I seem to have gotten into a ruckus with Toby Bloomberg recently and the thing has been escalating. Paul Chaney over at Radiant Marketing is indignant about a comment I left on her blog and has labeled me Diva’s Enemy #1 . He was irate over a comment I left on her site in which he said I had been over-the-top, which I have to admit is accurate. It was my bad play. I'm embarrassed by it, and I apologize. I was trying something that failed because people were clueless what it was all about and that part of it shows poor judgments on my part. If I am Toby’s #1 public enemy, than she is blessed with very few enemies. I wish her no ill will, but I do have two serious issues with her and they are not small and in those issues, I remain adamant in my disagreement with her.
These two issues are:
(1) Character blogs. Toby, as a consultant, has helped a client create Gourmet Station . She thinks they are a legitimate marketing mechanism and she is championed by two colleagues who seem to be closely intertwined in its promotion. Others thing all character blogs are lame. My views are more are complicated, and I’ll get to them in a minute.
(2) Comment Deletion. Toby apparently thinks its okay to take down comments that her Gourmet Station doesn’t like. Here, I strong disagree with her and I’ll address that as well.
First, let me back up a bit. A central theme to our book is that traditional one-directional marketing is in the process of dying. It will be replaced by conversational marketing and companies who adapt will be better off for it—so will their constituencies. Companies who ignore the blogging phenomenon will fall behind the curve and will have a great deal of trouble catching up. Marketers who try to game blogging, using typical marketing techniques, we believe will fail because the beauty and power of blogging comes down to credible conversations between real people who listen to each other.
On April Fool’s Day, Gaping Void’s Hugh McLeod posted a new Beyond Lame Award, which pointed me to Gourmet Station. When I went there, I felt the blog merited the award. It was slick and deceptive in my opinion. I had no idea that this site had anything to do with Toby. I looked for a real person whom I could email—but there is no email posted that I could find. So I posted the first of my controversial comments. I said that Hugh sent me and that I thought he was right. The site was lame and was very interested to see how the company would answer my comment. How they responded would impact what I planned to write about it for our book.
The next day, I received the first of two emails from Toby. The subject line was “Agree to Disagree,” which was a reference to a bump she and I recently had on a radio program, over a very similar issue. Until I read the email, I had no idea that Toby was in any way connected to Gourmet Station and I felt badly. Had I known, I would have just gone to her and interviewed her on the record. Toby wrote (in part), “The icon as a "voice" makes sense for the strategy and branding direction. We fully disclosed and even told part of the back story of how we reached this decision. Tris Hussey and Paul Chaney eloquently posted the on the issue. It's ok to disagree. It's how we're going to learn and grow and take this exciting adventure to the next level. My hope is that our dialogues will be based on honorable intensions that help rather than hurt and include sound research when we debate issues with each other.”
I thought it was a classy note and I felt badly. I sent a quick awkward personal apology, I figured I’d spend the day thinking over several options for next steps and mulling several questions it raised: for example: How does a disclosure on Radiant Marketing, justify a deceiving visitors to Gourmet Station?
For another, Toby had used the pronoun, “We.” Were Paul Chaney and Tris Hussey involved in this project as well or just stepping up for a friend? I was going to research and get the whole story—but tabled it for the day.
Then Toby sent a second email and I perceived this one to be a hand grenade. Toby informed me that my Gourmet Station comment had been deleted. To me this went to a larger fundamental— removing legitimate comments submitted by real people seems to me to destroy the conversation that makes blogging so special. Now I was mad, and I am aware that I have a temper that has done me wrong in the past. I followed Robert’s sage advice and I avoided writing anything on the subject, while I was still mad.
But mad I remained. I wanted to know just what rules on comments Toby maintained. I went to her site and placed an intentionally caustic comment,which of course backfired on me. There would have been wiser courses and I regret not taking them.
Chaney and Hussey were quick to jump to their friend’s defense. Chaney posted a strong comment on Toby’s blog taking me on, telling me I was over the top and concluding: “Who asked you anyway?” He emailed me to make certain I saw it. Then he posted his own indignant blog. Interestingly, in building a case against me, he quoted Shel Holtz . He quoted Shel as saying “...a blog is a lightweight content management system that allows people to comment.” Let me repeat, “ALLOWS PEOPLE TO COMMENT.” My point precisely. This goes to Chaney's question of who asked me anyway.
It seems to me that when your blog has a comments section, you are asking people for comments. Perhaps, I'm being presumptuous. At The Red Couch, there are comments that have been posted that I absolutely hate. Yet they remain posted, so long as they do not break rules of decency or obscenity. Allan Jenkins recently pointed out a few reasonable rules that make sense to me. Some A-listers like Dave Winer—to my personal disappointment—turns off his comments but at least lets you email him.
Toby didn’t like what I said so she arbitrarily erased my words from Gourmet Station. This did not seem to me to be a constructive next step in her e-mailed suggestion that we have dialog, “based on honorable intensions that help rather than hurt." Interestingly, she did not remove my even more caustic comments from Diva Marketing. I think this is to her credit. Perhaps she feels her clients are worthy of greater protection. Or perhaps the decision to censor me was actually made by her clients and she was forced to be the messenger. If that is the case, Toby, I hope you find better clients.
Tris Hussey also had some curious additions to this escapade. I was not familiar with Tris until now. The first time I noticed his name was when it appeared under comments at Gourmet Station. Then Toby referenced in him in the email to me. Next, I read Paul Chaney gave him radiating praise in his blog. Then, finally Tris chimed in with his own posting --which shows he is no master at teaching by example. He opened with a high-road call for civility among disagreing parties. In his next breath, he referred to an “asshole VC,” who held an opposing view. Then, as a further example of a lack of civility, he pointed to my recent post on Moosetopia. That was an interesting choice. In fact, I had enjoyed a most civil interaction with Moosetopia's author John Nardini and shared with him in advance that Robert, I and many of our readers took a dim view of character blogs. He asked for the chance to be heard anyway and we gave it to him. John sent me an email thanking me for giving him a fair chance.I feel badly that some comments posted there have been, well uncivil. Be that as it may, that doesn’t give me the right to take them down.
Tris, please tell me what was uncivil about that.
Toby, I apologize once more. I was rude and I was playing my own games when I should have been more straightforward. We should all remember to be straightforward--don't you think? I would like, if it’s possible, to have that dialog filled with“ honorable intensions that help rather than hurt and include sound research when we debate issues with each other.” I welcome any comments you wish to post.
