Consequences for abusing the public trust?

For me the biggest challenge I see in our efforts for dealing with the ethics of disclosure coming out of our Social Media Club Round Table on Wednesday was the matter of consequences for those individuals and organizations who betray our trust so egregiously. Edelman and Wal-Mart both abused the public’s trust in the Web’s ability to be a source for honesty with the Walmarting Across America episode, and we all suffered as a result (we being Bloggers and producers of media - journalists and communications pros alike). I was speaking with Cathy Brooks last night at the VOX Launch Party about this, and she felt that there are indeed consequences in the system of law that governs us that may offer a recourse - but I truly dislike the litigation culture we live in and don’t see that as being the fair route. She had many other important things to say on this, and I for one, am sorry she was not able to make it to our discussion.

In the Edelman matter, we know that Edelman is a leader in the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and this episode was a clear violation of their own ethics, but Shel Holtz pointed out what does that really mean? In reviewing it closely after reading Shel’s and Stowe Boyd’s post on this WOMMA’s creation of the 20 Questions, I really like a lot of what they have to say on this subject. There are clearly some smart people there that get it. In doing the research, I think that WOMMA’s original Code of Ethics were pretty good to start, and the clarity that these questions bring takes them even further. But “marketer restrain thyself” needs to have consequences when the marketer breaks the rules. So given that that a member of WOMMA has failed to answer so many of those questions in the way we would hope, now what? I suppose it is not retroactive as a community standard though it should be, but seriously, what happens when people show questionable ethical judgment? What are the consequences for abusing the public trust? Obviously the reputation of the individual and the organization is tarnished and there is conceivably a real financial loss of some form, but what consequences are faced by those who break the rules?

I am not out for blood here, far from it, I am ready to move forward. Clearly Edelman has apologized and wants to make good to ensure it never happens again (as much if not more for their own interests of course), but what compensation is due the public? In looking at this the other night in our Round Table on disclosure, that is the point at which I think we are in real need of good solutions. We are trying to figure out the right course of action for Social Media Club members around such ethics violations, but we are not the Senate, so censure seems a bit odd as a consequence. I know from my friend Todd Tweedy’s experience that WOMMA does expel/suspend members for violations of its code of ethics - in that case the entire story was false and was the subject of a correction/retraction of the charge by the reporter. Todd adds an excellent perspective with his blog post today entitled Prediction: Edelman Will Make Us Stronger in Terms of Blogging and Corporate Ethics. It would seem that WOMMA’s course of action should be clear, but there are seemingly some gray areas we don’t know about but, deserve to know clearly.

Mike Arrington suggested the other night that we simply do not link to those who have a verified ethics violation. Indeed all of this attention on the issue is actually driving up the perceived popularity and awareness of those who made the mistake. There is a great discussion going on over on the WOMMA site about disclosure, and I am curiously watching for the outcome. In that one of the big issues coming out of our discussion was a need for a well educated public in regards to media literacy (that is one of the core elements of Social Media Club), perhaps they could fund some 3rd party programs to promote media literacy and use the Walmarting Across America case as an example of things that people should not do (after all, it was not the entire Edelman organization who did this, but rather some actual people inside the company). I am not to say that the company is not ultimately to blame, but seriously - it was some human beings bad judgment that is the point of fault.

Maybe even some public service work and some genuine apologies from the people who screwed this up. As Rafe Needleman said at the Round Table the other night, (paraphrasing) “if you have a car accident, most people are unable to apologize because of the fear of litigation that may result, but if more people did apologize and show remorse, there would be a lot less litigation around accidents.” Not surprisingly, I agree with Todd Defren and am reminded of the book “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten“. Or the more advanced version that I believe is the core of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz which starts off with the most important principle of all:

“Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”

Technorati Chairman Peter Hirshberg assured me that this was his philosophy on this matter last night and everyone else I spoke with seems to feel the same thing, so should be near universal consensus here, but what do we do when people aren’t impeccable with their word? What about those gray areas that we talked about the other night?

[The audio from the Round Table will be up shortly]

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Talking About Disclosure Round Table Recap

Wow! What a great conversation tonight over at CNet’s Headquarters here in San Francisco - thanks again to Joel Sacks and Rafe Needleman for hosting us there. Unfortunately my M-Audio died again in a new and interesting way - thankfully Martin Mckeay had his trusty iRiver and we will be posting audio of the nearly two hour conversation soon. You can subscribe to the Social Media Club podcast via iTunes by searching for Social Media Club in their podcast directory.

As for the meat of the matter, it was quickly clear that the issue of disclosure is one that impacts everyone and everyone understands its importance in the broader context. When one person makes a bad decision, everyone is impacted so it is an issue that everyone wants to work on together. The mix of people was pretty good with 19 people showing up including Rafe Needleman, Mike Arrington, Tantek Celik, Joel Sacks, Greg Narain, Brian Solis, Sean Savage, Shannon Clark, Vic Podcaster, Sanford Barr, Jeremy, Daniel Riveong, Pete Kazanjy, Glenda Bautista, Matt Levine, James Yu with nearly everyone contributing some great points. (too many links to research and create this late tonight - my apologies everyone)
There were a few key points that emerged from my perspective:

• I started off the conversation talking about this era needing to embrace the 3 T’s (as opposed to the old focus on the 3 C’s) which are Transparency, Truth and Trust
• There are a lot of grey areas so absolute rules are hard to come by here, we should strive for greater understanding of best practices (which is the purpose of Social Media Club)
• Disclosure is somewhat situational in nature and will vary by geography and culture
• The biggest issue is seemingly one of media literacy amongst media consumers as much as it is an issue for those producing media
• Everyone is biased in some way, journalists are not immune as we are all human - bloggers need more appreciation of how they can be influenced
• We all get free drinks from time to time (including everyone who attended tonight) but that usually is not enough to be bought
• We need to find a great and easy to understand metaphor/story about what is ok and what is not ok
• We have more to figure out and map than one discussion could allow

Kristie Wells took some good notes of what people had to say which are available in a MindJet MindMap format as well as a PDF and also took some good photos. Personally, I am really looking forward to listening to the audio and dissecting some of the finer points of the discussion. Perhaps someone out there will take the MindMap and re-organize it according to topics rather than speakers and that will really move it forward. (you can download a free trial from MindJet or get their free MindMap viewer if you want to play with it - yes MindJet has sponsored our events in the past, but I bought the software before we had a relationship because I loved it so much)

At the end of the conversation, Mike Arrington made a proposal that:

We begin a dialogue and process that we all agree to adhere to the outcome of in regards to what is the proper, ethical way to handle disclosure - even if it is not the one I want, I will agree to abide by the group’s decision. We also need to have a meethod of resolution for challenges to ethics where the process can begin in private first so that people can not use such challenges to create controvery and generate increased page views and notoriety through baseless accusations. (paraphrased, not quoted)

So we have opened up the Social Media Club Wiki (password is ‘media’ without the quotes) to start working on a real Social Media Code of Ethics which will be adopted as the standard for the club and all members to endorse. Rafe Needleman suggested we keep our initial efforts focused, perhaps just on Technology Bloggers so we can avoid some of those muddier grey areas and I think he is probably right about that.

The entire effort is adopting the tag “blogger+ethics” (tip of the hat to Greg Narain on the added value the plus sign has here). We would like to start by tagging all relevant codes of ethics thusly and also all opinions on these matters to be collected in Blog posts tagged similarly to help us start focusing. Also, start making use of the Wiki to begin our work on this important effort.

There is a lot more to discuss here and we came up with some more interesting ideas for the Disclosr service that Social Media Club is beginning to develop. As I suspected in my post last night, this is only the beginning of a very important and high impact conversation.

Thanks to everyone for coming out. I am looking forward to continuing this conversation in DC next Monday and Boston next Thursday at the Round Tables we are holding there. I imagine it will be a part of the conversation in New York tonight as well.

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Building Social Media Club with a Healthy Dose of Adhocnium

Things are busier than ever - just since September 2006 my real email volume has more than doubled and my work load has almost trippled. I just saw my first ball drop in trying to help out a worthy organization called Well Good with an introduction to my friends at Joyent. I would like to think it is the first and the last ball to drop, but experience shows me that there will be a few more - at least until we get to the point that the BrainJams and Social Media Club organizations have a full time team keeping the balls in the air instead of myself and Kristie with the support and love of several great people.

So part of the problem is that we are in the midst of building a community without the financial resources to really support it and without the pure grass roots DNA (aka Adhocnium) that would push it forward to get all the work done. Ultimately, I know we will figure out the right balance between the light structure/minimum order required for ensuring quality and the ad-hoc DIY energy that lifts up the most powerful communities. I may be completely wrong on this point, but time will tell for sure as this model train has left the station - we can only hope there is enough track out there for us to reach our destination. We will of course adjust (indeed we already have done so) but from where I am sitting now, it is just all very overwhelming. My worry gland has been kicking into over drive this past week, but I have faith and know that everything will work out the way it should - it always has in my life and I am truly thankful for having others around me, and around the world who really believe in this vision too.

I think one of the biggest issues we face with our ‘hybrid’ model is that the people who are used to structure and order (and to a lesser degree control) look for more leadership from the top (ie, they expect us to do it all) and the people who are in the trenches with Adhocnium in their veins simply abhor any centralized leadership. I think this is because they have been soloists for so long and/or had bad experience working in big corporate structures. Well, I have been a soloist for about 10 years now (excluding the brief stint with the Treasury Department), so I understand that perspective, but see a brighter future that can come by embracing a chaordic model instead of a completely chaotic one. You must remember, it is referenced as “small pieces loosely JOINED“, not “small pieces floating in the cosmic soup”.

The real key is finding the sweet spot where chaos and order (not control) overlap - that intersection is what I have been seeking, but it does not seem that I have done that great of a job in explaining it yet. In looking at the current Web site/Blog, it is readily apparent that the “cobblers son needs a new pair of shoes” - we need to tell our story better and I will be working on that with a Blog redesign. Still, I am hoping that people like you can help to tell our story, and indeed contribute to writing it in the process. The vision of Social Media Club is not yet fully defined - it is merely a framework with a lot of ideas and the passion of a few key individuals supporting it. Ultimately, as Howard Rheingold says and I often quote, “What it is –> is up to you”. You are reading this and at this very moment you are one of the co-creators of Social Media Club - just by reading this post. Hopefully you will find a way to step up and take some actions that will move you from being a co-creator to being a co-founder. We need your help to make it real - so “help me, help you”.

Social Media Club is not supposed to be about me or any of the other people driving it forward, though we will of course leave our imprint on it - I truly want it to be about US, about those of us who really ‘get it’ - about a shared vision for making a better tomorrow through conversations and social media. Whether you are a technologist, an artist, a professional, a non profit or an employee of the largest of corporations, this is our chance to make it right.

As I have said since the beginning, Social Media Club will be the antithesis of most clubs, it will be inclusive instead of exclusive, ultimately deriving revenue from memberships, partner programs, events like our Social Media Workshop and other services still to be imagined. All the while giving back to the community by being a voice for reason, by hosting non-partisan discussions and by organizing community programs that benefit everyone - like the Web 2point2 Unconference.

Over the next month we have around 8 events we are hosting (including one I will announce tonight here in San Francisco for next Wednesday October 25 from 6-8pm) and I am speaking at 2 others. We sure could use some help picking up the slack - particularly with Web 2point2 which is what is worrying me most at the moment. It looks like a lot of people will be there and the buzz is picking up (over 80 people via Upcoming and about 20 paid registrations), but we really need more sponsors to cover the costs and really need Blog post submissions for main talk topics (tag it web22talk) and of course many volunteers to help coordinate before, during and after the event. If you have any time you might be able to contribute, please let myself or Kristie Wells know by commenting below or filling out the contact form.

So this was a little personal rant, with some insights and a request for help. What do you think? Are you ready to be a co-founder of Social Media Club?

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The Importance of Social Media

Our friend Josh Hallet (Hyku) has given me an “interesting” task in helping him lead the last discussion of the day at BlogOrlando. I say “interesting” as it tough to take on the last spot when everyone is thinking about happy hour and experiencing the “magic of the kingdom”, but the focus for this discussion is something I hold near and dear to my heart so despite the challenge, it is the perfect opportunity for me to share my thoughts around this.

According to Josh’s email:

“our session is going to be dealing with the future of social media, what are the next steps and how can we change the world type stuff…”

Hmmm…the future of Social Media, next steps [for getting there] and changing the world. Sure enough, let me just get out the crystal ball and Merlin’s favorite dish rag to polish it so I can answer that question right away. While I am at it, I will predict the next big stock market winner and President (hint, it won’t be Bush who is in New York today clogging up traffic for the UN’s general session). In all honesty, one of the great things about Social Media is that no one really knows what the next big thing is. It truly is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Still, since this is the sort of thing some folks pay me to do, I will let you in on a few of the trends that are worthy of the question.

There are four major trends I see from where I sit today:

1. Social Media will become more of a business, but will retain the power from its personal passion, unlike new media in the big dotcom boom
2. More individuals will band together in networks small and large, changing the very notion of freelancing and employment
3. The corporation will be forever changed, traditional media will adapt before dying completely and all companies will become media companies thereby shrinking the advertising pie
4. Ultimately, Social Media will be a primary catalyst in saving the world…or bringing about our demise

1 - The Business of Social Media

If you think that Social Media, as represented by blogging, podcasting and vlogging, is only a personal or social pursuit with no room for making money or corporate involvement, you are clearly still living in 2002.

I was talking with Jason Hoffman of Joyent over a few pints in London about the early days of Text Pattern and how Dean Allen originally turned his personal passion into a real business. It is a perfect example of why things are different today than before, but it is also clearly about business in the age of personal power and open, participatory networks. Dean could not have found a better partner than Jason. He is clearly one of the smartest people I have ever met in the Valley, and I have met quite a few people in my 5 years living there. I can’t do the entire story justice here (Chris Lott did), but the interesting part I want to share is the story of the VC200 - which was the 200 people who answered Dean’s call for pre-paying for a year’s worth of hosting at $199 each, giving the company enough money to get up and running without having to sell their soul to the venture capitalists.

Of course, Dean did what any smart, value minded business person would do - he took care of his customer/investors and promised them all free hosting for life if the business was successful (and a free t-shirt). That $40,000 was the beginning of a company that I personally think will be worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. This is a story about the power of an individual who gets it, and the power of many individual’s who join together in trusted networks for their collective benefit. This is the power of Social Media, and it is the power of business done right.

The problem generally is that business is often thought of as a four-letter word for many people, because so many assholes have done it wrong, for their own personal, selfish, greedy, and power hungry reasons that are not in harmony with the world around us. When the people who run a business are able to act like human beings, using the good values they hold in their hearts and minds rather than the socialization of greed we have inherited from prior generations, great things can be accomplished and everyone can be the better for it.

Even if you don’t agree with my perspective on the business of Social Media, I am sure you will agree that it puts the power of the press/satellite/antenna in the hands of everyone with access to the Internet. The democratization of media and the means of production (represented by increasing access and decreasing costs) also removes the barriers to entry into the media business. In 1999 I invested all of my life savings, and some of my grandfather’s to launch InfoApps.com, which was primarily an Internet media property akin to Engadget or Gizmodo. It was just a bit before its time and cost tens of thousands of dollars in development expenses. Today I could launch that same site on WordPress for $20 per month with half the effort and 1/100th of the initial setup time.

Today anyone with talent and creativity can build a media property out of sheer personal interest or for personal profit. Per Joe Krause’s statement in Business 2.0 last November, it is surely easier in many regards to launch, but no easier to develop it into a business. For every Chris Pirillo, Jake Luddington, Dooce, or Daily Koz, there are tens of thousands of others who toil away in relative obscurity away from the glaring spotlight of cultural popularity. If they are doing it only for the limelight, then surely these ”unpopular failures” would quit - but they aren’t doing it for that reason alone, they are doing it because they enjoy it, because it builds their reputation, because they have an opinion, an idea or a cause that is worth doing for their own personal satisfaction or for any one of another personal million or more reasons.

Over the last year, I made about $11.46 on AdSense via my blog, but some of the folks I know make in excess of $250,000 per year working less than 30 hours per week. This is not some get rich scheme, it is the power of networked media when combined with free thinking, some business sense, a great work ethic and a passion for something that is shared by others. Sure I would like to make more money doing what I love, but I am doing what I love and doing what I need to do in order to spend more time working on my passions. I am also studying, gaining insights and seeking collaborators. As you might tell from the length of this article/post, I am also seeking an editor…

Further to my point, Social Media is a playground for emerging talent and we will certainly see more and more ”stars” coming from amongst our Social Media peers in the years to come. AdSense and text ads are not enough to make most people wealthy, though some are making a living from it while others are creating mini-media-empires. As with professional sports though, there will only be so many ”one-percenters” at the top of their game. Many excel at creatively but lack the business sense required to build an audience. Those who are smart enough to realize this will either join networks like Federated Media, find the right business partners like Chris/Ponzi/Jake, join a company like Robert Scoble did with Podtech or sell their content in Social Media marketplaces such as Social Roots. [disclosure: I am an advisor to Social Roots]

If nothing else I say is true Social Media represents a training and experimentation opportunity from which amateurs, hobbyists, creative doodlers and diary keepers will emerge as professional producers of professional media. Or they will simply tuck that skill set in their virtual hats and use it within their selected careers as needed from time to time. Predicting what actually happens is impossible. As Neo says in the Matrix, “the problem is choice.” Or more accurately, the brilliant part is free will, and that is what makes it so exciting and impossible to control.

I do fervently believe that this is the era of the producer. Talent that joins together with the right producers will excel, while those who stubbornly think that they can be the proverbial ”one man band” and do it all may have some short term success but will not reach the heights of those who collaborate effectively with the right partners. This is why I propose to you that…

Freelancers Will Form Networks and Build “Fast” Companies

This is somewhat obvious with things like the original thought behind Citizen Agency (before it became the Chris and Tara consulting shop), Co-Working and the renewed enthusiasm for small startup teams, but there is something more subtle and deeper at the heart of this. Simply put, teams of people can do more together, better, than any individual can do alone. As I have banged on my drum for the last two years - in a knowledge economy, the number one driver of value is the ability of smart people from diverse backgrounds to work together.

Some of the lessons of old media will hold true for Social Media. This is most notably the content networks (ala PodShow, Gawker, Weblogsinc), the power of talent (ala Amanda Congdon and RocketBoom), the need to build an audience and the ability to produce in a really slick way. As we have seen with reality television, the hybrid of overly produced “barely based on reality” does not hold sway with people for long. The deep human desire for genuine connections with the heroes journey via Joseph Campbell will not tolerate gimmicks or fools for long. Genuine human drama, ’How To’ content, insightful commentary, truly funny comedy, emotionally charged entertainment, engaging conversations, factual news of the world and stories well told will rule the day.

While an individual alone may be able to make a few extra bucks via advertising and affiliate product sales, or by syndicating their content - they will get the most impact in terms of influence and dollars by joining networks. These can be small networks of a few friends working together, or can be the basis for new startups. Some may have the right formula and grow big organically, but most will not truly obtain their full value unless they are able to benefit from the scale of an even larger network.

This is similar to the difference between living in a rural countryside versus living in the city. Neither is necessarily good or bad on its own merits and- you can choose whichever one you like, but both are generally better if you belong to a network for support. Working freelance is somewhat like tilling the land on your own farm. You can make a living if you put your shoulder into it and can find a market for what you have to offer, but there are a lot more things required of you to be successful. In this analogy, working on a team is like living in a city where you have more of the basic resources required for success provided for you. This is one of the reasons I have come to believe that co-working is quite possibly a transition for many people back into companies.

The key difference being that the companies created out of it will not be companies based on command and control hierarchies, but instead will be chaordic in nature. The purpose of the organization will be clear to those within it and everyone will be a leader from time to time. However, it will still require a visionary thinker, a finance wiz and an operational expert at the helm for maximum success as Tom Peters proposes in his concept of the “Golden Leadership Triangle”. It will also be a values driven organization that may make a reasonable profit or a huge one (in line with the value created) but will most assuredly be socially responsible and focused on people.

This is exactly the sort of world envisioned by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor when they formed Fast Company. Only now, we have all the lessons of irrational exuberance, the further democratization of the means of production, the knowledge economy rather than the information economy and a more wide spread desire for change in the face of looming world wide conflict.

An Interlude - a Point Skipped (for now)

At this point in the story, I should be talking about point three, how the corporation will be forever changed by Social Media, but at word 2004 of this post, let’s leave that for another post and talk about the important societal concern we are facing. You should know I am generally not an alarmist by nature. In fact, I generally forgo confrontation in favor of conversation, but if I don’t stand for this, I stand for nothing.

For the last year I have been pursuing BrainJams, Social Media Club and supporting other similarly inspired ideas from others (like NetSquared and BarCamp) because I am an optimist who believes we can change. That was the reason I wrote The Noble Pursuit. That is the reason I was trying to get funding for Insytes. Yes, I hope to achieve a certain bit of fame and fortune too, but this is all really about me finding my purpose for living and it has little to do with either, though it may be a byproduct of the activities. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, none of it was completely clear to me until this past weekend in London. I suppose it only makes sense since this is where the original idea for Insytes and the situational knowledgebase from The Noble Pursuit became clear in 2002.

On Saturday I was leaving the British Museum with Jason Hoffman and I happened to mention that both my mother and father had Cerebral Palsy and I felt like kind of a blessed miracle child. To this, he replied something along the lines of ”well you better do something big with your life then”. Of course, I have always felt this since I was small, but I have not been connected with that reality fully, particularly in the way I have chosen to live my life on occasion by avoiding certain confrontations. Then on Sunday, when I was visiting Mark Adams at his country home, he asked me ”Why are you really doing this? What do you hope to see happen as a result of your work today?”

Wow. A powerful question right up there with a Tim Taylor sort of reflection, which is not surprising given how sharp Mark is. What was surprising was how clear the answer was. After pausing for a few seconds, I said ”well, the world is kind of at a point in time where we get to choose whether we are all in this together or we are in it alone. I hope to be a catalyst to ensure we survive as a human race instead of destroying ourselves through intolerance, greed and closed mindedness.”

Social Media Can Save the World

Social Media is the way forward and if it is spread around the world imbued with the right values, it can be the means for fixing what’s broken in the world and bringing us together instead of continuing to keeping us apart. Tom Munnecke promotes this concept through the Uplift Academy, it is a way to identify what is working in the world and ensure we do more of it by amplifying that understanding across our social networks around the world.

Unfortunately, as we know all too well, the same tools we choose to use for bringing us together as the human race are also used to keep us apart. Al Qaeda not only uses the Internet to secretly coordinate their activities using encryption technology, but also to spread their message of hate. As we use the tools to spread the message of hope, they use it to spread fear and hate of everyone who is not like them - the supposed non-believers. Of course, the conservatives in the United States are also using these and other media tools to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans in the ideological war.

Unfortunately, for most of society fear is still a bigger motivation than pleasure and there are many who are more easily swayed by the politics of fear. This is not to say that there is not a real threat and something to be afraid of, as there clearly is something to be aware of, and the enemies to our way of life are many which may indeed require us to take up arms in order to make the world a better place. It is simply my hope that we can all get smarter about using Social Media and work hard at organizing ourselves as Paramedia rather than paramilitaries.

Of course the most important thing to remember is that we must start with small actions and small victories. We need not inspire 100,000 people to see things this way with one blog post, we just need to reach one person to begin to make the world a better place. We need to realize that we will not affect any change unless we release our fears of failure and our dreams of grandeur and seize upon the present moment with its unique opportunity to perhaps reach just one other person with our words, our voice, our song, our art or our story.

To quote an old saying, ”If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”

Clearly the time is now, we need not rely on our current systems to show us how, we need only to look within ourselves and find our personal power and apply it to our personal passions, to stand up for what we believe is right, to say it out loud through our blogs, our podcasts, our vlogs or our conversations with others. But like the powerful force of the river, we must be yielding when we see that it will not move and go around it, wearing it down with persistence over time.

The future of Social Media is the future of the world . The final chapter is not yet written, but this chapter in our history is nearing its end. Thankfully, it is more like a Wiki document than a dictated memo.

So what is your contribution?

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