Open up your mind and say, ahh...

At a Congressional hearing this morning that veered into contentious arguments and cringe-worthy moments, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spilled the beans on their social media monitoring project.

DHS Chief Privacy Office Mary Ellen Callahan and Director of Operations Coordination and Planning Richard Chavez appeared to be deliberately stonewalling Congress on the depth, ubiquity, goals, and technical capabilities of the agency’s social media surveillance. At other times, they appeared to be themselves unsure about their own project’s ultimate goals and uses. But one thing is for sure: If you’re the first person to tweet about a news story, or if you’re a community activist who makes public Facebook posts–DHS will have your personal information.

The hearing, which was held by the Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Intelligence headed by Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), was highly unusual. Hacktivist collective Anonymous (or at least the @AnonyOps Twitter feed) sent a sympathizer to the visitor gallery to liveblog the proceedings under the #spyback hashtag.

Interactions between the DHS officials and representatives were often strained–both Chavez and Callahan were scolded and chastised by Representatives from both parties. Reps. Billy Long (R-MO), Meehan, Jackie Speier (D-CA), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) all pointed out issues relating to what they variously saw as potential First Amendment violations, surveillance of citizens engaged in protected political speech, the fact that an outside contractor handles DHS’ social media monitoring, DHS’ seeming inability to separate news monitoring from disaster preparedness, and a massively unclear social media monitoring mandate on the DHS’ part.

Video footage of the hearing has already been made available on YouTube, and the written testimony of both DHS experts has been made publicly available. Privacy watchdog group EPIC also filed a formal disclosure to Congress on the results of a FOIA lawsuit. DHS appears to have also stonewalled EPIC regarding their social media monitoring project. The results are staggering.

According to testimony, the Homeland Security Department has outsourced their own social media monitoring program to an outside contractor, defense giant General Dynamics. General Dynamics was the sole party to the original DHS contract, which was not offered to any outside parties–and Chavez was caught misleading the Committee about General Dyamics’ sole status.

General Dynamics employees responsible for the DHS social media monitoring contract are required to attend a training course in DHS privacy practices several times a year. If General Dynamics employees misuse the personal information of journalists, public figures or the general public (to include Twitter or Facebook users) in any way, their punishment is restricted to additional training classes or dismissal from the project.

General Dynamics and the Department of Homeland Security are primarily engaging in keyword monitoring of social media. Callahan admitted in sworn testimony that the bulk of the keywords used by DHS were chosen as the result of being included in commercially available, off-the-shelf bulk packages. These bulk keyword packages were later customized according to DHS specifications.

The DHS, meanwhile, is truly interested in breaking news tweets. The Twitter handles, Facebook names and blog urls of first witnesses to news events (the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and a January 2012 bomb threat at an Austin, Texas, school were specifically cited) are being recorded. Homeland Security claims this information is only used to verify reports, and that dossiers are not being assembled on private citizens and that personally identifying information is regularly scrubbed from their servers.

Another worrying tendency is the fact that DHS appears to be keeping tabs on individual American citizens engaged in community activism and hot-button political issues. EPIC’s evidence package to congress included FOIA-obtained data on community reaction to the housing of Guantanamo detainees in a Standish, MI prison. Against the DHS’ own guidelines, the agency compiled a report titled Residents Voice Opposition Over Possible Plan to Bring Guantanamo Detainees to Local Prison-Standish MI. This report contained sentiment gathered from newspaper comment talkbacks, local blogs, Twitter posts, and publicly available Facebook posts–something expressly forbidden by the DHS’ own policies. Chavez and Callahan claimed that the report was not disseminated and that privacy policies forbid similar things from occuring; nonetheless the report was made and not obtained by EPIC until they sued the DHS.

In testimony, the DHS representatives appeared unclear on what the collected data would actually be used for and which agencies would be using it. Hurricane Katrina was constantly bought up as a talking point, but Committee members were constantly blocked when they asked how Homeland Security would be using their social media findings. In addition, barriers preventing other government agencies from obtaining sentiment information from DHS on individual journalists or private citizens is extremely flimsy; when Rep. Chip Cravvack (R-MN) asked Chavez what he would do if, say, the Attorney General was asking for information, Chavez simply answered that his agency’s mandate forbid him from doing that. While that answer is fine and good, it also infers that the DHS has not put proper inter-agency data security safeguards in place.

The hearing was less Big Brother then sloppy-kid-down-the-block… only with a big fat government contract. When numerous Committee members, including Long, questioned Chavez about the existence of similar social media monitoring projects at other government agencies, Chavez said he didn’t know of any. Meanwhile, the Associated Press–in a major story–reported on Monday about the FBI putting out a contract for an almost identical project. As a mid-ranking official responsible for analysis operations, it is assumed that Chavez would have a vested interest in knowing what other government agencies were up to in the same field.

At other times, neither Chavez nor Callahan could answer to the Committee’s satisfaction why a contractor was hired for the job nor why the federal government was misled on the duration of General Dynamics’ social media monitoring contract.

According to testimony, a second, classified, Committee meeting on the subject of DHS social media monitoring was held on February 15 as well.

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

Over much of the last decade or two, the subject of work-life balance has been a hot topic in the business world. Such well-respected businesses as Google, Apple, and Microsoft have invested heavily in a variety of initiatives to help create a healthy, balanced lifestyle for their employees.

With such high-profile corporations leading the way, it is not surprising that many small and mid-sized businesses are following this example and investing in their own work-life balance initiatives.

And while it is great to see that employers are concerned about the well-being of their employees, the unfortunate reality is that many businesses are wasting huge sums of money on work-life initiatives that don’t work for the majority of their employees, or do much of anything to enrich the broader corporate culture.

For instance:

1) On-site child care.  Upon first glance, the idea of on-site child care makes a great deal of sense. It allows parents to save money on daycare or babysitter costs, and allows them to be close by their children in the event of an emergency. However, only a small percentage of employees would probably use such a service–because they either don’t have kids, or their kids are old enough to be in school or college. The net result is that employees not using the service feel as though they are subsidizing employees who have young children, often leading to resentment and an “us-vs.-them” mentality.

2) Gyms and fitness centers.  A 2010 study shows that only 28% of employees who have access to an on-site gym or fitness center actually use it–presumably, the number of employees who use it regularly is even smaller. The cost of such a facility is significant compared to its reach.

3) Work-at-home programs.  The idea of working from home one day a week is attractive to virtually every employee–who wouldn’t want to cut back on time spent in traffic and money spent on gas? Unfortunately, I have had many off-the-record conversations with employers and project managers who have seen that the “work at home” day often morphs into a day to go grocery shopping, visit the salon, or get the car repaired. Before long, the work-at-home program turns a two-day weekend into a three-day weekend…hardly what most employers were envisioning!

Some work/life solutions in the workplace do not produce the magnitude of improvements they are hyped or expected to. Why? So long as employees view these tools as the employer’s way of getting more from them while paying them the same wage, they remain less useful as tools of increased productivity and loyalty. The problem is one of perspective.

When a corporate executive asks me what I recommend they do to change the paradigm of an ineffective corporate culture, I respond, “Concentrate on the soil.” Concentrating on corporate soil isn’t providing “more stuff.” And while it is laudable to give new mothers nursing stations to breastfeed their infants, on-site gyms or gym memberships for athletic employees, and childcare facilities for young parents, this isn’t the soil. These perks should be a result of good soil, not the soil itself.

Perks such as these should be part of a larger cultural context, one that the employees believe in. Better yet, one that’s actually chosen by the employees, not by upper management.  Just as a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle means very little, such workplace initiatives have little value unless they are part of a larger cultural shift to a more conscious corporation.

What employee perks have you found that worked to strengthen your company–or didn’t? Tell us about it in the comments. For more leadership coverage, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Barclays bank, which already intertwines NFC chips and antennas into its banking cards in the UK, has just taken a page out of Apple’s book and released a new mobile app that should shake up the UK financial game.

Pingit is a smartphone app that lets anyone with a Barclays account and a cell phone send out and receive cash without having to swap long, complex bank numbers (which you’d probably want to protect under most circumstances anyway)–all you need is a phone number or a name. Think of it as the smart, secure, 21st Century way to lend your pal ten quid for a pint after work–and probably pay for a lot more things too.

When Apple first released its Messages overhaul for the way iPhones handle test messages, and enabled it on iPads too, it was a sign that the company could see ways to innovate the pretty-much stagnant instant messaging market. It also let users of its iCloud service send short messages to each other without necessarily having to pay phone networks for the privilege. Now Apple’s said it’s expanding Messages to the OS X desktop, and that’s big news.

At the same time as revealing the Mountain Lion next-gen OS X developer code, Apple’s beta for Messages on Macs has hit, with Apple promoting it in this way:

Download Messages Beta and get a taste of what’s coming in OS X Mountain Lion. When you install Messages, it replaces iChat. But iChat services will continue to work. And Messages brings iMessage to the Mac — just like on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch running iOS 5.

It notes you’ll be able to send “unlimited” (a key word) iMessages to any Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, and that you’ll be able to seamlessly start an iMessage conversation on one platform and carry it on on another. File transfers will also work, which is a partial slap at Dropbox’s business, and of course FaceTime is integrated into it. Because it’s also compatible with AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts it means Apple is aggregating much of the ways many users chat via IM into one location. That’s hugely convenient, and the seamless integration across devices could transform how you see instant messaging as useful.

But more than that, it could be a significant blow to phone networks around the world which are pretty much universally complicit in charging over-inflated fees for SMS messages. iMessages to iCloud users can travel as pure data over the ether, you see, and thus avoid incurring users fees for sending texts. With 100 million iCloud users, a stat just revealed by Tim Cook this week, countless more due to sign up when the iPad 3 hits, and Macs bucking the trend by excelling in PC sales figures, this could be a significant move.

MSN Launches msnNow News Service. Microsoft’s news and entertainment network MSN is launching an editorially curated service that will map “breaking news trends from Twitter, Facebook, Bing and BreakingNews.com.” msnNOW could give MSN an edge over other big news portals like Yahoo and Google’s News, and bears some resemblance to magazine app Flipboard’s Cover Stories feature. The service will work across platforms, on PCs, smartphones and tablets. –NS

–Updated 6:25 a.m. EST

Google May Launch Jelly Bean In June. Google may launch its latest mobile OS, Android 5.0 codename Jelly Bean, as soon as this June. According to suppliers who’ve got DigiTimes’s ear, the OS will be focused on, but possibly not exclusive to, tablets. In context Motorola, Google’s new buy, says the current 4.0 edition won’t hit many phones for up to a year.  –NS

Facebook Launching Verified Accounts. Facebook is changing its real name policy to allow pseudonyms, will also allow celebrities with high follower counts to get themselves a verified account. Unlike on Twitter or Google+, you can’t ask to be verified, you have to be “chosen,” TechCrunch has learned from Facebook. –NS

Apple Responds To Contact Privacy Concerns. In response to a letter from Congress, Apple has said it is changing its App Store policy to require that apps ask users permission before accessing address book data on their devices. This comes after news broke that social network Path, (and other apps too, it turned out) had been uploading member’s contact list data without their consent. Apple previously noted the uploads were in violation of exisitng policy. –NS

–Updated 5:30 a.m. EST

Image: Flickr user Denise Cross

Yesterday’s Fast Feed: Congress Quizzes Apple On Path, Google Updates Wallet With Partial Fix, Zynga Posts Q4 Loss, Apple May Cuts iAd Prices, and more!

Photo: Icon Aircraft

Icon aircraft has made aviation history before even finishing the final design of its first airplane. The company achieved the significant milestone in the development of its A5 amphibious light sport aircraft with a new wing design aimed at significantly improving the safety of the airplane. The company recently completed a rigorous flight testing schedule focused on the stall and spin characteristics of the two seater. The result is that when the first one rolls off the assembly line, the A5 will become the first production aircraft sold ever to completely comply with the Federal Aviation Administration’s spin resistance standards. In simpler terms, Icon has designed an airplane that could practically erase one of the major causes of accidents in flying.

“Creating a full-envelope spin-resistant airplane was extraordinarily difficult and took longer than expected” said Icon’s CEO Kirk Hawkins in a press release announcing the FAA certification. “The design dramatically raises the bar for light aircraft safety by decreasing the likelihood of inadvertent stall/spin loss of control by the pilot.”

Many production airplane designs over the years have made significant progress towards minimizing the chance of a stall/spin accident. But until now, no airplane has been produced that fully complies with what is known as the FAA’s Part 23 spin-resistance standards. When the first A5 rolls off the factory floor, it will benefit from decades of research by NASA and the FAA focused on reducing, even eliminating accidents due to the inadvertent stall/spin. The spin resistant design doesn’t eliminate all of the potential hazards of flying, but like anti-lock brakes did for drivers, it does dramatically decrease one of the big hazards facing pilots.

The boom off of the back of the airplane contains a parachute and is commonly used in spin testing. The production A5 will have a parachute, but it will be integrated into the airframe. The small lines on the airplane are tufts of yarn that allow engineers to see how the air is flowing around the airframe.

An inadvertent stall/spin refers to a scenario where a pilot unintentionally flies the airplane in a way that causes the airflow over the wing to be disrupted and no longer be sufficient to produce enough lift. This usually happens at slower speeds, though it is related to the “angle of attack” of the wing, and not necessarily the airspeed.  When the airflow disruption occurs, the wing is said to be in a “stalled” condition and the airplane begins to lose altitude due to the loss of lift. Once an airplane wing is stalled, and if there is sufficient yaw motion – turning in the horizontal plane – the airplane can enter a spin.

If an airplane simply enters a stall and the pilot makes the necessary corrections all pilots learn in training, a minimal amount of altitude may be lost before the wing can generate lift again and the pilot and aircraft can begin flying again. But if the airplane enters a spin, significantly more altitude is lost. Even though a pilot can recover from a spin (usually with specific training), the disorientation often results in a recovery being less likely. Two common scenarios where this may occur is when the pilot is making the final turn before lining up with the runway to land, or turning back to the runway after taking off if an emergency landing must be made.

Inadvertent stall/spin accidents account for a significant percentage of pilot-related accidents in the non-commercial flying world of general aviation according to a report from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

By designing the A5 to be highly resistant to entering a spin, Icon gives pilots an extra margin of safety should they find themselves in a situation where they have accidentally managed to stall the wings of the airplane. Hawkins says the A5 will provide “excellent control throughout the stall.”

Many of the small, general aviation aircraft flown today are approved for practicing spins and can safely recover from a spin assuming the pilot has the proper training. But even in a perfect scenario the recovery may use up well over 500 feet, a problem if you’re below that altitude to begin with such as during landing. Rich Stowell is one of the foremost experts in stall/spin safety and has performed spins in dozens of different aircraft. In his book Stall/Spin Awareness, Stowell points out that the “specter of an inadvertent stall/spin can affect a pilot’s passion for flying.” Stowell is a proponent of pilots learning about the stall/spin and has taught countless pilots how to recognize and recover from all different types of scenarios (he’s completed more than 32,000 spins during his career).

One of the Web’s oldest portals, MSN, is about to dive headfirst into one of the Internet’s hottest trends: Social Media.

No, Microsoft, which runs MSN, is not launching its own social network. Instead, the 17-year-old content destination is unveiling a new social reader, msnNOW, on Facebook, the Web and in a new web-based mobile interface.

The initiative is actually two components. According to MSN General Manager Bob Visse, a team of 20 editors will use a new Demand Dashboard to measure velocity and volume of trending topics across Facebook, Twitter, the Bing search engine and BreakingNews.com (a joint MSN/NBC venture).

Stories that are trending will appear on msnNOW in a constantly updating “Biggest Movers” box. In addition, a team of editors will select topics and stories from among those social (and search) trends and create 100 word write-ups for posts that will appear in msnNOW’s What’s Trending homepage.

The page, which will look pretty much the same on the web and in the new Facebook app, will feature a large main story and a grid of other popular stories below. Visse described it as a “river of real-time content”. Within each area, reader will find small icons for Twitter, Facebook and BreakingNews.com. The presence of each will indicate on which social networks the stories and topics are trending.

These are not icons for sharing these posts, but Visse promised that sharing options would be obvious on the Web site and in the Facebook app, where there will be opportunities to share and comment.

Along with each MSN-created post, readers will find related Bing search terms, Tweets and other content. Not every topic or story will get an MSN write-up. For those, What’s Trending will link to a Bing result, which will also offer a link directly to the original content source. “We give the best of the web regardless of where that content or hot story originated from,” Visse told us.

Visse explained that MSN is targeting a younger “always socially connected consumer who lives an online lifestyle for information gathering and seeking.” That may mean that some of the trending content will be a little edgier than what you traditionally see on the portal. It’s all designed to start a conversation. Even the design has the younger demo in mind. It’s image-centric, with what Visse calls “short, pithy headlines.”

It’s also one of the first times that MSN has launched a new product across three separate platforms at once and, as Visse noted, it’s the first time MSN “has done anything interesting with the Facebook social reader experience.” msnNOW, however, will not launch with Google+ integration, though Visse said Microsoft is open to tracking volume and acceleration on the still young social network at a future date.

Visse calls the msnNOW project a “transformative experience for MSN.” Even so, the design is still decidedly MSN-centric across all platforms. Visse contends that while msnNOW is not yet a Metro design (the cubist-look Microsoft is painting across virtually all of its interfaces), msnNOW’s “component-like design is not a big leap to get a Metro-like design.”

The intention with the current look is for a really good, super-easy-to-use interface. The mobile interface, in particular, is designed for easy touch and swipe consumption across multiple mobile devices (the mobile web site should work well on the latest iOS, Windows Phone and Android browsers).

Though MSN currently enjoys a reported 125 million monthly visitors, with 75 million visiting the MSN portal homepage each month, msnNOW will not take over that hot destination. Visse told Mashable that msnNOW will have a hard and visible link from the MSN homepage and msnNOW content that does make the main homepage will feature msnNOW artwork and insignias.

msnNOW is an interesting bet for Microsoft, the big software company without its own big social network. Can it be the aggregator instead of the creator? And will content and media companies like the 100-word write-ups — or will they think such stories are cannibalizing their content?

Visse, though, has other concerns. “I’m waiting to see how it works out. Did we connect with the younger demo in the way I think we’re going to? Are the edit choices and the way we package them together interesting and exciting for users?” All good questions and Visse acknowledges that he won’t know the answers until they launch the product.

What do you think of msnNOW? Check it out and then give us your critique in the comments below.

Limewire founder and bicycle advocate Mark Gorton is on a mission to curtail cars.

Gorton has been fighting tirelessly to make cities friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians. He makes no effort to hide his disdain for cars, and he has lobbied endlessly for more equitable transportation polices. Even Gorton isn’t so naive as to call for the eradication of the automobile, but he wants to see policies that aggressively discourage their use.

To that end, he founded OpenPlans, a nonprofit focused on promoting transparent government and civic engagement, and he’s tried to bring an open source approach to urban planning. He also launched Streetsblog. Now he’s taking his act out on the road, making the rounds of India to promote bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly policies in a nation that is developing rapidly.

We caught up with Gorton to ask about his latest crusade.

Wired.com: Why are you in India?

Mark Gorton: My company has an office in Gurgaon, a new city that has grown up on the edge of Delhi in the last 20 years. Gurgaon is badly planned, and it was built assuming everyone would drive. However, Gurgaon is far too dense for everyone to drive, and the traffic is horrible and the city has massive problems.  They are trying to add transit now, but the land use patterns are not good for transit and now they are really stuck. And every year the city grows and more and more people get cars, and it just gets worse.

Wired.com: How so?

Gorton: India is developing rapidly. It is building huge amounts of infrastructure and its cities are expanding rapidly. India is in love with the car without realizing that the private automobile can’t possibly move the number of people that need to get around in the space available. Many cities around the world have learned the futility of trying to build their transportation systems around the car. India has the chance to learn from the mistakes of other countries and cities and make smart planning decisions.

Due to my position as a leader in the transportation reform movement in the U.S. and my ties to India, I am well positioned to bring this message to India.

Wired.com: What are you doing?

Gorton: I am advocating for India to adopt smart transportation solutions for its cities that involve walking, public transit, policies to limit private cars, cycling and smart land use planning. These policies will make India’s cities more livable, make their transportation systems work better and be much more affordable.

Wired.com: Why India and not some other country?

Gorton: India is at a point in its development history where the decisions that are made in the next decade will dictate whether Indian cities get caught in a traffic trap that is hard to escape or whether they make smart choices to be more sustainable and livable.

Wired.com: So it’s an opportunity that doesn’t exist anywhere else?

Gorton: Exactly. Indian cities are in the process of making huge transportation infrastructure investments that will set the transportation and land use patterns for decades if not centuries.

Wired.com: What message are you trying to convey in India — and elsewhere, for that matter?

Gorton: The automobile is an inappropriate transportation technology to use in large dense cities. It is physically impossible to fit cars in dense cities. The result of pursuing policies that allow private car usage to soar are traffic-choked cities with a radically degraded living environment for the people who live there.

Wired.com: How do you expect your message to play out?

Gorton: I hope government officials and civic leaders can learn from the experiences of New York and other large cities and work to improve their own policies. In addition, I hope that the tools, the strategy and the experience of the New York City Street Renaissance Campaign can offer a guide to civic leader looking to drive change in India.

Wired.com: How are people responding?

Gorton: The response has been amazing. I have had a huge number of people come up to me after my talks and tell me how much they liked it. The municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad called it “inspirational.” Senior government officials at the national and local levels have been received my message very well.

Photo: A street scene in Gurgaon, India. Shashwat Nagpal/Flickr

Jon Barocas is the founder and CEO of bieMEDIA, a Denver-based online marketing and media solutions company that specializes in video content production and distribution, mobile visual search, technology platforms, SEO, VSEO and more.

Like most technology junkies, I am always ready and willing to try any technology that promises to simplify my life. QR codes seemed to present an accessible and uniform way for people with smart devices to interact with advertising, marketing and media. Those little squares of code seemed to open a world of opportunity and potential. But after using them for a length of time, I shifted my perspective.

My initial honeymoon with QR codes was very short-lived. The initial rush that I had received from trying to frame the code on my device had lost its luster. I started to view QR codes as a barrier to additional information. And in many instances, the rewards (whatever I received as a result of scanning the code) did not measure up to the effort of the transaction itself.

Consider a recent study by comScore, which states that only 14 million American mobile device users have have interacted with a QR code. In essence, less than 5% of the American public has scanned a QR code. So where’s the disconnect?

Inadequate technology, lack of education and a perceived dearth of value from QR codes are just three of the reasons mobile barcodes are not clicking with Americans. But it goes deeper than that.

Humans are visual animals. We have visceral reactions to images that a QR code can never evoke; what we see is directly linked to our moods, our purchasing habits and our behaviors. It makes sense, then, that a more visual alternative to QR codes would not only be preferable to consumers, but would most likely stimulate more positive responses to their presence.

The QR Alternative

Enter mobile visual search (MVS). With MVS, you simply point at a product or logo and shoot a picture with your smartphone’s built-in camera. Within seconds, the MVS application will provide product or company information, or even the option to make a purchase right then and there on your mobile device.

When British rapper M.I.A. flipped her middle finger to more than 110 million Super Bowl TV viewers two Sundays ago, it caused the NFL and NBC to flip out too. Rightly so. Both organizations have codes of conduct, regulations, and responsibility to audiences of all ages who were watching the half-time show, which is where this gesture occurred.

There’s been some finger pointing and talk of how angry Madonna is, but meanwhile, M.I.A. seems to be keeping her head and finger down. Her fans’ reaction to this has spanned a range of feelings from “who cares” to “cheers.” Will this scandal hurt her career? No. In fact, this scandal may enhance her aura and popularity as a badass. It’s just M.I.A. living up to her brand image, like any good brand must do.

This case in point goes to show that what’s seen as a “scandal” to some can also be seen as “good publicity” to others. The idea of success through scandal is not a new one. The French even have a term for it: succès de scandale. But of course!

Scandals in the world of brand image and communications are not uncommon. The questions that always arise are:

• Who do they help?
• Who do they hurt?
• Are setbacks recoverable?

A few years ago when Activia yogurt got overzealous in its product performance claims, consumers cried foul.  Health claims had to be restated with a bit less creative license. For Activia, this was a scandal and it cost them millions. For a competitor, category scrutiny is a boost to overall consumer knowledge and awareness. Very often in a scandal, one brand’s bad news is another brand’s sales boost.

About a year ago, when Taco Bell was called out for its meat-blend filling, the brand addressed the issue head on through public relations. What we learned from this is that a scandal can be audience relative. Perhaps in terms of FDA guidelines, regulations, and labeling there was a scandal. In terms of loyal Taco Bell consumers, they still thought it tasted good, less meat or not.

So, what’s so good about being bad?

• Scandals attract attention. If a brand can overcome the negativity and control the consumer outrage that can quickly pop up online through social networking, the brand, and even category, can benefit from increased awareness.
• A scandal can level the playing field by bringing issues to light that were not previously in the consumer consciousness. When Nike was called out for using some factories in China that did not have fair labor practices, the company reviewed its guidelines, set high standards to achieve, and caused an entire industry to follow. Corporate responsibility spilled over to category responsibility.
• Scandals can give brands an edge. If the scandal is just enough to make you seem “bad” but not enough to actually be detrimental your business or consumers, a proactive “sorry” in the right way is often enough to allow the issue to subside and the brand to move forward. The scandal will eventually become part of the brand’s mythology.
• A scandal prompts course correction and can lead to overall improvements in multiple facets of a brand experience. From tamper-proof caps on medicine to sealed packaging at retail, overall consumer safety has often been improved because of a scandal.
• Scandal can bring fame. Brands that are known and in the public consciousness are celebrities in their own right. Scandals not only have the power to break a brand, they have the power to make a brand. Just ask Paris Hilton.

A brand scandal is often a polarizing incident that has both negatives and positives associated with it. If you are caught in one, it’s always best to face it head on, then devise a strategy in order to move on. The worst thing you can do is go MIA… like M.I.A.

Image: The Superficial