#136: The buddhists are right, exposing true values at Carnival + Costco, the misinformation threat
Good morning!
A reminder:
In this edition of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. Learn from the turkey controversy of 2015 re: misinformation in 2020
2. Carnival, Costco, coronavirus, and brand values
3. Quote of the week: The buddhists are right
(Fewer posts this week, as I've wrapped a few stories together.)
1. Learn from the turkey controversy of 2015 re: misinformation in 2020
According to a recent MIT study, lies are 70 percent more likely than facts to be retweeted.
Case in point: Did you hear about the Koch Turkey controversy? Via this Inc article:
"On Thanksgiving Day [2015], a New Yorker named Alice Norton posted on an online cooking forum that her family had been severely poisoned after eating a turkey they'd purchased from Walmart.
"My son Robert got in the hospital and he's still there!" she wrote... "I don't know what to do!"
Throughout the holiday, thousands of tweets and posts on Twitter and other social networks shared similar accounts. Eventually, a news site called Proud to Be Black published an article that claimed 200 people were in "critical condition" in New York City--all from turkeys purchased at Walmart that came from Koch's Turkey. The article cited the NYPD as its source. A Wikipedia page about the outbreak popped up. The next day, the USDA received a complaint about the episode.
Brock Stein, the president and CEO of Koch's Turkey, was with his family, celebrating Thanksgiving, when he got a Twitter alert that the company's birds were sickening people in the Bronx. "Since we sell through distributors, sometimes our product can end up in places we don't know about," he says. The company began a massive internal food-safety review.
In time, the world caught up to what Stein learned: The whole thing was a hoax. Many tweets, the Journal later reported, originated from accounts controlled by the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm linked to Vladimir Putin that's been indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Proud to Be Black, which was also eventually tracked back to the IRA, no longer exists. The USDA couldn't investigate, because the complainant's contact information was invalid, but officials in New York said there was no food-poisoning outbreak. Koch's Turkey doesn't even sell its turkeys at Walmart."
Why? It was a test.
"...the Russians were studying how effectively they could spread false information--"trying to freak people out, trying to figure out how much mileage they could get from a gallon of gas," says Kelly."
Their goal? Division.
"a primary aim of Russian influence operations has been to divide Americans... "weaponized polarization." The idea is to find flash points in American culture and magnify them..."
Last week's protests in Michigan against the stay-at-home order in that state are perfect fuel for this type of information warfare:
The protest — called "Operation Gridlock" — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and drew out militias, conservatives, small-business owners and ardent supporters of President Trump, who characterize the governor's stay-at-home order as an unjust power grab.
It's important to filter any content we see online through the lens of weaponization -- bad actors are going to use these events as tinder to inflame left/right division at a time when our country needs to come together.
I feel a bit like I'm yelling into the void here, but I also believe arming each other with facts and a full complete picture of what's happening can only help us make sense of what we see, and make an informed decision about what information we accept as true.
Is this the "post-truth" world we have been warned about?
2. Carnival, Costco, coronavirus, and brand values
Carnival’s ships have become a floating testament to the viciousness of the new coronavirus and raised questions about corporate negligence and fleet safety. President and Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald says his company’s response was reasonable under the circumstances. “This is a generational global event—it’s unprecedented,” he says. “Nothing’s perfect, OK?
I feel for this CEO... it was a critically difficult decision to stop cruises. Remember when we didn't know whether to cancel major events? Hindsight is 20/20.
It's important to note: Cindy Friedman, the epidemiologist who leads the CDC’s cruise ship task force said several of the plagued Carnival ships didn’t even begin their voyages until well after the company knew it was risky to do so. That decision demonstrates the company's real values.
Stories like this Bloomberg cover piece highlight a hard truth: How decisively and swiftly companies responded to the Coronavirus outbreak (and subsequent decisions about consumer safety) matters - to the press looking for a villain, sure, but also for buyers.
If actions speak louder than words, then what you do right now during a crisis speak volumes about your values as a company no matter what's to come next. As we discuss "opening up the country" there will be a new battle over brand values... this time around safety. Which brands are willing to keep customers and employees safe?
On that note... how you treat workers during the pandemic matters.
Consumers are paying attention:
Read more about the fast fashion brand's employee mistreatment in the NYTimes.
Those factories, which are hired by middlemen to produce garments for fashion brands, paid their sewers as little as $2.77 an hour, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
“Consumers can say, ‘Well, of course that’s what it’s like in Bangladesh or Vietnam,’ but they are developing countries,” [David Weil, who led the United States Labor Department’s wage and hour division from 2014 to 2017] said. “People just don’t want to believe it’s true in their own backyard.”
A new story came out this week about Costco as well:
“She should go home,” Lee’s concerned colleagues whispered among themselves as she struggled to catch her breath. A supervisor eventually checked on her, but the agent remained at her desk until the end of her shift at 3 p.m. By Monday morning, she was dead.
Lee was the first known Costco employee in the US to die of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, after she collapsed at the Everett, Washington, home she shared with her sister, Willa, and their mother, Susie. Two weeks later, they were dead too.
Senseless.
...more than 100 employees and contractors told BuzzFeed News that the $140 billion global retailer placed thousands of workers at its corporate offices and stores at risk through its lack of transparency on confirmed cases, disregard for warnings, and inability to adjust long-standing policies during a critical period.
These people, most of whom asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, said Costco left its workers unprotected and uninformed on the front lines of the worst global health crisis of their lifetimes.
Wow.
From CMO.com by Adobe / Accenture: Nearly two-thirds of consumers are drawn to brands that treat employees well. In addition, three-fourths say they want more transparency in how companies handle issues like sourcing and working conditions.
Via CNBC: Mark Cuban says how companies treat workers during the pandemic could define their brand for decades.
“There’s no reason to rush this. I’d rather err on the side of caution. I’m not going to tell people to go to work when I’m uncertain,” said Cuban
PS: Cuban has also argued that companies that receive financial assistance should be prevented from buying back their stock, a move I agree with.
4. Quote of the week: The buddhists are right.
The QOTW came yesterday on a phone call with management consultant Liz Kislik:
"I think the buddhists are right. Life is hard.
I highly suggest reading or listening to some of Liz's great thinking below:
Why there's so much conflict at work, and how to fix it (TEDx)
How to Work with a Leader Who Doesn’t Care About Details (Harvard Business Review)
Bonus: Some helpful Buddhist-inspired POV about accepting life's challenges here.
The practice of patience is simple enough. When difficulty arises, notice the obvious and not so obvious ways we try to avoid it—the things we say and do, the subtle ways in which our very bodies recoil and clench when some- one says or does something to us that we don’t like.
To practice patience is to notice these things and be fiercely present with them (taking a breath helps; returning to mindfulness of the body helps) rather than reacting to them. We catch ourselves running away and we reverse course, turning toward our afflictive emotions, understanding that they are natural in these circumstances—and that avoiding them won’t work.
Stay safe, stay informed, don't forget to breathe,
Katie
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Katie Martell
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