Yahoo's Peanut Butter Manifesto

Last week, a SVP over at Yahoo wrote an internal memo to the company outlining current organization flaws and his broad-based solution. He compared the company initatives to Peanut Butter, being spread too thin. Thus, the memo being leaked to the public (via the internet), has been coined "The Peanut Butter Manifesto."

What I find interesting (beyond the memo itself) is the concept of how it is virtually impossible these days to keep such broad, company-wide messages in-house. I don't think it's a good or bad thing, frankly .... Just different.

I work for a similar type of organization - and have noticed that any "company-wide" messages (although fully plastered with "INTERNAL ONLY" messaging) are completely written to be expected to be posted on a blog somewhere.

Is this a new type of investor-relation strategy? Is there any other option other than for a company to embrace it? I don't think so...

Yes - Companies need to do their part by keeping employees loyal and putting fear in every employees mind regarding releasing such information. But beyond strong policies and high security within email -- I'm not sure what else a company can do.

Regarding the memo itself -- I actually thought it was good. I felt the SVPs passion in it - and it wasn't just complaining - it offered a plan and a solution.

I guess in today's world, the lesson is that whatever you produce/put your name on - you should go into it making sure that you are comfortable with having your name attached to it.

This blog is a perfect example. I know that maybe 15 of my friends and family are the core audience, but there are times when people outside of that are the audience. When I speak at events and people want to see what I'm about, or one day if I'm ever interviewing for a job .... People will Google my name and associate the content on this blog to my peronsal brand.

And the bottom-line... I know that going into it - so I'm comfortable with it. It's just the world we live in now and it's only going to get more transparent...