Dino Baskovic Can’t Lose

Mashable's Pete Sizemore summed up the the Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines snafu quite well:

Southwest’s use of social media in addressing the situation could be said to be commendable.

It appears that some Southwest employee eyeing Echofon caught the tweet and immediately recognized his handle.  Even if he wasn't an avid fan of the View Askewniverse, said staffer undoubtedly saw the 1.6-million-plus followers and Verified Account seal and didn't hesitate to wake the customer relations veep outta bed.  The blog post went up faster that you can say "snootchie bootchies!" and I doubt most large airlines would be so nimble given the same circumstances.

The story has survived several news cycles with observers falling into the "die Southwest!" or "try a treadmill Smith!" camps.  No need for me to weigh in either way, though I must call out this: Silent Bob simply can't silence this story just because he wants to:

DONE with this. @SouthwestAir blogs, so I blog: http://silentbobspeaks.com/?p=393 G'night, folks. Let's talk about anything else tomorrow.

This story will end when it wants to, not just because he is suddenly tired of it.  Sorry, but that's jut now how life works.  Think of that the next time you are so fearless with a flip phone, Bluntman.

I've had mixed emotions about this whole Toyota mess. Part of me jeered along with the rest of the blue-collar, red-blooded compatriots I grew up with in the Rust Belt that watched the reputation of our beloved American cars turn a not-so-lovely shade of patina from decades of poor decision-making. It's a part of me I'm not necessarily proud of and my world view is far more matured these days. Admittedly, I found myself momentarily pointing and laughing. "Ha ha, Toyota, feel that media heat. Hear that consumer rage. Taste that big government boot. Kiss that five-star favorability good-bye..."

Of course, part of me was compassionate. I feel for the affected families. From a business standpoint, you can't excuse such errors in judgment. There is no justification for silencing, stalling, covering up. But whether we like it or not, these things happen. Cracks form, things slip through them. Companies are people, too. Humans. Prone to human error. A $2 billion error notwithstanding litigation. Maybe Toyota sat on this far too long, maybe they didn't. It really doesn't matter. The good people behind a great company that build and market some of the world's best cars will pay the price for years to come.

It is times of corporate crisis like these that I hope that competent PR people are behind the scenes. Not just parading presidents around the morning network news, mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa. But credible, dedicated professionals that will go to mattresses to restore faith in their organization's name and reputation. PR pros that, when duty calls, leave their personal lives behind to become the unsung backroom heroes that won't rest until they can call mission accomplished.

I wasn't kidding when I said "years." Faulty brakes isn't a "sticky situation" that can be brushed aside after a few nights of bad late night comedy. No, this will take winning back the trust of owners and buyers, regulators, even dealers. Knowing at least one person pulling long hours for Toyota PR these last few weeks, I truly believe the automaker is on the road to recovery.

"Moving forward." It's been Toyota's slogan for some time. There is new meaning to that now. Like my own past perceptions, Americans have evolved -- and given the global economy, evolution means survival. Toyota will survive this and be a stronger company. The company is crash-coursing lessons their "American" competitors long learned the hard way. This will become fodder for PR textbooks for generations to come. Toyota will grow smarter and move forward. So too will the industry, and so will America.

Well, well, well.  Looks like I'm not the only one that feels pain.  Maybe I should've friended Scoble for faster customer service.

Luckily, I got my Facebook account back last week thanks to a kind soul with User Operations. What seemed like months to restore my account was really a few weeks. was a mere few weeks.  While not ideal -- I wanted it fixed in days, even hours -- it could've been far worse or simply never resolved.

I applaud CNET's Caroline McCarthy for being so fair in her assessment of Facebook's current database dilemma:

With over 300 million active users around the world, we shouldn't expect Facebook to be able to respond to every inquiry it receives. And Facebook is a free product, so it arguably doesn't have a customer service obligation on par with your cable company or the Web site where you bought your last pair of shoes. But this is still a real problem for the social network, which has become so ingrained in culture and communication that for some people it's replaced the address book, the e-mail client, and the personal Web site. Many of the e-mails [received] came from people who say that Facebook is their primary method of communication with far-flung family and friends. Others said it's crucial to how they do business.

It's true.  Facebook can only service the customer so much.  And when I lost my old Gmail account last month around the time I lost Facebook, Google was no help whatsoever.  And who can blame them?  The major players offer unlimited web resources with limited people resources, whether we like it or not.  It's a take-a-number mentality and until somebody invents a truly "human scalable" model of technical support, then please continue to hold...

This is why I laugh when I read fanciful approaches to customer service from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed startups like iPhone fitness app developer Gymfu:*

1. Answer ALL emails and tweets.
2. Build a support site that is SEO’d and contains all the questions people ask (support.gymu.com).
3. Find our evangelists and love them.
4. Find our haters and love them more than our own mothers.
5. Do whatever it takes to fix a customer’s problem, even if that means meeting them to give them pre-release code!

That's great if you're a niche mobile app with a loyal yet modest user base.  Not so realistic if said base grows by a googol.

Curses that I can't find the bookmark, but I recall an editorial from last year claiming how we want all want to be treated on a first-name, coffeehouse-cozy basis -- at big box retail with low, low prices.  The same customer service conundrum applies here.  The Facebook fallen want to be treated and released, but are instead forced to wait with the rest of the walking wounded.  Call centers, community-based support sites, knowlege bases, wikis and whatnot -- sure, they help.  Yet, they are no replacement for live chat, a friendly phone voice (even if in an odd dialect) or onsite repair. 

So what can we do?  Crowdsource customer service?  Saddle up the Mechanical Turk?  Or just grab a seat until your number is called eventually, hopefully, any day now?  I lived without Facebook for three weeks, and for all my whining it wasn't so bad.  Granted, 300 million Facebook fans can't all be patient, and you hear the growls whenever Gmail fails (rare) and Twitter whales (set your watch).  That, and patience is a hard virtue to come by in the Twitter era.

My advice to those suffering through this or a similar outage: relax, this too shall pass, have a backup plan and move on with your life.  It's what led me to start this blog.  Thanks, Facebook!  I think?

On a semi-related note, I just started working out five days a week, so I'll give those Gymfu apps a shot.  Provided it doesn't get me booted again, I may even link my Gymfu and Facebook accounts.  Though watch out, Gymfu: if something breaks, I'm putting your customer service through the paces.

* Hat tip to Steve Rubel for the repost.

CNET News reports that the Seattle night scene is dried up and migrating northeast to Redmond:

For the second day, Global Security has received an unconfirmed report of a possible cougar sighting, this time near building 32.

Microsoft Security will conduct frequent patrols of all wooded areas of the campus, and will work with the State Department of Fish & Wildlife and other experts to assess the situation and provide further updates, as appropriate.  In the meantime, we ask that all employees exercise appropriate caution, particularly in remote or wooded areas of campus. If you meet a cougar:

• Never approach a cougar. Although cougars will normally avoid a confrontation, all cougars are unpredictable. Cougars feeding on a kill may be dangerous.
• Always give a cougar an avenue of escape.
• Stay calm. Talk to the cougar in a confident voice.
• Pick all children up off the ground immediately. Children frighten easily and their rapid movements may provoke an attack.
• Do not run. Try to back away from the cougar slowly. Sudden movement or flight may trigger an instinctive attack. Do not turn your back on the cougar. Face the cougar and remain upright.
• Do all you can to enlarge your image. Don't crouch down or try to hide. Pick up sticks or branches and wave them about.

Hat tip to TechFlash for leaking the memo.  Calls to Halle Berry's agent went unanswered.

The Browser blog from the Detroit Free Press takes a look back at the web on September 11, 2001 (along with an included gallery of homepages of major news websites).

Crises make us crave the web.  Some would argue 9/11 was the crisis that defined the web.  Plagues and protests, hurricanes and tsunamis, elections and defeats, roadside bombings and campus shootings.  I remember being glued to Virginia Tech's website throughout the 2007 massacre.  It's become a macabre part of my PR repertoire, observing web infrastructure and social media patterns during times of tragedy.

I pray to whatever God that exists that I never again to need the web to capture the cold, harsh realities of our interconnected world.  But if I do, then my next prayers would be life over death and 99.999% uptime.