Friday, September 19, 2008

I'm a nerd and have to admit...I love New Rules of Marketing and PR

After reading the sections assigned....haha I found an interesting point that I wanted to expand on. In "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" David Scott talks about the challenge of allowing employees to blog at work. The "legal eagles," as referred to in the book, are afraid that secrets about the company will be revealed. Companies also don't want their employees to comment on blogs because it could be negative. However, David Scott makes a point and that is blocking the technology is not the answer. After working at Children's over the summer, (I'm sorry I keep referring to my internship) I found that our Internet access was very limited. We were banned from YouTube and Facebook, just to name a few. I understand why several organizations feel it is necessary to prevent certain forms of social media, but according to David Scott "freely published blogs are an important part of business and should be encouraged by forward-thinking organizations." I agree that companies should guide the way their employees behavior and not put guidelines on blogs.

On a separate note I realized that I am guilty of using the so called gobbledygook adjectives. Even during my internship I occasionally used words such as flexible, robust, etc. in a few of my projects. However, if I remember correctly I believe my editor caught these words and told me that unless you this is factual information, you should not use these words. What a coincidence! David Scott wrote about the same thing in New Rules in Marketing and PR. So I'm absolutely in love with this book!

1 comment:

David Meerman Scott said...

Hi Amber,

All the best nerds love my book. Thanks for writing about it.

I think that Children's and other organizations that block access don't trust you and other employees. I wrote about that here http://www.webinknow.com/2008/06/facebook-and-yo.html

Before agreeing to another internship or full time job, you should ask them if they block access. If the answer is yes, stand up immediately and walk out. You don't want to work there.

Take care,
David Meerman Scott