On some issues of heavy consequence in the public relations profession, it sometimes helps to take a step back and watch the dialogue unfold before formulating an opinion.  I had been doing just that on the Susan G. Komen / Planned Parenthood controversy – until today.  Now, it all seems crystal-clear.

Like everyone else, I saw the maelstrom unfold last week throughout the media.  The manner in which the story broke and how the Komen organization reacted with a policy about-face – followed by tough criticism (“they caved!”) – provides a public relations case study that will live in textbooks throughout the next decade. 

An interesting part about it to me, though, is that different public relations professionals are drawing diverse conclusions about who’s right, who’s wrong, and what the real lessons are relative to brand, reputation and effective organizational decision-making. 

One of my PRSA colleagues, Michael Cherenson, APR, Fellow PRSA, posted an entry on the Public Relations Society of America‘s national blog, “Who Really Owns the Komen Brand?”  In it, Mike makes some spot-on observations about the nature of brand advocacy.  He also poses a critical question in his title.  

I disagree, however, with the direction of his conclusion, in which he seems to indicate that Komen simply made a bad decision to no longer support Planned Parenthood, leaving a majority of former Komen supporters feeling betrayed and turning on the brand.  

To me, the answer of who owns the Komen brand – or at least who seized ownership of it last week – is quite simple:  Planned Parenthood.  

It’s Planned Parenthood’s own brand advocates, in my view, who mounted nothing short of a hostile takeover of the Komen brand in order to railroad their message – and their way – with absolute political genius . . . the notion of tying the breast cancer prevention issue intrinsically with women’s reproductive rights vis-à-vis Komen’s prior financial support of Planned Parenthood, with a deep inference that the two cannot be separated.  

In the face of Komen rescinding its funding, Planned Parenthood made an exceptionally swift, underlying case that Komen was turning its back on women.   And the media ate it up with a spoon, as Planned Parenthood well-knew they would.  The Komen folks didn’t know what hit them, with almost total deer-in-the-headlights confusion as to the messaging subterfuge overtaking their reputation. 

I have to ask the question, was it really Komen donors who were posting all those “Never will I give again!” messages on Facebook, or was it the Planned Parenthood Army?  We’ll see what the coming days of analysis into the Internet record bears out. 

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial late last night that gives a far better reality-based assessment of Komen’s rationale for its original decision:

“Planned Parenthood has been and is under congressional and criminal investigation (by attorneys general, local prosecutors and various regulatory agencies in Arizona, Indiana, Alabama, Kansas and Texas) for allegations including failure to report criminal child sex abuse, misuse of health-care and family-planning funds, and failure to comply with parental-involvement laws regarding abortions. . . . It is easy to see why Komen might not wish to be associated with Planned Parenthood. Fighting breast cancer is something all Americans can and do agree on; promoting and performing abortions is something that divides us bitterly.” 

In short, there are two sides to this issue, and Komen’s side got completely hijacked. 

Another colleague of mine posted an essay yesterday that, to me, spoke with a great deal of clarity about the real issue at hand for Komen: lack of conviction. 

With characteristic aplomb, Susan Hart, APR, wrote, “Last week’s nightmare of ‘they fund us, they fund us not’ isn’t about funding at all. It’s about who the Susan G. Komen Foundation is. It’s about the organization’s values, priorities and purpose. It’s the up close and personal part of branding that decidedly determines who you are and what you stand for regardless of public sentiment.  And therein lies the multi-level problem for this pink-until-you-puke group.”

Love it. 

And she’s absolutely right. 

It’s not without a bit of odd coincidence that our company’s scheduled blog posts for the month of February are set to take on the theme “Demonstrating Value: Transparency and Accountability in Client Services”. . . when one of the biggest executive compensation flaps in recent Knoxville history is unfolding right now. 

At almost this very time two years ago (January 2010), I wrote a blog post, “The Reputational Fallout of Compensation Run Amok,” prompted at the time by a Barron’s article on the topic of out-of-control executive compensation on Wall Street and Washington’s reaction to it.

Whether an organization is public or private-sector, for-profit or non-profit, executive compensation disclosures can take a real toll on relationships with stakeholders, if compensation levels as well as policies aren’t within some reasonable range of public expectations, particularly given the scale of the organization and the context of its work performance.

Of course, you can’t please everyone on this topic.  Some folks misguidedly think anyone working in the non-profit sector shouldn’t make more than $50K a year.  Non-profits that seek to operate with the performance-driven approach of highly competitive companies generally have to pay quite well to attract commensurate talent in keeping with expectations.

As with practically everything else that can impact public attitudes and opinions, balance is the name of the game. 

Board decisions should be made with an underlying expectation that all information is subject to public disclosure and scrutiny and should let that knowledge serve as some form of guidance on executive compensation parameters.

This first month of 2012, our blog has focused on new beginnings for the year, so I would like to turn some attention to a local company that has made an excellent start in our community.

For those of you not familiar with Maryville-based Vienna Coffee Company (VCC) (not an MBWC client), I suggest you head on over to their inviting coffee house at 321 High Street and cozy up to a delicious “cup of Joe.”

The coffee house offers free internet access, fresh baked goods, assorted retail goodies, open mic nights and hosts several local musicians and artists throughout the year.

On Jan. 4, VCC announced a new kiosk in the lobby of the Blount County branch of Pellissippi State Community College. The new kiosk will be open 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. each day. This is welcome news, I’m sure, to students and faculty who need an extra jolt of java in the morning to get their day going.

Their baristas are highly knowledgeable and can accommodate just about any request you can imagine. In fact, one chilly morning last fall, I found myself debating whether or not to order a chai tea latte or espresso. I explained my dilemma to the barista who suggested I order a “Dirty Chai” – a chai tea latte with a shot of espresso. I’d never heard of this bizarre concoction and thought her recommendation was quite unusual, but trusted her judgment anyway. Needless to say, my “Dirty Chai” was delicious and satisfied both of my cravings for tea and espresso.

Of course, this encounter offered me the opportunity to utilize one of the best PR-related strategies out there – word-of-mouth – to spread my joy over this tasty new discovery at a neighborhood coffeehouse, just down the road from my office. I look forward to hearing even more good news spread about this locally-owned company in our community.

So here’s to a New Year of new beginnings for Vienna Coffee Company. To learn more about VCC or to sign up for their monthly newsletter, visit http://www.viennacoffeeco.com/.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a crystal ball that could predict the future? Crystal ball or not—you can’t talk about the future of public relations without including social media.

PR really has changed a great deal just during my 17-plus years in the field. I remember working as an intern preparing news releases for distribution via only snail mail and fax (gasp!).

Now, you cannot conduct a successful PR campaign without some aspect of social media unless you want to miss a huge opportunity.

Like anything else, I think the key to remaining viable and successful is continuous improvement and reinventing yourself when necessary.

Nick Sherwin, one of my former management professors, always said, “Adapt to change or die.” Of course he was referring to a company or organization and not speaking literally, but his tagline always stood out to me and is relevant to the social media invasion of recent years.

I think any profession, including PR, must strive to continuously improve or something else better will come along and pass you by.

Author and CEO of Advanced Human Technologies Ross Dawson describes his take on the future of the PR industry (http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2011/09/revisiting-the-future-of-pr.html).

Dawson said, “Those that re-conceive their role and potential impact could well be masters of the universe…The continually emerging opportunities in a world of ever-unfolding public communication are still there to be seized. Let’s see if the PR industry – or others – best take them.”

My vote is for PR, but of course I am biased!

Well, it’s been a sad day.

After hoping against hope that the inevitable would not materialize, it did today when one of my former companies, Eastman Kodak, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As other retirees, I am wondering about the fate of my benefits, but using the planning skills I learned at the company, I think I am prepared for this day.

Plan development was just one of the learning experiences I had at “The Yellow Box.”

Much of my brand management background came from working with colleagues who had spent time at P&G, SC Johnson, Lever and Gillette. I was fortunate to work for a future and now former Kodak CEO – Dan Carp. Another of my senior managers – Bob Keegan – went on to to be the successful president, CEO and chairman of Goodyear. Two of my other bosses became CMOs – one at Coca Cola and another at Levi Strauss. I also got the chance to work with some of the most talented advertising agencies in the industry – J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam and Ogilvy.

Unbelievably, they paid me to go to the office every day to get a business and marketing education that I use all the time here at Mary Beth West Consulting to help our clients improve their business performance.

I literally saw the world, thanks to Kodak. My company work assignments took me to Japan, Europe and Latin America. I used to boast that “I had worked on four continents for the fourth most-recognized brand in the world.” The fourth most-recognized brand boast is kind of an empty one now, but the experience of living and working aboard changed my perspective on how to effectively manage and interact with people. It also enhanced my appreciation for our country and the benefits of being an American.

The six years my wife, two sons and I lived in London while I was director of marketing communications for Kodak’s Europe, Africa and Middle East Region has left a lifelong impression on all of us. Like all multi-national companies, Kodak paid for the educations of dependent children. Both of my sons received educations at that American School in London that ensured their entry into top-tier colleges and universities. Their London legacy has followed them into their career fields, helping them secure jobs and assignments based on their personal international experiences.

I recognize I have been very fortunate in many ways, and not all ex-Kodakers have fared well in transitioning to “life after Kodak.” But many have parlayed the opportunities the company afforded to forge new businesses and totally different careers.

In this day and age, no company can promise you employment forever, but it should provide you the chance to improve your skill set and your employability.

Kodak did that for me. Thank you, Kodak.

Last week we helped a new firm launch its brand – Red Chair Architects.

It was a new beginning well done. Not just because we managed the launch with three other great companies: Bryant Research, Blue Media Boutique and Nashville’s Locomotion Creative, but because we worked with a set of clients committed to doing it right.

Despite an extremely tight timeline, David Cockrill and Margaret Backhurst of Cockrill Design & Planning and Don Shell and Bill Vinson of Community Tectonics agreed to meaningful research, with results that yielded the insight of like-minded companies, providing great design and relishing the opportunity to create close relationships with every one of their clients.

With a brand essence of “Great design, in genuine partnership with every client,” Locomotion Creative generated dozens of possible names for the new company. In a November meeting, it was agreed Red Chair Architects would be the name of the new company — with the red chair symbolizing the company’s focus on the person for whom the firm designs and plans, bringing smart, unique ideas that enrich the experience for each.

It was a new beginning – a beginning created from a solid foundation of competitive analysis, research and intuitive judgment combined with the brilliance of a name that captured the spirit of what the principals truly wanted their brand to represent.

“Well done!” to them. And “Well done!” to all of our team that launched what the Knoxville New Sentinel’s Roger Harris  described as “a new contender for the coolest business name in town.”

With great delight this past New Year’s weekend, I opened my Wall Street Journal (yes, the one made of actual paper) to find Scott Adams’ essay, “A Year Without Fear.” 

First of all, I marvel at anyone who not only can draw (Dilbert) but also can write.  My husband’s cousin, cartoonist Marshall Ramsey, is another rare example; but I digress.

Adams describes in hilarious detail his efforts to overcome a natural penchant for taking the safe route, spurred in early life by an encounter on his bike with a woodchuck (you just gotta read it).      

What I loved about this piece, apart from the fits of laughter it prompted, was its metaphor for what I strongly believe life is largely about: consciously rejecting the easy route when it means achieving a life lived. 

We continue to face times of great uncertainty, change and instability.  In the thick of it, it’s so important to chart your own course, even when – and perhaps particularly when – doing so means facing down some pretty big fears. 

So here’s a virtual toast to 2012 and to you . . . make this year count.

Most of the 1990s my family and I spent in London. This time of year in the city – home to Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” – is special. Harrods is sumptuously decorated, many of the grilles of the black London cabs are adorned with holiday wreaths and the Christmas crowds overrun Oxford and Regents Streets. It is an intoxicatingly festive time.

Most every Christmas Eve, our family would attend the traditional Christmas Concert at Royal Albert Hall. We never realized there were so many verses to the Christmas songs we knew back in America. And, the English sang every one of these verses. It was always a somewhat long, but glorious evening.

On Christmas day, we opened our central London home to numerous American families who had stayed in the country, because they could not afford to travel to the United States or (like us) did not want to endure the travails of holiday travel.  Two, sometimes three, dozen people were crowded into our row house on Sussex Square.

I remember now, and recall thinking at the time, how appreciative I was of what we had as a family and what we could do for others who were far from home.

When we returned stateside, as a family, we continued to open our home to friends and just acquaintances at holiday times (and on other occasions as well.)

Earlier this month my colleagues Amy and Tyra have talked about the times they have helped people and causes during this holiday season.

Fortunately, this is something all of us can do and take the opportunity when it is offered.

As the effects of the economic debacle of 2008 linger, so many people need our help large and small this holiday season. As Tyra references in Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages, one of those languages is “acts of service.”

So this holiday season, appreciate what you have and appreciate what you can do for others. It is a language of love that works two ways.

As a communications student at the University of Tennessee in the early 1990s, the public relations sequence was housed in the School of Journalism, where many of my classmates were journalism / news-editorial majors.  

Whenever the class might be asked by a professor or a visiting lecturer, “Why did you choose your major?” a common response heard from many of us – both on the news-ed side as well as the public relations side – was “I want to make a difference in the world” (or something like that). 

For many of my news-ed friends, the idea seemed to stem from the idea that reporting what happens in the world provides a window through which the public could see, learn, experience and choose whether and how to engage – all for the hopeful betterment of society. 

Serving as the lens for that process gave these students a very unique and critical role that they aspired to undertake – one that I have tremendous respect for to this day.

For many of us in public relations, the idea of making a difference took on another hands-on role . . . that through the process of helping companies and organizations manage their communications effectively, we could also influence – even help drive – other more direct behavioral and decision-driven outcomes.   

Public service represents one of those areas.

Some of the most all-around rewarding public relations efforts I’ve been a part of have focused on implementing a community service endeavor by an employer or client.  Yes – telling the story of that effort was key, but the actual process of making it happen and serving others in an altruistic way carried its own benefits and rewards to everyone concerned. 

Few other management functions as public relations take on a more direct role to help companies support public service in high-quality ways. 

During the holiday season, we can see many examples of these initiatives in full swing, both locally and nationwide. 

Many of them are conceived and orchestrated by public relations professionals, who invest heavily in the process of creative thought, third-party relationship-building and managing the intricate details of these projects – including telling the story to a wider audience to enhance positive outcomes, like public involvement and contributions. 

Like every month of the year, December is a great time to work in public relations – but perhaps more so as the spirit of the business reflects the spirit of the season.

I admit it – I love to get gifts.

I’m sure Emily Post would be disappointed to learn that I’m not one to delicately open birthday or Christmas presents. In fact, each Christmas Eve I try my best to convince my husband that I need to open just one gift – yet year after year my childlike request is outright denied.

Around the holidays, our team enjoys celebrating our clients, colleagues and friends by delivering homemade cookies. It’s always nice to be remembered and we certainly appreciate the goodies that show up at our doorstep too.

Yet with all the gifting that occurs this time of year, acts of service are the lasting gifts that seem to truly matter.

If you’ve ever read Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages you know that “acts of service” is one of the five love languages everyone speaks. The others include quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation and gifts.

Now, keep in mind this book is geared toward marital relationships, but as with all relationships – personal and professional – it’s important to take the time to figure out the type of “language” those around us prefer to speak.

By taking the time to figure out the communication style our colleagues and clients prefer, the better equipped we are as an agency to communicate with them.

Regardless of your own communication style or “language,” I hope you take the time this holiday season to express an act of service for a meaningful organization in your community.

Personally, my first act of service this season will be participating in a blood drive on Saturday, Dec. 17 at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church. Medic Regional Blood Center is hosting a blood drive for a premature baby boy recently born in Knoxville at just under two pounds. Feel free to stop by, but be sure to eat a little something before you go!

After all, that’s what the true spirit (or language) of the season means, right?

“Tis better to give than receive.”