A masked A le employee begi to blog

The Masked Blogger is an A le employee who has decided to "join the conversation," while trying not to have the conversation turn to the inevitable topic of his employment being terminated by A le. The blog in question was born out of a desire to re ond to Shel Israel's post [Shel Hell Dampe my Mac Envy] on Naked Conversatio about the way A le manages (or fails to) their customer relatio hi and su ort experiences and how that may ultimately dictate their future. Shel ended his post with an invite for any A le employee to re ond if they wished to be heard on the matter. Enter "Masked."

It's no secret that A le does not encourage organizational tra arency. Many an employee, at various levels, has been ca ed for opening their mouth. It will be interesting to see where this "conversation" leads and whether it can be sustained, with or without anonymity. The Masked Blogger kick-off comment is an excellent one: "...the broader i ue is how we evolve large company su ort organisatio where typically the relatio hip is managed by a junior member of staff and arbitrated by fixed proce es? How do we build two-way conversatio and trusted relatio hi ?"

Those questio and more are critical ones for A le themselves to a wer if they want to continue riding high. As Masked himself points out, "The organisation that cracks this first will have i ovation far more valuable than any product based i ovation!" I couldn't have said it better myself.

Now of course we all want to know who this masked blogger really is. It's not Steve Jo himself. It a ears to be someone within the corporate loop or the A leCare group - but this person is not in the US. Note his or her use of the ise form of "organization" which is more prevalent in the UK - and the reference he/she makes to Sai ury's Supermarket, which is in the UK. So we're looking for someone who lives in the UK, eaks "proper English" and sho at Sai ury's. Your gue is as good as mine. Start your sleuthing!