Communications Malpractice?

Sharing Time

Recent tunes on the iPod..."Woman in the Wall" by The Beautiful South. I remember when my kid sister introduced me to this light little ditty thinking how nice the tune was -- until I listened to the lyrics. Comes from a great album though titled "Welcome to the Beautiful South." Also, Elvis Costello's "Veronica."

Cooking tip...here's a quick and easy recipe we like:
Vegetable Shrimp and Pasta

Makes 4 servings

Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes

¼ cup corn oil
1 lbs medium fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 cup water
1 cup dry white wine
1 package Knorr Vegetable soup and recipe mix
1 tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
8 oz. linguine pasta, cooked and drained

PREPARE pasta according to package directions and set aside to drain.

HEAT corn oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp and garlic, stirring frequently until shrimp is pink (5 minutes). Remove shrimp and set aside.

ADD water, wine, soup mix, oregano, pepper. Set heat to low, and simmer 5 minutes.

RETURN shrimp, simmer 2 minutes. Spoon over pasta, toss to coat.

Three questions:

• I learned that my anger at the oil companies might best be directed at (surprise, surprise) the government...maybe. More on that later
• I'm proud of stepping up to volunteer for a couple efforts in the local IABC chapter, helping to run the Silver Inkwell judging and meeting with the Career Move folks to talk about how the local chapter can add more value to its membership.
• A happy moment came at work when we were discussing how we can provide all the best professional counsel we have to give based on our very good collective experience, but senior management and business areas won't accept it as valid unless it comes from outside. So we decided maybe we all ought to come in wearing blue blazers and name tags and act like an outside agency..."Where's the restroom?" Got us all laughing silly. Guess you had to be there.

Something about communications...

Lee Aase, manager of syndications and social media (formerly media relations manager) at Mayo Clinic, states an interview for the cover story in March 2008 Ragan Web Content Report "For communication professionals, being unfamiliar with social media tools borders on malpractice." I agree but with an additional thought. Too often, even we communications professionals will rush to social media because it's cool and we think we need to be in that space, if even just to learn the stuff. I think being unfamiliar with social media and rushing to it without bringing along the basic business communications fundamentals (what's our business goal? What's our communications objective? Who are our audiences? etc) is malpractice.

What do you think?

Now about that thing in my craw...

Spoke with someone I know who works at Exxon Mobil, who has been to Valdez, and who understands the profit structure. His explanation of the Valdez Supreme Court argument is that a) the folks in Valdez all became millionaires a long time ago with what Exxon paid out previously. All their boats paid off, all their lives significantly (financially, anyway) better, b) the area is now one of the most pristine, beautiful areas you can find, in part because of cleanup, but mostly because over 19 years Mother Nature has done what she does well, adjusting and cleaning up on her own, and c) because the people of Valdez have all been paid their millions, the punitive fine -- even reduced from $5B to $2.5B amounts to the government saying "Okay, now we want to teach you a lesson." Exxon is saying, "Look, believe us, we've learned the lesson. We've paid out billions already on settlement with the residents of Valdez and the affected businesses and on the clean up."

I'm still skeptical, but bringing it back to communications, if those things are true, why don't we see those arguments from Exxon. Go to their site and search "Valdez" and you get nothing. Were they ever out in the public with those arguments? Certainly not in the article I noted. Maybe their strategy is to save the arguments for the court and not worry about the court of public opinion. I know I have not typically used Exxon, partly because they're always more expensive but in part because of my desire not to reward companies I feel have done wrong. I'm sure there are others more passionate than I about embargoing Exxon based on that same reasoning. Perhaps that represents too small an amount of potential business.

This last could be the reason they may have opted not to communicate on the issue, particularly if what my friend explains about the profit structure is true. Exxon makes relatively little on the sale of gasoline, the majority of their profit coming from selling the oil they pull out of the ground to other countries and companies. He says the vast majority of highly priced stations are independently run and are ignoring the suggested retail price Exxon gives them. He says the biggest element to the high prices we're seeing are because of local, state and federal taxes.

I'm still skeptical on that explanation of pricing because the taxes don't fluctuate on a daily basis or rise over time like the gas prices have. But that's another issue. What do you think about the communications issues around the Valdez thing? Anyone from Exxon communications willing/able to talk? Anyone hear if there was a decision by the Supreme Court yet? Did I miss it? What was it?

Here I am again...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sharing Time
Recent tunes on my iPod..."Ackee 123" by the English Beat (lines: "All of this taking things as they come/tends to make you forget to put anything in" and "Someone just smiled for no special reason/Looks like the smile just came back in season/It's eaaaasssy/Doesn't have to be a nice day/just the only one you got/and it's coming ready or not!) and "Being Drunk's a Lot Like Loving You" by Kenny Chesney (lines: "I loved til I stumbled, I loved til I fell/when the lovin' was over, it hurt me like hell/Well I know of the taste of the wrong love can do/Being drunk's a lot like lovin' you.")

Cooking tip...if it calls for two cloves or garlic...ah, what the hell, throw in four!

Recent movie..."Goonies". Early Spielberg film starring a very young Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) and young Josh Brolin. I'd never seen it and the guys on Scene/Unseen kept going on about it. So I got it for the kids...Okay, so our idea of acceptable (PG) language was different in the early 80s. Good Anne Ramsey role (pre-tongue cancer/"Throw Mama From the Train" role). Sorry, Chris and Jimmy, I say skip it.

Three questions:

• I learned that Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, was born in either Scotland, England, Wales or France, but definitely not Ireland. He was brought to the Emerald Isle in slavery. Given name was not Patrick but Maewyn or Succat. Generally believed to have been named a saint for having driven the snakes from Ireland with a hilltop sermon, though more likely the serpent was a symbol for his having driven paganism from Ireland. He had nothing to do with green food and beer, or leprechauns -- the latter might well fall under the classification of the pagans he's credited with driving out of Ireland. The shamrock can be associated with him as he used it to educate followers about the Holy Trinity. Here's an interesting page on St. Patrick as well as, of course, the Wikipedia reference to him.
• I'm proud of my wife for cooking corned beef and cabbage tonight for the first time and doing a hell of a job with it, and of my kids for eating something new.
• My happy moment today was when my daughter said "uh-oh" at the beginning of dinner tonight and held out her tooth, like she'd get in trouble for losing it. You can't buy moments like that.
  

Something about communications...
David Murray posted an interesting blog item on Shades of Gray today about a Wal-Mart discount prescription program. His point was about how $1B means nothing today, but I found it more interesting, in the light of recent Wal-Mart PR blunders ("Wal-Marting Across America" and the "Wal-Mart Price Dot Runs for Office"), that here's a positive PR story for the company, and David slammed "useless corporate press releases." I think it's likely that the story was generated from a Wal-Mart press release, touting a legitimately admirable program (though the $1B is probably questionable accounting). What I'd like to know is if the release and the pitching was done by Wal-Mart corporate, an Edelman agency rep on their behalf (Edelman having been responsible that was the "Wal-Marting Across America" blogging debacle), or another PR firm on their behalf.

I'd also like to know is if Wal-Mart PR contributed to the strategic decision to pursue the program to begin with? What was the business value to Wal-Mart in pursuing it? Are they still making money or are they knowingly losing money on the program doing the socially responsible thing (realist in me says they're still making money and I don't fault 'em for it).

Love to hear from you all...

I'm doubling my content tonight!

First, an apology...that first post was pretty meaty, and I made the newbie mistake of not ensuring that commenting was allowed! Nice, eh? After I'd just pompously noted on More With Les that I think the best blogs care more about the commenters than the position the author takes on an issue. Well, comment function is enabled and resolved, and I've learned.

Sharing Time
Recent tunes on my iPod..."Papa Dukie and the Mud People" and "I Got All The Time In The World" by the subdudes, the latter is particularly infectious.

Cooking tip...Beau Monde seasoning by Spice Islands rubbed liberally on a roast chicken or turkey and used in the gravy....mmmm, groovy.

Recent movie..."Fracture" with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. Great flick. Even though you know he did it - he said he did it - you're wondering how he's getting away with it. Just not sure what the point of the love interest was.

Three questions...

• I learned that baby carrots aren't really baby carrots but full-sized irregularly shaped carrots, cut into bite sized pieces in an industrial green bean cutter, then run through an industrial potato peeler to smooth out the rough edges. They're not as fresh and they're more expensive than just buying...carrots.
• I'm proud that I took that leap of faith (thanks Rev).
• And my happy moment today was seeing the scale drop another couple pounds...guess that eating right and exercise is working.

Something about communications...
Shel Holtz has a video post on his blog, "Blogging in a regulated environment" addressing concerns some have about starting a blog in a company operating in a regulated industry. Shel has a fine answer -- "Don't violate the regulations." Something about blogging and social media seems to make communicators and others think they have to be more cavalier than they would otherwise be, and I'm not sure why we lose our sense of professional responsibility in this arena.

I commented there that anyone considering a blog for the company should have a very specific initiative in mind, tied clearly to business goals, with at least some credible plan for measurement of success, have an editorial calendar and commitments for content in place, and show how you plan to enforce keeping the blog focused on the intended topic. It should be justified in the same way you would justify an ad campaign, direct mail campaign, newsletter, or any other communications vehicle. I'd love to hear what others think.

Something stuck in my craw (what the hell does that mean anyway?)
Okay, now to that gas thing I mentioned last time...
The price of a gallon of gas here has been back and forth over the $3.00/gallon line several times, but it's pretty well agreed we're headed for $4.00+ for good. I noted that $5.00+/gallon was seen at stations in California recently.

The first time we crossed that $3.00 threshhold was right after Katrina took out refineries in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. Consumers and politicians rightly got up in arms about oil and gas companies gouging consumers. Oil companies claimed they weren't responsible for the price of the gas, but rather those refineries. Congress flirted with the idea of paying us all $100 each to help out.

I wrote an e-mail to my Congressional representatives and the White House stating that I didn't buy the oil companies' arguments that they weren't responsible for the price of their product -- their name on the drill, their name on the pipeline, their name on the refinery, their name on the truck that delivers the gas to the store, their name on the store, and their name on the card I used to purchase. I'm sorry I missed the part where they weren't involved. I told them if they really wanted the government to spend $15B on the problem, to put that toward making alternative fuels viable options to gas. You'd accomplish a few things with that...1) quit sending troops to die trying to build and defend democracies that won't work in the Middle East and defending oil interests we no longer have, 2) start paying farmers to grow instead of not grow, 3) penalize greedy oil companies, 4) create industries American companies (including the oil companies if they're smart) can lead and 5) employ American people.

I got one response three months later from Senator John Warner's office that, in my opinion, took a long, dry route to saying nothing and obscuring the obvious. No price gouging was found, prices controlled by all kinds of variables. I wasn't wowed.

And it's back on my mind because last week Exxon went to the Supreme Court battling a $2.5B punitive fine (cut in half already from an original $5B decision by federal court) that resulted from the Exxon Valdez accident that is supposed to go to the affected people of Alaska. This is an accident that occurred almost 19 years ago, and Exxon still hasn't paid the people of Alaska. . Roughly 20 percent of the original plaintiffs have died since the lawsuit began. Exxon is arguing that even halved, the fine is too large and it shouldn't have to pay a penny of it.

Exxon set a record for corporate annual profits in 2005 making $36.13B, then beat that record in 2006 with $39.5B, and again in 2007 with $40.6B. Exxon's former CEO Lee Raymond set a record with a retirement package of $400M in 2006.

But those poor folks at Exxon aren't reaping the benefits of the gas prices at all...they're not responsible for those prices...they're just trying to make a living...in fact, according to a recent radio ad, we should be very happy they're taking more money from us per gallon because if we have investments in any kind of funds, chances are we're stockholders.

Am I wrong to be angry about this and to call on Exxon to own up, pay up to the folks in Alaska and price down for America before we all revolt? Someone help me understand...or help me to get the government to get their heads out of the trees to see the forest. Who knows more about what drives the price of gas? Someone educate me.

Damn, ran long again! Well, love to hear from you, whoever you are.