In business this would cost you your reputation, turnover, agility with regards to technological development, and thus eventually your entire business. Governments so far are lucky as they are not (yet) going bankrupt (despite the economic reality in which several governments are operating) and can continue to ‘work’ because we seem to be holding on to the idea that the democratic-process will and can bring change.

I’m not entirely sure on that one frankly, but let’s wait and see.

What I am rather sure of is the increasing role of platforms in our lives. Platforms that deal with ways to engage with the enormous amount of information we are faced with on a daily basis. We live in a time where the question of; “What is relevant and how does it impact my life?” will be more frequently asked than ever before in the history of our species.

And thus, companies will have to ask themselves how they can be relevant to their consumers.

Google and Twitter jumped to the mark by opening up a phone-to-twitter phone line when they saw the reaction of their users toward what was happening in Egypt. Doing the same they do here, using a mix and match of ‘old’ and ‘new’ technology; enabling the masses.

Whatever you might think of Wikipedia, Twitter, Google, Huffington Post, Mashable, Wikileaks or Facebook; what they do, is creating relevant information for people when and where they want it, it enables them to connect with like-minded individuals, share the information they want to share and allows them to ‘follow’ people they like, think are interesting or the opposite of the two.

So how is this relevant to brands?

Let me show you an example by Greenpeace, who seem on the right track but just missed out on one part in my humble opinion; true engagement.

Their old Rainbow Warrior (1957) has sailed the oceans and will now be put to rest. So they wanted to build a new one. One that holds Greenpeace’ values high and can be seen as a boat with which they will fight the necessary fights over the well-being of the ocean in the future. But Greenpeace is an NGO and gets most of its money from individual donations. So they launched a (very good-looking) campaign (A New Warrior) to try to get people to donate money for the continuation of the Rainbow Warrior saga.

In this quest they have launched a website that enables you to look at the blueprint, construction schedule, progress so far, a donation ‘wall’ (which will be realised on the boat as well) and buying necessities for the boat like a GPS, life-boat, couch or an electronic steering-wheel. Which is a great idea I find.

But why do it halfheartedly? Why not empower the people -who are literally the lifeblood of your organisation, to have a say after they gave you a part of their resources? There are tons of ways to get people more actively engaged with Greenpeace’s cause when you give them the opportunity to do so and become true ambassadors of your cause. Give them the tools they need and they will do the task at hand and help you reach the goals you have been working hard to reach for the last 40 years (congrats Greenpeace btw, and thanks for doing what you do).

Examples? Ok.

Give ‘them’ (the people who invested in your organisation) a say in your agenda by enabling them to co-decide on the course of the boat they ‘co-own’. Greenpeace provides them with a list of possible cases and background info on these cases and let them decide. Surely, this brings a lot of potential ‘unknowns’ into the equation, but it will most definitely lead to higher involvement and commitment to your organisation.This will also lead to them telling their friends about it which will lead to more relevance to their friends (someone I know did this and that) and thereby a bigger crowd for your message.

What does this mean for the organisation? In Greenpeace’s case it would mean they would become a ‘research and execution’ platform with a following of highly involved people supporting their goal and protecting their interest. Which is a great thing to be I’d say. You can’t sink a rainbow -type deal.

There are lots of possibilities for ‘non-NGO’ organisations to engage with their ‘eco-system’ / ‘tribe’  / ‘crowd’ / ‘consumers’ in such a way, yet it seems that we aren’t quite there yet. If I’m honest I see opportunities like these in child-care (yeah really, so much to be won there), for Innocent Drinks, Amnesty International (I know it’s an NGO, but I like them), Simple Shoes, the Cradle to Cradle organisation, Williams F1 Triodos Bank and We Generate (last two are Dutch). Just to name a few.

Peace.

The idea of our wasteful behaviour was brought to my attention (once more) by a (new) friend of mine, who was talking about a documentary about how big corporations don’t wish to sell their products under a certain price, in order to maintain the year-long efforts in building up a reputation that would justify profits margins of 70-190%. It happens to be the case that I wrote a thesis on the relationship between a company’s reputation and it’s general ‘corporate social responsibility’. And I can’t help but feel the hope sink towards the bottom of my being, when big corporations such as Samsung (here/here examples of how they are ‘good citizens’) for instance, seem to think that throwing money around in a seemingly altruistic fashion will cover their ‘efforts to maintain a price worthy reputation’. (or something of that kind, I am not entirely sure how to name this kind of behaviour)

These efforts consist of systematically wasting brand new products that are not sold and thus dumped, dissembled and partially burned. We see DVD players, HD TV’s and MP3 players go down in price and most people get happy, as it is now available for a bigger public. Yet, for the corporations that manufacture these products (being ‘stock-market-companies’), these kind of ‘free-market’ dynamics create a problem. A reputation problem. The products that are sold under the general price-level of the company will give the brand a ‘bad name’ or so it the thought. But destroying the products, where we ‘the people’ don’t see or hear anything about it, will only show up in the books, somewhere deep and buried.

She also talked about fashion-labels ‘un-stitching’ their labels and shipping their clothing off to ‘development-countries’. This I see as somewhat of an attempt to do something about the unequal dynamics in our world, not too bad. But also, here we again, talk about a matter driven by the fear of ‘losing face’, but mostly, bad business-strategy. If, apparently your product is not good enough to sell your stock (or mis-priced, mis targetted or whatever), perhaps you should thing about what and how you produce, how you market it, and how you price it.

But I’m drifting off.

Apples.

Do you eat the center part of an apple? If not, why not? Have you ever tried, or do you simply don’t eat the center part of an apple because you were taught to do so? (when mum was still citting the apples for you and gave them to you in one of those brightly coloured bowls, yesh, we’ve all been there) Just think about it. Why would you not eat the center part of an apple, it’s tasty, it’s healthy, and ehm, it gives eating an apple yet ANOTHER dimension. It’s great.

To illustrate what you could do to stop the wastefulness of our Western being. I don’t want to ask people to simply start ignoring red-lights when you think it to be safe you see. It’s in the little things, and starts with yourself. Anyway, I’m off eating an apple.

Love and peace.

A bit opportunistic perhaps, but I felt like writing something on the subject of my thesis, so I did. The thesis is in its final stages and consists of a range of interviews with; David Fellah, Herbert van Hoogdalem, Dan Germain, Mikal Hallstrup and last, but surely not least, Sir Richard Branson. Also, a survey with 150 respondents, loads of literature review and the text here would, I think, be classified as my conclusions without the sources. Hope you enjoy it.

Throughout the process of compiling the thesis I came across several often returning ‘tag-words’ if you wish. One of them; ethics, others; transparency, genuine behaviour and long-term strategy. These four ‘drivers’ so to say, are very important in implementing a CSR strategy. In my personal opinion, Dan Germain put it very well, CSR is not a strategy, it is part of the DNA of a company. Yet, I would like to say, it is not the DNA of the company, it is the DNA of the people behind the company.

The most important part, when it comes to social behaviour, is that it needs to be true, the truthfulness, of CSR, no matter what it’s business or communication consequences, is vital in even considering implementing a strategy as such. Although currently CSR is becoming somewhat of a ‘trendy thing to be in’ and a popular thing to implement, in the base, it should be a feeling of people who control the larger sums of money in this world, to do ‘something good’. This, in times of declining world economies, based on unclear, confusing financial constructs, leaving, hardworking, honest people bankrupt, job- and homeless, is a message received with a heartfelt cheer by activists, political left and right-wingers, consumers and non-consumers.

This, as touched upon earlier (in the thesis that is), is also the risk. In times of superficial entertainment, de-humanised wars (on the Western side of the equation), increased negative outlooks on world economy, the return of ‘pirates’ in our daily news and the continued callings of the ruling western spiritual leader- the Pope, to not use condoms in Africa, news, which is ‘true, ‘good’ or ‘positive’ is received with great enthusiasm and appreciation, without looking much further into the matter.

Companies have a responsibility to, if they choose to, be truthful, transparent and ‘in for the long run’, when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility. The interesting conclusion I came to, through talking to the ‘business-leaders’ for this thesis, is that most of them claimed companies have more ‘power’ to instigate change than governments do. This, I personally believe to be true, it is also interesting to see the response coming back in the questionnaire, in which the respondents show an obvious ‘pro’ corporate responsibility and are willing to pay more, with money being the ruling paradigm in our world, I find this a very interesting development. This also indicates, I believe, a system change, in which companies are going to be ‘platform creators’ in which civilians are to participate, thereby, together, creating a world of which one can be proud.

The ‘change in the system’ cannot be ‘announced’ with any light concern to the ruling ideas that are here now, and therefore, I found a nice and ‘simple’ illustration to accompany it, I believe (based upon the 6 product-phases Eger has once proposed).

When we look at the process of becoming who we are today we, as a species, have had a long journey (and still a long way to go?). When we first got up on our two hind legs (homo erectus), we had to start evolving ourselves in several ways, in a physical way, which lead to the emergence of the species of homo sapiens (Performance). After that we started to optimise our bodily functions that lead to increasing mental development (Optimisation). Through that optimisation we began to develop skills other homo sapiens had not (itemisation). Through that we were lead to segmentation by the skills we had attained, worker class, bourgeoisie and royal (segmentation). When this wasn’t enough anymore we started to individualise which lead to the last couple of decades of the self (individualisation). Which brings us to where we are now. Awareness.

As such, I believe, we humans are increasingly ‘aware’ of what is happening around us, mind me, we are merely at the beginning of this stage, but as seen in (and enabled by) the increase of communication means we have at our disposal, internet ‘activism’, for instance, is an increasingly important mean to people who wish to ‘change the world’ and, even in mainstream news gathering, becoming a force to be reckoned with.

If a company or brand chooses to indulge itself into a strategy that addresses social behaviour of the company itself, it needs to be heartfelt, I would even say, they should not even want to communicate it. Although this, especially coming from a communication student, is perhaps not the most ‘financially profitable’ way of going about it, surely would indicate it’s sincerity.

The core beliefs of wanting to be a ‘Good Global Citizen’ should come from within a company, otherwise they cannot be lived, and therefore they will, most likely at some point, fail to be responsible, resulting in a massive spanking. Corporate Social Responsibility can be a very useful and profitable addition to a company strategy, what is vital it to realise how much you will lose if you do not treat a strategy as such with honesty, sincerity and loyalty, it is a long-term, costly and hard process and one not to be taken lightly.

We were lucky. Really. Hill & Knowlton was willing to come and do a training in how to “sell” advice to us. Interesting training you’d say, and you’d be right. Thing is, without going into too much detail of the day, a question of politeness.

The cookie crumbled as such; our expert for the day was a 24-year experienced, ‘senior consultant’ as she positioned herself. Or maybe the company did, but she seemed to be quite content with the description. So we enter the class and here’s this need-looking woman of end/mid-40’s, I guess, immediately coming up to you (I told you it was Monday morning right?) shaking your hand and introducing herself, alright, very polite.

I sit down and stare at the wall where I see the opening slide of her PowerPoint gaping back at me saying:

“Selling’ Advice Training
Hill & Knowlton

A mistake on your opening slide after introducing yourself as a senior consultant, with 24-years of experience, is a wall lifter for me, but again, it’s Monday morning for everyone, right?

Following slides contained mistakes in spelling concerning the words; communication, issues and some others.

But ok, it’s alright, I wasn’t very interested in corporate PR anyway. What I was interested in though was the discussion that erupted the day after in class, sparked by the comment of a classmate of mine, Daphnee, saying at the feedback moment for the ‘trainers’; “Maybe you should consider a spelling check next time you want to do a presentation.” (Which I personally believed to be a very valid point. Being correct is a part of selling in my book anyway..)

The discussion that started was one about being hospitable to guests who come to give a guest lecture and are representing an internationally renowned corporation. This in itself is cool for me, but the point my lecturer was making was that correcting people with such a resume, who come to give us the ‘pleasure’ of their enlightening wisdom, was very rude. Some of my classmates agreed and I did not.

Maybe it’s me, but the acceptation of mistakes, low quality and evasive behaviour of this world is starting to piss me off, more and more. In terms of being polite and hospitable I do not have any problem giving kindness (or forgiving for that matter) to everyone, I am a great fan of Ghandi and Buddha, I get that. Yet, I believe honesty, no matter how shattering is, although it may hurt a bit, in the end ‘s always most beneficial to all parties involved.

Next to that, in terms of personal positioning/branding, you make a complete ass out of yourself when you stand somewhere talking about your over-two-decades of experience. Being a ‘senior’ within one of the biggest PR-corps known to mankind, to me, would at least entail being able to make a simple PowerPoint without mistakes, right?

Anyway, I was wondering what you think, politeness over honesty or the other way round? And how come they (seemingly) cannot be combined in the minds of a lot of people?

I actually think it is very polite when someone points out a mistake you’ve made, seeing the fact that thinking to yourself “Jesus, what an idiot” isn’t very polite and next to that it’s unhealthy to keep frustrations in.

Please let me know what you think, I’m curious.

Peace & Love to all.