As for Shel’s interview about the late 200NINE! advocacy project — I always think an interviewer is doing a good job when he asks the question that I’m thinking, and Shel nailed it, several times.

Excellent job.

What I wonder about Jetblue, and advocacy, is how often professional communicators in big organizations have the respect of senior managment, and the authority conferred upon them by senior management, to get deeply involved in prediciting bad things happening and then the authority to take steps to avoid those bad things.

This was not the first time passengers were stuck on airplanes owned by badly run airlines, at badly run airports. Smart PR people already know this is happening all over the world — how many of them have put avoidance programs in place?

I sorta thing advocacy in favor if improved respect and responsibility and authority now beats some ISO thing years from now, but what the heck..

Is IABC buying airplane tickets for people to fly to Switzerland to meet with people from 35 other organizations, in Geneva?

If anyone gets to go, allow a few days extra and rent a car and drive south from Geneva on the back roads through Grenoble and on to Grasse and Cannes. It’s one of the great roads in the world, and the best road I’ve ever been on. Allow two days to Cannes. I did it in one and that was a mistake.

There’s an international airport in Nice that will get the IABC delegates back to their homes around the world. I think it is the same airport that was called Beaumont Sur Mer in the greatest movie ever made, Dirty Rotten Scoiundrels.

Have fun.

BAK

You should also note that the March installment has already prompted a comment from the director of communications at JetBlue, which was the subject of Julie and Glenda’s commentary. I noted that a comment from Glenda awaits in the moderation queue.

We have been remiss in not promoting the interactive nature of Cafe2Go — an oversight we should correct in future episodes. We have not, that is, solicited comment. However, downloads are pretty good (nearly 300 for the February episode).

Still, if nobody was listening — even if IABC dropped Cafe2Go — the notion that this single effort is somehow characteristic of the entire social media phenomenon is patently absurd. In light of empirical research, studies, academic research, journalistic inquiries, statistics, and other sources of information that point to the effectiveness and growth of the social media space, it’s astounding to me that you would settle on one anecdote to reach your conclusion.

While no company–or communicator–handles everything perfectly all the time, there are certainly many things that we can learn from JetBlue’s response to this crisis. Thanks for responding to our podcast and for contributing to the dialogue in a positive way.

Since the only comment in December, January and February, and so far in March, is this one and an earlier one from me wondering about the lack of comments, has IABC decided no one cares?

The “new social media” stuff is over-rated, and the lack of response here proves my point.

BAK

Did no one find this intresting enough to warrant offering their own insights?

Or am I thinking in some old-fashioned way?

BAK

To bad the opening page fo the IABC web site does not entice people to go listen by tellingthemthere’s something new.

But, but… am I right there was no reference in the discussion of podcsts to the IABC Commons? Is it such a failure that it has been forgotten about?

BAK

Knowing monthliness saves listeners from going back more often looking for insights and ideas, aurally, from around the world.

About Radio Shack firing people by e-mail.

As I listened to the discussion between Glenda and Juie, I wonderd how many layoffs and firings of people in the hundreds they had been involved in.

Beause I was listening for “story” and understanding of just how the “face-to-face” they advocated would actually work.

I’ve been involved in dozens of layoffs and staff reductions of a hundred plus, and my colleagues and I did not figure this face-to-face stuff out. We had better luck with white collar than with blue collar, and worse luck with unionized people. By the time the HR people had worked out bumping for 150 unionized workers, details invariably leaked.

But what was more interesting about the podcast was the observation that those who announce layoffs so often do it badly. I expect no better than bad, because most often, layoffs are announced by so-called “human resources professionals” and they are generally unskilled at communicating, and generally not respected nor trusted by their fellow employees. (

(Note; I’ve written this before, people complain, I ask for good examples of first rate personnel departments that exist today, and so far, silence ensues. Examples of high quality, respected, HumanR people whose job is other than doing the bidding of the CFO in order to use staffing levels to manipulate the quarterly results, or similar antics, will be welcomed, of course. Don’t bother mentioning Ford or Hewlett Packard or any of the stock option backdaters)

Departments as a whole — sometimes I can find a skilled individual, usually unhappy and waiting for retirement or a package)

But is the inability to communicate well their fault? Hmmm… maybe an IABC communications department staff professional, or a knowledgable volunteer, can tell us the last three or four or five times IABC professional communications have been prime speakers at personnel specialist conferences and conventions, and taught them how important it is to learn how to talk to four hundred people, face to face, allowing for two way symetrical and asymetrical; communications strategies to be optimized within the synergistic parameters specified by the catalystic benchmarks.

For that matter, what were the last three or four or five times IABC senior leaders explained to senior general management — the men and women who hire professional communicators– the value of running the crisis stuff past real communicators, early, and often, and then listen to the communicators’ advice. i.e. PR for PR.

Radio Shack’s CEO was clearly clueless about PR or he never would have let HR be headed by such a loser.

Almost in closing, Radio Shack’s PR around the layoffs-by-e-mail was just as awful as the layoff procedure itself. Conjecture abounded world-wide about the details, — Julie and Glenda worried about the opportunity to ask questions of senior management; I’m wiling to bet the e-mails were backed up by info packages, and I do know that the e-mails did not come out of the blue.

And in closing… IABC members interested in learning more about follow IABC members’ views on the Radio Shack firings can look into the IABC Cafe blog.

I look forward to further commentary here between now and next November’s podcast.

BAK