Worldwide Governance Indicators

The World Bank release its annual WGI report which shows the governing of Korea slipping down on a number of the indicators.  I zoomed in on the control of corrpution as it is back down to below its level in 2002.  The further below 1, the worse…

See here and the following graph:

Business Ethics

I’ve touched on the semantic confusion about defining the social responsibile activities of business before.  Here’s an informative post from Business Ethics that asks a few solid questions.  It makes a great point by linking to this page showing how different pharmaceutical companies are referring to the practice.

I couldn’t find a place to comment on the blog.  So: I like the term business ethics.  I’d postulate that the recent wave of terminology has resulted from a consciousness of a change in social culture (including democratization of information through the internet, ramification of the globalization movement and so on), and a lot of confusion surrounds how “doing the right” thing differs from country to country (not helpful when that social culture rapidly changes).   CSR is nothing new, per se, but it is an expression of this changing social context.

I would like to see agreement on the terminology (it’s a little annoying) but for now we’re going to see a lot of people referring to the same thing differently; however, I think we may lose out on nuances that different organizations are trying to express (I think there’s a danger of this happening internally within an organization where communication of your business ethics is an important factor in the retention of talented employees). 

Broadly speaking (and for simplicity’s sake, setting aside for a moment the obvious Milton Friedman viewpoint), in the U.S. CSR traditionally focused on corporate philanthropy – what a company does with its money after it has made it. High profile ethics scandals at Enron, WorldCom and others have driven companies and stakeholders to look hard at issues including corporate governance and executive remuneration. However, the predominant focus is still largely on how a company “gives back” to society.

In Europe, by contrast, the focus has traditionally been more on how a company makes its money in the first place – the processes that are in place to ensure that the core business is managed in a sustainable manner and in line with initiatives such as the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and the principles of the International Labor Organization.

In Korea, the visible face of CSR has typically been very much along the American model, with companies making significant contributions to (and often generating considerable marketing mileage from) corporate philanthropy programs.  There is also a tendency to give ‘lip-service’ to CSR visions and not follow through in a substansitive manner.

This debate is changing and, as more people voice opinions, the language gets looser (I’m guilty of this myself, no doubt).    In 2006, there were 3.5 million blog posts on CSR…  I’m glad there is a debate, as without I wouldn’t be learning. 

Second Life

It’s hard to get the time to write and maintain a blog.  But I find myself slipping away from the offline, real world and digging into some posts and feeds (or posting myself) as the day wears on.  It helps my mind re-wander back to work.  It’s my form of ‘cigarette break’ but I’m thankfully not addicted.

But then when you try the harder stuff…you just never know.

I just joined secondlife.com…and I got as far as my account summary.  I’m sure I’ll dig in later when I can motivate myself long enough as my curiosity had been piqued by good posts like this and I’ve been curious to explore it a little myself from a communications point of view.   

This I’ve done little of since joining the lazy-approach to online social networking!  All in the name of curiosity and research…

Global Korea? Top Ten Tips

My former boss, Hoh Kim, put up a lengthy post on his blog Hoh Kim’s Lab: Consiliencing Communication, which is in turn inspired by a post over at B-M’s Digital Perspective – Beautiful Dreams in Seoul. Hoh goes into a lot of detail following a long e-mail exchange, but for what it’s worth here’s my Top Ten Tips for Korean companies communicating online, in annual reports or, indeed, anywhere where an international audience might be expected to read what you wrote.

1. Remember who you’re talking to. The English version of the website is written for an international audience, not a Korean one. Messages about “driving the nation forward” or “top X company” simply don’t resonate with international audiences. Give people the information they need about your company.
2. Proofread EVERYTHING. Make sure your site developer has a qualified proofreader for buttons, menus etc. One Forbes Global 2000 company – the third ranked of all Korean companies on the list, offers a “PDF Dawonload” on its IR site.
3. Get a professional to develop your copy. It’s not enough to pay an itinerant English teacher a couple of hundred dollars to “proofread” the site. Hire someone who will ask the right questions about what the site is trying to convey and provide counsel on how better to communicate that message.
4. Understand that not everyone uses Microsoft Explorer. (Disclosure – Microsoft is an Edelman client in Korea). Almost all Korean websites are designed to run solely on Windows operating systems running Internet Explorer 6. For anyone using a Mac (or presumably a Linux OS) or running Firefox, Safari, Opera or any other browser, the site won’t function or will display incorrectly. Not everyone uses a Windows platform, especially overseas. Take the time to test the site in other configurations, even if Korean readers don’t use those configurations (see point 1)
5. Get ahead and dumb it down. Korean sites often incorporate Active X controls, pop-ups and a host of other plug-ins. These are less popular elsewhere in the world as they create annoyances and security risks for users. Anything that gets in the way of the site communicating its message should go. Active X doesn’t work on a Mac (or Linux?) – which why I can’t engage in any form of e-commerce from home in Korea. for a “technologically advanced” country, Korea is remarkably behind the curve on this.
6. Develop your slogans properly. Korean companies will often develop “slogans” “strategies” and “goals” in English (without having a native speaker review) and then incorporate them into English language documents and websites. For example,”We at Company X are doing our best to realize our management policy of “Clean Company, Active Company X”…” “Clean Company, Active Company X” is not a policy, it’s not good copy and it’s not even good English. Use a professional to develop your internal English language messages, even if they are targetting a Korean audience who will be less discriminating.
7. Cut the jargon. Don’t just look up every word in your Dictionary of Business English and try to squeeze it into the site. for example, “We have set our strategic business focus for 2007 as “Materializing our Strengthened Sales Competencies and Further Reinforcement of our Future Growth Drivers”. In this regard, we will do our best to level up our “Global Standard Competencies” through continued system improvements and business expansion throughout the year.” Tells me absolutely nothing. Again, refer to points 1 and 3 above.
8. Don’t be purple. Some sites read as though the copywriter missed his or her vocation. For example, “Roar of a steam locomotive once shook the Earth to haul modern society. Now the world’s pulse solemnly beats with a semiconductor.” Even if this were grammatically correct, this would be plain bad writing – and I suspect it’s just as bad in Korean!
9. Set the right benchmark. Korean companies often say they benchmark international companies, but when it comes to writing copy the benchmark – if it exists – is too often another Korean company. The handful of examples I used above each come from one of the top 10 public companies in Korea as listed on the Forbes Global 2000. Significantly below any of these companies is Nortel Networks, whose site (www.nortel.com) is available in at least 16 languages – I can’t comment on the accuracy of the translations, but I would bet good money on the fact that they are all better than the English on most Korean sites.
10. Put it in perspective. For a Korean company, your English language website (and your English language annual report) are the most important marketing tools you have. Don’t cut corners. The approach most Korean companies have to international communications is akin to investing hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and producing the most high quality product packaging available but spending nothing on producing a good product to put inside it.

To lift my own quote directly from Hoh’s post:

Bottom line – a lot of Korean companies talk about wanting to be be global. Well here’s the news – Korean companies are global. They are some of the biggest global players out there. They just don’t act global. They invest a lot of money and effort into developing highly technical, well designed websites and next to nothing in ensuring that the message the website sends is compatible with the audience.

In other words, stop communicating messages about being a global global company and start communicating like a global company. To quote Robin Williams in ‘The Fisher King’ – “First decide what you are, and be that.”