Do you care where your "content" comes from on the web? ... I do.

[nick tadd]

Why it's so important to "get" social media and "apply" it well.

Transparency:

I was on another forum when it was noted that some chap was copying "written content" and "paste-ing" it without any recognition for the original writer.

I think this is "bad form" for 2 reasons:

Firstly, not recognising the original writer is bad manners.

Secondly, I as a reader would want to know where the content came from.

This was his reply to my challenge: "If it is good information that can benefit - who cares where it comes from?"

Of course people care where the information comes from!  How are they supposed to know if it's any good or if it came from a trusted source?

People care where the information comes from so they can do their own "due diligence" on them (the owner of the info not the purveyor (or possibly why the purveyor is using it!!)) otherwise we all could be sending around all this info to readers that have no idea where it is coming from.

Respected Investor, Gerald Ronson said recently - "The problem with this opinion is that the current situation was caused by amateurs who were trying to make out that they were professionals. This worked out find for a while but as the banks began to get a bit edgy; their house of cards began to topple down, until we see a situation like now."

Some of us are selling wealth creation. Some of us are selling safety through education.   Some of us are just wanting to learn - either way, surely the reader has a right to know where the information is coming from so they can do their own checks - otherwise it exacerbates the problem that Mr Ronson highlighted above.

So it would seem that using information without crediting the owner (if done on a consistent basis) could be seen as mis-use and, therefore, damaging to your on-line credibility. Whereas letting your audience know where the info came from would raise your credibility and trust as a learned person or news-gatherer (like Social Median).

We (Vanessa and I) have always tried to follow what we would regard as the 3 main attributes to "on-line" credibility - Leadership, Authenticity and Consistency.  Therefore, “transparency” kicks in and with transparency you have to care where your content is coming from - don't you?

The Web:

The Web is a fantastic “organism” that, at best, can only be described as “evolving”.  And at its heart is the vague heading “social media” or so it seems at the moment.

The problem with the web is most of the “business users” were not born within the digital age.   Therefore, they  are still applying “analogue” thinking – and this is destined to fail.

Take the chap I was referring to above. I would hazard a guess that he has spent some time working within corporate institutions.   The reason I can deduce this is his lack of ability to “credit” someone else for their work and use it to “bolster” his own.

What he does not understand, and this is the important thing about the web, is that you can’t do this anymore without getting caught out. You could hide within corporations and apply “spin” to get you out of a hole. However, no longer is this avenue of escape available and this internet shines a light into places previous unreachable.

“Spin” has no place on the web … this is why IMHO Politicians must be shaking in their boots.

By default, using the web only enforces that you leave a “long tail” and, subsequently, transparency follows  … Look at what I have found on the web about a "certain company":

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics:

•  29 have been accused of spouse abuse
•  7 have been arrested for fraud
•  9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
•  17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
•  3 have done time for assault
•  71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
•  14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
•  8 have been arrested for shoplifting
•  21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
•  84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Which organisation is this ?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons!.  Yes, it’s the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line!.

Fantastic isn’t it? Now a few years ago there would be no way us “mere mortals” could have found this, and if we did “spin” would have been the politicians’ answer. Now the boot is on the other foot.

This is why I have admiration for Barack Obama. Not only did he embrace a completely new method of marketing, he laid himself open to transparency. Moreover, he is the first politician to NOT BE sponsored by corporations!!

This is fantastic news, moreover, this is why we all need to embrace social media AND how to use it.

If we get it wrong we could end up like the chap at the top of this post or the entire staff of the House of Commons.   But if we get it right we could end up as well respected as Barack Obama.

Whether we like social media or not it’s here to stay and being as though the web is only 15 years old, starting your on-line strategy now would seem to be a good idea – don’t you think?

Nick

[Casey]

Hi Nick,

I think you have addressed this quite kindly. Two omitted words or phrases are "plagiarism" and "copyright infringement".

You have done a very good job of explaining the wisdom of a verifiable line of source reference so I do not feel a need to add anything further. I hope we find fit and valuable the culture of giving credit to build others, even as we benefit from them.

Nice one about the Commoners. Who would have thought...

Casey

[Richard Greenland]

Well if you were writing an academic paper, you would have NO CREDIBILITY at all UNLESS you referred consistently to credible sources to back up your statements, and referenced them thoroughly in a recognised format. Anything else is hearsay!

Whatever issues we wish to discuss, using other peoples’ work in this way adds to our credibility, as we demonstrate that others who have thought or researched clearly around the subject have come to similar conclusions.

Rich

[REI]

I take the view that most of what you read on a forum is nothing more than conversations without the cost of buying drinks. People offering their views and exposing how they think. Lots of things they have heard or read in the past will color what they share. You can even tell what they have been listening to when they quote some specific fact or statistic.

When trying to make a case for a specific point of view then it becomes more important to cite sources and to have a balanced list of sources so that readers are moved to believe what you are saying. That is when it starts to really matter where you get your info from.

On the web and definitely with some blogs you will see people who are effectively copying and pasting text from someone else. Plagiarism might be the right term Not sure it is copyright infringement as that gets us into how the author provided notice that the information is protected by copyright. No warning, no copyright? Not legally in the full sense but harder to defend when you have not posted the property.

In any event a person can offer their views and they can be economical with the truth, sloppy or just stupid. Over time the readers get to know who is who.

John Corey
www.ChelseaPrivateEquity.com/blog

PS. Should the last phrase be 'who is whom'? I get a bit confused on when to use whom.

[Wasim]

Hi Nick

I want to know who the 29 are that have abused their wives...this sort of info should be available to the general public. If these guys want to put them up to serve the Public then we should know WHO is representing us.

Regards

Wasim

[Vanessa]

Another great blog from Seth Godin about transparency.

What you say, what you do and who you are

We no longer care what you say.

We care a great deal about what you do.

If you charge for hand raking but use a leaf blower when the client isn't home

If you sneak into an exercise class because you were on the wait list and it isn't fair cause you never get a bike

If you snicker behind the boss's back

If you don't pay attention in meetings

If you argue with a customer instead of delighting them

If you copy work and pass it off as your own

If you shade the truth a little

If you lobby to preserve the unsustainable status quo

If you network to get, not to give

If you do as little as you can get away with

...then we already know who you are.