2010 January | FabianPattberg.com

A big challenge: Being a Sustainability / CSR professional at Shell

January 27, 20105:21 pm

Imagine you are working for Shell in the Sustainability / CSR department and you really want to make a difference by showing that Shell is a responsible company. Todays post is about the challenges someone working at Shell might face. This is all from the viewpoint of a normal Shell stakeholder such as myself. I have also included a video response with some additional aspects to consider.

The Sustainability / CSR professional working at Shell as far as we can tell is facing the following situation at the moment:

Worsening reputation: Shells reputation with regards to Sustainability / CSR is not good. After being seen as leaders some years ago they are now being perceived as just putting a lot of money in their communication

Lack of Sustainability / CSR innovation: Over the last few years Shell have not really convinced on the content and implementation side through innovation at all. This might be the consequence of not being leaders anymore combined with a lack of aspiration for bringing their reporting and best practice onto the next level. But where has this enthusiasm for innovation gone?

Perceived indifferent corporate culture: From what we can see outside as a stakeholder is that the corporate context and culture itself at Shell does not fully go hand in hand with their Sustainability / CSR messaging. I have no prove of that obviously but from we can interpret from press releases, other communications and article about Shell this seems to be the case. Here are three examples which just show how conflicting Shells messaging is at the moment:

So what should or can this employee do to change things for the better?

I believe that these following points are some aspects the Sustainability / CSR professionals at Shell need to consider to kick start their Sustainability / CSR innovation process again:

Stop shouting so loud about what you do. More PR does not mean that you are being perceived better in the long run. Less is more for Shell at the moment in my opinion.
Only communicate when you have something to say. This might be an obvious point but there is nothing more damaging when you have message and this message is being perceived as green-washing.
Spend at least 80% of your time now lobbying the senior management to increase the importance of your department and for you to get more leverage for future policy influencing.

I have also prepared a short video response on what I think Shell could do better:

Shell has been one of the innovators in the Sustainability / CSR field in the past and they can be again. Others like Centrica, Timberland and Intel have taken that position now. What happened to the Shell we saw several years ago?

As always please let me know what you think and whether you agree or disagree.

Important for Sustainability and CSR: Keep It Simple

January 25, 20101:57 pm

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Life can be complicated sometimes. We all know that. Especially if you work in the Sustainability / CSR sector trying to convince other people of the purpose and the good of Sustainability / CSR can be very complicated and challenging at times.

Todays post has one straightforward message:

Keep It Simple.

I have found this to be so important especially when you work in the Sustainability / CSR field. In order to properly communicate your point of view or argument you need to keep it simple. This will help you to reach the other person much easier and not overwhelm them with the message you are trying to convey.

How do I mean that?
Well if you overcomplicate topics or try to tackle to many issues or tasks all at once your results will show it – in a negative way. Not only from the communications but also from a business results point of view. You might be the one in a million professional that can do that now (at least you think you do) but this is is impossible to keep up all the time. We all have our limits and keeping it simple might just help to make your business life as a Sustainability / CSR professional more effective and at the same time more enjoyable.

This is a really basic way of working. But think about it. What is the argument for making it more complicated? There is none in my opinion.

So why not use time this Monday to take a look at where you can make your work in the Sustainability / CSR field or any other field of work simpler but at the same time more organized and effective. I bet you will find at least one area of work where you are overcomplicating matters.

This is your task then: Make it simpler and therefore more manageable.

Picture Credit: Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha

Frozen in Time: The Quality of Company Blogs

January 21, 20107:01 pm

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I have been doing some research into company blogs recently and thought this might be an interesting topic for a post as well. I started with the top 10 biggest global companies from Fortune magazine but some are not included in this list as they simply did not have a blog ( which is a real shame). You will see some smaller company blogs included as well. This is to mix it up a little and show what a company blogs could do for your business, if done well.

The only order I applied is that I distinguished between 1) Blogs I liked, 2) Blogs I was not sure about and 3) Blogs that need some work. Here they are:

Some of the blogs I like:

A blog that comes across as quite personal. http://jnjbtw.com This is so important for the pharmaceutical sector. Well done Johnson and Johnson.
Intel not only has one but many more. http://blogs.intel.com This best practice is a benchmark for everyone.
A nice example with nice visuals as you would expect from Kodak http://1000words.kodak.com
Simple but effective. It says all it needs to say about the social networking news site Digg.com http://about.digg.com/blog/company
A smaller company but also very good. The HomeGoods blog gives you a warm trustworthy feeling. http://openhouse.homegoods.com (I am not good at decorating and average at house work but I like the personality of the blog)

Blogs I am not sure about:

Microsoft has many different platforms on how to engage with its stakeholders buts where is the central place to go too? Shouldn’t it be here: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/default.mspx Microsoft is doing a lot right but where is the big corporate blog? Have I missed it?
The Shell blog is not bad but too cluttered in my opinion. http://royaldutchshellplc.com/wp-wall-guestbook But it has the same problem as Microsoft. Where is the big company wide blog?
The Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com I would expect more. But this depends on the eye of the beholder if simplicity is most important or if this is all you need in a corporate blog. I was not sure either way.
A very good idea from ING to have the URL INGBlogs.com http://www.ingblogs.com/mycupofcha but why not do this properly and use it better and bring the whole group here? And not just Asia/Pacific?
Toyotas approach is strange. Newsroom and blog together? Not so sure about that: http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/our-point-of-view.aspx
Good layout but would need more interactivity features. The GE Global Research blog. http://ge.geglobalresearch.com/blog

Blogs that need some work:

WalMart: I could not find a proper blog but what are they doing here? No post since December? http://checkoutblog.com Not good.
I could not find a proper blog for Chevron either. Only a old one here: http://www.chevron.com/wpc/blog Would you think it is time for a simple blog Chevron?

All in all is the overview not complete of course but what is clear is that corporate blogs still need a lot of work. But more importantly do they need committed individuals that take care of it and involve as many people as possible in order to get as many different viewpoints represented as they can. Then a corporate blog really becomes useful for its stakeholders in my opinion.

So come on companies across the globe, you can do better!

Picture Credit: CarbonNYC

More personal than professional – My Posterous Blog and Flickr Photostream

January 15, 20102:41 pm

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You might have noticed that there are not many personal pictures or personal lifestream items on my blog anymore.

Because this blog has now become so popular and more people then I ever expected are interested in what I have to say about Sustainability I decided to now post my pictures, other personal topics and everything else that did not fit on this blog on my Posterous Blog with this URL: http://fabian.posterous.com

So if you are interested in some more personal topics by me while not writing blog entries here on my blog please visit my Posterous Blog. http://fabian.posterous.com or visit my Flickr Photostream if you are interested in my snaps: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fpattberg

Have a good end of the week everyone.

Fabian

A blog with a mission: Helping SMEs to be more sustainable

January 13, 20107:29 pm

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This weeks recommended website is David Connors blog called: David Coethica’s blog. This is the URL: http://davidcoethica.wordpress.com

I first got came across David while looking for people interested in Sustainability and CSR on Twitter back in the spring of 2009. Since then I have had countless moments where his updates on Twitter and posts on his blog lead me to find some great information on Sustainability and CSR. When he is not on Twitter and writing blog entries David runs a company called Coethica.

But lets give David the chance to describe his blog and what the intention is:
“After spending years engrossed in the formal world of CSR I began to notice something was blatantly missing from the room – smaller businesses. Whilst the corporate world was beginning to take the agenda much more seriously there appeared to be a defeatist attitude that small & medium enterprises (SMEs) were too small, too many and working too hard just to survive.

The blog was set up after I was pushed into writing about Coethica’s journey to help SMEs by a local marketing company to raise our profile as the experts we had become. The main objective is to fight for CSR as a essential business ethos regardless of the size or nature of a business.

In addition to being able to post my own interpretation of wider CSR topics, I want to encourage mainstream entrepreneurs to listen by presenting ‘not-so-Corporate’ Social Responsibility as an exciting opportunity to gain a competitive advantage whilst at the same time benefiting many important environmental & social issues.

2010 will see even more smaller business focused content with case studies, tips, opinion, news and of course the occasional sport related post to remind me of my previous life in football!”

Some of his recent posts include:

So if you are looking for great content on Sustainability and CSR you need to subscribe to Davids Blog: http://davidcoethica.wordpress.com

Here are some other places where to find David on the web:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidcoethica
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/coethica

What Google applications to use to make your online life easier

January 12, 20102:00 pm

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I am using Google applications in many of my daily online activities and todays post is about providing you with what applications I am using and how this might help you as well depending on what you do online and how you use the web.

First step for everyone will be to create a Google Account. I know that we have too many accounts online these days. But this is an absolute necessity to have in my opinion. If you are looking to utilize the best online tools, etc there is no way without a Google Account. To create an Google Account just go to Google.com and click on the Sign In link on the top right hand corner.

These are the Google applications I find most useful and I am using currently:

Google Mail (Gmail)
Gmail has some amazing email features and is really useful for managing all of your contacts as well. But make sure to back up the contacts into your spreadsheet to always have them secure as well. It is also fully iPhone compatible and you can use Gmail offline or add it to your email client. Either way. Having a gmail account is a must in my opinion.

Google Docs
Google Docs is the ideal solution for sharing documents with others and for working on the same documents at the same time while being online. Here is a short video of how to use Google Docs as there are so many features for this post:

The Google Reader:
This is my central application for gathering information, news and the only way to stay on top of my blog subscriptions (250+). I found that this is the best way to manage your RSS feed subscriptions. There are many other applications that build on top of the Google Reader but the original still works the best for me.

Google Calendar
This is the application I use to manage my schedule/calendar. This calendar is fully integrated into your account but can be accessed many other different ways. I use this calendar on my iPhone and my mac and it just works like a charm. It is also nice that the Google calendar has a full integration of my Remember the Milk task/todo manager.

Google Wave
This is the new kid on the block. It will be a great collaboration tool in the future. Currently in the beta phase and Google still needs to add a lot more functionality, etc to make just right. So stay tuned. Currently you need to be invited to use Google Wave but I usually always have invites left so let me know if you need one. Here is the introduction video for you to have a first look:

These are some of the Google applications I use but there are many more to choose from. This is where to find them all: All Google Applications

Note: I am not associated with Google by any means. The intention of the post is to be helpful and useful to you the reader. Nothing more and nothing less.

Picture Credit: adria.richards

Fabian Pattberg

Monthly Archives - January 2010

More personal than professional – My Posterous Blog and Flickr Photostream