Whole Foods, the organic supermarket chain, has spent the last three weeks in full crisis communications mode following the Wall Street Journal’s publication of an OPED written by the company’s CEO, John Mackey.

Mackey wrote the OPED in an attempt to present some potential solutions to the incredibly complex issue of Health Care Reform. Typically, this is what we want from corporate leaders – someone willing to get engaged in important societal discussions.

But it might be a while before anyone goes out on this limb again. Mackey’s OPED was seen as a punch in the gut of liberals… a significant problem since Whole Foods customer-base is, well, pretty damn liberal. And that customer base is now mad as hell.

The furor came quickly. Liberal Hot Spot Daily Kos erupted in left-leaning outrage.  There was a movement to boycott Whole Foods, as well as hand-wringing about whether liberal consumers of organic foods could live without Whole Foods.

Mackey tried to explain that, basically, he’d been misquoted, including the fact that his title “Health Care Reform” was changed by a WSJ editor to “Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare.”

Now, Mackey and Whole Foods are in a tough spot. We always counsel our clients that every question in a crisis communications situation boils down to “do you care?” Mackey cared enough to weigh in on the important discussion about Health Care Reform.

The problem is that he ticked off his customer base – rule #1 for running a business is “don’t upset the customers.”

Now, it’s fair to question whether Mackey has the best interests of his best customers in mind. If he can’t convince them that he does, his position isn’t recoverable. He, and the company, can basically head in two distinct directions.

1. They can run screaming from the Health Care discussion and keep on apologizing. This will ultimately end in Mackey leaving the company, one way or another.
2. They can embrace the debate and try to become a leader in the discussion.

Option 1 is the easiest solution for the company. For Mackey, Option 2 is the only way he keeps his job. So… is it worth it to him? And if so, can he convince his Board of Directors that it’s worth the fight to them?

In case you don’t know, an audible is a play called by the quarterback at the line of scrimmage to make a change from the play that was called in the huddle. A QB will use an audible, for example, to switch up the offensive play if he’s uncomfortable with the formation the opposing defense is using.

A few weeks ago, appalled at the decision to allow Vick back into the league, I vowed to boycott all things Vick and damned the brand that dared to sign him. Well, now he’s a Philadelphia Eagle, and I’ve got to put my money where my mouth is. The morning after the announcement that Michael Vick would bleed green on the gridiron, I offered up my season tickets to the highest bidder, castigating the Eagles’ management for darkening an already tainted image of the Philadelphia sports landscape, for creating a foolish and unnecessary distraction for the team, and most of all, for giving a job to a man who committed cruel and, in my eyes, unforgivable crimes.

However, to avoid being an uninformed zealot (and at the urging of a co-worker), I watched the press conferences on the signing. I watched Tony Dungy speak of the fallen quarterback’s commitment to making good in the community. I watched Michael Vick address the room steadily, without notes and seemingly uncoached, about the mistakes he made and the second chance he had been given. I watched Jeffrey Lurie speak of soul searching and moral deliberation and a need to maintain the character of the organization.  And I watched Andy Reid’s vulnerable empathy as he spoke of his own jailed children and the second chances he hoped they’d get.

When all was said and done, I’d been hit with an offensive play I hadn’t expected. My initial opinion had been tackled (at least a little bit) by a communications audible. The Eagles’ well-played public relations strategy was effective, and it is forcing me to ask myself if I’ve made a fair and informed decision. Am I willing to contemplating the notion that this creep deserves a second chance like anyone else? That remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure: until I saw the faces of the opposition and heard the voices of my sworn enemy, there was no way I’d have even considered it.

Behold the power of visuals and voice. If ever there were a doubt whether a point of view is made more compelling with video and / or audio, this ends it in my book. It’s not a prepared statement flashing on ESPN, or a quote in a story on SportsIllustrated.com. I saw all of those, and they did nothing to sway me, the skeptical reader, the cynical consumer.

As a professional, I’ve always recommended visuals or audio to bring clients stories to life, and while I knew it to be the right recommendation from a strategic perspective, I hadn’t realized it quite as much until now. However, also from a professional standpoint, I know that one press conference doesn’t change public opinion overnight. And like my clients’ consumers do, I’ll need more reassurance before the Eagles can make me a buyer again.

Let’s see what the QB calls next.

The media loves surveys.  And as this one proves, the funnier and more entertaining – the better.  This article showed up on the BizJournals website today.  The lesson: even if your results are uninteresting, your responses may be enough to get you media coverage. Just don’t be too suntanned.

Think you’ve heard some strange complaints from employees about their co-workers? A recent survey of more than 2,600 hiring managers by CareerBuilder highlighted some of the oddest complaints about others in the office.
The complaints include:
* Employee is too suntanned
* Employee has big hair
* Employee eats all the good cookies
* Employee is so polite, it’s infuriating
* Employee suspected co-worker was a pimp
* Employee is trying to poison me
* Employee’s body is magnetic and keeps de-activating my magnetic access card
* Employee is personally responsible for a federally-mandated tax increase
* Employee was annoyed the company didn’t provide a place for naps during break time
* Employee only wears slippers or socks at work
* Employee’s aura is wrong
* Employee smells like road ramps
* Employee breathes too loudly
* Employee wants to check a co-worker for ticks
* Employee wore pajamas to work
* Employee has bells on her shoes and it’s not the holidays
* Co-worker reminded the employee too much of Bambi
* Employee spends too much time caring for stray cats around the building
* A male employee keeps using the ladies’ room because the men’s room is not as tidy.

The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive among 2,667 hiring managers and human resource professionals.

What for a brief period was exclusively the domain of celebrities and the media – 1 million Twitter followers – is now increasingly within reach of corporations. Jet Blue (@jetblue) surpassed the coveted milestone on August 5 and offered 20% off all flights booked that day. Go figure you’d have to be following them on Twitter to learn about the offer quick enough to act on it. (Sorry, this blog is being posted a day too late.)

For many businesses, Twitter isn’t just the fad of the day – it’s become the front line of customer service and is contributing directly to the bottom line. Some companies, like Wells Fargo (@Ask_WellsFargo) are using Twitter as an interactive help desk to answer customer questions. Others, like Dell (@delloutlet), are utilizing Twitter to publicize sales, coupons, and special offers. Dell sells refurbished systems via @delloutlet and early this year attributed $3 million in sales to Twitter.

For JetBlue, the opportunity lies in the ability to respond to disgruntled customers quickly and convert them into brand ambassadors. The strategy is wise, considering that the viral nature of Twitter means that one negative tweet can quickly be seen and passed along by hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

Twitter isn’t just for consumer brands. It’s also a thought leadership platform to share a unique point of view, engage your core audience, attract new talent, reveal your company culture and lead the industry conversation. That’s what we’ve tried to do as an agency at Braithwaite Communications (@beontheball) and that’s what we’ve encouraged our clients to do.

Not sure where to begin? For starters, check your brand’s pulse in real time on www.twitter.com. Need help? Give us a shout.

On July 17, one of the great legends of journalism, Walter Cronkite, died. And somewhere, he’s shaking his head.

Weeks before Cronkite died, the New York Times prepared an appraisal of his life; a common tactic when an individual of such stature enters into a terminal illness. The purpose of preparing the piece in advance is to allow thorough and wholly accurate reporting. At least, that’s the intent.

The actual article, “Cronkite’s Signature: Approachable Authority,” written by Alessandra Stanley, was riddled, by any standards, with errors. In just 998 words, Alessandra – and a variety of others who touched the piece – produced seven significant mistakes.

Thankfully, the Public Editor of the Times, Clark Hoyt, wasn’t as sloppy. Hoyt details how the article was produced, Stanley’s history of errors and how such egregious errors could occur . And here, taken directly from the Times’ correction, are the inaccuracies:

1.    Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30.
2.    Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches.
3.    Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26.
4.    “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970.
5.    A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar.
6.    Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor.
7.    Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

So, why regurgitate these mistakes in this blog today? To publicly ridicule the reporter, the New York Times or journalists? Stanley has already been chastised by the media and public alike.

Instead, what changes will this lead to? Will newsrooms around the world edit-the-editing-process, while simultaneously yanking in their belts? Perhaps as importantly, what will businesses learn from this? Will they be more deliberate and thoughtful with their words?

If Walter Cronkite taught us anything, it is to be precise with our words and careful with how we communicate.

But, for now, he’s shaking his head somewhere.