When it comes to ethics, stand your ground

• •

There’s been quite a debate on the Inside PR podcast about why public relations practitioners rank near the bottom of any list of trusted professions (usually right alongside lawyers and politicians.)

The discussion started with a question in episode 101 asked by Rayanne Langdon . It’s carried on over several episodes. And yes, I’ve contributed my 2 cents to it along the way .

Bottom line for me: PR should not reference the legal maxim that every person has the right to a defence in court and argue that "every client deserves public relations representation." No they don’t. Some people just do bad things. And the best public relations advice to them is to own up and make good.

There are industries that refuse to do this. They play for time, using the profits from their morally dubious activities to pave the way for them to transition their companies into other industries. Yes, I’m thinking tobacco. And I abhor the fact that we allow these companies to continue to produce something that incontestably kills people every single day. My view is that they do not deserve public relations counsel and Terry Fallis (who shares this view) and I have refused assignments from tobacco companies when they have come calling.

So, am I claiming that I have the key to good ethics. Heck no. But I like the argument that Julie Rusciolelli has advanced . Every person should be prepared to state their reasons for accepting (or not accepting) a client assignment. Not everyone may agree with the reasons. But over time we will respect people who clearly and honestly argue their positions. And we will also be able to identify and isolate the bad apples, ensuring that they don’t contaminate the entire PR industry.

OK. So that’s easy for me to say. I own my own PR company. The only person I have to answer to is myself. (Well, not quite. I actually have to answer to every employee as she/he decides every morning whether they want to work for my company. But that’s a digression.)

Rayanne Langdon, who you may recall started the Inside PR discussion, has posted a comment on Michael Allison’s post on this issue. Rayanne’s comment:

I’ve already heard stories from some of my classmates that make me cringe. But, I guess I’m the stickler for ethics–being the one who started the IPR discussion. Everyone hates me for it! Hah.

Thankfully, I don’t feel I’ve been put in any compromising situations yet, but I don’t know what I would have done if I was. As bad as it sounds, it seems almost rude to stand your ethical ground and refuse work at this point. Do you know what I mean?

I know how Rayanne feels. It’s tough to be in a situation in which you feel you are at odds with people who have some authority over you. So, here’s my advice to Rayanne and other young PR practitioners:

  • If someone asks you to do something that strikes you as ethically dubious, state your view clearly. Ask the other person to respond. Consider their response. Ask for time to think about it.
  • If you come to see the other person’s point of view, then you may find that you have learned something and you can do what they’ve requested.
  • If, on the other hand, you still feel that you cannot do what has been asked of you, stand your ground! The good people in life don’t compromise their fundamental principles. Once you start to slide, it’s hard to regain solid ground. So, don’t start.

That’s the advice I’d offer. If young PR practitioners (or anyone for that matter) follow it, I’ll respect them for it. And if the people in my firm ever find me offside with the views I’ve stated here, I hope they’ll call me out on it.

Third Tuesday Ottawa is back

• • ,

We’re back. After several months hiatus (darn that burst appendix!), we’re restarting the Third Tuesday Ottawa social media meetups.

It seems that almost every day, we hear an announcement of a new social media tool, social network or open standard that the inventors tell us we soon won’t be able to live without. At this month’s Third Tuesday Ottawa, we have a panel of Colin McKay , Ryan Anderson and Brendan Hodgson to lead a discussion of which social media tools are most useful and which are just code looking for a reason to be.
So, if you’re confused by all the shiny new objects and want to know which you should use or, better yet, you want to share with others your views on which are useful and which don’t make the grade, join us at the next Third Tuesday Ottawa on May 5. (Yes, it’s a MONDAY. But that’s the day we could get the speakers and book the ClockTower.).

We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

As always, special thanks to our sponsors, CNW Group . CNW has supported us through this entire season – and their contribution has enabled us to keep Third Tuesdays as free events for the social media community.

Freshbooks: Don’t talk about the product. Talk about what it means to people.

• • , , , ,

Freshbooks has been very successful in establishing an online community of fans, customers and promoters. Third Tuesday Toronto moderator Michael O’Connor Clarke found 1,664 blog posts mentioning Freshbooks. He asks, how has this Toronto-based startup cultivated this level of awareness and attention?

Says Freshbooks’ Saul Colt : “We have a really good product. But we don’t push our product…. We want to tell the stories of our customers and make everything about the company compelling. … We try to push the unique values of our company, the different sort of things that we’re doing and that’s the kind of thing that gets people talking.”

“Invoicing isn’t the sexiest thing in the world. But there are amazing stories that come out of how we are saving people time, how we are making their lives easier. … We’re actually letting people do the thing that they love doing. When you were a kid, no one dreamt of doing invoices. You dreamt of being a PR person, or being a superhero or whatever. So, we’re actually letting you do that stuff and we’re saving you all this time while you’re doing it. We’re giving you your life back. We’re giving you your job back. So that you can do what you actually want to do. And that is why people talk about us, because it’s much more than just a product.”

Later in the evening, O’Connor Clarke asked Michael McDerment to tell The Triscuits story. Brief version: A resident of Fiji responded to a blog post McDerment had written about Triscuits, indicating that he can’t get Triscuits on Fiji, but that he’d love to. McDerment sent him a box of Triscuits. The fellow on Fiji wrote a blog post about McDerment’s gesture which was picked up by other bloggers – and Freshbooks ended up being talked about positively because of it.

Says McDerment, “It was born out of doing just what seemed natural. How would you like to be treated? Well, this is how.”

Adds Colt: “It’s really about being authentic. … Stories like that you do not because you’re hoping it will grow into something. You do it because it’s part of what you are. And that’s really part of the personality of Freshbooks. … And that’s also why a lot of people talk about us, because the company actually has a personality as opposed to a faceless, nameless corporation.”

Interested in reading more about what Freshbooks’ Michael McDerment and Saul Colt have to say? You may want to take a look at: Freshbook Execs listen and respond to customers .

Freshbooks execs listen and respond to customers

• • , , , ,

What’s one of the secrets to success for a startup company fine tuning its offering to respond to customer needs? At Third Tuesday Toronto , Michael McDerment and Saul Colt of Freshbooks said that the top executives of the company regularly take support calls from customers.

This was “born out of necessity,” says Freshbooks founder McDerment. “I read the first three and a half years of every support request that came through. We were a pretty small company at that time.” Now that the company is growing, new support systems are being put in place. But, McDerment insists that the involvement of senior executives in support calls “is conscious and it is something we’re going to hold on to. … Just to ground you, it’s huge. Because otherwise, you start thinking, ‘we don’t need to change the products. We just need to sell more.’ …“ I’m doing more support now than I ever used to because I’m afraid of losing that touch.”

Here’s the clip. (Yes, the lighting is bad. But the content of what Michael and Saul were saying was just so strong, I really wanted to share it. We’ll get better lighting for future Third Tuesday events.)

But execs aren’t expected to be up to speed on technical issues, are they? How does Freshbooks ensure that their execs have the technical knowledge to respond to the support calls they take? Says McDerment, “For the most part, tech support for us is answering simple questions and holding people’s hands. … We build teams … a marketing person, a development person, a management person all doing support on the same day. So they get to spend time together, communicate, collaborate, get things done, get all the answers within a team.”

Now, you may be sceptical about whether the company actually lives this every day. Well, spontaneous validation was provided by Connie Crosby , a Freshbooks client, who spoke up to offer her story about how Saul Colt had responded to her support request late on a weekend night.

Impressive.

I’ll post more Freshbooks at Third Tuesday Toronto clips over the next week.

Freshbooks at Third Tuesday Toronto video series

• • , , , ,

Freshbooks is an online invoicing and time-tracking service that is making book-keeping and invoice preparation a lot easier for small businesses.

Freshbooks Founder Michael McDerment and Saul Colt , Head of Magic (yep, that’s what his business card says) recently gave the Third Tuesday Toronto participants an insiders’ view of how they have built this Web 2.0 startup.

In the next series of posts, I’m going to publish video excerpts from their presentation, each of which has been edited to capture a single topic or theme. I think you’ll find Michael and Saul’s clips chock full of good ideas and tips for setting up a successful small business and harnessing social media to promote it and connect with users.

Fairmont Hotels wins my loyalty through great customer service

• • , , ,

I travel more than I’d like to and I stay too way too many nights at hotels. Like every other frequent traveller, I know what it’s like to be stared through, made to feel like an anonymous widget being throughput at the security line, in the airport, on the plane.

But Fairmont Hotels delighted me tonight when, out of the blue, they upgraded me to a suite. Not just any suite, but the Prime Minister’s Suite. Now they’ve got a customer for life.

I stay at Fairmont Hotels because they were once a Canadian chain that traced its lineage back to CP Hotels. And they have some of the most unique properties in North America. All of the great old railroad hotels in Canada. The Chateau Frontenac . Banff Springs . Lake Louise . A few years ago, CP Hotels merged with Fairmont and picked up properties like the Copley Plaza in Boston and the Fairmont San Francisco . Yes, they aren’t the trendy properties that people flock to for something new. But they have something special. Every one of these hotels has character.

And Fairmont has worked hard to achieve a level of customer service that matches the architecture of their hotels. For the past two days, I was at the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver. And from the time I checked in through every meal to check out, I had the feeling that people actually cared about whether I was happy at their hotel. The Waterfront’s employees make it a special place by acting special. They really seem to like working at the Fairmont and they project a sense of pride in the hotel and the job they do there. Yes, it’s intangible. But I truly feel it.

So, that brings me to tonight. I flew from Vancouver to Toronto. And because I had a morning meeting, I could only take a mid day flight. All the direct flights were full. So, I had to route through Calgary. That means 8 hours with a connection. A long day after a meeting and an arrival after 10PM in Toronto.

(The fact that the first news I heard when I stepped into a taxi was that my hometown Ottawa Senators had just completed one of the greatest NHL chokes of all time by being eliminated in four straight games from the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs by Pittsburgh only added to my sense that this was one of those days…)

But when I pulled myself out of the taxi and went to the registration desk of the Fairmont Royal York my day changed completely.

First of all, Fabio Gamberdella, who frequently checks me in when I arrive at the hotel (Fairmont, you’ve got a great employee in Fabio) told me that my room has been upgraded from the standard room I’d reserved. That’s nice. (And it’s even nicer that Fabio addresses me by name and actually remembers me.)

But when I arrived at my room, I discover that I haven’t just been upgraded to a nicer room. I’ve been upgraded to the Prime Minister Suite. Let me say that again. The Prime Minister Suite. Nice. More than nice. Spectacular.

Fairmont didn’t need to do this. I was staying in one of the lowest priced rooms in the hotel on my corporate rate. So, I’m not exactly a high roller.

Fairmont could have simply left the room empty tonight and put me in the type of room I’d reserved. But they didn’t. And that was very, very smart of them.

Many other businesses would simply decide that because the higher value unit had not rented, they would simply leave it empty and deliver to the customer exactly what he had paid for.

But Fairmont has a database. And they know that I stay with them over 90 nights a year. And tonight Fairmont made me feel special. And that’s worth a lot. It’s definitely earned my loyalty for some time to come.

Now, the cynic would say that Fairmont should do a lot more for a frequent traveller who spends more than one in four nights every year at their hotels. And they do. Of course, I’m a member of their President’s Club frequent frequent guest program. And I receive all the privileges and perks that their marketing material promises.

But what was so special about tonight was that the upgrade was unasked for. Unexpected. And announced to me by Fabio, an employee who treated me like someone he recognizes.

Why aren’t more businesses smart like this in the way they treat their best customers?

And so that you know what I’m talking about, here’s a video that conveys how I feel about Fairmont tonight.

Terry Fallis talks about The Best Laid Plans and the Leacock Medal shortlist

• • , ,

Terry Fallis, the Fallis in Thornley Fallis, isn’t content just to be a successful public relations executive. No, he feels the need to scratch his creative itch in others ways. Most notably, by writing, publishing and promoting The Best Laid Plans, a political novel set in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

And clearly he not only writes, but he writes well. The Best Laid Plans has been nominated for the Leacock Medal for humour.

Terry took some time to talk to me about the experience of writing The Best Laid Plans and using social media to promote it and what the Leacock nomination means to him. Some of the things we talked about:

  • How did he manage to write a novel and keep up his very demanding work commitments? Writing at night, Saturday mornings and on airplanes. (Boy, I wish I had his discipline.)
  • For those of us who know Terry, we shouldn’t be surprised to see elements of Terry in the two principal characters of the novel. He drew on his own experience and character traits to construct these two very believable, fully realized characters.
  • How does a first time novelist get his novel published and discovered by an audience? By self publishing and using social media to promote it. Terry podcast the novel – reading it one chapter at a time in 20 episodes. He hosted the podcast on terryfallis.com and discovered that readers talked to him about the novel. And in fact, some created promotional content, including pictures of themselves in front of state capitals in Melbourne, Boston, Austin, Ottawa and elsewhere.
  • What has the shortlist for the Leacock Medal done for him? Well, no movie offers yet. But, one of Canada’s more prominent literary agents, Beverley Slopen, has agreed to represent him. And it looks hopeful that the novel will be picked up by a mainline publishing house.

You can watch the interview with Terry below. It lasts about 10 minutes.

Inside PR live at Third Tuesday Toronto

• • , , , ,

The next Inside PR podcast will have a distinctly different sound to it – the hum and crackle of a live audience.

Terry Fallis, David Jones and Inside PR panelists Martin Waxman, Julie Rusciolelli and Keith McArthur recorded Episode 106 at Third Tuesday Toronto. And the room was packed with members of the Toronto social media community who participated in the episode, asking questions, offering comments and generally cheering on the production.

Episode 106 will be posted next Tuesday. To whet your appetite for the complete show, here’s a video segment of the panelists setting up and opening the podcast. The lighting is poor and from the rear (audio producers don’t always set up the room with video in mind.) But one thing you can see is that the only apparent element of advance scripting is David Jones reading the opening sequence from notes in his Moleskin. They really do make this stuff up as they record it.

FriendsRoll and TopLinks at DemoCamp Ottawa

• • , , ,

FriendsRollTopLinksSteve Lounsbury, Julie Haché and I will be presenting FriendsRoll and TopLinks at DemoCampOttawa8. This will be our first public presentation of these plug ins. So, we’re hoping for some good feedback on both the concept and how we could improve the implementation.

DemoCamp PresenterThe other presentations include: chide.it, LoyaltyMatch, GlobeEx Pro, Trade Wars Rising, DevShop and FaveQuest. Thanks are due to Ian Graham and the other organizers who are making it possible for the Ottawa tech/startup community to gather and celebrate innovation.

If you’re in Ottawa on the evening of March 31, come out to DemoCamp and join in the discussion.

Read More about FriendsRoll and TopLinks:

The BlogRoll Reinvented – FriendsRoll and TopLinks

Launching FriendsRoll and TopLinks

FriendsRoll and TopLinks Case Study Part 1

A new twist on an old scam?

• • , ,

I received this in my Gmail inbox:

Dear Joseph Thornley,

Good day sir. I am a newly signed up member with you meetup.I am into software development for bloggers and podcasters for the past 10 years.I saw you group and its activities i was interested and decided to join to make a change and a growth.

I own a small website called [xyz].

We have a web based service that will be ready for beta testing
early next week. It is geared towards website operators and
bloggers in the US and Canada. What this service does, is reads
the text in a blog or website, by placing a badge on the users
site, where visitors can listen to the audio or download it.

Our main objective is to help podcasters and blogers to make money for their work and talent.we have been sponsored by a non-profit organisation so we charge no body who signs up with us.

All you have to do is for your members to provide me their profile url in your meetup group when they sign up .they are to send it to [zyx] or [zyxw] .

You will recieve the sum of $10 per person who signs up. Your podcasters or bloggers will recieve $500 for every blog or podcast they publish in that website : [xyz].

note: they must sent their meetup URL from your meetup webpage
to either of those above e-mails after they sign up to the
website.if not they will not be considered and you will not be
paid.because its from the i will know the number that signed up
to pay your money.

You can inform them today.you have one of the biggest blogging
meetup group in Torronto.So we choosed you group to benefit
from this.The offer last for 5 days after which signing up will
charge a fee.But if you sign up now you and your members who
sign up will not be charged.

This offere has been granted also to some USA blogging groups.
I look forward to see you there.

best Regards,
Eric.

The spelling and syntax errors look suspiciously similar to correspondence I’ve been receiving from a banker in Nigeria asking for help in moving his millions out of the country.

Is this a new twist on an old scam?