How To Make a Mistake in Public and Come Out Smelling Like Roses

Two days ago, Loïc LeMeur responded in much depth to the stinging criticism of him regarding the LeWeb3 and his surprise inclusion of French politicians.So if you're going to make a mistake in public and want everyone to know about it while you come out smelling like roses, this is the way to do it:

1. Gather a group of outspoken colleagues who trust you
2. Flatter them incessantly
3. Slap them, hard, with many people watching
4. Make a half-hearted apology
5. While people react violently, say you have no regrets
6. Watch from the sidelines while your friends come to the rescue
7. Finally, own up to everything, even to mistakes that you didn't make

That's a very cynical view of the past week, and frankly it's what many people believed until Loïc followed Robert Scoble's good advice and explained his perspective in great detail. To his credit, it's a very complete post and it does clear out many if not all of the conspiratorial breadcrumbs about surprises and who got who fired. Actually, his response is so long, it's possible that he was spending all his time composing it while the storm worsened and people wondered when he would finally speak up. In fact, as Ewan McIntosh nicely points out, Loïc could have followed his own advice on avoiding just this kind of difficult situation.