Our operation pollutes like crazy!

Posted At : June 26, 2008 12:52 PM | Posted By : Steve Hodgdon
Related Categories: Social Media,Public Relations,Cause branding

polluted skyline At a time when corporate greenwashing is as ubiquitous as mouthwash, international shipper First Global Xpress takes a refreshingly candid, open and authentic approach to greening the company.

The company is asking the world to help keep it honest as it attempts to reduce its carbon footprint by 66% before year's end.

Are you paying attention, FedEx, UPS?

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Technology M&A remains endgame of choice

Posted At : June 24, 2008 1:21 PM | Posted By : Andy Beaupre
Related Categories: PR,Technology,High tech PR,Public Relations,Commentary

Late last year, Wired spoke hopefully about technology stocks going IPO in greater numbers in 2008, “after three dismal years.” Some VCs, like Glen Kacher at Integral Capital Partners, forecast technology companies “coming out of a long dry spell; we’re only in the first year of an active IPO market.”

It ain’t happenin’ folks.

Nearly six months into 2008, tech IPOs are stalled. Some like Glasshouse Technologies, for example, have been on the back burner for seven months. CNN Money.com said the IPO market “has slowed to a crawl” and “can’t seem to get out of first gear.”

And they’re talking about every market, every industry, not just tech. Ouch.

There’s still plenty of action in M&A. Yes, deal activity is down 26% from last year (so far), but global deal volume is up 3% to date in 2008 vs. the same period in 2006 according to The Wall Street Journal. Let’s not forget that 2006 was the biggest year in M&A history until 2007 rewrote the record books.

Updata Advisors says global M&A deal value in Q1 08 rose to $33 billion – an increase of 32% over $25 billion in deal volume in the comparable quarter last year. Although this is a slight decline (8.3%) from Q4 07, it’s still a damn robust market. With a slowing economy, organic growth is tougher to achieve, so companies keep acquiring to maintain growth rates.

Our own lens confirms this reality. More than 35 Beaupre clients have been acquired, most over the past five years.

Last week, Microsoft acquired Beaupre client Navic Networks, a cool company that provides real-time TV audience measurement for interactive media placement. They joined earlier Beaupre clients acquired by Microsoft including Groove Networks and Parlano.

Updata Advisors think a strong M&A market will continue because “strategic buyers” (think tech industry gorillas) represent 90%+ of the deal activity.

It’s all about the endgame folks, and M&A continues to be the endgame of choice.

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The new high-tech startup mecca: Vermont?

Posted At : June 18, 2008 8:03 AM | Posted By : Steve Hodgdon
Related Categories: High tech PR,News

Vermont's Northeast Kingdom Vermont Governor Jim Douglas just signed a new bill allowing the creation of "virtual companies" to be headquartered, figuratively, in the Green Mountain State. No physical headquarters required. No in-person board meetings. Nada. The business can just be an Internet-resident operation. (If it was my startup, I'd pick somewhere in Vermont's Tolkien-esque Northeast Kingdom as my virtual homebase.)

This could be a boon to web-centric startups who don't need the added financial burden of physical property. But could it also become a haven for people like infamous Spam King Sanford Wallace, who the Feds were able to bust in part because at least he had a physical presence for his operation here in next-door New Hampshire?

Here's the story via GigaOm: Vermont OKs the Creation of Virtual Corporations

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Greenwashers versus mob rule

Posted At : June 12, 2008 10:19 AM | Posted By : Steve Hodgdon
Related Categories: Crisis Management,Social Media,Public Relations

An interesting battle is being waged through social media channels between General Motors and electric vehicle (EV)enthusiasts, who believe GM’s recent embrace of hybrid cars is just another disingenuous attempt to greenwash its image. It’s a great example of how social media has not only given the little guy a voice against corporate interests, but how the little guy can now drown out the big guy, sometimes to a tyrannical extent.

The EVs cite as evidence the Sony Pictures documentary Who Killed The Electric Car? It chronicles a sinister collusion between auto makers, Big Oil and Big Brother to terminate the fledgling electric car industry before it could take hold. Beyond its theatrical and DVD release, the movie got even wider distribution as a viral video via YouTube, social networks and blogs. And it didn’t help GM's cause when general manager Bob Lutz was widely quoted throughout the blogosphere saying “Global warming is a total crock of sh*t.”

Conspiracy theories and impassioned rants soon followed on social nets and forums such as the Yahoo!Groups electric vehicle group. EV activists descended on auto shows, policy making events and GM press conferences. An EV movement was born.

GM countered with social sites like gmnext, where people were encouraged to submit media and comments to help GM answer questions like “How can we best address global energy issues we’ll face for the next 100 years?”

Nice try. But the Rainforest Action Network, which called it “one of the biggest and most ambitious online corporate greenwashing campaigns,” quickly rallied its supporters to post photos and comments. GM was forced to kill “the conversation” on the site immediately.

The on-going debate has been fascinating. GM argues they can’t win with the EVs … that they’re investing billons developing the Chevy Volt by 2010. Yet skeptics say it’s red herring vaporware. The activists counter with the fact that GM built a perfectly good electric car a decade ago, so what’s the hold up?

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I haven’t ~~forgiven~~ trusted GM since I bought my ~~sh*t box~~ Chevy Citation back in the 80s. Nor do I suffer well the tinfoil hat fringe of community activism. That’s what’s great about the web. Activists can help keep The Man honest, conspiracy theories can forment, and everyone has a voice. But is this always a good thing, or sometimes tyranny of the majority?

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That’s, like, a societal thing

Posted At : June 5, 2008 3:50 PM | Posted By : Andy Beaupre
Related Categories: Commentary

I was hanging out at our state university with a colleague, capturing Gen Y opinions about mobile phones for some videos we’d be posting.

I got a chuckle out of how many times students said “like.” I stopped counting when I hit 47 – easily – in the span of a half hour of interviews.

The standard question we were asking went like this:

“What does your cell phone mean to you and how would you react if you didn’t have it?”

The answers were very consistent:

They’d be devastated.
They’d be lost (some literally, some figuratively).
They’d have a bad day.

But the glue linking nearly every comment was the word “like.” Here are a few examples:

“Not having my cell phone, would, like, make me feel, like, so disconnected.”

“I can’t imagine, like, getting through a day without it.”

“Looking back on times when this, like, actually happened, it was, like, not cool.”

“My cell phone, is like, a part of me. It’s, like, my social network, know what I mean?”

“Like talk” has been going on awhile. Clueless featured this dialect in 1995 and real-life valley girls predated the movie.

How’d this happen? How did “like” become such a superfluous synonym for “er” and “um?” Why is it so difficult to construct a sentence without it? I'm not being high and mighty about the "like" thing. I probably say it more than I realize.

I guess it’s, like, a lasting societal thing. Linguists will, have to figure out why it, like, isn’t going away, know what I mean?

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