I became aware of a second invite doing the rounds when I logged onto twitter later that evening and saw the other link doing the rounds and I was confused (In fact I tweeted directly to ask) whether this was an FF or a public event.. I couldn’t understand why the party wasn’t going all out for a bit of reflected glory.. might as well get a good news story in these troubled times…

Now as it happens I couldn’t go on the night (alas had some old fashioned politics to do with offline folk) but was really sorry to be missing it.

It is obvious now and I had been wondering even beforehand that wearing two hats (as the organiser involved here does and I fully accept his bona fides by the way) can lead to confusion and it backfired badly here.

But the fallout may not have been all one way – if I can highlight an alternate scenario, when I received the FF invite, initial thoughts were that this was a candidate seminar, then re-reading a party event, and then an FF hosted event. Nothing wrong with any of those and my invite was certainly fully ‘FF’ branded etc. I was delighted the party were positively engaging in this domain. Neither I should point out, was there any indication whatsoever of secrecy or a coverup or anything of the sort, in fact I forwaded the invite directly to many friends and bloggers I thought might be interested. Which was exactly how it should have been promoted by the official organisers.

But had I gone up to the event, cancelled my other gigs and burnt a few brownies at home and abroad (which I was very close to doing until logistics prevailed) I might have been a bit annoyed to find there were multiple different audiences with multiple expectations and that there were suddenly a backlash emerging because a screw-up was made on the communications side. I’d say I would have been rightly pi$$ed. So perhaps thankfully I didn’t go in the end!

I think strawberry media have learned a lesson and it is a useful one for anyone in PR or in general (although it’s fairly 101 stuff but how and ever). But I might close with an appeal. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There may be merits in the initative. In fairness it comes from a good stable (Rospars). I’m certainly planning to try out some of the candidate features – although I won’t be sending Michele any ‘take down’ notices (for my own presence) just yet!

James