As far back as January of this year, David Armano and I have been a having a discussion on twitter about the need for a Social Media Sheriff.  I nominated him for the job, but he declined.  I was bummed because I think he’d do a great job of it.  David has the experience, chops, clout and respect to be the person who can call bullshit on snake oil salesmen, posers and charlatans.

Recently, he and I revisited the topic after a “blogger” decided to plagiarize a bunch of his work and tried to pass it off as their own.  Peter Kim wrote a nice summary of the situation, without naming names.  Although, I think he should have named names.  These “criminals” need to be called out.  And let’s make no mistake, they are criminals.  They steal time, they steal effort and they misrepresent themselves as “experts” to unsuspecting people and companies.

In an indirect way, Peter, whom I respect a lot, basically challenged me on my some claims I was making about thinking around “Social Business.”  I made the claim that this was a topic I had been covering for some time.  He matter of factly challenged me to produce the deck…which I did, in a limited format due to client confidentiality.  Was I irritated that he challenged me and my statement?  Sure, I was.  But, did I understand it?  You bet.

We’re operating in a wild wild west atmosphere right now.  Any NO ONE wants to step up and where the badge.  No one wants to call out someone else.  No one wants to point out the charlatan.  You know why?  Because, as I wrote here:

Our industry is filled with chances to be honest, authentic, and genuine. But, too often we pass on those chances. I’ve been overly critical of so-called professional analysts like soon to be former Forrester Social Media analyst Jeremiah Owyang. An analyst is supposed to dig in to a situation and honestly assess it. These analysts, with rare exception never provide the brutal honest truth. They avoid controversy and critique like it was the plague. In short, they don’t do the job they’re being paid to do.

I tend to believe the reason they don’t provide an honest assessment of company, person, or situation is that it’s not to their personal benefit. They need to maintain these friendships and connections for future gain. They need to keep things more friendship focused than business focused. You need only look at the number of people leaving analyst firms to join a company they’ve previously “analyzed” to see what I mean.

It’s not in their interest to wear the badge.  Well, it’s not in their interest until it starts hurting their bottom line.  When someone starts plagiarizing David’s work and taking potential business away from him, it becomes an issue that’s worth paying attention to and focusing on.  Funny, how that works

I really like approach Justin Kownacki is taking lately.  One of things I’ve always respected about Justin is his BRUTAL honesty.  If you want to see that in action, check out his post titled “What Do We Do About Plagiarism?“  He’s facing this issue head on and I like it.  Last year I wrote a post covering the Top 10 Favorite Blogs and one covering the Top 10 People To Follow On Twitter.  This year, and very soon, I’ll be focusing on the top 10 people to avoid on twitter, the top 10 snake oils salesman in social media, and of course the top 10 bullshitters.  I’m sure it’ll ruffle some feathers, but frankly I don’t care.

It’s time for someone to take on the responsibility of being the sheriff and since the “thought leaders” in the industry don’t have the balls to do it, I guess I’ll be the one who wears the badge.  You’re on notice and I believe in a zero tolerance approach.

Long story short:

1. P&G hosted an event called Digital Hack Night.
2. The event was designed to immerse, educate, and demonstrate the power of digital marketing to it’s marketing directors
3. The brought in sharp minds like David Armano, Peter Kim, Kelly Mooney and leaders form Google, MySpace, Facebook also attended. Note, Twitter did not attend.
4. The backbone to the event was a contest to raise money for charity by selling t-shirts. The combination of P&G Marketing Directors, famous peeps, and leaders were split into 4 teams. Each team competed to see who could rake in the most cash.

That’s all I’m going to cover about the event. Other people have given it better and more thorough coverage. You can read about it here, here, here, and here.

I’ve found most “leaders” to rarely establish a serious position, rock the boat, or be controversial.  Instead they focus on being “politically correct.”  By politically correct, I mean not choosing a side – instead opting to find pros and cons with both sides.  Since no one else will ask the difficult questions, I felt I should.  That’s my style.

What I want to focus on is this quote from Peter Kim

At the end of the evening, P&G’s CMO Marc Pritchard remarked that in the future, all employees should get involved in activating connections similar to what had just been witnessed.

I posted the following on Peter’s site:

Peter-
Nice recap. If the future is that all employees should be involved in activating their connections 3 things must happen:

1. Employees should be rewarded for the impact they make – this changes compensation structures
2. Personal brands must be embraced and supported; with rules needing relaxation so that employees aren’t be stifled – can a corporate company really embrace this?
3. Partners will need to be held accountable as well. – If employees are expected to do this, shouldn’t their agencies, packaging suppliers, etc.

At the and of the day the question I won’t to pose to the community (though few will actually answer) is at what point does this simply become just a very large pyramid scheme, that’s backed by one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world? Is this the future of marketing?

There’s been a lot of debate lately about personal brands. Specifically, the question has been raised about how important they are and if people should put their name (aka their brand) first or their companies. Make no mistake, the digital experts that were brought to Cincinnati for the event leveraged their personal brands big time.

P&G in effect is asking for people (albeit indirectly) to establish personal brands, grow the size of their virtual and real rolodexes, and leverage their personal brand in combination with their network size for the GREATER good of the company.

One part of me says, right on, EXACTLY. After all shouldn’t you support the company you work for? When I worked at ConAgra Foods, I traded Heinz Ketchup for Hunts and Nathan’s for Hebrew National. In general I embrace the brands I work on. I now work on Rite-Aid. You can be sure I’ll be getting my prescriptions there and not anyone else.

Here’s the million dollar question. Should employees, vendors, and partners be compensated for doing this or should it simply be part of the job?

Think about it. You are leveraging your personal network and brand for the greater good of your client and company. That’s not exactly in the job description It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it begs the question, no?

Let’s say I work for BMW and I convince 10 of my friends who were leaning towards Lexus to buy a BMW.  Let’s take a round number like $50,000 and call that the value of each car.  In effect, didn’t I generate $500,000 in sales for BMW?  Didn’t I do the job of the dealer, the ad agency, the TV spot, the web site, etc.?  Yet, in most cultures I’d never be compensated for extending myself.  What happens if person #2′s BMW has a boat load of problems.  It’s my reputation that gets sullied.  Remember, I convinced him to go BMW over Lexus.

This isn’t that far fetched.  Do you know how many people I got to switch to Peter Pan peanut-butter (subsequently people were pissed at me after Peter Pan announced it had salmonella) or choose Nikon over Canon when I worked on those brands?  100s if not 1000s.  If companies are going to want people to become brand advocates that establish brands, grow personal networks, and ultimately tap that network for the good of the company, there needs to be a change in how we compensate our employees.  At least that’s what I think.

Where do you stand?