Why 'Calling Bullshit On BeBee Is Something We Should All Get Good At

You don’t notice it so much here on BeBee, (at least not yet), but on other so called social media sites, there is a preponderance of people who are basically full of shit.
I know this because sometimes I am one of them. LOL. And it sometimes takes one to know one.
These people will bullshit you about, among other things: how busy they are, all the solid, potentially lucrative connections they are making, and how their social media experience is working gangbusters for them in terms of building their business and their brand.
All kinds of stuff that is, according to the 80/20 Differential (shortened down from the bulkier 80/20 Rule of Almost Everything) 80% bullshit. I know it. You know it. And worse of all they know it too. And yet there they are dishing it out like Red Bull samples at a rock concert.
So there’s a big collective bullshit call to all the LIONS, multi level marketers, Nigerian Princes, rich African widows, Pacific Rim companies wanting me to sell steel for them and famale ex-army officers who just want to marry me and live happily ever after.

You Can’t Bullshit A Bullshitter

I used to bullshit people when I was in the advertising agency business. I mean that business is hard core into the bullshit, even back in the seventies and eighties.
We were always trying to find some sort of weasel that would allow us to make an outrageous claim about a product or service. We were always trying to get permission to use words like ‘All Natural Ingredients' or ‘100% Pure’ or ‘Organic’.
This was even before it became all the rage to be organic or holistic or whatever new age bullshit term you want to use.
I’m not saying we used to do it all the time. In fact, once I got to DMB&B and worked on a lot of Procter and Gamble, Hunt Wesson and Mars business, we didn’t really have to bullshit at all.
Why? Because these people were smart marketers and knew that bullshitting their customers was really a component of under-delivering to them, and that that would piss them off. So they would take the time to build a genuine competitive advantage into their products.
This meant we didn’t have to create any marginal or outright false claims and feel like con artists all the time we were doing it.

Some Things Never Change

I see a lot of terrible advertising these days being done by creative people who are trying too hard to keep their crazy clients happy instead of doing the right thing for their brands.
What they don’t realize is that consumers are nowhere near as stupid and gullible as they would like to think they are.
Oh sure they have their quirks and failings. Look at all the fairly smart people who are supporting Trump’s bid for the presidency in the US. Talk about a collective, their businesses and or their families, they have highly developed bullshit antennae.
I also see a lot of companies trying to bullshit people too.
Take the Volkswagon scandal. Bullshitting the public about emissions and fuel mileage is, now and on into the indefinite future, costing them billions.
This crap not has not only adversely affected their share price, but has also done irreparable damage to all the good will their brands have taken years to build. And it’s not going away any time soon. There are too many jackals in suits to ever let that happen.

Don’t Do The Crime If You Can’t Do The Time

Any time you try to bullshit people, at least 80% of the time, you can count on it blowing up in your face. Or even, in some cases, blowing your head right off.
So look before you leap, because it’s not just bloggers like me who will call you on your bullshit, These days it’s more likely to be your clients or your clients’ customers.

I Used To Be A World Class Bullshitter…But Things Have Changed.

When I started really working for myself, either in partnerships with other creative people or with my own accounts, I realized that the world of communications had become infested with people who didn’t really have the slightest idea what they were doing.
They were just bullshitting their way through campaigns and web sites and collateral material and blog posts without any idea where they were taking their brands.
I know this because one time I did an LI post on communications strategy and offered to email people the strategy document I use with my clients. Even in my small LI universe got over 200 requests and each one of them was from someone who was an account exec, account director or marketing manager.
These peoples’ jobs are supposed to be writing strategies. But the majority of them who requested my strategy document told they had been fumbling around for quite some time trying to figure out what the important elements of a communication strategy should be.
Hear that enough and you will get this strange feeling in your head like someone has drilled a hole into your skull and is trying to suck out some of your brain matter.

We All Need To Be Bullshit Cops

Here on BeBee or wherever you happen to pitch your social media tent, it’s important to always be mindful of the bullshit you see there and call people on it.
You don’t have to scream and shout and you don’t even have to do it publicly, but it is important.
I closed down my original Facebook account because the bullshit level had gotten out of control and the thought occurred to me that maybe I could have done something about it earlier instead of just letting it happen.
Bullshit is like that. If people do it well then sometimes it can trick you.
I take my cues from my friend Phil Friedman who has the best bullshit radar of anyone I know. And he is diplomatic and articulate enough to point it out without angering people. (most of the time).  Now that’s a skill and a half.
My experience with Javier and his team lead me to believe that they do not want their site to become polluted in the way LinkedIn and Facebook have become. So you can genuinely feel free to inform them of anything that pops up here that looks like bullshit.

And Finally....

I don’t have a big wrap up here or cogent points of advice. If you have read this far then you get the point.
I honestly feel like beBee is a fresh start for a lot of us in a number of ways. I just want to do what I can to keep this site as bullshit free as possible. And I hope you do too.

All my profile and contact information can be accessed here
https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/this-post-is-my-about-page

All content and images copyright 2016 Jim Murray and a pretty waitress. All rights reserved.

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