Tag Archive for: worth reading

  • Women and executive presence: A new study published in Marie Clare this month and conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation looked at the factors that feed into perceptions of executive presence for women. There are a number of insights that may be helpful for women looking to advance their careers, and the survey found that there are “three areas that govern the perception of “leadership material”:
    • Gravitas, or the ability to project confidence, poise under pressure, and decisiveness
    • Communication, which comprises excellent speaking skills, assertiveness, and the ability to read an audience or situation
    • Appearance—looking polished and pulled together”
  • Media questions and “the pivot”: This NPR article on the science of “the pivot” in a political debate context provides good analysis on what does and doesn’t work in transitioning from any question to your message in other types of media formats and for other types of interview subjects.
  • Election 2012: There were many post-election wrap-ups on various communication subjects tied to the 2012 Presidential election, but a few in particular worth noting here. At the MediaShift Idea Lab blog, “Our Picks for the Most Innovative Election Coverage“; at Social@Ogilvy’s blog, “Election 2012: Why Twitter, The Visual Web and Big Data Are the Winners“; and the newest most popular tweet in history.
  • Decline of newspapers and affect on civic participation: The Christian Science Monitor has a thoughtful piece that’s worth reading, “Is the death of newspapers the end of good citizenship?.” From the article: “When daily newspapers die, communities become less connected and collaborative, new studies suggest. Economists and media researchers are seeing a drop-off in civic participation – the same kind of collective vigor readers showed in fighting for The Times-Picayune – after the presses stop rolling.”

Finally, we were lucky and thankful here at Logos to have escaped injury and major damage to our homes and office from Sandy, only suffering the relatively minor issues of loss of power, heat and/or water, trees down and transportation interruptions on various individual levels. Much of the areas of New York and New Jersey hardest hit are still struggling to recover, and help is still needed to assist the thousands of people for whom the effects of the storm will be felt for some time.

 

 

  • Politics, politics, politics: The first presidential debate last week provided lots of good reading fodder:
    • Presidential body language – The New York Times broke down the meaning behind each candidates’ gestures. “After the first televised presidential debate, held between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon 52 years ago, campaigns have been acutely aware that voters may judge candidates in such encounters as much by their appearance and gestures as by their words.”
    • Fact-checking the debate – There were many fact-checking versions done around the debate, including this one from PolitiFact.
    • PBS and Big Bird – Even if you didn’t watch the debate, you couldn’t escape the discussion around the mention of PBS and Big Bird. PBS’ official response statement is a useful example of organizational communication in a heated national context.
    • Record-setting night for Twitter – With more than 10 million tweets, the debate last week was “the most tweeted-about event in U.S. politics.”
    • Errant KitchenAid tweet – By now we’ve seen a number of examples of errant tweets being sent from corporate accounts, but the latest was KitchenAid’s errant tweet during last week’s debate.
    • Campaigns and social media – This year’s presidential campaigns are going beyond the groundwork set in 2008 and trying a wide variety of social media strategies and tactics to reach and engage voters (particularly younger ones).
  • Civility and politics in America: Not specifically tied to the debate, but Weber Shandwick released its third annual survey, “Civility in America.” Among other things, the survey found that “83% [of people surveyed] say a candidate’s tone or level of civility will be an important factor in the 2012 presidential election,” and “63% believe we have a major civility problem in America.”
  • FTC Green Guides: The FTC issued the final version of its “Green Guides,” which aims to bring more accountability and clarity to environmental claims in advertising. The FTC’s summary is a helpful synopsis.
  • Facebook hits one billion: Facebook passed the one billion user mark last week and released its first television ad.
  • Social media and customer service: New research from the forthcoming “The Social Habit” report found that “42 Percent of Consumers Complaining in Social Media Expect 60 Minute Response Time.”  (Also, a majority expect the same response time on nights and weekends.) These kinds of customer expectations have concrete implications for companies managing customer service issues through social media.
  • Geography and news consumption: A new Pew study looked at how geography impacts people’s news consumption habits, and a good post on Nieman Journalism Lab breaks down the findings. The study looked at the differences between urban, suburban, small town and rural residents, and looked at what types of topics people were interested in and what sources they turn to for news.
  • CEOs and Twitter: The Wall Street Journal had a much-discussed piece last week on CEOs fear of Twitter and a few notable executives who have embraced it so far. While some CEOs have taken the plunge, “Seven in 10 Fortune 500 CEOs have no presence on major social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+, according to a recent report by CEO.com and analytics company Domo.”
  • Company culture and social media: An excellent post from Shel Holtz on the challenges of not only implementing social media but truly adopting it across large businesses. As he says, “All the technologies in the world won’t make an organization social, nor will strategic plans for implementing those technologies, if the culture won’t support it.”
  • Apple apology: Apple issued a rare apology last week for problems with its new Maps function, unveiled recently in the new iPhone and operating system.
  • Media and quote approvals: There’s been an intriguing series of discussions in the New York Times (and Vanity Fair and elsewhere) about the practice of allowing interview subjects to review quotes due to be used in articles prior to print. The Times covered this aspect of political reporting back in July; David Carr explored it more recently in “The Puppetry of Quotation Approval” and in a follow-up article asking participants in the process to weigh in; and then finally on Sept. 20th, the Times issued a new policy that “forbids after-the-fact quote approval.” From our experience, this is a practice that has become somewhat common in the world of financial and business reporting as well (not just relegated to politics), and it will be interesting to see the effects of the Times’ new policy, if any.
  • Distrust in media: A new Gallup poll found that “Americans’ distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.” As Gallup points out, this lack of trust has particular implications during an election year. (via Romenesko)
  • Fortune 500 and social media: The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research issued its latest report on the use of social media by the Fortune 500, which it’s done every year since 2008. Adoption and range of use continues to grow in this group, and the annual study provides a good comprehensive look at global business adoption of social media.
  • New Pew Internet research: The Pew Internet and American Life Project issued two recent reports of interest, one on smartphone ownership in the United States (they found that “45% of American adults own smartphones”), and one on “Photos and Videos as Social Currency Online.”
  • Cultural critique, Gangnam-style: It’s almost impossible to escape the Internet meme of the late summer/early fall – Gangnam Style, a music video by the South Korean artist Psy that’s overtaken the U.S. and much of the world. But The Atlantic provided one of the more interesting cultural insights into the video in the article “Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea’s Music Video Sensation.”
  • Politics & social media: The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a new report last week, “Politics on Social Networking Sites.” The survey noted, “The vast majority of SNS users (84%) say they have posted little or nothing related to politics in their recent status updates, comments, and links.” And a fairly small number of people said their political views had changed as a result of political activity on social networking sites. Only “16% of SNS users say they have changed their views about a political issue after discussing it or reading posts about it on the sites.”
  • Future of media: The Columbia Journalism Review’s “Special report: the future of media” provides interesting fodder on “the long view” of the future of media.
  • Wikipedia and PR: This month’s edition of the CW Bulletin (a monthly e-newsletter) from IABC, “PR and Wikipedia: Building a better relationship,” dives into the issues and current topics around the relationship between communicators and the world’s largest encyclopedia. There are feature articles on ethics, strategy and engagement, as well as additional column articles and case studies. For a complementary view on the challenges people sometimes face in updating incorrect or outdated information on Wikipedia, read the novelist and author Philip Roth’s “An Open Letter to Wikipedia” from the New Yorker last week. (Note that the Wikipedia entry for Roth’s The Human Stain has since been changed and is now correct.)
  • Corporate social media management: Jeremiah Owyang has published a helpful series of blog posts over the last few weeks on the internal structures and management of social media at large corporations: “Breakdown: Social Media Workflow, Process, Triage,” “Breakdown: Converged Media Workflow (Coordinating Paid + Owned + Earned),” and “Breakdown: Corporate Social Media Team.”

We hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend here in the U.S. Now back to our usual schedule.

  • Trust and the media: A recent study found that even though trust in media institutions has been falling, most people would still rather get their news from professional journalists. From Poynter‘s story on the study: “More than 60 percent of U.S. adults say they “prefer news stories produced by professional journalists,” and more than 70 percent agree that “professional journalists play an important role in our society,” according to new survey data from the Reynolds Journalism Institute.” The full survey also looked at the role of mobile technologies on news and views on media consumption.
  • Social technologies and business value: The McKinsey Global Institute issued an interesting research report in July, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies.” The report “explores [the technologies’] potential economic impact by examining their current usage and evolving application in four commercial sectors: consumer packaged goods, retail financial services, advanced manufacturing, and professional services. These technologies, which create value by improving productivity across the value chain, could potentially contribute $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual value across the four sectors.” In essence, the research found that although the majority of companies are using social media in some capacity, “very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit.” (report via Shel Holtz)
  • President Obama and Reddit: The President participated in an “Ask Me Anything” (or AMA) forum on the social site Reddit last week, notable as a new presidential social media tactic. The Nieman Journalism Lab has a good round-up of opinions on the tactic, and David Carr at the New York Times has some background on Reddit, for those not familiar with the site.

Hello again. After a summer break (including the launch of my colleague Fred Garcia’s book The Power of Communication), the Worth Reading updates are back, with highlights of items that have caught our interest in the last week or so.

 

 

 
  • Women and Leadership: Since 2007, McKinsey has produced an annual report on the state of women and leadership, and the latest report came out last week. This year’s “Women Matter” found, “Today, women remain underrepresented on corporate boards and executive committees.” The report details the business case for gender diversity in senior executive positions, how top companies are achieving greater gender diversity, and how others can implement programs to continue to advance the role of women in senior management.
  • Viral Videos: Interesting research on what makes “ads go viral” and more likely for people to watch, from Harvard Business Review. (Full article via registration or subscription, but the embedded video in the article is equally worth watching.)
  • Invisible Children/Kony 2012 Sequel: Speaking of viral, Invisible Children last week released a follow-up video to the original Kony 2012 video, which since its release became the most viral video to date. The sequel addresses many of the criticisms leveled at the organization and the campaign.
  • Remembering Mike Wallace: Many reflections about legendary reporter Mike Wallace, who died this weekend at the age of 93, including from CBS News & Morley Safer, and the New York Times.
  • Facebook: When we last left off, there was significant discussion of employers asking for access to employees’ Facebook pages. The House rejected proposed legislation there that would have taken up the matter, but other measures are still underway.
  • McDonald’s and Social Media: The director of social media at McDonald’s, Rick Wion, did an interview recently and talked about how they’ve responded to critics hijacking their hashtags on Twitter, and their broader strategy for various kinds of engagement on the network.

 

 
  • Kony 2012: The release of a new film and campaign from a nonprofit called Invisible Children to “Stop Joseph Kony in 2012” generated widespread interaction and discussion online this past week. While there were significant levels of engagement around the campaign, there were also many pointed critiques of the organization and its methods. Good critical analysis from Michael Wilkerson at Foreign Policy and Ethan Zuckerman on his blog, a Storify summary of a range of responses last week, as well as official responses from Invisible Children here and here (video).
  • On Story: We talk often with clients about storytelling in various settings, so this new TED talk on storytelling from the writer/filmmaker behind Toy Story and WALL-E caught our eye. (And as in some great storytelling traditions, some of the language in the video may not be safe for work.)
  • SXSW Interactive: Thousands of people are currently in Austin, TX for one of the biggest tech and social media conferences of the year – SXSW Interactive. While the conference is still ongoing and next week’s review here should include some of the inevitable reviews/summaries/critiques of this year’s event, one controversial story to come out so far is the use of the homeless as mobile hotspots.
  • Employees and Social Media: Shel Holtz uses a persuasive recent example to illustrate the power of internal employee social media engagement in his post, “Training employees on social media improves engagement, boosts company reputation.”
 View from the 23rd Floor by Laurel HartAt least so far, March is acting more lamb than lion here in New York City, but we’ll see what the rest of the month brings.

  • WikiLeaks: The first of a new set of emails obtained by WikiLeaks was released last week, with additional analysis from news organizations expected in the coming weeks.
  • Boycotts, Reputation and Bottom Line: With boycotts a recurring topic, this research from last fall caught our eye this past week: professor Brayden King at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University showed that “the stock price of a targeted company dropped nearly 1 percent for each day of national print media coverage.”  In addition, he found that “even if consumer behavior was unchanged by a boycott, a company’s stock price and reputation were not.” In addition, “25 percent [of boycotts generated] a concession from the target company.”
  • Limbaugh and Apology: There were ample examples of apologies and corporate statements surrounding the Limbaugh controversy this past week, including from Limbaugh himself, and former advertisers Carbonite, ProFlowers, Citrix, and others.
  • Facebook Assessment Tool: We’re fans of the US Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment, a helpful tool in evaluating online content, and were pleased to see this new Facebook assessment worksheet and checklist from the US Navy on evaluating strategy, administration, content, measurement and more, on David Rosen’s blog.
  • Newspapers and New Business Models: Newly released research from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found “for every $1 gained in digital, $7 are lost in print revenue,” highlighting the challenges many newspapers face in implementing new business models today.