So you’ve probably heard about the Sarah Silverman fiasco at the TED conference by now. If not, here’s the recap: Silverman, who is notorious for her outrageous kick-ya-in-the-teeth humor, was asked to give a speech at TED, the well regarded org known for its brainiac and celeb-packed conferences. She accepted, showed and delivered a typical trademark talk, trashing an array of things – among them Sarah Palin’s recent rant about the word “retarded.” Silverman used the word as much as possible and said a number of un-PC things, including that she’d like to adopt a retarded child, but only one who is terminally ill because she’s “awesome like that” – and plus the kid would then have an “expiration date.”

Crass? Of course. Offensive? Surely some listeners thought so. Unexpected? Not so much if you’ve ever heard Silverman open her mouth before.

Chris Anderson, the TED organizer who invited Silverman to speak in the first place promptly tweeted about how “god-awful” she was. A Twitter-based ruckus between Anderson and Silverman featuring a bizarre side battle between Silverman and Steve Case (Case jumped in to defend Anderson) then ensued. The media hopped on the bandwagon shortly after and buzz and press coverage about the incident spread.

Love Silverman or hate her, my question is this: What was Anderson thinking when he invited her to speak in the first place? It sounds like she delivered material right in line with all the other material she usually delivers and he was taken aback?

The net-net from a communications standpoint seems to be a basic lesson: Do your homework before you hire a speaker. Keep “good” company, or at least know the company you keep.

For many corporations and individuals, common sense dictates the practice of astroturfing (see Wikipedia’s definition if you’re unfamiliar) is something to be avoided, since it’s unethical and chances are it will backfire. It’s also against the law thanks to new FTC guidelines.

So if you’re the world’s largest public corporation by revenue, and stockholders, journalists, bloggers and pretty much everyone under the sun is watching what you’re up to, astroturfing is a disaster waiting to happen – especially if you were caught doing something similar back in 2006.

But that didn’t stop Wal-Mart from setting up a fake community group to drum up support in Chicago, where the company is gunning for a second store within city limits.

When the Chicagoist blog received a series of pro-Wal-Mart comments from unknown screen names in response to various posts, blogger Kevin Robinson decided to investigate. He discovered that, with the help of PR firm Serafin & Associates and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart is behind the phony advocacy group, “Our Community. Our Choice,” which was linked to the blog comments.

Wal-Mart and its associates have every right to plea the corporation’s case to the people of Chicago. And the citizens do, too, if they’re legitimate. But establishing a fake community group that professes to stand for residents and their interests is undoubtedly devious and a tactic no PR firm or brand should use.

We recently returned from an expert workshop on the topic of healthy community design that we handled for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Planning started in February and we were responsible for everything from selecting the participants to setting the agenda. The objective of the event was to engage thought leaders from those professions responsible for creating the built environment (developers, architects, planners, etc.) to discuss how we can encourage the consideration of public health factors (walkability, respiratory health, access to healthy foods, etc.) when communities are being designed. In attendance were representatives from the United States Green Building Council, American Institute of Architects, Environmental Protection Agency, National Association of Home Builders, Department of Housing and Urban Development and American Planning Association, among others. We also secured Architectural Record’s Editor in Chief Bob Ivy as our moderator.

The meeting was a success. The dialogue was inspired and dynamic. And our careful planning paid off – in fact, Bob Ivy, who has moderated many similar meetings, said he’d never seen an event more meticulously organized. We’re now working on a report that summarizes the outcomes and planning a media initiative to continue building on the momentum of the meeting.

We held a meeting similar to this one in 2001 – it was a roundtable of Chief Marketing Officers from multinational and international companies (United Airlines, IBM, P&G, et al). We didn’t face any difficulties securing attendees for either meeting. The subject matter and agenda were enough of a draw. What was different this time was how challenging the communication became leading up to this year’s meeting. It seemed two factors were at play: 1) people are so overwhelmed with information that they can only focus on so much at any given time; 2) very few people have assistants these days to help them manage their logistics.

Prior to the meeting, we distributed a handful of emails that included all the event details. We were selective in what we included because we didn’t want to overwhelm our guests. Sure enough, some people would respond by answering only one of our requests (e.g. Please send us your bio; or, Are you a United States citizen?). In the days leading up to the event, people finally started to focus and that’s when the questions started to surface. In droves. Several people failed to see that we had booked ground transportation for them in Atlanta. Others needed the name and address of the hotel. There were also a lot of questions about the three-minute case study they were asked to prepare. I was constantly tethered to my BlackBerry for the final 48 hours leading up to the event.

When the dust settled, I called the agent who handled all of the travel arrangements. She had also booked our 2001 meeting. We agreed that it was much more difficult to communicate with people in advance of the meeting this time around. The degree of overload is only going to increase as we tap into new channels of information with new devices. Maybe next time we should try carrier pigeons.