I sometimes tell people, “If your products suck and your customers hate you, don’t start a blog.”

Well, the Transportation Security Administration has gone against that advice. More power to them.

The TSA blog mostly does it right. The branding is subtle; the TSA logo appears only at the bottom of the page. The slogan – “Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part” – is meant to invite the public into a discussion about security. I think that’s a great marketing statement. The traveling public feels that security has been shoved down their throats, which is one of the reasons they hate TSA.

And they took the opportunity to express their emotions; more than 700 comments on the welcome post, according to the blog. There’s lots of anger, negativity and obscenity, but also a lot of good ideas and observations from people who clearly know something about security. Give TSA credit. They knew there’d be a firestorm of negativity, they were prepared for it and they responded calmly and constructively.

The blog is written by five people: four mid-level employees and a PR guy. Strangely, there are no photos of the bloggers, but maybe that’s a security measure. 🙂

As a government agency, TSA could afford to ignore the opinions of travelers if it wanted. Launching the blog is a gutsy move my hat’s off to them for it.

And can you believe it? They’re hosting the whole thing on Blogger!

Thanks to Daily Dish for the tip via Alex Howard.