Take Obvious Corp., creators of the messaging/microblogging service Twitter.

The Little Service that Could grew quickly attracted millions of users, who all expected Twitter to be available, reliable and responsive to their needs. Instead, there have been regular outages, reduced features and occasional customer service lapses.

The more they succeed, they more pressure they face.

Inevitably, they can’t be everything to everyone. In some cases, they can’t even meet some basic expectations.

Success sucks, eh?

Post from: EveryJoe

With Social Media Success, Comes Pressure to Meet Expectations

The media coverage repeatedly referred to the bizarre attack “on a Greyhound bus,” further tying the company’s name to the incident.

I heard a Greyhound rep commenting about the difficulty to providing security for bus services, compared to airline security, but that was almost two days after the gruesome killing.

Garrett Saunders found Greyhound’s crisis response lacking, suggesting the company should have quickly had somebody on the ground, ready to comment.

Greyhound, according to Saunders:

1. Did not offer a local spokesperson to be physically present for questions, and instead redirected all calls to their American office via interviews.
2. Read from a scripted response that contained no new information and was a waste of time
3. Displayed [a] lack of emotional sincerity in the tone of their response
4. Posted no information or [news] release on their Canadian or American website
5. Did not conduct a press conference to reiterate their tangible involvement in this tragedy.

The bizarre nature of the crime seemed to catch Greyhound and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police off guard. Horrific doesn’t begin to describe the shocking, out-of-the-blue butchery on the Trans Canada highway near Portage La Prairie (I was on that stretch of highway just last week.)

Greyhound has spent the last decade trying to appeal to business travellers and women, offering reserved seating close to the driver for those who worry about the dark recesses at the back of the bus.

If a single incident could epitomize the worst case scenario for everyone worried about bus travel, this would be it.

In one random attack by someone who would seem to be in some sort of delusional state, the attempts to reposition bus travel as safe has been set back a decade. But rest assured, Greyhound is hard at work reassuring the public. Three days after the incident, you can find this important update on the Greyhound website:

• Lost Landmarks: Greyhound Survey Reveals Surprising Behaviors of U.S. Travelers; Study of Domestic Travel Shows Americans Skip Major Landmarks, Flock to Sunshine States

We can all sleep easier tonight.

Post from: EveryJoe

Greyhound’s PR Dilemma after Decapitation Highlights Bus Security Issue

So maybe we should alter our language and our powers of persuasion to accommodate the vast majority of us drones who are comfortable holding three concepts in our head at a time.

A simpler approach has inherent advantages over a complex one.

1)  Things with fewer moving parts have fewer ways to break down.

2)  A single, simple thought has a better chance of being repeated accurately than binder full of strategic plans.

3)  Our eyes and ears seek out the single element that contrasts against the background. A complex pattern tends to blend into the background.

4)  People get bored quickly.  The longer it takes to do something, the less likely it will get done right.

5)  Most of the meltdowns in recent years have been a result of complex arrangements that obscured the obvious problems of sub-prime mortgages, unrestrained corporate greed, ballooning government deficits, fighting wars against drugs and terror, and invading countries to save the world from weapons of mass destruction.

6)  Simple is usually less stressful.

Next time you turn a simple task into a complex one, take a step back and examine your goals and your motives.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably realize that the complexity isn’t as necessary as you think it is. Stop showing off and just get the job done.

Post from: EveryJoe

Why Simpler Is Usually Better

Well, corporate cultures can be just as toxic to the customer relationship, but instead of one dysfunctional “brand ambassador,” you have a company full of them.

Valeria Maltoni offers two examples of ways companies sabotage the customer relationship. On her Fast Company blog, she describes the way companies drive away customers with poorly thought-out cost cutting efforts.

On her Conversation Agent blog, she talks about measuring brand value, and how a weak or non-existent brand strategy can destroy your sales.

Put simply, if you haven’t gone through the effort of developing a strong brand and ingraining the values and brand promise in your workforce, you are setting your company up for weak performance.

What makes your organization special? What sets your products and services apart? How do you make people’s lives better?

Everyone in your company should be able to answer those questions. If not, how do you know if any of your customers will stay with you?

Baking your values and your brand into the DNA of your organization is a huge communications challenge. That’s the best kind of challenge.

Good luck!

Post from: EveryJoe

Employee Actions Speak Louder than Mission Statements

Top executives tend to be very decisive, and a lot of that certainty comes from their instincts, not their processes.

You gut instinct isn’t perfect, however. It can steer you away from situations that may not be comfortable for you, but that are necessary for your company’s success.

For example, cross-cultural hiring may take a deliberate effort to ignore some of the warning signals going off in your head.

The rest of the time, learn to trust your gut.

My favorite trick is to act as if I’ve made a decision. Then I wait to see if my body seizes up in alarm. If so, I re-examine the decision and see if my gut is sending me a signal I should listen to.

Post from: EveryJoe

Quick Tip: Follow your Gut in Business, as in Life

When the first person is nearly done their food, they start Appreciations and Complaints, listing the people or things that caused grief or joy during the past week.

Here are my social media appreciations for the past few years. I have Appreciations for:

Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, who showed the way for many in the public relations field with their enthusiastic coverage of all things social. They led by example, week in, week out. A particularly good example, at that. Shel’s blog. Neville’s blog. For Immediate Release podcast.

Kami Huyse for pushing at the edges of public relations blogging to examine why people behave the way they do, and how organizations can put that knowledge to work. Communication Overtones.

Evan Williams and Biz Stone for thinking Twitter had potential as a personal communications tool.

Steve Gillmor for knowing how to attract interesting conversations and how to dig at people and stories for something beyond the obvious. Newsgang.net.

Geoff Livingston for linking to me more than anyone else. Oh, and also for sharing his curiosity and energy about this social media thing. Buzz Bin. Personal blog. Now Is Gone.

B.L. Ochman, Allan Jenkins and Steve Crescenzo for not sugar coating their commentaries.

Susan Getgood, John Wagner, Mark Evans, Dave Traynor, Tom Murphy and Colin McKay for anticipating what my thoughts would be if I considered a topic, and writing so eloquently that I feel no obligation to add anything further.

Scott Baradell for having the balls to pander to the T&A audience when he’s not skewering hypocritical journalists, media companies and publicity whores. And for building a superb recommendation site for the latest political, marketing, PR and journalism news online.

Alex Lindsay and the TWIMers, for mixing intelligent discussion with digital geekery and visionary predictions on shooting video, using music and living in a world saturated with media.

Tod Maffin for being an inspiration and a really nice guy (yes, it’s possible).

Judy Gombita for asking questions, making me think, and expecting accuracy, intelligence and good behavior. Blog posts.

Lee and Sachi Lefever for living their dream and making simple cool.

Doctor Jones, Terry Fallis and Bob LeDrew for being pioneers and gadfllies, and to Joe Thornley for being a mentor and instigator for many social media newbies. PR Works, Inside PR podcast, CanuckFlack and ProPR.

There are dozens of other people I have appreciations for. Hopefully I’ll get around to you soon!

Technorati Tags: bloggers,public relations,scott baradell,david jones,lee lefever,tod maffin,twim,canuckflack,colin mckay,bl ochman,kudos,appreciation,thanks,steve crescenzo,for immediate release,shel holtz,neville hobson

Post from: EveryJoe

Giving Thanks: A Weekly Routine that’s Good for the Soul

The continued dribble of comments about potential side-deals and semi-deals must be distracting to Microsoft employees, who are in the middle of the company’s transformation from Bill Gates’ company to an entity that embraces open architectures and web-based apps interconnecting in a cloud.

Does MSFT even know what messages it wants to be sending investors, regulators, the public and customers?

Microsoft Says Chances of Yahoo Takeover Negligible (Reuters)

Shocker: Yahoo Shoots Carl Icahn as Microsoft Messenger (Kara Swisher)

For a mega-corporation, Microsoft is acting like a teenage boy at a high school dance, not wanting to ask a girl to dance in case she turns him down.

Grow up, please.

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft/Yahoo: Get a Room, or Go to Couples Counselling

Otherwise, your audience will assume you are either too dim to know that you’re borrowing from someone else, or that you are too unethical to acknowledge the debt.

Either way, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

If you have time, track the information back to its first author. And for facts and statistics, it’s worth doing a quick check about the validity of the statement.

Commonly-accepted pseudo facts like “You should drink eight glasses of water a day,” and “Lemmings will follow each other off a cliff,” have been repeated so often that they are taken as gospel.

You spend a lot of time and energy building up your image. Don’t undercut it by being sloppy with the way you express your ideas.

Post from: EveryJoe

Quick Tip: Attribute your Sources, Check your Facts

This strikes me as an odd choice. The religious affiliation (or lack thereof) of the people attending could be all over the map.

Yet, like clockwork, the kindly person running the memorial service starts explaining that we can all breathe easier because the person who died backed the right horse in the religion sweepstakes. They have gone to heaven because they chose (insert name of deity or prophet here).

It goes without saying that anyone in attendance who has not chosen that deity will burn in hell, or suffer a similar unpleasant fate, depending on the religion and sect.

Think about a Mac users group, and you’ve got the idea.

This sort of self-congratulation is great for internally reinforcing what makes you different. But as a way of reaching out across cultural boundaries, it sucks.

How many assumptions do you make about your audience? That’s where the danger lies.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Art of Telling People They Are Going to Fry in Hell: Getting the Tone Right

For the time being, I’m going to step back from postings here. Not sure when things will resume, and whether I’ll be part of the mix. But for now, I need a break from feeding the machine day in, day out.

I’ll be spending some time in August prepping for a public relations class I’m teaching this fall, and relaxing at the beach, on the golf course and in the back yard. What I won’t be doing is writing regular posts for this blog.

I’m tired. I want to not have a public opinion about everything I see. And if you aren’t absolutely driven to blog, you shouldn’t be doing it.

After a bit of pruning, I plan to resurrect my personal blog at www.ericeggertson.com.  You will be able to find an archive of my old stuff, and any new writings I pull together this fall.

I’ve enjoyed the buzz of being part of a blogging network. It’s harder work than it looks, but there are rewards. Though I’ve only met a few b5media bloggers in person, I have come to know many of them quite well online. They’re a great bunch, and I look forward to staying in touch with those who are still with b5media, and those who have moved on.

My last post here will be July 31. After that, you’ll have to follow me at http://www.twitter.com/ericeggertson if you want my reaction to the latest celebrity gaffe!

Stay in touch,

Eric Eggertson

Post from: EveryJoe

How Do You Spell Hiatus? Common Sense PR Is Taking a Breather