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Blogging Heroes

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Earlier this week, I ran across a new book called Blogging Heroes.

And no disrespect to any of the bloggers profiled or the author,  I am appalled at the title of the book.

In fact, disgusted.

What appalls me? The use of the term hero.

The book profiles 30 high-profile bloggers. Whether we need yet another book profiling a few top-ranked bloggers, I’ll leave to the market to decide.

But the bloggers profiled aren’t heroes. Blogging PEOPLE, in the sense of the gossip magazine, or Blogging Superstars? Sure. Those are already trivial terms and seem eminently suitable for this "literary" work.

But to call them heroes trivializes the term.

And that really offends me.

The folks profiled in the book have done a great job building and promoting their blogs. That makes them interesting, and perhaps good, examples. But they aren’t heroes.

Blogging heroes are people like Susan Niebur of Toddler Planet who has used her own diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer, a very rare form of breast cancer that is not diagnosed from a lump in the breast, to spread the word about IBC. To the point of giving up her anonymity in the process. That’s a hero.

 

And not just Susan. Many, many people use their blogs to chronicle their battles against life-threatening and fatal diseases. To help others. Stricken with the disease or simply trying to support someone who is. They are heroes.

Milbloggers. Young men and women thrust into a war not of their making, but determined to serve their country. I don’t necessarily share their politics, but I have no doubt that bloggers like Chuck, who blogs at From my position on the way and who was seriously injured in Iraq last year protecting a fellow soldier, or Jean-Paul, now in his second tour as a Guardsman, are a lot closer to a hero than some business blogger.

Parents, lovers, partners, friends, children, siblings. There are examples all over the blogosphere of  people sharing their sadness at the loss of the loved one. And chronicling the process of healing. Sure, sharing their own pain may be in small measure cathartic, but to do it so publicly? That’s heroic.

And we haven’t even touched on the political. Dissidents in politically oppressive regimes who use the blogsphere to spread the word. At great personal risk. Native reporters in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan who continue to dig for news, at great personal risk. Sometimes death. These are heroes.

Everyday, people put their hearts, souls and beliefs online. And not for link rank. For love. For a cause. That’s heroic. Because it just might help someone else. Whether it is someone the person knows, or someone she’s never met… it doesn’t matter.

So, count me offended at a book called Blogging Heroes. Because somehow, no matter how highly ranked, how popular, how famous…

They aren’t heroes.

At least not mine.

[Bonus Link: Scott Baradell is equally unimpressed.]

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Into the Fantastic Four, plus Good is getting better and upcoming attractions

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Busy week, but I didn’t feel I could let the third birthday of Marketing Roadmaps go unremarked. Thanks for sticking with me.

A quick update on the ongoing get.good.com saga. Thanks to the good offices of a Twitter friend who works for Good Technology’s PR agency, I finally connected with someone. A real live person. Not sure there’s a real solution, but at least we are talking.

Upcoming on the blog: a report on the Intuit Just Start campaign (thumbs up), some comments of the state of customer service in the US (thumbs go the opposite direction), details on the HP Photographic Memories project and more case studies on good blogger relations practice.

Here’s to Year Four!

UPDATE 11/15/07: Too busy tonight to write a whole new post, but it looks like the people at Good Technology took some action and worked out something with Google to insert the Good Technology results on the first page of a search on “Getgood.” Getgood.com still comes up first,as it should because it is the closest match, followed by a British ad campaign that also uses a “Get Good” theme,  but then they insert the results for Goodlink before returning all the pages from my blog and mentions of me and other Getgoods on blogs and websites. Amen. I will be so happy to not get these calls anymore. And I am sure the people trying to get customer service for their phones will be much happier too.

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Announcing Photographic Memories

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Cross-posted to Snapshot Chronicles

As I’ve mentioned here before, I occasionally help HP with social media projects. I’m thrilled to announce that the most recent one, Photographic Memories, went live today.

Part of the US launch of HP Photo Books, Photographic Memories is a series of interviews with mom bloggers about the photos that have captured the memories of their lives. I interviewed 23 women across the US – young moms, older moms, moms of newborns, toddlers and teens. Working moms and stay at home moms. Professional photographers and moms who simply carry a point and shoot in their pocket, just in case.

HP Photo Books are a great way to share photographic memories, and in these interviews, the moms share theirs with us. The first group of 10 interviews was posted today and the rest will follow later in the month.

A little bit more about HP Photo Books

With an HP Photo Book, you can easily create a professional quality photo book at home. Particularly cool is the innovative binding system – think of a big clip – that lets you replace or rearrange pages and add mementos like invitations, children’s artwork and so on. They are available in two sizes, 5×7 and 8.5×11, and multiple colors.

If you’d like your own Photo Book, HP is offering a 20% discount until the end of the year.

Or you can take your chances in one of the many contests and sweepstakes the women in the Photographic Memories series will be having on their blogs over the next couple months. Some contests have already happened, others are going on right now, and some will be starting next week. As I get the details, I’ll add them to the Photo Contests list in the sidebar of Snapshot Chronicles.

Later this week, I’ll be writing more about the project. For now, please enjoy the interviews.

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What does Facebook want to be when it grows up?

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Facebook. It’s hot. It’s become one of the most popular social networking sites mere months after opening up to the masses. It’s cozying up to, and getting tons of cash from the big boys.

But what does it want to be when it grows up?

Some of its recent actions suggest that it’s a little confused.

If it wants to stay the adult equivalent of the college facebook, then I guess it makes sense to have a terms of service that requires that people use real first and last names on their accounts, a security measure that has its roots in Facebook’s beginnings. And to boot off people using pseudonyms. But then it won’t really be an inclusive social networking site, will it? Lots of "people" who would join, and bring their rich social interactions, will find someplace else to (net)work and play.

If it wants to enforce its own definition of obscenity on the entire community, in direct contradiction to US law, by banning photos of a legal act, breastfeeding, while allowing things like pro-anorexia groups, the company certainly has the right. It’s not smart to alienate current and future customers, but it is their playground,so they can set the rules. They have every right to define obscenity as something that would make a 16 year old boy uncomfortable… in a bad way. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook. It has tremendous potential as a social networking platform. But even as its valuation rises, it seems to be making short-sighted business decisions that will ultimately affect its future growth.

Personally I like the fact that I know my friends on Facebook are real, live people. I’m not likely to befriend an avatar. And I’m not a big fan of anonymous blogging. However, I do engage in other networks like Twitter with folks using pseudonyms. Sometimes I know their name "in real life" and sometimes I don’t. And I don’t care. Wouldn’t the smarter decision be to allow pseudonyms, but require that it be acknowledged in the profile? Transparency. You have the right to know that Jon Swift is a pseudonym before you friend him, but it is ridiculous to require his real name. His online friends don’t require it. Why should Facebook?

And the obscenity thing. The legal definition of obscenity is complex (and by the way, doesn’t even apply to breastfeeding in public which is legal in all 50 US States.) In the US, we rely on the Miller test. Facebook on the other hand appears to be applying the frat boy test. Or something. Truly, they have to straighten this out. Either  Facebook supports free speech or it doesn’t. And "doesn’t" is a really bad business decision which doesn’t have to be made explicitly. Inconsistent application of community standards accomplishes the same thing.

It’s time for Facebook to grow up. Think about the long term implications of its actions. Understand that the seemingly trivial issues of breastfeeding moms and anonymous avatars are fundamental business decisions that ultimately will affect its ability to become the preferred public social networking platform.

Or not.

UPDATE: The Facebook account of political humourist "Jon Swift" has been restored.

UPDATE 11/2: In this corner Microsoft and Facebook. And in this corner Google and everyone else. Ding Ding. Yesterday the Internet was abuzz with the Google OpenSocial announcement, and today the kids at Facebook are looking at a whole new world. They still have the users and a very powerful Big Brother in Redmond. But they can’t afford to keep making stupid mistakes. Because it seems we have a viable alternative.

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Snacktime

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Well, I can’t sing beautifully like my good friend Kami Huyse, who tagged me in the media snackers meme started by Jeremiah Owyang. Geoff Livingston already did the pet exploitation thing so I can’t leverage my dogs and cats, even though my puppy is REALLY cute.

While I’ve been known to invoke my child on this blog occasionally, and on my photo blog Snapshot Chronicles all the time, I can’t quite figure out an angle for him here, other than that he is pretty much a media snacker in the making.

Many others playing this lovely game have already talked about Twitter and Delicious media snacks, and while they are yummy, I won’t serve them again here. One needs variety.

And that’s the first way this blog feeds the media snacker. Variety. I have a wide variety of interests, and I mention them all here. Always with a marketing and communications angle. So, one day you’ll find a post about SciFi Channel, with a heavy dose of Battlestar Galactica. And the next day, a gender rant. Followed by something completely different. Like politics and the presidential election. Stick around, you’ll find all sorts of different snacks.

I regularly do round-up posts of different, usually unrelated things that interest me, most recently a post called Thirteen to One in honor of the Red Sox win in the first World Series game. Some items are almost  "mini-posts," other items just one line. Easy to scan, not hard to follow. Snack food.

Sometimes I write long. When I do, I put a long post warning at the top. If the topic greatly interests you, you’ll sit down, set for a while. If it doesn’t, you won’t get sucked in and then pissed because the post goes on and on and on and on…..

Sometimes I’m funny. They say. You be the judge. Not as funny as some of my esteemed colleagues who are about to get tagged, but hey, I still have my pride.

And finally, even though I respect the right of someone to "read and run," I do hope they stick around for a while, once in a while. Pull up a chair at the table and read some of my longer posts. Comment on them. Challenge my arguments. Nothing pleases me more than comments on this blog, and particularly those from students and young professionals who, although they may be the "snacking generation,"  are clearly taking the time to dig in and learn. And in the process, they become part of our education.

And that is the most delicious snack of all. We are all teachers. We are all learners. YUM!

That’s it. Don’t want you to get too full.

I’m tagging David Wescott, Scott Baradell, Robert French, Sherrilynne Starkie and Sam Whitmore.

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