RonAmok!

In the mid nineties, just as the World Wide Web was getting going, Owen Davis wanted to share his frustration with the service he was getting from RBOC NYNEX. And so, he started a movement that struck fear into the hearts of public relations professionals around the world when he created a website called nynexsucks.com. In it, he described the trials and tribulations of getting an ISDN line installed at his company. And that’s when others came out of the woodwork. Others shared their stories which were also published on the website. It’s one of the first times that the consumer was given a public voice, and it caused all sorts of corporate consternation.

Companies responded in the only way that they knew how. By trying to control the situation. They began gobbling up domain names that ended in “sucks.” Today, a quick look at Whois.net shows that nynexsucks.com and BellAtlanticsucks.com (the successor to NYNEX) are now owned by Verizon — who rounded out their collection by grabbing Verizonsucks.com too!

Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to have a conversation with their customers, businesses have attempted to control the bleeding.

But business weren’t the only group to miss the point — consumers and advocate organizations whiffed on it too. The king of the consumers, Ralph Nader, saw this domain grab as a strike against consumers and their freedom of speech. And so in 2000, he waged an unsuccessful battle to create a new set of web domains…the “.sucks” domain.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but there is no reason to create a new set of domains that ends in “.sucks.” In the age of Google, in the age of “tagging” it was only a matter of time before this information was indexed.

For example a Google search for “Verizon Sucks” yields 17,900 hits of which the top one, posted on February 4, 2008 is:
http://mamaintranslation.blogspot.com/2008/02/verizon-sucks.html

Is this a website dedicated to the destruction of Verizon? Nope, it is a blog called Mama(e) in Translation, written by a stay-at-home mom with a Ph.D. A closer look shows that her blog is hosted on blogspot.com, a Google property that hosts blogs for free.

The business world needs to understand that it lost control a long time ago. Its gone. Bye bye. Sayonara. Au Revoir. And that the longer they deny this, the more silly they’ll look.

It’s time to stop “targeting” your audience. It’s time to start having a conversations with them. Otherwise, the hunters become the hunted.

I’ve been in the high-tech electronics field for almost 25 years. During that time, I’ve seen many changes in how we specify, design, simulate and manufacture chips.

But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed…how electrical engineers get their industry-related information. Typically, we’d subscribe to trade magazines such as EETimes or EDN. We’d read IEEE magazine or attend trade shows such as the Design Automation Conference. Well…all until recently.

You see, change is in the air. Our trusty trade magazines are slowly eliminating their specialist writers. Long-time industry vets with names like Gary Smith or Mike Santarini have been riffed by their print-based employers, who are restructuring under the pressures of change.

Seeing the writing on the wall, PR professionals and traditional marketeers around the world are wondering who they’ll pitch their stories to in the future. And on the other side of the building, engineers openly wonder where their content will come from.

Here’s the deal. Just because the print industry is getting smaller, it doesn’t mean that the volume of content will follow suit. Content will prevail; it’s the source that will change. For example, passionate content creators who know more about designing chips than any reporter could ever learn will write articles for us, in the voice of the engineer. And these new sources will emerge from outside of the hallowed halls of journalism — each new source rich with experience and opinion. These sources will include you, me, or recently riffed journalists who use their newfound freedom to write the way that they’ve always wanted to — yet were prevented from doing so by their ruthless editors. And lastly, we’ll get our information directly from the businesses that we patron.

That’s right, companies will become publishers. And it won’t be easy. If businesses are to be successful in their publishing efforts, they’ll need to make some radical changes — essentially shifting from being “content-suggesters” to credible “content-producers.”

The first company in the electronics industry to step into this brave new world is Xilinx. It appears that they’ve decided to bring real-world publishing experience in-house through the hiring of Mike Santarini. I’m very excited to see what this new relationship will bring.

I only have two questions:

• Can Xilinx let Mike write with the transparency required to maintain his credibility?
• Can Mike turn off his journalistic filters and provide us with rich, opinion-based content?

Only time will tell.

John Wall over at Ronin Marketeer has struck a nerve with his most recent post entitled Screw Your Customers. The gist is that as a loyal customer, he went to his cell phone company to get an advertised rate, only to find out that he was ineligible. Why? Because he had the unfortunate situation of BEING A SPRINT CUSTOMER! If he wasn’t a customer, though, they gladly would have offered him the deal.

John seems to have struck a nerve, as the comments to his blog have been growing steadily. And I’m perfectly happy to add fuel to the fire, because this is an example of what I’ve been talking about with regards to R/W Marketing. John is using his readership as a way to shoot back. Since this topic is a hot one for me, I’ll just follow his tracers with my own fire.

Last year I made a decision. I was not going to get rolled into another two-year contract with Verizon Wireless, no matter what they offered as perks. I’ve been a faithful Verizon customer for almost eight years. How did I end up staying with them, you may ask? Because I’m a stooge. Every time I made some sort of modification to my plan, like adding a service or adding a phone for one of my kids, I blindly followed Verizon’s policy to keep adding another two year commitment onto my existing contract.

Last December I said, “No mas.”

I had bought a new car with Bluetooth capabilities built into it. My cell phone at the time didn’t support Bluetooth, so I went to the Verizon store to upgrade. I found a phone for $99 — well that was the large-font-price. The small-font-price said $299. Everything went well until the sales rep tried to ring me up and said, “Oh, sir. You still have a year left on your contract, so you can’t get the upgrade price on this phone.”

“I can’t?”

“But, I tell you what. I can get you a prorated discount, would that be okay?”

“You mean instead of charging me $99 for the $299 phone, you’re going to charge me like $199?

“Exactly,” he said, somewhat pleased with my ability to do simple math.

“Okay, I can live with that.”

“Excellent. Now all you need to do is sign here, and extend your contract with us for two more years.”

“For what?”

“For getting the prorated discount.”

My demeanor changed instantaneously. “No thank you.”

“Excuse me?”

“No thank you. I don’t want the discount,” I said.

“You wanna pay $299 for a phone when you only need to pay $199?”

“Yup.”

The rep looked at me, incredulously — blinked a few times — then tried to enter my request into his computer. He couldn’t figure out how to do it. “I need to speak with a manager,” he said, walking off to some corner of the store.

The rep came back with the sales manager in tow.

“What seems to be the problem?” the manager asked.

“No problem,” I said. “I just wanna buy this phone.”

“But you don’t want the discount?”

“I’d love the discount. But the cost for the discount is too high.”

“But there is no cost. You just need to extend your contract.”

“And I’m not willing to do that.”

“Why not?”

He knew exactly why. He knew that extending the contract was a sucker’s bet…especially if at the end of the year I was a free agent and could shop around and get the deal John Wall couldn’t.

“It really doesn’t matter, does it?” I said firmly.

He shook his head, helped the rep find the appropriate keystrokes, and sold me my Bluetooth-enabled phone for full price.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never felt happier to pay retail for anything.