“Almost two million people are living with sight loss in the UK. When you lose your sight, you feel like you lose everything.” (RNIB)

Five years ago, my dad was registered blind. Having had sight until his mid-60s, he had to adapt to the complete loss of his vision in later life. Quiet roads that he’s known and walked around with ease for 40 years suddenly became hazardous unknown territory and difficult to navigate (although the arrival of a much-loved guide dog, Eli, has helped immensely). Going to the theatre or cinema or just watching TV became impossible. And even eating a favourite meal became a huge challenge.

However perhaps the biggest hurdle he had to face was losing the ability to read. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, my dad always had a book on the go, and his love of reading became mine too. (It’s the reason I studied English and Russian at university – the interest in Russian borne from a love of “A Clockwork Orange” – and led to me having a career in the communications industry).

For such an avid reader, no longer being able to read was devastating and one of the hardest things he had to cope with on losing his sight.

That’s why RNIB’s Talking Books service has been what he calls a “life saver… without it I would have gone mad” – and thanks to their support his love of reading has been able to continue. He’s a regular user of the service, which offers users access to over 19,000 audio books, reading up to 50 books a year – whether those he’s picked himself or the choice of his telephone book club. And thanks to the work the Man Booker Prize did with RNIB (ensuring that the shortlisted books are available in accessible formats before the announcement of the winner), he was able to work his way through all six shortlisted novels… and well before I did. (His personal favourite was Stephen Kelman’s “Pigeon English”).

Knowing first-hand the invaluable support the charity is able to give, I’m delighted therefore that MRM has chosen RNIB to be our first charity of the year. Throughout the year, we’ll be writing, blogging and tweeting about what we’re doing to support the charity – whether volunteering, fundraising (our very own Charlotte Banks has jumped right in and signed up to her first-ever half marathon to raise funds… you can find her JustGiving page here!) or raising awareness of the charity’s work, including today’s Twitter Marathon.

To find out more about the work of RNIB, please visit the charity’s website or follow it on Twitter.

And if you’d like to join us in supporting the work the charity does, please email me at jenny.crossland@mrm-london.com.

“The new price of doing well is to do good. So if you do not do good, you will no longer do well”.

[David Jones, Global CEO Havas and Euro RSCG Worldwide, on BBC Radio 4 Today programme]

In July this year I wrote a blog about the increasing need for companies to “be good” (i.e. inherently responsible) as simply been seen to “do good” ultimately meant very little.

I discussed that corporates are being held accountable at every turn – and those that don’t take consumer feeling into account are under increasing scrutiny and are being challenged, as demonstrated with the very public, and continuing, outrage against press phone-hacking (with the current Leveson inquiry bringing more tales of wrong-doing to light), corporate bonuses and MPs’ expenses scandal. Social media has, I stated, an important role to play, as it gives consumers a voice and the opportunity to highlight any perceived wrong-doing and demand action is taken.

I was therefore very interested to hear David Jones, author of Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business is Better Business, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (1st December 2011), discussing corporate (social) responsibility and social media.

He highlights that we’re entering an “age of damage”, with social media creating “… a world where, if as a leader, you do not behave in the right way, you’ll get taken down” as people now have “… a weapon to punish those leaders and companies they don’t believe behave in the right way”.

Jones talks about there being “… a movement driving the world to be more socially responsible” and it’s a view that I agree with. Now, more than ever, as I stated in my previous blog:

“Those not demonstrating responsibility are ultimately deemed to be irresponsible, and we, the public, have the power to ensure that things change. And do so for the better.”

The interview with David Jones can be found here (at 2 hours 44 minutes in).

MRM head of social media Michael Taggart

Gorkana recently caught up with MRM’s head of social media and former Daily Mail reporter, MICHAEL TAGGART. Here, we re-print he interview -  about Michael’s mutual respect for journalism and PR and why the social web must be the battleground in a crisis – which was first published at GrokanaPR.com.

How is 2012 looking for MRM, what are you guys working on?

We’re concentrating on three things for most of the next 12 months – growing, growing and growing. To bungle a simile, we’ve been like a Cadbury’s Cream Egg (stay with me) – small but full of quality…and, erm, surprisingly tasty. But we’ve made some important hires and operational changes in the last year meaning the team has grown to 15. So there’s enough yolk to…well, you know what I mean.

What changes have you seen in clients’ attitudes towards social media – is there an unprecedented sea change in terms of it now sitting near the top of their priority lists?

I was at a comms planning meeting recently with a CEO, some senior sales staff and a fund manager when one of the more grey-haired among us piped up “obviously, we’ll have to use Twitter to let people know about this”. This was met immediately with sage nods from around the table. This sort of thing simply didn’t happen 18 months ago. Businesspeople finally get it. I don’t mean they always understand the specific tools, like Google Plus and Foursquare, but they have generally grasped that people in all walks of life are using social media to interact with people from all parts of their lives.

They know that their companies must meet their customers and clients in these channels – or risk not interacting with them at all. For me, this is a far more important revelation than understanding the mysterious minutiae of the Twitter hashtag or knowing how to share a YouTube video on Facebook. This newfound understanding has meant social media is now a major part of our new business meetings and, as every month passes, we are doing more monitoring, strategy work, community building, campaigns and content creation for our clients.

You were in charge of social media at Brighton and Hove Council and responsible for ensuring the public could communicate about the public services they paid for, how did this work out for you from a communications perspective?

Like most local papers, the one in Brighton has a dwindling readership. You’ll often reach as many people by using a loudhailer on the seafront as you will communicating through the pages of the local rag. The other major problems are that there’s very little possibility of two-way communication in traditional media – even on radio – so there’s limited value and it’s not instant. These limitations really hit home when the city turned into a large ice-rink during the winter of 2009/10. On a single day, more than 100 people were admitted to A&E with broken bones. Being a ‘digital’ city, this crisis – and the council’s role in gritting roads and pavements – soon provided fodder for hundreds of furious tweets, blogs, updates and comments.

We knew we had to join conversations where they were happening – on the social web. It was no use sending a statement to the media and waiting hours for it to be broadcast or printed. This was a kind of wake-up call and so when the crisis had subsided we went all out to find out who was saying what about public services and where they were saying it so we could try to make helpful and relevant interventions without butting in where we weren’t wanted. This was the dawn of a new relationship with the council taxpayers and by the time I left just over a year ago the public were able to have real conversations with real people in real time in a range of key council departments, including refuse, transport and public safety.

What was the move like for you from journalism into PR?

Journalists always worry that they are selling their souls to the devil when they make this move. This is, of course, poppycock. In both careers you can find and ‘sell-in’ great stories to news editors, cultivate useful contacts and unleash that elusive turn of phrase that lights up a news story. In both, you can speak truth to power, bring attention to worthy causes and effect positive change. Conversely, you can use both disciplines to mislead, cheat, bully, cajole and promote self-interest.

My own experience has been that the skills of good journalism and good PR overlap substantially but they are not the same. For example, as a PR, I will nearly always need a decent business head. Not so in journalism. As a journalist, on the other hand, I will nearly always require a little bravery and a dogged determination to root out facts that aren’t forthcoming. Not so in PR. One other significant difference: in general, the pay in journalism is criminally low, whereas it tends to be fairer in PR.

What one thing would you change about PR? And journalism?

It’s the same for both – I would like PRs and journalists to show greater understanding of and respect for one another’s crafts.

Who in PR do you most admire? And journalism?

In PR, I’m a big fan of Neville Hobson (@jangles on Twitter), one of the UK’s leading opinion formers. He co-hosts what I believe is the world’s best media and marketing podcast, despite a clutch of brilliantly informative and entertaining competitors in America. He’s both a fierce critic and a passionate advocate of public relations.

In journalism, it’s probably Jason Burke (@burke_jason on Twitter) of the Observer, who has written three magnificent books about the rise of Islamic militancy and who was responsible for this wonderful passage in On The Road To Kandahar when he tells us he “ate noodles with Thai Muslims and couscous with Algerian mujahedeen, drunk tea with Berbers, coffee with the Acehnese, argued with hardline Taliban mullahs, mystic Sufi teachers and corrupt Palestinian politicians… drunk beer with Iraqi poets, whisky with Indian bankers and tea with suicide bombers of various nationalities.” Although I did always wonder whether it were physically possible to “drink tea with suicide bombers”.

The website you most check is?

Probably Facebook or Wikipedia.

The most interesting fact about yourself is?

At the age of eight, I starred with Nigel Havers in a 1940s mini-series called ‘After The War’. ‘Starred’ is probably stretching it. I was ‘boy with gasmask #2’ and had about 10 seconds on screen in total. I’m still waiting for a second TV role.

Your daily newspaper of choice is?

I flick through them all at various points in the day. Telegraph for news, Guardian for media news, Evening Standard for the train journey. The Sun comes in handy if I spill something.

The finest moment of your career to date – in journalism, and in PR is?

I did a couple of undercover investigations I was quite proud of as a national newspaper journalist – one involved me posing as an illegal Albanian worker for two weeks and lugging bricks around in various suburban housing estates. I also exposed the close romantic tie between a recent Prime Minister’s son and the daughter of a rival from the other side of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s lawyers bottled it and decided we would likely be sued for breach of privacy so it never saw the light of day.

In PR, winning awards is always nice but I was most proud of a campaign at Westminster council, which sought (successfully) to persuade people in London to give their loose change to homelessness charities, rather than hand it to street sleepers, who would often spend the money on harmful drugs.

The next big thing in social media will be?

Customer feedback. Starbucks is probably the most famous example of how a brand can use social media to leverage the insight of customers so they can improve their business – see mystarbucksidea.com. We’re starting to catch on to the opportunities here in the UK and I note that a train operator – First Capital Connect – has just done something similar, although they’re getting a bit of a pasting for poor service. It will be interesting to see what benefits they derive from it. As a disgruntled customer, I applaud their willingness to hear my voice and to try and do better.

How do you expect social media will grow and be utilised as a medium by businesses?

We are social creatures, who crave company and the attention of our social groups. We want to listen to stories and tell people about our own experiences. Fifty thousand years ago, we did this around campfires. But now, because of our complex schedules and busy lives, social networks have become our campfires. The world has changed but human nature hasn’t and social media is just the latest means with which we fulfill our primordial needs. Businesses need to understand that this is what motivates consumers on the social web. This doesn’t mean spitting sales and marketing messages at people as though it were the Yellow Pages.

It means building and joining relevant communities and making the lives of the people there easier, entertaining and educating them, introducing them to useful people, making them feel special and giving them something to talk about. When businesses do this, a whole world of possibilities will open up in terms of using their communities to support their customer services, marketing, sales, brand management, research, online crisis management and many other business functions. Simples.

What recent financial campaigns using social media have impressed you?

I have increasingly admired the way UK insurers have used Facebook to bring to life the characters central to their marketing, such as Churchill the dog and MoreThan Freeman. I haven’t seen any figures relating to sales but these campaigns have certainly helped those companies build brands that exude accessibility and approachability.

Finally, do you have any good battle stories from when you worked as a hack at the Daily Mail?

I think I’ll have to “take the fifth” on this one – just in case Lord Leveson decides he wants to be the first to hear about my muck-raking.

Michael blogs at http://www.mrm-london.com/author/michael-taggart/

Questions and write up from Gorkana’s news manager, Doug Keighley.

Sean Duffy, a 25 year-old man was jailed recently for posting a series of deeply disturbing online messages and videos in which he mocked the deaths of teenagers.

Days later, The Independent journalist Johann Hari issued an apology for not only plagiarising content, but also – and I believe, more alarmingly – creating pseudonyms to edit Wikipedia entries, including negatively editing those of his critics. (For those interested to know more, I highly recommend reading Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: The poison pen of Johann Hari).

And while I was writing this blog, comedian Dom Joly had contacted the police after being sent a series of abusive tweets about his children.

While the majority of trolling may not reach the levels highlighted previously, the above made me think about what ‘inspires’ people to not only troll, but also feel it’s ok to make negative and potentially harmful comments.

It’s an issue currently that has been debated on The Guardian’s Comment is Free, as Martin Belam – AKA @currybet asked “what motivates a troll?”, calling on them to provide some insight… with the comments themselves often as revealing as the article itself.

In another recent blog, Belam defined a range of “dick-ish” (his phrase not mine!) behaviour that people should consider if they discover their online comments have been disallowed by community moderators, which included:

“… personal attacks, using “amusing” clichés like EUSSR and Tony Bliar, making the same off-topic point day after day, being rude and grumpy and unwelcoming to newcomers, mocking other people’s spelling, bullying and hectoring staff and journalists appearing in the comment threads, asking “is this news?” on a story you are not interested in and which nobody forced you to read, hate speech, “ironic” hate speech, anything that might now or in the future potentially land the publisher in legal hot water, and any comment which includes the phrase “I don’t suppose the moderators will publish this but…”

The ‘safety net’ of anonymity appears to give some cowardly commentators the courage to make comments they most likely would never consider making in everyday life to someone’s face. Ultimately online commentating can lead to people feeling sufficiently distanced from the subject matter or people they’re writing about so that ‘social norms’ no longer apply – and as such they don’t see the real effects of their actions, because they don’t have to deal with the consequences. Real effects such as the suffering of the family of Lauren Drew, one of the teenagers Duffy mocked online, whose father spoke movingly about the devastation he [Duffy] had caused her family:

“Lauren didn’t deserve this. Seeing him [Duffy] in court was really hard. I was so angry. Lauren was my only daughter and I worshipped the ground she walked on. This person hid behind a computer screen with no feeling.”

When confronted with their actions, it appears that people can express remorse, as evidenced by a former online moderator Sarah Bee, in a great piece by Tim Adams in The Observer on online commenting and “the age of rage” in July:

“…Every once in a while, however, the mood would get “very ugly” and she [Sarah Bee] would try to calm things down and remonstrate with people.”I would occasionally email them – they had to give their email addresses when registering for the site – to say, ‘Even though you are not writing under your real name, people can hear you.’” In those instances, strangely, she suggests, most people were incredibly contrite when contacted. It was like they had forgotten who they were. “They would send messages back saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’, not even using the excuse of having a bad day or anything like that. It is so much to do with anonymity…”

On a personal note, I find comments – if done well – can add depth and weight to a news piece. And the relatively friendly yet highly informative forums and comments on, amongst others, The Student Room, Digital Spy and MoneySavingExpert (which also has some of the cheeriest emoticons I’ve ever seen!) – can be of real benefit to consumers.

We should have the right to agree, or disagree, with a blog, article or opinion piece. Let’s just do so with a level of restraint and respect, and keep the “dick-ish behaviour” to a minimum.

“First the banks. Then MPs’ expenses. And now in our press…

“All are about the irresponsibility of the powerful. People who believed they were untouchable. This issue of responsibility is one which must be tackled throughout British society.”

[Ed Miliband]

Last year, on the back of the Google/China row over censorship and the consumer anger against the banking crisis, corporate bonus culture and MPs’ expenses scandal, I questioned what this all meant for corporate social responsibility (CSR), highlighting that if companies weren’t “being good” (inherently responsible) then “doing good” (being seen to ‘do’ good deeds/responsible activities) ultimately meant very little.

As the furore around the phone-hacking scandal rages – with new twists and turns and tales of corporate wrong-doing emerging on a daily basis – it’s clear that this applies now more than ever.

As I wrote previously, I felt there were two key factors that played a crucial role in consumer and corporate relations/social responsibility, and I believe these still hold true today:

i) The need for businesses to act as “corporate citizens” was, and is, vital – working for the interests of what is ‘social’ (for the benefit of all of us) as opposed to ‘anti-social’ (for the benefit of individuals… or those of corporate shareholders). How companies conduct their business, internally and externally, is under increasing (public) scrutiny – and companies that don’t take into account consumer opinion and feeling are being challenged and will ultimately face a fight for survival.

ii) The shift to social media is significant, as consumers have the ability to take away control from a previously dominant traditional media and tear down the boundaries between press and public. Consumers now have the opportunity – and are increasingly using it – to shout out about any socially irresponsible corporate behaviour and demand those involved take action. This infographic from The Guardian shows how Twitter reacted to the decision to close the News of the World.

As David Connor, who writes on issues of Corporate Social Responsibility (his blog can be found here), commented on my original blog:

“The arrival of the internet was key in an earlier step change in CSR’s evolution by suddenly making available additional information about corporate activity to those who went looking for it. Social media is providing another step change for CSR as this information is now being pushed at everybody online, every minute of the day”.

As is shown by the summoning of Rebekah Brooks and James and Rupert Murdoch to face today’s culture select committee, people are being held accountable, and one thing is clear: those not demonstrating responsibility are ultimately deemed to be irresponsible, and we, the public, have the power to ensure that things change. And do so for the better.

Brookes ruffled a few (charity) feathers with his claims that “some charitable causes are just better, and more deserving, than others” and his proposal for charity ‘worthiness’ ranking which could help inform donors to choose “good charities” to support.

There’s clearly an interesting debate to be had here, but I’d question how it would ever be possible to judge one charity against another. Is education more (or less) important than the environment? Can you compare domestic violence and disaster relief? Or homelessness against health?  Does a charity have more social ‘worth’ if it benefits people on a nationwide level rather than a few individuals locally? I may have my own opinion on which of the above areas I’d choose to support, but my reasons for doing so are no more or less valid than anyone else’s. Worth is clearly highly subjective, and I’m unsure who would have the moral authority to make such a list, and would be able to do so independent of their own social, political and cultural preferences or prejudices.

The practical implications of putting such a list together aside, personal and emotional involvement in a cause is key. As Stephen Bubb, chief exec of ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations) highlights, the connection between benefactor and cause is crucial. Giving is an extremely individual choice – whether it be a desire to give back to a charity that has personally helped you or a cause you have been affected by.

So while in principle I think it’s important that people should be able to access information (should they wish) to help inform their charity giving, I believe that one’s own individual opinion and subjective view on what ’worth’ means to them and the often highly personal and emotional reasons behind giving means such a list would ultimately have very little impact.

Picture: Josh [unemployed IT dude] at Flickr

In the past few weeks, the ongoing debate around Google vs. China censorship row has dominated the media, with Hillary Clinton’s speech on the need to protect basic freedoms on the internet an essential read.

While on a personal level many may applaud the decision Google has taken in leading the cyber charge against the abuse of civil liberties, I’m particularly interested in what this means for the future of CSR.

As Tom Watson recently highlighted on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the activities of other brands operating in China should now be under scrutiny – which begs the question how do they sit within a wider CSR policy back home?

Choosing a programme of CSR isn’t enough – if you’re not ‘being good’ then ‘doing good’ can mean very little.

As I’ve highlighted before, the financial sector has a more tarnished reputation than most as questions around trust and corporate responsibility (or rather irresponsibility) have impacted greatly on consumer and corporate relations. Just a couple of days ago Lord Myners called on fund managers to re-examine their corporate pay culture as “public attention will focus on the decisions that boards make about bonuses” according to the FT.

The consequences flowing from the banking crisis, State ownership of high street banks, MPs expense scandals, and the pervasive bonus culture among senior management in Britain has demonstrated a powerful schism between the social – in all our interests – and the anti-social – in individual interests. Financial institutions need to be acting as ‘corporate citizens’; it’s not enough to be responsible just to shareholders, but responsible to society as a whole.

I believe that the shift away from the dominance of traditional press is significant. With the rise of the internet and social media, now everyone is a media outlet. As such ‘boundaries’ – whether state, corporate or press vs. public – no longer exist, and the power comes from ‘us’, the people that Google and corporates seek to serve and create goodwill with.

As Henry Jenkins says in his fascinating video on the power of media in a 21st century transmediated world (full link here):

“… A new media system is being born… Spectatorial culture is giving way to participatory culture…

“A society based on a small number of companies controlling the storytelling apparatus is giving way to a much more complex mediascape where average citizens have the ability to seize control over media technologies and tell their own stories in powerful new ways…

“ As average people develop the ability to tell their stories, we are seeing different perspectives emerge.”

Thanks to the power of social media, consumers can, will, and do shout from the rooftops (or their laptops) about any wrong-doing or socially irresponsible behaviour, wherever in the world it may be.

A recent report found that just 21% of people in the UK trust banks to ‘do’ what is right -with trust also named as the key driver of corporate reputation (72%) followed by transparent and honest business practices.

Now, perhaps more than ever, those trying to be seen to ‘do’ good – or using CSR as a get-out-of-jail free card – will be found out. BBC business editor Robert Peston said (see his full blog post here):

“I have it from impeccable sources that several of them [banks] have rung up their mates and contacts in 10 Downing Street, the Treasury and BIS, to ask if they can be let off the 50% one-off bonus tax… In return they would make a one-off contribution to some worthy project or other…“

If you’re not demonstrating responsibility, you’re ultimately irresponsible.

The question now is – if you don’t believe in CSR or don’t really mean it, then should you be doing it?

Books like Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature by Mark Earls and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein both allude to this emerging spirit of mass collectivism and changeable mass consumer behaviour and, importantly for PR people, the influence of ‘other people’ or single simple steps on the behaviour of groups of individuals. (One example would be the emergence of floral shrines which have become a common sight in the last 20 years – spontaneous public and group actions of grief and remembrance that aren’t organised, rather organically grow as someone starts the tribute and others follow.)

Ultimately we are a social species and will coalesce around what is right, which is why corporate social responsibility and charitable partnerships – corporates ‘being’ as well as ‘doing good’ – has such a strong pull with the public.

Even amidst the credit crunch and consumer concern over finances, Red Nose Day raised an eye-watering £57 million this year, beating the record set by the previous campaign in 2007 by £17.5 million. Indeed Sainsbury’s revealed earlier this year that its partnership with Comic Relief – a good example of how both sides can benefit from a corporate/charitable relationship – helped contribute to a 0.3% rise in turnover in the first quarter of 2009.

With this in mind, corporate decisions need to fully consider consumer views and sentiment, as how companies conduct their business, both internally and externally, are under increasing scrutiny and traditional models of behaviour are being challenged. With the huge growth in online petitions, Facebook groups (think Busts 4 Justice which garnered 11,000 online supporters in its successful battle with M&S over its bra surcharge), consumer action and more and more people talking online, consumers can, and do, make a lot of noise about a company and any wrong-doings.

However those keen to ‘take part’ need to be fully aware of the substance and credibility corporate social responsibility (looking at charitable partnerships in particular) requires, with core business activities at the heart of any programme, rather than a philanthropic leaning or chairman’s whim – the right cause considering long-term goals, a real synergy with a corporate’s business interests and values and aligned objectives. A genuine, transparent and well-thought through community involvement strategy is key; if a corporate is seen as exploiting an opportunity with no real engagement with or ‘in’ the cause, it has the potential to be counter-productive.

One campaign that did just that was Cadbury Trebor Bassett’s Get Active! CRM initiative in partnership with Youth Sports Trust in 2003, which aimed to encourage children to become more active and involved in sport. Despite Cadbury’s saying that children would eat chocolate anyway, but should do so sensibly as part of a balanced diet and healthy active lifestyle, the campaign was condemned by children’s and health groups, including the Consumers’ Association who described the scheme as “an irresponsible ploy to encourage unhealthy eating among children” and “nothing short of a scandal”.

Strategies must therefore enable consumers to take part in the brand in order to create a ‘reservoir of goodwill’ to draw upon when ‘other people’ put a reputation in jeopardy. A programme of social responsibility can play an important role when built into the core of marketing and brand objectives – adopting a programme may bring a corporate to the same level as their competitors, but ultimately those not engaging or taking part will end up being the most affected.