Facta non verba: or why actions speak louder than words

While Merkozy are putting up walls of words during their lovely dinner for two (also known as a summit) in one of the longest soup operas ever – The EU Crisis, others are busy with actually doing something to make a difference.

Take the Arab Spring, for example. It was more of taking actions rather than chit-chat or always the same gobbledygook published in newspapers or launched on the TV to create the illusion that something might change. Together with the signing of the upcoming treaty Merkozy should well think of introducing new PR tactics too. Instead of moaning and complaining about their situation, the people of so many counties decided they had enough. “If you want to do something you always find a way; if you don’t want to do something you always find an excuse”. I find this Bulgarian saying particularly true, especially in today’s uncertanty. We – who are affected by the credit crunch, we are not the only ones having hard times. There are protests not only in the USA and Europe but also in the Middle East and Africa. Yes, Africa - have a look at Nigeria. Youths are launching various initiatives and it’s not only on facebook. Or maybe many people are unaware of it? Maybe because most of our media is too focused on our politicians who seem to be so preoccupied with blaming each other, trying to introduce new amazing treaties when the old ones need fixing too? Einstein stated that performing the same tasks and expecting different results is the definition of insanity and it seems so true in the EU crisis’s context. It is time for real actions and we are all waiting…

Breaking the glass-ceiling: will the wolf eventually live with the lamb ?

"The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6

With all the furor going on about breaking the “glass-ceiling issue”, pay discrimination towards female executives, gender stereotyping, we are witnessing more and more businesswomen storming the boardrooms. But have equal opportunities arrived yet? 

Partly.  Recent studies show that for the majority of women in all manager grades equality has arrived. Until they start climbing the ladder and find out how a leader should look like…. We don’t lack heroine role-models in the face of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel , PepsiCo’s boss Indra Nooyi or IMF’s Madame Chairman Christine Lagarde (yeah, she prefers being called like that because there is no word for a female chairman). 

It seems that these ladies have broken the traditional gender stereotype in leadership that portrays women as lacking the qualities usually associated with effective leadership – problem-solving, influencing upward, ambitious and dominant. Did you just imagine a middle-aged man wearing a dark suit?

Factors such as culture, history, legislation and demographics should surely be taken into account when discussing this topic. It’s not a secret that emerging markets such as China, India or Brazil do a better job for promoting women than Western countries, even though some of them (the Nordic countries or France) have even imposed boardroom quotas for women. It’s very difficult for me to see how legislation or leadership courses for women would help in this case. Couple of days ago an article in Financial Times really sparked my attention. It was praising courses that are supposed to help female executives understand the role that gender differences can play. Well, isn’t  gender balance supposed to  lie with all managers, not just with women? This “fix-the-woman” approach focuses its efforts on the wrong side of the story. Women don’t need “fixing”. Trying to adjust female executives to the stereotype of “the perfect leader” possessing male traits seems to only portray them as the ones who need help to adapt themselves to the obviously sexist corporate culture.  What’s more, the financial crisis proves that the sort of qualities that men pride themselves on, such as risk-taking and competition, can certainly lead to disaster. It’s not enough to just break the “glass-ceiling".  In order for sexism to be rooted out the majority of managers has to start speaking both women’s and men’s languages. So, why don’t we just make it a business issue rather than women’s issue? 

After all, women  are one of 21^st century's emerging forces –  taking into account the ageing workforce and falling birth rates, the female overtaking of men when it comes to education or the obvious war for talent, becoming female-friendly is just necessary for both countries and companies. Considering the outperformance of women it seems to me only common sense to look for talented employees among females and take gender as a serious issue.

As I mentioned above, emerging countries and ex-communist ones tend to be home of many businesswomen. In fact, equality of men and women in politics and the work sphere in central and Eastern European countries was always an underlying principle of communist system which remained after the transition to democracy and explains why such countries are more female-friendly even now. Unlike liberal democratic systems, women’s employment in politics, sience and engineering was encouraged and work and motherhood were bound together. As a result, women’s participation in paid work increased rapidly and was the highest among any other economy even at managerial levels. What is more, it was supported by generous childcare, maternity and child allowances and flexible working hours which have only become issues in Western countries in recent years. The old doomed system had positive sides after all and there is something that Western countries can learn from it. 

So, will the wolf live with the lamb? In the Russian folklore it certainly can. This reminds me on an old Russian metaphor fairy-tale about a lamb that asked a wolf to become its mummy and even protected it when it grew up and became a ram. So what should we conclude from this? We don’t really portray wolves as “caretakers” and lambs as strong because we tend to stereotype. I really hope that more will be done in this direction and companies will realise women’s growing economic importance.  

Measuring sustainability: an industry case study of Maersk Line

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and PRIME Research launched a national student fellowship award in May 2011. The participants had to submit a paper on a measurement and evaluation topic and the theme was sustainablity. My paper was amongst the three finalists and it offers an interesting and different perspective of CSR and measurement:

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying”

                                                                             NIETZSCHE

This quote perfectly describes the long journey that the public relations industry has started in terms of developing its measurement and evaluation framework. After more than a decade of learning and improving, the public relations industry is ready to embrace these new changes which allow every public relations practitioner to “fly”, i.e. to demonstrate their success through their ability to influence change and meet objectives. That quote may also be valid for every public relations professional: one must always upgrade their knowledge and skills to remain competitive and useful for their organisations or clients. In other words, customer satisfaction starts with improved quality. Stakeholders are adding Corporate Social Sustainability to the mix of their expectations for good services. As a result, measuring public relations’ impact on businesses has never been of such importance.  It is interesting to see how one particular sector has responded to the challenge. For the maritime industry in particular, these new trends of measurement means that their PR has entered new waters. Even though most of the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility have been spreading through businesses in all sectors, some of the conglomerates in container shipping, like Maersk Line, are already far ahead in their proactive approach compared to other industries which is an interesting field to explore.

Back in 1994, the International Public Relations Association predicted the gradual priority of outcomes over outputs, but it took until 2010 to secure the introduction of a new measurement framework, i.e. the Barcelona Principles (INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION 1994; INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION 1994a). The Barcelona Principles marked both the death of the AVEs and the start of a new era in measuring public relation’s impact on businesses. Here we can ask: can we measure everything? Can the Valid Metrics Matrix be applied everywhere? The new toolkit still does not provide all the answers but it is the backbone for showing the real value that public relations can bring to business quality. This paper attempts to argue that definitive research needs to be done to prove to businesses that the new measurement and evaluation guidelines could and should be applied everywhere, even to industries with specific requirements like container shipping.

Measuring sustainability

Most businesses still view quality in terms of customer satisfaction and container shipping is no exception. This is the technical aspect of public relations – whether there are no errors, no mechanical breakdowns or no customer complains (as seen in INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION 1994). These aspects are doubtlessly very important, especially for high risk industries like the maritime business. What about the managerial aspects of quality? Both service and process require quality. Service delivery is of course of greatest importance, however, process plays a vital role in delivering high quality services. Therefore, some marine companies, like Maersk Line, have realized the essential role of performance in achieving their goals. According to Fraser Seitel, a former vice president for public relations for the Chase Manhattan Bank (as seen in INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION 1994), the underlying concept in all definitions of public relation is the word performance. In other words, performance becomes a communicative concept which in turns makes public relations the key to managing an excellent reputation. But what does excellent reputation mean? How do we know it is well managed?

The key to understanding corporate reputation has become the measuring of the relationships it is based on, especially with the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility. In recent years, organisations have become concern about it, implementing it into their long – term strategies. This rise of sustainability to the top of management agenda is happening at a time when stakeholders’ demands for greater reliability, transparency and lower costs are already exerting pressure on business operational models. As a result, their demand for proof of ethical behaviour has changed the perception about organisations. Now businesses are seen more as strategic innovation partners rather than mere service/product providers. Subsequently, the levels of communication channels surrounding sustainability has increased and altered the way businesses manage relationships with their various stakeholders. It resulted in the increase of the importance of these relationships. Therefore, building, managing and measuring them is fundamental to an organisation’s success. Moreover, for some organisations understanding how to measure has become a part of the sole focus of their strategies: if relationships can be measured then they can be improved, and so could communication effectiveness and overall performance (PAINE 2011).

These sustainability trends have an impact of a wide variety of industries, including maritime business. Recent studies (HADDOCK – FRASER and TOURELLE 2010; FISK 2010; CLIFTON and AMRAN 2011) emphasise on the importance of end users in environmental sustainability reporting and point out that, depending on their position in the supply chain, companies that are closer to end users tend to be more proactive because they are more “visible” to this particular stakeholder group. As mentioned above, container shipping industry is less visible to consumers and therefore it is not massively targeted by activist groups. Therefore, it could be argued that most of carriers avoid having to measure their performance and  tend to adopt basic Corporate Social Responsibility models rather than proactive, societal ones (PEACH 1987, as seen in TENCH and YEOMANS 2009).

Despite being the most environmentally – friendly transport mode for bulk cargo (container shipping is still a modest contributor to global C02 emissions - 2.7% in 2007; 3, 3 % in 2009 (INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION, 2010; INTERNATIONL MARITIME ORGANIZATION 2009)), the industry is now about to face new social and environmental regulations and stakeholder expectation that have forced changes at all levels of the sector. According to a report on sustainability trends in the container shipping industry (PRUZAN – JORGENSEN and FARRAG 2010), in the upcoming years market, stakeholder, customer, and regulatory pressures related to sustainability will drive significant changes in the way international container shipping lines operate and do business. Such environmentally motivated regulations have already become the most important cost – driver, as governments and corporations raise their bar of expectations. All of these micro-level changes will be compounded by four wider societal mega-trends: hyper-transparency, regulated carbon and resource constraints, rise of rights and local governance, and socio-economic shifts (PRUZAN – JORGENSEN and FARRAG 2010).

So, the answer is that the PR function can take a lead, encouraging businesses such as container shipping to join the transparency revolution. Considering that the industry transports about 60 percent of the value of global seaborne trade and represents a heavy social and environmental footprint, these trends will have a far – reaching impact in a variety of other sectors (WORLD SHIPPING COUNCIL 2011).

Maersk Line seems to realise the importance of these trends to both remain competitive on the market, where big customers are already greening their supply chains (as seen in LEACH 2010), and to adjust to the new economic climate. For example, it produced its first Annual Report in 2009, introduced the CO2 Dial Program for its customers and has been developing the so called Responsible Procurement Program for its own suppliers (for detailed information see Appendix One Research Report: Being ethical in an unethical industry: a case study of Maersk Line).

“We see our customers putting more and more emphasis on environmental issues and now they started looking at transportation as well. We can choose to do nothing and risk losing out business but we can also respond. But we want also to help this trend grow, we want to drive that demand and create solutions...The decision to communicate much proactively is a great opportunity to take the lead and win by doing so”         Maersk Line Head of Climate and Sustainability*

Maersk Line manages successfully to combine corporate continuity and sustainable trends. It has already set a solid foundation for measuring performance in order to develop a greener and more transparent company. Even though the carrier is a pioneer in measuring its ethical performance in a rather unethical industry, it still has areas to improve. It could be argued that Maersk Line tends to focus on the technical aspects of public relations, i.e. its carbon and C02 footprints or its supplier performance (see 5. Appendix One Research Report: Being ethical in an unethical industry: a case study of Maersk Line). However, the launch of the first global standard for PR measurement – the Barcelona Principles allows a careful analysis and measurement of the managerial impact of quality to sustain a collective reputation management. In other words, the new framework would further improve Maersk Line’s evaluation indicators because it would enable the company to measure the results of its efforts in terms of building and sustaining relationships; in terms of improving its communication channels. The complex and changing nature of relationships between an organisation and its public not only requires measurement and evaluation of the outputs (i.e. the technical aspect of public relations) but also of outcomes to provide competitive insights. It could be argued therefore that the Barcelona Principles and the Valid Metrics Matrix could be a useful platform for measuring Maersk Line’s performance: a combination between the carrier’s efforts to showcase ethical behaviour by reporting its environmental footprint and its quality of managing relationships in and outside the organisation (see 6. Appendix Two: Valid Metrics Matrix applied on Maersk Line).

*The researched carried out a face-to-face interview with Maersk Line’s Head of Climate and Sustainability

UK PR agencies doing work for Gaddafi???

More and more PR agencies are being approached by foreign dictatorships officials to deal with the current crisis.

I'm just flicking through PR Week where on the cover page I can see there is yet another UK PR agency to be targeted by protesters because of its links to the Gaddafi regime. Shocking!Disappointing! But is it really true that agencies are currently helping dictatorship regimes such as Gaddafi's?

Joy! Lybian officials were trying to hire PR agencies but fortunately it came to nothing! Yes, Brown Lloyd James did do work for Gaddafi but back in 2009 when Lybia was recognised by British and American governments. So, is it that bad?

Panta rei! Things always change - what was good yesterday might not be good today and PR practitioners know this best! It's PR professionals who best know how fragile a reputation is and it's them who best know how to take care of reputation, especially their own!

Do you really think a decent PR practitioner would risk their own reputation with doing work for somebody who is generally hated? Certainly not!

I'm a bit disappointed! Is it becoming fashionable to attack PR agencies?  Why activists don't  target governments that do business with such dictatorship regimes all the time instead of turning the PR industry into notorious spin?

Blue is the new Green: building the world's biggest and most efficient container ship

Maersk Line has recently announced its order of world's largest and most efficient ships - Maersk Triple - E.

The company has long been a frontrunner in such innovations but that's not the only reason why Maersk Triple E fascinates me. The introduction of these new vessels is a turning point for the whole industry as container companies started placing more emphasis on reliability and promt delivery rather than speed in order to meet both new economic climate's requirements for low-cost operations and customers' demand for transparency and sustainability. 

Maersk Triple E will not only offer significant economies of scale but will also help reduce energy consumpion and lower CO₂ emissions. Apparently these new vessels fits well with Maersk Line's new green strategy and attempts to reshape the whole industry. Now when "the sustainability boom" is spreading throughout all industries I believe that complying to this trend is the only way to remain competitive. 

While worldwide container trade fell more than 10 percent in 2009 many vessels were sitting out of use. 

However, now the demand is expected to grow again (Maersk Line is expecting 5 to 6 percent growth) and it seems to me that Maersk Triple E is worth investing in both in terms of cost and environmental footprint reductions.

If your government shuts down your internet, it's time to shut down your government

Some governments are willing to commit to open web access for all, no matter what. In 2002 Estonia made internet access a human right. Finland introduced a law last year that guarantees every sitizen broadband internet. .
However, some countries have recently tried to suspend the national internet. We all wintnessed the internet blackout in Egypt and the censored news and social media in Tunisia. The notorious news coverage blackout posed by Israel made us "eyeless in Gaza" but was it actually a winning strategy? Did such radical measures stop the protests?

Certainly not. If anything, one lesson seems to be that enforced closure of internet and media access can only do harm: if your government shuts down your internet, it's time to shut down your government. Especially on the Second Front - media!

Any publicity is good publicity?Kenneth Cole's controvercial tweet

"Millions are in uproar in Cairo. Rumour is they heard our new spring collection is now available online".

This was the tweet by Kenneth Cole, a successful American designer  famous with his controversial marketing campaigns that are often not even run because of their biased nature. He is unusual in that he writes them himself.

Thousands complained across the world and KC had to apologize:

"I have removed this morning’s tweet. Please visit this link to see my apology. http://on.fb.me/fCSf5Z -KC"

This tweet was retweeted 100 times and probably seen by thousands of people. So did it actually damage KC's reputation?

Certainly not!  I think that was a great viral campaign: linked to the biggest issue in the world, controversial enough to create uproar but not catastrophe. The result: everybody's talking/ tweeting/ facebooking/ blogging about it! Well done!