In delivering a blistering media attack on Goldman Sachs yesterday, has Greg Smith also made himself unemployable by damaging his own reputation? After all, he could have simply resigned without resorting to a public excoriation of his erstwhile employer where he accused them of treating their clients like mere Muppets to be profitably ripped off.

One would certainly expect that someone of Mr. Smith’s apparent intellectual caliber would have consulted a lawyer before making such an indictment, but who knows? Smart people sometimes do dumb things. This is actually a major reason why ORM firms like Velvet Talk Management exist: to help good people overcome the negative and otherwise long-lasting damage they do to their reputations online with one ill-advised move.

You can almost smell the libel lawsuits that are likely to be filed against Mr. Smith by Goldman Sachs and its CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein and president Gary D. Cohn. But then again, maybe their PR team will tell them that legal action would only focus more negative attention on them and their firm.

And, maybe Greg Smith’s comments are not so ill-advised after all. It’s not implausible to posit that they may have merely been a prelude to him accepting an already promised senior position in government that can safely justify his comments.

Just think how the Obama administration could strengthen its own reputation with the electorate if it were to now appoint a high-profile czar to root out corruption on wall street.

For those who haven’t yet read Greg Smith’s Op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, here’s the link.

But in the absence of proprietary revolutionary technology, how can a company come to be known as a standout? 

Here’s how:

Encourage sales and service staff to be bold and really go out of their way to find and service clients (E.g., by doing random favors for customers and prospects)
Be irreverent, funny or otherwise charming in your marketing communications (E.g. how about creating an online cartoon or comic strip featuring the major buyers in your industry.  That’s sure to get their attention)
Hire insanely smart people:  this means Mensa level
Mesmerize and delight with design.  For a product company that means designing ultra attractive goods; for service firms, it might mean a website and advertising that look truly beautiful (check out this great example from the Royal Canadian Mint at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x960bJWeXiE); for a retail store it might mean designing exceptionally attractive uniforms and storefronts

All of these strategies give your company something worth talking about.  The next step in building a reputation for greatness is to then promote your standout features with equally intense energy.  This will build buzz.

For example, seed the Internet with *thousands* of key words like “the most amazing customer service” and “the best XYZ I’ve ever seen” that lead back to descriptions and video of the outstanding things that your company does. You might be surprised how many people often do search for these terms.

So, with few exceptions, don’t be vanilla about how you run and market your company.  In an increasingly cluttered marketplace, that can soon be fatal.

Is this really what you expected to see?

See how things can be taken out of context and twisted?  It’s sad that someone’s reputation can so easily be marred by just a few keystrokes and a quote or picture that don’t exactly tell the whole story.

Well, right here is a good example of the kind of paparazzi techniques that are used regularly on stars that often thrive on the attention that lurid headlines provide.  However, a sometimes subtler yet more destructive warping of the truth can also be used on regular folks.  Just think, what if the headline above was posted about an executive at your company?  Since, in this media cluttered world, a lot of people just read the headlines and not the story, it’s quite possible that a negative image of the subject could develop and take root in some circles.

The worry is not so much for media-courting celebs like Ms. Lohan who often seem to get some benefit from stoking their “bad girl”reputations.  Indeed, it’s more for the less famous among us.

Besides, Lindsay now seems genuinely on the road to recovery.  Surely, at least, the recent death of Whitney Houston has confirmed for Lindsay that she must put her dangerous party days behind her.

For advice on how to manage your online reputation, contact Velvet Talk Management.

Well, having a legal song inventory that’s said to be the biggest in the world at some 42 million songs, Myspace certainly has, for some time, had the potential to be a real leader in digital music.  However, till recently it has lacked the technology that could excite people enough to draw them away from competitors that include, most importantly, Spotify, Pandora and Rhapsody.  Well, no more.

That’s right, Myspace can now brag about it’s highly sophisticated discovery engine and partnership with Facebook, its erstwhile competitor, and how it’s getting a lot of positive press about its recent massive growth.

And, with Justin Timberlake as a key investor and public face of the company, Myspace just may be able to become cool and popular again.  It’s certainly starting to look that way.

So, whoever said Myspace would not come back till pigs fly, might just have to be on the look out for projectile bacon.

Such a reputation is nearly impossible to ever shake in death.  Rest well Whitney Houston.

To wit, it could be seen as a particularly nice math metaphor for how companies can build perfect teams from less than perfect people (or perhaps for tailoring or spinning perfect solutions from less than perfect events, as an application for those in the PR and reputation management business).

In retrospect, then, reexamining Steve Jobs’ actions according to the broader rubric of Atkinson’s mathematical insight may change his reputation to that of a person who was more of a  diamond in the rough and someone who, after accounting for all his imperfections, a lot of companies would be lucky to have on their teams.

Kudos to Mr. Atkinson for being so brilliant about applying such information and laughter about Jobs apparently not getting it, but having been one of its great exemplars nonetheless.

Their inclusion in this list is also based on online reputational rankings as derived from Google search engine results. 

Readers may note that many high-IQ stars have been omitted from this list of smart celebrities.  But these candidates, to put it quite bluntly, have been disqualified for making more than one asinine movie.

Clint Eastwood

Jodie Foster

Edward Norton

Matt Damon

Sarah Polley

Daniel Day Lewis

Jeremy Irons

John Malkovich

Natalie Portman

James Woods

Meryl Streep

Good health and good online reputation to you in the new year.

The VTM team.

Remember the old marketing adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity?  Well, there’s some truth to this.

You see, there will always be people who will sympathize with or just plain admire someone who does something beyond the pale.  Think:  the proverbial good girl who has a thing for bad boys or Charlie Sheen who probably has just as many people who care about him as those who wish his career would end permanently.

Yes, even after a very public humiliation or excoriation, no matter how apparently justifiable, a subset of people out there will always like them (often more than before the incident in question takes place).  The key in such situations is to find out who these subsequent supporters are, build one’s reputation among them, and not worry too much, if at all, about the detractors.  So don’t be afraid to damage your reputation in some circles if it only means that you endear yourself to a whole other group who will become your supporters.

Fortune favors the bold after all; so, don’t be afraid of a little controversy.  You may damage your reputation in some circles yet simultaneously bolster it in others.  Know that if you try to sit on two chairs, you’re liable just to fall between them and that vanilla and beige, while surely inoffensive, are generally boring and forgettable. 

So, though many may not approve, it’s often better to be noticed.

Much higher inflation rates, perhaps over 10%, would make holding onto one’s money much less attractive, thereby boosting consumption (and economic growth and jobs).  Once companies see consumers spending big sums of money again, then they in turn will be encouraged to invest in new capital equipment and expand their workforces.  That will get us started along the virtuous cycle of growing productivity that will quickly re-balance the economy.  But waiting for companies to just start spending again, without seeing sales rise first, is simply not going to happen.  Indeed, consumers/consumption is simply more important, especially in getting a recovery underway; remember, it’s consumer spending that underpins the majority of GDP (about two thirds in the US, the world’s largest economy).

Unfortunately, led astray by mistaken economic theorists and quite likely by a Chinese government with long-term ulterior motives (i.e., to dilute western power over it), America and its analogs have developed a reputation for being irresponsibly extravagant.  Notwithstanding the obvious folly of no-down-payment mortgages pre-2008, however, that’s largely phooey. 

To wit, making inflation out to be the big bad enemy of economics has been absolute nonsense.  The real enemy is all the scaredy cats who have their money parked in cash and gold.

So America et al, go out and print more money – LOTS of it – and put this ‘debt crisis’ nonsense behind you so that we can all calm down and get the wheels turning again.  And, hey you, rich guy, why don’t you sell some of that gold you’re hoarding and buy your wife a present once in while.

Otherwise, we’re going to get a new reputation in the West:  that of mass poverty.