blowback

I absolutely love it when a former music industry lawyer starts off a blog post by saying "Stop lying."

(Not that I've ever thought Lefsetz was lying to me in his blog, but still - the irony is kinda delicious.)

What's a bit disheartening is that he's calling out the marketing industry; specifically, Microsoft's latest ads promoting the, ah, thriftiness of purchasing a PC over a Mac.

Seth Godin has a similar note in one of his recent blogposts. While Seth didn't specifically say "stop lying," he did point out the consequences of the accumulation of those lies.

A cloud of distrustfulness is forming over us, brought on by the lies of athletes, bankers, politicians, marketers, and even the people who made peanut butter, who made us think their products were safe while they packed dirty containers in dirty warehouses. We're in a time where we are not just questioning how safe our cars are, but if the manufacturers will be around long enough to perform warranty service.

Still, there's a few folks out there that we trust. Here and there. Good friends, soulmates, family members, a blogger we might actually know, Oprah, and that really funny and warm internet-sensation musician that flies in from NYC to thrill a couple hundred fans on a Tuesday night in Northwest Arkansas.

The key here is transparency, something that Kevin Coupe has mentioned more than a few times in the last several months on his blog, MorningNewsBeat. [Actually, Kevin talks a lot more about it than just what I linked to, and he walks the talk, too.] If companies were more open about themselves, if people were more open about themselves, some of our trust wouldn't have been so misplaced.

A lot of folks have a lot to answer to in regards to devious practices, marketing or otherwise. And we the people have to decide to trust or not to trust them ever again. There's no way I can tell who's lying or who's not.

Luckily, there is this thing called the internet, which tends to call you out on your beliefs and your statements, and there's a couple of thousand bloggers and citizen journalists out there (who may or may not be in their PJs in the basement) that are willing to dig and find out if it's real or if it's pure BS.


[Full disclosure - I'm in my sweats, just 'cause I'm getting ready to get on the treadmill. I'm not in my basement, 'cause it's actually kinda spooky.]


And you really don't want that kind of trouble, do you big companies? It's hard for people to regain their trust in you. And in these troubled times (drink!), are you willing to risk it and pay twice as much? - once for the BS marketing, and again for the blowback?

(Sorry for the prob - I've fixed the link!) 
Here's a sneak peek at my new professional blog! I'm still putting some finishing touches on it (and learning how to use Wordpress), but the official grand opening is on April 12th.