by JARVIS CROMWELL

Tomorrow the world heads back to work. Armed with your 2010 New Year’s resolutions, what are your sources of inspiration as you set out to face what remains a challenging environment on so many fronts?

Here’s a suggestion. Even if you’ve seen this iconic video of basketball player Matt Scott, which was released in 2007 as part of the Nike No Excuses campaign, watch it again. It still inspires.

Across the media landscape hero’s fell and leaders disappointed in 2009, but putting it all in perspective one realizes that sources of inspiration remain all around us.

All you have to do is look for it.

by STEPHANIE FIERMAN

Ed Note: As the numbers trickle in and retail analysts debate the success – or lack thereof – of this holiday season, Trustmeister Stephanie Fierman asks the key question…

Is Santa the best marketer ever?

Think about it.

Long-term reputation management: No Tiger Woods problems here. Ever. Do you think that Coca-Cola worries that it might go to sleep one night and wake up to find a sex tape of Santa on the Web? Have you ever noticed that the whole “Mommy kissing Santa Claus” business never seems to go past a certain point (paging Charlie Sheen…)? Nope, not gonna happen. Santa is one reliable dude.

Brand promise and channel integration: No matter where you go, you receive the same disciplined message. Movies, television, email, radio, social media, Web, snail mail, music, retail… You get the same message everywhere and each channel builds upon and reinforces the others. He’s big, he’s fat, he wears a red suit and he gives you what you ask for on Christmas Eve. Not December 23. Not December 25. It’s December 24. Every year.

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NICOLETTE WURING

Editors Note:

General Electric’s Jeff Immelt recently noted that the global economy is not simply undergoing an economic downturn, but an emotional, social and economic reset.

Is your management team feeling panic about that? Applying the thinking developed by the trustmeisters here in the Reputation Garage can help. If Mr. Immelt is right, and we think he is, your management team will need to radically change its playbook. And not only have the rules changed, there is not yet a lot of clarity around what the new game board looks like.

Below our newest “trustmeister,” Amsterdam-based Nicolette Wuring, offers thoughts as this relates to her specialty: customer advocacy, operations and service. In a follow-up piece, Nicolette will offer tips for keeping customers in this rough and tumble environment.
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A few of us attended the CRO Conference in New York this week. This new organization dedicated to best practices in corporate responsibility already has 15% of the Fortune 500 signed up and it’s growing fast.

The meeting offered plenty of performance take-aways that organizations of every stripe can learn from. Here are a few that we’re chewing on back here in the Garage:

1) Some of the smartest companies are driving their sustainability practices from the outside in, with the customer firmly in sight. (Peter Drucker would have been proud.) Mattel, for example, is not only implementing a more sustainable packaging strategy for “Barbie”, they have eased a big customer frustration: having to cut, pry, twist and pull Barbie out of her well-bolted, plastic shrine. See a fun CNBC clip on Mattel’s strategy here.

2) Not one, but two Fortune 500 CEOs advised that when addressing sustainability issues an important starting point is to deal with the facts — both the convenient and the inconvenient. Then focus on continuous improvement, not instant perfection. Funny how if you strip away the hype and just “get after it”, profits and greater good can come of it.

3) OK, full disclosure, this was a green crowd, but there was thoughtful consensus that it’s a myth that green practices are the enemy of profit. On the most basic level, what company wouldn’t want to reduce costs through less fuel, less water? And did we mention that Mattel’s stock price has been on a tear over the past year?

4) Long-term solutions to many sustainability issues are not going to yield short-term gains. That’s a problem, and a big topic. And it relates to what we refer to here in the Garage as The Math Problem. More on that another day.

5) Climate change will be profoundly important in accelerating both business growth and new wealth. Of course for some, the grim reaper of economics, “creative destruction,” will be in play. What companies are headed for a rough patch? The panel of experts – all consultants trying hard not to offend – demurred. Oh, wait a minute. The word “Detroit” slipped out. And it was predicted that water-intensive agriculture is going to die faster than anybody currently expects.

As fellow Trustmeister Paul Allen has just gotten back from the Galapagos Islands, we can’t help but paraphrase the famous Darwin insight here: “It’s not the strongest that survive, but those that are best able to adapt.” You can read his dispatch shortly.

Finally, one of the biggest points for trustmeisters that came out of the conference: If you don’t know what it is you need to do to have your reputation aligned with your publics, you’re courting real trouble.

Enjoy the weekend.

by JARVIS CROMWELL

We find Andrew Zolli one of the more interesting and relevant futurists out there these days. He recently wrote a great piece in Fast Company (here) that kicked off with a quote from renown free-marketeer Milton Friedman:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business”, Friedman wrote back in 1970, and that is to “engage in activities designed to increase profits.”

As soon as we read this quote here in the Garage, we knew that Zolli had nailed it: Friedman’s pronouncement marked a watershed moment for global business, a tipping point for the guiding principal of the era: profitable self-interest would prove to be the only reliable endgame.

Everyone knows the good parts that played out with the help of Friedman’s compass. The rise of the activist shareholder movement. Reagan-era deregulation. Michael Douglas’ declaration that “Greed is Good” in the movie Wall Street. The tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The creation of the Jack Welch rules of management.

All of this and more helped companies achieve higher performance throughout the 80s and 90s. “Mr. Market” surged, helped along by a long-term decline in interest rates and a speculative bubble or two. A lot of executives (and shareholders) grew rich.

Greed took a victory lap. Capitalistic self-interest flourished. Customers got better and cheaper products. All in, Friedman’s playbook worked. But… Continue Reading