Productivity & Social Media
Monday, October 26th, 2009Another stupid study about wasted work time and spilling company secrets from the Telegraph:
More than half of office workers use sites like Twitter and Facebook for personal use during the working day, and admit wasting an average of 40 minutes a week each.
One in three of the 1,460 office workers surveyed also said they had seen sensitive company information posted on social networking sites, leading to fears about how workers use the internet.
Philip Wicks, consultant at Morse, the IT services and technology company who commissioned the survey, said the true cost to the economy could be substantially higher than the £1.38bn estimate.
Oh bah. Twitter and Facebook are social. Like the coffee station at work is social. Like the water cooler is social. Like the printer is social. They are gathering places for where people already talk. And everyone talks at work.
The concern with social media isn’t the time, it’s the ability to spread a message. Where office conversations can be like the game Telephone–one message to one person, one by one, and by the end, it’s distorted–social media can multiply a message exponentially. I tell my 10,000 “friends” on Twitter and they tell thousands more of their friends.
Even with this, though, there is a feedback loop. Often, when a message is spread via Social Media, a link goes with the “gossip”. A person who lies, distorts and spreads disinformation can achieve social pariah status pretty quickly. [Exception: Andrew Sullivan] Not so, in an office. The office gossip can be annoying, but most people deal with him or her because the information can be useful and powerful. And even still, these dynamics play out online and offline.
People are people. Work gets mental interruptions almost all of the time. That people take a few minutes for Twitter or Facebook is just another version of the same. Listen, the day that social media loving workers take as much time as those who take smoking breaks, there can be a conversation. In the meantime, bashing social media is just the latest way for bosses to obsess about their worker production.
P.S. There’s a recession. Most people are working very hard to keep their job. The bigger concern these days, I’m guessing, is burnout, not lost productivity. If anything, there isn’t enough play and too much work at work.
H/T TechCrunch
Standards of Decorum: Real World & Internet Version
Wednesday, October 14th, 200987% of Houstonians polled say that politicians should be held to a higher standard when it comes to rhetorical decorum. Turns out that Rahm Emmanuel has a potty-mouth and Joe Biden routinely says “f*ck”.
And then there is the internet. I have passed along “adult” language tweets. When I write on Twitter, I assume a more adult audience. That is, while I don’t want to be foul, sometimes language can be…flowery. That has lost me followers here and there who are averse to a little salt. One expressed shock and said that I wasn’t kid-friendly. Why are kids following my Twitter stream? Personally, I don’t think kids should watch the nightly news. It gives such a false and skewed perspective on the world…no bad words necessary.
This is what one blogger at Suburban Oblivion said about a chiding mom:
I received a message on a social media site recently asking that I tone down the language on my blog. Seems she feels what I write is not fit for young eyes.
Hey please watch the profanity i have young kids in my family that are on facebook and are on my page and i dislike being chewed out by there mothers and fathers for profanity on my page.
thanks for understanding, B
First I started to laugh. I have NEVER claimed what I write is child-friendly. Given the number of times a day I use the word ‘fuck’ on Twitter alone, I think it’s pretty clear I will never hit less than an ‘R’ rating. My humor is for adults, not children, clearly.
Then she follows with this:
As a parent, it is your job to keep your children from reading adult content on the internet.
As a parent, it is your job to not visit sites containing said adult content if you cannot keep those children from hanging over your shoulder and reading.
As a writer, it is not my job to censor myself so you don’t have to do your job (see above).
Seriously people..grow the fuck up and parent your kids, and quit expecting everyone on the internet to change their way of doing things just so you don’t have to.
So, I’m wondering. Is there two different standards? I’m pretty much the same in the real world as I am online. Every once in a while I’ll say ass or shit at home and get a scolding from my kids. Same thing happens online.
And while everyone is kvetching about naughty words, I think it’s important to have some perspective. This is an example of real nasty language. Bad words might be offensive to some, but what should really bother people is disgusting lies, obfuscation, and purposeful disseminating of disinformation.
Does A Path Lead From Anti-Palin Blogger Jesse Griffin To The White House?
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009Dan Riehl has found a story in the non-anonymous blogger Jesse Griffin’s anti-Palin hatred and it is leading some strange places. All the puzzle pieces are not together yet, but a picture is starting to form and it is looking very suspect. You simply must read the whole post. It is investigative journalism at it’s finest.
The players include a supposedly anonymous blogger, a Montessori school owned by Democrats where the blogger has never been seen but is, ostensibly employed, a big Democratic donor, tax liens, stimulus funds, health care reform, and Democratic political campaigns.
UPDATED:
From Stacy McCain:
Because some liberal troll-commenters at Riehl World View have pretended not to see the dots that Dan has connected, I’ve offered a simple summary:
1. Jesse Griffin’s “employer of record” is Puffin Heights Montessori school.
2. Employees of that school told Dan that they have never seen Griffin at the school.
3. Former Alaska resident Catherine New was once listed as “primary contact” for the Puffin Heights school.
4. The Puffin Heights school was apparently bankrupted by IRS tax judgments and reorganized circa 2002, with “Yolanda Baber” listed as head of the LLC.
5. Online investigator Joseph Culligan has been unable to verify the existence of a “Yolanda Baber” in Anchorage.
6. Meanwhile, Catherine New and her husband, Eligio White, have prospered in the health-care industry and are “progressive” activists whose business recently received $4.3 million of stimulus money.
The Right Doctor (Me): Now At iTunes As A Podcast
Monday, June 8th, 2009Subscribe to my Podcast at iTunes today! Some of you have wanted a Podcast version of the show so you can listen to my show on your schedule. Now you can! Just go to here: Subscribe to The Right Doctor on iTunes.
The first uploaded podcast (although, it’s really the 11th show and I need to figure out a way to get my other shows up on iTunes too) features Media Lizzy and we talk about women, beauty, cyber rape and much, much more.
Also, to listen to the show and join in the conversation, go to Radio For Conservatives tonight 10 Eastern and 9 Central. The chatroom is lots of fun. I’ll be there!
John Hawkins Tea Party Leader Steps Down After Provoking Jealous Lovers Rage
Friday, May 15th, 2009I’m not saying that John Hawkins is the leader of the Tea Party movement because I write for his blog and I’m trying to score brownie points. I’m not saying that John Hawkins is the leader of the Tea Party movement because he says so and because he says so it makes it so. I’m saying that John Hawkins is the leader of the Tea Party movement because of this:
“In my book, there is no “leader” or “spokesman” for the Tea Party movement. It’s a pack, not a herd.”
Not parsing here, but he said, “leader”…”for the Tea Party movement” and that’s good enough for me.
So, why don’t the Democrats feed the legacy media’s darling, Keith Olbermann the real story..the story that hasn’t been told? Well, of course, it’s because Janeane Garofalo is involved. See, what really happened, is that Tea Party leader John Hawkins dumped Janeane Garofalo because behind her pseudo-intellectual discussions of frontal lobes and reptilian brain parts like amygdalas, she’s actually not that bright. Tea Party leader John Hawkins was disappointed. He had heard that liberal feminists were smarter and hipper. They didn’t wear lipstick or comb their hair, or even shave their armpits much, so he figured they MUST have brains. Imagine his surprise to find out that his rabid spaz of a dog Patten, hell the feral cats living beneath his house, had more executive brain function than the dour Ms. Garofalo.
Rebounding from that coupling, Tea Party leader John Hawkins heard that Maureen Dowd wore lipstick and was still single. Since she was a legacy media leader, having won a Pulitzer for her incisive writing and fierce investigative reporting, he figured they’d be a power couple. Alas, this union was doomed. Janeane Garofalo might not be that smart but her work as a CIA operative made her cagey and more than a little immune to the moral vagaries of torture. Ms. Dowd met an unfortunate end. She was found Manolo-up with some form of microcomputer sewn into the skin of her mid-back but that’s a story for another Bourne novel.
Why Keith Olbermann refuses to report Tea Party leader John Hawkin’s sordid social past is itself a murky tale. Evidently, the news would be a boost to the true media leader, Chris Matthew’s TV show Hardball because Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd were tied together (not literally, well, not for long anyway) by a common leg shivering malady. It’s incurable.
Never mind that Tea Party leader John Hawkins gets marginalized while guys like Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, Erik Telford, Michael P. Leahy and Eric Odom get all the credit. Lameness.
When. Will. The. Bias. End? I ask you. Really, Keith. Get it right! Your petty professional jealousy. Your not-so-secret lust for torture-loving, lipstick-averse CIA operatives. It all reeks of a complete lack of professionalism. You have a reputation to uphold. Get your stories right.
John Hawkins, leader of the Tea Party movement, a man swirling in controversy, can’t buy press because of the horrendous bias. Still, he found it better to step down than subject Patten, the cats, and, the Tea Party movement, who follows his brave lead, any more shame. Anyone else, and this is a story. Tea Party leader John Hawkins, is too big, it seems for bad press. He, like Democratic populist mansion-living, super-rich, loving husband and lawyer John Edwards and law and order focused, corruption-fighting, straight arrow Eliot Spitzer, decided to spare the Tea Party movement, his party and his dull-witted ex-girlfriend any more shame.
You heard it here first.
Right Doctor on Radio For Conservatives
Monday, May 4th, 2009Hi Guys!
Tonight is the inaugural episode of my new radio show called Right Doctor for Radio For Conservatives. Listen at RFCradio.com at 10 EST or 9 CST.
There is also a chat room. I’d love your feedback! I’ll be there, please join in the conversation.
Also, in the second half of the hour (hour long show), I interview John about what he means when he says he thinks the Right should get dirty like the Left. Lots of good stuff!
Hope you’ll join me every Monday and Wednesday night at 10 Eastern for one hour….on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Tabitha Hale of Pink Elephant Pundit and Smart Girl politics will have a show. And on Fridays, Emily Zanotti will do an Indie music show in that time slot. After us, from 11-midnight is the Comedian and awesome host Stephen Kruiser of America Needs Me.
MSNBC
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009Keith Olbermann Is Wrong: Erik Telford Is The World’s Worst Person
He knows why.
BlogHer
Monday, April 20th, 2009Should conservative women go to BlogHer?
Do we need a genderized blog conference?
On Hanging Separately
Thursday, April 9th, 2009A year ago, my co-blogger John Hawkins asked me to write at Right Wing News. I’m an independent person. I have my own blog. I like the freedom to write what I want to write. Still, John has a bigger audience and I believe the future is going to be consolidation. United, conservative writers and thinkers have greater power.
But there’s not much money in the game. In fact, for most conservative bloggers, there’s next to no money in the game. Some very good writers, thinkers, strategists and experts who blog get nothing but a good reputation for their efforts. A good reputation doesn’t pay the bills.
In my own case, I doctor to pay for my blog habit. That is, I give away my blogging work for free unless I free-lance an article for an on-line publication. Since writing and politics are my passions, I have viewed blogging as a hobby.
As time has gone on, I’ve seen the trends that John mentions today and it’s getting irksome:
I got a promo from one of them, that shall remain nameless, a few days back. They were bragging that they were running a million dollar ad campaign. While that’s great, as far as I can tell, they’re not spending a cent of that ad campaign on conservative blogs — and do you know how much it would cost to run an ad on every single blog in the conservative advertising network at Blogads for a week? At the moment, only $5,686. That’s roughly 1/176th of the amount they’re going to spend on this campaign, but they’re not even willing to go that far to support the Rightroots that are out in the trenches every day.
In fact, we’ve even gotten to the point now where organizations will pay thousands of dollars on consultants, to hit blogs up for links, instead of just buying ads on the blogs. That’s great for the consultants (and I can tell you that from personal experience), but it sucks for the bloggers who get nothing but link requests out of it while some consultant pockets a fat check just for writing a few emails that generally don’t produce any results.
The consultants don’t just want links. They want friendly stories. They want candidate exposés.
During the last election, do you know who advertised on my site? C-Span. That’s right. C-Span appreciated my election coverage and live-blogging, but the Republican party probably didn’t know I existed. Well, there’s a few of us who live blog these big events and draw a crowd. It would be in a candidate’s best interest to know these people–Ann Althouse, VodkaPundit’s drunk blogging, and I are pretty darn consistent. And yet, no ad dollars from campaigns.
Part of the problem is that political bloggers focused nationally have a national audience. That is, since I don’t focus on Houston issues, my readership isn’t local. Ironically, I think I’d have an easier time with advertising if my readership were primarily local–even if the readership was smaller.
Since my readership is national and broad–political and cultural interests–fewer advertisers are interested. Doesn’t matter that the readership is educated, upper income, and fertile soil for certain products.
Will hanging together help to change the money problem? I don’t see how. If bloggers join together, it doesn’t guarantee that think tanks, lobbyist groups, candidates or other conservative groups will suddenly get generous and spend parts of their budgets online.
In fact, there’s been a strange derisiveness about bloggers by those on the right. Political consultants gingerly ask for help here and there, but don’t give much in return. And it’s not just a problem on the right. Yesterday, Jane Hamsher and Kos noted the same problem at the Plumline:
A number of these top bloggers agreed to come on record with me after privately arguing to these groups that they deserved a share in the ad wealth and couldn’t be taken for granted any longer.
“They come to us, expecting us to give them free publicity, and we do, but it’s not a two way street,” Jane Hamsher, the founder of FiredogLake, said in an interview. “They won’t do anything in return. They’re not advertising with us. They’re not offering fellowships. They’re not doing anything to help financially, and people are growing increasingly resentful.”
Hamsher singled out Americans United for Change, which raises and spends big money on TV ad campaigns driving Obama’s agenda, as well as the constellation of groups associated with it, and the American Association of Retired Persons, also a big TV advertiser.
“Most want the easy way — having a big blogger promote their agenda,” adds Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos. “Then they turn around and spend $50K for a one-page ad in the New York Times or whatever.” Moulitsas adds that officials at such groups often do nothing to engage the sites’s audiences by, say, writing posts, instead wanting the bloggers to do everything for them.
Some on the right were snarky, but the problem is universal.
Blogging, at the forefront of New Media, is a more intimate and friendly way to get a message to people. Politicians, lobbyists, writers hawking books,and think tanks, all love the medium when it suits them, but don’t seem to recognize that people are trying to make a living.
What to do? I don’t really know. Blogging doesn’t yet have the respect and understanding of the political class. And forget social media. Most of the consultants and “experts” I know are stupid about it, so how could their charges have a clue?
Perhaps as the Legacy Media fades, the political class will put their money where it counts more. Still, why pay for what you get for free?
