Privacy sells?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Antony Mayfield

This advertising billboard in Clerkenwell stopped me in my tracks (and by tracks I mean the sedate progress of my Boris Bike) on Monday.

BlackBerry’s encryption of emails is good enough that it upsets those of an authoritarian, prying-into-your-citizens’-communications-persuasion and now they are making a selling point of it.

Privacy gets in the way of advertising business models as well as the secret police, which is why managing your privacy settings on services from your browser to Facebook is often unnecessarily complicated. It may not be a conspiracy to stop you from guarding your data, but there isn’t a perceived incentive to make this stuff really useful for the networks.

Or for anyone else. Apart from Ad Blocker web browser extensions and a clutch of very geeky tools used by activists and cautious geeks, there aren’t mass market tools and services to help people control how their data is used, how their personal becomes public…

Google’s recognised this, sort of… At least Paul Adams did in his masterpiece of a research paper on social networks - The Real Life Social Network – at Google (I note he is now at Facebook). Then we thought we’d see Google Circles, an social network designed to help with this managing of your content and conversations. But then we didn’t.

Thing is, privacy – what we want from it, what we actually mean by it, etc. – is complicated. As I discussed at Local Social Summit last year, privacy can mean all sorts of things. Privacy is proxy issue for fears and doubts about life with the web and with technology more broadly.

Anyway, back to the BlackBerry ad. I wonder if this sells phones. I wonder if privacy will sell other stuff too. I wonder if – as Alan Patrick – privacy itself is something that will be sold (as a service, a premium package, whatever…).

For authors: Managing your reputation online: links & resources

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Antony Mayfield

I’m writing an article for the Writers & Artists Yearbook about how to manage online reputation. I’ve compiled some of the links I think are useful in a Storify story (below).

Let me know if there’s anything you think I should add. Will credit suggestions in the updated Storify story and be linking to it from the article…

The ROI of personal networks (especially LinkedIn)

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Antony Mayfield

Image: An email from LinkedIn prompting me to tell my network what I’m up to…

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who told me that over the past year that had learned how to use LinkedIn and that they reckoned that they could directly attribute several hundred thousand pounds of profit to it. Not vaguely, not hypothetically – they knew exactly which items on their balance sheet were the result of doing things because of and through that social network tool.

They were a fiftysomething avowedly non-techie businessperson in a service industry and I found their account of their experience very useful, as it had the fresh perspective of someone outside of the connected world I most live in.

They were of course highly successful in their field already, and implicitly understood the importance of personal networks in business.

Their nightmare scenario in business was missing out on an opportunity because they weren’t in the right place at the right time, that they weren’t front of mind when someone in their sector was pulling together a short-list for a contract or similar. What Twitter was doing was helping them to increase both their presence and profile in their personal network and their ability to listen to the needs of their connections and contacts.

These were some of the points they related which stuck with me…

Paying attention to what is happening: They weren’t a compulsive checker of what was happening on their LinkedIn account, they used a weekly email update to see who was doing new things, connecting with someone else, saying interesting things or asking for help on status updates.
Light-touch presence: They update their status every now and again, but had grasped that in LinkedIn less can often be more. I agree with this, which is why I don’t connect Linkedin to Twitter. In Twitter I am much more chatty, and when the mood takes me update several times a day or even hour. In LinkedIn that’s not useful – I leave status updates there only when something significant has happened, or I am travelling somewhere that I think I might meet others from my network or I am looking for input on a particular project or issue. They also mentioned that changing their photograph or updating their profile details every few months was a useful way of keeping (sociologists would call that a phatic expression – the online equivalent of waving as you pass or saying “hi” briefly).
Being useful to their network: As well as answering obvious business opportunities, they stressed the importance of connecting others who would be useful to one another, when they spotted an opportunity. This connecting behaviour is a classic networking approach, and one that leaves everyone feeling positive toward one another. Often it can also result in direct or indirect commercial benefits for the connector.

LinkedIn is a productivity, networking super-charger: It’s not just about LinkedIn, of course – it is about understanding your personal networks and how to behave, to be useful in them. Tools like Linkedin accelerate and augment our ability to successfully work with our networks, in them, through them. But the real, underlying superskill as I’m calling it at the moment, is all about networks.

Clinton: No Tweets while I’m talking

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

“I hope you’re not Tweeting this…” Image (cc) Marcn.

Bill Clinton has never been attention-shy, but apparently he isn’t keen on Twitter-based attention, at least not during his speeches.

Some commenters on the RWW piece where I heard about this suggest he wants everyone in the room to give him their full attention. From the Primary Colours caricature, that would be a palusible explanation, but since no explanation has been offered by his team, we don’t really know.

Maybe as an exemplar of the the pre-web communications arts, he fears the backchannel?

Or now that Twitter and Facebook posting are so main stream are we seeing the beginning of a bit of a backlash as we go through a norming process about how we pay attention and communicate during speeches?

I wonder if we will see more policies like this for speakers? Who would be able to get away with it? Will there be anti-Twitter goons on patrol to enforce it?

All very odd. All very interesting.

Via ReadWriteWeb

Whitewalling: Teens create their own Facebook super log-off

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

Here’s an interesting approach that Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd found a young person using to manage their Facebook privacy and presence:

Mikalah uses Facebook but when she goes to log out, she deactivates her Facebook account. She knows that this doesn’t delete the account – that’s the point. She knows that when she logs back in, she’ll be able to reactivate the account and have all of her friend connections back. But when she’s not logged in, no one can post messages on her wall or send her messages privately or browse her content. But when she’s logged in, they can do all of that. And she can delete anything that she doesn’t like. Michael Ducker calls this practice “super-logoff” when he noticed a group of gay male adults doing the exact same thing.

Mikalah is not trying to get rid of her data or piss of her friends. And she’s not. What she’s trying to do is minimize risk when she’s not present to actually address it.

It goes to show that despite a platform’s desire to push people into disclosure by default, users will find ways to make their own choices about how publicness works. Because for many young people not being on Facebook just isn’t an option.

I asked Shamika why she bothered with Facebook in the first place, given that she sent over 1200 text messages a day. Once again, she looked at me incredulously, pointing out that there’s no way that she’d give just anyone her cell phone number. Texting was for close friends that respected her while Facebook was necessary to be a part of her school social life. And besides, she liked being able to touch base with people from her former schools or reach out to someone from school that she didn’t know well. Facebook is a lighter touch communication structure and that’s really important to her. But it doesn’t need to be persistent to be useful.

In the comments and related Tweets to this post, we can see that this hacking of the way Facebook works to suit personal reputation / presence management is common. One Tweet from @Tremblebot says their students call it “Whitewalling” or “Whitewashing”, and that the practice requires an investment up front and then makes it easy to stay on top of what people are posting about in the way of comments, tags and photos.

Perhaps this is something I should add the second edition of Me and My Web Shadow in the workflow for managing reputation. Certainly, if Facebook were to take a leaf out of Twitter’s playbook it would think about adding this as an easier to use or more prevalent feature.

“Whitewalling” also looks like evidence for the notion that people, yes even digital natives, want to retain some control over their privacy and what the world sees and hears about them.

Educational stalking

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

Interesting to read of the English teacher who encourages their pupils to cyber-stalk strangers. It’s an excellent, practical lesson for them about just how much information people reveal about themselves online, often without considering the consequences.

Clarence Fisher explains his lesson:

Wanting to teach the kids in my class about concepts of digital footprint and online safety, I used three people well known from the edusphere as examples: Will Richardson, Jabiz Raisdana and Jeff Utecht. I introduced these three friends to the students in my class by giving them only a photo and a name. I simply told the kids in my class: find out all you can about these three guys.

The students made a list of places to search. They started with simply Google and then soon expanded to other places such as flickr, youtube, twitter, wordpress, linkedin, delicious and facebook. They expanded into a Yahoo domain search and searching other sites such as whois.net. Soon their lists of information began to grow.

Take a look at his blog post to see the detail they uncovered and noted on their classroom flip-charts. Granted the stalking targets are people who have chosen to live in plain sight online for some time, but the exercise is still a very useful one. This is an example of just one:

Stalk. Stalking. Stalkerish. These are words which have found their way from the news pages into everyday vocabulary.

At the irritating, but mostly harmless end of things, I’ve heard young people describing someone who won’t take being ignored lightly (posting to their Facebook wall when texts, emails and DMs have been ignored is described as “stalkerish”).

Slightly more blood-chillingly there are the encounters with strangers that remind us that living in public online is not something to take too lightly. Shea Sylvia’s account of an unsettling phonecallin a restaurant from an unknown other while eating at a restaurant, is a reminder for us all that geotagging out location openly may not always be a good idea.

What a fantastic way, then, this teacher has found to show young people how managing their web shadow (or digital footprint as he terms it) is something to take very seriously indeed.

Via Ewan McIntosh

Sample pages from Me and My Web Shadow

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

Today is slated as publication day by Amazon, but we’re still two weeks away from the March 29th actual publication…

Meanwhile this is a sample of the first 25 pages of Me and My Web Shadow my publisher has very kindly put together.

It’s basically the contents, introduction and some top-line advice about managing your reputation and presence on the web.

You can download the PDF from my Slideshare also…

Sample of Me and My Web Shadow

View more documents from Antony Mayfield.

People who bought Me and My Web Shadow also bought…

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

…The Wire Series 2, according to Amazon.

Congratulations if you have pre-ordered the UK edition of the book – you have excellent taste ;-)

Since I took this screengrab, Anathem by Neal Stephenson and Blink by Malcom Gladwell have been added to the “People Who Bought” section. Me and My Web Shadow is in good company!

Book news: cover, US launch in June and other bits #webshadows

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Antony Mayfield

Off to the printers!

It’s official: Me and My Web Shadow: How to Manage Your Reputation Online is in print production right now… H’rah!

Here’s a shot of the cover that the publisher shared with me…

US publication date is now June

Me and My Web Shadow’s US launch is now set for June, pushed back slightly from May. The reasons for this are all good – and the US publishers sound really positive about its chances.

(If you want to pre-order a copy in the US, it’s a steal at Amazon for just over $10.)

UK launch events

Contrary to my dreams of publishing glory, large and lavish launch parties are a thing of the past. I shall be celebrating the launch in Brighton with a knees up no doubt, but there are also plans afoot for some events in London – an iCrossing client event – and further afield. If you are interested in running a joint event or in having a Me & My Web Shadow briefing/primer at a regular event you run do let me know.

Review copies and competitions

If you are a journo or a blogger I have a handful of review copies available in the UK. Once these have run out, the publisher has promised me some for a competition, so I’ll do a prize draw!

But if you can buy one and expense it/write it off against tax/think of it as an investment that’s even better – it’s just under ?9 and you will boost the sales rank in Amazon (currently 112,000 – though we hit the heady heights of 19,000 on Thursday). Think of it as a slightly pricey vote in the X-factor finals of the Amazon charts with a free?entertaining?and informative book gift for every supporter… ;-)

The web shadow of #webshadows

Ironically the web shadow of #webshdadows the book is quite slight at the moment, so in the spirit of the book marketing maestro, Seth Godin, I’m practicing what I preach and establishing the book’s network presence.

Naturally there’s a Facebook group and a Twitter profile now – hurrah! Please follow/fan/connect, if the mood takes you…