Tag: politics

The battle between the old and the new

What side of history do we want to be on?

“We will build an America where ‘hope’ is a new job with a paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker” – Mitt Romney, US Republican Presidential candidate

“What immediate measures can be taken to protect jobs?” – French President Nicolas Sarkozy

“We want to be countries that made cars” – Kim Carr, Australian Minister for Manufacturing

Around the world the forces of protectionism are stirring to shield fading industries, businesses and fortunes from economic reality.

The most immediate target in this battle are the new industries that threaten the old.

It’s no coincidence US lawmakers want to introduce laws that will cripple the Internet in order to favour music distributors, that the US and New Zealand governments work together to shut down a cloud sharing service or that failing Australian retailers call on their government to change tax rules in order to prop up their fading sales.

The old industries appear to have the advantage; they are rich, they have political power and – most importantly for politicians – they employ lots of voters.

We shouldn’t under estimate just how far the managers and owners of the challenged industries will go to protect their failing business models, unwanted product lines and outdated work methods, which isn’t surprising as their wealth and status is built upon them.

Eventually they will lose, just as the luddites fighting the loom mills and the lords fighting the railway lines did.

The question for society and individuals is do we want to be part of yesterday’s fading industries or part of tomorrow’s economy.

We need to let our political leaders know where we’d our societies to go before they make the wrong choices.

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Book review: The Information Diet

Clay A. Johnson describes how to manage information overload

We all know a diet of fast food can cause obesity, but can consuming junk information damage our mental fitness and critical faculties?

In The Information Diet, Clay A. Johnson builds the case for being more selective in what we read, watch and listen to. In it, Clay describes how we have reached the stage of intellectual obesity, what constitutes a poor diet and suggests strategies to improve the quality of the information we consume.

The Information Diet is based upon a simple premise, that just as balanced food diet is important for physical health so too is a diverse intake of news and information necessary for a healthy understanding of the world.

Clay A. Johnson came to this view after seeing a protestor holding up a placard reading “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Could an unbalanced information diet cause a kind of intellectual obesity that warps otherwise intelligent peoples’ perspectives?

The analogy is well explored by Clay as he looks at how we can go about creating a form of “infoveganism” that favours selecting information that comes as close from the source as possible

Just as fast food replaces fibre and nutrients with fat, sugars and salt to appeal to our tastes, media organisations process information to appeal to our own perceived biases and beliefs.

Clay doesn’t just accuse the right wing of politics in this – he is as scathing of those who consider the DailyKos, Huffington Post or Keith Olbermann as their primary sources as those who do likewise with Fox News or Bill O’Reilly.

The rise of opinion driven media – something that pre-dates the web – has been because the industrial production of processed information is quicker and more profitable that the higher cost, slower alternatives; which is the same reason for the rise of the fast food industry.

For society, this has meant our political discourse has become flabbier as voters base decisions and opinions upon information that has had the facts and reality processed out of it in an attempt to attract eyeballs and paying advertisers.

In many ways, Clay has identified the fundamental problem facing mass media today; as the advertising driven model requires viewers’ and readers’ attention, producers and editors are forced to become more sensationalist and selective. This in turn is damaging the credibility of these outlets.

Unspoken in Clay’s book is the challenge for traditional media –their processing of information has long since stopped adding value and now strips out the useful data, at best dumbing down the news into a “he said, she said” argument and at worse deliberately distorting events to attract an audience.

While traditional media is suffering from its own “filter failure”, the new media information empires of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are developing even stronger feedback loops as our own friends on social media filter the news rather than a newsroom editor or producer.

As our primary sources of information have become more filtered and processed, societal and political structures have themselves become flabby and obese. Clay describes how the skills required to be elected in such a system almost certainly exclude those best suited to lead a diverse democracy and economy.

Clay’s strategies for improving the quality of the information we consume are basic, obvious and clever. The book is a valuable look at how we can equip ourselves to deal with the flood of data we call have to deal with every day.

Probably the most important message from The Information Diet is that we need to identify our biases, challenge our beliefs and look outside the boxes we’ve chosen for ourselves. Doing that will help us deal with the opportunities of the 21st Century.

Clay A. Johnson’s The Information Diet is published by O’Reilly. A complimentary copy was provided as part of the publisher’s blogger review program.

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What businesses should learn from Wikileaks

Cablegate forces us to question computer security and the stability of the Internet

The Wikileaks Cablegate affair has been entertaining us now for two weeks as we see diplomats and politicians around the world squirming with embarrassment as we learn what US diplomats really think about the foreign powers they deal with.

Both the leak of the cables and the treatment of Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, by various Internet companies raises some important questions about the Internet, cloud computing and office security in the digital era.

Security

It’s believed the source of the leaked cables is Private First Class Bradley Manning, who is alleged to be responsible for leaking the Iraq tapes released by Wikileaks earlier this year.

The lesson is don’t give junior staff unrestricted access to your data, access to important information such as bank account details, staff salaries and other matters best kept confidential needs to be protected.

You can stop data leaving the building by locking USB ports, CDs and DVDs through either software or hardware settings on your computers and you should ask your IT support about this, keep in mind that locking down systems may affect some of your staff’s productivity.

Locking the physical means though doesn’t stop the possibility of data being sent across the Internet and access logs may only tell you this has happened after the fact. So it’s important to review your organisation’s acceptable use policy. Check with your lawyers and HR specialists that your staff are aware of the consequences of accessing company data without permission.

Incidentally, the idea that Pfc Manning was just one US Army staffer of thousands who were able to access these cables raises the suspicion that the information Wikileaks is now releasing was long ago delivered to the desks of interested parties in London, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Beijing and cave hideouts in remote mountain ranges.

Don’t rely on one platform

Wikileaks found itself hounded from various web hosting and payment providers. As we’ve discussed previously, relying on other people’s services to deliver your product raises a number of risks. Make sure you have alternatives should one of your service providers fail and never allow an external supplier to become your single point of failure.

Concerns about the cloud

This column has been an unabashed fan of cloud computing, but the Wikileaks saga shows the cloud is not necessarily secure or trustworthy. Not only is there the risk of a PFC Manning working at the data center compromising your passwords or data, but the arbitrary shutdown of Wikileaks’ services is a stark lesson of relying on another company’s Terms of Service.

Within most terms of service are clauses that allow the provider to shut down your service if you are accused of breaking the law or straying outside of the providers’ definition of acceptable use. As we saw with Amazon’s treatment of Wikileaks, you can be cut off at any time and without notice.

Amazon’s shutting down of Wikileaks is a pivotal point in the development of cloud services. Trust is essential to moving your operations to the cloud, and Amazon’s actions shown much of that trust may be misplaced.

Should you be considering moving to the cloud, you’ll need to ensure your data and services are being backed up locally and not held hostage to the arbitrary actions of your business partner.

Don’t put your misgivings in writing

So your business partner is a control freak? Great but don’t put it in writing.

Be careful of gossip and big noting

One interesting aspect of Wikileaks to date is how senior politicians like gossip and showing how worldly they are to US diplomats.

That’s great, but it probably isn’t a good idea to tell your best friend they should consider beating up your most important customer. As mentioned earlier, this little gem was probably on polished desks of the Chinese Politburo long before the cables found their way to Wikileaks.

Resist the temptation to gossip, remember your grandmother’s line about not saying anything if you can’t say something nice.

Ultimately what Wikileaks shows us is all digital communications are capable of being copied and endlessly distributed. In a digital economy, the assumption has to be that everything you do is likely to become public and you should carry out your business conduct as if you will be exposed on Wikileaks or the six o’clock news.

Wikileaks is a lesson on transparency, we are entering an era of accountability and the easiest way to deal with this is to be more honest and open. That’s the big lesson for us in our business and home lives.

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The end of the troll

Is it time we stopped Internet anonymity?

Australian union leader Paul Howes today claimed in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that New Media is denigrating politicians. His point being anonymous users on newspaper websites (such as the one he writes for) and online services like Twitter encourage abuse and slander which is degenerating politics and media discussion.

The rough and tumble of the Internet was raised during the Canberra Media140 conference last September where conversation turned around Liberal politician Joe Hockey’s comment that anonymous, banal tweets was causing him to lose faith in online services like Twitter.

Media140 provided more discussion about anonymity when The Australian decided to out the anonymous blogger Grogs Gamut, aka Greg Jericho. Greg wasn’t being abusive however his commentary had clearly found its way under the skin of some members of the Canberra political classes.

But does anonymity matter?  We are kidding ourselves if we believe we are truly anonymous on the Internet. Few of us have the skills or diligence to fully hide our tracks from people we offend or upset.

Anonymity also discredits much of a person’s statements – as both Paul and Joe have pointed out, if you aren’t prepared to put your name to your views then there is a good argument that your opinions are really worthless.

However that argument ignores the power imbalance between the ordinary citizen who may find their career at risk by stating their views, as Greg Jericho found, and politicians and those working for political parties or allied organisations, like Joe and Paul who are protected by powerful and often tribally loyal party structures, PR machines and compliant journalists.

Probably the part that’s most disingenuous though about Paul Howes’ article is that anonymous Internet commenters are dragging politicians down. Sadly our politicians did that job themselves long before social media or web2.0 based websites came on the scene.

Today’s politicians are only reaping what they have sown themselves. Paul and Joe’s mentors – people like Graham Richardson, John Howard and Bob Carr – went out of their way to pander to and encourage the shrill, anonymous harridans of talkback radio.

Unfortunately for today’s politicians, the Internet doesn’t have the same gatekeepers in the form of friendly announcers, producers and editors to save them from the public’s genuine, unfiltered opinions.

The fact many of those anonymous comments – whether online or in more traditional media channels – may be true is another thing to consider; that people genuinely believe these politicians are doing the wrong thing. Rightly or wrongly, is that the fault of the Internet, or the fault of those politicians and their advisors who claim to have wonderful communication skills?

Internet anonymity is not perfect, and often not right, but the privilege of being able to make an anonymous statement is a fundamental part of a working democracy.

It’s not surprising our current generation of spin-doctored, on-message politicians feel threatened by a medium they struggle to understand or control, but that isn’t the fault of the anonymous online troll who could turn out to be what ultimately saves our democracy.

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How broadband won the Australian election

building a new communications network was the difference between the two parties

In a dour and negative Australian election campaign, the National Broadband Network was the one issue separated the look alike policies of the two major parties. In the end, it decided the election.

Privately developed communications networks are rare in the nation’s history for a combination of factors including Australia’s population distribution and commercial appetites for investment risk.

Australian governments have always been critical to the development of regional communications, from the establishment of state operated railway networks, through the post office owned telegraph and telephone networks and eventually the road system.

So the National Broadband Network is typical of Australian communications development where the government provides the infrastructure framework and the private sector grows around it.

There’s no doubt regional communities understood the importance of being connected to the global economy, successive Federal governments have struggled with a patchwork of government programs such as the Universal Service Obligation and Broadband Connect in an effort to guarantee some level of service for all Australian communities.

The NBN itself was conceived in the realisation that any solution that relied wholly on private funding was not going to deliver a national solution. This was view that regional organisations such as Digital Tasmania had held all along when agitating for their communities not being left behind.

And Tasmania was were the vote mattered, the coalition failed to win any Tasmanian seats where three would have been won had the state followed the rest of the nation. Those three seats; Bass, Franklin and Braddon would have been enough to give the Liberal and National Parties power.

Had the coalition focussed on the legitimate criticisms of the NBN such as the government’s failure to quantify the $43 billion price tag or NBNCo’s failure to produce a business plan then they may well have won the election.

As the country Independents stated, the NBN was one of the key considerations in their decision to support the Labor government, so not getting their NBN policy right cost the coalition government in two ways.

Now the NBN is going ahead we need to focus on what it can deliver, along with a sensible discussion on the right mix of fibre and wireless infrastructure, the proportion of private and public investment and exactly how much the project is going to cost.

Now is the time to get on with building what will be the 21st Century equivalent of the roads and railways of the 20th and 19th Centuries.

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Twenty Internet rules for politicians

The web and social media is changing politics just as TV did which means new rules for politicians

In the 1960 US Presidential race, Richard Nixon’s campaign was thrown off course when his team misunderstood how the new medium of television worked from politicians. Today’s political candidates are facing the same challenges with the Internet and social media.

Social media and the internet are great platforms for politicians to talk directly to their constituents without going through the filters of mass media however there are risks for the clumsy and ill-prepared.

The main risk for politicians, and businesses, is the Internet increases accountability and magnifies gaffes; a mistake in a remote town that may not have been noticed by the press ten years ago can today be the lead story on the national evening news thanks to an audience member with a mobile phone.

Social media increases that accountability as every tweet, Instagram post or Facebook update is effectively a public statement making these services powerful tools that need to be treated with respect.

1. You’ve put it in writing

As soon as a tweet, update or email is sent or published, it’s in writing against your name. Once you’ve posted it, it’s impossible to deny it – don’t even think about using the lame ‘my computer was hacked’ excuse. So don’t put on the Internet what you wouldn’t write in a letter or memo.

2. Everything you do online is permanent

Even if you delete an email, tweet or blog post after sending there will always be a copy somewhere. Nothing on the net is ever completely deleted and if it’s in the slightest bit controversial assume someone will make a copy. Think before pressing send.

3. All online comment is publishing

Prior to the Internet, publishing involved owning or hiring a printing press, radio station or television studio. Today anyone with a PC, tablet computer or mobile phone is a publisher. Every time you press “submit” you are publishing a comment with all the same potential consequences as writing an article or campaign flier.

4. Off line rules apply online

Many people on the net have the idea rules don’t apply online. Those people are wrong, defamation and electoral rules apply online as much as they do offline. What’s more, the Internet magnifies errors and dishonesty. Even if you haven’t strictly broken the rules, you still may find an ethical lapse could sink your campaign.

The difference when you do it online is that the record is permanent and available world wide, that’s why it’s called the World Wide Web.

5. The net makes copying easy

In a digital world, all content is endlessly reproducible, so your material can be copied, altered and distributed easily. This was a lesson learned by a bunch of London lawyers ten years ago. Learn from their mistakes and use it to your advantage.

6. Nothing is off the record

Everything you write on the Internet is on the record; an offhand Twitter comment is just as official as a press conference statement or media release. So keep the smart comments off line. If you’re going to be rude about someone, don’t put it in writing on the net even if the message is supposed to be private.

7. Online private and public domains are blurred

While there are private channels on the Internet, the boundaries between them are not always clear. For instance a Facebook group can be seen by anyone who is a member, so postings in that group can be passed on from there.

It’s also easy to make mistakes; a private Twitter message could go public if you hit the wrong key. There’s no shortage of horror stories where people have been included on email messages that were never intended for them.

Assume everything sent on the Internet can potentially become public.

8. Be transparent and consistent

As a research tool, the Internet gives media, the voters and your opponents the opportunity to quickly verify every statement you make.

If you are going say the dollar collapsed when your opponents were in government, check this really did happen. If your party promises a can of baked beans in every household then details of The National Baked Bean Access Program have to be online.

9. The Internet loves a vacuum

Should you leave questions unanswered, or if you make an empty promise with no supporting information, then you’ll find no shortage of people on the net willing to fill the blanks for you. Leaving people guessing is the quickest way to get an issue spinning out of control.

10. Be careful of delegating

It’s tempting to give the job of social media expert to the youngest staffer or volunteer in the office, however you are responsible for everything written. So if you delegate, think carefully. Blaming an over enthusiastic intern or contractor is rarely a good look even if it is true.

A good example of this was Hugh Jackman’s Sydney Opera Center gaffe which was clearly a Tweet from someone who wasn’t Australian. While for Hugh it was a minor embarrassment, a similar trivial mistake could derail a political campaign or career.

11. Think before you tweet

The best measure for posting on the internet is never to say anything you’d be embarrassed to explain to your mother. In a political context, don’t say anything you’d be uncomfortable justifying to your party leader, whip or the host of a radio talk back program.

12. Engage with your audience

You need to be adding value, while mediums like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are quite effective for getting out prepared material, that isn’t using those channels to their full potential.

The word “social” in “social media” indicates how these services have become communities where people exchange views and participate. Your Facebook pages and Twitter streams should be engaging voters and acting as a rallying point for supporters. Think of them as a virtual 24/7 town hall meeting.

13. The net is a big playground

The Internet is a perfect democracy. Everyone who chooses to participate has a voice.

This means the informed, engaged and intelligent have an equal voice with the ignorant, deranged and obsessed. While it is important to listen to what the lunatic fringe have to say, you don’t have to engage with them.

14. You are judged by your company

Be careful of joining online groups or being too closely associated with individuals who may be an embarrassment. Facebook is particularly bad for this as you’ll get many offers to join groups. Resist most of the invitations as even the funny ones could backfire.

15. Play nice with the trolls

On the net, you should never get into a fight. As the saying goes; “never wrestle with a pig; you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it.” The same applies with internet trolls.

The Internet is the greatest invention for idiots, giving them a forum to exercise their ideas and find like minded fools. Don’t join, argue or engage with them, you’ll only encourage them.

16. Don’t get clever

One thing the Internet doesn’t do very well is humour, sarcasm and irony. So be very careful with the smart comments as what would be a funny off-hand line at a press conference or walk around could be totally misinterpreted online.

Another problem is context which is easily lost on the net; be careful with statements that could be taken poorly by those not aware of the surrounding circumstances. This is particularly true with Twitter where it can be difficult for bystanders to understand the entire online exchange.

17. The web is worldwide

There’s no such thing as an intimate chat online. Everything you do could be passed on. You may only have a thousand Facebook friends or Twitter followers but if each of them has a similar following, that’s an immediate audience of a million people. Treat each tweet, post or update as if it is going out on the Morning Show or 7.30 report.

Similarly, some political organisers think the web is best for rallying the troops. That’s a dangerous idea as many teenagers have discovered when a horde of gatecrashers have turned up to their Facebook advertised parties. Your political opponents are probably taking as much interest in your posts as your supporters.

18. Don’t deceive

The New Yorker once said “on the Internet no-one knows you’re a dog.” So it’s tempting to set up anonymous accounts and webpages to discredit your opponent or derail their campaigns.

In reality, your posts in dog food forums will probably give you away and all but the most sophisticated hoaxer will leave clues in their digital footprint. Even if you cover your tracks, being mischievous can bring you unstuck.

You need to also keep your volunteers and staff aware of this; by all means let them engage, promote and defend your positions but make it clear that underhand and childish stunts will hurt more than help if they are exposed.

19. The net does not replace other channels

The digital natives will tell you old media is dying and only the Internet matters while older comms people will mutter darkly into their drinks about the net being over rated as a tool. Both are wrong.

Mainstream media and the Internet increasingly rely on each other as sources and distribution channels. Tools like Twitter help journalists find sources and spread stories while the news papers and TV shows provide material for Twitter and Facebook users.

Where the Internet works particularly well is enhancing the “traditional’ channels of community meetings, media appearances, fliers and articles.  What you can’t say in a 15 second TV ad or 500 word article can be expanded on and enhanced online because you aren’t subject to other peoples’ restrictions and guidelines.

20. Experiment and learn

In a risk adverse world it’s easy to ask why you should bother with the Internet as most voters are still getting their information through mass media and advertising spending is still largely used for broadcast ads.

The reason you need to be on the Internet is because your constituency has moved online and the broadcast journalists are online. You need to be listening to them and to understand how issues are developing and how these channels are being used.

As these tools develop, they are going to become more powerful. The politician who ignores them today and misunderstands how the medium works could find themselves being remembered in the same way Richard Nixon was in 1960.

Our society is increasingly using the Internet to debate and develop new ideas. If you hope to be part of those ideas, you need to be part of the debate.

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