Back on July 30 I posted a piece called 5 Good Reasons Not All CEOs Should Blog.
Thanks to Jason Goldberg of Jobster, the online recruiting site, I now have a sixth good reason: You might be exposed as the baldfaced liar that you really are.
When rumors started flying last month that Jobster was in trouble and layoffs were imminent, Goldberg used his blog to reassure the troops in what, one assumes, he believes to be the voice of the super cool CEO:
“my gawd if i had a dollar for every time i’ve been getting that question the past couple of weeks i’d have 20 more million dollars in the bank on top of what’s already there.” (Goldberg seems totally oblivivious to the possibility that telling people who believe they are about to be fired that you have 20 million in the bank might be considered tacky and obnoxious.) He goes on:
“for those of ya anxiously keeping score at home put down your pencils . calm it down, relax a bit, and have a nice holiday. we’ve got no news to give ya before the new year. everybody’s all a speculating. a lot of falsehoods being bandied about.”
Goldberg began dropping unsettling hints on on his blog. On the day after Christmas he reminded people to use up their vacation days. The next day he posted this rather ominous iPod list:
- destiny’s child: survivor
- don henley: dirty laundry
- jennifer hudson: i’m telling you i’m not going
- kristine w: stronger
- the beatles: come together
- u2: one
Meanwhile, he can’t resist congratulating himself on what a totally awesome guy he is because he blogs, dropping cat poop bon bons to himself in post after post:
- Why am I so comfortable blogging?” he asked. “Answer: transparency. Embrace it. Don’t run from it.” He promised that 2007 would bring a “whole slew of surprises.”
- I made a personal pledge to be a very public and open ceo, knowing that it could come back to bite me sometimes. I promised to speak my mind and provoke and prod the industry a bit, again knowing that it could open me up to greater criticism and sometimes backfire.
- Why don’t i listen to my pr folks when then tell me to stop blogging?
Answer: ’cause i’m different and i hate being handled.
On January 3, Goldberg announced on his blog a “reorganization” that eliminated 60 jobs, about one-quarter of the staff. This time, there is no cool misspellings or lower case posturing: “
“There has been a lot of speculation about changes at Jobster and while we had wanted to communicate broadly earlier, we had not completed our plans. Our first priority was to inform affected employees.”
Thanks to an article in the New York Times, the entire world knows what a phony Goldberg is. He should have listened to those PR folks.
Bookmark murdok:
Jerry Bowles has more than 30 years of varied experience as a writer, editor, marketing consultant, corporate communications director and blogger. For the past 20 years, he has produced and written special supplements on new technologies for a number of magazines, including Forbes, Fortune and Newsweek.
http://www.enterpriseweb2.com
