Archive for the ‘Worth Reading’ Category
Worth Reading, Feb 27, 2012
We’re back from a Presidents Day break last week (and, well, for me from being very under the weather as well).
- Pew Research on Privacy: The Pew Internet and American Life Project released new data on social network users and privacy, “Privacy management on social media sites.” The report notes, ”Profile “pruning” is on the rise. Deleting unwanted friends, comments and photo tags [has grown] in popularity.”
- Pinterest and Copyright: While Pinterest is continuing to grow in adoption, questions about its ability to manage copyright issues are also rising. See: “Is Pinterest a Haven for Copyright Violations?,” “Pinterest’s uneasy relationship with copyright law: what happens next” and “New code lets websites opt-out of Pinterest.”
- Twitter and Rumors: Two interesting pieces on the intersection of Twitter and rumors or misinformation. “Twitter and Death Hoaxes, Alive and Sadly, Well,” from the New York Times; and from The Guardian, a fascinating interactive look at how specific rumors spread on Twitter during the UK riots last year, “Riot rumours: how misinformation spread on Twitter during a time of crisis.”
- New NPR Ethics Handbook: Craig Silverman at Poynter reviewed NPR’s new Ethics Handbook, “NPR handbook offers accuracy tips for all news orgs, including ‘errors are inevitable.’”
- China and Social Media: Nieman Journalism Lab reviewed a fairly new site that draws news from social media within China called Tea Leaf Nation, “Tea Leaf Nation: A look at China through a social media lens.”
- China and Human Rights: This is a worth listening, but if you didn’t hear the This American Life episode in January with Mike Daisey, “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” it’s recommended. (Part of the episode is excerpted from Daisey’s live show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” running in NYC currently at the Public Theater).
Worth Reading, February 13, 2012: Other People’s Reflections on China
This is my first post since the Logos Institute Blog began its weekly “what we’re reading” series.
I haven’t been reading as much lately as I usually do, because I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my next book, about which you’ll hear much more in the coming months.
But when I’ve read it has mostly been building upon my reflections on China by paying attention to what others with far more experience there are saying.
An excellent starting point for anyone interested in understanding China from the perspective of the United States is Henry Kissinger’s On China. This first-hand account from the nation’s architect of the 1972 Opening to China is both a fascinating read and a good guidebook to the seminal moments in China’s and the United States’ increasingly important relationship.
But to really understand how China got from 1972 to the present, from a Chinese perspective, the indispensable read is Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel. The author is Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard. He took a break from teaching to spend time in the CIA in the 1990s as the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia. His voluminous and deeply-researched book includes private and Party papers, interviews with family members and participants at major events, and a deep understanding of the day-to-day workings of the key players.
It’s particularly interesting (and both fun and scary) to read Deng’s accounts of his meetings with Henry Kissinger side-by-side with Kissinger’s. The book also places those meetings into a Chinese context and shows how the U.S. mis-calculated significantly again and again in its relationships with China — from the risk of Chinese intervention in the Korean war to China’s relationship with Vietnam. China invaded Vietnam soon after we left, worried about Vietnam’s likely invasion of Cambodia and fearing Soviet encirclement. So much for our fear of global communist domination.
Worth Reading, Feb 6, 2012
From Facebook’s IPO to the Komen/Planned Parenthood crisis to the biggest television event of the year, it was a full week.
- Facebook IPO: Facebook finally filed for its IPO last week, one of the most widely read pieces of financial communication in a long time. A helpful summary from The New York Times, “Facebook Filing: The Highlights.”
- Komen for the Cure/Planned Parenthood Crisis: Komen’s decision to halt funding of a Planned Parenthood program that provided breast cancer screenings resulted in a crisis that spread like wildfire and ended with a change in policy and apology from Komen at the end of last week. Good summary by Kivi Leroux Miller, “The Accidental Rebranding of Komen for the Cure;” good media analysis by Jay Rosen, “Interview as Train Wreck: Susan G. Komen Foundation meets Andrea Mitchell;” and a good example from Beth Kanter of the use of Pinterest in protest, “Komen Can Kiss My Mammogram.”
- Pinterest: Speaking of Pinterest, reading lots of analysis and research on this new(ish) social site, including on referral traffic, demographics, its relationship to copyright laws, strong brand examples, and “What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn’t.”
- Super Bowl: The big game by the numbers, from Google and Twitter, which saw record tweet-per-second activity last night.
Worth Reading, Jan 30, 2012
It’s hard to believe, but January 2012 marks the fourth anniversary of this Logos blog, with our first blog post published by my colleague Fred Garcia on January 2nd, 2008.
In the last four years, we’ve all posted at various times, although the overall speed and frequency of the blog has slowed quite a bit in the last two years. All of the usual culprits are part of that reason, but the biggest culprit has been time (or lack thereof). While we’re thankful that the last four years have kept us busy, our blogging has seen a definite downward trend as a result.
Today marks the start of a new weekly series on this blog: “Worth Reading,” a collection of notable reads from the previous week (or so). We’ve had a more sporadic “Worth Reading” series for some time, but this weekly series aims to fill a request expressed to us to more closely follow what we’re keeping up with in quicker, more consumable bites.
- Newspapers & fact-checking: We followed with great interest the continued discussion prompted by Arthur S. Brisbane’s column at the New York Times earlier this month, “Should the Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” In particular, analysis by Lucas Graves at Nieman Journalism Lab, “Digging deeper into The New York Times’ fact-checking faux pas;” Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic, “Why Newspaper’s Often Don’t Call Out Politicians for Lying;” and Gene Lyons at Salon, “Newspapers, truth vigilantes no more” are worth reading, as is a follow-up piece by Brisbane, “Keeping Them Honest.”
- Edelman Trust Barometer: The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer continues Edelman’s research into the state of trust in countries, industries, information sources and spokespeople around the world, with 2012 seeing “the biggest decline in trust in government in Barometer history.” Lots of other relevant data in the full report.
- Facebook research: Two interesting pieces of research on Facebook: “How Journalists Are Using Facebook Subscribe,” a look at the changes since Facebook allowed users to “Subscribe” to public figures’ accounts, including journalists, in September 2011; and “Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks,” with additional analysis on Slate, “The End of the Echo Chamber.”
- Employees and social media: Thoughtful analysis by Shel Holtz on a recent report on employees and social media, “Rejoice! Employee use of social media has tripled!“
- Nonprofits and mobile giving: For nonprofits, Pew Internet’s report on “Real Time Charitable Giving” tracks the increase in giving from mobile phones.
- Twitter and international policy: And finally, lots of discussion at the end of last week about Twitter’s new international policy, including good summary and analysis from Alex Howard on Gov20.GovFresh, “On Twitter, censorship and Internet freedom” (with lots of updates and links to other analysis), and “What Would it Take to Get Twitter Unblocked in China?” on the WSJ.
These weekly updates will be a compendium of various topics that touch on a range of our work, and we look forward to more frequent updates in 2012.
BP: A Failure of Leadership and Management on a Massive Scale
“The nicest thing about not planning is that
failure comes as a complete surprise,
rather than being preceded by a period of
worry and depression.”
Sir John Harvey-Jones
The catastrophic loss of the Deepwater Horizon rig on the Macondo well seemed to come as a complete surprise, especially to those who were closest to it. It shouldn’t have.
Last year I blogged that the seeds of the Deepwater Horizon explosion were planted well before April 20, 2010.
The verdict is now in on the BP disaster: The sequence of mis-steps that resulted in 11 people killed and millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was the result of a failure of leadership and management on a massive scale.
BP: Benighted Planning
“Plan for what is difficult when it is most easy,
do what is great while it is small.
The most difficult things in the world must be done
while they are still easy,
the greatest things in the world must be done
while they are still small.”
The Tao-te Ching, or The Way and Its Power
Lao Tzu (604-581 BCE)
….
Let’s simply stipulate that BP’s response to its disaster in the Gulf is shaping up to be the new standard for mishandled crises.
We’ll continue to harvest how-not-to lessons from BP as long as Tony Hayward continues to talk, the oil continues to flow, and beaches, fisheries, wetlands, wildlife, and livelihoods remain at risk.
But what are the deeper lessons?
I believe the key is this: The seeds of what happened after the April 20 explosion were planted well before April 20.
To harvest the most meaningful lessons from BP requires us to look at the sequence of events leading to the fire, explosion, collapse of the rig, death of 11 workers, and the surge of oil into the Gulf.
Prevention More Important Than Response
However important getting crisis response right may be, crisis prevention is even more important.
BP got both spectacularly wrong.
Humility Update: Humility is Strength. Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
The Paradox of American Power
Between the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the foreign policy establishment focused on the difference between “soft power” and “hard power.”
The concepts were elaborated in a 2002 book by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., then dean and now University Distinguished Service Professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Nye is consistently ranked one of the most influential US scholars on foreign policy.
His book, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go it Alone, was remarkably prescient. (more…)
Worth Reading: “Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics” by Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Force Quarterly
Taking Strategic Communication Seriously
The United States government is finally taking strategic communication seriously.
This week President Obama used all the instruments of diplomacy to advance the US foreign policy agenda, including getting Russia, France, and Britain to stand with the US against continued nuclear development by Iran.
President Obama’s wins at the UN and in the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh this week are just the latest indication of a more mature and intentional foreign policy that aims at influencing world leaders and the world community in ways that increase the security of the United States.
An important element of this new approach is a renewed emphasis on effective public diplomacy.
Effective Public Diplomacy =
Influencing, not Bullying
Last year I wrote a post about US public diplomacy, and how much of it missed the mark.
I noted that effective communication isn’t about pushing messages to audiences, but rather about provoking a desired reaction from those audiences.
I also quoted Dr. Amy Zalman, who wrote an East-West Institute concept paper, Countering Violent Extremism, that included this observation:
“Good communicators reveal, in speech and action, that they understand the motivations and aspirations of their audiences—and it is via this understanding that they gain their sympathies.”
Dr. Zalman then reviewed US public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim world, and concluded:
“A review of U.S. official rhetoric shows an all too persistent absence of this understanding, an oversight which in turn can fan rather than dampen extremist sentiment.”
Worth reading: Booz & Company CEO Succession Survey, “Stability in the Storm” by Per-Ola Karlsson and Gary L. Neilson
A Leadership Test
Leaders are judged on how they deal with their most significant challenges.
As American Express CEO Ken Chenault said on the cover of the November, 2007 Fortune, “We have to remember that reputations are won or lost in a crisis.”
Each year the consulting firm Booz & Company studies CEO turnover among the 2,500 largest public companies in the world. Their report, published in Booz’ online magazine Strategy+Business, is worth reading, and provides not merely statistical data and trends, but also insights into the particular leadership challenges facing CEOs today.
The 2008 CEO Succession Survey, published this month, concludes that the financial and economic meltdown that began in the last third of last year is still causing CEO turmoil. Forced CEO turnover remained high in 2008, but those CEOs who kept their jobs aren’t out of the woods yet: (more…)
Rebuilding Trust
Worth Reading: Harvard Business Review, June, 2009, special section: Rebuilding Trust
I’ve been teaching ethics in graduate business and communication programs at New York University for more than 20 years, and every semester we lament the decline of trust.
But this year seems to be worse than most. Trust in US corporations is at an all-time low, 38 percent, according to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer. And most other measures of trust in institutions also point to continuing declines.
The June issue of Harvard Business Review takes on the issue of trust with a 25-page special report, Rebuilding Trust. It’s worth reading. The package includes a forceful critique of business school curricula, a 100-year timeline of highlights and lowlights in the public’s trust of business, and a counter-intuitive piece on how despite recent events people may still be trusting too much.
But the real payoff is the first piece in the package, by James O’Toole and Warren Bennis. O’Toole is the Daniels Distinguished Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, and Bennis is University Professor at the University of Southern California. The two are co-authors (with Daniel Goleman and Patricia Ward Biederman) of Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor (Jossey-Bass, 2008).
The special report opens with O’Toole’s and Bennis’ conclusion:
“We won’t be able to rebuild trust in institutions until leaders learn how to communicate honestly — and create organizations where that’s the norm.”