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September 01, 2004
One blogger's new friends
The waves of disappointment directed at Friendster this week illustrate the power of employee-driven community-building using blogs (good) and failing to comprehend and appreciate that power when things don't work out between employee and employer (bad).
Friendster programmer Joyce Park has been an occassional blogger, writing mostly about programming issues that interested her. The company fired her Monday, she says on her blog, for a few posts about Friendster's switch to a different programming language. Anyone with a beginner's knowledge of programming would notice the change on the Friendster site, so it can hardly be deemed proprietary.
But that was the point. Or the lack of it. Park told ZDNet: "I only made three posts about Friendster on my blog before they decided to fire me, and it was all publicly available information. They did not have any policy, didn't give me any warning, they didn't ask me to take anything down." That set off her online community -- and by extension, the world of fanatical bloggers, or blogonatics.
One blogger is encouraging people to quit Friendster. News stories sprang up across the Internet. Bloggers howled. A fast-moving chain reaction ensued not just because someone lost a job, but because someone with a following outside the company lost her job for no apparent reason other than she wrote about a work issue that was interesting to her audience, many of whom are likely Friendster affcianados.
Friendster's feckless "no comment" response to the media is a failing tactic in the Blog Age, as are most traditional PR 101 strategies and tactics (Steve Rubel is a terrific sherpa for understanding the new dynamics of public relations). While it's not smart for companies to discuss termination reasons publicly, it may be smarter to say something honest than nothing at all. Or blog about your blog policies before word-of-mouse momentum quickly spins out of control.
The lesson here: Be as honest and open as possible for the word of mouth revolution is at hand.
Just as powerful word of mouth and evangelism can drive a company's growth for its community (as it has for Friendster), so too can it elevate an employee's stature within that company's community. In Park's place, the larger community is the blogosphere. Revenue-driving customer evangelists are often fueled by personal connections within a community, and a blog may be the most resourceful tool available today that bridges the emotional chasm between faceless organization and customer.
Friendster CEO Scott Sasser, who landed at the company this summer after years as a network television exec, has been thrown into the deep end of real-time customer advocacy. Park's firing is not, as ZDNet wrongfully suggests, "the latest warning shot for employees who are participating in the blogging phenomenon." Rather, it is a wake-up call for company leaders to create expectations and guidelines for employee-based blogging, ensuring that everyone in an organization skillfully contribute to word of mouth through community-driven evangelism.
For right now, Friendster's CEO seems to have few, if any, friends to help him navigate the choppy waters he inadvertently stirred.
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I know this is extremely stale news by now, but for those who might not have otherwise known about it I think it's worth posting...
The waves of disappointment directed at Friendster this week illustrate the power of employee-driven community-build... [Read More]
Well, maybe. This is an interesting story, but it may just be a tempest in a teapot. Despites blogdom's outrage, the real proof will be in subscriber defections. If the numbers don't change, then this is not that big a deal.
The whole time AOL was growing, there were lots of customer complaints and PR snafus. Remember when their customer service accidentally outed a soldier as gay? Major headlines, complaints from privacy advocates, etc, ad nauseum. That was about 15 million subscribers ago. (See http://www.wiredstrategies.com/mcveigh.htm)
I disagree that defections are the true measure of this event's effect on Friendster. I'm not sure there is an actual measure; it's more akin to a thread being pulled out of a quilt. It may cause more of the quilt to unravel in other ways.
For instance, a venture capitalist may see this as evidence of bad management and decide against investing in a future round. Or an advertiser cuts a campaign short. Or some great programming candidates decide to work somewhere else. We'll never hear about those incidents.
All that a small but influential group of bloggers have is Park's word, making it appear this is a problem of poor management.
As for AOL, that's an interesting comparison but that happened well before the rise of blogs. For example, look at the blogosphere's effect on the career of Trent Lott.
I agree with Ben's analogy of the thread being pulled from a quilt. The consequences are hard to predict - maybe it will be a storm in a teacup or maybe worse. What's clear to me is that the old idea that you could "manage" your PR looks less robust these days
The Trent Lott analalogy is a good point, but that is also politics, not business. He still will get elected in Mississippi, and he still wields power behind the scenes in the Senate.
You're definitely right that you can't manage PR the way you used to, but this is not ipso facto proof that bad news in the blogosphere automatically ruins your company.
Any VC who is thinking about investing will ask for management's side of the story. Of course, if the answer they get indicates management incompetence, then this definitely has a material effect, so life wuold be easier for Friendster if it had never gotten out in the first place.
OTOH, I personally have experienced a groundless lawsuit by a former employee. It was a big headache and cost me a lot of time and money - even though I was absolutely in the right. Thus I'd now be much more cautious about what I'd say about employees in a public forum. Suppose it turned out she was embezzling money? Should they tell that to the press? Or will that just create new and expensive headaches for them?
Heck, many companies won't even give references any more because of the potential liability that attaches to it.
I guess what I'm saying is, yeah this was a mistake by Friendster. But if the company fails, I doubt they will point to this moment as their undoing.
Friendster has enjoyed good word of mouth among key influencers since its inception, so "Troutgate" doesn't seem to portend Friendster's undoing.
As the first significant news about Friendster since Sasser's hiring from the television-industrial complex, perhaps this is disconcerting and disappointing to so many because off-the-cuff firings are such an entertainment industry stereotype.
I live in the bubble known as Silicon Valley but Friendster's reputation was abysmal prior to the VC funding/new management among influencers here; I can't speak for the rest of the world. Perhaps you can pick up on the restraint Jeremy Zawodny showed on his blog to say what he really felt about Friendster as a company...starting with "No, not me. (But would it surprise you?").
I've been following and thinking about this story in the blogosphere. I think Ben nails it on the head regarding the entertainment industry that goes beyond employee relations.
There is something about the broadcast industry (highly controlled, one-way messages) that doesn't really jive with the social media/networking mindset (open, two-way conversations).
Okay, so I was wrong before. The VCs definitely know now. :) http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=10839§or=Industries&subsector=Communications&hed=No%20Friendster%20of%20mine
Derek, thanks for the pointer to the Red Herring piece. Seems like getting fired for being a blogger may turn out to be one of the best things that's happened to Park.
Perhaps the pervasiveness of blogging, and how it can virally spread news and information, will naturally force a higher level of truth and honesty in the workplace, both among employers and employees.
Thanks for the nice feedback everyone, I really appreciate it!
