From willing forum contributor to unwitting newsletter author
 I contributed to a LinkedIn forum that asked for thoughts on what books we would recommend to fellow managers. My usual "must read" list appeared, as well as a couple that I thought would interest this particular audience. Job done, or so I thought.
I received a message from the topic starter telling me if I gave him my email address I would get a copy of some ebook or other that he had written. I ignored it - it is impossible to reply to messages on LinkedIn without exposing your email address, so I avoid it.
Then a message popped up in the forum asking for permission to take the various recommendations, edit them and include them in some consultant's newsletter.
Excuse me?
This irked me somewhat. I'd contributed to the forum in good faith, hoping my modest contribution would be useful to someone. I intended for it to be read in that forum and whilst I've had people ask me to contribute to their newsletters and websites on the back of my posts, I've never had someone so obviously trolling for content.
There's also a question of reputation. This consultant would send out his newsletter, my name included, to thousands of people. Sound good? How do I know? I have no relationship with this person, no desire to use his services and frankly I'm not overly impressed with his marketing ability. So did I really want to give him a little qudos by letting him publish my name and company details in his newsletter?
(As an aside, if he'd wanted to appear really useful to his readers he might have been better linking to the discussion forum.)
Fortunately he asked before he used my words. I wonder how many don't and just reproduce posts wholesale.
Previously on this blog...
the global leader in Contact Center Consolidation 2.0
2.0 has become a meaningless addition to already poor tag lines.
A dozen beautiful images of Saturn
Wired presents a dozen of the best images from the Cassini mission
Setting up shop in a new country: beyond the website
Building a website for multiple languages is not just about translation. It is a critical business decision that has to be taken carefully.
Why call centre staff deserve your respect
If call centre staff set the first impression for your business, why do we treat them so badly?
Becoming a Specialist? A hard decision to make ...
Specialising requires hard strategic decisions to be made about your business.
When good people move on
Losing a member of staff to another company is not necessarily a bad thing
The quest for quality in Agile Software Development
Why quality assurance remains a central part of project management, regardless of the use of Agile methods
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