This is a long and rambling article full of anecdotes, requiring the reader to form their own conclusions, but its still a very powerful piece.  It has anecdotes about all the recent corporate mis-steps, such as Edelman/ Walmart, Southwest Airlines, and a host of other. 

But here’s the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently and often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and thus to directly influence your Googleable reputation.

Putting out more evasion or PR puffery won’t work, because people will either ignore it and not link to it – or worse, pick the spin apart and enshrine those criticisms high on your Google list of life.

Source: Wired 15.04: The See-Through CEO

Thoughts I took away:

• opting out of the reputation economy using secrecy will fail

The Internet has inverted the social physics of information. Companies used to assume that details about their internal workings were valuable precisely because they were secret.  Power comes not from your Rolodex but from how many bloggers link to you – and everyone trembles before search engine rankings.

• traditional PR techniques of information suppression, and controlled information distribution will fail

Some of this isn’t even about business; it’s a cultural shift, a redrawing of the lines between what’s private and what’s public. A generation has grown up blogging, posting a daily phonecam picture on Flickr and listing its geographic position in real time on Dodgeball and Google Maps. For them, authenticity comes from online exposure.

• Secrets will still exist – case in point Apple iPhone – the point here is reputation, and how information suppression can be tantamount to lying

Secrecy won’t be dead. It will simply hide in plain sight

• Reputation has to be managed transparently

Transparency is a judo move. Your customers are going to poke around in your business anyway, and your workers are going to blab about internal info – so why not make it work for you by turning everyone into a partner in the process and inviting them to do so?

Relevance to Bankwatch:

I liked the article.  Its an honest review of facts and anecdotes that support the current reality, and a reality that is becoming more real every day.

I was doing some research today for something, and I typed a Banks name in Google Blogsearch (Names are secret for this story) and went to page 10.  Here is what I found – my words:

A blogger was chastising a Bank because a newly widowed woman and her two children in New Brunswick, were told by their Bank that the mortgage insurance was invalid.  Her dead husband was a soldier killed in Afghanistan, and they quoted the ‘war clause’.  Four months later, while she made the payments they got back to her, and agreed to cover with the insurance.

There were three comments on that post … none of them from a Bank, or from the Bank in question.  The point is less the issue, horrific as it is, but why the Bank thought that since the story had already aired on television, that they were ‘over’ the PR hurdle.  What a golden opportunity to help that widow in her time of need, and put a human face on the Bank.  It was already on the ‘net …  that horse has left the stable!

Compare to this scenario where someone, whom I believe is a Vancity corporate communications executive, participated in a discussion in the comments with a customer and others.  Read the comments …. its fascinating.  Sara is the Vancity person … Darren is the customer. 

While that customer had a complaint, the way in which it was managed, when the customer chose to discuss it online, was highly transparent, and significantly enhanced Vancity reputation, as an FI that ‘gets it’.