Author: James Kebinger

There’s much ado about the value of blogging in the corporation – and I like the idea in principle- and miss the blogs inside IBM that let me hear about what is going on all over the company because there’s apparently no such system at {new company}.

I’ll start by saying it’s clear that the First Ammendment doesn’t apply for corporate communications.

A few months ago I had a run in with my old management chain at IBM in which I wrote on an internal blog about a guerilla effort I undertook with a colleague to improve part of the product we worked on, which ultimately succeeded when I showed that a work estimate (apparently attempting to kill our initiative) of a couple weeks was really more like several hours.

I recieved not one, but two, shoot from the hip emails (one sentence each, like 40 minutes apart) from a certain second line manager critical of a minor detail of the post I made which were just splitting hairs. I invited him to point out clearly where by post violated the corporate blogging guidelines, and recieved a response of indirect pressure through a friend who worked there that “hr was reading my blog” and I “could be terminated for my post” or just that “.” Ultimately I took the post down rather than have to hear about it anymore. *(Note this was against the backdrop of being in the process of being laid off)*

Then I hear about some folks who were scolded by their management chains for posting critiques of corporate initiatives.

It’s clear that people are most sensitive to information that comes the closest to the truth. If one reports manager X has three hands, he or she won’t be all that bothered, but if one puts up thoughtful (emperor has no clothes-style) critique of some straw-man corporate effort with executive-attracting glitter and little substance, then suddenly the claws come out.

Now that’s its easy to make public knowledge of ridiculous management antics, or critique weak proposals, one of two things could happen – a) don’t do or propose dumb things (or accept thoughtful criticism gracefully) b) come down hard on people who criticize those things.

Which one do you think will happen?

The other day I’m drinking a Tropicana “100% Juice” Orange Juice, and happened to glance at the Ingredients:

100% Pure orange juice from concentrate (filtered water and concentrated orange juice) and Natural flavors*.
*Ingredient not found in regular orange juice

Now I’m wondering – what are these “natural flavors” that are different than “orange juice flavor” – luckily for all of us there’s a helpful 1800 number on the label! So I call, and ask, what’s with these extra flavors? The helpful woman asks if I have any food allergies that I’m worried about. I say no, I just want to know if some natural “dirt”, “asphalt” or “squirrel” flavor was lurking in my OJ. I authenticate as a non-prank caller by reading her my UPC Code, and then the answer is revealed:

The “natural flavors” are oils extracted from the orange peel/rind and added back to the juice.

Just today it occurs to me a followup question: if these flavors are “not found in regular orange juice”, how can they call it 100% juice?

What does resealable mean to you? To me, it means a container that has some mechanism for resealing the container – for a jar, that might be a lid, and for a bag, I’d go with some zip-lock mechanism. Perhaps even a little patch of adhesive could make a bag pass as faux-resealable.

The box of Sunmaid raisins on my desk at work has neither, yet the box proudly boasts of “resealable bag inside”. The bag is no more resealable than any other zipper less bag – that is to say it isn’t. Kristi points out this is a step in resealability from the previous “raisins loose in a cardboard box” configuration, but I’m not buying it.

On the other hand, I bought a 6-pack of champion socks in a bag that boasts of its resealability, and comes with a ziplock!

So I can have my socks never lose that new-sock smell, and stale, maggoty raisins. Because no one likes stale socks.

You can’t make this stuff up.