Poor, Misguided San Jose Merc

In Momentum, there is a section on the listening deficit and the various ways that companies and organizations speak at not with their constituents.

One of the companies I mention is the San Jose Mercury News. Getting an article from the Merc website is like pulling teeth, pages of registration, lists of spam to try not to get on, etc. I had to put in my email address to get final permission to access their site and yesterday’s news, sigh.

Yesterday, more than a year after that event, I got an email from the Merc. Here’s a screen shot:

The Merc folks don’t seem to understand that I am potentially a member of their community and that they need to TALK to me, not shoot meaningless emails to me. No discussion of whether I’d like to subscribe to their RSS feeds, join a blog discussion with an editor or write?

Sadly, eighteen months later, the Merc doesn’t seem to be any closer to understanding that conversations trump direct mail.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Poor, Misguided San Jose Merc