Earned Media - Another Nortel Achievement

One of the things I am most proud of in the time I've been leading Team Nortel is the increased exposure I've managed to gain for the company in the media. In the business, we call this 'earned media' as opposed to advertising. My predecessors at Nortel, especially that Roth guy, they were very keen on advertising, but in my time I'm proud to say Nortel has been on the front pages of the world's press more and more frequently. I'm especially pleased with the number of column inches we've earned in recent days.

Today, as an example, I gave an interview to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. That's a journal up in some rural place in Canada where I hear that Nortel has a little operation. I don't get up there much myself, and of course now the plane is gone getting up there would be out of the question. More on that later. Anyway, this provincial reporter called and I think the interview came out pretty well. I think he really understood the point I was trying to get across, and that is this:

When you have a situation where everyone is feeling the pain of the economic downturn, where I personally have decided to lead by example by foregoing all but $2.5 million of my own compensation, it really is only fair that the wider Nortel team shoulder their share of the burden. Team Nortel is a great group of people and everyone really wanted to chip in their part of this effort - giving up severances, bonuses, raises and pension contributions. I'm even more proud of the way that our retirees and recently severed employees really stepped up to the plate and relinquished their severances. I managed to get this across to the reporter and I'm happy to say Nortel gets another great piece of that 'earned media'.

Another one of the things I'm really proud of is that together we've managed to make Nortel really affordable again. Time was when you had to be pretty rich just to afford one share of Nortel stock. I've managed to turn that around and now Nortel is more affordable than ever! Another great thing that Team Nortel has done to help out in these hard times.

Well, I must get back to leading Nortel, but it's been great to share all this with you. Tomorrow we'll talk about customers, because I love customers. I spend a lot of my time talking to customers and I'm glad they're there, because without them, well I wouldn't have too many people to talk to. Meanwhile if you know anyone that would like to buy a well stocked mini-bar and a gross of packets of mixed nuts, have them drop by the airport and ask for C-FNNT.