Debbie Weil performs liposuction on Alliconnect

You may not have noticed the new Alliconnect Blog,. Alliconnect is a place to discuss weight loss with the creators of alli, an over-the-counter weight control medication, approved for OTC sales in the USA, made by GlaxoSmithKline.

I am not quite sure how alli works.. the blog is coy on the subject, but since it discusses "oops moments" ("Good thing I was close to home so I could change my clothes!" says chief blogger Steve Burton) and "undigested fat floating in the toilet," I can only speculate that the drug blocks fat absorption. Why be coy about that? Were I seriously overweight and committed to losing weight, I am perfectly fine with learning the possible side effects. But since it's a corporate product fluff blog, we can leave that.

The problem for GlaxoSmithKline is that the alliconnect blog has attracted almost no readers and only a handful of comments -- all but one of those are from the GSK "alli" team the GSK "alli" team or prominent corporate blogging adviser Debbie Weil, who advised on the project.

Now, that would normally be a problem between GSK and Weil. But Weil has made the bad results -- the falling short of client expectations -- brutally obvious in a public way. Can things be so bad she's asking PR bloggers to "seed" comments onto the alliconnect blog?

Yes.

David Murray quotes this email from Weil on his blog:

***

Hi everyone,

This is a shameless request. I'm working with GlaxoSmithKline on the
official corporate blog for alli, the first FDA-approved, OTC weight
loss product. You may have seen the TV ads.

While traffic to the blog is growing, readers seem shy about leaving Comments.

You can help jump start the two-way conversation! Take a peek at the
blog at http://www.alliconnect.com.

If you're inspired or provoked, leave a comment on any entry. No need
to say that you know me, of course.

It really is kind of neat that a Global 100 company is doing a blog
like this. It's not easy.

- D

--
Debbie Weil
t: 202.364.5705 m: 202.255.1467
site: http://www.debbieweil.com
blog: http://www.BlogWriteForCEOs.com
book: http://www.TheCorporateBloggingBook.com

***

Weil (an IABC conference speaker, by the way) has truly wedged herself in a tight spot. I cannot believe GSK's alliconnect is going to get a sudden surge of comments from her feeble plea -- you'd have to be an obese PR blogger more than ready to shill for no pay -- and I'm certainly skeptical of her professional ethics. What I wonder is who thought this up? Weil, alone, in desperation? Or did GSK lean on her? Either way, it's another sad ethics tale for our profession.

If you're inspired or provoked, leave a comment on any entry. No need
to say that you know me, of course.

OK! Who can resist!

Technorati : GSK, OTC weight loss, PR ethics, Steve Burton, alli, alliconnect, bad corporate blogs, david murray, debbie weil, glaxosmithkline, possible drug marketing violations

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:49pm in Bizarre & Unexpected, Blogging for Benjamins, Corporate Communication, Marketing, Pharmaceutical Industry | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (12)

Ragan Communication launches social media site -- I like it

Ragan Communication has launched MyRagan, a social media/community/watering hole for communicators, yesterday, and it's no slouch of a place. When I went to bed late last night, there were about 30 members; now there are over 200. Message boards, customizable rich profiles, IM -- I like it.

Technorati : myragan, ragan

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 02:15am in Communication, Corporate Communication, Social Media | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (10)

How to use blogs

Elizabeth Albrycht brings us a coolio slide by Ansgar Zerfass. My first sense is that it needs tweaking -- crisis blogs might help solve some conflicts, but not complex ones -- but I like the idea of mapping this.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:45am in Blog Management, Communication Skills, Corporate Communication, Knowledge Management, Online Media | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

There's a new blog in town: NevilleHobson.com

Friend Neville Hobson -- oh, you don't know Neville? The guy, the guru, the mentor who has pretty much created whatever awareness European biz has for social media? Yes, that guy -- has a new blog at NevilleHobson.com.

Now, I am hard to please. I spend way too much time mentally out there the edge, so when I come home, I want the books on the shelves to be where they were yesterday. I want easy. I want safe.

With Neville shifting from Nevon to NevilleHobson, a small but significant part of my world is turned on its head.

And I don't like it.

But that's just my own selfishness and... here's the thing... whatever shingle Neville puts out in front of the shop, it's worth my while -- it's worth your while -- to get in there and listen. You won't come out stupider, as we say down in the sticks, and you will probably learn something.

Neville! Keep on keeping on!

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:09pm in Communication, Communication Skills, Corporate Communication, IABC, Writing I Enjoy | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

Business Week: Email is so five minutes ago

Clip this article -- Email is so five minutes ago -- for clients and coworkers:

Although all these tools are gaining momentum, it's easy-to-use and practically free wikis that proponents say offer the promise of collaboration beyond e-mail, even though big editing kinks remain and other quirks and security flaws are sure to surface. Internet research firm Gartner Group predicts that wikis will become mainstream collaboration tools in at least 50% of companies by 2009. At Ann Arbor (Mich.)-based Soar Technology Inc., an artificial-intelligence company that works on projects for the Office of Naval Research, wikis enable the company to slash in half the time it takes to complete projects. Soar engineer Jacob Crossman says that's because the wikis eliminate the usual flurry of back-and-forth attachments and resulting document-version confusion that's rife in e-mail.

Link

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:14pm in Communication, Corporate Communication, Corporate Management, Social Tools | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Is this Corporate Cluelessness Week? Ask Amy Gahran and Tosh Bilowski

[Update: I published without proofreading, which is always a mistake. The version you see below is an edited version of the original. The message is the same.]

Tipped off by John Wagner, I pointed the feed reader at Amy Gahran's Contentious at my first break today... Now, I'm not for a moment going to say Panasonic holds a candle to Bacon's for sheer bloody-mindedness, but it's close.

Amy has been gently, but firmly urging Panasonic to come clean about its Tosh Bilowski character blog.  Like most of us, Amy believes the character blog, in theory, can be a good thing. But,  like the rest of us, she's seen no or, at best, few, examples of character blogs that work.

And Tosh Bilowski isn't one of them. For me, it's mainly because Tosh isn't an "obvious" character (such as Captain Morgan); instead, he's being passed off as a real person (and a boring one, at that).

But what's teeth-jarringly clueless? The snooty and short-sighted responses Gahran gets from Tosh Bilowski's "handler", Jan Crittenden Livingston.

Amy noted on her own blog -- that is, in her own space, not Panasonic's -- that "Tosh" apparently wasn't accepting comments she'd posted to the blog. She pointed out that it is Panasonic's right not to publish comments, but wondered if Panasonic was "getting" the concept of conversation.

In response, Jan Crittenden Livingston shows she doesn't get it .. she writes Gahran:

Hi Amy,

The reason we are not posting your commentary is because we do not have to.... We are hoping that it can turn into a nice site where people can come and learn about all things Hi Def. We do not have to run it like any Blog or Website that you have seen before, it will be run the way we choose to run it...

Bad enough? Livingston uses the Tosh Bilowski GMail addy to sign the thing. Tacky or what?

Some people -- me, for example -- would have joyfully skewered Panasonic. Amy patiently and wonderfully turns the episode into a set of guidelines for companies contemplating character blogging.

Really fine stuff, Amy!

Technorati tags:
Panasonic
Tosh Bilowski
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Character Blogs
Amy Gahran

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:01pm in Bizarre & Amusing, Blogging, Communication, Corporate Communication, Is Tedious in the House?, Marketing, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Arla Foods, Europe's biggest dairy, launches 3 blogs

UPDATE: 31 October. A couple of comments to this post have led me to make a new post today.

Arla Foods, Europe's largest dairy, has set up three blogs. All in Danish.

I have to come clean: I can't stand Arla [though... I have to admire their efforts to communicate (added 31 October 2005)]. Their tactics towards farmers who don't "go along to get along" are in the Danish press almost weekly. What's worse, Arla isn't a monolithic corporation stepping on small farmers, it's a farmers' cooperative stepping on farmers too  eccentric or who take too much pride in their work.

That said, their products are pretty good and they've got a fine organic line. They've got a virtual monopoly on Danish supermarket shelves, which I dislike, but I can't complain about the quality of the goods when I am forced to buy them.

But, and here's the rub, I've never met anyone who actually "likes" Arla (or MD Foods, the Danish root). Major image problem.

So maybe that's why Arla has launched three blogs.

One is by Inge and Michael Mikael, a couple of farmers who are shareholders in Arla  (note to Arla: did you just get lucky, or did you have to search the country for the most photogenic couple of farmers in the country?). So far, Inge and Michael Mikael have written that farming isn't about manure and cruel animal transport.  They're reported on some dairy robots that got delivered (the bovine point of view, however, was unreported), and Michael  Mikael is going to a course to learn how to use the Internet.

Funny, that, since he's a blogger.

The second blog is by Maja and Louis. They work for Arla; Maja is the head of Arla's Fact and Consumer Center, and Louis is the chief PR guy (they call their blog, by the way, "Natural Thoughts").

The cynical reader will have already realized that this blog toes the Party line, and she wouldn't be wrong. The last article is a long complaint about this week's EU decision that "feta" cheese is... as we all know ... Greek. That sends Arla around the bend, because they've been feeding the world with salty white cheese for years, calling it feta.

Maja's lament? "All white cheese packed in salt water is "feta""

No, honey, it's not.

Arla's blogging attempt is brave, imaginative and... falls to earth on the second glance. That they've tried it bodes well for Arla, but if they fail to get it right.... another PR disaster for a cooperative that, at the end of the day, makes pretty good milk.

They allow comments, but no trackbacks.

Technorati tags: Arla FoodsArla

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 02:56pm in Bloggers, Corporate Communication, Denmark, Food and Drink, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (5) | TrackBack (0)

Will internal corporate blogs outnumber external ones? It's a no brainer.

Fredrik Wackå, the thinkingest blogger in Sweden, writes that he's convinced internal blogs will outnumber external ones 10 or even 20 to 1.

Reffing a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, he notes what anyone who's ever been in a large (or scattered) company can attest to: it's just impossible to exploit the information that's "out there" in the company.  He goes on to write:

"It's obvious to me that blogging should play a role in that exploitation. I see them as the "middle way". They're not the structured systems with elaborate meta data that we find in large KM solutions. They're not email either, but they're almost as easy as email -- which can't be said of the system approach... -- and that's the key to success."

Absolutely. I can't think of an organization of more than a few people that cannot benefit from internal blogs and wikis. But, and here's the catch, corporate communicators are just as reluctant to let go of the communication reins as any "mainstream media". The conversations I've had with internal communicators indicate  blogs make them very nervous.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:03pm in Business, Communication, Corporate Communication, Knowledge Management, Social Tools | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)