The CX Blog

There’s a news story out recently about Whole Food’s CEO John Mackey’s online blogging and board commentary that crossed a line, causing Whole Foods to initiate a rule around blogging.  To whit: refrain from posting items that would be injurious to the company or that would reveal competitive information.  I think Microsoft already has that rule: Don’t be stupid.

Mackey was apparently (I will not take advantage of the obvious pun here) feeling jolly about the imminent acquisition of Wild Oats, the competing natural food chain they wanted to buy. He posted several negative comments about Wild Oats, its management and its stock price anonymously on a number of boards; the FTC discovered the posts and engaged in some wrist slapping.  Mackey insisted he was just having some fun…gotta wonder if he’s not busy enough with his official responsibilities.

In a July entry on his Whole Foods blog, Mackey said that he wrote the external postings anonymously because it was “fun,” and he claimed that he never intended any of them to be associated with him. He added that the comments sometimes were his personal opinions and at other times were efforts to play “devil’s advocate” with online readers.

Seems common sense, as Voltaire noted, is not so common.