3by9

3 Brands vs. 1 Puppet: Guess Who Wins

It is only Wednesday and this might be the most exciting week in our geeky blogosphere yet. Why? We have Shel Israel vs. Loren Feldman and if you don’t know about this one there really is too much to link to so might I suggest a quick Google search. The big deal about this one isn’t that you have two grown men over the age of 300 fighting it out, but you have two grown men over the age of 300 fighting it out and it involves a personal brand and a large company brand.

If you don’t know about Loren Feldman let me give you a quick lesson on him. He doesn’t really do original material. Okay it’s original in that he says it, but his thing is waiting for someone to do something on the web and then bash them. His nice videos don’t get the pageviews. His nice videos don’t get him the recognition. It’s the videos of him bashing another company or individual that gets him the views. We all love controversy, that is no secret. With that in mind think about how you would react if someone who is already known to attack people decides to attack you.

Well he did that with Shel Israel. A quick background on Shel Israel lets you know that he is partnered with Robert Scoble with FastCompany.tv and they also wrote a book together called Naked Conversations. So Shel makes a video and it wasn’t the greatest of quality, but if you could ignore all that and just listen to the audio it was typical FastCompany.tv fare (take that however you want). Loren gets a hold of it and bashes him to pieces. Then Loren registers ShelIsrael.com and creates videos with puppets based around him. It is almost like Loren is saying “I can do this better than you with puppets, suck on it” and in response…well how can I say this…Shel went apeshit.

Now keep in mind, not only is someone attacking Shel, but they are attacking his personal brand. You only have one personal brand in life and over the past 300 years Shel has built his up it is being destroyed in a quick week by someone who is lesser known. The sad part about this is…let me start this sentence again because there is more than one sad part. In fact, now that I have taken five seconds to think about it there are multiple sad parts about this saga.

1. The way Shel has reacted almost leaves him in a dead end situation. No matter what he does people will laugh at him, ridicule him and think of him as the guy who wasn’t as entertaining as a puppet. Now I say almost because there is a way out, but I don’t get paid to consult for such things so I am not going to say how to get out of it, but it isn’t that hard.
2. The second sad part involves his friend and partner Robert Scoble. I’ll get to this one below.
3. The third sad part is Fast Company. Man, oh, man, oh, man, oh, man did they totally screw up 2008 so far. I think Tyme might address this in the future, but let me say fellas, you need to open your eyes and catch on to what is unfolding because FastCompany.tv isn’t going to save anything.

Alright, time for the Scoble part of this entry. Arrington breaks a story that the puppet show gets a sponsor when Shel’s show can’t. That’s a blow no matter how you want to look at it if you are Shel, Scoble or FastCompany. In fact, that is just plain insulting. So what do you do if you are Scoble and you run this ship? Well you tell the world how much you love the puppets of course. Wait, what?

That’s funny! I love the puppets and am glad they will have food to eat. Make sure mine gets caviar, OK?

Yeah I thought the same thing and figured I have thrown enough jabs at Scoble over the years so let me lend the good natured fellow a hand.

I’m not saying you should be irate or go apenuts, but please man, get some sense into your head. Your man got clowned and will apparently now get repeatedly clowned and this adds no respect for you or whatever other shows you have coming up.
Paul Scrivens

I hope that makes sense to everyone reading it because it makes sense to me. Your partner and your foundation just got stomped on. I did my good deed and figured all was good. I thought Scoble would revere me and tell me that I am a genius for helping him remember that testosterone pumps through his veins and that he is a man who does have a sense of honor, integrity and pride in the things he backs.

If you have read me over the years though you know how often I am wrong (please don’t give me a count). Scoble returned to point out that he does support Shel. Just in different ways.

I love Shel dearly and am supporting him in tons of ways. But I’ve already learned from his own response that supporting him by doing anything other than laughing along at the joke at this point won’t be productive. The puppets are funny. Fast Company.tv isn’t funny and isn’t meant to be. It’s a show/network about innovative business people.

I’m sure you can understand my frustration now. It is one thing to sit down with Shel and laugh with him, calm him down or do whatever at the puppets, but publicly saying what he said makes no sense. It makes no business sense. It makes no man sense. It makes no woman sense. It makes no child sense.

I figured I didn’t do a good job of explaining myself the first time so I came back for Round 2.

You don’t want to hook your brand to attacking people and that’s great, but guess what? Now your brand is being hooked to boring and being clowned by the puppet master. That is your brand. Hey you heard about FastCompany.tv? Oh yeah, those are the guys who get clowned.

Now I understand how it is when someone tells you how they feel about your company. I know how it is when someone tells you that this is how many people see your company. You don’t want to believe them. You don’t want to listen to them. You know why I listen to Tyme when she gives her opinion followed by “someone told me”? Because that is what the people who use our sites tell her and I’ve learned that I can be defensive and not believe that someone would say such things. I’ve learned that my first reaction sometimes is that the person is an idiot. It can be hard stepping outside of yourself and seeing your company how others see it so I tried my best to convey that to Scoble.

He didn’t bite. Not one bit.

Listen, if everyone is laughing at you, the only correct response is to laugh with them.

That is when I gave up. Three strong brands in less than one week were destroyed by some puppets. They can recover, but not if this show goes on. Shel’s brand is gone. I’m more aware of the puppet Shel now than I am of the real Shel. FastCompany.tv? Please, I can go watch puppets because at least there is a chance I will be entertained. FastCompany? Yeah, again I’ll let Tyme handle you guys.

I liked that Shel grew angry and that he wanted to fire back. Shame he did it the wrong way. You can’t fire back the way he did when everyone agrees with the person that made fun of you in the first place. It’s tough to go against someone like Loren because he knows how to play to the crowd and when you are in that type of battle you have to know the rules of the game. Unfortunately, Shel and Scoble aren’t the confrontational types so they weren’t prepared for what was coming. A damn shame.

Oh and I forgot to mention that Scoble leaves with this question for me.

But, would love to know what you all will do when the puppet comes after you?

It’s a damn puppet. I will handle it in my own way and you should be smart enough to know how to handle it. If Loren went after Mike or Tyme? That is another story. I sure as hell wouldn’t laugh with everyone else at them. I have too much respect and love for my people to sellout like that and I thought Scoble would too for both his friend and the people paying the bills.

(I told you after last week’s craptastic entry I would bring the good. I could’ve continued on because this is some good material, but I know I’m not entertaining after 10,000 words let alone 100 so I leave you with this.)