Branding Agreement Soon: iPhone

On December 19, I posted about a potential brand war over the trademark "iPhone" shortly after Linksys (a division of Cisco Systems, Inc.) launched an "iPhone" family of products.

Reuters reported that Cisco Systems Inc. expects to reach an agreement with Apple Computer Inc. later today on its "iPhone" trademark. They said it shortly after Apple unveiled a phone with the same name.

So why would Cisco reach an agreement with Apple after fending off so many foes from grabbing up the "iPhone" brand? In the December post, I said that Apple would be wise to sit this one out (they did for awhile without comment), letting others fight it out for the right to use a trademark that Apple might not own, but clearly dominates. Today, Steve Jobs showed the world how much it dominates "i" anything by releasing the product before any agreement was signed.

While Apple could have easily called it something else, I am not surprised. Apple is no stranger to the value of a brand nor litigation over brands. In fact, Apple's earliest court action dates to 1978 when Apple Records, The Beatles-founded record label, filed suit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement, a case that has resurfaced several times over the last few decades. You can read more about it at Wikipedia.

It just goes to show you that — right, wrong, or indifferent — owning a trademark and owning a brand are two different things. And today, it's very obvious that Apple knows it too. Clearly, Cisco does too.

Missing News Opportunities: TalentZoo

Yesterday, I called Talent Zoo's "press release" a demonstration in communication ignorance, largely because it failed to meet any measurable objective and partly because it was in poor taste. More than anything, it was a missed opportunity that could have captured a few headlines.

No one really cared, except John Cook gave it a comment-less mention, probably because proximity is one of the many ingredients that journalists use to define news. Really, it would not have been difficult, in an industry that estimates more than 50 percent of corporate recruiters have been laid off or reassigned since November 2000, to do a better job.

There is news here. Plain as day. Based on its release, Talent Zoo is one of a handful of recruiters out there that is hiring people instead of laying them off. It's a nice contrast and makes people wonder "What's up with Talent Zoo?"

Except Talent Zoo did not include this in the release. Their communication contrast was between themselves and Jobster. Okay, so they are hiring a few days after Jobster laid people off. Oh yeah, they obviously have a grudge against Jobster, which seems more memorable than the mention that they are "aggressively" hiring 20 people.

The release gets worse before it gets better. Here are a few gems (ignoring grammar and usage errors):

"Talent Zoo’s growth has come largely due to increased employment needs among marketing, advertising, and public relations companies." Translation: We're lucky to have picked the right niche, um, unlike Jobster, who we don't like.

Personally, I would have placed more emphasis on the fact, according to Talent Zoo, that "both job boards and recruiting firms typically fail to offer the services of the other" while Talent Zoo does. Certainly, there is a better way to write this too.

"'Our strategy has always been to steadily grow our business by filling customer needs with superior products and services,' says Rick Myers, founder and CEO of Talent Zoo.” Translation: We lifted this off a thousand other company news releases because it sounds slick, even if it doesn't mean anything.

"Myers attributes Talent Zoo’s success to maintaining it’s self-funded existence rather than using venture capitalist financing to grow.” Translation: The company communication folks attribute the growth to the industry, but Myers does not. He says the reason for this growth is because, er, they are not like Jobster. On the plus side, only a few folks invested in us.

“Myers adds, 'I’m sorry to hear about the misfortunes of Jobster’s staff. It always frustrates me to learn about hard working people who lose their jobs. Talent Zoo is always interviewing and we are always interested in talking with anyone, whether they are fresh out of school, on the unemployment line, or just looking to join an exciting and growing company.'" Translation: I can hardly contain my glee, and, oh, by the way, feel free to call me if you worked at Jobster, but don't expect to be hired because we talk to a lot of people, anyone, in fact.

In all, of seven paragraphs, not counting the cutline, six can be directly or indirectly attributed to Talent Zoo talking about Jobster. Not too bad for Jobster, considering it didn't pay anything for all this name recognition in a release that "pokes fun at" but doesn't do any real damage. If anything, Talent Zoo lost some credibility points and the few that read the release ran over to Jobster's Website to learn more about its new direction or potential sale to Monster, if you want to entertain rumors.

Imagine how much more effective the release would have been if Talent Zoo would have stuck to its news: We're growing in an industry that BusinessWeek says is poised for consolidation. We must be doing something right. Hmmm... if they did that, then maybe, just maybe, BusinessWeek would have been interviewing Myers instead of Keith Stemple.

Who knows? If the release had been written better and gained some traction, then Myers could have slipped in some of his bloodlust for Jobster in a national magazine, maybe even a few, during some interviews. Then he would have looked as if he was just commenting on current news or citing one example of a hundred he could have chosen. Maybe, if he was really prepared, he could have struck a death blow, driving negative Jobster impressions through the roof on national television.

Ho hum. Instead, Talent Zoo's release is destined to become a mere footnote in the annals of The Seattle Times and maybe a brief conversation point on how not to write a release in my class at UNLV.

In conclusion, even if the primary objective was to smack Jobster around in the media, the release still fails. On this measure, I liken it to throwing punches in an empty ring and without an audience. Worse, Myers gave all the advantage to Jason Goldberg. Goldberg can choose to ignore it or toss in a much harder-hitting punch at his leisure. Either way, Goldberg wins.

I dare say, had it happened differently, Talent Zoo may have gained some recognition, made some money, and the recruiting industry's wrestling fans would have been much more entertained.

Feeding The Animals: TalentZoo

If you ever wondered whether communication ignorance is contagious, visit Talent Zoo. There you will find a news release that attempts to one up Jobster, not at being a better company, but by demonstrating its people lack the most basic understanding of public relations and strategic communication, which is ironic given they serve "communications" executives (they mean communication, but let’s not split hairs). The release opens:

“Award winning niche job board and recruiting agency and former Jobster rival, Talent Zoo has announced plans to hire an additional 20 people in the next four to six months. Talent Zoo’s hiring plans announced today are directly contrary of those declared yesterday by venture capital funded Jobster, who announced it was laying off 60 employees, or nearly half its workforce.”

The need for style and usage edits aside, it seems to me that Georgia would expect more from a company led by someone recently named one of Atlanta's 40 Under 40 Most Promising Young Stars by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Instead, the Jan. 4 press release (which excludes electronic media outlets, since electronic outlets do not have presses) reads as nothing more than one child thumbing its nose at another.

As much as the lead sentence sets up the news release as an opportunity to show a fair contrast between it and the rest of the industry, the second sentence takes it all away, changing the entire thrust of the release into “let’s show everyone how smug, vindictive, and possibly unethical we can be because the lawsuit we filed in 2005 was not enough.”

After searching for results, the only mention of this release (beyond MediaSyndicate, a news release distribution service) was by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter John Cook, who calls it mostly right in saying that “Talent Zoo Chief Executive Rick Myers tosses a few darts at Jobster” in the release. Cook is kinder than a former editor of the Las Vegas Business Journal, who once lambasted a public relations representative for the local Girls Scouts for trying to capitalize on a court ruling over the Boy Scouts.

Now, it’s pretty obvious that I am no fan of the communication savvy or lack thereof that Jobster demonstrated in the midst of its restructuring, but it’s almost forgivable because I have come to believe that Jason Goldberg honestly didn’t know better (he may have, but it doesn’t seem so). In fact, he has since made a conscious effort to improve in this area. But Myers, founder and CEO of Talent Zoo, who gleefully participates in this release offering quotes like “It always frustrates me to learn about hard working people who lose their jobs,” knows exactly what he did. And in addition to being possibly insincere, he knows it was wrong to do.

If we take my first Jobster analogy, that alludes to the sinking of the Titanic, then this release can be likened to the captain of the Titanic's sister ship, HMHS Britannic, saying “I’m sorry to hear about 1,522 who perished in the accident, but maybe they should have sailed with us.”

If Forbes, which once awarded Talent Zoo with "Best of the Web" for niche job boards, doesn’t write this release up as “Best New Release Blunders,” then I hope The Wall Street Journal picks it up because Myers deserves his 15 minutes of fame on this issue. Luckily, most editors filed the release under "amusing, but trash."

Tomorrow, I'll offer how Talent Zoo could have turned this release into major headlines instead of a forgettable heckle; they didn't have to mention Jobster to do it.

Polarizing The Issues

Jonathan Adler's The Volokh Conspiracy recently noted the New York Times article pointing out that there is much more to the climate change than "believers" and "heretics" in the debate about global warming. After presenting what he calls a great step toward the "middle ground," the post spirals away into 90 comments that are largely polarized on this issue once again. It's a shame because polarization is non-communication and it's all too common in the United States.

Regardless of the issue, any time two sides become too firmly entrenched in their views and opinions, screaming that they are right and all dissenters are wrong, any potential action on this becomes paralyzed. And unless things change, the debate is already pointless because nobody is listening anyway.

It's the same same in any group environment, whether individual, political, or commercial. If an argument becomes a battle of wills in the household, community, business, or industry, then the debate is already over. And, once labels are attached to the opposing sides, there is hardly ever any room for the middle ground.

Although what author Andrew Revkin calls a "third stance" emerging that "challenges both poles of the debate" hardly seems like a third view to me (suggesting that since we're unwilling to fix the problem we may as well invest in disaster preparedness), a more tangible third view is unlikely to surface as long as the polar views are willing to drown out new voices. As I said, non-communication.

Perhaps with a hint of sarcasm, I blame Al Gore. He had an opportunity to share facts in “An Inconvenient Truth" and mostly he did, with exception to several moments of political bitterness. One would think, after running for president, he would have learned by now to stay on message. If it was about global warming, then maybe that would be enough.

The American media could use a shot in the arm on this issue and others too. Do we always need two talking heads taking the polar position on each and every view? Sure, I appreciate "controversy" is one of a dozen or so definitions of news, but I dare say the public is becoming addicted to rubbernecking accident scenes. Based on blog searches alone, controversies seem to rule the day.

Meanwhile, as we play polarization in the United States, the British government announced a 100 million pound fund to help the National Health Service in the battle to beat the global warming crisis. The fund is intended to help hospitals and other health sector buildings cut carbon dioxide emissions, increase energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption.

"Whilst there is much more we need to understand - both in science and economics - we know enough now to be clear about the magnitude of the risks, the time-scale for action and how to act effectively," Sir Nicholas said, who recently released a review that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20 percent.

It's a global review that is gaining traction elsewhere in the world, even if it is not so in the United States. The only reason it is over there and not here, in my opinion, is because the the British, although they too disagree, seem less addicted to polarization to such a degree that politicians will actually switch positions on an issue once they learn it is embraced by an opponent or opposite party. Sure, contrast messages work in politics, but not so much when they are fabricated for the sake of contrast.

From a communication observation that can be applied anywhere, keep in mind that polarization is non-communication. Whether it is a small issue like "should blogs allow anonymous comments or not" to very big issues like "should we store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain" or not.

In conclusion, on the issue of global warming, the debate is over. Everybody lost. Now that it is over, can we please get to the business of saving people from global warming, because it seems to me that people will need more saving than the planet.

Working In A Bubble

There has been ample discussion about transparency, as it relates to blogs in particular, but it seems to me corporate transparency is optional, and best left to the discretion of each individual company. You see, I don't subscribe to the notion CEOs shouldn't blog. I think it depends on the CEO and, more importantly, the company's business strategy.

It seems to me the only problem with corporate transparency is the number of CEOs that try it without really understanding what it means. Worse, few consider that working in a bubble might be a different environment all together, becoming a public figure aside.

Maybe the answer to the question, whether to blog or not, lies within a seemingly unrelated question. How prepared are we to manage our reputation once we gain transparent visibility?

It's tricky stuff, doubly so if you have any hope to keep your message consistent. Here are 8 basic questions (I collected them from several experts and executives over the years) to ask about your corporate reputation management, adjusted a bit to skew toward CEO blogs.

1. Can you keep your focus narrow and potential issues manageable?
2. Are you willing to take responsibility (not necessarily accountability) for all employee actions and outcomes, even those outside of your control?
3. Will you maintain a positive, assertive, calm communication style that focuses attention on the most important aspects of any problem?
4. Are you willing to move toward resolution despite any negativity, including antagonistic reporters and crazy bloggers?
5. Are you ready to concede that if your local disaster becomes regional or national, that it is totally your doing?
6. Do you realize that your actions and posts will influence those around you and have an impact on your reputation and the company?
7. Are you prepared to answer tough, probing, and sometimes trick questions from not only the media but also anyone who happens by?
8. Are you willing to share your ideas internally or with consultants prior to posting in order to ensure everyone is on the same page?

If you answer no to any of these questions, then you should probably stay out of the business of blogging. Of course, if you answer no to any of these questions, your company is operating without any concern for reputation management anyway, and sooner or later you'll learn the hard way (these questions apply to picking a company spokesperson too).

Having worked with CEOs and, even more maverick, politicians, I can safely say that the decision to be transparent or blog is an individual question. As many as I have advised to blog, there are dozens more I have advised not to blog. For each, I base my advice on whether it makes strategic sense for the company and if the CEO (or anyone for that matter) is fit to be a blogger.

Or perhaps I shouldn't say "blogger" given the industry push to change the term. What is a blog? Seems to be a lot things to a lot of people, and I don't think narrowing the definition will change that.

Of course, if we are all going to make our companies "bubbles," I propose a new occupational title: "window washer." Just kidding.

Managing The Message

“I still feel like a passenger on that JetBlue flight that's watching helpless on my seatback satellite TV as the plane I'm on makes a crash landing,” said one Jobster employee about the recent interest in Jobster, fueled largely by one of the most horrifically handled communication accidents in recent memory. Unfortunately, unlike JetBlue, not all passengers will be landing safely.

According to Jobster, the reorganization to better align its business to focus on the most efficient sales and support channels, as well as its Website, will result in the loss of 60 positions, primarily those supporting in-person sales and support efforts. From a communication perspective, Jason Goldberg and Jobster — which maintains their first priority was to inform affected employees who were left waiting for days to learn their fate in between ill-advised blog posts — lost much more than that.

Although it reads as one of the better posts ever presented under Goldberg's byline, one that causes me to sincerely hope Jobster's smaller and more focused vision for 2007 will return the company to the start-up success story it was in 2004, I wonder if it will be enough to erase the reputation damage it endured externally and employee morale flogging it weathered internally.

You see, reputation management, which includes crisis communication as noted in my last Jobster-related post, can be equal to if not superior to a successful product. When you lose control of it, which is relatively easy to do, it's difficult for anyone to believe your next message.

If we subscribe to the ideal that it takes 80 impressions to make a message stick (and that negative impressions are eight times more impactful than positive messages), Jobster's rebranding as a company and employer that can be trusted will be a difficult, though not insurmountable, task in the year and years ahead.

The reasons are simple enough. As much as we (especially those of us in the advertising and communication field) would like to believe that we control the definition of our company or clients' companies, we really don't most of the time.

Instead, companies are defined by everything executives and employees communicate about themselves daily (whether written, spoken, or by action); everything executives and employees say about the internal working environment; everything others (from members of the media and bloggers to customers and competitors) say about the company, whether real or perceived; and everything other companies (primarily competitors) say about themselves, which causes people to wonder if the company measures up.

At the end of the day, you add up all these messages and therein lies the "real" (not self-perceived) definition of a company. While there are strategies in managing all these messages, most companies or even advertising agencies do not know where to begin. I'll work harder at sharing some insight here and there for those who care to know; most answers take longer than the single confines of a post to appreciate (and that's not to say I have all the answers), starting with eight questions to ask yourself if you are managing your reputation, which I'll share tomorrow.

To all the other social media experts and bloggers who have contributed to (and will continue to contribute to) this living case study, my gratitude. To all the folks remaining at Jobster who read my posts, I sincerely hope you did not find my criticisms and comments too harsh, but an attempt to provide objective commentary. To Jason Golberg, I hope you keep up honest blogging, perhaps though, with a bit a more sensitivity to the message you want people to read. And to all those who are being asked to leave Jobster, this too shall pass. Good night and good luck.