Twitter Fight! (kinda)

If nothing else, Twitter continues to bring out the strong opinions.  AdRants has a nice overview of the current war of words (here, here) between “marketing guru” Seth Godin and blogger Ryan Kuder.

It’s fascinating to see how Twitter evolves – since it is basically a completely open communication forum it is up to the users to decide what is deemed “acceptable behavior.”  I’ve already witnessed, and been a part of, admonishing what was perceived as a misuse of Twitter – mostly when people posted what amounted to unsolicited sales pitches or links to products/services (i.e. spam).

We’ll have to wait and see if Twitter collapses under the weight of it’s own openness or if it is able self-regulate itself into a fruitful community.

Sprint & Dan Hesse Update 2

So, after receiving my somewhat personal note from someone supposedly in Dan Hesse’s office (see post) I decided to push a little deeper.  Here is a transcript of the last few emails:

I wrote: 

Dear Sherod,

Yeah, but it is Dan Hesse’s email in the ad and I asked, specifically, if HEanswered his own emails.  So, the answer is actually NO.  Seems deceptiveand wrong-headed to publicize your CEO’s email only to use it as a way tosucker customers into emailing with automatons and “someone in his office.”

Seriously thinking about a switch to Verizon.

- David Title 

SprintPCS since 1997 (but maybe not much longer) 

3 Hours Later I Got This:

Dear Sherod,

Thank you for emailing Sprint.  I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced due to delay in answering the query.The query response will take a week time to respond.  In this time customers may make a comment or ask questions in the body of the email.

Thank you again for contacting Sprint.  We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Jasmine K.

Sprint 

I Replied:

Dear Jasmine,

Clearly, nobody has read my emails as my name is David.  Sherod is the last Sprint representative to send me an email (see below).  This email has poor grammar and makes me wonder just who Sprint is outsourcing their work to these days.

Dan, if you are following these emails I beg you to step in and give me a reason to remain a SprintPCS customer.  This sort of exchange does not inspire confidence.Also, keep in mind, I wouldn’t have even bothered contacting you in the first place if you hadn’t put your personal email at the end of your TV commercial.

Sincerely,

David TitleSprint

PCS # 917-687-3048

(I also decided to cc Seth Godin at this point, just for kicks.  He replied with a gracious “ha”).

So far no response from Sprint… 

The Future of the Music Business (part 213)

Seth Godin has weighed in on the future of the music business and has been kind enough to post a full pdf of the speech he gave.  This should whet you appetite to go read the whole thing:

“So if the model that we loved about the record business in 1968 was A&R, taking care of artists, finding artists who people will love, and the model that we hated was brand management, I want to argue that the next model is tribal management. That the next model is to say, what you do for a living is manage a tribe…many tribes…silos of tribes. That your job is to make the people in that tribe delighted to know each other and trust you to go find music for them.”

He has a lot more to say and it all sounds like a well-reasoned call-to-arms and an opportunity for those who hear the call to get into business as early-adopters and being running the show in a few year’s time.

What I’m reading

I’m making my way through Seth Godin’s 2000 piece “Unleasing the Ideavirus” which you can download for free from the site.  Nothing really ground-breaking – it is eight years old now – but a good recap of how thinking about marketing (and therefore distribution) is evolving and changing.

It’s a bit too “Tipping Point” for my taste but worth a skim.