On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:23:15 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> They needed (IMHO) to make it right in a similar fashion rather than
>> taking advantage of the fact that they *could* just "unsell" it
>> electronically.
> 
> Which they did, yes. I mean, after the mistake, they gave the books
> back, gave you money, and wrote into their contracts they wouldn't do it
> again. That seems pretty upstanding compared to a lot of places.

Sure.  My point is that people didn't think *first* and then act, and 
that's a troubling trend overall to me in business these days.

When I make a business decision for the business I operate, I try to look 
at it from as many perspectives as possible first and then decide what to 
do - and one of those angles that I look at is the negative PR effects.

It amazes me how much resistance I sometimes run into with that.  I've 
got something I'm working on now (that I can't go into a lot of detail 
about) where I suggested contacting a competitor about something, and now 
find myself in the position of having a much less defensible position 
because everyone said it didn't matter if we did or not.  But I think it 
does, and I'm waiting to see how it plays out once we make the 
announcement - hoping I will be right about how it plays out so maybe 
next time my concerns will be taken more seriously.

>>> True, and he acknowledged that *and* gave people back the book as
>>> well. Not sure what more you could ask for.
>> 
>> Not doing it in the first place.  Yes, he can't undo what's been done,
>> the best he can do is correct it, and the best we can do is hope that
>> he has learned from it.  But it troubles me that businesses make
>> decisions that really on the surface should be clearly the wrong way to
>> approach things and then deal with it as a PR issue, when clearly it's
>> not a PR issue, but a decision-making process issue.
> 
> It sounds like the lawyers got into it first, actually.  I wouldn't be
> surprised if there was no policy in place to handle such an event, or if
> the policy hadn't been reviewed by anyone other than the lawyers.

Quite possibly, though I think if the lawyers were involved, they'd have 
done a more thorough risk analysis.  But that's from the outside looking 
in, and the picture from the inside may well be very different from what 
the public sees.

>> Honestly, I think it would be in the best interests of eReader
>> manufacturers not to lock consumers in.  You see this with gaming
>> consoles as well - someone wants a particular game, they've got to
>> purchase a particular game console if there's an exclusivity clause in
>> their contracts.
> 
> Kindle is, amusingly, doing just the opposite. You can get like 30% of
> the sales of your book, or you can get 70% the sales of your book if you
> don't rip off Kindle users or lock them into a specific format.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here.

Jim

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