Confessions of a Facebook Timeline creeper

I am a naturally curious person. Everything is amazing to me, even something that seems totally mundane to you. So I probe. I probe in conversation, I probe with my eyes, and I reach for anything I want to better understand.

I’m probing you, too.

I know that sounds awful, but I mean no harm. It’s just that I find you absolutely fascinating. And now I have a great way to learn all about you – Facebook Timeline.

Now here’s the rub: while I’m creeping down your Timeline, what is the proper etiquette for whether or not I should post a smartass comment on a photo you posted last year? What about one you posted in 2004? Yes, I go that far if you’re interesting. I go all the way back.

Now, before you freak out and unfriend me, please understand that I’m not crazy. Well, at least not in the I-get-off-on-watching-you-when-you-don’t-even-know-it way. I’m just intrigued. For those of you who know me, you know that I am an admirer of souls and a collector of stories. I just love people. I love learning what songs you love, what places you’ve been to, who you’re closest to, what you find funny. If I had the capability to learn about you in person, I’d be finding these things out through conversation and questions, but conversation seems to be mostly online now anyway.

So here’s my question: if you hadn’t read this and had no idea about who I really am, would you freak out if I posted a comment about something you said six years ago? Now that this is the “scrapbook of your life,” is it weird that a friend would look at it? It used to be that I’d invite you over to my house to hang out, and we’d end up looking at photos of my trip to France in 1997. We’d laugh, and I’d tell stories. But now things are different. So now what?

Am I the only one who feels this way? Do you guys look at a friend’s old photo and hover your fingers over the keys, wishing you could say something, but holding yourself back for fear of seeming creepy? I can’t be the only one, right?

So help me out here. We need to establish the ground rules. Because I have something hilarious to say about that one picture of you on Halloween a few years back.

Advice to the poor souls who are about to endure the JOUR 4460 campaign

­­My group just wrapped up the final project for 4460, our last public relations class. I was so lucky to have been grouped with three other amazing ladies who were just as dedicated to the project as I was. We all worked hard and met often, brainstorming and collaborating the whole time.

Heads up: this is going to be a HUGE undertaking and will require a great deal of your time. I lucked out with a great group. Some of the other groups had issues with member participation. Just so you know: if someone starts flaking from the get-go, don’t rely on them to finish any of their assignments on time. Expect to have to compensate for weak links right away.

You don’t expect you’re going to need advice. It seems really straightforward. You have no idea.

Heed these tips and save yourself a lot of trouble:

1. Meet once a week.

·         Set an agenda for upcoming meetings. Even if you don’t set an agenda, MEET. There’s always something to talk about, and someone always brings something up that needs to be discussed. Besides, it’s hard to get everyone on the same page without meeting face-to-face (or at least webcam-to-webcam).

2. Make your first meeting a creative brainstorming session.

·         Think about the characteristics of the organization. Come up with a bunch of adjectives, then figure out the best two or three that associate best with the organization’s overall character.

3. Come up with a list of about 10-15 possible taglines

·         What’s the organization wanting to say to the world?

·         Alliteration is good and catchy, but try not to get hung up on the sound alone. If you get stuck on trying to make a tagline sound a certain way, you miss out on creating something with real meaning.

4. Assign parts to each group member based on his or her strengths, then set deadlines for the assignments.

·         Try to get everything done two weeks before the final plan is due. The sooner you finish each piece that will go into your book, the sooner you can start putting it together as a cohesive unit. The book must read fluidly and has to be designed professionally. The more time you have to scrutinize the final product, the more polished you can make it.

5. Have each member edit each assignment. Everyone has a different eye, so each person might find something different that needs to be changed.

·         A Facebook group is a great way to communicate, but a difficult way to share your material. To share documents, spreadsheets, images, etc., use email. I’ve heard that Google Docs is great, too.

6. DO NOT wait until the night before or the day that it’s due to have it all printed up, bound and ready to turn in. A great idea would be to have a book totally finished, printed and bound the week before it’s due so you can each look at the physical copy itself. Failing to look through each printed page makes you miss little things that can be fixed, like fuzzy images or printer ink smears.

This is going to be really tough, but you’ll be very proud when all is said and done. Remember that once it’s over, you will get to sleep again and that your life will return to normal. Good luck, and have a drink for me at Lou’s when you make it through.

Is PR shady? (4460)

We had to write a blog about ethics in public relations for my other class, and writing it took my mind back to a lecture I attended last semester. The guest speaker for the evening was a lawyer who consulted with companies during crisis situations. He was the one the PR director would go to to figure out what to say and what not to say. He was incredibly intelligent and someone I’d love to have on my team during a crisis, but his presentation gave me an overall icky feeling about public relations.

His presentation was centered on the then-recent Jerry Sandusky case. It wasn’t the fact that the case was about a pedophile who used a position of power to sexually abuse young boys that gave me the icky feeling. Well, that wasn’t the only thing that gave me an icky feeling. It was how often the speaker told us cases like this come up. The lawyer said that he personally had dealt with over 70 cases “exactly like this one.” Powerful pedophiles who get caught. Unbelievable. He said we would be amazed to learn how many people with money and power think they can get away with anything.

He told us how often PR people are asked to cover up facts and skew the truth by their bosses. He said that PR pros in big companies are either blatantly as unethical as the executives they represent, or that their ethics are challenged so often that they have to quit jobs on a fairly frequent basis. What a shame. Who should or could even be forced into being held accountable for such deception? This seems to be a big problem in modern corporate culture.

On the day the speaker gave this presentation, Sandusky had given an interview with Bob Costas in which he admitted things about harmlessly showering naked with children, “horsing around,” touching their legs, etc. This was the interview in which Sandusky had the ridiculous pause before answering that he is not sexually attracted to young boys.

The guest speaker told us that often in these cases the perpetrator is so sociopathic that he truly believes he can fool the public. He told us that most people in a position of power believe everyone else is stupid and easily manipulated. He said that Sandusky’s lawyer likely advised him not to do any live interviews, but that Sandusky thought he could handle it and ignored his lawyer’s advice. He told us that as PR practitioners, we should always attempt to muzzle the person who committed the dirty deed.

I thought that that was a horrible way to think about it. If I had been Sandusky’s PR person, I would have gladly put that disgusting monster in a situation in which he could implicate himself with comments that show his true colors. Quit? No. Manipulate the monsters? Absolutely.

The whole idea made me skeptical about PR. Is this what it’s really like? Should I be worried about going into this field?

Luckily I’ve been able to study some cases this semester that demonstrate positive communication and ethical PR. No matter what happens, I know my own principles and will never compromise them. Especially for monsters.

Sources

“Penn State Sex Scandal Jerry Sandusky Full Interview with Bob Costas,” via YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xy0L8MUsOE

Ethics and modern public relations (4470)

Almost everyone thinks that public relations professionals are shady. PR pros are seen as deceptive, sleazy sales people who are only interested in selling the perfect conception of their company, product or service to the public, even if it means lying about the facts. PR pros are almost always thought of as unethical people who will say or do anything to get what they want. Unfortunately, there have been publicized cases in which PR pros have breached professional ethics, and a few bad apples can make the tree look sour.

Most of the practice of public relations is commonplace and unnoticed. Companies seldom have to publicly defend themselves for something written in a brochure or newsletter. News releases don’t really incite passionate rebuttals. Backgrounders generally don’t destroy reputations. The incidents that taint the PR field are big, public catastrophes in which someone or something has caused a stink, and the PR pros who clean up the messes try to hide or alter the truth.

What most of the public doesn’t realize is that the information the company gives out is ultimately approved, and often directed and or/dictated by the leaders of that company. PR pros and agencies are almost never given carte blanche to handle situations. There’s no concrete evidence, but it can be argued that often times the company leaders tell the PR pros exactly what to do and say in crisis situations. It’s an unspoken understanding among PR pros that when a PR representative or firm uses the words “no comment,” the order to keep quiet probably came from the company’s executives. PR pros often know what to do in a crisis situation, but the company bigwigs get scared and are afraid of the potential implications of conveying any information at all. When the PR pros say something to spin public opinion away from the facts, the order to do so likely came from the company’s executives.

However, some PR pros and agencies exaggerate or omit certain aspects of cases to alter public perception of a company or individual. We recently studied the lawsuit Mike Leach brought against ESPN, Inc. and Spaeth Communications, Inc. The lawsuit claims, “…[Craig] James was enlisting the aid of a public relations firm to inflict further damage on Mike Leach’s reputation.” Exhibit 5 in the case is an email sent from Merrie Spaeth of the PR firm Spaeth Communications to Sally Post, who was the director of communications for Texas Tech at the time. The email appears to offer suggestions about how to make the staff’s treatment of James’ son Adam seem worse than it actually was. The doctor’s report claimed that Adam had been diagnosed with a “mild” concussion. About the concussion being mild, Spaeth writes, “There is no such thing.” She suggests they downplay the doctor’s report, saying, “…recant ‘mild’ and talk about the need for rest.” The email contains a report from Mark Chisum, Texas Tech’s director of sports medicine for football, which gives a detailed, factual description of the building Adam James was put in. The report proves that Adam’s public claims were exaggerated, yet Spaeth wrote, “The Chisum statement is really irrelevant.”  The email seems to prove that Spaeth was indeed trying to skew the facts. Also, on December 30, 2009, more than a week after the facts of an investigation by Texas Tech University’s attorney proved that Adam James’ story had been exaggerated, Spaeth Communications published a video of Adam “locked” in a closet to YouTube. The video, which is still on YouTube as of the publishing of this blog, is captioned with information that had been refuted by TTU’s attorney. Spaeth Communications obviously distorted the truth of the case in the interest of its client.

This does happen from time to time, and it sullies the image of PR.

When thinking about ethics in the field of PR, the public needs to understand the bigger picture. When something goes wrong with an individual or business, there are so many factors that must be taken into account. If a politician is involved in a sex scandal, what would be the best way to handle it so as not to cause more harm to his or her family? How much information must be shared to be fair to the public as well as the people involved? If a CEO is caught in an insider trading scandal, how do you keep one person’s mistake from tainting a business that is only guilty by association? What about the innocent employees and stakeholders? Communication has to be handled expertly, and sometimes difficult choices must be made. PR pros must weigh the ethics of what is revealed so as to hurt the fewest individuals.

Sources

“Mike Leach v. ESPN, Inc. and Spaeth Communications, Inc.” Cause No. 2010554969. District Court of Lubbock County, Texas. 72^nd Judicial District. Filed 2010 Nov 24, PM 12:34.