Tip Sheet
D!CONOMY / • noun. This
unnecessary abbreviation of “digital
economy” (yes, with an “!”) was
the keynote theme of CeBIT’s
2015 conference. Who would have
thought the Centrum für Büroauto-mation, Informationstechnologie
und Telekommunikation would
be so keen on abbreviations?
Source: CeBIT
;
VULNER-IBIQITY / • noun.
“The state of living with
ubiquitous vulnerabilities.”
Apparently, when a toaster is
hooked up to the internet of
things, it becomes “a vulnerable,
exposed toaster.” Hey, we’re
all vulnerable and exposed. At
least the toaster makes toast.
Source: Mobile Enterprise
The Jargonator
Swatting the
buzzwords
of business
By BEN SCHOT T
IF PRODUCTS FAIL,
REPAIR AND REPENT
When a Silicon Valley online-investment
startup spammed all its customers’
email contacts in 2014, it set off “an
immediate uproar,” says Harvey Hudes,
the CEO of Caliber Corporate Advisers,
which was brought in to control the
damage. The problem? The design of
the company’s website made it hard to
find the Opt Out button that would have
allowed users to prevent the site from
accessing their contacts. Worse still,
among the spammed inboxes were
those of the VCs the company was
courting, says Hudes.
Hudes advised the founders to
immediately deploy Twitter and
the company blog to apologize. The
company then redesigned the site to
make the Opt Out option more obvious.
The founders also contacted the VCs—
“to make sure they knew we were taking
the proper steps,” Hudes says—as well
as every other user who complained.
No one quit the platform, and growth
stayed on target. “The lesson is to be as
open as possible,” Hudes says.
SEPARATE BAD BEHAVIOR
FROM THE BRAND
You’d never purposely do anything to
jeopardize your company’s reputation, but
one day, you or one of your team might
screw up publicly. The trick is to uncouple
problematic actions from the company
itself. When the CEO of a Florida-based
dating site was recorded soliciting sex
from an escort, the company called in
Brandon Seymour, an SEO and online-
reputation specialist. Seymour couldn’t
salvage the CEO’s reputation, “but I could
preserve the company’s,” he says.
He deployed a social media blitz
to promote the company’s existing and
new online content, including happy client
testimonials. He also says he “did some
back-end SEO work to dilute the dirtiest
material out there” about the CEO, especially the audio recording of him making
the proposition. Eventually, Seymour was
able to push the recording down to page
four of the Google search results—and
90 percent of people don’t go beyond page
one, he says. Today, the company gets an
When scandal hits, because of a faulty
product, a boneheaded executive, or
a bad decision, this is what you’ve gotta do
CLEANING UP YOUR ACT
A CHAIN OF AFTERSCHOOL enrichment facilities in Texas upset the
neighborhoods where it operates when its vans—large logos
visible—ran red lights and stop signs, sparking outrage online and
in local media. The 25-person, $1 million startup “had lost parents’
trust,” says Vannessa Wade, a crisis PR specialist who advised the
company. Because trust is the most crucial asset for a child-oriented
business, this one had a life-threatening public-relations problem on
its hands. Companies that have been through PR nightmares (we
have withheld their names but verified their tales) learn firsthand
that a fast, authentic, and transparent response is key to success-
fully surviving, and frequently thriving after, these sorts of troubles.
••••
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46 - INC. - MAY 2015
