Meet Sarah Slocum, the first ever Glasshole martyr in real life history,
Okay so she’s not actually a martyr, but she is fighting for something… or at least picking fights in San Fran bars with people over her Google Glass-wearing.
The story begins in a humble bar in San Francisco, and Ms. Slocum is viciously attacked from all sides and has her purse and tech gear stolen at the scene by, in Slocum’s words, “haters” which results with poor Sarah filing a hate crime. The tall tale is picked up by several news stations and is often titled something like dramatic like “When Google Glass Haters Attack.” Of course this version of the story doesn’t last for long when the other side of the argument had a chance to shed light on their version of the incident, involving a very drunk Slocum getting in a painful curse-word fight and eventually having her glasses removed. Reports will later show all her possessions were safely returned and no charges were finalized.
At this point I am through with talking about poor Sarah Slocum whose reputation has been thoroughly destroyed (seriously just search her name on Twitter).
But more importantly, there’s actually a good story here. Just think about the PR technique utilized by Google when dealing with this unattractive headline about their newest product!
Well I know I paid attention when this story took place, there were a lot of lessons about Public Relations coming into play in this scenario. First off, Google had to gauge how far this story spread (and being from Texas, I sure had to search around to find details on this one). It seems like this is a big story in San Francisco, where many native San Franians (or whatever you call them) have been dealing with this weird shift of techies taking over their down-to-earth city. I also was weird-ed out to find out that the people in San Fran’s tech industry are being catered to by special bus services and the like exclusive to only those in that profession. This kind of problem may prove to be a regional one.
The next step for Google would then have to be their tactic for response: Would they side with Slocum? Would they condemn her?
Answer: Neither! They would distance themselves from such unappealing topics in general.
Instead their PR person got to the bottom of it and does what Google does best: create an optimistic and casual outtake.
The company did not address the “hate crime” in either fashion, but instead released a charming set of do’s and do not’s which represented the company in a confident light. This form of Public Relations thinking stuck straight to the plan of pushing forth valuable public information of how to act when wearing Google Glass instead of touching on all the negative atmosphere that the technology had accidentally generated. Even now if you decide to check the Google Glass website for this list, its not easy to find. Stories like these always remind me how easy crisis can blow over if you have the right technology and are ready to be confident about your product. So like Sarah Slocum would probably say, God Bless Google!