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May 28, 2010
One to World
I attended the 2010 Fulbright Awards Dinner last night in New York City. Senator William Fulbright initiated the Fulbright Scholars program just after World War II. His idea was simple but revolutionary for an America coming to grips with its new global power and responsibilities. Scholarships would be awarded to American college graduates seeking a year of study abroad; similarly, outstanding foreign students would be given the opportunity to study for a year in the USA. The program was funded by the US Congress in 1946 as an international exchange program that might help to prevent future wars.
Fulbright said, “It doesn’t take many to make a difference. A single leader or a few legislators or writers who know something about what other countries are like can contribute to making a wise decision or to forestalling a disastrous one.” Since its inception, the Fulbright Program has provided funding for 294,000 students and professors to study in 155 countries around the world, Americans and non-Americans alike. The grants are administered by the Institute for International Education, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Education and Academy for Educational Development, with money coming from the US and partner country governments.
Four present Fulbright Grantees, from Jordan, Pakistan, Bosnia and South Africa, spoke passionately about their experiences in the US. I laughed out loud when Dana Abu Hantash, a Jordanian studying at New York University, related the following story. “I arrived for the first time in New York City about one in the morning. I dropped my bags at the dormitory and took a cab to Times Square. I just ran around the entire Square, my arms up in the air with joy.” Judy Sikuza of South Africa showed a picture of her with Nelson Mandela, whose foundation funded her year at Columbia University. He told her to use the time wisely, to meet many Americans.
The experience for Americans abroad is similarly profound. Rita Dove, the US Poet Laureate, said, “The Fulbright was the hinge that opened up the world to me. So every time I hear Fulbright, I think that’s when this larger life began.” Margaret Brennan, anchor on Bloomberg TV, spoke eloquently about her year in Jordan. She studied Arabic at Yarmouk University. She took advantage of her Fulbright scholarship to visit Syria, Israel and Palestine. “This program helped create the path toward my career as a broadcast journalist. Most people experience the world through what they read and what they see on TV.”
The globalization of business is an accepted fact. I am not convinced that the PR industry is keeping up with the realities of client need. How should a US company cope with a rumored product quality issue that morphs into nationalist response because a local competitor fans the flames? Or how about a US company that wants to double its sales in a developing country but faces protectionism—work with a local partner or complain to the US trade representative? How do you manage posts on bulletin boards that are inflammatory and error-filled?
That is why we are launching the Edelman Fellows program on June 1. We will announce on Tuesday the names of the seven young Edelman executives who will be going for a year starting in the fall to Jakarta, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, Delhi, and Sao Paulo. Then in January, we will name seven more who will come from those markets to the US or Europe for a year. We will fund these transfers from the center. Our hope is that like the Fulbright Scholars, the Edelman Fellows will help us to speed the development of our firm into a truly global enterprise. My own experience as president of Edelman Europe for three years was transformational; so it was for David Brain, now president of Edelman Europe, who spent six happy years in Asia (even met his bride!). The future leaders of our industry will have experience outside of home market. I will post the photos of the seven Fellows on Tuesday just after I call them to congratulate them.
Posted by Edelman at 11:07 AM |
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The globalization of business is an accepted fact, but with the current large trade surpluses/deficits is “Globalization X.0” (like Capitalism 3.0) unsustainable and on borrowed time? Conventional wisdom holds that protectionism is self-defeating because counterparties will retaliate. This may have been true when protectionism, primarily took the form of blatant tariffs, but 21st century globalization encompasses creatively veiled protectionism. So creative is this protectionism, special interest groups in the deficits countries can maintain a position of denial and continually lobby against retaliator responses.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness’ name implies, prioritizing capital markets competitiveness over systemic (holistic) competitiveness. When the most powerful business lobby group is intoxicated into denial, no wonder even Warren Buffett's 2003 import certificates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_Certificates
proposed solution to the United States trade deficit challenge has meet with seven years of resistance.
Posted by: Hugh Campbell at May 30, 2010 9:27 PM
Thank you for sharing the mission of the Edelman Fellows program and the inspiration, the Fulbright Program. This is a truly promising step to a greater company, as people gain insights in global challenges and shape the path to future success.
I can't wait to see how the Edelman Fellows program transform your company and the future of global talent management. "The future leaders of our industry will have experience outside of home market." reminds me of Gerard Kleisterlee's speech on European Competitiveness. He stated that winning companies provide supportive environments for global talent to work and prosper. Your quote can definitely apply to other industries.
Congrats to the selected fellows!
Posted by: In-Wen Pao at June 13, 2010 2:24 AM
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| TrackBackMay 21, 2010
The Great Brain
While in Seattle this week, I visited the Allen Institute for Brain Science, co-founded with a $100 million donation of seed money by Paul Allen in 2003. I have a real interest in the work of the Institute because my mother has suffered from manic depression for forty years and my father-in-law has early stage Alzheimer’s Disease. By sheer coincidence, my visit coincided with the completion of the examination of the first human brain, a gene expression map divided into 760 anatomical areas, cataloguing genes that are expressed (for you non-science types like me—that means turned on). The goal is a research tool, the Allen Human Brain Atlas, combining information about gene activity with anatomic knowledge, a genome-wide map, facilitating development of treatments for brain diseases and disorders, to be completed by 2013.
Walking through the doors of the Institute, one could easily mistake it for another corporate office. But then the chief operating officer, Elaine Jones, showed me the scientific kingdom beyond. Young researchers (135 people at this facility, 85% of whom are researchers) are hard at work with their gloved hands in refrigeration units, taking thin slices of mouse brain (about the size of a peanut) and diseased human brain, for placement onto slides. The slides are collected for insertion into robots that are able to process 4,000 slides a week, which are then photographed and mapped into three dimensional views, “in-situ hybridization that indicates where genes are turned on in specific areas.” The massive computing power of the Institute then compiles data and serves it out on the Web. A future project will include the creation of a “Connectome,” illustrating where the circuits are within the brain – not just where genes are expressed. Note that human and mouse brains share 90 percent of their genes.
The Institute has made available through www.brain-map.org the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, the Allen Developing Mouse Brain Atlas and Allen Spinal Cord Atlas. As Ms. Jones said yesterday, “We give away all of the science for free. It is a total open-source approach.” Or as Paul Allen said, “Scientific research has long been a solitary endeavor…Findings are protected so that discovery credit can be clearly defined and awarded…However the Human Genome Project demonstrated a different path; multiple teams working collaboratively towards a common goal. I believe a real acceleration in progress and innovation comes from the open sharing of ideas.” Twenty thousand unique users from around the world access the data each month.
What’s been discovered thus far?
1) At least 80 percent of genes are turned on in the brain and only a few of these are expressed in a single area.
2) New potential risk factors for multiple sclerosis have been identified.
3) There are new subdivisions of known brain structures and new molecular markers of specific cell types
Where to from here? The Institute is attracting money from government (National Institutes of Health) and from the private sector (both foundations and corporations) that are funding specific projects. A good example is work on the spinal cord, funded by Wyeth Research, Pemco Insurance, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the ALS Association and individual donors. Paralyzed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan may well benefit from knowledge of specific genes that control different functions in the spinal cord.
I was very moved by the entrepreneurial attitude and the Allen team’s determination to succeed. The visit also reinforced the effectiveness of an ‘open-source’ approach to sharing information and NGO-private-public partnership to address societal challenges.
Posted by Edelman at 9:20 AM |
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That is tremendous and interesting work, and clearly what the story line of medical advancement and innovation in the 21st century will be about.
Posted by: Steve Shannon at May 21, 2010 11:41 AM
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Capitalism 2.0 in Action
I attended the opening panel at the Clinton Global Initiative yesterday morning in New York City. Former President Clinton was joined on stage by four chief executives, including Jeff Kindler of Pfizer (disclosure: a client), Dave Cote of Honeywell, Ron Williams of Aetna and Jay Fishman of Travelers. Each of them represents an industry—pharmaceuticals, energy, insurance, health care-- under intense public scrutiny. Each had a different rationale for corporate involvement in the social sphere, from business development to employee engagement to community relations, but the universal message was that business has to participate in forging a better society. Here are some of the specifics:
1) Employees Are Prime Motivation—The Pfizer Health Fellows program offers employees a paid internship with an NGO for three to six months. Kindler gave the example of a Canadian employee who helped to create an infrastructure to manage disease, called Healthcare Huts, which had to be staffed by people who could read and write. The employee was able to persuade a village in Africa to have a woman be the leader of a Hut for the first time. Cote added, “By focusing on our employees, we get a multiplier effect from each act of corporate responsibility.” Fishman said that Travelers personnel volunteer in leadership training for school principals. “The culture of a school is set by the principal: you are not born as a leader, you are trained to do so.”2) The Triple Bottom Line—Kindler said that Pfizer is merging its corporate social responsibility report into its annual report. “We have to integrate the metrics of CSR into our business process, to measure our managers on more than the P&L.” Honeywell now has line items on its budget template for energy intensity and greenhouse gases emitted in production.
3) Supply Chain as Leverage—Williams noted that Aetna mandated that its vendors must offer health insurance to its employees. “They don’t have to buy that insurance from Aetna but we need to insist that they cover their employees.”
4) Advocates for Legislation—Aetna has pushed for mental health parity legislation to guarantee access. It is similarly involved in the bills addressing obesity and access to healthcare in minority communities.
5) Rationale—Fishman contends that “the best corporate engagement programs come from the heart, not for business reasons” but added that he is delighted with the 250 military veterans who have been hired by Travelers since 2001. Kindler said that Pfizer needs “to reach the 85% of people in the world we do not presently serve with our medication,” and deploys a range of strategies to do so. For instance, Pfizer sells a tuberculosis drug at a 60% discount and donates much of its malarial medicine. Its Prevnar vaccine “is being sold in partnership with GAVI (an alliance of private and public stakeholders in immunization); we have cut our price but do make some profit.” For Honeywell, “social responsibility is charitable giving where you provide products and services. It is also the evolution of our product portfolio, as we help the world move from more power generation to saving energy,” Cote said.
6) Culture—Kindler referenced Dov Seidman’s 2007 book, HOW, noting that “a company distinguishes itself by how it does business based on integrity and sustainability.” He has set aggressive health goals, such as eliminating trachoma, the cause of blindness for many in Africa, or training personnel to serve AIDS patients, well beyond the traditional business of selling medication. Williams said that “Aetna brings employees together to discuss key issues in chronic disease. We want to deploy them in their communities, to serve as thought leaders and catalysts.”
The issues we confront are complex and costly, requiring cooperation of business, government, civil society and media. How do you manage the HIV crisis in Swaziland, where 10% of males and 38% of the women have the disease? You confront the gender inequality inherent in local culture, while making available affordable medication, assure compliance through a well-trained cadre of motivated health workers, with funding from government and NGOs. Our job in PR is to facilitate connections among these institutions and to tell the stories in a compelling manner.
Posted by Edelman at 12:22 PM |
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This is marvelous news that Pfizer understands that they have a responsibility to give back, and that the public expects it. No longer do companies score points for social responsibility -- they just lose them if they are not engaged with social issues around the globe or at least in their own community. The fiasco in Nigeria (and other undeveloped countries) created a measure of distrust so deep and so great that it will take years to erase the damage done by putting profit over human life.
Posted by: Laura Torgerson at May 15, 2010 12:01 PM
Pfizer or other companies must understands that they have a responsibility to give back something to the community, wherever they are.
Posted by: HelpALocalBusiness at July 30, 2010 4:42 AM
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| TrackBackMay 6, 2010
Health: Every Employer’s Business
Mike Kuczkowski, a senior Edelman executive, ran a marathon on Sunday. He finished in a rather unremarkable 5 hours, walking when he hit the wall at mile 17. But for those of us who knew Mike as an inveterate smoker, an ex-journalist who took up the evil weed while in high school under peer pressure to fit in, just completing the race is the true accomplishment. Four years ago when I saw him smoking outside of our building in Times Square, I made a deal to pay him a few thousand dollars if he quit smoking. If he fell off the wagon, he would owe me the money back. Now the proud father of three little kids, there is no way he is losing this wager. I made the same deal with three executives in our Toronto office, Laura Muirhead, Melanie Preece and Darren Zagoruy, who took up the challenge at a company meeting two months ago. Last week Josh Mansbach in the NY office proudly wrote me on his six month anniversary of quitting, dunning me for the promised reward.
The key message of the Edelman Health Engagement Barometer is that 73% of respondents across 11 countries believe that protecting health is as important as protecting the environment. 72% of people trust a company more if they effectively engage in health. More than 80% of people expect companies across all industries to engage in health, not just pharmaceutical and healthcare providers.
How should companies engage in health? The top three ways are making health related products accessible, communicating health risks of products and helping employees and their families’ lead healthier lives. Here are some programs being implemented by clients seeking to improve employee health:
• Scotts Miracle-Gro offers access to an onsite wellness center, provides employees with reimbursable gym memberships and (like Edelman) subsidizes smoking cessation initiatives.• Adobe has changed the menu at the employee cafeteria to offer more low-calorie options; I witnessed the same at Astra-Zeneca.
• Pfizer is travelling a group of former smokers who quit with the help of its medicine CHANTIX and engage with present smokers; the peer to peer discussions are held in doctors’ offices around the country.
About 50 years ago, I saw a very effective ad on television. A rough looking cowboy, who resembled the Marlboro Man, swaggered into the bar and ordered a beer. He lit up a cigarette but before he could hoist the brew, he collapsed in a coughing fit. That was enough to prompt me to sneak into my parents’ room and dispose of my father’s cigarettes in the toilet. On his third visit to our home in a month, the plumber politely informed my father that he should either stop smoking or put his eldest child up for adoption. The cigarettes went; I stayed. I will continue to incentivize employees to quit because it is both good business and good for my colleagues.
PS: Steve Barrett, PRWeek US editor-in-chief, recently interviewed Chris Graves, OgilvyPR’s CEO and yours truly about the current and future state of PR—click here for the video.
Posted by Edelman at 9:56 AM |
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Although this is good for your company in that workers improve their work abilities when they are healthy, caring for the health of your employees goes much further than business. It shows that you care about them as a person and not just as an employee. Who knows how many countless people are influenced (perhaps their families) by one company choosing to health their employees be healthy.
Posted by: Elizabeth B at May 10, 2010 3:52 PM
It is so encouraging to see so many companies, including our own, making strides to support and encourage employees to live healthier lives. As a registered dietitian, I observe the health habits of the working world through a different lens and find the priority that people place on their health very troubling. Given the number of hours Americans spend at work, it is imperative that employers not only encourage employees to prioritize healthy behaviors, but also enable them with the tools, resources and TIME to make a change.
Posted by: Kate, RD at May 12, 2010 11:07 AM
As a marathoner myself, I always respect individuals that make the distance. The time becomes secondary when you are dragging at mile 19. Additionally, I truly respect your initiative to increase the overall health of your organization. Here at CareerBuilder we are taking part in the Live Healthy Challenge, and offer up to $450 in wellness reimbursement. I also spent 6 years as a Sales Manager at Scotts Miracle-Gro, and have nothing be fantastic things to say about their programs.
All the best,
Brett
Posted by: Brett Wienke at May 20, 2010 10:48 AM