Louise McGregor social media

This was not spam

This all happened a while ago, I wrote up my rant, decided to sleep on it and review it the next day and now it’s a year later and I’ve found it lounging in my drafts folder. Faced with the choice of trash or publish, I’ve gone with publish.


I wrote a polite, considered response to a COVID denier on Facebook who was using incorrect data to promote the idea that we are being fed a wild story by mainstream media. I backed up my comment with data from a reputable source and linked to that source.

Given Facebook’s declared commitment of combatting covid/vaccine misinformation I’m doing something that helps them. But they don’t think so, they’ve identified the comment as Spam. This is the second time this has happened. The first time the link provided was the CDC.

Here’s the comment in full that Facebook says goes against their community standards of for spam.

Here’s Facebook’s community standard on Spam in full

I’m clearly not cloaking, posting misleading content, using a deceptive pop up of any type, like/share gating, using a deceptive landing page, or impersonating anyone. It’s really unclear how my post can be identified as spam.

Given that it has happened twice it suggests that the Covid deniers have figured out that any post with a link will be accepted as spam by the Community Standard Bots if they complain about it.

It also suggests that Facebook are not able – or worse, not willing – to write an AI program that can recognize credible URLs since the two times this has happened to me the link has been to a government website. Once from the US government and once from the Dutch government.

Of course Facebook give me the chance to disagree with their decision.

I did disagree with the decision, and here is the automated response.

They’re using COVID, the very thing my original post was providing factual information about, as an excuse to not review my post.

They’re saying they have “fewer reviewers available” because of COVID. But this is a job that can 100% be a work-from-home job. Given Facebook’s enormous profits they have no excuse.

And what have I learnt from this? I won’t add URLs to controversial posts, making it harder for people to fact-check my statements against the sources I’ve used.

Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

Louise McGregor Business

The New Normal

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The “new normal” is weird.

It’s 150 days since I had a face to face conversation with any colleague.

On Friday I had virtual meetings to farewell colleagues.

On Monday I interviewed a new colleague, via video call. That’s not so unusual, but she will not meet any of us at any point in her recruitment or her on-boarding.

I have left this city twice since March – I would normally commute daily.

Every meal I have eaten in that 150 day period, I have eaten alone. For the first 90 days or so every meal was home cooked, but I’ve relaxed a little and now order meals online.

Every night I’ve slept alone, not just alone in my bed, but alone in my apartment.

It’s very easy for a week to go by in which my only face-to-face interaction is with service staff at supermarkets and the one cafe I trust.

And when I leave my home, I wear a mask.

The “New Normal” is very weird.

For many people that term is stress inducing, it’s easy to mock, and lends itself to irony. I might be alone in finding it helpful in accepting that these are the things I have to do now.

So are there any positives?

End of open plan office space

We may never go back to open plan offices.  The negative impact of open plan on productivity is something I’ve thought a lot about, in the most densely populated office I wore sound cancelling headphones in order to concentrate – and wondered why that was the solution to a shortage of working space in a highly profitable company. I’ve found it so much easier to concentrate on my work, and I am happier about being flexible with my hours – talking to Asia at 8am and America at 7pm doesn’t seem so bad when there isn’t a commute each side of that.

Museum visits

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Museums are slowly re-opening, but they are limiting visitor numbers and in some cases limiting the number of people in a room. This makes visits a delight. Those two trips to Amsterdam included visits to the Rijksmuseum. The image to the right shows the room control on the threshold of each door at the Mauritshuis.

These two positives don’t make up for all that has changed and all the suffering of those who got this wretched disease.

The new normal is indeed, weird.

Header image by Omni Matryx from Pixabay
Museum image by me.

Louise McGregor creativity

Entertain Me! (But from way over there)

The Dutch government has put strict isolation measures in place to control the spread of COVID19. As of last week all events with more than 100 people were closed – so no sports, no museums, no movies, no nightclubs. Even smaller venues started to cancel and close events as a precautionary measure. As of last Sunday night all restaurants and cafes were closed. For now I can leave the house, but we’re being asked to stay home as much as possible. I’m lucky, I can work from home, I have supplies in the house, and there are supermarkets nearby. My issues are isolation and boredom especially at the weekend – hence this list.

I’m going to focus on cultural entertainment because that’s the stuff I am missing most.

Books

My number one favourite thing to do is curl up somewhere comfortable with a great book. Right now that’s providing me with a healthy measure of escapism. As it happens I have about 15 unread books on a shelf and 44 unread on my Kindle, so I’m good to about October.

First big tip – check your local library, the one near me is promoting ebook lending to help people entertain themselves. As a billboard near here says “luckily we can still read books”.

In the unlikely event that I do run out of books I will look at the Kindle deals – right now they’ve got David Balducci and Joanne Harris for 99 cents each.

And then I will check Gutenberg, for those that don’t know Gutenberg publishes books that have entered the public domain, meaning they are no longer under copyright, and lets you download them for free. they have several formats including pdf and kindle. It’s a great way to meet and read classic authors, it’s how I read most of Trollope one winter. (Caveat: Gutenberg is blocked in Germany).

UPDATE Scribd has a 30 day free offer for e-books.

There are also some authors reading books for children, this gets a bit tricky with timezones, but it could be a great way to distract kids who are home from school/day care while you need to work.

Museums

I love visiting museums and galleries when I go to another country, and now I don’t know when I will be able to leave my own city. But some museums have made virtual tours, which are fun to explore and might keep me going for now. Google has a partnership with loads of museums and is highlighting content we can’t get to see right now.

Anne Frank Museum has a range of online resources, including a sophisticated virtual experience, it’s a bit of a “count your blessing” reminderBe.

Berlin Museum Island has virtual tour and great video experiences.

The British Museum has a virtual World Museum, where you can move through artefacts from any era. It took me while to get good at the navigation, but once you pull an artefact there’s all the information about the source and history of the item. It’s like a treasure hunt!

The Rijsksmuseum goes one better – providing you with rights free access to use their works in your own creation, check out Rijksstudio.

Music

If you’re into classical music have a look for #SongsOfComfort on Facebook, I believe it was started by Yo Yo Ma and he is playing a piece each day, and including a short dedication or uplifting message. Others have joined in, and it’s a wonderful sharing of music to sooth the soul.

Need more classical music? The Berlin Philharmonic has opened their digital platform for 30 days, the archive has everything from Daniel Barenboim Conducts the 1997 European Concert from Versailles to the March 12 concert that the orchestra played to an empty concert hall as the COVID19 curtain came down on large gatherings.

More a modern type? Follow Amanda Palmer, she’s performing live from wherever she can and linking to other artists who are streaming. Check her Insta to get the latest info.

Opera Buff? The Met is screening one opera per day for the duration of their close down. Their productions are arguably the best in the world, the singers, the costumes, the musicians, the production is lush. Even if you’re not an opera fan this is a visual and aural feast.

Check you local/national performing venues, I know that the ones here are working on ways to share their work, with at least one ballet troupe working on “training at home” sessions.

Bravo to all the musicians, performers and artists sharing their work. We’ll be back to support you live as soon as we can leave our houses.

Learn Something

There are online courses for all sorts of subjects, and some organisations are opening up free options to help us get through this.

If there’s a specific skill you want to learn check YouTube, I taught myself basic crochet in the Christmas break based on videos.

If you’re into Quizzes, you can spend days on Sporcle learning to name all 197 countries of the world.

If it’s a language you’re interested in download the DuoLingo app, and have fun learning how to say “stay home” in a dozen languages. Babbel has language courses and an insta account to please all language geeks.

We need art.

Lots of venues have had to close stuff, if you had ticket to an event that has been cancelled please – if you can afford it – don’t ask for a refund. We need art, and artists need to eat.

Lots of artists are finding new ways to share their art online, enjoy their work – but look for their patreon, donation or support pages, and support them as much as you can. We need art, and artists need to eat.

Image by annca from Pixabay

Louise McGregor future of work, Leadership

So We’re Working from Home Now.

With the COVID19 virus pandemic many companies have moved to more of their teams working from home. My company was encouraging it last week, then we got a message to take laptops home every night, and this morning it’s official; work from home.

This is in line with the Dutch government’s new policy of restricting almost all meetings of more than 100 people, which means all the museums, theatres and fun stuff is cancelled. My friends in the UK, Norway and Denmark report similar measures. So this is it for March, at least.

Productivity

Set up your workspace, not all of us have home offices that we can use, and with schools closing as well in some areas you might be sharing your workspace with kids, partners, and pets. Try to set up a work space in a quiet corner. Ideally somewhere where you don’t have to pack up everything at night and unpack it the next morning.

Get the gear, we’ll be doing more virtual meetings, make sure you’ve got the connections for virtual meetings and get a good headset. I just upgraded from the work issued option and now everyone seems so LOUD – kidding – I know where the volume button is. It’s also a set that is over both ears and reduces distractions from outside noise. My colleague is getting an extra screen to make working at home easier – we’re in this for the long haul.

If you don’t already know about the tools for working online now’s the time. Spend time learning the tools for online meetings and online collaboration. Look for innovative ways to engage people online, and think about the group dynamics if you are running meetings, so that everyone is active in a meeting. 

Set your hours start work and end work at your usual time, or at an adjusted schedule that suits you. Stick to it. Publish it on your work profile. You’ll be back at your desk tomorrow to start all over again.

Comfort

Make your workspace as comfortable as possible, think about light and temperature. Think about the chair you use. I’ve got a simple desk in a corner that has a window but doesn’t get too much direct light, being able to raise my head and look out is good for my eyes and my mood.

Make sure your desk is set up as ergonomically as possible, that will increase your comfort level. This could last some weeks – no need to injure myself!

Put all your tools within reach, I’ve put an old fashioned tray on the windowsill which holds scrap paper, pens, my headset when not in use, screen cleaner and charger cables. It’s all on hand.

Something to look at, if you’ve got a dedicated workspace add something to look at. A plant, a photo from a holiday, something inspiring. I’ve got a piece of artwork done by a friend and a small plant.

Sanity

Work is social, so chat to your colleagues. Use IMs, WhatsApp, Slack, Teams whatever tool your company is good with and keep in touch with your colleagues. Try having a virtual lunch break or virtual coffee break. This goes double for managers – check in with your team daily.

Shut down at the end of the day. I work later hours to fit in with my colleagues in the US and there is a temptation to keep working on their time zone. I’m lucky to have a dedicated space to work in so I don’t have to pack everything away, but it’s important to shut down my work computer, close the office and step away from my desk. If your work table is also the dining table put everything away and out of sight to make a psychological separation from work.

Move, ideally by going outside but that might not be possible in all places. Close the curtains, turn up the music and dance. Find yoga videos on YouTube. Pull that Wii out of the attic and set it up again. Whatever it takes, moving will improve your mood.

Make Jokes, it seems really ridiculous but it’s really important. This semi-quarantine situation is stressful and people can feel afraid or isolated. Maintaining a sense of humour about it is a way to relieve some of that stress. Added bonus, the jokes don’t even have to be good. 

If setting this up seems like a lot of work, all I can say is we could be doing this for a while, and we spend a lot of our awake time at work so we should make the experience as good as possible.

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay