Poor chairperson Nhlanhla Nene - he of the faulty chair and impaired dignity... and global fame. Now he thinks he can sue someone? In this age of transparency, where nothing can be hidden on the Internet, Mr Nene should be capitalising on his new found "fame", remarked Google SA's Stafford Masie last week during an interview with Bizcommunity.com. Nene should approach an office furniture company and prove what a good sport he is by offering to test office chairs for their next marketing campaign, or something similar. Or hit back with a viral vid of his own, extolling the virtues of his lofty position with some more stable furniture... Whatever, but you can't go round taking the moral highground and threatening action. If you are a public persona or a brand, pretty much anything goes online and you need to be able to take the knocks that go with it. Engage rather than enrage; the blogosphere will be kinder to you. The global views on his unfortunate tumble have reached well over half a million and are heading for a million now that the spill has officially been declared a 'fail' by Failblog.org. That's an awful lot of free publicity... bring me a dodgy desk!
Have a steady week! Louise Marsland, editor: editor@bizcommunity.com. All marketing news to: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com. Responses to this column welcomed in our new online editor's column archive or on our blog: http://blog.bizcommunity.com.