The NY TIMES just published the story today along with a photo of the ambassador, the secretary of defense and the general in charge of Afghanistan.  All three seemed to be smiling at the slide, or so the story insinuated.

I remember a Marine general once displayed a similar drawing, except his was drawn on a transparency and it didn’t require someone else sitting behind a computer drawing hazardous duty pay and drawing silly pictures like the one below.

Let’s get real and fight the good fight instead of giving our troops busy work.  If there’s no work to be done, send them home to their families.

-          Financial Investment Firms need an organizational or “Business Page”.  This is the official Facebook site for the business and should be ‘friended’ by all employees of the firm with their profile. 

-          The goal here should be to acquire as many “Fans” as possible.

-          This is the site where official updates of the business are posted, updating your “fans”… to include:

• Upcoming events; open houses; social hour; conference…
• Blog postings, related articles, podcasts and videos…
• Pics of the most recent media training, company outing, or birthday celebration…
• Links are important.  Links to sources of information, links to bloggers, links that are of value to current and prospective clients.

-          Financial Investment Firms will then need to move onto the creation of a “Group Page”.  This is specifically targeted to the audience we want. 

• This is the water cooler where topics related, but not necessarily directly related to the business can be discussed.
• This is a great site to eavesdrop on your fans discussing different topics and get an idea of what your potential and/or current customers are thinking and discussing.  Pay particular attention to gripes, moans, and complaints… These types of comments should be looked upon as a gift from your customer.  It provides insight into a potential future loss, which you are now able to thwart and keep as a customer by addressing those needs before culminating to a point of frustration.
• It’s important to facilitate in a group environment and not attempt to drive the conversation.  Allow it to travel its own course.  This is the only way you’ll be able to acquire accurate data.

LinkedIn:

-          This is a professional site for business professionals to network and “link-in” with each other for opportunities, answers to questions, jobs, and for staying abreast of the business “buzz” of the day.

-          Instead of fans, you have links, which in turn provide you even more secondary, then tertiary links to potential clients or business partners.

• The most interesting part of this fascinating Web site is where you can see who’s been looking at your profile.  For the most part, it indicates the line of work this person is in, and in some rare occurrences, it indicates the searcher by name.

1. On occasion, it’s exciting to see who’s been looking at your profile.

• Credibility is the name of the game when it comes to the social media landscape and a great way to garner this is through LinkedIn’s Answers/Questions.

1. You can ask a question, then post it for the next week or two to see what kind of responses you get.
2. Or, you can answer already posted questions.  If your answer is deemed one of the better responses, the person asking the question may stamp you with “the best answer” label, thus marking you as an expert in this particular field.

Twitter:

-          This is the most egregiously misused tool in the social media toolbox.  What began as a 140-character update (a tweet) on the most important and pertinent issues of the day, has turned into a social update tool to inform the masses that you are in line at the hot dog stand and it is taking too long.

-          “Tweets” should be focused on your area of expertise or a specific target-topic for your audience.

-          Every tweet should set you apart as an expert and thus a resource for your audience.

-          Remember not to sell.  This only turns off your potential clients.  As long as you provide information deemed pertinent to their needs, they will eventually come around.

-          Step 1.  Set up a profile and pay particular attention to “Bio”.  This will often determine whether someone wants to follow you or not.  A quick, but interesting sound bite, but once again, don’t sell yourself here or anywhere else on Twitter.

-          Step 2.  Set up a company profile and have every (this is important that EVERY single employee “follow” the company site, otherwise, potential clients will be wondering why…) employee follow it.

-          Step 3.  Begin wandering the hinterlands of Twitterville.  I.e., look up some prominent companies in similar lines of business and see who’s following them.  Then, follow them!

-          Step 4.  Monitor what’s being said by those you’re following.  What are the topics?  The buzz?  The latest news?  What stories are they linking and retweeting?  All this will direct you in the right direction, not to mention as soon as you begin tweeting your own expert opinion in the matter, tweeters will begin following you.

Networking, whether in the real world or in the social media realm takes time and effort.  The bad news is, it’s tough to get started.  Just as if you were visiting a foreign country for the first time, you will not understand the language, the culture, nor be in the right time zone.  The same can be said of the social media realm.  The language is often confusing, the mannerisms are difficult to understand, and your head is spinning with the traffic going back and forth.

Take your time and take small steps at first.  Start with Facebook, then move onto LinkedIn, and finally to Twitter.

We have enough food on this planet to feed everyone, yet our distribution capacity has not caught up yet.

How can obesity be an issue here in the states while children are starving?

What do you think?  

Do we need to genetically engineer our crops for increased production?  

Our fish are quickly disappearing from our oceans and the fish-farms are creating so much pollution we may be causing more damage than good.

So the question to ponder is this:  How do we feed the rest of the world?

Chip and Dan Heath, in their book SWITCH, describe the emotional tug as the superior force in our lives and compares that to an elephant being directed by the analytical man sitting atop it.  You can tell the elephant that not wearing a seatbelt is dangerous; that wearing a seatbelt may save your life; and that it is against the law to not wear the belt.  But ultimately, the elephant will do what the elephant wants to do. 

No matter how many times I tell my children to buckle up, every time I look into the back seats I see them scurrying to avoid the $1 dollar per infraction fee I have implemented (to no effect) for failure to wear the seatbelt.  Perhaps if I had “tugged” on their emotional beings, rather than their intellectual I might have succeeded. Perhaps this video will do it not only for my family, but for yours as well.  Buckle up!

All this, while disturbing at times has yet to reach the threshold of panic… until now.

The Los Angeles Times cover story on April 21, 2010 (pictured below) is evidence that we have a problem.  It seems the editorial staff have lost their dictionaries.  Spell-check has gone out the window and the editors are out to lunch. 

I find it particularly ironic that not only did they spell the LA Mayor’s name correctly, but the very word they misspelled was “crediblity”.

Measuring your Social Media ROI

PR Newswire is but one example of how organizations can mine, filter and extract useful data.  Check it out at http://biturl.net/?9sfxmm

Click to VOTE!

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A Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.

What I do care about is the horrible manner in which Tiger is managing his communications during this time.  He further fueled the situation by allowing his lawyer to dictate what he should say to the media and the police.  “It’s a family matter…” is a legalistic move that will damage Tiger’s chances at mitigating this issue and moving on with his life and career.

Here’s what he should’ve done:

1)      Tell the truth.  Celebrities don’t get to have secrets.

2)      Tell the truth.  This isn’t Napa Valley and bad news doesn’t get better with age. 

3)      Tell the truth.  Formulate a communication strategy, execute the plan, and stick with it.

4)      Then, tell the truth.  Get out in front of the media and tell them what happened, again and again until they get sick of the same story.

5)      Relegate your lawyer to legal matters, not communications.

By relying on lawyers, you may stay out of jail, however, life can continue to be miserable…, profits can continue to tank…, and worst of all, your reputation or your company’s reputation can be ruined for life.

A Communication Counselor’s involvement is absolutely necessary during times when the media is on a feeding frenzy. 

Unfortunately, the “Tiger Woods” brand has now been inflicted by the media and its audiences.

Fortunately, the American audience is a forgiving public. 

Tiger: communication takes work – hire someone.  SOON!

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A Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.

The teachers are well educated with most holding at least a master’s degree from an accredited school. From what I can tell, most have been teaching for a minimum of 10-15 years if not longer. 

So why is it so difficult to communicate with them?

I wrote a simple email to one teacher requesting information about my child’s yearbook today.  Here’s the email I sent and received… (of course, you’ll need to read from the bottom up.)

Danny Chung,

You can send them to me and i will pass them to the appropriate student, A***e B**d thanks P R*****h

 >>> <Danny.Chung@******.***.mil> 11/30/2009 12:18 PM >>>

Mr. R*****h,

I have submitted a form for a personalized “dedication” page in the yearbook and would like some information as to the details of when and to whom I should submit the photos.

 Thank you,

-Danny Chung

As you can see, the teacher didn’t bother with a salutation, proper punctuation, nor any semblance of sentence structure.  Most importantly, he fails to address my request for “details”.  He simply writes back as quickly as possible with little regard for what I am requesting.  This is a complete failure to communicate!  And this is not an isolated incident.  From the front office, to the counselors, and to the very teachers, whether speaking on the telephone or by email, this example is about as good as it gets.

This is a rudimentary skill that is clearly lacking in our public schools.  How are we to expect our students to go out and get jobs if the very teachers educating them cannot lead by example?

More to the point of searching for that “dream job”, remember what you write can have serious consequences.  Whether they are positive or negative depends entirely upon you.

How will you brand yourself?

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A Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.