Edelman Atlanta

Thanks for all the great entries for this week's Caption Contest. While Kelly was the ultimate winner, we had some very humorous responses, which are included below. Thanks again to Dan and Matt for letting us have a little fun with the picture!

"One is the loneliest number."

"One, is for the way you look at me …"

"This is the last picture you will ever see of us as number one. For the rest of our lives we will forever be regulated to number two."

"Wait a minute … forever? Forever-ever?"

"We really have Vodka in our water bottles, but don't tell our fiancés."

Check out today's Technorati home page and you'll see that Edelman is the most searched term in the blogosphere. No doubt, all of our competitors are checking out what's being said about the debacle over the lack of transparency behind the Wal-Marting Across America blog. Richard apologized on his blog and Steve Rubel noted his lack of involvement in the Wal-Mart situation and with that, the bloggers got even busier. Edelman is taking a lot of heat for not responding "soon enough" to the criticism. Edelman chose not to respond to the demand for an explanation until we had all the facts straight. That just wasn't good enough for many bloggers.

This situation is a great example of two things: 1) bloggers can be prolific, passionate and pejorative; and 2) the blogosphere is quickly changing the rules of the game when it comes to responsiveness. A week in real time is equivalent to a month in cyber-time.

We'll be hearing more about this case internally. There are many lessons to be learned: chief among them is that transparency is critical to earning trust and when it comes to the blogosphere, there's no such thing as do-overs.

Personally, I have complete faith in Edelman's ability to overcome this single debacle. Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel have earned my trust and respect and I'm not willing to toss that aside over a single incident (especially when I have no inside knowledge of how this really came down).

What do know now that you wish you had known during your first two weeks at Edelman (as originally printed in Sandbox on 10.6.06)?

• That our B/W copier has PDF capabilities.
  
• That the elevator buttons only work on the left side after 6pm. Yes, after riding the elevator up and down fearing I was stuck for the entire night, Nick Wolaver came to my rescue! I think he still thinks I am "slow" with details!!! :)
  
• That Lindsay Neuweiler receives a million e-mail and phone messages a day so if you can put in a HelpDesk ticket - DO IT!
  
• Don’t cross Carolyn
  
• That when you send an email to @Atlanta it also goes to people in NY like Matt Harrington

Additional submissions:

• How to master PeopleSoft
  
• That you can double click on a paragraph in Word to highlight it
  
• That the 7:30 - 4:30 shift is the most productive and has the least amount of traffic
  
• That e-mails in my inbox go to "e-mail heaven" after two weeks so file those important messages immediately!
  
• I wish I would have had the guts as a new person to ask about expensing mileage
  
• Don't schedule a UPS pick-up
  
• Carolyn is the keeper of pens, pencils and legal pads

Any others?