After the last election, all the government websites were wiped. That’s how it works. You get a new government and a new archive of information. I’m not sure why they do that? So we can’t quote past history maybe?

Only now, we have the long tail of comments:

Interesting move – Having women say Tony’s words back to him. I should do one with this quote:

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on, are going to go up,” Mr Abbott said.

What do you think?

Gratuitious hot guy. Please spell out I.R.O.N.Y before going all politically correct on me.

In 2007 I blogged on Kevin07 portal:

We will see more of ‘static portal hybrid hosted social networks’ for a while – companies and government distancing themselves from the challenges of social networks by outsourcing to social network platforms.

I was left unmoved by Barack Obama – great for fundraising, nary a thankyou in return (and a great wall of silence immediately he won) – so I’m hardly likely to be moved by “I am, I will, I am” tweets from broadcasting polllies in social spaces.

Ah but it could be so much more.

By the way quick question: have you ever had a politician respond on your blog with a comment? Or respond to your tweet? Lemme know?

Election 2010: GetUp Tony Abbott Mashup is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, election, getup, Politics, social media, social networks, tony abbott, women, youtube

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List of Social Media Election sites for Australian 2010 election. An early analysis of election 2010 sites. It’s particularly interesting to see which social media election sites are allowing the electorate to ask questions -versus who is providing answers.  And how useful is the site to online community members. I think CampaignIQ, Connect ALP or whatever it’s called is about putting in a minimum MyBarackObama, irrespective of the Australian Culture. On the other hand some of the grassroots, unsponsored stuff feels authentic and from a genuine need to connect and share cultural capital.

This election is going to be hotly contested – by social media sites – for relevancy. As politicians are scrambling for cultural relevancy and to be heard (the Debate on Sunday Night has been moved for Masterchef) so will websites that want to provide information on the coming election. If you are looking for a blow by blow comparison of Twitter followers vs YouTube views etc for each party, try the SBS website

1. ABC ELECTIONS broadcast site

The ABC has done a hybrid site – not really a community conversation build but aggregating information from multiple communities.

You can see the embedded tweet is from Lyndal Curtis Chief Political Correspondent. ABC is very much in sourcing content and then broadcasting it out – not engagement – mode. The Campaign Pulse is a social media dashboard monitoring sentiment on Twitter and Youtube and Flickr. None of it is embeddable, referrable or discussable.  Everything is official ABC journalist tweets and blogs, and ultimately unsatisfying.

2. Election Leaflets – Live Election Leaflet Monitoring

Enter your postcode and ElectionLeaflets.org.au will reveal to you all the brochures, posters and other paraphenalia littering your streets, shop fronts and stuck to stobie polls. Why is it important? Because theres some nasty stuff that goes on, under the radar, when it’s not been broadcast publicly on traditional media, but is adorning the front door of the local deli.

Note, they need to fix their iFrame widget to be one brochure and flickable rather than a toilet roll of leaflets. Anyway, see a dodgy leaflet? Take a photo and upload it, or email to ‘em. If your camera takes a GPS position (and a lot do) a map will also be displayed for the location of the brochure. Shame we can’t comment or ask questions about the brochures. Creating a community around some of the photos of brochures would be cool – otherwise why not just embed them from Flickr, like the Greens did one year?

3. Connect ALP – Campaign IQ

And odd site. Like someone looked at the tools that MyObama used and then promptly dropped all the community elements. I can’t friend a profile, there are no many-to-many discussions (though I can write on anyone’s wall, even a non-friend!), creating a group requires approval, and lots of opportunity to promote the labor party’s broadcast material. I hope this site improves a lot. It looks pretty but lacks community functionality. Even the signup process is a huge barrier to entry and looks intimidating. If you don’t need it on signup – not mandatory – stick it in the profile! Where’s the welcome centre? Where’s the leaderboard? I could go on.

No, I don’t know what “submitted issues” or “ideas raised” are either

They are in desperate need of a Help section, if not a whole Newcomer Welcome Centre. BTW I found “issues” but it’s a tiny link hidden in a separate area called ThinkTank (which took me to the signup page again). This site may well improve, social media wise, after a good usability/sociability going over but at the moment it’s  steep learning curve for sophisticated social media users, let alone the average “I’m only on Facebook for the kids” Australian.  The online community real world activism is right out of MyObama songbook – election leaflets (above) may want to add the leaflets?

4. My Politician – Keeping Track of Your Politician For You.

Oh I like a good sense of humour – so many social media site creators lack the ability to storytell and play with their community in a meaningful way.

developed by ireckon

Not particularly social but useful – if you want to avoid having your baby kissed at the local shops by a pollie.

My Politician enables you to search the profiles of all the federal Australian politicians, (candidates for election too, when the elections are on) and in future State politicians…

You can quickly locate statistical and contextual information about politicians in your electorate and compare them with other politicians across the country.

A note from CARA – My Politician provides an important opportunity for everyone to learn more about Australian politicians, and for Australian politicians to learn more from each other.

The My Politician website has been developed by the Cynical Assessment and Reporting Association (CARA – we made that up), an independent association (well, bunch of people) that is responsible, among other things, for making sure you can see nationally comparable data on Australian politicians. CARA has worked closely with no one across the country to develop this website.

The My Politician website provides detailed information about the 226 federal politicians in Australia. It uses a new index of online data publishing characteristics, developed specifically for the purpose of identifying politicians that are trying to communicate with their electorate in a modern and meaningful way. This enables their performance on real things that matter to their electorate to be understood in a fair and meaningful way.

By providing information on Australian politicians, the My Politician website introduces a new level of transparency and accountability to the Australian electoral system.

It’s actually much easier to accept than ABC Election broadcast site – probably because we feel traditional media have had their turn at the megaphone?

5. 2010 Federal Election from University of Melbourne

Blogs are very top down – One Voice To Rule Them All and all that. Even group blogs are not many-to-many discussion channels. In the case of Uni of Melbourne, their blogs are written by “Experts” – University Professors. Being a naughty academic atheist, I’m of the opinion that Professors giving advice on real world election issues is like Priests giving advice on marital sex but hey! what do I know?

Climate change and carbon tax,
Alternative energy sources and zero emissions,Professor Mike Sandiford, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy Professor David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy and the environment Dr Peter Christoff, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Population, immigration and refugees
Indonesian society and law reform Professor Tim Lindsey, Asian Law Centre
Multiculturalism in Australia Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh, National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies
Muslim communities in Australia, freedom of religion, Islam and human rights Professor Abdullah Saeed, Asia Institute
Rights and responsibilities of asylum seekers and granters Professor Sharon Bell, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Social Justice, carbon trading/tax, climate, the underprivileged and disabled Professor Jeremy Moss, Social Justice Initiative
Economy, Industrial Relations and Tax Reform
Financial markets, financial regulation and manufacturing Professor Kevin Davis, Department of Finance
Industrial relations & the return of workchoices Professor Bill Harley Associate Professor John Howe Director, Centre for Employment & Labour Relations Law
Labour market and employment trends, industrial relations Professor Mark Wooden, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Health reforms and hospitals
Economics and funding of health Professor Tony Scott, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Mental health Professor Patrick McGorry, Orygen Youth Mental Health Research Centre
Paid maternity leave Amanda Cooklin,  Centre for Women’s Health, Gender and Society / Parenting Research Centre
Population health and epidemiology Professor Terry Nolan, School of Population Health
Primary care and super-clinics Professor Jane Gunn, Department of General Practice
Education
Higher education policy and governance Professor Lynn Meek, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Schools performance analysis Professor Stephen Lamb, Graduate School of Education
Schools performance analysis Professor Jack Keating, Graduate School of Education
Women and leadership
Dr Lauren Rosewarne, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Environment
Resource management Andrew Hamilton, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Agriculture
Climate change impact on agriculture Professor Snow Barlow, School of Land & Environment
Agriculture and food security Professor Rick Roush, School of Land & Environment
Australian politics
Dr Scott Brenton, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Professor Brian Galligan, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Urban planning
Housing density & urban sprawl Dr David Nichols
Planning theory, planning practice, planning risk Dr Alan March
Urban growth boundary extension & sprawl, funding for urban issues, liveability and
access to public space, crime and violence prevention policy Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman
Money and politics
Joo-Cheong Tham, Law
Student Voices
Penny Rush is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Martin Bortz is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Jason Ball is completing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science at the University of Melbourne and is the Greens precinct Captain for University clubs at Melbourne, RMIT, La Trobe and Swinburne Universities.

Still, it’s nice to have these types of influencers talking directly to the public. Why? Because it puts paid to that “Come to Newspapers for Original Source Content – Ignore Loser Generated Content on Blogs” crap – here are the very original sources that traditional media usually has access to, talking to us directly. Be interesting to see if they get any comments…

6. 2020 Women

Bog standard survey

Or feedback form.  There is a blog with comments and a storycatcher (one way – you submit it to them for decision).

7. Your Rights At Work

I don’t know what it is with Community Engine but it breaks a lot of sociability rules. Basic ones. Like if you end up on the “Log in” page there is no “Join Now” yet join now is plastered over other parts of the site. Weird. Like a bespoke package half finished… Needs a Sociability overhaul. Might be a new beta version for the election sites?  Looks pretty but doesn’t function well. Still, signup is better than on the ALP site (meaning, it’s probably the Labor Party fault it’s such a clunky barrier to entry to sign up). The welcome email (for verification) is missing as is the welcome centre. blah blah you guys know the drill now – a social tool that is missing the “soft skills”. It feels very much like ACTU put up the “ideas” and you get to follow their ideas.

I also looked at a bunch of other sites on this list but they were very much:

• Join our newsletter
• For Media Enquiries contact:…
• or in more than one memorable case, a PDF. Kid you not.

Sites 8 Election Blackout

Group blog by Peter Black

He’s locked his page down so I can’t copy and paste but basically, Peter is a Snr Lecturer in Law in Queensland.

Got another one or two going up this week. Remind me!

How about you? Spotted any memorable election social media sites out there? Particularly looking for a user generated site, rather than a pollies Facebook/Twitter account. got any?

Election 2.0 – List of social media election sites to watch. is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, election, election pamphlete, gov 2.0, leaflet, Online Communities, social media, social networks

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Telstra has done a deal with National Broadband Network Co (or a heads of agreement which is not quite the same thing). You can read about it here. And an analysis of it here. But one thing that is clear, or was, after a bit of a Twitter discussion:  that copper is no more. The thingie that ran our phone networks for hundreds of years (ok, last century) is being put out to pasture, retired, taken out.

In the early 1980′s I worked for  the then Telecom Australia. It’s a family tradition, as both my parents worked at Telecom Australia for the majority of their working lives. Copper networks was actually part of the discussion at the dinner table… what? you mean it wasn’t at yours? Anyway as I was saying, I worked for them, in their Private Lines department, in Adelaide. Waymouth Street I think.  Now how do I explain private lines? Hmmm. Some companies, mostly what we called in the 80′s “multinationals” had a very expensive service called a “private line”. I only remember a few companies having it – SANTOS was one. The television stations were another. If the “private line” was cut or damaged between Melbourne and Adelaide, the TV station went off the air and the test pattern…

Please Stand By

… or worse, a picture of a woman with a headset on and the words “Telecom Fault, service will be resumed shortly”. Which meant people rang me to find out why the TV was off the air. There was either nothing to do or it was frantic. Mostly frantic, there was a lot of digging and roadworks between Melbourne and Adelaide in those days.

I remember it surprising me that companies would want their own private lines. And I thought “data” over networks probably meant fax machines. That private lines started to grow and became ISDN, Telstra Multimedia, and eventually I dunno, BigPond I guess … well, from little acorns grow.

So, ce la vie, bon voyage and RIP to copper networks. I’ll miss you (nah, not really). Meanwhile I predict a glut in the copper jewellry market. And these things:

copper tree

Dust collectors or another revenue stream for Telstra? I’ll let you decide. You’ve got a while, take your time. Copper will shift very slowly.

By the way, have a think about this: the yoof of today, Digital Natives, think anyone over about 18 years of age can’t “get” online medium because they are Digital Immigrants. Yet we seem to have coped with the TV being brought into the home, the massive increase in telecommunications such as home phones, faxes and mobiles –  wow, my mum and dad even figured out how to use an iPhone! We also led the way in recording shows at home (quaintly still called “video-ing” in our house) and we also had the first home computers (mine was a Mac Plus with a 20 MB Rodime external drive). So, dear digital natives, you can f**k off, with your “you don’t understand our world” prattle. end rant.

#DigitalImmigrant #CopperNative This post is for @Tarale.

Telstra NBN – Goodbye copper networks is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, copper, mobile, national broadband network, nbn, telecom, telecom australia, telecommunications, telstra

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Interesting. I mentioned on Twitter that I would like to go to Australia Sharepoint Conference but can’t justify the price of the ticket (not core business for me). So Kerriann contacted me on LinkedIn (not Twitter) and offered me a ticket. Cool. I’m going and so is my mate Jodie Miners aka JodieM. You can follow Sharepoint Conference on @AUSharepoint

What is Sharepoint and why do I want to go?

Many many students of mine over the years have mentioned Sharepoint as their internal, enterprise based intranet service with collaboration features. Not all comments have been good but I think a lot of issues have been around training and understanding of it’s core purpose, and overly rigid implementations by IT. One woman swears that you can’t collaboratively edit documents, and that that feature has been turned off. Which just sounds plain weird to me. But I’ve never used it and want to know more about it so off I go. This article on IDM – Image and Data Manager has a good wrap up:

While it is estimated that SharePoint is Microsoft’s fast growing product, the likely reality is that in many instances the product is not being fully utilised. According to Debbie Ireland, Conference Convenor, while thousands of Australian businesses, government departments and local offices of global organisations have implemented SharePoint, they are probably only utilising around twenty to thirty percent of its potential.

… which is pretty well what I meant above

and I had a poke around on Wikipedia to read more about the actual software:

Microsoft SharePoint, also known as Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, is a content management system with integrated search functionality developed by Microsoft that allows users to work in a web-based collaborative environment. Microsoft provides certain built-in functionality, and third-party developers can also develop custom modifications to extend functionality.

In other words, SharePoint is a Microsoft product that manages the tasks and information of an organization with respect to their hierarchy levels.

SharePoint is a collection of products and software elements that includes, among a growing selection of components, web browser-based collaboration functions, process management modules, search modules, and a document-management platform. SharePoint can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host-defined applications such as wikis and blogs. All users can manipulate proprietary controls called “web parts” or interact with pieces of content such as lists and document libraries.

Sort of like the old Enterprise software but all in a browser (not client/server solutions) and lots of social stuff wrapped around it. How much I don’t know. I’ll let you know after the conference.

What’s the conference about then, eh?

Sharepoint Conference Australia

The guff on the front page says:

This will be THE Australian SharePoint Conference to learn about both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. Expert local and international speakers will present on topics that will help you understand and succeed with your SharePoint implementations, and add real world value to your organisation and businesses.

I had a look at the speakers and subjects – some people will be put off by the nature of the technical streams but the Business and Voice of the Customer Streams look intriguing:

Why you need to be more social! – 200 Level
“Social Computing” is popping up everywhere. It’s the latest buzzword to be used to describe a set of technologies and capabilities which, when combined, can help people work better together. This session is about exploring what Social Computing is, why it’s important and what it can do for you. It’s built on more than 2 years of experience applying social technologies in the Enterprise and covers what is possible now, and what will be possible with SharePoint 2010.

Daniel McPherson

Building an Analytics solution with SharePoint 2010, Microsoft CRM and BI – 200 Level
This session will demonstrate how to build an Analytics solution with SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft BI to offer a unique platform that delivers:
- Improved decision making with the enhanced insight from powerful analytic tools
- A 360° client view-with up-to-date, complete histories

Deon Taylor,Lionel Gomes Da Rosa

I’m fascinated by social CRM – I spoke at CeBIT on it last year and social media world the year before – and want to see where it’s evolved to and how much of Sharepoint addresses the issues. Here’s  an image of Salesforce + Facebook from a  presentation I gave years ago, no idea where it’s at now… but notice the CRM wraps around the social info…

Voice of the Customer stream is also interesting but I find those thwart with dangers… when is something a “case study” and when it is “advertising”? Maybe I’m just a bit sensitive to it at the moment – got back from a conference last week where the sponsors spoke for 35 minutes at the beginning of our panel and we got 10 minutes each. AND one of the panellists was pushed in last minute by the company. Makes me determined not to be involved … but I digress. I’m almost sure that this conference won’t be like that.

How do I book?

Head over to http://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=804948 – tickets are $650 each.

Any social media stuff we should know about?

Australia Sharepoint Conferencer organisers have very wisely been on Twitter for some time and using social media to promote their conference.

The Australian SharePoint Conference Team
www.sharepointconference.com.au
http://twitter.com/AUSharePoint
http://events.linkedin.com/Australian-Community-SharePoint/pub/211181

Dunno if they have a Flickr etc account.

Will I see you there?  Anything here for you?

Australia Sharepoint Conference June 16/17 2010 is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, conference, CRM, daniel mcpherson, deon taylor, enterprise, enterprise 2.0, june 2010, lionel gomes da rosa, sharepoint, social crm, social media

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This is a series of posts (one a day so another one tomorrow!) on mistakes companies make when using Twitter for business. Entering online communities is easy (mostly) but working effectively is hard. This series shows the mistake and (hopefully) the fix. This particular post is on Velocity and Timelines in Social Media.

Optus, one of Australia’s main telecommunications carriers,  have made a classic social media error:

Social Media Timelines

Opening a Twitter account to promote something on the day of the event is not giving enough time for building engagement before entering campaign mode. A common error by the way, this not understanding velocity in social networks.

Optus_cebit opened an account this morning, the morning of the CeBIT conference. They have 2 followers.

click for larger image

But they are throwing out oodles of spam now hitting the #CeBit stream. The only chat they had on Twitter:
@Optus_Cebit Business Executives waiting to answer your Telco Questions. See if you can improve your efficiency and cost! Stand D15 #Cebit
@jasonsbradshaw @Optus_Cebit which executives?
@Optus_Cebit @jasonsbradshaw Agreed!

If the last comment didn’t make sense to you either, it was actually to an open tweet from @jasonbradshaw about skimpy clothing women on stands.

In one fell swoop Optus have alienated anyone they were friending on @Optus account with this spammy poorly-thought-through Cebit event based account.

Anyway, I threw some diagrams to show the rather obvious difference in timelines between a traditional campaign and a social media one.

Diagram 1 is Traditional media (where you throw a lot of $$ at a campaign to get traditional media interest). Of course, interest dies pretty quickly as soon as your News becomes Old News, and when you stop throwing money at it. Think of a movie promotion. In fact diagram 1. is a typical long tail – lots of interest in the short head. Big drop off at the end of the $$ cycle.

Diagram 2 is Social Media – start seeding but expect some time for the take up. I was recently – unfortunately – part of a social media campaign by a not for profit that gave everyone 4 weeks (and over Christmas/New Years break!) to raise money. Experienced fundraisers can pull on their connection and social networks but everyone else has to start from scratch. The diagram below might explain a little more why 4 week is rarely enough, though I can see the diagram itself doesn’t show the J curve very effectively.
Diagram 3 can go either way. If you think of Best Job in the World – lots of traditional media marketing $$$ to promote the user generated content of the social media campaign. But a big drop off at the end of the double page spreads and tv crews leading to few comments on the Best Job blog or twitter engagement. Also think of the V (vodafone I think) campaign – 3 guys to tweet every minute from LA for 24 hours. None of them had much of a twitter audience before starting. Certainly nothing like Darren Rowse and his 100,000 followers. Media interest? Yes. Social Media interest? Not really.  Still, give me your traditional advertising budget and I’ll build a social network for you. And nah, it’s not really cheating. MarketingMix FTW!

Joining the day of the event with no lead up will leave you with 2 followers just like @Optus_Cebit. One of their followers is a spammer by the way.

Tip: If you are going to put your company on Twitter, think of it as a strategy not a campaign. Plan ahead. Give everything enough time. Think about engagement before during and after. Particularly after – what are you going to do with that database of followers who might actually like what you were tweeting about? What will be your marketing mix? PR , advertising, social media, education, SEM?

Question: even if they did get hundreds or thousands of followers, what are they going to do next week when cebit is no longer on? I mean, I know what I would do, but do they?

I’ll cover another common mistake companies make on Twitter tomorrow…

#1: Mistakes Companies Make on Twitter TIMELINES VELOCITY is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, laurel papworth, mistakes, Online Communities, optus, optus_cebit, social media, social networks, timelines, timing, Twitter, user generated content

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I headed off to the ABC Studios in Ultimo Sydney for Q and A last night thinking that there would be a high energy after the Four Corners broadcast. And there was. I guess I wanted to know more than anything else this: What else could the money be spent on?  Are there solutions that don’t need $40million to block 100,000 pages out of billions that are not easily routed around and that won’t limit free speech on important community issues such as euthanasia, what -is-art and abortion?

ABC TV: Four Corners addressed the Internet Filter:

• Is there a problem with the internet? Have you ever come across anything truly legally blockable – not just nekkid girly bits – even if you went looking for it? i.e do we need to fix it?
• If so, should it be addressed by the Government ? Or parents, or teachers? Who do you want making moral decisions for the next generation?
• Is a grown up filter the same as a childrens’ filter? Filter for all Australians vs unsupervised children?
• How do we ensure that legal material (abortion, euthanasia discussions) don’t get chucked out with the nasteh stuff?
• How do we ensure we can still discuss at a community level online Bill Henson (Art or Child Porn), Euthanasia, abortion without being blocked or having our discussions removed?
• How do we ensure the Government doesn’t use the filter for it’s own nefarious purposes (we love a good conspiracy theory, don’t we!)
• If the filter blocks web pages not web sites (an individual page) then is a $40 odd million dollar (they didn’t say the cost on Four Corners but that’s right, isn’t it?) filter going to block more than 100,000 pages out of billions of pages? Apparently not.
• If the filter doesn’t block YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and peer to peer services such as MSN Messenger will it work? Particularly if the majority of traffic is to these sites, not hidden secret websites with nasty stuff on it.
• Just how easy is it to get around. I mean, 15 year olds can, and 75 year olds can, but can I? Will we see Dummies Guide to Hacking The Australian Filter on the banned books list?
• With VPN Tunnel Australia, encryption and the coming 802.11s what’s the point of spending money on a filter that can’t read anything?
• What else could the money be spent on?  Are there services that don’t need $40million to block 100,000 pages out of billions that are not easily routed around and that won’t limit free speech on important community issues such as abortion, euthanasia and what -is-art?
• That Stephen Conroy has done a great service to Australia by placing these issues – in a notoriously laid back “she’ll be right” nation – on the table for discussion. Well, since December 2009 anyway. For that alone he should be commended.

I learnt a couple of things from Four Corners that I didn’t know before. Both were from Stephen Conroy. One was that not the whole site would be blocked, just individual pages. The second is that a non-Government group would be the judge and jury, not the government. I think the Government has the best of intentions, but I know from experience that when even, say, Google is asked to take down a post on someone’s blog on Blogger (Google’s blog site), they delete the whole blog. That’s one reason I moved off from Blogger to here. I imagine that very quickly that will become the sensible thing to do – otherwise another page springs up to get around the blocked page. “Just block the whole damn thing already!”  As for the second – AUDA look after “legal” domain names in Australia. And after AUDA misusing their power and deleting my satire/parody OptusPoo site on the grounds that people could mistype the Z of Zoo (bottom left of keyboard) with a P for Poo (top right of keyboard), I don’t trust third party agencies to police the internet.

ABC TV: Q and A on censorship, filters and naughty Twitterati

Gee Tony Jones is a nice chap. That doesn’t come across on TV, I think the “warm up” guy was right. He moves into a more forceful ,strong character role when dealing with Australia’s intelligentsia and fiercely opinionated panellists each week. One senses that every other day and 23 hours on a Monday, he is more comfortable in a dressing gown and slippers, puffing on a pipe while quietly reading a book in an armchair. Then pow! lights camera action and he turns from genial chap to lion tamer. *crack*

Once I got into the studio, it was phones off, no tweeting due to their technical equipment which was mega disappointing. It was clear from what the floor manager said that she wanted us paying attention and being involved. Not doing what we do at home which is tweeting our disgust/delight. We were in fact encouraged to chatter, groan, laugh and create “energy” from participation. Which is a bit of a relief from all those years of “sit down, shut up and just listen/watch“.

I enjoyed the show, I came home and watched it again. Here’s the Q and A transcript. Here’s the Twitter #QandA info from ABC -click through to comments for more.  I’m not sure that Q and A resolved anything except for the fact that it’s clear that “If you are against the filter, you are for child pornography” has been show up for the specious argument that it is. Over 90% of the audience raised their hands as against the Filter.  I’m hoping that soon we can move on from “The filter doesn’t work” to “this works”. Though like Mark Newton said, do we need anything at all?

NOTE: As a community manager I have seen more porn than any one person has a right to see. I  don’t believe that these pain-in-the-patootie members inflicting obscene acts on my communities through images and videos are doing it for a sexual reason but for power and notoriety (same thing). They get banned but I have to remove it all. And if a guy posts up a nasty image 2000 times on one bulletin board cos he got drunk and grumpy one Friday night, and it’s me that has to remove each post over the weekend, I’m ready to murder him slowly and painfully. And I definitely block shock sites now. But I still don’t believe in an all encompassing Internet Filter.

Australia: ABC Four Corners and Q and A is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: 4 corners, Australia, filter, Four Corners, Internet, nocleanfeed, qanda, Safety, security, social media, social networks, Twitter

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Flash sites cannot be read on the iPhone or iPad as Flash is blocked by Apple. Many agencies are guilty of over-Flashing their own websites (and their clients). Have a look at these abominations and tell me: To Flash or Not to Flash, That Is The Question?

I hate flash. It’s fine for little cute games but a whole website? Blech. Given the war between Apple/Microsoft vs makers of Flash, Adobe, I thought I would have a quick poke around for the worst Flash websites in the whole wide world. Agencies with teams of Flash developers tend to win the #Fail Award, but there are other non Agency sites (designed by those agencies of course) that also win most Flash-riddled sites. Others of course have done research before me:

Flash splash pages and intros have been known to cut traffic by 50%. Auto-on sound which often accompanies these Flash animations makes them even more dangerous. Below are some intros that are questionable. Do they work for or against the site? I’m not 100% sure. (10e20.com)

Here’s a selection:

If your site needs a tutorial

Bad Flash - if your website needs navigation tutorials...

If you are selling phone products

A site for 5 year olds - everything jiggles!

Amazing site. Artistic even. I really must check it out on my iPhone (which doesn’t play Flash). Oh dear.

The website as a moving ad

Bad Flash: you aren not here for information but for entertainment

Actually I was wrong – if you wait long enough you get past the pastry to the meaty website. Most people would be long gone…

Of course you don’t have to have Flash to be nasteh.

Truly awful becomes art in it's own right.

Any old website tools will do for those with no taste.

Agencies LIKE Flash

So I looked at the Top Australian Agencies to see if they had flash sites. I used the list on Campaign Brief for best ad agencies which they in turn get from BestAds. Argue with them, not me if you don’t like the list. And yes. Yes they do have a lot of Flash -

• Whybin TBW Blog not Flash
• 2 Grey Group, Flash
• 3 BMF Australia, Flash
• 4 Droga5,   Flash
• 4 Saatchi Australia, Flash
• 6 Clemenger BBDO, Flash
• 6 Jay Grey, Flash
• 6 Leo Burnett (under construction)
• 9 Colman Rasic, Flash
• 9 JWT Australia, Flash
• 9 Marketforce Perth,   Flash
• 9 US Agency (part of Razor) Flash

Interestingly, number one on the list, Whybin/TBW, is the only one that don’t have a flash site – it’s a blog. Far be it for me to smugly point out that is why they are number one… Leo Burnett are making a few changes to their website – more Flash? Less?

I knew the minute I hit enter on their URLs whether they had a flash site or not. If the screen went white and hung there (from between a few seconds to over a minute) it was Flash. By the way, some like Colman Rasic have simple mobile versions, others like BMF do not.

Bad Flash: It looks identical on the iPhone.

Bad Flash: Saatchi site loading

So, what do we think of Flash – makes the internetz a prettier place? Slow to load? iPhone/iPad unfriendly or mobile versions ok? Spawn of the Devil?

Will HTML5 be much better? Do you read any agency websites on RSS? Are Agency websites just for a portfolio and contact page?

As for me, I’m making a donation to Apple’s Block Flash Sites legal fund. $2 at least.

Kill Flash Now: Worst websites and Australian Agencies is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: access, agencies, Australia, flash, iphone, mobile, sites

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It’s dangerous to Google someone and then not give them a job – particularly if you tell them what you found and also keep a copy somewhere. Here a potential employer blogged about not hiring someone because she tweeted “I can’t bludge anymore”. Commonsense says you wouldn’t want that person as an employee but what does the law say?

I did a co-presentation with Nick from Tresscox on the law and recruitment. Now I’m not a lawyer – I don’t even charge $$$ like one – but what he had to say about the Privacy Commission was interesting:

• collecting tweets – e.g. copying and pasting them into a personnel file or a blog post is uncool
• copyright – using material from the social networking site for business purposes might contravene Facebook etc. T&C
• Collection includes “gathering, acquiring or obtaining personal information by any source and any means” is a no-no

most of this applies to companies with annual turnover of $3million or more. At that point I went back to sleep – wake me when I’m making that much.  Lawyers pfft. But the one message I did get was that Googling someone, finding their tweets and facebook stuff, making a decision on not hiring them due to that, then telling them that was the reason can get you into hot water. The example Nick gave was telling someone they didn’t get the job as they said they were pregnant on Facebook and the position couldn’t afford to give time off for maternity leave.

Here’s Jen Bishop’s Dynamic Business post:

We’ve been advertising for an online journalism intern for the website. On Friday, I was emailed what sounded like a very promising application from a second year uni student. I was about to get her in for an interview when I forwarded it to my colleague Dave, the web editor.

Social media-minded as ever, he checked out her Twitter profile. You would not believe her most recent tweet to a friend: “Did I tell you I can’t bludge anymore at work? My boss sits RIGHT next to me… I think he knows I do jack all!”

Two words: oh dear!

These days it’s pretty standard to Google people who apply for a job you’re advertising. It’s now the norm to check people’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, especially when you’re employing Gen Y people and when you’re a Gen Y employer, which I am. We were of course hoping to find out that someone applying for an online journalism internship was social media savvy. We weren’t trying to catch anyone out. But suffice to say she won’t be getting an interview. [LP italics]

…

The girl I mention is a student so some would say let her write what she likes in her personal Twitter profile, right? Maybe. But would you want her in your office after reading that?

Did I mention her Twitter bio simply says ‘potty mouth’?

I rest my case.

Now I don’t like putting Jen on the spot  but she won’t be the only potential employer that treads a fine line. She’s a smart cookie, and probably making less than $3m a year anyway. Other incredibly intelligent people – i.e. me mates  on Twitter – disagree with me on the danger:

DJackmanson My point remains. Just because they’re dumb enough to admit the reason publically doesn’t mean others will make the same mistake

RobIrwin But that’s not the employer giving a direct reason to the applicant, is it? For all we know, there could be some artistic license

Cacotopus might be, but try proving that is why you weren’t given an interview…

Caveat: pretty sure none of ‘em are lawyers either. Not sure what they do for gainful employment. Probably unemployable due to what they tweet. *end fake snark*

I think Privacy laws should be changed. Will make for a much more honest and transparent workplace though I guess our young non-intern might not appreciate that honesty… not now anyway.

Cisco Fatty story looks interesting in this light as well.

and one more time: I’m not a lawyer. If you take legal advice from me you are a complete and utter nutter.  This is just here to start a discussion…

here’s the Privacy Commission on Social networking:

Social Networking

1. What are social networking sites? Answer
2. Are there any privacy risks associated with using social networking sites? Answer
3. Do I have rights under the Privacy Act when I use social networking sites? Answer
4. I have a privacy-related complaint about a social networking site. Who can I complain to? Answer
5. Are organisations allowed to use the personal information I post on social networking sites? Answer
6. How long does my information stay on social networking sites? Answer
7. What can I do to protect my privacy when using social networking sites? Answer
8. What can I do if someone posts information about me on a social networking site that I want removed? Answer
9. What can I do if I’m being threatened, harassed or defamed online? Answer

Where can I go for more help? Answer

NOT hiring someone based on Facebook or Twitter is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, laurel papworth, Law, personal information, privacy, recruitment, sites, social media, social network

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