Modern Management Methods: PR the Big Time Influence Way
August 13, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Modern management methods fascinate me. As a dinobaby, I experienced mostly old-school management ideas and methods. First, I worked at a nuclear outfit owned by everyone’s favorite company Halliburton. Then I shifted to a blue chip management consulting outfit which has had an serpentine history. When I set up my own consulting firm, I tried to keep those helping me productive and happy using those old time methods.
I am surprised by the innovations that some of the big AI tech outfits use. I call these entities BAITs. The most recent method to catch my attention is described in The Next Web’s article “OpenAI Flew Influencers to a Nature Resort to Fix Its Image. The Internet Called It Greenwashing.”
Hey, MidJourney, good enough.
As I understand the tactic, OpenAI, a BAIT outfit in my lingo, wanted to improve its public image. This is from my point of view a crisis management play. OpenAI perceives that people don’t talk about OpenAI in a positive way at scale. The fix decided upon by OpenAI leadership was very trendy. [a] Identify influencers on social media. [b] Invite them to an off site in one of those expensive, little known retreat spots loved by big, money-rich organizations, and explain the OpenAI “message.” The approach is nothing new. Before I retired, I was invited to show up at corporate events and then use that opportunity to interact with certain people. Believe it or not, one of these events featured a company whose president would be terminated due to management shortcomings. Imagine that?
The Next Web article reported:
OpenAI flew a group of influencers to a $2,000-a-night wellness resort to warm up the public mood around AI. Days before a reported $500bn data-center deal, the internet called it greenwashing, and the creators got the backlash.
Okay, the Next Web’s write up makes clear that the desired publicity to burnish the image of the BAIT outfit did not work out the way OpenAI’s leadership envisioned. The news that did come out was that a company building data centers that will not exactly benefit wildlife or human’s wellness was doing a clumsy propaganda play. The “greenwashing” thing is okay, but the tactic is nothing more than a staged event to suggest that OpenAI is a responsible outfit.
The article explained:
OpenAI hired Instagram’s former partnerships chief, its “celebrity whisperer,” as its first head of creative partnerships this year. Summer Camp, it says, was education-led, timed to the launch of ChatGPT Work, and meant to show people practical uses of its tools. “Creators are an important part of our community,” a spokesperson said, adding that the company welcomes “healthy debate.” The debate is the part OpenAI seems to have misjudged. It would not say whether the creators were paid, or expected to post. What the weekend bought was a fresh wave of the exact sentiment it set out to cool. The image problem was the reason for the trip. The trip became the image problem.
I disagree. I think the issue boils down to judgment. OpenAI, like a number of BAIT outfits, demonstrated with this PR play bad judgment. That happens to many organizations. I think there are some other issues:
- Companies like OpenAI are fighting a losing battle on three fronts: People are pushing back against BAIT data centers in the US. Europeans are pushing back against US BAITs and other US technology. China is pushing BAITs into an inkwell filled with red ink produced in the Middle Kingdom.
- OpenAI is working overtime to meet the expectations of the US government, its funding sources, and its partners. That consumes decision cycles, and I am not sure ChatGPT can provide the outputs OpenAI’s management requires. Maybe it can? But maybe not?
- OpenAI is faced with the daily hassle of managing a company with different projects, different technical groups, and what might be called dynamic ideas designed to improve the less dynamic ideas now available to customers. In short, meetings are despised but necessary. Are they fun? Yeah. Sure they are.
Net net: Of these management challenges, I think the fact that this green wellness offsite hoe down took place illustrates that modern management methods may not be what the doctor ordered. Do I hear coughs and sniffles from this outfit? Yes, I do. Are there other interesting management methods in use at this firm? Yep.
Stephen E Arnold, August 13, 2026
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