My beef with @stanrapp

Recently, fellow twitterer @GaryHagestad accused me of being a little harsh toward direct marketing "icon" Stan Rapp in one of my tweets.

I'll admit, I was snarky. But too harsh? I don't think so. And I need more than 140 characters to explain why.

The alleged offense? I called Stan Rapp a dinosaur.

Here's the thread. You be the judge.

After seeing a snippet of conversation in my Twitter stream between @jaffejuice (top advertising blogger) and @stanrapp (famous mega-agency advertising executive):

stanrapp: @jaffejuice Twitter is for the birds.Much tweeting mostly about nothing more than people doing nothing.

jaffejuice: @stanrapp don't give up....perhaps the twits are on break today

So I wrote:

adamkleinberg: @jaffejuice re: @stanrapp "twitter is for the birds" <== spoken like a true dinosaur

And was challenged a short while later.

GaryHagestad: @adamkleinberg @jaffejuice re: @stanrapp "twitter is for the birds" <== spoken like a true dinosaur. Ouch! A little harsh, no?

No, Gary. I don't think so.

First, I'll admit to not being particularly enthralled by Stan the Man. I have great respect for his accomplishments with MRM, Rapp Collins and the rest. A mutual friend has told me he's a great guy. But he called me five years ago because he was looking to buy an interactive agency and he was a condescending ass on the phone. There's no reason to be rude to people.

Second, if you are going to put yourself out there the DM Hall of Famer writing the new book Reinventing DM, you open yourself to criticism. His comment "Much tweeting mostly about nothing more than people doing nothing" is the exact same comment I hear over and over again from people who have absolutely no understanding of the conversation happening on Twitter.

Twitter made the cover of Time magazine this month because Twitter (along with Facebook updates and LinkedIn status and FriendFeed and Tumblr and the list goes on and on...) represents an important new phenomenon that is forever changing the way we communicate. There is a broad conversation happening that is connecting all of us in a new way. We are sharing information, putting opinions out there that define us, building micro-connections that can lead to real relationships in a manner that cannot be dismissed as "nothing more than people doing nothing." And it's very relevant to direct marketing.

Anyone writing a book about Reinventing DM should know that. So I called him a dinosaur.