transparency

Re-creating Organizational Reputation Using Social Media: Not quite outdated ideas

January 14, 2011

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 & Identification [...]

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Built to Deceive: When organizations intend to mislead us

October 14, 2010

What would you think about an organization that intentionally mislead its potential clients? – That advertised itself as providing a range of products or services, when in fact it only offered one? – That presented itself as being here to “help you”, when in reality its sole purpose is to fulfill its own mission, regardless [...]

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The Best PR that $1.6 Million Can’t Buy: Authenticity in Action at Zappos

May 25, 2010

Gotta love those folks at Zappos. They screw up, they explain, they apologize, and they fix it. And we applaud. Why? Because Zappos’ actions support the company’s stated purpose, and Zappos’ actions support its claims about who they are as a company. It’s Authenticity in Action. The Zappos’ Mistake Story in a Nutshell An online [...]

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Why We Want Brandividuals on Social Media

June 11, 2009

Brandividuals are an important tactic for representing an organization online. Yes, I know, the term “Brandividual” is kind of funky, and maybe even has an annoying buzz, but as a concept it’s here to stay. Why? Because brandividuals are the most transparent, authentic and ultimately effective way of representing an organization in an online conversation. [...]

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Brandividual In Action: Follow @cbarger to watch General Motors transform

June 2, 2009

Here’s your chance to see someone in the brandividual role taking action, over time, in the face of a big challenge. When I gave my talk about The Rise of Brandividuals at last week’s Corporate Reputation Conference, I used the example (well-known in social media circles) of @scottmonty of Ford Motor Company to illustrate what [...]

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Leading Authentically with Transparency: An interview/podcast with Paul Levy

April 27, 2009

Here’s a neat podcast interview with Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, whose leadership approach to the need for dramatic cost-cutting we considered in the post Finding a leadership opportunity in alternatives to layoffs. This podcast interview offers a few additional insights, in part because the interviewer Catherine Bell asks some smart [...]

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Finding a Leadership Opportunity in Alternatives to Layoffs

March 16, 2009

Let’s say you’ve been convinced by the argument against layoffs and the recommendations for trying alternatives to layoffs. You’ve looked at a few of the Honor Roll organizations and decided to take that next step… As you prepare to act, consider this additional option. Can you find a way to make alternatives into layoffs something [...]

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$819 Billion to show us that transparency is not enough

February 12, 2009

Earlier today I was mulling over a post by Rachel Happe at The Social Organization, arguing for more transparency about organizational budgets and compensation plans. Rachel asserts that “accounting is really an exercise about setting our priorities and ensuring that we are acting on and accounting for those priorities. ” Thus, Rachel recommends that organizations [...]

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