FedEx,

In early July our firm contacted your public relations department and suggested a possible response to the FedEx Furniture Guy.  Our calls and emails went unanswered.  There is a conversation taking place about FedEx and yet, your voice is largely silent.  There are a million productive ways to respond to Jose’s project.  Instead your firm has threatened legal action against a kid who can’t even afford furniture for his apartment.  I have seen the letters and briefs your company has prepared and filed with the court – how many hours have your lawyers spent on this?  It is late, but not too late to turn this opportunity around for the benefit of FedEx, its shareholders, and its customers.  If you would like to discuss the options please feel free to give me a call at 214.550.2003 (ask for Alexander Muse).

Regards,
Alexander Muse 

Update: Now, with the story slashdotted, more nasty conversation. Sure you don’t want a quick means to speak to this story?

Extra update: At least some FedExers are taking to their personal blogs and talking about the creativity involved here.

Wired has a story today about the super resourceful FedExFurniture project. We helped Jose set up the blog for his site, so we’re glad to see the story have, er, legs. (Did he build legs for the FedExFurniture?).

In a previous entry I detailed the FedEx Furniture Guy and offered FedEx the idea of embracing his use of FedEx boxes instead of threatening to sue him. They decided on the latter. Once he was forced to remove his site I recieved thousands of visitors to this blog to catch a glimpse of the FedEx Furniture Hack. I followed up on my first entry with a second update regarding an email that I recieved from a friend of the FedEx Furniture Guy clarifing some details that I got wrong. Next I was contacted by a group calling themselves the FedExaminer Administration. They offered to help the FedEx Furniture guy with his legal woes. So I recieved around 20 emails, 10,000+ visitors to the blog entry, and nothing from FedEx despite my direct contact via telephone and email.

Imagine how much goodwill could have been generated by FedEx by listening to all of this communication. Perhaps even Ikea could have been involved – i.e. FedEx could have bought the kid an apartment full of Ikea furniture and made him a spokesman. Even the tree huggers like the idea. The ideas are endless. Blogging can work for your business or against it.

This morning I recieved an update from Jacqueline regarding the “FedEx Furniture Guy.” Here is the scoop:

“The guy’s name is Jose and he is an awesome Latino/American guy who has a penchant for tequila. Tom is his friend from CA who recently moved to Seattle and made the original small FedEx Box table. Jose is the guy who made an entire apartment’s worth of FedEx box furniture and then bravely posted it on a website under FedExFurniture.com. Jose is also the man who is now inundated with legal issues due to the website while still living completely on cardboard boxes.”

Previous FedEx posts: FedEx decided to threaten the FedEx Furniture guy instead of promoting the gag…
Perfect opportunity for FedEx to embrace FedEx Furniture “hack�.

This afternoon I ran across a website about a guy named Tom who did not have any furniture. He ordered FedEx boxes (for free) and built FedEx furniture for his apartment. My first reaction was to wonder when FedEx would shut Tom down. Then I thought that they might embrace this ‘mis-use’ of FedEx boxes. I contacted Jesse W. Bunn in the FedEx PR department and asked for a comment and at the same time suggested a positive response instead of a typical corporate response. In your own business it makes sense to see how you can turn lemons into lemonaid.

I was listening to NPR yesterday and heard an interview with Steve Rubel and as a frequent visitor to his blog, Micro Persuasion, I recalled a post about a UPS executive who indicated that they would not be blogging anytime soon. He suggested that FedEx should start blogging immediately to gain a competitive advantage. Tom’s FedEx Furntiure topic might be a great place to start. I suggest a vlog to start – perhaps a Quicktime movie interviewing Tom and his apartment. “No one is building furniture with DHL or UPS boxes…”