By now, the news of Ann Curry’s commencement speech at Wheaton College has circled the globe a few times. To make a long story short, she confused the college in Massachusetts (where she was speaking) with a similarly named school in Illinois.  Ouch. But to her credit, she did apologize and say she was “mortified” by her mistake.

What can we learn from all this?A few lessons…

Check your research. Check it again. Even if you are reading it off the teleprompter, make sure what you are reading is true. Own your research and stand by it.

Own up to the mistake. Sure, you confused two similarly named colleges that are half a country apart. But admit you were wrong, admit you were sorry for the gaffe, and move on.

Take corrective action. Learn from what you did wrong. Put corrective measures in place. Perhaps this means take a little more time with your research, trust but verify what is put in front of you, install checkpoints, find an additional set of eyes to review, whatever it takes. Sure, these measures take longer than what you were doing before, but the extra time will be worth it.

Oh, and Happy Memorial Day!!!

Your company’s messaging should pervade the entire organization, not just the output from your marketing department. Think of your messaging as that wonderful smell of fresh bread baking in the oven. You can usually smell it throughout the house. Below is an example of behavior that not only is totally out of whack with the company’s messaging, but it stinks up the joint like last week’s boiled cabbage.

I’ve applied for a position at a company that goes to great lengths (not to mention expense) to brand themselves as fun, friendly and easy to like. But when I called to follow up on the status of my application, my request was met with something not far removed from “how dare you call us, we do not accept calls from the likes of you.” Wow. Nothing fun, friendly, or likable in that message. Perhaps they should change their corporate theme song to that 1970’s rarity “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

The key takeaway: slogans and messages are wonderful (and I have been blessed  to have come up with a few good ones) only if they are pervasive and consistent throughout the entire organization. Make sure everyone in the company understands and lives up to the slogan – especially the people who are customer-facing.

You never know when or where you will meet a friend.

When I was first establishing my cadre of vendors in Dallas, I received a call from someone who sells marketing specialties. You know, stuff with your logo on it that you give away at trade shows (or trade them with fellow exhibitors if the show is really slow). My former employer’s target audience was government officials, so there wasn’t a huge call for such items. But he asked for the meeting and I obliged.

He arrived at the meeting bearing a gift – a New York Islanders key chain. The Islanders are my home town team and still my NHL favorite. That sparked quite a conversation. It turns out that we grew up about 15 miles from each other and graduated high school the same year. Had he gone to parochial school we would have been classmates! Small world, isn’t it.

He is more than just someone who sells marketing specialties. He is a savvy businessman who has been one of my trusted advisors and cheerleaders during my job search.

Lessons learned: take the meeting. Don’t be afraid to bear or receive gifts.

Did you ever think you would learn about respect for your customers at a rock concert? Let me tell you about it.

In November 2003 I attended a Duran Duran concert at the Warner Theater in Washington, DC. The original lineup of the band had reunited after nearly twenty years, and they were playing smaller theaters to test the waters of this reunion.

A minute or so into the second song, one of guitarist Andy Taylor’s Vox modeling amps broke down. Singer Simon Le Bon told the audience, “We have a full-blown catastrophe here, and we need to fix it. We want to give you the best show possible so we will stop the show for a little while and fix the amplifier.” Simon went on, “We will turn the house music back on, and by the way, the bar is open. Please have a drink on us while we sort this out.”

This is the respect for the audience that I alluded to at the start of this post. Instead of slogging through what could have been a mediocre show with a blown-out guitar amplifier (after more than 30 years of playing on the road that is something I wouldn’t do), they admitted they had a problem and stopped the show to fix it. While they were hunkered down in repair mode, they made sure the audience still had a good time. Simon took the stage periodically to provide updates and tell jokes. Who knew that this dynamic frontman was also a stand-up comedian?!? After nearly an hour they fixed the amplifier and resumed the show. They played longer than their standard set and with an enthusiasm that was contagious.

Lessons learned: Duran Duran not only put on a phenomenal show, they gave a clinic in customer service – respect your audience, admit when you’ve done something wrong, fix it, keep the audience engaged, and come back with your best.

Even though I had been a fan for 22 years, their performance that night and their respect for their fans confirmed that I would be a Durannie for life.

Searching for a job is hard work. Perhaps the hardest part is the countless hours on the telephone. This directly relates to the vanishing voice of the customer, so please read on…

I recently saw an ad for a position with a telecom service provider for which I would be ideally suited. The ad clearly stated apply on our website. Unfortunately, the job was not posted anywhere on their website, so I called the company. I then entered into the “deaf to the customer zone.” Nobody answered during business hours, so I tried my luck with the dial-by-number directory. The employee mentioned in the job ad was not in the directory. I attempted dialing into the customer service queue. Its greeting began with “Please enter a name. We can only respond to customers who call us by name.”

Allusions to Dante’s circles of hell and the futility expressed by Kafka began to become extremely clear. This was yet another company, whose very product and service proved to be its greatest barrier to customer intimacy. They made themselves deaf to their own customers.