An interesting piece in Andy Lark’s blog suggests that while transparency is an issue for communicators, what it means is going to vary from company to company based on a summit between communicators and company lawyers.

The outcome might be a set of behaviors, practices and polices that really articulate what transparency means in the context of the business - a kind of playbook. Transparency runs deeper than fiduciary responsibility - it cuts to the core of an organization. So this ain’t just an issue for the lawyers, accountants or PR people. It’s as much a cultural issue as a procedural one.

Lark also says communicators can take some action now. One such action is to identify ourselves rather than hiding behind the veil of the anonymous label of “spokesman.” Of course, when reporters call, no communicator identifies himself as a spokesman. Most reporters already know exactly who we are and what our job title is. If he doesn’t, we tell him. Then, in reporting the story, it’s the reporter who shortens it to “spokesman” for the sake of brevity, in the belief that nobody cares about the title of a PR person, or because he’s simply fallen into the habit of calling any company PR representative a “spokesman.”

Our primary role in the transparency arena is one of counselor (they do call us PR counselors, after all). When management tells us to communicate something but to keep something else quiet, we need to advise them just how bad an idea that is.

Shortly after my book on employee communications, “Corporate Conversations,” was published, I got a call from a reporter with a newspaper in Florida. He was writing about the embarrassing release of a memo from Halliburton’s CEO exhorting employees to send letters to the editors of their hometown publications singing Halliburton’s praises. The reporter wanted to know how a company can communicate with employees if they don’t want the message to go public. I had a two-word answer: “They can’t.” Especially with a memo, I told him. If you don’t want it to appear in the local papers, don’t commit it to print. The reporter argued: “But how can a company maintain confidentiality?” Again: “They can’t.” He never did seem to grasp the notion that there are no secrets any more.

Of course, companies have to struggle mightily to maintain the secrets they’re required to keep, such as forward-looking thinking and financial information that has not yet been released to the financial community. But for other kinds of information, it’s up to us to help management understand the new dynamics of the marketplace and establish a culture that releases information quickly and accurately. As I noted yesterday in my post “Timing was everything,” the days of carefully managing information are over.

Lark also points to an intriguing post from David Berlind who has an idea for adding a line to e-mail signature blocks based on the notion that any e-mail you send could find its way into the public realm.