Archive for March, 2012
Worth Reading, Mar 26, 2012
- Employers, Facebook and Privacy: There’s been a swirl of activity after an AP article last week discussed the growing trend of employers asking potential employees for their Facebook passwords or to log in during job interviews. An individual quoted in the article, who discontinued a job application process with one firm after being asked for his password, said, “I think asking for account login credentials is regressive,” he said. “If you need to put food on the table for your three kids, you can’t afford to stand up for your belief.” Other entities with clout agree. Facebook came out with a statement at the end of last week siding with job applicants and warning employers that they are in violation of Facebook’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities (and potentially open themselves up to “unanticipated legal liability”) if asking applicants for this private information. “As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job,” Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer, Policy at Facebook said in the statement. Over the weekend, two U.S. senators asked Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the matter as well. On his blog, Jeremiah Owyang offers an alternate solution for companies: educate and train employees on social media use and issues instead.
- Altimeter Digital Influence Report: The Altimeter Group published its latest research report last week, this one on “The Rise of Digital Influence: A ‘how-to’ guide for businesses to spark desirable effects and outcomes through social media influence,” by lead author Brian Solis. An interesting report on defining, measuring and applying influence in social media.
- Twitter, Hashtags and Elections: Speaking of influence, a piece on Talking Points Memo discusses why hashtags on Twitter are a poor predictor of election results. As the Nieman Journalism Lab put it in republishing the piece, “prominence on Twitter doesn’t necessarily turn into prominence at the ballot box.”
- Red Cross Social Media Center for Disaster Response: This news is now a couple weeks old, but the American Red Cross opened a “digital operations center and digital volunteer program” earlier in March, with help and support from Dell. The program aims to “to coordinate response efforts during disasters.” It’s an evolving approach to using technology and volunteers together to improve disaster response capabilities.
Worth Reading, Mar 19, 2012
- Pew State of the News Media: The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released the newest, 9th edition of its “State of the News Media” yearly report. Beyond the overview, Key Findings and Trends, there’s lots more detailed information in breakdown reports by platform/venue.
- Dharun Ravi Trial: The former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi was convicted of 15 charges related to the webcam spying of his roommate Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide in 2010. danah boyd has a thoughtful piece, “Reflecting on Dharun Ravi’s conviction,” looking at some of the implications of social media, privacy and bullying the case presented.
- Mike Daisey and This American Life: We mentioned in an earlier blog post a recommendation to listen to Mike Daisey’s show excerpt about Apple’s manufacturing that aired earlier this year on This American Life. This weekend, This American Life retracted the show after discovering the show contained “numerous fabrications” and aired an hour-long piece about the retraction. On his blog, Mike Daisey said in a statement that he stands behind his work, and “What I do is not journalism.”
- CEOs and Social Media: This survey from BRANDfog looked at the use of social media by CEOs and the impact that use had on trust and reputation: “2012 CEO, Social Media and Leadership Survey.” The results: “The survey results demonstrate that executive engagement in social media raises the brand profile and instills confidence in a company’s leadership team. It builds greater trust, brand loyalty and purchase intent. Respondents overwhelmingly confirmed their belief that C-Suite executives who engage in social media are better equipped to lead a company, communicate values and shape a company’s reputation in today’s changing world. “
- Twitter and Credibility: Academic research from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon in the report “Tweeting is Believing? Understanding Microblog Credibility Perceptions” looked at credibility factors on Twitter. In short, good grammar matters. (But other factors do too, such as the image you use, your following/follower ratio and more.)
Worth Reading, Mar 12, 2012
- Kony 2012: The release of a new film and campaign from a nonprofit called Invisible Children to “Stop Joseph Kony in 2012″ generated widespread interaction and discussion online this past week. While there were significant levels of engagement around the campaign, there were also many pointed critiques of the organization and its methods. Good critical analysis from Michael Wilkerson at Foreign Policy and Ethan Zuckerman on his blog, a Storify summary of a range of responses last week, as well as official responses from Invisible Children here and here (video).
- On Story: We talk often with clients about storytelling in various settings, so this new TED talk on storytelling from the writer/filmmaker behind Toy Story and WALL-E caught our eye. (And as in some great storytelling traditions, some of the language in the video may not be safe for work.)
- SXSW Interactive: Thousands of people are currently in Austin, TX for one of the biggest tech and social media conferences of the year – SXSW Interactive. While the conference is still ongoing and next week’s review here should include some of the inevitable reviews/summaries/critiques of this year’s event, one controversial story to come out so far is the use of the homeless as mobile hotspots.
- Employees and Social Media: Shel Holtz uses a persuasive recent example to illustrate the power of internal employee social media engagement in his post, “Training employees on social media improves engagement, boosts company reputation.”
Worth Reading, Mar 5, 2012
- View from the 23rd Floor by Laurel Hart
At least so far, March is acting more lamb than lion here in New York City, but we’ll see what the rest of the month brings.
- WikiLeaks: The first of a new set of emails obtained by WikiLeaks was released last week, with additional analysis from news organizations expected in the coming weeks.
- Boycotts, Reputation and Bottom Line: With boycotts a recurring topic, this research from last fall caught our eye this past week: professor Brayden King at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University showed that “the stock price of a targeted company dropped nearly 1 percent for each day of national print media coverage.” In addition, he found that “even if consumer behavior was unchanged by a boycott, a company’s stock price and reputation were not.” In addition, “25 percent [of boycotts generated] a concession from the target company.”
- Limbaugh and Apology: There were ample examples of apologies and corporate statements surrounding the Limbaugh controversy this past week, including from Limbaugh himself, and former advertisers Carbonite, ProFlowers, Citrix, and others.
- Facebook Assessment Tool: We’re fans of the US Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment, a helpful tool in evaluating online content, and were pleased to see this new Facebook assessment worksheet and checklist from the US Navy on evaluating strategy, administration, content, measurement and more, on David Rosen’s blog.
- Newspapers and New Business Models: Newly released research from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found “for every $1 gained in digital, $7 are lost in print revenue,” highlighting the challenges many newspapers face in implementing new business models today.