The paradox of insular language
2 years ago
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Why would anyone want to pay a blogger?
I was a tad horrified at a recent conference to hear someone on a media panel say ‘why would anyone want to pay a blogger?”
The panel discussion was angling at the ethics of paid contributors to review sites that don’t disclose their relationship with a company or organisation.
For example, a tech blogger gets flown to Sydney to the Samsung Galaxy SIII launch.
That person should disclose that they are an invited guest of Samsung. Any payment or gratuity that person receives should be made clear to their audience.
In my experience, most quality bloggers are very open with disclosure and most audiences can smell a kickback a mile away so the whole thing self-regulates.
What the ‘why would anyone want to pay a blogger” statement doesn’t factor in is the difference between a ‘vanity’ blogger and a paid journalist or contributor.
One example is the Huffington Post. The Huffington Post has salaried editors and journalists that form the backbone of their content. Those people are expected to work certain hours, attend meetings and meet deadlines with quality contributions. Those contributions can come in the form of articles or blogs. Advertising revenues pay for the wages of these people. Are Huffington Post employees paid bloggers?
Yes.
So why would anyone want to pay a blogger?
Because there is a global market for quality content and people should be financially remunerated for producing good work.
The Huffington Post also has people that contribute content that aren’t paid by Huffington Post but are paid by their respective organisations to share ideas and get a viewpoint across. HuffPost provides a microphone for interest groups and politicians to speak to an audience. So John Kerry obviously isn’t paid to write a blog post but his motivations for contributing should be very clear. Consultants and figureheads often ‘vanity blog’ to get their brands in front of people and demonstrate thought leadership. Nothing new there.
Sometimes I will write a post on this blog and have an editor contact me to produce a paid article for their website or magazine on the same topic. Does that make me a paid blogger? Or does that then make me a freelancer? What’s the difference and does it really matter? If I write an article for a magazine do I have to declare that I was paid x cents per word?
The overarching business model of media is quite straightforward and a blanket assumption that blogger’s contributions should never be paid for or that paying for blog content is in some way unethical is a bit simplistic.
A more useful question is why would anybody not want to pay a blogger?
Monday, June 4, 2012
Seven leadership tips from Queen Liz
While the whole notion of blue-blooded humans really doesn't sit well with my egalitarian sensibilities, I have grown to admire Queen Elizabeth II as a leader.
I watched an excellent documentary the other night 'Ten days that made the Queen' . Here are a seven points on leadership I took from it.
1. Leadership and experience are two different things
Young Liz was only 25 when she was crowned Queen. She always took her role as a servant of the people very seriously and immediately asserted herself on affairs of State and as leader of the Church of England. While she may not have had the experience, she has always possessed the wisdom and sureness of self to stand alone and not be puppeted by the old hands. Quite extraordinary in a post-war kingdom that was more powerful than the USA, USSR or China.
2. Don't forget the power of your rank
In 1957, the Queen appointed Harold Macmillan, Chancellor of the Exchequer, as successor to Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden. The Queen's endorsement sent a very clear message to the people of England that the aristocratic classes were still only giving jobs to those in their polo clubs and that Parliament was not entirely democratic.
The subsequent Suez Crisis (under a Eden/Macmillan leadership) is credited with triggering the fall of the British Empire and the rise of the USA as a superpower. The invasion was a disaster and the Queen's trust of reliable yet incompetent leaders took her empire down on the world stage. The people of England weren't happy and the monarchy was threatened. Post-Suez, the Queen vowed to never get involved in 'king-making' parliamentary or commonwealth leadership.
The subsequent Suez Crisis (under a Eden/Macmillan leadership) is credited with triggering the fall of the British Empire and the rise of the USA as a superpower. The invasion was a disaster and the Queen's trust of reliable yet incompetent leaders took her empire down on the world stage. The people of England weren't happy and the monarchy was threatened. Post-Suez, the Queen vowed to never get involved in 'king-making' parliamentary or commonwealth leadership.
3. Sometimes, it pays to keep your opinions to yourself
The Queen won't comment on any of the portraits that are painted of her. She won't publicly comment on the governance of Commonwealth states or the British parliament. What did she think of Kate Middleton's dress? Who knows?
She knows that her opinion holds a lot more weight than the average Joe and she uses her powers for diplomatic good.
4. You have to be superhuman and human all at the same time
The only time the Queen was seen crying publicly was when the royal yacht was decommissioned. She didn't cry when Lady Diana died. The Queen's handling of Diana's death received a brutal backlash and showed a monarchy completely out of touch with its people.
The Queen prides herself on high standards of morality but the lack of emotion and empathy when simulcast against streets of wailing housewives and children with bunches of flowers showed an evil mother-in-law who didn't seem to understand that her grandchildren had lost their mother.
The subsequent, Tony Blair prompted, Diana tribute video shows the achilles of the Queen who has been trained her whole life to maintain a stiff upper lip. It looks like a terrible hostage video and, in some ways, the public outcry really did put a gun to her head.
5. It's the quiet ones you have to watch
The Queen is surrounded by lots of deferential, curtseying, gift-giving types that want to be in her favour. Some of her most trusted advisors openly disagree with her and refuse to get mesmerised by her sparkly crown. Conversely, she is famous for ignoring the advice of her many pandering minions. I've yet to meet a good leader that doesn't encourage healthy debate and Liz is known away from the cameras as "talking strategy like a machine-gun."
6. Take it on the chin and learn from your mistakes
1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis
(The "sympathetic correspondent" was later revealed to be her former assistant private secretary, Sir Edward Ford).
In one year, the Queen had three of her children in divorce court, an uninsured fire at Windsor castle, a scandalous tell-all book from Diana and a British public that was sick of paying for the circus.
No point in candy-coating it when you have a shocker.
7. Anyone can get knocked off their perch
As my mother always says "one day the ass that you kick will be the ass you have to kiss."
We've seen the recent falls of Mubarak, Hussein, Gaddafi and Bin Laden. Steve Jobs got bumped out of Apple for a bit and who can keep up with who is at the helm of Yahoo? JFK was assassinated and Lady Diana was killed in a car crash. Nelson Mandela was eventually President of South Africa, Iceland melted and now, everybody wants their economy to be like China's. Any seat of power worth having will always attract leadership challenges. Whether it's Charles or William or Harry or someone from China that eventually sits on the throne, I think we can safely say that the new democracy we're experiencing won't afford a monarchy in its current form for too much longer.
Queen Elizabeth II is an impeccable leader with a wisdom and perspective on world history and people that we can all learn from in the get rich quick iPhone app business world.
Maybe she'll get another 25 years.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Smartphones are pretty dumb without data
Smartphone adoption statistics seems to get a lot of media coverage and open up debates about how businesses need to adopt their models to the new world of the mobile consumer and the 'second screen.'
What the research seems to ignore is that most smartphone owners have very small data allowances that render the device no better than a $30 Nokia flip phone from 2002.
Case in point was TEDx Sydney last weekend. It was a fantastically well run event let down a tad by the lack of open WiFi at the venue. If the premise of TED is to share ideas then surely WiFi would have enabled much greater amplification?
I was on a reasonably large local data plan and could tweet and post photos freely (when the 3G reception held together). Many attendees had dragged along a full suite of smartphones, tablets and laptops, only to find they couldn't connect. Relative to the 800-odd people at the event, I thought the online streams were pretty quiet and a great opportunity was lost to invite in a global online community.
So perhaps now we need to concentrate our efforts not on the hardware but on data enablement.
Statistically, younger people are more likely to publish to social networking sites but they are also less likely to have expensive company data plans. User-generated content is the holy grail of social media so any investment to enable photo and video sharing will surely be worth your while.
Without data, smartphones are pretty dumb regardless of how many people have them.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Quiet please, so.cl is sleeping
Apart from that, I've filed it neatly in my 'sleeper site' category and really don't have much else to say about it.
What's a 'sleeper site'?
I call sites or social networks that I don't initially have a lot of use for 'sleeper sites'. I'll reserve an account, have a quick play and then leave it to simmer away and build some features and users.
I want to hug you and squeeze you
There are very few sites that I instantly fall head over heels in love with.
Trademe was love at first site (I used to be a TopSeller). Same with Typepad, Twitter and, this cute little guy, Posterous. Instantly, hundreds of hours of chirpy dial up iHug modem time. I had brief affairs with Yahoo, webmonkey, myspace, ICQ, Viddler and about another 20-odd sites if my namechk records are accurate.
Facebook was a sleeper. LinkedIn was a sleeper. Tumblr has recently risen from three years of obscurity to 'chosen child' status in my browser by attracting a large, young, super creative and commercial-free audience that curates exceptional content rapidly with the reblog feature.
I'm not sure what causes an awkward social reject to turn into a 'killer app' but I would never be silly enough to write off big players like Microsoft (so.cl) and Google (Google +) in the social network space.
For now, I'll just leave them sleeping.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
2012 Yellow™ Social Media Report SMB Social Media
Australian SMB research released today.
Highlights of the report include:
- 27% of small, 34% of medium and 79% of large businesses have a social media presence
- 22% of small businesses update their social media every day, while 28% of them do it once a week
- 39% of medium businesses update their social media every day
- 83% of small businesses on social media have a Facebook page
- 27% of small businesses on social media have a Twitter account
- 79% of medium businesses on social media have a Facebook page
- 33% of medium businesses on social media have a Twitter account
The full report is available here
Sunday, May 27, 2012
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