HARO Puts AT&T Between A Rock and a Hard Place
Did Peter Shankman make life difficult for AT&T yesterday?
In yesterday's afternoon mailout from HARO, Peter Shankman took the time to introduce his 20,000+ subscribers to his new assistant Meagan. In a post script, he lamented that AT&T wanted to charge her $450 to upgrade to the Blackberry Curve Shankman wants her to use. He asked if anyone at AT&T (or a PR agency) could help him out.
PS: Anyone on HARO work for AT&T or do their PR? I went to upgrade Meagan a Blackberry Curve today, and they wouldn't give her an upgrade price on her phone, they wanted to charge her $450. Um, no.
I'll move her to Verizon first. Anyone?
This puts AT&T in a bit of a pickle - they can give Meagan the lower upgrade price, knowing that Shankman is likely to publicly thank them for it which has the potential to ignite a flurry of similar requests from people among the 20,000 subscribers who think they deserve it.
Or, they can tell Shankman that rules are rules and hope he doesn't switch to Verizon (as threatened) and talk publicly about that.
So, readers, what do you do?
Personally, I think that if Shankman can afford an assistant, he can afford $450 for a phone - just like everyone else.
ShareBlackBerry Annoyance…
I love my BlackBerry. It paid for itself today when our our booth display went AWOL in Oklahoma City and I had to be in constant contact with the office to get things sorted out. I did discover one little annoying thing, though...
I don't have everyone's office extension memorized - I hardly ever call the office and I have an extension list pinned to the wall right above my office phone. Plus, if I ever have to call in to the office, we have this really handy system that lets the caller punch in the first few letters of the name of the person they are trying to reach, and it give you a list to choose from. Pretty slick. Unless you are calling from a BlackBerry! The BlackBerry, you see, does not have a standard phone keypad. 
Instead, the 'numbers' are alternate keys on a standard QWERTY keypad. So when I was trying to get hold of someone in the office today, I had no idea which numbers corresponded to the letters I needed. I seemed to remember that '1' has no numbers, so I could figure out in my head that keys 2-4 were 'abc', 'def', 'ghi' beyond that, mentally chunking the alphabet fell apart... which was unfortunate since I really needed an 'r'! (Sounds like Wheel of Fortune - can I buy a vowel?)
Anyway, just a case where one useful piece of technology (the office directory) is made less useful by a newer technology (the BlackBerry). Or, a case where a new technology is not designed to be useful with older technology. You choose.
ShareBlackBerry News This Week
There were two announcements this week regarding the founders of RIM, makers fo the BlackBerry. First, it was announced on October 3rd that Jim Laziridus would become an Officer of the Order of Canada. Second, it was announced last night that Jim Balsillie has purchased the Pittsburgh Penguins.
As both a political junkie and hockey fan, I'm not sure which is cooler. Um, wait. Yep, the hockey team is definately cooler. :)
EDIT: The Penguins site appears to be crumbling under the weight of the attention imposed by all us CrackBerry addicts - it's currently 'unavailable'.
ShareColin Who?
I'm a digital communications executive specializing in community engagement, social marketing, and online identity management currently serving asthe Associate Secretary, Communications, at the national offices of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
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