Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

Is Big Data a Good Thing?

Posted on: October 2nd, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 8 Comments

Data star trek 8470691 1024 782
Image via thealphaquadrant.blogspot.com

Big Data is a crazy reality that we have created with society’s many digital input devices, from street cameras to the common smartphone (sorry, Trekkies). There is so much data available that computing algorithms are needed to extrapolate and contextualize the information. Companies are actively looking at ways to mine and extrapolate Big Data for analytics and market use.

McKinsey & Company’s Business Technology Office says Big Data will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus. The report goes on to list five ways Big Data can be used by companies and nonprofits:

1) Big Data can unlock significant value by making information transparent and usable at much higher frequency.

2) Organizations create and store more transactional data in digital form, they can collect more accurate and detailed performance information on everything from product inventories to sick days, and therefore expose variability and boost performance.

3) Big Data allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much more precisely tailored products or services.

4) Sophisticated analytics can substantially improve decision making.

5) Big Data can be used to improve the development of the next generation of products and services.

Given the incredible amounts of data available about people, will companies abuse the data to take advantage of people and society in general? This is a tough issue because generally, Big Data will improve our ability to serve each other with better, more qualitative information, product and service offerings. Semantic information is already making search infinitely better.

However, there will be repercussions including further polarization and perhaps an unhappy realization of the picture that Big Data shows of ourselves as a society. Society may not be ready to see itself in the mirror.

Further, the continuing trials of Facebook illustrate just how serious of an issue Big Data has become. Facebook’s consistent use of user data to benefit its corporate customers in the face of privacy has triggered investigation requests to the FTC, and continues to get exposed by the media. Yet Facebook continues its practices in the face of media protests and potential lawsuits or worse.

For every Facebook that data issues become well known (and the company suspect), there are dozens who get away with Big Data abuses, oft under the radar. Really, in every technology, in every sector, there are abuses. Big Data is and will always be no different.

Will we accept Big Data’s negatives as a trade off for better results. Or do we even have a choice? What do you think?

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Unwritten Rule on Talking About Clients

Posted on: May 15th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 5 Comments

Shadow of the Grape Climber
Image by Hamed Saber

The Burson Marstellar Facebook fiasco brings up an important issue: Talking about your clients publicly. Burson’s statement doesn’t cut the mustard for owning the issue, and seems to slough off responsibility on Facebook and the media for smeering Google. Beyond the substantial ethics issues at hand, Burson crossed another line, which is talking about its clients in a negative light.

Burson’s ethics were already compromised by their willingness to take on smeer campaign. By talking about it in this fashion, Burson’s ethics have been compromised twice. This is comparable to a lawyer violating client confidentiality oath or a reporter revealing their sources.

Given its past history of privacy behavior, it’s no surprise that Facebook engaged in additional shady behavior. Burson’s behavior is more befitting of small public affairs shops off K Street in Washington, DC. Granted, it is hard for larger entities to account for the acts of their employees. Burson’s only recourse in this matter was to own it, not say anything about Facebook, and simply fire the employees and/or engage in system wide ethics training.

Instead, we have the ensuing quagmire of ethics and finger pointing. Assuredly, anyone considering Burson Marstellar will not only weigh the ethics of the Facebook assignment, but whether or not the firm will throw them under the bus.

It used to be talking about clients was taboo, at least without permission. It was considered unethical, and often clients did not want to grant public agency recognition. Agencies and consultancies were hired to make their client look good, not themselves. That was understood, and even further understood was the principle that you NEVER talk badly about your client. It reflects poorly on the agency.

In recent years, social media has changed that with some personalities flashing their client rosters in updates and blog posts like Foursquare badges. Yet many consultants and marketers still feel uncomfortable with this new loose role of the spokesperson/agency. These practitioners know that while a social media personality may make a splash for a client, they need capacity internally for social media to have authenticity, and build long term relationships with a community. So the rule remains for many of us, and when we do talk (usually upon request to benefit a client), we do so with permission and full disclosure.

In the end, the takeaways for professionals are pretty straight forward. Unethical assignments risk being exposed. If you don’t take this kind of work, it’s not an issue. But even more so, don’t violate the unwritten rule on talking about clients without permission, and never do so in a negative light. Clients want to trust their consultants with their best interests, and know that they will be secure.

What do you think of Burson Marstellar’s behavior in this matter?

Popularity: 1% [?]

One Year Later: BP Still Hasn’t Learned Ethics

Posted on: April 21st, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 3 Comments

Communications from BP in recent weeks claim the oil company has reversed the damage from the Deep Horizon oil spill, both environmentally and economically. This communications effort flies in the face of factual reality of dead wildlife, decimated fishing careers, and the ongoing economic hardship felt throughout the Gulf region. The unfactual, dishonest communications campaign once again demonstrates BP’s lack of ethical integrity. Worse, it is occurring as the globe moves to celebrate Earth Day this Friday, adding insult to injury.

Last year throughout the oil spill, BP consistently lied to the public about its actions and the damages sustained by the Gulf. The transgressions were in direct conflict with basic communications ethics, and represented one of the worst cover-ups in modern history. It demonstrated BP’s true lack of corporate citizenship, and a willingness to through entire ecologies under the bus all in the name of shareholder value.

Complicit in its lack of action, the Obama Administration only brought pressure to bear on BP after significant public anger was expressed. It took the likes of @BPGlobalPR on Twitter lampooning BP’s slimy communications and citizen journalists showing the damages on closed public (and policed) beaches, to inspire the incredible amounts of negative media pressure.

The ensuing call to the carpet caused bumbling yachtsman and BP America CEO Tony Hayward to step down from his job. It cost BP $20 billion is damages before a single liability trial began. It caused a leadership shake-up in the EPA’s Mines Minerals Service. All for naught.

One year later, the Gulf still suffers. BP is still lying through its public teeth, more worried about its public image than doing the right thing. And the Obama Administration claims to be holding BP accountable, whistling in the dark about what may really happen as the 2012 election looms.

It has been and remains evident that the only thing that can help the Gulf is us. Citizen action (see this current Ushahidi map) alone can help because the responsible parties simply won’t. If you want to help the Gulf, this Earth Day please consider donating to the Surfrider Foundation or the Ocean Conservancy.

What do you think about BP and the Obama Administration one year after Deep Horizon?

Popularity: 1% [?]