This just goes to show…
… that Sarbanes Oxley can pretty much be used to explain anything:
“The Ballmer children do not have their Xbox 360 yet. I’m in the same boat as many of you. Thanks to the wonders of Sarbanes-Oxley, management does not get a free Xbox 360.” — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer notes an unintended consequence of federal regulation.
Mediasite
If you are looking to hear Jack Welch or Michael Dell, drop by Mediasite. Stowe wasn’t too keen on it. The problem with receiving so many of these pitches is that their very presence turns you off the content and product.
Ranking Corporate Reputations
The WSJ reports on this years Harris Interactive Survey on corporate reputations. No Dell or SBC in the top ten this year – I got used to seeing them.
This year did mark improvement for Tech across the rankings: “The technology industry is the exception. In the reputation survey, Harris Interactive Inc., a Rochester, N.Y., research firm, found that most industries, particularly automotive, airlines, pharmaceuticals and energy, lost ground in the ratings. Only the tobacco industry ranked lower than energy and pharmaceuticals.”
Highlighting that behavior is as much a determinant of reputation as media relations or profits, the oil companies took a beating… “The three oil companies in the survey — Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — received low ratings and a scolding from the public for the “heartless” spike in prices at the pump and their gusher of profits.”
A sidebar story speaks to the role of “word of mouth” in shaping reputation: “For the first time in its seven-years of studying corporate reputation, Harris Interactive Inc. analyzed the effect of word-of-mouth communication and found that it strongly influences reputation and people’s plans to buy a company’s products. The survey of the American public shows that word-of-mouth — comments from friends, family members, co-workers and others — carries much more weight than corporate advertising and public relations.” Well, duh… no surprise there. They should have also added, “or the media”. They wrap it up with this:
“The Harris study reinforces the importance of monitoring word-of-mouth messages, including chatter in blogs and other sites on the Internet. Companies are remiss if “they aren’t getting a handle on what’s being said about them and trying to manage it,” says Jonathan Dewitt, a senior vice president in Harris’s Wirthlin Brand & Strategy Consulting group. “Companies should start trying to measure PR, promotional events and sponsorships based on their impact on what people are talking about and whether or not it’s positive talk.”
Handy Reference Site
Stumbled onto this handy style guide from O’Reilly. If you are writing for tech, it’s pretty good.
Apple…
For those that read this blog regularly (aside from my dog), you know I’m pretty quick to slap Apple about. They are arguably the finest technology company around, but not as imperfect as the media would have us believe (or, as their products actually are – I’m a big user…).
One of the things I do love about Apple is their willingness to celebrate the heroes. They did this on the sad passing of Rossa Parks, turning their home page into a memorial of sorts. The cynic might say that this is all about traffic, clicks, SEO… yeah, yeah, yeah…. But this is the most prescious and valuable "real-estate" Apple owns. And it isn’t blind – click on it and you get to a memorial. And, they link out to the National Civil Rights Museum.
Mike points to this not being the first time Apple has done this.
Tags: Apple. PR. Participatory Communications. Public Relations.
