Category: Ethics

The Future of Social Networking is Smaller. But what does this mean for PR?

Trust

There is a growing realisation that smaller groups are the future of social networking. Sure, Facebook is a behemoth and isn’t going anywhere in the short-term. But, working on the social media principle that you are trust/are interested in what your friends say, surely there is a place for smaller social network groups where conversation flows more freely.

This seems like it will be the theme of this year’s SXSW. Companies like GroupMe are banking on us wanting to be part of these ‘private chat rooms’ and it could be the differentiator in terms of location-based services genuinely hitting the global mainstream. ‘Acts of Sharing’ is a different beast in that it’s more about sustainability and not purchasing stuff that someone else can lend you, but it still supports the notion that online sharing is changing. Continue reading →

Communicating online – why good manners still count in social media

good manners

With the rise of technology and lives lived increasingly online – are manners a thing of the past?

TV3 Nightline’s Kim Choe interviewed me recently on this very question in a fun segment on the lost art of etiquette. UK research suggests that the British have lost some of their quintessential British courtesy, blaming technology and the increasing pace of life. But have the wheels fallen off our manners here in New Zealand?

Manners are constantly evolving aren’t they? We don’t speak to each other as the Victorians did. And we can always expect to see conflicts between the expectations of one generation and another. If you think the next generation is particularly bad, you can take it from Socrates: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise”.

But what is different now however is the rate of change. The means and manner of communication via technology have advanced much faster than the etiquette which should accompany it. The human, cultural process of manners lags behind. Continue reading →

Search Engines, Transparency, and Online Reputation; Five year old plagiarism comes back to haunt the author

As Canada heads to a federal election this month, the opposition Liberal party has dropped a timely bombshell concerning incumbent Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. It turns out he delivered a speech to Parliament when he was Opposition Leader in 2003 which appears to largely plagiarise a speech delivered in another part of the world, two days earlier, by then Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. The speech writer in question has resigned this week, acknowledging that he was “overzealous in copying segments of another world leader’s speech”. Canada’s Globe and Mail has the full story as well as the two videos side by side.

Continue reading →

How NOT to use social media part 2

I blogged a few weeks ago on National Australia Bank’s dodgy use of comment spam to promote its services on Aussie Rules-related blogs. If you thought that was shoddy behaviour, have a look at this example from the US.

As with the NAB case, the consultancy’s social media practice here is astoundingly unethical. Have a read of the excruciating way 5WPR VP Juda Engelmayer attempts to wangle his way out of it. Amusing, and extremely embarrassing for a consultancy that supposedly prides itself on its online PR savvy.