William Buist

Why Mary Beard may change the on-line world

Mary Beard is a cambridge academic who appeared last week on Question Time on the BBC. For any who watch QT and at the same time follow the hashtag #BBCQT will know there’s a pretty steady stream of abusive and nasty comments about the panellists and what they are saying. Sadly Twitter search is throttled so the tweets on the link are probably mostly after the event stuff.

Some of the comments that followed her were stronger than usual. Mary Beard is not a woman to take lightly, well educated, professional, intelligent and strong, she’s stood up to this abuse and her stand might just start to make a difference in the level of understanding of this issue.

Speaking a few days later on Woman’s hour Mary Beard said :

“There was an awful lot about my vagina, it’s size and it’s shape and it’s smell and what might be inserted into it.”

“You have to have the same rules as you have face to face” she went on to say “In a way it’s time to reclaim some of the normal manners and social interaction for online as well as face to face to face communication.”

Asked why she’s made a stand she added:
“Look, I’m 58 and I have a thick skin and in a certain way it isn’t about me. Because I can take this in a chin a bit it’s OK for me to say ‘stop’… …There are a lot of women received this kind of abuse that are crushed by it.”

On one site she had a picture of her face superimposed on female genitalia. That site has now been closed down, mainly because its owner Richard White (For clarity there is no connection between this Richard White and the BlackStar of the same name) felt he could no longer moderate the site. (source >), but not before he accused Beard and her colleagues of trolling his site, is the biter bit?.

She’s saying that her answer is to respond to offensive tweets and she’s received a lot of apologies when she has done that. She acknowledges that it takes courage to ask people to withdraw it and courage from them, if they do, to say sorry.

She’s not advocating more legal regulation but she does want people to treat each other decently online, and she’s recognised that anonymity is part of the problem. On sites where anonymity is harder there is much less of this sort of abuse (in my experience) so I think she has a point. That’s very hard to police, but that shouldn’t stop website owners trying.

WIll Mary Beard change the world online and stop this kind of thing overnight, probably not, but perhaps this is a start.

William Buist
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via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/XExijR

Are 360 degree surveys adding value?

Since the launch of the LinkedIn app ‘SurveyReport’ I’ve been getting increasing numbers of such requests - Today I had three in my inbox from the last couple of days. That begins to look like ‘Attention Spam’.

Anyway, I had a few minutes so I thought I’d help those asking by filling them in and realised that for all of them I couldn’t easily give the feedback that I felt would be most helpful to them except in free format text.

Perhaps it’s me, but there’s two problems with that. Firstly I don’t need (or want) them to incur a cost to get free format feedback, and secondly it’s not easy for it to be analysed and aggregated.

Another problem is that one question has a series of text descriptions that you are asked to pick from to describe the person. In all three cases the list was a) incomplete b) universally positive and c) poorly worded. It looks designed to make sure that the recipient gets pats on the back for what they are doing well, but nothing to help them get advice and guidance on areas they could change for a better result.

Looking at the business model I think I know why. The key to these surveys making money for the producers is completion of surveys. The way they do that is to get people to send it out to as many as possible. The way to do that is to make the survey ‘safe’. It’s not going to disturb anyone or tell them things they don’t won’t to hear. That frees people to ask everyone in their network. If they are motivated by positive feedback now they can buy it, now that’s a clever business model from a psychological point of view.

But is that assessment right? I went back over the last few weeks and looked at all the people who are asking me to complete one - More than 30 so far. In my judgement most of them are motivated by recognition and averse to change, particularly self change. Of course that’s my judgement and bound to be wrong in part. Still mostly I don’t recognise these as self aware people nor even anyone that demonstrated a willingness to grow that aspect of themselves.

In the end I conclude that it doesn’t just look like attention spam, that’s what it is. I’ll probably not complete one in future.

If my feedback is important or would be useful to you on a genuine journey to improvement - call me.

William Buist
Take our 2013 Business Survey here >

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/SZOxQY

Birds in the snow….

From this morning…

A few mid flight…






and some typical british robin scene’s





William Buist
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via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/VvRkiX

HMV, Blockbuster, Jessops, The start, or the end?

Another big name bites the dust.

Blockbuster can no longer compete with LoveFilm/#Amazon, Apple et al
HMV brought down by online music and film - LoveFilm/Amazon, Apple et al
Jessops losing out as camera’s and movie hardware goes into commodity pricing (Amazon) and online and smartphones (Apple)

2012 was one of the worst years for retail failures - 54 Firms, 3,951 Outlets and 48,142 Employees
2013 from the 3 big names, Jessops, HMV, Blockbuster is 954 stores and 9,910 staff (Source BBC).

That suggest the failure rate is still rising. However, most recessions end with a lot of firms failing at the final hurdle, indeed some like Robert Peston say this has to happen to end the recession and well known VC’s like Jon Moulton are investing in litigation firms.

I think there is more to come, but that we are now close to an end of the shake outs. The may not be the end of the tough time, but it probably is the beginning of the end. The survey (linked below) indicates an optimism that I haven’t seen for a while, but it varies by business size, significantly. That suggests the return to a more stable economy may be bumpy and non-uniform too.

William Buist
Take our 2013 Business Survey here >

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/XDXPjg

A thought for getting the right amount of business 2013

Are you over eager, over sharing, over marketing and so becoming over bearing and off-putting to your market, or too lacking in presence, not sharing enough, and undermarketing and so not getting the business you could.

What’s your strategy for finding the sweet spot?

William Buist
Take our 2013 Business Survey here >

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/ZPAmAT

Festive Bleatings

On January 1st a new network will be launched across the world called “Flock”

Flock allows members (known as “sheeple”) to gather round the leaders in their field to discuss (“bleat”) what matters most to them. Typically this will involve “rebleating” the bleats of others.

Once you have been in the network for more than 12 months you’ll become known as “Mutton”, and in general stop listening to the bleats of others. Instead, you’ll resort to just bleating about your achievements in the Flock. Field leaders, known as “Rams” will occasionally visit for a sympathetic bleat with you, and to thank you for your past “services”. During your membership you will need to be fleeced from time to time in order to enable your farmer (Mr Giles) to receive appropriate value from your membership.

Unfortunately there is a rampant disease that can affect members of Flock, known as “Foot in Mouth” and if you are affected then it will be necessary to terminate your membership and that of all the sheeple in your field. After an appropriate period the farmer may restock your field with new members, known as “lambs”.

Some field leaders may seek to round you up to take you to their new field, they know you; you should just follow; you’ll like it.

Festive Bleatings to you all, and best wishes for a fun filled social new year.

William Buist
Follow me > - Using Marketplace for business results

This bit of festive fun originally appeared on Facebook and Abelard

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/YoeCuf

Why building collaborative communities matters

In this blog > the author says:

I think the biggest thing that makes community grow is collaboration and the willingness to share ideas without being defensive, sharing resources without being possessive, sharing physical space without being prohibitive. It takes more that an entrepreneur flying solo behind his Macbook Pro in a coffee shop, but it takes less than structured office space with prohibitive managerial org charts.

I agree with that - For me the key things here are sharing without getting defensive or possessive or prohibitive. It’s in that environment that collaboration grows. In Abelard we work with our clients to help them become less defensive, less possessive and less prohibitive. When they do, the communities they build thrive, and tolerance and success grows. Building community isn’t easy, it’s not about throwing people together and giving them a badge, or a brand. It’s much deeper. Interdependence takes time, Collaboration is a journey.

We talk about communities because humans aren’t designed to work in isolation - in an evolutionary sense we aren’t able to survive without them, we are a tribal species. Maturity means we don’t seek independence but interdependence, and see that as the freedom to be ourselves in the context of a mutually supportive community.

It is my belief that if you don’t support the community that supports you, then ultimately you will find that it’s cold and lonely in the desert.

William Buist
Follow me > - Using Marketplace for business results

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/10Bknnl

Manners…

Do members of Ecademy lose them when they log on?

Discuss.

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/WJmTb9

Grief and dealing with it..

Did any of you hear the discussion on R4 earlier this week about grief?. Matthew Parris was commenting that when he lost someone who was important and loving and part of his life, he didn’t want ever to ‘move on’ or ‘get over it’ it was an inspiring and emotional piece of common sense.

He wrote this in August

So I’ve decided that I don’t want to ‘come to terms’ with Dad’s death. It’s bloody awful that he isn’t here. It still cuts me up, and this is a fact of love. I’m perfectly capable of keeping things in proportion, as Dad always did, but I don’t want to ‘get things into perspective’, if by that one means wanting them to grow smaller. It’s a fact; his life is a fact; the gap now is a fact; it’s not getting any smaller; I’m sad, but I’m happy that I’m sad.

Source >

It’s how I’ve always felt since I lost my old man in 1999. He’s still with me today the old ****, and I still miss him, Always will. I’m just so glad to find out that I’m not silly or stupid for still having the occasional weep when I think of him. Thought I was going soft.

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/RNxiO2

Tolerance is…

Accepting a different way without needing to understand it. Or is it more complicated than that?

William Buist
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via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/PJTiMw

The different styles of blogging

(Some of the terms here are invented terms - apologies if they already have a different meaning I apologise for creating confusion - please put me right)

Blogging - Sharing knowledge and experience for the purposes of creating constructive discussion and learning.

“Flogging” - Using blogs to sell and (self-)promote - Signatures can cause an issue here and here the Ecademy community seems quite effective at demonstrating best practice.

“Gogging” - Using blogs simply to get rankings on Google - the content often is inane at best and unrelated to skills and experience, heavily linked to other sites and potentially incoherent. Google ranking should surely be a beneficial side effect of great writing and not a raison d’etre?

“Plobbing” - (“Political Lobbying”) aimed solely at making a political point or scoring them. Not just national politics either, could be about the ‘politics’ of Ecademy or Facebook or…. - Or on Linked in you sometimes see internal office Plobbing.

“Robbing” - Quoting others material as your own. There are occasional issues which relate to the use of the intellectual property of others.

“Clogging” - Posting lots of blogs at the same time which pushes lots of other peoples blogs away from the spotlight

“Clipping” - Just providing a link to other content without any explanation or covering material to explain why the post is there.

Have I captured all the different types of blog?

William Buist
Follow me > - Using Marketplace for business results

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/PHGRep

Constant Contact or…

Aweber or mail chimp or Infusionsoft or….

Which do you use and what do you think is best for a simple newsletter?

William Buist
Follow me > - Using Marketplace for business results

via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/O7iyKU

It’s good to talk…

Sometimes we forget that.

You never know what the true story is until you hear it from the ‘horses mouth’ - it’s s much more than every really happens in a written exchange.

I’ve enjoyed a call today that had more communication, real communication, happening in a few minutes on the phone than in months on-line. We should do more of that.

William Buist
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via William Buist’s blog at Ecademy http://bit.ly/QdXNu2

I hate colds…

That’s it really, nothing much other than colds (and hayfever) that I hate…

Strong dislike… Hmmm. Now there’s a thing.

William Buist
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