Hail to SEAL Team Six -OR- When Social Transparency is a Bad Thing

Recently I find myself in many discussions about America’s state of readiness for various information operations, cyber warfare, and defense and counter cyber-ops. 

Rarely do I find myself arguing against the movement towards increased transparencies offered by social media or questioning the motivation of those who pioneer the use of technology to push the envelope of what we communicate and how quickly we can relay information.  This is one of those rare times.

As often happens in such conversations with so many folks ranging from the super-techies to direct action operators and all the administrators who insert themselves into the process, the talk eventually drifts to how POTUS and our political masters view the area of overall unconventional operations.

A colleague from the UK recently pointed out that the US seems to be showing somewhat of new and bolder, tougher face to the World with regards to our willingness to openly project force and engage in special operations to achieve and implement facets of our foreign policy.

Specifically POTUS highlighted Team VI and the bin Laden operation, as an example of both this new willingness to assert our policies, unilaterally if necessary, and of a closer kinship between the Executive and our special operations community. 

Essentially the assertion goes something like this, “Because POTUS praised Team VI for the bin Laden mission, therefore President Obama understands, supports and is a closer ally of our special operators, more so than any President since President Kennedy.

I believe that the actions of this President’s administration demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the capabilities, dedication and ongoing sacrifices made by Team VI, JSOC and the entire special operations community and their families.

POTUS has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of support for those he puts in harms way and in my opinion has more than once “hung our operators out to twist in the wind.”  Time and again this administration seems to be more than willing, almost eager to sacrifice our operators’ and their families’ safety for fleeting political expediency or even worse, for a brief sound byte.

I could not agree more that in SEAL Team VI, DEVGRU and all of JSOC we have the finest and best trained warriors in the history of military operations and in the World today.  My admiration and support for these men knows no bounds and their sacrifice is legion and something none of their political masters could ever match. 

If you have any doubts about the dedication and capabilities of our SEALs read anything written by Captain Couch, a retired Navy SEAL, best selling author and writer of the Navy SEAL movie Act of Valor, or for an all-to-real account of SEAL operations see PO First Class Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, about Operation Redwing. There are also books written by SEALs, Howard E. Wasdin - SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper and Eric Greitens’  The Heart and the Fist.

In short, it is my belief these men are not only America’s finest warriors but they are in most cases also our finest people.

I am glad that Washington is showing the World America has not forgotten our duty nor lost the resolve to project force where and when needed.  I cannot however stomach the Obama comparison to Kennedy.

President Kennedy, a veteran himself, created the SEALs from the UDT operators and since that time those men who earned the Trident have shown that decision to be a brilliant one by achieving results most of us can not even dream of undertaking.

On the other hand, President Obama, who felt being a corporate hatchet legal dog was more important than serving his Country, put all the lives of VI operators and their families in danger after the 5/11/11 mission and rendered the intelligence gathered largely useless. Additionally and on a separate occasion he allowed other Team members to face courts martial for allegedly striking the wanted terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed, for which they were all acquitted of all charges!

I am no one important, I speak here for no organization, I’m simply an American and in my opinion, President Obama is no friend of the Navy SEALs nor is he fit to command the caliber of men who are US Navy SEALs. 

The President’s referral and use of the 5/11/11 mission in the SotU address made me feel unclean and while I was pleased these men were recognized for their prowess, dedication to duty and incalculable sacrifices made daily, I feel relatively confident in betting they’d prefer to be left alone to do their work far away from the public’s eye and knowing at the very least their families and loved ones are safe from the ineptitudes of their civilian political masters.

Extending A Social Mindset Throughout Your Organization -- OR -- Does This Count as Social Media?

The short answer is; YES!  

And your BIG PR AGENCY and high-priced in-house counsel probably missed the opportunity.

Don’t be overly harsh with them, they’re trained to think in traditional and linear media models and modalities. But, make no mistake they are generally VERY good at performing within these traditional modalities.

Of course the problem is, we live in a very different and new business reality which even the largest PR agencies struggle to comprehend.  We're living and communicating in a true social biosphere now. Real people, real conversations in real time; that’s a social biosphere, and believe me it scares the hell out of your PR agency and in-house PR managers.

Not to worry, no one abandoned the postal press release overnight either, or the press release itself for that matter. There’s help out there, consultants like Outlaw Communications but more importantly look within your own organization as the following story illustrates.

In the social biosphere that is business today everything your organization does and says or is thought to have done or said or is perceived to have done or said along with anything anyone remotely connected to your organization has ever done or said, will count with someone somewhere. 

I’m exaggerating but only slightly to illustrate how important the seemingly most insignificant encounters can be to your organization’s social wellbeing.

I recently met with some folks from AFLAC in a mismanaged recruiting SNAFU gone horribly wrong, perpetrated by an outside consultant.  Ah, those horrible consultants, we’re always mucking up someone’s business. In this case it turns out to be true, well almost were it not for a socially tuned-in AFLAC recruiter who found and capitalized upon a social opportunity despite it being WAVED (Yes WAVED) in front of senior PR staffers.

At any rate after what rapidly descended into an experience worthy of Twitter Tattling, this single dedicated AFLAC representative took it upon herself to not only fix a situation but turn it into a social media opportunity for her company.

The traditional PR machine failed here and did not realize the potential social impact as an influencer began showing negative signs within AFLAC’s social biosphere. 

Another company representative, responsible mostly for recruiting, (how social is the recruiting function nowadays?), managed to recognize the potential damage already begun within AFLAC’s social biosphere and took immediate and successful steps to change the interaction. 

A socially healthy organization is much like any other healthy animal, the social mindset must be pervasive and inclusive, not because this is the future I see, it is but, because it is and will be and also happens to be the future I see and BIG PR continues to miss and ignore.

And if the fact that your traditional PR Agencies and in-house counsel, for which you spend tens of thousands of dollars monthly, is in complete denial about the social biosphere, doesn’t keep management up at night… you need to find other work for the sake of your shareholders and stakeholders.

Does Your Organization Suffer From Anti-Social Business Disorder – OR – HEY! Isn’t That The Opposite Of How A Socialized Business Behaves

Most organizations struggle valiantly and increasingly are being rewarded with some successes in the Social Biosphere. So how do you spot a business headed in the absolute wrong BUTT-BACKWARD direction?

You might think it would be easy; look for legacy industries, old business models and older companies run by old guys, like me. You might think this but, you wouldn’t be right, in fact the age or industry, business model and management have little to do with how various organizations embrace new technology and business processes in general and our Social Biosphere in particular. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than rhetoric and corporate media kits.”

Harley Davidson, began operating in the Social Biosphere, within its own Social Ecosystems 25 years ago and has been doing so ever since.  Interestingly enough the timing just happens to coincide with Harley’s huge resurgence in popularity, revenue and profit, quality assurance and everything else businesses strive to attain. Hmmm, perhaps there is something to this Social Biosphere model after all. 

Apple has been behaving and conducting business as a social entity since the “Think Different,” days and the return of Saint Jobs. And despite being counted out by industry experts year after year, Apple leads and thrives within the Social Biosphere by focusing on its key social ecosystems.

Ford Motor Company is another example of a mature (and boy that is putting it more than kindly) business model, management philosophy, and management team.  Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford proves every day that an old dog (the company, not Scott) has a lot of new tricks at least within the Social Biosphere.  Well done Scott!

So how do we find who’s missing the social media social business boat and more importantly why should any of us care?

The why care part is simple; eventually, and the consequences will only multiply over time,  organizations that maintain a willfully anti-social business policy will lose capitalization, customers  and credibility within their market ecosystems first and later within the Social Biosphere as a whole.

I call this the THREE DEADLY C’S, again it’s Capitalization, Customers and Credibility.

Capitalization means as a shareholder, your investment is already as good as gone, it’s only a question of how long you want to watch it shrink, dwindle and die before you take your capital somewhere, well more capital.

Customers cannot ever rely on these businesses to remain in business; in fact, anti-social businesses are all having a “going out of business sale,” even if management doesn’t realize it. 

And finally any organization so willfully opposed to embracing business processes, technologies and most importantly, unable to acknowledge the reality of the marketplace they participate in cannot possibly be taken seriously by anyone. How can these businesses retain credibility?

So who are these corporate culprits who seem determined to destroy our capital, screw their loyal customers and become the next great networking event keynote “Bad Example?” 

Unfortunately the number is legion; fortunately it’s shrinking daily, as more businesses wake-up from their digital commas and realize the Social Biosphere is not merely a reality but THE reality and most importantly THEIR reality.

Here’s a clue; if you encounter a business or organization (political parties and politicians come to mind here on the organization side) that uses technology to separate itself from its stakeholders in any way whatsoever; you may have a business suffering Anti-Social Business Disorder. 

Now you may simply be the victims of an obtuse, unknowledgeable  BIG PR budget and / or group of agency social media experts.  Check your PR budgets and this should give you an indication which you’re dealing with here.

If you think you’ve found an Anti-Social Business, you need to RUN FAR and FAST from these idiots, do not work for them, do not buy their stock or financial products and most certainly do NOT support them as a customer.

Think of businesses you deal with that use technology to ensure you’ll never get close to anyone with any responsibility or accountability within the organization.  And ask yourself does this seem social, healthy, and modern while embracing the technology capable of bringing customers and companies together or does this seem the exact opposite of all these things?

I’ll give you one example from a recent case study I presented in a lecture to SMB leaders recently.

Express Scripts, an online mail-order pharmacy and poster child for Anti-Social Business.  Everything about their business processes leverages technology to ensure customers and stakeholders are kept at arms length from any real decision making power structures within the organization.  And the harder one pushes for contact the harder Express Scripts processes; model, culture and staff push stakeholders away.

Is there hope for companies like Express Scripts, of course.  Given proper treatment and a willingness to both accept and embrace reality, anti-social companies like Express Scripts can be saved. However, it’s not likely given their current senior management who seem intent on destroying not just Express Scripts but having a real good whack at an entire ecosystem marketplace.

What Makes a Brand Socially Successful – OR – When a Brand Transcends Becoming Lifestyle

A recent discussion among Social Media marketers about Apple’s success in the social media space got me thinking.  Not about Apple’s SM success, that depends on how and who is measuring, like most things in life.

No, I thought about Apple’s success as a brand and realized it past successful company / brand many years ago and somewhere along the way became a lifestyle, for lack of better term.

Many brands struggle, are posers and spend billions to convince you they fit with some certain type of lifestyle; Apple has somehow managed to become that lifestyle.  How?

Simple it’s a social business and has been behaving as such for at least 10 years or more.  Apple’s business model and, at times its very survival, depended upon various communities, music, video, printing, art, graphics, education… all distinct social ecosystems operating within the larger Social Biosphere and Apple has devoted itself to driving, participating and shaping the conversations in all these ecosystems (marketplaces) for years. 

And VOILA… we’re left with a great example of what is possible when a business is ready to break the rules and embrace the social biosphere.  The ultimate socially engineered company! 

It’s a tough road to follow and not a year used to go by without various industry “experts” foretelling Apple’s demise.  Apple stuck to focusing on being social and well, the rest, as they say, is history – Social Biosphere style.

10 Things You Should Know About Social Media -- OR -- What Your PR Team Isn’t Telling You About Social Media

It’s Brave New World

Okay, I’ve heard the hype and helped hype the hype.  But seriously, social media is only the tip of iceberg and if you think your business is immune – I refer you to the historical lessons of the RMS Titanic.  You absolutely, positively cannot ignore this social media thing.

More Than a Feeling

Classic rock anthems aside, social media is evolving into much more than a communications channel or medium. It is well on its way to become the latest business environment. I call it the Social Biosphere, because this environment will encompass every business and cultural ecosystem that exists.

Don’t Panic

No matter what your 12 year-old niece’s friend thinks about your socialized business processes – do not listen to her unless your target market is 12 year-old females.  If it is, hire your niece’s friend, she knows more about social media than any high-priced PR agency.

One Treat per Child - Only

Ever hear the expression, “If everything is important, then nothing is important.”  It’s something none of us want to hear let alone consider or accept but, we cannot have it all and the Social Biosphere is proof to this maxim. Regardless of how much you leverage the Social Biosphere, whether you’re a simple blogger with the occasional Tweet or you’re a 100% socially integrated business, you absolutely must choose only those conversations you have the resources to dominate.

It’s a Conversation, Not a Lecture

Despite all the expensive messaging you may have, the Social Biosphere runs on a two-way symmetrical information model.  Remember rule three and Don’t Panic; just because it’s a real conversation doesn’t mean you cannot dominate your chosen ecosystems within the Social Biosphere.  You will have to earn your dominance through a meritocracy of ideas.  Don’t talk at them, converse with them, have a better idea.

This is True Social Darwinism

Bad ideas may triumph from time to time but, badly presented ideas will always fail in the Social Biosphere. Remember it’s a conversation.

Break the Rules

The Social Biosphere is many things, as many things as there are participants – it’s a consolidation both in space and time of the mob. If you want to influence the mob you need to understand what motivates them, what they fear and what void they are looking to fill.  Legacy media, PR, advertising and marketing communications thinking will not serve you well here – this is a brave new world. Knowing the top 50 bloggers or “mommy” sites won’t really make your bones in the Biosphere.

Be Market Driven

I could go on and on about how Herbert Stein  sits securely in the pantheon of economic assholes along with fellow supply-side fathers Hume, Hamilton, Swift and Smith. Suffice to say the Social Biosphere is a market driven environment.  You cannot simply generate your message and push it into the Biosphere and expect success.  You need to get to know your market and tailor your conversation to what they want to talk about.

Are Your Ears Burning?

They should be because someone somewhere is already talking about you and / or hosting the conversations you need to dominate.  Relax, this is a good thing.  It means the heavy lifting is mostly done for you; all you need is an invitation to the conversation.  So put on your party dress practice your lines get off the wall and find those conversations.

Never Wear a Condom

How can you spot an organization with AOD?  For that matter what is AOD?  AOD or Anti-Social Organizational Disorder occurs when any organization uses technology to keep stakeholders away.  Companies who utilize automated phone attendants, no-reply email addresses or won’t let you contact them directly for customer inquires – these are anti-social companies or organizations and will fall prey to the three deadly Cs of the Social Biosphere.  They will lose credibility, capital and customers as the Social Biosphere evolves and becomes a more mature business environment allowing stakeholders to easily shift to a more pleasant or “Socially Acceptable” competitive company.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS AND SOCIAL MEDIA –OR—DON’T PLAY DIGITAL DEFENSE

Here’s a great primer and basic advice article from Chris Syme on using Twitter as a crisis engagement tactical channel.  http://cksyme.org/?p=602 It’s well worth reading and heeding.

Chris makes some excellent points in the article, Three Must-Haves for Using Twitter in a Crisis.  Outlaw Communications specializes in unconventional communications and IW (Information Warfare) and I’ve learned if you intend to achieve your goals in any crisis engagement within the social biosphere you must maintain communications across the maximum number of channels your tactical resources allow. 

Use Twitter and FaceBook and Tumblr and YouTube and Google+, comment on real-time events, post on blogs and wikis, and…. you get the idea, be everywhere you need to be.  Never overextend or attempt to utilize more channels than your resources allow but within those tactical constraints be prepared to engage with every stream your audience engages. 

In most cases you’ll find the majority of the conversations you need to influence and take an active role in guiding occur in one to three of the major social media streams or within isolated industry-specific social environments.

Engagements within the Social Biosphere are quantum in nature; each and every communication carries with it the potential for something to occur.  The majority amount to absolutely nothing however; those few that take shape and become conversations often produce massively disproportionate effects, compared with their origin communication, upon targeted organizations and individuals. Remember every negative Tweet has the potential to topple your organization but very few become conversations of any note.

We call these viral marketing campaigns when they are positive and social media crisis when they are not.  Regardless of the nature and tone of the conversations, something beyond your control causes a single communication based on some trigger event (s) to capture the interest of other social media users and becomes a “big deal.” 

Chris Syme mentions monitoring Twitter streams as part of your daily communications process, an excellent idea to identify those potential conversations before they become crisis.  As with the actual crisis engagement I suggest monitoring as many social streams as your resources allow and your audience utilizes for the same reasons, identifying potential issues before they become crisis engagements. Monitoring also allows you to participate in various conversations within your Social Biosphere before you need operate within those same social streams in crisis mode.

The post-crisis engagement is an excellent time introduce new messaging and begin brand building or rebuilding.  In addition to stakeholders’ attentions focused on the fallout and plans to avoid future crisis, it’s important to remember you have your audiences’ attentions.  Introduce new messaging and beginning the rebuilding process while you have this attention.

As with any crisis engagement, crisis within the Social Biosphere is essentially a messaging exercise.  Something happened that should not have, here’s what we’re doing to fix this event and here’s the steps we’ve taken to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.

Like chess and the Social Biosphere itself, within such a simple operational definition there exist endless possibilities for both strategic and tactical actions.  Make sure your engagement supports a sound business goal and is driven by good process

A Case for Information Operations at the Ops Level – OR – Developing an Environmental Operational Capability

Last week I attended a Northrop Grumman sponsored EW (Electronic Warfare) briefing and event and realized just how pervasiveness the digital and communications have become. Moreover I see how digital communications is grinding its way to the operational level. Once the sole purview of engineers and their jamming transmitters a Colonel summed up his views on EW thusly,  "Everything has computers now, so as far I'm concerned it's all cyberwarfare."

While we still need to ensure those missiles can't find our friendly targets it struck me how we also need to make sure the Twitterverse doesn't see our operators coming and the best way to do that is to expand EW beyond jamming and include operational-level training in social media.

For the last couple hundred years we’ve understood war as being an occupation for and the province of professional military personnel.  It’s been said that war is, “Old folks talking while the young die.”  As cold and callus as that sounds it captures the split between those who engage in direct action against an enemy, warriors, and those who talk: officials, politicians, diplomats and the like.

Technology changes everything eventually, and so must our worldview evolve to encompass the new realities technology sometimes forces upon us. While it’s true we’ve had military personnel dedicated to word-war (if you will) since WWII, largely under the PsyOps umbrella, the proliferation of technology and specifically social media necessitates the development of information operational capabilities at the operational level.  We need to bring information operational capabilities to the combat level in addition to traditional information channels, political and diplomatic.

We need to look at information operations from an environmental perspective, much as we would any operating environment. The proliferation of information sharing (social media being the latest evolution) has created enough of a critical mass that we cannot simply leave the information operations activities entirely to the political machine.  The operators must also master the information environment.

Social media continues to blur and blend the boundaries between what we once thought of as two distinct and separated environments; the physical and digital worlds. While I agree with many operators that warfare is the ultimate direct action of do what I say or die. The potential for operational impact from social channels is far too high for the operators to ignore or leave in the hands of politicians.  I wouldn’t let my Congress person pack my chute or check my Drager or plot a course to a tactical objective.

For example, when SEAL Team VI took down Bin Laden, Abbottabad residents were tweeting the arrival of the Chinooks before the Stealth Hawks landed.  Had these enemies better coordinated this social intelligence –things may have been far more challenging for our operators.

It is simply no longer possible to separate the information operations from the physical – think Wiki Leaks – the impact of the release of these documents had real impact upon physical operations.

So we need to focus on building both intelligence capabilities and direct action capabilities within the information operating environment – exactly the same way we develop these capabilities for all operating environments.  See, Air, Land, and now social cyberspace.

Does Social Media Need Communicators At All? -- OR -- OMFG Marketers Are Killing Everything!

After several conversations this week with fellow marketers about our changing roles within the Social Biosphere, I’ve come to the conclusion it may be time for us to step aside, find honest work and help save the World in the process.

Is it too soon to throw out this curveball; in a true Social Biosphere , social operating environment (SOE) or socialized business environment, if you prefer, what is the real need for marketing of any type, in fact in such an environment isn’t marketing exposed for damage it does?

Here’s what I mean, in the Social Biosphere our consumers' needs and wants should be more transparent, as should any stakeholder interactions with organizations.  With all this openness and honesty floating around it begs the question, why do we need to market?

It seems we’ve come to accept, without question, our present supply-side business model even though it cannot be sustained and even though it’s killing everything including us and our World.

So, leveraging a group of technologies that, in theory at least, allow for open and transparent communications between all stakeholders should allow us to produce only what is actually needed and wanted by consumers or to put it a more MBA-esque sort of way, foster a demand-side business environment, which by definition is a much more sustainable World business model.

In short the Social Biosphere, if left alone by marketers, could help change our entire business / economic model from a World-Killing, supply-side to a Holy-Crap-Our-Kids-Might-Actually-Have-A-Shot-At-Life, demand-side one and save us all and our planet in the bargain.

Or we, as marketers, can figure out how best to leverage social media technologies to ensure we continue to produce billions of tons of useless garbage each and every month and figure out how to push this crap on to consumers who don’t need it or want it.

Kinda makes you think about our role in the big picture, n’est pas?

Now, I understand this assertion requires a bit of an academic detachment as well as a philosophical leap of faith from our current brainwashing, Matrix-like supply-side thinking and, it’s nearly impossible for us to completely escape our cultural bias towards a pro-marketing worldview.  Not to mention it’s tough to think of ourselves, as mild-mannered marketers, as being fundamental to the World-Killing process but here we sit at a nexus point in history, fully aware and fully conscious of the choices we make.

When I think of all the creative power I’ve dedicated to pushing products on consumers over the years it almost makes me laugh, if it wasn’t such a sad waste of energy.

Here’s a few examples of products I believe illustrate what I’m saying, or to put it another way, are or were produced and then push-marketed to create demand among consumers.

PCs, Barbie Dolls, Cigarettes, SUVs, Yachts, Golf Carts, Fast Food, Mini-Vans, anything that begins with a lower case “i” and is followed by an existing noun, disposable pens, cordless phones, Joysticks, Xbox, anything made by Microsoft, any one or all of the 6Tb backup drives sitting on my desk, wireless routers, Webcams, TVs, DVDs, BluRay discs and players, halogen lamps, wingback chairs, teak bookshelves, staplers, 7 hole punches, leather bound portfolios and briefcases, cross-trainers, running shoes, biking shoes, court shoes, basketball shoes, turf shoes, cleats, footballs, field hockey sticks, Gator Aid, 25 year-old scotch, cranberry vodka, honestly I could go on all day.

For me the question really is, what products are not supply-side-market push garbage. 

I’m not arguing that some of these products don’t bring pleasure or joy to humans; I’m just saying they’re not manufactured based on existing market needs or any real need at all.  They were manufactured to fill that “gaping-void” within, which no product or service can ultimately fill.

Marriage, A True Historical Perspective - OR - Yet Another Inconvenient Truth

Marriage, Marriage Equality, Republican Party, conservative, fundamental religion, catholic, Romney    

I know I’ll take some heat from conservatives on this but, who really gives a rat’s ass. Marriage equality seems one of those polarized political topics that simply will not go away. 

Here’s my attempt to add some historical and socio-cultural facts to the mix. 

In this exchange Fox’s Chris Wallace get's owned by Ted Olson and shows his utter lack of knowledge of the history and purpose of marriage as he states, "WALLACE: So society doesn't get to say that marriage should be between a man and a woman, even though society has said that for thousands of years." 

Marriage, as we think of it today has its origins near the end of Charlemagne’s rule about 814.  The word “marriage” didn’t even exist until the late middle ages, sometime around 1250 – 1300 and wasn’t something much more than a spoken agreement between individuals before 1545, sometimes witnessed or recorded but more often not.

Some of the earliest records of what has come to be called marriage date back to Mesopotamia from Hammurabi’s Code, crafted somewhere around 1790 BCE and consisting of 282 laws. The Code addressed all manner of life issues from river dunking through eye poking and teeth smashing.

Hammurabi even took a swipe at early healthcare reform, “If during an unsuccessful operation a patient dies, the arm of the surgeon must be cut off.”  Even Fox News doesn’t advocate for the systematic butchering of incompetent doctors.

Reaching far back to antiquity what we think of today as “marriage” was nothing more than a contract to secure inheritance rights and demonstrate that a woman was the exclusive property of a single man, and thus was between a man and woman.  Not because “God” decreed it to be thus or even because a culture thought it should be so but, simply because the nobility needed to ensure 1) their children would inherit their property and power and 2) to ensure their children, were actually their children.

To put it another way, marriage has always been a legal contract based on the needs of society at the time in every culture in which it existed.  Marriage is a voluntary contractual phenomena designed to ensure the participating parties have proper access to the rights and laws of the cultural in which they live. It is not and never has been a religious or moral institution.

The first inklings of this notion of marriage entwined with some form of the divine came from bishop Ignatius of Antioch around 110, "It becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust."  Ignatius also felt, “For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan.”

Fortunately for the majority of America’s non-Catholic population, some 238,739,200 of us, no one is proposing a constitutional amendment to declare more than 81% us the Anti-Christ or Satan.

As an interesting footnote; the above doctrine makes Mitt Romeny an anti-Christ and presumably unacceptable to most Republicans as a presidential candidate, of course, the doctrine also makes most Republicans anti-Christs as well.

To put it another way any person who believes marriage is a “Christian” institution must also believe more than 81% of Americans are anti-Christs; sorry but it’s one of those inescapable logic things.  

In our modern American culture marriage is an entre to the basic societal power unit whereby citizens are guaranteed various protections and rights. To deny any group the basic right to voluntarily enter into this fundamental power unit is to deny members of that group their basic right to participate in our culture.  It is nothing more than a modern form of banishment. 

Additionally when carefully studied and analyzed there is absolutely no historical evidence that marriage has ever served a different purpose throughout history in any culture, that is until now, when some fundamental religious groups are attempting to use marriage to exclude a group of Americans from basic rights and create a second class layer of our culture. 

The irony is most of those opposed to marriage equality do not qualify as “Christian” by the person whose Holy definition of marriage their arguments relies upon.

A History of Public Relations -- OR -- The Good, the Bad and How We Wish it Was

A recent discussion among PR folks about our profession’s humble origins got me thinking about, well… our origins, the myth, the mythos and whatever historical “truth-claims” we may make.  So here’s my take on the age old question “Where did we come from?” 

I suppose our professional line extends from something like the Sophists of ancient Greece who spoke on behalf of Citizens for compensation through to Ivy Lee, and Edward Bernays one or both of whom most Western academics agree was the founder of modern PR. For my money Edward’s wife, Doris Fleischman, was just as, if not more responsible for many of the early pioneering techniques Bernays is credited with.   One thing is for sure we all have Edward to thank for convincing millions of women to start smoking and millions of Americans that it was perfectly socially acceptable for women to smoke in public places.  Thanks Ed.  In a horrible irony Edward lived more than 100 years… no smoking related diseases snuffed his life out early.

At any rate most of the pioneering techniques credited to Lee and Bernays originally were practiced by none other than the evil prince of our profession many years prior to either Bernays or Lee taking credit.  I’m speaking of the Nazi Joseph Goebbles – the first PR man to utilize many of the techniques we take for granted today.  It’s tough to get accurate information on Goebbles’ contributions to mass communications and I’m okay with that.  Whatever contributions he may have made, given who he was and what he stood for are just as well credited to others as far as I’m concerned. 

Interesting your mention of the cult of the CEO, particularly in light of the recent and ongoing canonization (the Catholic Church’s process for declaring an individual a Saint) of Steve Jobs, soon to be St. Steve of Apple, I suppose. Interesting how so many folks come out of the woodwork with so much information about Steve.  I mean I worked with the guy, actually worked directly with him, knew him, etc… and well; the Steve Jobs I knew was no saint.  But that’s a story no one wants to hear. 

Regardless of what one may have thought about Steve Jobs he exemplifies the CEO as a cult figure and Apple, for all its faults, is one of the few brands that transcends mere brand-hood and has become a true lifestyle.  And so we arrive, quickly I admit, to the present status of our profession. 

Except for this social media thing; what my company, Outlaw Communications, calls the Social Biosphere.  Now we have more than a new mere communications channel emerging we have the next evolution of digital communications intersecting with various business or market place ecosystems to create an overarching business operating environment, or Social Biosphere.

In the Social Biosphere transparency becomes the name of the game and a leveling or democratization of the message happens.  In other words when everyone who receives your message has the ability to dissect, research, check and share that message in real-time.  Well folks it gets harder and harder to pull the old Lee / Bernays wool over stakeholders’ eyes.

As the Social Biosphere matures and grows it will be interesting to watch how this next evolution in our profession plays out. 

LIVING IN A FISHBOWL –OR— HOW SOCIAL MEDIA FORCES TRANSPARENCY UPON YOUR BUSINESS

Anything you say can and will be Tweeted against your will.

Social media can shatter traditional bunkered and protected ecosystems; in this example the sanctity of a high school principal’s office is violated initially by a student’s Tweet and ongoing by the Social Biosphere itself.  It’s a new power dynamic old dogs need to face, plan for and acknowledge in organizational strategy and factor into the risk communication equation.

 In the Social Biosphere there is always the potential for transparency, organizations need to act accordingly and incorporate the realities of the social operating environment into their risk assessment planning and risk communications planning operations.

Case in point, Republican fiasco in Kansas.  Gov. Brownback received a negative Tweet while delivering a speech to students at Shawnee Mission East High School located in Prairie Village Kansas.  No doubt the governor’s speech was full of the usual hypocrisy and outright lies we’ve come to expect from all politicians however, it’s the utter Gestapo-like tactics employed by the Republican Governor’s staff that were exposed for the entire world to see and that business need take note.

An aid to the Gov-A-Fuhrer, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, ratted out the offending student for exercising her First Amendment rights to the school’s principal, Karl Krawitz. Now think back to your school days and remember just how closed a system schools operate within.  In-fact I’d say, based on Constitution-Killer-Karl’s actions, he counted on none but the student ever knowing what actions he took to curb her First Amendment rights.

Chief RAT to Gov-A-Fuhrer Brownback - Sherriene Jones-Sontag

Enter the Social Biosphere, bringer of light and transparency even to formerly closed ecosystems such as our schools, and even in Topeka Kansas, home of those other most Anti-Americans the Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps and co) most famous for demonstrating at our veterans’’ funerals. So it’s probably no accident that Gov Yellow-back, oops I mean Brownback and his Gestapo RAT aid, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, along with Constitution Killer Karl, a little Hitler in the making if ever there was, felt secure in: 1. trampling the Constitutional rights of students, and 2. believing they’d get off scott free because who could ever violate the sanctity of their little world.

Kudos to the Wichita Eagle for running the story and the Social Biosphere for giving it legs.   

The moral here for all businesses, politicians and organizations is as simple as it is hard to grasp: in the Social Biosphere anything you say can and will be Tweeted to millions of people.  And most probably used against you, your brand and all the hard work you’ve done and millions of dollars you’ve spent crafting a reputation within your ecosystem.

There is no bunker deep enough or ecosystem impervious to the potential for damage wrought by the complete transparency social media brings to stakeholders of all stripes, even 18 year-old students. 

Ladies and gentlemen, information is power and within the Social Biosphere, the power dynamic has changed forever.  Ignore this reality at your businesses peril.

Where Does This Social Media Thing Begin and End – OR – It’s a Business Revolution, Welcome to the Social Biosphere

Unlike Business Process Transformation and all the various snake oil we’ve bought over the last few decades – the Social Biosphere presents us with a genuinely transformative business environment.

The best part, okay the two best parts: first the Social Biosphere is PR driven just like the digital business revolution was 15 years ago, and second it is inevitable and happening now.

Traditional PR and communications thinking knows the game has changed, they just can’t figure out how.  They continue to stumble about like drunken frat boys wondering how it all fits together at intra-organizational and inter-organizational levels.  In short you PR firm doesn’t understand the social business environment you’re seeking their aid in dominating or at least surviving.

So we see traditional PR and communications adapting traditional models, which isn’t necessarily the worst thing they could be doing.  They’re just adapting backwards, reflecting their lack of understanding of the environment.  You can liken it to the global warming debate.

One side shows us data of melting glaciers or ambient temperature rise, the other side counters with a growing glacier and chaos mathematics of 10,000 year global weather cycles. And so mirrors how big PR deals with social media. 

It doesn’t matter if glaciers are expanding or contracting, it doesn’t matter if ambient temperatures are rising or at what point we fall in our current 10,000 year weather cycle.  All that matters is what is happening in our daily environments and seeing what is most likely to happen given our current course.

PR agencies understanding and interactions within the social biosphere are no less absurd than those who think we can continue business-as-usual from a resource consumption perspective. 

Sure it will work for awhile. It’s just unfortunate that big PR, seems committed to clinging to dated media tactics that simply no longer fit the reality of our existing business environment.  Sure your agency team is still producing results for those whopping retainers they charge.  Environments don’t completely change overnight, nor will they ever completely leave the old behind, they grow and evolve, like… uh, any BIOSPHERE does.

But here’s the kicker, you see it and your agency sees it, except they see an ongoing hemorrhaging of revenues they’re helpless to stop and a traditional media system that has been in its death throes for the last 20 years. 

And still despite being repeatedly smacked in their collective income statements and balance sheets for years big PR’s best answer to all of this change, is… AHH YOU NEED TO TWITTER! 

Well sure Twitter might be an important piece of your interactions within the social biosphere but, I can promise you – NOT Twitter nor any one other tactical idea or communications plan – is anywhere near enough to integrate your business into the Social Biosphere.

Social media may be our window into the Social Biosphere, but once inside you’ll find a whole new business environment. 

It WILL be frightening and you WILL stumble and make mistakes - but like any new environment those in first and most committed WILL WIN!

When you’re ready to WIN find an OUTLAW.

Damn Lazy Freaks – OR – The Birth of a Culture Rededicated to Freedom and the American Dream

Call the Occupy Wall Street phenomena what you will, protestors, losers, heroes, revolutionaries, rebels, it doesn’t really matter.  History will ultimately decide who and what they are and what their purpose was. And that’s not going to happen until the affects and repercussions are long underway, thoroughly felt by all and normalized and sanitized within our collective societal gestalt.

What’s fascinating, as both a student of and consultant to organizations great and small within this Social Biosphere (what your PR agency still calls social media) is  much more basic, simple and yet infinitely more important and sublimely complex.  If you understand any of this, you’re already smarter about social media than your PR agency team.

I’ve spent several days tramping around Wall Street, circulating in the park, avoiding being arrested and realized this is the Social Biosphere in action and in real-time; it’s a physical manifestation to be sure but is no less a socialized environment than FaceBook, Twitter or Tumblr 

I’m a sociologist first and foremost, literally, my degree line runs; BA Hon Sociology, MBA, and BPR (Bachelors of Public Relations), and just as I’ve witnessed online for several years, so now am witnessing in real-time in the physical world.

Occupy Wall Street may be and will continue to be many things to many people all over the world however, what it is at its most fundamental is an embryonic culture forming before our very eyes. It has a core of collective values, a true purpose and exponentially growing number of voluntary adherents spanning the physical and digital realms – yes this is the SOCIAL BIOSPHERE.

Marketers need to be paying as much attention or more than police and politicians to this group of rebels staking out a community in Lower Manhattan. This is how the Social Biosphere works, this is how a culture is formed and this is what it looks like in real-time.

PR folks in particular need to pay heed not only as humans and Americans who should care about what these folks care about, nope that will only be a bonus. 

If you’re confused about the Social Biosphere, and by the number of large PR agencies consulting with me about social communications, I know you’re confused – get your ivory-tower asses down there and witness a social culture being born and taking shape.

You’ll be a better communicator for it, better able to advise your clients about the Social Biosphere and you might just learn something about yourself.

GOTTCHA – OR—REDISCOVERING THE SUBTLE ART OF CONVERSATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Gottcha!  Made you stop by my blog first, violating nearly every conventional communications professional’s advice you’ve ever heard regardless if you paid for the advice or not.

Truly I wanted to write slightly more than 140 characters for this Tweet. Thanks to my FBF – (FaceBook Friend) Brenda WeRemember Howard for pointing me at this article. That page owner knows their stuff and is SM (Social Media) expert.  However, if you’re really in a hurry, the link for the 25 best social media resources are is here.

Still with me?  Cool.

About the article, while some of the resources are basic and fundamental all are worthwhile for anyone in the modern communications industry. I have more education than anyone requires and enough degrees and certificates to fill a storage shed and yet my shelves are filled with the most basic of business and communications books.  There are several Dummies and Idiots books on my shelves and all have proved valuable over the course of my career.

However, if you really want to learn about social media and why I and many others see an inevitable future where SM plays a significant if not dominant role in our professional and personal lives – it is simple. 

Just get started.  Begin by immersing yourself in the social world… whenever you can and however you can.  Get a FaceBook page going, start a LinkedIn profile and start exploring the landscape for yourself.  These and the myriad resources and experts on SM will never be more than tour guides to the Social Biosphere.  (All of social media, the web, tech, real life, etc… it’s called the Social Biosphere, mostly by me)

Look for topics that interest you, from commenting on NY Times articles to organizing virtual events on FaceBook and some spend time in the wilderness of the Biosphere. Read the books and listen to the experts as you venture.  As you read the words of wisdom from the high-paid pros, never forget that you know how to be social in both professional and personal environments and the rest is merely exploring and becoming familiar with this new operating terrain.

The Social Biosphere is about dialogue and conversations it is not about top-down, push or supply-side thinking or communicating.  You cannot talk at people when they have absolutely no barriers to ignoring you.  You must engage occupants of the Social Biosphere in conversation.  Even if you want to sell something, it must be a conversation not an advertisement.

Ultimately I believe the SM and the Social Biosphere it is feeding will help re-humanize business as we become integrated into its culture, a culture where conversation is fundamental.

Message Consistency Across All Platforms – More Important Than Ever In the Social Biosphere – OR – Do I Have to be Nice to That Asshole?

Some fundamentals never change, I can still here my coach screaming, “KEEP DRIVING THOSE LEGS, DON’T QUIT, DON’T EVER STOP.”  Advice that serves just as well in the social biosphere of today’s business as it did on the football field so many years ago in college.

After witnessing an amazing and cowardly retreat by my local Republican at Westchester Republican HQ this afternoon it hit me just how frightening the social biosphere must be to the traditional masters of public relations. 

Big PR agencies and their clients continue to stumble all around social media (their term – not mine) like drunken frat boys searching for their next keg.

It is this very fear of real-time conversations continuing to stifle both innovation within the public relations industry and holding businesses back from truly leveraging the opportunities within the social biosphere.

Specific politics aside, politicians represent some of the greatest PR practitioners of all time, true masters of the communications craft from the simple, repeat until we give up and believe, to the subtle and sublime audacity of hopers. 

Big PR’s ultimate triumph and shining golden moment must be encapsulated by political communications – that never stray from the fundamental principal of consistent messaging.  Even though it makes publics sick from repetition, being “on message” is the life blood for politicians and the better they are at staying on message, the further their careers go. 

It’s always been a simple and direct linear relationship that could be properly crafted and managed with help of “press people,” big PR; both agencies and in-house counsel. 

Until something went horribly wrong, now enter the social biosphere where real folks carry on real conversations in real time.  Good grief, it’s anarchy!

What a nightmare for professional liars; oops I mean professional communicators.  Now we’re faced with too many touch points to control and no client (not even our well-trained pet politicians) can maintain the façade of contrived message consistency throughout the social biosphere.

Back to Westchester Republican HQ on a September afternoon and witness the gaping hole in the message façade; a small, frightened little man running from a voter and citizen because he could not control the message or the rules of engagement for our encounter. 

In big PR’s traditional linear world this encounter wouldn’t count, there’s an old saying in PR, “If it doesn’t happen on TV, it didn’t happen.”  This is the world our scared little Republican is accustomed to, it’s the world his “press people” at the agencies and at Republican HQ tell him still exists.  

But he’s a politician and he senses something is not right, things are changing and the fright factor of change is directly proportional to how much you have to lose from the looming change.

It’s a little sad to see lumbering giants groping about for purpose and meaning within the new social biosphere, but the fundamentals remain.

Keep your message consistent across all channels but understand within the social biosphere that any and every encounter occurs within a medium and with some sort of distribution channel available to any participants.

So don’t panic, don’t quit, and keep your messages clear, concise and consistent and remember that in the social biosphere even a lowly voter has media power.  

And maybe, just maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

ARE WE LOST IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE – OR – WHEN UNDERSTANDING COMES PROCESS BRINGS SUCCESS

Over the weekend I’ve been involved in an interesting conversation with some very savvy and experienced marketers hailing from all corners of our industry from advertisers to PR gurus to social media agencies, large and small, academic and business. While most of my colleagues identify and call out the issues constraining social media fairly well there seems to be a lack of big a picture overview, at the topographical mapping level.

Within the marketing communications industry there is a fundamental lack of understanding about social media in both businesses and organizations from the Fortune 10 through start-ups to government, political and military organizations.

A recent Accenture survey found 60% of CMOs believe SM will lead to new revenue streams while only 8% of CEOs are willing to invest in SM programs.  The delta is the exactly the lack of understanding and ability to measure and plan SM programs with proper process and metrics.

Much of the problem is exacerbated, if not caused, by marketers, advertisers, public relations folks (like me) and especially the so-called social media specialists. 

PR folks do not understand and treat SM much like another set of traditional media channels through which they attempt jam supply-side or push messaging, just as they’ve always done, through traditional media properties. In fact much of my business is consulting to global PR agencies’ regarding SM and even though they all have “SM” practice areas their collective understanding of how their clients need to be engaging within the Social Biosphere is seriously lacking.  Most big agencies are fairly good at building blogger and SM site lists but that’s generally where their expertise drops of the deep end.

Remember I’m speaking here about the 90% of the bell curve, so obviously there are exceptions to what I’m saying.

The SM specialty shops are primarily focused on the tactical and technology aspects of SM and can build you FaceBook, Tumblr, SU, Twitter, WordPress and 20 other properties you’ve never heard of (and neither will most of your customers) but have little or no real understanding about the strategy, business goals and processes needed to drive any successful communications engagement.

Our old friends the advertisers perhaps pose the greatest barrier to advancing the SM cause since a truly functional Social Biosphere is an anathema to the ancient and fortified traditional ad-approach to business.  After all who needs a multi-million dollar ad campaign when the conversations you need to influence are already taking place and simply awaiting your participation?  Of course the problem is traditional advertisers have all the marketing money and power and will fight to the death to keep things the way they are.

One of the issues I continually run into when speaking to traditional “big PR” are metrics.  Our industry, PR, has traditionally been absolutely abysmal at developing measurement and ROI processes for our clients and coupled with our lack of understanding and outright fear of the Social Biosphere, we fail miserably at delivering consistent and replicateable ROI and business processes for our SM clients.

My experience continually demonstrates a fundamental and strategic lack of understanding of what the Social Biosphere is and how best to integrate and operate within this frightening new socialized frontier with legacy business models.  Add to this that most of the “experts” have a huge vested interest in maintaining the status-quo of communications and those evangelists for SM tend to be younger professionals with little or no knowledge apart from the tactical and technical and we’ve got some serious barriers to overcome before the Social Biosphere realizes its true potential as a business environment.

The New Face of Networking –OR- Building Business Value Networks (BVNs) in a Social Environment

Traditional business networking generally flows from the premise of working your way up, in support of organizational or personal goals. With the ultimate purpose of building a collection of valuable resources that help an organization or person, build Business Value Networks BVNs.  So simple, like chess and golf are simple games.

Most networking efforts are designed to work our way up to something better or more; a better job, more business, a higher status or ranking within a group, more perks or money.   Regardless of what the specific goal may be, the general and acknowledged purpose of networking traditionally has been to progress in a sort of direct linear upward direction towards a goal, essentially to metaphorically climb “the” ladder.

And now we find ourselves and our organizations falling through the looking glass into this strange and new socialized operating environment, or Social Biosphere. This new environment seems destined to eclipse our every business function and in the process throw so many of our tried and true, overly ordered business processes into complete chaos, or so goes the perception, judging by the fear and loathing many clients feel towards social media. 

In a socialized environment each and every stakeholder has the potential to derail all our careful planning and investments in information flow should they choose to and manage to hijack the information once solely the province of our organizations.  It’s sort of like quantum physics; each and every photon (stakeholder) has the potential, though not the likelihood, to completely reset both our organizational and communications agendas.

How do we build BVNs in a socialized environment where every stakeholder is also a potential information and business terrorist and threat to our organizations?  Networking up no longer satisfies our BVN needs in the socialized environment.

Often and, generally fondly, referred to as “The Democratization of Media and Information” by those who study these things and make such pronouncements, this new media-driven cultural paradigm really upsets our collective organizational apple carts or, in techno-business-speak; represents a disruptive threat and challenge to traditional businesses and communications models.

In all our collective organizational memories businesses have relied on a one-way asymmetrical communications model, as outlined by one of communications’ founding fathers, James Grunig.

Sure we make forays into and pay lip service to more inclusive communications and business models by reaching out to influencers and incorporating various stakeholders’ into our Business Value Networks and content creation and business planning processes but, we always knew we ultimately controlled the information content and flow.  From corporate social responsibility campaigns through product announcements and reviews to crises planning we have always maintained ultimate control to both access and the content and timing of information we released to stakeholders through BVN and other communications channels.

For example in a recent discussion on information operations with a group of colleagues, I posed the following question.  Imagine President Kennedy’s assassination took place in today’s Social Biosphere.  Rather than a single Zaprudar 8mm film, we would have hundreds of videos and thousands of pictures of both the murder and the crowd.  Further complicating the ability to control the information content and flow,  these films and pictures would be relayed to the rest of the Biosphere in real-time and be accompanied  by commentary via Twitter from thousands of sources.  

I cannot say how the outcome would be different but, I can say with absolute certainty the Warren Commission could never have sold America and the World the report it did. It could not have relied on tightly controlled BVNs for predictable information flow.

What does any of this have to do with networking in a socialized environment?  It a fair question. In the Biosphere we need to rethink how we engage with stakeholders and one the primary methods for organizing these engagements has been through BVNs.  We fed information to our networks knowing how the information would flow and what direction it follows through the networks.

In a socialized environment we need to rethink how we use BVNs and our very ability to create and control these networks.  It makes much more sense to view BVNs as collections of matrixed groups organized around various intersecting points of interest. That’s not really a new idea but, the ability of these groups to exchange information and build their own BVNs has most assuredly changed.

It’s no longer enough for organizations or individuals to build liner networks aimed at climbing to the next level.  It is essential we look to join existing BVNs and help form the connective tissues that bring BVNs together and this is how we can bring real value from our networking activities in a socialized environment.

After all the junior person or small business we ignore today, may well be a member or the custodian of a massive business value network that can have serious repercussions on our business futures.