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November 2, 2005
Score One for the Luddites
The Forbes cover story in the November 14 edition, titled, "Attack of the Blogs! They Destroy Brands and Wreck Lives Is There Any Way To Fight Back?" is a stunning attempt to create a parallel reality. In a style reminiscent of former President Richard Nixon, the article skewers the blogosphere as "the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns."
Is this the beginning of an effort to deposition blogs? Is it simply a case of Forbes trying to take an opposite stand from Business Week, which published a very positive article, "Blogs Will Change Your Business," in the May 2, 2005 edition? Whatever the motive, the takeaway for corporate executives is beware the blogosphere, because as the article states, "The combination of massive reach and legal invulnerability makes corporate character assassination easy to carry out." This is exactly the wrong message at the wrong time.
The Forbes reporter extrapolates from cases that hardly provoke great feelings of sympathy. One involves a sleazy entrepreneur who was hyping his new fat substitute, attacked by a blogger who turns out to be a short-seller. Whether on message boards or in stories planted with aggressive journalists such as the late Dan Dorfman, this sort of struggle has happened for generations. Another case is Eason Jordan, a former senior executive at CNN, who resigned in February, 2005, after a blogger at the World Economic Forum reported Jordan's allegation that journalists had been "targeted" by American forces in Iraq. Though Jordan denied the report, Forbes says he was "engulfed by the concocted controversy." I was at the WEF session and can confirm that the blogger's account was accurate, though I must also say that the ground rules for the panel were clear--all comments were to be off the record.
The solutions proposed are equally stunning in their perversity. Bashing back against your assailants by finding dirt and feeding other bloggers. Build a blog swarm, even if it means paying them to post items. The slam-bam conclusion of the piece is the suggestion that offended parties file suit against Internet service providers to force them to pull objectionable material.
The PR industry can present a more realistic picture of blogging to its clients. The blogosphere is a vital new force in the communications business, which has expanded the universe of information available to stakeholders. It allows a social interaction not available in the world of one-way media, a combination of content and community. The blogosphere is able to correct and improve their posts in real-time, with eighty-seven percent of bloggers stating they correct posts in our recent survey we conducted with Technorati. It enables us to reach, in the words of Aedmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100, the "digital natives" who are now in their 20s, who expect blogs and wikis in the workplace.
We should put around the positive cases of blogging. It is an opportunity to utilize the intelligence of the networked world to improve or create new products. Several examples were cited in a Council of PR Firms conference last week. One is Intuit's TaxAlmanac.org, which seeks to document best practices for tax accountants. Another is told by Business Week's Steven Baker, who used his blog to find out more about podcasting before completing his story for the magazine. Ross Mayfield of SocialText spoke about turning media exclusives into inclusives, where instead of focusing on a single journalist at a given point in time, a company executive blogs throughout the entire period of product development, evolving from a story of outcomes to a longer tale of the process.
Today's reality is that companies are losing absolute control over communications and that is a good thing. Simply stated, you gain power by enabling the broader group of stakeholders to participate in the conversation. In a period where trust has been eroded by continued violations of ethics, it is only rebuilt through continous dialogue and rich dialogue that sustains relationships.
Posted by Edelman at November 2, 2005 10:05 AM
Comments
Good viewpoint, Richard, but the Forbes article did something that the BusinessWeek article did not: created fear. And, from fear comes either action or inaction, and in this case the action will come from CEOs asking their marketing and PR people about blogs, and potentially getting more into the game and understanding blogs better.
And, well, being good for PR.
Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at November 7, 2005 2:13 PM
The best PR event Edelman could host would be to say no thank you to the WalMart account. I find it distressing when a firm I have respected staffs the Walmart War Room. Even under unfettered capitalism, sometimes a responsible company should walk away from an opprotunity just to protect your core values. In my opinion, you just blew it!
Posted by: Lester Stillson at November 7, 2005 7:14 PM
Nicely stated.
And I also agree with Jeremy, this story has given people out-of-touch with technology one more thing to be terrified of.
The irony of the Forbes story is that its undoing is taking place in the blogosphere, almost like the author threw up a BS story to test the reaction of bloggers.
Posted by: Lance Dutson at November 8, 2005 3:07 PM
Well said. I personally love the concept of executives blogging during product development process. I think it is the way forward for companies (and Sony's efforts to get back in the portable music space come to mind as ripe for the opportunity) that want to build an authentically enthusiastic following. Invite customers into the development process, make them feel a part of it, and I am certain they will become genuinely loyal brand evangelists, the type you simply cannot buy.
Posted by: Usher Lieberman at November 9, 2005 3:56 AM
Jeremy,
That's one thing I love about you jeremy. Always the optimist. I worry that this article will prompt overeager legal types to look for litigation options. Maybe the cumulative effort of biz week and forbes gets us there. Thanks
Posted by: Richard Edelman at November 9, 2005 9:45 AM
They can come after bloggers all they want - but the sheer numbers of the people involved combined with the technical abilities of many bloggers means in the long run, the free floow of information cannot be stopped without fundamentally altering the nature of the Internet.
I believe we are in far more danger from censorship from international boundaries than would be lawyers looking for a fast buck. Lawyers have to look for opportunities, and there will be painful losses for some unfortunate people - but the networking capabilites of the blogosphere are far more effective than the slow-moving processes of the legal system.
I've had to shut down blogs that might hurt my business - but it's very easy to blog anonymously if one chooses. If bloggers in Iran and China can do it, I'm sure bloggers in the US can do so also.
The number of law blawgs is also in our favor - the more of them - the more they get the medium, which means the more eager they are to defend it.
Posted by: Jim Durbin at November 11, 2005 10:21 AM
Reasonable people can disagree. The company is making real progress on environmental issues, health. Note great contributions after Hurricane Katrina. Stay tuned.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at November 14, 2005 2:54 PM
Jim,
Interesting point on censorship. Note the aggressive moves in France in past week to close down blogs by Muslim teens. Apparently there was huge traffic to site with photos of teens who were electrocuted as they fled the cops. Note that the site that was taken down is still able to be contacted at bouna93.skyblog.com. So to your point about the elasticity of the Web!
Posted by: Richard Edelman at November 14, 2005 2:55 PM
I completely agree on your opinion about the benefit of a larger group of people becoming involved with the conversation of anything, from the media to top corporate businesses. I can't understand why some people are afraid of this. It's a kind of controlled democracy where ideally everyone will come out on top. Mr Durbin, your comments on international censorship is very interesting. I haven't heard about times when that has been an issue, but obviously it is. I'm still not sure about the future of blogs. I've heard that it will be just another trend. And sure, it might be, but I think the idea will continue to exist, just morph into more advanced mediums as the technology allows it.
Caroline Smith
caroline-smith@northwestern.edu
Posted by: Caroline Smith at November 29, 2005 10:32 PM
This is more than a fad. Mainstream companies are recognizing a unique opportunity to have real conversations about products. And to improve their image by appearing human.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at November 30, 2005 10:08 AM