When you choose to add someone on Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare, do you stop to think about how they might react to your invitation? And when you receive a request, what kinds of reactions have you had? There are many emotional responses to a friend request, and often, an imbalance of expectations between the requester and the receiver.

I don’t mean to be sexist, but one of the most imbalanced of these relationships is the guy/girl thing. I know a guy who thinks if he stops his car for a girl in a crosswalk, she will be so impressed and so grateful that she will want to have intimate relations with him. He’s delusional, but this illustrates how extreme male thinking is. And in the meantime, the girl in the crosswalk was probably thinking, “That guy stopped so suddenly. He scared the hell out of me. What an idiot.”

Online, this dynamic comes into play when a guy receives a friend request from someone he finds attractive. He may think, “she/he is attracted to me and this is the start of an important relationship.” The sender, however, may simply be looking for a professional contact, someone to beef up his/her “numbers,” or someone to spam.

Similarly, the self-important social media expert or Internet marketing guru may see a friend request as validation of influence and celebrity, while the requester may simply find them mildly interesting. Or not.

I’d be interested in knowing if this makes sense to anyone, and whether you’ve experienced any of these reactions.

The title of this post, incidentally, is based on the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics, given to several economists including A. Michael Spence, a former dean at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (among other things.) I’m hopeful that this will give me an edge when the Nobel Prize for Social Media is first awarded in 2012.

In a show of incredibly bad taste, Jalopnik reports today that “Jimi Heseldan, the 62-year-old owner of the Segway Company, died yesterday when he accidentally drove one of the sucky two-wheeled gyroscope-controlled “future” transports off a cliff and into a river.”

In the lead to a story about someone DYING, Jalopnik manages to mock both Heseldan and his company. Ever hear the expression “too soon?” I also saw numerous jokes on Facebook posts about this story.

Jalopnik’s story reveals Heseldan’s many impressive accomplishments. So why the snarky lead and headline? Is that what we’ve come to? Everything is funny. Even people dying.

Tags: Segway, Jalopnik, Jimi Heseldan

Social media is expected to bring with it a new world order in which global participation and communications will erase our differences and bring about peace, love and understanding. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Carrie James, research director for Harvard’s Project Zero, spoke at the recent Mashable Social Good Conference. James said her focus is to “mentor young people to use social media for social good,” adding that she shared with everyone at the conference their optimism for the potential of social media, but that she would also offer “a less shiny picture, specifically of young people’s uses of social media.” She quoted Henry Jenkins who said young people need “new media literacies” in order to use social media ethically. James is involved with the Good Play project, which looked at how young people see their online activities in ethical terms.

James and her colleagues found, not surprisingly, that ethics is not a primary concern among young people as they post to social networks, play multi-player games, comment on a video, etc.

I’ve often wondered about why this is, and to be fair, I don’t hold “young people” solely responsible. There are plenty of people in every age group who behave badly in online social settings. I for example found myself leaving harsh comments on blogs until I realized that behind every blog is a person with feelings, hopes, dreams, insecurities, etc. I know it’s lofty and a little sentimentalist, but dehumanization, ignoring these commonalities, is a key step toward the “freedom” to abuse others with impunity.

In response, about two years ago, I created the Social Media Love Manifesto, my attempt to get people thinking about these issues and agreeing to stop. It is one of the least “successful” things I’ve ever done online, but every now and then I will try to promote the idea. (The Manifesto is in a wiki. Anyone can become an editor.)

Sociologists and internet theorists have been debating why people behave badly online for as long as there has been a Web. Is it the perception of anonymity? (And why would anonymity encourage a basically “good” person to be bad?) Maybe it’s the idea that the Web 2.0/social media world “isn’t real.” Perhaps it’s the thrill of feeling like millions of people are reading a person’s wry observations and shaking their heads up and down as if to say “he really gets it.” (People don’t understand the difference between the number of people with Web access and the number of people who actually read and care about their comments.)

That’s where Personal Social Responsibility (PSR) comes in. We love all the new media ways to donate to various causes. With a few key presses we can send money to Haiti by SMS or make a donation through Moveon.org. But does the availability of one-click decency give us license to stop thinking about the social good we can do one-on-one (online and off) every day?

I hope once social media “grows up,” and clearly it hasn’t, moral, ethical and social considerations will play a larger role. Maybe one of the components of Web 3.0 will be the recognition that people online are real, that we’re not just sending keystrokes and taps to the screen, but that we have the opportunity to praise, encourage and elevate.

Tags: Carrie James, social good, Personal Social Responsibility, Social Media Love Manifesto, Project Zero, Henry Jenkins, Good Play Project

There have recently been some discussions about “ghostblogging,” the practice of writing blog posts on behalf of someone else, and whether it is unethical. (Some are debating whether the practice is “right” or “wrong,” which is interesting, but less meaningful.)

It’s hard to support any argument that it is unethical*. It might be misleading. It’s certainly inauthentic, but so is everything. (Sipping a latte in the ersatz cafe culture of a Starbucks on the New Jersey Turnpike you don’t really expect to see Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg at the next table.)

In October, 2007, I was on a PRSA social media ethics panel with Tom Foremski, Jerry Ceppos and Jon Greer, and I was asked the question, “Would you ghost write blog posts for an executive?” I said then I would do everything up to but not including writing an entire post, such as providing email briefings with suggestions for blog posts, developing and managing an editorial calendar guiding each week’s posts, editing draft posts, and offering blog-by-email (in which an executive emails me a blog post which I format, link, tag and post to the company’s blog).

I also suggested that if I were asked the same question two years down the line (it’s been three), my answer would probably be different. I predicted that with changing corporate attitudes toward social media, blogging would be seen as just one more tool in the corporate marketing mix, with all that this implies.

With over a decade of Fortune 500 executive communications experience, I have some unique perspective to offer. I have supported CEOs and other senior executives at a number of publicly traded companies, by writing speeches, editorials, company-wide emails, and personal correspondence. Admittedly, I still run into people who are surprised to find that (most) executives of large companies do not write their own speeches, but most understand it as a business reality. Why then would we expect executives to write their own blog posts? Or more accurately, why would we say it is unethical if they don’t?

Publicly held companies are beholden to shareholders and are evaluated principally on revenue, revenue growth and profitability. Any activity that does not contribute to these objectives is suspect. Executive blog posts are designed to support business priorities – promoting the company, its strategy and vision, and products and services. Various interests within the company, such as public relations, marketing, and analyst relations, influence the content of executive blog posts. This influence can come in the form of guidelines, review of blog post drafts or ghost-written blog posts. The executive blog post written solely by the executive with only his or her original thoughts is highly unusual in the Fortune 500.

Large companies are also heavily regulated, principally by the FTC and the SEC in the U.S. The SEC has various “quiet period” requirements limiting what kinds of information can be released prior to quarterly earnings. The FTC regulates what kinds of competitive statements can be made. For these and many other reasons, executive blog posts at large companies are subject to review and editing, with large portions often coming from the “pen” of someone other than the executive.

Another factor affecting this is executive time constraints. A CEO in particular has many priorities ahead of blogging, so an executive communications or public relations manager, or corporate communications staff may draft blog posts on behalf of the executive.

This effect is amplified because many companies are still evaluating the importance of blogging in the corporate communications mix. That means it has not yet taken the place of other communications vehicles, and is an added burden on the executive and the entire organization. This often results in use of the executive blog as “one more channel” to feed, and ghost-written posts based on existing content are a ready-made solution.

These are just a few of the legitimate reasons for ghost-written executive blog posts. I don’t believe this raises any ethical issues whatsoever. Ghost-written posts and heavily “messaged” or edited posts are certainly less authentic than true, personally written posts. And companies that use these tactics may not enjoy the full benefits of social media that come from direct consumer/customer engagement. But that is not an ethical issue.

Some day, instead of an iPhone and Foursquare, we will have chips embedded in our brains that automatically transmit to the latest equivalent of a blog our thoughts and our location. When that day comes, there will be corporate communications professionals with proxy chips that authenticate them as the CEO of their company, so that they may broadcast on his or her behalf.

Here are some recent posts on ghost blogging:

Paul Roberts on PR: Is Ghost Blogging Ethical? Sep 8, 2010 - Every Wednesday for the next four weeks Steve, Lou Hoffman, Todd Defren and I will blog about the same topic. This week’s topic - is ghost blogging ethical?

The ghost blogging debate | Spin Sucks Aug 16, 2010 - Ghost blogging. It captivated my attention for 40 minutes as they professionally debated why you shouldn’t ghost blog (Mitch’s position) and why it’s okay…

Ghost Blogging And Last Rites | Six Pixels of Separation Aug 16, 2010 - If there’s one debate that never gets tired, it’s the one about Ghost Blogging. We’ve come to this strange intersection with Social Media where companies…

* The statements in this blog post, and in all of my blog posts, are my own, and represent my own opinions and not those of my employer.

These statements are also of a general nature and I am not referring to experiences within any specific company.

Craig’s List continues to come under attack for the “Adult Services” section of its online classifieds. In its latest move, in response to a letter from the attorneys general in 17 states, CL has replaced its Adult Services section (in the U.S.) with a simple graphic that says “Censored.”

According to CBS News:

“…the law sides with Craigslist, says First Amendment lawyer Doug Mirell. ‘The Communications Decency Act says that essentially those who are simply providing a bulletin board by which others can post their content is not going to be liable for the content itself,’ he says. That content is big business for Craigslist, by some estimates potentially $45 million dollars this year.”

Others say Craig’s List is a playground for predators and murderers, particularly in light of the activities of the late Philip Markoff, the man dubbed “The Craigslist Killer.” (Markoff was found dead in his cell August 15.) Markoff allegedly killed a Manhattan masseuse he met through Craig’s List’s Adult Services listings, and also had a habit of hiring prostitutes through CL and then robbing them.

This is a complex situation, a First Amendment issue, wrapped in a morality story, shrouded with a public safety concern. It’s hard to characterize Markoff as “an average Craig’s LIst user.” He was obviously an insane, homicidal freak, who did not need Craig’s List to do what he did, although the site helped.

A popular argument for allowing CL’s Adult Services posts, specifically those that advertise prostitution, is that any time a so-called “morals crime” is “eliminated” in one area, it just goes somewhere else. (This happens in the real world, too. When police do sweeps in one part of a city, prostitutes just move elsewhere.) And there are other sites on the Web that promote prostitution, though none are as visible or well known as Craig’s List.

So perhaps Craig’s List was censored, or more accurately, is censoring itself. I am a staunch supporter of the First Amendment. My degree is in journalism and I had a very traditional upbringing in the sanctity of First Amendment freedoms. Then came the Internet, and some things that already existed became more visible and more talked about, things like hate speech, plans for making bombs, and the use of social sites for planning terrorist attacks.

Arguably, the law allows Craig’s List to do what it is doing. Perhaps the law should be changed, but this is commonly called “a slippery slope.” Once you legislate against one kind of speech, others can quickly fall in behind. I “knew” a lot of things 20 years ago that I am no longer so certain about. I now know freedom of speech is not absolute (the Supreme Court concurs), but I am less certain than ever about where the lines should be drawn.

Tags: Craigs List, craigslist, first amendment