transparency

Cosmic Connections, Lessons, and Some Blessings from the Social Web

/ Susan Scrupski / 2 Comments

I’ve written many times about how the social web is teaching us and opening us up to a greater understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. This week, I witnessed first hand the power of relationships, the immediacy of the social web, and learned a great lesson in tolerance and understanding, and dare I say, faith? I’ve written a few times casually about how I’ve been personally affected by the downturn in the economy. As a result of my own economic crisis, I was turned down as a worthy co-signer for Amie’s student loans. Mostly I have felt awful about the prospect that I would be the one, in the end, who stood in the way of Amie’s dream of going to New York University. Of course University of Texas, Austin is an excellent school, but Amie’s heart already moved into the dorms at NYU. For good reason, she convinced me over the past few months NYU is where she belongs and where she aims to fulfill her lifelong ambition to contribute toward improving our imperfect world.

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Last week, Amie graduated with honors from Westwood High School. Here she is pictured at the Erwin Center donning her IB bling. I forced her to stand with the Capitol Dome in the background to snap this photo. You can see how enthusiastic she is by her expression about the prospect of linking her graduation to Texas and UT. The reward of graduating from such a difficult school in such a competitive program was eclipsed by the heart-breaking disappointment that Amie would not be returning East to continue on her academic journey. To Amie’s credit, she accepted her fate and began to let her friends in the Northeast know she would be staying in Austin.

On Friday, last week, I was “facebooking.” A friend asked me a question on my wall regarding where Amie would be going in the fall. The difficulties we’d been having had been chronicled on my Facebook page for months, so a wide range of my friends were curious about Amie’s ultimate college decision. When I responded to my friend that we were unable to send Amie to NYU and she’d have to attend UT Austin in the fall, I received a pop-up IM from another friend who was on Facebook at that moment. That friend was Greg Grosh. He asked me why Amie couldn’t go to NYU, and I explained all the details over IM. Greg’s reply? “I’ll be happy to co-sign Amie’s student loans.” My knee-jerk response: “Are you fking kidding me???”

As it turns out Greg, who is in what he calls his “second retirement” is affiliated with The Point Foundation which “provides scholarships, mentorship, leadership training and hope for students of merit who have been marginalized due to sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” Greg is helping a few kids get through school and is willing to help Amie too. This news floored me on a few levels. First of all, the cosmic connection here is Amie is more connected to gay friends and family than anyone I know. Her father is gay, in fact. I’ve always been mildly uncomfortable with the gay community that surrounds Amie.  Greg’s generous offer has forced me to take a hard look at my own repressed intolerance. Reading the literature on the Point Foundation’s web site has done me a world of good. I encountered something similar (via Facebook again) a few months ago relative to racism. Who knew I was a racist?

The SocialWeb that connects us is breaking down the ignorant walls that divide us. I’m living proof of the power of the SocialWeb to challenge our entrenched, stereotypical, ignorant biases by exposing us to new ideas and new freedoms. The second meaningful outcome relative to Amie’s new opportunity is related to generational poverty. Getting Amie to NYU is symbolic to me. Although I’m certain Amie would have done well at UT, the opportunity to attend a private university should break the cycle of generational poverty that has been shadowing my particular branch of the family tree. I was the first one to attend college in my immediate family, although I never completed my education. There have been many debates over the value of a good education. I could probably argue both sides persuasively. My most convicted arguments would fall on the side of pro formal education, however. It’s taken a lifetime of “breaking the rules” to understand this, but in this new era of social mobility and connection, I believe it now more than ever. Further, if this is the generation that is going to finally set things right, they’ll need all the ammunition they can stockpile. And the reinforcements they’ll need will come in the shape of empathy, knowledge, and compassion for those people and places that exist outside of our comfort zone.

So, congratulations Amie. You’re going to NYU. Thank you Greg for your generosity, and thank you Mark Zuckerberg for keeping us connected and integrating our public and private lives. Oh, the biggest news here is Amie finally signed up for Facebook. My rebellious day-dream believer is now a digizen.

"Always Make New Mistakes!"

/ Susan Scrupski / 1 Comment
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I began this post last week when the recent blogstorm over Ketchum interactive VP, James Andrews and a questionable exposed email from a Fedex staff employee threw the blogo/twittersphere into a hightech lynching of Mr. Andrews, who has in my view, become a hapless digital transparency hero.The incident showcases how responsibility, privacy, constitutional rights, influence, transparency, and well, new rules of the digital era will present us all with new and interesting challenges.In case you’ve missed this, please prepare with the introductory reading assignment:

  • Andrews’ tweet as he arrived in Memphis, hometown of Ketchum client, Fedex.
  • PRinfluencer, Peter Shankman (with 20K+ twitter followers. That’s > /steverubel, but < /chrisbrogan), who exposed an email from an unhappy Fedex employee with this post.
  • @olivermarks’ crossover post to the e20 community.
  • You can see more blogger reaction here.

I borrowed the headline for this post from Esther Dyson who signs her emails with “Always make new mistakes!” It’s become such a trademark for her, it’s refrigerator magnet worthy. I’m choosing Esther’s slogan to frame my reaction to this new twitter-gate episode partly because of her long-time advocacy for Internet privacy, but also because of her belief that we can only learn through experience. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong, but in the end, we all benefit from the lessons learned.Oliver Marks says in his post, “no one comes out of this looking good.” So, yes. I agree mistakes were made. But, what’s more important is what can we learn from this?On PrivacyThere were two privacy issues in this case study. The first involves Mr. Andrews’ personal thoughts telegraphed to the world. Because of Twitter’s ubiquity and real-time reach, Andrews forfeited his right to privacy here. A right he chose when he unprotected his tweets. The second issue is related to the privacy of the individual who sent the damning email and now has perhaps embarrassed Ketchum and Fedex for being mixed up in a socialweb skirmish. Did the Fedex employee intend for Shankman to expose Andrews? If so, he/she gave up his/her right to privacy. If not, Shankman has some explaining to do. This incident reminds me of another social media expert who found herself in a dither with the social media community over a private email she sent to friends that also was posted (and exposed) via a blog. That was the Debbie Weil case. Different set of principles and values, but another lesson learned for all who jumped into that one. Regardless of where you stood on that issue, Ms. Weil’s privacy was jeopardized and led to a social media embarrassment for her.On ResponsibilityYes, “Think before you tweet.” It’s like Microsoft told Scoble, “Blog smart.” On the social web, we are what we tweet and what we blog. Going forward, as the social web colors in the paint-by-numbers portraits of our true character, we will need to stand on our principles. Where we have prejudices, they will be revealed. Nonetheless, I’ve been in the ad agency business. In many ways, I found it was that rare combination of Emotional Intelligence and IQ that made the best ad executives. The account executives and creative groups who were sensitive and respectful of the clients’ values succeeded in creating great campaigns and developing longstanding client relationships. We can ding Mr. Andrews on a breach in sensitivity here, knock a point off his performance review, but to call for his dismissal is a giant step backwards in the national discussion on transparency and openness.On Freedom of SpeechTwitter, YouTube, Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr– all of these open social media are lifting our voices. We are all being heard. We have a right to object, to argue, to agree, and to embarrass ourselves. Just like the pre-Internet age, with that powerful right comes the great responsibility to suffer the consequences when we fail to self-censor. I urge all of you who are active in online activities to learn more about Internet freedoms. Two good places to start are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the OpenNet Initiative.On InfluenceJacob Nielsen’s 1/9/90 needs to be re-interpreted to explain the influence the 1% is wielding in shaping public opinion on the Internet. When eruptions such as the Ketchum/Fedex-gate occur, it’s incumbent upon the socialweb-orati to explain the significance of the events as well as argue their side of the debate. It has disturbed me that the loudest voices on this issue are coming from the PR/social media community who condemn the agency VP handily without seriously weighing the ramifications of lynching Mr. Andrews for what amounts to a personal opinion.On TransparencyWe’re entering a new era of openness and transparency. Transparency rests on a platform of truth. Transparency is our ally, not our enemy. Yet, transparency’s ugly twin sister is accountability. You can’t date one without the other. Will we hold Andrews accountable for Ketchum losing the Fedex account? I hope not. But should we be held accountable for what we say online? Yes, but within reason.Mistakes are the only way we will progress toward a universal protocol for our acceptable digital behaviors. May you make many of them!