For the second time in my 9 years in Raleigh, the city was under siege. This time it was a Zebra Spitting Cobra that held the city captive for three days.

Dubbed Snakegate by the media, it followed the missing snake that was first reported in a 911 call. It soon became a national news story.

Not familiar with the Zebra Cobra? Neither was I. The African snake is deadly. You not only have to worry about getting bitten. The snake can spit its venom as far as nine feet.

It would be hard to criticize the media. It was Judith Retana of CBS 17 who helped capture the snake. She was knocking on doors when she came eye to eye with the snake on a front porch.

“I was watching my feet, looking around, I looked down in the corner and all of a sudden I see this snake, his head was perched up… I’m pretty sure we made eye contact” shared Retana in her reporting.

Rest easy. After days of searching, the Raleigh police announced in a press release that the missing venomous spitting zebra cobra has been “located and safely removed” from a northwest Raleigh neighborhood.

Your Take: Do these types of stories warrant local and national coverage?

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Stan Phelps walks the walk. He stands out in the sea of sameness by modeling his own Differentiated Experience (DX) message: Differentiation isn’t just about what you say, it’s about what you do and, more importantly, how and why you do it. Stan leverages his unique collection of 5,000+ case studies on customer, employee, and brand experience to engage audiences with informative learning-based experiences. He believes purposeful DX wins the hearts of employees and customers, and differentiation ultimately boosts loyalty, retention, referrals, and results.

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