In today’s Web 2.0 world, businesses face new ways to broadcast their presence and advertise their goods and services, and the Internet is an effective, far-reaching tool for brand marketing. As businesses explore new ways to advertise online, it has become apparent that brand marketing has transcended buying ad space on popular search engines and other informational sites to actively engaging with their consumers in conversations and sharing information. Now businesses must embrace social networking as a marketing strategy.

Social networking sites have continual membership growth. Facebook, for example, is estimated to have more than 350 million active users. Twitter now boasts around 32.1 million users. MySpace attracts about 115 million people to its site each month. With such a wide consumer base at the ready, how have businesses used these social networking sites to their advantage? As businesses move into the cyber frontier, how they protect their brands is critical. To help businesses police their brands and leverage the power of social media, these social networking giants have put mechanisms in place to help guard against fraud, impersonation, and rights infringement. After all, social networking strategies only work if everyone plays by the same rules.

Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Facebook, the largest social networking site, is a good example of how social networking sites have become an effective marketing tool for businesses. Facebook has developed its website to allow for Pages, customizable mini-sites geared toward organizations, products, or public personalities, to join the conversation with Facebook users. A Page essentially allows fans to become brand advocates. It allows users to post comments, view news and information about a certain product, and learn more about a company. Businesses have jumped on this viral form of advertising.

Facebook now has more than 1.6 million active Pages. More than 700,000 local businesses have created Pages to reach their target demographics. In fact, it is estimated that Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans. The Page form on Facebook requires the creator of the Page to be the official representative of an organization, business, celebrity, or brand. As such, the representative becomes the Page Organizer, able to add and remove content, manage the information appearing on the site, and increase the viral effects of the advertising. Each Page (depending on the type of organization selected) comes equipped with pre-selected formatting options, such as tabs for Discussion Boards, Events, Information about the organization, and Photos. The Info tab, for example, lets you share key information about your company, such as Website, mission, overview of the business, and products. Fans can post comments on a company’s wall, view videos, and read about upcoming events or promotions. Every time a Page has activity, such as postings or announcements, this activity becomes visible on the NewsFeed. Information about your fans regarding their activities on your Page also becomes available for viewing by their friends, thus opening the door for others to become a fan of your Page.

This is what causes the viral nature of advertising on Facebook. Businesses can capitalize on this market and gain valuable information from tools such as Facebook Insights, which, includes data on fans’ engagement with posts from a business’s Page. Businesses have also “opened up shop” on Twitter and MySpace. Some businesses have launched official Twitter accounts and allow (or require) employees to post daily or weekly Tweets, often about promotions or events.

What’s interesting about these sites is that there isn’t a filter that blocks out negative or unflattering information. As such, questions arise as to what a business can do once the angry “fan” or follower posts negative comments on a wall, if a disgruntled former employee opens a page in your name, or if someone poses as a representative of your business claiming your company name or brand as their username.

Social Networking Sites and Their Terms of Use

The simplest and most cost-effective way to protect a brand on social networking sites is to utilize the site’s dispute resolutions mechanism. Most of the social networking giants have procedures in place for submitting complaints about copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and privacy concerns.

Facebook: The Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities asks users to agree that they are the rightful owners of all the content and information they post on Facebook. They are also asked to agree that they will not create accounts for anyone without their permission. Users are not allowed to post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates other’s rights or otherwise violates the law and Facebook reserves the right to take down content or remove a webpage that is found to be infringing on those rights. Facebook provides its users with tools to help address intellectual property issues. Most of these tools are forms that are submitted electronically.

Twitter: The Twitter rules specifically state that they don’t monitor user’s content and will not censor such content except in limited circumstances. Twitter does not allow impersonation of others that does or is intended to confuse, mislead, or deceive others. However, ways for monitoring such impersonation has proved to be a problem for Twitter since their biggest concern is fake accounts. Twitter also reserves the right to reclaim usernames on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal right or trademarks in those user names. To prevent name squatting, Twitter suspends accounts that are inactive for more than six months.

Business owners using social networking sites would be wise to read the terms of use to be well-versed in protective actions these companies have put in place to help police brands. It’s a new marketing world, and greater tools can lead to greater risks if a business isn’t careful. Just as businesses benefit from social networking sites, the social networks rely on businesses to leverage their power. It’s a symbiotic relationship-and must be protected.

For additional information regarding social media law and protecting brands and trademarks in social media, please see our website.

During our first days in each Social Studies class in school, the usual question of the teacher would be “What is the importance of social studies?” This question goes on almost each year. This is for the benefit of the students to remember what they have learned from their previous year. For a broader yet clearer sense, we will discuss what social studies are, and why it is important for us to learn the concepts of it.

The main purpose of this subject is for us to become better citizens. We do this by studying our past. It is a study of history, but in a wider perspective. Here, we can learn how civilizations came about and how humanity began from then on. It also tells us about the improvement that the world has achieved from the generations that have passed. When we understand the past more clearly, we will understand the different human interactions the early people made and how it brought the civilization of today.

We are not only studying about the past and our history, we also learn about the methods that people used to improve their societies. Social studies have a very wide scope and it has so many branches and other fields of study. It is also a very interesting subject to learn because it helps us learn about almost anything under the sun.

By studying it, we can also develop nature values that will help us become better people, and how we can improve and contribute to our society. Each of the branches of study relates with science. Science and history are much related based upon the artifacts, historical beginnings, and origins of humanity.

If we try to understand this subject, we are going to learn a lot not only about how the world came about, but also how the world of today was made. Along the years, we can see that the world continues to evolve and change. These are all written and recorded in our history which the students of tomorrow will later study. We are building the world more and more.

All of the things we are using today and the methods we are relying with our everyday lives are all the results of what humans were. It is what they have formulated, discovered and invented in making our lives easier. We owe much from the people of the past. We can expect so much more in the near future regarding on how much we already know at this moment. We can still invent more, discover more, and improve our lives better.

Those are the reasons why social studies is a very important subject to learn.

Social media is about listening and engaging, and negative feedback should not be censored because you will not want to hear negative things about yourself or your firm. Customers do not respond well to censorship, and you could be creating an even bigger problem for yourself and your firm. Thus social media publication should be moderated.

Socialmod provide you a platform such that you can socially moderate your website. This application can be installed into your website or the website of your firm for which you are working for whichever may be applicable. Socialmod offers superior privacy and safety control such that your website does not contain any personally identifiable contents.

Socialmod ensures that the media elements like a video or a picture, which is uploaded in your site, is fully copyrighted as its unique algorithm is keeping track of publications in your website. Socialmod provides a robust report and takes down procedures so that offensive material can be flagged by you or the members of the community whom you have granted the moderation laxity. “Protection of users” – the most important reason for social media moderation is an activity that Socialmod does excellently.

You can create your own community and allow the members of your community moderation capabilities. The unique algorithm of Socialmod allows you to scrap any objectionable contents in your website before it circulated to the moderators.

This ensures your better administrative control over your site. The privacy and security issues about the published contents in your site are also well addressed by Socialmod. It is easy to use and equipped with valuable analytic applications which ensure better monitoring of the published content in your website.

Features of Socialmod

1. It is easy to use and valuable analytics widgets like “Analytics Dashboard” that helps you to monitor items needed to be moderated and the successful and failed moderations.
2. Socialmod uses “Mechanical Turks” to carry out the moderation activities. Each of the published content undergoes at least three fold scrutinizes. Through this scrutiny a unanimous decision is attained and moderation plans are adopted accordingly automatically.
3. You yourself can moderate or create a community of trusted members and grant them moderation capabilities.
4. The contents needing moderation are displayed in the form of a list with their thumbnails that allows you a quick view and you can synchronize your actions accordingly.
5. “Batch Moderate” allows you quick moderation of a multiple number of published contents and helps you to speed the process.
6. You can seek the suggestion and also refer the items to be moderated to other moderators whether those contents are in accordance with the statute.
7. It is embedded with unique algorithms that automatically scrap the contents that has received a specified number of negative votes from the members of your community.

Over the years, Internet is continuously evolving and inciting endless creative ideas that leverage novel online marketing strategies such as social networking sites to achieve a greater share of on line business networking.

The rise of social networking sites has created a borderless world by reaching out to people around the globe regardless of race or nationality, profession, affiliation, education, and aspirations.

The concept of “bringing the gap of technology, business and friendship…” is ConBuzz’s

(http://www.conbuzz.com) primary objective of connecting to the world, leading professionals who desire for career advancements to a higher level of endless opportunities as well as achieving job satisfaction and stability their hearts so desire.

ConBuzz, established in November 2006, holds its corporate office in Florida, U.S.A. The company prides itself with its innovative and comprehensive business and acquaintance needs. It keeps its millions of members from around the seven continents updated on daily news, current events, and business events all over the globe. Its global network assists all its members to work its way to grab unlimited possibilities of being connected to the whole world through its state of the art technology.

ConBuzz offers a variety of services covering the field of law, finance, management, marketing, IT and Internet, architecture and construction, arts, creative, media, and employment.

Its legal services team is composed of top-notch lawyers who are adept in business and corporate law, intellectual property/patents, labor and employment law, mediation and arbitration and real estate law.

Its financial group is a team whose expertise evolves around accounting, financial planning, insurance and real estate, while its management team excels toward business processes/operations, change management, organizational development, outsourcing, and strategy consulting.

If you are looking for comprehensive marketing advice, ConBuzz has a group of professionals who are experts in the field of advertising, branding, direct marketing, events and tradeshows, market research, public relations and communications, search and online marketing.

In keeping abreast with global demands and competitions has a team of IT and Internet experts who are well trained in interface design and usability, networking and security, technical support, translation and localization, web design and development, and technical writing.

ConBuzz likewise gives assistance to employment related matters like recruitment and placement,

executive search, technical recruitment, career coaching and resumes, and executive coaching.

In the field of art and media, ConBuzz employs its cutting edge technology in audio, video, multi media production, graphic design, photography, printing, writing, and editing.

ConBuzz is designed to heighten social networking for business networking to its maximum level and create virtual communities of people into global proportions with the ultimate objective of utilizing technology in reaching out to the whole world.

I remember when the internet was just starting to get really popular. Many folks feared it would be the end of social interaction. They pictured everyone huddled away in their rooms, typing anonymously to strangers, and giving up any form of human contact whatsoever. Well, as we have seen, this is not the case. In fact, thanks to the advent of social networking, people have been more active than ever before meeting new people, re-connecting with old friends, and learning about different cultures from all over the world. One thing that social networking sites have done is give folks a new and perhaps safer method of online dating.

Social Networks, unlike traditional methods of meeting someone, allow you a pretty in depth method of “checking someone out” before you actually meet them. Most social network profiles contain information about the person’s interests, work life, family life, and much more. You can even see who a person is connected to as well, and oftentimes this is how folks meet.

Let’s imagine that you just re-connected to an old high school friend. You may not have talked to them in years, but thanks to social networking sites, here you are, messaging away to your old buddy! Then let’s imagine you start scrolling through the pictures of the people they are connected to online. You see someone who is cute, and you would like to know a little more about them. Your friend can give you the scoop, and perhaps even do an online introduction. This process can be much simpler than trying to arrange an in person date, and MUCH less nerve wracking. Spending a few minutes chatting online with someone is far less intimidating than showing up face to face for a blind date, wouldn’t you agree?

In addition, meeting someone through a social network can be a lot like meeting someone through a personal ad, only with a few more “quality checkpoints” installed. Online dating personal ads have been around pretty much since the first power up of the internet years ago. The problem is, on your dating profile, it seems that people tend to exaggerate just a bit. I know you are shocked, but it’s true. They assume that the only people who will see their ad are others who are “looking for love” as well, and they want to seem as desirable as possible. The same can be true of social networks of course, but while folks may try to put their best foot forward, the fact that all of their friends will see their profile tends to discourage outright lying.

As far as communicating with those you meet on social networks, the methods are plenty. You can message them right through the platform, chat with them in real time, upload video or audio clips, or perhaps even talk to them live using an interface like Skype for instance.

It is important to keep in mind that many folks who are members of social networks are not on there exclusively for the purpose of dating. But, if you are looking for true love, spending some time on your favorite social network may just help get you there…

There are many benefits of social studies, which teachers should make clear when writing lesson plans. However, with educators specializing in very particular fields of education, it has caused many issues in the education system. Social studies is one field where some teachers lack the adequate knowledge to teach students. Social has many different areas of focuses including the following:

· Anthropology

· Archeology

· Geography

· History

· Economics

· Civics

· Political science

· Culture

· Sociology

These various areas all focus on how human behaviors work and how individuals interact with the world we live in along with the cultures that make up society. Understanding history allows our society to continue growing and build upon the information and education that is already out there.

Students that are not learning social will have difficulties when trying to find jobs and interacting with the culture they live in. Anthropology is one area that needs to be discussed as it shows information pertaining to the evolution of human life. This important field shows how the globe has been populated along with studying of the human body. It can be credited to aiding in modern forensics thanks to the study of human bones and the human body to understand cultural and racial differences.

Social studies is also based on the education of economics, law, and political science. This teaches children how wealth is distributed in the world along with global issues, which is among the benefits of social studies. The recent recession is living proof that our society needs to understand how our spending habits impact the country and the entire world. Students need to learn about inflation, recession, unemployment, investments, and taxation in order to become contributing members of society. Law is another very important subject matter that our children must understand. It is needed to know the laws of your country in order to live by them. How does law enforcement work? How do I impact the city I live in? These are just some of the questions that will be answered when a student is able to spend time learning social studies.

How about understanding how life forms on our planet? This is another type of social studies called geography. Understanding geography helps to understand weather patterns, earthquakes, and many other things that can impact our lives in an instant. This is just one of the benefits of social studies.

There are many other areas of social studies and each of them has their own benefits. For instance, psychology, which is important to learn about to see how the human mind works. Students need to see how their brain works, especially as they are growing and dealing with things that can impact the chemicals and things in their bodies, which has a direct impact on their brain. Communication is another area that needs to be taught as it helps students learn how to communicate and to understand the language they speak.

With today’s global society, there are many benefits of social studies. It will allow them to understand differences in all of the cultures that they are exposed to. It also allows them to understand behaviors along with what their role is in society and how their impact could change the world in some way. The main goal of social studies is to help students become responsible members of society, which will aid in reducing crime along with controlling debt. It will aid in increasing students knowledge of moral and ethical values in their lives, providing our country with a positive future, but only if teachers prepare well and create lesson plans that communicate these ideas.

There are three distinct social status levels in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. As the author’s twenty-nine pilgrims set out on their religious sojourn to Canterbury on that fine April morn, their ranks stretching out on horseback likely a quarter mile or more, the little battalion represents all three of these levels, in a reasonably hierarchical order. In Chaucer’s day, the classes were separated into three distinct and nearly uncrossable boundaries: The Aristocracy; The Plutocracy, or, as some would refer to it, the newly emerging Bourgeoisie; and, finally, the Theocracy, or members of the Catholic Church.

In Chaucer’s evocation of life in 14th century England, the roles each of his pilgrims plays corresponds roughly with his or her position in the parade, as they leave the Tabard Inn that bright and hopeful Spring morning.

First, the Theocracy. It’s no secret that the Catholic Church had a deep and abiding problem with some of its more avaricious members in the middle ages. Clerics of all stripes took liberties selling indulgences, tricking the uneducated into donating what they could ill afford, and sponsoring members who served in a rather cavalier fashion.

One of the most obvious examples is Chaucer’s Prioress. Named Lady Eglantyne, allegedly after a real character the author seems to have known, the Prioress represents Chaucer’s best observations of the role class plays in The Canterbury Tales, and best example, too, of the contrast mentioned above. Arguably Chaucer’s best ironic target, the Prioress appears to be the antithesis of her assigned role as head of a nun’s conclave. Though she weeps at the sight of mice in traps, feeds her dogs better than most commoners eat, in spite of a vow of poverty, and bares her forehead–a symbol of sexual availability in Chaucer’s day, and the very purpose of the forehead-shielding wimple–the Prioress represents a rather elevated member of the Church.

Another contrasting figure is the Monk, a rather dandy fellow who also disregards Church wishes, and goes hunting every chance he gets. Owner of land, several horses, fine jewelry and a brace of greyhounds, the Monk, with his squirrel-lined gloves must have been an imposing figure. But, again, an ironic one, and likely the author’s comment on the nefarious ways of certain Church functionaries. The Monk himself even says that, as far the old, traditional teachings of the Church, he ‘didn’t give a plucked hen.’

In contrast, then, to the Monk, and the Prioress, Chaucer gives us the gentle Parson, who refused, in contravention of Church dictates, to excommunicate those who didn’t tithe. This fellow even refused travel to the big city, London, to enhance his own position.

Moving along, the author gives us examples of the Plutocracy, or middle class. And little of what these individuals do earns our respect. The miller is the best example. Rough, argumentative, crude and apparently obnoxious, the miller takes an immediate dislike of the reeve, and the two end up at opposite ends of the line. Though the miller, with his red beard, wart-infested nose and black nostrils is what we’d refer to as middle class, it’s his imposing, and somewhat over-zealous disposition that puts him at the head of the line. Despite his bagpipes that led them all out of London, the fellow does possess a head with which he ‘can break down doors’. ‘Emerging’ Bourgeousie, indeed. And a good example of the contrasting roles throughout the piece.

Jumping to the rear of the procession, we have the reeve, or keeper of the manor. This fellow, too, is middle class, and his antipathy for the miller, established quite early in the work, dictates his position at the end of the line. In this mix, also, is the shipman. This fellow lived, the author believed, near Dartmouth, a town believed to harbor pirates in Chaucer’s day. The shipman thought nothing of making opponents walk the plank, and he seemed to take special delight in stealing cargo from unwitting merchant seafarers. The maunciple, or paralegal, isn’t much better. This fellow takes particular joy in scheming against his own thirty masters, some of whom actually thank him for lending them back their own funds!

In contrast to those rascals, Chaucer gives us the lowly plowman. This fellow loves God with ‘al his herte’. He works hard all day, carrying dung, and digging ditches, and wouldn’t do a dishonest deed if his life depended on it.

Then we have the Aristocracy. The franklin, or landowner, and the sergeant of the law did their peerage proud with all manner of underhanded ventures. The author says of the sergeant at law that he was ‘busier than he seemed to be’, a citation filled with pathos, and thinly-veiled innuendo. The fellow is obviously a crook.

In contrast to these questionable pilgrims, Chaucer gives us the knight. A noble, battle-tested gentleman, the knight has an ironic role in the Canterbury tales for several reasons. Despite having been in fifteen battles, and bested three foes in open duels, the knight has an aversion to violence. Also, despite his adventuresome life, he appears to have been a good father. His son, the young squire, is well mannered, well schooled, and quite considerate. The boy even cuts his father’s meat for him.

Chaucer’s twenty-nine pilgrims are nothing if not colorful figures. They are, as well, likely to have been written from real life, and not just sprung fully formed from the author’s brain. Geoffrey Chaucer himself was a member of the middle class, but he had nearly direct access to the nobles of his day. He was able, thus, to be open, and even somewhat bold in his descriptives of those above his class. Plus, in his ambition to elevate the English language into everyday use, his disregard for convention matched that of some of his fellow travelers on the road to Canterbury. So Chaucer’s own life was a study in contrast as well.

Social media marketing services can be a huge benefit for companies that want to grow their company, but don’t have the personal or finances in place to hire an employee to play that role.

Social media is just part of an overall well planned SEO strategy to grow your company market presence and stay in touch with your customer base.

Having a consistent web presence is enhanced by having a campaign that’s always active and relative with your target audience. It’s best to have a person behind the face of the company or better put, in “front” of your target audience as the face of the company.

When a company needs social media marketing services, it’s best to be selective and find out what the experience of the prospective company is, in order to evaluate the success of the campaigns.

Ask these questions:

· What media landscape is essential for your target audience?

· Will they be consistent on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

· Do they really understand that it’s about “building relationships first and then about marketing?

· Can they point to any successes they’ve had in the past?

· What will the cost be?

· Who will your company representative be contacting at the marketing services firm, to keep fresh information flowing to?

Services includes shaping the brand, reliability, consumer base and relationships. A good firm will provide a highly modified marketing management service that assist businesses with their continuing marketing needs.

A well designed plan begins with the understanding the business and finishes with the expansion of the business.

Social media marketing services includes a number of services which help a business grow and attract more and more customers day by day. With search engine optimization, the results can take months to see results, and a great deal of patience.

Marketing services can see results in as little as a week or a month.

Recent studies reveal that a majority of customers purchase goods or services and they want information before they do so, so they look in blogs, forums, video search engines, and other media.

These marketing services that play an important role in a company’s brand and reputation:

• Social bookmarking
• Video marketing and promotion
• Community building and monitoring
• Optimization
• Brand management using monitoring
• Profile creation & management (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.)
• Distribution
• Blog promotion
• Blog Management
• Forum posting and reviews

Using relevant content, social bookmaking, forum posting, blog creation and social media profiles, you will begin generating traffic and finally increasing the number of loyal consumers.

What is the need of professional Social Media Marketing Services?

Social media is an element of daily life for many online users. Social media is mainly a platform for individual communication between users. Social media sites are used to find opportunities to connect with businesses.

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are an enormous way to produce new business by using the existing network of contacts.

Traffic can also be generated by posting articles at social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and others. Your website can get thousands of visitors from these social media sites.

Blogs and forums allow you and your users to post additional content there, resulting in more traffic to your business website.

How can you “track” your social media marketing services?

Ways to be sure the campaign is working…..

• Your website stats and logs will show you any referrals from social media sites
• Ask your website visitors/callers how they found you

Most companies will provide monthly reports and details on all tasks covered. They should report to you the number of posts made in a month with site names and links to the posts.

Many a time cell phone use in schools or the workplace become the source of annoyance and inconvenience for others. So there props up the question whether we need to have social rules in these places. Let’s discuss the issue. Read on to find out.

Imposing social rules at times becomes rather hard while majority of the time some general rules can be applicable. For instance, there can be some general social rules that the usage of the phones is prohibited in school and workplace premises. But then we need to hire manpower to keep track of such misuse of phones. Of course, they can be captured in electronic scanners but then hunting out the right person in such large schools or workplaces may become a challenge.

On the other hand, if there is a general restriction of mobile phone use in the institution premises, there can be more peace and quiet as well as harmony and balance. Especially inside classrooms, if peace and quiet can be maintained among students with the phones switched off completely, the teacher is better able to communicate with the class with the least interruption of ringtones and calls from phones.

Besides, it is more difficult to impose restriction of phone use in the workplace. But there can be general social rules on the limited usage of such gadgets. For instance, it is difficult to trace every employee’s office and find out if they are actually using cell phones and calling others in their work hours. But then the workplace wouldn’t have to bother so much because there are usually work deadlines and if they are not met and the employees spend time talking on phones, naturally they will be in trouble.

On the contrary, if the workplace is divided into cubicles, it’s all open and everyone can be seen what they are doing so that unless it is really urgent, mobile phone calls will rarely be incoming or outgoing on personal use.

Sometimes in the workplace, salesmen and receptionists need to use cell phones constantly. So these people can be relaxed from the limited usage of these phones. Then it becomes difficult to impose total restriction of phone calls on cell phones for all others. So some general social rule should be passed on regarding the matter.

Therefore, I conclude that in schools, the cell phones should be switched off completely inside classrooms while in workplaces, there should be a general rule on the restriction of cell phone use.

Talk to anyone about a company’s social responsibility and some of the first images that come to mind are the rain forest in Brazil, with the associated need for conservation, and the sweatshops in the Far East, where small children make T-shirts for the West. In other words, things far away from home; big multinational stuff, the sins of globalisation that the Seattle warriors fight by burning McDonalds’ franchises. Society is a nice concept that, if a bit vague, a bit idealistic and a bit moral, fits well in company mission statements. After all, imagine the alternative. Do you know of any company that would admit to wanting to pollute the environment, destroy social relationships or run workplaces like concentration camps?

The trouble with global social responsibility is that it distracts from what is happening next door or downstairs. Companies that are ‘socially responsible’ – by the stereotype standards of no-pollution-no-child-labour – may, in fact, operate socially irresponsible policies affecting their own staff. Sumantra Ghoshal, a professor at the London Business School in the UK, refers to the atmosphere in some companies as being like ‘Calcutta in summer’, a suffocating environment. Such companies may have mission statements espousing their commitment to social responsibility: promising no polluting of rivers, while ignoring the daily pollution of the minds of their work force.

Let’s face it, Ghoshal is right. Some working environments are not nice! High levels of internal politics and personal wars, disregard for the life of employees who are just numbers on a spreadsheet, and irrational ‘contingency policies’ (hire fast/fire fast) may lead to a ‘Calcutta in summer’ workplace, even if the company swears it will never dump a chemical in the nearby river.

Social responsibility, like charity, begins at home: in the manager’s office next door and downstairs in the HR department and the labs. It has to do with understanding that people spend a great deal of their daily life working for organisations and that the company – whether it wants to recognise it or not – has a ‘social responsibility’ to them. A responsibility that involves a duty to provide an environment that respects the individual, enhances the human condition and values the employee. Surely, if it’s good for trees, it must be good for humans.

Those who think this is airy-fairy stuff are no different from those who think that the pollution of the river by the chemical plant is a necessary evil if business is to meet its objectives. Years ago, such people got away with murder because the population was largely ignorant of the issue, or silent or insensitive. Today, such practices make headlines that backfire on the company in a way that it can’t afford. Probably, some years from now, the Calcutta-in-summer workplaces will make headlines in a similar way, with similar consequences.

As a self-confessed novice in matters green, who still needs to be reminded what a recycling box is for, it may seem strange that I should use ‘green examples’. I am not bringing them here as an expert practitioner but to compare and expose the double standards of so-called social responsibility.

The circadian mind of a manager

One of the behaviours one finds in a less than socially responsible environment is a kind of management schizophrenia. Outside the office, a manager may be a kind, civilised and perhaps church-going human being. In the office, he may transform himself into a careless nine-to-five manager who, quite frankly, may not give a damn about the ‘working environment’ as long as ‘the numbers are achieved’ (and his bonus is safe). Perfectly reasonable human beings become very unreasonable managers on entering the office as if affected by some sort of toxic gas. Once in the office, toxic management takes over. It’s as circadian as night and day.

A company’s obvious need to have policies and procedures is a perfect excuse for toxic managers. They say, “Sorry, it’s not me, I have to do this, it’s company policy” or “If it were up to me, I would allow this, but I don’t make the rules“; or “I can’t allow you to do that, because then everybody will expect the same“. And the employee is denied a small privilege that would have made no difference to the running of the business, but that might perhaps have made all the difference to a working mother, such as a little flexibility in her working hours.

Managers who hide behind company policies – ‘I don’t make the rules’ or ‘I have to treat everyone the same way’ – are often simply lying. In many cases, they do have the power and ability to interpret company policy. They could grant an exception to the rule and accord the individual a special concession because common sense says that the rule was not invented to make life difficult.

One of the best defence systems of the toxic manager in the Calcutta environment is the use of ‘internal equity’ as an all-seasons argument. “We must see the equity aspects of this issue in the organisation,” a manager or an HR leader will say, “We can’t give this to Smith or it will set a precedent for others“.

That kind of argument assumes many things, but the one that has always puzzled me is that it presumes that the entire organisation may want the same as Smith. This is not true in most cases. For example, I did an MBA sponsored by my employer. As I remember, there were no rigid criteria about who could do it. I knew a couple of colleagues like myself who were sponsored. My boss did not have a long queue of people in his office wanting to do an MBA! As a matter of fact, it was hard work that some of us did on top of our normal workload. In another organisation, such an opportunity would not have been available because (here it comes): “It would not be fair in terms of internal equity!”

Fairness, the greatest parapet

Fairness is a word that can be used with a great deal of semantic discretion. Many managers – and many HR departments – seem obsessed with defending fairness. And yet, under this parapet, they exhibit the greatest unfairness of all, that of homogenisation. Fairness, as unilaterally dictated and interpreted, may boost the manager’s moral ego but may not impress anybody else. Salary differences between staff, executive privileges, boards driven by personal gain, are all unfair, yet they are part of daily life.

At this point you may be convinced that I am determined to paint a dark picture of business life. Let me be clear: I know business life can be highly rewarding and enlightening. I also appreciate that much work takes place in non-Calcutta environments. But the cynical way in which corporations deal with so-called social responsibility should not be covered up. The company is socially irresponsible, despite all its ‘care for the environment’ policies, when all it achieves is a good track record of clean rivers, but it is a place that is not worth working in as internal mental pollution merely replaces external pollution. Blame it on my lack of environmental education, but I can’t stand those environmentalists who care about recycling their memos, who dispose of cans in special containers and who use the same hotel towel every day to save water, while they pollute the working environment of the people working for them. Maybe we should have offices or cubicles painted in green for those managers.

Pending revolutions

The customer revolution took place in the 1980s with a proliferation of customer services departments. Today, these are the baseline; they don’t raise eyebrows of admiration any more. Companies are supposed to have them. The Quality movement focused on quality as a final end, today, this is the starting point. In a few years’ time, you won’t see an ISO logo on letterheads or on the company van.

Now, as the shareholder revolution is beginning to take off, the actions of boards and management are increasingly scrutinised. The next big revolution will be the employee revolution. At that point, toxic management will be uncovered and companies that are internally socially irresponsible will make the headlines. Those companies that are brave enough to look at themselves in the mirror and identify socially irresponsible internal practices, and who are then also brave enough to do something about them, will win the game.

You and I know of companies full of ‘nice people’. In many cases, though, it’s as if we were saying: “Individually, we’re all basically good guys. Collectively, we can be a bunch of arrogant people who use the excuse of rules dictated by somewhere else to exercise power and control“. If a working environment can produce and nurture Calcutta-in-summer managers, who otherwise are ‘nice guys individually’, this environment is toxic; you should avoid it if you can. And that’s the problem: the ‘if you can’. After all, a few million people live in Calcutta. Many can’t afford to be anywhere else and, indeed, some may even like summer there.

Social responsibility is not merely a green issue or an ethical corporate governance approach which takes a stand on not polluting rivers and not cutting trees in Brazil. It must begin at home. That is, in the office next door, the manufacturing plant or the project team. None of this, however, is taught in business schools.