PR FROM THE BEACH

Good behaviour - the X Factor that keeps your licence to operate

Links to media.nzherald.co.nz

There's been a huge furore in the last 24 hours over New Zealand's X Factor, thanks to some ill-considered comments by husband-and-wife judging duo Natalia Kills and Willy Moon. Now, New Zealand On Air has announced it is withdrawing funding from the show, although they suggest they made their mind up about this before the controversy. Both judges will be replaced because of their remarks - and currently face a tirade of abuse themselves on their social accounts - much of it absolutely despicable. Elsewhere, the discussion rages around whether the whole thing was a hoax designed to boost the show's flagging ratings and we are left with a million suit-and-hair memes littering the web. All in all, it's a shambles. So who is to blame?

Je Suis Charlie - Nous Sommes Charlie

 

The murders of 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France yesterday have left 12 families bereaved and bereft. In Egypt, Al-Jazeera journalists are still held in jail.Worldwide, in 2014, 61 journalists were killed. Everyday, around the world, people are being killed for speaking out, for not agreeing, for holding a different opinion or belief. 

The magazine satirises everyone - religions (of all kinds) politicians (of all kinds) and any topic, person or subject deemed worthy of lampooning. Since the murders, debate on the perceived 'rights and wrongs' of Charlie Hebdo content has been heated - here in New Zealand, remarks by a former broadcaster have prompted a storm of social protest.

But the focus should not be on debating the rights and wrongs of content. Instead, words and images that accurately describe the evil men who perpetrated this crime should be chosen with care. They are not fighters for a cause, warriors in a war or any other of the descriptors assigned to them.

They are murderers, pure and simple, who took the lives of 12 people and injured seven others. Their actions contravene civil and religious laws. They will be caught and granted a fair trial.

As for the rest of us, such murders should not constrain our thinking or our speech. The spontaneous vigils held throughout the night of the murders showered sparks of hope on a dark day - would that such vigils continue for the thousands upon thousands around the world currently at the mercy of other ruthless murderers.  

I would urge you to use your words to affect change - write on behalf of those, like the Al Jazeera journalists, imprisoned for doing their job. If you don't know where to start, then Amnesty International can guide you. Write to your politicians and media urging them to do what they can to encourage, rather than suppress freedom of speech and the spread of ideas. Speak out when someone is hounded on social media for an opinion or idea that contradicts, satirises or challenges convention. 

As Edmund Burke possibly remarked: 

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Nous Sommes Charlie - nous devons tous parler.

 

 

Never release a hashtag into the wild - New York Cops weather social media storm

The New York Police Department walked straight into a social media storm today with the launch of their #myNYPD hashtag - proving once again that failure to analyse risks, issues and reputation before a social media campaign, then adjusting behaviour accordingly, leads to significant problems.

The Storify below is just a small taste of the backlash unleashed following the hashtag launch and it isn't showing any signs of improvement any time soon.  Some on social media who have had more positive experiences with the NYPD have rallied to their defence but analysing the tweets the commentary has been predominantly negative.

The moral of the story: Never release a hashtag into the wild without thinking about why you are running it in the first place and understanding that you have absolutely no control over its behaviour.

 

Responding with love on social media - not in kind

People frequently ask me how they should respond to negative criticism on social media. Today there is a great example from Honey Maid as to the best way to respond - with love.

 

Knowledge Engines inch us closer to Wikipedia immersion

Google's announcements today of its latest projects - the Knowledge Graph - sounds fascinating but takes us closer to a world history written according to Wikipedia. Google admits that much of the 'knowledge' powering their new search results - see their video below - is sourced from Freebase, bought by them in 2010, who in turn got heaps of data from Wikipedia and other data bases around the web.

My question is, if the source information is pulled out of areas such as Wikipedia - which is, despite their best efforts - still prone to inaccuracy, 'editing-out' and edit wars - how long before our history and the things we are 'allowed' to find are either rewritten, rubbed out or removed from actual experience or alternatively distorted by indiviual perspectives that can manipulate the systems?

It all sounds very useful and I am sure it will be. But - and it is a big but - the Knowledge Graph is filled with bear-traps and Orwellian group-think. It might seem that our knowledge is 'extended' by this -  I fear wisdom is being left behind.

 

2012 - Work it from Anywhere

If you are looking for the latest technology developments to dazzle your friends - or yourself - then look no further than the International Consumer Electronics Show which has just kicked off in Vegas.

One thing's for sure - the interconnectedness of the technologies now available means that we have moved right into a year where we can work anything from anywhere. I can switch on my aircon in NZ - even if I was in Vegas - or turn on the home monitoring micro-camera from the office to see the faces of those who have just triggered my house alarm. I can tap my credit card on my ultrabook to pay for stuff and turn my phone into a gaming console for a quick play while I wait. 

Here are my top five 'most excited about' announcements so far:

1. Intel is to bring gesture based computing to its new ultrabook technology (think Minority Report)
2. Acer unveiled the world's thinnest laptop
3. Huawei reveals its ultra-thin smart phone
4. TV shifts to OLED technology
5. Tobii Technology's eye tracking system that allows users to scroll, play and navigate using their eyes alone

If you like checking out the new and you can't get across to Vegas in the next couple of days (I wish) then you can follow the updates and breaking news on CESweb.org/news or check out the YouTube channel from CES Unveiled. 

Here's some honourable mentions, including 'print your own objects' now available for the consumer.

 

A neat scanner mouse that will cause more copyright havoc no doubt...

 

And for a general round up of things green, comfort-inducing 'work it from anywhere' innovations, here's their taster:

 

 

Cri-du-coeur for real communication as Cloud outage crashes confidence

Last week - and this weekend - saw major outages at Amazon and Sony. Gamers hoping to get down to some serious wins over Easter were struck by the fail - highlighted here on the Playstation blog, while Amazon's super fail affected sites far and wide, most notably, Quora, Hootsuite and Reddit.

Amazon's latest health reports show that things have improved since the problem occurred and, realisitically, this kind of thing is bound to happen as increasing numbers take to the Cloud as a means to manage server demand. Mistakes happen, sites get attacked, someone unplugs the wrong connection. What counts is the ability to keep customers, users and other stakeholders informed, up-to-date and confident that you can fix the problem as quickly as possible.

If your web presence is your main communication channel and you are rendered invisible by someone else's crash, what can you do?  Hidden among the acres of copy written in the last few days, probably the most useful is over at ZDNet, where Phil Wainewright has some salutary lessons for the user.

But what of the providers themselves?  What lessons should they learn? The greatest cri-du-coeur has been that Amazon failed to communicate clearly and effectively with its customers during the crisis. Personally, I'm not surprised.  Without exception, today's web giants are, I believe, appallingly bad at communicating with their users. For many years they were able to shield themselves behind remote access walls, responding only to emails (eventually), with very little human contact (if at all) and, in latter years, using minimal statements on blogs and webwalls to update users in a crisis. But believe me boys, (as mostly boys you are)  a blog post does not mean you have 'communicated', created trust, understanding or cemented the necessary forgiveness to maintain your licence to operate.

Anyone who has ever tried to communicate directly with Facebook, Google, Amazon or other large web corporates will know exactly the level of frustration I am talking about. In a world where instant two-way communication is the lifeblood of a system that champions trust, engagement, transparency and the user as the vital ingredients of the service mix, our web giants are lacking in their ability to generate and maintain the kind of real relationships they tout so readily on the global stage but which they spectacularly fail to deliver at a user level. 

Their technology may be great but the business model - as far as their public relations and communications is concerned - is more akin to the impenetrable walls of corporate non-communication circa 1950. And we all know how that turned out.

Some day soon, the big guys are going to have to wake up to the fact that they can no longer hide behind nerdy geekdom when it comes to good communications practice. If they don't, then some day soon, they'll suddenly find their licence to operate withdrawn by the users, customers and stakeholders they fail.

Fabulous - if fixable - code is not enough. You have to talk, respond and act and engage - just like the rest of us.

Earthquake changes communications landscape

If there is an organisation left in New Zealand that has, post-February 22 - failed to appreciate the power and potential of online and social media then seriously - we need to talk.

The ferocity and scale of the second Christchurch earthquake meant that organisations were forced to leave 'old' communications processes behind and venture in to uncharted waters as the urgent need to communicate outweighed entrenched opinions of how 'communication' should be undertaken. 

I take my hat off to all those involved in the post-quake communication, many of whom were having to deal with both the professional and personal aftermath of the quake. 

For some, that meant learning to use 140 characters or less while under great stress, for others, it was simply about saying 'I don't know - but I'm finding out'. 

I would particularly salute Christchurch City Council's communications team and the many volunteer techies who built valuable and vital web platforms - sometimes in hours - so that people could access information that helped them towards the basic necessities of life.

Lots of people will, in the months to come, pontificate on what was good and what was bad, the lessons to be learned and so on.  As for me, I think that unless you have lived through such an experience, you can't legislate one way or another. Those involved have done the best possible job in extreme circumstances with what was to hand. 

Post-quake communications will continue to be vital for the Canterbury region for many years ahead, long after the world at large has switched its gaze elsewhere.  Christchurch communicators - and all of us involved  in this line of work - are in this for the long haul. So Kia kaha. And well done.

More Power to the Neighbourhood

We should never underestimate the power of the neighbourhood and how simple community actions can change disaster to hope, dictatorship to democracy, isolation to engagement.

These last few weeks we have seen the power of local action resonate around the world but it has to be said that for many people, involvement with their local neighbourhood is, well, far from what it should be.  A cuppa and a chat next door is, in many places, a thing of the past with next-door-neighbours simply strangers who share the same postcode. The excuse? Mostly the excuses are reasons for not going round - that we're busy, we work odd hours, there's a lot going on, they're not around when we are and so on. Often what we need is an excuse to go round in the first place and break the ice.

An inspired 'excuse' that helps us to reconnect with our neighbours in New Zealand will be running this weekend. Neighbours' Day, an initiative by Lifewise, has gained remarkable traction and hopefully, this coming Saturday and Sunday will see people popping in and out of neighbouring houses, enjoying street parties and other events designed to stimulate local community engagement.  

In times of trouble - and I can't help but think of Christchurch and its suburbs here - our neighbours are the first people we will need to both help and depend on. Surely though we should be involved in untroubled times as well?

In our uber-connected lifestyles, we are often better friends with people we have never met on Twitter or Facebook than we are with the people next door.  I know that I for one will switch off the net next weekend and head down the road armed with muffins and a determination to get to know the whole street that little bit better.  If you want to do the same, then you'll find a raft of ideas and suggestions here. You never know, we might just bump into each other en route.

Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts

It's that time of year when people dress up and pretend to be something else. The trend begins around Halloween, then on towards Christmas there is almost a perpetual parade of cowboys, pirates, fairies, elves and magical creatures that - in fiction - can provide all manner of blessings and benefits but in reality, well, they're just pretend.

So a word to the wise as we approach the season of giving. Beware geeks bearing gifts, particularly in the realms of social media and you truly will have yourself that merry little Christmas.

Over the last few months I've stumbled over several sites promising all sorts of miracles for those who buy their social media wares. If you are thinking of using social media and expanding what you do online, good on you. But,  if you are one of the small to medium sized businesses that these sites seem to be aiming at, my Christmas wish would be that you think very carefully and consider the points below before you load up a shopping cart full of exciting looking goodies and click 'send':

1. Social media is not about numbers. It is about people communicating with each other, building relationships and working together. If someone promises you 'thousands' of Facebook or Twitter followers they don't understand the environment and are likely to lead you astray. Expensively. This is not a popularity contest and 'follower' numbers don't buy results.
2. Social media takes time. Yes, you can get a 'message' out there quickly, but, in the long term, the relationships you forge will be the measure of your success, not how speedily something went 'viral'.
3. Look carefully at any site that purports to be run by 'social media gurus' or 'experts' or 'specialists' but features blog posts from 'admin' and has no real people associated with the site.  These are signs that you need to be very, very careful before you part with your hard earned cash.
4. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. That's been my message to, well, thousands of people now over the last ten years or more. Understand what you want to achieve, who you want to build a relationship with and why and how you are going to sustain and build that relationship - then start thinking about your strategy and then the tools you might use. Don't start with tactics first and work backwards. That's another Trojan Horse.
5. There are lots of genuine people out there who have solid experience in this area. If you are setting out to buy in help, be careful. Talk to real people. Hear some real stories. Don't buy 'off the shelf' - it won't work because your needs are very different to anyone else's - as are the needs of the communities you will serve.  And serving and service is a vital component of this space.

So, to recap. Think about what you want to achieve first, don't think it is about numbers and popularity  because this is the real world, not high school. Talk to real people, hear some real stories. Scrutinise all geeks bearing gifts. Remember at all times that just because someone is dressed up as Father Christmas, it doesn't mean you'll definitely find Santa underneath - it might just be a pirate or a cowboy looking to take you on a ride to nowhere.