The Morning After (Stressed Out Blogger Lashes Out On Twitter)

The hero of our story is Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.
The background for the following discussion is a post made by Dare Obasanjo referring to TechCrunch as FuckedCompany 2.0. A response on TechCrunch was soon to follow, blaming Microsoft as a company for the things said.

(You can read the full details here and here)

The discussion then moved to Twitter where it deteriorated pretty fast:

Regardless of the topic and which side is wrong or right, discussion should reach this kind of level…

While Dare’s blog may have an impact on Microsoft’s brand, its no question that whatever Michael does impacts the TechCrunch brand. The above discussion doesn’t do well to TechCrunch…

The of the story? Never (ever!) write when you’re upset. Or to be more exact, take the night to sleep it off before you publish it. If you still think your text is ok on the next morning, then by all means publish it.

Remember that text (e-mail, blog post, twit, etc.) is a terrible medium for communicating emotion. The reader can’t see your facial expression or hear your vocal intonation. Therefore, any negative emotion that is expressed in the text is probably going to be perceived several times stronger much more than intended probably just causing damage instead of getting your point across.

When I was at SAP it wasn’t uncommon for me to get really upset and write long, angry emails through the night. Most of these never saw their way outside of my drafts folder. I would wake up the day after and figure out that things aren’t that bad, that there’s a better way of handling it, or simply that I have to pick my battles and that there’s more important stuff to spend my time on…

I’m sure Michael’s reactions are just a result of frustration and the heat of the moment. In fact, Michael edited the post and removed the controversial paragraph the day after.
Everything’s brighter on the morning after…

(P.S., if you just can’t hold it until the next morning, at least take a moment and listen to yourself. You’ll get a different perspective doing a second reading. I used to have a rule in my Outlook to elay delivery on any email I send by 2 minutes. It helps….)