To a certain extent this is true, although I do wonder how many tweets with links to blog posts about social web trends have in fact been read by the tweeter before forwarding.

To be honest, I am guilty sometimes of only skimming posts before sending them on to Twitter followers. The posts below from the past two weeks, however, I have read and can recommend for their insight and sensible point of view.

ON FOURSQUARE:

• Foursquare is . . . is Five Times Larger Than Gowalla (TechCrunch)
• 21 Unique Location Examples fro Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl and My Town (SocialFresh)
• Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location-Based Social Networks (Read Write Web)
• Michael Brito: Straight talk on location-based social marketing (SmartBlog on Social Media)

ON SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT:

• Six reasons you shouldn't invest in ROI (Econsultancy)
• 5 Objectives for Social Media Measurement (Brass Tack Thinking)
• 4I's & 7C's of Social Media Measurement (PRincipal of PRoof)

ON ONLINE ACTIVISM:

• Slacktivism: Helping Humanity With a Click of the Mouse (Fast Company)
• How Political Campaigns are Using Social Media for Real Results (Mashable)
• Fixing Social Media (Cause Global: Social Media for Social Change)
• humo(u)r and (sl)activism (Withoutayard)

Sorry for the blatant promotion of my own firm and its marketing communications arm, but the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is underway until the end of this week and we (in the global sense, not me personally) are there.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my firm is posting video interviews with a variety of leading public relations, advertising, technology and entertainment VIPs on a dedicated online TV channel called Cannes Eye.

You can check it out in the right navigation bar on my website. The first onsite interview in Cannes is with Sir Martin Sorrell, my boss (although about 12 levels higher in the pecking order, in fact at the top the WPP heap).

And for my marketing and advertising friends, episode two posted to hours ago includes interviews with Peter Krainik of the CMO Club and Bob Kilbreath of the digital marketing agency Bridge Worldwide.  

After explaining on Friday morning  to Melissa ("We'll take care of this.") at Apple  that UPS had promised delivery of my MacBook on June 15th, and I had therefore met Apple's three-days-lost criteria, she told me not to worry, they would handle it. I was promised that Apple's tracking team would get back to me within 48 business hours with  resolution.

True to Melissa's word, this afternoon I received notice from Apple that it was processing a refund since, indeed, UPS had lost -- or had stolen -- my MacBook. What a relief. I'm off to the retail store to buy the replacement.

It is amazing what happens when a customer service representative takes ownership of a problem and works to find a solution. Now that I am a bit calmer, if UPS would like to send me the name and phone number of a senior customer service representative, I would be delighted to make some suggestions on improving its processes.

This apparently happens with more frequency than we care to think. In Brandon's case, he said his most recent call with a similar lost package complaint was only four days ago, and he is one of 200 Apple customer service people.

I pointed out to Brandon ("We're all trying to do our best.") this means me calling Apple again to start a process that should be started when UPS tells me it can't find the MacBook and I pass that on to Apple.

But no . . . now I have to wait three days to start a trace process that only Apple can do.

By the way, Kim from UPS hasn't returned my call.

Kedija called at 12:00 noon to say that she was paging all the drivers in the area to see who had it on their truck. Apparently, it hasn't been loaded on any truck. In fact, as of 1:45 P.M. nobody at UPS knows where it is. Kejita can't handle tracing the shipment. She tells me I have to phone customer service again (fifth call in two days) to put a trace on it.

Okay, so I oblige and speak with Jeff ("You're right Boyd. We haven't done our job.") who tells me the only one who can ask for a trace of a shipment is the shipper -- Apple. Even though I have paid for the MacBook and have had various people waiting at home for the package, UPS won't do anything for me. I asked to speak with Kim, the supervisor I spoke with yesterday, but once again she isn't at her desk. (She was on coffee break when I asked to speak with her this morning, and she didn't call back.)

Now I am on hold waiting to speak with an Apple customer service person. With any luck, they will let me cancel the order, give me my money back, and let me go to an Apple store to pick one up.

We'll see . . . although I have been on hold for 15 minutes with Apple. If this all seems too absurd to be real, you're wrong. It is happening now.

At 7:15 this morning I checked the UPS online tracking system to find that, indeed, my shipment has been rescheduled for today. Needless to say, however, by 9:15 this morning I had NOT received a call from UPS central dispatch -- as promised -- to confirm that my MacBook is in fact on its way.

So this morning I called the central UPS tracking phone number and spoke with Pam, who like Cory last night and Kim earlier yesterday, apologized profusely. Kim, the supervisor, was on her break so I spoke with Pam who confirmed that the MacBook is on a truck for delivery.

However, according to Pam it turns out that yesterday "the package was loaded on the wrong driver's truck"! Even though I spoke twice with someone from central dispatch, who supposedly spoke with the driver, nobody figured out that the package wasn't really going to make it . . . not even the driver who was being asked about it.

As it stands, I now have to arrange to have my house occupied all day today in the hope that UPS gets it right this time. I have been promised another call back from central dispatch and maybe Kim. 

The saga continues . . .  

Here's what's been happening: I have been tracking the shipment online since it left Shanghai (yes MacBooks are built in Shanghai) until it arrived at the UPS Concord distribution terminal on Tuesday morning June 15, 2010 at 8:02 a.m.

According to the online 'tracking shipments' information available to me on Monday afternoon, my new MacBook was scheduled to be delivered initially on June 15th, although that information was edited at some point online to say that the delivery day was actually June 16th. (You will have to believe me on that one. I have now started to take Zap Grab captures of the tracking information so that history doesn't get changed.)

Today is June 16th and here is what happened: ups.com says this "Your package is on time with a scheduled delivery date of 16/6/2010." Since UPS will only give you a full day window for delivery, I asked my son to stay home all afternoon today in anticipation that  it would arrive as other courier shipments usually do between 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.

When I checked the online tracking at 2:00 p.m. nothing had been updated on the package detail since 8:02 a.m. June 15th, which made me suspicious. So I called the 1-800 number for UPS package tracking. The first person I spoke with was no help at all and in fact couldn't even tell me whether my MacBook was on a truck for delivery or not.

So, I asked to speak with a supervisor. Kim (her real name) got on the line, was very apologetic, and said she would call central dispatch to find out what was going on. About 30 minutes later another woman called me -- I think she was from central dispatch -- and said they were trying to phone the driver to see what was happening. After another 30 minutes or so she called back to say that she had been in touch with  the driver,  the package was indeed on the truck and would be delivered this afternoon.

Guess what . . . it is 9:45 p.m. and no MacBook. In fact, UPS online tracking still says that package went "Out for Delivery" at 8:02 a.m. on June 15. So, I just got off the phone with Cory (his real name), who was also very apologetic, and who said he would have central dispatch phone me in the morning to tell me what the hell is going on.

Assuming I get that call, and I am not in the least confident, what this means, of course, is that I now have to figure out a way to ensure that somebody is available all day tomorrow as well to receive a shipment that nobody seems to know when it will actually get here.

I'll save the analysis of what this means about customer service and reputation until I see whether or not UPS doesn't screw up delivery tomorrow. At this stage, I would think some manager should deliver the thing personally given the trouble they have put me through . . . or maybe this is just how they do business with every customer.

Yesterday, we launched what we are claiming to be the world's first augmented reality news release to highlight our promotional activities around the Cannes Lions advertising festival. 

As described by our CMO, Tony Burgess-Webb, "The concept is simple: recipients receive a document with a special marker printed on it, go to our website and hold up the document to their webcam. Our promotional video (featuring our esteemed CEO without trousers) then appears to play directly on the piece of paper." 

If you have a printer and a webcam, you can try it out here. Or if you just want to see it in action see the video at http://vimeo.com/12260607.

Is there a future in augmented reality news releases? If fun is a criteria for news release success, then I think so.

This isn't that post. I'll get around to it at some point over the summer.

But over the past two weeks, I've come across two posts (with a hat tip to a colleague for pointing me to Leroy's) which make strong and similar statements about brands that are certainly worth throwing into the idea mix:

Leroy Stick (not his real name), the person behind the satiric Twitter account @BPGlobalPR, says performance - not brand - is everything:

So what is the point of all this?  The point is, FORGET YOUR BRAND.  You don’t own it because it is literally nothing.  You can spend all sorts of time and money trying to manufacture public opinion, but ultimately, that’s up to the public, now isn’t it?

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand?  Have a respectable brand.  Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions.  Lead the pack!  Evolve!  Don’t send hundreds of temp workers to the gulf to put on a show for the President.  Hire those workers to actually work!  Don’t dump toxic dispersant into the ocean just so the surface looks better.  Collect the oil and get it out of the water!  Don’t tell your employees that they can’t wear respirators while they work because it makes for a bad picture.  Take a picture of those employees working safely to fix the problem.  Lastly, don’t keep the press and the people trying to help you away from the disaster, open it up so people can see it and help fix it.  This isn’t just your disaster, this is a human tragedy.  Allow us to mourn so that we can stop being angry.

And here is what the inimitable Doc Searls posted not too long ago on his blog about reputation and branding:

That’s because brands are nothing but statements. At best they are a well-known and trusted badge, name or both. At worst they’re a paint job, a claim, a rationalization or an aspiration. Branding can help a reputation, but it can’t make one. Real work does that. Accomplishment over time does that.

Bit of a wake up call to communications professionals isn't it?