John Linton ....for the past three plus years in writing this blog......at least according to one person.
I got an email yesterday from a customer who said he had read my blog for the first time and it caused him to immediately transfer to another provider. He said he had expected "the blog of a company CEO to be very positive and to promote the great things the company was doing and the bright future the company had - like the other blogs of CEOs in the industry". He was dismayed to find that "all your blog does is point out how bad things are, how you have no idea how to deal with your competitors and regulators and all you can do is bad mouth everyone and every thing in the foulest language". He went on to say many other things that offended him especially my references to "sheltered workshops and idiotic public servants". His interpretations of much of what I thought was very plain text was impossible for me to understand how such views could be reached.
I thought about replying but decided it was a waste of time. I am unaware of "blogs by other CEOs in the industry" - if anyone knows of any I would be interested in reading them. Perhaps those blogs are written in consistently up beat terms about how great the individuals writing them are, how brilliantly they are coping with every aspect of these very difficult times and how much they admire the ACCC, ACEMA and the current politician's decisions on how they can get re-elected. I would be interested to read their daily views and thoughts on what is happening in their daily business lives.
My, obviously negative, disrespectful to my 'betters' (now there's a word I haven't heard for a very long time) and generally useless daily maunderings since late July 2007 have been, against the eight criteria I was advised that such writings would achieve, very successful and have more than met all the expectations I was given to believe would occur up to January of this year when I changed my objectives in putting in the time to write them each day. I was very happy with the immense value that Exetel derived from me taking the time publishing my thoughts and the financial benefits especially have been very, very substantial.....apart from anything else. I have had a new objective since making this blog a 'closed' audience piece of writing and it's too early to determine whether it will be successful in achieving that, much more difficult, objective - but even if it doesn't it will serve a secondary, personal, purpose.
There are an infinite number of things that any small business manager needs to do each day to try and ensure the business firstly survives and secondly, if that's possible, continues to grow. My email correspondent yesterday took the view that I must be a total fool and completely unaware of how what I write would be regarded by anyone silly enough to read it. That was very disrespectful but it exemplifies the, completely incorrect, self belief of so many people who, 'educated' by the ill manners and anonymity of posting their views on electronic fora, seem to forget that when they address specific people with specifically demonstrated expertise they need to think beyond their own limited experiences and understandings....most of such people automatically regard themselves as being more intelligent and more knowledgeable than the person they are addressing - in almost every case a completely erroneous assumption.
If you could be bothered to read some of the better respected, quasi-academic writings on how and why blogs by various different types of people can generate value in commercial endeavours you would find, pretty much, a consensus on what those values should turn out to be along with various first hand experience stories by senior company executives of companies both large and small that detail their experiences and the results. I was first encouraged to write a blog by a chance encounter with an old business colleague while I was on holiday. I can recommend the writing of a blog, perhaps not daily, as very few people seem to do that. If you ever do decide to do it list the objectives you would like to achieve and then see how well those objectives are achieved - my own experience is that a blog can achieve every objective you set for it - and in my personal experience will succeed beyond your wildest expectations.
Perhaps such people as the person who emailed me yesterday should consider why anyone would, for over three years, every day of those years, take the time every morning of their life to write 600 or so words of their current thoughts about the industry they manage a small company within? I would have thought that it's very unlikely that they would expend that time in the expectation that the efforts would result in negative results for the company
Perhaps not all people believe that blogs are written for a positive purpose (hard to believe but possible I suppose) and are constantly measured against that purpose - like the individual who wrote his careless email to me yesterday though....I think he almost certainly lacks the intellectual capabilities to understand such things.
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