A word on accountability

One of the aspects of this new connected world we are inhabiting is that the high degree of visibility and the fact that Google doesn't forget means that we have to be more conscious of our behaviour than in the old analogue world. Casual remarks can last forever and people we have never met can make assumptions about us based on what we write. My blog is a large part of my professional persona these days too and ripples from my actions here can reach the four corners of the globe.

When I started writing this blog I studiously avoided negativity of any sort, hoping that it might be a small optimistic influence on the world in the face of so much negativity we experience through mainstream media. I have however been slipping recently and my last post about act-km has rattled a few cages.

I wrote it for the reasons that Niall picked up on immediately in the comments - that it is frustrating that some people involved in knowledge management spend way to much time on the management and are too inclined to tell people what they should or shouldn't say and how they should or shouldn't say it. It is this that kills so many of the systems intended to encourage people to share their knowledge. Yes maybe I "should" have expressed my frustration on the forum but to be honest it would have just resulted in more of what was frustrating me anyway!

Maybe it is not such a bad thing to let my guard slip a bit now and then - a friend IM'd me to say that he preferred it as it made me seem "more like the rest of us".

What do you reckon?

Comments

[Lee Bryant]

I say: be honest. If that means you only see optimisim, then that's fine and I'll have some of whatever you're smoking ;-) If that means you sometimes appear negative then IMHO that will make you sound more honest and therefore more credible.

The world is what it is. You can't change it for the better by ignoring its problems.

[Patrick Lambe]

Absolutely right about visibility Euan, and I think your response in this post is a fair one. No harm in being human and letting the guard slip, but as we learn all too quickly, when we speak in the public sphere, it is a give and take world, other people have voices and views too, and they use them. We also ALL extrapolate far more than the words themselves would legitimate about motives, feelings, and attitudes, no matter how experienced we are in this domain. We only learn and learn to get by with others (I believe) when differing opinions have the chance to encounter each other and bounce around a bit in the same space and speak in human voices. Dave S has just asked a very interesting question on ACT-KM about whether there are any differences in cliquishness/openness between the Forum-sphere and the blogosphere - suggesting in fact that forums like ACT-KM are more open than blogs - do come back and help us puzzle it out.

Best

Patrick

[Euan Semple]

Depends what you mean by openness Patrick. For me the quality of conversations, such as this one, originating on my blog have mostly been higher than those in open forums. Something about the signal to noise being better.

This is not to say that I am not a fan of forums - they are a very effective way, certainly in the early days, of raising issues and starting the conversation. What we gained experience of at the BBC with our forums, which I just learned have had 15,500 staff use them, was how to influence behaviours without having to resort to moderation or being too directive.

Thanks for asking me to join in again but I think not.

Cheers

Euan

[Stowe Boyd]

I am not a fan of "stiff upper lip" soldiering through. If something is annoying, howl like a stuck pig. So, good on you for going ballistic over overcontrol of what should be open dialogue. [Note, however, that I reserve the right to cull all trolls!]

[Jon Husband]

I think it's all good, and that everything will work out for the best in the end. The people in charge, that run things, are focused on what's best for the rest of us. That's what keeps them up at night.

It's all I ever permit myself to talk about.

[Kathryn]

I've been reading your blog for nearly four years, and I've enjoyed the tendency toward optimism. I've also learned a few hard lessons about blogging, especially when it comes to the personal realm (discerning between "inside voice, outside voice"). The key seems to be the focus. Writing about one's frustration with a problem or situation is very different than ranting about people. I think you've contained your criticisms (when you give them) to the issues. It's the ad hominem attack that can do so much damage. I'm all for a complaint from you now and then -- it's reassuring that you live in reality. ;)

[andy]

What do I reckon? I reckon there is no "should" in something like this; there's no morals or ethics or right or wrong involved - you simply chose the path that seemed right for you, the most congruent path for you to take at that time. Anything else would be less of an expression of who you are.

As to the negativity vs optimism thing, that's a tougher one to figure out (and one of the reasons my own blog has been so empty of anything remotely meaningful of late). I guess anything less than complete openess will always mean something is being hidden, and the trouble with that is once we hide things from the world, we risk hiding them from ourselves too, and it becomes a vicious circle. Either that, or the world simply doesn't believe the one-sided picture we present it with. I guess that means I'm giving a vote for authenticity.

[Piers]

It's a little frightening to think of you, or anyone for that matter, moderating themselves because "Google doesn't forget". It's not too far removed from choosing your clothes because you're on CCTV.

Personally, I'd vote for letting your guard slip. I'd have thought it's far easier for people like Patrick/Act-KM to provide a better service if they're aware of improvements people feel could be made. If the criticisms are constructive - and as Kathryn says yours tend to have been - then for me that's still a positive.

[Marko Tusar]

Update on forum use: now 16,020 BBC staff use them!

[Euan Semple]

Excellent Marko - thanks for telling me.