The Crisis of Trust in Companies and Beyond

Aside

The constant drip of admissions from J.P. Morgan Chase as the cost of the “London whale” rises and both dishonesty and folly is revealed comes in tandem with the latest round from Penn State. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s report unsparingly flays the leadership of that tarnished institution for a fundamental lack of concern for boys whose lives were being destroyed as individuals from janitors to the president were too interested in themselves to bother.

And in both cases, the people who knew and chose to look the other way now find that once you sow the wind, it’s the whirlwind that comes back.

Branding is not simply a game for consultants; it connects at a deep level the integrity and values of an organization with how it is viewed by the public and its customers and how it connects in turn with their values. One of the profound impacts of social media has been to begin to lay bare these and other connections in ways that go far beyond the occasional probes and revelations of press and whistle-blowers as transparency comes to be routinized rather than an exceptional experience.

At bottom therefore the issue is not about “brand” as a manipulable commodity to be burnished but integrity as a deep set of values that drive an organization by lining up its proclaimed sense of itself with how it really is and who its people are.

The issue for Penn State as for J.P.Morgan is whether what has been lost will be able to be recovered. What we already know is that this will not come soon or easy. We know how it is with the reputation of an individual. While corporations (for-profit and non) are persons only in a technical sense, their reputations are every bit as central to how the wider world sees them – and will be prepared to do business with them.

And (to pick up our much-blogged theme of social and the C-Suite) social media has only just begun to begin to open every one of our organizations and their commitments and their practices to Freeh-report style merciless scrutiny.

The Real Loss For JPMorgan Chase: Their Integrity.

The Grim Details on CEOs and Social; 14/500 are tweeting, for example

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Nigel Cameron

An Evening with the Fortune 500, May 7, 2012 (Photo credit: Fortune Live Media)

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion, as these bizarre studies keep tumbling in, that serious personal engagement in social media is an absolute prerequisite for corporate leadership in 2012. And given the numbers, it’s also the single biggest opportunity for developing competitive advantage.

And here’s a project – anyone want to team up? Remedial social education camp: Every Fortune 500 CEO and other C-Suite denizen, every member of their boards, unless they are in the tiny minority actively and seriously engaged, needs to come spend a week being enabled to understand the single most dynamic force in the world in which they are operating.

Here are some of the most telling numbers.

5 of the 19 CEOs on Twitter have never tweeted, and other accounts are “underutilized”
25 of the 38 CEOs on Facebook have less than 100 friends
only four CEOs are on Google+ (including Larry Page)
not a single Fortune 500 CEO is on Pinterest

Here’s the report. Pour yourself a stiff drink before opening.

http://www.ceo.com/wp-content/themes/ceo/assets/F500-Social-CEO-Index.pdf

The CIO Issue is about Strategy; Strategy; got that? (futureofbiz.org)
CEOs, C-Suites, and Suicide (futureofbiz.org)
The Two Most Stunning Facts about American Business (futureofbiz.org)

CEOs, C-Suites, and Suicide

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Nigel Cameron

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Seems that approximately once a week a report is coming out giving fresh evidence for the same, utterly bizarre, fact: That most top execs are simply not engaged, personally or professionally, in social media. To qualify a tad: One well-placed observer tells that he believes many are actually engaged in private social media (such as Yammer) within their companies. I should be interested to see the evidence. Some I am sure are. But the whole point about social is that it is substantially public; private chat/bulletin experiences are not exactly the point. And while we are being skeptical: Anyone have data on private social use? Key issue is that the dynamic, transformative, threatening, swirling, social ocean needs to be swum in. It’s not just chit-chat among colleagues.

Back to point: Just before reading this nice piece in AllThingsD, I had posted a cry of distress that our major “social” corporations (that is, Facebook et al.) are themselves way down the list of those corporations benefiting from social engagement with their customers/users. Way down.

That is, the argument is a fortiori. If even our top social corporation isn’t engaging with its environment socially, what hope for B2B and B2C players in more trad industries?

This is bad.

Top CEOs Aren’t Using Social Media, Study Says — Should They Be? – Mike Isaac – Social – AllThingsD.

The CIO Issue is about Strategy; Strategy; got that? (futureofbiz.org)
CEOs Afraid Of Going Social Are Doing Shareholders A Massive Disservice (forbes.com)

The CIO Issue is about Strategy; Strategy; got that?

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Nigel Cameron

In a helpful review of the various studies on CIO social media use et al. Theresa Clifford draws attention to the most details, a Gartner piece from earlier this year, with its alarming (though hardly surprising) data point that social is not on the list of the top ten CIO priorities for the next 3 years. Links below.

Having discussed the social-C-Suite problematic on various occasions I am wrestling with a way of understanding what this is emerging as one of the most ridiculous deficiencies (and, at least for now, biggest opportunities) in the entire business environment.

Plainly, the extraordinarily limited personal engagement of top CIOs in (public) social media (4 blogs/250, 25 Twitter accounts . . .) is one factor. Back of that is the hiring and promotion policies that have set in perhaps the most sensitive position in corporate America the least prepared persons. Back of that is the tech focus of the CIO office, which should be about information – the core of value in C21 – and is far too much focused on system upgrades and playing defense on security and employee social use and BYOD and . . . Back of that that the CIO office it typically reports through the – ugh – CFO (it really does). And back of it all: that the CEOs and Boards of our top companies have yet to realize that the seismic development of this generation has not been about comms and database systems but about the information that they contain and enable.

Kinda basic, don’t you think? But at the end of the day amazing insights and dumb errors usually are. Think, once again, of Thomas Kuhn. Every exec and board members should read him; just as they should all do social immersion courses. I’m serious. And happy to help.

It’s about information; and once you get that, you will get that it is about social – knowledge and relationships, and the threat and opportunity the offer in tandem to every organization on the planet.

That is to say, taken together, they present the core strategy issue to C21 business. Every C21 business. And the bigger, by and large, the more central.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1897514

Is social media the next area for CIO innovation? | CIO New Zealand.

The Great Tech Election – not

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Nigel Cameron

Romney (Photo credit: Talk Radio News Service)

Here in the United States we are preparing for Presidential and Congressional elections in which the core issues being fought over by the parties are focused on technology and the future. Research, space, implications for security and social values; innovation to drive our research and development; the steep climb up the exponential curve that will take us far in the next 2 and 4 years; the next rounds of the digital revolution.

Except that we aren’t. Whatever the merits of our parties and their respective leaders, there’s not a soul who would describe the 2012 campaign in those terms. I wonder why.

Look at these expert panels that explain something of the answer:

Looking Ahead: Investing in America’s Competitiveness » Tech Policy Summit.

When and How if you’re Marketing with Twitter

Aside

If you missed this report a week or so ago, it’s worth a visit. A Salesforce unit looked at around 300 Twitter accounts managed for major brands. Important to note that, since while many of us use Twitter to promote our businesses, this effort seems to have looked at more overtly promotional tweeting (the kind I never see as I don’t follow brands!).

There are straightforward lessons about keeping under 100 characters, including links, making sure your links work (sigh); and interesting remarks on when best to tweet – at busy times, and especially at weekends (when it seems most major brands don’t bother much).

Grist to the mill of those of us who have been repeating that major companies aren’t serious about social, and the tips on timing and length are helpful even if they are not of universal application (so if you are selling sleeping pills . . .). And the approach some of us taking to mingling professional content with quips, snarks, and general-purpose observations (not to mention cat pics); and who tweet far more than is here recommended; is not really in view.

Back to a point I keep making. This really is early days – in digital in general, in social in particular, and in Twitter especially, which is the key social medium. I suspect I shall return to these points soon . . . .

WHY TWITTER MATTERS: Tomorrow’s Knowledge Network

http://t.co/GBi0mbyp

Sorry, Marketers, You’re Doing Twitter Wrong [REPORT].

The Two Most Stunning Facts about American Business

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Nigel Cameron

No hires from west of the Mississippi! (Photo credit: Kevin Saff)

Serious question: Is there anyone out there in the Fortune 500 who actually wants to make money?

Because mainstream American business is deliberately ignoring the two key drivers of value creation – with a remarkable degree of consistency. Companies vary, but not by that much, which is why the competitive advantage implications of both should be causing CEOs (and investors) nights of sweaty, nightmarish sleeplessness or first-mover overtime.

1. As I keep noting, every survey that reports on the number of women in senior positions tells us something ridiculous. Not, primarily, unfair (though of course it is unfair). Ridiculous. Whatever they may say, corporate leaders have taken a decision to ignore 50% of the talent pool.

Think about it. No-one with brown eyes. No-one from west of the Mississippi. Dog-lovers, fine; no-one with a cat. I know, it’s complicated. But when you get paid a whole pile of moolah, you can expect zero sympathy from me if things that are complicated prove to be beyond you. Get it fixed, or get out.

We know the national numbers. Men make up 84% of corporate officers, and 86.5% of executives. To focus more narrowly, look at the latest numbers (referenced below) from the state of MA: 41 out of the 100 largest companies by revenue have no women on their boards; 52 have no women executives. No-one with brown eyes. No-one from west of the Mississippi. No-one with a cat. It is frankly hard to see how in these circumstances officers and board members can claim to be exercising their fiduciary responsibility. At a time when the pressures on U.S. business are as bad as they have ever been, nearly half the talent pool is being ignored. I feel like I should be writing this for The Onion.

I think it’s unfortunate that this has been branded as an issue about fairness, like minority representation. Because it is quite different. It is something investors, were they thinking straight, would understand. Something boards would understand. It’s about value and competitive advantage. Get it?

There’s more to be said. I’ve argued that many women are in general better suited than many men to the flexible thinking, agility, relational management, and personal shape of C21 business. There’s actually a bonus in brown-eyed, western, cat-loving hires.

2. The second stunning fact is recent, obvious, dramatic, and at least as hopelessly out of focus as the first. It’s “social.” We keep talking about it. The posts linked below give some telling numbers that drive home the point. Not one of our major corporations has grasped the strategic significance of social media and social customer engagement. Some have responded more seriously than others. A few CEOs have set a lead. But only a handful of top CIOs are personally engaged in that combo of tech and human interface which will define both the relation of corporation and customer (B2B or B2C) in this generation and the corporation’s own capacity for agile, responsive change. It’s as big as that.

So, were I to be asked, I’d suggest the CEO snap up the top 10 social gurus on the planet and build a unit that engaged equally with CIO, CMO, every customer-facing unit, product development, and strategy. With the authority of his (sigh, yes, likely, his) office. For starters. Then next week, something else.

Now, guess what? Anyone seriously think that with women occupying around half the board and executive positions the revolutionary impact of social would be ignored? Anyone seriously think that if and when social is taken proportionately seriously, and customer values demand alignment with those of the company, the asinine male-dominated corporate culture that is well-nigh universal in U.S. business will survive?

Point is, the misalignment of society and corporate governance culture will find its most ready corrective in the revolutionary impact of social in permeating the organizational boundary and enabling market-driven pressures to reshape the business enterprise. It’s all under way. Who’s interested enough in the bottom line to jump ahead?

Customer Service and those who don’t get it: https://futureofbiz.org/2012/07/06/the-social-revolution-customer-service-and-those-who-dont-get-it/