What to Do When Customers Trash Your Brand Online

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Social media has opened up a whole new world of opportunities to engage with our customers like never before. We openly ask for their feedback and opinions on our brands, products and marketing programs.
Of course, asking those questions can be like opening a can of worms. Many times that commentary is inspiring, as brands look to continuously improve. Other times, though, it can be potentially damaging to the brand.
McDonald's recently learned the hard way, yet again, with its Twitter hashtag promotion #UnwrapWhatsFresh to launch their new Premium McWraps. As if the drama around #McDStories -- a hashtag overrun by negative, often disturbing recounts of McDonalds experiences -- earlier in the year wasn't enough, the brand got more than it bargained for when consumers responded with all sorts of things they'd like to "unwrap." While it may have made for an entertaining stream to some, it certainly wasn't where McDonald's was prepared to go.
Over on Amazon, there's an equally intrusive string of more than 4,000 comments about the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer, essentially mocking the product. The reviews have taken over the brand's page and completely overshadowed its messaging.
So what's a brand to do when consumer engagement runs out of control?
Related: How to Think Like Your Customer
First of all, you have to anticipate it. When planning marketing programs, you have to think ahead and anticipate how consumers will engage with the brand. When coming up with a program, think through all the ways it can be interpreted, misinterpreted and reinterpreted, down to the worst-case-scenario. If you plan around these issues, you may be able to avoid a disaster.
If your brand takes a hit, go with the flow and be transparent. There's nothing worse than a brand that shuts down commentary when it doesn't like what people are saying. Excluding offensive content, the best thing you can do is to embrace and participate in the discussion. Show your humanity and roll with it. Remain true to your brand, but jump right in with your consumers and comment along with them.
If the content gets offensive, you do have every right to protect the integrity of your brand and the audience that does admire you. Just be transparent about it and tell participants you are deleting offensive content. Leaving most of it visible will show you are being honest, but you should transparently delete content that offends or is utterly ridiculous. It can be wise to seek a trusted outsider's perspective when trying to determine this, given your emotional connection to your company. Use your judgment and be honest about it.
Ask yourself: Is this social media campaign worth it? Before embarking on any social marketing campaign, ask yourself if the one you are creating is appropriate. It's one thing to anticipate certain reactions, but it's vitally important to decide if you should even be in the game. Throwing yourself out there in social media is like going to a party naked -- you're going to get comments.
Opening a hash tag in Twitter invites people to say what's on their minds. You need be honest with yourself about whether you are ready to invite people to talk about your brand so publicly. Asking people to scream about your brand will likely get them screaming right at you.

Source:http://www.entrepreneur.com

Do you delegate effectively? Take this Delegation Quiz

Delegation is a key skill that supervisors and managers can utilise to achieve success in their roles. However, delegation can be a complex and challenging task if people don’t fully understand and apply proven delegation practices and principles.
Take the following quiz to test your understanding of effective delegation:
Tick True or False for each question:

	True	False
1. Delegation is a training tool that helps develop an organisation’s employees
2. Delegation can free you of details so you can focus more time on the important aspects of your job
3. It’s always good practice to hand over or delegate a “hot potato” project you’d rather not handle yourself
4. It’s alright to delegate a project to someone by giving them a clear picture of what has to be done, without specifying how to do it
5. When you delegate the authority to complete a task or a project, it’s good to inform other employees in the workplace about this
6. Even though an employee seems to understand a task or a delegated project, it’s wise to ask them to give you an idea of how they plan to accomplish the project
7. It’s not good management practice to ask for periodic checks on the progress of the delegated project
8. The fact that you can do it better and faster yourself is a good reason not to delegate a task
9. If an employee shows you that they are unable to do a job, you shouldn’t give them a second chance.
10. When errors in a delegated project could be highly costly to the organisation, it’s important to maintain closer supervision of the project

Answers: 1. True, 2. True, 3. False, 4. True, 5. True, 6. True, 7. False, 8. False, 9. False, 10. True

Source:http://www.leadershipmanagement.com.au/

Huge ‘chasm of confidence’ between our personal and world outlook

According to the latest L.E.A.D. Survey research findings, a major ‘chasm of confidence’ about the future has opened up. Confidence levels for personal and organisational outlooks are significantly higher than those for national and global outlooks.
The research findings, drawn from the current wave of Australasia’s most significant workplace survey and involving around 1,500 Business Leaders/Senior Managers, Middle Managers/Supervisors and Non-managerial Employees in Australia and New Zealand, suggests the future varies quite considerably depending on your perspective.
Consider the contrast evident in the following statistics from the L.E.A.D. Survey:
Personal outlook

• 50% are highly confident about their job security (rated 8-10 out of 10)
• 46% are highly confident about their personal financial security (rated 8-10 out of 10)

Organisation outlook

• 59% are highly confident about their organisation’s future (59% rated 8-10 out of 10)
• 57% believe their organisation is growing (compared with 29% who believe it is holding steady, 10% shrinking and 4% just surviving)

Domestic economy outlook

• 29% rated their confidence in strength of their economy highly (8-10 out of 10)
• 14% rated their confidence in the state of politics in Australia/New Zealand highly (8-10 out of 10)

World/global economy outlook

• 11% rated their confidence in the strength of the world economy highly (8-10 out of 10)

The difference in outlook personally (46-50%) and in relation to the organisation (57-59%) is vast when compared to the domestic economy (29%) or domestic politics (14%) and the wider world picture (11%). Clearly we take a very different view of our personal/local situation when compared to the bigger landscape.
Why does this chasm exist? The research suggests that it all depends on the extent to which you can impact on the situation – the locus of control or influence. The closer you are to the situation, generally the better and more able you are to influence or control the outcomes – or at least to feel you can.
The L.E.A.D. Survey reminds us that the vast majority of people in organisations believe they cope well with change (94% believe they cope with change very or quite well). We appear to be increasingly equipped to deal with ever-changing circumstances. What varies in doing so and getting the desired outcome is the locus of control.
When people start to BELIEVE they can have an impact on a situation and set about taking actions to influence or control outcomes, they can overcome seemingly significant barriers. It is this self-belief that we see in the outlook for the future of organisations across Australia and New Zealand.
What should leaders and managers be doing?  To support and reinforce positive self-belief in order to help their people and their organisations deal with uncertain times with confidence at the local and individual level, leaders and manager should:

• Look to bring the locus of control closer to the individual– the more the individual feels they are in a position of influence or control a situation, the more likely they will drive towards outcomes that enable them to feel good about themselves, their team, their department, their organisation and in time, their nation.
  To bring the locus of control closer to the individual requires leaders and managers to better understand their people and what motivates them to perform. By connecting with and seeking to fulfil the needs of individuals, managers can empower their people to take control of their future and deliver the outlook and results they are aiming for.
  Furthermore, leaders and managers can themselves take greater control of their own future by identifying what the vision and direction for their organisation is and working to communicate that vision widely in the interests of aligning the efforts of the entire organisation.
• Communicate about the organisation’s future – provide regular positive reassurance or at the very least clarity about the reality facing the organisation. Of note, 78% of non-managerial employees believe their leaders and managers have communicated to a great or moderate extent about the future of the organisation – a sign that leaders and managers understand the importance of keeping the communication lines open and flowing. However, one in five (22%) say this type of reassurance is lacking as present.
• Communicate about the individual’s future – provide positive reassurance and clarity about the individual’s future in the organisation. Just 66% of non-managerial employees believe their leaders and managers have communicated to a great or moderate extent about their personal future in the organisation. Conversely, one in three (34%) say their leaders and managers have provided little or no reassurance about their individual future. Remember, in the absence of information to the contrary, many will fear the worst and this will impact on their attitudes and behaviours in relation to work.

Remember, people generally seek three things when choosing an organisation, a job or a career:

1. Something to believe in – a meaningful purpose and values they can share and embrace
2. Someone to believe in – a leader they can connect with, trust and willingly follow
3. Someone to believe in them – affirmation and reassurance about their value and worth

Only through belief in self and others can we hope to achieve our goals and deliver the success that we deserve.
Top 10 Confidence Ratings (Interim March 2013)

	% RATING 8-10 OUT OF 10
The standard of occupational health and safety in your organisation	69
Your organisation’s future	59
Your job security	50
Your personal financial security	46
The quality and style of leadership in your organisation	40
The honesty and openness of communication from your organisation	40
That your organisation will protect your interests regardless of any changes to industrial relations law	39
Opportunities to advance your career in your organisation	37
The industrial relations environment in your organisation	37
Achieving balance between work and other aspects of your life	36
The strength of your economy	29
The state of politics	14
The strength of the world economy	11

10 ways to build trust in your organisation

Aside from the latest L.E.A.D. Survey results finding that “trustworthiness and openness” has dramatically jumped to the top of the list of the most important characteristic of a good manager, “trust” has long been a keystone of strong management to optimise the performance and productivity of employees.
To be successful as a manager it is important to develop a relationship with the team that is based on trust. When employees trust and respect their manager they will give special effort especially when they feel trusted and supported.
Employees rarely excel under the punitive thumb of someone they do not trust and who they feel does not trust them. Without trust productivity suffers as team members play politics, spend time covering themselves and being compliant to dictates that they know are counterproductive. Lack of trust affects morale and customer satisfaction as the employees shift energy and focus from working on real life issues that affect customers to resentment and dissatisfaction towards management.
Here are 10 ways to build trust:
1)  Establish and Maintain Honesty and Integrity
Honesty and integrity are the foundations of trust in any organisation, and they must begin at the top.  Leading by example, management must demonstrate and instil honesty and integrity throughout the organisation.
Managers must be consistently truthful, regardless of the circumstances.  Managers who demonstrate openness about their actions, intentions and vision, soon find that people respond positively to self disclosure and sincerity. As a manager share good and bad news openly. This can eliminate gossip and diffuse inappropriate politics. Great managers know that they are not perfect and they make mistakes. It is better for a manager to admit mistakes rather than ignore them or cover them up. A cover up (perceived or real) is probably the greatest single enemy to trust.
Managers must demonstrate a moral soundness of strong values, methods, and principles.  For example, always keep your word.  Do what you say you will do and make your actions visible. Team members quickly pick up on insincerity and broken promises. Visibly keeping commitments will foster trust. If a manager neglects to make actions visible to the team it can create the impression/perception that they don’t follow through.
2)  Establish Strong Business Ethics
Managers need to set moral values for the work place. Teams with common ethics are healthier, more productive, adaptable, responsive, and resourceful because they are united under one common value set.
3)  Communicate Vision and Values
Communication is important, since it provides the artery for information and truth. By communicating the organisation’s vision, management defines where it’s going. By communicating its values, it establishes the methods for getting there.
4)  Communicate Effectively
Managers who communicate openly and frequently build relationship and trust with the team. They should not make team members guess what they’re thinking but should tell them. Employees can feel that no news is bad news. A lack of interaction erodes trust. Face to face interaction is the best method to build trust.
5)  To Get Trust You Need to Give Trust
It is important for a manager to create an environment of trust. This begins by trusting others. It is more effective to assume employees are trustworthy unless they prove otherwise rather than waiting to give trust when they haven’t earned it. As team members come to feel they are trusted by their manager, they will find it easier to trust in return.
6)  Keep Interactions Consistent and Predictable from the Beginning
Building trust is a process – which starts with the initial actions of the manager, establishing norms and expectations.  Trust results from consistent and predictable interaction over time. If a manager responds differently from week to week it becomes harder to trust him or her.
7)  Be Accessible and Responsive
Find ways to be regularly available to team members. When interacting, be responsive. Unresponsiveness causes unease and distrust. Be action rather than talk oriented. Don’t just think about taking action – do it.
8)  Maintain Confidences
Team members need to be able to express concerns, identify problems, share sensitive information, and surface relevant issues. It is important early on to get agreement as to how confidential data will be handled.
9)  Watch your Language
It is important that a manager’s language does not imply “us” or “them”. Terminology should be easy to understand. Leaders should stick with business language and not use strong or vulgar language.
10)  Create Social time for the Team
A lot of trust and confidence is built through informal social interaction. Successful managers ensure that social opportunities happen regularly.
Building trust with employees is critical for creating an effective team that works well together. Taking time to build trust will reap benefits for managers that last a long time.


Source:http://www.leadershipmanagement.com.au

How to make money with a blog

 

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How I replaced my day-job with earnings from this blog

In 2 years I went from not knowing what a blog was to making more money blogging than my day job.

The purpose of this article is to show you how to make money with a blog. I suspect most people won’t stick with it long enough to make a full-time income, but even making an extra few hundred dollars a month isn’t too bad either (here are 23 other ways to make money as well).
This article is extremely long (more like 10 articles), but I wanted it to be a thorough and helpful resource for those wanting to start a blog or make some more money from the one they already have.

Article Contents

For the sake of convenience, I added links to different sections of this article, so you can easily skip ahead to the section you want…

• How it all started for me
• 4 Steps To Get Started Blogging in 10 Minutes!
• Blogging basics
• How to get a self-hosted blog
• The importance of a customizable theme
• How I make money with this blog
• How long does it take to make money from a blog
• How to get traffic to your blog
• SEO tips for blogs
• How I increased Adsense income by $1500
• 11 Tools that have helped me succeed
• Warnings for those just starting out

I should also mention that I really haven’t written about blogging or making money from blogs on ChristianPF yet, because I wanted to make sure that it was a viable option for making some cash. Now that I have found that it is, I decided to pour out everything I learned the last two years about it…

How it all started for me

About 2 years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about the idea of building websites full of free information to help people. After brainstorming a bit, I got a couple ideas of topics that I was passionate about: Proverbs and Personal Finance.
My first idea was to post a Proverb each day and comment on it. As I explained my idea further to him, he informed me that I would basically have a blog. I didn’t know what a blog was, but I thought, “oh, ok, sure.”
So, over the next few weeks I read as much as I could find about blogging and ultimately decided on creating a blog about Personal Finance from a Christian perspective. I had been very interested in helping people with their money, so blogging seemed like a great way to reach people all over the world.

Over the next couple months, I started writing articles and officially launched ChristianPF in June of 2007. At this point I had thought about making money from the site, but had no idea how and honestly didn’t really think it was possible to make a living at it. I threw up an Adsense ad just to see what would happen and I still remember how excited I was when I saw that I had made my first 7 cents!
From there, I set a goal to make $100 by the end of 2007 which was pretty easy to accomplish – even without knowing anything. I should also mention that from June 2007 to June 2008 I spent about 4-6 hours each weekend writing articles and averaged about 4 new articles each week. And I spent a few more hours each week on site maintenance, emails, social media, etc. So in total I probably was spending about 10 hours each week working on the site.

Getting laid off

In July 2008 things got interesting. The large brokerage firm that I had worked 5 years for was bought out by a larger firm. I was told that my department would no longer be needed, so they handed me a severance check and I was on my way. By this point I was making some money from the blog, but not enough to even pay the rent each month.

Sign up to find out about additional blogging tips, tutorials, and tools that I use to increase earnings with my blogs.

After much prayer I decided against looking for another “day job” and decided to work full time on building the blog. Thankfully we had paid off most of our debt, and had my wife’s income as a support to buy us some time. I figured I would give it a shot for a few months and if it didn’t work out I would find another 9-5. From that point, the income generated from this website has increased each month and in February 2009 it exceeded my monthly income from my old day job.
I am still a little bit in awe and can’t believe that I am actually paying the bills from this website!. But, I thank God everyday that I get to do this – I really did not like working in Corporate America and am so thankful! It is hard work, but it doesn’t really seem like it when you are doing something that you are passionate about and love doing it.

4 Steps to Get Started Blogging in 10 Minutes!

This is just a quick cliffnotes version for committed bloggers only. These recommendations aren’t best suited for those dabbling with blogging, but they are the things that I would do if I had to do it all over again.

1. Find a domain name

• Go to psychicwhois.com and search until you find a domain name that is available (green ones are open, red ones are taken).
• If possible aim for one that has at least of the keywords you would like to be found in the search engines for.

2. Get a domain name and web hosting package from Hostgator (my recommended host)

• Head over to Hostgator and select either the “Hatchling” or “Baby” plan.

• Then make sure to register the domain that you found in the first step.
• Next enter “ChristianPF” as a promo code and it will knock 25% off for you.

• Now follow the remaining steps to complete your purchase.

3. Install WordPress (with a little help)

• Either watch the video above for detailed instructions or just jump on the phone or use the chat box with Hostgator.
• When you get them on the line just tell them that you want to install WordPress on your blog.
• They should hold your hand and walk you through the process (if they don’t please email me). When complete ask them for the WordPress login information.

4. Login to WordPress

• Once they give you the login information you can go to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin and login.
• Now that you are logged in to WordPress you can begin making changes to your site and or publish your first post.

So that should get you up and running. If you are new to WordPress you can learn the basics of running a WordPress blog in my Blogging 101 course.

Blogging basics

I am going to try to boil this down to the essentials. There are whole books written on this subject, so I am not going to try to cover everything here. If you are looking for a good book about blogging for beginners, I suggest reading Darren Rowse’s “31 Days To A Better Blog”. But for a quick, bottom-line version keep reading…

What is a blog?

A blog is short for “weblog”. Basically, it is just a website that has entries listed in reverse chronological order. The original idea behind it was to be a online journal or diary that was updated daily (or as frequently as the writer chose). Over the last decade many software programs and blogging platforms have been created to make the process VERY EASY. As the blog writer, depending on which platform you use, you can just type your entry, press submit and it shows up on your blog for the world to see. Most bloggers don’t know any programming languages and are not “techies.” Starting a blog is one of the easiest ways out there to start a website. If you haven’t started one yet, why not try it? It can be very quick to set up and can be completely free.

Is it easy to start a blog?

It is very easy. Even if there are steps along the way that are confusing, there are plenty of resources to get the help you need. There are over 20 million blogs in existence, so it can’t be that difficult.

How much does it cost to blog?

There are many services that allow you to start a blog for free (see below). I suggest using one of the free services to get a basic feel for blogging and “get your feet wet.” Once you decide you want to stick with it and that you want to make money with your blog, I suggest moving up to a self-hosted blog (see below). Anyone who is really trying to make money with a blog will probably be more successful with a self-hosted blog. Getting a self-hosted blog may not be free, but still can be VERY inexpensive. You will need to pay for nothing more than a domain name ($10) and web-hosting (as cheap as a few bucks a month).

Getting a blogging platform

All 4 of the options listed are free. The first 3 options are the easiest, but the are also limited on features. If you are just trying to make an extra few hundred dollars from your blog, these options could work. But if you are really serious about trying to make good money from your blog, I recommend self-hosting your blog (which we talk about in the next section…).
Tumblr.com – This is probably the simplest blogging platform to use, but it also is the probably the least customizeable. So, it might be something good to start with, but it would be more difficult to build an income-generating website with it.
Blogger.com – Blogger is also very good, easy to set up, owned by Google, you can customize the theme, and the domain name includes “.blogspot.com” (in some people’s opinion a little less professional). Blogger continues to become more customizeable and currently has a lot more options than they did a few years ago.
WordPress.com – I like wordpress.com they are completely free, easy to set up, you can customize the theme, but other customizations are limited, domain name includes “.wordpress.com”.
WordPress.org – Wait, what is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org? To put it simply WordPress.com is where you will go to set up a basic, easy blog with limited features. WordPress.org is where you will go to get a self-hosted wordpress blog. If you get to the point where you are serious about blogging and really want to make some money with it, you need to self-host your blog. Now I should mention that you don’t actually ever have to visit wordpress.org, if you use Hostgator as your host, they will be able to help you install wordpress on your selfhosted blog. Just follow the steps here.

How to setup a self-hosted blog

If you are going to be using one of the first three options above, you can skip this section.
If you are serious about blogging and are looking for the best way to customize your blog’s look and other features, then getting a self-hosted blog from WordPress.org is probably the best way to go. It is currently the top choice for most bloggers. It does require more work up front and does have small costs associated with it: buying a domain name ($10/year) and hosting your blog ($10/month).
One of the big advantages is that you can use your own domain name (i.e. yourblog.com). While this might not seem like a big deal, it is a lot easier for people to remember yourblog.com rather than yourblog.blogspot.com which is what you will be given if you use Blogger.
I will warn you, being a non-techie myself, this took me some time figuring out how to get my self-hosted site set up. WordPress.org has a great step-by-step guide for getting you set up. While it is more work on the front end, I am really glad I got good advice and did this at the beginning, than having to do it now.

Pick a Domain Name

1. You should start by purchasing a domain name. Domain Samurai is a great tool that will help you enter in a keyword and then find a bunch of related domains that are still available. I would suggest going to for a .com rather than a .info or .us or anything else for that matter. It is just too easy for people to get confused. A .com is always going to hold more value than any other extension. For a simpler tool, just go to psychicwhois.com and find an open one. 2. Once you get it picked out, you need to find somewhere to purchase it. I bought my first few domains at GoDaddy.com and have bought the remaining ones from my hosting companies. While GoDaddy is about one of the biggest names out there, I can’t say that I recommend them because of some of their advertising campaigns that they run. I now recommend just buying the domain and hosting from Hostgator as it will make the whole process simpler. But if you already have a host, then Namecheap is a good and cheap way to buy a domain.

Pick a host for your blog

The webhost is the company that you pay to store all of your files for your blog. There are also a million web hosting companies out there. I don’t suggest just looking for the cheapest one, because a lot of these companies are not very reliable and your site might be down quite a bit. I like to go with the bigger companies who have a longer track record and are more established.
They may cost a dollar or two more a month when you are starting out and it is well worth it. I have hosted my websites with Dreamhost from the beginning, mostly because I knew a lot of people using them and I got a hosting package for about $7.00 a month.
I still host most of my websites at Dreamhost, but have moved this site to MediaTemple. The main reason was that since my livelihood now depended on the website I wanted a higher level of service from my hosting company. MediaTemple has been great in that regard, but as always it comes with a price. I am currently paying $150 a month for hosting with them.

Watch this video to find out which host is best for you!

(Added 01-05-10 – I am currently in the process of buying a website that is hosted on BlueHost, and after digging around the backend quite a bit, I am starting to think they are a better choice than Dreamhost. Their prices are slightly lower than Dreamhost, but they seem to have things a little better organized and create an easier experience for new users. I haven’t dealt with their customer service yet, so I can’t comment on that yet, but my overall experience so far leads me to like them a bit more than Dreamhost. For what it’s worth.)
(Added 05-04-10 – After using Bluehost a bit more and calling their customer service reps, I can safely say that I definitely like them more than Dreamhost. Just the fact that they have phone support gives them a leg up – but the rep I spoke with was very helpful. So Bluehost gets my recommendation for beginner hosting.)
(Added 04-04-11 – After more and more frustrating experiences with MediaTemple’s customer service I started looking for another host that I could scale up with. I still really like Bluehost – especially for the price, but the fact that they only offer shared hosting makes me hesitant about hosting my sites that pay my mortgage each month. After looking at Hostgator‘s site it became very clear that they are a host that you can start with for as cheap as $4/m and they also offer much more thorough hosting packages as your site grows. I had heard great things about them from others, so I figured I would check them out. I called them up and asked a bunch of questions and I was surprised to find out that even though they cost a fraction of what MediaTemple costs, they have some features that MediaTemple didn’t.I opened an account with HostGator and used the chat feature to get help 2 different times and I was very pleased with their knowledge and helpfulness each time. Honestly, I was so impressed that I am getting started on moving many of my sites over to Hostgator. I will let you know how things progress…)

Amanpour Squeezes Okonjo-Iweala

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, is full of promise. But fulfilling that promise is sometimes a struggle. Plagued by corruption and mismanagement, the resource-rich country has a poverty rate of over 50 percent. Maternal mortality is shockingly high. And more than half of Nigerians don’t have access to electricity.
Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, can’t even escape the power problem himself. Here he is on Easter Sunday, delivering a speech to his people only to have it disrupted by a blackout. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says that she and her president want more for the country. She’s Nigeria’s finance minister and she’s been lauded as just the kind of reformer that Nigeria needs. She was a runner-up to lead the World Bank and “Forbes” ranked her as one of the world’s most powerful women.
But even she isn’t immune from Nigeria’s problems. Her own mother was kidnapped for a terrifying five days before being released.

I spoke to her and I asked her about her country’s uphill struggle to transform Nigeria’s resources into a better life for all the people. We talked when she was here in New York for the Women in the World Summit. And as you watch, we look forward to your tweets using #amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, welcome to the program.
NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA, NIGERIAN FINANCE MINISTER: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: Great to have you.
OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Nigeria is a huge and important country. We have many, many viewers from Nigeria, always very active and very interested. So it’s great to have you here.
OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: You have said and others have said, that 2013 is going to be a real game-changing year, a turning point year for Nigeria, particularly in your area of finance and economics.
How?
OKONJO-IWEALA: Well, it’s going to be a game-changer and a turning point, because this is the year we are going to produce results. And we’re already producing results within the administration.
First, on the economic side, I just want to say that macroeconomic stability has been restored. Now, nobody should minimize that. Remember, there were two lost decades in Africa, in the ’80s and ’90s, where there was so much macro instability that people could not even focus on sectors that could create jobs.
Now things have gone right. We’ve got growth that is at 6.5 percent last year and we’re projecting for 2013, also, around the same number compared to average 5 percent on the African continent.
Now, I just want to say that when you mention GDP growth, people immediately say we can — in my country, they say we can’t eat growth; because we have unemployment challenges, we need to create more jobs. We have a challenge of inclusion. We have problems of inequality.
All those are challenges we face.
AMANPOUR: You are obviously a passionate defender of your country. You are a person who calls for transparency and honesty and best practices.
There is a huge problem with corruption in your country. The president promised to address this stuff. And the latest is that an ally of his, a former governor who was convicted of stealing millions of dollars, has been pardoned, embezzling $55 million in public funds.
Now, the U.S. calls that a setback for the fight against corruption.
I mean how do you answer that?
OKONJO-IWEALA: How do I answer that question?
OK, listen to what I have to say on corruption. And I think I have quite a bit to say. I wrote a book recently where I also had a whole chapter on that issue called, “Reforming the Unreformable.”
Nigeria does have a problem with corruption. And so do many other countries, including developed countries. I don’t like the fact that when people mention the name Nigeria, the next thing they say is corruption.
This is a country of 170 million people; 99.9 percent of them are honest, hard-working citizens who just want to get on with their lives and they want a government that delivers for them.
What we’ve said is that in order to help block any leakages and help to, you know, stop any attempts at corruption or taking monies, we must build electronic platforms. We must distance people from the money.
These things were recommended by the World Bank and the IMF. I used to work at the World Bank. We are doing them.
And I strongly believe that we lack institutions. We lack processes.
Now, what President Goodluck Jonathan has done now is to call the judiciary, the legislature and the executive arm for the first time to meet together on this issue and say, this is not just about government, this is about all of us coming together, because even if you catch somebody, they go to the courts and they are let off lightly.
The president can’t do anything about that. The judicial system also has to be strengthened.
Legislators also have to crack down. They themselves have to work at also being transparent and helping the executive.
But for me, also, in addition to doing that, we need to stop talking and identify the specifics, like you mentioned oil leakages. Let me mention two things quickly.
The first one is the oil theft that is 150,000 barrels a day –
AMANPOUR: Which is huge.
OKONJO-IWEALA: — a month — which is huge. Yes. I admit that. And we can’t afford — I’ll tell you; my thesis on corruption is we are still a poor country. We cannot afford any leakage.
We also need the international community to weigh in. We have — Mexico and Nigeria are suffering from this problem, you can check. Mexico has (inaudible) losing 25,000 barrels a day. And they found (inaudible).
In our case, we have international people who also buy that stolen oil. We need them to treat this stolen oil like stolen diamonds, the blood diamonds. Make it blood oil. Help us so that those people don’t have a market to sell this stuff.
That’s one. And we ourselves should commit to fighting — and we are fighting that.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about that, because you also have challenges with electricity. You mentioned you’re very rich in oil and people just simply don’t understand why there still seem to be so many problems with electricity.
And it might seem, you know, weird to pick on that one thing, but it is very prevalent. I asked your president about this during an interview I did by satellite when he was at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Let’s just see what he had to say to me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOODLUCK JONATHAN, PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA: That is one area that Nigerians are quite pleased with the government, that’s a commitment to improve power. It’s working. So if you are saying something different, I’m really surprised. That is one area,      one area that we will — civil society members agree that government has kept faith with its promise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, that interview caused a bit of a hullabaloo, as I think you know, in Nigeria. And yet, the World Bank has said that half — more than half the Nigerian population doesn’t have any access to the power grid.
OKONJO-IWEALA: As you know, Nigeria became a democracy again when President Obasanjo came into power in 1999. Two decades prior to that, there was hardly any investment in electricity.
If you’ve neglected a sector for that long, you’ve not invested, you’ve not even maintained your basic facilities, it’s not going to happen that fast. It takes time.
That month, when you interviewed the president, the polls showed, independently, scientifically (inaudible) that they are in technical partnership with dialogue. That 54 percent of Nigerians felt there was some improvement. They do it monthly.
Now this month, they’ve surveyed and they’ve showed this going down, because 800 megawatts has been taken off the grid, which is while they are maintaining the grid.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, because businesses apparently say that this problem with electricity is causing them to, you know, be reluctant to invest.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: They need this investment…
OKONJO-IWEALA: Nigeria is not the only country. Almost every developing country has a problem with power, as you know. India has it. South Africa has it. South Africa is far better off because they’ve invested much more.
But many developing countries, even China, they are struggling with keeping up with infrastructure.
Now, what we are doing in Nigeria?
We have accepted that the government is not the best place to run the power sector, that if we want this country and this economy to do better, we just have to get out. And Nigeria is pursuing one of the most sweeping privatization programs in any country in the world.
We are selling off everything. The generation capacity, the distribution capacity in the country, government is only retaining one thing — transmission.
AMANPOUR: Well, on that note, Madam Minister, thank you for joining me.
OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you, Christiane, for having me.




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