Richard Telofski

on "Irregular Competition"

Activist Stockholders Gain Strength

Mar 10

Posted by Richard in Activism, Tactics, Threats | No Comments

My fourth and latest book, Insidious Competition – The Battle for Meaning and the Corporate Image, is scheduled to be published in June 2010. For more information about my new book, please click here to go to the book’s Web site.

Rows of locksIn the book, I discuss nine different types of insidious competitors present in social media. One of those types of competitors is NGOs and Activists, the “irregular” competitors that are the basis of our discussions here at Telofski.com. In fact, it was from the research on Insidious Competition that the concept of irregular competition evolved.

Well, putting aside irregular competition for a moment, I’d just like to mention that one of the insidious competitor types I discuss in my book is Activist Stockholders, cousins of the irregular competitors NGOs and Activists. In reviewing my news feeds recently I discovered the article “Divided SEC Proposes Investor Access Plan” which talks about how Activist Stockholders may be gaining more strength in their struggles against corporate management.

This article is quite interesting and updates an issue which I have been following for a while. The issue pertains directly to the discussion of Activist Stockholders as it appears in the book. Summarizing, the article discusses relaxation of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations for shareholder balloting in annual public corporation elections. You know. The annual “proxy fight.” The proposed rule changes would make it simpler for various stockholder groups to gain access to the corporate board and thereby control certain corporate decisions.

In my new book’s discussion of this type of insidious competitor, I mentioned that there is a pending rule change. I also mentioned that that change may take place as soon as early 2010. From what this article says, it looks like I was right. When this regulation change is combined with the force and power of social media, as I pointed out in the book, the influence of the Activist Stockholder will increase tremendously. And because of this potential shift in power, it should be incumbent on all C-suite executives and corporate communications personnel to learn how to deal with this impending threat to corporate operations.

Insidious Competition – The Battle for Meaning and the Corporate Image discusses these “how-to’s” in detail.

I’ll keep you updated on the publication of the book.

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How Does RAN Rank As An Irregular Competitor?

Mar 9

Posted by Richard in Case Studies, Irregular Competition, Rainforest Action Network, Research, Threat Index | No Comments

Today, you and I will begin a case study analysis of the Rainforest Action Network as an irregular competitor. Not sure what an “irregular competitor” is? Check the definition here then.

Okay. Ready?

Let’s Start with Twitter

In this post, the first in a series about the Rainforest Action Network as an irregular competitor, we’ll begin our case study by taking a look at the Twitter strategy employed by this organization.

One of the benefits behind social media is that one can use it to be, well, social. Being social means engaging others in conversation, talking with them, not at them. This is not a new idea, especially in social media circles.

Recently, I visited the Twitter page for the Rainforest Action Network (RAN). I do so periodically to keep current on what they, as well as other NGO and activist groups, are doing on the social web. I must say that I was not impressed by their Twitter strategy.

Man covering his mouth 1I looked at a random sample of 93 of their most recent tweets. Then I reviewed each of those to determine which were “shouts” and which were attempts at engaging their following. Only 12 of the 93 tweets, or about 13%, were attempts at engagement. The other 81 tweets, or about 87%, were just “shouts.” From this summary analysis, it would appear that RAN has difficulty, on Twitter at least, in engaging their audience in a worthwhile conversation. Apparently, RAN has not yet learned the conversational value of Twitter. And this perceived lack of value is plainly reflected in their Twitter statistics.

On the date I checked, Tuesday, February 23, 2010, RAN showed only 1,426 followers. Similarly, on that same date their Twitter page showed that RAN followed only 1,104. With regard to the total Twitterverse, and considering that the Twitterverse is likely “teeming” with the RAN primary demographic, these follower and following numbers are very, very low. What am I saying? These numbers, for this type of organization, in this type of social media environment, are extremely low. And it’s entirely possible that these numbers are low because potential followers don’t see any conversational value coming out of the RAN tweets. If you don’t have anything to discuss, people just won’t follow you on Twitter.

What does this mean for the corporate opponents that RAN has targeted. Well, for companies like Chevron, JP Morgan Chase, General Mills, and others I saw mentioned in RAN’s “broadcast-like” tweets, it means that, at least, from the tool of Twitter, these corporate opponents of RAN have little to worry about. My analysis indicates that RAN has a very difficult time in establishing a conversation in the Twitter environment. They are not using this social web tool to its fullest advantage. And by not using this tool to its fullest advantage, they handicap their other social media efforts.

So, due to RAN’s employment of Twitter, I would rate them very low on the Irregular Competition Threat Index, probably about a “2″ on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most threatening. But this “2″ is only a preliminary rating because Twitter is only a part of the total social media effort of RAN. As we go through subsequent posts, it’s likely that you and I will see this preliminary rating change.

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Part 2 of “How Does RAN Rank As An Irregular Competitor?” will be posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010. If you are reading this before that date, please subscribe to the FREE RSS feed so that you will be notified when the article posts. Click here to subscribe. Or, if you are reading this after that date, please click here to be taken to “How Does RAN Rank As An Irregular Competitor? – Part 2.”

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You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume – Part 2

Mar 4

Posted by Richard in Personal Observations | No Comments

This post picks up the story of how I became an analyst of “irregular competition” which we know here on Telofski.com to be anti-corporate activists and NGOs.

In the previous post, “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume,” I discussed my foundational experiences and knowledge that support my current expertise in the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. If you haven’t yet read that post, you may do so by clicking here.

Rippling water on computerNow, here in Part 2, I pick up the story where I left off. Here in Part 2, I describe how The Kahuna Content Company, Inc. and I evolved from an Internet content supplier to that of anti-corporate digital activism analysis.

Web 2.0 Appears

Through 2001 I had acquired quite a bit of experience in competitive intelligence analysis as well as an expertise in online business. In Kahuna Content’s early days as an independent supplier of online content, I learned about what people wanted from their online experiences. During that period of time the web was a relatively static communicator of information; there was little “interaction” due to the technologies that existed then. However, around 2005, as the web started to evolve into the more interactive environment that I knew it could and would ultimately become, I began to learn about and experience what later became known as “Web 2.0.” At that time the Internet was truly becoming an “environment,” a social one. Because of technology shifts, it was then that people began to convert the Internet into an “environment,” one which affected them and one which they affected back in return.

It was at that time, in that “2.0″ shift in the Internet, that Kahuna Content, and I, began to change focus. As the wave of what later came to be known as “user-generated content” rose, I saw that the need for independently supplied online content would fade. So, Kahuna Content made a gradual move away from content supply. Watching the rise of the “social web,” I saw that with the tools that were starting then to become available, people could and would transfer their human “conversational jones” for interaction from the real to the virtual, taking it global and making it a 24/7 activity. I saw that people would start talking about every thing under the sun, and out in public. Going back to my roots as a competitive intelligence analyst, this shift told me that people, everyday people, could become “competitors” to the very companies from which they bought their goods and services.

The Insidious Competitor Threatens

Now, I wasn’t really the first person to realize this. The Cluetrain Manifesto had forecasted this change about a half dozen years prior. But at this point in the story, I realized that individuals could actually do what the Cluetrain had predicted. When Cluetrain was written, the “social media” tools that could enable markets to “laugh” at the companies who supplied them weren’t fully configured enough for that to be much of an actual business threat. But by around 2006 to 2007, my competitive intelligence/threat analysis personality was screaming at me, saying that the Cluetrain threat was truly here. In overdrive. Social media was going to develop fully and companies needed to be aware of what those “insidious competitors” (i.e., people of all shapes and sizes) were saying about them. Here was a problem, and I knew how to solve it. Web monitoring and analysis.

So in 2007 after gradually moving toward this new business of web monitoring and social media initiative analysis, Kahuna Content changed its business focus entirely to that, which I positioned as “competitive intelligence from social media.” We offered social web monitoring and analysis of online “conversations” related to a client’s products/services/markets, with an eye on discovering what customers and consumers were saying about the companies they patronized. This was an exploding area, and there was quite a bit of interest in our services. Offering this service called upon the threat analysis skills that I had first learned back there at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, when I first became involved in foreign competitive intelligence, and later perfected in my own competitive intelligence company, The Becker Research Company, Inc. And this “competitive intelligence from social media” service was also built upon the online and digital environment expertise that I had built at both eBusiness Analysts and perfected in the early days of Kahuna Content. My skills, expertise, experience, and knowledge had coalesced here in the enhanced version of Kahuna Content, perhaps more accurately phrased as “Kahuna Content 2.0.”

The Irregular Competitor Appears

Around 2008, as social media usage increased tremendously, it began to be employed by not only individuals, but also by corporations, both of the profit and non-profit variety, as well as by an American presidential campaign which reached its objective, largely via social media usage. Each type of organization, the profit and non-profit, started to use the medium to speak to their publics. I saw that these online media, being relatively inexpensive, were perfectly positioned for employment by non-profit activist groups as well as their non-governmental organization (NGO) cousins. These are organizations who, because of their financial structure, are always “desperate” for less expensive ways to communicate their agendas and gather support. During this year, as a by-product of my social web monitoring work, I saw that more and more activists and NGOs were taking their messages online where they were gathering support for their organizations. Their success with this medium at that time was likely spurred, and supported, by the online social activity generated from that aforementioned presidential campaign. Many of those activist and NGO messages were “anti-corporate,” some directed at specific companies while other of them were simply directed against capitalism in general. This new type of commercial competition, this “irregular competition,” is what you and I discuss here on Telofski.com.

Anti-corporate activists and NGOs have been picking up speed and supporters, in the offline world, since the early 1990s. During that decade, they had increasingly become a “competitive” threat to businesses. Then, in 2008, near the end of the first decade of the 21st century (can’t we just agree to call that decade the “Ones”?), they were enhancing that competitive threat through usage of the tools of social media. I knew how to analyze competitive business threats and I knew how to analyze online media. I had much experience and expertise in both. And I enjoy both.

A Return to Home Plate

My circle was complete. I had returned to my “knitting.” But this time, it was of the 21st century variety.

In 2009, I transitioned Kahuna Content from consumer-type web monitoring toward the area of anti-corporate digital activism analysis. And it is during this time that I have written my fourth and latest book, “Insidious Competition – The Battle for Meaning and the Corporate Image.” (Insidious Competition has a scheduled publish date of June 2010.)

As you can see, from Parts 1 and 2 of this post, my background is well-suited to the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. This endeavor is one that I find interesting and enlightening, as well as one which is now absolutely necessary to business.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my annotated resume. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

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You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume.

Mar 2

Posted by Richard in Personal Observations | No Comments

Recently, I’ve received some enquiries regarding my expertise in anti-corporate activism analysis, in competitive intelligence, and in the analysis of online media. Since this is an unusual profession, I can certainly understand the curiosity. I appreciate all of your questions and hope that I have responded satisfactorily. Knowing that FAQs are popular on many sites, I am today writing an FAQ of sorts.

rich-in-charleston2Today, I write this post to help future enquirers and to give you some background on my previous experiences. In this post, you will learn about my credentials and the experiences I have had which have built my expertise in anti-corporate activism analysis, in general, and in digital anti-corporate activism analysis, in particular. You could say that this post serves as my “annotated resume.”

Educational Background

My specific experience for my profession began just before I received my MBA in Marketing from Rider University. While completing that degree, I worked as a Research Assistant for the Marketing Department. In that capacity, I extended what I learned from the classroom into the real world. Having learned much about performing objective research, with special attention paid toward the reliability and integrity of sourcing, I performed many market research studies across different product and service areas. Upon completing my MBA, I served several years as a faculty member at Monmouth University and at Georgian Court University. Between both of those schools I taught international economics, finance, and marketing courses.

Out-of-the-Ivory-Tower

After several years as an educator, I received an offer from a consulting unit of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. This consulting unit was the Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (TAAC) which was a U.S. Department of Commerce program administered by the NJEDA. In my role there as a Senior Project Officer, my responsibility was to work with New Jersey manufacturers who were getting “hammered” by foreign competition. Specifically, I was tasked with the duty of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of those manufacturers with the intention of creating strategic plans to accentuate their positives and eliminate their negatives.

It was at NJEDA that I first formally became involved with competitive intelligence. When writing the strategic plan (or the “adjustment plan” as it was called there), it was necessary for me not only to analyze my client’s strengths and weaknesses, but it was imperative for me to analyze those of the competitor, as well. Please note that those competitors were, of course, foreign. This was during the late 1980s, before the Internet became the research avenue it is today, and gaining critical, public-domain, information even on American companies was difficult. So, you can probably imagine that obtaining information on foreign companies was even more difficult. However, from my experience as an academic researcher, I knew how to dig and from my training as an MBA, I knew for what to dig. So I dug. And from my efforts I was able to uncover much information that went into my analyses and the creation of effective strategic plans for my TAAC clients.

My Own Shop

In 1991, after having good success with the foreign competitive intelligence function at the NJEDA, I decided to open up my own shop, a competitive intelligence consultancy. At that time, competitive intelligence as a business discipline was just coming into its own and it looked like a great business opportunity. It was.

The Becker Research Company, Inc. was one of the original competitive intelligence companies in the United States. During the company’s tenure, it was a market leader. At Becker Research, my staff and I worked on hundreds of competitive intelligence projects for Fortune 100 type clients. We met the demand for competitive information and strategic recommendations concerning the competitors, foreign and domestic, of many of America’s top companies. Becker Research was involved in and delivered critical competitive intelligence for several major due diligence projects, many competitive manufacturing benchmarking studies, and almost countless competitive product introduction forecasts.

By the late 1990s, the Internet was in full bloom and that network was changing the way business was done. This was one of those historic transformations that I got to experience up close and personally. The opportunities offered by this transformation were unprecedented. Realizing another good potential business, I opened a second consulting practice, eBusiness Analysts, which offered competitive analysis services and strategic counseling in the area of e-business and e-commerce. My understanding of the Internet’s power in business gelled in that period of time and it was then that I wrote my first two books, Fast Food for eBusiness Marketers (High Street Press: 1998, currently out-of-print) and Dangerous Competition (iUniverse: 2001). eBusiness Analysts performed well but ultimately became a victim of the dot bomb crash of 2000.

A Transitional Time

At that point in my career, even though Internet fever had risen and fallen, I knew that the Internet was not going away and that it’s impact on business would not fade. We weren’t going back to business without an Internet. I could foresee that a tool such as this, one which networked human communication so easily, would have effects on business more profound than most could ever realize. So, I decided to continue to do business in Internet related areas. Some who were licking their dot com bomb wounds then called this masochism. I looked at it as a prudent strategic decision. My foresight proved correct.

So in 2001, after eBusiness Analysts and after selling the assets of The Becker Research Company, Inc., I opened The Kahuna Content Company, Inc. In its early days, Kahuna Content was an independent supplier of Internet content, both text and images. Although, Internet “fever” had burst, the “illness” was still there. Many sites were upgrading their strategies and in doing so were seeking solid, quality content. The number of content suppliers at that time was low. Kahuna Content helped fill the void. During those first years of Kahuna Content, I increased my knowledge on how the Internet worked, how business could benefit from it, what people wanted from it, why they wanted what they did, and how people could use the Internet as a social tool. One of my tasks during those early Kahuna Content years was to supply images. To do so, I called upon my photography skills which I had been developing on the side (pun intended) since high school, becoming even better at that art which some call a science. In addition to web articles, Kahuna Content also supplied various photography and imaging services. As a sideline, I dabbled in art photography, participating in many group shows, winning national awards, and securing four solo gallery exhibitions. And during that time I authored my third book, “Conehenge – The Story of a Jersey Schlub,” which I did to poke a little fun at how business is conducted in New Jersey.

What Happens Next?

So far in this post, you have read a condensed version of some of my experiences leading up to the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. But, there is more. What happens next?Well, I will be happy to tell you. But, because I prefer to keep blog posts no longer than about 1500 words (one of the many lessons I learned in Kahuna Content’s early days), and because I am rapidly approaching that limit, I will break here, thank you for reading thus far, and pick up this story in my next post, “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume – Part 2.”

In that next post, you’ll learn how I built my current profession upon the sum of my experiences and knowledge in competitive intelligence as well as upon my activities in Internet related businesses.

*     *     *

Part 2 of this post, “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume,” will be published on Tuesday, March 2, 2010. If you are reading this before that date, please subscribe to the FREE RSS feed so that you will be notified when the post publishes. To subscribe to the feed, just click here. If you are reading this after that date, simply click here to go to “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume – Part 2.”

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Think Global, Act Local on Childhood Obesity

Mar 1

Posted by Richard in Ideas | No Comments

“Think Global(ly), Act Local(ly)” is the mantra of many NGOs and activist groups. Aside from yet another two adverbs taking it on the chin, this is a central theme to many of their strategies.

Recently the White House announced the signing of an executive order establishing a task force to fight childhood obesity. The executive order calls for the assistance of NGOs, as well as corporations, in fighting this problem. A worthy pursuit. But what about the mantra? The mantra states the solution.

Acting locally on childhood obesity, very locally, could be the solution to the problem if that local action was parents encouraging, and requiring, their children to exercise regularly (We used to call this “playtime.”) and discouraging (read that as “prohibiting“) their children from eating “garbage.” Discipline is not a word with which parents should be unfamiliar.

Perhaps if there was more very local, “household-local,” common-sensical, parental attention to the problem, people wouldn’t need yet another expensive government/NGO/corporate task force to tell them what they should already know.

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FOE Plays Anti-Corporate Card

Feb 25

Posted by Richard in Anti-Corporatism, Friends of the Earth, Irregular Competition, Truth | No Comments

While recently reviewing the Friends of the Earth US (FOE) website, I saw that they introduced a new genetic engineering policy campaigner named Eric Hoffman. Congratulations to Mr. Hoffman. Perhaps at a future time, he and I can have some interesting discussions on issues of mutual concern. But I hope that those future discussions would be based upon better writing than that which I found in connection with Mr. Hoffman’s employment announcement.

As part of the FOE US introduction of Mr. Hoffman, FOE used the following lead-in passage:

Friends of the Earth is a fierce advocate of scientific progress, but corporations often seek profit from scientific developments with little regard for human health. We must take precaution (sic) to ensure new technologies don’t do more harm than good.

Now, I’ll put aside the minor spelling error in their second sentence. I’ll also put aside the fact that there was no date on this post, which is really just a “bush league” error when it comes to Website writing and management. Instead of those small errors, I’ll just concentrate on the meaning of the passage itself.

playing card 1This approach of playing the “anti-corporate card” gets a bit wearisome, and is plainly just bad argumentation. The anti-corporate card to which I refer is the phrase, “corporations often seek profit from scientific development with little regard for human health.” Let’s take this phrase apart to see how it represents poor argumentation on the part of FOE and only weakens any argument that they are trying to make.

“Corporations often seek profit.” Yes. Okay, I can go along with that part. That is the function of a corporation, to seek a profit in its activities, many of which are directed at scientific developments. Thankfully they do that. Without profits, no one would ever get a merit raise in pay. And without scientific developments, people would be dropping dead from what are now, as compared to the past, “easily-cured” illnesses or from complications arising out of minor injuries. Now, let’s move on to the next part of the phrase and talk about “with little regard for human health.”

This part of the phrase conjures up a picture of research & development departments operated by zany, madcap scientists who indiscriminately toss new products out the door without adequately testing them, or at least without testing them to the satisfaction of government regulators within the jurisdictions in which their corporations do business. In my career, I’ve known many R&D personnel, and have found them to be painfully cautious and responsible personalities, almost to the point, perhaps, of being too cautious. I’ve yet to meet one who I would consider as either a businessperson or scientist with “little regard for human health.” If, indeed, these individuals, and the corporations for which they worked, “often” acted as portrayed by this phrase, their mad scientist-like lack of “regard for human health” would produce deadly products quickly killing thousands, drawing the ire of the marketplace, causing the corporation to lose revenue quickly, putting the company out of business in short order. And if the marketplace didn’t do this, government regulators surely could and, I would hope, would

Using unsupported phrases such as “corporations often seek profit from scientific developments with little regard for human health” is plainly unfair and irresponsible. Had they sourced that passage, I might not be writing this post. Phrasing of the sort used in this FOE example plays upon people’s tendency to believe whatever it is they read, just as long as it’s in black and white, and not vet what it is that they read, especially on the Web. (How can I make a statement such as that one? With support. For more on this human tendency to believe without question what’s written on the Web, please see: “Making the Call on Web ‘Facts’.” The Christian Science Monitor. October 11, 2009, and Universal Mc Cann’s study entitled “When Did We Start Trusting Strangers?”)

In using this type of phrasing, it appears that FOE and perhaps many other NGO and activist organizations base their media tactics on this knowledge that people won’t question what they see in writing. And in making such unsupported, anti-corporate statements, it seems that organizations making such statements will count on their audience to call upon the NGO or activist organization to “right the wrong” as defined by the self-appointed “expert” group. (Don’t forget the second sentence in the passage: “We must take precaution (sic) to ensure new technologies don’t do more harm than good.”)

No. For me, at least, unsupported, “anti-corporate card” plays of this sort only make this organization appear weaker, as if they can’t find enough examples to support what they contend. And I would think that an organization of FOE’s stature would be able to find examples through which to set up a better argument.

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Change.org Is a Formidable Irregular Competitor – Part 2

Feb 23

Posted by Richard in Case Studies, Change.org, Irregular Competition, Research, Threat Index | No Comments

So, here we are in Part 2 of this case study in irregular competition, a case study that focuses on Change.org. If you haven’t read Part 1 and you wish to do so before proceeding on with this second part, then please click here to go to “Change.org Is a Formidable Irregular Competitor – Part 1.”

In Part 1, we left off with the Findings, Corporate Status. In today’s post we’ll pick up with the research findings and take a look at some of the web traffic factors of Change.org.

Findings

Traffic

Change.org is no slouch when it comes to attracting traffic on the Internet. Let’s see what Alexa.com, one of the major Internet traffic trackers and a unit of Amazon.com, says about Change.org.

Alexa.com

Per Alexa.com, accessed on January 29, 2010, based on traffic Change.org was ranked as the 16,464th most popular site on the Internet. You can check their ranking today by clicking here. Now, this ranking of 16,464 might not seem very impressive at first blush. But, I can tell you that this level of traffic ranking is very impressive. Here’s why.

Alexa.com tracks approximately 20 million websites. Number 20 million would be the least trafficked website that Alexa.com tracks, while number 1 would be the most popular. (On the date that I checked this, Google.com was the number 1 site.) This ranking of 16,464th is a global ranking. Alexa.com showed that the ranking for United States traffic is 4,350. This is especially important since most of the social issues with which Change.org deals are American issues. With Change.org being the 4,350th most popular website in the United States, it’s plain to see that many Americans are receiving the Change.org message.

Okay, traffic rankings are fine. But what do these rankings translate to in terms of the numbers of visitors that actually go to the site? Alexa.com doesn’t provide much in terms of identifying actual numbers, but Compete.com does. So, let’s go over there.

Compete.com

On the same date as shown above, I went over to Compete.com to learn about Change.org’s traffic level. You can take a look at the current Change.org status by clicking here. On the date that I examined it, Compete.com showed that in 2009 Change.org averaged around 300,000 unique visitors per month. Check the Compete.com graph below, which is as of January 29, 2010.

This graph represents unique visitors, not “hits.” So, even though their traffic is relatively flat for the period shown (except for that blip up in January 2009), it’s plain to see that Change.org does very nicely in terms of the numbers of people who visit the site every month. That means that every month well over a quarter of a million people are seeing the social change, and anti-corporate, messages that are being sent via Change.org.

Where’s all this traffic coming from? Well, Alexa.com says that Change.org has 2,321 sites linking in. This is an astounding number that definitely contributes to that unique visitor trend you see in the graph above. But I think a more significant contributor to Change.org’s traffic is referrals from the social web. Indeed. Compete.com, on the date I visited, showed that approximately 28% of Change.org’s referrals were from Facebook.com. This is a considerable percentage of their referral traffic, and may account for much of those 2,321 inbound links reported by Alexa. com. So, it would appear that the social media program of Change.org contributes heavily to their activist efforts. Let’s take a look at that social media program.

Social Media Program

Here we’re going to take a focused look at Change.org’s social media program. You and I are going to concentrate today only on their Facebook and Twitter efforts. They do have other areas of the social web in which they are active and I may come back to those areas in a future post. But because Change.org’s social media effort is so extensive, for now, I would just like to concentrate on their Facebook and Twitter initiatives.

On the date examined, January 29, 2010, the Change.org Facebook main fan page contained about 4,000 fans. This is a respectable amount, but it is not overly impressive when you consider the amount of traffic that they have going to the Change.org site every month. Yet, the Change.org Facebook blog effort more than makes up for any seeming deficiency in fan levels on the main Facebook page. Let’s take a look at the fan blogs they have on Facebook and also at their individual Facebook blog fan numbers.

Name of Facebook BlogNumber of fans
Global Warming981
Criminal Justice773
Animal Rights5819
Gay Rights6700
Education326
Women's Rights3202
End Homelessness1427
Social Entrepreneurship1848
Universal Health Care1321
Humanitarian Relief228
Immigrant Rights564
End Human Trafficking1443
Global Health225
Poverty in America275
Sustainable Food1995
Job for Change258
Total Number of Blog Fans27,385

A number of over 27,000 Facebook blog participants, as of January 29, 2010, is quite impressive and most likely contributes to those heavy unique visitor numbers we saw above. Of course, it could be that some of the 4,000 Facebook primary page fans participate in more than one blog, making the blog fan numbers appear larger. Yet, it is clear that with a blog fan number of over 27,000, the Change.org message has great “legs” and propagation potential.

A random sampling of the fans that I observed in the blog pages, and on the main fan page, shows than most are individuals and not groups. So, this means that Change.org is not necessarily “preaching to the choir.” A high proportion of fans being other groups, similar in agenda to that of the social causes that Change.org promotes, would certainly indicate that their audience characteristics are limited. But with individuals comprising most of the audience, we cannot say that the audience is necessarily skewed.

And with a “Take Action” tab prominently displayed on their Facebook fan pages, any of the many blog participants can make an easy trip to that “Take Action” area where they will find at least three choices for petition participation. Change.org has many more than three petitions active on their main website at any given time. So, on their Facebook Take Action page, they have displayed a convenient link which when clicked will take the Facebook user to the Take Action area of the Change.org website. There the user will be greeted with a full menu of petitions. The visitor merely needs to enter in some identification info and press submit. There are many other features that Change.org deftly employs on their Facebook fan page, almost all of which will further their activist campaigns, but I’m rapidly approaching my self-imposed 1500 word limitation for blog posts. I’ve more to say in other areas, so we will need to move on. Let’s move to Change.org’s Twitter use.

Their Twitter main profile page shows, on January 29, 2010, a Twitter following of almost 10,500. This number is nothing to be “sneezed at.” There is a lot of controversy on the level of Twitter followers. The arguments revolve around quality or quantity of followers. Of course, just accumulating followers for the sake of inflating your Twitter following number may not increase the power of your message. But a high Twitter number certainly doesn’t decrease the power either. Although this Twitter following is not considered extremely high, it is a decent level and indicates that the following of Change.org on Twitter can help increase the efficacy of Change.org’s message. This number of 10,500 may also help contribute to their petition effort. As new petitions are launched on the main Change.org site, tweets may be launched, automatically, driving traffic to the site for petition participation, signature, and completion.

As I alluded to above, there is so much that can be said about Change.org’s social media program. I’ve barely scratched the surface. I could probably write a book about how this particular irregular competitor exerts force against various business efforts. Perhaps I will. But right now, because I’m approaching my own words per post limitation, I’m going to wrap up this case study and move on to the Discussion and Conclusion section.

Discussion and Conclusion

Overall, this is one very high-powered irregular competitor. They are a very adept activist organization and they make use of their digital tools, as we saw above, in an effective manner.

If indeed Change.org is a for-profit corporation, which they certainly seem to be as shown by the evidence in Part 1 of this case study, it certainly makes one wonder why they use the dot org upper level domain name in both their corporate name and in their URL. There is no prohibition in for-profit companies using the dot org upper domain level name. It’s just that it’s not customary for this to be done. The dot org designation is usually reserved for the non-profit organization. Of course, I have my own theory as to why they use the dot org upper level domain name. A theory about which I will leave you to ponder. You may have your own theory as well.

Their presumed status as a for-profit company, as explored in Part 1 of this case study, if true, is quite unusual for an activist group. This would make Change.org a new breed of activist. They are a new breed of activist not only for their ability to combine editorial content with activist initiatives, but they would also be classified as a new breed of activist because of their apparent for-profit status. And this presumed status combined with Change.org’s excellent use of digital technology, as we have seen here in Part 2, makes them a formidable irregular competitor.

In Part 1, I said I would discuss why their for-profit status would be important. Here it is.

The fact that they are a Delaware corporation (remember from Part 1 that they switched to become a Delaware corporation in 2006), and if they are indeed a for-profit company, affords them certain state income tax advantages not available to corporations domiciled in other states. This tax advantage gives Delaware corporations comparatively more net income with which to work. Perhaps that’s why they made the corporate registration switch from California to Delaware in 2006? And in the case of Change.org, such a status would simply give them relatively more resources with which to communicate activist, and sometimes anti-corporate, messages; perhaps some of which are aimed at your employer. Ironic, isn’t it?

You may be thinking that since non-profit 501 (c) 3 organizations don’t pay any taxes at all, wouldn’t a better organizational strategy be to simply form under that tax-exempt, non-profit status, and have even more resources with which to operate? Not necessarily. I have two theories for which they may be organizing their corporation in this for-profit manner.

The first theory is that for-profit companies can do more in terms of backing political candidates, as we have seen, at least in part, from the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC. Non-profit corporations, i.e., 501 (c) 3 – tax-exempt organizations, because they do not pay taxes and in effect operate partially on implicit tax payer dollars, have many, many, restrictions on the backing of political candidates. Thus, for-profit activist groups can have a far greater impact on the political process, and by extension a greater effect on corporations, than can their non-profit activist group cousins, with all the anti-corporate effects that implies.

The second theory is that for-profit companies can raise funds in the private money market. Venture capitalists are often looking for new tech companies to invest in. And a tech-based company such as Change.org would represent a new vanguard of company, one with a differential advantage. This might increase their overall ability to attract funding, and make them not have to rely on the capriciousness of donations as would a non-profit corporation. Thereby, the possibility exists that this type of activist organization could be better financed than the non-profit variety.

Of course, these are all theories. If Change.org is not a for-profit corporation, I would certainly like to see them correct their “Entity Type” status on their Delaware corporate filing, as shown in the Part 1 post, so as to avoid further confusion.

What all this comes down to is, based on the evidence shown in both Parts 1 and 2, Change.org is a very formidable irregular competitor.

So, on the “Irregular Competition Threat Index,” a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest threat level), I rate Change.org as a “9.” If this organization has your corporation in its activist sights, well then, you may need some help.

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