Monday, September 10, 2007

Karma vs Image

A website, product or company has both karma and image. In a nut-shell:

Karma...	Image...
is what it is (product XYZ has cool features)	is what is communicated (“our product XYZ is cool”)
is long term	is short term
cannot accidentally implode over the weekend	can accidentally implode over the weekend (e.g. a company employee leaks an internal email showing the company in a very bad light)
is sometimes confused with image, but never for long	is sometimes confused with karma, but never for long
is immune to a “Freudian slip”	can be killed by a “Freudian slip” (e.g. the wrong words picked at a press conference)
is often improved by outside criticism	is often hurt by outside criticism
cannot be represented by a middleman (like a public relations agency)	can be represented by a middleman (like the PR agency)
cannot be spun, but is sustainable	can be spun (but never loophole-free)
can be improved by a product/ market expert whose feedback is acted upon	can be improved by investing in a press relations agency (but never loophole-free)
is never a product of image	is sometimes a product of karma
can spawn self-organized communities & helpers (“I love Kevin Rose and Digg, so I will spend my time helping discover new stories”)	needs constant supervision from the owner (“they hate Digg-clone Netscape.com, so they tried to abuse the system or hack it again today”)
is more compatible with today’s communication tools and networks (Wikipedia, social networks, blogs, email, forums and so on)	is more compatible with old-fashioned communication tools and networks (press releases, commercials etc.)
feels good	looks good
needs honesty, reflection	needs budget, broadcasting

Karma vs Image by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (6)

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