A chief executive officer is responsible for aligning a company – internally and externally – with its strategic, and hopefully unique, mission. Like the mastermind behind a chess board. CEOs also have other ways of describing their roles: chief rainmaker, chief motivator, chief bean counter or chief disciplinarian among others.

How about this, instead: Chief Purpose Officer.

Let’s back up for a minute. Almost exactly a year ago, on this very blog, we shared the story of Joel Spolsky, self-described “co-founder, CEO and Lord High Everything Else,” of Fog Creek. To quote ourselves: “Joel spent two afternoons hanging curtains to block the sun from baking the backs of his employees and reducing the glare on their monitors.”

Joel is not a Chief Executive Officer. Joel is a Chief Purpose Officer. A CEO would have someone else fix the problem. As top dog at Fog Creek, Joel sees it as his responsibility to keep the company focused on and driving toward its purpose. And if that means installing blinds to block the sun, then so be it.

Joel isn’t unique, anymore. There has been a shift among CEOs today. We’ve seen it from our clients. They view their role as Chief different than their predecessors. In particular to us, they’re asking us to help them communicate to their employees and customers in new ways. Some are trying new delivery methods – podcasting, videos, weekly email blasts, to name a few – and others are trying new messages.

Does your organization need a Chief Executive Officer or a Chief Purpose Officer?

Last week, the agency disproved the expression that too many cooks can spoil the soup at our holiday outing to the Viking Cooking School. Sure it got a little crowded by the stoves, but the outcome was nothing to spit at: French onion soup, spinach soufflé, beef wellington, and white chocolate mousse.

The evening continued our agency tradition of learning while holiday dining, following on the heels of recent holiday parties featuring participatory improv acting, stand-up comedy, and mystery theatre. Never before has the learning been so closely connected with the meal we would later eat. While we may not have any future master chefs among us, it was clear that through teamwork and proper instruction (and more than a little help from Viking), we could create a first class meal – and have fun in the process!   

Who knew apron modeling could be so rewarding?

I’m pretty sure you have to plug it in first.

Funny faces are the secret ingredient.

We’re mashing raspberries, not grapes.  You can’t get in there and do it with your feet.

Who is the boss?

If you logged on to Facebook yesterday, you were one of the 350 million members who immediately saw a pop-up in your newsfeed entitled “Privacy Announcement.”  The announcement told users “We’re making some changes to give you more control of your information and help you stay connected.  We’ve simplified the Privacy page and added the ability to set privacy on everything you share…at the same time, we’re helping everyone find and connect with each other by keeping some information-like your name and profile picture-publicly available.”

Hmm.  So you can control privacy on everything you share, but no matter what you do, your profile picture and name will be available?  That does seem to make much sense now, does it?

Let’s look into these privacy settings a little further, and check out the reason for the new settings.

Facebook is giving members new privacy options, and in particular, will now allow people to choose custom privacy settings for each piece of content they post to the service.  Facebook says they are doing this to empower users and give them as much control as possible over their data.  But many people believe that Facebook has other motives for the changes.

First, the changes could help Facebook compete rivals such as Google and Twitter by providing more information about people and what they are doing in real time.  Second, some of Facebook’s old privacy distinctions were no longer working and the new settings will eliminate these options.  For example, an old setting allowed users to share info with other members of their city or region but as membership in those areas had grown into the millions, this was no longer  useful.  With the new privacy settings, regional categories are no longer an option.

Many speculate that these new privacy settings are actually pushing users to make more of their information public than private, an idea that is causing grumbling and even petitioning by users.  Under the new settings, people can choose to share content with their friends, friends of friends, or everyone, and they can select these various options for all the components of their Facebook profile.  Every time they post a piece of content, clicking on the image of a lock also allows them to choose who they want to share it with.   However, to strengthen privacy settings in most cases, users must click to an extra page with more detailed privacy settings, making it a more lengthy process than ever before to protect your information.  Some users may just not go to the trouble .  What’s more, users are finding that settings they had changed years ago have now been changed back by Facebook to share more of their personal information with the world.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties organization, is up in arms about the changes, saying that members could inadvertently publish to the world more information about themselves than they ever intended.

So how do we make sense of all this?  The privacy restrictions seem to be a mixed bag of tighter controls on what you personally post and share, and more relaxed rules on what Facebook deems “public information.”   Perhaps the rules give us all a note of caution.  Social networking is an incredible tool for connectivity and communication, yet it is increasingly making all of our personal information more readily available and accessible. Facebook users and all social networking users should now, more than ever, think harder about what information they choose to share.

Unless you’ve been in a cave for the last week you’ve read about one of the largest media deals in history – Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal from GE. And while those three may read simply as the names of corporate behemoths separately, in this instance they may as well be the leading characters in a story.

Because while everyone from CNBC to the Chattanooga Times Free Press speculated on the business viability and the consumer impact of the deal, The New York Times focused on the story behind it. In a great piece, the Times shared the rich detail, including the attire and the attitudes, of GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Comcast patriarch Ralph Roberts, of a secretive July meeting in Sun Valley that saved the deal.

Reading the piece you felt as if you were there. You got a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the negotiations between two of the country’s most successful executives as they put together one of the most significant business deals in recent memory.

The piece demonstrated the power these two businessmen wield, but it also demonstrated the power of story. Stories are one of the oldest forms of communication. And while it may sometimes be perceived as a soft delivery method, the hard numbers from studies show that stories deliver the greatest impact and the greatest information retention.

Remember that the next time you are considering how to deliver your next marketing message. Because the power of story is unmatched. Besides people are much more likely to remember the color of Ralph Roberts’ bow tie than they are the share price of the deal. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

There are plenty of questions revolving around the mysterious and sensational Tiger Woods car “crash” from early Saturday morning. Was he under the influence? Is his wife Elin furious at him for an affair? Did he have an affair? Is Elin a golf club-wielding nut job? This is just the tip off the iceberg.

In addition to the questions, there is plenty of advice – He should talk!  He should clam up!  He should bribe Elin with jewelry! Ohh wait… that was his idea.

But the big question that hovers over all of this like a TV news chopper is “should Tiger talk?” And the smart PR answer is “yes. A little.” Because Tiger has a squeaky clean image, he needs to make a show of honesty. He doesn’t have to tell the public a lot, but he needs to say something about being human, working on his marriage, blah, blah, blah. Just not as much as Letterman (although Dave’s apology seemed to work for him – he’s quirky, we know he’s quirky, so it worked).

Those around Tiger are helping his case. In an interview today in the New York Post, the alleged other woman sounds pretty convincing in her denials. And, very importantly, Nike, Gatorade and Gillette are standing by Woods as a big-money endorser.  Those companies have the inside word and if they have said they’re sticking with Woods, it means something.

But, still, Tiger needs to step up and say something publicly. Remember the two rules of crisis communication – 1. Validate concern. 2. Show action.

By speaking to the public and addressing the situation, he shows that he cares what the public thinks. He validates the concern. And then he needs to say that he’s going to disappear for a while and work on his marriage (or whatever is appropriate) – that’s the appropriate action.

Until then, TMZ will continue to be all over him and the TV choppers will continue to hover over his house.