This is going to be the first of the few posts. I just need to get some stuff out of my head to make sense of it, so I’m hoping in every sense of the word that this can be a conversation.

For those of you who may not know, I’m on medical leave. Nothing huge, a minor surgery that required me to slow down. Ok I needed to come to a full stop. Which doesn’t come natural to me, thus the medical leave. One side effect of resting is I have time to read, to reflect. To actually engage with my Twitter stream (which I miss so much y’all!).

So in no particular order, stuff that came up in the last few days:

• Twitpisses/FUD/basically not playing nice with our guild. Storage people, remember the old timey twit pisses?? Vendors out and out attacking each other. Now they don’t so much attack each other like they did in the old days – but they still get their digs in. Check out this twitter discussion based on this blog post by Duncan Epping.
  I know I’m idealistic, but I still believe if you are honest about your tech, you don’t have to be snarky and cut down your competitors. I don’t think customers want to hear or see this, and it starts mucking up the waters of what is technically real, and who (has the most marketing dollars || the most charismatic experts). I think it’s the educator in me….I just really hate this crap a lot.
• Where is the line between marketing hype and and propaganda? Got this great definition from @ColtandtheCloud: If you, as a vendor, over-claim your product’s capabilities, you are walking that thin line of pushing propaganda. I believe our customers need to know what our products can do, what the limitations are, and how much it’s going to cost them (now and in the future), so they can decide on if the product is a good fit for their environments.

  Pushing propaganda, fueled by rock stars from the social media space, is a sure way to piss off customers. Drinking this sort of kool aid has always had dire consequences. Isn’t it better to be honest and real? Isn’t that the real sexy? Or is this me being naive again?

• What is the difference between evangelism and propaganda? Shout out to Greg Schulz on this one. This one gives me pause because of my upbringing. Both in my mind (my social construct if you will) are about information control. If I have more money to put into evangelism – does propaganda become what everyone accepts as the truth? How are evangelists related to information impostors?
• Can you teach experts how not to be douchbags? Or how not to fall victim to those who would want them to turn to that path? Or is that part of the cycle of propaganda?
  UPDATE: I expanded on what I was trying to say here in this post.
• On that same note – US Airways social media – what the hell? 
• The control of social media by traditional PR and marketing. Lots of new posts on this over the last several days. Advertisers like Bob Hoffman showing open disdain for companies engaging with customers. Marketing pros trying desperately to get their MQLs (and by extension SQLs) up by using social media to broadcast gated links to content (y’all  – you are doing content marketing wrong – lots more to come on this from me!).  This is still control – controlling what you can see, what you should think, what they want you to know.

Here’s what I fundamentally believe: Information is like water. It will find a way to be free. Customers will talk to each other. Customers may be entertained by the evangelism/antics of your experts — but make no mistake. They are doing more with less and they are looking to this content you are broadcasting out to help them make sense of what is available. I believe we have a responsibility as vendors, as experts, as members of the community to help them find the information they seek – and to give it to them without charging them for it. As the world of technology keeps changing around us, we owe it to each other to help each other out.

Ok this is a jumbled bunch of thoughts, fueled by bed rest (you were warned! 🙂 ). Am I crazy to just want to talk tech? To get back to basics? To want to help customers find the best solution for their environment?

What do y’all think?