Archive for ethics

PRSA Wikipedia Study – Full of Errors?

A recent PRSA study is making the news today. The way it was presented in Tulsa, Okla is that business entries have a high degree of inaccuracies and Wikipedia won’t do anything to help. Of course the headline from PRSA likely isn’t helping either, “Survey Finds Majority of Wikipedia Entries Contain Factual Errors” which at its core is incorrect and sensationalistic.  The truth is only in the case of Wikipedia articles about companies. Really PRSA, you couldn’t include that clarification?

Like all things, there is much, much, much more to the story.  You can read the entire study here and I encourage you to do so.

One part they go to right is this, “Results of the survey indicate a gap exists between public relations professionals and Wikipedia concerning the proper protocol for editing entries.” Perhaps this is the real story.

There are two parts to the study which just doesn’t make sense to me. Before we get to that here is what Wikipedia has to say about PR people making edits:

I work in PR, and would like to fix up the article about the person or company I represent. Is that okay?

Possibly, if you do it in a way that respects Wikipedia’s goal of being an accurate, unbiased source of information.

Please do

  • remove obvious vandalism (see Help:Reverting if you want to do this as cleanly as possible)
  • fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or facts
  • provide accurate references for information that’s already in the article (and we have a strong preference that the reference/citation be a reliable source)
  • add or update facts, such as a person’s date or place of birth, a company’s location or number of employees, or details of a recent event – and if you do, please add a reference/citation; otherwise, other editors have no way of knowing if the change is true or not

Please do not

  • try to use Wikipedia to promote or advertise your client(s) (see our policy on conflict of interest, for details)
  • remove negative material (exception: material that violates our policy regarding living people)
  • copy-and-paste content from another site, even if you manage the other site (if you personally own the copyrighted text, see WP:IOWN for requirements for copying it)
  • add information that cannot be independently verified, or that isn’t significant for an encyclopedia article
  • add, delete, or modify text that’s particularly controversial or where facts are disputed (again, with the exception of removing unsourced controversial information about living people, per WP:BLP)

If you’re not sure a particular edit will be welcomed, then please ask in advance on the article’s talk page.

Please be aware that other people will edit what you’ve written, and that each article’s history page is public and will reflect exactly what you have changed. If you aren’t willing to accept that, then you should not edit. (from wikipedia FAQ)

Here is what I don’t understand. From the study:

“The most common error types as selected by respondents who indicated that they had errors currently on their company or client’s Wikipedia article were historical information (68.5%, n=287), dates (37.7%, n=153), leadership or board information (37.4%, n=152), financial figures (28.8%, n=117), criticisms (27.1%, n=110), spelling (21.2%, n=86), and other (35.2%, n=143) (see Chart 1). The “other” category included errors about product information, links, locations, general facts, and even company names.”

It would seem to me that each of those errors could be corrected by a PR person and be within the guidelines set forth by Wikipedia. 

For those who did make changes the study says the following:

“Of those who have directly edited Wikipedia for their company or client, 32% indicated that their edits always “stuck” (n=112) while 24% said they “stuck” about three quarters of the time (n=85), 21% said about half the time (n=74), 11% said about one quarter of the time (n=39), and 12% said their edits never stuck (n=41) (see Chart 3). In other words, this means that about 77% of edits stick at least half of the time.”

If you’ve ever edited a wikipedia article you know the requirements for doing so are high. Third party verification, no opinion, etc. You see, Wikipedia tries to keep it on the up and up. (see rule re not using Wikipedia to promote or advertise your client). I’ve seen news break on wikipedia only to be kicked out until it can be truly verified. And when it was the content was put back up.

In my opinion, the real value of wikipedia isn’t just the information, but the debate which ensues around that information. The smallest detailes are debated and posters are challenges.  My favorite example is the definition of social media. If you look at the conversations you will see this little nugget, “This page was nominated for deletion on 27 July 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus, default to keep.”

Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. Wikipedia does a great job keeping the two separated. Scratch that – the wiki community does a great job of keeping the two separate.

 

Would You Hire Facebook?

Today’s news, that Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller to “plant negative stories” about their competition got me thinking – if you needed to hire an outside firm for help and you knew they had done something similar, would you hire them? If you already had a contract with them would you terminate their services? Or would you look the other way or perhaps reprimand them in some way?

For many businesses Facebook is that vendor, a third party of sorts. I’m not saying Facebook’s actions are reflective of your work or brand but at what point do we take some kind of action?

I’m sure the same question could be asked of many industry leaders. When do we stop buying petroleum products, phone services or banking products from certain companies because of their actions.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Facebook. In a presentation I give regarding social media I mention six factors to consider before using Facebook, reasons not to use them. At the end I mention there are more than 500 million reasons why a company should. A yeah/but proposition.

I suppose our path to using Facebook is paved with good intentions. I suppose.

Tell me your thoughts. I really want to know.

Reasons to avoid being an armchair quarterback

Have a Seat

(What follows is an updated post based on feedback from my good friend Matt Galloway.)

With the Superbowl upon us I thought I might touch on the topic of armchair quarterbacking  - a person who offers advice or an opinion on something in which they have no expertise or involvement the process. I’ve seen this for a while on the blogosphere and now see it emerging in traditional media sites. In my opinion it just has a feel of bad form but the reality is, in the communications industry, badmouthing the efforts or lack of effort by others in our field verges on violating the high ethical standards all our respective organizations have set (PRSA, IABC, AC, etc.).

Let’s visit some reasons why being an armchair quarterback is a bad practice in general:

You don’t know the reasons why decisions were made (the basic premise) - I will be the first to tell you after attending a client meeting the tactical decisions which emerge might be nothing like what I would have suggested going into the meeting. Research, finance, human resources, audience profile, tech knowledge, culture and more all come into play making even the smallest strategic and tactical decisions. It is impossible for anyone outside the room to know all this. If you weren’t at the table you really just don’t know the real reasons.

There is a better format to review criticize - I had an old boss who had a practice of always praising in public and criticizing in private. People loved him and the best managers at this company learned from him. You can too. If you have a suggestion regarding how an organization might have done something different, send them an email. Trust me it will be easier to write and they will most likely appreciate your thoughts even more.

Regarding the “advice”, wise men don’t need it and fools won’t heed it - Nuff said, don’t waste your time. Better yet, go do something more productive.

Who asked you for your opinion? – Unless it was the company I say keep it to yourself. Better yet, write a review about an effort which totally rocks!

Who would you hire? - Think about it who would you rather hang with at a party, the bore in the middle with nothing good to say or the nice guy off to the side who talks about all the great things in the world?

What goes around comes around - Trust me on this one, I believe in Karma and see it all the time. To be honest, when I see an article of the armchair quarterback nature it makes me want to go out of my way and call all your work into question in a very public forum. I would never do this but trust me, someday someone will probably for the same reasons you are.

End-run
Okay, so you really, really want to be an armchair quarterback and write a blog post about what was wrong with someone’s efforts then go ahead. But let me offer some suggestions – don’t include names and talk about the topic from a theoretical point of view. Be sure your comments are grounded in fact and not simply conjecture and if you must write that blog post do some research. To be clear, there isn’t anything wrong with saying the emperor has no clothes but make sure you find out why he’s naked before telling him he’s doing it all wrong. Maybe all his clothes are simply in the laundry.

Peace.

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