Joe Paterno Fired for Absence of Courage

 ”We give ourselves license to play a little faster and looser than we normally would.”

Paterno in Happier Days

College football fans always wondered when Joe Paterno’s football career would begin to slow down. The answer came this week with a sudden, whiplash-inducing crash. From USA Today:

A little more than a week after legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno got his record-setting 409th win, the view of his storied, 46-year career suddenly is undergoing a stark revision — tarnished by a child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State involving a former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.

Paterno initially announced his decision to retire at the end of the year, but that was not soon enough for the school’s board of trustees, who announced late yesterday that college football’s winningest coach was fired, along with Penn State President Graham Spanier.

The following morning brought news of nightime riots, as thousands of Penn State students took to the streets to protest the firing. “Joe Paterno broke no law,” said one rioter. (Curiously, the students decided to smash street lamps and turn over a television news van in order to make the righteous case that no laws were broken.)

Of course, a savvy marketer or university communications officer would be the first the point out that compliance with the law is not the gold standard for protection of your brand reputation. Kevin Burke of The Daily Gamecock explains why:

[Paterno] fulfilled his legal obligation of notifying someone of the allegations involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky… Paterno, a man of noble stature, seemingly accepted the Penn State athletic director’s decision to simply ban the offender from bringing kids to the facility.

Common sense says this was not enough. The fact that Paterno or anyone else with knowledge of the situation neglected to think that true authorities — the police — needed to be involved is baffling.

This is case in point where the law falls short of our obligations to society.

Paterno isn’t the only “good and noble person” who has come up short when it is time to do the right thing, whether in a football program, a corporate boardroom or a congressional meeting room.

The Stock Market Listens to Your Twitter Brand

“The chatter changes and the stock price changes.”

Citing results that surprised the researchers, a new study claims that Twitter conversations about a company or product have a direct relationship with the firm’s stock price. If online chatter goes up so does the market valuation.

While previous research had demonstrated a positive relationship between Twitter conversations and sales, this was the first time a strong connection to stock price was shown.

From Texas Enterprise at The University of Texas at Austin:

“It surprised the daylights out of me,” McAlister says of her latest analysis of chatter’s effect. “I had thought it might have something to with sales. I thought sales might have an impact on brand equity. And there might be a remote impact on firm value.”

But the relationship was stronger and faster moving than that. “It’s immediate,” she says. “The chatter changes and the stock price changes.” This sort of information is of interest to investors, and some hedge funds have already begun using online chatter to guide investment strategy.

If you’re looking for ammunition to convince your executive team to take social media seriously, these experts just handed you a sky rocket.

Read the full story at Say What? Research Reveals Impact of Web Talk by Mark Henricks, writing for Texas Enterprise.

Why Social Media Relationships Matter in B2B

It can bring great minds together, and give marketers daily opportunities to learn.

Aaron Strout of WCG

Social media is great for Coke, but what about JSR Micro? One has billions of thirsty customers worldwide, the other makes customized chemicals for a small cadre of high performance chip manufacturers. How much online socializing do you need when you can shake the hand of every one of your key customers during a two-day trade show?

Statistics gathered by Social Media B2B show that B2B firms have been slower to adopt social media and online marketing, with 36% of executives saying they had low interest in social media, and 46% believing social media is irrelevant to their company. “Nobody talks business on Facebook,” they say.

Aaron Strout, interactive group director at WCG, begs to differ. ”It is actually easier to have one-to-one relationships with B2B customers, where you might know by name the 100 buyers who matter the most to your company,” he asserts.

In his view, social media need not be a high-numbers game, but can effectively be used to enable relevant interaction between a customer and the people within the organization who have value to offer to that customer.

Your Brand is Spamming Me!

Will public embarrassment cause brands to weed out botnets and tighten security?

Would you avoid doing business with a company that doesn’t carefully protect its computer system from hackers? It probably depends.

If you’re buying a cheeseburger you likely don’t care about the back office’s security measures–but consider a hospital that has your social security number, credit card information and private medical records on file. If you discovered that hospital is a regular victim of computer hackers, you might reconsider your options for care, or at least raise a fuss with administrators.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are conducting an experiment to see if the threat of reputation damage will encourage organizations to tighten up their computer security. Their laboratory tool is SpamRankings.net, a website that publicizes the world’s biggest spam havens.

Spam = Compromised Security Procedures

Poor computer security is at the heart of both spam and data theft. Spammers use what are called botnets to send spam using computers hijacked without the knowledge of their legitimate owners. Computer systems infected with botnets are likely targets for other malfeasance, including theft of data, which puts consumers at risk.

“Outbound spam is a proxy for poor organizational security,” explains Dr. Andrew Whinston, the e-commerce sage at The University of Texas at Austin, “because outbound spam indicates botnets, botnets indicate vulnerabilities, and vulnerabilities indicate susceptibility to other malware, including phishing, DDoS, and identify theft.”

Whinston and his research team wondered what would happen if they published lists of the top spam havens. Will public embarrassment cause brands to weed out botnets and tighten security?

Venture Labs Competition Proves Entrepreneurship Isn’t “Moot” on Campus

“Everyone knows that if you got into this competition you’ve got some legitimacy.”

Winners TNG Pharmaceuticals with Venture Labs Director Rob Adams

Global Venture Labs Investment Competition (formerly Moot Corp) began on May4 with a lead-in by innovation guru Bob Metcalfe. He related an encounter during his first week at The University of Texas at Austin with Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell.

“Michael attended UT but did not graduate before founding his company, and I asked him, ‘Did you enter into any student business competitions while you were here,’ and he replied, ‘No, but I wish I had.’ So…that is confusing data.”

Metcalfe addressed the irony of having an organized university competition based on something as seemingly unbounded as the entrepreneurial process.

“I’m convinced you can teach students how to start a company,” he concluded. “The innovation environment at the university includes research professors, graduating students, scaling entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, strategic partners and early adopters. I would actually like to see more professors launching startups, and perhaps I’ll work on that.”