Last night the Nuffer, Smith, Tucker team was proud to join local PR professionals and long-time friends from throughout San Diego at the annual San Diego/Imperial Counties Chapter Public Relations Society of America Edward L. Bernays Mark of Excellence Awards.

Happily seated at the “Journey” table during the rockstar-themed ceremony at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego, the NST team took home three prestigious Bernays Awards, which recognize superior public relations efforts of the past year.

A Bronze Award of Excellence was awarded in the category of Media Relations, Associations/Non-Profit/Government, for NST’s execution of the 2009 California Citrus Research Board Asian citrus psyllid ground media tour. NST also received a Bronze Award of Merit in the Website External category for its website re-fresh for client Ocean Mist Farms, and in the Direct Mail/Direct Response category for the Chicken of the Sea International Mermaid Birthday Club outreach.

A big congratulations to each and every one of my fellow NSTers for the exceptional work on the above mentioned campaigns, and the dedication and hard work you give to all our clients, day in and day out. Evenings like last night remind us how lucky we are to have found a profession we love, and the ability to work beside colleagues and friends we admire.

Congratulations, Team NST! Cheers to another great year of work!

A few weeks ago, Twitter announced it was redesigning the way we’d interact on its website, making it easier to use and allowing us to get “more out of Twitter in a lot less time.” (Check out Mashable’s play-by-play piece for more detail on the actual roll out).

Slowly, our staff has been granted access to the new format as it progressively rolls out to the more than 160 million Twitter users (I feel honored, Twitter, really, I do). Having had access to the redesigned look for a week or so now, I’ve found the new layout seems really familiar to some of the desktop and web-based applications that many of us in the office already use to monitor the social media space for our clients (CoTweet, HootSuite, TweetDeck, Seesmic, etc.). Side note rant: Can anyone tell me why these application developers are against having spaces in their application names? Yeesh, show the space bar some love!

Through the new design, which features a preview window on the right of the newsfeed, viewers can access additional information without leaving the current page (a huge bonus for those of us with a bit of a short attention span) among other functionality improvements. You can view more detailed information on a person’s profile, view a video or photo, or see a conversation between two users side by side.

Twitter's new preview pane allows users to see additional content without navigating away from Twitter.com

So, was this Twitter’s way of capturing back some of the audience that’s using been using these third-party applications? Absolutely (see San Diego’s own Jennifer VanGrove explore that theory in her Mashable post earlier this month)!

But the real kicker is the expanded content opportunities. Twitter has partnered with 18 separate content-providing sites – including Etsy, Flickr, Plixi, TwitPic, Twitvid,  Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube to name a few – that will allow this content to be viewed within the new preview pane without leaving Twitter.com, similar to the functions in most desktop and web-based interfaces.

Some of the best news? Unlike the recent Facebook overhaul, my initial exploration (post if you see differently) found the customized Twitter backgrounds we’ve created for our clients maintain their integrity within the new design.

I have been in Cleveland this week to meet with our partners for the Worldcom Public Relations Group Americas annual meeting. One of the announcements made during our meetings is the launch of its newly redesigned learning and education center, Worldcom University. David Grossman, founder and president of the Grossman Group, will be the University’s first president. The Grossman Group is also a Worldcom partner firm.

Worldcom University, which originally launched in the 1990s, has been completely retooled. It will now serve as the exclusive education and learning center for the 1,800 employees of the 107 Worldcom partner firms around the world. New offerings on the interactive site will include instructional videos, webinars, whitepapers and thought leadership conversations culled from blogs and social media sites. The online classrooms will provide Worldcom members the opportunity to stay current on innovative practices and rapidly evolving tools used in public relations, marketing and advertising.

While facilitating a crisis media training session for a relatively large national brand, one of the participants quipped, “But I don’t even care about social media. I’d rather just deal with real people.”

So would most of us.  I long for the day when people less than a half-dozen steps away would get off their arses and have a conversation versus send a stream of e-mail notes. But I digress, and I was one of those curmudgeon print reporters 20 years ago (albeit a cub) who thought hell would freeze over before people would opt for reading their news on a computer monitor.

Every organization should realize social media’s impact on dissemination and consumption of information, news and entertainment. Market power is shifting from organizations and brands, consumer and trade, to the consumer largely because of technology. Social media continues to grow as a consumer tool for decision-making, and it still seems many organizations and brands either struggle with, or refuse to accept, how or why they need to know how to engage in the Internet-connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, photo- and video-uploading stakeholder-engaged world. The seemingly few who are connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, et al. and inviting engagement from stakeholders recognize these connections are good for their organizations, brands and their business.  They “get it” that engagement is critical, whereas hordes of others in social media just see this as another platform to push out marketing messages a la Web 1.0

This consumer-driven engagement brings peer-to-peer endorsements and criticisms on organizations, brands, products, services and issues to an extraordinarily higher level than ever experienced. Word, not too long ago, spread gradually – days, weeks, maybe even months.  Today, with the Internet and all its social media outlets, we’re talking a matter of hours and even minutes, and not just with the families on your block.  Consumers can reach entire communities locally and globally.

That alone has a profound impact on how we manage crisis situations.  Social media is becoming the preferred platform on which an organization’s crisis unfolds and where control of the matter at hand is won or lost.  And that preference is coming from all corners except the organizations facing the crisis.

A prime example is the “United Breaks Guitars” fiasco.  The airline refused to take responsibility for breaking Dave Carroll’s guitar, and after nearly a year of getting nowhere, Carroll released his now famous video about United on the Internet, exposing the airline’s poor customer service. The video gained more than 500,000 views within a week, and mainstream media, including CNN, NPR, CBS, USA Today, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other traditional outlets globally, picked up the story, some citing “digital revenge.” Experts far and wide said United waited too long, finally proclaiming on Twitter, “This has struck a chord w/us and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right.” Too little too late? Many say, “absolutely.”

Ditto for Domino’s.  The pizza HQ waited 24 hours before posting a response on YouTube, where two workers – clearly anticipating their Culinary Institute of America acceptance letters – literally picked at some new ideas for ingredients.

There’s also Nestle, when consumers got a sweet tooth for revenge over the company’s interactions with consumers and Greenpeace supporters on Nestle’s Facebook page.  When you insult someone online, be prepared for the mob mentality – and to never win.

And there’s British Petroleum.  Where do we begin?  How about just looking at the hijacking of its brand on Twitter (see @BPGlobalPR).  Yes, it can happen to you and most know it’s a fake, but the lesson is realizing the risk of losing control of your brand.

This is all what digital trends expert Steve Rubel says clearly about what we’re facing: “An entire generation is growing up that will never dial a 1-800 number to reach customer care.”

We are dealing with real people, about 227.7 million of them in the U.S.; just not on the phone or in person – they’re on your desktop, laptop, mobile phone, iPad and soon to the next tech gadget coming down the pipeline, except for Kin.

Are you ready?

I just had the best Chinese food experience of my life.  The food was definitely good, but the truly amazing part was the setting.  You see, I was actually in Shanghai, China this past week and was able to experience far more than just the food – I got to meet the people and to see how they live.  I got to hear their stories and their vision for the future as well.

What I found was very different from what I experienced on my previous trip to China in the late 90s.  Granted, some of the differences are a result of the diversity between Shanghai and Beijing, but to see the growth in infrastructure and the business climate was almost staggering.

Inside the terminal at Pudong Airport

On my previous trip, we got to see a lot of historical sites, and talked a lot about the past.  This time, the entire discussion was about the future.  And the future looks bright for the Chinese, or at least the 19.2 million that live in Shanghai.

My first impression was of the airport.  When I was in the Hongqiao International Airport in the 90s, it was not much different from what we had at home (and that is not necessarily a compliment).  Now, the newer Shanghai Pudong International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, and is a testament to the way airports should be built.  It was easy to navigate, looks good, and can serve more than 60 million passengers per year.  The interesting thing is, it took slightly more than two years to build the first phase. In San Diego, we have been talking about building a new airport for the past 50 years.  In China, they didn’t talk about it, they built it.

The other infrastructure in the city was equally as amazing.  There are thousands of high rise buildings in Shanghai, and on first glance, I assumed that it would take hours to get across town.  When we went to visit the Shanghai World Financial Center for high tea (I have to admit I ordered a beer), it took just a few minutes and less than $5 U.S. dollars to get there from across the river where we were staying. Although the taxi rides are enough to make even the most avid roller coaster fans queasy, the roads are amazingly efficient and the cab fares are very reasonable, courtesy of strict government controls.

The public transportation system is even more amazing. Shanghai boasts the world’s most extensive bus system, with more than 1,000 bus lines.  They also have a rapid-transit system and elevated light rail that will get you wherever you need to go. The best of the options has to be the Shanghai Maglev Train, which will get you from the Pudong financial district to the airport in less than eight minutes.  Did I mention that it travels more than 400 km per hour?  We rode it to the airport and back one afternoon just to experience it.  Didn’t even get off at the other end.  Shanghai is also the world’s largest cargo port, but I did not get to see that part of the city.

However, as impressive as the infrastructure was (and how fast they could build it) the business climate is what caught my eye the most.  The Chinese were not interested in talking about companies coming in to their country to find low cost manufacturing options.  They were not all excited about the establishment of international brands in their marketplace.  What they were excited about was the growth of Chinese companies and the Chinese business model.  The conversations were not about items made in China, but about ideas and products created in China that can be shared with the world.  This is a major mind shift.

China remains a huge consumer market, and many companies want to tap into that market to sell their goods.  However, Chinese businesses are looking at creating their own brands not only to sell domestically, but also to sell to the world.  There is also tremendous growth happening in the service sector, and the prospects for future growth are even greater.  Equally as important is the number of Chinese companies looking to acquire other companies.  With substantial available cash, we are seeing that happen as we speak.

I was in China to meet with our partners in The Worldcom Public Relations Group annual general meeting.  We were fortunate to be in town during Shanghai World Expo 2010 and got to visit for the day.  It was also great to be hosted by out Italian partner at their beautiful pavilion.

Shanghai should be proud of what they did to secure, prepare for and host World Expo 2010.  The day we visited there were 400,000 people in attendance.  It is probably the most important event the Chinese have ever held (since it lasts a lot longer than the Olympics and showcases more that just sports) and is drawing the world’s attention.

The entire event was set up to showcase one thing:  the Chinese have a clear focus on the future and a plan for how they are going to get there.  You may or may not agree with how they do it, but I have no doubt that they will get it done, while we in the U.S. will continue to struggle to see if we can even agree on what we want our future to be.

This should be a wake up call to us all.

A few additional observations:

• I did not see one fortune cookie, furthering my belief that they were invented by Chinese restaurants in the West.

  

• I could not find kung pao chicken anywhere.  The closest dish we found was a chicken dish with spicy red peppers, but the ratio of chicken to peppers was the opposite of what we find here.  Yes, it was 90% peppers, and I could only handle about five of them before I decided it was in my own personal best interest to stop.

• Everyone I met understands commerce.  The retail establishments I encountered still have a ways to go to meet the standard of customer service we are used to, but they sure do know how to sell, bargain and negotiate.  Even the smallest of street vendors understands the power of a selling message, and even though I do not speak Chinese, the message was clear.

The Tiger Woods brand consistently delivered on its expectations — integrity, dignity, determination, competitive fire and loyalty — on and off the golf course.  The brand experience was highly attractive to be repeated by fans, endorsers, news media and even his competitive foes, all telling of great stories and experiences with anything Tiger.

For Toyota, quality was the axis of its brand. The automaker entered the U.S. market decades ago amid a storm of skepticism on reliability, and Toyota quickly and has since silenced the naysayers, albeit until recently.

In produce, character is often reflected in the quality of products delivered to customers and consumers alike — freshness, taste and appearance — and in environmental stewardship, labor relations and food safety standards.

Read more thoughts in The Packer on what leaders in produce, and any other industry, can learn from Tiger and Toyota.

Toyota is curiously sitting at no. 7 in Millward Brown’s top-10 list of most trusted brands as Congress spent the better half of the week giving Toyota a tongue-lashing for its handling and mishandling of the automaker’s quality control crisis.

The study’s authors readily point out that the data was collected over the course of 2009 and doesn’t reflect Toyota’s current dilemma as it unfurled at the beginning of this year.  The authors also note the automaker could learn from Tylenol, which in 1982 recalled 31 million bottles of pills after seven people were killed in the tampering scare.  That brand, which was forced to recall children’s liquid medicine last year, sits at no. 6 in the study.

Tylenol maker Johnson & Johnson has a history of effectively managing crisis situations, though the FDA earlier this year ridiculed the company for being slow to respond in its most recent crisis.  What this goes to show you, however, is a history of doing the right thing and acting aggressively in a crisis situation can maintain and build trust among stakeholders, consumers in particular.  Trust is fragile, and how you respond in a crisis situation can build and maintain trust, the authors state.

Toyota started off this week with public apologies before Congress.  How it fixes its problems, communicates with stakeholders and develops systems to prevent further lapses will determine if the automaker regains or builds trust, and where it will stand in next year’s report.

Tiger Woods spent about 14 minutes doing what he should have done nearly three months ago: he took his head out of the sand trap and decided to address his crisis head-on, albeit in a tightly controlled environment.

Better late than never, and we can spend hours rehashing the premise of acting quickly to manage a crisis (hundreds did it when news broke last fall, myself included, and more will berate him for waiting too long).  What Tiger did accomplish today was take that critical first step down the longest fairway of his life.  Rather than jump on the bandwagon and dissect everything he did wrong in his “no-questions-asked press conference,” here’s a look at what did well:

• Pulling his head out of the sand.  Crisis management is pure hell loaded with fear and uncertainty for any organization, let alone one individual, unaccustomed to dealing with panic.
• Acknowledging it was his own behavior and actions that led to his tarnished image and brand.  He didn’t make excuses and took accountability.
• Pointing out he veered from his personal set of values.  Very few in a crisis situation get this, that reputations and brands are built and will fall based on values.
• Admitting the impact of his actions on others, particularly his wife and kids; additionally, his fans – children in particular, topping it off with acknowledging he failed as a role model (Charles Barkley be damned).
• Asking to believe in him, not right away, but over time.  Tiger knows he needs to regain trust, from his family, from the corporate sponsorship world, from his peers and from his fans – and he also knows that’s a feat that won’t happen simply in the days and weeks ahead.  It will be his actions over a longer period of time – off the course.

Check out this interview on KUSI News on Tiger Woods’ first public appearance http://bit.ly/dff9ei

The Wall Street Journal published an article last month focusing on trends in strategic planning that suggested the tactic is losing favor among today’s executives, who are opting for a more flexible approach to deal with the ever-fluctuating economy.

So, are we witnessing the death of strategic planning? Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Businesses and professionals that effectively use strategic planning to help achieve their future vision and long-term goals are constantly revisiting their plans – quarterly, monthly, sometimes even weekly – to evaluate their performance in the short term. Strategic plans were never designed to sit on a shelf and collect dust, but instead are a tool by which executives can weigh day-to-day decisions to ensure the business stays on track toward achieving it’s vision for the future.

In any industry, there will be variables that impact business – market fluctuations, shifts in industry, consumer perception, crisis situations – but planning for these changes and weighing the organization’s reaction to these variables against a solid strategic plan will help the business come out of volatile times even stronger.

For a blessing-in-disguise view on the situation, one could argue that the panic, which is causing businesses to focus on being flexible and shift to accommodate marketplace changes, is actually helping these organizations get back to the core purpose of their strategic plans – to provide direction in uncertain times.

So rather than predict demise for strategic planning as we know it, I’d like to think the recently economic uncertainty has actually infused the process with a renewed sense of life. Let’s reserve the feelings of bereavement for those organizations without a strategic plan, as they’ll quickly discover that without direction, you’re going nowhere – fast.

Yours truly sans suit, The Donald and my client, John Sawyer

So, more than a year ago, we sat in the lobby of the W hotel in Manhattan, surrounded by lawyers and producers for the 2009 season of Celebrity Apprentice.  Less than 72 hours prior, they had recruited Chicken of the Sea to be on the show – for that matter, a two-hour episode directly leading up to the finale.

A number of ideas swirled about with regard to what the marketing challenge would be and how to tie the brand and its products in the show.  For the record, the lawyers and producers were some of the coolest folks.  They had their minds set on some ideas, but fortunately open and respectful that we (all two of us – yours truly and my client – out-numbered 3 to 1) were passionate about the brand and the story it had to tell.

For two years leading up to that fateful call from Celebrity Apprentice, Chicken of the Sea had been engaging consumers in conversations about health, nutrition and convenience through online and offline mediums.  We learned there is a powerful story to tell not just about the brand and its products, but also in how consumers view and use Chicken of the Sea – what it means to them.  We saw an opportunity to replicate that with the likes of Clint Black, Joan “Cluck Cluck Splash” Rivers et al on Celebrity Apprentice.

With agreement from the lawyers and producers, we laid out a challenge for the celebrities to tell the Chicken of the Sea story in the form of a jingle and a 30-second radio spot.  Moreover, it wasn’t as simple as that.  The celebs and their respective teams needed to invest the time in learning about Chicken of the Sea and its loyal consumers.  They weren’t going to be judged solely on how catchy their tunes would be, but more on telling the story about the consumers behind the brand.

What that led to, in addition to the drama and debate of creating a jingle and radio spot, is two hours worth of unscripted conversations about Chicken of the Sea – precisely what we were shooting for and attempting to replicate, and there was hardly any discussion about getting video footage of the products in the celebs’ hands or on a table near where they sat.  Sacrilege to some, but again it was about the conversations.

So when The New York Times published the iTVX data on the most effective product placement in television for 2009, most would think the initial reaction of Chicken of the Sea being at the top was met with excitement.  But it told us much more.  Real conversations are powerful, more powerful than arranging to have your product sit statically in front of a celebrity, and product integration must reflect the character of the brand.  Alongside that is being a champion for your client, its brand and what it represents.

I just wish I were smart enough to wear a better suit on the show, and, for what it’s worth, my mother hasn’t forgiven me for contributing to Clint’s firing.