Yes, people like us and we’re not just saying it! The proof is in the pudding, or in our case in the library. This week, St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia referenced Vanno as a tool for Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility research. We’ve been strategically packaged in a Toolbox for investigating corporate ethics, alongside The Better Business Bureau and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Reinforcement.
This seems consistent with the mission of SJU’s Haub School of Business- “to support the aspirations of students to master the fundamental principles and practices of business in a diverse, ethical, and globally aware context.” We see this as a great step toward a future of ethical business owners and the communities that surround them.
We’re pleased to be referenced by this prestigious university, which will hopefully be the first of many universities and communities of intellectuals that use our advanced reputation index to research and reference company reputations and the social news that builds these rankings.
The sparks are starting to fly about the “Buy American” clause in the $819 billion stimulus bill that just passed the House. The bill (which should concern you, because it’s your money) includes a provision that requires all construction materials to be American made. Now, one thing we’ve learned from the stories our readers have submitted about patriotic – and not so patriotic – companies is that it’s not easy to get to a bottom line Made in America (or made in France, or Canada, or, mostly, China). One big reason is that materials can come from one place, parts are built in another, and final assembly is done somewhere completely different. Add to this variations in salaries, costs of living, currencies and government subsidies and not even the team at CSI can find out where the real value actually ends up when a consumer in country X buys something.
Continue reading ‘Buy American – not as simple as it seems’
Since our launch we’ve received a lot of great feedback from our users. Today we launched a new homepage that incorporates some important updates:
Meet our Users – We have a fantastic community. We will be featuring some of them throughout the week.
Vanno Tour – First time visiting Vanno? Check out our new tour.
What others are Saying – Check out what journalists and bloggers are saying about us.
We hope you like the changes. Drop us a note at info@vanno.com and tell us what you think!
When I went to graduate school at CU in the ’70s, there was a saying among the many Boulderites who came for an education and never left - something about Boulder being a great place not to live up to your potential. Boulder still has its share of climbers and ski bums with accidental Ph.Ds, but thanks to Kevin Vasquez and Trisha McKean of the CU Foundation, Susan and I got a chance last week to see firsthand how the university – and the Leeds Business School in particular – has moved Boulder squarely into prime time.
Continue reading ‘Living up to their potential in Boulder’
I claimed in my last post that Steve Jobs of Apple and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway have much better reputations than their respective companies. Why do I believe this?
The first part is easy – Jobs and Buffett have been anointed as visionaries by the media, and their personal accomplishments clearly support that. It would be hard to find two people in business with better personal reputations.
But what about the companies themselves? As I noted in my last post, measuring company reputation isn’t easy – one has to collect and quantify the opinions of a wide range of direct and indirect stakeholders on how companies treat their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general. That’s what we built Vanno to do, so let’s see what our users have to say about the reputations of Apple and Berkshire Hathaway. Continue reading ‘Reputation Faceoff: Jobs and Buffett vs. Apple and Berkshire Hathaway’
Steve Jobs has a stellar reputation. Maybe he has a Messiah Complex, and maybe he’s too secretive about his health, but as a product visionary and marketing impressario he stands alone. Add to this his well-chronicled comback – we all love a redemption story – and you have one of the most compelling personal narratives in the history of business.
But the reputation of Jobs the person is much better than the reputation of Apple the company, just as the reputation of the revered investor Warren Buffett is much better than the reputations of most of the companies that make up Berkshire Hathaway. I’ll go into the evidence for these claims in the next post, but I want to demonstrate here why confusing personal and company reputation can be very dangerous, particularly for investors. Continue reading ‘Jobs, Buffett and Madoff: The perils of confusing personal and company reputations’
Having more than a passing interest in all things at the intersection of company reputation and social media, I wonder from time to time where Yelp goes from here. The pressure that having raised $31M in venture funding (entering a sustained downturn, no less) puts on a startup with no apparent revenue model can really only be appreciated by those who’ve been in that place. Making money – somehow, someway – becomes paramount. I felt this pain personally, having run a Sequoia-backed startup during 2001-2002 (the post dot-com crash, for those of you too young to remember).
Continue reading ‘Wither Yelp?’
I built my first web app in 1996 (in ASP) and moved to San Francisco shortly after that. This means that I got to see the dot com boom start and end. If I had to pick one word from that era that drove me the most nuts, I would pick: “personalization”. I have nothing against personalization per se, but the word was always something that product managers wanted, but didn’t know why or how it should work.
We want every user to feel like Vanno is their “personalized” guide to stories that impact company reputations. The old profile page was our first step at making this work, but with today’s new release we have stepped it up a notch. Continue reading ‘Making Vanno more personal’
Welcome to ‘09. Happy New Year Vanno-ers.
Microsoft got a lot of heat this week for Zune’s epic fail- over 1 million devices stopped working simultaneously. With a 22-2 landslide, Vanno users agree that this reflects poor quality and customer satisfaction. Microsoft is still strong on The Reputation Index (304th out of 5543 companies)…for now. That’s up to you though.
shaunsayers has done it again and is quickly becoming one of my favorite Vanno Users. This week, shaunsayers found an amazing clip of Kathy Griffith spouting profanity on a New Year’s Eve Show on CNN. The beauty of this find is that her “I don’t come down to where you work and slap the *$@# out of your mouth” is a line from a Mr. Show skit. Remember the one with Globochem and PitPat, the one with the inappropriate ads including Grandma Betsy’s Bisquit Powder? Unfit for public television? Probably. Am I glad Time Warner put that up? Absolutely.
We have a couple Power Users who seem to be making their way up to Elite- shaunsayers and kjtripp are climbing the ranks toward our Elite Fleet, but for now we don’t have any new Elitists to report. Remember, the best way to participate in Vanno is to comment and share with other users, so open up the dialogue, make new friends and share your opinions about the companies around you.
The User Spotlight will be on Hiatus next week, so tune in Jan. 16th for more updates from inside Vanno. To all of you going to CES, have a blast and wear comfortable shoes. For the rest of you, Happy New Year from Kathy.
-Kikyo
