Just wanted to give everyone a short update about the case which spurred my series on corporate bullying.

As you may recall, I represent John Doe a/k/a Sean Kelly who was sued by Beautiful Brands, Inc., concerning some posts Sean made on the site of the Tulsa World newspaper. In Part 1 of the series, I discussed how Sean decided to reveal his identity. Part 2 discussed how the corporate bully, once confronted, tried to portray itself as the victim. Part 3, which I really thought would be the conclusion of the series, discussed how the corporate bully had backed down and dismissed its case against John Doe.

In Part 1, I stated that 99% of the time a bully will back down if you stand up to their tactics. I further stated that the remaining 1% would still keep coming because they lack the intellectual capacity to recognize that their bullying tactics will no longer work. I put Beautiful Brands in the 99% of bullies in Part 3 of the series based upon the decision to dismiss its case against John Doe. However, I was too hasty in giving BBI such credit. Since Part 3 was published, BBI has re-filed its suit against Sean Kelly. BBI has now proven itself to be a 1%er. It has made the decision to keep coming even after it is abundantly clear it has lost all power. If I was teaching a course in public relations, I would use this case as a model of how NOT to react to internet criticism. By insisting on going after Sean Kelly, BBI will now have to answer for its failures and questionable business practices. It will not be pretty. However, BBI lacks the intellectual capacity to see that it will now drive its business into the ground in an effort to prove it’s the “victim.” I fail to understand the rationale behind BBI’s decision-making. I guess one has to be share BBI’s delusional view of reality to understand. I’m quite sure that the vast majority of us would never want to experience such a distorted view of reality.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.

Jon