Blog Relations
Neville Hobson on Exbiblio
On Monday I told Neville Hobson about my involvement in the Exbiblio blog. It was late in the evening, and he took a glance at it, said it looked interesting, and that he would return to it in the morning. Rather embarrassingly, three of my posts had vanished by the morning. This was particularly awkward, as I had told the world that I had a free hand to write as I saw fit. I am glad to say that they are back now. The key post is about an extremely sensitive subject concerning the founder.
I think this tale could have been interpreted in either a positive or a negative light, depending on whether you think it was terrible that the posts were taken down, or great that they were put back. It’s clear to anyone who reads the blog that there as been some misunderstanding and 24 hours of deciding what to do – a classic PR muddle. However, Martin King has done much to put things right by explaining what happened.
Neville has very generously seen the story in the best light possible, and my thanks are due to him. I do hope that other companies will take note of what Neville says about the best way to communicate difficult news in the modern media. What he says is very true, but hard to undertake.
Hugh, I honestly don’t see what other light there is in which anyone really could see this story.
Yes, taking down the posts could be a point to focus on – those posts weren’t actually gone at all thanks to things like Google’s cache. So it could be something somone may well talk about.
Yet it’s a non-story, in my view, primarily because a) they’re back and b) Martin’s good explanation as to what happened and why.
To me the story is as I posted, ie, partly your very cool gig (!), and the transparency re Martin.
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