Captain's Blog

CEOs Go Clubbing

2006-07-28T09:38:00.000+01:00

Research for the GMB union found that many drivers spend hours waiting for their bosses outside hotels and restaurants, often having to drive them home in the early hours of the morning.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/12/uchauffeur.xml

The union called for an inquiry into the industry's long hours culture and complained that chauffeurs were not getting enough rest periods.

CEO Compensation - Forbes.com

2006-06-26T11:16:00.000+01:00

CEO Compensation - Forbes.com: "The heads of America's 500 biggest companies received an aggregate 54% pay raise last year. As a group, their total compensation amounted to $5.1 billion, versus $3.3 billion in fiscal 2003. "

Read more

Captain's Blog - Yahoo Leader Feeling Heat Over Nazi-China Question

2006-06-01T15:37:00.000+01:00

Online News Squared: Yahoo Leader Feeling Heat Over Nazi-China Question

CEO of Yahoo made a somewhat inadequate response to a question about providing data on dissidents to China. What if it were Nazi Germany:

"Yahoo has a basic obligation not to have a point of view on basic content, and to present content ... and aggregate things and to allow people to make their own choices. I don't know how I would have felt then," he told the Wall Street Journal.

An apoplectic Jeff Jarvis: "Good God, man! You don’t know how you would have felt? Who gives a damn about your feelings? This is about human rights. It’s about ethics. It’s about morality. It’s not about content. But now that you’ve brought it up, that’s ridiculous, too."

For starters: - It just does not make good business sense - Business leaders without an ethical stance are not providing a good example to their staff.

Versant - From our CEO, Will Ruch

2006-05-22T20:30:00.000+01:00

Will Ruch CEO of Versant writes on what blogging has taught him:

"What I've learned about blogging this past year is that it allows prospective associates (future hires) or clients (past, present and hopefully future, too) to find out more about my leadership vision and values, and what this place is about. I have learned to write openly on all sorts of topics that are relevant to our business. I have become comfortable using this technology to let those prospects inside Versant to find out what kind of thinking is occurring from this office and what we are learning and doing along the way."

Captain's Blog - Starbucks' Secret Ingredient

2006-05-16T12:47:00.000+01:00

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, who grew up in the housing projects of Brooklyn and now oversees the Seattle-headquartered coffee empire (see BW Online, 4/26/06, "Starbucks Perks Up Socially Conscious Films")tells his story to over three hundred new employees a day.

CEO Howard Schultz, tells how his communication skills have given his company a “secret ingredient” for success.
Starbucks' Secret Ingredient

Captain's Blog CEO of Amazon - Personal Space Odyssey

2006-05-06T22:23:00.000+01:00

Check out the catchy song "The Life and Times of Jeff [Bezos]" by The Neon Trees. Via Ode to Jeff Bezos - Personal Spaceflight -

'Jeffrey wants to buy a spaceship
Jeffrey want’s [sic] to save your life
Jeff’s going to make a lot of money
Jeff’s going to take a real long flight'

Captain's Blog - CEO of Sun Steps Down for Uber-Blogger-Schwartz

2006-04-27T17:38:00.000+01:00

After 22 years as CEO of Sun, Scott McNealy will relinquish the helm to Jonathan Schwartz.(see Captain's Blog - CEO Blogs) Scott will remain Chairman of the Board and will stay involved in government sales.

Is this the start of a trend as the next generation of true Silicon Valley giants begins to turn over the reins to a blogging generation?

Captain's Blog - Fortune 500 Companies - Blogging by 2010

2006-04-25T09:17:00.000+01:00

Fortune reporter Telis Demos writes "Yesterday your grandmother started blogging. So why aren't more FORTUNE 500 companies joining the sphere? Some blognosticators predict that blogs are the future of corporate PR and that all 500-level companies will have them by 2010. But socialtext.net/bizblogs, which indexes FORTUNE 500 blogs open to the public, has found just 24, mostly operated inside tech companies..."

Captain's Blog - Good for Seniors, CEOS & Executives

2006-04-25T09:06:00.000+01:00

Robin Good (aka Luigi di Canali) of that Top 200 site: www.masternewmedia.org on the Internet says 'Business Blogs Good For Seniors As Personal Marketing And Visibility Enhancers: An Interview with Margaret Stead'

"Blogging can prove to be an effective and highly rewarding business strategy for senior executives and retired professionals who want to keep themselves involved in their field of interest. Photo credit: Fred Goldstein Blogs can indeed be effective instruments for personal promotion, PR, networking and for showcasing one's own career, abilities, completed projects and much, much more. Margaret Stead, a professional communication and career consultant in the UK, thinks the..."

There is a fully downloadable .mp3 file of the conversation audio recording. A full English text transcript follows as well.

Captain's Blog - Rank CEOs?

2006-04-24T08:54:00.000+01:00

It has taken me this long to get around to discussing ranking my ceos because reading their blogs is so slow. I liken it to the 'newspaper'paper we used to get our favourite serving of 'fish and chips' in.

Before 'PC' and allergies we used to buy our supper wrapped in the newspaper of the day and it made for fascinating and compelling reading. In fact one could find an article so riveting that it was literally a 'disaster' if you could not find the concluding sheet!

Many a cheerful supper party was laden with hopeful enquiries such as "Have you got page 15?"

If anybody can think of a spirited method of assessing these CEO's blogs, then I would be very grateful. Answers on a postcard to sherburn at gmail dot com

Captain's Blog - If You Want To Be A Leader, Blog

2006-04-21T20:08:00.000+01:00

Excerpt from If You Want to Be A Leader, Blog:

'Many admiring commentators even PREFER blogs to web sites because of their INTERACTIVE ability and informal nature. Large companies are increasingly using blogs to stay in touch with their customers, particularly CEOs A good example of a CEO blog would be ‘Jonathan’s Blog’

Jonathan Schwartz puts it very well in the November 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review:

“But it's riskier NOT to have a blog. Remember when, not long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out their e-mails for them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and sent via snail mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my contacts of that breed just retired.)" In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees, and the broader business community through blogs.

For EXECUTIVES, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf-and I'm not talking about your employees.” Full Article only by subscription to HBR.

So the decision whether to have or a web site or a blog is a ‘NO-BRAINER’ for me. As well as being cheap, cheerful and endlessly adaptable, blogs are beginning to get the RESPECT they deserve.

Newsletters (or e-zines) are still a great way to keep in touch even with just a small list of people – but they are subject to the vagaries and fashions of the Internet GATEKEEPERS. Until recently there was a joke that was ‘going the rounds’ amongst marketers that went something like this: ‘What do you get at the end of the year with a mailing list of 200,000?

Answer: 100,000. (Not such a ‘good’ joke, anymore.) I know, from personal experience (My newsletter is regularly read by 15,000 plus readers) that delivering e-newsletters, reliably, has become something of a nightmare. Even Alexandria K Brown, the e-Zine Queen, now has a BLOG!

When my newsletter was inadvertently ‘bounced’, by an ‘Abuse Team’, (average age: seventeen) for containing the word ‘Hair.’ I knew it was time to look at alternative ways of keeping in touch. Blogs are PERFECT for keeping in touch with your staff, colleagues and customers.

Known as 'Tom Peters Meets Reader's Digest', Margaret teaches five simple secrets of Business Blogging and Executive Coaching, that help people just like YOU - Master New Media & Stay Connected. Enjoy her monthly blog-letter - Career Coach http://www.careersnet.co.uk/career-change-free-prize-draw/ AND you could WIN a PRIZE!

2006-04-19T21:56:00.000+01:00

Captain's Blog - GM's Success

2006-04-12T13:03:00.000+01:00

"It was an instant hit with more than 5,000 hits and 13,000 page views within the first three months. "

In Information Week last July Bob Lutz said "We've found the blog to be a hugely effective communications tool and a terrific way to conduct a grassroots, largely unfilteres conversation with GM fans and nonfans alike."

Captain's Blog - Encourage Public Trust

2006-04-12T13:00:00.000+01:00

Rashi Sharma - "GM’s financial woes were not hidden. Sales had been declining and public trust was quickly waning. It became evident that if GM was to survive it needed to listen to it's customers, understand their concerns and answer their questions.

So, Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, Global Product Development, along with other members of GM’s senior management launched the GM Fastlane blog (fastlane.gmblogs.com). "

Captain's Blog - Engage Your Customers, Employees and Stakeholders

2006-04-12T12:57:00.000+01:00

CPRS Toronto, What's New: "Robin Hopper, CEO of iUpload, a Toronto-based web content management and corporate blogging software company, is one of the few Canadian CEOs who blog. He has been blogging for two and a half years and says, “blogging was a natural step for me and my senior management team to engage our customers, employees and stakeholders alike.” "

Captain's Blog - Be Candid, Urgent, Timely, Pithy

2006-04-12T12:56:00.000+01:00

CPRS Toronto, What's New: "On his self-titled blog, marketing guru Seth Godin advises CEOs not to blog unless they can be: candid, urgent, timely, pithy, controversial, or utilitarian. “Short and sweet, folks: If you can’t be at least four of the five things listed above, please don’t bother. People have a choice (4.5 million choices, in fact) and nobody is going to read your blog, link to your blog or quote your blog unless there’s something in it for them. Save the fluff for the annual report,” says Godin. "

Captain's Blog - CEOs Are Polite

2006-03-29T15:38:00.000+01:00

Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony USA says:
Stimulating. I think sometimes that if I retire, I'll become a blogger and finally say all the things I've always wanted to say. http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020439,39185052-4,00.htm

Captain's Blog - CEOs Should Be Tagging?

2006-03-29T15:34:00.000+01:00

Blogging is often offered up as a tactic CEOs should employ to humanize the seemingly too distant CEO or as a way to communicate regularly and effectively to internal audiences.
But blogging is hard - and besides, really getting inside your own head to communicate “who you are” is impossible for anyone. After all, when we sit down to write a blog post, it’s almost always reactionary - we write what is immediate, burning at the moment, on our radar right then, or what we believe the troops need to hear about a specific issue. It is rarely with the discipline to communicate consistent visioning or mentoring or even the passion we have for what we do everyday. And, even if you were that disciplined, it would take a long time of reading your blog for a clear window to develop into what drives you and your decisions or your leadership.

Enter tagging. CEOs should be tagging. It is the most powerful way to communicate what makes you tick or what is important to you as a CEO.

It provides insight into why you make the decisions you do and what flavors your leadership. Tagging adds up all those vital little “bits” that make up your personal “CEO-ness” - like a mind scan but without all the high-tech equipment. It is something no other medium can do quite as effectively - or as simply.

Tagging can help CEOs meet the eternal challenges of leading.

What if you tagged things like:

Books you are reading
Book that have inspired you
Articles that you find yourself wishing everyone would read
Web sites that worry you
Web sites that inform you
Web sites that “get it”
Competitors whom you have your eye on
News pieces that point to current or emerging market pressures
Articles that mention your company
Interviews you do
Industry reports that you think will impact your products or services
Blog posts that say something you wish you had in a way you wish you could
Your RSS feeds or email subscriptions
Jokes that are funny because they seem to comment on something as you see it in your organization
Case studies that you wish were yours
Things that illustrate industry or consumer trends you think the company should pay attention to

Now, by simply being able to scan through your tags, you are giving everyone in your organization a window into not just who you are, but the things that drive you, your decisions and your vision. How much more impactful is this than your once a year or quarterly address; or your blog posts that are, by their nature, excruciatingly narrow?

Tagging gives your entire organization an evocative view of both you and the challenges you see that face their industry, their company and their jobs. It is a bird’s eye view they can get no other way. It’s even better than winning a “day with the CEO” because it evolves over time - just like you and your challenges and your organization.

Here's how to get your own CEO tag cloud started:

1) Choose a social bookmarking site that allows private tags and register for an account (most are free). I like Blogmarks.net, but del.icio.us and Blinklist.com are also great choices. (You can also do this with public tags, if you don't mind the entire world seeing them.)

2) Take a second to drag the bookmarklet provided by your bookingmarking site to your browser toolbar - it makes for one fast click while you are viewing something you want to tag. You’ll find the bookmarklet in your account settings/tools of your chosen bookmark service.

3) When browsing something you want to tag, click your bookmarklet in your toolbar and simply type in your tag words in the appropriate place in the bookmarking form (they usually pop up in a small separate window).

Use any words or concepts as a tag. Words that make sense to you or your organizational culture - it might be “competitors,” “must-read,” “trends,” - you get to choose. Use several tags, as content you bookmark often fits into more than one “category.”

4) Give everyone in your organization access to this “private” account and url so they can view your tags.

5) Encourage everyone to subscribe via RSS - or by email - to your entire tag list; or just to the tag they might specifically want to watch. Feedblitz is a nice service that turns any RSS feed into an email for those not yet using RSS on a regular basis.

If you are brave, you can even suggest employees tag items with your name that they think you should see. Check in on that tag periodically, or better yet, subscribe to your name tag via RSS to keep the information flowing both ways.

You just might find tagging gives you an evocative view of yourself. From http://prplanet.typepad.com/ceobloggers/

Captain's Blog - CEOs Shouldn't Blog

2006-03-29T14:20:00.000+01:00

Shel Israel says CEO's shouldn't blog, but instead encourage openness and blogging within their organization.

Whilst Ross Mayfield begs to differ, he says "Because:

The primary skill of a CEO is communication

The CEO is the most accountable to the public
The CEO is the expected voice of the organization
CEOs learn to balance what is appropriate for public and private audiences
Most CEOs simply need introduction to the form of blogging, just like they did email
There is a spectrum of opportunities for engaging in blogging, from reading, to blogging internally, to group blogs, on out
Regulatory restrictions can be managed"

He'd like to "Start conservatively, offering her a channel to directly and efficiently communicate to employees while building an asset in the process. The result may be they demand a wider audience."

Captain's Blog - CEOs Find Blogs Useful

2005-11-13T22:47:00.000Z

Study: CEOs find blogs useful

About 59 percent of CEOs surveyed said they find Web logs, or blogs, useful for internal communications, while 47 percent see blogs as tools for communication with external audiences, according to a study conducted by PRWeek and Burson-Marsteller. Of the 131 CEOs surveyed, seven percent are actually blogging while many others say are unlikely to start a blog themselves. About 18 percent of these CEOs say they plan to host a company blog over the next two years.

The survey indicates that chief executives see blogs as useful for communicating new ideas and news, providing an informal channel of communication and getting instant feedback.

CNET New
http://www.atmasphere.net/wp/archives/2005/11/07/study-ceos-find-blogs-useful