The past few months I have traveled across our country to various conferences that covered a vast landscape of our industry: broadcast. We are all witnessing a shift that is so unique and that has an effect on every part of our businesses. The base technology is changing rapidly not just upgrades to hardware and results, but major shifts of distribution across expanded networks to miniaturization of screens that are part of mobile devices such as phones, tablets and even Wearables. As for the new hardware we have at our finger tips that can be used to create content, it is so user friendly, simple and available any one can make a film and post it into a distribution network and poof, there is an audience waiting to see that work.
So after CES and the hardware display and invasion of the Chinese, I covered the Humana Challenge set in the beautiful Coachella Valley where I live. During the tournament, I asked the golfers that play the PGA circuit if this new advance with video, mobile and media has affected their training or improved their game. For the most part the answer was no or not yet. It will be interesting to see if this revolution of smart everything will have changed their mind sets by next year.
Then off to Miami and NATPE listening to how the television business; producers and distributors were viewing this paradigm shift and what were folks doing about all of it. So in deference to New Media, the first speaker of this conference jumped right into the idea that everything is changing right now. TV audiences now have their own audiences through You Tube, Twitter and the entire second screen system; this allows an exponential growth to the reachable audience. I want to introduce a few statistics so you can understand a bit of how social media expands the audience through these second screen opportunity. Advertisers can deliver to a waiting audience, watching TV, next then connected through social media allows the TV audience to exponentially expand, since 80 percent of viewers access some second screens; that is four out of five watchers engage with a lap top, tablet, mobile while watching TV, which is now a complete change of the viewer's habits. The ability to discuss what is happening on the TV screen with their friends and family expands the joy and the experience by sharing with others.
Law and Order: SVU was a very strong example of how speaking directly to their audience helped a 14-year-old TV franchise. Since early last year the cast and writers have been communicating with their audience on a regular basis through social media and they had their best new season launch in 2014. When something unusual or exciting happens now in sports and then there is retweeting of those events, the audience expands and expands from re-tweets like re-broadcasting. This phenomenon is so important to the media buyers, the producer and also to the consumer. The use of social media to communicate directly to the audience and then confirm the relationship and then to consummate that relationship and keep it longer, expands the value of that audience. This is a new great medium to help media buyers and advertisers expand their audience beyond commercials on TV shows. For the past two years, we here at CV Studios Network have been focused on the Enterprise Market and using our patented mobile video player EMVP to introduce another form of communication to employees and customers from major corporations worldwide.
On another panel later in conference Chris Williams CAO of Maker Studios shared that his company is in the business of mentoring new upcoming creators through their You Tube network. His company's goals are to move them from hobbyists to professionals. By allowing these young video makers a place for them to show their creativity on the company's platform, give them support through Maker's leading place on this Google platform, has helped grow their company to a leader and many others who have followed their lead. He of course believes that good content is still important and a young producer can come from anywhere, at Maker or one of the many other new networks, because the film gets curated, distributed and supported by the Network Company and also taps into other producer's fans through social media, each together makes a much larger footprint, just like traditional studios. There are a plethora of these small internet, technology driven start-up companies growing this sector of our industry that is fueled by available new technology and now available investment funds through traditional media companies as well as venture fund, who always wanted to get a piece of our industry, but worried about the risk of making content with so few ways to distribute and build an audience. New money is changing the landscape, so understanding the benefits from the second screens and the addition of new smaller production companies and networks popping up everywhere, we must face that self-distribution is upon us and use that knowledge to grow. Money for making content now comes from so many new investors, from traditional to individuals, and through crowd funding, again more technology driving change to our industry.
It was also suggested that digital video creation expertise can be an interesting talent acquisition for traditional advertisers and another way to make money for these new startups, to that point shorter ad stories are now more watched than those longer traditional, Vine, Snapshot, Pintress and others have been leading the way. There is also a change in viewing by the younger audience, now youths demand mini-form content for their short attention span. No one has time to spend on getting information and we as broadcasters need to be very conscious of this when we create content and place it on New Media.
Celebrity brands can become a platform of themselves. The building of "The Cult of Celebrity" through social media and mobile which allows the leveraging and incubating all sorts of brands; then there are existing celebrities, up and coming growing YouTube stars and just plain folks driven to use a new kind of media platform to build a substantial financial model that comes from celebrity. How do you use these new delivery platforms to create a sustainable cash flow generating brand? That was a question that Drew Baldwin founder of Tube Filter and the Streamys asked his panel the very last day of the NATPE conference in front of a full house in a conference room on the second floor of the Fountainblu Hotel. What a draw celebrity has even to this last seminar on the last day; all of us looking for that Holy Grail. How to move content into social media with names of celebrities, then work with licensing, manufactures brands to then integrate with the TV show's loyal audience and then on top of that add a celebrity brand. This can be a very powerful vision for traditional TV producers on the first screen who can build off of loyal audiences of existing TV shows to expand their brand cooperation beyond the typical advertisers. That is an opportunity for all producers, distributors and librarians of existing content. Those movable screens are everywhere, people consistently connected, dodging them on the sidewalks of America intently viewing their device or on an airplane, train and unfortunately in the auto. But since we can't get away from those screens let's put content on them, just that same old business we have always been in, broadcasting.
Then off to New York City, to brave the cold weather and attend Social Media Week NYC 2014, one of 26 simultaneous events going on all over the world to discuss the power of social media, which was created five years ago by Toby Daniels and been produced in more than 26 Global cities. It was there to meet and have discord around the new phenomenon called Social Media communication, and there were a sea of thousands of young New Yorkers, and others merged in a warehouse converted into a meeting place down by the meat packing district. I don't know if it was the energy in the room or I am just beginning to see the power, but this day, listening to a great panel that JWT sponsored and meeting the Nokia thought leader for social Craig Hepburn with all the always on young leaders in community, not the traditional group I meet with in Silicon Valley, I felt the power from the youths that are driving this revolution. I needed to know more. I mean the statics are staggering, almost 3 billion currently have mobile devices and that will double before 2020, maybe as early as 2016. Right now 67 percent watch video on a mobile device and with everyone at this social media conference discussing how text does not make the sale, photos and videos are the medium for communication through mobile. When we speak about audiences having their own audience, that is what social media has created, even if you have only 200 followers and there is that sweater you love at The Gap, your text with a photo can be multiplied by all your 200 followers add that to theirs, could be millions. How much money would it cost to reach that many viewers of the sweater the traditional advertising way??
I just did a great interview of Toby Daniels and that will be my next blog. Just start thinking about this always on world and what it means to tradition broadcast, content, technology and our lives, and we really do have to think long and hard about this, because we are smack dab in the 21St century where "always on" is the password.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Silicon Valley's Problem
Recently, I read an article in the NYT written by a graduate student at Columbia on Silicon Valley's Youth Problem. I was very pleased to see that a person in tech was writing about problems people in tech face. Kudos to NYT to capturing this important perspective. After reading the article, I felt compelled to write a letter to the author to voice my thoughts. Although I never ended up sending it, you can find my letter below.
Hey Yiren,
I just read your article. Powerful stuff. Your article really hit home for me -- I recently graduated from Columbia (Lions pride! -- and no pun intended) where I studied computer science. I moved to Washington to work as a Program Manager at Microsoft last fall. Because I felt like I could relate to your narrative, there were a couple of points I wanted to voice which I feel very strongly about.
The problem with "tech" scene today is that it no longer is about technology. It has devolved into a gold-rush of mass-hysteria led by a throng of wantrepreneurs with little to no regard for Computer Science. Sure, the majority of the miners might know about HTML5 (and that's as far as they usually know -- that it exists), most have no clue about abstract syntax trees, finite automata, the knapsack problem, relational calculus, machine translation, multicycle MIPS processors or pretty much anything outside of "programming."
These are the new faces of tech, spurred on by people such as Peter Thiel who believe all that book-learnin is net detrimental. It is the overly idealistic notion that "all you need is an idea," which plagues the young tech scene.
While I was president of ACM at Columbia, a hackNY fellow and Dorm Room Fund partner during my college years, I became involved in the tech community. Quickly, I realized how one-sided the community truly was for those few who took enough initiative to learn to code. Day after day, I was bombarded with emails after emails from would-be "entrepreneurs" who cared nothing more than instrumenting me as a tool. Since, clearly, if there's anyone who is going to hit the next jackpot, it's a hotshot iBanker without any technical prowess and the same hackneyed ideas as the other 10 million iBankers.
Invariably, the onslaught of single-minded "business development experts" sought a technical co-founder to build their social networks for wildabeests. Because a network for wildabeests is the next big (no)thing. Without fail, they generously offered me equity in a company I would single-handedly build as their "co-founder." They also bribed me with business connections to this guy their friend knew from Google. Well, he used to work there at least.
While the "entrepreneur" kicked back and drank some coconut water, they expected me to do all the heavy lifting. It is at this juncture when I ask them if they were truly invigorated by their ideas, why don't they learn to code themselves? Otherwise, how can they deserve to be successful for something they had no part in creating?
Much like gold prospectors, these wantrepreneurs are merely dilettantes drawn to the allure of outrageous valuations. For if they were truly interested in tech and not simply to cash in on an absurdly inflated market, then they would have studied Computer Science. Because it interested them.
Furthermore, I charge these new faces of tech with not only sloth -- although not for lack of ambition -- but also with fetishizing the developer culture. Perhaps their most apparent crime is that they are repeat offenders in overusing the word, "hacker." Often they deem the engineering community as whole as "hackers," despite lacking all but the most rudimentary skills themselves. Hacker this, open-source that.
On the surface, this might seem to you as a minor offense. But in lumping themselves together with computer scientists, wantrapreneurs conflate "computer science" with fleeting, single-purpose web apps that do little more than read in a user's input. The new faces of tech have successfully completed the illusion of convincing the general  public that "tech" is little more than an iPhone game.
To be a computer scientist is a right you have to earn, and not simply by becoming a "code ninja" because you wrote an instant-message client in NodeJS. It was only after I toiled through the 11 grad level classes while an undergrad at Columbia when I could call myself a Computer Scientist.
That is why I am personally opposed to the term "hacker." In my mind, the new guys on the scene are nothing more than charlatans consumed by the promise of fame and fortune. After all, they often the very same people who snickered behind the backs of countless neckbeards, pointing and laughing at them for attending hackathons. Now, I guess the tables have turned.
Just as one cannot blame a rabbit for scavenging a vegetable patch, I cannot blame the hordes of wantrepreneurs for ravaging the tech scene. The real blame lies on the VCs. In artificially creating value where there is little, VCs have created a hyper-inflated market. Much like the origin of the former financial crisis began when banks began selling portfolios of toxic assets to other banks caught in the real-estate frenzy of 2006, the same market correction is likely to occur when the true book value is uncovered.
Our expectations for "tech" companies FAR outstrip the reality. Whatsapp's recent acquisition is absolutely LAUGHABLE. Given their current annual revenue stream of 20 million, it will take a millennium to earn their 19 billion valuation. Ultimately, what value is there in a company if not its net profit? A business cannot endure on speculation alone.
When the check books stop balancing, someone's gotta pay the piper. Someday soon, the world is in for a rude awakening. In part, this is due to the absurd valuations that venture capital companies issue for essentially worthless companies. I hope I have made myself clear that the excessive hype induced by venture capital's fervor has inflated the entire market and robbed tech of its dignity.
Just like the conquistadors in search of gold ruthlessly plundered the indigenous, the feverishly fanatical mentality of urgency and blind ambition is destructive, albeit in more subtle ways. Usually, the most talented students are the ones who brush aside careers in cancer research to strike it big with flappy-bird. I argue the damage to society alone for the misallocation of talent is more damaging then the loss of life due to colonization. How many more people would be alive today from new cures developed from the Ivy-League graduates that  Goldman Sachs and their Wall Street cohorts swallowed whole? Now, the same could be said for the new Snapchats of the world.
It's pretty miraculous that the archetypal programmer has transformed from lives-with-mom to runs-a-fortune-500.
Lastly, there is great personal damage to individuals caught in the startup whirlwind as well. Classmates of mine with an almost-megalomaniacal conviction for their delusions of grandeur dropped out left and right to pursue dreams little more likely than meeting the tooth fairy. Yet, when their role models such as Peter Thiel applaud their decisions, they don't realize the incredible opportunities they forgo.
I am in direct opposition to the commonly-accepted notion that learning can only occur outside the classroom. The bar might be low now, but the real, lasting opportunities on the horizon in the world of computer science require a thorough education.
Having taken courses both in and out of the classroom, I firmly believe that online learning is NOT a substitute for an education, no matter how you slice it. Without the pressure to pull all-nighters to finish a problem set, it is nearly impossible to apply oneself to the same extent while working independently. It's a result of simply human nature -- independent learners lack the same accountability which the classroom enforces. Simply posting a few off-hand comments on Hacker News about human computer interaction does not make one an expert on User Interface Design.
That said, I'd be hard-pressed to dispute the value of outside learning outside of the classroom entirely. Outside experience on pet projects is pivotal to the growth of an engineer, and this fact has been noted by tech giants like Google and Microsoft. After all, Github has effectively replaced the resume of a software engineer. However, there are some things that can be learned far easier in class than at home.
It is for this very reason that most undergraduate CS programs completely gloss over web programming as they expect that students are better suited to acquire these skills outside of the classroom. When it comes to fully grasping the concepts of more academically-rigorous disciplines like machine learning, it is vital to be disciplined in one's approach to learning.
Next year, I will return to the east coast to get a masters at Harvard in the new Computational Science and Engineering program. I firmly believe that Machine Learning is the next frontier and will power the next wave of actually useful software. No more sexting. Way more knowing and predicting. I'm making a $48,000 bet on this, after all.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts at your leisure,
Cole
Hey Yiren,
I just read your article. Powerful stuff. Your article really hit home for me -- I recently graduated from Columbia (Lions pride! -- and no pun intended) where I studied computer science. I moved to Washington to work as a Program Manager at Microsoft last fall. Because I felt like I could relate to your narrative, there were a couple of points I wanted to voice which I feel very strongly about.
The problem with "tech" scene today is that it no longer is about technology. It has devolved into a gold-rush of mass-hysteria led by a throng of wantrepreneurs with little to no regard for Computer Science. Sure, the majority of the miners might know about HTML5 (and that's as far as they usually know -- that it exists), most have no clue about abstract syntax trees, finite automata, the knapsack problem, relational calculus, machine translation, multicycle MIPS processors or pretty much anything outside of "programming."
These are the new faces of tech, spurred on by people such as Peter Thiel who believe all that book-learnin is net detrimental. It is the overly idealistic notion that "all you need is an idea," which plagues the young tech scene.
While I was president of ACM at Columbia, a hackNY fellow and Dorm Room Fund partner during my college years, I became involved in the tech community. Quickly, I realized how one-sided the community truly was for those few who took enough initiative to learn to code. Day after day, I was bombarded with emails after emails from would-be "entrepreneurs" who cared nothing more than instrumenting me as a tool. Since, clearly, if there's anyone who is going to hit the next jackpot, it's a hotshot iBanker without any technical prowess and the same hackneyed ideas as the other 10 million iBankers.
Invariably, the onslaught of single-minded "business development experts" sought a technical co-founder to build their social networks for wildabeests. Because a network for wildabeests is the next big (no)thing. Without fail, they generously offered me equity in a company I would single-handedly build as their "co-founder." They also bribed me with business connections to this guy their friend knew from Google. Well, he used to work there at least.
While the "entrepreneur" kicked back and drank some coconut water, they expected me to do all the heavy lifting. It is at this juncture when I ask them if they were truly invigorated by their ideas, why don't they learn to code themselves? Otherwise, how can they deserve to be successful for something they had no part in creating?
Much like gold prospectors, these wantrepreneurs are merely dilettantes drawn to the allure of outrageous valuations. For if they were truly interested in tech and not simply to cash in on an absurdly inflated market, then they would have studied Computer Science. Because it interested them.
Furthermore, I charge these new faces of tech with not only sloth -- although not for lack of ambition -- but also with fetishizing the developer culture. Perhaps their most apparent crime is that they are repeat offenders in overusing the word, "hacker." Often they deem the engineering community as whole as "hackers," despite lacking all but the most rudimentary skills themselves. Hacker this, open-source that.
On the surface, this might seem to you as a minor offense. But in lumping themselves together with computer scientists, wantrapreneurs conflate "computer science" with fleeting, single-purpose web apps that do little more than read in a user's input. The new faces of tech have successfully completed the illusion of convincing the general  public that "tech" is little more than an iPhone game.
To be a computer scientist is a right you have to earn, and not simply by becoming a "code ninja" because you wrote an instant-message client in NodeJS. It was only after I toiled through the 11 grad level classes while an undergrad at Columbia when I could call myself a Computer Scientist.
That is why I am personally opposed to the term "hacker." In my mind, the new guys on the scene are nothing more than charlatans consumed by the promise of fame and fortune. After all, they often the very same people who snickered behind the backs of countless neckbeards, pointing and laughing at them for attending hackathons. Now, I guess the tables have turned.
Just as one cannot blame a rabbit for scavenging a vegetable patch, I cannot blame the hordes of wantrepreneurs for ravaging the tech scene. The real blame lies on the VCs. In artificially creating value where there is little, VCs have created a hyper-inflated market. Much like the origin of the former financial crisis began when banks began selling portfolios of toxic assets to other banks caught in the real-estate frenzy of 2006, the same market correction is likely to occur when the true book value is uncovered.
Our expectations for "tech" companies FAR outstrip the reality. Whatsapp's recent acquisition is absolutely LAUGHABLE. Given their current annual revenue stream of 20 million, it will take a millennium to earn their 19 billion valuation. Ultimately, what value is there in a company if not its net profit? A business cannot endure on speculation alone.
When the check books stop balancing, someone's gotta pay the piper. Someday soon, the world is in for a rude awakening. In part, this is due to the absurd valuations that venture capital companies issue for essentially worthless companies. I hope I have made myself clear that the excessive hype induced by venture capital's fervor has inflated the entire market and robbed tech of its dignity.
Just like the conquistadors in search of gold ruthlessly plundered the indigenous, the feverishly fanatical mentality of urgency and blind ambition is destructive, albeit in more subtle ways. Usually, the most talented students are the ones who brush aside careers in cancer research to strike it big with flappy-bird. I argue the damage to society alone for the misallocation of talent is more damaging then the loss of life due to colonization. How many more people would be alive today from new cures developed from the Ivy-League graduates that  Goldman Sachs and their Wall Street cohorts swallowed whole? Now, the same could be said for the new Snapchats of the world.
It's pretty miraculous that the archetypal programmer has transformed from lives-with-mom to runs-a-fortune-500.Lastly, there is great personal damage to individuals caught in the startup whirlwind as well. Classmates of mine with an almost-megalomaniacal conviction for their delusions of grandeur dropped out left and right to pursue dreams little more likely than meeting the tooth fairy. Yet, when their role models such as Peter Thiel applaud their decisions, they don't realize the incredible opportunities they forgo.
I am in direct opposition to the commonly-accepted notion that learning can only occur outside the classroom. The bar might be low now, but the real, lasting opportunities on the horizon in the world of computer science require a thorough education.
Having taken courses both in and out of the classroom, I firmly believe that online learning is NOT a substitute for an education, no matter how you slice it. Without the pressure to pull all-nighters to finish a problem set, it is nearly impossible to apply oneself to the same extent while working independently. It's a result of simply human nature -- independent learners lack the same accountability which the classroom enforces. Simply posting a few off-hand comments on Hacker News about human computer interaction does not make one an expert on User Interface Design.
That said, I'd be hard-pressed to dispute the value of outside learning outside of the classroom entirely. Outside experience on pet projects is pivotal to the growth of an engineer, and this fact has been noted by tech giants like Google and Microsoft. After all, Github has effectively replaced the resume of a software engineer. However, there are some things that can be learned far easier in class than at home.
It is for this very reason that most undergraduate CS programs completely gloss over web programming as they expect that students are better suited to acquire these skills outside of the classroom. When it comes to fully grasping the concepts of more academically-rigorous disciplines like machine learning, it is vital to be disciplined in one's approach to learning.
Next year, I will return to the east coast to get a masters at Harvard in the new Computational Science and Engineering program. I firmly believe that Machine Learning is the next frontier and will power the next wave of actually useful software. No more sexting. Way more knowing and predicting. I'm making a $48,000 bet on this, after all.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts at your leisure,
Cole
Saturday, March 29, 2014
3 Psychological Theories to Help You Communicate Better with Anyone
Psychological theories often feel a bit too complicated for me (I'm sure there's a theory that explains why that is) but I've come across a few that are simple enough to understand and that I think of often, particularly when dealing with other people.
I thought it might be fun to take a brief look at a few psychological theories that are especially relevant for business, marketing, leadership and overall communication skills. Keep in mind I'm no professional psychologist, so if you're keen to find out more about these, definitely dig deeper into the research about each one.
Dunbar's Number
Professor Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who developed a model for predicting social factors about primates, based on brain size. Working from the brain expansion over time in primates (including humans), Dunbar was able to match brain size to social behaviors:
In particular, he looked at the size of social groups, and the number of more intimate grooming partners for different primate species:
Our more intimate clique size usually includes around 12 people. That 150 number is the important one, though. It's (roughly)Â the maximum number of people that most of us can manage a social connection with. Anything above this is a struggle for our brains, so people drop off the bottom of our list as we add more to the top of it. Here's another way Dunbar describes it:
Writer Rick Lax actually took up Dunbar's number as a challenge and tried to prove it wrong. In his piece for Wired, Lax explains what he learned from the attempt:
The experiment also encouraged Lax to pay more attention to those few, close connections he has:
Dunbar's number is particularly interesting in terms of marketing, brand-building and social media. If you keep in mind that each person you interact with only places around 150 people total in their "emotional connection" bucket, it can make interactions much easier. Rather than being frustrated or surprised that your customers don't "connect" with your brand, think about this: each emotional connection they offer to your company is one they can't offer to a true friend or family member. So when they do, that's a big deal.
You might think that Dunbar's number is in direct opposition to the idea of social media. In fact, the number is the whole reason that the social network Path limits its users to 150 connections. However, social media also takes advantage of weak ties -- the friend-of-a-friend or six-degrees-of-separation way that you might have come to know new friends on Twitter or Facebook.
In Morten Hansen's book Collaboration, he describes how both weak ties and strong ties are crucial -- but that the weak ties created through networking and social media were often the key to new opportunities.
Weak ties help here because they "form bridges to worlds we do not walk within," whereas strong ties are most likely people in worlds we already know.
Hanlon's Razor
Hanlon's Razor is an adage that goes like this:
If you've ever heard of Ockham's Razor (or Occam's Razor), you might know that a razor in philosophy is designed to help us strip away unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. So, essentially, something happens (a phenomenon) and we try to explain it with a hypothesis (possible explanation). A razor helps us to eliminate the unlikely hypotheses until we're left with the most probable explanation of the phenomenon.
Although Hanlon's Razor is quoted using the word "stupidity," I prefer to use "ignorance," since not having all the information can often be the issue where we might assume it's stupidity (i.e. lack of good judgement).
So let's explore how Hanlon's Razor works.
The idea is that when someone appears to be treating you with malice, you should always dig deeper to see if ignorance could be the cause, instead.
Have you ever received an email from a coworker or colleague that seemed to critique you or attack your idea? Your first reaction was probably to attribute it to malice -- but if you look more closely, you might find it's simply a misunderstanding.
An example that illustrates this well is looking at the movie Finding Nemo: If you remember, Nemo is kept in a fish tank by a dentist, separating him from his father and resulting in a movie-length search to save him. The dentist, however, isn't acting with malice: He actually thinks he's doing Nemo a favor by keeping him "safe" in the tank.
Likewise, the dentist's niece tends to be rough with fish, misunderstanding how her actions are dangerous. Although it seems like malice to the fish, she's actually just ignorant of the consequences of shaking a fish around roughly in a plastic bag.
The next time you're not quite sure how to interpret that ambiguous tweet or email, remember Hanlon's Razor and consider giving the sender the benefit of the doubt.
Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory
This last theory can be useful for interacting with anyone about their job: colleagues, employees, or even a friend or spouse. The theory, published by psychologist Frederick Herzberg in 1959, suggests that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are actually measured in different ways, rather than being two ends of the same scale.
The theory says that job dissatisfaction comes from "hygiene" factors such as the physical work environment, job security and salary. Job satisfaction, however, comes from "motivating" factors like enjoying the work itself, feeling a sense of achievement and having responsibility.
Herzberg spent five years conducting research into job satisfaction, due to the increase of indications of job dissatisfaction, like strikes and employees filing grievances.
What we can learn from his research is that mitigating factors that lead to job dissatisfaction won't necessarily lead us to job satisfaction. So, a high-paying job that offers great benefits and a comfortable working environment could still make us feel lousy if we don't have any responsibility at work, and we never feel a sense of achievement.
Conversely, feeling great about the work you do and being recognized for it won't offset the issues of being paid poorly, or feeling uncomfortable about your working environment.
This theory gives us a lot to think about in terms of understanding why certain companies are perceived as good places to work and investigating how best to motivate a team or individual at work. I think this theory also can be really powerful for those times when we listen to a friend, colleague or employee's complaints about work. I'll never again say something like, "but you get paid so well!" expecting them to be happy about their job.
There are loads of theories and concepts like these which are useful to know. Do you know a good one? Let us know in the comments.
If you liked this post, you might also like The Science of Emotion in Marketing: How Our Brains Decide What to Share and Whom to Trust and The Science of Failure: Why Highly Successful People Crave Mistakes.
Image credits: illuminaut, Bloomberg Businesweek, MIT Technology Review, Danger and Play, Wikimedia Commons, softducks
I thought it might be fun to take a brief look at a few psychological theories that are especially relevant for business, marketing, leadership and overall communication skills. Keep in mind I'm no professional psychologist, so if you're keen to find out more about these, definitely dig deeper into the research about each one.
Dunbar's Number
Professor Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who developed a model for predicting social factors about primates, based on brain size. Working from the brain expansion over time in primates (including humans), Dunbar was able to match brain size to social behaviors:
Robin Dunbar used the volume of the neocortex -- the "thinking" part of the brain -- as his measure of brain size, because this accounts for most of the brain's expansion within primates.
In particular, he looked at the size of social groups, and the number of more intimate grooming partners for different primate species:
For instance, chimps belong to social groups comprising about 50 individuals, but they have only two or three grooming partners.
Based on the size of neocortex, Dunbar was able to very accurately predict the size of a social group and the number of grooming partners of various primate species.
When he applied this to humans, Dunbar found that most human social groups are made up of around 150 people:
... the literature suggests that 150 is roughly to the number of people you could ask for a favor and expect to have it granted.
Our more intimate clique size usually includes around 12 people. That 150 number is the important one, though. It's (roughly)Â the maximum number of people that most of us can manage a social connection with. Anything above this is a struggle for our brains, so people drop off the bottom of our list as we add more to the top of it. Here's another way Dunbar describes it:
Putting it another way, it's the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.
Writer Rick Lax actually took up Dunbar's number as a challenge and tried to prove it wrong. In his piece for Wired, Lax explains what he learned from the attempt:
In trying to disprove Dunbar's number, I actually proved it. I proved that even if you're aware of Dunbar's number, and even if you set aside a chunk of your life specifically to broaden your social capital, you can only maintain so many friendships. And "so many" is fewer than 200.
The experiment also encouraged Lax to pay more attention to those few, close connections he has:
I walk away from this experiment with a newfound respect for 1) British anthropology and 2) My real friends. There aren't too many of them, I now see. So I better treat them well.
Dunbar's number is particularly interesting in terms of marketing, brand-building and social media. If you keep in mind that each person you interact with only places around 150 people total in their "emotional connection" bucket, it can make interactions much easier. Rather than being frustrated or surprised that your customers don't "connect" with your brand, think about this: each emotional connection they offer to your company is one they can't offer to a true friend or family member. So when they do, that's a big deal.
You might think that Dunbar's number is in direct opposition to the idea of social media. In fact, the number is the whole reason that the social network Path limits its users to 150 connections. However, social media also takes advantage of weak ties -- the friend-of-a-friend or six-degrees-of-separation way that you might have come to know new friends on Twitter or Facebook.
In Morten Hansen's book Collaboration, he describes how both weak ties and strong ties are crucial -- but that the weak ties created through networking and social media were often the key to new opportunities.
Research shows that it is not the size - the sheer number of contacts maintained by a person - that counts. Rather, it's the diversity of connections - the number of different types of people, units, expertise, technologies and viewpoints - that people can access through their networks.
Weak ties help here because they "form bridges to worlds we do not walk within," whereas strong ties are most likely people in worlds we already know.
Hanlon's Razor
Hanlon's Razor is an adage that goes like this:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
If you've ever heard of Ockham's Razor (or Occam's Razor), you might know that a razor in philosophy is designed to help us strip away unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. So, essentially, something happens (a phenomenon) and we try to explain it with a hypothesis (possible explanation). A razor helps us to eliminate the unlikely hypotheses until we're left with the most probable explanation of the phenomenon.
Although Hanlon's Razor is quoted using the word "stupidity," I prefer to use "ignorance," since not having all the information can often be the issue where we might assume it's stupidity (i.e. lack of good judgement).
So let's explore how Hanlon's Razor works.
The idea is that when someone appears to be treating you with malice, you should always dig deeper to see if ignorance could be the cause, instead.
Have you ever received an email from a coworker or colleague that seemed to critique you or attack your idea? Your first reaction was probably to attribute it to malice -- but if you look more closely, you might find it's simply a misunderstanding.
If I can't think of at least three different interpretations of what I received, I haven't thought enough about what it might mean. -- Jerry Weinberg
An example that illustrates this well is looking at the movie Finding Nemo: If you remember, Nemo is kept in a fish tank by a dentist, separating him from his father and resulting in a movie-length search to save him. The dentist, however, isn't acting with malice: He actually thinks he's doing Nemo a favor by keeping him "safe" in the tank.
Likewise, the dentist's niece tends to be rough with fish, misunderstanding how her actions are dangerous. Although it seems like malice to the fish, she's actually just ignorant of the consequences of shaking a fish around roughly in a plastic bag.
The next time you're not quite sure how to interpret that ambiguous tweet or email, remember Hanlon's Razor and consider giving the sender the benefit of the doubt.
Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory
This last theory can be useful for interacting with anyone about their job: colleagues, employees, or even a friend or spouse. The theory, published by psychologist Frederick Herzberg in 1959, suggests that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are actually measured in different ways, rather than being two ends of the same scale.
The theory says that job dissatisfaction comes from "hygiene" factors such as the physical work environment, job security and salary. Job satisfaction, however, comes from "motivating" factors like enjoying the work itself, feeling a sense of achievement and having responsibility.
Herzberg spent five years conducting research into job satisfaction, due to the increase of indications of job dissatisfaction, like strikes and employees filing grievances.
What we can learn from his research is that mitigating factors that lead to job dissatisfaction won't necessarily lead us to job satisfaction. So, a high-paying job that offers great benefits and a comfortable working environment could still make us feel lousy if we don't have any responsibility at work, and we never feel a sense of achievement.
Conversely, feeling great about the work you do and being recognized for it won't offset the issues of being paid poorly, or feeling uncomfortable about your working environment.
This theory gives us a lot to think about in terms of understanding why certain companies are perceived as good places to work and investigating how best to motivate a team or individual at work. I think this theory also can be really powerful for those times when we listen to a friend, colleague or employee's complaints about work. I'll never again say something like, "but you get paid so well!" expecting them to be happy about their job.
There are loads of theories and concepts like these which are useful to know. Do you know a good one? Let us know in the comments.
If you liked this post, you might also like The Science of Emotion in Marketing: How Our Brains Decide What to Share and Whom to Trust and The Science of Failure: Why Highly Successful People Crave Mistakes.
Image credits: illuminaut, Bloomberg Businesweek, MIT Technology Review, Danger and Play, Wikimedia Commons, softducks
Friday, March 28, 2014
10 Points Where the Research Behind Banning Handheld Devices for Children Is Flawed
You may have come across Cris Rowan's popular HuffPost piece explaining 10 reasons handheld devices should be banned for children under 12. You may also have read the rebuttal from a librarian mom who explains why she will continue to give her children handheld devices. While the pro-device author explains the benefits of handhelds, what she doesn't uncover is that the research cited by the original author doesn't support her claims.
In fact, the research cited in the Rowan piece is so unsupportive of her claims, it seems possible that the real motive behind the article was to test the reader's gullibility. If readers had dug a little deeper, they'd find the truth.
The research focuses mainly on passive television consumption and video games that are either simple or for mature audiences. Much of it also is focused, not on pre-teens, but rather on teens and adults. The research shows a dearth of findings around the type of technology use in which the overwhelming majority of children engage.
Video games themselves come in many flavors, varieties and levels of complexity, a fact the article ignores. For example, today's video games often provide complex interactive stories through which players navigate. While some are simple video games, others are Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Minecraft and World of Warcraft. Innovative educators have created complete educational curricula around them. Interactive programs like Footsteps 2 Brilliance are teaching young people to read using research-based interactive techniques that a book is not built to provide. Young people are playing music in iPad bands. See what that looks like here. They are fascinated with geography using apps with wild popularity like Stacked States. They are learning about physics and geometry via apps like Angry Birds. They are writing more than ever as well as reading on their handheld devices. Perhaps most important is that technology allows us to virtually reach out and touch someone, providing access to experts and others around the world who share our interests. This is happening via social networking like Facebook and Twitter, video conferencing platforms like Skype and Google Hangout, or via resources like Scratch which teach basic computer programing.
Tech savvy parents and educators know that all these things are good for young people. This is why the Rowan article left some of us scratching our heads. Rather than acknowledge any of the amazing things children are doing with their devices, the article instead focused on couch potato zombies. Most of us are alarmed at the sight of a child passively staring at a screen or playing simple or needlessly violent video games; often we adults experience the addictive nature of games ourselves and understand that it is not what is best for children. However this article focused almost entirely on these activities. Parents and educators should not be easily fooled. Handheld devices provide the ability to do much more.
I am fortunate to have had the chance to observe and teach the best use of these devices. I'm calling on parents, teachers and government agencies to use common sense and empower students with the freedom to learn using handheld devices.
Following are 10 reasons the research behind the call-to-action to ban devices is flawed.
1) American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
The AAP talks about screen time and media use, but if you look at the recommendations, they are all about TV time. Take a look at their recommendations here. You will find no mention of how young people interactively use technology. There was also a journal article cited from the AAP which is used as evidence for decreased ability to self regulate, but again, it is not referring to handheld devices. It is a study about children watching cartoons. You can take a look at that research here. Finally there is research presented to suggest that handhelds emit harmful radiation. But the research cited says no such thing. In fact it says The National Cancer Institute has stated that studies have not demonstrated that radio frequency energy from cell phones cause cancer.
2) US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
This research is used to point to handhelds causing issues with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity. You can look at this decade-old research here and you'll find it is talking about television exposure, not technology use.
Another article is mentioned that is supposed to link technology use and increased obesity. Instead, the research, which you can see here, studies televisions in the bedrooms of Hispanic children.
3) University of Bristol - Peach Project Study
This study was used to point out psychosis in children exposed to too much screen time, but again, it is pointing to passive television and simple video games. "Watching TV or playing computer games for more than two hours a day is related to greater psychological difficulties irrespective of how active children are."
4) Boston College Study
This study is reported to say that children are sleep deprived. This is true, however, it then says the problem is "probably" due to smartphones. We know, however, that the research is clear. School has created a national sleep crisis. Another problem is over-scheduling our kids. It's no wonder that after a long day of school and activities young people want some of their own downtime and they get that via connecting with peers, reading books, and engaging in other such activities all accessible via technology.
5) TED Talk by Dr. John J. Ratey
This TED Talk does not indicate we need to reduce screen time. Instead Ratey tells schools that movement enhances attention and learning ability. To remedy this we need to give students more opportunities to move during the school day. If we're truly concerned about obesity, we will find ways to restore recess, and let students leave their desks and move around.
6, 7, 8) Mentzoni 2011, Shin 2011, Liberatore 2011
These pieces were cited as proof that technology causes problems like attention deficit, autism, bipolar disorder, psychosis and problematic child behavior. The problem is they don't do that. Here is what each of the studies were actually looking at.
6) Mentzoni 2011
This study was not about technology causing addiction, but rather it looked at what caused addiction and effects on physical and mental health in .6% of a population of young males in Norway. Interestingly, they found no correlation between video game addiction and physical health.
7) Shin 2011
This is a study about male industrial workers in Korea. It also looks at internet addiction as a symptom NOT cause of other issues.
8) Liberatore 2011
This doesn't say stay away from handhelds. It says that parents should be involved in ensuring responsible use by their children. Bravo.
9) Psychological science
This research is said to make the point that children are addicted to technology. However, pull back the curtain and that is not what you find. Instead this is another article about one type of technology use: video games with a focus on pornographic and violent games.
10) Journal of American Medical Association study
The author uses this study to explain that early brain development is determined by environmental stimuli, or lack thereof. Stimulation to a developing brain caused by overexposure to technologies (cell phones, internet, iPads, TV), which have been shown to be associated with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity and decreased ability to self regulate, e.g. tantrums. However, this study is not about cell phones, internet, or iPads. It is about passive television exposure. You can take a look here.
The verdict
The real intent of this author is suspect. Did she want to see how many readers would ignore the research and take her words at face value? Did she not understand that handhelds have more beneficial uses than passive television viewing and simple and/or mature video games do ?
Maybe she is showing a distaste for activities that don't bring up warm and fuzzy feelings of her own childhood; she doesn't understand it, and rails against it in the age-old way that adults do. It used to be rock-and-roll; now it is devices. Can't we be more enlightened now? Can't we, the generation who invented these devices and made them irresistible, be smarter than our parents were when they heard the Rolling Stones for the first time?
Or maybe her motives are more sinister than simple ignorance or fear. Perhaps she is preying on adult fears, while drumming up business for the company she works for; a company that profits from telling people how their resources can combat the dangers of technology.
Personally, I'd rather operate a business based on facts, not fear.
Discerning educators and parents: Take a look at the research. Decide for yourself.
In fact, the research cited in the Rowan piece is so unsupportive of her claims, it seems possible that the real motive behind the article was to test the reader's gullibility. If readers had dug a little deeper, they'd find the truth.
The research focuses mainly on passive television consumption and video games that are either simple or for mature audiences. Much of it also is focused, not on pre-teens, but rather on teens and adults. The research shows a dearth of findings around the type of technology use in which the overwhelming majority of children engage.
Video games themselves come in many flavors, varieties and levels of complexity, a fact the article ignores. For example, today's video games often provide complex interactive stories through which players navigate. While some are simple video games, others are Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Minecraft and World of Warcraft. Innovative educators have created complete educational curricula around them. Interactive programs like Footsteps 2 Brilliance are teaching young people to read using research-based interactive techniques that a book is not built to provide. Young people are playing music in iPad bands. See what that looks like here. They are fascinated with geography using apps with wild popularity like Stacked States. They are learning about physics and geometry via apps like Angry Birds. They are writing more than ever as well as reading on their handheld devices. Perhaps most important is that technology allows us to virtually reach out and touch someone, providing access to experts and others around the world who share our interests. This is happening via social networking like Facebook and Twitter, video conferencing platforms like Skype and Google Hangout, or via resources like Scratch which teach basic computer programing.
Tech savvy parents and educators know that all these things are good for young people. This is why the Rowan article left some of us scratching our heads. Rather than acknowledge any of the amazing things children are doing with their devices, the article instead focused on couch potato zombies. Most of us are alarmed at the sight of a child passively staring at a screen or playing simple or needlessly violent video games; often we adults experience the addictive nature of games ourselves and understand that it is not what is best for children. However this article focused almost entirely on these activities. Parents and educators should not be easily fooled. Handheld devices provide the ability to do much more.
I am fortunate to have had the chance to observe and teach the best use of these devices. I'm calling on parents, teachers and government agencies to use common sense and empower students with the freedom to learn using handheld devices.
Following are 10 reasons the research behind the call-to-action to ban devices is flawed.
1) American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
The AAP talks about screen time and media use, but if you look at the recommendations, they are all about TV time. Take a look at their recommendations here. You will find no mention of how young people interactively use technology. There was also a journal article cited from the AAP which is used as evidence for decreased ability to self regulate, but again, it is not referring to handheld devices. It is a study about children watching cartoons. You can take a look at that research here. Finally there is research presented to suggest that handhelds emit harmful radiation. But the research cited says no such thing. In fact it says The National Cancer Institute has stated that studies have not demonstrated that radio frequency energy from cell phones cause cancer.
2) US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
This research is used to point to handhelds causing issues with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity. You can look at this decade-old research here and you'll find it is talking about television exposure, not technology use.
Another article is mentioned that is supposed to link technology use and increased obesity. Instead, the research, which you can see here, studies televisions in the bedrooms of Hispanic children.
3) University of Bristol - Peach Project Study
This study was used to point out psychosis in children exposed to too much screen time, but again, it is pointing to passive television and simple video games. "Watching TV or playing computer games for more than two hours a day is related to greater psychological difficulties irrespective of how active children are."
4) Boston College Study
This study is reported to say that children are sleep deprived. This is true, however, it then says the problem is "probably" due to smartphones. We know, however, that the research is clear. School has created a national sleep crisis. Another problem is over-scheduling our kids. It's no wonder that after a long day of school and activities young people want some of their own downtime and they get that via connecting with peers, reading books, and engaging in other such activities all accessible via technology.
5) TED Talk by Dr. John J. Ratey
This TED Talk does not indicate we need to reduce screen time. Instead Ratey tells schools that movement enhances attention and learning ability. To remedy this we need to give students more opportunities to move during the school day. If we're truly concerned about obesity, we will find ways to restore recess, and let students leave their desks and move around.
6, 7, 8) Mentzoni 2011, Shin 2011, Liberatore 2011
These pieces were cited as proof that technology causes problems like attention deficit, autism, bipolar disorder, psychosis and problematic child behavior. The problem is they don't do that. Here is what each of the studies were actually looking at.
6) Mentzoni 2011
This study was not about technology causing addiction, but rather it looked at what caused addiction and effects on physical and mental health in .6% of a population of young males in Norway. Interestingly, they found no correlation between video game addiction and physical health.
7) Shin 2011
This is a study about male industrial workers in Korea. It also looks at internet addiction as a symptom NOT cause of other issues.
8) Liberatore 2011
This doesn't say stay away from handhelds. It says that parents should be involved in ensuring responsible use by their children. Bravo.
9) Psychological science
This research is said to make the point that children are addicted to technology. However, pull back the curtain and that is not what you find. Instead this is another article about one type of technology use: video games with a focus on pornographic and violent games.
10) Journal of American Medical Association study
The author uses this study to explain that early brain development is determined by environmental stimuli, or lack thereof. Stimulation to a developing brain caused by overexposure to technologies (cell phones, internet, iPads, TV), which have been shown to be associated with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity and decreased ability to self regulate, e.g. tantrums. However, this study is not about cell phones, internet, or iPads. It is about passive television exposure. You can take a look here.
The verdict
The real intent of this author is suspect. Did she want to see how many readers would ignore the research and take her words at face value? Did she not understand that handhelds have more beneficial uses than passive television viewing and simple and/or mature video games do ?
Maybe she is showing a distaste for activities that don't bring up warm and fuzzy feelings of her own childhood; she doesn't understand it, and rails against it in the age-old way that adults do. It used to be rock-and-roll; now it is devices. Can't we be more enlightened now? Can't we, the generation who invented these devices and made them irresistible, be smarter than our parents were when they heard the Rolling Stones for the first time?
Or maybe her motives are more sinister than simple ignorance or fear. Perhaps she is preying on adult fears, while drumming up business for the company she works for; a company that profits from telling people how their resources can combat the dangers of technology.
Personally, I'd rather operate a business based on facts, not fear.
Discerning educators and parents: Take a look at the research. Decide for yourself.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Dealing With Online Stalkers
Online privacy is only as strong as the posts, comments and geo-tracking updates attached to social media we use. Fortunately, for my sake, I've been quite invested in knowing the pros and cons of social media use, especially since my under-18 son has quite a following on his various accounts.
While most teens use social media for social reasons, in our home, mom and dad are staunch Facebook users for social reasons, but Spencer, not so much. His social media accounts are 99 percent used for communicating with fans and rarely with close friends or family as most teens do.
This has created some frustrations for him since he just wants to have a normal social life where things like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Vine and Google+ can be a version of phone-to-phone texting on steroids. He definitely texts his close friends and mom- and dad-approved new acquaintances, but it's presented challenges for us as parents anyway.
Having a son who is gaining popularity worldwide has created some necessary auditing of his social media and phone texts. Trust me, it's an outgrowth of his pursuit of singing and acting as a minor, but it's also something that I don't believe many parents really grasp about how invested in social media their children have become. Reading the random posts by teens that follow Spencer has opened my eyes to a generation of youth that desperately seek attention through a 140-character tweet to a total stranger or random connections they've made through social media. It's more likely that many teens connect to people they don't know on most of these accounts I've observed. How can a single teen have 2,500 followers when you calculate their schoolmates, family members and possible neighbors where they live? It's highly likely that there are a lot of strangers on the list -- people that share a common interest or mutual connection. It's the essence of social media to be honest.
So when my child has well over 50,000 of these types of connections, you can be certain that 99.9 percent of them are people he doesn't know and we've never met. This opens the door to some inevitable risk.
In early 2012 when we were exploring social media and posting his videos on Youtube, Spencer became a target of talent scouts and independent music industry professionals offering their services. Many of these contacts came through social media. This is a common story for most families of young artists we've networked with the past few years. In most cases, they were just annoying spam-like contacts hoping to gain a new client or one-time fee for their services. However, in a few instances we found that the inquiry was a bit darker in nature.
Spencer is an attractive, young man and, of course, has a sea of admirers on social media. Some are just hormone-filled teens expressing their undying love for him from countries around the world. To us (as parents) it's sweet and fun to see the admiration for him simply because he is an online popular artist. But when the admiration comes from an adult male or, in a few cases, an adult female well beyond Spencer's age, the creepy factor enters the picture and our instincts quickly take over to prevent a bad situation from starting.
One such incident involved a highly-intelligent and well-versed music industry executive who reached out to recruit Spencer for his exclusive mentoring program. He apparently was a multi-billionaire who helped the big three music labels (Universal, Sony and Warner) find blooming, young talent. His program involved a six-month development process wherein he would teach Spencer how to prepare for touring, songwriting, the physical aspects of being an artist and a plethora of other areas an emerging artist would need to learn. In the most traditional sense, he was an outsource A&R company which would prepare and package him for presenting to one of the big three.
Now keep in mind, at the time I was still learning a lot about what the music industry was about and when this fellow talked a very convincing bit of music related terms and namedropped plenty of past executives and artists he single-handedly helped launch, it was very mesmerizing. The bait from him was to have Spencer audition for his team of artists he's developing through a foundation-funded program. Each artist would receive about $250k in training, of which the artist would never be required to pay back because it was a philanthropic program to support the arts and young people. When I asked the tough questions along the way, I began to annoy the man and was accused of wasting his time with trivial points. When I inquired about his resume and referrals, he stated he was connected to the U.S. government for contracts with his normal business and his online presence was not available because he was under the Homeland Security privacy due to the nature of those government contracts. When I asked to see him on Skype and possibly meet as a family, he explained why that wouldn't be possible due to his immense travel schedule overseas. The more questions I asked, the more frightened we became that it was an elaborate hoax and a possibly stalker-like issue.
In further investigation of the man, I was able to uncover five more families of young male artists around the world that were given the exact same sales pitch. However, these families were much further down the line with him in the six-month program. One had written several songs and turned them over to the guy and actually gave him access to all the young artist's social media accounts. The man changed all the passwords and blocked him out of his own social media. Another family shared how the man required the young boy artist to do daily physical workouts in front of his skype camera while wearing tight-fitting bike shorts (a requirement of the man). The more we uncovered, the more we became convinced this man was dangerous. All five families, including ours, resorted to the FBI White Collar Crimes division (which handles online cyber-stalker threats) and within a month or two, all his online sites and communication were deleted and no longer visible. We didn't receive a direct reply from the FBI agent handling our case, but the fact that he disappeared proved that something happened.
I shared this story because it was a result of a simple social media inquiry that many young artists and families get sucked into. Beyond this, we've discovered a handful of fans that used social media to act coy about connecting with Spencer and found that it turned into a frightening stalking issue. At least two fans showed up in front of our home uninvited and only mildly known from social media general conversations between Spencer and them.
Since we've launched his public profile online, I have made it a policy that 100 percent of his conversations with anyone on any social media will be reviewed by me personally. In some highly antagonistic inquiries from bizarre fans, I've had to step in and either address them personally or simply block and delete them from his social media.
For practical advice, I'm including some suggestions about how to address social media disturbances that arise.
TWITTER
Twitter provides a few ways to reduce the cyber-bully and/or threats that may arise. First of all, you can always protect your tweets from general public viewing. This is the easiest way to maintain a stronger privacy from people. However, if you allow a person to follow you, the privacy disappears. The BLOCK feature on Twitter doesn't really do anything practical. The stalker or annoying account can still see your public tweets (and therefore know what you're saying and possibly doing). The only thing is really does is prevent them from following you. So unless you're set to PRIVACY on your tweets, the blocking of that person doesn't do much. It will hide their tweets about you from your own timeline, but it doesn't hide their tweets about you from anyone else on Twitter. So if they include your username in their tweet, you can do a SEARCH of your Twitter name and see that they are able to tweet about you even though you've blocked them. In our case, BLOCKING has been effective to send a warning that they need to back off. Twitter does allow you to report a user for the type of tweet they are sending, but apart from a serious safety risk, Twitter doesn't typically do much about it. There have been many users that get banned for the nature of their tweets, but it is likely only after multiple reports have been made. Twitter also has some pretty aggressive software intelligence to know accounts that are not safe or following normal activities compared to most online.
FACEBOOK
Facebook is a little different in that if you FRIEND someone, it is a mutual connection. On Twitter, it can be one way (you follow them or they follow you) or two-way (follow each other). On Facebook, when you have a FAN PAGE, it is different than a normal personal account. On a personal account, you can just unfriend and block a user. On a FAN PAGE, you can only ban the user from your FAN PAGE. This is essentially intended to be the same as blocking on a personal page, but it has a little bit of a different result. First of all, to BAN a user, you can only BAN them IF they make a post on your FAN PAGE. So suppose you notice a creeper just LIKED your fan page and you know they are up to no good. It isn't possible to BAN them from LIKING that page unless they communicate via a post. This simply means that they can monitor your statuses simply by liking your page. PAGES can be set to private viewing unless they LIKE the page or public. We have kept Spencer's pages public so people can see what kind of statuses he posts and become a fan by liking the page. There is no foolproof way to stop a stalker from seeing your statuses on Facebook, because it is just too easy to create multiple accounts and pose as someone different.
INSTAGRAM / VINE
These do not have as much risk (so far) for us compared to Twitter and Facebook. You can simply BLOCK someone on Instagram and they can't see your stuff. Vine is so new to us that we've not experienced anything concerning. The most potential damage we've seen on either of these social media is in the COMMENTS area of a post. You, as the user, can delete comments from your own posts on both. This seems to send a message to a fan if they see you deleted their post.
[RESOURCES]
As a parent of a teen artist and actor, we have joined a helpful Facebook Group which has over 55 families with young artists and actors all working together to report stalkers and dangerous profiles they encounter on their child's social media. This group is highly helpful in being a voice of warning to help prevent risk for their child. It is a great resource to simply become aware of how to deal with some of the risk as well.
Another great site to consider is Trends and Teens. Paige is a great counselor and youthfully connected resource for parents and teens that are engaged in this social media culture we live in.
We do our best to allow Spencer to use social media for fun social reasons, but unfortunately, as long as he's pursuing his professional goal of being in the entertainment industry, we (he) will be restricted to a higher rate of risk than most.
While most teens use social media for social reasons, in our home, mom and dad are staunch Facebook users for social reasons, but Spencer, not so much. His social media accounts are 99 percent used for communicating with fans and rarely with close friends or family as most teens do.
This has created some frustrations for him since he just wants to have a normal social life where things like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Vine and Google+ can be a version of phone-to-phone texting on steroids. He definitely texts his close friends and mom- and dad-approved new acquaintances, but it's presented challenges for us as parents anyway.
Having a son who is gaining popularity worldwide has created some necessary auditing of his social media and phone texts. Trust me, it's an outgrowth of his pursuit of singing and acting as a minor, but it's also something that I don't believe many parents really grasp about how invested in social media their children have become. Reading the random posts by teens that follow Spencer has opened my eyes to a generation of youth that desperately seek attention through a 140-character tweet to a total stranger or random connections they've made through social media. It's more likely that many teens connect to people they don't know on most of these accounts I've observed. How can a single teen have 2,500 followers when you calculate their schoolmates, family members and possible neighbors where they live? It's highly likely that there are a lot of strangers on the list -- people that share a common interest or mutual connection. It's the essence of social media to be honest.
So when my child has well over 50,000 of these types of connections, you can be certain that 99.9 percent of them are people he doesn't know and we've never met. This opens the door to some inevitable risk.
In early 2012 when we were exploring social media and posting his videos on Youtube, Spencer became a target of talent scouts and independent music industry professionals offering their services. Many of these contacts came through social media. This is a common story for most families of young artists we've networked with the past few years. In most cases, they were just annoying spam-like contacts hoping to gain a new client or one-time fee for their services. However, in a few instances we found that the inquiry was a bit darker in nature.
Spencer is an attractive, young man and, of course, has a sea of admirers on social media. Some are just hormone-filled teens expressing their undying love for him from countries around the world. To us (as parents) it's sweet and fun to see the admiration for him simply because he is an online popular artist. But when the admiration comes from an adult male or, in a few cases, an adult female well beyond Spencer's age, the creepy factor enters the picture and our instincts quickly take over to prevent a bad situation from starting.
One such incident involved a highly-intelligent and well-versed music industry executive who reached out to recruit Spencer for his exclusive mentoring program. He apparently was a multi-billionaire who helped the big three music labels (Universal, Sony and Warner) find blooming, young talent. His program involved a six-month development process wherein he would teach Spencer how to prepare for touring, songwriting, the physical aspects of being an artist and a plethora of other areas an emerging artist would need to learn. In the most traditional sense, he was an outsource A&R company which would prepare and package him for presenting to one of the big three.
Now keep in mind, at the time I was still learning a lot about what the music industry was about and when this fellow talked a very convincing bit of music related terms and namedropped plenty of past executives and artists he single-handedly helped launch, it was very mesmerizing. The bait from him was to have Spencer audition for his team of artists he's developing through a foundation-funded program. Each artist would receive about $250k in training, of which the artist would never be required to pay back because it was a philanthropic program to support the arts and young people. When I asked the tough questions along the way, I began to annoy the man and was accused of wasting his time with trivial points. When I inquired about his resume and referrals, he stated he was connected to the U.S. government for contracts with his normal business and his online presence was not available because he was under the Homeland Security privacy due to the nature of those government contracts. When I asked to see him on Skype and possibly meet as a family, he explained why that wouldn't be possible due to his immense travel schedule overseas. The more questions I asked, the more frightened we became that it was an elaborate hoax and a possibly stalker-like issue.
In further investigation of the man, I was able to uncover five more families of young male artists around the world that were given the exact same sales pitch. However, these families were much further down the line with him in the six-month program. One had written several songs and turned them over to the guy and actually gave him access to all the young artist's social media accounts. The man changed all the passwords and blocked him out of his own social media. Another family shared how the man required the young boy artist to do daily physical workouts in front of his skype camera while wearing tight-fitting bike shorts (a requirement of the man). The more we uncovered, the more we became convinced this man was dangerous. All five families, including ours, resorted to the FBI White Collar Crimes division (which handles online cyber-stalker threats) and within a month or two, all his online sites and communication were deleted and no longer visible. We didn't receive a direct reply from the FBI agent handling our case, but the fact that he disappeared proved that something happened.
I shared this story because it was a result of a simple social media inquiry that many young artists and families get sucked into. Beyond this, we've discovered a handful of fans that used social media to act coy about connecting with Spencer and found that it turned into a frightening stalking issue. At least two fans showed up in front of our home uninvited and only mildly known from social media general conversations between Spencer and them.
Since we've launched his public profile online, I have made it a policy that 100 percent of his conversations with anyone on any social media will be reviewed by me personally. In some highly antagonistic inquiries from bizarre fans, I've had to step in and either address them personally or simply block and delete them from his social media.
For practical advice, I'm including some suggestions about how to address social media disturbances that arise.
Twitter provides a few ways to reduce the cyber-bully and/or threats that may arise. First of all, you can always protect your tweets from general public viewing. This is the easiest way to maintain a stronger privacy from people. However, if you allow a person to follow you, the privacy disappears. The BLOCK feature on Twitter doesn't really do anything practical. The stalker or annoying account can still see your public tweets (and therefore know what you're saying and possibly doing). The only thing is really does is prevent them from following you. So unless you're set to PRIVACY on your tweets, the blocking of that person doesn't do much. It will hide their tweets about you from your own timeline, but it doesn't hide their tweets about you from anyone else on Twitter. So if they include your username in their tweet, you can do a SEARCH of your Twitter name and see that they are able to tweet about you even though you've blocked them. In our case, BLOCKING has been effective to send a warning that they need to back off. Twitter does allow you to report a user for the type of tweet they are sending, but apart from a serious safety risk, Twitter doesn't typically do much about it. There have been many users that get banned for the nature of their tweets, but it is likely only after multiple reports have been made. Twitter also has some pretty aggressive software intelligence to know accounts that are not safe or following normal activities compared to most online.
Facebook is a little different in that if you FRIEND someone, it is a mutual connection. On Twitter, it can be one way (you follow them or they follow you) or two-way (follow each other). On Facebook, when you have a FAN PAGE, it is different than a normal personal account. On a personal account, you can just unfriend and block a user. On a FAN PAGE, you can only ban the user from your FAN PAGE. This is essentially intended to be the same as blocking on a personal page, but it has a little bit of a different result. First of all, to BAN a user, you can only BAN them IF they make a post on your FAN PAGE. So suppose you notice a creeper just LIKED your fan page and you know they are up to no good. It isn't possible to BAN them from LIKING that page unless they communicate via a post. This simply means that they can monitor your statuses simply by liking your page. PAGES can be set to private viewing unless they LIKE the page or public. We have kept Spencer's pages public so people can see what kind of statuses he posts and become a fan by liking the page. There is no foolproof way to stop a stalker from seeing your statuses on Facebook, because it is just too easy to create multiple accounts and pose as someone different.
INSTAGRAM / VINE
These do not have as much risk (so far) for us compared to Twitter and Facebook. You can simply BLOCK someone on Instagram and they can't see your stuff. Vine is so new to us that we've not experienced anything concerning. The most potential damage we've seen on either of these social media is in the COMMENTS area of a post. You, as the user, can delete comments from your own posts on both. This seems to send a message to a fan if they see you deleted their post.
[RESOURCES]
As a parent of a teen artist and actor, we have joined a helpful Facebook Group which has over 55 families with young artists and actors all working together to report stalkers and dangerous profiles they encounter on their child's social media. This group is highly helpful in being a voice of warning to help prevent risk for their child. It is a great resource to simply become aware of how to deal with some of the risk as well.
Another great site to consider is Trends and Teens. Paige is a great counselor and youthfully connected resource for parents and teens that are engaged in this social media culture we live in.
We do our best to allow Spencer to use social media for fun social reasons, but unfortunately, as long as he's pursuing his professional goal of being in the entertainment industry, we (he) will be restricted to a higher rate of risk than most.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The Top 100 Most Social CIOs on Twitter 2014
Since I last published the list of Most Social CIOs, the role of the Chief Information Officer in leading innovation has become even more vital. CIOs clearly understand the importance of social media to achieving their business goals as well as their career goals. By engaging through social media, they can tap into the collective knowledge of CIOs everywhere.
Here is the 2014 edition of the Top 100 Most Social CIOs. The ranking was determined by a combination of factors including twitter list membership, tweet content and volume, number of followers, and other metrics as tallied by several social media influence score providers. On average, these CIOs are members of approximately 150 lists with an average of 3,300 follower.
The list includes 21 women CIOs, about what we expected given that women make up 8% of all CIOs and women tend to be more collaborative than men as shown by our survey. The international split of list members is 81% US and 19% non-US. A full cross-section of industries is represented: professional services is at 25%, followed by manufacturing at 20%, higher education at 20%, and government at 18%. Healthcare CIOs now make up 8% of the list, a significant increase over last year.
My congratulations to each incredible member of this must-follow list of Most Social CIOs. You truly understand the benefits and power of social collaboration. Each of you is part of the growing number of CIOS who recognize that social networking enables businesses to better serve and collaborate with customers.
Along with congratulations comes a request for your consideration and that is to please continue to strengthen your social efforts, including mentoring and advocacy to help inspire other business executives to embrace social collaboration.
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