Comments on: Doesn’t Amazon want to get naked?

By: Dominic Jones

Dominic Jones — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:12:29 +0000

While certain folks were harping on ad nauseam about this stupid non-event, let's see what actually happened in the world today: Earthquakes kill 50, injure 800 Rice Concedes 'Tactical Errors' in Iraq UN Security Council calls on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment At least 57 die as Bahrain cruise boat sinks Iran Test-Fires Missile Able to Duck Radar Explosion kills Palestinian militant amid spreading violence 4 Israelis killed by suicide bomber at entrance to West Bank NY releases 9/11 emergency calls 13 Ugandan pupils die in school fire Now can you explain to me why your self-opinionated A-list genuflection matters to anyone?

By: Ondas, cables, luces, cacharritos y cachivaches » links for 2006-03-31

Ondas, cables, luces, cacharritos y cachivaches » links for 2006-03-31 — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:17:19 +0000

[...] Doesn’t Amazon want to get naked? » mathewingram.com/work Mathew Ingram sobre la presentacion de Scoble e Israel a la gente de Amazon (tags: amazon scoble blogging Business naked_conversations) [...]

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:32:43 +0000

I think my main point is being missed, since I’m not claiming he wasn’t rude. In fact, I’m willing to *stipulate* that many people *thought* he was rude. And it’s also clear that he thought he was being tough but fair.

My point is this: BLOG EVANGELISM SHOULD BE ABLE TO HANDLE SUCH A CONFLICT! It’s “openness”. It’s “being naked”. It’s “authentic”. (all of which is consistent with “not nice”).

This is a *slight*, *minor* culture-clash. Well-understood, completely predictable. If such a small thing can’t be handled, being an emotional flasher cannot be taken seriously.

And it’s not valid to take the question to a meta-level, to say, look, we’re having a “conversation” about it. That answer works for anything.

Look, Z-listers are expected to put up with potentially far, far worse as just the price of being in “the conversation”. An irritated A-lister always has the option of writing a personal attack on the Z-lister, where a huge number of people will see the attack and almost nobody will see the reply (this vast inequality is my fundamental view as to why blogging is arguable worse for power relationships, but I’ve discussed that elsewhere). So again, if a tiny and inevitable difference over acceptable discourse causes such a tizzy, how can imbalances which are orders of magnitude worse ever be addressed?

I don’t mean the following in a rude way (see, worked example, I know this can be taken badly), but I’m having a hard time conveying how much this all seems to validate the charges that all that’s being pushed is narcissism and echo-chambering.

By: Mathew

Mathew — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:51:07 +0000

Thanks for posting that, Robert. I was just about to say something similar to Seth myself. What we’re talking about has very little to do with whether or not you and Shel are open to criticism or not. For me, it has more to do with being sandbagged when you’re expecting a civilized conversation, which is my (admittedly second hand) impression of what happened. And being open to ‘the conversation’ doesn’t have to mean, or shouldn’t mean, having to put up with that kind of attack. Seth, I think you’re just plain wrong on this one.

Incidentally, if there are any amazonites who were there for this event and want to give their impressions of what happened, my comments section is open. Anonymous comments are fine if you’re concerned about your job.

By: Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:19:57 +0000

Seth: you are WAY overplaying our reaction here. I was VERY nice to Amazon in all my online conversations. That said, I thought I was going to a book reading. I’ve been to dozens in my life. Yes, hard questions get asked but usually the questioner is polite and asks a question and then sits down and listens to the answer. If the answer isn’t very good then someone might ask it again, a little differently. But here my answers were continually interrupted and challenged. Now, I don’t mind that kind of aggressive questioning if it’s an executive review (which I guess he thought it was) but it seemed out of place. Several employees afterward told me they felt uncomfortable, which told me it wasn’t a normal thing.

But, one nice thing about blogging is it lets you fix when you screw up. Here’s my answers to Werner’s questions: http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/31/much-ado-about-blogging-scoble-you-didnt-answer-the-question/