Tell me this… why do we cut down our use of paper clips in the office all year and turn off the lights when we aren’t in a room? Why do we bother carpooling and why do we recycle? Because in December every year our media rush out to promote the houses that do exactly the opposite by stringing untold party lights across their roofs and gardens in some hope of becoming 5-minute famous.

The media should be doing the opposite. But how many newspapers are running the story about the arsehole wasting resources to become that local 5-minute neighbourhood hero? Next to none, if any.

What lesson about the urgency of global warming does that Christmas light display send to our children other than “BURN MORE COAL”? We wonder why human induced global warming isn’t taken seriously across society… take one look at those Christmas light displays on your local news channel.

I look at the newspapers pushing these “fabulous displays of Christmas spirit” as somehow socially irresponsible. It’s about selling papers. But at some point we need to turn our consumption and consumerism around into some coherent society that can operate on the idea of enough, equity and moderation. And we are going to need mainstream media to help facilitate that change of attitude on a broad social scale.

So just consider two small things this Christmas… will one more present from China make your child love you any more or less in the long-term? And, will burning another truckload of coal in a Queensland suburb really be harmless entertainment in the long-term?

If you can’t see the link between consuming more energy and the science of human induced global warming then nothing will change your mind about Christmas lights or rampant consumerism. That extra Chinese toy took resources, water, fossil fuels and trees in production. At a certain point Christmas stops being about goodwill and peace to all and metamorphises into “fuck the rest of the world because I’ve got money.”

Remember this… with privilege comes responsibility. Try this Christmas lesson::: teach your children to be good people, to work hard and to make a difference.

Signed

The Environmental (Green) Grinch
Pooping Parties across the Developed World
BecauseICan, Australia

But first let me explain that I respect Hildebrand as a talented writer with a witty and insightful tongue. However, that being said, it doesn’t mean for a second that I’m willing to let a sacred cow past my pillbox without a shot at that bovine backside. Alright, now to those fuzzy smudges in Hildebrand’s painting.

I would begin by stating this categorically… and all journalists should paste this note above their desk and on their editorial office doors – “As much as current Australian politics is mired in a mud-patch without socks or gumboots… so, too, are Australian journalists. If the quality of research and reporting on climate change and carbon tax remains the calibre of journalism post-election, with or without an Abbott revival tent, then the Australian public will have devolved to reading product packaging for their latest news into the long-term future.

In short, a journalism culture that refuses to acknowledge science fact from science fiction – dare the public be aware of ‘peer reviewed’ climate science – falls short of the journalism Australia deserves.

The first smudge in Hildebrand’s argument stems from the international media ownership situation in relation to the Australian media landscape. As Paul Keating explained on the ABC show Lateline, John Howard opened up the media industry in this country where previously you could not own television and print media assets at the same time. The reason cross-media ownership had been limited was to prevent the immense power that comes with media ownership – and don’t deny the influence of newspapers like the Australian or the Sydney Morning Herald – on voters perceptions. It is categorically not the role of media organisations and billionaires to pursue a political agenda at the cost of our one-vote-one-person democratic process.

In the UK questions are not only being asked about the ethics of individual news agencies but how far Murdoch has pushed his way into a position of power in their political process. It is widely said that he makes or breaks a UK government through his empire… and that he was personal chums with most, if not all, of the last six British Prime Ministers. If that turns out to be true, if Murdoch turns out to have been manipulating the public perception and political figures to maximise his media profit and power then there certainly are serious issues.

The problem is that the very same Murdoch in Britain is the Murdoch with a large media ownership footprint in Australia. And, whether Hildebrand wants to accept that as correct or refudge his painting back to an ideological work of ‘freedom of the press’, that questionable relationship between Australian media power and our elected government process is critical to address. A quick look on Wikipedia (burn my tongue for being lazy enough to use that as a reference) shows that the richest person in Australia happens to be Gina Rinehart… who owns all her mining companies outright with annual profits of $10 billion per year and with a personal net worth valuation of nearly $100 billion.

Gina Rinehart makes no secret of her political activism to change government in Australia. She is anti-climate change, anti-minerals rent and anti-carbon tax. And she would be, seeing as her mining empire is based on coal and iron ore production. Gina Rinehart also funds climate skeptics to visit Australia and founded ANDEV (Australians for Northern Development & Economic Vision), described as an “anti-tax and climate change lobby group.” None of this is a problem on Hildebrand’s painting except that big smudge.

In pursuit of a change of government and to influence, or control, public perception about climate change and mineral rent in Australia, Gina Rinehart recently purchased 10 per cent of Network Ten and then bought into Fairfax Media – stable for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Canberra Times (to name a few points of public influence). Gina Rinehart’s investment in media directly followed an Australian Government proposal of mineral rent. Clearly, her investment in media was aimed to directly affect the Australian political landscape. At the same time, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation footprint includes 11 out of 12 of Australia’s major city daily newspapers. The Australian and international footprint of News Corporation is a staggering multimedia empire.

So the question is out there as to whether large corporations are using media ownership to manipulate Australia: making and breaking a Government in the fashion said to have plagued Britain. The Australian Government owe a duty to Australian taxpayers to ensure that media maniplation is emphatically not the case. We should not take the media’s word for it and give them a shining hall pass, however that journalism industry painting is framed at the Hildebrand’s. A media enquiry is needed to resolve the question to the satisfaction of everybody. And journalists shouldn’t complain… when you bring your stock and trade into a shit fight there is bound to be a certain amount of shit left on your collar. Something smells in journalism and it better just be the management.

Freedom of the press was never intended to be about billionaires acquiring and using media investment to gain more than the power of one-vote-one-person at a national election – anything less would be corruption. The reason the Australian media landscape is coming under review is the bold-as-a-dick-on-your-forehead red light that media ownership laws need review. It may be the current modus operandi remains justified… or it may be that Rupert Murdoch could be found guilty of a crime in the UK and we have to question whether people with criminal records can even own media in Australia. Just like they can’t own casinos or breweries.

Unfortunately, it’s the trash and trollop of general Australian journalism at this time that brings journalism itself into disrepute – climate change denialism, repeated jingoism of ‘a carbon tax is a socialist redistribution of wealth’ and a total failure to pursue the 61 per cent two party preferred political opposition for practical costing and explanation of their carbon subsidy. A subsidy, I should add, that may well fly in the face of our WTO free trade commitments. Constant claims of economic irresponsibility in relation to a carbon tax seem to lack economic theory to back that up – tell me… explain to me, an Australian voter with a business degree, why is a carbon tax economically irresponsible and a carbon subsidy a preferable option? Please. And why do I keep reading that an Australian carbon tax would be ‘leading the world’… because with a dedicated research unit at Fairfax Media somebody must have listened to the ABC – six countries have carbon tax in Europe dating back to Finland in 1990. We aren’t breaking new ground… but the media regurgitate that bullshit to whip up the masses on their political outrage. That type of freedom of the press does need to be checked and monitored. It does. Living in a free country is includes a free press that provides the autonomy to make decisions for ourselves based on the true facts.

Until we can move a great many rank and file Australian journalists back from the precipice of ‘partisan journalism’ to their role of ‘impartial tellers of the justifiable truth’ then all Australian journalism is tarnished. Unfortunately, I think Joe Hildebrand is standing inside the problem and somehow can’t see those smudges. Hear this Mr Hildebrand: Australians are asking ‘can we trust you’. Can… we… trust… our… journalism institutions?

A past Sydney Morning Herald editor told me several years ago that you would never be able to guess the political voting preference of the very best editors in the business. That’s how it should be in journalism. Tell the story. Follow the facts. Don’t pursue your personal politics as ‘opinion’.

Part 1 – A Xenophobic Fear of all Market Customers

The market vendors fear that their ideas will be stolen. Their fear is that technology enables easy duplication of their work. The enabling technology is the camera… a tool found in every person’s pocket traversing the market. The bigger the camera, the higher the assumption that the photographer is an idea thief with a link to cheap Chinese manufacturing and a desire to open a market stall in direct competition. Don’t laugh, this is exactly why (as I heard from a family friend this weekend) Eumundi Markets in Queensland have signs that inform no photography permitted of the vendors artwork.

Let’s backstep a little… they struggle to sell an art/craft product at a community market and I, the photographer, am supposed to (a) want to replicate their product, (b) have the ability and advantage to replicate it below their production cost, (c) envision enough profits to warrant that effort, and (d) ultimately come out of the deal with a fast profit. Seriously, that’s a business version of Alice in Wonderland where the Break-Even-Point on my investment is measured by how full the sugar bowl gets compared to the length of my coat-tail.

The fact is that with declining profits at Salamanca Market year on year and with a Hobart Council looking at ways of saving it’s sorry arse from disappearing… yes, it’s that bad partly because of the high ratio of Chinese made hats and tshirts… there is NO MONEY to be made by copying a vendor’s product. The best one could hope for is to recreate the same product and each person make half as much money. Does that make any sense?

And let’s go right back to the beginning – identify the people who the community markets want to attract? Tourists. Repeat local traffic. If you can’t see how photography fits in then I can’t wait until you suggest cutting the tongues out of market patrons to stop them talking about your work. Has it occurred to anybody that a real thief who saw that business model would just BUY YOUR PRODUCT and replicate it?

So this xenophobic idea that all photographers are thieves out to fuck market vendors over… while accepting a reality that all customers at all markets carry a camera… is even more absurd. How do you market your products beyond a ten-by-ten physical space if the very people sharing your art/craft are being shut down and insulted? Photographers only shoot what they love or hate… or the photographer’s reason for making the photograph could be to share it with a friend who may be interested in the purchasing a similar item. That’s marketing 101 stuff.

So let’s cut back to the lady who accused me of being a sneaky art thief. Because I find this story a little funny. I returned ten minutes later and gave her my business cards. One tells that I am a fine art photographer (it alleviates the fear I’m a nefarious element). The second has my academic credentials… a Bachelor of Computing and a Master of Business Administration (Journalism & Media Studies). They have my contact details and my three websites. In return, and only on direct request, the lady told me her name (instantly forgotten), provided no brochure, no business card, no URL or contact details. In fact, I marketed to her and she failed to even acknowledge the opportunity in front of her to sell her *original art*.

Part 2 – The Cloudy Originality of Fat Ladies in Yoga Positions

Which brings me to the sore point. On the left were a group of small bronze sculptures of fat ladies in one piece swimmers in yoga positions. In the Salamanca Stall Guide the plot was labeled ‘Bronze Statues’. To be fair the vendor did not state that these bronze statues were her original artwork… or not her original artwork. However, by omission, it was inferred within the conversation that the bronze statues were her original artwork. On the right were a small group of brightly coloured porcelein sculptures of the same fat yoga ladies with anglicised faces. They definitely were identified as her original art… and that the theft of the idea was my sneaky intent. That the reason no photographs were allowed of her artwork was because I, or another photographer at the market, would steal and reproduce her original ideas and artwork.

Sometimes I do smell a rat when the world is throwing me possums. Googling the most obvious searches reavealed the bronze statues would appear to be Thai Fair Trade products distributed by a Hong Kong based online retailer called Novo Collections. An image of one of these statues appeared on Laurie Toby Edison’s weblog in August, 2008. This means that both Novo Collections and Laurie Toby Ellison’s blog-post clearly pre-date the market vendors fat lady sculptures at Salamanca Market in Tasmania. You could also go to Alibaba.com to prove they weren’t the Tasmanian vendor’s original art idea.

Perhaps I’m just plain wrong and the Tasmanian vendor was selling another coincidentally bronze statue of fat women in one piece swimmers in yoga positions. I’ve been wrong before. As for taking on board the ideas of others then I think the boomerang not only hits that woman fair in the arse but it also pre-dates any photograph from Salamanca Market this weekend by a substantial period of time.

The lesson of that is surely one about the origin of ideas. I tweeted a confession last night: “Oh I’m such a fake, all my ideas are taken from books, tv, movies, radio & talking to other people over the last 50 yrs.” And that’s the truth of it for us all. Very little is out of the ether, nearly nothing. Zero. It’s all a cultural accumulation of influences. And I would probably dispute over numerous hotel served beers any claim that I witnessed *original artwork* at the market. But, as I wrote, I may be wrong. The similarity may be entirely coincidental.

So I’ll leave it up to the reader to figure out how closely these porcelein statues are to the Thai Free Trade statues (besides anglicised faces and bright coloured swimmers). But please don’t tell me they’re remarkably dissimilar. And please don’t tell me it was a photographer at Salamanca Market who stole the idea and gave it to a cheap Thai manufacturer in the Fair Trade network. Unfortunately, I can’t attribute the Salamanca Market vendor because I don’t recall her name.

I’d like Salamanca Market vendors to consider this. Had she not jumped out into the crowd to accost me for sneaky photography theft of her original artwork I would never have hit Google… seen the fat lady yoga sculptures from Thailand… nor written this article. So, again, coming down on photographers is a stupid marketing strategy. No journalists? No reviews? No common sense. And significantly reduced profits for everybody because I also buy food, drink and honey at the market regularly. As do other local and tourist photographers.

If I were a vendor of hats, jewellery, cheese or wine my concern would be that this accosting of patrons to the market is counter-productive and will eventually dig at their own bottom line profits. The biggest way to kill a community market is to get too precious about everyday human activity.

I remember watching the late Richard Carleton on 60 Minutes reveal in 2003 how live sheep were crammed in unbearable heat to suffer a horror voyage to the Middle East. Thousands died at sea and were pushed overboard. Survivors were dehydrated and starved on the voyage standing in their own dung and urine. When they arrived the slaughter was in a traditional style that our Western perspective found abhorrant. Australians stood up and voiced outrage the very next day… and some of those issues were addressed by government (final paragraph on Page 2). Unfortunately, some of those issues have remained to haunt us even today with live animal exports to Indonesia. Note the corporate players in live exports are almost unaltered from a decade ago.

The 4 Corners episode about live animal exports to Indonesia (A Bloody Business) aired on Monday 30 May, 2011. In my humble opinion, 4 Corners has produced one of the great pieces of Australian Journalism to be aired this year. This is what Journalism should be about and what it potentially has to offer society – the revelation of a hidden truth that somebody wants to remain untold and, in the telling of that story, produces an affective response within society that leads to action and some level of social change.That, my friends, is Journalism with the big J. That’s where great editorial skill comes to the fore… it’s where journalistic institutions become necessary to protect the story being told from the big business and government ministers who definitely do not want the story told. So, in my view, whether you want to concede this point or not – the Indonesian slaughterhouse story was exceptionally good investigative Journalism.

There is a GetUp! petition available online addressed to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig: “We call on you to immediately halt the live exports of Australian cattle to Indonesia and move towards an end to the live exports of Australian animals within 3 years.” I hope you consider adding your voice to the call to stop live animal exports from our country. The bottom line is our meat should be butchered in Australia by professionals in as humane an environment as possible. We should only sell into markets that accept our meat as it is supplied.

However, I see that there’s a world full of cross conversation happening around this issue as well. Again in my humble opinion, this is all pepper on the toilet roll when it comes to it’s core. Are our animals ‘Australian’ is as loaded a question as ‘do you believe in cruelty of overseas animals’. First – yes and no. Yes we have an ethical and moral (and I know the difference between those two terms) responsibility to the livestock we raise and sell for export; in that sense they are Australian. No, I don’t think they’re going to be swearing steers in as Australian citizens. It comes down to whether you see farm animals as living feeling creatures or as dumb commodities. Second – no. Animal cruelty is shocking and I obviously miss the inference that opposing the live export of Australian animals in any way equates to a yes on that question.

And yes there are a lot of issues in the Australian livestock industry – the contribution to employment and the Australian economy, the impact on global warming, the KG value per acre of our best farmland, the damage caused by hard-hooved beasts, water consumption per KG of meat, the environmental footprint of failing to produce food near it’s place of final consumption… the list goes on. You can argue backwards about all of these side issues, you can throw down your fork this afternoon and become a vegan, but that won’t change the issue. This conversation IS about the conditions of export of live animals reared on Australian properties that are being unnecessarily mistreated between sale and slaughter. We have a choice, as a nation, as to what stance we take about that process.

Briefly, I also want you to consider my perspective as somebody with an MBA degree. Don’t fool yourself in any way shape or form… live animal export is an industry all about increasing Australia’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by letting a few fatcat big companies make a lot of cash through moving animals from here to there. It’s not about raising cattle to feed our nation. It’s not about humane treatment or animal husbandry. There is no RSPCA to stop cruelty in this process. The fundamental driver is cash for cows (or sheep or pigs). People breed more cows to feed that market and as long as the rich are getting richer and GDP is rising everybody in that system chugs along with a big fat greedy smile. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of throwing in subsidisation.

So in my view the 4 corners expose of the treatment of Australian live animals exported to Indonesia is about a brutal business model based on a cross-cultural demand we should refuse to fill. There is a market for white slaves but we don’t sell our orphans to fill the need… likewise, we should protect our livestock. And we shouldn’t care if the United States or Bolivia fill that market need in our absence… it’s a market we do not want to be involved in.

But mostly I want you to think about why this story was such good Journalism and what it takes to create Journalism of that calibre. Investigative Journalism does not occur out of a dingy bedroom without editorial or resources. It is hard fought and defended because somebody powerful and influential does not want you to be told that story.

Jeremy Keith tells me Pruning is Bollocks

Here’s my premise::: I would suggest that the biggest problem we have with archiving anything substantial from the Internet isn’t mass archive. Our problem is digging out what should be archived & what should be let to fade away gracefully into the vacuum of history.

Jeremy Keith, in a tweet, says “That’s utter bollocks… in my humble opinion.”

Somehow I doubt that opinion is humble on the subject of Internet archival and I’d humbly reply that in my opinion, regardless of my lack of rock star conference speaking and book authoring status, when Jeremy Keith says it’s about archiving everything (culture) then bollocks to that. Double bollocks. The problem is bigger than bookmarks, LOLcats or relying on businesses stupid enough – like Delicious – to think their business model of FREE was going to take them anywhere in the long-term.

I have a number of comments and questions regarding the arrogance of a total archival of the Internet (which we’re really synonymously using to mean the World Wide Web, an application that runs on the Internet). Let’s start with the value of information.

The Quality & Value of Information going into an Archive

My comment about sifting out the crap to find the value relies on a scientific fact of life – any repository of data (and therefore information – data + context) is only as valuable as the quality of the data. Any business knows that data becomes outdated because people move addresses and telephone numbers change. Hey, people even lie about stuff – so there you go with more crap into any repository. My suggestion that pruning is a part of any challenge to archive the Internet is based on that premise… a big load of rubbish pushed into an unordered box without pruning would have limited value. It would be information soup.

Leading to my next question… considering you did work out a specific time and date to gain a snapshot of the entire web then you have to accept the errors in that snapshot devalue it’s worth. Wikipedia pages are dynamic and not static… you are going to snapshot half edited and incorrect content at an arbitrary time. My own website often edits within 24 hours after publication. A snapshot archive is without correction or retraction and loses a lot of the relevance that makes the Internet of NOW valuable.

Then I wonder about the business case: who is going to use this archive? The assumption is that someone at some time will immerse themselves in this ‘old archived Internet’ – then who? And why? How will this make money? Who will perpetually maintain it and where? Is this a private organisation? Who will have access to that information – because if some of that information is Jeremy Keith’s then I can assure you some of that information must be mine and yours.

The Privacy & Legal Issues of Archiving ‘Our’ Information

I do not believe any private citizen has the right to make choices on my behalf about what is kept in an archive. If I am as mad as hell about Facebook’s perception of my right to control my own information then I certainly don’t think a group of private citizens on an obsessive collection bee should be allowed to hold AND share that information. Who are these archive gatekeepers? If I delete from Facebook then not only should my data not be publicly visible online but ALSO it should be deleted from Facebook’s database AND any Jeremy Keith archive had better be willing and able to scour it out of their system.

Begging the question: any information currently in that snapshot that has been found to be libelous must be removed… so how will this affect a snapshot of everything on the Internet? Because if you disseminate libelous statements then you are, from my understanding, committing an offence. The next question is: an offence in what country and jurisdiction? That can be a dangerous legal minefield. For example, what about copyright of that archival content? What right does a private individual have to make copies and keep copies of websites full of proprietary data? Our relationship is with Facebook NOT Jeremy friggen Keith.

Leading to my next issue… it’s inevitable that in the creation of an Internet archive there will be infringements on people’s human rights. A common example would be the case of workplace or schoolyard bullying via Facebook – an example this morning on the radio was of a large woman who had workmates post unflattering photos of her on their Facebook profiles for ridicule. This was subsequently removed within 24 hours but any snapshot of the Internet as a whole for posterity taken in that period would store HER embarrassment into the archive. That is simply wrong. And that would be as wrong as storing other lies or rubbish written about people (particularly school children of today) for posterity. How does an archive deal with this bullying content, or does it just assume everything on the Internet is golden dust? Dare we mention issues such as the archival of pornography or criminal scams?

How dare any private citizens making an Internet archive believe they can scrape all of our children’s content for their own purpose? I’m surprised that this hasn’t been raised earlier. How secure will it be? Who will it be shared with? Why can’t these people just omit personal information from this archive as an ethical imperative? I’m lost for words.

The Traditional Garbage In / Garbage Out Problem

You should start to see a pattern here… this mass archive offers up a traditional database problem we should be aware of – GIGO (Garbage In / Garbage Out). It may sound romantic to ‘save a copy of our beloved Internet’ or any of the free social services we’ve come to exploit en masse but somebody isn’t thinking this through. Somebody is so fixated on their loss of a trivial bookmarking service and an inflated social self that they are willing to overlook privacy, data accuracy and social decency. So no, Jeremy Keith, I have no doubt that you’re a JavaScript rock star (my office bookshelf has several of your books for reference)… but on this occasion you are a misguided human being with a personal goal that I simply disagree with. Your bollocks may be well licked by the in-crowd but from my understanding of an Internet archive of everything I can only see peril and danger for the private citizens of the world.

It’s bad enough that we live in an electronic era where everything is monitored by Big Brother and the content that we’ve trusted to Facebook and other platforms will never be deleted off their servers (only from public view). To have private citizens wanting to grab that mass of spam and troll comments and everything we’ve said drunk, sober or sideways is, to my ears, repugnant. Save your own bookmarks… leave my bookmarks to die in the wilderness as fully intended when I used the service several years ago.

The Eventual Next Archive… and the Next

Which brings me to the next issue, how many times does this archival process occur? Every 12 months? Because tomorrow will have a different culture and then the year after that. Therefore multiple versions of this archive would probably be made to contain the snapshots of this Internet culture. Be sure and certain when I tell you one thing… I want and expect much of what I have online to fade away into obscurity over time. That’s the best outcome for me as a human being. Although the data is publicly available I do not believe you have the moral right to take it – much like people taking photographs through your kitchen window because they may see you from the roadway.

Yes, on the surface it does sound like a noble pursuit to archive the Internet… and what’s the harm? But just think about those important topics for a few minutes and tell me there isn’t a problem on Space Ship Adactio. He says we don’t need to sort this stuff out before it goes into the archive… damn right it needs to be sorted. If not, I hope the project gets sued out of existence sometime in the near future. By all means, save your own content for posterity. And by all means take a snapshot of certain things relevant to humanity that does not impinge on others’ rights and liberties. But don’t impinge simply because you’re technically savvy enough to do so and have lost the respect for other people’s data and privacy along the way.

I have stated a number of reasons why I find it abhorrant that we’re just talking about the difficulty of mass archiving the Internet. Pruning is key… must be key. I don’t see how any of those points amount to ‘bollocks’.

The Business Opportunity of the Social Web

Hooray and hoorah we’ve discovered new ways to communicate asynchronously, to share images and ideas and to value add to our conversations. Smarter businesses already include social technologies into their multi-channel marketing strategies.

The business opportunity of becoming a social media participant are obvious – greater market reach, an opportunity to magnify positive (and negative) word-of-mouth, brand awareness and customer relationship management: the ability to respond in (almost) real time to turn dissatisfied customers into advocates.

Unfortunately, where we find an identified business need in society the vacuum almost immediately fills with the cruft of shylocks and wankers. Taking Paul Boag’s advice I googled the term – ‘social media guru’ – returning a whopping arse-barraging 3,770,000 results. The vast majority of these social media gurus, I would guess, are self-promoting nobodies with a business card who believe they can spin a quick buck from naive businesses.

The Social Media Guru Scumbag

The object here is not to mince words so I’ll be clear – if someone misrepresents their social media guru skills to any business, even if it’s a self-delusional misrepresentation, then they are stealing hard earned money from another person’s enterprise. Think about it. Clients hire expertise to increase business value… and I don’t believe 99 per cent of social media gurus would provide that service.

My problem is that the self-titled social media guru usually seems to be someone who does little more than hang out on Twitter or Facebook. Some deluded facet of their personality believes hanging out on social networking sites directly translates to being able to steer a real fucking business through a real fucking business strategy. It’s like saying you’re a mechanic to get the work and your toolbox only has a roll of duct tape, a pocket knife and a can of beer for the after-party.

I’d go further and say that self-titled social media gurus are a particularly malignant threat to small and medium sized businesses who might be resource drained and strategically side-tracked from the real game. The real game, of course, is their core business… and that core business is going to be different for each and every business interacting with web technologies.

Real Social Media Strategy requires a Real Skillset

Unfortunately this douchebaggery has led to a blemish on that term – social media guru – so we need to push it aside. The new term might simply be ‘social media business strategist’. Gurus are people you have faith in while business strategists look for quantifiable results from direct actionable goals and objectives.

The social media business strategist has to possess a number of skills in their toolbox to value add to the client’s business beyond an affinity for sitting in their bedroom tweeting about their subject of interest. They need an understanding of the best practice principles of multi-channel marketing, strategic analysis and a deep understanding of the client business. How can somebody steer a social media strategy without understanding that business in their competitive landscape or their customers or their objectives in one to five years?

The social media business strategist needs to understand the client organisation’s culture – physical structures, symbols, values, beliefs, assumptions, stories, legends, rituals and ceremonies – and the existing sub-cultures. These are the people who will be imparted with the social networking mission. These are the people who will be meeting to discuss the idea around the water cooler or soft-drink vending machine.

And the social media business strategist needs a sound knowledge (and practical business skillset) relevant to the client’s specific business internal and external environment – stakeholders, legal/political, sociocultural, international, technological and economic.

It’s not good enough to come onboard with the generalised flippancy of a need to make a YouTube marketing channel. Tell me the objectives, the strategy… tell me what will be said and when to which of my customers in what voice… and to what measurable effect.

Real social media strategy is a lot more than a roll of duct tape, a pocket knife and a can of beer for the after-party.

The bottom line of this issue is that Nick McKim wants to reform the current prison system… while the prison officers’ union representatives claim the proposed reforms will endanger prison officers’ safety. That greater subject can lay fallow – is McKim a hypocrite or not?

A Whistleblower versus a Plain Old Thief

The first point to make is that Nigel Burch was a classic whistleblower who only stood to lose by revealing corruption in the Deputy Premier. I should add that the then Premier, Paul Lennon, and his successor, David Bartlett, are both under investigation by Tasmania’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Integrity Commission. In the classic spirit of whistleblowing, the information was released by Nigel Burch for the wider good of our society (by a person who knew that it would hurt nobody more than himself for revealing it). It was solely through ethical outrage – a key point of whistleblowing.

That should give you a good idea of what whistleblowing legislation is designed to protect – people revealing information for the greater public good.

Enter the disgruntled Tasmanian prison officers in pursuit of their stouche with government over danger in the workplace and McKim’s prison reforms. An as yet unidentified individual or individuals removed private and personal prisoner records and placed them in the public domain to serve their own ends… to prove a union case for a pay rise… a pay rise they stand to benefit from… in the hope of never being revealed.

The first example, Burch, is the whistleblower. The second example, an unnamed prison officer (or officers) have removed private information for personal gain. That is theft by anybody’s definition. It also impinges on the Tasmanian Government’s duty of care of those human beings being held in custody at the Risdon Prison Complex. We should never overlook our responsibility to those human beings nor our internationally recognised obligations to them regardless of their offences. As we wouldn’t condone torturing a rapist we should also abstain from defrocking them beyond the law without natural justice. These men and women are prisoners; these prisoners are men and women.

The Contents of a Prisoner’s File

My experience with the Tasmanian prison system is extensive and my file at one point was over six inches in height. The State Ombudsman, after my complaint about it’s size and how it was being used, ordered that file to be significantly culled by Prison management somewhere around 1994 because most of what entered that file was biased and editorial in nature – random prison officer commentary, parts of private letters out of context… anything anybody who disliked me thought could be useful as a weapon to bring me harm.

That’s the rub… prison files aren’t court records. Prison files contain anything any officer chooses to write about the inmate uncontested… the inmate cannot be notified of these comments because it would endanger the prison officer performing their duties. There is also a rule stating no prison officer can tell a lie or they will be immediately dismissed – so to be charged internally on any defaulter’s court has to result in a finding that the inmate is guilty of the offence. Or the officer has lied. If the officer has lied then the officer must be dismissed.

There is a contingency on more serious charges for a Justice of the Peace to sit on the defaulters court with the power to extent a prisoner’s sentence by several months. This is both rare (once in my knowledge of 15 years at Risdon) and without the rigour of Court Justice.

Any prison officer can write onto any prisoner’s file unproved and overheard commentary, psychiatric assessment (for example, psychopath… and even on the insistence of the States most senior forensic psychiatrist that the unqualified term be removed, the word psychopath has remained on that file).

So, prison files aren’t legally proven facts or standing documents meant for anybody beyond prison management or the parole board. Prison files are the equivalent of your quarterly performance management reports accumulated into one central location and across every job you’ve ever endured. The prison file also contains personal information about relationships, visitors, family details, addresses and phone numbers. Whatever the prison gleans about an inmate goes into that file. Anybody can edit that file. Anybody can contribute to that file.

Performance Management does not belong in the Public Domain

When the Tasmanian Liberals Elise Archer compares Burch’s whistleblowing to the release of these documents into the public domain she dramatically proves to be lacking in an understanding of whistleblowing. How would you feel if every performance management by that prick in your last job… the prick who hated your guts for no other reason than you existed… how would you feel if those performance management reports were public?

Nick McKim is entirely correct as the Corrections Minister to demand the thief (or thieves) of those documents be identified and prosecuted. This, by definition, is not an act of whistleblowing to be protected – this is an act of a union membership stealing internal and harmful files to prove a union case against their employer for a raise in pay and conditions. No more and no less. In other words… a revelation for potential personal and group gain.

The line has been crossed in this instance.

Prisons are a dangerous environment. However, I’m aware of the process of becoming a Tasmanian prison officer – the applicants try very hard to be employed there and wait a long time through interview, physical testing and training. From my memory I recall it being 9 to 12 months from application to hitting the yards. The danger of the situation should not be a surprise to anybody applying to manage our most dangerous, volatile and manipulative citizens. By the same token, it is not our right and not the prison officers’ collective right to drag those personal unsubstantiated collections of garbage into the public domain.

The moment society condones this action then nurses may just as well steal patient records to prove that some patients abuse them verbally and place those records into the public domain. Call centre workers… airlines… all that private information about you would be open to public scrutiny whether you did say those things or they just wrote them into their files through being offended.

Nick McKim has not been a hypocrite in this instance… however, Elise Archer has definately shown Tasmanian voters her ignorance about the nature, rationale and spirit of whistleblowing.

Here’s Oliver’s statement…

All awards should go from old uncles (like me or @zeldman or who ever) to young people. They need it.Oliver Reichenstein

So that’s saying that old people should step aside and let young(er) people claim awards they would not have otherwise won? To support their portfolio? Seriously?

Why is there an assumption that all emerging (or struggling) designers and agencies are 20 years old? How arrogant is that for a kick-starter in any industry? Aren’t there equal opportunity laws in place specifically because that thought is dangerous to hard working tax paying individuals who don’t fit a certain social expectation?

Extrapolate that small-mindedness across the Internet a little… should men step aside to let women win design awards? Should Caucasians step aside to ensure Hispanic, African American or Middle Eastern designers win? Or should Christians step aside for Muslims and Hindus? That sounds absolutely ridiculous right… because we all believe that bias against age, sex, religion, race and political persuasion shouldn’t be tolerated in any society OR industry.

I sincerely hope we understand the basic tenet of equal rights? Right? Even Oliver Reichenstein holds strong opinions on racist journalism in Switzerland, for example, so I’m guessing he understands the concept of social equality… he just doesn’t understand his comment about uncles stepping aside for young people is age abhorrent and somewhat patronising.

I’d also like to point out that good design is about figuring out solutions to business problems… what Jeffrey Zeldman and Happy Cog have achieved over many years of concerted effort is to understand the whole game is about design + business + politics + marketing + employee relations + client relations + making a living. That’s why Happy Cog won.

To believe there are no politics involved or that social factors (or marketing your business) doesn’t come into play in any industry award is just naive.

And I’d add that anybody who seriously believes their weak portfolio underpinned by an award will equal career success is seriously mistaken. Hard work, passion and striving for excellence (not awards) are more important than trinkets on the shelf to wave in your client’s faces.

But I think the most bothersome thing about the whole conversation is this seems to be the way of the world lately. Recently Miles Bourke’s agency, Bam Creative, cleaned up at Australian industry design awards and he mentioned that there were disparaging tweets from managers of competitor’s firms during the awards. That’s just not good enough.

Design at that level is going to be mighty subjective and truely many designers are worthy of winning any decent competition. But the winner is the winner for more reasons than merely creating that website. It’s reputation and branding and marketing and shaking hands as well. It’s an award for design but also an award for good business.

So here’s the drum… unless someone can come out with a constructive criticism of the actual winner’s product then why not shut up and let it ride. If you’re young (and good) you might win these awards oneday… maybe not… and if you don’t so what? It’s about making a living not fostering your own legend. And keep it all in perspective… it’s only an award. For Zeldman to step aside and hand it to a youngster (or a woman or a Native American or a Hindu) would be the most patronising industry act of the decade.

Congratulations Jeffrey Zeldman and Miles Bourke on your recent industry awards for your respective agencies. Enjoy the hard earned kudos.

Note: The question about the value of design awards and how they are administered are other topics entirely.

Rather than offering a synopsis that would take me a full day I provide a chronology:

• On 24 May, Nicholas Carr wrote an article for Wired – The Web Shatters Focus: Rewires Brains
• On 4 June, Clay Shirky wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal – Does the Internet Make you Smarter?
• On 5 June, Nicholas Carr wrote another article for the Wall Street Journal – Does the Internet Make you Dumber?
• On 6 June, The New York Times published – Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price
• On 10 June, Steven Pinker wrote in The New York Times – Mind Over Mass Media

The conversation over that time appears to have been framed as a soccer match between people who see digital media as the Fantastic Four versus those who dwell on the Neolithic past and drag their knuckles on the ground. An example is whether paper books were better or worse – try the word “different”.

Try this: it is a conversation about the balance between positive and negative effects of digital technologies on humans at an individual, group, organisational and societal level.

Each level is unique and adds to the complexity. If you are looking for a green light to say digital is lighting up your brain and making you a megastar then so be it… similarly, you may be after justification that all digital is bad news for humanity. But remember this – the conversation is not about either pole but it is about the continuum that lays between.

Don’t be too prepared to bring your own confirmation bias along for the ride so that you read these articles to justify your own pre-existing opinion for YES or NO.

Simply… yes people now skim more than they read and in general it tends to lead to shallow thinking rather than deep thinking… it takes cognitive load to deal with hyperlinks in text and there is a lot of research about the difference in effect between reading on a screen versus on paper. And yes, people are evolving and our brain is changing for better or worse into new ways of processing information.

Yes we’re addicted to tools but its how we choose to use them – most of us are less productive in part because of IM, Twitter and email but there is a rise in productivity from other computer applications. Multitasking does make you less efficient, by the way, and anyone who has worked in a cubicle office space knows that it takes 15 minutes or more to get back up to speed if you are interrupted. Enter our old friend pathological email checking – don’t deny your demons.

Yes, we are paying a human toll because hyper-stimulation and constantly-on 21st century living creates and maintains stress… and yes this is all an entirely natural brain phenomenon… so be it. We can each choose to live in the country and disengage – you don’t die without Facebook.

Each of these authors is correct from the facet they approach the problem. Where they actually converge is at their central opinion. Don’t take that lightly because opinion is an important part of any conversation.

In some ways the Internet makes us dumber in the sense that we have to deal with a lot more things and therefore we’re spread thinner and have less to invest. However, at the same time it allows us to find out a fantastic amount about any finite number of things – ask yourself how many books a PhD student got access to during their doctorate in 1980? This is why we have huge numbers of specialists now… many self-taught. But the more time you invest in reading about that one interest detracts from your overall ball of attention (ask any technologist’s family).

Unfortunately the trade-off is we seek out the things that agree with our current biases because we’re human and need confirmation.

Which brings me in a circle back to this discussion and how people appear to be responding to it… if you work with digital media it’s the Crusade and if you don’t have an emotional investment then you’ll probably be fighting for the Infidels. My advice to you is don’t. Just stop. Take a lung full of quiet air and think.

Just accept that on those four levels (individual, group, organisational and societal) that digital media have varying degrees of positive and negative effect. It’s neither the Holy Grail of Education nor the Abysmal Swamp of Future Ignorance. And like any set of tools it needs to be wielded wisely with reverence to the contextual consequences…

Don’t get sucked into thinking any of these authors are actually bullshitting you outright.

Just some rational food for thought. Books won’t disappear in a hurry and neither will the Internet – but then change is inevitable, right?

As a web professional we know better than the average person what the online experience should provide, how it should be treated by organisations (ethically, legally and in sustainable business models) and we should be able to fathom the industry expectation of best practice. Why? Because that’s the world we buy into when we shift our self-identity away from two-bit freebie person and become the web professional person.

As a web professional we are representative of the eyes, ears and overall conscience of the industry we create and maintain.

As a web professional we should be the litmus test on what is right and wrong – doing good and failing to support evil – within the web business environment.

As a web professional I am taking the liberty to presume you have already read about this subject and I’m not even going to put links to relevant resources within this article – which says as a web professional I expect a lot of you.

But you all know the score. You’ve all bought into the Facebook paradigm and are afraid to leave… hell, everybody is afraid to leave. Do you even exist if you don’t use your Facebook profile? I’m serious – you will have to forgo what would otherwise be a useful connection within industry and between acquaintances and family.

Here’s why you should leave Facebook en masse as web professionals. Because you know the company is unethical. Because you know when Zuck baby got burned with privacy issues in the past he used to cover up and say it was an accident… but now he’s emboldened because we’ve back-lashed and he’s still grown his business… and he’s in the business of selling our information as a part of his business model.

We, as web professionals, actually get the privacy issue. And yet we’re still there on Facebook. We’re condoning and supporting – and by our presence we are influencing and recommending – an evil company which is bait-and-switching the privacy issue to the general public.

So it comes down to your definition of what a web professional means… this afternoon I will be notifying everyone I know on Facebook that I will no longer be using the service and why… I’ll just have to live without it. All I can say is follow your conscience…

… and don’t complain about the industry going to crap if you’re willing to sell your soul to be a part of it.