Teblog

Why IT companies top Newsweek's green 500

Hats off to Newsweek for its green rankings of the 500 largest US corporations. And congratulations to Hewlett Packard for coming first.

Hang on... Hewlett Packard came out top? Surely a software company or some other organisation that is inherently more environmentally friendly should have topped the list? Yet four of the top five are computer companies. (The other was Johnson & Johnson.) Making computer equipment is known to be environmentally damaging. In fact, when Newsweek considered the environmental impact of the supply chain up to the point of delivery, it ranked these same four computer companies at 115th (IBM), 160th (Dell), 175th (HP) and 268th (Intel). Discrepancy or what?

The environmental assessments were done by a company called Trucost. Its methodology is widely regarded and is a heck of a lot cheaper than a company having to embark on a full lifecycle analysis (LCA) of its activities. Trucost maintains a research database of over 4500 companies which takes into account over 700 environmental impact measures. 

The results are not good showings at all for the IT companies but they are in line with what you might expect. However, their ratings rocketed because the Newsweek team decided to give 'green policies' equal weighting with 'environmental impact'. And it chucked in 'reputation' as well, for a further ten percent of the overall assessment.

The main elements of the green policies score were, 'climate change policies and performance, pollution policies and performance, product impacts, environmental stewardship and environmental management.' The reputation scores were derived from, 'an opinion survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals, academics and other environmental experts who subscribe to CorporateRegister.com and CEOs or high-ranking officials in all companies on the Newsweek 500 list.' Weightings were applied: 3x for CEOs, 2x for professionals and 1x for others.

You can see that the elements of the survey make sense individually and the outcomes can, no doubt, be argued mathematically. But the weighting of the scores, especially the importance given to the three major elements, has to be questioned.

Also, was it wise for the research to try and assess vastly different sectors against each other and come up with a common measure? If a company knows it is not damaging the environment too much, then why should it spend fortunes on PR and CSR to influence external perceptions and, hopefully, internal realities? At this point, one can almost feel sorry for Newsweek for having taken on such a challenge.

So is the report of any value to you? Well, yes. It does allow you to look at rankings by sector and this has the potential to be helpful, but only if you consider each contributing factor separately. You might be wondering (if you've read this far) how your potential suppliers stack up in environmental performance or in green policies. Whether you care about reputation as seen through the eyes of C-level executives of the target organisations and several thousand CSR professionals is another matter.

What you clearly don't want to do is take the overall results too seriously. Treat them as a guide. Perhaps think of them as a cake that contains all the right ingredients but which didn't quite make the grade because inappropriate measures were used.

And this doesn't just apply to the Newsweek story. If you are being told something which jars with your reality, see if you can dig around a bit for the underlying assumptions.

Don't put lipstick on the pig

Today's issue of PR influences covers 'greenwashing' - "the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."

It's good to see professional PR folk in action. Part of their job is to make sure that companies don't get carried away with their rhetoric and make fools of themselves. Of course, there will always be poor PR folk who see their job as "putting lipstick on the pig". We have to take a certain amount of personal responsibility for filtering good PR from bad.

Once upon a time, it was easy to pull the wool over most people's eyes, by writing good press releases, advertisements and brochures. The public didn't have much of a voice - the letters page of the newspapers, the complaints desk of a company or the local advertising standards authority. In other words, except in newsworthy cases, not a lot would happen.

Now, with bloggers galore, some will always be expert enough to see through the greenwash and blow the whistle. And we all know how fast bad news travels through the blogosphere. And how mainstream media organisations quickly pick up juicy stories.

We hear about companies that claim to be carbon neutral which is wonderful, if true. But, if close examination were to reveal that one of the directors drives a gas guzzler or that the heat from the data centre is being vented to the atmosphere, then the carbon neutral claim falls apart and the company risks ridicule.

The best option is transparency. To show what steps are being taken to run a sustainable (financially and socially, as well as environmentally) business and not make any pretence that things are better than they are. Some IT companies - IBM, Sun, Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Fujitsu Siemens spring to mind immediately - seem to be very forthright in their claims and their explanations.

They still fly people around when necessary, but they'll talk about how much travel has been cut. They still have to run high-powered data centres - even more so for those who offer hosted software services, but they'll talk about how much they've slashed their energy bills through consolidation, virtualisation and other measures.

Of course, they would all like to sell more equipment, software and services and they will dangle the cost and environmental savings that are possible. But they are also well aware that new equipment brings its own environmental costs, including the disposal of old equipment. Honest discussion around these issues will win vendors more customer loyalty than misleading claims based on dodgy premises.

Indeed, they may well find that their revenues rise for hosted services, consulting and software, even if an increasing awareness of sustainability among customers were to lead to a slowdown in hardware sales.

End of an era. Albeit a short one.

On March 27 last year, I welcomed Strumpette with the words "My God, if PR professional Strumpette's blog posts are as good as her 'About me', she's a must-read from now on."

Well, she blew hot and cold, like most of us. When she was 'outed' as Amanda Chapel, most of us thought that this was a made up persona, despite immediately receiving personal emails to try and convince us otherwise. I received twenty, which I will treasure.

Anyway, (s)he's had enough. Hanging up the stilettos and moving on. We'll miss you, whoever you are.

Tom Foremski over at Silicon Valley Watcher used her departure as an opportunity to explain what is wrong with PR. He sees it as Wily E Coyote hanging in thin air - an industry going nowhere. The comments are as interesting as the post itself.

Who writes Skype's Heartbeat blog

After a couple of days of mayhem at Skype, its 'Heartbeat' blog had this to say:

The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software.

Am I the only person who finds the second sentence to be utter tripe?

And, as for the third, isn't this a glorious way of saying 'it was a bug'?

UPDATE: Ah, I see the the Heartbeat author has now posted that it was, indeed, a bug. Hooray for plain speaking.

UPDATE: And I've just read this self-description of the blog author: "Yes, I’m a PR flack." It all makes sense now.

Social Media Analysis

Nathan Gilliatt has written a 75-page guide to the companies who  monitor, measure and analyse social media for business worldwide. He claims it's the most complete guide available. If it's any good (and I suspect it is), it could save you a ton of leg-work. The pdf download covers 31 providers in nine countries.

Nathan is a member of the Social Media Today blogging group (I used to be a member until I realised it was defining me too narrowly) which is why I'm prepared to pass this information on.

If you don't like it, you can always ask for a refund on the $500 price.

Was Wired WaggEd?

Once upon a time a PR firm accidentally sent a British journalist the profile it held on him. It started "This guy's a lush." Oh dear.

Well it's happened again, more or less. This time it's Wired contributing editor Fred Vogelstein who has been accidentally (or maybe not!) sent briefing notes from Waggener Edstrom prior to interviews with Microsoft executives.

Although it contains a short briefing on the journalist, it is mostly a backgrounder and 'game plan' for the Microsoft executives for a feature on its "video blogging initiative, Channel 9, and its overall campaign to embrace corporate transparency". From this perspective, it's an excellent insight to how thoroughly Microsoft is briefed for interviews with influential publications.

If you've ever wondered about how to brief and steer your executives, it's worth a read. Scale your approach to the importance of the publication otherwise you'll end up paying PRs a fortune in bloated briefings.

I can't help wondering whether Waggener Edstrom deliberately copied the information to the journalist. He and the PR know the game. Both know that preparation on both sides is key. So why not be transparent and pretend to reveal all? Then, with the journalist suitably off guard, send a second, confidential briefing to the executives that takes them deeper into the journalist's psyche and the interview strategy.

The journalist would have a great resource to get him up to speed in the areas that Microsoft wants to talk about. Result: a fast start and an implied boundary to the conversation.

But, regardless of whether the leak was deliberate or accidental, any self-respecting journalist would still find ways to throws interviewees on the back foot and not let it change their approach in the slightest.

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A PDF of the memo

Waggener Edstrom president Frank Shaw comments on the fuss.

Fred Vogelstein blogs his perspective.

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Traditional media vs social media - Shel Holz 'gets it'

A man called Stowe Boyd has been attracting a lot of attention to himself by lashing out at people who "don't get it" when it comes to social media, new media or whatever you want to call it. Most people I know in the social media world hold Boyd in high regard. I have yet to reach that particular Nirvana.

Ever since I first entered the blogosphere (as a latecomer in 2004 with a mainstream media background) I've noticed that, when cornered, fanatical insiders like to hurl the "you don't get it" accusation, without clarifying quite what it is that needs to be got. At least Boyd tries to help in this regard, but with mind-numbingly long posts.

A couple of days ago Boyd took Shel Holtz to task in a post headlined "Shel Holtz Is The Perfect Example Of PR People Not Getting It". I guess he knew he'd provoke discussion with that one and crank up the links to his blog (which carries ads, of course). Just like he did when he chastised the organisers of the Office 2.0 conference last year, making liberal use of the attention-grabbing word f**k.(My asterisks.)

Perhaps what he didn't expect is that Holtz would reply with a long, reasoned and definitely not mind-numbing, response.

If you want to understand what's happening in the media space - traditional as well as new - Holtz's post is a fine place to start. (It's ostensibly about digital press releases but it's way more valuable than that.)

When PR and bloggers collide

Once upon a time, PRs considered me to be an "opinion former" and they used to hound me endlessly about their clients. Quite often they had no idea about my interests or specialisations. While it's nice to have such a level of attention, I much prefer today's more thoughtful approaches. Those that contact me now usually know where I hang out (very broadly - collaboration and information management behind and at the edge of the firewall).

In a reminder of the old days, today I received an email from a well-known PR firm trying to interest me, as a blogger, in the activities of its even better-known client. My initial reactions in blue:

Subject: Blogger interviews with head of ******* UK

Gosh, the head of the UK arm of the company. And me just a humble blogger.

We're in the middle of organising a blogger relations programme to coincide with the business launch of ***** *******.  In short we're looking to see if any bloggers would like to participate in a interview/chat regarding the launch (and other ******* topics) with the managing director of ******* UK, ******* ******.

Before the Queen dishes out honours, the organisers ask each prospective recipient whether they would accept. This seems like a parallel approach. A bit of flattery, a chance to hob-nob... A chance to avoid embarrassment.

Your name along with around four others was recommended as a potential interviewer.

Wow. Five bloggers in the whole of Britain. And I'm one of them. Why? It's not as if I'm gasping to blog about the company. Maybe it thinks that after such an irresistable offer, I wouldn't be able to help myself. But I bet the MD will be scripted to within an inch of his life. Where's the interest in that?

The time it would take place would be early December.

Thank goodness I'm going to Silicon Valley at that time.

Basically, I'm testing the waters at the moment to see if anyone is indeed interested. 

Make this a public invite and the bloggers will be queuing, matey.

Anyway, hope you're well and hope to hear from you soon.

An unusually matey ending. I scanned my machine (104,000 emails and all my files) and can find no mentions of your name, just three cookies which show I've visited your blog. I am well thank you, since you ask.

STOP PRESS: A re-scan discovered seven emails from you and one mass mailing. So my sincere apologies for the last remark. We have been in touch as a result of our blogging activities.

I suspect this blog post is going to go down like a lead balloon with the people involved. This is why I've anonymised them. I have (or had) good relationships with both the PR firm and its client.

Normally, I'd hit the 'delete' key or say 'sorry, not interested' but, because I was being approached as a blogger, I thought the email was interesting. It certainly reveals some background to new media PR activity.

I'm not sure what made the PR firm single me out. The offer didn't relate to the subject matter of this blog. And it certainly didn't relate to thinkerlog. And, frankly, it barely worked for the IWR blog.

Presumably the PR firm wanted to invoke warm feelings towards its client and the opportunity in the hope that this would result in more positive and less critical coverage than they'd get from the regular press.

Then again, I could be completely wrong. Anyone care to pitch in?

The Journalistic Nose

Stuart Rock was already editor of the Director magazine when I first met him fourteen years ago. He kindly adopted me as IT correspondent and we got to know each other pretty well. We still meet occasionally and he's as sharp and incisive as ever. He has, in spades, what I'd call a "journalistic nose". Like most journalists, he can smell a rat at fifty paces.

While I love the blogging world, and the interesting characters that inhabit it, I have to say that many of them are too prepared to accept company spoutings at face value. The burden of proof has moved from the writer to the reader. And, it's fair to say, if the reader has time to aggregate multiple reports and follow-up comments, they can often get closer to the truth than the average hard-pressed news journalist who has to whack in copy on a deadline.

Which brings me back to the 'nose'. Journalists quickly acquire a sixth sense about the people and companies they engage with. Over on "The Business Editors", Stuart talks of how his instinct screamed against supporting Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar as a speaker at a conference on corporate governance. This is from Stuart's blog post:

Would Sanjay Kumar, then CEO of CA (previously better known as Computer Associates), be a good person to speak at a conference on corporate governance? CA, I was told, was keen to get him to appear at "high level" events.

That last sentence would have set any journalist's antennae quivering.

Yesterday, Kumar was sentenced to 12 years for accounting fraud.

Hurrah for Stuart's nose.

Keith Collins: big company insight + marketing + strategic social media

Keith Collins is a relative newcomer to active blogging but he has a lot of big-company marketing experience. (Dell, Xerox...)

To keep things simple, let's call him a strategic blogging evangelist. That's not to say that he thinks a blog is the answer to every company's communication prayers. It's not. But if he thinks it is, he will explain the whys and wherefores in business terms.

Since we both live slightly to the west of London, we met for a chat yesterday morning. Turns out we had lots of business acquaintances in common and, having met online anyway, our get-together got off to a fast start. The meeting made me think hard about my own role in life. As we left each other, I said "we're complementary. My interest is in the use of social software inside the firewall and yours is in its use outside."

Driving home I realised that, while true, that only related to my journalistic focus. My training/mentoring focus is entirely about companies communicating effectively with the outside world - whether that's the press, venture capitalists, the blogosphere or anyone else. In that sense, Keith and I are a lot closer. The big difference is that I'm coming principally from a media perspective and he's coming from a big company/marketing perspective. Instead of being back-to-back at the edge of the enterprise, we find ourselves face-to-face.

I've met loads of social media evangelists but this is the first one I've met who also has an intimate practical understanding from the marketing and business perspective. (I hope the many PR and marcomms people I know will understand why I've excluded them from that statement.)

I have no idea whether Keith and I will meet again, or work together. Anything is possible. But I thought I'd tip you off about his existence.