Glen Turpin: The Identity Question

Who am I? Why am I here? What’s this all about?

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In defense of attorneys

LawyerJokeSmall

I’m sure that the people who post lawyer jokes on the Internet would be amused that Google finds 666 thousand results. There are plenty of people who think lawyers are evil, but in the world of corporate communications, lawyers are a fact of life. And you know what? I don’t have a problem with that.*

But apparently a lot of my peers do. I often hear complaints about having to send documents through legal review. They take forever! There are always so many changes! They don’t understand what we’re trying to do!

In my experience, corporate lawyers and communicators have very similar goals. The corporate general counsel wants to protect the company from legal risk and corporate communications wants to protect the company’s reputation. Bottom line, you both want what’s best for the company.

When you put yourself into an adversarial relationship with your legal advisers, you shouldn’t be surprised when they’re… adversarial. And if you find yourself dealing with the same legal issues time after time, take the hint. Talk to your attorneys and get an idea of their concerns.

If you find yourself in petty squabbles over AP stlye, explain your point of view, listen to theirs, and come to a working compromise. Present your case well and there’s a good chance they’ll come around to seeing things your way.

On the other hand, if the issues are more substantive, stop and think about better ways that you can achieve your goals without making the layers uncomfortable. They’re usually uncomfortable for a reason.

Once you understand each other’s point of view, you may actually find that they’re your allies in the board room. With Corporate Communications and the General Counsel working together, who can stop you?

P.S. Shout out to some of the corporate lawyers I’ve enjoyed working with: Alan, John, Liza, Susan, Tanya, Tim. Thank you.

Notes:

* Gasp! [↩]

Posted in influence.

Tagged with corporate, lawyers, pr.

3 comments

By Glen – July 1, 2009

Trust is the baseline

This is a quote from an August 2008 Boston Globe article, but I think it’s relevant and don’t care how old it is.

Trust is the baseline. Trustworthiness is the very first thing that we decide about a person, and once we’ve decided, we do all kinds of elaborate gymnastics to believe in people.

– Susan Fiske, Princeton University

Read the article. It’s still interesting.

Posted in reputation.

Tagged with susan-fiske, trust.

No comments

By Glen – June 30, 2009

Update: Bozeman backs down on password requests

Following a flurry of negative media attention, the City of Bozeman, Mont. has stopped asking job candidates for web site user names and passwords.

According to the press release :

Effective at 12:00 p.m. today, Friday June 19, 2009, the City of Bozeman permanently ceased the practice of requesting candidates selected for City positions under a provisional job offer to provide user names and passwords for the candidate’s internet sites.

They said in a memo to the mayor and city commission that it was an honest mistake and that they believed it was consistent with their core values. I believe them. And I give them some credit for realizing the severity of the situation they created for themselves and acting quickly to fix it.

But they still don’t get it. City Manager Chris Kukulski made a point that only certain staff had access. They still don’t appear to understand the risks associated with asking for that information, using it or securing it. Which brings me to…

After reading the press release and the memo I was also concerned that they were still not addressing how the information they already have on hand is stored and secured, but that concern is addressed in the video of the press conference (WMV) with City Manager Chris Kukulski.

“Yes, that is protected, confidential information and it is held in the same cabinet, in the same information where all other protected human resource or personnel items are.”

The information is safe in the cabinet. I guess I’m relieved. But I hope it’s a sturdy cabinet.

Posted in identity.

Tagged with bozeman, broken, eemployment, facebook, identity, identity-management, passwords, privacy, social-media, social-network.

3 comments

By Glen – June 24, 2009

Privacy disaster in the making

Ars Technica reports that the city of Bozeman, Mont. is asking job applicants for their user names and passwords to all web services and communities in order to perform pre-employment screening.* Applicants are required to sign a form that says:

“Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”**

This is a monumentally bad idea.

Under U.S. law, employers must not discriminate against members of several protected classes. Having direct access to a prospective employee’s account gives access to a limitless supply of risky information.

Everything is connected.

You can use your Google, Yahoo or Facebook*** account with to log in to countless web sites, so even if the city of Bozeman isn’t explicitly asking for access, they would have the credentials to access a mind-boggling amount of personal information.

Let’s say you apply for a job and give your prospective employer your Google login information. That gives them access to your e-mail, including access to any correspondence with other prospective employers, your chat history, your search history, your image library, your calendar, your address book, the RSS feeds you subscribe to, the locations you’ve mapped, your health information,**** administrative control of your blog, your news alerts….

There’s no end to the number of ways that one account could be abused. The city of Bozeman wants access to all your accounts.

“One thing that’s important for folks to understand about what we look for is none of the things that the federal constitution lists as protected things, we don’t use those,” city attorney Greg Sullivan told KBZK. We don’t use those? I’d like to hear how that argument stands up when the first discrimination suit is filed.

That’s not all.

Bozeman is asking for access to current business web sites as well. Can they really be asking applicants who are employed elsewhere to give the city access to their company business systems? If they are, then the the city is selecting employees based in part on their willingness to violate their employment agreements and provide unauthorized access to confidential business information.

According to KBZK, city attorney Sullivan said that no one has ever removed his or her name from consideration for a job due to the request. It appears that the city of Bozeman wants to hire people who are absolutely clueless about data privacy and no regard for confidentiality — and put them in charge of protecting applicants’ login data.

This can’t end well.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s nothing on the form to suggest that the city of Bozeman is asking for passwords to access to online banking or other financial data, but by asking for account data like Google and Yahoo that gives access to e-mail, they’re essentially asking for the ability to obtain personal financial data. With access to e-mail, someone can take over your bank account and transfer your funds elsewhere before you realize what’s happening.

But let’s assume for a moment that all city employees are beyond reproach. By compiling user names and passwords, they’re creating a honey pot for identity thieves. Let’s hope the city of Bozeman has world-class data security programs in place***** because that much personal information is sure to attract unwanted attention.

I have to stop. I’m stunned by the staggering lack of judgment behind the city of Bozeman’s decision and the potential spiderweb of unintended consequences.

Photo credit: Mirko Macari

Notes:

* Local TV station KBZK broke the story. The Associated Press has picked it up as well. [↩]
** Heh. Three lines for any and all logins. Three pages, maybe? [↩]
*** Among others. I wonder if they’re asking for OpenID credentials as well. [↩]
**** Assuming anyone actually uses Google Health. Bear with me. I’m making a point. [↩]
***** I know this is a stretch, since it appears that the city only wants to hire rubes who don’t know or care about privacy or data security. [↩]

Posted in identity.

Tagged with bozeman, broken, employment, facebook, identity, identity-management, passwords, privacy, social-media, social-network.

10 comments

By Glen – June 19, 2009

In the spirit of transparency

I saw this on New Math* and liked its optimism.

via Explainist

Notes:

* Love the hat tip to The Simpson’s in this one. [↩]

Posted in reputation.

Tagged with transparency, truth.

No comments

By Glen – June 18, 2009

Twitter usability fail

If you use Twitter as a customer engagement channel, you’ll eventually end up in a situation where you want to communicate with someone or have them send you information by direct message. If you’re not following each other, chances are it will be a frustrating experience for everyone because Twitter doesn’t let you send a direct message to someone who doesn’t follow you.

That makes a lot of sense because it you can only send messages to people who want to hear from you. You can’t spam people by direct message.

It becomes a problem, however, if you’re trying to respond privately to customers who don’t follow you. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Twitter’s help bar is wrong.

Here’s an example. I tried to send a direct message from a Twitter account I maintain at work to my personal account and received this error message:

Here’s the problem. If you send follow gturpin to Twitter, you start following @gturpin, not the other way around. It doesn’t send a message to @gturpin requesting to follow you.* Click to see the image at full size.

It doesn’t allow you to send a direct message. It gives you the wrong information and leads you to believe that you’re doing the right thing.

That’s broken.

Usability fail, Twitter.

Notes:

* That would get ugly in a hurry. [↩]

Posted in miscellaneous.

Tagged with broken, twitter, usability.

No comments

By Glen – June 17, 2009

A few simple admonitions

My friend Cori Keeton Pope concluded a recent blog post with a bit of sage advice for corporate communications and PR teams:

If you don’t know the answer, don’t make it up. Especially in a crisis.

It’s common sense, but this advice often seems to take people by surprise when it comes up in media training or crisis communications.

I try to take a common sense approach to crisis communications, and while the crises I usually deal with are not life-threatening — mostly service interruptions for enterprise solutions — I think the principles are applicable in many situations.*

Building on Cori’s point, here are a few simple admonitions for communicators next time the flux discombolulaters go offline or the wheels fly off the flywheel.

Don’t make things up. Despite best intentions, you’ll look bad when the truth comes to light. Will people think you’re ignorant or a liar? Which is worse? At that point, does it even matter? Either way, you’ll look bad. There’s no shame in admitting you don’t know something.
Stick to the facts. As a corollary to the previous point, talk about what you know to be true. I know it’s tempting to float a theory, particularly when your audience is demanding answers. Don’t speculate.
Keep it simple. I’ve written about simplicity before. Don’t try to bury your message in a lot of mumbo-jumbo. Ditch the jargon and acronyms. Explain how the situation affects your audience using terms they will understand.
Be human. You’re talking to people, remember? Show some personality, or at least a little empathy. Does anybody trust faceless corporations anymore?
Apologize like you mean it. Don’t offer a milquetoast apology laden with passive, conditional language. Take responsibility and acknowledge that people are upset, inconvenienced, whatever the case may be. Let them know you’re going to make things right.
Focus on what’s relevant. Don’t spam your audience with useless updates. Tell them that you know something is wrong and that you’re working to fix it, then tell them you fixed it.** This isn’t the time to show people how your sausage is made.

This isn’t an exhaustive list or a definitive guide to crisis communications — just a few rules of thumb for communicating about minor crises in the business world. If they’re helpful, you’re welcome. If you have other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Notes:

* If your situation is life-threatening, look for help elsewhere. Go! Now! [↩]
** Granted, if your situation persists for a long time, you might want to consider periodic updates, but use common sense. [↩]

Posted in reputation, tips.

Tagged with crisis, customer-service, how-to-be-a-human, reputation, trust.

2 comments

By Glen – June 10, 2009