April 2017 – Change Meme

27 April, 20174 February, 2018 Louise McGregor Buzzword

Organic Growth

This is an old term that’s garnered a new twist in the era of social media.

Organic Growth in Business

Organic growth for a business dates back to at least the 1950s and refers to the growth in a business that relates to improvements from its normal operations, here’s how Scottish craft brewery company BrewDog has increased their growth -organically – over the years.

increased output
In 2012 BrewDog moved to a state-of-the-art brewery, their output in 2013 was double the output of 2011. With developments to the brewery production was more than doubled by 2015.
increase in customer numbers
BrewDog is UK-based gained new customers in 2008 by expanding exports to Sweden, Japan and America.
They have also grown by opening their own bars, and now have a total of 44.
a new product release
BrewDog began with one beer, Punk IPA, and has added dozens of others, including the punny Jack Hammer, seasonals such as Hop Fiction, and the alcohol free Nanny State.

BrewDog are famous for their self-promotion and stunts, but their double digit growth figures tell of effective organic growth.

Organic Growth in Social Media

Organic growth in social media usually applies to growth in number of followers that comes from what you provide on your account, rather than paid promotion or paid advertising. It’s a baseline growth in your account figures before you look at the impact of campaigns.

effective content
Philips worked on creating an instagram account filled with wonderful content around the theme of #LightIsLife, and increased their follower number by 50% in six months (engagement figures also went up)
Word of Mouth or Great PR
When the JoeBama memes caught the imagination of a nation during a fraught election campaign they were featured in all sorts of standard publications, earning the originators thousands of followers.
Crisis
Less happily when your company is in the news for negative reasons the number of followers might increase, along with the number of comments and negative reactions.

Although it’s getting harder and harder to grow an audience based on organic growth alone, it’s increasingly a case of “pay to play”, it’s worth monitoring your organic growth. Unless you’re in a crisis it does tell you something about the appeal of your content.

It’s a useful term and one that’s easy to understand in social media terms if you know the general business use.

Image: Seedling | US Dept of Agriculture | CC BY 2.0

25 April, 20178 February, 2018 Louise McGregor Editorial

Freedom of Expression Awards – Digital

The winners of the annual Freedom of Expression Awards were announced lat week. These awards “exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world”, and they fall into four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Journalism, and Digital Activism.

We’re used to thinking of freedom of expression as the ability to say what we want and how we want, and we know that all over the world people campaign for this and other rights so the first three of those seem intuitive. Digital Activism is very of this era and the entries used digital in diverse ways.

Turkey Blocks – the winner

A campaign/tech team that monitors and publishes information on censorship and government blocking of the internet, particularly social media platforms. They have been able to identify 14 mass censorship events that coincide with political events, and their tools will be used elsewhere in the world.

Jensiat

An online graphic novel that aims to help Iranians understand cyber-danger, and sexual health. Each episode helps readers understand cyber issues such as protecting their privacy online. One goal was to make tech less “male”, and empower women to use technology. Unsurprisingly it was censored by the Iranian government.

Bill Marczak

A digital sleuth who has investigated government attempts to track journalists and activists in Bahrain, and uncovered technological weaknesses and spyware that put them in danger.

Evan Mawarire

A campaigner for better democracy in Zimbabwe his #ThisFlag campaign kicked off with a video of himself wearing his nation’s flag and led to mass protests. It’s now illegal for a flag to be in private ownership. It’s a mark of a campaign’s effectiveness when the government makes stupid laws in response.

The description for the category is “for innovative uses of technology to circumvent censorship and enable free and independent exchange of information”. Two of these finalists are there because the delivery of their campaign content was digital, and two are there because they did something in the digital ecosystem to understand and expose censorship. It’s a little hard for me to see the publication of a video online as innovative use of technology – YouTube has been around since 2005 – but the impact was high and Evan Mawarire was arrested on his return to Zimbabwe.

Look back at past winners in this category there is a strong reminder of just how great the risk of fighting for these rights can be. Bassel Khartabil won in 2013 for his work on creating a more open internet in Syria. He was not able to accept the award in person as he had been arrested, he is still imprisoned, and other activists are fighting for his release five years on.

Freedom of Expression is a basic right and the cornerstone of a functioning free society, the kind of society I want to live in. All the finalists are fighting for rights I pretty much take for granted, and I really shouldn’t, the rights were hard won and can be destroyed. ,

Image: Artist Studio | See Ming Lee | CC BY-SA 2.0

20 April, 20178 February, 2018 Louise McGregor Innovation

World Earth Day

Saturday is World Earth Day, this year’s theme is “Climate Literacy” which is needed more than ever. I have been reading The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History which is scary warning for all that is going wrong with our natural environment. It essential, if depressing, reading. So I started to look for some signs of hope, technology that is making things better, and simple ways to make my habits more sustainable.

Food

One big impact on our environment comes from what we eat, the high level of meat in our diet has a negative effect in terms of land use, water use, pollution and green house gas emissions. Some experts conclude that we just need to eat less meat, according to Mark Bittman in a TED talk from 2007 “Less meat, less junk, more plants”. There are a couple of answers for the future that don’t require you to give up all the bacon.

Cultured Meat

Also called synthetic meat, fake meat, clean meat or in vitro meat, depending on the view of the writer. It has given rise to all those stories of the World’s Most Expensive Burger, tasty Chicken treats, and pet medication. As far as I know there’s no synthetic bacon that passes the taste test – yet.

Insects

I have eaten scorpion.

What we eat is largely culturally determined, and while in the west eating insects has a high cultural barrier around the world thousands of people eat insects – deliberately.

So where did I eat scorpion? In China, there was a translation issue, or a pronunciation issue since the word for scorpion (xiēzi) is quite close to the word from eggplant (qiézi). Or perhaps it was the waiter’s little joke on the foreigners. The scorpion is technically an arachnid, rather than an insect, but the idea is the same. They come deep fried, which denatures the poison and they’re, um, crunchy.

If you feel ikky about eating insects it’s a barrier you can overcome, indeed we may have to.

What can you do?

reduce the amount of meat you eat, experiment with meat-free Mondays, or only eat meat in the weekends.
pay attention to the source of your meat, if you’re eating less you can pay more for meat from animals that have been grazing outdoors.
learn to cook vegetarian meals, the lentil is your friend.
plan your meals so that you reduce food waste.

Clothing

Fashion has evolved a ‘fast fashion‘ ethos, where we add to our wardrobe continuously with cheap clothes designed not to last. This consumes resources and creates waste as we throw away clothes after relatively few wears. The waste created is reaching crisis proportions, with Americans discarding 35 kilograms of clothing per year. Some estimates reckon that clothes on the fast fashion cycle stay in a woman’s closet just five weeks. There is a lot to think about in the quest to buy sustainable clothing.

There are advances being made in the actual composition of the fabric used in clothing, using soy, recycled nylon, or coffee grounds. Some of the companies are also developing closed loop systems so that everything developed will be recycled again.

There are also entrepreneurs working on new crops for fabric, bamboo is promising as a source but it’s manufacturing process seems to be a problem. Alpaca, wool and hemp also provide sustainable options, in each case you need to now about the source and the processing to be really sure.

What can you do?

pay attention to fabric type and source, avoid toxic fabrics
check manufacturing process, ask who made your clothes
when buying a garment ask yourself if you would wear it at least 30 times, this is the #30wears campaign started by Livia Firth. (Hat tip Mathilde Teuben)
repair your clothes, you should be able to sew on a button yourself, but there are tailors in every city. Two winters ago I paid for a winter coat to be re-lined, I think it cost 50 euro but that was cheaper than a replacement coat and it’s lasted two more winters.
consciously recycle, if you research where discarded clothing goes, it’s often landfill.

Energy

The two best options for large scale sustainable energy use are solar and wind.

Solar Power

Tesla has created the Powerwall, a system to harness and store solar energy. Designed for domestic use sales were were high through last year, and this provides a good option for small scale use, but is limited when it comes to those of us living in apartments – I don’t have any roof space on which to install solar panels.

If solar panels on roofs aren’t a full at-scale solution what other surfaces could be used for solar panels? The Netherlands is midway through an experiment on using a solar bike path, results in terms of user testing are positive, although the surface probably isn’t strong enough for use on a roadway. However at a cost of about 3 million euro to build a 70m stretch of bike path we’re a long way from a convincing business case.

Wind Power

The Netherlands has offshore windfarms, you fly over them if you’re arriving from the UK. I had naively thought that Europe was doing well on installing wind power as form of renewable energy, but in fact China is doing better than any other country.

China is the biggest installer of new wind power capacity, installing about half of the new wind power capacity each year. In fact wind energy has become a major industry with at least six turbine companies.

We’ll need a much faster growth of renewable energy options in the west if we’re going to reduce our reliance on hydrocarbon energy forms. This matters for two reasons:

we will eventually run out of hydrocarbons, we’re already struggling to sustain supply without damaging our environment and resorting to fracking, arctic drilling and deep sea drilling in pristine environments.
the pollution from the use of hydrocarbons is poisoning our oceans, and our atmosphere.

What can you do? Reduce your energy consumption:

Take public transport
Ride a bike
Lower your central heating and put on a sweater
Insulate your house – even closing the curtains at night lowers the energy needed to heat your apartment.

Plastic

We have known for a long time that plastic (incidentally often made from oil) do not biodegrade and that they create pollution. Plastic is a major component of landfill, and in our oceans it has created a floating rubbish patch in the north Pacific. There are municipal recycling schemes in Dutch cities to encourage recycling of plastic, but total plastic recycled is still less than 10%.

Some work has gone into making biodegradable plastics or packaging. The latest is an algae membrane used to package single serves of water, the packaging is even edible. It works as a single serve option but it’s a flawed solution, and will never replace the existing options.

What can you do to lower your plastic use?

carry a shopping bag
shop at a market that doesn’t package fruit/vegetables
carry a water bottle
avoid drinking straws and plastic packaging (I am sitting in a cafe that is making the change to no plastic, starting with paper straws)
more ideas on the Trash is for Tossers blog

Activism

Companies and governments change on the basis of what people want, eventually. I know it may seem hard to believe some days. So tell them.

refuse the plastic straw at the bar and say why
buy from companies who are sustainable
talk to companies about what they could do better: by phone, letter, email, Facebook or twitter
boycott companies that don’t improve – and tell them
support an NGO that works on sustainability issues with a donation, your time, your voice
tell others about companies and initiatives you’ve heard of that are sustainable.
recycle your rubbish
call on your city to provide recycling measures
call on business to support recycling measures

The Answer

There’s no easy answer here, everything we do has an impact on the planet, all we can do is make choices to reduce our impact. Reduce what we consume, re-use items, re-purpose others, recycle as much waste as we can.

And speak up, tell companies that you expect sustainable products, tell your elected officials that you want a world for the next generation, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after…

Image: Earth | Kevin Gill | CC BY-SA-2.0

13 April, 20178 February, 2018 Louise McGregor Communication, Editorial

Fake News

FAKE NEWS!

The rise and rise of this term has made it even harder to determine what to believe, although it has a very long dishonourable history. I’ve taken to checking and rechecking posts before commenting. But yesterday a friend posted an article claiming that the BCC and CNN had faked reports of chemical attacks in Syria. Both those organisations attract criticism for bias but are generally respected for their journalism, so I checked. It’s been debunked as invented by Russian journalists. Shortly after someone posted a very unlikely-sounding story about massive ill treatment and incarceration of LGBTx people in Chechnya, the source was Daily Mail and I refuse to click on Daily Mail links but I can Google it. Horrifyingly it’s true, with multiple reports from credible sources.

How can you tell if something is really fake news?

Let’s be clear there are a number of ways a news report can be wrong.

error
the news centre may have got its facts wrong. Reputable news organisations avoid this and apologise quickly when it happens.
bias
the news centre may have a stated bias, The Economist for example is slightly right wing, the Guardian is slightly left. You can read both of the same events. In fact that’s healthy.
misleading
the news centre starts with a viewpoint and presents information to support that viewpoint. Most news centres are guilty of this at some point (and remember editorial is not the same as news). At last year’s remembrance service in London one news outlet claimed that the leader of the Labour political party had danced, and they had the pictures to prove it.
facts are fabricated with the idea of changing your opinion, this is what I would consider “fake news”, and the above story that BBC/CNN had fabricated information on attacks in Syria falls into this category. As does a certain head of state’s statements on many issues.
satire
there are some great satire pieces out there, but as the news gets weird it can be hard to tell which is real. That is predicted by Poe’s Law.

There are four things to consider when examining the news

what quality is the source?
how accurate is the reporting?
is there bias in the reporting?
is it a joke (satire)?

There’s a graphic doing the rounds online that puts these characteristics into one handy chart. (Originally created by Vanessa Otero)

I’ve seen some criticism out there already, from both sides, so please use this as a starting point to create your own guide on what to read. (Personally I’d have put “The Atlantic” to the right of the Grauniad).

There is a call for the various social media to do more to prevent the publication of fake news – particularly following the climax of Pizzagate when a guy with a gun turned up at an innocent Pizza joint based on fake news reports. BBC’s Click Podcast covered some of the reasons that technology is not and easy, or complete, answer.

FactCheck.org produced a guide on spotting fake news, their whole article is worth reading but this infographic summarises the main points.

Note that we need to check our own biases. A lot of news is being presented in a very binary fashion, with predictable partisan lines being drawn. Checking our own biases means being aware of how our own views play into what we want to believe. We all need to hold ourselves to a high standard in what we read, repeat, post, and believe.

My reaction to the flood of news reports from the various world horrors going on is to check and recheck the news I’m reading and to try to read mostly from the upper oval, in light green. I’m also trying not to get into link wars, but to have discussions and add links when asked for evidence. I have also take to asking people for evidence of their claims, so far none of the people asked have been able to provide any (even the Facebook friend who virtually shouted at me to “GO and READ”.)

There’s no technical solution to fake news. It comes down to all of us paying attention. We need to find ways of distinguishing the real news, understanding our biases, being vigilant on what we believe and taking responsibility for what we post.

POSTSCRIPT

Alvaro Cabellero kindly sent me a link to Mike Caulfield’s excellent article How “News Literacy” Gets Web Misinformation Wrong. It’s a sixteen minute read; the tldr advice is;

I have a simple web literacy model. When confronted with a dubious claim:

Check for previous fact-checking work
Go upstream to the source
Read laterally

It’s a good process, and will get you to an assessment of the quality of the journalism pretty quickly.

Image: News | Jenn | CC BY 2.0

11 April, 201720 March, 2018 Louise McGregor Editorial, Leadership

Scandals and Company Culture

Years ago a court judge in New Zealand was convicted of expenses fraud, the judge’s defense was that he hadn’t understood what the forms required. The public reaction was disbelief; either he just thought he could get away with it or he was too stupid to be a judge.

Since that early example I’ve looked at company scandals and the explanations given with a suspicious eye. In every case there are signs of how the company culture has effectively colluded around the scandal – it’s never just one person, it’s people turning a blind eye, it’s fear of whistleblowing, it’s the company culture, it’s the CEO.

Following the Enron scandal I heard a story, possibly apocryphal, of a manager who joined the company. Shortly after joining he heard that the ambitious revenue targets had been sent out across the company, requiring a jump of 25% in sales from one quarter to the next. At the end of the next quarter, to his amazement, those sales targets had been met across the company. He smelt something rotten and decided to update his CV and move on, he was not surprised when the Enron scandal broke. At the time it was the biggest corporate bankruptcy the world had seen. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed to prevent scandals of this scale ever happening again (it didn’t).

In the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme his family members were involved in the company, including his brother who was appointed as Chief Compliance Officer. There are rules in many companies about potential conflict of interest when partners or family members work together.

More recently Wells Fargo came under fire for the cross-selling scandal where staff opened credit card accounts for non-exisiting clients in order to meet targets. In companies employees focus on what gets rewarded; and when enough pressure is applied from their bosses and their colleagues some will break rules to meet those targets. The company directors’ failure to halt the scheme was called “gutless” by Elizabeth Warren – the company maintains that the employees – all 5,600 of them (so far) acted alone. Either the bosses knew or they should have know, but so far none have taken responsibility.

John Oliver’s piece on the US police system exposes the myth of the “one bad apple” and looks at some of the systemic issues behind the fatal police shootings in the US. The failures of process and policy erode the public trust in the police, reducing their ability to their job.

The points John Oliver makes could equally apply to businesses.

Leadership
Your leader must lead, her actions must demonstrate her high ethical standards and she should speak clearly and frequently about the company’s ethics.
Monitor/Collect data
We can now analyse data and patterns of performance, look at patterns and changing patterns. At a financial institute I worked at we were required to take a break of at least two weeks. HR sold it as being good for employees but my security colleagues gave another explanation, the two week break was long enough to highlight any odd activities.
Avoid conflict of interests
Keep review processes independent, external if possible. Don’t hire siblings or partners into the same field. Declare any outside interests that might raise a red flag – I wrote some columns for a (former) supplier. I had to declare this and I donated the income to charity to remove any potential conflict. Independent reviews make a difference
Transparent Processes
The more open you are, the more public you can be about your processes, the less opportunity there is for fraud or scandal. A very simple example; some universities are using blockchain to certify their qualifications, as that becomes a public record there is no chance to create a fake degree.
Rewards
Be careful what you reward, that will direct the employee’s focus and in extreme cases leads to unethical behaviour to reach stretch targets.
Whistleblower procedure
Even with all the best practices in place something could go wrong. Create a robust, independent whistleblower procedure. Whistleblowers are generally punished for coming forward, be the exception.

Building a scandal resistant company culture is not easy; not doing so is expensive, even fatal.

Image: Shhh | philm1310 via Pixabay | CC0

6 April, 20178 February, 2018 Louise McGregor Buzzword, Communication

Uncanny Valley

We’re increasingly interacting with machines that masquerade as humans, either as an online chatbot, voice activated tools (Siri, Alexa and friends), and just occasionally as robots. As long as the machine is obviously a machine we’re comfortable interacting with it, and we’ll make allowances for its robot brain.

As our ability to use high levels of artificial intelligence delivers more human-like machines it will become harder to determine whether a machine is a machine based on the interaction. When the machine starts to imitate a human well we’ll interact as long as we see the human.

The “Uncanny Valley” describes the feeling of being disturbed by interacting and having the realisation that the machine isn’t as human as we’d thought. Or, conversely, knowing that we’re interacting with a robot but finding the speech, look and movements terribly life-like. It’s that moment when you think “oh, creepy”. The term was created more than forty years ago by Robotics Professor Masahiro Mori.

As the robots become more human like this effect will, in theory, disappear. After all if we can’t distinguish the machine as a machine then we won’t have the discomfort. We still have some way to go but robotics engineers and AI programmers are getting us closer. Take a look at SAYA, the reception robot created by the Koboyashi Laboratory at Tokyo University of Science. Note this is from 2009, so I’m sure there have been advance in design and interaction since then, in the meantime SAYA seems uncanny to me.

Image: Templum Ex Obscurum | Narshe Talbot | CC BY2.0