Mutually Inclusive PR

Leave the Germs at Home

Going through the Technorati listing of posts about the blogging conference I'll be attending, I came across someone who had the guts to turn their back on the airfare and first night's hotel stay they had paid for and stay home. Chris Heuer, who had planned on presenting a session tomorrow, cancelled.

Because he's sick and doesn't want to spread his illness further. The fact that this is at all remarkable says something about our misguided work ethic.

Presenteeism is running rampant in schools and offices, reinforced by bosses who mistakenly believe that time spent away from the office is bad. When I get sick, I try to stay away from people, at least for the first day or two, in order to minimize the spread of germs.  If I can't avoid going to work, I try to stick to myself, wash my hands religiously, and avoid sneezing or coughing in the direction of any living being.

Next time you're contagious, don't be a martyr.  Do like Chris Heuer and stay home.  If they're smart, your co-workers will thank you. And hopefully your boss, too.

Tags: northernvoice2006 presenteeism workplace health

Albrycht Challenges Readers to Change the World

If something you did in 2006 could make the world a better place, would you do it?

That's the question Elizabeth Albrycht is asking New Communications Blogzine readers. The European blogger points readers to challenges from the 2005 State of the Future report, issued by an American NGO. Each year the American Council for the United Nations University produces its report.

This year, the challenges include four that Albrycht thinks are most relevant to communicators:

- How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

- How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

- How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

- How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

Albrycht's challenge:

"Pick one challenge and devote some of your time in 2006 to working to solve it. Report on your progress throughout the year via your blog. Tag your related posts with the Technorati tag Global Challenge (Global Challenge) and let’s regroup at the end of the year and see what we’ve accomplished. Actions don’t need to be big ones! Even small steps count."

For more, read Albrycht's post on News Communications Blogzine, and check out a previous post on her CorporatePR blog (and my post about it).

PR Crisis: Rogers Profits from Terror Crimes?

One of Canada's major cell phone services is owned by the Rogers conglomerate. Now there's a front page story in The Globe and Mail, describing Rogers' refusal to eat the cost of fraudulent use of customers' cell phone costs by possible terrorist groups and others.

The kicker: the company's security person lets slip that several top Rogers executives had their cell accounts "cloned" by possible terrorists. Does this mean Rogers will admit their error, tighten their fraud detection measures, and let the customer off the hook?

My bet is it will take a couple of days of media and consumer outrage before they make the inevitable decision.  Reminds me of the telephone companies trying to force Internet dial-up customers to cough up thousands of dollars in spyware-related charges to their online account.

These companies have ways to detect and shut down the illegal activity. Why do they leave themselves open to accusations that they are profiting from the crimes of others?

Update:  According to media accounts, the customer got a personal phone call from Rogers boss Ted Rogers, who apologized and offered to waive the fraudulent charges to the customer's account. She (a lawyer) and her husband agreed, provided Rogers drops by for tea some time, so they can describe their customer service ordeal in person.

Not a bad recovery from an indefensible corporate position.

Technology Doesn't Preclude Ethics

  Elizabeth Albrycht 
  Originally uploaded by PROBLOG.

I've long thought there should be a way to link web-based and text messaging tools to all the information that's gathered about the ethical behaviour of corporations. Why can't I take a web-enabled PDA to the mall, to help me choose between brands, based on which company does the least damage to the environment, for example?

Elizabeth Albrycht examined a similar issue at the recent Les Blogs conference, asking panelists these questions:

• Does the ever-increasing rate of change that we face every day have an ethical component to it? 
• Is the rapid pace of technological change, which often precludes any discussion of social implications, unethical?

She found the answers unsatisfying. Faced with the allure of capitulation to the speed and volume of technology change, she refuses "to believe we are at the mercy of technology."

She warns of the danger of using "too much information" as an excuse for not exercising your good judgement. And she asks for others to join in the discussion. I'm looking forward to that conversation.

Bob LeDrew pipes in:

"I think her point should be taken up by others. In fact, Annette O'Connor of my university and the Ottawa Health Research Institute, a world-leading expert in the development of 'decision aids' for medical patients, has created a "Personal Decision Guide" that can be used to make decisions. Is this something that could lead to things like Albrycht suggests? Quite possibly."

Tags: lesblogs; albrycht

What Was the Globe Thinking?

A report that Heather Mallick quit her insightful column in the Globe and Mail's Focus secion over an editing decision leaves a gaping hole in my Saturday mornings. It's a rare weekend when something she writes doesn't generate discussion  of an issue in our house.

The only evidence of Ms. Mallick's presence today is her contribution to a Globe Christmas wish list and her "Bought" column, in which she describes an item she purchased at some point, and tells a short story about its virtues or oddities.

It's not the same as her regular examinations from a decidedly humanist point of view, of the many injustices or stupidities just under the media's radar.

As Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias writes in her media blog, Mallick quit her regular column because an editor insisted her item about Noam Chomsky being unfairly libeled in The Guardian should repeat the original libelous comments.

Mallick tells Zerbisias:

"I had written a column on the Guardian's deplorable and grotesque libel of Noam Chomsky. The handling editor then said I had to repeat the libel. I said that it was libelous to repeat a libel, as any editor should know. I waited to see the final version (I had my editor's word that I always get to see a final version) and on Friday morning was horrified to find that the column had gone to the printer without my having seen it. I said pull it. The Globe refused."

Says another blogger, commenting on Zerbisias' blog:

"I had a brief exchange with another progressive (former) Globe columnist over the summer, and got the impression that dealing with Globe editors was not fun, not always professional, and fraught with annoying exceptions for those not toeing the Globe's general editorial line. Just an impression, though."

Good for Mallick for sticking to her guns on a point of principle. And what was the Globe thinking?

Update: Corrected spelling of Antonia Z's name.

Blog Libel Chill

Jeff Jarvis notes that lawsuits and threatened suits against bloggers pose a threat to a group of individuals who have few resources to defend themselves. He suggests some education to help bloggers stay out of trouble.

Sony Capitulates - Now What about the Other Guys?

Tech blogger Mark Russinovich declares victory over Sony BMG, now that the mega-entertainment company has agreed to undo the damage done by its intrusive copyright protection software.

As noted by Information Week, a bad situation was made much worse by Sony's refusal to acknowledge the problems it was causing customers, and put in place an effective solution.

But as Russinovich and others note, the battle has just begun. There are many companies out there, including some big names in the software business, that run roughshod over your computer's security and performance, relying on a customer's inability to fight back against a company's licensing terms.

Says Russinovich:

"I hope this story isn’t over. Attention now needs to turn to the broader issues that go beyond DRM to software in general. They include acceptable behavior of commercial software, from both legal and ethical standpoints, and appropriate disclosure of software behavior. We’ve been living in a world of hazy laws surrounding EULAs and ideally this case will lead to more clearly defined laws and standard judicial principles."

Will customers be able to push back against invasive software design and restrictive licensing conditions? Probably not as much as they'd like. But as the Sony case proves, the company only controls the terms of sale if customers are willing to do business with it. When the customers push back hard enough and loudly enough, they can have an impact.

Thanks to John Wagner for the link.

Previous posts:
Sony Loses this Skirmish in DRM War
More Anti-customer Behaviour from Sony
Music Companies Deserve to Die a Quick Death
AOL's Content-grabbing Legal Terms

Music Companies Deserve to Die a Quick Death

The business model being pursued by the big music companies is so out of touch with what consumers want, it scares me. What if they prevail, and any music rights owned by a big company becomes so tied up in digital rights that the customers can no longer listen to the music they have bought?

Cory Doctorow takes a close look at the Sony End User Licence Agreement (EULA), and the terms you have to agree to when you transfer Sony music from a CD to your computer are ridiculously restrictive: 

1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.

2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."

3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside.

4. You must install any and all updates, or else lose the music on your computer. The EULA immediately terminates if you fail to install any update. No more holding out on those hobble-ware downgrades masquerading as updates.

5. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. And Sony-BMG disclaims any liability if this "self help" crashes your computer, exposes you to security risks, or any other harm.

6. The EULA says Sony-BMG will never be liable to you for more than $5.00. That's right, no matter what happens, you can't even get back what you paid for the CD.

7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.

8. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.

9. Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling. The EULA forbids changing, altering, or make derivative works from the music on your computer.

It will be a cold day in hell before I buy anything from Sony. I don't actually care if they are being scapegoated by bloggers and others. They deserve every bit of damage to their brand that they suffer.

Can You Spell Boycott?

I find their approach to their customers' rights so offensive  that I'm putting them on my DO NOT BUY list (and I'm not talking about stock market recommendations).

Check out other bloggers commenting on Doctorow's post.

Thanks to David Parmet for the link.

My related posts: 
Revealing my Briefs
AOL's Content-grabbing Legal Terms

The Ethics of Blogging an Interview Before It's Published

Anonymous Canadian journalist Fine Young Journalist writes about the delicate relationship that exists between a reporter and a source.

Whether it is stated or not, a reporter expects the source to protect their conversations from competing journalists until the story has broken. FYJ quotes a source who was asked by a reporter not to blog about their interview until the item was published.

With more and more sources likely to be contributing to a blog these days, this sort of agreement will become more common. When a blogger includes a disclaimer in their e-mails that anything sent to them might appear in the blog, they may feel they are off the hook.  But scooping a reporter in your blog will have an effect on your credibility as a source.

Says FYJ:  "As a reporter, I'd never expect a source to talk to me alone. But sophisticated sources, the kind who are likely to deal with more than one reporter in a day, know that they're not supposed to go sharing details of interviews they've just done with the next reporter through the door. Sometimes I bet that totally kills them, but it's the only way it's going to work."

It's complicated.  As FYJ says, the reporter's continued employment depends on their ability to find news and deliver it before, or at least at the same time as,  the competition. If you get known for betraying the confidence of one reporter, your reputation is toast, or at least burned around the edges.

FYJ discusses the reporter's side of the relationship in a follow-up comment:

"The way I see it, an interview is conducted according to certain ground rules that I think constitute a contract. You make it clear, when you start, that you're on the record -- including which record you're talking about, too. If you go off the record, you both have to agree first, and so on. The idea that it's a contract is necessary for my idea that both the source and the reporter have some intellectual-property rights in the content of the interview itself.

"We don't generally explain every detail of the implied agreement in an interview, if only because having that conversation would be too unwieldy to have every time. But then, we also give "unsophisticated" sources, those who might not share our understanding of the implied contract, the benefit of every doubt if there's any confusion.

"You tell your source where the story is to appear in part so that he or she understands what kind of organization will be standing behind the story. If it's the Montreal Gazette, the source knows there's a pretty major institution that will have a strong interest in making sure the story is done competently. If it's a punk 'zine, they'll have a different understanding of the editorial vetting your work will receive before it goes public. And if it's a blog, they'll know there'll be no editing at all and -- if you're an unknown -- not necessarily a lot of accountability, either.

"The source should have the chance to make an informed decision."

Some bloggers seem to think that posting an item once a year about their privacy policy is the equivalent of giving notice to anyone they may talk to or correspond with in the future that those interactions could be posted on their blog. Their responsibility to the people they deal with goes far beyond that.

Your integrity (or lack thereof) follows you across publishing platforms and media. Betrayals of confidence aren't excusable just because you're doing them on a blog.

Reporter's Reputation Hit by Drive-by Blogging

Toronto media blogger Antonia Zerbisias posted an item yesterday about veteran foreign correspondent Paul Workman losing his gig in Paris next June in favour of David Common, who in the past three years has been doing more and more national and international reporting.

For Workman, it looks like a hard slap for refusing to file stories during the CBC lockout (foreign correspondents are apparently not part of the Canadian Media Guild).

For Common, the blog posting has career-limiting possibilities. See also a report and dozens of anonymous comments on CBC Unplugged.ca.

Zerbisias was asked in blog comments whether she asked straight-out whether Common was offered the job. She says she stands by her post, indicating she has details about the offer to Common.

More important than asking her CBC management source about the deal, why didn't she ask Common? Her posting could have a big impact on his reputation, yet she seems to run it without offering his side of the story.

She may have made an attempt to contact the two reporters mentioned, but she doesn't indicate that in her post.  In the absence of that effort, it resembles a drive-by shooting.