Another lesson in web 2.0 transparency

I just came across another good case study in web 2.0 transparency via the Ethical Blogger.

The gist of the story: A guy who created a nonprofit organization dedicated to making charities and their operations more transparent, pulls a John Mackey and throws all principles of transparency out the window. 

What exactly did he do? He used a fake online identity to post a question about where to find a good charity and then answered it with the name of his organization using yet another pseudonym. 

The result: he is asked to step down from his position as Executive Director and openly apologizes for his lapse in judgement.

I have some news.

I've decided to make a change professionally; I will be leaving Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp and joining Red Tettemer in a similar social media position.

This move offers the best of both worlds to me; RT is an advertising agency of record for GPTMC and as such, I will still have opportunity to work on the Philadelphia "brand" that I am passionate about, including our insider-y Philadelphia campaign that includes the community blog uwishunu. I'll just be working on them from 3 blocks away.

I'll also have the pleasure of working with a collection of many of the most creative people I've had the pleasure of meeting. These are the people who brought you iMate just a few weeks ago, just for fun, and yes, those are their REAL employees.

It's been an educational and exciting year and a half working for GPTMC, the only non-profit organization I've known that is so teeming with talent and smarts that they are marketing on the same high level of Fortune 500 companies with 10x the budget.

I'll be at GPTMC for another week and then I'm taking some time off before joining RT on March 13th. Expect to see big things from Red Tettemer in the near future. I am going in with social media gunz a-blazing and we are going to make a lot of noise in the SM space.

BTW, I've been playing around with some ideas for my new title. Digital Revolutionary (Viva La Revolucion!)? Connections Strategist? Or Community Evangelist? I'm open to ideas! Bring it!

Ikea gets an ultimate citizen marketer: Man who moves into the store

When Mark Malkoff learned he needed to find a new place to live for a week because his apartment was being fumigated, he turned to Ikea and asked the Swedish furniture giant if he could move in. According to the Washington Post, "Ikea was dubious at first, but once they got to know Malkoff -- realized what squeaky, G-rated videos he made and what a good, unpaid spokesman he'd be -- they opened the doors and made a little placard reading "Mark's Apartment" to go outside his living space". Sounds like they realized what a great citizen marketer Mark would make.

You can follow Mark's adventures at Ikea on the Mark lives in Ikea website. Here's the first episode: