Had you heard of Joseph Kony before this week? I imagine probably not. I hadn’t either.

A video about this indicted Ugandan war criminal has been viewed by tens of millions of viewers on both Youtube and Vimeo. This turn of events has fascinated me – not least because it takes something pretty out of the ordinary to get that many people to sit through a 30 minute video in our increasingly attention-deficient world.

Before I continue, however, I want to be clear that I am not in the business of delving into politics on this blog. I am not seeking to analyse Uganda’s history or current affairs, or to critique Jason Russell’s response to them. I try to focus these posts on media, technology and communications and the way these things shape our world. If you share these interests, please read on.

The video created by Russell’s charity Invisible Children has received an overwhelming response from the international community. But it has also been met with distress – not least from Ugandan citizens. In fact, the country’s prime minister has even created his own video response, in an attempt to explain that the impact of Kony’s LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) movement has significantly subsided since 2006. It is said that Kony is no longer in Uganda, and that the video depicts outdated issues, perhaps even portraying an ‘irresponsible’ version of Uganda to those who know very little about the country or its history.

This is not to do down Russell’s intention to highlight the acts of an individual, or the importance of raising awareness of conflicts and tragedy in our world. But I believe it is equally important to do everything in our power to remain conscious of how we are impacted by the continual shift in the way information is disseminated.

What troubles me is the way in which our increasingly digital and viral world cannot help but enable certain messages to proliferate far above and beyond others. Russell’s original video has the backing of numerous Hollywood celebrities and was already well past the tipping point for optimum exposure before the response from Uganda made itself heard. I would imagine that nowhere near as many people will watch the prime minister’s video that urges viewers to come and see his country for themselves before assuming it is in the midst of a conflict.

An imbalance of information has always existed in our world, be it in the form of biased reporting, or paid-for content – but the digital revolution has severely magnified the potential for a snowball effect. Once a video or a tweet goes viral, there is no reining it in. Powerful – undoubtedly. Dangerous – possibly.

In the last couple of weeks you may have seen the picture of an adult carrying a bloodied child that went viral after the tweeter claimed it was the result of recent conflict. Only after thousands of others had retweeted it in outrage, did someone point out that it was a Reuters picture from six years ago.

The same image provoked similar angst when it was published back then – despite the fact that it was incorrectly portrayed. Reuters was forced to print a retraction at the time, stating that the child was in fact injured in an accident that had nothing to do with the conflict. The retraction had relatively little impact.

I honestly believe that the damage that can be done to the reputations of individuals, nations and governments cannot be underestimated, particularly when the average person retweeting has very little connection to, or knowledge of, the incident, conflict, history, or region in question – and is often swayed by emotion, or the fact that when their TweetDeck stream starts getting ‘throttled’, they presume the gravity of the incident must be very real.

It is a difficult line to tread. Platforms like Twitter have undoubtedly enabled people to uncover and expose scandal and injustice, and have allowed many to have a voice who would not otherwise. It can be used effectively as a powerful and democratising tool. I am not trying to take away from that. And seeing as how the UK is in the midst of a media inquiry, I am not about to imply that any one of form of media is to be trusted any more than another.

I am simply asking that we persist down the sometimes difficult path of seeking out and supporting honest reporting, which tells the whole story.

As a side point, I would like to be clear that I am not purporting to compare the nature of the two episodes I have mentioned here. (The Kony video episode is, I believe, an example of honest intent combined with complex historical, political and emotional issues. The Reuters image incident is a case of misinformation and irresponsible reporting. Even when challenged, the tweeter who helped the image to go viral refused to retract and insisted the image had been taken the day before.) But as both are recent examples of imagery that went viral, they got me thinking, and prompted me to write this post.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry for the bah humbug, but I have to get this off my chest before the end of the year!

I’m all for a digital revolution, but I’m worried that too many people in the media world are allowing it to become an excuse for shoddy workmanship.

We’ve become more interested in pushing out as much content as possible, as quickly as possible, than we are in ensuring that that content is of an acceptable enough standard to call ourselves a respected publication/organisation/you name it.

Take Stylist Magazine, which is given out on the tube on Wednesdays. Now, I have to say that I’m not really a women’s magazine kind of gal. (I’m definitely more interested in tech than I am in fashion.) Nonetheless I have often found some nice features in the weekly freesheet.

But what pains me is the number of typos, week after week. Sometimes there are half a dozen in a single issue. Why does enjoyable content have to be compromised by bad journalism? This week’s most painful one was ‘artic’, which spoiled for me what was in fact a fascinating profile of the lady who directs BBC’s Frozen Planet.

We all make the odd typo, goodness knows I have. And when they’re in print there’s nowt much you can do about it except kick yourself and be more thorough next time.

But when that print transfers to online, you’d think someone in a team of 20+ would notice it. Invariably they don’t. Does this mean that no one can spell, or that no one reads their colleagues’ articles?

This blog post is not borne out of a need to criticise others in my industry – on the contrary: I’ve gained incredible insights from fellow LinkedIn group members on everything from new additions to the digital vernacular to the best way to self-publish.

No, it’s borne out of a frustration and sadness at the fact that too many recruiters and hiring managers seem to think that those who place importance on high quality writing (or even just know how to spell) are easily replaced by people who have a high Klout score or are up on the latest trends.

We are drowning in blog posts, polls and unique app content in addition to the usual news and features – and there is seemingly no time to ensure it is all properly proofread, let alone reads well.

Before you start thinking it’s unreasonable of me to write an entire blog post off the back of a misspelling of ‘arctic’, let me leave you with the horrors of this page, which has more than ten errors in the names of famous authors and book titles.

What is perhaps most shocking is the fact that the title and author of each book is directly alongside an image of the cover, meaning that the names only had to be copied letter for letter. It is this kind of page which makes me feel justified when I use the word ‘painful’.

Here are a few to get you started.

Frankenstein

Virginia Woolf

Lewis Carroll

If I’ve been a little bit remiss in terms of blogging of late, it’s only because I’ve been keeping my head down and beavering away, trying to ensure I don’t lose my job to a robot.

You see, I was rather alarmed after reading an article in the Metro entitled ‘Rise of the robots’, about how three robots are about to replace prison guards in a South Korean jail on a month-long trial.

While this may be a sign that I need to stick to reading books on the tube, it may also be a sign of things to come.

Boris has already promised driver-less trains in London. And while I can see the benefits – certainly in terms of lack of industrial action if nothing else (although, if these train-driver robots have feelings maybe they strike too?) – it does make me wonder what tasks will be left for us inferior humans to perform.

Let’s face it, as much as we don’t like to admit it, we are fallible. And while humans can undoubtedly offer a significant personable dimension that robots will never match, in certain jobs machines can offer attractive advantages.

Take these prison guards, part of a robotics industry in which South Korea has invested eight years’ research and nearly half a billion pounds. They have cameras and sensors which alert them to unusual changes in behaviour, which could tip them off to the possibility of violence or suicide.

They can also offer the prisoners ‘face time’ with human prison guards. This could presumably increase the attention given to each inmate, since the human guards can operate from a fixed office rather than having to trek to each individual cell.

The move towards robotics is already a reality in certain areas of medicine, a natural step in a world where human error can prove fatal. And according to the article, Japan has already unveiled a prototype of a robotic guide dog, complete with 3D sensing peripheral cameras.

It all sounds very exciting – particularly if you live in one of the countries at the forefront of this type of development. The opportunities for new types of degrees, jobs and research are phenomenal.

But what about those of us in countries where research is not so well funded? Without the opportunity to be part of a growing technology industry, it’s the industrial revolution all over again – only we miss out on the industry and are just hit by the revolution.

Quick, there’s a robot editor coming. Better get back to work.

Image: copyright Robbie Sproule

According to new research, those of us on Facebook can now enjoy an average of 4.74 degrees of Kevin Bacon between us and the next Facebook user. But what does that really mean?

Given that many of us are ‘friends’ with people we barely know, a narrowing of the degrees of separation doesn’t necessarily indicate that we could make use of the connections to get a speedier introduction. And it certianly doesn’t mean the world is getting smaller.

When psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted his original experiment in 1967, the pool of participants was admittedly a lot smaller – 296 compared to 721 million Facebook users, more than a tenth of the world’s population.

But making the connections was a lot more of a challenge. Milgram’s participants had to send postcards through friends and friends of friends, to reach a particular person in Boston. They needed to know individuals’ addresses, which meant they were real contacts with whom they shared enough of a relationship to know where they lived.

What’s more, the Facebook research was done by algorithmic investigation – the Facebook users didn’t even know it was happening. In Milgram’s experiment, the recipient needed to care enough about his relationship with the sender to keep the chain going. Imagine this type of experiment transplanted into the Facebook scenario:

‘Joe Bloggs has invited you to send a message to a friend.’ A total of 38.2 million people respond saying ‘maybe’, while the other 682.8 million have yet to reply.

When you stop and think about it, it’s actually pretty amazing that in 1967 the degrees of separation were only six, and that the gap between six and the Facebook iteration of 4.74 is relatively small.

It’s a statistic which is nice to know, and one which I’m surprised no one thought of calculating sooner. But in an era where governments and police are using Facebook to catch criminals, I’m not sure what it says that for every bad guy using the networking site, I could have a friend who is friends with their friend. (Sorry, I mean ‘friend’.) I don’t think it really carries much meaning.

Personally I think we have come full circle. In the over-connected times that we live in, it’s great to find new connections online, but it’s the relationships that you care enough about to continue offline that really matter.

Do you agree? Answers on a postcard please.

Image: Copyright Paul Knittel

This week’s storm in a social media teacup went something like this:

1. Salman Rushdie has his Facebook account deleted. Presumably over concerns it was a fake.

2. He sends Zuckerberg et al his passport. To prove he really is who he says he is.

3. Facebook reinstates his account as Ahmed Rushdie. (That’s his actual first name, Salman is his middle name.)

4. Rushdie takes to Twitter to garner support for his cause. But at least he does it with good humour – gently mocking Facebook and offering examples of other famous people who do not go by their first names, such as John ‘Edgar’ Hoover, James ‘Paul’ McCartney and Francis ‘Scott’ Fitzgerald.

5. He succeds in getting his original account reinstated.

Leaving aside the fact that being famous seems to be the best way to get Facebook’s attention, this provoked quite a bit of debate about what rights account holders have to use the name they choose, or indeed if they have any rights at all.

I particularly like this comment on the Mashable article (from ‘UntoldEnt’) which I think hits the nail on the head:

‘denied him the right to use “Salman” as his first name’ ? This is Facebook we’re talking about, not a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s a corporation, not a country. What “right” could you possibly have to anything on a social media site? “Privilege” would have been a far better choice of words.

Of course, some commenters were outraged by this idea of a social network being a ‘privilege’, or at the very least, customer service being a ‘privilege’. You can read the rest of the discussion here.

But is it that outrageous? As ‘UntoldEnt’ points out, Facebook is a corporation, and we as the users are at the mercy of whatever continuously-changing terms and conditions they concoct. It’s very nice that Twitter has the ‘verified’ account option, but if they decided to stop allowing that one day, that would be up to them. Let’s not be under the illusion that we have any say in how they adapt their services.

We use these networks of our own volition and we have the power to stop using them any time if we are unhappy with the service they provide. (Sometimes I think people forget that.)

More importantly, Internet users should remember that unless they host their own content, then they don’t really own any of the things they share online and shouldn’t expect it to have free reign over what happens to their content. Even when you host your own site you are to an extent at the mercy of your web hosting provider – sites can go down, things happen.

And hosting your own website is all very well, but existing platforms can’t be ignored, especially when all your customers are using them. The tricky question is, how do you build a successful online presence when you’re so at the mercy of other organisations? Of course Rushdie only wants to be known as Salman. He has built that as his brand and no one would know him as Ahmed. Lucky for him, he’s famous enough to cause a stir.

The rest of us have to rely on the democratising nature of the online world and hope that enough other people will shout loudly enough alongside us to help our cause. I’m not really sure there’s any other back-up plan. If you know of one, I’d love to hear it.

Image: copyright Joelk75

I was following an interesting debate between @OliviaHill77 @KatieColbourne @ThePaulSutton and @FelixHemsley yesterday about whether individuals representing an organisation should post blog comments as themselves or ‘as’ their organisation.

Two key considerations arose: On the one hand, you want to be personal and encourage others to engage with you and your brand. As @ThePaulSutton put it, you want your communications team to have a face.

On the other hand, there could be a risk involved in allowing individuals to speak on a brand’s behalf. @FelixHemsley pointed out that not all employees would be equipped to respond to a sensitve situation. Using an established brand voice and following a set social media protocol would offer a straightforward way of responding.

Context depending, these two aspects needn’t be conflicting. Ultimately we agreed with @KatieColbourne that the right people need to be ready to respond as ‘the brand’ in the event of crisis situations, such as critical blog posts. But when it comes to proactive engagement, it’s appropriate to allow individuals to do the talking and help put a face to the organisation.

This got me thinking more about where our status as an individual ends and our status as a representative of an organisation begins. Can a clear line even be drawn between the two?

Even when we say in our Twitter bios that ‘these are my own opinions and not those of my employer’, could we be held ultimately responsible for saying or doing something which might reflect badly on said employer?

An Apple employee made headlines in recent weeks for being dismissed after posting negative comments about Apple products on what he thought was a private Facebook page. Unfortunately for him, a ‘friend’ printed out his comments and sent them to his boss. He later lost his employment tribunal because it was clear in Apple’s employment contract that being critical of the brand is a complete no-no in any forum.

But how far can this be taken? If someone tapes you airing a personal opinion, is that grounds for dismissal too? What if someone takes your words out of context? And what should happen in organisations where these issues are not explicitly addressed in contracts?

A Labour MP recently pointed out that cabinet minister Eric Pickles did not enter into the register of members’ interests that he was treated to a five-star dinner at the Savoy by Bell Pottinger. Pickles responded that he didn’t register the dinner because he was ‘not eating as a minister, but was eating as a private person’. The Guardian commented that this raised an intriguing metaphysical question.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press made waves this month with its social media guidelines for its journalists. If an individual’s account is used for work in any way then they must adhere to these rules at all times. Guidelines include never mentioning any political affiliation, and ensuring that if other users post content which does not adhere to the guidelines, for example on your wall, that you remove it immediately.

AP also asks that staff qualify all retweets to ensure it doesn’t appear that they are endorsing something by simply retweeting material in its original form. Crucially, they suggested separating the ‘RT’ from the account holders’ name, which seems odd (not to mention difficult if the tweet is long). Instead of

RT@jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools

they suggest

RT Jones campaign now denouncing smith on education: @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools

Have a quick look through the guidelines for more details.

It’s great that organisations are getting on board with producing social media policies, but something like this retweet example gives the impression that those compiling the guidelines do not always properly research the functionality of each network.

One final thought: should we feel put out at the curtailing of our individuality, or do we need to be conscious of the fact that unless we work for ourselves, we always represent something or someone else?

There has been a lot of buzz about Google rolling out Google+ Pages – a chance for organisations to create pages to engage with their fans the way they do on Facebook.

Certain big brands have already been allowed to set up their profiles, see Pepsi, The Wall Street Journal, Angry Birds and Toyota for examples. And Google have also created Direct Connect, an easy way to search for your favourite brand. Simply type + and then the brand name into Google and their page will come up, if they have one. (This is currently only available for certain brands, apparently.)

But will it really revolutionise the way brands engage with their stakeholders, or is it just another platform which will have organisations rushing to claim their real estate and divert their resources?

On the one hand Google+ can’t be ignored – it has amassed 40 million users in a few short months – a figure which took Facebook a number of years to reach.

On the other hand, Steve Yegge, one of Google’s own engineers criticised the platformwhen it was launched, calling it a ‘pathetic afterthought’ and describing it as a ‘knee jerk’ reaction, implying that others were better at building platforms. See his comments here and here.

A key feature of Google+ is the way in which it allows users to share different posts with different contacts. Some messages can be sent privately to certain ‘circles’, eg ‘work’, ‘family’ or ‘friends’, while other posts can be made public for all to see. This could be useful for organisations who may want to tailor their communications to different demographics within their fan base.

But it’s also dangerous territory for anyone with a reputation to protect – proven by Yegge himself, whose rant was presumably intended for a select circle, but was inadvertently published as a ‘public’ post on the very platform he was criticising.

In the end, we have to trust that individual organisations will do their research and decide whether each new platform is the right place to connect with their customers. I’m always reminded of new media analyst Brian Solis describing how one client came to him and said, ‘We want to get on Twitter.’ He researched their customer base and advised them that Twitter wasn’t necessarily the place for them to heavily invest their time and resources. They listened to what he had to say, but ultimately came back to him with, ‘Great, but we really feel we should be on Twitter.’

If you hear Brian tell this story in his inimitable way, it has the capacity both to entertain and make you want to bury your head in your hands.

For those that are interested, here’s the update about what to expect from Google+ Pages.

It will be interesting to see which organisations find success on yet another platform. Are too many brands too quick to chase the next big shiny thing?

There has been so much debate (and dare I say diatribing) about influence scores lately that I thought it was worth further exploration.

I was at the fourth #dellb2b huddle last week, where a talk about influence provoked plenty of debate. For me, the most interesting point for further consideration centred on what actually defines influence, in an online realm or otherwise.

Is it the number of people that hang on to your every word? Is it specialist knowledge (or perceived knowledge) about a particular subject? Is it how readily you share your knowledge? Or is it your ability to engage with others by sharing their content and ideas and making introductions – namely, your generosity?

For those of you who know a little about the different influence ranking software available, you may know that the likes of #Klout, #Kred and #PeerIndex give different weight to these areas – which is exactly what can cause one individual’s score to be so different across a variety of platforms.

I don’t want to focus too much on these platforms – plenty has been written about them! Instead I want to consider something I overhead during the break after the talk about influence had finished.

One delegate theorised that if someone like Jesus were to arrive on earth and decide to join Twitter, whatever he had to say would immediately be influential, despite his influence score being zero. In other words, trying to ascertain influence based purely on online activity does not take into account the obvious fact that who we are online is an extension of who we are offline. (I should disclaim here that I am not proffering any kind of religious doctrine, merely reflecting on what I overheard!)

But another delegate responded: ‘Ah, but I would have to know that he was on Twitter to see his first tweet.’ A fair point, one might think. This perhaps highlights a deeper issue. When we talk about influence in a social networking framework, we are not really talking about influence in the real-world sense of the definition at all.

We mustn’t forget that we are actually talking about an individual’s ability to utilise a network’s functionality to its full potential – and market themselves successfully enough – to amplify what nonetheless may be genuine knowledge or generosity that lies behind the avatar.

While Jesus doesn’t yet have Twitter users hanging on to his every word, he might certainly be considered knowledgable about specific topic areas – more so than someone who has scored highly on this just because they have a headstart over him on Twitter.

This distinction might not seem important to the individual user, but it is exactly what would cause a brand to approach an unknown-in-the-real-world top mummy blogger to test their product, over the already-highly-respected-celebrity who has only just joined Twitter. Sure, once word has got out that said celebrity is tweeting, then send them your product by all means. But probably not before. The person who has taken the time to build a community around what he has to offer will win in the end.

I feel another blog post brewing on: ‘What comes first: influence or community?’ Recent experiences have led me to ask myself this question and I’ve seen some interesting results. Watch this space.

If you have the energy to dive into what seems to be quite a hot topic at the moment, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Image: Kirsty Hall

Azeem Azhar from #PeerIndex kicked off the pre-lunch session at #dellb2b talking about influence marketing (to an extent, synonymous with blogger outreach).

Back in the day there were only a handful of influencers, he says. They were the organisations who would wine and dine journalists and they were at the top end of a very steep influence curve.

Then came blogger outreach – organisations would offer products/services and get influencers to test them out/rate them/plug them. There were a lot of people in the ‘magic middle’ of the curve – people who may not have had such huge influence as big brands but do have influence within their industry or community, and can therefore amplify an organisation’s message.

Now because of the explosion of platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s not just about reaching out to a handful of top bloggers in the Bay Area, it’s about finding people who are influential in their country, their region, their topic. Influence is moving away from just reaching 10 or 20 bloggers, to reaching 500 or 1,000 influencers in the magic middle of the curve.

Interestingly, nobody in the room believed that it is possible to put a score on influence – despite almost everyone in the room admiting to having either a PeerIndex or Klout profile – and knowing their current score.

Azeem proposed the question: what is the meaning behind a single score, and how can you apply it? He argues that a score does have some application, for example in a crowd situation. If we were to look at the scores of all the people in the room, we could see roughly how influential they are as a group. But can it be any more useful than that?

Azeem argues that what is more useful than your overall score is your influence of engagement within topic communities: how well do you respond on a particular topic? This is how #PeerIndex break down their scores.

Andrew Grill from #Kred explained that their scores are divided not just by influence but by generosity. Criticism of Klout, for example, is that if you don’t engage for a while your score goes down. With #Kred, the generosity score is cumulative, building up over time. To an extent, the influence number shows ‘noise’ level, but generosity score shows how much you engage and share, and you can’t really fake this. It means people can’t just game the system by being ‘noisy’.

A bigger question raised during the debate was: What is the definition of influence? I’m not sure we reached a consensus so comments below please!!

Andrew pointed out that the narcissism of social media is to some extent only reflective of the ways of the world: people with bigger salaries are seen to have bigger klout. Whether or not that’s right is another matter.

Perhaps the more important question that was asked was about what the real world application of these scores are. Azeem argues that brands need to see influence within topic areas to judge influencers’ threat to their brand. Someone who is seen as influential in a particular area might need to be wooed by that brand. But is that good customer service? What about the other 90 per cent of the customers?

A lot of issues to consider here, in what is clearly a thorny issue. Just the mention of Klout was enough to get some heckles up! Please feel free to add your thoughts below.

Thanks to @jangles and @kerryatdell for organising the event, and @benjaminellis for the photos.

Today I’m at the fourth #dellb2b huddle. @LeeBryant from Headshift kicked off with a lot of food for thought about bringing organisations into the 21st century.

Importantly, he pointed out that organisations adopting social media shouldn’t just be aiming for a better version of ‘business as usual’. Rather, they should be trying to define the contours of what being a 21st century organisation looks like.

He believes that five key trends are going to emerge:

1. Mobile will continue to grow. But it’s not just about having the latest devices, it’s about the expectation of ubiquity, our need to be connected all the time and have a personal service at our fingertips.

2. Cloud computing as a utility. Everything you need should be a couple of clicks away. Not lots of red tape and hundreds of thousands of dollars away.

3. Consumerisation. Experience beats features. Nicely designed websites are lovely and welcoming, but they’re narcissistic and the people creating them are living in the stone age. (Lee’s words!) We need to pursue a better user experience.

4. Big data and social analytics. Taking large data and mining it will help find the needle in the haystack – the ability to engage with a customer in near real time. We should be able to identify an individual’s problem and respond.

5. Social on the inside not just the outside. Monitoring what people are saying about you is a start, but we need to be engaging right from the very heart of the business, with staff, suppliers as well. Otherwise it’s just be like hanging decorations on the wall – it looks pretty, it’s there for Christmas, but inside nothing has really changed.

Another intersting insight from Lee was about Twitter popluarising the idea of the data stream. He quoted Jeff Dachis saying that one person saying they’re eating a cheese sandwich might not be interesting, but if a million people say it, then it’s interesting because its data.

No doubt there’ll be many more insights throughout the day. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up!!

Thanks to @jangles and @kerryatdell for organising the event, and @benjaminellis for the photos.