ethicscrisis.com

Love is complicated. Match.com is simple." is online dating service match.com's theme. It's broadcast on TV, radio and billboards across the United States. But this nuanced brand message was lost in translation to singles in Europe, Asia and South America.

"We learned that it was not just about taking the copy off our English site and translating it," says Match.com Chief Operating Officer Joe Cohen, who oversees the company's international operations and expansion efforts. He now understands that localizing a website is very different from translating it.

SRF Global Translations specialzes in the multilanguage translation of marketing and advertising materials for multinational companies. "SRF Global Translations absolutely guarantees high-fidelity transfer of meaning between languages we translate, along with localization, nuance, and cultural awareness, says SRF President Sloan Friedman.

via CMO Magazine

Posted by BL Ochman at 07:50 PM | Permalink

A recent global survey of over 1,800 communication professionals, conducted by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation, found that an overwhelming 65 percent of respondents had not received any formal ethics training -- such as seminars, continuing education or training workshops -- from their employers.

Many respondents cited in the IABC survey, The Business of Truth: A Guide to Ethical Communication, noted that ethics was never given more than a cursory mention in their organizations, usually on the first day of employment when company policy manuals were distributed. Additionally, 70 percent of respondents reported studying ethics “not at all” or at a basic level, as part of the coursework for their highest earned degree.

Posted by BL Ochman at 07:26 PM | Permalink

Our company was getting raked over the coals for far too long and I was tired of being the punching bag for the client as the account lead. We screwed something up (minor, overpaid for a budget line item that was outside of their internal policy).

I took an existing email from the sourcing department and changed the wording of the email to suggest we had been given authorization...and sent it back to the client, under the guise of an acceptable email. ..the discrepancy was noticed and I lied, blaming it on a glitch in technology that sent 2 different versions of a similar reply.

Continued to lie when the Director of Marketing called me on the discrepancy and only came clean to my boss (2 months later) when our agency was about to get fired.

Posted by BL Ochman at 09:34 PM | Permalink

The School of Journalism of Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile has launched a new online service about Journalism Ethics Analysis, (in Spanish).

Users can submit questions about journalism ethics issues. A group of teachers analyzes it and publishes the answer on the site. Some of the latest questions:

* Can you byline a story that doesn't include field reports from that journalist, but only reports from agencies and Internet?
* How do you distinguish between press notes and informercial notes?

via Juan Carlos Camus at Poynter.org

Posted by BL Ochman at 06:17 PM | Permalink

Search Engine Roundtable, reporting from Search Engine Strategies Latino, notes that translation issues can have impact on search optimization and sales.

"Challenges, cultural aspects, different languages, different vocabulary, different user profiles, different web use habits and more. When preparing a campaign you need to understand all these items.

You should have different ad management styles for each country. Each country may have its own objective, which areas are a priority, so managing the results locally is important. A good report should support web site strategies definitions, should highlight user profile differences on each country, should bring up strategic information that may be used by marketing department even offline."

SRF Global Translations provides nuanced, certified, localized multilanguage translations of marketing and advertising materials for multinational companies.

Posted by BL Ochman at 05:58 PM | Permalink

I found out that a guy I've been good friends with for a long time actually works in a loan business that preys on the poor. Our wives are friends, our kids are buddies. We so close that we vacation together. I feel like, ethically, I should end the friendship, but I am just going to make like I still don't know what he does.

Posted by BL Ochman at 05:51 PM | Permalink

Pepsi's ethics are just, well, refreshing, says Doug Cunningham at the Times-Herald-Record in New York. He notes that when someone tried to sell Coke's secret formula to PepsiCo's headquarters in Purchase NY, Pepsi immediately turned the letter over to Coke and alerted the FBI.

"Clearly, PepsiCo has instilled a strong sense of business ethics.

Would that more companies had such a strong set of values. Any guesses ...what would have happened if a similar letter landed at Enron headquarters in Houston?"

Posted by BL Ochman at 05:44 PM | Permalink

According to findings released today from Alloy Media + Marketing's 5th annual College Explorer Study, the $200 billion market of 17 million US college students (ages 18-30) prefers an honest and effective social responsibility campaign to celebrity endorsements when it comes to spending. And they'll spend money on companies they believe are ethical.

"Watch for the 'greening' of the college market and their $182 billion in aggregate spending power to have a big effect on brand positioning and campaigns in the coming year."

Posted by BL Ochman at 06:11 PM | Permalink

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue raised an ethical question:

His seven year-old daughter was in a dance recital; the school sells a lousy DVD of the performances; he has a Canon S3 IS digital camera that makes great videos. Could he, ethically, make a surreptitious video highlighting his daughter's performance.

"Ethics, shmethics–It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission."

So what did Pogue end up doing?

"I wound up illicitly filming a very short clip of my daughter’s number, about 30 seconds, and also I filmed the curtain call. I would have filmed the whole number, but I chickened out."

Posted by BL Ochman at 05:54 PM | Permalink

Bad enough we have to deal with the possibility of a global pandemic. Now we need to worry that translations of published warnings aren't reaching the World Health Organization for as long as three months, according to the current issue of Nature Magazine (Subscription required). Why doesn't the World Health Organization or the US government use a translation service for relevant multilanguage health publications?

Nature reports that translation of news of a fatal outbreak of respiratory disease in northeastern Brazil this year from the international ProMED mailing list, a service for disseminating information about outbreaks, didn't reach the World Health Organization for three months. The outbreak was eventually proven not to be bird flu, and the communications breakdown was blamed on a decentralization of Brazil's health-monitoring chain of command, a problem that has also been blamed for Indonesia's poor response to the avian-flu outbreak.

Posted by BL Ochman at 09:06 AM | Permalink

I had to fly to meet a client in another city. A client in a different city asked me to meet with them too. Even though I got a discounted ticket allowing me to visit both cities, I billed both clients for the entire fare. In the course of a year, I make enough to pay for my vacation travel.

Posted by BL Ochman at 07:21 PM | Permalink

Has Silicon Alley entered the McCarthy era for business ethics? A widening federal investigation into suspicious stock options allocations at least 57 companies, including 25 based in Silicon Valley is "rattling corporate boardrooms, entrepreneurs and rank-and-file workers alike," according to the San Jose Mercury News

Red Herring reports that "Investors are hammering the stocks of many of the companies affected by the inquiries and are asking questions about how well these companies have been governed."

The rush to judgment is "a shame" Michael Gray, a certified public accountant, wrote in a newsletter. "We may be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs."

Venky Ganesan, a venture capitalist who sits on the board of nine start-ups, said. "`Now, you're guilty until proven innocent. Guilty by association. Guilty by implication.''

Options, which have made millionaires out of many geeks over the years, is the way technology companies lure top talent to take a lower paycheck until they can share the company's success.

A PDF of companies under investigation is here

Posted by BL Ochman at 06:21 PM | Permalink