Wednesday
Jan192011
Emmitt Smith or the Tequila?
SteveAt this stage, there is almost nothing or more vapid than another tired, played-out missive with the ‘you had better watch what you say on social media’ angle.
Everyone gets it by now. If you put anything out there, whether it be a blog, a social network, or even a seemingly private Favrian text message, you have to prepare for the potential exposure (no pun intended Brett), of whatever ostensibly private information you are sharing.
Michael Irvin likes this.
And even that is kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it? I mean the phrase ‘sharing’ private information. Once information is ‘shared’ it can’t really be considered private anymore anyway. Whether or not you buy in to Mark Zuckerberg’s vision that the age of privacy is over, it seems likely that the gradual erosion of the traditional notions of privacy online will continue. Everyone you know (okay, almost everyone), is sharing content of some kind online; most of this content is not embarrassing, does not present a risk to one’s current and future employment prospects, and quite frankly, is only interesting to a select few people, (if anyone).
Worried about the ‘privacy’ of your latest Facebook picture of your cat in a Halloween costume? Well quit worrying, no one gives two shakes about it.
But if eventually Facebook’s and Zuckerberg’s argument that society is changing to adopt a more open, public, and transparent attitude towards personal data and privacy gains more widespread acceptance (or is accepted by default by the millions of people that can’t figure out Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings), the implications will continue to impact individuals and organizations.
For the individual, the implications are pretty clear, and quite honestly haven’t changed all that much. Assume all electronic versions of anything, (email, Tweets, Facebook pics, texts, etc.) will eventually find their interested audience. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the ultimate interested audience is indeed the original target - Aunt Sally, your friends from 4th grade, or the 17 readers of your blog. As I said the rest of the world doesn’t really care, we have our own boring pictures to upload and 'what I’m eating for lunch' Tweets to craft.
For the organization, the implications are a little less clear, but no less real. Whether it is your silly 44-page dress code becoming the butt of countless internet barbs or the occasional online banding together of employees to ravage your paying customers, more and more enterprises will have to come to terms with their own erosion of privacy as well. And I think more and more, the organizations that embrace this new privacy paradigm will be the ones that attract the candidates that best fit their culture, (some bankers may have actually supported that dress code, so why hide it), connect with customers more directly and significantly, and finally position themselves as more enlightened and responsive, as they adapt and evolve along with the Facebook’s of the world (and their 600 million users).
In fact, I wonder if in a couple of years companies will give up on developing and deploying private social networking capability, and will simply figure out how to leverage the existing public networks for their purposes. Why build a private network that will never have the reach, familiarity, and ubiquity of Facebook?
If you have made it this far, many thanks, and I guess it’s time to explain the title of the post. I made my daily Facebook drop-in this morning, and in the right sidebar there was an ad that consisted of a weirdly grinning head shot of former NFL player Emmitt Smith, along with some promotional content for a new Tequila. Just below the image of Emmitt and the tequila ad copy, Facebook informed me that one of my Facebook friends, a highly respected and influential HR professional, ‘liked’ this. What I was left to wonder was what did my friend actually like - Emmitt Smith or the tequila?
Be careful out there.
Everyone gets it by now. If you put anything out there, whether it be a blog, a social network, or even a seemingly private Favrian text message, you have to prepare for the potential exposure (no pun intended Brett), of whatever ostensibly private information you are sharing.
Michael Irvin likes this.And even that is kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it? I mean the phrase ‘sharing’ private information. Once information is ‘shared’ it can’t really be considered private anymore anyway. Whether or not you buy in to Mark Zuckerberg’s vision that the age of privacy is over, it seems likely that the gradual erosion of the traditional notions of privacy online will continue. Everyone you know (okay, almost everyone), is sharing content of some kind online; most of this content is not embarrassing, does not present a risk to one’s current and future employment prospects, and quite frankly, is only interesting to a select few people, (if anyone).
Worried about the ‘privacy’ of your latest Facebook picture of your cat in a Halloween costume? Well quit worrying, no one gives two shakes about it.
But if eventually Facebook’s and Zuckerberg’s argument that society is changing to adopt a more open, public, and transparent attitude towards personal data and privacy gains more widespread acceptance (or is accepted by default by the millions of people that can’t figure out Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings), the implications will continue to impact individuals and organizations.
For the individual, the implications are pretty clear, and quite honestly haven’t changed all that much. Assume all electronic versions of anything, (email, Tweets, Facebook pics, texts, etc.) will eventually find their interested audience. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the ultimate interested audience is indeed the original target - Aunt Sally, your friends from 4th grade, or the 17 readers of your blog. As I said the rest of the world doesn’t really care, we have our own boring pictures to upload and 'what I’m eating for lunch' Tweets to craft.
For the organization, the implications are a little less clear, but no less real. Whether it is your silly 44-page dress code becoming the butt of countless internet barbs or the occasional online banding together of employees to ravage your paying customers, more and more enterprises will have to come to terms with their own erosion of privacy as well. And I think more and more, the organizations that embrace this new privacy paradigm will be the ones that attract the candidates that best fit their culture, (some bankers may have actually supported that dress code, so why hide it), connect with customers more directly and significantly, and finally position themselves as more enlightened and responsive, as they adapt and evolve along with the Facebook’s of the world (and their 600 million users).
In fact, I wonder if in a couple of years companies will give up on developing and deploying private social networking capability, and will simply figure out how to leverage the existing public networks for their purposes. Why build a private network that will never have the reach, familiarity, and ubiquity of Facebook?
If you have made it this far, many thanks, and I guess it’s time to explain the title of the post. I made my daily Facebook drop-in this morning, and in the right sidebar there was an ad that consisted of a weirdly grinning head shot of former NFL player Emmitt Smith, along with some promotional content for a new Tequila. Just below the image of Emmitt and the tequila ad copy, Facebook informed me that one of my Facebook friends, a highly respected and influential HR professional, ‘liked’ this. What I was left to wonder was what did my friend actually like - Emmitt Smith or the tequila?
Be careful out there.
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