I’m betting that Lauren Turner’s job duties at Google will no longer include blogging. Yesterday she wrote an anti-Sicko (Michael Moore’s new movie lambasting the U.S. health care industry) post on the Google Health Advertising blog, and encouraged health care companies to look to Google advertising as a way to spread their counter-message. That didn’t go over so well with the blogosphere (our coverage here).
The movie, Turner said, “fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.” More than a few people disagree with that statement, and were immediately turned off by Turner’s comments. Particularly since there was a clear profit motive to the post – getting more advertising dollars.
There is no way anyone who’s blogged or worked in PR for more than, say, a week would post something like that on a corporate blog. Millions of Americans have a serious problem with the way health care is handled in this country, and such a polarized topic is hardly one in which a company like Google wants to take a stand. And if they did take a stand, it would be with Moore.
Less than 24 hours later Turner recanted and said the post was her opinion only, and not that of Google. That’s fine, but the damage has been done and egg is all over Google’s face.
What I don’t want to see is Google start to reign in its bloggers. As a public company Google is almost certainly putting blog posts through their legal and PR departments before they go live (how this slipped through is a mystery). If too many situations like the one above occur, they’ll start to add more policies and layers of review. If that happens, we’ll all have less insight into what’s going on there. I’m hoping it doesn’t.
“More than a few people agree with that statement…”
You mean “disagree” right?
It’s not only all this, but I imagine her premise to be demonstrably false. I haven’t seen “Sicko” yet, but if it’s like Moore’s previous films he does in fact attempt to get the industry’s side of the stories. That they reject his overtures for balance is not his fault and is entirely the fault of the industry itself.
Yeah, that was a really bad idea on Google’s part. Especially since anybody who has worked in the healthcare industry, or even close to it, can tell you lots of horror stories beyond the high cost of R&D for drugs.
I’m not a big fan of Moore’s work personally, but I do admire his using the enormous amount of time and money it takes to make a film for the good of otherwise ignored causes.
Excuse me? Google would stand with a supporter of a communist dictator who lied about how great Cuba’s health care system is? When two people in my family got cancer neither of them went to murderer’s paradise. Not many people seem to be lined up in Miami to float down to Cuba. While thousands try to come here from that island hell-hole all the time. They know something Moore doesn’t or doesn’t want to admit about Cuba and Castro.
Oh, BTW, the cacophonous, c*cksucking, corpulent communist Moore owned stock in both health care companies and Halliburton. Go to Amazon to buy “Do As I Say [Not As I Do]: Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy”
Yeah, Google would stand with him.
The last time I checked your blog was about companies trying to make money. Perhaps the government should jack up your taxes (as you undoubtedly, although inexplicably make more than me) and use it to fund non-advertising supported, public blogs on technology.
Does that seem fair? If you’re a socialist, then let’s have an admission rather than continued hypocrisy.
The issue of health care reform (although America provides better and more health care for more people than any other country) should not be left to demagogues like Moore or to supporters of demagogues like Moore (that means you).
@EH: Moore does not attempt to get the “other side”. Mr. Moore’s movies are designed to be opinionated, politically caustic and factually incorrect. The ‘facts’ in every movie of his have been absolutely and undeniably shredded.
Moore supporters believe in his intent and cause thus overlooking the outright lies. To say that the healthcare industry is only for profit and fleeces patients is absurd. The chemists and researchers that spend their entire careers looking for cures are not bad guys. That research takes billions of dollars and decades of long nights and self-sacrifice.
Without corporations spending billions of dollars and decades of time on this we would still be dying from the most basic of illnesses. That is indisputable.
The idea that industry doesn’t cooperate with Moore means they deserve whatever slanderous crap he serves is silly. Mr. Moore has shown that any interview or sound bite will get clipped into a version that suits his purpose. The industry has wisely decided to ignore him and let him fade off as a leftist propagandist.
What happened to Do No Evil?
Hey Daniel – I’m a libertarian. I’d like nothing more than the complete dismantling of our existing health care system and let capitalism take its course. So my bet is I’m far to the right of you on this issue. I also think Moore is a jerk.
If you read the post, I said this was a misstep by Google. When you’ve lived in the bay area for a while, you learn not to step on certain toes. They just did.
“And if they did take a stand, it would be with Moore.”
Eh? Glad to find that out I guess, but no idea what indicates that’s true.
He publicly states his support for the communist health care model, as in Cuba, North Korea, and Canada. As in you CAN NOT buy health care privately, period. If it’s going to be bad, it’s bad for everyone (except party officals and rich people who can travel abroad for care). Waiting lists, dying waiting for treatment, it’s all just a stroke of the pen away.
Anyway, I’d love to see any evidence that Google, even as much as they irritate me, support this style of healthcare.
” And if they did take a stand, it would be with Moore”
Oh really? So Google is full of mushy-headed elitist who only listen to one side of the story?
I guess that disagreeing with Michael Moore (or any other extreme Leftists) is now considered a “faux pas”.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll make sure I don’t say anything that Michael Moore, Google or TechCrunch doesn’t agree with.
As for post 7, Michael, you’re totally right, they are in the wrong geographical region to comment either way on the issue. There’s like zero upside for doing it (except that people like me would kind of like it).
Anyway, I see your point. Man, how carefully corporations have to step around there to keep out of these kinds of things.
“When you’ve lived in the bay area for a while, you learn not to step on certain toes.”
WTF?? Why? Is the place run by a bunch of Nazi fascists who don’t let people disagree with them?
Geesh.
In the Bay Area you can’t:
- Eat non-organic food
- Eat red-meat
- Criticize anything that bloggers say
- Be in anyway non-left-wing
The lesson here (and I mentioned it briefly in the original comment thread about this issue) isn’t to tighten up on all the bloggers at Google.
The management lesson *is* that highly motivated, aggressive salespeople are among the first to go off-script from the corporate culture and core messages if they think it’ll help ‘em close a deal.
That’s not awful — it’s just the view of the world through the sales rep’s lens, which tends to be tactical and focused on nothing beyond making this month’s numbers.
Keeping the sales team on message is hard work, as Google just demonstrated. It’s not impossible, but it’s not exactly a passive activity, either.
I say we just have a fire sale and start everything over. No rich, no poor.
I don’t live there, but don’t such left wingers as Ward Connerly and T.J. Rodgers. Clearly their careers.
And why else would there be so many companies code named Rearden XXX?
Boulder (where I live) is very lefty, but it’s also the home of Soldier of Fortune.
If her post were promoting Moore’s little piece of propaganda, you can be sure that no one at Google would have a problem with it. After all, in the last election cycle Google executives and employees contributed 92 times more money to Democrats than they did to Republicans.
“Faux pas” = criticizing Democrats.
“WTF?? Why? Is the place run by a bunch of Nazi fascists who don’t let people disagree with them?”
That would be a “yes.”
@11 “WTF?? Why? Is the place run by a bunch of Nazi fascists who don’t let people disagree with them?”
You’re selling them short describing them like that.
Michael Moore is a modern day muckraker and Lauren Turner markets a corporation. Why would anybody expect differently from these people?
Clearly, political bloggers’ agendas are hidden under a thin skin. God bless the charlatans.
Who are you guys? Do you have any idea about how our Health Care System works? Is France a “communist” (with a “communist” health care system?)??. Give me a break. We are the RICHEST and m MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!, we just CANNOT and MUST NOT have this awful situation. Having the BEST DOCTORS and BEST Hospitals (TRUE), with millions of people unable to use them is SAD and totally UNFAIR.
About the “waiting” in Canada, let me tell you that I know many seniors, here in the Southeast (in the USA, today) waiting months/ even more than a year to have a non-life threatenning Colonoscopy.
Wake UP, nobody here is a “communist”, just normal hard working people who want to share the “health care pie” (just like our reps. in DC)
Im with Arrington.
We should only arrest people who commit crimes against those with crime insurance (all police departments should be dismantled and turned into for-profit corporations) – same goes for fire departments! Fire departments should not put out fires if they will not turn a profit on the fire…and of course people (including kids) with cancer should not get the best available treatment if their parents cannot afford health insurance…it just makes sense.
Record profits in the insurance & pharma industries have nothing to do with the rising costs of health care and the markets always (in every single case) work for the benefit of the consumer.
You know it is an honest and upstanding industry when they refuse to accept cash as payment for service. M. Moore is an idiot.
Is TechCrunch going to go after Kurt Loder and MTV for pointing out that Michael Moore is a liar? And to think that I felt sympathy for you guys last week when you sold out to Microsoft.
“There is no way anyone who’s blogged or worked in PR for more than, say, a week would post something like that on a corporate blog.”
What about Joel Spolsky?
“Maybe a know-nothing in the White House has given you the idea that it’s somehow acceptable now to poke fun of geeks and nerds, in big two-page ad spreads on the inside front cover of a magazine for founders of startups.” (from http://www.joelonsoftware.com)
OK, so technically joelonsoftware.com is his personal blog. But it’s effectively the face of his company (which sells bug-tracking software, hardly a politically divisive tool). It’s also one of the more successful blog-as-marketing campaigns.
Blogs are inherently tools of expression. Expression is a function of humanity. Humanity includes holding polarizing opinions on hot political topics. It also includes empathy with your (potential) clients who are getting trashed in the media by Michael Moore. You see where this is going.
Also — if Google is not supposed to blog in public about polarizing matters that “more than a few people” would disagree with — would I be safe in presuming that they shouldn’t have, say, a blog targeting the LBGT demographic? In many parts of this country, even acknowledging homosexuality is taboo.
I am just curious as to which sacred cows one must worship (or avoid defiling) in order to be a corporate blogger in the Bay Area. I don’t currently blog at my company; your post has certainly deterred me further.
Don’t you think that bloggers should be less mindless and post on more meaningful things such as charity? America is in the toilet and you aren’t do your fair share to make it better. You are a journalist but not an activist. I would hate to be you.
Consider making a difference and make your next blog entry on something worth caring about. How about suggesting to your readers your favorite charity. Maybe some of them will even contribute…
http://duckdown.blogspot.com/
I think it would’ve been more classy if Google just stuck to its guns and said, hey we have a “let a thousand flowers bloom” blog culture, and maybe this Lauren guy’s opinion is decidedly anti-bay area cool, but we’re ok with communists AND fox news enthusiasts. Is there some rule in the Bay Area that only tech geeks and blond female etsy-types can write blogs? Let the sales guy express his decidedly self-serving opinion! Its not like mac people never do that.
I think this is one more sign that Google is turning into just another corporation, where PR opinion is more important than principle.
Yep, if you can’t say something that everyone can’t agree with, don’t say anything at all. That’s what I say…if I weren’t saying anything at all.
Moore makes a movie to make money — and people applaud him. A Google nobody posts about how companies can use Google (i.e. pay for a service) to help them get around negative publicity from a (for-profit) movie and she gets blasted. She’s a salesperson — they are supposed to tell stories about how their product will work.
The hypocrisy is that people still listen to Moore’s slanted, politically motivated rhetoric.
Again, I urge you to read my comment #7 above before attacking me on this.
Kewtr: I would encourage you to learnm more about the systems in the countries you describe before shooting it down; just shooting down a straw man will not make your argument seem well-based and profound. Canada is not a communist country. You can buy health insurance in Canada. That we do have a safety net in place to make sure that the handicapped, the retired, people coming back from military duty, people serving society in low-paying jobs (we do need janitors and garbage disposal folks, those are not necessarily transitional jobs on “your way up”), or the downtrodden (and their children) will not starve or be left to die because at the moment their economic utility is valued at a lower point than mine. So we help them up, make sure that they do not fall in destitution and desperate measures. That isn’t communism. Pragmatic communism is a suspension of private ownership, collectivisation of everything under a unified political system allowing for no dissension beyond the stated truths (you’d love it; I’d hate it). Canada has one of the highest standard of living for everyone (the poor and the rich included), abysmal crime rates (a guy doesn’t need to jack up a store to feed his children, and his children do not need to suffer in continuity with their parents’ poor choices to attain a higher educational status in life), greater savings per capita, a much longer lifespan, and buys all of these services form private and public companies who are rushing through the doors to sell us the best that they have.
This is not only good humanism (everyone goes through cycles in life, if you happen to be sick at a low point that is hardly a sufficient reason to weed you out of society), it is also good business. We spend a lot less on policing, on dealing with the consequences of poor lifestyles, and on protecting individual property against fraud, damage and theft than you do. We also provide a vast market in which medication for rarer diseases can be tried and developed (then used in the U.S. by those who can afford it). This, my friend, is excellent business.
And if I don’t like to deal with the public system for whichever reason (availability not lining up with my available off time, for instance), then I can pay and see a doctor in an hour if I feel like it.
Please, do get informed before spewing out inanities like these.
Oh please, the bay area comment wasn’t intended to suggest that living here means tip-toeing around liberals for fear of retaliation. Feel free to make a stand on either side of an issue, that’s what it’s all about. Just don’t do it as a representative of a multi-billion dollar company with overt commercial overtones mixed into your message…
Say what you will about Moore, but I think ‘Sicko’ is one of his most valid films. I find it hard for anyone to claim that healthcare can’t be improved in this country. I also find it hard to understand why we don’t have universal care. Costs are out of control and tens of thousands suffer because of it. I don’t think the market can correct itself on this issue because the modern healthcare system is so entrenched and there are not really any good alternatives that consumers can turn to that would force competition and bring costs down.
And as a comparison, pretty much all of the 1st and 2nd world countries on Earth have universal care, and subsequently outrank us in medical care:
http://en.wikip...mage:Health.png
http://www.phot...ealthranks.html
Granted those rankings can be disputed, but it’s hard not to see *some* connection…
I think Michael Arrington got it right in his original comment but then let himself down badly when defending himself.It is so depressing for a non US citizen to read these dreadful “right wing” reactions that sound almost paranoid – appearing to suggest that “anybody that criticises us must be a Commie or an Idiot, Jerk” even. Is this not possible to argue at a more mature level. The spleens being vented resonate with McCarthyism.
#28
Brian, I didn’t make Moore a penny thanks to newsgroups. He doesn’t seem to mind it much.
Of course if you make a documentary that is watched by many, you may end up with a profit. Does that invalidate what’s contained in the documentary?
Also, from what I’ve heard Moore nearly went broke while producing Roger & Me back when he was a no name.
Zaid, Moore never ever lacked the funds to find food, and far more of it than he actually needed so I don’t buy the Roger & Me poverty line of thinking. Show me a picture of Moore looking more like a starving Ethiopian than Rosie O’Donnell, and I’ll gladly recant.
The health care system isn’t perfect, neither is Google, neither is Michael Moore and all 3 are figuring out how to make a buck. Ever it was…
Louis Eric, thank you for your comment. So true. Hey, at least now I have some hope that there are more “real, human (”humane”?)” people out there. I was so disgusted….
JSL –
“appearing to suggest that ‘anybody that criticises us must be a Commie’”
Universal healthcare or nationalized healthcare is socialism and is an aspect of communism. I’m not sure why someone that was a supporter of universal healthcare would be upset by being correctly labelled. Are you suggesting that universal healthcare is a capitalistic idea? It’s not McCarthyism, it’s calling a spade a spade.
WTF?? Canada has “communist” healthcare?? Is that some sort of symbolic contagion attempt – to contaminate one thing by association with a rejected thing? In all my 40 years up here in Canada, I’ve never had a problem with our medical system, nor has anyone known personally to me, rich or poor, friends or family, young or old. As for taxes, I just got a $2500 tax refund this year… That’s because I am self-employed, and that kind of entrepreneurialism is supported in part by the collective provision of things like roads, courts, policing and a healthy and well-educated workforce. Far from being communistic, these are core conditions for a vibrant market.
I know there are libertarians on the board, and I actually have such leanings myself, but history seems to be providing some plausibility to the idea that government are better at providing certain goods than markets are. (I just discovered http://en.wikip...ems_of_Survival) Anyway, it’s sad to see that you folks could lose your lifelong financial solvency just by tripping off a kerb. It seems inhumane. But maybe that’s just the communist in me speaking…
From the (probably calculated, lawyer-approved) RETRACTION:
“”"advertising is an effective medium for handling challenges that a company or industry might have. You could even argue that it’s especially appropriate for a public policy issue like healthcare. Whether the healthcare industry wants to rebut charges in Mr. Moore’s movie, or whether Mr. Moore wants to challenge the healthcare industry, advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue.”"”
This woman is a complete idiot. Full stop.
There is nothing “democratic” about advertising – it is a paid method of spreading a message. Advertising – used to sway opinion in the public instead of real, fundamental changes is the root of the healthcare problem, NOT part of a solution. This woman still does not understand why she is so off the mark.
The idea that people should use advertising to affect public policy and alter the system we use to keep our population healthy is absurd. Advertising is a cost used to sell more products.
Furthermore, the idea that the healthcare industry can advertise it’s way out of the problems is has is exactly the mentality that the movie attacks: Form over function. As long as we think of people’s health as a product to be sold, the points driving the message in “Sicko” will continue unabated.
This mentality is so big-company typical… it is sad seeing it come from Google, a company that mostly avoids this absurd blather.
Grace: Thank you; I do spend a great deal of time traveling in Canada, the US and Europe. One of the things I miss a lot when I’m in the U.S. is being able to go for a thinking stroll at night. I can bike up Mount Royal (a huge park in the middle of Montreal, designed by the same people who designed Central Park in NY), pull my laptop and code on the grass until I fall asleep, and be pretty sure that they’ll still be there when I wake up. That peace of mind is, to me, the acid test of a well-considered society. I can’t live like that in, say, Los Angeles. Here, nobody needs what I have so much (be it for food, to shelter their children, or to escape reality) that they would feel they need to risk their safety to get it. I’m free 24 hours a day, everywhere I go, not in fear for the hours that encompass night time, or of certain areas. I’d rather my money be taxed than my time and freedom. I can always make more money; I can’t buy a single hour at the end of them all.
I’m always amazed when people talk about income retention (the part not paid in taxes). I’m not earning money to earn money. I’m earning money to be able to afford a great quality of life. That’s the end goal: quality of life. If I get a greater quality of life by buying its enablement through an efficient public utility then I’ll do that. Who I buy it from doesn’t ultimately matter.
Canada is not communist. People who use this word use it only to afraid those who are against the cruel way of libertarians and pure capitalism.
Canada is a capitalist country with a social infrastructure (And it’s possible!).
Yes, it’s true that we pay a lot of tax (especially in Quebec), and yes, we have long waiting list in some cases…but at least, If I get fired tomorrow, my family and me will still able to get health care if we are sick!
Read Louis-Eric (#30) to get more details about how things work in Canada.
@35: You’ve got communism and collaboration all mixed up. Pre-Dust Bowl-migration farmers used to help neighbouring farmers all the time; this kid of the neighbour whose crops were only due months later needed help ? They all pitched in. That never made them communists (quite the contrary). But it did make them good neighbours.
On calling a spade a spade: You got your Venn diagrams all mixed up too. In Set A is the sum of all solutions to social problems that we have come up with. In Set B is the sum of all schools of thoughts that determine which solution is likely to be tried at any given moment. The intersection of B with A doesn’t associate B with A. So some communist countries have public healthcare. These countries also have road-construction programs, subsidized farming and public military spending. is the U.S. therefore communist for building roads, subsidizing sugar producers, and paying armies with the citizens’ money ? Not at all. Choices that make sense make sense no matter who’s in power. Not to try something that works because “bad guys” also benefited from it at one point is depriving yourself of a good thing, period. GM isn’t less of a capitalistic company for proposing to do what the USSR was doing at the very same time: building a public national road network (in competition with private railroad systems, I would add)
She was just participating in ‘conversational marketing’ like you and the Battelle-lead FM crowd were doing recently.
Only you guys can’t understand why people get so worked up when you do it.
Do you see now?
Tom
No harm, no foul
What’s Hot Today.com
@35, Chris
“Universal healthcare or nationalized healthcare is socialism and is an aspect of communism. I’m not sure why someone that was a supporter of universal healthcare would be upset by being correctly labelled.”
That logic is stunningly absurd, but lets try using it in a different way to be sure:
Militarism is an aspect of Totalitarianism and therefore America is a Totalitarian society.
Yep, absurd. Just because something is not white does not make it black – just because someone supports nationalized health care does not make them communist (or even socialist). Get over the labels, open your mind and research the actual issues.
I’d suggest you start with looking at infant mortality rates, and average life expectancy among industrialized nations. The numbers don’t lie.
i thought google has such a great hr vetting system that they only hire brilliant people, right? there must be a bug in algorithm that allowed them to hire such an idiot. Or perhaps their algorithm only picks geeks unencumbered by social skills and common sense?
“As a public company Google is almost certainly putting blog posts through their legal and PR departments before they go live (how this slipped through is a mystery)”
Leaving the healthcare issues aside
, what makes you assume that blog posts from Google or any other public company “almost certainly” go through a review process including PR and legal?
I have worked at a handful of large public tech companies, and in my experience, only a handful of the blogs (usually the ‘official’ main blog and those of high profile execs) get that kind of treatment. I cannot speak specifically for Google, but in my experience at companies as large and much larger teams as small as Google’s tiny healthcare team are generally left to their own devices for their blogs. It is generally up to the blogger to know when to seek out review and when to just post.
It is a reactionary model only–compliance processes would simply never scale and be cost effective; and to a lesser degree it goes back to the direct, transparent communications goals of using team blogs to begin with.
Clearly, Google, as well as the “blogosphere”, does not allow opposing opinions. We can see this in this article, as well as on digg comments that are immediately dugg down.
If nationalized health care actually worked I’d be all for it. But I’ve lived in the UK and in Canada. In the UK I went to private doctors because I didn’t trust the health care system, and it was only for things like the flu, etc. If I had gotten really sick I’d have gone into the “system.” In Canada I didn’t need to see a doctor, but I heard some serious first hand horror stories. One guy, the husband of an employee, lost a kidney because he had to wait six months for an operation.
The problem with any “free” good is the tragedy of the commons, or you have rationing. Neither works well. Money is the only effective way of rationing things. People who disagree with that live in a fantasy world.
Should we let people die in the streets? Absolutely not. But the current system in the U.S. is ok if you have health care. HMOs suck, and hospitals often treat us like problems not people. But the real problem is that people without health care are charged far more for services because they don’t have the negotiating power of the HMOs. That needs to change. Health care, and particularly basic health care, would be far cheaper if the HMOs didn’t have that kind of power.
Of course, I’m not even close to an expert on this, so I could be wrong. But what we need in this country is more capitalism, not less.
@43: That’s a lot clearer than my Venn diagrams !
Hey Don, I see a lot of different viewpoints here actually. This is something people feel very passionate about, so I expect these kinds of reactions.