All about Authenticity

Authentic Corporate Reputations: The Real PR Challenge

May 27, 2011

Tweet To craft a corporate reputation that seems authentic, claims about the organization’s character must be anchored in real features of the organization. It’s the organization’s job to demonstrate a link between reputation claims and real features, and it’s the PR professional’s job to explain a link between claims and real features. (This post is […]

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3 Ways That Employer Branding Can Benefit Current Employees

May 17, 2011

Tweet It’s easy to see how Employer Branding is useful to HR departments and potential job applicants. Employer Branding, the practice of marketing images of your organization as a desirable place to work towards potential job applicants, is a sensible strategy for attracting the right people onto your bus (-iness). Employer Branding works to draw […]

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Because Women Have “Ideas Worth Spreading” : TED2011 Action Steps

February 27, 2011

Tweet The 2011 TED conference begins Tuesday in Long Beach CA. Of the 55 folks who will present “Ideas worth Spreading”, 15 of these speakers will be women. That’s a whopping 27%… no improvement over previous years, and nowhere near gender parity. To celebrate the 15 Women who will take the TED stage, and to […]

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Beyond Positioning: Establishing Authentic Optimal Distinctiveness

February 23, 2011

Tweet Every organization needs to establish optimal distinctiveness – a competitive position within your field, where you are similar enough to other organizations to be seen as legitimate, but different enough that you’re seen as having something unique to offer.  But, optimal distinctiveness is more than being in a competitive place in your field. Optimal […]

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Can an organization be too different?: The Strategic Value of Optimal Distinctiveness

February 18, 2011

Tweet Can an organization be too different? I spend a lot of time with organizations that are trying to strengthen the perception that they are different, so that they can distinguish themselves from their competition. They want their customers to see that they offer something that no other organization can. Because being different is critical […]

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Your Authentic Social Network: The Identity Graph

January 24, 2011

Tweet You’ve heard about the Social Graph and the Interest Graph. Now meet the Identity Graph— the online network of the authentic, social, interpersonal you. Different kinds of relationships create different graphs. Each of us has our own social network that’s comprised of a hodgepodge of different kinds of connections. We have social connections between […]

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How Social Media Create Organizational Meaning

January 18, 2011

Tweet Social media tools can transform an organization. One of the things I enjoy so much about social media is the chance to be (more often) the person I am, with my specific sets of talents, interests, and goals. Every time I extend myself out on social media, I get to choose what I’ll say, […]

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Re-creating Organizational Reputation Using Social Media: Not quite outdated ideas

January 14, 2011

Tweet As much as I love academic writing, conducting studies and developing theories, all of this work shares one acute problem — it takes forever to get from first draft to print. My just-published journal article with Adelaide King took about 8 years from idea to print, while the germinal paper on Organizational Identity & […]

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Insights about Authenticity from the Open Community Book Tour

December 22, 2010

Tweet I’m taking part in the virtual book tour and are doing to explore concepts from . Maddie and Lindy, along with their colleague Jamie Notter, have long been some of my favorite bloggers. “Even though” they write about communications strategies, and focus on a very specific type of organization (associations), their ideas are big, […]

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