@stupid

BBC News today reports that Habitat have got into hot water by mis-using a hashtag on Twitter. By adding #iranelections to their tweets, it meant that anyone searching for #iranelections saw their promotional message. At least, that's what it meant if someone searched for #iranelections in the fraction of a second after the message was posted - given the sheer volume of tweets currently using this tag, it would've been lost in the fog immediately. Net result: miniscule chance of benefit, but high likelihood that someone actually following the account would be offended.

All of which immediately puts me in mind of Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Chances are, someone relatively new to Twitter, and presumably quite junior, figured they'd found a way to game the system, and hadn't thought through the consequences. Maybe they read one of the vile guides explaining how to game Twitter? If Habitat are criticized for anything, it should be that they (or their agency) are using people for this task who don't understand the social web. You need only look at the list of people they follow - currently 4 people - to see this was the case.

We've reached the stage now where job descriptions need to include a requirement for people to demonstrate they've participated in social networks for long enough to understand the social nuances at play. I think Habitat will recover quickly from this unfortunate incident, but we can anticipate similar transgressions elsewhere.

Make this the last tube strike

London's tube drivers are on strike (again), holding the entire city to ransom (again). The answer seems obvious to me:

1) Fire them all
2) Offer to re-hire on near identical terms, minus any union affiliation
3) High profile training scheme to make up the shortfall

Actually there wouldn't be much of a shortfall. Very few tube drivers could afford not to accept the offer to re-hire, not in this economy. And there'd be no shortage of people willing to accept the offer of training and work. In fact it's precisely because of the state of the economy that makes the timing of this scheme perfect.

As a Londoner, I'd be happy to put up with a few months with the service at 80-90%, if it means we get no more strikes in the long term.

I imagine there'd be financial repercussions for firing people en masse. Maybe problems with pension schemes, etc. But it would actually be a very small group you'd have to worry about (those who didn't re-hire). And there are no shortage of articles shouting about how much money the city loses each time there's a strike.

And this could revitalise Gordon Brown's career. Could give Boris Johnson a lot of support. I don't support either politician, I'm just saying there is political capital to be gained. The tube drivers have little or no support outside their union.

So, what am I missing?

Privacy

I'm working my way through Jonathan Zittrain's excellent book, The Future of the Internet And How To Stop It.

The book itself makes some excellent points. The heart of the book concerns the web, and how it became the hotbed of innovation it is today. Essentially it boils down to two factors; experimentation is possible on the endpoints - everyone is free to use their computers how they like - and, secondly, the web doesn't discriminate between different types of traffic.

These factors are under threat. People are increasingly relying on devices that are locked down (think iPhone and Tivo), where users rely on benevolent vendors to allow changes on their behalf. What's more, these devices are tethered to a vendor's remote system, and it's therefore possible for those vendors - or more likely, an over-bearing government or court - to force changes on those devices without the consent of the user.

And where the network is concerned, at the moment, your traffic is treated with the same level of prioritisation as everyone else's. But ISPs (and others) are keen to re-prioritise this traffic for their own benefit (usually under the auspice of network optimisation). Most ISPs provide a browser with the home page defaulting to their portal, and it isn't difficult to give this content priority over that offered by competitors. I'm relieved to say that good folks like the EFF are doing a stand-up job resisting these changes.

Nevertheless, the generative nature of the web is under threat. These are the foundations on which the internet was built and it has flourished as a result. But this post isn't about that! Oh no. I'm not in the habit of writing look-what-I've-found posts, but....look what I've found!

While reading the book, I discovered that the USA PATRIOT Act allows their government to order a service provider to turn over the contents of their server without probable cause. That includes your emails, attachments, your online documents, everything you've saved online. Not only is the company not allowed to appeal this, they're not even allowed to tell anyone they've received the order! A court has to approve the order, but out of about 8,000 requests made between 2003 and 2006, only 15 rejections were made. That's 0.2%.

Like Zittrain, I would argue strongly in favour of a sensible balance between the rights of government and the rights of the individual. Checks need to be put in place to keep governments honest. I'm just astonished to learn that such a flagrant abuse of the legal system has been allowed to take place, tipping this balance and eroding a huge chunk of liberty and freedom from under the noses of the average American.

Unfortunately, Zittrain's excellent (funny! entertaining!) presentation at SXSW hasn't made its way onto their youtube channel, but a similar presentation can be seen here. It comes as "highly recommended".

Introduction to Open Source

I gave a presentation to my colleagues, giving a general introduction to Open Source. It was filmed, and the results can be seen here:


Introduction to Open Source from Phil Whitehouse on Vimeo.

And the slides can be seen here:

Introduction To Open Source

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Can we stop talking about Twitter now?

Whenever an emerging product or service hits the mainstream, it's inevitably followed by a flurry of online and newspaper articles educating the uninitiated. The recent explosion of repetitive articles about how to use Twitter - particularly from a business perspective - is perhaps reflective of not just the novelty value of this 'new' service, but also the constraints that are leading to innovative uses of the medium (full disclaimer: I wrote one using Twitter itself back in January 2008).

However, it's important to note that it is just a medium and actually most of the opportunities and challenges of using this medium effectively are not new. It's simply the latest step change in the democratisation of the web - Yet Another Online Tool which puts individuals on an equal footing with those who previously had all the power - corporations, governments and religious bodies. These tools, that allow grassroots networks to self organise, and exclude those deemed unworthy or without merit, have been around for a long time. Blogging tools (and RSS) have performed this function admirably for about ten years and more recent tools such as Facebook and Twitter have led the charge into the mainstream.

I'd therefore argue that the challenge isn't 'how to use twitter effectively', it's 'how to use the web effectively'. And the answer to this question starts with a basic understanding of the fact that the broadcast models of old simply aren't working in the way they used to.

Before the mid-90s, large companies could depend on broadcasting their information through a variety of channels - whether through press releases, events, adverts and other communications channels. These relatively subversive channels provided little in the way of discussion or debate and any word of mouth discussion about the quality of a given product or service was usually limited to those within earshot.

Not so anymore. As an individual I have access to global online networks of friends, colleagues and industry experts, all of whom are only too willing to share their views on the world - and listen in return. Given that people naturally gravitate towards those who share their views, it's fair to say that someone in one of my online networks has either made, or is considering, the same purchase decision that I'm making. I hold a healthy, cynical view about adverts and press releases, which are obviously biased and therefore held in much lower regard than the views of people in my network.

If you're a large organisation, and you want to engage effectively in these networks, it may first be necessary to undergo sociological and organisational change. The organisations that behave as though they are the ones in control - that simply bestow information on their audience without listening - will fail in this space. The audience has tools to filter out any messages they choose, and messages that aren't conversational or social will be obvious candidates for the chop.

It follows that those which succeed need to join the conversation at the same level as those they want to engage with. Those companies that are genuinely friendly, personable, helpful, and offer good value are the ones which will succeed - word will get out! The organisational re-structuring I'm referring to will need to support these processes and communication channels. Creating effective feedback loops that can respond quickly and honestly to problems becomes the key to doing good business. Rather than relying on an overstretched marketing department, the key is unlocking the genuine enthusiasm of your people. They have more credibility in this space than anyone who has their own CRM system.

So my advice is: stop worrying about how to 'monetise twitter'. It's as much a waste of time as trying to monetise a dinner party. Read the Cluetrain Manifesto to understand how conversation leads to relationships, and relationships leads to transactions. Those who try to use the social web to get straight to the transaction will do more damage than good.

in which I discover a planet sized gap in my knowledge of geeky pop culture

Can't quite believe that I hadn't heard of Jonathan Coulton until recently, but now I have I can't stop listening to him. Funny, geeky, talented and well worth checking out.

Here's his official site where you can try his music for free. But if you like it, please pay the man. I recommend "Tom Cruise Crazy", "Re: Your Brains", "The Future Soon" and "That Spells DNA" (DM me if you want more recommendations).

And here is a handy video of "Tom Cruise Crazy":

Wish I could go on about this, but I'm super busy. Sorry.

BBC Interview

As those who have met me will testify, I have a face for radio. And as it happens I was interviewed by BBC London at the weekend in connection with the Mrs Sew&Sew campaign. If you'd like to hear it, here's a link to the mp3 file (just under 5 minutes long).

I'm surprised they wanted to talk to me though - they weren't interested in the social media aspect the campaign - they only wanted to talk about thrift, especially during WWII. A historian from the Imperial War Museum would've been far more appropriate! So given the historical nature of the interview I'm pretty pleased I avoided embarrassing myself in public. And I got a public mention of my employer The Team in as well - result!

Comparison of aTV Flash and Boxee

If you've got an Apple TV, or you're considering buying one, then this post is for you.

I bought my Apple TV to watch content that I've downloaded over BitTorrent on another Mac - quite a specific use case. I've been using aTV Flash for about 9 months. It's been pretty good, and improving, but it cost $50 and there's a free alternative called Boxee which I checked out over the weekend. Here's a brief comparison (v3.5.1 of aTV Flash, 0.97 for Boxee).

Installation: Both solutions were pretty easy to install. Maybe Boxee was slightly easier, because there were a few areas where the process was simplified. But not much to choose between them.

Streamed content: Boxee won this round too - in fact I think Boxee is mostly designed with streamed content in mind (much bigger in the States than here in the UK - see Hulu). But not much good for me as I don't watch much streamed content.

Interface: aTV Flash just extends the existing Apple TV menu, Boxee creates a completely different interface (which you still reach from the Apple TV menu, existing functionality is protected). Personally I prefer simplicity, and this is quicker too, so aTV Flash wins this round.

File transfer: This is where the big difference was for me. Using aTV Flash, I could FTP content across at speeds of 430kb/s (12 minutes to transfer a 45 minute show). But Boxee doesn't enable FTP. Unless you have sys admin skills, you HAVE to use SFTP - with speeds of 80kb/s (60 minutes to transfer a 45 minute show).

I have heaps of content that just sits on the Apple TV box, and it was obvious this would take weeks to get on there over SFTP. So after playing with Boxee for a while, and researching the FTP issue, I gave up and rolled back to aTV Flash. Obviously the $50 price difference wasn't an issue in June last year when I paid for it (there were no user friendly alternatives), and I got a year's worth of updates and support, but it may be an issue for you.

Obviously this is all the case as of 6 April 2009. The SFTP issue may have been resolved by the time you read this - but if this is a deal breaker for you too, maybe see if the Boxee community have responded to my suggestion on their discussion boards when making your decision.

Company blogging

As part of The Team's new website - which has a long way to go, believe me! - we'll be surfacing opinion via a company blog. I've cobbled together some guidelines which are shared here in case they're of value to anyone else.

The important thing here is that companies shouldn't look to create guidelines that are too restrictive or lengthy - they won't get read, and will probably put people off. Rather the best thing to do (IMHO) is create a light framework and a system of support. That's what I've tried to do here.

I reckon this is also a lot better than nothing. It can be intimidating writing in a public forum for the first time, and not knowing whether there are any rules of the games can be off putting by itself.

Obviously this is written from an agency perspective but most of the guidelines apply in any corporate context.

Company Blogging

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Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, which is a day when we celebrate women in tech. I'd personally like to see more women in tech, particularly in programming, predominantly because I believe in the power of diversity in general. I believe that the best way to solve problems is to bring as many different viewpoints and backgrounds into the equation. It combats what I see as the natural human tendency to seek out those who agree with you, to seek the comfort of the echo-chamber, which is often a path to mediocrity. And diversity tends towards a more interesting workplace.

So, I have a conundrum. There are two women in particular that I find incredibly inspiring. Which do I pick? No problem - I pick both!

Kathy Sierra is one of the most inspirational speakers I've ever seen, and ran a fantastic blog until 2007 (still worth looking back through it - all very relevant). She worked for Sun - obviously a male dominated organisation - for several years, and took on the tremendous challenge of making technology accessible to, and understandable by, everyone. She participated in one of this year's most interesting panels at SXSW, about presentation techniques. It hasn't been uploaded to the SXSW youtube channel yet, but it's well worth watching out for. She doesn't have her blog anymore (long story), but you can follow her on Twitter.

The other woman up there with Kathy is danah boyd (her choice not to capitalise). She's done a lot of research about how teenagers use the web, and represents the voice of reason and clarity in a world where people make far too many sweeping generalisations. She also participated in one of the best panels at SXSW ("Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism"). Her recent dissertation (Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics) is required reading if you'd like to engage with this important audience. Her blog is awesome, and she's also on twitter.

Yay, ladies!

Mrs Sew&Sew

I've been a project manager for a loooooong time now, almost 13 years if you include my marine insurance days. And while it's been a lot of fun - no, really! - I've often wondered what it might be like to be a creative on a web project.

Well, now I know! We were recently approached by a client - the Imperial War Museum - to apply some social media foo to encourage families to visit the museum over the Easter Holidays. They're currently running an exhibition on Children in Wartime, so we thought it might be fun to have someone tweeting and blogging from that era, to tie into the real life exhibition.

They've got an astonishing range of material in their archive, including some from a campaign from during WWII called 'Make Do And Mend'. So we've managed to get our hands on loads of videos, posters, knitting patterns, photos and some pretty amazing books. The campaign will roll out over the next four weeks, up to the end of the holidays. Should be fun!

Here are some links to her Twitter page, her Blog and the museum's Youtube channel (srsly there are some fab videos on there, well worth checking out).

As for who's actually doing the writing...well, we've got to retain some sense of mystery, haven't we? ;-)

Open source show and tell

I'd just like to announce an event that's being jointly hosted by my previous employers, Osmosoft, and my current company, The Team. It's an open source show and tell, and I'm thrilled to confirm several high calibre presenters will be in attendance. So if you're interested in what's happening in projects such as Drupal, Ubuntu, TiddlyWiki and oh so much more, come along!

You can sign up on the Upcoming page if you like; attendance is free, and there will be beers afterwards (maybe even during!).

VRM: Collectively immense

After last week's VRM meeting, I've been pondering the merit of my Personal RFP model. Again, the notion of a broker (especially a powerful one, such as Google) was unpopular, but no-one suggested a better way of getting to a point where a network of individuals can support the model.

So I've been mulling over a variation on the theme. Could we create a social network which replaces the broker?

I think we could. I've looked at the roles the broker would've played and tried to figure out if the abstract notion of a social network could play these roles instead;

- access to large volume of vendors
- filtering RFPs on the way TO vendors
- filtering RFPs on the way FROM vendors back to potential customers
- aggregating recommendations and ratings

I believe that a social network could manage all of these roles using the same mechanisms as wikis (with their low cost of repair, and therefore low level of vandalism), combined with Amazon's model of recommendation (where recommendations planted by those with vested interests are lost in the collective voice of genuine feedback). And a crowd sourced system of classification.

Neither wikis nor Amazon's recommendation system are perfect. But they have all proven to be Good Enough.

Let's look at those roles, starting with accessing large numbers of vendors. We all have our favorite vendors, but without an immediate incentive I can't see customers alone getting enough vendor data into a system to get sufficient critical mass. But perhaps we could reach that point by scraping data from somewhere? Could be a variety of sources, starting with the Open Directory (which is somewhat out of date, but hey you've got to start somewhere). This, combined with a way of allowing vendors to edit their own details (with a system of take down and lock down in place, a'la Wikipedia), could work.

Filtering on the way in and out of the system could be handled algorythmically. They could be based on location (given radius), keyword (e.g. carpenter) and rating (minimum that the customer is interested in). Perhaps some level of semantic analysis if we're feeling clever. My suggestion here is that we start with something basic and open source-it, so that we can constantly improve results based on what we've learned, as well as drawing in talented people.

Actually I envision that this whole project would need to be open sourced. No security-by-obscurity here!

For the recommendation engine, I've already highlighted Amazon's model as being the most effective. And I think customers would be far more likely to contribute back their reviews and ratings to a system which is neutral than to one which is commercial.

Which leads us to a business model. Hey, it's 2009, we don't need no stinkin' business model! Only (half) joking. But seriously, I believe a platform like this could attract advertisers. I'd prefer to avoid charging customers and vendors for using the system, certainly at the beginning. Customers will never be charged of course, but I think vendors would need to see the value in the system before accepting a small charge towards upkeep of the project. I'd prefer to keep investors out of it, if possible.

So the final stage in this very rough analysis of using a social network as a broker is to rationalise it against the evolving VRM principles. Does it tick all the boxes?

1. Relationships are voluntary.
2. Customers are born free and independent of vendors.
3. Customers control their own data. They can share data selectively and control the terms of its use.
4. Customers are points of integration and origination for their own data.
5. Customers can assert their own terms of engagement and service.
6. Customers are free to express their demands and intentions outside any company’s control.

Boxes 1, 2, 5 and 6 are ticked.

Re: 3, if a customer shares their data with a system, and allows that system to share the data with multiple vendors based on a publicly available algorythm, does this count as still being in "control"? What if the terms of this use are defined by the network of customers, rather than just by the individual? Could we evolve the system further down the line so the customer can define their own algorythym? I like to think so.

Point 4 is a little tricky. Customers would obviously be the point of origin, but given that the filtering and forwarding is happening on a distant server, is the customer still a "point of integration"? My feeling is that this obeys the spirit of the principle, if not the letter. Again, it would be an open system and subject to the same scrutiny as the best open source project - which I think would give the customer the transparency they need to decide whether to trust the system in the first place.

Lots to mull over.

Foot massage

Since I saw Fergal Sharkey talking at the Mandrake a few weeks ago, I've been pondering how the music business is changing. The trailblazers like Radiohead and Prince provide interesting case studies, as they try out new business models. But I don't think anyone saw this coming - Josh Freese, the drummer for NIN, is selling foot massages with his latest CD, and that's just the start of it. Brilliant!