Ben McConnell's Page

Meet Ulla Jones, our new community manager. Some of you already know her. Ulla joined SWOM about three days after we launched. She’s been an active community member ever since. Now Ulla will really step up her work with SWOM —she’ll be joining us as a community manager for the summer. In her role, Ulla will do many things, among them helping start and facilitate discussions, support SWOM’s many geographic- and content-specific groups, organiz… Continue

From British restauranteur (and provocateur) Gordon Ramsay, from his autobiography "Gordon Ramsay's Playing with Fire:" "Bad restaurants advertise, good restaurants get talked about, and that is why we can never consider dispensing with the (PR) agency fees when the going gets tough."

Just a few years ago, Dell was a convenient punching bag, emblematic of how companies don't respond to online word of mouth, if they're listening at all. Now, though, thanks to several key people inside the company including fellow Swomies Richard Binhammer and Lionel Menchaca, that's changing.… Continue

Excellent piece in the Times on how a Canadian company took its products on tour through the Canadian countryside before they were officially launched. The results are pretty instructive: "Last summer, teams of college interns roamed the Canadian countryside in large, colorful vans introducing children at summer camps and local fairs to Bakugan Battle Brawlers, a game played with small plastic balls that snap open into monsters when rolled across magnetic trading cards. The trip took place… Continue

In the United Kingdom, it's now against the law to go around and promote the heck out of your product, service or company by pretending you don't have a vested interested in it. Specifically, the law prohibits: "Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the business is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer." So now stealth marketing and sock puppetry are criminal actions. How often the law is e… Continue