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marketing & social media strategist focused primarily on helping public sector organizations achieve their objectives more efficiently and effectively

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international speaker and workshop facilitator on the topics of strategic marketing, modern communications, social media engagement and government 2.0

Public Sector Marketing 2.0 - Fresh insights on government, association, and non-profit marketing in a Web 2.0 world

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Archive for April, 2008

April 22, 2008

Wikipedia Zealots vs. The World

There has a been great deal of discussion and controversy lately regarding the accuracy of Wikipedia entries and the existence of so-called Wikipedia “Zealots” controlling and manipulating the information with their inherent biases. Lawrence Solomon (an editor for the Financial Post) wrote an article last Saturday (April 12th) entitled: Wikipedia’s Zealots – The thought police at the supposedly independent site are fervently enforcing the climate orthodoxy. -where he provided a play-by-play of how his entry had been repeatedly edited by a single editor holding a different opinion on climate change. In response the blogosphere is questioning the accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia as well as it’s “loss of innocence” so to say.

So what are my thoughts on all of this?

It’s unfortunate, but I think this will always occur to some extent. This is why communism doesn’t work in practice (someone needs to control the system for it to work) and why democracy has a tremendous rich/poor gap (elite in control). The good news is that thanks to social media, we now have the means to discuss these issues publicly and start up conversations with a worldwide audience. Just look at the amount of discussion on the topic of “Wikipedia Zealots” since that Financial Post article was published (Google the term or just do a Technorati Search).

Being “aware” and “informed” is crucial. Each individual still has the responsibility not to take any piece of information at face-value and determine potential biases. Think of it this way, if you were reading a particular entry in Encyclopedia Britannica you would probably assume it to be true even though the individual biases of the particular academic(s) that wrote the article would be inherent in the text (even if minimal). It would not be questioned. However, with Wikipedia, the entries are constantly being questioned and as a result stirring discussion that continually makes them better. I can guarantee you that this climate change entry (mentioned in the Financial Post article) will be re-written over time to accommodate multiple views thanks in large part to the controversy surrounding it. There will probably even be a Wikipedia entry written on the “Wikipedia controversy surrounding the Lawrence Solomon article”. The wisdom of the crowd, in my opinion will therefore prevail in the end. Nobody ever said it was a straight road with no hurdles…

What are your thoughts?

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April 12, 2008

Mad month of April…

Well, the social media marketing workshop blitz out West (which went very well by the way) is now over. It’s time to go back home. This past month has been pretty crazy for me, not just professionally (4 client strategies due), but in my personal life as well. On April 4th, 2008 I finally took the plunge and proposed to my girlfriend whom I’ve been living with for the past 3 years. She said yes after a surprise 4-hour timed treasure hunt I had organized for her involving 6 locations, GPS tracking, snowshoeing, sweating, hill-climbing, drinking at a bar, clues, lifelines, romantic spa, horseback riding, 200 candles, PowerPoint slide show and driving long distances all the while not being allowed to contact me for help. To make things even more challenging, we are moving into our new home this week (closing date is April 15th). I have decided to take the next week off for obvious reasons. Anyway, I usually don’t use this blog to spill out too much personal issues, however I wanted to explain why I haven’t posted in a few weeks , although I have been using Twitter , which is a great tool to communicate in exactly these types of situations (especially when it is integrated into your blog).

I though I’d share with you the single most valued item that many of my workshop participants mentioned on their evaluation forms. To me, this is basic stuff, however I have to keep reminding myself to stop swimming in the small fishbowl of the social media community and take a plunge into the ocean once in a while. One of the first steps in my workbook is to “Gauge the existing level of conversation about your organization or marketing initiative”. The simple tool I provided participants with was the Technorati Advanced Blog Search, specifically the resulting conversation graph tool that is provided in the search results. It gauges the level of “conversation” , whether positive, negative or neutral on the give topic. Since I had many individuals from the BC government, I did a quick search on that term (shown below). I then asked if anyone knew what all those sudden spikes in conversation were? If anyone was there to respond or get engaged in the conversation? Then i told them to imagine doing this for their specific initiative. They were amazed. What’s even better, Technorati allows you to post this little graph tool as an HTML widget that dynamically updates on its own. Very useful.

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I’ll leave you with that this week, and will be back full force once I set myself up in the new house. For all you public sector marketers and communicators out there, be sure to attend MARCOM 2008 this year. You can use the MARCOM Wiki to suggest round table topics.

Cheers,

MK

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