learnandteachonline.com

While I'd still like to try a new open source model for compliance training sometime, I am going to table the idea of trying an online course in s_____ h_________ training for the present.

I find I'm put off by all the competition -- afraid of the magnitude of it, but also dismayed by the character of it. Google always provides clues to commercial oversaturation. When I blog about h_________ training the contextual ads for training and for l__ firms and even loans are eagerly and persistently present, can't seem to shake them quick enough, even with masked content. And when I research the topic in search, the results are SEO-gamed to within an inch of my propriety. Just too much noise of a type I'm not in the temper to battle or to be associated with just now.

It makes me think that online compliance training in general may be taking on a slimy pall as a consequence of the marketing practices of its purveyors, in the same way that the abundance of affiliate programs and splogs have sullied the rep of online universities.

A rotten shame. We gotta clean up this town.

Elinor Mills on Cnet last week asked the question "Want to 'converse' with advertisers?."

No, not really. Anyway not the way they seem to want to do it.

She covered the Conversational Marketing Summit, and came away feeling wary of the whole deal.

I can't help but view conversational marketing as a thinly veiled attempt by the ad industry to insinuate itself into the popular social media craze. Calling it a "conversation" makes it sound benign and implies that it is consensual.

Yep yep yep.

Still, I do think there's a place for talking to customers that PR people don't get because they are stuck thinking in terms of image. I don't think people want to talk about a marketing slogan like Microsoft's and Federated Media's dumb "People Ready" campaign where they asked for reactions to top bloggers' takes on the slogan. That's pretty much having a conversation about nothing.

Online types do like to get into the nitty-gritty of products, and that makes you think the conversation might better be taking place in the customer service arena. Let people talk to product managers and developers and designers. Leave the PR types -- with their exclamation points and "lively language" and their messages -- right out of it.

Update
Bonus links: Doc Searls, a Cluetrain brother, brings the
marketing conversation topic up to date. Also check out this other great post from Doc on NYTimes Select, the Times' paywalled service that came down this week. He quotes from one of David Weinberger's chapters in The Cluetrain Manifesto. So amazing how well the ideas in that book have held up, but then when it came out it just felt so true, I'm not surprised it's endured.

I like to check out c|net reviews. The video adds a nice dimension, and the price listings and vendor reputation scoring is great.

The pages give me a headache, though. I can't stay there long with all the ads and distractions. It makes me nervous.

I think c|net's site plan and the U.S. government's tax code ought to do the same thing. Blow themselves up and start over. C|net: start with the editorial, and add back in the elements you have to have in a harmonious way.

As for the tax code, I'm not quite with Steve Forbes on a flat tax, though I do like the simplicity of it. I think you could start there, throwing out all the complications, and judiciously add back in sensible exemptions and incentives in a societally harmonious way.

What a nice idea. Penguin Podcasts will give us A Christmas Carol in installments beginning Dec. 15. Here is the feed.

Penguin Books started podcasting in October but have gotten off to a slow start. Maybe it's picking up now.

What a brand Penguin is, no? If I'm in a bookstore and it's one of several softcover choices for a classic, I'll pick Penguin every time. Covers are always so nice and non-commercial, and while the page design is often not cutting edge, it's readable in the extreme, and tasteful. I have a few very old Penguins that I'm fond of. If I ever mislaid my old Pygmalian I'd be crushed.

I've always wondered, who is the market for movie tie-in covers? Those are the last I'll choose, if there is a choice. Do mass market publishers think you'll like owning a book with famous actors' faces on it? Or is it a merchandising gambit saying, "Right, this is the one the movie was made from; buy this one."

I dislike it when products are altered for merchandising. Do what you want with the packaging, but the part that doesn't get thrown away, leave that out of selling equation, please.

There was a piece on "All Things Considered" on Thursday -- you know, the night I spent almost four hours getting home -- about toys with sound chips. Somebody in the story remarked that manufacturers purposefully make the sounds louder than you would want in your home so it will rise above the din of a Target store. Isn't that disgusting?

Huh! This brings us full circle in my ramble. NPR and Penguin have sort of the same target psychographic, don't they?

Steve Baker at BW Blogspotting excerpts Jason Calacanis's advice to AOL on talking to customers.

This comes after AOL sprung ads on bloggers' pages without notice, and then proceded to act like a dick about it, playing out a tired old corporate command-and-control stern parent role.

You know, I may have had the wrong idea about Jason. He's so good at making money online that I guess I didn't realize he was so cluetrainful.

I wonder how long he'll last as an employee. These employ-the-acquired-entrepreneur deals don't work. Not ever, in my observation. If the contract allows I think it's usually better for the acquiree to get out as soon as possible after the first hint of culture clash, while there are still some good feelings left on both sides.

Read it online or listen to the podcast. I'm going to pry myself away from the comupter (look at all these posts today), and listen to it right now. I have been enjoying these covercasts.

Wouldn't you think a college alumni directory company would collect its info online? Yet I got a postcard in the mail asking me to call to verify my details.

They probably think they have a better chance of selling me a directory if they have me on the phone. Wrong assumption for me and online oriented people like me. If they have a web site telling me every detail of what I'm going to get they're more likely to get a sale from me.

That reminds me; I'm going to close down another blog I haven't posted to in a long time and never did get very tuned into. It was called 411 Peculiar Road and was supposed to be intended for customer service people about the peculiarities of communicating online. I'll move the posts over here. There's a story about phone-centricity that I think you'll like.

I have notes for a bunch of other respectful marketing posts. I'll get to them soon.

A Marketing Profs online seminar on RSS will be held next week. I've been seeing more and more offerings like this. I think it means that RSS adoption is shifting into another phase. We may not like some of what we see when marketers start getting RSS.

What do you call the warfare technique where you slash and burn and move on? It will come to me.

This feels like the same sort of thing. First faxing and phoning was abused to the point where targets hated it and it was regulated, so it's been largely abandoned in favor of e-mail. Now e-mail is being abused, so on we go to RSS. At least it's not intrusive, though I'm sure unscrupulous marketers are trying to find ways to trick us into getting pitched against our will.

From e-mail I got yesterday

Dera crossmyt.com Merebm,

We msut chcek thta yoru crossmyt.com ID was registdere by rael peolpe. So, to hple crossmyt.com pervent audetamot
rertsigations, pleaes ccilk on tsih likn and copmlete coed venoitacifir prsecos:

http://crossmyt.com/e2hqzLHAWajd3hCXjAKj8

Tahnk you.

It's a phishing attempt, but uses the spammer technique of misspelling word likely to be caught in spam filters. Would anybody fall for this?

Douglas Rushkoff is posting excerpts from an upcoming book on innovation. This first one is about questioning the product you're pushing. I've gotten shirty looks when, as the marketer, I've asked questions like "Do people like this thing? Do they want it? Do they need it? Do you like it?"

The look says "That's not your province." Maybe not, but I'll always try to get it on the table. The look also can have a shading of "Get back in your place." Well... I'll never respond to that.

I used to work for a PR firm that occasionally subbed out morning TV show placement to a killer booker in New York. She knew everybody and would always, always come through, for a price. I was in awe. I hated pitching. All the time I worked in PR I always found a way that I could do anything else: write press kits, do proposals, anything else.

"She could get dirty socks on the air," people said about her. I didn't admire that. It made me feel slimy about what I did,