Radical transparency and the death of spin.

I often talk to my students about the power of today’s networked information environment in shaping reputation. Keeping secrets has become extremely difficult, for businesses, politicians, and even 15-year-olds. All you need is one person (often yourself) to put the information in digital format and post it somewhere where others can read it. The network effect can be frightening. In a matter of minutes, it can become world-wide news. And even if you take the information down, it will always exist, cached on servers everywhere just waiting to be found. The result can be tremendous pressure on companies and politicians to clean up their act and be accountable. And I’ve always told my students, some of whom are budding CEOs and CIOs themselves, that the way to control your reputation is not by controlling information that is made public, but by making more information public yourself.

Well, enter Wiredmagazine, which has done a fantastic job in reporting on this idea and giving it a cool name: radical transparency. It has several articles on the subject but this one in particular tells the story beautifully. In fact, the whole article was written in the author’s blog inviting reader feedback, some of which is featured in the printed article. As the article’s author, Clive Thompson, says:

The Internet has inverted the social physics of information. Companies used to assume that details about their internal workings were valuable precisely because they were secret. If you were cagey about your plans, you had the upper hand; if you kept your next big idea to yourself, people couldn’t steal it. Now, billion- dollar ideas come to CEOs who give them away; corporations that publicize their failings grow stronger. Power comes not from your Rolodex but from how many bloggers link to you – and everyone trembles before search engine rankings.

Some of you may be thinking: What about industrial secrets? The secret recipe of Coke? As Clive points out:

[Some of my blog readers] enjoyed ripping apart my new theories. Several pointed out that secrecy can be necessary – CEOs are often required by law to keep mum, and many creative endeavors benefit from being closed: Steve Jobs came up with a terrific iPhone precisely because he acts like an artist and doesn’t consult everyone. In fact, secrecy is sometimes part of the fun. Who wants to know how this season of 24 is going to end? It’s not secrets that are dying, as one reader named gjudd noted, but lies.

Secrets can be useful tools for competitive advantage. Even though there are many cases when even those secrets are better left in the open. Just look at the success of all the open-source software out there.

So it’s not secrets that are dying. It’s spin control that’s dying. This spells trouble for PR firms.

What’s making me even more excited is the impact this is already starting to have on politics, where transparency is a dirty word and spin control is god. Remember George Allen’s “macaca” comment that got posted on YouTube and cost him a Senate seat?

Politics is going to be fun again.

Wikipedia vs. Citizendium: Let the battle begin!

Citizendium, an alternative open online encyclopedia, has gone live. It was created by Larry Sanger who happens to also be a Wikipedia cofounder. The two encyclopedias share a lot of similarities. They are both free to read and open for anyone to edit. They are also both ad free. However, Citizendium requires contributors to use their real names while Wikipedia doesn’t. And Citizendium will go to experts for verification of its articles, while Wikipedia will not.

 I won’t debate the latter difference. I am always a little suspect of “experts.” Maybe it’s because I work in academia and I see how many times “expertise” is just misguided stubborness.

But the real-name-use rule is interesting. There is a plethora of research on the effects of anonymity in computer mediated groups. The results are not always consistent but some trends have emerged. For example, anonymity in such groups promotes flaming, the act of posting hostile and insulting messages that are often long and rambling. Flaming can be done by group members that would not otherwise engage in it if they weren’t anonymous. Anonymity can also increase group polarization. Both findings would favor Citizendium.

However, anonymity also increases the number of original ideas (though not necessarily the quality of the best idea), partly because it allows everyone to contribute, even if they are disagreeing with the majority of the group. This may favor Wikipedia, especially since it sometimes allows for multiple articles on a topic, if it’s one that is controversial or is subject to interpretation.

By requiring real names, Citizendium promotes accountability and responsibility which is a good thing. But it also may silence many contributors who may have important knowledge but are reluctant to provide it under their real name. Citizendium does allow one to apply for a pseudonym, but only in special cases.

Who will win the encyclopedia battle? I don’t know. Only time will tell. My bet is on Wikipedia. It has the momentum, the experience, and the brand name to attract enough contributions to sustain it. And despite the room for vandalism and malicious content, it allows everyone to add information without fear.

But Citizendium has definitely made this battle more interesting.

Twitter, Dodgeball, and other funny things about privacy.

When I teach my class on e-business, at some point we talk about location-specific services. The idea is that information and services are available on a device that is mobile (from a cell phone to a laptop) based on the device’s current geographical location. I talk about how it would be possible for a company to push information, such as an ad, to a cell phone or PDA if it knows its location (through GPS, for example). So, as I pass outside a BestBuy store I could, theoretically, receive a message on my cell phone giving me a unique code I can use to get 15% off my purchases if I go in and buy in the next hour.

What ensues is a flurry of hands up followed by complaints about invasion of privacy, annoying interruptions, and so on.

At which point, I usually give my short speech about how in the US Constitution, privacy was never explicitly written (only implied by certain later amendments) and how that is representative of the schizophrenic attitudes Americans have about their privacy. They always seem to be complaining about its loss, often up in arms trying to protect it, but in the same breath will give away tons of personal information for just about anything: discounts, free t-shirts, 15 seconds of fame on YouTube, you name it.

Dodgeball (owned by Google) and Twitter are two services that allow others to know where you are and what you are doing at all times. They do it in slightly different ways but the bottom line is the same: They can be used to disclose private information about one’s location and whereabouts. And both are very popular. In fact, Twitter was all the rage at SXSW recently.

The way I see it, people will give up their privacy more and more, partly because there will be better things offered in exchange and partly because they will have no choice. We seem to be continuously decreasing the amount of private information we truly expect to have. But at some point, and it may already be here, there will be a huge market for “privacy technology.” The average joe and jane out there will be willing to pay for “information island” technologies: solutions that allow them to have information that is fully disconnected from the rest of the networked world. I have a feeling that in the not so far future, we’ll be talking about all the start-ups that offer exactly those kinds of solutions.