Comments on: Blog with Integrity

By: Megan

Megan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:34:41 +0000

Hi Edwin,

It definitelty is generating some pretty heated debate. Funny you should mention footy, I used to do issues management for a footy club so the thought of name and shame makes me break out in a cold sweat…baggage! It’s a weird feeling for me, because I’m torn between my own personal bent towards transparency, and my professional experiences from ‘the other side’ that give me more compassion to understand that sometimes it’s not black and white?

I made a comment myself on that blog (and in the interests of transparency, I’m the myBRC editor – but although myBRC hosts the blog, the bloggers themselves are genuine small business owners who write about whatever they want to write about – we just give them a place to do it).

But back to my comment…while I support transparency, I do get a bit scared about context. When you tell a friend over coffee about your bad experience, you’re only telling one person. And that person knows you and your standards/expectations/behaviours/credibility and can judge for themselves what level of gravity to attach to your gripe.

Whereas when you publish online, you can tell thousands of people – and yet those people don’t have the same context.

I guess I’m wary of unqualified rants, if you catch my drift. But at the same time, I appreciate forewarning. It’s a tough one…

And keep at it with the blogging, your stuff is interesting…and as I’ve discovered, albeit at arm’s length, it’s a gradual process!

Even though you didn’t agree with Paul’s stance on Small Business Owner, I hope you pop back there sometime, it’s great to have thoughtful input.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:54:51 +0000

Wow! Thank you so much for posting, Megan. Sometimes blogging is like writing a diary to yourself! And thanks for linking to that article here, too as it’s a doozy topic. A VERY hot topic. We are so used to “settling out of court” aren’t we? But by doing this, those next in line have to pay the price and businesses are allowed to make the same blunders again and again. they’re always talking about “naming and shaming” in the world of Footy, but maybe it’s a good thing. I suspect that transparency is the new world order of things – and so it should be. The end result of transparency in business is probably fewer profits (if you have to tell someone you got it for $100, it might be difficult to on-sell it for $1,000) but perhaps the world, people and the environment as a whole will be much better off if we did honest trade. Sounds like you’re on a similar quest to me there. :) Let’s make this a better world!

By: Megan

Megan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:32:06 +0000

Hi Edwin,

Funny how the web works. I just posted a comment re the Flying Solo article, then saw you’d responded in turn to the blog I mentioned in my comment. So I checked out your site (and really enjoyed your posts)…and came back to this comment, which reminded me of a post on Small Business Owner (which is another myBRC blog) about whether or not it was appropriate to use a blog to name and shame an ISP company.

Thought you might find it interesting: http://mybrc.myobnet.com/2009/05/07/naming-rights/

By: admin

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:14:07 +0000

It was a hot topic at flyingsolo.com.au. Thre’s a huge debate raging over whether the author Sam should reveal the airlines name or not.

By: Shandy

Shandy — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:33:15 +0000

The article on the airline (from Flying Solo Blog) was spot on ,

Transparency is the keyword for business.

I agree that the airlines name should have been mentioned.

It would help other customers of airlines to know what airline to avoid.

Good luck with your film shoot. Hope it works out well.

I Will look forward to reading about what happened and if it went well or not .

cheers