DISQUS

All of three minutes from my house. Booo....

"They assume that because you’ve given them your email address in order to do one thing (play some game on their website) they’ve got carte blanche to bombard you with offers and emails and "news updates.""

That was the bait and switch I was referring to.

But I'll revert back to the email to keep us to one disagreement at a time. :)

I agree with that, but I would be willing to bet that If 65 million people voted for him, and there are about 10 million on the list, the vast majority are a little more tuned in and ready to keep rolling than your "average bear." By taking the first step of signing up for the list, or showing up to an event, giving money, etc., it's safe to think that the majority skew to the more passionate side.

So, in my mind, they're right to reach out and offer to continue the communication at this point. I would hardly equate that with some sort of bait and switch.

I would agree that they probably don't need to continually send emails to people who just signed up to get him elected, but I would push back a little bit on the notion that the majority of people signed up on the list only wanted to get him elected. I think most people see the presidency (at least around election time) as a means to an end, not the end itself.

Which means, if people elected him to push health care reform, or energy policy reform, whatever, they're likely to also want to help build the broad public support needed to actually enact those policies.

That said, from what I've seen, they've handled it pretty well. Mostly just a couple emails about the transition, and they've begun new sign-ups on change.gov and new networking areas within social sites to make it clear we've moved from trying to getting elected Obama to President-elect Obama.

But, what I've seen more of than anything is complaining about the much less frequent emails. As in, most people started expecting to see these emails and missed them when they were gone.

So, yeah, probably somewhere in the middle is where we need to be...

Wait - can we argue about Sarah Palin some more? I miss that, too. :)

Congrats on the new kiddo (almost)!

Pretty sure you know exactly what I think about this, but, at best, the jury is still out on this one. I won't disagree that the pick was brilliant for many different reasons, but it has many drawbacks, too. None of which they've proved they can outrun, including something as simple as an interview with anyone other than People magazine.

An example (for brand's sake), a couple years ago there was an energy drink released. By that time energy drinks had lost their luster. There were hundreds in the marketplace, but consumption had flattened and became fragmented. Then one man made the brilliant decision to release, you guessed it, Cocaine, the energy drink.

Brilliant! It set off a slew of press, everyone in the energy group market thought it was hilarious and couldn't wait to get their hands on it.

But sadly, it was pulled from the shelves because of one little problem that wouldn't stop nagging at them, they were "illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs" according to wikipedia.

So buyer beware, Palin nation. Last year's Cocaine may be this year's social extremism.

That's right. I just compared Sarah Palin to Cocaine. Genius. :)

Well, I saw this report, and I now I've come around Alan. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgVUxmjf0G8

yes, he is an intellectual, but the fact that he lost to Hillary in Pennsylvania and Ohio doesn't necessarily mean that he loses those same areas in a general. He's outperforming Kerry on working class whites according to the polls already, but they narrative was set in the primaries. Those things are difficult to change.

And I agree that refuting an elitism charge isn't exactly simple, but I also think Kerry did nothing to fight back against it, so that may also skew our opinions of the difficulty. He also didn't have as much wind at his back on the subject as Obama has, or the life story, or the health care solutions, or tax cuts, etc. Still not easy, but easier than it has been. If Hillary or John Edwards can do it, Obama should be able to sound a little more populist, too.

And I got it on TNR! How about David Frum or Ramesh Ponnuru. Tough to get more right than that...
http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2VhOWE0...
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWY0Ym...

I'd be willing to bet the meme is already starting. Do you really trust her to deal with the massive foreign policy and economic decisions that face this country? She might have worked 4 or 8 years ago, or 4 years from now, but i'm not sure Americans are comfortable enough to go with that big of a wildcard.

And ANWR is the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. She's for drilling there, McCain is against it. Until he changes his mind sometime in the next few days, anyway...

I would also add to CK's posted story this one -

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archiv...

Frankly, McCain runs the risk of destroying his entire country-first brand with this pick. I get the feeling he'll see a bump out of this for a week or so, then light bulbs will begin to go off in a lot of heads.

The only problem with this is that I have trouble believing that repubs can succeed at turning Obama into an elitist. They did it with Kerry because he let them, but Obama showed on Thursday night that he can send a populist message and defend against the elitism charge effectively. And with the Clinton's and Biden helping to make the argument, I just don't see it.

So they took experience off the table to rely on a pretty easily refutable, in issues, in rhetoric and in life story, charge, that was beaten up pretty well in front of more viewers than the oscars or the opening ceremonies got.

Anyway, - I've got my full take on Palin over at Facebook. I'm too much of a wuss to post it on the blog. :)

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=245225...

Thanks for the love, Matt!

Awesome, right next to my house. Consider me in...

I know I guy that works with drupal. Email coming your way.

Congrats, Ben!

Man, I hope I can go! Sounds like fun!

Ben- This is a friggin' great idea!

And, I like the new look, by the way!

Ahh, hell! I wish I had known sooner!

Awesome! Thanks for digging it! And, Tim, Maybe you should just take over? Up for a move to Wisconsin?

Well, Robert, I LOVE this post! By far the most comprehensive rundown. Just awesome!

Anyway, I've been keeping an eye on the search rankings, too. I suspect, after all the spiders do their business, that'll it'll begin to rank higher and higher in the next few days. I guess time will tell, but I don't think Kohl's will enjoy this black eye so high up in their search.

Thanks for posting about this, and I'll keep you up to date on whether or not I hear anymore from them.

One other thing, David over at the Brand Experience lab, picked up the story, and is the keynote speaker for the National Retail Federation conference in New York next week. Guess what example he'll be using? Hmmm...

I love the photos you used for this post. Very nice!

Well, damn Ben! Not too far away from that top 15k!

Ben-

Thanks for comments! I especially like #5 as your reason to say yes. "You'll be inspired."

That's just forgotten in so many businesses. Almost all of them, really. No one wants to believe that they're just working for a paycheck, and a paycheck alone. We all want to be working towards achieving something, reaching some goal that's bigger than money. And, I believe that's true even if you work at an accounting firm.

Devil's advocates strip us of inspiration and can ruin big ideas. I'm not suggesting that we be reckless, but for god's sake, take some chances! Get inspired!

Ben-

Great post! We're actually going through the process of updating our mission statement where I work. It's interesting how not having one, or at least one that anyone knows or follows, can leave a company without direction at times, or more importantly, without a sense of self.

Let me know if you figure out that mystery. That's one of those things I never could figure out either.

Good luck with the move! Let me know how you like wordpress.

Paul