Neville Hobson thought it was quite a good way of doing business by Edelman, but did have issues with how Marshall Manson worded some of the e-mails….

You made a great point in your March 8 post - did Marshall Manson, the Edelman employee who did the emails, read one of the 250 copies of ‘Naked Conversations’ that CEO Richard Edelman bought.

I’d guess not.

Your point that “No amount of communication will succeed..if there’s an imbalance in ..message..and what people see the company doing is exactly right. May I contribute to the conversation by a quote from a recent post at my site….

“When organizational identity is challenged by public criticism and is defended by massive PR campaigns, “The Battle of the Masks” is underway in the Blogosphere. Who tries to hold which mask (identity) on whom, and what public communication strategies will they use to do it? Whether individuals or organizations, we expect people to treat us as we claim to be, and people expect us to be who say we are. In our own practice and research, we find that conflict increases when (1) the “mask” or identity presented and the mask accepted don’t correspond, and (2) when “who you will be” at the end of a negotiation is more important than anything else you might get out of it. This blog is about authentic identity—created, monitored, negotiated, and sustained in the Internet world.” http://www.battleofthemasks.com/2006/02/

Kathy Hale

I don’t feel the way you do (no Wal-Mart here) but, from what I’ve been reading about Wal-Mart, I can understand why you feel that way. I have heard similar views from colleagues in the UK where Wal-Mart owns Asda, one of the big UK supermarket chains.

The important question, then, is this - how can PR help an organization if the foundation is unstable? No amount of communication will succeed in achieving the objective if there’s an imbalance in what the messaging is saying and what people see the company doing.

Now there’s a great PR challenge.

What’s wrong with travelling to their HQ? I don’t like their business practices.

I don’t need their advice on how to bypass a democratic union organizating drive by shutting down the only store to become unionized. If I want to pick up those tactics, I can just go to the nearest schoolground and watch the bullies push little kids around.

They have an amazing system for maintaining inventory, and they do great work on employee morale. I’m sure for someone else, it would be a great learning experience.

But it’s not my cup of tea, and I didn’t arrive at that opinion because I’m some ultra unionist, or because I’m a blogger. In Canada, anyway, they’ve shown a willingness to intimidate their employees with the ultimate threat — taking all their jobs away if they unionize.

No amount of blogger relations, public relations or reputation management will turn me into a fan, unless they change the way they operate.

I was glad to hear Richard Edelman say that journalists are no longer Gods (thanks for the heavenly tip, Media Orchard). I assume he meant print media and not CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who not only is a God, but…