Are You Authentic?

A new product had been introduced recently.

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 14, 2000--Kwan Software Engineering, Inc. has announced that it has shipped Release 1.00 of the VeriPic(TM) Digital Photo Authentication system. The VeriPic(TM) software is used to verify the authenticity of digital photographs for court evidence use and has been tested at a number of police departments this year. Police departments have begun to use digital cameras for evidence photography even though there have been problems with acceptance. Potential jury members believe that digital photographs are easy to forge which leaves valid crime scene digital photographs open to scrutiny.

VeriPic http://www.dpreview.com/news/0006/00061402veripic.asp

HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR AUTHENTICITY RECENTLY?

VeriPic is designed to authenticate photographs to be used in a court of law.

Are you able to authenticate much of the information you read or post on the internet? This opens the question for electronic media bloggers and authors.

"Am I being perceived as authentic, or merely a shill for some product or service?"

How many websites have you visited that at first glance were:

A. Poorly designed?

B. Difficult to navigate?

C. Cannot determine what they are about, what they are offering?

D. Cryptic contact information or none?

E. Too many bold colors and too much text?

*********************PLEASE VOTE IN MY POLL BELOW!!! *******************************

For whatever your motivation is in publishing to the web, make certain that you are authentic. Be real, Be honest, Be informative! Start a dialog, solve a problem, just be yourself!

In conversations recently at BlogWorld Expo 2008, where I offered my videographer skills, the overarching theme was authenticity and being real. Your audience will see through your attempts to 'sign-them-up' or just sell them something without offering any expertise or reasons for doing so.

A lot of the new Web 3.0 marketing sites I see are poorly designed, difficult to navigate, present difficulties in determining their point or focus and make it hard to contact anyone easily. Why would I want to persue a business or social relationship with these characters?

Answer, I would not!

So much of the hype and foam recently published about the nations economy were just the news media 'going off' at a time when America needed answers, not marketing! I worked in the tv and movie business for over 30+ years, and reality is something they are experts at preventing you from experiencing.

Lighting, makeup, editing, camera angles, and computer re-touching the color-space prevents any authenticity from leaking out into the productions I witnessed over the years. People want the real deal, the unadulterated truth, from the parents, leaders and salespeople. If you try to trick me or fool me I will refuse to be your customer.

If your company has a voice-menu system instead of a human on the other end of the line, I will hang up on you. You are not being authentic if you think I will patiently maneuver through 20 minutes of 'Press one for English' only to hear, "All of our agents are busy with other customers". Why not hire enough agents to speak to the 'customers' who are waiting to buy your product or service?

Businesses who begin this turnaround will discover a pleasant experience. How about asking your customer if they are happy with your product / service? What an ideal time to discover some bug or other issue with your service?

Please leave me a comment! If you liked this article let me know. And thanks!

Respectfully, Nicholas Chase