Month: May 2018

Pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, ducked a controversy with a proper response. Comedian Roseanne Barr blamed Ambien, a Sanofi medication, for the racist tweet she let fly at a former counselor to President Obama. Sanofi responded with a bit of snark, “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.” One can envision the writer of that phrase chuckling while he or she composed it. The statement is not an expression of outrage, merely a statement of fact. And, it is the fact that is so damning.  One doesn’t get the opportunity often to defend a product so well. Kudos to Sanofi for a proper response.

A Swedish brewery is making and selling a beer that uses processed sewage water. It is its way of making a statement about the need to conserve and protect water. One wonders if Swedes can overcome the gag factor to try it, and if it is any good. The name of the brew is PU:REST to connote the safety of the liquid within. Still, can you envision someone coming home with a six-pack and serving it to guests? There are many ways to position a company in relation to natural resources. This doesn’t seem to be a good one although the company is earnest.  Sometimes PR gestures should remain on the brainstorming white board rather than being effected.

President Trump is claiming a Democratic law is forcing the administration to break up families engaged in illegal immigration. He and his attorney general say there is nothing they can do to prevent it. Unfortunately, that is not true and the media have widely reported the falsehood.  It is one thing to arrest a migrant for crossing the border without papers. It is quite another to take the children from the migrant and put them into a foster care system that has lost track of nearly 1500 of them. Trump is looking like an unfeeling demagogue as a result of this move and has created a crisis for his administration whether he sees it that way or not. Few parents,no matter how ideological they are, can imagine their children being torn from them and held in mass incarceration. Come November they will have a chance to express their concern, or even outrage, over the move. With waves of Republicans retiring from the House and key Senators stepping down, Trump may be facing a hostile Congress for the first time. If he does, he will have only himself to blame.

A number of high tech entrepreneurs and scientists are sounding an alarm about artificial intelligence (AI). They are afraid machines will take over and move against humans who will be defenseless. Notable naysayers include Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking. Those who work in AI, however, know both its limitations and advantages. It is a long step from AI of today to the rogue computer of “2001: A  Space Odyssey.”  Today’s AI machines are giant data crunchers using algorithms and tens of thousands of examples to perform visual recognition and find patterns. Those who fear them do not understand the massive power AI needs to do the simplest tasks that even children can perform. AI needs better PR, a truthful statement of its merits without hype about what it should be able to do, but can’t — not yet, anyway. With better appreciation of the systems, AI can prove to be a boon to humanity rather than demon technology.

Trump’s spokesperson says it bothers her to be called a liar because one’s reputation is all one has. She is right about that, but her words belie her. The article cites four instances in which she lied about facts and says there are more examples as well. Perhaps Sarah Sanders doesn’t know the facts or, as her boss does, makes them up as she goes along. This administration has a peculiar relationship to the truth. It is whatever someone says in the moment, facts be damned. Unfortunately, the media keeps track of facts and is only too eager to point out when there is a discrepancy between what one says and what is right. Sanders can be hurt by words about her, but she had better get used to it, or best of all, resign her position. She can let someone else who doesn’t worry about reputation take her place and lie constantly.

It is deeply satisfying to be proven right when everyone says one is wrong. Target, the brick-and-mortar retailer, finds itself in that enviable position. Contrary to conventional wisdom that retail is on the way out in an era of e-commerce, Target’s CEO spent “$7 billion to remodel 600 stores, open new small-format stores and grow its private label brands.”  Wall Street hated the idea. Target’s same-store sales grew by a hefty 3 percent compared to a 1.3 percent decline in the previous year. The retailer is back and healthy compared to struggling companies such as Sears and JC Penney. Doubling down is a risky strategy but it is working for Target. From an investor relations perspective, there wasn’t much to say until the company proved its approach. Stock analysts are tough to persuade without numerical evidence. It must be interesting to listen in to the quarterly analyst calls.

One sure way to destroy good employee relations is to chisel on wages. But companies are doing that with their time clocks constantly. It is a nickel-and-dime ploy, but it adds to real money over a year that workers don’t get. There is no excuse for it either. The days when pay was calculated by hand are gone and the onerous addition of minutes is taken care of by software. So why do employers keep doing it? Every penny saved in wages drops to the bottom line. Inevitably, a worker will sue for missing income, and the company will have to defend itself in court.  That is expensive for employee and employer. It would be far easier if a company compensated people for work done, but the real fear is that it would lead to abuse by employees chiseling the company. Good employee relations should lead to a solution that doesn’t compromise the time clock.

Sony is the ultimate hardware company — TVs, cameras, phones, PlayStations. But, it is becoming a software company by design. It is a risky move for its image and long-time strategy. The company embarked on the new course in 2012 with its incoming CEO who was tired of earning pennies on the dollar for its gadgets. He is now heading a company that makes a record operating profit, primarily from software and intellectual property. Sony has been guiding investors toward its new strategy but they are still uncertain it will work in the long run. Left unsaid is the PR for consumers the company needs to do. Will they be confused about the Sony’s new path?  Will they forget Sony’s hardware and move easily to its software? This is a situation in which only time will tell. Sony ruled home electronics for decades with high-quality and innovative equipment. It is sad to see them give that up, but the market has shifted and they must change or die.

Nicholas Maduro has won-re-election in Venezuela, but how he did it verges on fraud, if not outright illegality. He jailed likely opponents. He bribed the poor with boxes of food at a time when there is none available for anyone in the stores. He set up tents near polling places to distribute prizes for those who did vote for him. He ran the election in the face of a boycott at the polls. The negatives about him are abundant. He is presiding over a country whose economy has collapsed despite having the largest oil reserves of any nation on earth. He doesn’t know how to handle hyperinflation, which has rendered Venezuela’s currency worthless. He has done nothing to slow the outflow of citizens who can no longer deal with the country’s chaos. Maduro positions himself as a strong man, but he is weak in administration and governance. His relations with his countrymen are at a low, and if he had run without giving himself overwhelming advantages, he would have lost. Even so, there are accusations that he had to jigger the voting. The only thing that keeps him in power is the military with whom he had better maintain good PR.

Google at its recent developers’ conference demonstrated an artificial intelligence voice that was so real people were saying it could pass the Turing test. But now, doubt has been raised about the demo because no one outside the company can say whether it was staged or real.  Google won’t reveal which salon it contacted, if it did, and a news organization has taken to calling salons in the Silicon Valley area to determine if they answer the phone the same way as heard in the demo. So far, they haven’t. The medium claims Google’s demo was fake. This has sparked a discussion. How much artifice is too much?  If Google did construct a false demo, it would be a gaffe in this instance. Google was trying to show it has mastered the human voice and response to some human queries. If it hasn’t, it deserves to be held to scorn. If it has, its technological feat is amazing. Only the company knows, and it is not talking. This is a time for transparency.