Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

Stop Cyberbullying Day: Is it misbranded?

In August,long before the Kathy Sierra post, Anne Simons at Brandsizzle  was talking about Cyberbullying.

Here's some info on a disturbing trend. Cyberbullying, according to website stopcyberbullying.com,  occurs "when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying."

Cyberbullying.us has a  fact sheet on legal and policy issues on cyberbullying.   It is dated April 2007. While their definition of Cyberbullying is not kid-specific, the inferred meaning is that cyberbullying is about kids.

We define cyberbullying as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text" (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006). We developed this definition because it is simple, concise, thorough, and captures the main elements of cyberbullying.  Those elements include: "willful" (the behavior has to be intentional, not accidental); "repeated" (bullying reflects a pattern of behavior, not just one isolated incident); "harm" (the target must perceive that harm was inflicted); and "electronic text" (this, of course, is what differentiates cyberbullying from traditional bullying).

Which creates a bit of cunundrum. When adults start owning the term "Cyberbullying" are we taking attention away from the very real and important work that organizations are doing to protect our kids? Will their work become diluted because the term "cyberbullying" will no longer be the exclusive domain of youth but include cyberstalking and cyber harassment? From a marketing perspective, cyberbullying is a strong term. Much stronger, shorter, and zippier than cyberstalking or cyber harassment.

On March 5,2007, the Ad Council posted this video on YouTube.

But just because it sounds good doesn't mean we can use it. It's for the kids. Using it for our own problems feels a little like taking candy from a baby. On March 5, 2007 the ad council added their take on cyberbullying on YouTube. It's called the Cyberbullying - The Talent Show.

Image Credit: Scott Mccleod

This is cross-posted at Blogher.

Picture This: Kodak leaves the Better Business Bureau

   Could the Better Business Bureau be going the way of The Pony Express? It was new technology ---the telegraph back in 1861 --- that ended the Pony Express brief run. Did you know the company existed less than two years?

Could social media be the technological lynch pin in the future of the BBB?
Kodak, one of the founding members of the BBB has resigned from the organization saying its services have become "redundant."

Let me ask, when was the last time you filed a complaint with the BBB? Had a complaint resolved? Checked on a business to see if anyone had filed a report, or felt better about a business because they were a BBB member?

How often do you see an advertisement with a business displaying the BBB logo?

In a social media environment how relevant is an organization like the BBB?  eBay members work as their own community -based BBB.  If a shopper or seller is unreliable or dishonest on eBay, the community will know . Is it really that long until the eBay model dominates rather than the more introverted BBB model?

At one time, dissatisfied consumers either filed a complaint with the BBB or they contacted their local consumer reporter. Today,when a consumer has a complaint about a company that they feel has not resolved fairly they can blog about it or give someone a bad referral on eBay.

In the spirit of full disclosure and transparency, I was once one of those consumer reporters. It was the days of orange Royal  manual typewriters, pink telephone message pads, and  companies that thought being green had to do with how much money they were raking in.  I would routinely call the BBB to see if they had complaints on file of busineses that I was investigating. I don't remember them as being the best of sources.

In explaining its decision Kodak says,

“We ultimately decided to resign our membership because we were extremely unhappy with the customer service we received from the local office of the BBB,” Kodak said in a statement, describing the branch’s Web site postings about the company as “consistently inaccurate.”

“The presence of a third-party organization between Kodak and our customers is bureaucratic and unproductive,” it added. “In fact, Kodak’s customer service and customer privacy teams concluded that 99 percent of all complaints forwarded by the BBB had already been handled directly with the customer.

“Our commitment to our customers is unwavering. That will not change. What has changed is that, for us, the BBB’s customer complaint process has become redundant."

.
The Better Business Bureau sees things a little differently.
Eastman Kodak Company has advised the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) that it is resigning its national membership in the wake of expulsion proceedings initiated by the CBBB Board of Directors. Kodak has refused, for many months, to accept or respond to consumer complaints presented to the company by the Better Business Bureau in its headquarters market. “Every member of the BBB system is required to make a good faith effort to resolve consumer complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau. To do otherwise, is to abdicate their commitment to helping advance trust in the consumer marketplace, the key focus of the BBB,” said Steve Cole, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Ultimately, it will be the member businesses that will determine whether the BBB is still vital. Bloggers are finding this story a big ho hum. So far, it isn't even registering on technorati. If a major corporation  resigns from the BBB and no one cares-- what does that tell you?

Image credit: Kansas Collection Books

Twitter: Are you an innie or an outie?

  Apparently Silicon Valley is all a flutter about Twitter. A phenomenon that I was completely oblivious to until Thursday March 23, 2007, when presenters at  Blogher Business 07 casually mentioned it in a way you would mention something like "the sky is blue, or "Americans work too hard."

In other words, if you are part of social media then of course you know about Twitter. Disclaimer: You may not reach the twitter site when you click on that link. I didn't. Even at 5:00 a.m. central.Evidently twitticts can't get enough of it. Twitter is an online superstar. Think cable's nonstop coverage of Anna Nicole Smith. Think the paparazzi obsession with all things Angelina Jolie.

So what is Twitter and what does it have to do with business? When asked that question, folks at the Blogher Conference couldn't exactly explain it,and that says proponents is just fine. Blogger Jason Kottke says Twitter reminds him of blogging circa 2000.

The reaction to Twitter mirrors the initial reaction to weblogs...the same tired "this is going to ruin the web" and "who cares what you ate for dinner" arguments. Also like blogs, everyone has their own unique definition of what Twitter is (stripped down blogs, public IM, Dodgeball++, etc.), and to some extent, everyone is correct. Maybe that's when you know how you've got a winner: when people use it like mad but can't fully explain the appeal of it to others. See also: weblogs, Flickr.

In a post called What is TwitThis? Mondomendeusah writes,

global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!

TwitThis is an easy way for people to send Twitter messages about your blog post or website. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter. more

 

  That certainly wouldn't explain The Twitter addiction for most people. But here's the thing. You only have 140 characters to work with. That's it. 140. When you tell me that, I get the addiction. In December, Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users wrote about the The Twitter Curve,

We've all been at the brain bandwidth breaking point for the last five years. Email is out of control. IM'ing sucks up half the day. And how can we not read our RSS feeds, post to our blogs, and check our stats? If my Cingular cell phone sends me a MySpace alert and I'm not there to get it, do I exist? But email, IMs, social networking, and blogs are nothing compared to the thing that may finally cause time as we know it to cease. I'm talking, of course, about Twitter.

This is a wonderful post that talks about being in flow, becoming an expert,and being able to focus. As she writes,

I'm making fun of Twitter, but this isn't really a funny topic. Moore's law for the brain doesn't quite work. We're evolving much, much, much too slowly... Brain 2.0 isn't coming anytime soon.

And yet...she writes,

[UPDATE: Against my will, I found myself reading the Twitter timeline again after I posted this (I told you it was addicting) and had just about the biggest laugh of the week when I found people Twittering about... this post on Twittering. ; ) I love you guys (Sarah and Arabella you made my night!) And I can think of dozens of reasons why Twitter is a wonderful thing (like for separated families, etc.) But talk about an event horizon... Twitter is the new Crackberry.]

Chris Garrett is also not a convert. As he writes in My Twitter Experience.

While it is fun, I don’t know how anyone can get any work done while it is on. Far too distracting. For those who say it is the next big thing? Not convinced. I haven’t seen a single worthwhile message, not a single scoop, not any content of note that I couldn’t get through another channel with more context and depth. I’ll keep one eye on progress but if I want to chat with friends I will do it through Skype and IM.

My own Twitter experiment will have to wait for another day. It's now 6:30 a.m. and Twitter is still not responding. I can't spend all day acting like twitterdom and twitterdee.

This is cross-posted at Blogher

The Virtual Picketline. Does it have legs?

In the month since the Union Women of Miller Brewing Company posted their love song to the president of the company, a little fewer than 5000 people have tuned in. It's a complicated story and the song doesn't help viewers understand the issues.

Church of the Customer Blog featured the video on a March 15th post.

Employees wrote a song to the tune of "Norman" outlining their issues to Norman Adami, president and CEO of SAB Miller Americas, a division of SAB/Miller Plc. They're no American Idol winners but as a tool to create momentum for a cause, it sure beats marching with a picket sign in 20-degree weather that no one cares about anyway. The video hasn't gone viral just yet (maybe due to the video's sound quality), but who knows.Mainstream media  is writing about the video as we speak.

In analyzing whether the viral picketline will end up being successful, this is what Thomas had to say,

The problem with this platform is that, even if the video goes viral, how much pressure does this put on the brewing company. Is joe schmoe on the internet actually going to pick unhappy employees over BEER? Posted by: Thomas at Mar 18, 2007 11:16:18 PM

What isn't said is, "Who cares about 122 measly union workers who are primarily female, over the age of 50, and who aren't babelicious."

This is cross-posted at Blogher.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be...

Cheerleading, it seems, is a talent that pharmaceutical companies hold in high regard when evaluating new candidates to become a drug rep.

First reported in 2005 by Stephanie Saul in the New York Times, and reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, the article talks about the strategy of using cheerleaders to boost drug sales.

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More recently, The Brazen Careerist resurrected the article to create an advice column for attractive women who must deal with getting "hit on" during the sales process.

"And what happens when the best girl for the job goes to work every day? She gets hit on. Constantly. And even when it’s not a direct hit, it’s a guy who is married and bored and not bored enough to cheat, but definitely bored enough to take too much face time from the salesperson while he’s making a purchasing decision. Not convinced? According to the Times article, an informal survey showed that 12 of 13 medical saleswomen said they had been sexually harassed by physicians. And if you think it’s only physicians, you’re wrong. It’s even Hewlett-Packard board members."

Trunk offers some advice. Here are the first two.

"1. It’s not your fault. It is totally common to get hit on at work, especially if you are a cheerleader type. You are not provoking this behavior. You are being you, and men like you. Do not feel bad about this. And, definitely don’t wear dowdy clothes just becuase the men are hitting on you. Anyway, women who totally downplay their sexuality are seen as less competent.

2. Use it to your advantage. Men who are attracted to you are more likely to buy from you. So what? Men who like to play golf are more likely to do business with other men who play golf. People have been given unfair preferences forever. Be glad you are the recipient of some of this. If the guy wants to talk with you for too long, fine, as long as he buys something. That’s what salespeople get paid to do: Connect with the customer and talk until they buy."

Okay. I'm crying uncle. If this is advice,then I should take my mother up on her suggestion to the teenage me when I told her I was bored. Her suggestion, "Go bang your head against the wall." Right now,mom's advice sounds brilliant. But back to the cheerleaders.

Sarahparkin has been blogging about the cheerleader-pharmaceutical connection for the past two years.

"We posted last football season about how pharmaceutical companies were beginning to view former cheerleaders as ideal candidates to be pharmaceutical representatives. The explanation had to do with enthusiasm, of course…. But one cannot help but wonder whether the pharmaceutical marketing folks perhaps had some other characteristics in mind. That suspicion is raised further by the recent designation of Ms Donna Chiafair, another pharmaceutical representative, as Miss FHM for 2006. FHM is a men’s magazine known for publishing revealing pictures of attractive young women. The relevant press release is here. For those interested, a Google search might be much more, shall we say, revealing."

Meanwhile the edrugsearh blog is all over this story.

"As an update on the Times’ story, the eDrugSearch Blog decided to do a quick scan of pro sports Web sites to see the occupations listed by the current roster of NFL and NBA cheerleaders.

They found sixteen. But said since many pro football teams do not include the occupation of their cheerleaders there were probably many more. A sampling of the folks who convince docs to prescribe your medications. 

Next eDrugSearch did an experiment on MySpace. They did a search  of Pharmaceutical Sales Cheerleader.  Eight pages and 75 results later, eDrugSearch came to this conclusion:

"I found that more often than not, even the male Big Pharma reps were cheerleaders in college. From reading the profiles, it appears that a number of the MySpace reps are pretty hard partiers."

When the story broke in 2005, my brother, who has the very successful blog Medrants, had this to say about the cheerleader-pharmacy connection.

"The sad thing is that the companies probably know what they are doing. They want to influence our prescribing habits. ....the drug companies are not stupid. We physicians have a responsibility to understand what the companies are doing. We have an ethical obligation to not use drug reps as a source of information. No matter how cute, perky and nice, they have one job. They are trying to persuade us to use their product. We have a different job; we have an obligation to prescribe the most appropriate drug for the clinical condition. Information provided by the pharmaceutical industry is, one can always assume, the result of positive spin."

Image Credit: Flickr member Tedb3rd

Yes, I have no bananas...

How significant is the $25 million fine Chiquita has agreed to pay for having alleged terrorists provide their workers in Columbia with protection.? Not knowing the size of the banana market the $25 million dollars means very little. As it turns out, Chiquita recently announced a way that it has  found to potential make up for that $25 million dollar fine.

 

n fact just this week, Chiquita announced that it has found a way to keep those bananas fresher for longer  and a quick way to make up for that $25 million dollar fine.

 

"Chiquita, of Cincinnati, says it can raise profits if people can buy a single, perfectly ripe banana off the shelf, as they would a candy bar or a bag of chips. Research conducted for the company in 2005 revealed that 42 percent of people would eat more bananas if they were available in more locations. quot;This allows us to meet consumer demand for eating more bananas," a Chiquita spokesman, Mike Mitchell, said. "And it's great for Chiquita because we can charge a premium price."

Retailers can sell single "Chiquita to Go" bananas for about 75 cents each, compared with about 69 cents a pound in the grocery store."

 

  In the world of bananas,  the $25 million fine could simply be slap on the wrist-- the price you pay for doing business in a country in turmoil.

What  no one is talking about just yet is what  happens to the banana market  if the company can no longer hire the protection it obviously thought it needed. Americans are bananas for bananas. They are our  number one fruit.

This story also highlights the ethical tensions many corporations face when working in a global environment. What is not acceptable in this country is often the price of doing business in other countries. Where do you draw the line? Pay the alleged terrorists or tell Americans no more bananas? Or allow foreign companies to pay the terrorists and buy their bananas?

Would Americans be willing to give up bananas because of the problems in Columbia?

It's such an ethical conundrum.

Are you being PC if you say you don't care if your boss is male or female?

The headline from the MSNBC.com read, "Men Rule-at least in workplace attitude." It was the first of a series of articles on MSNBC's and Elle Magazine's Survey on Work and Power  Survey. where they interviewed about 60,000 people.

Despite the potentially inflammatory headline, it did not create a blogging firestorm. In fact, it created somewhat of a blogging backlash.

Talkwench, wasn't buying their argument.

So MSNBC have teamed up with their intellectual equivalent in all things pretty and girly - Elle Magazine to conduct a survey on attitudes in the workplace, "would you rather prefer a female than a male boss" and the results of which were published in the article below titled "In workplace - men rule". Reading that headline one would naturally assume that the results must have been 90/ 10, or even 60/40 but no it was 39/ 50/ and the rest didnt care either way.

 

And from Women's Voices for Change:

                    "The smart Echidne analyzes the survey -- and the many negative comments about women that                                follow the story -- and pulls out what's truly important here:

[The] major message of it is that the gender of the boss does not matter for the majority of the respondents. But because more people prefer a male boss to a female boss the article then veers into the question of what might be wrong with female bosses.

Note that we don't really get a discussion anywhere on what might be wrong with male bosses (or what might be good with female bosses), and so the comments begin with the assumption (unstated) that male bosses are good, and that all one needs to do is to point out the worst possible characteristics of female bosses to compare them to the good male boss. Although some comments later diverge from this, the topic is not set up as a neutral one, and it is not surprising that we don't get a balanced discussion.

Journalist Eve Tahmincioglu  writes about careers on MSNBC.com and is author of From the Sandbox to the Corner Office: Lessons Learned on the Journey to the Top. www.sandboxbook.com. She recently chatted with me about the survey and why she believes  the  51% who said they didn't care if they had a male or female boss were simply being "PC."
 

This is cross-posted at Blogher

Son of a Gun--It's High Maintenance Bitch

If the sign wasn't clear before, people walking past the Wallingford storefront in Seattle now know that High Maintenance Bitch is a high end pet store.

So does the rest of the country --thanks to a story with million dollar legs.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer got over 185 comments on their story which focuses on the community's reaction to to the store sign. Evidently, the Chamber of Commerce received multiple complaints.

People were offended by (a) the word ,(b) the prominence of the word.(c) the entire concept of a high maintenance pet store.

In other words, if the sign were a tad more subtle in its use of the word "bitch," the complaints may not have been so numerous.

It seems the in you face nature of the sign is what got cockles rankled-- not the fact that the store sells feather boas for dogs.

The article shares that the store owners have big national plans -- they say they want the brand to be as well known as Victoria's Secret. They have plans for expansion.

Yet it was this sentiment that actually caught my attention.

The owner of the store, Lori Pacchiano says in the article that  "one of her goals is reclaiming the word "bitch" -- so that it only means female dog and not something derogatory toward women."

As a reference point, thank you wikipedia,  the  word bitch has been used as a derogatory slang word for a woman since the 1400's --so creating a brand that will take the derogatory out of the B word is something that I will monitor with great intent.

Given the noblesse of that mission and one that I wholeheartedly support ,I thought a quick check of their website was in order.

Maybe I was expecting a mission statement reclaiming the word bitch. Maybe I was expecting a blog that chastised musicians, public figures,and television shows that randomly called a woman  a bitch. Maybe I thought there would be something about  this campaign and how we could support it.

Instead, I found this:

At High Maintenance Bitch®, we believe in spoiling our pets and ourselves.  I hope you will think of new ways you can create energy and passion in your workplace and your life.
--HMB Co-Founder, Lori Pacchiano

WHOLESALE INQUIRIES:  CLICK HERE

 

 Image Credit:  Gilbert W. Arias/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Which Email Pulled Best

It is so off-putting to realize that a major business bruhaha has been brewing and you were blissfully unaware. So it is with the great email sign-off controversy.

Seems that over Thanksgiving Weekend the NYT ran an article called Yours Truly,Email Variations. The gist of the article is that the email sign-off is a landmine. Much of the focus of the article and the subsequent blog posts centers on BEST...seems that BEST is a popular signoff but offensive.

When Kim Bondy, a former CNN executive, e-mailed a suitor after a dinner date, she used one of her preferred closings: “Chat soon.” It was her way of saying, “The date went well, let’s do it again,” she said. She may have been the only one who thought that. The return message closed with the dreaded “Best.” It left her feeling as though she had misread the evening. “I felt like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of formal. I don’t think he liked me,’ ” she said, laughing. “A chill came with the ‘Best.’ ” They have not gone out since.

“Best” does have its fans, especially in the workplace, where it can be an all-purpose step up in warmth from messages that end with no sign-off at all, just the sender coolly appending his or her name. “I use ‘Best’ for all of my professional e-mails,” said Kelly Brady, a perky publicist in New York. “It’s friendly, quick and to the point.”

Because people read so much into a sign-off, said Richard Kirshenbaum, chief creative officer of the advertising firm Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, he has thought deeply about his preferred closing to professional correspondence, “Warmly, RK.” He did not want something too emotional, like “Love,” or too formal, like “Sincerely.” “ ‘Warmly’ fell comfortably in between,” he said. “I want to convey a sense of warmth and passion, but also be appropriate.”

Many many years ago I was having dinner with friends in L.A. and we were discussing something about Hispanic marketing.However, I didn't use the word Hispanic or Latino. I used another word that I thought was appropriate.

If you could have seen the look on my friends face when I said the word. They were aghast. I thought I was using the currently preferred word for people of Hispanic origins. It was evidently a slur.

So it is with Best. Here people thought they were being appropriate and smart and business savvy only to find they have evidently been offending people right and left.

When Jason Kottke of Kottke.org shared he often uses Best as a sign-off, he got 89 comments.

emdot says: I love "best" and have used it forever (as an abbreviation of all the best, which I also love). I find it kind of funny that people make judgments on other people based on the way they sign their email. Maybe it says more about the person passing judgment than the person signing the email. Wait, was that smarmy or douchebaggy of me?

M says: Okay, time to call the perky police... I usually sign off with some variation of: Have a great rest of the day, M or more frequently: Have a safe and relaxing weekend, M Or, if I don't know the person well, I stick with: Thanks, M

minxlj says: 'Regards' is the easiest solution - you can of course give everyone regards, and leave 'warmest regards' for the people you mean it to. And 'kind regards' always goes down well, certainly in business emails in the UK. Anything less formal can be taken as rude here, so it's best to not be too familiar until you know the person, then 'cheers' will suffice. » by minxlj on Dec 01, 2006 at 06:07 AM

Greta and David Munger of Cognitive Daily ran a Casual Friday Study on email sign-offs..complete with graphs. Their findings: When in doubt, stick with Thanks.It's just right.

And Thank You.

Image Credit: Found on Flickr member Carribeancricket's photos. It is the work of Hugh McLeod of Gapingvoid

Cartoons Drawn On The Back Of Business Cards.

This is cross-posted at Blogher.

Got Balls?

This is cross-posted at Blogher without the video

It's Friday. Enjoy. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about the trend for office workers to exchange their traditional chair with the oh so hip, oh so ergonomic Stability Ball. The bloggers were inspired. Sharing their own take with headlines I only wish I had written.

From The Sticky Notes of My Mind,What To Do If You Have Blue Balls In The Office

I once had a coworker who used an exercise ball as an office chair. When asked why he prefered sitting on a large, rotund ball rather than on an ergonomically correct piece of furniture, he’d answer, “I’m working on my core.” And it’s not like he’d just sit on it. There were times when I’d go into his office to prepare for a client call and he’d be bouncing and girating on his ball. It made me feel funny on the inside. This was particularly true in the instances when I could clearly see him, but not the ball behind his desk.

The Ergonomenon shares,  Ball Chairs Inspire ‘Ball Envy’

Nay-sayers complain that the ball is difficult to sit on for long periods, they are potentially dangerous because people can fall off them or trip over them, and that they are simply not replacements for adjustable chairs with arm and back support.

To this I say, they’re just scared.  The fact is, the more you sit on a ball, the easier it gets.  Your balance improves as a result, which ultimately could prevent a fall, say on a patch of ice or on the stairs.

It wasn't Lauren's headline that caught my attention. It is what she did with the exercise ball and the comment from a reader. .

so I get up and start bouncing the exercise ball again, trying to get it to fit under my legs like the basketball stars do and then we have a contest between the two of us to see who can stand on it in bare feet and then I throw it out the door down the hallway and then I take the scooter and go ride around the sales floor looking for people to harass...

Which caused bbElf(a.k.a. Panda) to say

Do you need a secretary? Seriously, 'cause that's one whole hell of a lot more fun than I'm having here...even with the cookies.