FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

Where did you say that buck stops?.

  Given all the salacious details that are now coming out almost daily about the HP Pretexting Scandal, it's easy to ignore one of its victims...HP's Corporate Culture.

There used to be a thing called THE HP WAY.  When THE HP WAY was alive and well, the pretexting scandel would have been unheard of.

In 2002, Jocelyn Dong, writing for the Palo Alto Weekly reported on the "Rise and Fall of The HP Way". It's a wonderful read . It reminds us that corporate values matter. That  when integrity and ethics are indelibly linked to a corporation good things can happen for employees and for shareholders.

When Packard and Hewlett passed away in 1996 and 2001, respectively, obituary writers noted their enduring legacy was not the multi-billion dollar tech giant -- it was the HP Way.


Dong started her piece by writing,

"For some workers, the HP Way bordered on religion. They considered it inviolable. A management philosophy emphasizing integrity, respect for individuals, teamwork, innovation, and contribution to customers and the community, it earned the abiding loyalty of thousands upon thousands of employees"

Over the next couple of days and weeks, as more stuff about the spying on board members and journalists is revealed, the media will focus on the dirty deeds and the people who did them.

While what was done was heinous and despicable, it is also heartbreaking. How did a company that had such wonderful values, lose its way?

Now that's its lost, can it find its way home again.    The blog Freds House, doesn't think the company can return. But he does believe it can recreate.

You know, sometimes it takes a crisis to precipitate a catharsis -- and maybe our current board crisis can be turned into a vehicle for purposeful renewal of the HP culture and our presence in the world. It would be hard and painful thing to do, and it would take incredible leadership from Mark Hurd and his team and from every person in HP, but I could see it, I really could.

Am I crazy? Inspired? Deluded? Maybe, but I think it's a great question: What would a truly great HP look like, that would be deserving of the term HP Way 2.0?

McDonald's Vice President McBlogs about the Hummer

   McDonald's has a corporate social  responsibility blog. Now that the McHummer Promotion has ended, the vice president of McDonald's,Bob Langert, is talking about the controversial promotion.  The gist of the discussion is " It's just a toy."

"Our company, including my staff, is deeply committed to the whole scope of corporate responsibility issues, including environmental protection. So I polled my staff who have or had children. One of them said her children enjoy the little Hummer replicas as toys, just as many kids like toy trucks, regardless of make or model. She drives a MiniCooper, walks with her children to get groceries, bicycles with them on weekends, etc. Another said her grandchildren absolutely love the toy Hummers--that they're fun. Of course, there's nothing scientific about this poll, but I think it makes an important point. Looked at through children's eyes, the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations or a source of consumer messages about natural resource conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Thanks for your comments. We welcome the dialogue."

Of course it's just a toy. So are these: 

I loved candy cigarettes when I was a kid.  It made me feel grown up. As it were ,I did develop a nicotine habit for about eight years. Should I blame the candy? Of course not. But to say that the playing with candy cigarettes didn't make me identify with the act of smoking is simply silly. It did.

Will having a Hummer promotion cause more people to go out and buy these gas guzzlers? Doubt it. And that's not the point either. The point is that 42 million kids will have a positive, wonderful experience with the McHummers. They are toys. And I'm assuming providing endless hours of fun for boys and girls across the country.

Meanwhile, GM is building the brand equity of Hummer as a "fun vehicle"and helping to create a shield from the bad publicity they get for being gas guzzlers.

GM and Hummer weren't targeting the kids with this promotion, they were targeting the parents.  The McHummer promotion is a great way to reduce the conversation around the fact that Hummers are gas guzzlers.

It's hard  for parents to have an anti-Hummer conversation with a kid when their holding a McHummer in their hand.

Just a scenario. Mom and Rocco are in the car. Rocco sees a real Hummer and says, "Cool." Now, depending on the mom  or dad, they might have used the opportunity to talk about environmental issues and why they think hybrids are really the "cool"car. Or they might have simply said, "yeah, they're cool but they are gas guzzlers."

Now same scenario only this time little  Rocco is playing with his McHummer.

Rocco loves his McHummer. Will  parents still say negative things about the Hummer in that situation?Or will they think, why bother his fun?

I think  the folks at GM are hoping the promotion stifles some of the negative conversation.

It's hard  for a parent to talk about environmental responsibility about a car when Rocco is playing with one in the back seat.

On the one hand adults know Hummers are bad for the environment. Many may want to teach their kids that Hummers are not cool. Not so easy to do when 'my little Rocco carries them around everywhere he goes-- even sleeps with them.'

As to McDonald's assertion that it's just a toy. Well, my beloved candy cigarettes are just candy,too, but I doubt you'd arrange to have those included in a Happy Meal.

to Matthew at Enviroblog for alerting me to McDonald's CSR blog.

This is cross-posted at Blogher

Speaking of Liquid Bans--India says NO to Coke and Pepsi

It was not a good day for Coke and Pepsi. A court in India denied their request to lift a ban on selling their beverage products. The products were banned last month  by the communist-ruled southern state of Kerala because high levels of pesticides have been found in the drinks.

 To defend itself Pepsi launched a two -prong media campaign. The blog, Satish and his thoughts is  not that impressed.

Pepsi has fired recently two shots in air for self-defense. The first one was an advertisement claiming that the tea Indians drink has 14.2 ppm residue of pesticide which is 28000 times higher than such residue in Pepsi. The Tea Board of India has described the claim as "totally false". It is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Tea is as old as Indian civilization and is the most favourite drink among Indians. It is processed plant leaf unlike Pepsi whose ingredients are so zealously guarded secret that the formula has been
stored in some unknown vault. Assuming that tea contains dangerous levels of pesticide, it does not absolve Pepsi of the charges already made against it. Moreover, tea is boiled before use whereas colas are taken directly thus reducing the harmful effects.

Satish also reports that Pepsi Co Chairman Rajeev Bakshi is supporting a ban on selling "fun" drinks in primary schools. Bakshi's is reported to have said - "Soft drinks should not be consumed at that age. If schools ban them, we will not contest them".

Meanwhile, Frank Lavin, under secretary for international trade has said the ban is a setback for the Indian Economy. Lavin is quoted as saying the ban could hinder American investment dollars in the region, adding,

" it would be unfortunate if the loudest voices were those who did not want to treat foreign companies fairly.

Meanwhile The Insider which reports on conspiracy theories and the New World Order, headlined the controversy this way:

Coke and Pepsi banned in India for putting poison into drinks

The addictive sugary American drink, "Coca Cola", has been banned in many regions accross India, because the product is being contaminated with poisonous chemicals which the company claims are "safe".

Tests show that the amount of harmful chemicals in the mixture is actually being gradually increased. The mass media is not reporting which chemicals are involved or their effects in humans, they are simply described simply as "pesticides", and the long history of contamination now on record is allegedly not deliberate.

The ban has now spread to the UK according to UPI:

Britain's University of Sussex has banned all Coca-Cola products from its student union to protest the company's alleged business practices.

Other British campuses are expected to follow suit amid calls for a nationwide student boycott against the soft drink giant, the Independent reported Saturday.

U.K. Students Against Coca-Cola has been pressuring the purchasing consortium that provides food and drink to British campuses to cancel its four multimillion-dollar contracts with Coke, the newspaper said.

While Satish says he now longer drinks "fun" drinks because of the health risk, he comes down hard on the government ban.

The Kerala government’s jumping into the fray and banning production as well as sales without any proper investigation is just like severing the head for curing headache. The announcement through ads by Pepsi’s brand ambassador – a popular film star that he would go to USA to drink Pepsi if it is banned in India is equally preposterous. Even the news report in Washington Post that Americans drink over 100 times more colas than Indians is not going to help matters. That Indians are not very much dependent on the colas has been proved by the most unexpected gain made by tea after the ban was imposed.

Image Credit:Yahoo! News

Is the world finally getting greener?

Earlier this week Random House announced by 2010 it would increase its use of recycled paper from it current usage of 5% to 30%

It seems that Random House is not the only company taking a stand on corporate social responsibility. The team at INSIDE WWF PHILIPINES has a post about a conference that just ended this week on sustainability. Phillip Morris was one of the companies that attended.

There were interesting discussions one of which came early in the workshop in response to the question “Why should business become sustainable?” The obvious answers came up, long-term profits, good for the brand, cost-efficiency, etc. Then the representative from Philip Morris responded, “For a place at the table.” When asked for clarification on the response, she began quite an emotional explanation of how Phillip Morris was being turned away by everyone including NGOs unwilling to accept their money despite the environmental projects they were undertaking. She said words to the effect, “You don’t know how it feels like being turned away because your company produces cigarettes and kills people.” Jimmy Brannigan, one of the British facilitators replied, “Does anybody know how many people the cement industry has killed, or the mining industry?” No response. “Cigarettes are a personal choice. Do people have a choice in the pollution of a cement plant or the devastation caused by a mining or logging concession?” No response.

Meanwhile businesses that are interested in learning more about becoming a social entrepreneur can check out socialedge, a network of social entrepreneurs.

Social Edge has an audience of tens of thousands of current and aspiring social entrepreneurs around the world; it is particularly targeted at social entrepreneurs with limited access to other local resources and practitioners due to the nature of their work (e.g., international development) or their location (e.g., developing countries or in rural areas.)

Diana Reid, formerly part of the Public Affairs team at Starbucks where she was a key business partner to Starbucks Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team, is part of the social edge network. She began blogging four months ago at  Reid On Marketing about providing advice on marketing for social entrepreneurs.

While some corporations may have turned their backs on the green movement in the late 90s, it feels that many are rediscovering the beauty of being green in the word's of Kermit...

But green's the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder,
I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!
And I think it's what I want to be.

Image Credit: Flickr member zenroxie