Edelman and his Bloggers

Here are some of the bloggers that Edelman has hired. Three of them have PR experience and one of them is just a famous (infamous?) conservative blogger.

Mike Krempasky

Sorry, I didn't mean to leave out Erin Caldwell (Now she doesn't need to shop at Wal-Mart anymore)

Steve Rubel

Phil Gomes

Guillaume du Gardier

Ol Guillaume and Steve were two of the first commenters on Richard Edelman's first blog post. Steve even threw in a link to his PR blog (something that many bloggers find to be not so cool). Jeremy Pepper got into the sucking up too. Is that how you get jobs in the PR industry? Just kidding guys, going against a huge retailer is one thing, but you want to keep on the good side of the largest independent PR firm in the world.

Mr. Edelman says What do we hope to achieve together? In short, we want to persuade our corporate clients to commit to the blogosphere.

I guess that's probably how 'Working Families for Wal-Mart' got started. Mr. Edelman seems to be a firm believer that blogs are the future of the PR business. Edelman even has his own blog with a comment section here (BTW, I also believe the farmer and the cowman should be friends). From reading Mr. Edelman's blog, he seems to be an ethical person, so maybe the PR business is just misunderstood. And, reading the blog of the CEO of a major company is interesting.

Mr. Edelman believes in the power of the 'average person' as a trusted source of information about a company. Thus the need for a 'grass roots' organization like Working Families for Wal-Mart.

For a real grassroots pro-Wal-Mart website go here. Oh wait, you can't - Wal-Mart shut that website down (you can decide for yourself whether Wal-Mart played a role in shutting down 'AlwaysLowPrices' or not).

Mr. Edelman writes The average person like me is demanding a seat at the table, the true democratization of the purchasing process. Smart companies will recognize that ceding control is a central aspect in earning trust.

Mr. Edelman also believes that The need is for companies to do more than sell products. They must be responsible employers, assure that their supply chains reflect best practice in environment and put ethical behavior at top of list for executives. Hopefully that also includes treating their employees ethically.

I don't know which of these guys is the one that visits this little blog a few times a week (4 times today so far). I'd suggest that maybe a couple of you guys visit our little village to see how a 121,000 sq ft Wal-Mart Supercenter might fit into our community.

Thanks for the corrections MK.