Reputation loss — the new scarlet letter
I feel like I have read this article before. The title in USA Today yesterday was “CEOs stumble over ethics violations, mismanagement.” Is it 2002 over again when Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia made headlines over ethical transgressions and wrongdoing? I agree that there seems to be a rush of these events recently but I am not...
Reputation matters to consumers too
I agree wholeheartedly. Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein on public opinion and reputation of Goldman Sachs: “I think the average American probably had no contact and had never heard of Goldman Sachs before three years ago. Shame on us in a way for not anticipating how important that would be. We’re an institutional business...
Reality check on Leveson, Murdoch and Hunt
Hating the Murdochs is a sport in some quarters. It is almost all the old British left has left. Socialism is not doing well, but loathing Thatcher and her biggest media supporters still resonates. In the case of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, we have what looks like the perfect mirror-image foolishness from the right-wing of politics....
Speaking up for reputologists
Just read an article in The Economist (which I love) that questions the business of reputation management. The columnist attended a recent meeting in London held by the Reputation Institute (RI) on their new RepTrak results for British companies. The writer rightfully acknowledges that we are living in a “reputation economy” where institutions and individuals literally trade...
CEO as PR Expert Needed
Job descriptions for leaders today have to begin including public relations expertise. Just looking at this week’s headlines convinced me that CEOs have to be PR crisis experts to be qualified for the job. I was thinking about this when I read the oped in The New York Times from an investment bank’s employee and hearing the news about the...
Reversal of Fortune
An interesting study appeared this week from Willis Group Holdings on reputation risk. They examined 600 publicly-held companies. Here are some of the more interesting details: 95% (a lot) of major companies have suffered at least one reputational crisis in the past 20 years Major companies suffer a “significant” reversal of fortune every seven years...
UNR: More trouble on the farm
For those interested in recent news coverage about the University of Nevada, Reno wanting to lease some of its research farm property, I spent dozens of hours two years ago compiling research, conducting interviews, crawling through decades-old archives, and visiting with stakeholders and current employees (my former colleagues) to write a series of investigative opinion...
Why Chaos Theory in PR is hogwash
I have noticed that there’s an increasing interest among PR pros in chaos theory. It might be because we’re in recession, the result of recent earthquakes and tsunamis, or even the new complexity that social media throws up. But whatever motivates them, here’s some insight into why they are misguided. Writing this piece has forced...
Managing risk and reputation
Beautiful morning here in New York. I even hear the birds chirping, almost like Spring. However, for me, it is a sit-down day. I am working on an article which I will tell you more about later but I am looking at many hours in front of my laptop as I draft away. I already...
