WTF? Wisconsin

The Power of the Online Community shows its power

The online community can drive change—both for the better and for

the worse. The collective voices of Internet users can get loud and

spread far and wide. That’s a story that the Wisconsin Tourism Federation

learned in July 2009, when a new name and logo caused a

stir across the social Web. The primary component of the organization’s

logo was an acronym: WTF. In the United States, WTF? also

represents a fairly obscene yet common expletive. When the story of

the Wisconsin Tourism Federation’s error started spreading across the

social Web, the organization decided that the right course of action

was to respond. Despite investing a lot of money into the new name

and logo design, by October 2009, the Wisconsin Tourism Federation

changed its name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin, and the

logo’s acronym became TFW. An embarrassing story made its way

across the social Web, and a response was the best course of action.

So what do you think?