Posts Tagged ‘New York Times’

Yesterday's oped by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times got me thinking about how much harder it is to build reputation in this shout-marketing world. Her column was about the loss of silence which was a pleasant surprise because I was not in the mood to read about politics. She quotes Ed Schlossberg of ESI who said, "Paying attention to anything will be the missing commodity in future life. You think you’ll miss nothing, but you’ll probably miss everything.”  When everything and everyone seems to be talking, it is hard to make sense of it all. Reputation building has reached that tipping point I fear. There are so many messages being distributed through so many channels that only bad or sensational news are getting through. Now I know that is an exaggeration. But it seems sometimes that the best way to get my attention is to tell me something awful that has happened and who it happened to (meaning which company or CEO). Today I was on the subway on my way to work and two young men were talking about MFGlobal and Jon Corzine. Then I looked at the woman next to me and she was reading the Wall Street Journal about Olympus's problems. Of course, someone was doing the crossword puzzle and another was reading their Kindle.  Another person had a shopping bag with Macy's logo on it and I was thinking about JCPenny teaming up with Martha Stewart. What about Macy's?  And all along, here I was thinking about how a company can break through and be liked enough. Dowd's column struck me hard. Silence is golden.

The New York Times Sunday Business Section interviewed Cisco’s CEO John Chambers today. Chambers mentioned smart advice he got from former GE CEO Jack Welch on what makes a great company was genuinely true. When Chambers was facing a major business impediment, Welch told the networking CEO that the makings of a great company are “taking major setbacks and overcoming those.”  Chambers thought he had already hit several roadblocks but Welch said that what he meant was not just an obstacle but a “near-death experience.”  This is why leaders often say that the wasting a crisis is tragic. I have my fingers crossed that the near-death experiences we've seen over the past 18 months are just a sign of better things to come. As I always say, reputation can't be left up to the roll of the dice. They need to be managed and often come from ashes.

 

 

To say the least, the article in yesterday’s New York Times on blogging made me wince. “According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.”  I obviously fit into the 5% that keep blogging (or sticks to their knitting). Is there something wrong with me?  What distinguishes this 5%? When I finished my dissertation many years ago, I realized that there were many fellow students who never completed the degree. I thought to myself then that there must be something wrong with me for toiling all those years  when others just made the decision to move on. I guess I don’t move on well. Back to my blog, two interesting tidbits for my posting this evening.  First, I read that the pre-presidential Obama administration asked the following of applicants: “If you have ever sent an…email, text message or instant message…that could…be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family or the President-elect if it were made public, please describe.”  We should all be adding similar questions to our employment applications. Social media is key to reputation-building and reputation-busting whether you are in public or private business. [This appeared in the Economist, April 18th, 2009 and cannot find the article.] The second item I saved recently has to do with the CEO of online shoe store Zappos.  CEO Tony Hsieh is the new Jeff Bezos.  You may have heard this story if you follow social media tales among the executive set like I do.  Hsieh’s Twitters are now quite famous and the company receives extraordinarily high marks in terms of its reputation for extreme customer service (“deliver WOW through service”).  What I particularly like is this story about Hsieh’s team focus.  Since talent is so important, recruiting at Zappos is heightened.  Imagine this. Hsieh offers new employees $2,000 to quit their call center trainee jobs in order to weed out those who won’t make the grade.  As reported, three people took the money and ran last year.