Feeling the fear… or is it wrath?
One of the pleasures of working in the area of facilitated learning is the exposure to some fantastic insights from the latest thought-provoking business books. One such book, What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis is packed with ideas on how to prosper in the post-Google world.
He introduces a number of ‘laws’, which, as he describes it, interpret the wisdom of Google’s ways. One such law is “Give the people control and we will use it”. He uses his own story of how a frustrating experience with Dell customer service resulted in him posting on his blog about how ‘Dell Sucks’. This became the focal point for hundreds of other dissatisfied Dell customers and whipped up a storm of negatvity that caused serious damage to Dell. The story has a reasonably happy ending, but I guess you need to read the book!
I thought of this yesterday when I saw Leo Babauta’s post about how he had received a legal ‘cease and desist’ warning from Susan Jeffers, author of the classic book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. Her lawyers had objected to his use of the famous phrase in his blog post and demanded that he place the (R) symbol after the phrase and credit her appropriately. However, Leo is not for turning. He is not intending to comply with the request.
But this story is not really about the rights and wrongs of Ms. Jeffers’ lawyers or Leo’s subsequent response. It’s what happened next that is a valuable lesson for any of us who have an online presence. There was a massive response to Leo’s blog post. At present count, he has over 550 comments, the vast majority of which are very supportive. This has created a little web storm. But, what about the impact to Susan Jeffers? Just have a look at the Amazon.com page where customers review her book: the mob has descended and are leaving stinky reviews. No review seems to mention the legal controversy, thus making it difficult for Amazon to edit these out. Not good!
So how could Susan Jeffers have handled this differently? The laws of WWGD? would suggest that instead of hiring someone to scan the web for mentions of her magic phrase with a view to protecting its use, she should have directed that focus to engage positively with anyone who is making a reference to her work. What if she, or someone representing her, had joined the conversation on Leo’s blog? What if she congratulated Leo for his interesting post and at the same time introduced her own book and offerings to Leo’s many readers (one fascinating element of this story for me is that Leo, nor it seems most of his readers, had even heard of the book)? Would this not have resulted in more incoming traffic to her website and also more sales of the book itself?
Of course, many are enjoying the irony in the actions of the lady who has encouraged millions to act positively despite their fears but hasn’t really demonstrated that behaviour here. For what it’s worth, I’m a fan of her book. And I don’t think this controversy changes that for me. If Susan is in the Cork area next week, she’s more than welcome to join a Smarter Egg learning group as we discuss the applications of WWGD?; it seems she has already learned one of the key lessons the hard way.
This is a really interesting example of the conflict between those that have worked hard and built value into brands in the traditional economy and Web 2.0 proponents.
Traditionally if you built brand value you defended it tooth and nail against all comers, the problem is that this doesn’t always work with bloggers as Ms Jeffers is learning the hard way.
In my view there is no “right” answer here. It’s not cut and dried as the promoters of Pirate Bay are finding to their cost at the moment. You can’t necessarily just take the IP or property of others and re-use it with impunity, however bigger brands are beginning to understand that it may be a good idea to “engage” and try to understand how to leverage the commercials of online communities.
I think your idea of communicating with those who are using/abusing or referencing your work is a great one. Heavy handed legals often backfire with this audience….
Just my 2 cents worth…
JohnP
Maybe “What would a courteous professional do” would have been a good model for Ms Jeffers to follow. Making first contact with via lawyer? Why not talk to him first?
I know we need trademarks, to prevent exploitation, but lawyers-first is just plain rude. Surely Leo is ver approachable, and wasn’t trying to steal anyone’s fame.
Here’s my take: http://www.raptitude.com/2009/04/get-up-stand-up/
My goal was to get as many people talking about it as possible, and make it resoundingly uncool to threaten other writers before talking to them. We need to set a precedent of politeness between writers.
@John
I do have a certain amount of sympathy for Susan Jeffers as she has invested a lot of work in building the ‘Feel the Fear’ brand. But I really do wonder about the aggressive legal approach and as you say, it’s especially inappropriate when dealing with the blog-based audience.
Is it as simple as saying this is ‘old school’ publishing/broadcasting expectations colliding with the new realities of the ‘post-media’ world, as Jeff Jarvis likes to call it?
@David
Completely agree about lawyers first. It’s quite a lazy approach; issue a warning rather than taking the time to contemplate the benefits of an alternative engagement.