Doyle Albee

posted by Doyle

Had a great time doing the OS Perspectives podcast with Esbjorn Larsen this week. We had a great discussion on the latest from both Microsoft and Apple. Check it out here.

posted by Doyle

I have subscribed to some magazines using the Zinio app for my iPad since, gosh, the iPad 1! Today, they sent me an email informing me they'd been having problems and it may have affected one of my downloads. Honestly, if it did, I hadn't even noticed.

Nevertheless, they owned the problem before I even knew about it and are sending me a certificate for some free magazines. 

That's how it's done. Hat tip, Zinio!

posted by Doyle

Even without Valentine's Day, February is stacking up to be a busy month. If you can, join me at one of these events:

This coming Wednesday, Feb. 16, I'll be at the Boulder County Media Professionals' “after hours” event. It's being held at Carelli’s of Boulder, 645 30^th Street (corner of 30^th & Baseline), at 5 p.m., where I'll give a brief presentation and Q & A on PR, social media, car repair (probably not that) or whatever the group wants to discuss. RSVP to rbrown@ball.com or call 303-533-6059 if you'd like to attend.

Next week, I'm Denver for the Software Club panel on PR in the New Media Era. Nadine Pyter, marketing director of Confio, will moderate a panel covering the impact of Social Media on PR, balancing traditional PR practices (trying to get analyst quotes, trade articles, etc) with Social Media, selling Social Media internally and linking it to corporate goals, guerilla Social Media (finding online communities and identifying bloggers, tweeters, etc) and measuring success. I'll be on the panel along with Greg Davoll, product marketing director, Quest Software (bio here) and Terri Douglas, co-founder and principal, Catapult PR-IR (bio here). For more information or to sign up, send an email to sms@dim.com.  

Finally, I'll be spending breakfast at Start Up Weekend 5 in Boulder on Feb. 27 chatting about free things startups can do to grab some publicity when you're on a shoestring budget (like startups tend to be!). You can find more informaiton here about this great event.

Like most months, February in Boulder offers many chances to get out, learn something and catch up with the amazing people we have in our community. I hope to see you at one of these events.

posted by Doyle

Andrew Worob let me drop by with a guest post on PR at Sunrise. Thanks for having me, Andrew!

Mashable recently covered the story of a 10th grader in California who was suspended after calling his teacher fat on Facebook. 

Well, actually, he posted that the teacher was a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag.” 

Ouch. Tell us how you really feel.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sent a letter to he principal saying that the Facebook post is protected speech and that the boy cannot be punished.

OK, done rolling your eyes? Fair response. However, this situation actually raises a number of interesting points.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way: insulting your teacher (or your boss, or a co-worker, etc.) on Facebook is a bad idea. Without exception. Parents, help your kids get their mind around the difference between complaining to a friend (which we've all done) and posting something on a public website—and understand it yourselves. And don't trust your privacy settings. Just learn where it's appropriate to vent and where it's not. Social media has made that more important than ever. 

But adults have made the same mistake. This American Life, the fabulous public radio series, recently did a story about a guy named Joe Lipari. Seems that Joe was irritated with the Apple Store and decided to quote a line from Fight Club on his Facebook page. Sadly, his Facebook status was something like, "...is thinking of going to the Apple Store with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into the Geniuses." The status update seemed funny while he was laying on his couch, watching the movie, smoking pot and updating Facebook. 

The FBI disagreed and showed up at his apartment. I think Joe is still fighting a legal battle over the post. Ooops.

Not being stupid seems to be one obvious answer, but we can't count on that online or anywhere else. Cases like these raise bigger questions about free speech colliding with the right to be free from public insults and threats. For example:

• Let's say the California student's bonehead post (sorry, kid, but seriously...) is not protected speech. Does that set a precedent that makes me potentially liable if I post something like "sitting at Restaurant X right now. Haven't seen my server in 20 minutes. Really bad service." Could a lawsuit be in my future?
• Let's say it is protected speech. Is it now open season on teachers? Kids can be cruel, and teachers are people and members of the community as well. Should teachers (or waiters or participants in a community theater production or... ) be forced to put up with personal or profane attacks from anyone with with an Internet connection? That extreme seems wrong as well.
• Today I can pretty much post what I want on sites like Facebook or Twitter, which can lead to situations like I described above. What if the pendulum swings the other way, and I get kicked off Facebook for swearing or criticizing people or businesses? That would be a pretty bland world with limited interest.

Media from just a few years ago was controlled. I couldn't even get a letter to the editor published that called someone a fat ass or a douche bag, but now I have a pretty big microphone. I can call anyone anything I want. As a business owner, I consider the ramifications of my posts. As a sophomore in high school—or even someone with a lower level of understanding of social media—I might not. 

Here's the bottom line: some people just don't know how to act in public and we probably can't expect them to act any better online. Sweeping rules about protected speech or libel are slippery slopes that can lead to unintended consequences like I noted above. Instead, we need to treat social media outlets like the very public conversations that they are are simply adapt some common sense reactions that have worked for decades.

• In the case of the California student: he would have faced suspension of he had used the same words in the hallway and been overheard by a member of the faculty. He would probably have been forced to apologize to the teacher he called names. Applying the same rules, this student should face punishment for inappropriate behavior and perhaps even be forced to post an apology on his page. After all, even though he made the comment on his home computer, it carries back to the school. Honestly, such a comment from one of my kids at that age at the dinner table would have earned that child a talking-to.
• Using the same logic, if I'm overheard complaining about restaurant service, there's no potential for lawsuit (assuming it's both reasonable and basically accurate). As such, a post to Facebook, Twitter or Yelp should not put me at risk.
• Although I certainly don't have all the facts of the Joe Lipari case, it may very well be appropriate for authorities to investigate the source of such a post. What if Joe was an unstable guy and showed up at the Apple Store armed? However, upon finding the post was made by a stand-up comedian with no legal record watching Fight Club and smoking pot, perhaps a stern warning is more appropriate than engaging an already-overloaded legal system for months. I know I'd think twice about what I posted if several armed cops came to my house. I hope Joe thinks things through better. Again, common sense on both sides. 
• Putting the management of social media sites in the business of monitoring posts will break the entire system. Much like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act puts the burden on the copyright owner to inform the carrier or website of a violation, we must rely on established chains of authority. Let's not make Mark Zuckerberg and his staff the parents of a half billion people, some of whom are just plain knuckheads.

Of course, anyone can hire an attorney and sue anyone else for just about anything. But with the continued rise of social media and access to very public forums, such lawsuits can quickly spiral out of control on both sides. With freedom of speech comes responsibility. Let's hold users accountable and our communities—online and offline—will benefit in the long run.

posted by Doyle

Great coverage (thanks to Jill Thompson at Metzger!) of the Boulder entrepreneur scene by CNBC. All of us at Metzger are proud to be a part of this vibrant and growing community. Take a look!

posted by Doyle

I found this NPR story interesting—how many of us have a plan for dealing with our ever-growing online footprint after we've logged in for the last time?

Just as social media is changing so many elements of business, this story—and the book it covers, called Your Digital Afterlife—reminds us about the changes affecting us personally as more and more of our world goes online.

The book recommends a "digital executor." This is simply someone that has access to your online accounts so your profiles, emails, etc., can be handled according to your wishes after you're gone.

While I've not read the book yet (just downloaded a copy via the Kindle app to my iPad!), here are a few things I've encountered that you may wish to consider:

• Turning off email accounts. I recently received an email from a close friend of mine that passed away last spring. It wasn't a message from the great beyond, but a digital spoof of his Hotmail address. It was unnerving to see his name pop up in my email inbox, and I can only imagine how his wife and kids must have felt. Shutting down accounts can help stop actions that were once just annoying, but can become heart-wrenching. (And, I'll say it again: there needs to be a special place in Hell for spammers.)
• Capturing kind words. In more and more cases, social networks are becoming the place where friends and loved ones leave their final kind words and thoughts. Without capturing and downloading, dormant accounts may get turned off by some social networks, causing you to lose those memories forever.
• Making sure your financial accounts are safe and accessible. So many financial relationship now live exclusively online. In my case, there is no broker my wife can visit because everything is with an online brokerage. The account is our money, but happens to be in my name. I need to make sure she can access that (probably sooner than later!). For security reasons, many companies such access very difficult (which is good) but it's not the thing a family member going through a loss wants to deal with.
• Communicate. I have a number of business acquaintances that, while not close friends, I'd like to be informed about if something happened to one of them. Social media networks can be an efficient way to accomplish this and also reach people that family may not know.

Just like other planning for our own passing, like writing your will, this isn't the most pleasant of tasks, but it's fast becoming an important part of that list.