Dear Adobe - Your Customers are Talking
August 27, 2008
Early this week, a couple of web designers, frustrated by persistent problems with their most-utilized productivity applications, Adobe Photoshop CS3, decided to start a conversation with the company. After securing the domain name, dearadobe.com, they set out to create a public forum where anyone could say whatever they wanted about the company and its products. These two designers are in no way affiliated with the company other than as users.
I’ve had some serious issues with Adobe. Their products are mind-blowing in complexity and feature functionality (good, amazing), but at the same time are mind-numbing when it comes to support, version control, and licensing (bad, frustrating). I have tracked over 20 hours of unbilled time to Adobe customer support, trying to deal with rudimentary problems that should have easy fixes.
The social web makes it easy to initiate discussions and rant about products or services. And the reach of the internet means that if the rant resonates with a broader group than yourself, amplification occurs that makes a Metallica concert sound subtle. Remember the whole “Dell Hell” thing? Starbucks even got on board with their own feedback site in an attempt to collect thoughts about what they probably already know - the coffee tastes different, it’s expensive, and the company lost its focus.
What resonated with me about the “Dear Adobe” site is the company’s response to a site they had no part in creating and that largely criticizes the company: we’re listening. In just over a day, the company, through an employee blog post, acknowledged the site and even responded, one by one, to several recent rants. No PR firm. No war room to craft an “official” response. No denying it was there. No silence. Just an awareness to users that feedback is processed by those that make the decisions on how software is designed, coded, sold, and supported.
In addition, the authors of dearadobe.com realized they may actually receive a response from Adobe if they kept their cool. The site is not called f***adobe.com, or anything close. It doesn’t attempt to antagonize. And it doesn’t filter. Some of the content is posted clearly out of frustration. Some out of admiration. Some, even clever. Which makes it fun.
And I’m writing about it, which means positive feedback has amplified, however minutely, as the result of a site created largely to criticize the company. Smart move on the part of these two designers - and smart response by Adobe.
PodCamp Seattle 2008
June 23, 2008
Last Saturday, I had the chance to speak at Podcamp Seattle, organized in party by my friend Eric Weaver of Edelman Digital. It was great to see such a positive turnout on a weekend day when the sun was shining, and the Fremont Solstice parade was taking place just a few miles away from the University of Washington.
I spoke on the topic on Social Media and Public Relations, which seemed to me like a bit of a broad topic, but it came together fairly well as a topical and interesting subject to research and discuss. A copy of my presentation can be downloaded here.
The other thing to add about the un-conference, as it was billed, was the amount of content that was created almost instantly to the content presented at the sessions. Attendees were asked to record, in any form possible - photo, video, audio, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. - the sessions and the opinions of the audience. Just Google podcampseattle and you’ll see the power of tagging and instant content development and publishing.