Tag Archives: transparency

McDonald’s transparency over burger photo shoot raises questions

Posted on June 26, 2012 by gbaron

Transparency is a good thing, right? But what if that transparency is about how you “doctor” photos to make your products look better than they really are? The marketing manager of McDonald’s Canada did a noble thing in today’s world … Continue reading →

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Penn State and Herman Cain–why hope is hopeless

Posted on November 14, 2011 by gbaron

I follow the news like others, looking for crises to comment on. I haven’t blogged about Penn State’s problems, just because, well, everyone else was and the lessons seem so obvious. But, perhaps an even more obvious lesson is that … Continue reading →

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How to embarrass the embarasser, or how transparency turns the tables

Posted on October 3, 2011 by gbaron

Say you are a NGO heavily involved in political activity. Someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum wants to discredit you–obviously you are being effective. So they hire a research firm to dig out embarrassing details and the … Continue reading →

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Trolling, toxic talk and the challenges of transparency

Posted on December 2, 2010 by gbaron

Thanks to Dave Statter of statter911 who alerted me to this outstanding op-ed piece in NYT by Facebooks’ design manager Julie Zhuo about the challenges the tech community faces regarding trolls. Trolls are those mean, nasty horrible creatures that lurk … Continue reading →

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Washington Post and Dave Weigel teach lesson about emails

Posted on June 25, 2010 by admin

Dave Weigel, a blogger for the Washington Post lost his job today. No big story. He was hired as a conservative blogger (increasingly called journalists) because the Post was criticized by conservatives of not understanding their thinking. He was fired … Continue reading →

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Will Google pull out of China? A clash of cultures that may apply to you.

Posted on January 12, 2010 by admin

I posted today at emergencymgmt.com about this important issue. It highlights not just freedom of speech issues, but the whole value and culture clash of transparency vs. secrecy. To that end, it is highly relevant for crisis communicators and their … Continue reading →

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Three more examples of social media policies–Kodak, Intel, IBM

Posted on October 6, 2009 by admin

Social media policies are a big issue today. They are fraught with danger. One, because the culture of the internet demands transparency and openness to incredible degrees, but the culture also seems to celebrate anger, rudeness, crudeness, vulgarity and general … Continue reading →

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Dominos explains its response to the YouTube video crisis

Posted on August 17, 2009 by admin

Tim McIntyre of Dominos Pizza explains in the PRSA Strategist article how Dominos responded to the video posted by a couple of idiotic employees on YouTube. This event helped deliver the message to corporate leaders better than almost anything I … Continue reading →

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EPA struggling with transparency too–an email faux pas

Posted on July 30, 2008 by admin

Here’s a dilemma: one of the cardinal rules of preparing an organization for a crisis is to train the media spokesperson and train those who are not the spokespeople to “refer and defer” as my friend Chuck Wolf explains. But … Continue reading →

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Communication strategy for a transparent world

Posted on June 13, 2008 by admin

I am amazed at some of the discussions about communication strategy–even among top communicators at top level corporations and organizations. One question frequently is do we prepare a holding statement or do we issue a release? In other words, do … Continue reading →

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