It goes by different names, but at its heart boils down to one thing, telling the truth, but also revealing the process by which you came to that.
It's a mighty interesting conundrum if you're any one of the ff:
a) businesses/ brands contemplating blogs into your realm
b) Managing crisis management
c) A media/broadcast channel.
We all know so much more than we did ten years ago ( media literacy) and have a means to talk to one another en masse ( unlike ten years ago) that if you're trying to bury, suffocate, nudge something to the side because it does you no favours, forget it.
It used to be the preserve of whistle blowers and leakers but now the means to disseminate info do away with grand titles of old. "I'm simply telling you what it's like", guv "and this time I am being honest, cuz i blog it".
In the last couple of weeks we've seen a slate of it: RDF-Queen's miscalculated sequence shots, ITV's miscalculated press release over its Paul Watson's documentary.
And no doubt there will be as many more in a year as there was likely in five.
While back I did a big job for one of the humanitarian agencies. Persuasively deny, hold your ground and be prepared to back it up if neccessary. Politicans are accustomed to this in the counter. You ask a difficult question and they side step it with their own. The reporter pulls em back.
But now we are a nation of sleuths. How do the big PRs advise their clients on damage limitations? Simple, in my book, be honest and own up. Mea culpa; resistance really is futle Mr Borg. Offer solutions why it won't happen again, reveal the process which enabled it to occur, and offer extreme transparency as a fall back to the audience
Here's the editor of one of the UK's most influential news programmes, Newsnight shedding some more light on Extreme Transparency when I caught up with him some week's back. Peter Barron's trials for blogs et al has for the moment come to and end.
1 comment:
I watched Peter Barron's youtube interview on this subject.
I suppose the BBC like a lot of other corporations have been forced to examine this line of extreme transparency, because of fear of being found out or rumbled by what Peter refers to as "nosey people".
When I first got involved in the web, the big word then was "open source," especially into codes, if you had it you gave it away to someone else to use, and if you had hacked the code from Microsoft or a big corporation then, "the bigger the better" :-)
This led to the sharing everything software, knowledge, even your time to help a fellow digital friend across the globe. Bill Gates said there was a "need for Speed." so every one was on it helping each other out to build the superhighways, which people are suing now.
This led to the growth of the social networks where information is shared.
In the old days wasn't one of the reasons the big corporations refused to share their secrets, was because they wanted the edge? And this so called "EDGE" gave them the opportunity to make more money?
Now they have learnt or are trying to learn that "open source" or extreme transparency is a new of being cool and making money at the same time.
I operate an open source code on my facebook page, why be up there and network, if I am going to put privacy settings all over the place?
I know there are applications that track who goes to your facebook page and where, like traktor, but who cares?
It is meant to be all about social networking so privacy is an old game.
I want some of the people in my network to be introduced to David's writings, it might help, educate and entertain them.
I learnt the tricks of the open source trade from Adam and Ben Laurie http://www.thebunker.net hackers or poachers who have turned gamekeepers for big corporate companies, however, they still operate an open source code in their private activities and support up and coming nerds.
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