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The Guardian’s Clare Dyer has a great article (great cos it combines my twin loves of football and blogging) warning that abusive bloggers may face expensive libel claims over online defamation. Court orders obliging websites to disclose the identity of users posting anonymous defamatory remarks began in 2001. Taking oop the Sheffield Wednesday story Clare writes:
“Disgruntled Sheffield Wednesday fans who vented their dissatisfaction with the football club’s bigwigs in anonymous internet postings may face expensive libel claims after the chairman, chief executive and five directors won a high-court ruling last week…” forcing the owner of the owlstalk.co.uk (Sheff Wed’s nickname is the Owls) website to reveal the posters’ identity.
The case debunks the myth that anonymity gives users of internet forums and chatrooms carte blanche to say whatever they like. Dominic Bray, of K&L Gates, Sheffield Wednesday’s solicitors, said:”…the internet is no different to any other place of publication, and if somebody is making defamatory comments about people then they should be held responsible for it. What these cases do is just confirm that’s the law - the law applies to the internet as much as it does to anything else.” For the hyper-interested, here’s how Sheff Wed’s directors went for the bloggers… Read more

Nasty corporates can buy stick-on demon horns from the cinema-secrets website.

Every reputation management consultants’ nightmare - the Consumers International World Congress - has just had a shindig in Sydney where it voted on and announced those corporations most guilty of abusing human rights.
Despite great interest in the findings, it’s hard to find its definitive ‘offensive corporations’ list on its website.
As Kelly Burke reports in today’s Age newspaper, the biggest ‘prizewinners/losers’ was Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The company was found to have abused advertising laws in a television campaign for the insomnia drug ramelteon, marketed as Rozerem in the US. Major side effects of Rozerem include worsening insomnia, behaviour changes — such as self-harm — and changes to the reproductive system. The ad used images of schoolchildren, blackboards, schoolbooks and a school bus. The voice-over stated: “Rozerem would like to remind you that it’s back-to-school season.” (Hey nice one, guys!!)
The international federation of consumer watchdogs, which includes Australia’s Choice, took into account the size of the company, the global scale of sales and marketing, and the direct impact on consumers when drawing up the list of offenders.
Others nominated include Coca-Cola for its bottled and tainted tap water, Dasani (case featured in PR Disasters); Kellogs for using cartoon characters to market sugar-dense cereals to children worldwide. Mattel’s obfuscation over its lead paint and faulty toy scandal got it a dishonourable mention. (tho some PRs say the PR was good).
Any others worthy of mention; alcopop manufacturers maybe? Bueller? Bueller…?

If you can be in Melbourne early tomorrow morning (Tues 30th October), come along to my ‘Personal Reputation Management Seminar’ hosted by the PRIA at the city’s RACV club at 501 Bourke St. I’ve pretty much waived my speaking fee to help PRIA, so all you have to do is buy your brekkie.
Download pdf here:PRIAOct30.pdf
I’ll look at how Web 2.0 and all its attendant technologies can be a fertile, feral breeding ground for personal and professional PR disasters. So if you, your staff or clients are looking for hints on learning the new rules of reputation management, I look fwd to seeing you there.

You stage a press briefing/conference, but don’t get any attendees (hey, it can happen).
So what do you do?
a) Accept it and move on
b) Get your staff to pretend they’re reporters
As the political-truth blog reports:
“With no reporters attending and a FEMA video feed being carried live by some television networks, FEMA press employees posed questions for Johnson that included: “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” Johnson replied that he was “very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” according to Friday’s Post account, which FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker confirmed,Johnson also told the briefing that the agency had the benefit of “good leadership” and other factors, “none of which were present at Katrina.”
Honestly; you couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?

Via AdNews, I’ve discovered Kwoff, a news site where you, the people, decide which news stories need to be heard. EG, if you’re non-plussed by Britney’s latest booboo, or are sick of hearing about Pete ’shambles’ Docherty’s battle wiv drugs, you simply nominate other issues of genuine news relevance. Here’s Kwoff’s vision for a community news site of the future…tho it seems to me that it’s not secure against undue PR influence, for example Read more

ASIMO walks Honda’s PR talk.

Here in Australia, we’ve just met the perfect PR ambassador. Honda has created the answer to those pesky human PR disasters-in-waiting. As the world’s most advanced humanoid robot, the cute cyborg ASIMO is proving that a machine can be more reliably engaging than a real human being. ASIMO has his own website, TV ads, rockstar-like promotional posters and a friendly, mature personality that makes him the envy of brands all over the world. In fact, ASIMO’s quick-read personality profile provides all organisations with a ready made list of how the perfect PR ambassador should behave. Even the quickest look at his PR blurb helps us compare and contrast ASIMO advantages over his inherently flawed human PR representatives:
‘ASIMO has a cheeky sense of humour…’
Rather than a cruel big mouth that often lands him and his sponsors in trouble.
‘ASIMO’s enthusiasm makes him a brilliant publicist…’
As opposed to a recalcitrant ingrate struggling to get by on a millionaire’s salary.
‘ASIMO likes to read and is always hungry for information…’
Others prefer to text msg, with only an insatiable appetite for sexual gratification.
‘ASIMO always injects a special energy into the room…’
As opposed to performance-enhancing or recreational substances into his veins.
However, ASIMO does have some PR disaster previous; he’s on record as having stumbled and fallen while on tour in Asia last year (too much electric soup, some anti-cybernates speculated). But he seems to have got his gigabytes together since then.
Plus, you’re unlikely to see ASIMO escorted from an SUV by the Feds while stripped down to the motherboard, sporting nothing but a gothic tattoo.
Though, I wonder what his tattoo would say…

Multi-tasking between Chelsea beating Schalke, eating porridge and listening to Radio National this morn, I saw a clip on Ch9’s ‘Today’ show about the ease of identity theft on Facebook. Today’s IT expert Charlie Brown talked about how he created a fictional Facebook persona, put the feelers out for friends and just one working day later, was within two critical pieces of information that would allow him to open a credit card with a stranger’s information. And as Brown admitted, he’s no identity theft expert. Again and again, I tell seminar audiences to be careful when using social media sites.

Oh, and is anyone else mildly amused by the name of Yarra Tram’s PR-friendly CEO? Dennis Cliche!

An ad in the other day’s Australian Financial Review trumpeted a ‘win-win’ alliance between global PRs Waggener Edstrom and the local (Melbourne) Buchan Consulting Group. The Buchan ad says that as a result of the exclusive alliance, it is now looking for fast growing consultancies (ie BYOClients) or sole practitioners interested in joining the new collective. I asked Tom Buchan to clarify a few points about the kind of people/organisations/skillsets needed, but he’s snowed under on a ‘big job’. Strangely, there’s no press release on the ‘bcg’ site talking about the alliance.
Tom Buchan has emailed back on the kinda people he’s keen to meet:
We are looking for the best communication operators around, either running their own smaller enterprises and exercising their ingenuity to the optimum, or running practice areas within larger consultancies.
Most likely these consultants/cies will be in Melbourne, Sydney, or Canberra (but may be based elsewhere).
Buchan is very strong in corporate, financial, reputation (communication) so ideally the person(s) will have complementary skills, or alternatively with specific (and highly strategic) industry-based
skills/experience.
The WE connection is very important to us as we expand,giving us global muscle without compromising in any way our fiercely independent business. Our cultures are similar, both focusing on people (career development&training) and communication IP.

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