Disqus - Friends of SafeLibraries

Re: The Great Ghost Posting Scandal

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:50:05 -0000

I thought the same thing, Nancy. "Jerks like this make it so much harder for those of us who are ethical to do our jobs." Thanks to Mark for naming names. Hopefully potential clients will steer clear of the company in the future.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:58:39 -0000

Hi Ben,Thanks for your feedback, I disagree slightly with you on the point about the neighbor. I'm not sure it's that there are more datapoints, but the quality of those interactions is different. I think innately we give more weight to in-person interactions than we do to virtual interactions. In the real world when something doesn't make sense we default to simple explanations. The neighbor may want their phone number unlisted due to their job. We jump to those simple conclusions and then accept our interactions with them as authentic. Online, when something doesn't line up, we jump to suspicion as opposed to explanation.I'd like to propose that as we work in the digital space all day long that we examine why we do this and if it's helpful in the end.Leslie.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:30:47 -0000

You may find more work in this area than you originally thought. I know of one other person who had a similar experience to mine and has been trying to clean up her online reputation over the past few months.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:33:52 -0000

Thanks for your kind words, Alice. I agree with you about the safety precautions we take in the real world not really translating to the digital world. This experience has made me re-evaluate how dogmatic we can sometimes be about transparency and authenticity online, yet don't demand the same in our everyday interactions in the real world.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:51:19 -0000

Hi Eric,

The attacks were done by someone who was close to me and knew the impact the fake accounts would have when they created them. Needless to say the person wasn't mentally well. The person had launched similar attacks on others before they went after me and since then, they have attacked others online. One, I know, has launched a civil suit against the person.

When given my options to end the attacks and have some stability in my life, the pseudonym has been the simplest way to go about it.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:55:40 -0000

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the feedback. I absolutely agree with you in regards to choosing platforms wisely. I think it's advice that can be heeded well beyond the confines of this conversation and for digital strategists as a whole.

I appreciate your feedback on the use of my pseudonym. I took the same perspective as you and received push-back from a handful of people when my professional email address didn't line up with my twitter handle, or when they couldn't find anyone with my name, and general description in this profession online.

Hopefully we can tilt the concepts of transparency and authenticity in social media a little bit!

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:02:02 -0000

Thanks Christine, I agree with you. While I had created a digital footprint I was proud of, prior to January 2010, I was more than a little surprized at how difficult it is to gain control over it, once it has gone awry. Getting an actual human being at LinkedIn and Google took hours and even then I had to keep going "up" the chain to get the profiles and posts taken down.

Once your online identity has been taken over, it has truly been taken over and it is truly difficult to gain your privacy, and in my case, my identity, back.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:06:56 -0000

How frustrating! I know the frustration you've been dealing with. There are still a few "hanging chads" from the attacks that mention my actual name and I've accepted that they just won't come down. Have you tried to contact the blog owner, or Google?

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:29:21 -0000

Hi Neicole,

Thanks for your feedback, I found your thoughts rather interesting.

The way I see authenticity used online is to your point of "trust" and accuracy. We want to have an actual connection with someone online whose motives we can generally assume to be unambiguous. If Lady Gaga isn't writing her own Tweets, then we can't assume what her motives are. Does she want to use Twitter to connect with her fans? Is someone at her record company tweeting for her just to ratchet up her reach and make her appear more impressive?

Creating an airbrushed version of ourselves online is something we all do in our daily in-person interactions with each other as well. We can have a conversation and you can withhold a thought you have to ensure I have a positive impression of you, yet still have an authentic interaction.

Although, I agree with you that it is a fine line to walk.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:05:23 -0000

Hi Mac,

Thanks for your feedback. It's great to hear from you!

I think there may be a bit of a "pay your dues" or clique mentality with some. I do think that as social media professionals, as a whole, we can quick to be critical of one and other. Perhaps this goes to Ben's point about the quality of interaction online vs offline. We're all just black text on a white screen.

There's a definite, "Social Media: You're doing it wrong!" vibe that I think we are all guilty of sending out from time to time. We have very specialized knowledge in a discipline that is in demand right now, so we're used to being the smartest guy in the room when it comes to our particular slice of expertise.

When we have these dogmatic pillars like transparency and authenticity and see someone who's supposed to be one of the group, "doing it wrong," the initial reaction for some seems to be to push back and let the person know they "don't get it" as opposed to rationalize why the information about the person isn't matching up.

I think this is where your sharp elbows metaphor comes in!

Thanks again, for your feedback!

Leslie.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:26:52 -0000

Hi,

You raise some very interesting points. I'm interested to hear more about your thoughts on "this is how I work" vs "this is who I am."

You're right about the customer vs product analogy. I'd first heard that last year after @andlewis commented on Meta Filter regarding Digg's new redesign. I couldn't agree more with your thoughts on the catch-up game government has been playing with digital media and how corporations are using it.

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:34:46 -0000

Thanks for your kind words. This experience has been amazing. I was in knots before this post went up expecting to be told that I was "doing social media wrong" or that I must have done something to have brought what happened on myself.

The support and encouragement I've received here has been amazing. Instead of looking at this situation as a forced bifurcation, I think I will take your view and think of myself as "Cat-Woman" (only less villainous).

Re: It’s Not My Fault

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:51:40 -0000

Thanks for this great post! At first blush I’m inclined to agree with you and this message, however, where I would disagree is the concept of responsibility and ability or control.

Taking responsibility and wanting to change a behavior is different from having the ability to do so. Using your example of the individual who is overweight, if they don’t have access to and/or can’t afford healthy foods then the idea of responsibility leading to control falls apart.

As a member of Gen X (and technically Gen Y as well, depending on who you ask) I am with you on the need to end the “it’s not my fault” cries, however, responsibility and control may not be that simple for
everyone.

Re: It’s Not My Fault

Leslie Waghorn — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:19:09 -0000

This is a great back-and-forth! It's the classic debate between personal responsibility and the built environment. I love your post, and found it inspiring! My only issue is where responsibility translates into control.

To be clear, I am in no way generalizing that obesity is an issue affecting solely a certain demographic or income level. It was using it as an example of a way in which someone may take responsibility for themselves (eg: I am overweight, I do not want to be any more, I can change this about myself), but if they don't have a grocery store within walking distance and need to rely on corner stores as their primary food source, that the built environment may remove the aspect of direct control that person has.

The same could apply to someone who realizes they have an anger issue and want to change it, but don't have access to counselors or have friends and family that are supportive of them making a change.

I suppose my thesis is that no man is an island. If someone moves from "it's not my fault" to "it's my responsibility" they may have obstacles in their way to creating that change. If the structures aren't there to support that person in making that change then they are less likely to be able to control the outcome.

With all that said, I truly did enjoy your post and think it is valuable and well worth the read, for anyone, whether they are contemplating change or need to a kick-start!

Re: Social media, our voice, and the power to destroy

Leslie Waghorn — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:54:04 -0000

First, as someone who works in health communication and behavior change, what you saw is appalling and isn't acceptable. Had it been me, I likely would have done something similar, all while seething from the lack of response from hospital administration.

What you didn't say in your post, but was heavily implied is a phrase I hear and use a lot, "what are you *really* trying to do?" Do you want to have the situation immediately rectified for your wife? Do you want to punish the hospital for putting a loved one in a potentially dangerous situation? Do you want the hospital to change it's policies or retrain workers?

The next question is, "what's the best way to accomplish that?" Because we're immersed in social media day-in and day-out, and know it's potential, we can sometimes see it as a universal solution. As the saying goes, "when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

In this case, I think you handled the situation in the appropriate way to accomplish your goals.

Personally, though, I would follow up with the hospital administration and see if there might have been another reason for the terrible sate of the room. Had there been a life-and-death crisis minutes before you walked in that would account for the disarray and trash or was this the result of an issue that is much more serious and needs to be addressed at the policy level?

Re: When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake

Leslie Waghorn — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:47:35 -0000

I think you've missed the crux of the issue. I lost the ability to use my real name due to harassment from an individual. As long as I continued to use my real name, that person could stalk me online and continue to harass me. By using a pseudonym that person can no longer (in theory) find me online. I'm aware that if that person discovers my pseudonym, they will likely launch another campaign.

The issue of what could have been done to stop the harassment in the first place is discussed here: http://www.digitalgood.net/...

Re: What the beach taught me about social media.

Leslie Waghorn — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:34:58 -0000

Good for you! We all need to unplug and recharge every now and then!

Re: What Klout Really Measures

Leslie Waghorn — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:10:21 -0000

I have to say, as a Political Theory major in my undergrad, I am very happy to see that you worked Aristotle's Rhetoric into a post about Klout!

I've subscribed to Mark's views on what influence measures actually measure as well. I agree that they measure quantity not quality of the reach.

In your example re: clubbing seals, 400 RTs may appear to be influential, but how many of those 400 actually went out and clubbed baby seals. If your telos (look at me putting my undergrad to work!) is to raise awareness of the awesomeness of clubbing baby seals then Jay Baer and his reach has helped you accomplish that. If your goal is to actually have people go out and club baby seals (praxis if you will), then measuring Jay's influence on behavior change is more difficult to quantify and this is where Klout et al. fails.

With apologies to baby seals and Jay Baer.

Re: Girl's Gone Child: The Power of Post-its

Leslie Waghorn — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:51:28 -0000

This is an amazing campaign and a beautiful post! Go Girls Gone Child! Go A Shot At Life!

Re: American Library Association criticized for response to racism complaint

Wayne A. Wiegand — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 08:50:02 -0000

I’ve studied the history of libraries, librarians, and library associations for forty years, and one thread of consistency through all that history is an instinct to protect the profession’s public image, even if it’s at the expense of social justice. (One need only look at ALA’s record on segregated public libraries before 1968.). That’s what I see happening here. Wayne a. Wiegand