It’s clear, Enfatico is the industry’s current whipping boy, whether or not anything for which we are whipping the boy is true or not. This industry can’t live without a continual dose of ego-boosting schadenfreude and the security it offers allowing us to say, “At least we aren’t as screwed up as those fuckers over at Enfatico!” As long as someone else is screwing up, it’s all good.
AgencySpy is having a field day on this one lambasting Dell VP Casey Jones and claiming he’s on probation for “lackluster performance” in his creation of the Enfatico machine. Unsurprisingly, there’s bound to be some strife when a giant brand attempts to consolidate its work from 800 agencies to one. It’s to be expected.
In response to a recent piece on AgencySpy in which Matt, who is just figuring out who @richardatdell (Richard Binhammer) is, I wrote, “It’s great fun to crap on this business and those who seem to be flailing aimlessly within it such as, some would say, Enfatico. I’ve done it myself but I’ve also worked in the business long enough to know that, in most cases, everything is usually blown out of proportion.
Richard at Dell has been active in the world of social media on behalf of Dell for a long time. If you recall Dell Hell (the Jeff Jarvis thing), a while after that Dell realized they might as well join what they can’t control and at least empower someone to engage (omg…I’m using buzzwords!) with the various communities out there so as to monitor, learn and participate in what’s being said about Dell.
It’s easy to crap on Dell. They’re not the religion known as Apple. But when was the last time Apple actually gave a shit about what people say? Dell, at least, is in the conversation.
Richard is not just ‘a blogger.’ He’s a representative of Dell charged with joining the conversation (you’re welcome Joe Jaffe) and making sure Dell gets heard.”
Certainly, Enfatico will be in the news many more times before we all go back to viewing it and Dell as an unsexy combination charged with selling computers but, for now, it seems Enfatico will remain the industry’s favorite whipping boy because, if for no other reason, when the industry needs to take a shit, it also needs a place to dump it.
