during interviews.

Geoff Livingston's recent poll on the Livingston blog is a testament to this fact. Almost 60 percent of survey participants could be classified as undecided. And why wouldn't they be? For every post about how to build a personal brand, there are three more that make fun of personal branding.

Why is personal branding such a complex topic?

For starters, branding is a complex topic. When it comes to organizations, people frequently confuse identity with branding. It seems to take a long time before they understand that a logo is not a brand. Logos are merely representations of the brand relationship between the people and organization. Basically, when people see the logo, marketers want those people to attach the context of a fulfilled brand promise to it.

It’s easier to understand than it sounds. Before the BP logo was covered in oil, the BP sun thingy was meant to symbolize its commitment to clean alternative energy.

This brand promise has since imploded because the relationship cannot sustain the weight of reality. Green is great, except when it's blackish brown and covering animals.

Before you can understand personal branding, you have to understand organizational branding. Ironically, most personal branding coaches teach organizational branding and pass it off as personal branding. So you might know more than you think.

The downside is they lied. Personal branding doesn’t work like organizational branding. Personal branding is trickier because it can’t do what organizations do. Organizations get to “make up” their original brand promise out of thin air. People don’t.

Whatever came before you has already established the foundation. You’ve been working on it since the day you were born, with people reinforcing it along the way.

This can be good or bad for you. (I think it's bad, but that's another story.) But regardless of whether you think it's good or bad, it lays the ground work. And that makes changing yourself a bit more complex than buying new sunglasses.

Sure, some personal branding folks often suggest you chop all that baggage off (which isn’t impossible) and then pick one of a handful of models to reinvent yourself. Let's look at the three most common.

1. Be who you are (assuming you know who you are).
2. Be who you want to be (assuming you know what that is).
3. Be what will get you ahead in your career (a very popular premise).

On their own, none of these ideas really "work." They don't work because, generally, people are trying to build their personal brands around outcomes they want (much like companies do). That's not about who you are or what you are. That's about what you want.

Considering three common models for personal branding.

1. Transparency. That one is easy to dismiss. Just ask Tony Hayward what he thinks about it. Or Mel Gibson? Or Tom Cruise? I’m a truth nut, but let’s face facts: transparency can be stupid.

2. Vision. It sounds really good, but it doesn’t consider that most people don't work to be "who" they want to be. They work for "what" they want to be. And that means bending to the audience's will much like some organizations try to do. The real problem with number two is that "who you are" and "what you are" might not be the same thing. A little transparency, much like the aforementioned, will crash all your hard work down.

3. Act The Part. Right. Ask Howard Stern about that one. He often found himself caught between the person he plays on the radio and who he was at home. Those lines blurred, even in public. Take a look on Letterman, 1987; 1993; 2009.

4. Reputation. I didn't list it before because it's not a personal branding model. It is, however, an alternative. This concept tosses out personal branding and attempts to focus on reputation. Simply put, reputation is based on not what you project, but what you do. It has some merit, but advocates neglect that reputation is easily distorted.

People are too complex for personal branding.

The book I've been working on for some time is about this very subject so I tend not to write about it too much here. But given the confusion being created in social media (a place where some people try to reinvent themselves based on social media advice), I thought I'd toss out two ideas. The one above and the one below.

Most people are not cognitively trained to accept how complex other people are.

We tend to remember about others what we share about ourselves — tiny slivers. I was reminded of this simple fact when I shared my A7X review. One of my cousins said she would have never guessed I like metal. (I like many things, across all spectrums, from classical to hip hop.) Another friend said the same. But another, who doesn't know me as well, was not surprised.

So, only two-thirds ever got some unspoken memo. What does that mean?

It's subtle, but it means two-thirds have a slightly changed perception about me, maybe favorably because they like A7X too. For a bigger audience, an equal number of tiny positive, negative, or neutral reactions. And that's just about music.

Let's say we add any number of more personal topics (religion, politics, economics, philanthropy) or minute-by-minute details (ranging from whether I go to the gym or if I accept an invitation to speak in Asia). All the while, keep in mind that masses of people will only remember one or two details (positively or negatively) about you.

So what do you get? A crapshoot. Even if you pick what you share carefully, most people will only remember what fits with a central theme that they create for themselves. You cannot control it. It is what it is.

Political candidates know this all too well. If one of them says they like A7X, people might accept it. But if the other one says the same thing, people might reject it. But more than that, it isn't limited to public figures. It could be anyone. Imagine knowing a few more details (likes and dislikes) about an elementary school teacher. Parents might not be too comfortable learning about a hidden piercing or radical political viewpoint or some other "weirdness."

There's the rub.

If we accept personal branding or reputation is more than identity (styles, clothing, etc.), then the only choice is to find common ground between who you are and what you are and what you are doing and where you are doing it while maintaining authenticity at the same time, assuming you don’t work for a company that is fundamentally different from you.

Do you know what? That's not personal branding or reputation at all. It's something else.

It's called character. And it cannot be taught as much as it can be learned. And, if you ask me, people ought to pay much more attention to that than the labels others might thrust upon them. Branding is better left on the doorstep of organizations.

Being Transparent: Sometimes It's Stupid

It has been months, but people are still talking about it. Last year, Spirit Airlines floated the idea of charging a "passenger usage fee" to cover the costs associated with buying a ticket. Specifically, it would charge a $5 to $10 fee if you booked a flight anywhere other than a Spirit Airlines ticket desk.

This year, Spirit Airlines was considering the opposite. The new fee idea charges passengers for getting help from one of its employees (hat tip: Andrew Weaver. It's not all that novel, given that some airlines already charge as much as $25 to place a reservation over the phone.

And while it might not happen in the near future, CEO Ben Baldanza is not morally opposed to charging a fee to use the bathroom. The justification for it, and all the other charges (including carry-on bag charges and seats that don't recline), was to keep the base fairly low.

Refreshing Transparency Or Just Plain Stupid?

Baldanza clearly has the fragile brand theory on his side. He's always inventing ways to make what most people consider a necessity much more like a luxury. He's unapologetic for it.

Spirit Airlines is fighting to be the low fare leader and treating people a little less favorably than parcels on a FedEx flight. Ultimately, customers have a choice. And some people, reportedly, like it.

This truly blows some holes in many modern business theories. Spirit Airlines customers aren't looking for relationships. They aren't looking for comfort. They aren't looking for anything but the cheapest possible fare to get from point A to B.

The online poll on USA Today Travel shows 59 percent of the people think it's a bad idea; 23 percent think it's a good idea. And 19 percent think it's a good idea if it speeds up boarding because many delays are created by carry-on luggage. The irony there is that the airlines industry created the carry-on problem because of mishandling bags and charging to check them.

Here's the thing. Any company can do whatever it wants, and most of the backlash seems to be from concerns that other airlines will adopt policies that seem idiotic on their face because a heavy enough percentage of people are willing to go for low air fares.

At the same time, Baldanza has succeeded in ginning up publicity in his quest to make Southwest Airlines look like a luxury flight. It's crazy, but seems to be working for him and his airline.

Free Publicity For Silly Ideas Works Until They Stick.

However, there is a caveat. What works today will eventually not work tomorrow. Right now, given the economy, people are hustling and bustling to cut a few dollars anywhere they can. Once the economy stabilizes, assuming the federal government cranks back its aim to make profit a sin, then price conscious flyers might not be so keen on the Baldanza concept.

If that happens, even if all airlines followed Spirit Airlines' lead, Baldanza will be remembered for the push to make everything an extra. Personally, I'm not sure if such a concept is sustainable. Nobody really wants to need a day of recovery after a flight.

Overall, customers want a fair price for what is being promised. The problem for the airline industry is they struggle to keep their promises because most of them allowed price wars to be their only product differential. Add to this the constant pressure for catering to people who don't care about anything but price, and sooner or later you run out of things to cut.

It seems to me that Baldanza is smart for the short-term gain. But over the long haul, people will remember him as the guy who considered charging for bathroom privileges. In a down economy, people might take it. In an up economy, he's a jerk.

Sometimes being transparent is stupid. I don't mean in an intellectual way. I mean in a long-term strategy kind of way. Not all ideas need to spill out of your mouth. And not everything that spills out of your mouth needs to be published ad nauseum, especially when people figure out Baldanza is trying to find a way to charge you for not speaking to a live person or charging you for speaking to a live person. That is his real dream come true.

Confusing Students: What People Learn From Social Media Pros

For all the advice given by social media pros, did you ever wonder how that information is translated by the recipient? I do, every single day. I do, because what is being taught and what is being learned are often two very different things.

To illustrate, I'm paraphrasing a tip list from someone relatively new to social media. He has been following several top social media writers, heard several speak, and read a few books. I don't want to call out the author nor the advisors this time around. The lesson, if any, is meant to serve future speakers, perhaps giving them a glimpse of what people sometimes take away.

What People Learn From Social Media Pros.

• Determine your brand or personal brand and how you want to present yourself online.
• Scan the Web for communities that consist of people you want to reach with your message.
• Join the communities that would be most advantageous for you, even if it is off your site.
• Teach other people in your company to do the same, not just the social media leader.
• Become the image you want to portray and establish a code of conduct you won't break.
• Pay attention to how other people in the community behave and behave like they do.
• Look for people in pain and frustrated to create an immediate meaningful connection.
• Become a more active participant in those communities, saving sales for when they count.
• As you establish authority, introduce value, insight and direction to those you choose to engage.
• Give the people who help you rewards, resolutions, gifts, and shoutouts to increase engagement.
• Earn connections through mutually beneficial collaborations and become advocates for each other.
• Everything you do online should include involvement maps that lead to business objectives.
• Develop programs that make people come back for more and more on a daily basis.
• Become a resource and authority to your community, ensuring they come to you for advice.
• Recognize any contributions and reciprocate, especially among those who are notable.

What do you think? Is this the intent of the instruction? And if not, how do you go about changing it?

I might mention that I've touched on some of these bullet points too, but the echo back is patently strained. I also have some thoughts about how to better align some of them, but it would take considerably more space than a single post.

Any other thoughts I have about this list, I'll include as I have time to address them in future posts. Right now, I'm much more interested in what other communication pros think. If you don't want to leave a comment, drop me an email.

Going Social: Goodbye Citizen Journalist, Hello Journalist Citizen

Forbes isn't the first to flip the switch, but it is one of the most interesting and sure to get attention. Starting today, according to the Business Insider, every reporter will now be required to have his or her own blog. They won't be alone either.

"Moving forward, when I look at an operation like Forbes, I look at a mixture of a full-time staff base and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of freelance contributors," Lewis D'Vorkin had previously said. "It's a blend."

It makes sense, sort of. For the last several years we've seen the resurrection of the citizen journalist. And for the next couple of years, we might see the rise of the journalist citizen.

What Will The Journalist Citizen Be?

In April, Ike Pigott explored the possibly of organizationally embedded journalists. But journalist citizens might be decidedly different. They won't be embedded in organizations. They'll be embedded in our social networks and, perhaps, actively participating, promoting, sharing, and investigating story leads.

They already are, you know. Early last year, we worked on a brief for several major publishers to do exactly that. It was the first phase of what might later become the journalist citizen. Specifically, they wanted to know how to tap into stories that people in social media find interesting and then give those stories a spin, upgrading those ideas with access to better, harder-to-reach sources.

The next phase is closer to what Forbes is proposing to do (but they were not one of the publishers who received the brief). Journalists will actively participate and promote the stories they create (or each other's stories maybe). They'll have to.

Although most emigrating print publishers are standing firm that reporters will be subjected to eyeball quotas (a standard practice among broadcasters), one wonders if there will be a certain amount of pressure upon the participating press to build their own "tribes" around the subjects they cover. Or perhaps, they'll discover, there are no "tribes."

Online participants are very much as free as ever. Long before anyone called them tribes, we called them nomads, whom marketers and media hope to capture as they wander their way to watering holes for individual conversations, family gossip, fun, and games.

Perhaps more disturbing than journalists splitting their time between investigative work, objective journalism, social networking, story promoting, and defending whatever it is they lend to a topic, will be the increasing loss of objectivity as they serve to cater to what some might call temporary tribes (even if there aren't tribes).

I cannot stress temporary enough. You see, unlike real tribes, they move on if you write about the same thing too much or too many different things. It makes sense that marketers would attempt this balancing act. They wear the agenda on their sleeves, and its name is sales no matter how many relationships or niceties they offer up. There is nothing wrong with that.

But the media? If the agenda isn't to tell us what we need to know whether we want to hear it or not, then what is it?

Don't get me wrong. I think the move by Forbes is the direction that communication is moving. But what strikes me is that if newspapers and magazines have finally surrendered to social media, what valued proposition will they bring to the table, especially if they support a platform that allows hundreds and hundreds of freelancers to submit stories that compete with their staff? And, equally interesting, what will the value proposition be for them?

After all, there is always reality. Reality suggests that if newspapers and magazines recognized that being relevant online was more difficult because it forced them to compete with television and radio news in the same space, imagine what it might mean if they have have to compete on a daily basis with blogs too.

It seems to me that things will be getting messy. Imagine consumers being asked to choose from the people in the field who have blogs (experts), journalists who have blogs (professionals), citizens who have blogs (casual observers with sometimes very good ideas), and, well, public relations pros with blogs. Huh. I'm okay with that. It's stranger than fiction. How about you?

Splurging Consumers: Are They Cash Crazy?

Bloomburg Businessweek calls it the new abnormal. Americans, they say, are broke and depressed but also buying $3 lattes and waiting in line for iPhones. The compelling Businessweek cover story provides plenty of examples, including a woman who explained how tough the economy was while splurging in Las Vegas.

A few numbers behind the article citing the new abnormal.

• Businessweek cites the success of companies like Apple, Starbucks, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW.
• 17 percent of consumers are spending outside their means; 20 percent struggle with needs and wants.
• 20 percent of Americans have bought something in the last 30 days they wouldn't have 6 months ago.
• 51 percent of Americans have fallen behind on their their annual savings plans, but still splurge shop.

Some of these percentages certainly seem far off from the report that The Futures Company put out last year. That think piece, A Darwinian Gale, said that consumers had reshaped their entire thinking, with an emphasis on responsibility, vigilance, resourcefulness, prioritization, and network orientation. In March, another study from Euro RSCG Worldwide, said there were more prosumers than ever before.

Have consumers gone crazy, trading in the "new" society for schizophrenic shopping?

They aren't crazy. Devin Leonard touches on some of it in the podcast, but doesn't go deep enough in understanding consumers, especially those who are broke or feel stressed by the lackluster economy and low consumer confidence.

It's not impulsive shopping as much as it is backlash against the pressure of isolation, intense savings, and preparation for the worst (which he does say). But even more importantly, most consumers, especially those who had not faced any hardships in previous economic downturns, splurge now and again because they remain unbalanced.

This is one of the reasons most financial planners I know always suggest building entertainment in to a budget, no matter how small that budget might be. Simply put, it's little luxuries (scalable to our financial picture) that help lift our spirits up and keep us moving forward. It may also represent a re-prioritization to a mindset that tip earners tend to have all their lives.

Since tip earners have unfixed incomes, they tend to avoid fixed expenses such as magazine or newspaper subscriptions. They also cut back on other fixed expenses as they can, such as grocery shopping or gas consumption or premium cable. Why? So they feel like they have more control over their daily finances even if that means they purchase something some would consider "luxurious."

The same psychology played out during the Great Depression. Despite being the worst economic collapse in the nation's history, this era also helped launch the major motion picture industry. The same psychology prompted hungry children in Europe during World War II to buy candy instead of soup if they happened to find a few cents. And the same psychology may have even been present during the Renaissance, when theater for the masses become an important part of life.

For a few minutes (if it's a cup of coffee) or a few hours (if it's a movie) or a few weeks (if it's an iPad), consumers can take the edge off a repressive economy and chronic uncertainty. And the need to do so grows exponentially if they didn't balance out their finances prior to the crash, which increases the pressure to splurge rather than spend a smaller amount on themselves every week or every month.

Marketers can empower consumers with fewer fixed costs.

Does this change how consumers spend? Sure. From a big picture perspective, it skews purchases much like the Businessweek article says. However, it tends to be for very different reasons. This behavior isn't a new abnormal. It's very normal. And as long as consumers can limit the pendulum swing between feast and famine, it might even be healthy too.

The question marketers ought to be asking themselves is how do they adjust their message to meet the mood? Some might make the mistake of cutting prices. But others will likely find some lift in removing "fixed" costs and giving consumers more flexibility.

Speaking Simply: Fresh Content Project

I read a quote this weekend that stuck with me. I believe in the concept anyway, but quotes are always fun to find in order to share what you think with someone else's articulation of it. Here's the quote...

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.” — Charles Mingus

The next five fresh picks are much like that. They provide smart and simple solutions, like why the Old Spice guy might have really worked or why thinking of your blog as a loss leader is a bad idea. They show you why the media isn't trusted all the time, why chasing comments is silly, and why algorithms that include the "number of followers" don't tell the whole story.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of July 19

• How to Reproduce the Old Spice Video Phenomena.
I'm not a fan of the Old Spice euphoria nor the Old Spice cynicism, but John Bell did one of the best jobs asking the right questions. Was it successful? What about it made it so? And did it drive sales? But more than that, he warns people away from trying to duplicate the tactics. (Elf Yourself is no fun for hotdog buns beyond a chuckle.) Like most great advertising, it was breaking the mold that captured our attention (even if some ideas were in play before). With exception to not noting that the social media element was part of a larger campaign, including a huge coupon drop, we need more thinking like this.

• Blogs As Loss Leaders.
Chris Brogan debunks some of the myth behind considering a blog your or your company's loss leader. He suggests looking at it differently, as part of the entire value chain. While the value chain may have different parts that cary more financial weight than other parts, they are just as important. If you want an analogy to help this sink in, think of your car having a value chain. The seat might not have anything to do with getting you where you need to go, but leather sure feels better while you're getting there.

• Social Media is the Servant of Strategy, Not the Master.
Adam Singer considers the problem with comment counting, which was all the rage in determining (gasp) influence a few years ago. (If you had more comments to count, you counted more. Whatever.) Singer then goes on to point out something we can never hear enough of — drive outcomes instead. As he mentions, comments don't do much for businesses. And not all comments happen on blogs anymore, anyway. That doesn't mean to discount them. Just keep them in perspective.

• The I-Dumbing of Journalism.
Ike Pigott shares one of the most blatant and silly stories sensationalized by a media outlet. The reason is clear enough. It was a ratings period and the Oklahoma City television station knows that fear for family drives eyeballs. So it spiked up a story on audio files that kids download to make them high and how these sounds are, basically, the new gateway drug. Pigott debunks a small part of the story simply by noting that binaural or "two-tone" sounds are easy enough to come by. Telephone tones, among them.

• My Followers Are Bigger Than Yours: On Twitter, Quality Beats Quantity.
Ian Lurie has been doing an unscientific study by tracking what happens after someone retweets his posts. He noticed that people with a moderate following actually generate more responses from their RTs than people with larger followings. No surprise, he also found spammy people do not generate as much interaction, engagement or link clicks because they have already established a reputation for sharing junk. Ergo, the only place spammy guy has reach or influence is on algorithms.

Want to review more Fresh Content picks? Click on the Fresh Content label or join the Fresh Content Project on Facebook.

Finding Truth: The Death Of Hyperbole?

For several years now, dozens of companies have released scores of research studies that have captured the fancy of mainstream media for headlines. I've mentioned it a few times over the years.

In May, MyType surveyed over 20,000 of its users on Facebook to determine that iPad owners are generally selfish elites and their critics are independent geeks. Never mind that in another part of the study, the independent geeks self-scored themselves higher on being susceptible to greed. And never mind that MyType, a Facebook application developer, created the segments "by selecting only people who matched multiple profile characteristics."

That might be a naughty note in research circles, but it didn't stop a few papers and magazines from jumping at the chance to publish the findings, without the methodology. One exception, one month later, was the Guardian. It took more interest in John Grohol's article that called the MyType research bad science.

Balancing Popular Polls With Real Research.

Things are changing. As more celebrities join social networks, they tend to grab up positions of popularity over the once socially famous (assuming they aren't automated celebrities). As expert authorities increase their participation, quick psychology surveys by software developers lose any feeling of real importance. As agencies play a greater role in developing online content, what once was considered creative loses some of its luster.

It will take more time, but the media will eventually participate in the shift. As publications compete for the same base of subscribers, it might be in their best interest to police themselves against those that grab up nonsense. Specifically, those that benefit from pushing catchy headlines one day, may find themselves making the headlines the next (much like the Guardian did to several by pointing out which ones published the MyType research). Even those that maintain popular blog listings might be turned off, eventually.

The point here might be that this signals a restructuring over who and what can hold people's attention. And the good news is that some patently bad ideas might be vetted. The not-so-good news is that some networks might be more dismissive of those little gems that bubble up from time to time in favor of sticking by bigger brands. We'll see.

In the meantime, expect more research to be unraveled by people who practice science and psychology (and other fields) . While people who are authorities in those areas aren't always right, they're welcome to point out what others might be doing wrong. And that, we can hope, will be worth coverage by the media.

Trapping With Inaccuracy: Plagiarism Days Are Marked

Ever since Bob Conrad, author of The Good, The Bad, and The Spin, shared the Wired story about Las Vegas-based Righthaven, we've been wondering about the future of a few "experts."

According to the article, Righthaven has filed "at least 80 federal lawsuits against website operators and individual bloggers who’ve re-posted articles" originally written by their first client. If the infringements are settled, they are worth between $1,500 and $3,000 apiece. If they go to litigation, they could be worth $150,000 or more.

Trapping plagiarists with inaccuracies.

While reposting complete articles is obvious, reframing ideas are not always so obvious, as Ike Pigott illustrated last March with his post Attribution is the Sincerest Form of Flattery. And again, comparing this story with this story. Are there similarities?

It might be more crystal clear if the screen scrapes were even more blatant. And one way to make that happen might be to borrow a page of out The Trivia Encyclopedia by Fred L. Worth. Worth lost his $300 million lawsuit even after inventors of Trivial Pursuit acknowledged that Worth's books were among their sources*, but recently a Wall Street Journal writer wasn't so lucky.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on one of its contributors. It seems two "Agenda" columns by Bill Jamieson, executive editor of the Scotsman, sourced information without crediting the source. (Hat tip: Regret The Error). The reason it was obvious was because Jamieson had apparently scraped up errors from those sources.

*Interestingly enough, the only reason Worth lost his lawsuit is because the judge had ruled that facts cannot be copyrighted. However, while I'm not an attorney, I wonder if a better counter argument could have been that embedded errors aren't fact at all.

Avoiding the accidental pickup.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. So let's assume most people want to write something remotely original, but also want to use the openness of the Web to color their stories with other ideas, thoughts, and opinions. The easiest way to do that is by following some simple guidelines.

• Some facts don't have to attributed. In the States, we'd all be hard pressed to attribute who first told us that the United States declared independence on July 4, 1776.
• Other facts, however, deserve to be attributed anyway. And since we have the ability to link back to the source, readers might benefit from the source.
• Opinions and original thoughts are always attributed. Sure, there are times when two people stumble upon similar topics, but certain phrasing, analogy, and novelty might reveal a different conclusion.
• Full story screen scrapes, even with link backs, are a very, very bad idea. It neglects the rights of the publisher, which is why more firms like Righthaven are very likely to become the publishing industry's new friend.
• Attribution is the sincerest form of flattery, just as Pigott said. It's in your best interest to credit original thought because those credited are much more likely to promote the content.

For some of us, it all seems pretty basic. For others, it seems much more challenging, but not for long. If firms like Righthaven become a profession that publishers and even bloggers embrace, it seems very likely that a few popular names in social media and communication might come crashing down at $1,500 to $3,000 per infraction (or more).

You see, there has been another trend noticed among communication blogs that started about two years ago. As some became more popular, their propensity to attribute has shrunk. Author Geoff Livingston mentioned it last year. And since I built out my reader to the size he sported then, I've seen more "coincidences" than I care to share.

Telling Fibs: Why BP Photoshop Blunders Are Big News

With Tony Hayworth, CEO of BP, stepping down to be replaced by Robert Dudley in October, many people have the same question. Can Dudley turn BP around, clean up the Gulf, and restore the company's reputation? At the moment, the answer is maybe.

October is a long time away, which may give Dudley a cleaner start than if he took over today. But the real challenge for BP isn't a change in leadership but a change in company culture. As one of the world's largest energy companies, that won't be an easy task.

The smallest fibs, not the largest, can be the most telling.

BP's liberal and enthusiastic use of Photoshop, not once but twice, became one of the biggest stories because the fibs were so terribly small. And that might mean something beyond the Photoshop lessons some very creative folks have left sprinkled around the Web. (It's hard to pick a favorite.)

• The company's code of conduct is being ignored.
• The culture has accepted a standard of deceit.
• The smallest of details don't really matter at all.

Years ago, when I was working on one of my first political campaigns, we discovered that the primary opponent had lied. Not only did he not have a degree in the field stated on his literature, but the college he had attended never offered such a degree.

Upon discovering this, we began a much more rigorous investigation better known as opposition research. Of about twenty points made to convince people that he was the best candidate, about 14 of them were either made up or patently false.

One fib on its own might have been forgiven by the public. But anything more than a dozen fibs was a lofty number. It didn't matter how small some of them seemed to be. Tell enough half truths, spins, and misstatements and any brand or reputation will eventually collapse. There seems to be a mountain of them related to Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Have you ever read the BP Code of Conduct? It begins as "one of the world’s leading companies, we have a responsibility to set high standards: to be, and be seen to be, a business which is committed to integrity."

How do you feel about that statement today, knowing that the company culture seemed to have embraced a general rule that tiny lies, little breaches of protocol, and miniscule lapses in following safety standards were somehow acceptable. As long as the paperwork looked good and nobody was hurt, did it really matter? It mattered on April 20.

On some things, it's better not to give an inch. The poorly done Photoshop pictures weren't being sent out as cover shots for the annual report. They were being provided as part of a slew of shots meant to convince us that BP was on top of the problem.

Obviously they weren't. The problem is on the inside.

*The above commenter photo can be found on Gizmodo, posted on July 22 by Jeremy "Bobafett."

Interpreting Influence: Intuition Over Infatuation, Part 2

The reason I initially chose the title of this two-part post was to illustrate that we can be infatuated with someone, but that doesn't mean they necessarily have influence over us. I like many people online, but I don't always agree with them. And generally, the people I like, don't always agree with me either.

Our influence over each other is confined to the validity of our ideas at any given moment. And what makes that a stronger relationship, in my opinion, is mutual respect because neither of us is so enamored with each other that we fawn over every word. It's an unspoken, sometimes subconscious, connection. The ties that bind are ideas, not personality, popularity, or any other measure.

This post is part two of a two-part post. If you missed the first one, it's called Interpreting Influence: Intuition Over Infatuation, Part 1. It includes a link to an extensive education study commissioned by The Wallace Foundation. This post is an extension of my own conclusions in applying it to the discussion of online influence.

What Is Influence, Anyway?

1. A power affecting a person, thing, or course of events, especially one that operates without any direct or apparent effort.
2. An individual or group's power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability, position, or presentation.
3. A person who exerts influence such as friends, family, co-workers, and customers.
4. A power such as the moon and the stars, divine intervention, genetics, or law of nature.

The order of most definitions provides an insight into the meaning of the word, with the most weight being given not to people but to the ideas, actions, and reflections they make. Ideas are powerful, which is why some men with mistaken perceptions or malicious intent have worked diligently to control them.

During one of my presentations earlier this year, this became an important part of the introduction. Every innovation in communication to help messages, thoughts, and ideas spread has led to advents in how to manage, control, manipulate or snuff them out.

However, as influence applies to the concept of collective leadership, the power outlined in the leading definition is derived by a singular individual as much as it is derived from inherent truths that already exist within a public. And even individuals in definition 2 or 3 stand the best chance to succeed when they adhere to that principle.

Six Considerations Of Influence.

1. Ideas. If someone proposes a good idea, performs an action worth following, or reflects the feelings of an audience, then the idea (assuming it reaches the right mass) will be propelled forward. Consider how many ideas you have shared over the last few months and how frequently or infrequently you remember the originator of those ideas.

2. Authority. People in positions of authority have a degree of influence. A boss can set expectations. A legislative leader can pass laws. An expert might be given our attention. However, even people in positions of authority rely on the ideas they propose and the outcomes they produce. Allowing them to influence us is voluntary, even when it doesn't feel that way.

3. Persuasion. Novelty can influence us to look, but only in that it attracts our interest. The fictional Old Spice man didn't influence anyone as much as he attracted attention. It was creative, clever, and funny. Did it compel, convincing men to start using specific scented body washes? Maybe. Persuasion is powerful, but it relies on ideas to remain sustainable. (The ads also had a reward mechanism. They made us laugh.)

4. Proximity. People who are closer to us — friends, neighbors, family — can be influential, even if that influence is unseen. Over time, people tend to adopt the behaviors and beliefs of those they associate with on a regular basis, even if that proximity is not geographical. And yet, individuals don't necessarily set the stage as much as the collective of a community.

5. Popularity. Most social media measures record popularity. And while it is true that popularity can propel a message forward, giving it the reach it needs to impact more people, popularity on its own doesn't hold much influence. Consumers snub reviewers all the time to make movies into blockbusters because the collective ideas of many consumers might outweigh their popularity or authority.

6. Reinforcement. There are positive and negative reinforcements that can influence behavior. I've seen it in labs. It is one of the few actions that can trump ideas, good or bad. In a social network setting, for example, a popular person or someone with authority might influence someone to do something for a reward, whether it be affirmation or a prize (reward). As a negative reinforcement, it might be banning them from a site or the threat of diatribe (fear).

But the question I keep asking is does this type of influence come from the individual or the action itself? When I was in college, teaching mice to press a bar for water, it wasn't difficult to figure out that I did not influence the mouse. The design of the experiment and reinforcement did. (Surely, you would laugh at me for presuming I had influence over the mouse.)

What About Reputation?

Reputation fits in rather nicely. Yesterday, I mentioned that people did not march to Washington D.C. for Martin Luther King, Jr. They marched for civil rights and social equality. However, I am sure there were a few in the crowd that would have marched specifically to see him, no matter what the reason.

It seems to me, for those few, his reputation was based on not much more than the collective ideas and actions he had taken prior to that point. But what made him a great leader, much like many great leaders, is that his greatest ideas didn't make him influential. His influence — the ability to refine and reflect what was already in the American psyche — made him great.

Others, unlike King, rise to greatness only to see their ideas do not produce stated outcomes. They quickly wither. And as they wither, some of them begin to rely on other mechanisms of influence, with fear being the most commonly employed.

What's The Point, Anyway?

I don't have to be right, but what I do hope some people get out of these two posts is that real influence doesn't come from the number of followers, retweets, or any other popular online measurement. Real influence comes from something that connects two people — a shared idea (even if one person has refined it).

And while other factors, like those noted, can be influential or sometimes work in tandem, they also tend to be more fragile on their own. If you want to influence people with positive intent, the best course of action is to pay careful attention to what they already think and then refine and reflect their ideas back to them. Just don't make the mistake of believing that makes "you" an influencer. If you think that, there is a different word. It's called narcissism.