The Owyang blunder: a phallic typewriter gets castrated
What a blunder. What a perfect case study in what NOT to post to your professional blog. Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, a senior Forrester Research analyst, posted an item that attacked Mzinga, a company he follows.
Gah, it’s painful stuff to read. It’s clear within the first two sentences that this is a post that should never have been published. Relying on hearsay, this respected social media industry analyst hints that Mzinga is a shaky company on the verge of falling apart.
He never lays out the evidence of the company’s failings - surely there must be something bad - because he says he doesn’t want to start rumours. Yet he succeeds in doing only that by dealing solely with innuendo… and then, in a rhetorical flourish that only a self-important analyst could write: I strongly recommend that any Mzinga clients or prospects stall any additional movement till they brief me next Monday.
Really? I mean, really? Lawyers, start your engines.
The blog post blazed a fast and broad trail through the Twitterverse and the comments that followed the original post correctly blasted Owyang. It was an irresponsible post made without much, if any, forethought. Owyang responded quickly, to his credit, but with only a weak apology.
There are times in everyone’s professional life when you want to strike out publicly at a client, or a vendor or a rival. In almost every case, it’s best to keep your mouth shut at least until you have all the information (and often afterward too).
Maybe he was frustrated with a perceived lack of response from the company and he wanted to use his bully post to whip the company into line. That’s something my first journalism instructor Mack Laing called the phallic typewriter syndrome. Maybe Owyang was tired and wasn’t thinking clearly. Or maybe he was just plain sloppy.
Always take care in what you write and how you write it.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
[…] the original here: The Owyang blunder: a phallic typewriter gets castrated Share and […]
March 17th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
[…] Dooley Communications […]
March 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
If you read some of his earlier posts, it’s clear this was not an isolated mistake, but a growing infection that finally struck a nerve with the serious business types who called it very quickly.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I agree with your opening point: this incident will live on for a long time as an example of what not to do. What was interesting to me was how quickly the community exerted itself by reprimanding Jeremiah for violating the rules and for, as some put it, abusing the power of his position. Similarly, the community was quick to offer their forgiveness after the apology. Social media gives us all great reach and gives some of us great influence, but the community wants to see humanity and humility guiding our use of those powers. Thanks for keeping the discussion of the lessons to be learned going, we can pile on Jeremiah for his transgression, but you remind us that we’re all one self-absorbed moment away from making the same mistake ourselves.
June 21st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
The Who - Pinball Wizard (LIVE)…
They became famous for energetic live performances. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, their first year of eligibility. According to the New York Times, The Who have sold one hundred million discs….