The How & Why of Killing a Company With Social Media

The How & Why of Killing a Company With Social Media

Outlaw Communications Offers to Sacrifice Itself for Founder’s New Career

February 16, 1012 -White Plains, New York – Outlaw Communications today announced plans for a formal Social Media Execution, effectively ending its own existence.  Part of a campaign Outlaw Communication’s founder Steve Andrews created to shuffle off the mortal coil of small business ownership and rejoin the larger world of public relations agencies and corporate environments.

“I’ve spent the last two years immersing myself in the strategic and tactical world of social media communications and now it’s time to take this knowledge and new skill set along with my years of general public relations experience and bring them back to a larger organization,” Andrews explains of the first of its kind event.

While generally thought of a unique and innovative idea Andrews admits there are a few skeptics who question the thinking behind such a bold move to publically sacrifice a company he started only two years ago.

“I understand this sort of thing is not for everyone.  In fact I’m counting on some conflict and questioning of the thinking behind the event,” says Andrews.  The Public Execution of this Outlaw will take place on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2012 at 5:21 EST.  Andrews advises folks to arrive early to make sure they get good seats. 

The idea evolved over time as Andrews’ Outlaw Communications social media and information operations consulting practice took him across the US and Canada, the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Very quickly a common theme emerged, as Andrews spent his time working with both PR agencies and organizations ranging from small start-up technology businesses to government and military groups through non-profit and community groups as well as Fortune 50 client or two. 

Andrews found most communicators, let alone the organizations they represent, have no real idea how to properly adapt to and operate within the socialized business communications environment where we now find ourselves. And this social biosphere environment frightens the marketers just as social media threatens and disrupts existing communications and business operations and processes.

While the potential for truly understanding and capitalizing on the myriad opportunities for communicators in the social biosphere exists at many of the organizations Andrews met with, David Armano, EVP at Edelman Digital stood out as a social media industry leader.

“I read some of the articles David was writing and looked at some of EDs (Edelman Digital)  work and thought; these are folks I need to get to know better and eventually decided it was time to rejoin the agency and corporate communications world and decided to initially target David with this Execute My Outlaw Campaign,” recalls Andrews.

Learning more about what David and Edelman are doing and Andrews became excited about social media all over again.  He recalls thinking this social media thing is going to be the biggest business boom for our profession we have ever seen.  Forget about the dotcom days – social media is the now and the future of business.  

Readers of Andrews’ articles on the Outlaw Communications’ blog know and in fact anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with him over the last few years hears Andrews talk about the Social Biosphere concept and how it continues to eclipse every aspect of business operations from marketing through business intelligence.

A classically trained sociologist, Andrews sees the Biosphere as new and evolving BOE or Business Operating Environment composed of millions of subsystems and ecosystem niches populated by myriad stakeholder cultures. The Social Biosphere will blur traditional media and cultural boundaries and digital and physical interactions will become increasingly socialized as they merge together. 

It is this convergence brought on by the social media eclipse of our traditional physical and digital worlds that combines to form a new communications operating environment – the Social Biosphere. 

A running daily summary of Andrews’ campaign to Execute his Outlaw can be found on the Outlaw Communications blog, the table below summarizes the campaign to date. You can follow the campaign daily via Andrews’ Twitter feed at @stevebandrews.

To date the campaign has been mentioned in several publications including Advertising Week, Marketing Futurists Daily, The Social Networker Daily and by numerous other social media operators.

A Summary of Reasons for David and Edelman Digital to hire Andrews:

12. If you don’t someone else will

11. Many claim it but, I AM a social media pioneer

10.  With me you get several PR assets in a single package

9. I will never let ED, David Armano or a client down

8. I never quit

7. The only true competitive advantage is people

6. Good guy to have in tough situations

5. Multiple one-on-one endorsements for EDs work in the social biosphere

4. First person to stage social media execution

3. Edelman is hiring a VP Digital in NYC

2. Willing to sacrifice an entire consulting company to work with ED

1. I have a very expensive Harley Davidson Habit

About Outlaw Communications

Outlaw Communications is a pioneer in social engineering and unconventional communications; serving select clients in challenging and dynamic business environments Outlaw brings truly innovative solutions to complex business engagements.