Employment and the Blogosphere

There is some confusion about personal employee blogs and employee commenting in forums or social networks, because an employee may expose confidential information, talk negatively of other employees or of the company. Blogs are a great way to spread information to employees, clients and customers very quick. They can also be an effective way to communicate with your employees. But there may be some concerns about how to handle blogging by your employees on the company blog or the employee's personal blog. As the phenomenon of blogosphere continues to grow it is not surprising that many companies are looking for ways to address employee blogging issues.

There is some hesitation about employee blogs because an employee may disclose confidential business information, talk negatively of other employees or of the company and display an interest that is in conflict with your business policies. Richards & Kosmala (2013, p. 72) explain that even the most loyal employees are also capable of being cynical and making cynical comments about their employing organisation. There is a thin line between the company's best interests and violation of your employees' right to free speech. In order to avoid these concerns, Information Technology security departments implement general employee blogging policies. Several companies like Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, or Yahoo! have developed clear and comprehensive employee blogging policies.

But, how to handle employee blogging? The confusion starts when we try to identify the types of blogs. There are basically three types of employee blogs. The first is a blog written by employees intended for other employees. This type of blog you would find on a secure company network that only employees could access. Another type of blog will be when the blog is intended for external audiences. This type of blog would be posted on a company website being accessible to the general public. The last type of blog you have to consider is an employee's personal blog. This blog is the one that leads to more problems to deal with, because your employees can write anything they want being this hard to control. Information Technology Security Departments set up policies that will prevent confidential information of the business from being blogged by employees. The blogging policy should cover all types of blogs that an employee may write.

Even if a company may not think that they a need to have a blogging policy, it is in best interest to have a policy in place for the business. Actually, companies need blogging policies regarding both; company blogs and what employees do outside the job. Companies could be threatened for things their employees say, or their employees make, even without the company's authorisation or knowledge.

There were several cases at major companies of employees that were fired for blogging.

·         Ellen Simonetti, known as "Queen of Sky," was a flight attendant for Delta airlines. She was fired for posting on her blog "inappropriate pictures in uniform on the Web."

·         A Microsoft contractor, Michael Hanscom, was fired after he had taken pictures of Apple G5 computers being unloaded onto the software company's campus and posted them to his blog.

·         Mark Jen, after working at Google for 11 days, was fired. He started a blog on his first day about working at Google.

In all these cases the employees were terminated because of content in their personal blogs. Employees should be permitted to maintain personal blogs on their own time, but they should be clear on what their employer’s blogging policy is.

Several companies like Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, or Yahoo! have developed clear and comprehensive employee blogging policies. By reading them they all agree in these 10 points.

1.    Remind employees to familiarise themselves with the employment agreement and policies included in the employee handbook before they begin blogging.

2.    State that the policy applies to both blogs for the company and personal blogs.

3.    Blog posts should not disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to the company.

4.    If an employee comments on any aspect of the company's business they must clearly identify themselves as an employee in the blog posting and include a disclaimer.

5.    The disclaimer should be something like "the views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of (the company name).

6.    Blog posts should not include company logos or trademarks.

7.    Blog posts must respect copyright, privacy, fair use, financial disclosure, and other applicable laws.

8.    Employees should neither claim nor imply that they are speaking on the company's behalf.

9.    Corporate blogs (located on your company website) require approval when the employee is blogging about the company and the industry.

10.    That the company reserves the right to request the certain subjects are avoided, withdraw certain posts and remove inappropriate comments.

But, how to implement the new policy? The lesson to learn from the examples of employee firings and how some companies have chosen to address employee blogging is to make the policy as clear as possible. Employees can also do damage to companies reputations and client relationships that should be prohibited by such policies. The best formats for this policy is to first state the policy and follow with a breakout of the key points. For example Microsoft's policy includes a frequently asked questions section that further clarifies the policy for employees, offering guidelines or blogging best practices.

Once the blogging policy has been finalised it is important to let your employees know there has been a change to the employee agreement that each employee signed when they were hired. An e-mail or memo should be sent to all employees including a copy of the new policy and/or a link to where they can reference the policy. With all this, is in employee’s hands and ethics what to blog and what not to blog, considering the policies of the company and the freedom of speech. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states that "Rights dominate most modern understandings of what actions are proper and which institutions are just. Rights structure the forms of our governments, the contents of our laws, and the shape of morality as we perceive it. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done."

Richards, J., and Kosmala, K., 2013 ‘In the end, you can only slag people off for so long’: employee cynicism through work blogging’, New Technology, Work and Employment, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 68 – 77.

"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Stanford University. July 9, 2007.

Cisco <http://blogs.cisco.com/news/ciscos_internet_postings_policy/>

Ibm<http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html>

Intel <http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/legal/intel-social-media-guidelines.html>

Microsoft <http://socialmediagovernance.com/MSFT_Social_Media_Policy.pdf>

Yahoo! <http://govsocmed.pbworks.com/f/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf>

Perspective: I was fired for blogging <http://news.cnet.com/I-was-fired-for-blogging/2010-1030_3-5490836.html>

Blogger dismissed from Microsoft <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3341689/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/blogger-dismissedfrom-microsoft/>

Google blogger: 'I was terminated' <http://news.cnet.com/Google-blogger-I-was-terminated/2100-1038_3-5572936.html>

Employment and the Blogopshere

Blogs are a great way to disseminate information to your customers and clients quickly. They can also be an effective way to communicate with your employees. But there may be some concerns about how to handle blogging by your employees on the company blog or the employee's personal blog.

As the blogosphere continues to grow it is not surprising that many companies are looking for ways to address employee blogging issues. There is some hesitation about employee blogs because an employee may disclose confidential business information, talk negatively of other employees or of the company and display an interest that is in conflict with your business policies. Richards & Kosmala (2013, p. 72) explain that even the most loyal employees are also capable of being cynical and making cynical comments about their employing organisation. There is a thin line between the company's best interests and violation of your employees right to free speech. In order to avoid these concerns, employers should implement general employee blogging policies.

Richards, J., and Kosmala, K., 2013 ‘In the end, you can only slag people off for so long’: employee cynicism through work blogging’, New Technology, Work and Employment, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 68 – 77.

Video Games and Cultures

South America is a continent where everything is related to football (soccer). Is common to follow your own team in your own country, city or town because you are a real supporter. Other cultures may not be like that. If you ask a Brazilian from Sao Paulo what team they like they will tell you Corinthians, if you ask an Argentinean from Buenos Aires they will say Boca Juniors or River Plate, if you ask me, I am from Universitario de Deportes, the best team of the world by far. But what happen if you ask the same question in Malaysia? Everybody will say Manchester United

Big example is when the National Football team of Malaysia play against Manchester United, in Malaysia, all the stadium was supporting Manchester and not their national team.

Manchester United VS Malaysia NT

All the stadium dress in Manchester United colours the entire stadium in red.

Another Example is the Melbourne Victory vs Liverpool Game

Melbourne Victory VS Liverpool

How many supporters had Melbourne Victory against Liverpool, even the players from Melbourne Victory Support Liverpool it’s something amazing.

All this fanaticism is being taken to the cyber world where even if you don´t have soccer skills you can be an awesome player. No matter if you are a social or professional gamer, is always fun, you can be Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi by just using a game pad. This was an example of interactivity, which can be defined as "the possibility for the player to take up the role of narrator and influence the course of events and actions, possibly as a character in the plot" [Rassens, 2005]. Rassens also goes on to say that in the process of reconfiguration, another important aspect of the model, the user is able to make "strategic choices about alternative paths" by controlling their character and thus choosing the path that character takes.

Raessens, J. 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of

Specular Economy: Celebrity

David Marshall defines that there is an expansion of celebrity culture outward. Through new media forms, greater portions of the populace are now constructing online public personas. The best way to understand this proliferation of the public presentation of the self is through the term specular, a two-way mirror of projection on to the screen and the circulation of and interaction with those images and texts into the wider world. What is now well-developed is a specular economy whose foundations are derived from the much longer tradition of celebrity culture and whose repercussions relate to an emerging comfortability with a society of surveillance. It is no surprise to see that celebrities are in fact at the forefront of the expansion and use of social media and networks for reputation management (Marshall, 2010, p. 500)

Treating Their Fans Like Friends

 One of the biggest ways celebrities use social media to build their brand is by getting closer to their fans. Using Twitter or Instagram gives a star the chance to talk to his or her fans in a relatively safe environment. Since people love "talking to" their favorite stars, this endears celebrities to their adoring hoards even more. A retweet from someone you love is cause for celebration and it makes you think the stars you love really are just like you.

Dealing in Self-Promotion

Social media is ideal for self-promotion, and it doesn't take a lot. Daily tweets, status updates, or photos keep celebrities in the public eye. A lot of them make use of several platforms all at once so they can keep all their fans updated, even the fans who don't use Instagram or Twitter. They'll share their activities, their plans, and information about upcoming projects to keep people in the know.

Making Themselves More Relevant

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a celebrity falls out of favour. Just a few years ago, that pretty much spelled the end. Once people stopped talking about you, it was time to consider yourself finished with the fame game. These days, there's hardly any such thing as "washed up." Sometimes celebrities don't even have to do the work themselves to get back in the spotlight.

Changing the Public's Mind

On a similar note, many celebrities also find social media beneficial in rebuilding their brand. It doesn't always work, but celebrities who have committed some sort of error in the public eye will often take to their social media accounts to apologize, explain themselves, or otherwise atone for their actions. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it works well.

Promoting Their Own Interests

Celebrities are brands unto themselves. Whether they make music, star in movies and television shows, or write books, celebrities aren't just people. However, they often have outside interests that make money for them too.

Hiring Smart Social Media Managers

Not all celebrities share social media updates themselves. Some choose to cross-post, so what goes up on Twitter shows up on other platforms. Others stick mostly to Twitter or Facebook and hire a social media manager to update their other profiles with news about their daily lives and careers.

Marshall D, 2010, The Specular Economy, Springer Science and Business Media, pp.499.

Is Hollywood Being Asianized?

The import of foreign talent from Hollywood has been a constant since its inception. In fact, great American films are the work of authors from outside the U.S. like Ernst Lubitsch, FW Murnau, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Paul Verhoeven.  By these names is evident that Hollywood try to keep western values, no matter if it was a Hollywood film, a remake movie from Asia or Europe, a cartoon or a video game, It is often argued that Hollywood plays an extremely significant role in the development of global uniformity, by instilling the Western values and ways of life into other cultured films. (Klein 2004) At the end it will be always “Americanised”. But why is then Hollywood being Asianized? Doesn´t matter if it’s because Hollywood is running out of ideas, or because Asian industry is growing, or because since the 1990s there were more Asians working in Hollywood (Klein 2004).The real fact is that every day more and more Hollywood films have an Asian background.

Japanese Cartoons, Animes: One of the most famous Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball have a Hollywood movie made with real actors.

Video Games: Street Fighter Console video game that appear for first time in Arcade Games and the first Nintendo Console, had a remake movie and remake " Americanized"Cartoon... Giving a first roll to Guille an United States Army Soldier, Instead of Ryu and Ken Japanese Martial Art Fighters.

Classic Disney Cartoon: The Lion King Simba and the White Lion Kimba

Asian Horror movies: Disturbing and almost indecipherable stories come from Asian horror films with scripts that are born of ancient myths and legends of the ancient cultures of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand 

References:

Klein, Christina 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative AmericaStudies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384.

Hollywood Remakes from Asia : http://www.imdb.com/list/25J16taTicE/

Überveillance?

What is exactly Überveillance? The definition is an omnipresent electronic surveillance facilitated by technology that makes it possible to embed surveillance devices in the human body. The question is, is this far from reality or is just science fiction?

To begin with, let’s explain something that already exist and is called the Radio-frequency identification RFID chip. Is the wireless non-contact use of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects.

The RFID is already being used for various purposes like: Access management, Tracking of goods, Tracking of persons and animals, Toll collection(e-tag) and, contactless payment(pay wave, pay pass) , Machine readable travel documents, Smartdust (for massively distributed sensor networks), Tracking sports memorabilia to verify authenticity, Airport baggage tracking logistics. With this, people is already being traced and located making Überveillance real.

This is an extract of the documentary zeitgeist talking about the RFID chip and the fist family that had the RFID chip implant.

With this you can tell someone somewhere is trying to lock everyone in a monitored control grid were every single action is documented and were people will not be forced to get the implant but people will demand for it or used it in other ways like e-tag or passports.

Science fiction… could be, to be real? Is not too far. The question might change and will be who will be behind all this? 

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

M.G. Michael and K. Michael (2009). "Uberveillance: Definition" in ed. S. Butler, Fifth Edition of the Macquarie Dictionary (Australia's National Dictionary, Sydney University), p. 1094

File Sharing

People interpret file sharing differently, but there is something that doesn’t change no matter in what side of the fence you are. It is always about money.

Opposing views in the industry about file sharing is mainly between software developers and the controversy about open source vs. proprietary software or established artists that already make their millions and they want more, and new emerging artists that just want to get there, and don´t have the opportunity of working with a big industry label such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group or EMI.

For example when you graduate from University and you start applying for jobs is really common to find something that say “3-4 year experience”. So yes they don´t hire you because you don´t have the experience, but how you can you get that experience if you don´t get the job? Good question, maybe working as a volunteer? Maybe as a placement or internship were they will not pay you?

Something similar happen with new bands, they want people to listen to their music and without a label that can produce their CD´S they just record their songs in a local studio or maybe their own garage, with their own money for later uploading it on the net for file sharing, YouTube, social networking, going viral with their own production for people to listen for free. They don´t get the money but they get the experience, people will listen to them and their music can get to any part of the world easily.

File-sharing isn’t something that can just be stopped, even if the big labels do something to shut down file sharing and p2p, there is always a way to go around it. Before p2p and when email had reduced space, people use virtual drive accounts like x-drive, upload music and give the username and password for people to login and download, other ways was sending mp3 thru messenger, or creating your own FTP server with www file sharing pro, using email when the space was a little more generous, and many other ways.

Because of this, big record and producer labels should adapt to the new way of distribution and start using it as the new bands, just like marketing. You can always make millions with merchandising, concerts, tours and of course with the fans that will always buy a collection CD.  Another way to adapt could be, creating a new way of music recording sales certification maybe a “Shared Music certification” , what band have more likes or downloads?

Can you imagine how many good bands didn’t make it all the way just because nobody knows about them? Nobody listen to them because files haring, internet, mp3 didn’t exist?

Reference

Martin, B, Moore, C & Salter, C, 2010, 'Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry', First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12.