Anne Giles Clelland

Nudity is the New Transparency

Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough...
- Losing My Religion, R.E.M.

See me, feel me
Touch me, heal me.
- Go to the Mirror!, Tommy, The Who

"What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly. You are what you Tweet!"
- Twitter Terms of Service

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
- Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, in The Huffington Post

"Corporate transparency is touted as being good for a corporation's image, and is a key ingredient in compliance and governance. Transparent companies inspire more trust...But is such corporate transparency really such a good thing?...Still, opacity (or intransparency) is an even bigger risk. Not showing what you're doing is simply not accepted anymore."
- Frank Buytendijk, Vice President and Fellow, Enterprise Performance Management, Oracle, on his blog

"...there's no use trying to resist. You're already naked."
- Clive Thompson, The See-Through CEO, Wired

"Six drops of essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce...and now for the tincture of tenderness..."
- Professor Weirdo creating Milton the Monster

"You're only as sick as your secrets."
- Saying known in therapy and recovery circles, probably most famously uttered by Carrie Fisher

As a CEO, how transparent do I have to be? On my corporate bio page, next to the standard shot in the biz suit, will I need a tasteful nude pose like the Ladies of Rylstone?

While “transparency” as a business term became common after corporate financial and ethical violations, corporate leaders themselves have been asked to adopt personal transparency as they blog and tweet.

What is the purpose of personal CEO transparency?

In the business-to-business realm, if people do business with people, and people do business with people they know because they believe they can trust them more than with people they don’t know, and trust is perceived as decreasing risk, whereas not knowing people with whom they might deal is perceived as increasing risk, how much do people need to know about people to do business with them?

If people know not only a company’s mission, products, services, and financials, but its founder and leader - what he or she thinks, feels and does - are they more likely to do business with the company?

If the CEO presents himself or herself beyond “what you see is what you get” to transparency – being able to see through surface appearances – will that engender that "It's who you know" trust that increases the likelihood of business?

If the answer to "Will people do more business with my company if I am a transparent CEO?" is probably "Yes," then it might be time to find a discreet photographer.

If you’re familiar with triathlon togs - trisuits - then you know I’ve already pretty much been nude in public, especially when emerging from the swim, especially when I forgot to lock the porta-potty door in front of lines of hundreds of waiting triathletes.  I’m desensitized.  No big deal.

What I hear fellow CEOs struggle with is nudity of the heart, mind and spirit. I hear their concerns about the consequences of dismantling privacy fences, of secrets revealed, of that deepest fear - of not being accepted for who we truly are.

For me, I’ve had my dark nights of the soul.  I’ll have more.  I’ve had what Schmidt describes as “something that you don’t want anyone to know” and realized I didn’t want to know it, either.  Like the cartoon character Milton the Monster, though, I’m comprised of both the sinister and the tender. Like R.E.M., I’m torn that I’ve said too much and not enough at the same time.  And I’ve experienced, and witnessed, the risk and terrible cost of Buytendijk’s “intransparency,” of the sickness of secrets, almost unto death.

I think a secretive path, corporate or personal, is fraught with peril.

As a CEO, I have chosen a great deal of personal transparency.  Will it result in more business for my company?

Maybe not more.  But I bet my company, and companies with whom we can do good business, will recognize each other. I’m not a fan of attempting to control what others think and feel, of attempting to "make" people accept a "projection of a corporate image," regardless of the reality of the corporation.

From my company, what you see is what you get, and then some, down to the skin if need be.

Market Projection

I explained in more detail in this post why I think we’re all messed up:

Things that should have happened didn’t.
Things that shouldn’t have happened did.

I described in this post on projection - what’s within, seen without - how I have experienced and observed unconscious projection as a common manifestation of being messed up.

Some of the messed up, with their propensity for unconscious projection, become entrepreneurs, company founders, and company owners. 

I did that.  Yay.

My company is a member of VT KnowledgeWorks.  The program feature that I most treasure for its meaning, significance, and transformative impact - and therefore, its ability to make me tear my hair and gnash my teeth - is being mentored by its executive director, Jim Flowers. 

Even upon reading just the title of this post on Jim’s blog, So you want to launch a business..., I became apoplectic:  The market is always right.

Right?!  Right?!  The market is the arbiter of right and wrong?!  If the market buys what my company sells, I’m right?  If they don’t, I’m wrong?!

I was enraged. 

Beneath rage is always hurt.

Jim's post is dated almost a month ago and it’s taken me that long to realize the source of my anger and, therefore, my hurt.

What is within, I was seeing without.  I was projecting my own, inner messed-up-edness onto my 17-month old company.  I thought, “If the market buys what my company sells, I am right and good.  If it doesn’t, I am wrong and bad.”

I won’t go on and on, but I have always struggled with self-value, depending on people and forces outside of myself - and beyond my control - for a sense of value.  Hence, the anger, hurt, pain, and hopelessness generated by believing, one more time, I had to try to “make” someone or something - this time the market - value me and find me “right.”

Now that's a market projection.

While I stopped listening to The E-Myth Revisited when the author suggested touching customers, I credit him with helping me realize that I need to be very conscious that my company does not become a job for me, but a company based on a business model for which I and others work.  And if I’m not there?  The business model carries the company and it goes on without me.

I am not right or wrong, good or bad, if my company succeeds or fails.  The company that I happened to found will succeed or fail based on whether or not the market needs or desires what it creates.  As the current head of a company that I expect to generate such products and services in such demand by the market that I will be replaced by a new head some day, my job is to derive the business model that will make that happen.

In a recent email to me, my VT KnowledgeWorks mentor, Jim Flowers - who coaches entrepreneurs using what he calls the Four Fundamental Factors, well-explained by him in this video - suggested I consider identifying niche markets for my company's offerings within the broader Market.

The market again?!

My hair is not torn and my teeth are not gnashed.  I am not apoplectic.  I don’t need the market to value me.  I need it to value my company’s products and services.

Let me become conscious of my very, very highly developed personal power of projection and use it to my company's advantage.  What is within that I can see without?  What do I specifically want and need?  What might a specific niche within the broader market want and need?  Hmm…

Projections

Although Freud derived the concept of "projection," the contemporary use of the term is well-described in this Wikipedia entry.  The article notes it has “issues” and is in “need of an attention from an expert" (perhaps an apt description of articles and the human condition).

In any case, a simple definition I’ve derived over the years that seems to be of use for this hugely powerful ability of the human mind and spirit is this: 

Projection is what is within, seen without.

If I’m conscious that I am superimposing my own inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ideas onto a place, person, or thing outside of me, and not really seeing the place, person, or thing as it is, I can use projection as an opportunity for insight and informed choice.

If I’m not conscious that, to paraphrase a quote attributed to Anaïs Nin, I’m seeing things as I am, not as they really are, the feelings, thoughts and actions I have in reaction to people, places and things are based on a false perception of reality.  The basis of my choices will be faulty, or, at best, wobbly, because that basis is not grounded in reality.

Projection is normal and powerful.  If we go with the definition of projection as “what is within, seen without,” what is within can be both light and dark.  Lack of consciousness of projections, whether light or dark, can make them problematic.

In my own life, I do have within me unshakeable belief in the ability of people to transform their lives.  When I have worked with people with challenges, I naturally project my vision of the possibilities I see for them onto them and work with them from my projected perception of their reality. 

We want optimistic people working with those who have problems, and we certainly don’t want them to possess the world view, “Got problems? No chance for you, bub.”  After all, projection can prove inspiring.  Others may see in us traits we don’t, and that can lead us to cultivate them in ourselves. 

On the other hand, projecting a vision onto others that they don’t have for themselves can prove disheartening and demoralizing to the "projectee."  They don’t feel seen as themselves.  And they’re not. 

Unconscious of my hopeful projections, I have been fortunate to be considered inspiring.  I have also been humbled by the brave words, “You don’t see me as I really am.  You don’t value me as I am.”  I have over-extended my effort, straining myself, others, and my relationships, believing my projection was the truth, not seeing the reality that my skills were not a match for the other person’s needs.

If I am conscious of my hope-filled projection, I can see my projection, I can see the person, and I can choose, based on my best judgment - never the objective truth, always limited by my sharing of the human condition - what I believe will be best for all.

Lack of consciousness robs me of judgment.  Consciousness gives me a chance to choose.

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets

Good Company

Things that should have happened didn’t.
Things that shouldn’t have happened did.

We’re all messed up on some level and, after decades in education, community work, mental health and business, that’s my summary as to why.

That means that the people I’m standing by in the grocery store line, my neighbors, my parents, my spouse, his parents, my colleagues, the people I follow on Twitter, and the people who follow me - all of us to a greater or lesser extent are messed up.

That means we enter relationships, citizenship, and the work place messed up.

Life and circumstance may deal us terrible blows, but since we’re already messed up, we’re already at a disadvantage to handle them.

Add joy and hope and awing resilience, and that's the human condition.

Some with the human condition enter the world of business.

When I'm at a conference table surrounded by those in business, I feel in good company.

About That Corporate Video

Witnessing my sister give birth to her daughter, standing alone by a gargoyle after climbing the circling tower stairs in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, turning the corner at the Accademia in Florence and seeing Michelangelo’s David in the light - these are peak moments of wonder and rapture in my life.

I cried each time, I think, because I felt profoundly moved by what I saw, and so separated from it.  I was a part of what I viewed only as an audience is part of a play. 

Being unable to give birth to a child as a young woman has affected me as a mature woman in ways I cannot know.  That ultimate moment of being human, of bringing forth something from nothing, from being a part of the creation of existence, I have not had and I do not know.

When I announced that my company would have a film made by a media production company, I termed it a “corporate video” with a “corporate message.” 

Looking back, even then I think I knew it was otherwise, or more, to me.

I asked a musician friend to create a song.  Into silence, with who he is and with his art, he brought forth music and words.  Into seeing, I asked the media production company’s founder to take the song and direct and create a film from who he is and with his art.  I didn’t supervise.  I let go.  

I had a part in the play.

When the film was ready, I hesitated to view it alone and wanted to wait for the public premiere to be shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues and friends.  Looking back, I think I was afraid I would break open from its beauty.

Urged by almost all to see the film before a public viewing, including by the film’s director, I relented. 

I broke.  My husband held me. 

I adopted a little cat from a shelter in Tampa. Stroking her one day, I was filled with awe at her presence and, without thought, said, “You are perfect.”

At the public premiere, I cried.  My sister cried.

Look at the little video in the YouTube box.

It’s perfect.

A Social Media Campaign Case Study - One Month Summary

One month ago, Handshake Media, Incorporated began a social media launch and then a continued social media publicity campaign with its client SmartCollegeVisit.

I wrote the following posts, listed in chronological order, to share the path of the launch and campaign.  They link to myriad posts written by me, SmartCollegeVisit's founder, Z. Kelly Queijo, and several others, as well as to multiple social media channels.  As I wrote in this post, "The social media launch of SmartCollegeVisit involved 4 blogs, 3 Twitter accounts, and 2 business Facebook pages." 

And that was just Day One.

Pre-launch introduction to the campaign:
Watch This! Then, Watch Out!

Pre-launch introduction to SmartCollegeVisit:
So the Child Can Fly

Report on Day One of the launch:
SmartCollegeVisit's Social Media Rocket Launch

Three weeks in, plus the drama of Day Two:
SmartCollegeVisit's Social Media Launch - A Case Study Begins

Handshake Media operates a complex network of social media channels, several related to Handshake 2.0, including multiple blogs.  One of the strategic purposes of building and maintaining multiple blogs is to provide those invaluable, search engine results-enhancing links in.  The post you're reading now on my corporate blog provides "links in" to client SmartCollegeVisit's site, as well as to Handshake 2.0.  These new connections continue to build the network of links that contributes to relevance.

An additional component of a social media strategy with regard to blog posts involves placement.

Handshake Media launched a corporate video on December 1, 2009.  The video was uploaded to YouTube and embedded in a post on Handshake 2.0.  While the Handshake video is on YouTube and has been placed on a page linked to Handshake 2.0's site sidebar, publicity for the video originated from the blog post.

We expected - and received - considerable traffic to the video post.  What did site visitors who traveled to the post and decided to scroll down to learn more about Handshake 2.0 see placed right next to the video?

A post about client SmartCollegeVisit.

***

Illustration by Daniel Yowell