Archive for the ‘fail’ Category

There was a time when I pointed to the Transportation Security Administration as an example in social media, like this:

Hey, if the TSA can start a blog, what’s stopping other government agencies?

But I have to say that they’re fumbling badly with the introduction of their new Advanced Imaging Technology machines and the “advanced patdown” – also known as the “Don’t touch my junk” patdown.

I don’t need to tell you how much attention all of this is getting and how many gaffes and incidents are getting attention now.From women being asked to remove breast prostheses to children being patted down to an amputee having to run her prosthetic leg through the luggage x-ray machine to a woman doffing her duds and trying to be patted down in lingerie to (and this one hit home for me) a bladder cancer survivor having his urostomy bag broken by the pat-down and having to board his plane with pants soaked with his urine.

And tomorrow seems like it’s going to make things even worse, with “National Opt-Out Day” encouraging US travellers to opt out of the scanners and allow themselves to get groped.

The TSA’s response? In part, this video:

Not Blogger Bob.

Ouch. The lameness burns.

UPDATE: The very smart (and very good on how to work with video) Ike Pigott has taken a run at why the Pistole video doesn’t work in his very worthwhile blog Occam’s Razor. Check it out.

TechCrunch has pointed to the mysterious “Blogger Bob” as having the most unenviable job in social media — that of running the TSA’s social media presence. He’s at the former “Evolution of Security” blog and he’s running the one official TSA Blog Team twitter account. And man, he takes a lot of heat.

But the problem with TSA isn’t their social media activity. It’s that their social media activity isn’t matching up with their real-world actions. Blogger Bob is trying to do his best in the time-honored Dell model, but it doesn’t feel like TSA is doing what Dell did to re-engineer their business and to better meet their customers’ expectations and demands.

If I use TSA as an example in a future, it is going to be more along the lines of:

Don’t start down this road unless you’re willing to actually CHANGE based on what you hear. Just saying you’re listening only gets you so far.

So to Blogger Bob, I wish a happy and stress-free American Thanksgiving. To all those travelling, I hope your trips are free of horror stories.

To the TSA, I hope that you’re soon better able to balance the need for security with basic human rights.

And finally, if that video by TSA administrator John Pistole has left you with a bad taste in your mouth, here’s something that’s about airport security, but also a bit more entertaining: webisodes from the Gruppo Rubato production of “Airport Security”, starring buds Kris Joseph and Nancy Kenny, among others.

I’ve got a bit on the tumultuous visit of Ann Coulter to the University of Ottawa in episode #538 of For Immediate Release. You can check it out on the site or subscribe using iTunes. I’m not gonna make you listen to the whole thing (but you should) — I’m at the 42 minute mark, so you can fast forward if you want.

UPDATE: Here’s the audio of my comment only. But you should really listen to the whole podcast.

If you’re in PR you should already know about Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson‘s podcast. They’ve been producing a minimum of two hours of great content per week on the main podcast for about the last five years. Add to that FIR Live and the many interviews they toss into the feed, and they are examples for all of us.

Speaking of which — we (being Mark Blevis and I) are THIS CLOSE to releasing the first episode of our new podcast, PR and Other Deadly Sins. Soon, soon.

Once upon a time, Technorati rankings meant something. I used to look at mine regularly (probably more regularly than was wise). And that only increased when Todd Andrlik created what became the AdAge Power 150 blog, which ranked PR and marketing blogs on a number of factors, including Technorati authority. And Dave Sifry’s regular reports on the state of the blogosphere were fascinating reading.

But those days are gone. Technorati has gone from a blog search engine to … I’m not sure what. And man, is their system borked.

An example:

I migrated this blog from Blogger to this WordPress platform in November. And I thought it would be a good idea to get it listed in Technorati. The process involves placing a “claim token” on the site and in the RSS feed. On November 25, they noted that token and said my blog was “awaiting review.” For what? I didn’t know. For how long? They didn’t say.

After a few days, I visited the support forums Technorati’s established on GetSatisfaction. Uhoh. There were dozens and dozens of open threads, and one titled “Blog claiming is taking FOREVER!” featured prominently. Worse, it was begun by a Technorati employee.

That thread now has more than 400 posts from frustrated bloggers. During that time, one Technorati web developer was responding to reports of problems with more than a little defensiveness:

“There’s a lot of misinformation here, and I’m afraid that the time it would take to correct it all would impact the wait time for more approved blogs. I share your frustration, and wish I had a spare couple of days to respond to each comment.”

“back when I was frequently posting here, most of what I received in response was more grief.”

My blog sat from November 25-January 19 waiting for “review”, which apparently involved weeding out spam blogs. Three of those weeks were apparently spent reviewing submissions from November 24. Yes, that’s what I wrote. 15 working days to review one day’s submissions.

On January 6, VP of marketing Jen MacLean posted on the Technorati blogthat “Blog claiming is fixed“. She was wrong.

A week later, blogger Louis Gray claimed that Technorati was focusing on quality. According to Gray’s blog, written after meeting with CEO Richard Jalichandra,

Many bloggers, including the visible futurist Stowe Boyd, have already given up on Technorati, after seeing the company’s early promise seem to crash and burn, through a confusing product strategy, spam-filled results, poor uptime, and bad news followed by no news. It seems the darkest times are behind them, and the company will have to make good on its promises before many bloggers learn to trust them again. But in my meeting with them Monday, they clearly said they’re not done fighting.

I disagreed.

On January 19, the review process ended and I was asked to rewrite the description of the blog. I tried to do that, but there was no way to do so because their web site was glitched. On January 25, they fixed that glitch, I resubmitted my description, and here I sit. Again. Waiting.

It’s shocking to me that a company that has received $32M in venture funding and been around since the beginning of the blogging revolution could be operating so, so very badly. Perhaps it’s time that we all just look away and let it die as pain-free a death as possible.

I got the following pitch today. I’m redacting it to remove identifying information, but man, does the last line of that covering note grate on my nerves. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never expressed interest in this company.

Here goes:

Greetings! COMPANY X, LLC just posted — COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y. Please contact us if you need any additional information. Thank you for your interest in COMPANY X, LLC.

Best Regards,
PR Department
PHONE

press@COMPANYX.com

Original Collateral Text:

COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y Program

CITY–STATE/ October 27, 2009 – COMPANY X, LLC announced the launch of the new entry level tier of its PROGRAM Y: PROGRAM Y: Standard. The ‘Standard’ package is for small content owners and web media companies. The new program rounds out COMPANY(TM) revolutionary program.

MISTER X, GRAND POOHBAH, commented: “Online publishers who want to do more than, well, one thing at a time, are frustrated. I know, I’ve been in their shoes. They’ve posted blogs, videos, photos and audios on sharing sites and tried to tie it all together along with social networking and other widgets. The tools are all different, they don’t talk to each other and every time a version changes — things break. They have no way to really grow audience and their users cannot contribute “any media” rich content. They’ve tried ad programs and ad networks and they only seem to “cheapen” content. Worse still – they seem to spend more time wrestling with the technology than on their content. I only wish that COMPANY(TM) had been available for my previous companies! ”

I’ve asked the company when I had expressed interest in them, but haven’t heard back from them.

I know that we’ve all moaned about bad pitches, but this one just got under my skin.

Hope this doesn’t get under yours in the same way.

Ciao,
Bob.