IAOC would like to welcome the Advanced Learning Institute (ALI) and its Social Media for Internal Communications Conference as a sponsor of IAOCblog.com.

The Social Media for Internal Communications Conference covers topics such as blogging, podcasting, new web 2.0 technologies, and how these technologies impact business. The event takes place in San Fransisco, CA on February 4-7, 2008, with an exciting lineup of presenting organizations. To learn more, feel free to check out the conference brochure.

To register for the Social Media for Internal Communications Conference, please fill out this registration form, or contact ALI customer service at 1-888-362-7400, ext 1 -- mention IAOC and get $200 off!!!

In addition, anyone who attends this conference will also receive $50 off IAOC's June 2008 conference in Iceland! More details on the IAOC conference to come.

At Morty's gentle insistence, since they weren't mentioned earlier during my guest blogging on CEO blogs here, here, here, here and even here.

My books (no drum roll necessary please) are:

Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care with the inimitable Shel Holtz

What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting, Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere
and my very recent audio and physical book combo thingy:
The Secrets of Successful Blogging System.

And yes, there probably is another book or two in me. Don't hold your breathe though, it might take a few months years a decade
a little while still before I start.

We at IAOCblog would like to wish our readers in the U.S. a Happy Thanksgiving. We are in a membership drive now and we are thankful for your financial support.

Morty Schiller, Don Dunnington, and me, Steve O'Keefe, are working on these upcoming programs for "This Week on IAOCblog.com":

Book Review Week!
Send us your books to review on the blog. I'll be reviewing two textbooks for 2008 classes at Tulane University and George Washington University. Morty's got a couple books he's anxious to blog about. We welcome your book reviews, too.

Online Reputation Management
There's no hotter topic in Online PR than reputation management. We're trying to coax Sally Falkow to come school us on the subject as soon as her schedule allows.

How About You?
Do you have a show idea for "This Week on IAOCblog.com"? We are building our schedule for the Winter 2008 Season which begins in January. Guest bloggers are asked to take the helm for a week and bring a couple of colleagues with you. Contact info is below.

Thanks to Peter Gloor, Lois Kelly, Dave Taylor, Dianna Huff, Shel Horowitz and Ted Demopoulos for making the Fall 2007 Season on IAOCblog.com an outstanding success. Unique visitors to the site averaged 25,000/month this fall while pageviews averaged 100,000/month! Well done!

Send your show suggestions or books for review to:

STEVE O'KEEFE
steve.okeefe at patronsaintpr.com

MORTY SCHILLER
morty at mortyschiller.com

DON DUNNINGTON
DDunnington at ktron.com

Morty wrote,

I'm making an open, transparent and blatant request for you to plug your books... Can you please pick a couple and post the links to buying them?

Well, since you asked so nicely, how could  I refuse ?

On the topic of ethics, my most relevant book is Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First. I'm extremely proud of this book, which shows how ethics, cooperation (even with competitors), and an attitude of abundance can for a kind of positive perfect storm to create and increase business success. This book won an Apex Award, has been endorsed by 79 entrepreneurs and marketers including Jack Canfield, Anne Holland, and Mark Joyner, and has been republished in India and Mexico.

Also, I have two books in the Grassroots Marketing series: Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, which is specifically about book marketing, and Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, which provides low-cost high-return marketing strategies (and lots of examples) for any type of business or nonprofit. Both of these books have won some honors and have great endorsements, too.

Thee are various "combination platter" offers and bonuses on my order page, which lists all the products I sell, on frugal, ethical, effective marketing, and also on frugal fun.

For my final turn at bat, I thought I'd look at the first section of the Code of Ethics: Be Honest and Fair.

These are three of the bullets:

• Never publish information they know is inaccurate -- and if publishing questionable information, make it clear it's in doubt.
• Distinguish between advocacy, commentary and factual information. Even advocacy writing and commentary should not misrepresent fact or context.
• Distinguish factual information and commentary from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

In short, it's a blogger's obligation--or at least a blogger who subscribes to this Code of Ethics--to make it clear what you're talking about,whether you have a vested interest, and whether you're making assertions or citing facts.

Sounds like basic common sense, yes? But keep in mind that the concept of objective journalism is relatively new; in the Civil War era, newspapers unabashedly had an opinion and weren't afraid to show it--much like many bloggers today.

More of an issue to me is that we've had a number of instances of severely biased journalists not disclosing that they wee on the payroll of some organization. And of course, we have one-sided coverage on the part of (just to cite one example) Fox News that pretends to be objective but in reality is anything but "fair and balanced." I rather prefer the 19th century newspapers, often named after a political party, where you didn't have to figure out where they stand.

I am not sure there actually is such a thing as "objective journalism." Every article or broadcast has a point of view, and any story can be told a dozen or a hundred ways. The question to me is whether the biases are identified.

 

Well, it's been fun. Thanks for reading here, and for making comments. I'd love to see more comments on my own blog. Come join the party. I'm about to make a post about Iraq--and my bias will be clear in the post.

After a whole bunch of hype and hoopla, the Ad News write-up of the Digg Dirt study can be found here.

We're talking about the Bloggers' Code of Ethics this week, but I'd like to
explore a tangent today.

We bloggers, at least those working in the U.S., have the luxury of writing anything we feel like. Other than those who are employed by some corporate or nonprofit entity and blog as part of their jobs, we have no one looking over our shoulder and saying "you can't do that."

Today I had a long phone call with a client in a particular slice of the financial services industry. I had sent her a draft press release, and one of her concerns was that she was not allowed to use the word "investment."

And last month, I was speaking at a national convention, and the man who hired me told the audience that some of his motivation for bringing me to speak about ethics was his concern that if his industry didn't self-police, they would face government regulation that would sharply limit their actions and their income.

Then, of course, there's Sarbanes-Oxley, the U.S. law that requires corporations to meet some basic, minimal ethical standards--and process a huge amount of paperwork.

Seems to me, we as bloggers should abide by the Code of Ethics (and perhaps sign the Business Ethics Pledge) out of self-interest as well as out of common human decency.

Five bullets in the Blogger's Code of Ethics address the concept of minimizing harm.

Here are two of them:

Once again, I think it's not only bloggers who need to follow these guidelines; mainstream journalists, and especially TV crews, can be unbelievably insensitive. Some poor soul is grieving over a sudden unexpected tragedy, and the idiot reporter is shoving a microphone down the victim's throat and asking often very stupid questions.


With blogging, one of the issues that comes up under the do-no-harm guideline is the tendency of some bloggers to print opinion as if it's fact, or to republish accusations without either checking their veracity or making clear that you're repeating an unsubstantiated opinion.

Journalism in general, whether people's-journalism such as blogging or mainstream commentary, tends toward a presumption of guilt until proven innocent--the opposite of American criminal law. I confess I've fallen into that trap every now and then.

 And journalists' words can wreck a business a relationship, even a life. One of the reasons I do features and opinion instead of hard news is that it decreases the likelihood that I will hurt an innocent person. But it doesn't eliminate it, especially since I frequently write about business ethics scandals.

In my own blog, I'm going to make an effort to consider the effects of my words. What about you?

For me, one of the key points to consider in a discussion of ethics and blogging is pretty far down their list: * Disclose conflicts of interest, affiliations, activities and personal agendas   more »

Thanks for letting me plug the book, Morty.  Here's a link for Beyond Buzz. 

I had wanted the title to be "Something to Talk About," because the book provides so many examples and pragmatic ways for finding interesting ideas that get people engaged and talking. While companies  "get" Web 2.0 techniques, many, many struggle with finding ideas worth talking about -- especially the type of ideas that make meaning and not superficial buzz.

Alas, the editor overruled me -- and even used the "B" word  I so hate.

Lois

To answer any outstanding questions, no, I was not "rubbed out" by a militant wing of the Ron Paul army. In fact, last summer's Digg Dirt series opened up a lot of new opportunities for me.   more »

Two final thoughts as I wrap up my guest blog gig. Understanding the five-year-old mind  and acting like a ...   more »

The thing that scares executives the most about social media is that people can get on negative rants ...   more »

The folks over at MIT Media Lab have created some interesting ways to assess whether someone is interested in or ...   more »

“Always assume your first question may be your last. Make it count.” That’s the advice from journalist Martin Perlich, who has written, The Art of the Interview: a Step-by-Step Guide to Insightful Interviewing.

While there are some amazing writers online, there seem to be far fewer great interviewers. (And really no courses on how to be a good interviewer, even in J-schools.) I don’t know about you but listening to many podcasts, vlogs and Webinars is often painful because the interviewer asks rather boring questions, or doesn’t pick up on a quirky comment and guide the conversation into an interesting, new place.

 Based on conversations with journalists and my own experiences ( I began my career as a journalist) here are some interviewing tips. 

• Be prepared and do good homework. This is at least 50%, maybe more,  of what makes a good interview. When Susan Bratton of  New Life Media prepares for a "Dishy Mix" interview she really pushes her guests to provide the unusual tidbits and then she digs, digs, digs.  I believe one reason she gets such interesting people to agree to be interviewed  - and reveal so much about themselves -- is that she makes it easy and interesting for them due to her homework. Another podcaster who really does his homework is Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology. And then, of course, there's the infamous James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio who constantly surprises his famous actor guests with just how much he knows about them.

• Start off with a question that puts the person in a good light and makes him or her comfortable.  If you begin by asking too provocative a question, the interviewee may shut down. Perlich suggests that the  opener question should distinguish you and bring something new to the “travel weary Subject.”   “The Opener speaks volume about who you are,” he explains. “It should contain a kernel of original insight into the Subject and his or her work. Show you care enough to have penetrated past the home page of the official website. The Opener should display both your power and respect for your Subject.”

• Be totally interested in the other person and really listen to what they’re saying.  In researching my book Beyond Buzz I asked Robin Young, host of NPR’s Here & Now lunchtime news show and a brillant interviewer, for her suggestions. Her advice:

1. Listen

2. Really listen.

3. After you’ve listened, ask questions relative to what you heard when you listened.

4. Then, listen to the answer

5. Follow up with another question to make sure you heard correctly what the speaker was saying.

5a. Then, listen some more.

• Ask the unexpected: What are people wasting too much time on?  What should be worrying people about this issue? What are the three biggest obstacles to using or succeeding in this field?  What could completely disrupt the game? What are you sick of talking about and why?

• Avoid these questions:  So how id it feel?  What was it like? Where did it all begin for you? And anything that elicits a yes or no response.

• Keep asking questions until you understand the answer: If you don’t understand the answer, neither will your listeners.

• Wrap with either of these two questions: “Is there something you’d like to add?” or “What am I forgetting?”

 Lastly, I find it helpful to listen to good interviewers, and collect "wow" questions.

Other advice?

What does a person’s writing say about the person? Plenty, especially if you learn how to use the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program developed by James Pennebaker and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin.

You run text through the program and it categorizes words into 70 linguistic or psychologically-relevant categories. (See this post on why U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards may be trailing because of his language.)

I inputted the several recent blog posts from three popular CEO bloggers -- Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Bob Lutz, vice chairman of GM, and Bill Marriott -- and here are the partial results:

LIWC Dimension	Bob Lutz, GM	Paul Levy, Beth Israel	Bill Marriott	LIWC formal texts
Self-references (honesty)	3.79	2.47	4.55	4.2
Social words (more outgoing)	5.26	6.23	9.62	8.0
Positive emotion words (more optimistic)	1.78	2.85	3.26	2.6
Negative emotion words (anxiety levels)	0.39	1.14	0.86	1.6
Overall cognitive words (How actively thinking about topic)	4.87	5.18	3.09	5.4
Big words (Higher grades, tend to be less emotional)	18.72	25.52	15.72	19.6

Some admittedly oversimplified takeaways”

·         Bill Marriott comes across as most honest, outgoing, and positive.

·         Paul Levy appears to be especially intelligent, with cognitive complexity and use of big words. He’s also quite outgoing and more negative than the other two CEO bloggers.  Interestingly he’s done an extraordinary job of turning around Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and has been writing about union issues, which may account for the negative emotion.

·         Bob Lutz comes across honest and smart.

What does this have to do with online communications? It’s an area I’m studying and have no answers yet, just some questions :

·         Should we “test” people's writing and analyze it before they start blogging on behalf of the company? (Especially people in high visibility leadership positions?) If they score very negative, low on honesty or low on cognitive thinking – would this person be a good representative of the company? Would it be better for someone else to lead online communications efforts?

·         Is it a good tool to coach others in communicating in this new conversational world? (Note that many people think that using the first person “I” is not professional and makes you seem too self-absorbed, but linguistics scientists have found that not to be so; use of the first person implies honesty.)

·         Should we never talk about this tool as it may scare execs about being naked out in the blogsophere – especially if they aren’t all that buff when it comes to being positive, cognitively complex and honest?

        Does using an analysis tool like this help us be more aware of ourselves – and help us change our language, and, in turn, change our behavior?

·         Lastly, can writing a blog every day make us healthier?  (Studies have proven that writing about personal topics 15 – 30 minutes a day improves people’s emotional and physical health.)

One last point.  So often in marketing we obsess over getting the messages right. Maybe we should spend more time on the language. As Dr. Pennebaker has said in many interviews and articles:

"Over the years it has become apparent that is far more important to see how people talked about a given topic than what they were talking about. People's linguistic styles provide far richer psychological information than their linguistic content.”

PS – When you put most companies’  press release through this linguistic analysis the scores are pitiful.

PPS -- Tomorrow:  The Jerk-0-Meter and its implications to communications. (A shorter post, I promise.)

Hi all. I’m looking forward to my guest blogging gig this week on the theme of conversational marketing. First, what the heck is “conversational marketing”?

To me it’s about every day people being able to connect directly with other people, sharing ideas, responding, having a voice and being social.  For companies, this means being open to having  conversations directly with people and having interesting ideas to add to the conversation. “Talk with” vs. the old way of “talking at.” Conversational marketing isn’t the be all and end all.  It’s small “m” marketing although there's plenty of science to it, while Big M Marketing like pricing, product development, targeting and segmentation remain “musts.”  

With that out of the way, I’d like to share ideas on these topics during the week. If you’d like to vote some off the island, and have me cover others, let me know!

1. Why how we say things matters more than what we say: this “science behind communications”  raises interesting questions about what writing says about a person, about who in leadership positions should blog (does their writing expose them?), what new skills to coach people on (and learn ourselves) and a very cool tool to use.
2. The Jerk-O-Meter factor:  MIT researchers have found that people make decisions in minutes based on a person’s social signals. I see two routes to avoid failing the jerk-o-meter test when communicating. Are there others?
3. Creating an environment for conversations:  What does it take to get people to participate and share –vs. simply lurk?  Here’s a metaphor that may help.
4. Good questions:  As podcasts, video interviews and live conference webinars become more popular we all need to become better interviewers. This post will share interviewing tips from some of the best of the best.
5. Remember the 5 year-old.  Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner suggests leaders tap into the 5-year-old mind when communicating, as that is the mind most of us make meaning with. This post will highlight the 4 ingredients to making meaning, and how to get to that 5 year-old mind.

 

While some scientists are worrying about the missing bees, lots of marketers are worrying about the missing buzz.

Tune in next week, when Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz, tells us why it's not enough anymore to make noise in the marketplace. You have to engage your market in what she calls "meaningful dialog."

Learn how to put more meaning in your message November  5-9 when Lois Kelly hosts the IAOCblog "talk show" with:
Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

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