Ian M Rountree

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Facebook’s Automated Censorship Kerfuffle

April 17, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

If you’ve been anywhere near where I’ve been over the weekend, you’ll have seen this article on Dangerous Minds about Facebook removing a photo of two men kissing.

From the article:

[…] it seems that the sight of two fully-clothed men kissing was too much for Facebook, or too much for some redacted […] who complained about it.

This is an issue a lot of networks need to face and be willing to take their place on; if a user flags an image as inappropriate on Facebook, it’s up to Facebook’s policymakers to either remove the image for the same of propriety, or leave it up and face action from the person flagging the image.

Facebook likely removed the image for reasons it will never explain – the trouble will come, however, not when it’s a picture of two men kissing, but when it’s a photograph of a couple’s wedding kiss that’s removed for inappropriate suggestive content. Or a parent giving their child a smooch.

This doesn’t just apply to Facebook – all information-storing networks suffer the same trouble. Offending a loud minority with anything means normative action by the network. It’s the only way to go.

Without this, there are two options;

  • an incredibly strict EULA forcing people to acknowledge that they can’t do anything about things that offend them other than leave the network, or
  • zero memory on the site itself, to go along with the lack of moderation; this way lies 4chan.

Not every network can handle either kind of strain on it’s social contract, because online networks need to remain an extension of real networks. The unfortunate problem is that, while free speech exists as law in the United States, almost all social networks are now (or have the potential to be) global, and need to allow for the strictest common denominator.

We’re going to see more of this kind of thing in the future, and we’d best be ready for it. More than any other governing force in our lives, our social networks are the best equipped to dole out equality as a commodity; even equality of objection to things we consider of no consequence.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

Make sure you read the full article on Dangerous Minds.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: commentary, Facebook, follow-the-linker, networks, politics, social-networks

Consistency is King

March 18, 2011 by Ian 12 Comments

labyrinthine circuit board lines

It’s easy to write one awesome post on your blog.

It’s easy to spend five hours doing research, creating relevance where none existed before. It’s easy, relatively, getting an interview done with your hero.

It’s easy to write ten awesome posts on your blog.

What you can do once, you can do again, right?

What’s hard is writing ten awesome blog posts, in a row, on a schedule, and following that with ten more posts, on the same schedule.

That’s hard.

When you know how to create content, creating content becomes the easy part.

Whenever people say content is king, I feel the inexplicable urge to giggle like a school kid. Content, as king, is dead. Long live the new king, consistency.

Being on time, every time, takes a lot of practice and hard work. It means building habits you may feel challenged for building, and doing work that might not otherwise be up to your standards all in the name of hitting the almighty Publish button every time you say you’re going to. It means asking for help when you need it, and not treating failure quite the same way as you used to.

But, in the end, if you can become consistent, you’ve won.

Because, if for every ten blog posts you publish you only have one gem, publishing eleven posts is a great way to improve your changes of finding that gem.

 

Remember: Repetition is the motor of learning.

Repetition is the motor of learning.

Repetition is what?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: bloggers, blogging, business, follow-the-linker, habits, learning, references, repetition, short, work, writing

Embracing Practice and Theory in Social Marketing

January 10, 2011 by Ian 5 Comments

In a typical paroxysm of brilliant insight, Amber Naslund posted what she called “one of those pensive posts [that needs a lot of thought]” on Sunday evening. The crux of the post was how theory can play a role in such highly action-sequence oriented fields like marketing – especially social media and content marketing.

As Amber says in the post, current social media advice is largely prescriptive; How To and 3 Steps To, and so on. This is beneficial to a point, but is it all we can do to move the work forward?

From her post – Elements of Knowledge and Embracing Social Media:

And in many ways, when you’re starting something new, that’s exactly what you want. The what and the how. Some understanding of what the established and familiar rules are, some guideposts to meter your own activities and behavior, and some reassurance that you’re headed in the “right” direction, or at least one that makes sense to you.

But when it comes to comprehension, there’s more than just the instructive side of the equation. There’s also understanding.

This is an important point, and one that I think needs some more elaboration and consideration.

The Case for Theory Before Practice

If school has taught us anything, it’s that there’s a use for having domain knowledge before practice begins. Just like we teach our kids (or try to), if something’s too hot to touch, there’s an effect from touching it regardless of cautions. Learning anything early that we can apply before negative happenstance can be helpful.

There’s also the possibility for analysis-in-the-moment, for anything we have knowledge of before practice. When something beneficial comes from what we might otherwise perceive as a negative action (for example, breaking up a flame war by making an explosive remark yourself), a theoretical understanding of human motivation and debate habits can be really helpful; with a theoretical knowledge to guide us, we might understand why that explosive comment worked to diffuse the situation, and another one might have made things worse.

The ability to understand the effects our actions might have can be hugely beneficial. The question is not whether theory has a place, but whether or not it should come first.

The Case for Practice Before Theory

In the Karate Kid, when Ralph Macchio is being taught to wax cars and paint fences, he spends a lot of time being annoyed that he’s not really learning karate. His sensei, Mr Miagi, smiles and fails to explain until much later. After weeks of labour and practice, finally the lesson becomes clear; the Kid was building muscle memory for the activities relevant to his required expertise.

Of course once the purpose of the practice is explained, there’s a blossoming of understanding. Having the muscle memory for the work that needs to be done makes the actual doing of the work so much easier. All that needs to be done in each instance is decide which skill to apply in which circumstance. This makes activity of any kind highly strategic – counter follows block follows jab and so forth. Natural progression and rhythm of action becomes easily apparent, for reasons entirely different to the in-the-moment analysis that those who learn theory before practice take advantage of.

But Which Should Come First?

And should it always be that way? Matt Ridings (@techguerilla) almost immediately responded with a question about why linear thought about theory and practice were such a big deal. It’s a good question; not everyone needs the muscle memory that comes from preemptive practice, and not everyone else can apply theory to their initial exploration of a task or domain.

I think there’s a case to be made for both directions, but it’s a case that has to be made on a per-instance basis. Some of us are polymaths, able to learn a huge variety of things easily. Some of us are intuitive learners, others kinesthetic. There is a huge variety of learning style out there – and it’s on the teachers, the instructors… The sensei among us to look for the signs that a student (hello, fellow grasshopper) can benefit better from one style of teaching than they can from another.

Before we can decide which style of teaching to employ, however, we need to define our theory. That, I think, goes far beyond just deciding who learns what better in what form.

Me? I’m going to do some more study. I’ve spent the last year playing karate kid – and I know, from how the year turned out, that I need more of that. My muscle memory isn’t as strong as it should be in some areas. However, I know I can’t survive on practice alone. Part of my work this year, I think, will be building some core theories out of observations of my own habits, and tending to the things that have succeeded.

What do you think? Where are you on the scale of theory vs practice?

Image by Woodley Wonderworks.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: amber naslund, blog measurement, Blogging, blogs, follow-the-linker, internet, learning, metahuman, practice, rant-alert, social media, sociology, the-web, Theory

The Dowager Shadow

February 2, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

Forget this place for the day!

Forget everything you know about me!

In fact, forget you just read that!

Just remember to skip this post and run – don’t walk, RUN! – over to http://dowagershadow.com and see the prologue that just dropped there!

Bring your friends!

Tell your families!

Tweet it, blog it, SHARE IT LOVE IT!

Can you tell I’m excited?

Now go get excited too!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: dowager shadow, follow-the-linker, launch day, tumble-this

The Worst Attitude For Customer Service

December 30, 2009 by Ian 1 Comment

“You can’t please everybody.”

While it is possible to commit no errors and still lose sometimes, believing any variant of “can’t please everybody” instantly ruins any customer interaction you’ll ever have, because you’re leaving room for the possibility of a less than perfect experience.

I say this is the worst for customer service, because it’s not specific to any given industry. No matter who you are, in what locale or business, you have customers. Sometimes it may not feel this way – especially if you’re behind the scenes, doing IT or intra-business support, but the only thing that changes here is the terminology, not the process. Sometimes your boss is your customer; this comes back to the difference between bringing a service to market or a product. Which you’re focused on determines the terminology, but the same remains, if you leave any room for less-than-awesome, you’re leaving room for failure.

I suspect this is an area where just about every business on the planet can use some improvement. And people as well; while we want to participate in our brands more than ever, compromise is a necessity. People are, in general, more tolerant than we give them credit for, if we give them the right, valid information in a timely manner.

It takes a little practice, but consider it this way: When someone says “Thank You,” how do you respond? Do you say “You’re Welcome” because you’re happy to have helped?
Or do you respond “No Problem” and run the risk of diminishing their experience because, in effect, you’re claiming it was worth so little of your time it’s had no effect on your day?

Employing the “Can’t please everybody” defence when you’ve failed may be strict truth, but it also removes the responsibility from your own shoulders. It means you’re unwilling to do the work and find the root of the problem.

And while walking away from the right wasting efforts is sometimes a good idea, the Walk Away Now philosophy is NOT (Say it with me, N O T) intended to be employed without any effort to learn why whatever it is you’re walking away from was a bad idea at the moment anyway.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: chris brogan, customer service, follow-the-linker, for-your-boss, reaction

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