Over the past 72 hours, I’ve barely had fifteen minutes to myself – suffice to say, when it comes to being a road-warrior traveler, I’ve got NOTHING on my boss.
I hope to have some time tomorrow to write some more specific thoughts about the panel, the research released, and my thoughts about how the data can inform programs and not just discussion. (for what it’s worth, I personally found the StrategyOne data on blogging and political action far more interesting than the lists of influential blogs, but that’s just me) In the meantime, Jacki Danicki, who attended the event at Claridge’s but I didn’t have the chance to meet, has a really thoughtful post about the event.
Steve didn’t like the Agency.com stunt creating a video for a Subway new business pitch. In fact, he’s pretty harsh on the bunch. Now – yes, it was corny. Yes, it was a stunt.
But it’s also a stunt that worked – fabulously well. (by just about any metric, I think) I’m not bothered that some bloggers that work in advertising or marketing are whacking the Agency.com folks, not a bit. In fact, in my own experience – the biggest challenge these folks have is getting over one simple hurdle: they’re not normal people. Heck, they’re not even normal bloggers for that matter.
It was fun, it was self-deprecating, and I personally don’t think it hurts Subway’s brand at all: but then again, I also doubt any of us on the outside are really in a position to answer that with any certainty.
Just in case you needed any more convincing that Scientology is creepy, crazy, nutty, and a little scary – an enterprising type has put an entire 10-part Scientology orientation video on YouTube.
This is my favorite so far, in which we hear how L. Ron Hubbard used his newly-found skills at Dianetics to foil the government’s mind control tactics.
Grab em fast before the jack booted lawyers from the Cult of Xenu raid the YouTube offices.
This all, of course, raises the interesting dynamic that the web – starting with blogs and text, now spreading to widely available means of publishing rich content, is a tremendous threat to closed organizations like Scientology. Long famous for their intimidation and scare tactics – towards everything from Google to Governments – that genie is slowly getting out of the bottle. Or more precisely – it’s once again out of the bottle, and no court will be able to wedge it back in.
UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long. The creepy nutjob fanatics at the L. Ron Hubbard Memorial Insane Asylum have laid the hammer on YouTube. Never fear – they’ll be back sometime soon.
Good grief, man. Jealousy, bitterness, incoherence. None of which are particularly becoming. Anarchy? You mean…like..um, Wikipedia? What in the world were those people thinking with the notion that if you let the public participate and lead the process you might actually create an authoritative reference point?
Kind of like open source software and the communities that organize around the principles of collaborative work towards large goals. The only major obstacle to such endeavors are manipulators and charlatans. Like people who would try to abuse, say, a software community by trying to insert themselves just enough into the development cycle to later lay a claim to the fruits of EVERYONE’s labor. Wonder who would do that?
I mean, someone ask Brian Connolly…what the heck is with the midget tossing? That’s certainly not very sensitive. And even putting that aside – why the hell didn’t I win? I mean – if the yardstick was really just a jab at folks that have more experience and success blogging than doing the professional flack routine – I’ve got them all whipped.
And, dear readers: in the future: clumsy threatening emails and amateurish “cease & desists” ought to be addressed to: me at mkrempasky -at- that google email service. It won’t be taken seriously, but it will be graded for style points. And then promptly mocked. My general rules on this sort of thing are as follows:
If it isn’t delivered by process server or certified mail, it’s not serious.
If it *is* delivered properly, but the target is a blogger – then the sender proves every charge of dumbassery lobbed his/her/its way
Fictional people can’t sue.
When *real* people sue, discovery is a bitch.
Cheers.
Erin Caldwell is coming to Edelman – and we came out ahead. Way ahead.
If any other students or interested observers are…well, interested – here’s one part of the story: we decided that Erin was head and shoulders above the competition before we met her. Why? Well, because she blogs of course.
Oh, and Robert – thanks for the promotion, but alas – I am sans the “S”