DISQUS

Hi Paul



I'm not quite sure what you mean by a digest. There is RSS for each blogger and the whole lot together. There is also RSS for each category and if you want the same for each tag its http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/tag/media/?feed=rss or replace media with the tag. There is also a daily email newsletter with the latest 15 posts. I guess we could make a feed for most popular but that would mean there is repetition.

Hi Paul



I'm not quite sure what you mean by a digest. There is RSS for each blogger and the whole lot together. There is also RSS for each category and if you want the same for each tag its http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/tag/media/?feed=rss or replace media with the tag. There is also a daily email newsletter with the latest 15 posts. I guess we could make a feed for most popular but that would mean there is repetition.

There is plenty of accounting for it when you consider that for many the ANC has not delivered any substantial difference to their lives over the past ten years.

There is plenty of accounting for it when you consider that for many the ANC has not delivered any substantial difference to their lives over the past ten years.

Paul this post is downright insulting to the working class electorate in this country.

Paul this post is downright insulting to the working class electorate in this country.

Guys, honestly - why bring up sabotage and say you don't believe it? Justin needs to explain why it's worth putting it on the agenda if he doesn't believe it - does this mean there are people who do, and on what basis? This is a serious thing to put out there, not something to be said lightly.

Here is an email I sent to Justin on my feelings about this matter and I was planning to keep this conversation off-line originally but the more I think about it, the more the red herring about sabotage irritates me:

"The way I see it there are 3 things going on here:

1. Kriel was fired for breach of confidentiality, this is clear to everyone

The questions it raises are the following:

2. Is the internal working of the media something that can be
protected by corporate policy or is it more important for the public
to know? If you see media strictly as a business then yes, corporate
policy can dictate what information must be public knowledge. If, on
the other hand, you see the media as playing a formative social role -
and this is the general consensus in terms of media theory - then a
situation affecting the way a media company produces its product is
genuinely in the public interest because it affects them directly. To
give you an example, readers of the paper will generally use what the
paper contains as their own news agenda. If what the paper says is
news is being affected by cutbacks and corporate mismanagement then
people must know that their trusted news source can no longer be
trusted.

3. Ignoring the specifics of how Thought Leader works, what this case
highlights is how much easier personal publishing tools make the
violation of corporate policy. This is the new media angle. Fools
like Catto who think they are above the law just because they have a
blog are just adding noise around this issue - the crux is that before
blogs you would have to go to a much greater effort to reach an
audience of a few thousand to tell your secret to - now its so easy
people could not even realise the consequences until after.

I suppose it was my and Arthur's choice of headline rather than the
actual arguments that make you think we're looking at this thing from
one dimension only. My main concern is how media professionals are
not questioning the blind following of corporate policy, but this is
because I come from an academic background and see media as being a
public service first and a corporate concern second, in the bigger
scheme of things."

Now, to those of you who agree that this can be reduced to the one-dimensional view that everything that happens is governed strictly by corporate policy, ask yourselves this - is this really your experience of how the world works?

The fact is that Kriel has a self-acknowledged history of rubbing management up the wrong way at the Sowetan and in his previous positions at other papers. This is actually reminiscent of a previous dismissal at another publication. So obviously this is not only about a violation of corporate policy but also about the context in which the policy was violated, by whom, and who it affected aside from the company as a whole. People all over the place violate corporate policy all the time and are not fired for it, they are given a warning.

Another thing worth asking is why Avusa didn't ask us to take down the post that offended them. I guess it would have been harder to hang Kriel's head on the city walls if the problem went away relatively quietly.

Needless to say these politics have nothing to do with the Mail & Guardian and we weren't even aware of them when this thing went down - Kriel's comments about the media, insofar as they can be generalised, are important because the functioning of the media matters to the public. So to suggest subtly that we're out to sabotage Avusa seems like a smokescreen, as is the focus on Ray's blog about the extremes of the arguments. As an example of a lack of double standard, our print editor has been criticised heavily on our own platform - taking criticism is part of the industry we're in, its what makes the media industry robust.

And seeing as we're discussing this openly I'd like to see which bloggers exactly are saying that blogging is above the law, other than Catto, and whether they are representative of the whole. I'd also like to know why Justin initially decided not to link to our GM's post that wasn't critical of Avusa.

None of this is said to damage personal relationships, just to show that there actually is another side to this story.

*sigh*

Vinny Vinny Vinny....

@Karen, I agree completely about it being a great hook and the general difficulties getting people to understand the type of tech we're dealing with. I have had the same experience with FaceBook.

I guess the difference between our positions is that I am saying the corporates care about their positions on this matter and they also have some valid points, especially if they're not trying to get their staff involved in this stuff.

It strikes me that you deal with the select few who somehow have been nominated to get involved in company Web 2 strategies, or individuals o organisations where everyone has to play a role in the marketing and client acquisition. In these cases it doesn't make sense for a company to ban FB, but in a business with a few thousand employees, where only a handful have the mandate to do this kind of stuff, the rest are just taking the piss.

I't not as if LinkedIn has been banned - people are just using FB compulsively during work hours to the point that it becomes identified as a problem. In many companies its now the most visited site and responsible for the most bandwith. If people were using it the same way they use LinkedIn there wouldn't be a problem.

So while I am not for the banning of Facebook unconditionally, I would support a corporate who, like ABSA, turns it off and then selectively opens it to the people who really do need it.

In fact a better idea - block it from 8:30 to 5PM or whatever normal working hours are.

Vinny honestly now, you must be hating the fact that people keep visiting this page to follow the comments LOL

So er... you're going to make a bunch of bold statements and then duck when someone asks you to justify them?

You have a great point there Karen - most corporates do allow their staff to ransack their toilets and take all the toilet paper home for personal use every day... yeah... brilliant analogy.

"Empowered staff are more productive" - yeah, who is disputing this? What is being disputed is how Facebook empowers staff on a general level and whether the so-called benefits apply across th board or just for those performing a certain job.

Taking jabs at the publication I work for, calling me anal, suggesting I might have a career in law enforcement all suggest one thing to me - your argument cannot be made without resorting to ad homeniem or emotional attacks. Like I said before, show me the numbers.

And let me just add to that - the labour law in this country makes performance management largely toothless and everyone knows it. Maybe instead of banning Facebook corporates should just make using it for more than half an hour a day an offense warranting a warning. That way everyone can spend tons of cash sitting through disciplinary hearings when... wait a minute, they could just have switched it off and told people to use the service at home where it belongs.

Here's the thing people: you can still support social networking and be a Web 2.o pundit and support the legitmate need for corporates to maintain employee productivity, and of course their legal right to control access to internet services on their premises.

Why is it that everyone seems hell-bent on charging around like Don Quixote when someone points out that reality is a little more nuanced than the pundits will tell us?

Karen, as I said on my own blog, you need to actually read what you are responding to before you start jumping up and down. Facebook DOES cost businesses money and even Vinny admits in this post that Facebook distracts people from their work.

Corporates ban stuff all the time - MSN, Skype and other applications that tip the balance of abuse. That's the difference between Facebook and other social networking sites - people are using it excessively, in relation to the volumes required for legitimate business use.

Frankly, I have been through one dotcom boom based on hype and I am not going to be part of another one. If there is a legitimate case for widespread Facebook use then lets see the numbers. Anyone?

Okay well, meet behind the bicycle shed during break LOL

HA HA BUST!!! LOL I decided to go on leave for a day

Nah Paul, it just means that you're more sneaky as a serial killer because people don't know where you will strike next.

Nah Paul, it just means that you're more sneaky as a serial killer because people don't know where you will strike next.

@Max LOL re the tequila chirp, I wonder where you heard that from :-)

The SA govt used the Malaysian Convergence Bill as a starting point for the EC Act and I wonder if modelling something in SA after the Malaysian Technology Corridor might not work too. I remember at some point being told that moving a tech business there earned you the first ten years tax free, plus the immigration process was fast-tracked and the govt had agencies that helped you network in KL once you were there.

Of course SARS might not be that keen on this plan but its worth some thought and I'm pretty sure people in govt have already thought this through a few times already.

@Max LOL re the tequila chirp, I wonder where you heard that from :-)

The SA govt used the Malaysian Convergence Bill as a starting point for the EC Act and I wonder if modelling something in SA after the Malaysian Technology Corridor might not work too. I remember at some point being told that moving a tech business there earned you the first ten years tax free, plus the immigration process was fast-tracked and the govt had agencies that helped you network in KL once you were there.

Of course SARS might not be that keen on this plan but its worth some thought and I'm pretty sure people in govt have already thought this through a few times already.

I think we should all lay this to rest - as I said to Eric when he announced his plans, I wish him well and there is no such thing as too much competition in the market.

The broader debate about innovation needs to be looked into seriously. My feeling is that the government is not creating the right climate for innovation, from taxes to infrastructure costs and until that happens innovation will be sporadic rather than systematic in the country. What we need is tax breaks for small businesses, cheaper broadband, cheaper hardware, funding for globally competitive salaries and we need the crime rate to reach a level where people can live here and not feel worried all the time.

Thanks for the kind words Max.

I think we should all lay this to rest - as I said to Eric when he announced his plans, I wish him well and there is no such thing as too much competition in the market.

The broader debate about innovation needs to be looked into seriously. My feeling is that the government is not creating the right climate for innovation, from taxes to infrastructure costs and until that happens innovation will be sporadic rather than systematic in the country. What we need is tax breaks for small businesses, cheaper broadband, cheaper hardware, funding for globally competitive salaries and we need the crime rate to reach a level where people can live here and not feel worried all the time.

Thanks for the kind words Max.

... it rubs the snake oil into its skin ...

... it rubs the snake oil into its skin ...