Category Archives: commentary

Prediction: The Digital Economy Strategy will fail unless drafted on GCPEDIA

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So I’ve finished up at Canada 3.0. I’ve got a copy of the Consultation Paper on the Digital Economy Strategy and hope to write about it shortly (when, I don’t know since I’m traveling between Ontario and BC twice this week, and 5 times in the coming 5 weeks…). I also hope to post some deeper thoughts and reflections about the conference since… no one is saying much and there is much to be said. Some sneak peeks: 1) It is telling that it seems no one was live blogging the conference, 2) The conference was a little heavy on commercialization and how the internet can work to save the current crop of content distributors and 3) the gap between my colleagues and friends and those – particularly senior leaders – is stunning.

In the meantime, my post from Monday has gotten good traction but I wanted to repost the last section since the post was long (and I know few people read long posts) – and, frankly, the point needs emphasizing:

A networked economy can only be managed by a government that uses a networked approach to policy development.

An agrarian economy was managed using papyrus, an industrial economy was managed via printing press, typewriters and carbon copy paper. A digital economy strategy and managing policies were created on Microsoft Word and with email. A Network Economy can and only will be successfully managed and regulated when those trying to regulate it stop using siloed, industrial modes of production, and instead start thinking and organizing like a network. Not to ring an old bell, but today, that means drafting the policy, from beginning to end, on GCPEDIA, the only platform where federal public servants can actually organize in a network.

Managing an industrial economy would have been impossible using hand written papyrus, not just because the tools could not have handled the volume and complexity of the work but because the underlying forms of thinking and organizing that are shaped by that tool are so different from how an industrial economy works. In short, how you do it matters.

With that said, I’m going to predict this right now: Until a digital economy strategy is drafted using online but internally-connected tools like wikis, it will fail. At the moment, this means GCPEDIA. I say this not because the people working on it will not be intelligent, but because they won’t be thinking in a connected way. It will be like horse and buggy users trying to devise what a policy framework for cars should look like. Terrible, terrible decisions will be made.

To manage a network you have to think and act in a network. Painful? Maybe. But that’s the reality of the situation.

The Dangers of Being a Platform

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Andrew P. sent me this article Apple vs. the Web: The Case for Staying Out of Steve Jobs’s Walled Garden that makes a strong case for your media company to not develop (or at least not bet the bank on) an iPhone App as the way out of trouble.

Few companies actually know how to manage being a platform for an ecosystem and Apple is definitely not one of them. Remember this is company that’s never played well with others and has a deeply disturbing control freakishness to it. Much like Canadians are willing to tolerate the annoying traits of the federal NDP, consumers and developers were willing to tolerate these annoying traits as long as Apple was merely influencing the marketplace but not shaping it. As Apple’s influence grows, so to do the rumblings about its behaviour. People say nice things about Apple’s products. I don’t hear people say nice things about Apple. This is stage one of any decline.

Here, history could be instructive. Look back at another, much more maligned company that has a reputation of not playing well with others: Microsoft. Last year, I wrote this piece about how their inability to partner helped contribute to their relative decline. In short, after kicked around and bullying those who succeeded on its platform, people caught the message and stopped. Today Apple thrives because people elect to innovate on their platform. Because it has been interesting, fun, and to a much, much lesser degree, profitable. Take away the “interesting” and “fun” and/or offer up even a relatively interesting competing platform… and that equation changes.

Heck, even from a end user’s perspective the deal Apple made with me is breaking. Their brand is around great design and fun (think of all those cute fun ads). They still have great design, but increasingly when I think of Apple and the letter F comes to mind the word “fun” isn’t what pops into my head… its “fascism.” Personally I’m fairly confident my next phone will not be an iPhone. I like the phone, but I find the idea of Steve Jobs controlling what I do and how I do it simply too freaky. And I don’t even own a multi-million dollar media empire.

So being a platform is hard. It isn’t license to just print money or run roughshod over whoever you want. It is about managing a social contract with all the developers and content creators as well as all the end users and consumers. That is an enormous responsibility. Indeed, it is one so great we rarely entrust it to a single organization that isn’t the government. Those seeking to create platforms, and Apple, and Facebook especially (and Google and Microsoft to a lesser extent) would all do well to remember that fact.

Oh, and if you’re part of a media companies, don’t expect to saved by some hot new gizmo. Check out this fantastic piece by John Yemma, the Editor of The Christian Science Monitor:

So here’s my position: There is no future in a paywall. No salvation in digital razzle dazzle.

There is, however, a bold future in relevant content.

That’s right. Apple won’t save you. Facebook doesn’t even want to save you. Indeed, there is only one place online where the social contract is clear. And that’s the one you can create with your readers by producing great content. On the web.

First Nations Renaissance: Or Why Canada's next First Nation debate won't involve you

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I wrote this post a year ago but, out of nervousness never posted it. Canada’s racial stalemate around First Nations-Non-First Nations issues makes it challenging to feel talk about this subject. But with conversation with and urging from First Nation colleagues, along with the release of the Urban Aboriginal People’s Survey (UAPS) has persuaded me that this conversation needs to be shared, and if not one talks about it, that would be a bigger problem. I don’t claim deep expertise as an observer of First Nation politics but I do follow it much more closely than the average person. What I’ve been witnessing is astonishing and, potentially explosive.

For the past few years I’ve become increasingly persuaded that First Nation’s Community is in the midst of a seismic shift. Pick up and read a copy of the UAPS. It is a dramatic document. One that shows the underlying demographics that are driving this shift. Want to know the two most important lines in the document? Here they are:

1) In 2006 half the First Nations Population in Canada lived in urban areas, with almost a third living in cities with 100,000+ people

2) Pursuing higher education is the leading life aspiration of urban Aboriginal peoples today.

For Canadian baby boomers – and possibly First Nations themselves – the conversation and identity of First Nations was focused on the reserve. The defining moment of the 80’s and early 90’s were Oka and the Meech Lake debates. Here the emphasis was (understandably and justly) on land rights and treaty obligations. The result was a conversation (not always civil, and not always using words) between First Nations and Canadians that helped define the identity of both groups.

For younger First Nation and non-First Nation (Xers and Millennials) I would argue this conversation has shifted. The defining issues in the conversation are less tied to place and tend to be broader in theme – residential schools, poverty and/or addiction. These reflect the demographic shift noted above. As First Nations have urbanized, so to have the issues. These issues are indeed a social crisis that Canadians need to address and that frequently do not receive much attention given the size and scope of the issue. Again, however, this conversation has certainly defined First Nations in the minds of Canadians – and in an often less than positive view – something that is both unfair and creating a new racial stalemate in the country.

But it is that second line I wish to zero in on. Less well understood by most Canadians is the sheer number (in both absolute and relative terms) of first nations attending college and university, or even working in high paying, knowledge economy jobs. There is a tsunami of young educated first nations young people who are radically changing the make up, complexion and identity of the First Nations community.

Why is this? Because a growing number of First Nations people have access to good jobs, urban communities, effective public services – in short to well managed economies and governments. This has numerous implications. The first is that “urban” is going to become a bigger part of the First Nation identity. Moreover, this process will not be an easy one, especially given that this group does not have an equal voice, either within the mainstream culture, or even within the First Nations community. The UAPS survey found that 40% of status and 50% of non-status First Nations felt no political organization represented them. No mainstream party and not even the AFN (or the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples

But there is a deeper implication. My conversation with First Nations colleagues suggest that increasingly, many looking home at their own reserves and wonder – why aren’t there effective public services, accountable governance and good jobs there? Everyone agrees that imperialism and government structures contribute to the problem, and many also conclude that first nations’ mismanagement is a significant contributor to the problem (see quote below). In other words highly educated First Nation millennials are increasingly wanting to challenge their boomer leaders who are the powerholders on reserve. My sense is that there is real tension between these two age cohorts, exasperated by an urban/rural and educational divide. In addition, a number of conversations have lead me to believe that, in many cases, the community elders, are siding with the millennials in this conversation. Thus, this is is not simply a youth uprising, it is a complex conversation that – in an overly simplified description – is pitting elders and young First Nations against many boomer powerholders.

This has important implications for first nations/non-aboriginal relations (also see quote below) but the real dynamic is internal. There is a First Nations renaissance occurring. Like a tsunami a large talented, ambitious, smart generation of First Nations is emerging from universities across the country and they are shifting the conversation, not with other Canadians (that will come) but within First Nations communities. Obviously this is a sensitive topic (as, again, Helin’s alludes to) and hence my nervousness around this post.

“Aboriginal people are reluctant to speak publicly about these issues [poor governance] because they do not wish to provide grist for the political right in Canada who many feel are racist, and have no real interest in actually trying to make the situation better (though often there is a sizable, but silent contingent that supports the publication of such issues in what might be considered right-of-centre publications, because they are regarded as only telling the truth and trying to make things better for the ordinary Aboriginal folks). Generally, non-aboriginal observers have been reluctant to raise this issue as well because, in the current climate of political correctness, they might automatically be labelled as racists. Even the many Chiefs and Councils that are running honest governments in the best interests of their members feel compelled to defend against such reported abuses, because they fear their activities may become tarred with a brush that does not apply in their particular circumstances. Usually when this matter is raised publicly, there are entrenched positions on both sides of the debate and little communications as to how to solve these problems.”

In addition to trying to quietly challenge boomer powerholders this cohort of urban first nations faces additional challenges. On the one hand they are facing all sorts of abandonment issues – communities that are simultaneously disappointed that “they left” for urban centres, eager to have them return, and threatened by the knowledge and skills they have learned and could bring back. Indeed, I’ve talked to many who are struggling with raising issues of governance and building sustainable communities while sustaining a respect for authority that many want to adhere to, but that sometimes prevents them from voicing their concerns, accessing the levers of power, or contributing in ways they feel they are able. In addition, many are meeting and marrying other first nations (but often not from their band) or non-aboriginals and so are confronting (through their children) all sorts of identity issues about what it means to be first nation growing up off-reserve or with mixed heritage parents. Indeed, this is also a generation of First Nations that, with urbanization, is experiencing mulitculturalism for the first time. Canada’s major urban centres, with the diversity of backgrounds, is a far cry from the biracial world (with First Nations and mostly white non-aboriginal populations living side by side but segregated) that defines much of Canada’s rural space.

This is obviously a simplified narrative – one that does not pay tribute to the nuanced challenges and successes of many nations. But my readings and my conversations with first nations’ friends and acquaintances suggests this is all bubbling under the surface. I’m not sure if there is interest in the poll capturing what I think is an emerging intergenerational conversation within First Nations communities, but my sense is that this issue is becoming a more important driver of First Nations politics (one member, one vote in the AFN as an example), and in particular, urban first nations politics.

Hope this is thought provoking.

Parliament, Accountability and you

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Yesterday was not a good day for accountability.

Yes, the speaker has spoken. It turns out that the government is accountable to parliament. Everyone seems to be happy. Everyone that is, except me.

While some are understandably happy about the decision the fact is, this is lowest common denominator democracy. Presently the executive – one that ran on the notion of accountability – believes it is accountable to no one. Indeed, it is not even embarrassed to openly argue the case. The good news is that, thankfully, the Speaker has intervened and signaled that, in fact, the government is accountable to at least one group of people, parliamentarians. On the surface, it is more than a little embarrassing to all Canadians that, to avoid accountability, the present government would attempt to break centuries of parliamentary tradition and violate the very rules the sustain our democracy. Again, yesterday is not a high water mark, it is a low water mark for all of us.

But there is something still more disturbing in yesterday’s events. If this government is unwilling to be accountable to elected officials who have the power of tradition and rule of law… How responsive will they be any one else?

And here in lies the bad news. While our government may yet be held accountable to parliament, there is group of people the government has demonstrated it isn’t accountable to. And that is you.

Let’s assume that, like me, you have no parliamentary privilege. No legal team on your side. No access to the speaker of the house to arbitrate your request. What is the likelihood your request for government information – even something not-secret – will be responded to in a timely manner? How accountable do you think your government will be to you?

Sadly, we know the answer. And it is not good. Indeed, what is playing out in the house is a metaphor for what has happened across much of the Canadian government. With each government it becomes harder and harder to know how decisions were made, what has happened, or even the results of a government activity. That is unless the government decides it wants you to know.

In fact, it is not out of the ordinary for citizens to wait months to get information they requested. Of course, this means that by the time they get the information they requested the discussion has moved on or new more relevant information needs to be requested. In short, journalists, academics, businesses and ordinary Canadians remains stuck forever in the dark, their government out of reach, and unwilling to be accountable to the very people who elect them.

Indeed the only thing that is extraordinary about what is happening in parliament is that it is a profoundly ordinary experience for ordinary Canadian who might ask a question of their government. As the Information Commissioner noted in her report to parliament “Seventeen of the 24 institutions completed their requests in 60 days or more.” (The law requires a response within 30 days). And that was if they decided to fulfill the request at all. So far parliament has had to wait 4 months, if the government decides it will hand over the documents at all. And of course, the government may next claim it doesn’t know where the documents are – since apparently they are using a highly sophisticated filing system to manage the war effort.

So, members of parliament, what you are experiencing is what is actually pretty normal for the rest of us. Which is, pretty depressing.

Connectedness, Volleyball and Online Communities

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I’m currently knee deep into Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Christakis & Fowler and am thoroughly enjoying it.

One fascinating phenomenon the book explores is how emotions can spread from person to person. In other words, when you are happy you increase the odds your friends will be happy and, interestingly, that your friends’ friends will be happy. Indeed Christakis & Fowler’s research suggests that emotional states are, to a limited degree, contagious.

All this reminded me of playing competitive volleyball. I’ve always felt volleyball is one of the most psychologically difficult games to play. I’ve regularly seen fantastic teams collapse in front of vastly inferior opponents. I used to believe that the unique structure of volleyball accounted for this. The challenge is that the game pauses at the end of every point, allowing players to reflect on what happened and, more importantly, assign blame (which can often be allocated to a single individual on the team). This makes it easy for teams to start blaming a player, over-think a point, or get frustrated with one another.

As a result, even prior to reading Connected, I knew team cohesion was essential in volleyball (and, admittedly, any sport) . This is often why, between points, you’ll see volleyball teams come together and high-five or shake hands even if they lost the point. If emotions and confidence are contagious, I can now see why it is a team starts to lose a little confidence and consequently then plays a little worse causing them to lose still more confidence and then, suddenly they are in a negative rut and can’t escape.(Indeed, this peer reviewed paper showed that tactile touch among NBA players was a predictor of individual and team success)

Of course, I’ve also long believed the same is true of online (and, in particular, open source) communities. That poisonous and difficult people don’t just negatively impact the people they are in direct contact with, but also a broader group of people in the community. Moreover, because communication often takes place in comment threads the negative impact of poisonous people could potentially linger, dragging down the attitude and confidence of everyone else in the community. I’ve often thought that the consequence of negative behaviours in the online communities has been underestimated – Christakis and Fowler’s research suggests there are some more concrete ways to measure this negative impact, and to track it. Negative behaviour fosters (and possibly even attracts) still more negative behaviour, creating a downward loop and likely causing positive or constructive people to opt out, or even never join the community in the first place.

In the end, finding ways to identify, track and mitigating negative behaviour early on – before it becomes contagious – is probably highly important. This is just an issue of having people be positive, it is about creating a productive and effective space, be it in pursuit of an open source software product, or a vibrant and interesting discussion at the end of an online newspaper article.

Lesson in Misunderstanding Abundance and Scarcity: Quebec and Abitibibowater

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One of the biggest problems old institutions have grasping the internet is how it changes notions of abundance and scarcity. We are used to a world of scarcity where, if you have something, I cannot also have it, so we need a way to figure out how to allocate it (market forces, government regulation, etc…). The two following examples are wonderful cases of acting like their is scarcity when there is abundance, and acting like there is abundance, where there is scarcity…

The Province of Quebec – Don’t help people vote!

The other day a friend of mine, a web developer who goes by the name Ducky, asked the Province of Quebec for image (KML) files for provincial ridings in Quebec. These files would allow her to show people, in say, Google Maps, which riding they live in, who their representative in the National Assembly might be, etc… The Government of Quebec was happy to share, but only on the condition that she never make money using the information:

From: Charlotte Perreault <Cperreault@dgeq.qc.ca>
Date: 2009/12/8
Subject: Shapefiles pour les circonscriptions électorales québécoises
To: ducky@*******.com
Cc: Mireille Loignon <Mloignon@dgeq.qc.ca>

Madame Duck Sherwood

Nous avons pris connaissance de votre demande concernant l’utilisation des cartes des circonscriptions électorales québécoises sur le site http://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/fr/copyright.asp .  Après analyse, nous considérons que pour l’instant il n’y a pas d’utilisation commerciale de ces fichiers.  Par conséquent, vous êtes autorisée à les utiliser en mentionnant la source, soit la Commission de la représentation électorale du Québec.

Cependant, si vous souhaitez un jour commercialiser un produit fait à partir de ces cartes, vous devrez communiquer avec nous en nous transmettant plus de renseignements comme par, exemples, le prix de vente dudit produit, ou tout autre renseignement qui nous permettra d’évaluer correctement  votre demande.

Veuillez agréer, Madame, l’expression de nos meilleurs sentiments.

Charlotte Perreault, conseillère en communication
Direction des communications
Directeur général des élections du Québec
Édifice René-Lévesque
3460, rue de La Pérade
Québec (QC)
G1X 3Y5
So, if Ducky, or say a newspaper, wanted to create a website to help residents of Quebec identify what riding they live in… and were going to have advertising on the site, they couldn’t do that without permission from the Quebec government. Heaven forbid that someone offer citizens or voters a helpful or interesting service, especially using information that is in the public interest.
Why is this? I’m not sure. If Ducky created her site, it wouldn’t preclude someone else from using the exact same information to create their own site. No, the Quebec government is turning something that is infinitely abundant and that can be used over and over again (election data) and making it scarce by preventing anyone from using it in a way that could be useful and profitable. Maybe they think they could make some money from the data… but sadly, every academic anlsysis shows they won’t – usually money recovered for data like this is covers the cost of collecting the money, and nothing else. In the end, the losers in all this are… Quebec residents.
Abitibibowater – Print, Print and Print more!
On the flip side of this is Abitibibowater, the producer of “a wide range of newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products.” Apparently, they have become concerned about the number of people who include “do not print this e-mail” at the bottom of their emails. So they sent around this memo to their employees:

To all our employees:

At AbitibiBowater, we rely on the forest to make our products, and respect for the environment is a fundamental part of everything we do. Too often, however, we see the use of paper singled out as something ‘bad’ for the environment, which is the reason why some people include “do not print this e-mail” notes to the end of their electronic messages. There has been ongoing discussion concerning this matter in the media recently, given the proliferation of electronic readers. Here is a link to a March article that appeared on PBS’s website, which raises this issue.

We believe it is OK to print, especially if you use paper sourced from independently certified forests and recycle the paper after you are finished with it. Our Company works hard to operate in a way that is sustainable, and that reflects the values of our employees, our customers, and the communities in which we operate. We are continuously improving our manufacturing processes and reducing our environmental footprint.

We have developed a page on our website to address this issue (abitibibowater.com/print) that explains why you can feel comfortable knowing that using paper is an environmentally responsible choice. We have written our own e-mail footnote that makes this point and invites others to find out why:

It’s OK to print this e-mail. Paper is made from a renewable resource. Please choose paper sourced from independently certified sustainable forests and recycle. For more information visit abitibibowater.com/print.

Uh… actually it is still really, really, wasteful to print an email that you could just forward to someone. Even if that email is printed on certified paper. Paper may be a renewable resource, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t scarce. Trees used for making paper aren’t being used for something else, like say, building homes, making tourists happy, or, say, converting CO2 into air.

Pretending like something is abundant when it is actually scarce is deeply irresponsible – and Abitibi’s email is prompting me to actually add the “do not print this email” signature to the bottom of my own emails.

The economics of abundance and scarcity matter – knowing which one you are dealing with matters. Make the wrong choice, and you could end up looking at best like a fool, at worst, deeply irresponsible.

Why Old Media and Social Media Don't Get Along

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Earlier today I did a brief drop in phone interview on CPAC’s Goldhawk Live. The topic was “Have social media and technology changed the way Canadians get news?” and Christoper Waddell, the Director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Chris Dornan, Director of Carleton University’s Arthur Kroeger School of Public Affairs were Goldhawk’s panel of experts.

Watching the program prior to being brought in I couldn’t help but feel I live on a different planet from many who talk about the media. Ultimately, the debate was characterized by a reactive, negative view on the part of the mainstream media supporters. To them, threats are everywhere. The future is bleak, and everything, especially democratic institutions and civilization itself teeter on the edge. Meanwhile social media advocates such as myself are characterized as delusional techno-utopians. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Indeed, both sides share a lot in common. What distinguishes though, is that while traditionalists are doom and gloom, we are almost defined by the sense of the possible. New things, new ideas, new approaches are becoming available every day. Yes, there will be new problems, but there will also be new possibilities and, at least, we can invent and innovate.

I’m just soooooo tired of the doom and gloom. It really makes one want to give up on the main stream media (like many, many, many people under 30 have). But, we can’t. We’ve got to save these guys from themselves – the institutions and the brands matter (I think). So, in that pursuit, let’s tackle the beast head on, again.

Last, night the worse offender was Goldhawk, who tapped into every myth that surrounds this debate. Let’s review them one by one.

Myth 1: The average blog is not very good – so how can we rely on blogs for media?

For this myth, I’m going to first pull a little from Missing the Link, now about to be published as a chapter in a journalism textbook called “The New Journalist”:

The qualitative error made by print journalists is to assume that they are competing against the average quality of online content. There may be 1.5 million posts a day, but as anyone whose read a friend’s blog knows, even the average quality of this content is poor. But this has lulled the industry into a false sense of confidence. As Paul Graham describes: “In the old world of ‘channels’ (e.g. newspapers) it meant something to talk about average quality, because that’s what everyone was getting whether they liked it or not. But now you can read any writer you want. Consequently, print media isn’t competing against the average quality of online writing, they’re competing against the best writing online…Those in the print media who dismiss online writing because of its low average quality are missing an important point. No one reads the average blog.”

You know what though, I’m going to build on that. Goldhawk keeps talking about the average blog or average twitterer (which of course, no one follows, we all follow big names, like Clay Shirky and Tim O’Reilly). But you know what? They keep comparing the average blog to the best newspapers. The fact is, even the average newspaper sucks. The Globe represents the apex of the newspaper industry in Canada, not the average, so stop using it as an example. To get the average, go into any mid-sized town and grab a newspaper. It won’t be interesting. Especially to you – an outsider. It will have stories that will appeal to a narrow audience, and even then, many of these will not be particularly well written. More importantly still, there will little, and likely no, investigative journalism – that thing that allegedly separates blogs from newspapers. Indeed, even here in Vancouver, a large city, it is frightening how many times press releases get marginally touched up and then released as “a story.” This is the system that we are afraid of losing?

Myth 2: How will people sort good from low quality news?

I always love this myth. In short, it presumes that the one thing the internet has been fantastic at developing – filters – simple won’t evolve in a part of the media ecosystem (news) where people desperately want them. At best, this is naive. At worse, it is insulting. Filters will develop. They already have. Twitter is my favourite news filter – I probably get more news via it than any other source. Google is another. Nothing gets you to a post or article about a subject you are interested in like a good (old-fashioned?) google search. And yes, there is also going to be a market for branded content – people will look for that as short cut for figuring out what to read. But please people are smarter than you think at finding news sources.

Myth 3: People lack media savvy to know good from low quality news.

I love the elitist contempt the media industry sometimes has towards its readers. But, okay, let’s say this is true. Then the newspapers and mainstream media have only themselves to blame. If people don’t know what good news is, it is because they’ve never seen it (and by and large, they haven’t). The most devastating critique on this myth is actually delivered by one of my favourite newspaper men: Kenneth Whyte is his must listen-to Dalton Camp Lecture on journalism. In it Whyte talks about how, in the late 19th and early 20th century NYC had dozens and dozens of newspapers that fought for readership and people were media savvy, shifting from paper to paper depending on quality and perspective. That all changed with consolidation and a shift from paying for content to advertising for content. Advertisers want staid, plain, boring newspapers with big audiences. This means newspapers play to the lowest common denominator and are market oriented to be boring. It also leaves them beholden to corporate interests (when was the last time the Vancouver Sun really did a critical analysis of the housing industry – it’s biggest advertisement source?). If people are not media savvy it is, in part, because the media ecosystem demands so little of them. I suspect that social media can and will change this. Big newspapers may be what we know, but they may not be good for citizenship or democracy.

Myth 4: There will be no good (and certainly no investigative) journalism with mainstream media.

Possible. I think the investigative journalism concern is legitimate. That said, I’m also not convinced there is a ton of investigative journalism going on. There may also be more going on in the blogs than we might know. It could be that these stories a) don’t get prominence and b) even when they do, often newspapers don’t cite blogs, and so a story first broken by a blog may not be attributed. But investigative journalism comes in different shapes and sizes. As I wrote in one of my more viewed posts, The Death of Journalism:

I suspect the ideal of good journalism will shift from being what Gladwell calls puzzle solving to mystery solving. In the former you must find a critical piece of the puzzle – one that is hidden to you – in order to explain an event. This is the Woodward and Bernstein model of journalism – the current ideal. But in a transparent landscape where huge amounts of information about most organizations is being generated and shared the critical role of the journalist will be that of mystery solving – figuring out how to analyze, synthesize and discover the mystery within the vast quantity of information. As Gladwell recounts this was ironically the very type of journalism that brought down Enron (an organization that was open, albeit deeply  flawed). All of the pieces of that lead to the story that “exposed” Enron were freely, voluntarily and happily given to reports by Enron. It’s just a pity it didn’t happen much, much sooner.

I for one would celebrate the rise of this mystery focused style of “journalism.” It has been sorely needed over the past few years. Indeed, the housing crises that lead to the current financial crises is a perfect example of case where we needed mystery solving not puzzle solving, journalism. The fact that sub-prime mortgages were being sold and re-packaged was not a secret, what was lacking was enough people willing to analyze and write about this complex mystery and its dangerous implications.

And finally, Myth 5: People only read stories that confirm their biases.

Rather than Goldhawk it was Christopher Waddell who kept bringing this point up. This problem, sometimes referred to as “the echo chamber” effect is often cited as a reason why online media is “bad.” I’d love to know Waddell’s sources (I’m confident he has some – he is very sharp). I’ve just not seen any myself. Indeed, Andrew Potter recently sent me a link to “Ideological Segregation Online and Offline.” What is it? A peer reviewed study that found no evidence the Internet is becoming more ideologically segregated. And the comparison is itself deeply flawed. How many conservatives read the Globe? How many liberals read the National Post? I love the idea that somehow main stream media doesn’t ideologically segregate an audience. Hasn’t any looked at Fox or MSNBC recently?

Ultimately, it is hard to watch (or participate) in these shows without attributing all sorts of motivations to those involved. I keep feeling like people are defending the status quo and trying to justify their role in the news ecosystem. To be fair, it is a frightening time to be in media.

When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

And I refuse to lie. It sucks to be a newscaster or a journalist or a columnist. Especially if you are older. Forget about the institutions (they’ve already been changing) but the culture of newsmedia, which many employed in the field cling strongly to, is evolving and changing. That is a painful process, especially to those who have dedicated their life to it. But that old world was far from perfect. Yes, the new world will have problems, but they will be new problems, and there may yet be solutions to them, what I do know is that there aren’t solutions to the old problems in the old system and frankly, I’m tired of those old problems. So let’s get on with it. Be critical, but please, stop spreading the myths and the fear mongering.

What April Fools' Says about the internet (and eaves.ca is not ending)

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So yesterday, as an April Fools’ Day prank I announced that I was retiring my blog. Nothing could be further from the truth of course. I love blogging and, for the foreseeable future, find it hard to imagine not putting thoughts to words to posts. It’s also been heartwarming (and guilt inducing) to get dozens of emails and tweets from friends and readers I’ve never met expressing disappointment and congratulations.

But also interesting is how social media – and the internet generally – has revived April Fools’ Day, made it more widespread and protected us against it.

More sophisticated:

Now That's a Prank!

I’ll confess I have no data to support this argument, but I feel like there are more April Fools’ pranks these days. Part of this is because April Fools’ pranks have to be gentle and non-permanent (or at least the prankster should have both the responsibility and capacity to  reverse the prank). In the physical world this is harder to do. But in a virtual space a prank is easily undone. Unlike disassembling a car, creating a misleading and humorous story is a lot easier. It is also, most of the time, easy to correct.

More people:

Of course, creating stories is not new. Just look at the BBC’s famous 1957 April Fools’ prank in which the TV news show panorama featured a story about Swiss-Italian farmers harvesting their spagetti crop (pure genius). Huge numbers of viewers fell for the joke (and many were, apparently, not amused). But just as we are now all journalists, we are now all pranksters. It is also easier for more of us to do April Fools’ jokes since more of us tweet and blog. It also means that a joke or prank is likely to spread wider and faster.

Internet as protection:

But just as the internet makes it easier for everyone to engage in April Fools’ pranks, and for those pranks to disseminate more widely, it also provides us with new tools to assess their veracity. Just take a look at the comments on my own blog. Many of my readers new immediately that the post was a hoax, and said as much right below the story. Same was true on twitter and facebook. Indeed what was interesting is that most people who commented on facebook knew the post was a joke, whereas tweets were more likely to have taken the piece seriously. Not sure what that is… Possibly because facebook has more people who know me personally and were more likely to be skeptical of me… :) Either way, in a world where the audience speaks back our capacity to sniff out – and notify others – of problems in a story are there, and we use them. It was much harder to do this in 1957 with the BBC.

All this to say, I never meant for this to be a petri dish experiment around critical media skills but what a wonderful demonstration that the medium is the message. I love that the internet has renewed a great tradition but I’m even happier to see how it empowers us all to be skeptical and to warn others.

Hopefully, I haven’t lost too many readers in the process. Hope you had a good April Fools’ day yesterday.

What the Liberals needed to Learn in Montreal

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There’s been a lot of ink shed about the Liberals and Montreal. Some seizes on the corporate tax freeze, others on Robert Fowler’s blistering critique of the party, still others on the age of the participants in the room. My sense is that, in the short term, the issues discussed at Montreal – on the surface – won’t matter. It is the deeper changes, to thinking, to culture and to processes that take time to manifest, that will determine if Montreal was a success.

Are these deeper shifts happening? Hard to say, but here are three lessons the party will need to take away from Montreal if it is to succeed in the long term:

Lighten up. The scariest thing about the images from Montreal is the uniformity. The participants were older. And white. And male. That is a problem easily (and repeatedly) identified. It also needs to be fixed. But there was another interesting challenge – one more subtle and less commented on.

Ignore the uniform demographics and count how many people are in suits. And a tie. On a Saturday.

Most Canadians I know don’t wear suits. Ever. Even when working with in Fortune 500 companies, or at the banks, people look professional, but suits? Increasingly less and less. So does the Liberal Party need a new dress code? No. But it speaks to the culture of the party elite. When people look at a party they want to see themselves – people they trust and believe in. Even if Canada were populated only by white, older men, most people would probably still look at the conference and not see themselves there. Moreover, many would imagine the event as unapproachable, or unwelcoming – teeming with operatives. If the Liberals are going to win again, they’ll need to be approachable, a group many people feel like they can belong to. Keep the suits if you must, but think about the culture.

Learn the right lesson about the internet. Many participants were amazed by how many people were participating and asking questions online through skype or twitter. This belies a lack of understanding of how the internet is reshaping the way people live, work and organize. Over the past few decades, before campaign finance reform, the party had become accustomed to relying on big donations and it so its capacity to reach out to party members diminished. The Reform/Conservatives were the opposite. Early on they were too scary for traditional big companies and cultivated a vast network of small donors. For them, the internet was a blessing – it enhanced their strategy – and campaign finance was a godsend – it meant their strategy was the only effective one. Today, the Conservative donor network keeps them well financed and effective.

The danger from all this is that the Liberals will walk away understanding the power of the network, but believing they can can control it, rather than simply harness it. You can’t. All those people online, they aren’t there to do the bidding of some communications director. They are there to share their story and engage with peers. Working with such a network requires a radically different skill set then dealing with the media or cultivating a big donor. It also means getting comfortable with the fact that you aren’t in control of the message (your just seeding it) or the medium (your just a platform for others to play on). If Montreal did anything it let the younger leaders show the old timers what social networks and a connective network can do. Will be interesting if the right lessons get drawn. But the Party had better figure it out soon – the Conservatives have a serious head start.

Be honest and clear. The weekends highlight moments occurred when speakers bluntly and firmly pushed back on basic ideas or assumptions. Janice Stein responding to a questions about women’s issues in Foreign Policy by saying she was much more concerned about the destabilizing effect of large groups of unemployed young men. Roger Martin talking about how Canada’s healthcare system is one of the most expensive and inefficient in the G7. Pierre Fortin (who gave a model speech) spoke bluntly about how little money there will be, for anything. Parties need to give people hope, but they also have to be honest.

Most Canadians still struggle to understand what the Liberal Party stands for.  The public knows what both the NDP stands and Conservatives stand for. Both parties have been happy to eschew certain voters in order to stay focused on what makes them who they are. It is sometimes hard to know who the Liberals will eschew. Injecting a little dose of honesty and clarity a la Janice Stein into the party’s communications might help. Sometimes you have to tell the public that their priority isn’t the number one and that there are bigger fish to fry. It isn’t easy. Especially for politicians. But being honest and clear about where the party stands and where it doesn’t may produce better results than the status quo. The Conservatives may have had a scandal rife year, but they aren’t going anywhere so long as people know who they are and don’t have a clue about their rivals.

Jane Taber noted that at the last “thinkers conference” in Aylmer the Liberal Party shed its protectionist past in favour of globalization. But that took some time to become clear. The impact – if any – of this conference will likewise take a few years to be fully realized. But maybe a similar transition will take place, with the famously centralist party favouring a more networked, open and engaging approach to both the party, and governing. It will be interesting to see what unfolds.

The Irony of Wente, Opinions, Blogs and Gender

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Once again a Globe Columnist talks about technology in a manner that is not just factually completely incorrect but richly Ironic!

Earlier today Margaret Wente published a piece titled “Why are bloggers male?” (I suspect it is in print, but who knows…). The rich irony is that Wente says she doesn’t blog because she doesn’t have instant opinions. Readers of her column likely have their doubts. Indeed, I hate to inform Ms. Wente that she does have a blog. It’s called her column.

Reading her piece, one wonders if Wente has ever followed a blog. Her claim that women don’t like to emit opinions every 20 minutes struck me – as an incredibly active blogger – as odd. I post 4 times a week. Of course, as anyone who actually uses the internet knows, there is a blogging like medium where people are more predisposed to comment frequently (although not every 20 minutes). It’s called twitter. But if, as Wente claims, women are hardwired to not share opinions, why then – according to Harvard Business School – do women outnumber men on twitter 55% to 45%? Indeed, what is disturbing about the Harvard survey is that rather than some innate desire to have opinions, women suffer from the disadvantage of having their opinions marginalized for some other (social) reason. Both women and men tend to follow men on twitter rather than women.

But forget about the complete lack of thought in Wente’s analysis. Let’s just take a look at the facts.

Her piece starts off with the claim that men are more likely to blog than women. Of course Wente doesn’t cite (or hyperlink? the internet is 40 years old…) a source so it is hard to know if this is a fact or merely an opinion. Sadly, a quick google search shows Wente’s opinions don’t match up with the facts. According to a 2005 Pew Research Centre study (look! A hyperlink to a source!):

“Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%”

Awkward.

But it get’s worse. In The Blogging Iceberg by the now defunct Perseus’ Development Corporation claims that its research shows that that males were more likely than females to abandon blogs, with 46.4% of abandoned blogs created by males (versus 40.7% of active blogs created by males). That might even tilt the balance in favour of women… And of course, in France, that is what Médiamétrie has found, with over 50% French bloggers being female.

I do agree the men are potentially more likely to share their opinion than women. But there may be strong social reasons for this and it is clearly not that cut and dry. Many women have decided they want to share their opinions via twitter – indeed more women than men have. And of course, when it comes to being “quick to have opinions on subjects they know little or nothing about” men hardly have a monopoly. One need only look at Wente’s daily blog. Or, I meant to say, column.

Okay, that’s two blogs in one day. I’m taking tomorrow off.

Added March 19th: Nick C sent me a link to a fantastic post by Spydergrrl in which she points out that this was probably all a gimmick to get people to show up to an event Wente is putting on. It is a dark, unnerving perspective but one that sounds plausible. So, I say, boycott Wente’s event.