Clients I work with are often in the same boat, especially when I work with executives who need to maintain a “face of the company” and a personal life as an executive.

I personally believe we all have the right to have our own relationships, to make personal decisions on how we mix our ideas, ethics, morals, and relationships into our conversations.

The problem with this is that we no longer have singular conversations; we now have mutated conversations that possibly stem from thousands of conversations that happened before them.

With Facebook and Google collecting mixing together everyone you know, you suddenly have an influx of viewpoints from different groups. The core problem is that all of these people don’t have the same backgrounds and beliefs, nor do the have the relationship in place to balance singular statements that may seem simply seem inappropriate, or even appear racist, sexist, or “off the deep end” extremist.

Most of us would like to live in a world that is devoid of prejudice and negative assumptions, but the simple fact is that people online have only a few seconds to perceive who you are… and only a fraction of a second to make an observation about who is in your network.

Imagine this problem and the crisis points it really causes.

Social Network Management 101

Visit your Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter account.

Take the first ten people in your network and temporarily “forget” everything you know about them.

Spend five seconds look at them in the digital network.

With only the information you can get in a quick overview, rate them from one to ten.

• One: completely inappropriate, multiple issues that make you wince.
• Ten: this person looks great, they have everything in order and you’d like a hundred of them in your network.

Now go back and do the same process ON THE SAME TEN PEOPLE.

This time we are going to do some role play. Imagine you have a different background or belief system. Think about a few stereotypes (while not accurate, stereotypes will help you think a little outside your comfort zone.)

If you are thinking about this simply from a professional perspective, think about the five to ten types of people you typically do business with.

If you go through this test in full vigor, you will most likely see that several of the people you rated as a 9 or 10 are potentially ones that the stereotypes rating as a 1 or 2.

In this test, we did this with with unconditional bias: while I can tell you to try and forget about your relationships with your network and grade them using stereotypes you cannot truly reach the same mindset (unless you are a single unemployed mother or a Fortune 500 executive- you can’t accurately gauge how severe the assumptions you make are.)

This is the core problem of mixing social networks. To properly do this test and understand the conversation around it you can  invite two or three people you know to review your top network profiles and rate your networks from one to ten. It works best if you have people from entirely different perspectives involved. If they rate someone on either end of the scale ask them to write a one sentence reason as to why they gave the rating. (“This guy earned a 1 because he looks like a fool in his profile photo”)

Don’t get ruffled. Don’t get defensive.

The purpose of this test is not to defend your network, but to understand the perception people have of your network. Saying someone looks like a fool in a profile photo is neither negative or positive, it is simply a perception and assumption they have (in other words: take your emotion out of this test and just think about the metrics of other people’s observations.)

Help others help you.

This while process revolves around visualizing information and understanding what assumptions are made in the digital context. As you understand some of the elements that cause concern, you can strategically make the decision to make tactical changes to your personal brand.

When you go through this process to perform social network management, keep in mind how people within your network appear. In many cases you may find that a person with a low rating may simply need to do a little “virtual housekeeping” to greatly improve how they look online. If you can help them understand how the perception of the network affects how people view them online, you can build a stronger relationship for yourself by helping them understand the relationships they have.

From my perspective the interesting issue is that there are companies out there “ruining” reputation in the name reputation management, yet individuals using the service and investors of these firms have no idea what the long term personal, business, legal, moral, or ethical ramifications will be. Our digital identity is being cultivated, harvested, and stolen without even thinking about it.

Yet the regulation in this space is completely non-existent.

The net result is that you have snake-oil salesmen saying they can fix your credit score or even cure cancer (both of these actions are deemed illegal), yet the digital version of this credit score fix (an online reputation problem) is completely left unchecked.

The worse part of this problem is that victims of reputation problems usually have privacy issues or skeletons they don’t want to talk about. They don’t want to admit that they blew thousands of dollars on snake oil cures and had zero results… and they don’t want anyone they know to discover they have some painful reputational issue.

If you have a reputation problem: make sure you educate yourself by reading AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE. You can find multiple articles here on my blog about reputation management that detail a lot of expert advice that many companies charge thousands for, or if you don’t have patience for reading.

If you are an investor looking at one of these start-ups I have two words for you: DUE DILIGENCE. Hire an expert to review the company before you cut a check. You can read my opinion on ethics of reputation management or how online  background checks impact modern business models.

Aside from personal gossip and business rumor, the topic of reputation management is one of the biggest areas of opportunity and risk. It is a topic that  have been very involved with over the past decade: working on roughly a dozen or so projects revolving around reputation and personal name (it also included working on several personal projects examining niches of the more general problem.)

In my last two articles covering background checks and online privacy, I was voicing some of my observations about the critical nature of this beast we call the web.

Information has been unleashed upon us: slowly changing the way we interact and communicate with each other. Our first impressions have been modified, orchestrated, manipulated, and monetized by hundreds of different business models where the common person has NO IDEA that they are being profited from.

Back in January I wrote Online Reputation Score or Credit Fiasco. This was a key article for some financial readers who controlled the business world and understood spreadsheets more than social networks, a brief analogy that helped them think about this massive swell of new “credit information.”   Six month later the message is still bouncing off so many professionals: people who are looking for work, professionals trying to keep business strong, and everyone in-between.

As a resource to people in my network, I collected a variety of how-to and one page guides into my reputation toolbox, which includes some simple printable guide to Twitter, Google Alerts, and search tools.

I hope you take the time to read through these articles and resources, forward them to friends and colleagues, and take responsibility for your own future.

If you don’t, some greedy credit company will.

In some cases we go through great lengths to create separation between our personal or public lives, even creating multiple silos within our personal and professional lives to create harmony and goodwill in our conversation.

Using myself as a personal example: I am the person who can have almost any conversation on almost any topic. I have a thick skin that is supported by a multi-faceted personality with humor, morality, and respect at its core. I have had the benefit of dealing with life and death crisis situations, personal tragedy, and industry changing business problems. With that said, I can talk to almost anyone on any subject.I know when to admit to things I do not know, and when to ask the hard questions.

The social media world creates a strange track history of my interactions with these conversations. I have a personal poetry site that doesn’t have a thing to do with my business life, and like every other person: my friends have a myriad of personal beliefs ranging from extreme religion to activism.

With such a varied personal and professional background, the web audience at large could dig into any particular silo and eventually find something they do not agree with… but they can also see a breadth of experience.

Social Business Models 100

Like everyone else, I have a family and friends. For the most part I have made a conscious effort to keep these two groups separate, but I also carefully make introductions and referrals based on personal experience and my relationships.

The web attempts to strip my ability to make these connections consciously, instead running me through a gambit of automated introductions and “what if scenarios”

You can see examples on sites like Facebook and Linkedin where they suggest people you may know or what friends you have in common. They are attempting to replace our choice to make introductions or connections based upon the “web vampire effect” where these sites need to increase the size of the community to drive ad revenue or business goals.

The vampire effect (the need for these sites to grow and make money) requires that they leverage the invisible web of information that connects us. This information is often something we do not typically perceive as web users (it includes extra data sources: like cookies, visit duration/route, type of device, 3rd party records, etc.)

Privacy 101

With the presence of the invisible web, companies like Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Amazon, Twitter, and many news sites collect tremendous amounts of data regarding who we are and what we do. If you can imagine the problem of credit card companies selling your contact information to questionable junk mail companies in the 90’s, you can multiply this problem 100x and begin to realize the core problem.

Your data is worth something to someone.

This means that there is an inherent conflict of interest: even free sites want your data.

With 500+ million users on Facebook and with Google seeing billions of searches every month, the data that connects your social life to actions occurring in both your personal and professional lives is quickly identifiable. As employers and as employees, the data that connects our location to our actions is increasingly available with GPS enabled mobile devices.

Example 1: your company pays for a mobile device to be on your person. Does the company have the right to monitor your calls? what about the photos you take? or know where the phone unit was every minute of the day (you do realize that most modern cell phones have the ability to track where we went to lunch.)

Example 2: Speaking of lunch, what if the invisible web connected me to the people I had lunch with? If my phone and your phone are both in the same restaurant and we both friended each other on Facebook: someone would probably assume that we ate lunch together even if neither of us disclosed it.

Accuracy 102

Assumptions are running wild in the “land of Web 2.0″

Unlike criminal court hearings, most of us do not take the time to do thorough investigations of the information we have access to. If we do commit time to research, many of us make the mistake of inappropriately using free services like Google to find information that is incorrect, misunderstood, or even fraudulent.

With the nature of the web, sites like Google and Yahoo regurgitate information in a very automated fashion that is fraught with errors. These errors are magnified by the nature of the web user looking for new information and by companies trying to profit from it: companies want to claim some information, convince they have something you want, collect more information about you, and then recycle the whole information asset back into the meat grinder of Web 2.0

Example: you meet someone in real life and want to know more about them. You turn to Google and search for their name. Google presents you with ten pieces of information in an attempt to garner your interest, while selling advertising to some company attempting to sell a background report on the person to you. At this point Google has already made money (they are selling ads) and the company trying to sell the background check has two money making options: a) sell you a background check or b) collect information about you as a web user and sell that information to someone.

Discrimination 101

At what point does this digitally available information become acceptable for use?

We all have odd little portions of personal history. Whether we have a friend that has a questionable point of view or happen to have been in a photo that ended up on the web, if you dig into anyone’s past you are bound to find something that makes you raise an eyebrow.

Knowing that information found online has questionable accuracy when given little research or bad methodology, at what point do we allow ourselves to make choices about a person or business based upon the impressions we have of them via Google or some background check service?

Compliance 301
Is it ethical or even legal?

This entirely depends on who you are and what actions you take with the information you found. Sometimes asking the wrong question is illegal (for instance, an employer asking about religious or sexual preference) while other situations require that you ask a lot of questions for all the right reasons (such as an elementary school screening for legal issues or sexual predators.)

There is a passionate debate in the human resource and legal fields about hiring managers, recruiters, supervisors, and employees using digital information to make business decisions: the variety and severity of the acceptance and adoption of these questions define  a “disaster waiting to happen.”

For business professionals that are defining social media policies, I suggest you think about these words

• discrimination
• privacy
• accuracy
• compliance

For individuals, think on these concepts

• job security
• career advancement
• first impressions

Conclusion

As someone who has a background in competitive research, digital identity, and recruiting….. one of my greatest concerns revolves around the mass adoption of web users making important choices based on poor information and no research process.

In the past year this topic has come to my attention dozens of times in the form of professionals needing help with incorrect information, slander and negative PR from competitive businesses online, human resource issues in recruiting, or employment terminations that were caused for the wrong reasons.

As more and more information about our lives becomes digitally available, every one of us has the responsibility to understand how this information can be used for us and against us.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Probably not.

In reality, every person who lives in the modern world has access to such information. The simple fact is that many of us are completely overwhelmed by the amount of information we need to sift through… having few or non-existent methods for qualifying how we spend our time sifting through it.

It is a simple fact that hundreds of millions of people use web-enabled cell phones, and that 3G / 4G units are quickly covering the world (on June 24th, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs stated the worldwide 3G users surpassed one billion.)

Consider your network.

Imagine how much information exists for you online, created both by you, your family, your friends, your co-workers, your competitors, and everything that has been done in the past.

Now think about the people you care about: your family and friends. Multiple the information that you have online by the number of people you consider “close to you”

Now ask about Pandora’s Box.

If Pandora’s Box (the web) could answer these questions… would you want to know? is it your right to know?

• Where was my spouse last Saturday night?
• How many parties did my employee attend in 2010?
• Is my new business partner in any risky groups?
• What did this public employee do for fun yesterday?

These are all incredibly complex questions that could be rooted in entirely reasonable viewpoints… but they all define the “double edged sword” of information freedom and personal privacy. We know more about each other than we ever did… and that information is being used by our our family, our friends, the public, and our enemies.

In a perfect world many of us probably wouldn’t complain too much about our family and friends using Pandora’s box, but seeing as the profit of our personal information is being driven by the public and by our enemies… Pandora’s box has been arguably flung open by the loving term “social media.”

What do you think of Pandora’s Box?

READ MORE: Background Checks Pt II – Discrimination, privacy, accuracy and compliance.

• Social Media Club Seattle (150 to 300 person events, held monthly)
• Display Week Seattle (5,000+ attendees)
• DEMO (500 to 1000 attendees, held twice each year)
• Seattle Chamber Tradeshow (5000+ attendees)

Having monitored these events online and in-person, there was a basic and simple theory I was working with: that attendee attention span and information spikes were ultimately at odds with each other.

I went ahead and visualized this into a simple graph below, detailing that audience attention span (blue dotted line) drops severely as available information spikes at the event. As time passes, our conversation length shifts dramatically based upon the number of conversations we have before (semi-qualified, via our own personal research) , during (not qualified, based on simple networking and quantity), and after (semi-qualified, based on event education and follow-up research.)

To anyone who has attended an active live event: we have experienced how the event itself challenges our attention and interest level. Conversations typically become short and scattered, while social interactions often replace quality with quantity.

For an experienced event attendee, quality and quantity do not exchange. They take the time to profile individuals before an event, create opportunities to strengthen existing relationships, and qualify how they will spend the most valuable asset they have at an event: personal attention.

The important element in this shift is the creation of relevant information as part of a proper media strategy before and after an event.

• Before an event: attendees are looking for information to qualify what they are doing.
• During an event: attendees are trying to sort through massive information to find relevance.
• After an event: attendees are researching based on new found event education points.

The green line “Proper Media Strategy” takes into account the three segments of relevant information and the potential attention span they may reserve.

Key differentiators for ROI: strategy and execution

Of 418 attendees I asked:

Asking attendees if they researched the event or attendees doesn’t really paint the big picture that is drawn when you ask the “big question” of whether or not the event had a positive return on investment.

This question was subjective to each person: was the cost and experience of attending the event (flight, time, scheduling, ticket fees, etc) worth the return in investment  (sales, relationships, education)

For some people it was simplified to the basic question “Would you do it again?”

When compared to the people who researched the event topic and/or the event attendees, the shift of perception of ROI was significant.

The chart above says it: If you researched the event, you could expect to see a %30 shift in whether or not you had positive ROI.

You could also expect to see a 45% shift in ROI
if you took the time to research attendees.

:::::::::::  My conclusion  :::::::::::

As an attendee, vendor, or sponsor: If you are seeking to have a positive experience at an event, conference, or tradeshow – look at ways of researching your network, the attendees, and the event topics.

As an event coordinator: do everything in your power to enable your audiences to understand who, what, when, where, and why. Do not assume that your attendees are experts at networking!

Let me know:

does this data support your own personal experiences?

]]> http://barryhurd.com/2010/06/understanding-information-spikes-around-live-events/feed/ 5 http://barryhurd.com/2010/06/understanding-information-spikes-around-live-events/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/corporate-reputation-consultant-barry-hurd/~3/PDPsTLNpyCE/ http://barryhurd.com/2010/06/social-media-policy-examples-by-segment/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:03:21 +0000 Barry http://barryhurd.com/?p=5681 As an update to my social media policy articles on 123socialmedia.com, I have collected a list of information that is broken down into real world examples of different social media policies across a variety of top industry niches. Below you can find a breakdown of  the top industry categories, or click through to read additional policies from dozens of companies in each segment.

If you have any questions about social media policies and how they apply to your business model, feel free to contact me and I’ll point you to more specific resources (right now I have about 600 social media policies in my list and they just don’t fit into a singular article!)

Wireless / Electronics

• Creston Electronics Inc Social Media Policy
• SanDisk Social Media Policy
• Dell Online Policies
• HP Blogging Code of Conduct
• IBM Social computing guidelines
• INTEL – Social Media Guidelines
• SUN / Oracle Social Media Participation Policy

Finance

• ARTICLE – Social Media 101 – beginners guide for Finance employees
• REUTERS – Social Media Guidelines
• Treasury Board of Canada – Internal Wikis and Blogs
• Wells Fargo Blog and Social Media Community Guidelines
• Federal Trade Commission – Guide Concerning Use of Endorsements

Travel – Retail – Automotive

• General Motors – Fastlane Blog Policy
• NORDSTROM – Social Networking Guidelines
• WALMART – Twitter External Discussion Guidelines

Military

• New Media and the Air Force
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Social Media User Guidelines
• Department of the Navy – Utilizing New Web Tools

Religious Model

• Archdiocese of Cincinnati Social Media Policy
• St Thomas Episcopal School Social Media Policy

Employees

• Volt Services – Social Media Policy
• FEDex Blog Policy

Law Firms & Legal

• Baker Daniels Social Media Policy
• ARTICLE – Freedman Chicago – Social Media for Law Firms
• ARTICLE – Legal Risks of Social Media and Human Resources

Non-Profits

• Social Media Handbook for Local red Cross Units
• NPR – Social Media Guidelines
• Bread for the World Social Media Policy
• ASHA Social Media Guidelines for Employees
• Pikes Peak Library District – Social Media Public Policy

Government

• Washington Governor – Social Networking Policy
• USA.gov – Government Policy Issues
• City of Seattle – Social Media Use Policy
• State of Utah – Social Media Guidelines
• PEW Internet Report – Government Online
• City of Lindsborg – Social Media Policy
• State of Vermont – Proper Use of Social Media
• City of Boynton Beach Social Media Policy & Procedures
• Port of Tacoma Social Media Policy
• South Carolina Budget and Control Board Social Media Policy
• ARTICLE – Guidelines for scure use of social media (CIO.gov)

Banks

• Monroe Bank & Trust Social Media Policy
• U.S. Bank Employee Handbook (do search for social media)

Hospitals / Medical

• North Hills Hospital Social Media Policies and Guidelines
• Kaiser Permanente Social Media Policy
• Indiana University Schoold of Medicine – Guidelines for Online Social Networks
• Holzer Clinic Social Media Policy

Schools and Students

• College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences Social Media Policy
• Adrian College Social Media Guidelines
• Ball State University Social Media Policy
• California State University, Fresno – Social Media Eqtiquette
• Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College Internet Use Policy
• Vanderbuilt University Social Media Handbook

A few years ago, Hyper Media was an entirely technical term used by computer programmers to identify the linking of information using code. This is a core of the word “hyper” – which is used in terms like hyperlink or hypertext: which is when words link to something like my twitter account for Barry Hurd.

For another spin on the definition:

“Hypermedia, a term derived from hypertext, extends the notion of the hypertext link to include links among any set of multimedia objects, including sound, motion video, and virtual reality. It can also connote a higher level of user/network interactivity than the interactivity already implicit in hypertext.”

But wait… the term Hyper Media is evolving (like everything else on the web!)

The real world and digital world are now linked. This is mostly through the use of several trends:

• The creation of digital profiles
  (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin)
• The migration of real world data to online
  (bills, ticket sales, invitation lists)
• The utilization of online contact lists
  (email, friend networks, associations, employers)
• The usage of wireless browsers
  (laptops, cell phones, mobile gadgets)

Technically speaking, using things like a Twitter handle or having personal website (like barryhurd.com) – has transformed us to become hyper-people (which is entirely different than just having too much sugar in your diet.)

BASIC EXAMPLE ONE
When you have a business card that has a twitter username such as @barryhurd , most of the general population now has a cell phone that is capable of experiencing “more of Barry” than what is immediately standing right in front of them.

BASIC EXAMPLE TWO
A person turns to Google and “Googles me” to immediately find out more information. In this instance, my name has become the technological “code” required to access a variety of different information sources.

EVOLVING AND COMBINING

Hypermedia is now becoming more present in our lives thanks to powerful handheld devices and widespread wireless access (WIFI, 3G/4G), spawning hundreds of different applications using augmented reality to bring hypermedia into an easier to understand platform. For many applications, this means using tags or visual markers that can be identified by a camera and then find additional data on the web.

The FOX smash hit Avatar released an entirely new line of toys that offers additional “toy” experiences using a web cam

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LEGO installed store kiosk that allowed children to view boxes and see animated constructs based on the LEGO parts contained within.

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Have you seen any interesting applications of hypermedia and augmented reality?

As a social media professional (AKA writer, speaker, videographer, tweeter) , I am constantly reviewing how individuals use different forms of media to distribute messages.

Technology is so inherently tied to us that it doesn’t take the act of publishing a book or being interviewed to have profanity be connected with your name or organization. In fact all we have to do is look at the casual restaurant table talk happening around the world and we find ourselves being transmitted to the world.

Sometimes this is by choice: we carry netbooks, cell phones, digital cameras and associate ourselves with people who carry the same.

Sometimes it is not by choice: Everyone carries a cell phone capable of being your best friend or enemy today.

As one of my personal duties for Social Media Club Seattle, I also give A LOT of thought to what is ethical and moral. The pervasiveness of this new trend has accelerated past our ability to effectively steer it. A good analogy for the idea is if we learned to drive a car using our parent’s golf cart at 16; and at 17 they bought us a turbo-charged mustang with nitro and didn’t tell us how to use it.

It doesn’t stretch the imagination that most of us would swerve around the road, hit a few by-standers, and probably wrap the car around a telephone pole.

So with that in mind, is the use of profanity in media (especially by our leaders) an acceptable trend when it is also combined with this new found level of technology broadcasting?

Should Leaders Ever Swear? Harvard Business Review http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2010/06/do_good_leaders_swear.htmlDoes being a leader in today’s marketplace require profanity? This article covers a discussion of President Obama using the word “ASS” to detail the current BP disaster.

Carol Bartz Tells Mike Arrington To “F*ck Off” http://www.businessinsider.com/carol-bartz-tells-mike-arrington-to-fuck-off-2010-5The president is doing it… Yahoo is doing it… but Yahoo’s CEO did it during a live tech interview with a gadget loving audience. Does this make it any different?

Three of the largest “wrap your mind around it” items are covered on slide three, four, and sixteen (detail below) – along with a partner brainstorm and diagram sheet on slide twenty. The full deck is included below.

SLIDE THREE: Growth of Conversation. Is a simple visual really: from 2007 to 2009 we have seen 342 million conversations grow to 588 million. That percentage shift is noteworthy, but the larger trend to look at is how much of the conversation shifted from being “on site” to “off site”- this is the magic shift that identifies how the audience has seized control of communication channels.

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SLIDE FOUR: The adoption and penetration of mobile usage is the next compounding point. A primary reason for the shift in conversation between 2007 and 2009 for onsite/offsite usage is simply accessibility. A massive amount of the worldwide population is moving into 3G and 4G service, meaning they can stream information on a 24/7 basis around the world.

When we look at the United States compared to other markets, the next four to five years is going to see a doubling in penetration and adoption, while some segments of the world like Europe and East Asia are expected to reach over 90% coverage.

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SLIDE SIXTEEN: using Twitter as an example, we are just at an infancy for taking information people are broadcasting on a daily basis and placing it to a location. While Twitter doesn’t support location searching very well, the API and data stream can be combined with all forms of personal and service data to locate clusters of users on a variety of topics that are both historical and real-time.

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HERE IS THE FULL SLIDE DECK