Serving Franchisees, And Not Deviating

March 12th, 2007

After hearing erroneous descriptions of this website from within the franchising industry, the publisher makes clear Blue MauMau’s reason for being: to fully serve the FRANCHISEE community with trade news and information.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: At the time this site was launched, the mainstream media and existing franchise trade journals tended to ignore stories that were less than flattering of their advertising base. Stories tended towards superficial articles, such as five steps to find the right franchise, two kinds of personalities that best fit successful franchise owners or a brief description of the four most important UFOC items.

In contrast, what makes Blue MauMau different than other publications is that our content does not shy away from the truth and hard facts. Pioneering a new online trade publication model, we serve and focus on franchisees and soon-to-be franchisees.

How we gather relevant news is also quite revolutionary. Members and guests freely investigate and share daily news, information, tools, events and weblinks to help franchise owners better run their businesses or help franchise buyers make informed choices.

An Army of Franchise Insiders Report the News

We are a franchise journal by franchisees, for franchisees. And why did we open up our articles to an army of insiders and professionals that act as citizen journalists? Because the typical franchisee and franchise buyer were unhappy with the quality of franchise news from traditional journals and journalists. They had large investments to make and needed factual news to steer by. Trade journals typically acted as propaganda for certain sectors of the industry. So we had to design a system in which insiders, franchisees and franchise experts, could directly comment without advertisers and other thought guards blocking the information or editing out the more important parts. We also opened up the stories to comments and remarks so that other insiders and experts could act as a type of check to contributed news. Posting a story on our site takes considerable thought because so many experts are free to point out errors for the world to see. (Isn't the Internet wonderful?)

Blue MauMau's headline news stories are not simply an opinionated blog page or an “open” forum, and to state so shows a misunderstanding of the nature of Web 2.0 content management systems and the current state of online news publishing. A few, select, appropriate franchise news stories are chosen from a large volume of postings that are categorized in the back pages and placed into the front page of the journal (see image above).

A few in the industry (but not many) have complained about seeing negative corporate news on our pages. However, our readers, who invest large sums of capital and time in franchises, tell us that they want the good, the bad, the franchisee or franchisor spin: in short, ALL THE NEWS.

If another site has good information, we have no qualms about linking to it. At other times we publish original data because it is important and cannot be found elsewhere. These have been items such as investigative reports, research, success rate studies for independent businesses compared to franchise systems, podcast (audio) interviews, SBA loan failure rates by franchisor, links to court adjudications, FREE UFOCs, industry surveys and reports, and MUCH MORE.

On the back pages of the posting pyramid (see image above) are a sizable forum and remarks area. There can be considerable disagreement among experts on what specific numbers and facts mean. Those discussions and disagreements help provide leads to some of our best stories.

We are not alone in using this model. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has a Web 2.0 content management system, in which its disease and health experts can communicate quickly throughout the country, as well as debate on the meaning of trends and facts. One recent article mentioned how much their lively debates produced great insights and breakthroughs rather quickly and was responsible for a new level of performance for the CDC.

When franchisors and franchise leaders disagree with franchisee experts, they sometimes dismiss their opponent's news stories as opinion and not fact. In contrast, if the other person's point of view agrees with theirs, then it is typically considered fact. Still, our guests and members find these discussions and professional debates quite informative, even if experts do not agree with the data or the interpretation of the data.

I hope this helps members in being able to verbalize what this site is about. It is not a blog, although we have blogs. And we are not a bulletin board, although we have that too. We aren't just a social community. We are a Web 2.0 news publication, an online publication that uses sophisticated social media tools, to bring news to franchisees and prospective franchisees.

With the content contributions of our members and guests, Blue MauMau will continue to grow in its coverage of ALL OF THE NEWS for franchisees and soon-to-be franchisees.

Don Sniegowski

Don launched the news site Blue MauMau in the Fall of 2005 after franchise buyers and owners told him that they felt it was almost impossible to shovel through the propaganda and sales spin from business news, disclosures, and even franchise experts in order to make informed and wise investments.

Why is this news site called Blue MauMau? It's metaphorical. Blue MauMau is a South Pacific fish that gathers in schools for protection from sharks and other predators. In an industry that has many impediments in knowing truth at the franchise level, Don created a platform that franchisees from all brands and ilks could use to network together to inform both themselves and reporters about their businesses and industry. This site works when franchise owners participate in what they know. In the past that function has been left largely to the franchisor. I'll still reach out to franchisors, but I do so wanting straightforward answers for our readers—franchisees. This news site aims to continually improve at being "the franchise owner's most trusted news source."

Don is the award-winning publisher of this news site about franchised establishments, Blue MauMau. He can be emailed at editor@bluemaumau.org or tweeted @dsnig.