2008

Tyson Foods lacks faith in its own identity.

August 9, 2008

Tweet When organizations are being authentic, they approach their problems by drawing on their identity. An organization that wants to be authentic must regularly find ways to translate its beliefs about ‘who we are’ into actions that demonstrate ‘who we are’. When an organization has faith in its own identity, it will strive to demonstrate […]

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Want Authenticity? Design Homophobia Out of the Organization

July 31, 2008

Tweet The System isn’t working at Omnicom. Omnicom says “we are committed to ensuring that we use our position to promote socially responsible policies and practices. Yet, Omnicom’s agency, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO (AMV/BBDO) , creates advertising that is anti-gay. Because Omnicom is not addressing the contradiction between who it says it is as an […]

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Homophobia and (In)Authenticity at Omnicom: What can a leader do?

July 24, 2008

Tweet I am struggling to understand the pattern of reactions to a recent critique of an organization’s authenticity. Bob Garfield, writing in Monday’s (7/21) Advertising Age, has an Open Letter to Omnicom President-CEO John Wren, asking Wren to look at the contradiction between Omnicom’s public Statement on Corporate Responsibility and the homophobia represented in three […]

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An Authentic News Organization Doesn’t Photoshop Pictures

July 7, 2008

Tweet Show me a liberal — heck , show me a thoughtful American — and I will show you a person who says that the name "Fox News" is an oxymoron. With their fake name, Fox News claims that it is a news organization. Fox News works very hard to make viewers think that what […]

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Fake Names for Authentic Organizations? Thornberg & Forester

July 3, 2008

Tweet Is this organization being authentic by giving itself a fake name? photofrom digitalcontnentproducer.com There’s a funny little news tidbit in Sunday’s New York Times Business section, right below Tommy Hilfiger’s engagement announcement (as if that’s business news?). It’s a paragraph about a design & communications firm, Thornberg & Forester . Neither Thornberg nor Forester […]

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Which organization has the most integrity?

July 1, 2008

Tweet Last week’s AdAge online poll asked the simple question: Which organization has more integrity: J&J, Google or UPS? It seemed to me like a dumb question… … because the voting system doesn’t let people explain their reasoning and thus you can’t really understand how voters define integrity or make their decisions. Websites have these […]

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Subscribe to the Authentic Organizations Email Update

June 30, 2008

Tweet How to subscribe You can get a regular update from Authentic Organizations delivered directly to your email in-box! I use the newsletter service Feedblitz, which is very reliable and secure. Check out the “Subscribe Me!” box near the top of the left sidebar. To receive an email each time Authentic Organizations is updated: Type […]

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In the authenticity battle, who wins? Barbie vs Felicity

June 12, 2008

Tweet Does an organization’s authenticity protect it somehow, and make it stronger? S houldn’t it be harder to influence, harder to infiltrate, harder to damage an organization where identity, image and action support each other? Whenever I noticed an organization differ from its industry’s norm, or noticed a subsidiary doing something completely different from its […]

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“Loving” my Authentic CSA? Good to know I’m not crazy….or alone!

June 9, 2008

Tweet Every now and then, when I think about what thinking about Authenticity does to me, I start to wonder if I’m crazy. Does anyone else get excited by “Girlcotts”, corporate shills, rice pudding, or bad branding plays? Well, here’s some perspective on my recent post, re: ‘Loving my CSA‘: Data point: When I googled […]

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Authentic Organizations communicate in their own special way(s)

June 8, 2008

Tweet Yesterday a reader left us an intriguing comment on a post I wrote months ago, about a conflict at the New York Junior League. [The post was one of my first efforts, and is so poorly formatted that I’m embarrassed to have you go look at it, but…] Liz wrote about how, at the […]

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