shannonsays.com

People Who Owe Hootville Money

"Small business is a complex caper made all the more complex by clients who don't pay."

Yep sure is. So what to do when when of your customers doesn't pay.  In the olden days you might think about using a Debt Collection service, or maybe sending a member of Hell's Angels around (who is usually the neighbour of a cousin of a friend), but not anymore.  Now we can use the web to try and shame them into action.

It is an idea that stems from consumer-gripe sites like notgoodenough.org as well as countless blogs and discussion boards (try googling "company x" sucks) that let people vent their spleen over such things like crappy service or faulty products (remember hunterholdensucks.com?). 

How the successful these on-line campaigns are at damaging the reputations of a company is difficult to judge.  Sometimes all hell breaks loose; just ask the Kryponite bike lock folks.  Sometimes they are just screaming rants.  And how much notice do we take of negative feedback once we have decided to buy something anyway? 

So it will be interesting to see whether Wisegirls is affected by Brett DeHoedt's (Media Mega Star and owner of Melbourne PR Company Hootville Communications) campaign to get them to cough up the $5857 dollars they owe him.  He has a page titled "People who owe Hootville Money" where he lists clients who owe him for his services.  A Shame File.

It's a great idea, classic Cluetrain stuff.  Brett is using the Internet to get people talking about Wisegirls.  And the news is bad.  But why will it work for Brett?

Check out his site..  It's not like some on-line corporate glossy brochure shtick, it is a real site, run by real people using a real human voice.  It is less formal, less professional (you know what I mean Brett!) and less anonymous that many PR company sites (it is almost as cool as Huh Corp's).  It is written for us, not him.   And that is why this will really hurt Wisegirls, it is real.

People will believe Brett.

Plus, non paying shonks like Danielle Paruit deserve to be shamed (And not just because their website is just like every other travel website; ie a bland on-line brochure).

I'd get a bank cheque written tomorrow Danielle...   

*UPDATE 28/09:*
Here is an email Danielle fired off to Brett:

Dear Brett,

"I note that you have updated your site in relation to me and Wisegirls and removed the text that was clearly abusive, including the threat of stalking me. I suspect that my fax to your solicitor dated 22 September might have had something to do with it.

I also note your invitation ( as from 23 Sep) for my comments - also a new initiative. I don't believe that this type of forum is neither appropriate nor professional for any dispute resolutions. As you know I have written to your solicitor, and am now waiting from information from you, to progress this matter.

I would appreciate the entire and unedited contents of this email being posted on your website.

Regards, Danielle"

Hmm, as Brett noted there is a paradox in Danielle's wants:  Stop using the internet to air all this stuff, but make sure you publish what I have to say, in it's unedited entirety.  Whatever.

You can follow the saga via the link above.  It promises to get better, if Brett's parting words; "(It's) time to ramp up the campaign" are anything to go by.

A Thought Over Coffee... With A Lawyer

One of my favorite "blogs of the minute" is Jason Duncans "A Thought Over Coffee":

"Follow me through my journey towards opening Cafe Evoke. From my final semester at Belmont University in Nashville, TN to opening day in Bozeman, MT I will share my expirences with writing the business plan, doing the research, and opening the cafe."

In amongst the commentary on the fun and games that are taking place as he attempts to establish his new cafe (Evoke), Jason offers lots of great quotes, lessons and other cool links.  Today he pointed me to this article on Jeffrey Hughes:

Thirsty for justice? Jeffrey Hughes' two Legal Grind cafes in the Los Angeles area offer "Coffee and Counsel" to those who may not otherwise seek legal advice. Through his innovative venture, Hughes has worked hard to both provide a valuable service to his community and change the public perception of attorneys.

It's Starbucks meets LA Law, and it's great stuff:

Over a dozen lawyers work out of Legal Grind on various days, generally between 3 and 6 p.m. For example, on the first and third Monday of every month, attorney Michael Goldstein offers a $25 "Coffee and Counsel" session on employment rights, worker's compensation, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, personal injury and civil/business disputes between 5 and 6 p.m. Another lawyer simultaneously offers advice on landlord/tenant disputes, auto accidents, restraining orders and small claims.

During the day, before the various experts come in, people can use the document preparation service, pop in to get something notarized or drink coffee while browsing the self-help books on the shelves, including "Your Divorce Advisor."

Coffee.  His point of difference is as simple as coffee, good coffee of course:

"We don't want to serve bad espresso, because then people will think we'll screw up their divorce"

It's a great story and is another example of what can happen when you really think about what your customers would really like from you, and it is almost an example of how Chris Carfi's "Transaction to Community" model works.

I don't know that you can ever feel like you are part of a lawyer's community, but at Legal Grind it is about as good as it is going to get.

Link Wrangling

I haven't posted much this week.  Two reasons.  First, I haven't been able to fashion what I want to say into a meaningful post.  Second, I have been too busy reading some good stuff from other blogs.  Here is a sample of what I mean...

Tony points to What Business Can Learn From Open Source, a piece that explores, amongst other  things, what workplaces can learn from Open Source Software and blogging.  It is an excellent essay and Tony's comments are spot on (as usual).

On similar lines, Jeff (Entrepreneurial Mind) has something to say about using culture as a hiring criteria for business, and the difficulty people have using it as a firing criteria.  Worth a look, and reminded me of a situation I found myself in last year.

And just to prove how easy it is to create a  speech simply by bolting stack of cliches together, Andrew Leigh at Imagining Australia has an example by PM John Howard.

If, like me, you have ever wondered why your meetings at work just don't go anywhere, and why instead of exploring new ideas, people seem intent on fighting for what they've already determined is the right way to go?  Then read this post from Seth Godin.  Good stuff.

At last there are some new manifesto's up at Change This.  I am a big fan of Change This, and hope it's reincarnation is for good.  Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas by former "Microsofter" Scott Berkun is definitely worth a read.

Also, the latest Boozeletter arrived in my in box courtesy of the boys at Brewtopia.  (If you haven't already, check their podcast interview with Johnnie Moore here).

The August edition if The Monthly came out this week too.  I bagged the first edition, but the fledgling Aussie "New Yorker" wannabe is getting better with each edition.  The current one is full of excellent stories and essays.  Really liked John Harms stories of "the forever-dry, years of drought" in the Australian "bush" (whatever the "bush" is...)

So, that's what I've been doing this week....

The Car Dealer & The Blogger

One of the cool things about having your own website and blog is that you can vent your spleen whenever you like, and take aim ot whoever you like.  But spare a thought for Mr English and domain name registrar Go Daddy.

Mr English is a disgruntled customer of Hunter Holden, a car dealership on Sydney's lower north shore. This follows a run-in last February after his car, which he'd left for servicing, was stolen from the Hunter premises. Adam Kaplan, director of Hunter Holden, placed the matter in the hands of his insurers and arranged a replacement vehicle for English. The insurer sought to settle the claim without an admission of liability and offered to pay Mr English the indemnity value of the car at the time of loss.

But Mr English wasn't happy with that offer, and this being the dotcom age and all, he decided to take his customer complaint one step further and established a website called www.hunterholdensucks.com which included an invitation to “share your comments about Hunter Holden Automotive.”

Surprise, surprise, Kaplan wasn't all that impressed, so he successfully sought a court injunction in June to close down the website. That was later upheld in the NSW Supreme Court in Adam Kaplan & Anor v The Go Daddy Group Inc & 2 Ors, where Justice White said that English had established the site for "the purpose of disparaging the second plaintiff, its business and products," referring specifically to the word “SUCKS” that was displayed in large letters across the top of the website.

But what about free speech? Well, that argument didn't wash with the judge because "the name of the website and the comments posted on it do not relate to matters of public interest or concern.” In other words, English's website must remain shut down.

The moral of the story? Be careful what you blog. As for Hunter Holden's website (same address without the word "sucks"), it boasts of their customer service but does make one unusual admission: “We know we are not perfect, but we will always take action when things go wrong.”

(via Crikey)

Get Rid of Editorials

Of all the stale, rusty old traditions that are part of a daily newspaper, perhaps none look as "worn around the edges" as the editorial and op-ed pages.

There is hardly a paper on the face of the earth that doesn't follow the same old formula, you know the one, unsigned editorials that speak in the newspaper's "institutional voice";  a cartoon or two; letters to the editor; and, on the right-hand page, signed pieces by the paper's staff columnists and from a few syndicated services. Even the design of these pages is virtually the same from paper to paper....

Well, it's time to "eliminate the editorial page," according to Timothy Noah on Slate.com. He says that editorials aren't expressions of a papers voice because they are produced by a team of writers.  Nor does the editorial page represent the opinions of the papers owner- in the US for example, the Tribune Company might have one opinion in its flagship, the Chicago Tribune, and the opposite in its subsidiary, the LA Times.  What's more, the genre has "built in defects."  It lacks sufficient length to make a convincing arguement, instead settling for a boring "timidity" or irresponsible "posturing."  So the opinion page- usually found opposite- is a "thousand times more compelling."  These longer articles display the "quirky intelligence" that comes from a single persons opinion.

The opinion editor could always weigh in with a special editorial several times a yeay and "it's meare appearance would be something of an occasion."  But this probably won't happen soon, because editorial page editors would have to eliminate their own jobs.  And if a publisher tried, they'd be accused of doing it "to dumb down the nespaper".

It's a compelling arguement, but the real reason to dump the page is because nobody wants to read editorials anyway.  I would much rather read "democratised content" that is available via weblogs andcomments sections whereby people can weigh in with their opinions, corrections, reactions and long-winded, angry ramblings.

The Tom Peters Blog (not by Tom)

As I continue to play musical chairs with my RSS feeds, I have decided to ditch the "Tom Peter's Blog".

If Tom actually posted himself, it would undoubtedly stay on my list.  But instead a whole host of staffers maintain the blog, and their writing is not in the same league as Tom's.

It is interesting move, and a frustrating one.  Tom is Tom because his style of communication is unique.  His turn of phrase, use of grammar and ability to cut to the chase is what most Tom fans enjoy.  His unorthodox style is his point of difference from the masses of management writers and self-styled gurus floating about out there.

So why let a bunch of staffers maintain your own blog?  Particularly when their writing is no different to anything else out there?  Why risk tarnishing the brand?

Tom is compelling.  His hired-help are not.

Kyrptonite- Still battling against Bic Pens

Remember the Kryptonite bike lock people and the saga with the Bic pen?

Johnnie Moore points to this update at Community Guy here.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

In case you needed more proof as to how dumb big companies are, and just how "valued" your feedback is, Chris (The Social Customer Manifesto) reports the following:

"Forbes did a profile on ten customer-initiated corporate hate sites. Every corporation mentioned was contacted for the article. The responses from a few of the corporations, from the article:

Walmart:  "We have seen some corporate complaint sites. We don't spend a lot of time on them."

Microsoft:  "No comment."

Verizon: "What's really pathetic is not Verizon but this sort of lame Web site. In this day and age, anyone with a gripe can put up a Web site and make outrageous claims as the authors of this one did."

American Express:  Did not return repeated phone calls.

I can just hear the spinmeisters now:  "Shhh...no...no...just ignore them.  They'll go away...

One word folks: Cluetrain

shannonsays: First Birthday Celebrations

April Fools Day 2004 seemed as good a day as any to start my blogging journey....

"It's April Fools Day, and this is my first blog entry; those who know me will think that makes sense, those of you who don't, well, you probably couldn't care less."

Fast forward to today- April Fools Day 2005, and it probably makes a bit more sense to regular readers.

So my blog is one today!  Who would have thought that?  Anyway, before I get all misty-eyed on you,  I just want to thank everyone who takes the time to read my drivel.  My posts are a bit like me; ecclectic and a bit inconsistent.  But that is the way I like it; I can blog about what ever the hell  I want to, and people can choose whether the hell to read it or not.  I like to talk about all kinds of stuff outside of my blog, so why not do it in my blog?  Why not talk about everything?

That's why blogging is so cool; forget all the other theories and academic tripe on blogging; it's really simple, it's all about the individuals and thier conversations; the ones they start and the ones they join.  And through blogs we can all choose which conversations we want to join, and which ones we don't.

So thanks for visiting, and keep on dropping by, leaving comments and linking through.  If you want to leave some words of encouragement (or discouragement) they are always welcome!

Just for the record:

• I have posted 293 times
• I have been visited by 21390 people (dunno how many RSS subscribers)
• 101 people have felt the urge to join my conversations by commenting; many of whom had a seldge at me (usually when I expose my right-wing political bias)
• Oh, and I still have a headache!

Leadfoot Lightfoot: WANTED in the US

According to Crikey ,it seems that Australia's gun-toting wild frontiersman of the West, Ross Lightfoot, is conquering new frontiers: our international man of intrigue is being adopted as the latest right-wing poster boy by conservative American bloggers.

It all started with a lurid front page splashes last week featuring an absurd photo of Australian Senator Ross Lightfoot posing in Iraq with a couple of Kurdish soldiers and brandishing an AK-47 assult rifle.  Lightfoot had foolishly gloated to a newpaper reporter that he used the tax-payer funded trip to make a secret exchange of $25000 (which he smuggled in by stashing in is his coat lining) from Australian company Woodside Petroleum.  The cash was to be used to build a Kurdish Hospital.  Ever the international diplomat....

Not surprisingly, as soon as details of his "boys own adventure" was out, Senator Lightfoot quickly u-turned.  He denied the claims made agaisnt him and said he knew nothing of the cash exchange...

Lightfoot is known as a bit of weirdo, and has long been a source of embarresment for conservatives here in Australia, and most of us simply wish that this crazy cowboy would just go away.  Far away.  Maybe he would find some fans amongst the straw-chewin', Fox News-watchin', bourbon sippin', God fearin' right-wing fanatics in the deep South USA?

Blogger Clayton Cramer wants seems to be throwing out the welcome mat, asking: "Why Don't We Have Senators Like This?" Now that's high praise for the man whose cash-carrying, gun-wielding – ahem - “diplomacy” brought him headlines from Turkey to Townsville last week.

"Australian Senator Ross Lightfoot is in a bit of trouble for running around Iraq with an AK-47 and smuggling cash to the Kurds," Cramer reports. "Lightfoot represents Western Australia, which is the Australian equivalent of Texas, but it's still nice to see that the cowboy spirit is alive and well even in boring places like Canberra."

You can also find these comments on a blog by someone called WC Varones -- who describes himself as "a radical libertarian vegetarian" -- "Can you picture Ted Kennedy running around Iraq with an AK-47?" asks the radical vegetable. "OK, maybe sitting at a bar in the Green Zone with an AK-47? Nah, still doesn't work." Check it all out here.