More Sprint Suckage

I'm glad I'm no longer a Sprint customer. Here's why.

I'm not exactly an identity theft worry wart, but I've taken some steps here and there to make sure personal information isn't leaked all over the place. Among them, we're no longer giving out social security numbers of partners for the business anymore. (Credit checking folks don't need it if they're going to be looking into business credit as opposed to personal credit.) I'm also getting rid of credit accounts I no longer use and terminating relationships with companies that are careless with handling Personally Identifiable Information.

If I were still a Sprint customer, though, I'd be pretty pissed off they're letting information about my account and my PII be accessed so easily.

Still Struggling to Control the Message

This is a terrific example of what I mean when I advise marketers that not only do they no longer control the message, but also that any notion they had that they ever did is purely illusory. (Thanks to Beyond Madison Avenue for the wrap-up.)

Then the next morning, John wakes up to find out that his blog is down. Apparently, Paramount sent the company that hosts his blog a cease and desist order, based on a THIRD pic that John had on the blog, which they never mentioned to John as being a problem.

One of the challenges I face in pitching Conversational Marketing to clients is the notion of finding bloggers who will take up the task of blogging about the client's business. Paramount is lucky to find not one, but several. And what does it do? Piss one off to the point of getting two key ones (and probably more to follow) to boycott coverage of Paramount's upcoming Transformers flick.

And it's all because Paramount can't change its thinking regarding their level of control over the message. Marketers have to learn to embrace the notion that once content is released, their control over how it is used is pretty much nonexistant.

Here we go again. Instead of writing "atta boy" posts about marketers who have learned to let their fans be fans, I'm once again lamenting the lack of ability on the part of marketers to understand what's an asset and what's a liability, not to mention the outdated litigious nature of many large companies when lucky accidents occur.

Rockets' Red Glare

I just want to remind everybody that the guy who helped accelerate the nuclear programs of both Iran and North Korea is under house arrest in Pakistan. And we're not subjecting him to further questioning because we're afraid he might have information that's embarrassing to our buddy Musharraf. We should have dug up everything we possible could on A.Q. Khan's network more than two years ago, after Khan's confession. Instead, he's been pardoned and political pressure hasn't done much to get additional information out of Khan. For all we know, he may have done more damage than anyone knows.

Fireworks Still Not Idiot Proof

We once again headed down to the beach club this year to participate in the festivities. I've got no problem with fireworks (I used to love setting them off) but people simply have to be careful, and being careful involves keeping a safe distance away from other people. Thirty feet may seem like a safe distance, but it's not even close. That distance gets covered by a shell or a rocket in a fraction of a second, as we found out when an errant shell from someone's too-close display ended up exploding near the stairs at the beach club, actually hitting Alex's stroller and scaring him out of his mind. My mom reached out and hit it with her hand mid-flight, and it burned her hand a bit. She'll be fine, but every few years we're reminded that there's nothing rude about asking amateur pyrotechnicians to take it down the beach a bit. Why they have to set up so close the crowds is beyond me.