The long tail of public relations disasters

“To create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike.”

– Virgil Griffith, on why he created WikiScanner

The article below appeared in the Financial Post yesterday – thank you JJ for the hook up.

Admiteldy, this group is hardly that big, but you can imagine that 10, 20 or 50 of these popping up and it could start to become a pesky burden for a large oligarichal company, like, say, a Canadian bank.

I suppose this could be the longtail of protest and dissent. Made possible because the internet allows these frustrated consumers to band together.

Hey, this just came to me. You know who else benefits from this technology? Lawyers in class action suits.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Facebook helps rally dissent over ABCP losses
Scotiabank AGM

Jim Middlemiss, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, March 04, 2008

A Facebook site created to advocate on behalf of retail investors in asset-backed commercial paper is gathering steam and members plan to take their message to the floor of the Bank of Nova Scotia annual general meeting today in Edmonton.

ABCP investor Reid Moseley plans to attend the meeting on behalf of Bank of Nova Scotia shareholder and independent Ontario financial analyst Diane Urquhart. Along with fellow ABCP investors Brian Hunter and Layne Arthur, the trio plan to attend today’s meeting to raise questions about the bank’s participation in the ill-fated, $35-billion non-bank ABCP market, which seized last summer.

The men collectively have more than $1.2-million of ABCP in their investment accounts with Canaccord Capital. Canaccord was sued last fall by two British Columbia holders of ABCP and in its legal response, the financial investment firm denied liability and blamed the bank’s related company, Scotia Capital Inc., which sold Canaccord the paper it then distributed to its clients. Canaccord has disclosed it has $269-million in exposure to ABCP, which is believed to be spread among 1,400 investors.

“We’re trying to get the proper proxies sorted out,” said Ms. Urquhart, adding she has identified as much as $770-miillion in ABCP held by retail investors at Canaccord and the credit unions.

“The reason we’re going to Scotia is that Canaccord received its non-bank ABCP from Scotia Capital Markets and … Scotia is a party joined to a lawsuit relating to Canaccord’s allegation that Scotia is an expert and it relied on Scotia and it has joint responsibility.”

As well, she said, most of the Canaccord investors who have come forward on Facebook are holders of paper in the Structured Investment Trust III, and Bank of Nova Scotia is the issuing and paying agent. “They were an instrumental party to the operation of the trust.”

Bank AGMs have a question-and-answer segment and the men plan to use Ms. Urquhart’s proxy to make a statement and “request that Scotia pay up money,” she said.

Mr. Arthur said he has 25% of his net worth, mostly proceeds from the sale of a family farm, tied up in ABCP. “All the brokers tell me how safe it was,” he said of the $434,000 he has invested in ABCP. “They didn’t realize what the heck it was,” said Mr. Arthur, who plans to attend the AGM and hand out a letter the group was crafting late last night.

Brian Hunter, who started the Facebook site, said “we’re just trying to get our voice heard.” It’s believed to be one of the first times investors have galvanized around a social networking site to organize and push for compensation.

The site now has 56 participants, including some non-ABCP holders, such as journalists, lawyers and analysts. “It’s been very good and a little bit cathartic to find out there are others with the same problem,” Mr. Hunter said. He said Facebook is “a very, very simple tool that allows you to communicate with a large number of people with very little effort. It’s a good way of sharing information and blowing off a little bit of steam.”

jmiddlemiss@nationalpost.com
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Why Hillary can't stick the Daily Show

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For those that missed it, Hillary Clinton dropped in – via satellite – for two thirds of the Daily Show last night (US readers click here).

On the one hand this was a clever (or desperate?) move by Hillary. It was an opportunity for her to look young and hip to older voters, and possibly even cleave into one of Obama’s core constituencies – America’s youth. Remember, this is a candidate who picked up 11% of the youth vote in Iowa. Contrast that to Obama’s 57%.On the other hand, the Jon Stewart interview revealed why Hillary can’t dent this demographic. Jon Stewart almost only lobs softball questions to politicians on his show. But that doesn’t mean being a guest is easy. To pull off a Daily Show appearance an interviewee must be prepared to a) be themsleves; b) concede that the circus exists and c) admit to their role in said circus.

Take for example this exchange during McCain’s interview on the Daily Show after he announced he would be giving the commencement speech at Liberty University (the right wing, born again college founded by Dr. Jerry Falwell).

Stewart: You’re not freaking out on us? Are you freaking out on us? Because if you’re freaking out and you’re going into the crazy base world — are you going into crazy base world?

McCain: I’m afraid so.

Stewart: All right, sir. You know we have great regard for you here, and I hope you know what you’re doing there, I trust that you do. When you see Falwell, do you feel nervous, do you have vomit in the back of your throat — what does it feel like?

McCain: No, but I’ll give him your love.

Essentially, Stewart calls out McCain for pandering to the worst part of the Republican party – and McCain basically concedes “Yes, but I have to do it.” This type of authenticity (I can almost feel Andrew Potter breathing down my neck right now) plays well with young voters. As the most media savvy generation they know the candidates have to jump through all sorts of stupid hoops. If the candidates aren’t going to stand on principle and not do it, they should at least admit they are playing the game.

Sadly, this is not how Hillary played the Daily Show. Instead she stayed scripted to the end and never strayed from her lines. Nor did she seem human. Instead she was just another politician too scared to be personable and too controlling to do anything but campaign in the traditional sense for the audiences votes. This is not a critique of that style per say, but it is exactly the type of performance that makes Hillary unappealing to the young viewers who watch the Daily Show.

Check out the comments section of the Indecision 2008 website. By and large, these young Daily Show viewers were not impressed.

Maybe Hillary will win today, but if she does, I’m fairly certain her performance last night will have had nothing to do with it.

As an aside, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my main man Beltzner who saved this post from being an unthinking ramble.

Critical Negotiations in social change movements

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Recently I had the good fortune of sharing a tea with Andrea Reimer of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. Our conversation focused on critical negotiations in social change movements – and more specifically, environmental movements.

Andrea pointed me to The Movement Action Plan, an article by social activist Bill Moyer. The article outlines both the 8 stages (graphed below) a social movement often goes through – as well as the opportunities and pitfalls that exist along this path.

I’ve identified and mapped out (see slideshare presentation below) the 3 points where I believe there are critical and predictable negotiations. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive, nor an absolute list. But based on a number of recent conversations I suspect this simple list of negotiations are both likely as well some of the most difficult for any movement to engage in. That said, I could be wrong and would love for critical perspective or countering data. This would be helpful as this is helping me frame my thinking for the negotiation workshop I’ll be giving on behalf of the Hollyhock Leadership Institute to members of the Environmental NGO community in late April.

Key Negotiation in Moyer’s Movement Action Plan from David Eaves

The first key negotiation is in stage 2 through 4 where the movement’s component groups and individuals need to negotiate with one another about how to best advance their cause. This is, in short, a large alliance management problem where the benefits of collaboration could be increased public awareness and activism.
The second is in stage 5. Here the movement has to transition from being purely activist drive to long term focused. Here the movement is confronted again with an internal negotiation – the “take-off junkies” need to be persuaded to either adopt a long-term strategy or take on a new challenge. Alternatively, the movement could attempt to marginalize them.
The third is in stage 6 and 7. Here the movement may find it is negotiation – implicitly or explicitly – with the powerholders. Here the option is to reach agreement to establish a new status quo or, should negotiations collapse, to return to either activism or pressure building. This is where I believe many (but not all) Environmental NGO’s in British Columbia currently find themsleves. They are negotiation with the Provincial government over standards, policies and plans where they can either reach agreement or retreat to protest politics. In a sense their ultimate BATNA (and nightmare scenario for the government) is to threaten to engage in another round of the 1993 Clayoquot Sound protests. The question is, can the NGO community negotiate effectively, both with among themselves over their strategy, and with the government over the standards, policies and plans?

Vote Shauna Sylvester for MEC board member

Tough week for everyone in Ottawa

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So the Liberals are getting lambasted for letting the Conservative Budget stand. (click on the second video)

Old Conservatives are refusing to testify (usually not a good sign) and New Conservatives have been (allegedly) caught trying to bribe an independent MP (a terribly sign).

The NDP can’t seem to get any traction.

The Bloc is still losing ground.

The Green’s still can’t get into a nationally televised debate.

Nobody is going anywhere – at least not right now.

A Question of Treason

The Public Service is from Mars, We are from Venus

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Last week the Clerk of the Privy Council gave a speech this speech in Vancouver. There is much in the speech that is promising, and some that remains problematic.

That said, I want to key in on the last part of the Clerk’s speech. Myth number 8: “The Public Service is out of touch with Canadians — they’re from Venus, we’re from Mars.”

In this piece the Clerk touches on the traditional critiques of how the public service is out of touch. He goes out of his way to outline how the geographic, linguistic and ethnic, are or have been addressed. In addition he outlines why – through outreach – the culture gap between private and public sector can be overcome.

We can debate if these concerns have been sufficiently addressed, and if not, how they should be. I think it would be hard to argue with the notion that enormous progress has been made on this front in the past few decades. However, none of them represent the differences that concern me most. One which I do not think we can resolve and so requires further thought.

Today, public service employees are members of a union, enjoy life long job security, are eligible for a generous pension plan, and, by and large (particularly in the more senior ranks) live in Ottawa – a city shaped by and dominated by, the public service.

There was a time when the first three traits meant that employment experience of a public servant – such as one’s notions about: job security, opportunity, the expectations of their employer, and relationship with their boss and peers – was not dissimilar to that of many other Canadians.

Today however, this is less and less the case. Fewer and fewer Canadians are unionized, enjoy job security, or a pension.

Simply put, there is a culture gap.

A public servant’s career, life choices and opportunities are shaped by a system that is far removed from that experienced by the vast majority of Canadians. This, in a city where your average public servant comes into contact with non-public servants less and less. I’m not saying this shouldn’t be the case. What I am saying is that the capacity of a institution to make policy for a public it resembles less and less, and whose experience is increasingly far removed from its own, is troubling and worthy of further exploration. It’s a culture gap I think is on few people’s radar – even the clerk’s.

Gordon Foundation Global Youth Fellowship

I'm betting on a fall election

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The current mania around a spring election has started to fade, especially with Dion beginning to say the Liberals might not bring down the government over the budget.

There are good strategic reasons for this.

If, as it would appear. the economy is beginning to worsen, then the Liberals have every reason to delay. Governing parties tend to do worse when the economy is poor, so if things are getting worse, better to wait and trigger an election later when the pain of a shrinking economy is more apparent.

This alone, would be a good reason to wait. But there is another related reason to wait for the fall, and it has to do with the American election.

South of the border the Democrats will also be pounding away on the fact that the economy has run aground – in their case, they’ll blame George Bush and the Republican Party. The Liberals will stand to benefit from this in two important ways. First, the general theme of “a bad economy” will be everywhere in the press – as both the Canadian and American media will be talking about it. Canadians will simply not be able to escape the issue and the framing.

But better still, the simple fact that there is a US election means that a significant amount of media “oxygen” will be sucked up by this giant event south of the border. Like it or not, Canadians get a chunk of their media from the United States. This will make it harder for the Conservatives to implement a communication strategy to combat the issue of the poor economy – particularly as the Democratic Party is working extra time to get it in the media. In a real sense the liberals will working with the wind at their backs – benefiting from the messaging out of the US – while knowing that it will be harder for the Conservatives to create a counter-narrative.

Post a question on Canada's role in the world for Axworthy, Granatstein and myself to discuss

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This Tuesday, February 19th, the Globe and Mail will be hosting an online discussion/Q&A with myself, Lloyd Axworthy and Jack Granatstein. In the lead up to this event each of us was asked to write an opinion piece outlining what our vision for Canada’s role in the world.

This discussion will not be like the Globe’s regular one-hour live discussions. Rather, it’s a question-and-answer session. If you are interested in submitting a question, please submit it before 5 p.m. EST today. Answers will be posted no later than 5 p.m. EST on Tuesday. You can submit questions on Tuesday, or in advance, here.

Axworthy’s opinion piece was published on Saturday and can be read here. Granatstein’s was published today and can be read here. My own piece can be read here.

This event was organized by the Globe and Mail and Canada’s World – a national citizens’ dialogue on international policy. You may also be interested in checking out this poll, conducted by the Environics institute.

eaves.ca

if writing is a muscle, this is my gym