A fool’s errand. Snipe hunt: n.

1. An elaborate practical joke in which an unsuspecting person takes part in a bogus hunt for a snipe, typically being left alone in the dark with instructions not to move until the snipe appears.
2. A futile search or endeavor.

What started as a personal customer service issue was turned into – well, pretty much a lot of whining – by one blogger. The underlying goal, I believe, is to push the role of blogs. It is a myopic view of the role of blogs. Sure, they can spread bad feelings about a product and company. But this seems more like phishing to spread a personal agenda.

Bloggers are sometimes sending business off on rather futile hunts, while sensible and practical solutions already exist. They don’t need consultants to answer these questions. It is the ongoing struggle of finding what does work and what doesn’t. Who matters and who doesn’t. Is this really new? No. Just a new medium. Blogs, this time.

In the continuing saga of blogs as bulldozers and “Brother, can you spare a dime.”, we find sanity ringing forth from those that understand PR and customer relations.

Trevor Cook writes, in Corporate Engagement: Dell: Don’t get ‘blugged’., sage advice that appropriately shows how blog consultants are seeking to throw anything against the wall – in hopes that it sticks. What are they throwing? Mud and …

Part of Steve’s answer is to put a bunch of influential bloggers on a plane to HQ so they can be duchessed with the sort of attention from the real world that they seem to desperately crave….

(then…) Please, Dell, don’t take Steve’s advice and put all the key influencers who have been attacking you on a plane to Round Rock. If you do that, blugging will become rampant with lots of people seeking opportunities for free plane tickets and other perks.

Stuart Bruce observes how old-school tactics are being offered by a supposed new-PR practitioner:

I’ve never been a big fan of the old-fashioned “wine, dine and schmooze” PR which is basically what Steve’s suggestion is. Very rarely is that the best way to achieve your corporate communications objectives and build better relationships with journalists (or bloggers).

Mind you, I like face-to-face more than any other communication form. Yet, this is one where – perhaps – there is another agenda running. More pushing the meme of blogs and their power than solving a corporations problems.

Don’t worry. Sanity will return to all. Therapy and meds are being scheduled and prescribed along the way by the likes of Cook, Bruce and many others.