Three questions to ask before accepting a controversial client

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Have you ever been found yourself  presented with the opportunity to work for a client who might be controversial.

Recently, my company was asked to work for an organization that many would consider controversial. We struggled with whether we should accept the assignment and, ultimately chose to decline it.

Even though we encounter this type of situation many times in business, it is all too easy to become mired in the specifics of a situation and to lose sight of your longer term objectives.

So, as we deal with these kinds of issues, I’ve written down three questions that I think will always guide us to the right outcome. I’d like to share them with you and get your feedback on this approach and what you do in your own company when confronted with this type of situation.

Business should not be value-free; But it’s complicated

As the CEO of a company, I have to be concerned about the impact our roster of clients will have not only on our public image, but also on our self-image and our internal culture. People should spend their time working on things they believe in. They shouldn’t be compelled to work on assignments or for clients they disagree with.

In the 1980s and early nineties, the CEO of the firm I then worked for famously declared that we would not shy away from taking on controversial clients because “just as every person is entitled to a vigorous defence in court, they also deserve a vigorous defence in the court of public opinion.” Well, I disagreed with that position then and I disagree with it now. There are some bad people in life and they don’t deserve a vigorous defence – at least not from me.

But that’s easy. The “clearly bad” are at one extreme. But we don’t live life in the extremes. We live them in the mushy middle, in shades of gray.

We can’t expect everyone to agree with us or believe in the things we agree in. But we also can’t shy away from supporting a cause or belief that not everyone supports. If we did that, we’d lose ourselves in the depths of political correctness and we’d never do anything.

How do you decide whether to take on a client that may be controversial?

First, avoid the trap of believing that you have to make the decision on your own. I lead a company. But I also work as a team member in that company. The route to the right decision about accepting a potentially controversial client lies first in remembering that we all have a stake in this decision and involving more people than myself in the decision.

Once past this hurdle, I have three questions that will get you to the right outcome for our organization:

1) Do we support the objectives of the potential client as well as the way they go about attempting to achieve them?

The world is full of business opportunities. Why not look for those whose objectives and methods we applaud? Conventional management wisdom advises against grabbing every business opportunity which presents itself but which is off strategy. Similarly, why not focus on bringing in business from organizations and companies that you can easily support. In our case, ff can’t say with pride that we work for a client, we will walk away from the opportunity to work for them.

2) How will this affect the culture of your company?

The answer to the first question cannot be fully provided without reference to the entire organization. Are there people within your company who feel strongly about the potential client? Will it create division and alienation?

This doesn’t mean that anyone individual (including the CEO)  should have a veto. Don’t be afraid to have a vigorous internal discussion. It can lead to an understanding and respect of the different perspectives held by people. Reasonable people should be able to understand another’s point of view and respect that point of view.

Ultimately this is the issue on which management must make a call. Can the normal and healthy differences in opinion be accommodated or is this a situation in which the cultural cost will be too high? If the latter, take a pass on the potential client.

3) How will this be perceived by the external world?

This question comes last because, if you’ve answered the preceding two, you will be ready to weather the disapproval of those who disagree with your decision. And there will always be those that disagree. That’s the great thing about an open and liberal society. We hold different views and we are free to express them.

My objective is not to stop people from criticizing us. My objective is that we appear reasonable and reasoned in our defense of our decision. And if we do that, it will loop back into our internal culture

Bottom line

While we can’t eliminate controversy from attaching it to our businesses (unless we are prepared to be so nondescript and bland that we leave no footprint), by answering these three simple questions we can be true to our essential nature, build a stronger culture, and be ready to respond to comments from the outside world.

How do you handle this kind of situation?

I’d welcome your views on this. What practices do you follow in your company to manage potentially controversial situations?

You can't put the Delicious Genie back in the bottle

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This was the week that delicious died. For me and for many others.

Delicious was one of the very first social services that I discovered when I became interested in blogging. It was a true  pioneer. Delicious was my first working experience of social software that realized the full potential of folksonomy.  The genius of delicious was the introduction of the concept that I could attach as many tags to an item as I wanted, ensuring that I could recover that item at a later time by typing in a keyword that was meaningful to me in the context in which I thought of that item. which I found infinitely superior to traditional rigid taxonomies. (If you’re new to the concept, David Weinberger‘s Everything is Miscellaneous provides a great introduction to the opportunity that digitized data provides for us to organize information in ways that is meaningful to ourselves and the people with whom we have a community of interest.) Add to this the ability to share these tags with friends and co-workers and you had a tool that was unlike anything that had come before and instantly useful.

In many ways delicious is my online memory. I use it daily. I bookmark items for future reference in blog posts, in presentations, and when trying to make sense of the world.

When I saw the news of its impending demise, I realized that I couldn’t lose the data I’d collected in Delicious. So I looked for an alternative.

I wasn’t alone. Twitter and the blogosphere were full of messages about delicious alternatives. If the sheer volume of discussion is any indicator, delicious lost a huge number of users when the news of its impending demise spread.

Yahoo tried to put the genie back in the bottle with a post saying that the memo had been misinterpreted and that indeed Yahoo would find a new owner for delicious instead of shutting it down.

Sadly, I think the damage had already been done and loyal delicious users like myself discovered an alternative that actually offered many better features over a much loved service that Yahoo had allowed to languish and become a laggard instead of an innovator.

I’ve moved on, ported my Delicious tags into a new service, Diigo, and discovered I like it better. (More on Diigo tomorrow.)

Voice recognition software: finally ready for prime time

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Earlier this year, I posted about my discovery of the Dragon Dictation app for the iPad. I dictated a post directly into Dragon dictation on my iPad and then cut and pasted into Pro PR.ca.

Since that time, I’ve used Dragon on both my iPod Touch and iPad. If anything, I’ ve had even better results on my iPod Touch than on the iPad. But still, I do most of my writing on my PC and my notebook. So, when I saw that Nuance has released version 11 of their PC program, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I thought I’ d give it a try.

I last used a dictation program on my PC a decade ago. At that time, I found I needed to correct so many words that the dictation program just wasn’ t of any real benefit to me.

However, the newest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking absolutely blows me away. I’ ve been using it for the past two weeks. I don’ t think I’ m exaggerating to say that it is 99% accurate, maybe better. In fact, I’ m dictating this post using Dragon and it has made only two errors: it wrote ” NaturallySpeaking”  as two words, ” naturally speaking” and it wrote ” may be” instead of “maybe.” In both cases, it spelled these words correctly in this paragraph when I was more careful about my pronunciation.

Bottom line: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 achieves a degree of accuracy that makes it faster and more efficient to dictate first drafts of documents than to write them.

If you haven’ t looked at dictation software for your computer for the past few years, take a look at the current generation. Voice dictation finally is ready for prime time.

Inside PR Podcast: I want content that's relevant to me. How about you?

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I’m a big fan of podcasts. I listen to them in the car, at home, while I’m on the treadmill and on the subway. Thanks to podcasting, I can listen to my favorite programs when and where it’s convenient for me. But what’ s even better about podcasts is that I can find content that focuses on my interests. And my interests are much narrower than the general public’ s interests. This isn’t broadcasting. It’s content for me and my community.

Each week, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I record the Inside PR podcast. We talk about things that interest us as communications professionals who are also exploring the changes that social software and social networking have made possible in the ways that people find one another, form relationships and interact. We try to talk about what’ s really going on, not just what happened. So we look for the truths and trends that underlie the communications and technology developments of the week.

It’ s fun for us to share our thoughts. But it’ s even better when you tell us what you think. So, please do give us your ideas for what we should talk about on inside PR. You can reach us on our Inside PR podcast Facebook Group, by leaving a comment on the Inside PR blog, or by tweeting to @inside_PR.

Don’ t be a stranger. Don’ t be shy. Let us know what matters to you and what you would like Inside PR to talk about.

And because seeing is better than reading, here’s my video invitation to participate in setting the agenda for Inside PR.

Meet RichardAtDell at Third Tuesdays in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver

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RichardAtDell is coming to Canada next month to speak at Third Tuesdays in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver. We’ll lead off with Third Tuesday Toronto #TTT on Monday, November 8, Third Tuesday Ottawa #TTO on Tuesday, November 9, Third Tuesday Calgary #CTT on Wednesday, November 10 and Third Tuesday Vancouver #TTV on Thursday, November 11.

Dell is one of the best known and longest standing case studies of the successful use of social media. It might well not have turned out this way. In fact, Dell was one of the early examples of a company on the receiving end of viral criticism and anger. Rather than go into a shell or attack its critics, Dell chose to enter the social media discussion, learn from it, win friends, and gradually turn things around. Today, Dell uses social media for many purposesw, including to connect with customers, build brand and as a retail channel.

RichardAtDell, aka Richard Binhammer, has been from the outset one of the constants in Dell’s social media presence. I first experienced Richard’s outreach as far back as 2006 when he commented on a post on my blog in which I’d written about a presentation by Robert Scoble in which Scoble had recounted the story of Jeff Jarvis’ upset with Dell. Richard reached out to me at a time when my blog had relatively few subscribers, acknowledging their problems but asking me whether I’d be prepared to acknowledge the efforts they were making to listen and act upon what they were being told. I was blown away just by the fact that a company at the other end of the continent would pay attention to me, let alone actually acknowledge me by coming into my place, my blog, to have a discussion. And yes, that made me a fan of RichardAtDell and Dell’s approach to social media.

Well, it’s not 2006 anymore. A lot has changed. And RichardAtDell has been there to experience the evolution of social media first hand. As the saying goes, he’s forgotten more than many of us ever will learn.

I hope that you’ll join us at Third Tuesday to hear from one of the leading corporate social media practitioners as he talks with us about the journey he’s been on, the path we’re following, and where he sees things going in the future.

Look for details and registration info in the next few days on each of the Third Tuesday Ottawa #TTO, Third Tuesday Toronto #TTT, Third Tuesday Calgary #CTT, and Third Tuesday Vancouver #TTV websites.

Thank you to our sponsors.

Once again, I’d like to thank our sponsors – CNW Group, Rogers Communications, Radian6, and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Your sponsorship makes it possible for us to bring great speakers not just to Toronto, but to Third Tuesdays across the country. You make third Tuesday a truly Canadian affair.

To whet your appetite

If you’re not familiar with the Dell story and RichardAtDell, you can get a taste of what we’ll be talking about at Third Tuesday by watching this video. Enjoy.

A New President for Thornley Fallis & 76design

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Thornley Fallis and 76design have a new President: Keelan Green.

Keelan joined Thornley Fallis in 2002, just as the bottom was falling out of the tech industry. That was a tough time for the company. We shared our tech clients’ pain. And it put great demands and strain on our team.  This was when Keelan first showed his mettle. If a client needed a tight turnaround on something for Monday morning, Keelan could be counted on the pitch in over the weekend. If a piece of work was good, he’d look at it and make the changes necessary for it to be great work. Keelan always looked beyond the process of the work to focus on the results. And clients loved him. They came to the firm to work with him and they stayed for more.

It wasn’t just our clients who gravitated to Keelan. Even before he was appointed to a leadership position, other Thornley Fallis and 76design team members began to gather around him. After all, in a storm, you follow the person who you believe has a plan and the ability to get you home safely. That was Keelan from the start.

As time passed, we promoted Keelan through several positions. In every position, he excelled. As an Account Manager for some of our most important clients. As an Account Director and then as Vice President. And ultimately as Vice President and General Manager of the Ottawa offices of both Thornley Fallis and 76design.

In 2008, the economy entered recession. Keelan dug deep and brought our Ottawa office through the downturn with a minimum of bruises. As the economic free-fall ended and we hit the bottom of the cycle, he looked ahead and began to plan for the recovery. As a result of this leadership, our Ottawa office emerged from the recession stronger than it had entered it, with an expanded set of services and a larger client base. Growing out of a recession. It’s something we all want to do. It’s not easily done.

Now I’m asking Keelan to provide this type of leadership to the entire company. I’m delighted that he’s accepted the challenge. And I’m looking forward to working with him as he conquers new challenges and leads Thornley Fallis and 76design on to ever better things.

Finally, this is the kind of announcement I really love to make. Not just because it’s a good news announcement. But because it signals that we are being the kind of company we aspire to be – a company that attracts the very best people and then provides them with opportunities to grow personally and create a job they can truly be passionate about. Keelan’s growth and success with Thornley Fallis and 76design is a brilliant example of this vision in action.

So, this is a great day for our company. A step ahead for Keelan Green and a chance to celebrate our values.

Inside PR 2.07 – Martin has Energi & Gini gets smashed

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Inside PR 2.07 [ 29:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Martin Waxman and Gini Dietrich again join me for today’s episode of Inside PR after my solo effort last week.

This week, we have a chance to ask Martin about the just-announced merger of his firm, Palette PR, with Communications MECA to form a new company Energi PR.

We also discuss the reaction to Gini’s recent blog post in which she suggested that conference speakers shouldn’t show up in jeans. Many people feel strongly about this and they express their views, not always in polite terms.

Here are the complete shownotes.

0:28 Martin opens the show.

0:42 Joe brings up the G20 Summit and Martin and Joe discuss how it’ll effect Toronto and Public Relations agencies in the Toronto financial district.

3:03 Joe explains that the G20 Summit will have a negative impact on the business community.

3:43 Joe asks Gini about her bicycle accident she had last week.

5:45 Martin tells us about Energi PR.

15:32 Martin tells us how Darryl Salnero helped with shaping Energi PR.

18:19 Joe asks Gini about a recent blog post that got a lot of feedback – both positive and negative.

28:14 Martin wraps up the show.

Thanks to Inside PR’s Producer, Yasmine Kashefi, for editing and producing the audio as well as the shownotes.

Canadian PR execs talk about why they merged their firms

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Are you interested in the business of PR? Then, you’ll want to listen to this week’s Inside PR podcast.

Late last night, the news broke on Twitter that two Canadian PR agencies, Montreal-based Communications MECA and Toronto-based Palette PR, have sealed a deal to merge in a new firm, EnergiPR.

I had the good luck to be at a breakfast meeting this morning with Esther Buchsbaum and Carol Levine, the principals of MECA. They agreed to step out of the room for an interview about the merger, their motivation in doing it and how they made it happen.

By coincidence, the next edition of the Inside PR podcast was due to be published today. And both of my co-hosts, Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman, were unable to participate in this week’s edition. So, I lucked out. At the last minute, I found the content for this week’s Inside PR – and I was able to offer the first interview with the principals in the new firm.

OK. Now, how’s this for burying the lead? The other principal in the newly merged firm is none other than the very Martin Waxman who co-hosts Inside PR.

Listen to today’s Inside PR podcast for the first news of the merger. And tune in again next week when Martin will be back behind the microphone and will add his perspective.

Consumer Privacy Consultations: Children's Online Privacy

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The final panel at today’s Privacy Commissioner’s Consultation dealt with children’s online privacy.

The panelists were:

  • Dr. Jacquelyn Burkell, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario
  • Catherine Connors, HerBadMother.com
  • Sara Grimes, PhD Candidate with the school of Communication at Simon Fraser University
  • Matthew Johnson, Media Education Specialist, Media Awareness Network

Colin McKay, Director of Research, Education and Outreach, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, moderated.

I’ve captured the highlights of the discussion around this panel using CoverItLive.

Children’s Online Privacy

Thornley Fallis is looking for a Leader for our Toronto office

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The recession is over. Hurrah. And our business is growing. Hurrah again.

Recessions are hard on everybody. But they can be especially tough on the leaders who have to make the decisions that affect others. It can be like carrying the burden of not only your own anxieties, but the anxieties of everyone you work with. Sometimes, you can just be so ground down by the stress and burden of carrying a team through the bad times that you feel that the only way you can get your energy back is with a complete change of scene.

That’s happened to us. The General Manager of our Toronto office was recruited away from us. We’re sorry to see her go. Not only was she very good at her job, but she was one of the nicest people you could ever want to work with and a friend. We’ll miss her.

Now we have an opening on our management team. And we need to move quickly to fill it.

We’re looking for a General Manager for our Toronto office.

Do you know this person? Or might it be you?

What does our general manager do?

Our General Manager will:

Lead a talented team of consultants whose expertise spans social media, traditional public relations, Web design and development, and advertising. You’ll ensure that they have what they need on a day by day basis to succeed and you’ll ensure that we’re delivering real results for our clients and pursuing opportunities to grow our business.

Set an example of excellence in your communications skills and personal conduct. Be a person who inspires by example.

Mentor and guide the team members. This includes developing an annual career plan with each employee and conducting progress reviews. We want our employees to grow with us. We count on our General Manager to make sure that everyone is thinking about what they want out of their professional careers and that they are working toward attaining that.

Work with our CFO to establish business targets and ensure that we achieve them. A business has to be successful in order to provide a bright future for its employees.

What kind of person are we looking for?

You have already achieved success in your career as a communicator. You have demonstrated your leadership skills through responsibility for a team and a business unit.

You are a successful consultant, having already demonstrated that you understand client needs and that you can organize a team to meet those needs and deliver creative solutions that deliver real results.

You have established relationships with senior executives who lead the communications and marketing functions in their companies. And those people want to work with you again. In fact, you’re confident that when they hear you’re working with Thornley Fallis, they’ll want to talk with you about you and your new team can help them.

You inspire loyalty. The people who work with you love working with you. They know that you care about them and that you’ll put the needs of the team ahead of your own needs.

Are you Thornley Fallis’ next Toronto General Manager?

Does it sound like a job you could excel at and that you’d be passionate about? If so, connect with me on LinkedIn or DM me on Twitter.