Authentic or Not?

Authentic CSR: Should Dawn publicize its involvement in Oiled Bird Rescue?

June 10, 2010

Tweet Procter & Gamble and its Dawn Dishwashing Liquid are the targets of criticism and cynicism for their efforts to help the International Bird Rescue Research Center save birds who have been wounded by BP’s Oil Spill. While I’m quick to criticize any organization that promotes its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts when all they […]

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Is Authenticity the key to being “Meaningfully Different”?

May 20, 2010

Tweet If organizations are going to be successful at attracting good members and good clients or customers, they have go beyond showing how they are different from other, similar organizations. They have to take that extra step, and demonstrate why these differences are meaningful. “Meaningful difference” “Meaningful difference” is an important concept in both organizational […]

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3 Reasons Why Employee Engagement is a Scam

May 10, 2010

Tweet We should all maintain a hearty skepticism about employee engagement. While it is true that engaged employees contribute more and more willingly to an organization, the contributions of the employee are rarely if ever matched by compensation from the organization. Last week I had a long talk with a mid-level executive about the rollout […]

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Rebranding Pompeii as a Living City

May 4, 2010

Tweet It seems that you can’t escape the demands of rebranding, even if you go back 2282 years. In one of the more intriguing examples of rebranding I’ve seen in a while, the world historical site of the City of Pompeii is currently engaged in its own rebranding campaign. The ‘old’ brand of Pompeii To […]

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Corporate Logo Tattoos: The wrong way to wear the brand

March 31, 2010

Tweet In the domain of “things I just don’t understand about people’s relationship(s) to organizations” is this nagging question: Why would anyone want to brand themselves with a corporate logo? Way back when I began studying organizational identification and employee branding (branding in the metaphorical sense), I heard about an April Fool’s Joke on NPR […]

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Social Media Risks: Restoring trust when your brand mascot is a killer (whale)

March 2, 2010

Tweet The challenge of being authentic on social media can be scary. Many organizations are afraid of being ‘on’ social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where they (or their representatives) are accessible and active in real time. They worry that participating in real time on social media platforms will expose them as unthinking, out […]

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Fix the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating: Send Out the Clowns, and get me Johnny Weir

February 19, 2010

Tweet The ‘Brand of Men’s Figure Skating’ is broken. The brand lacks coherence, it isn’t compelling, and sometimes it isn’t even attractive. And it’s all because of what those guys wear. In an ideal world, the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating reflects a hearty frisson between between the brand’s two defining attributes: Athleticism & Artistry. […]

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Does the iPad Signal a Change in Apple’s Core Brand & Identity?

February 2, 2010

Tweet If products reflect an organization’s values and an organization’s identity, does Apple’s new iPad tell us something about where Apple as a company is headed? And, if that’s where Apple is going, do we all want to go there too? Here’s a proposition: Apple as an organization is changing, from an organization that’s “about” […]

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The (Feminist) Business Bloggers’ Lament

January 26, 2010

Tweet In the past several weeks I’ve been working with two different groups of businesswomen, developing social-media based movements to advance social change in and around the workplace. Conversations with these women have been intellectually challenging, inspiring and empowering. And they have also been oddly confessional, about a problem that — in my opinion — […]

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How Layoffs Have Evolved: From “Office Space” to “Up In The Air”

January 25, 2010

Tweet In the decade since its release, the movie Office Space has dramatized the corporate best of work-life dystopia. In Office Space, we’ve got the Lumberg, the red stapler, the TPS Reports, a bad case of the Mondays, a little flair, and of course, “the Bobs”. Oh, the Bobs, those clueless, bumbling, omniscient consultants from […]

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