Tracksuit CEO

by Tracksuit CEO

What Mahmoud is doing right

Don’t ask me where she found it, but my wife sent me a link to The Official Blog of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I quickly became obsessed with the idea of the Supreme Leader of Iran having a blog. What really surprised me was the personalized feel of it all, the heading reads Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Personal Memos, which I like because not everyone knows what a blog is. Really! It’s true, in fact my friend was on a call recently with a major celebrity (a relatively young celebrity) who needed her website reworked. He was proposing a blog because she writes often and does a weekly show that could be converted into a podcast. That’s when she asked the million dollar question: “So, what is a blog?” We were both shocked. But we really shouldn’t have been, not everyone is going to know these things that we think of as being so basic. What is ‘old hat’ to us is cutting edge for a huge portion of the population. So Personal Memos (as opposed to blog) works great for the English version of this site (which is also available in French, Farsi and Arabic).

Mahmoud Makes it easy to leave comments

Now check out the right side bar. It features the most recent comments on the blog. Comments can be made either on the main page or on the individual blog posts. Being able to make comments on the homepage is a fantastic idea for a high-profile blog like this, take notes Chris Pearson! This feature is great but the most striking thing about these comments is that they’re not all positive! They really don’t seem to have been censored at all. The comments range from undying support to character assassination and each one has a little flag next to their name, denoting the country they’re from. There is also flexibility in the commenting, it allows you to enter as little or as much info as you would like and then goes on to offer a “I don’t want my comment being published to the public” check box. What if you don’t really have a comment, you have a question? There’s an option for that too! The Supreme Leader also answers the questions people submit:

The purpose & objective of the formation of this site was having a straight, direct and immediate contact with the visitors and addresses. After my first post, I preferred to spend all the time that I have allocated for this web log, to read the viewpoints of the visitors.Because I felt most of the individuals who have left a message – a suggestion, a question or even a reproof – they expect me to read it personally.

Mahmoud responds to comments and questions

Ahmadinejad goes on to field some of the questions that are posed through the submit a question option. He doesn’t shy away from the hardball questions either. If you don’t believe me check out Holocaust denial Q & A.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to get into Ahmadinejad’s human rights policies (yikes!) or whether he is actively producing nuclear weapons (or Atomic Bicycles). What I do want to point out is the fact that this political pariah is doing things that still haven’t occurred to Fortune 500 companies. Something is wrong with this picture.

Mahmoud doesn’t censor negative comments

Or if he does, they must be very inflammatory because some pretty scathing insults show up there. Like the comment from Nicolas in the US:

Ouch Nicolas, he insulted Ahmadinejad’s intelligence and the authenticity of his blog’s comments, talk about a low blow! I have to say, his point would have been stronger if he had spell-checked his comment before submitting.

Even if the comments are censored, having a few negative remarks definitely lends to the legitimacy of the positive comments.

What Mahmoud is doing wrong

My first critique was going to be that no one from Iran was commenting, but then it occurred to me that not everyone in the world speaks English. So I visited the Farsi version of the blog and there they were, tons of comments with little Iranian flags next to their names. So my first complaint is completely moot unless those comments are all positive, but because it’s all in Farsi I’ll probably never know.

Mahmoud’s not updating often enough

This is just Blogging 101, if you don’t update your blog, it will wither up and die. Blogs need constant updating, tweaking and TLC or they will suffer from Neglected Blog Syndrome. Usually your community numbers will taper off and other things, like Technorati Rank, will suffer. Although, the rank on this blog is in the top 5,000 (2,395 to be exact) so it’s not exactly suffering.

Mahmoud needs to really open up

Aside from laying out his infamous world views, there is nothing about the Supreme Leader as a person, a regular guy.

I think D. Dubois put it best in one of the comments:

…your blogs are somewhat formal sounding. Why not loosen up the
language a little for the American readers? And could you tell us a
little about your home life and your family and what your daily routine
is like. Also what kind of music do you like? What is your favorite
color and what is your favorite sport?

Now that would really be interesting to see some family pictures from Mahmoud’s Flickr feed. Or maybe a Twitter badge like I have on the side of my site showing what the Supreme Leader is doing right now. I thought that was such a great idea that I went and set up a Twitter account for him. He’s @PrezAhmadinejad and so far he’s following me and @DickCheney, I thought it would be good for him to see some opposing viewpoints.

I wasn’t sure of the best way to contact him so I put my message in the comment tool:

I’ll keep you posted and let you know if he responds. If he does I’m going to offer him a free blog coaching session as a show of International good will. In the meantime you should go and follow @PrezAhmadinejad, he needs to get integrated into the Twitter community. Just look at his only Tweet:

So pay attention Corporate Blogging America, you could stand to learn a thing or two from our featured Persian Presidential blogger.

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