Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Would you like to work with the UK’s longest established association to represent the interests of the interactive industry? If yes, we’d love to hear from you, via, twitter.

You’ve gotta embrace social media tools, techniques and importantly, communities, before you can even think about taking on BIMA’s public relations. So, please make sure you’re on Twitter and are a member of the BIMA Facebook group before getting in touch. Why? Well, if you need me to answer that question you’re not right for the job

I have quite a few PR people following me on twitter so this approach shouldn’t limit us to the extent that we don’t find anyone. Well, I hope not anyway.

Who I’m looking for

I’m looking for a freelancer or small agency to work on a contra basis. So, in return for your amazing craftsmanship with words and untouchable contacts within traditional media, we’ll help raise your own profile. You’ll also have the opportunity to educate industry via BIMA, with respect to the new PR world we live in today. You could even use your work with BIMA as a case study. That’s it. More defined requirements should actually come from you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank immediate future for its amazing contribution to BIMA over the years. Katy Howell in particular has been personally very helpful to me over the past couple of years. Thanks Katy. Katy is of course, on twitter. You’re probably wondering why we’re looking for someone else if immediate future did such a great job. The answer is simple, Katy did such a good job that her company has grown quickly, winning all of Sony Europe, BT, Diageo, Kinder Kids, NSPCC and BBC in the last 3 months alone. Eek!

Please DM me to get the conversation going. I look forward to hearing from you soon. You’ll first need to follow me on twitter before being able to DM me.

To finish the blog title, should the CEO get involved in an online debate about their brand?

Yes, yes, yes, YES!

In October 2006, Irish blogger Tom Raftery published a short blog post to highlight the inadequacy of one of his suppliers.

A few people left some comments at the time, but it wasn’t until the CEO of the supplier responded did it all kick off. Some said they didn’t think it was appropriate for the CEO to respond online.

Without getting into the debate about who’s right and who’s wrong (because it’s none of my business), I’d like to state that I believe the CEO was absolutely right to leave a comment. From what I can see, a new comment left in January 2008 stimulated the CEO to provide his side of the story.

I’m writing this post as I believe all CEOs should have the balls to get involved in an online discussion, especially when their brand is under attack.

As a CEO I would have done exactly the same.

I haven’t quoted the blog post or the CEO as I don’t think the debate itself is important. It’s the response of CEO’s that I’m interested in.

So, if you’re a CEO, my advice to you is get involved no matter what. You can not influence the conversation if you’re not taking part in it.

James Corbet made a wild assumption which I’d like to address. In summary, James blogged that I violated a friend’s privacy by streaming live to the Web using a mobile video service called Qik.

I’ve pasted James’ blog post along with the comments left by other bloggers. I’ve done this because James doesn’t have email subscription to posts which means commentators aren’t informed of other comments being left. I really wish all blogs had this feature, including TechCrunch.

James said

So you’re out with a group of friends in a pub, enjoying a few drinks, letting your hair down. As you do. And then one of them pushes a camera phone in your face and starts streaming video live to the web. And immediately announces the fact to 518 other people. Not only that but he’s oblivious to your protestations and pleas to stop.

I don’t mean to pick on Segala’s Paul Walsh because I’ve certainly enjoyed and appreciated his video coverage of events like the inaugural Irish Digital Industry Association Dinner in Dublin recently. But Paul is a guy who writes regularly about online privacy and is CEO of Segala, a company developing technology which, among other things, is designed to help you find websites which follow best practices for privacy and copyright.

However, it seems to me that during last night’s broadcast Paul crossed the line by invading the privacy of at least one friend. If someone asks you to stop, puts their hand in front of the camera and looks clearly uncomfortable when you refuse is that not a blatant violation of their privacy? I don’t presume to know Paul’s friends so perhaps I’ve misread the situation but if someone did likewise to me I’d be very tempted grab their camera phone and dunk it in my drink!

Comments left by other bloggers

In particular, the live aspect means there is no opportunity to undo the posting of something you immediately regret doing. I can imagine a similar problem with Shozu when people are out on the tear. Qik Content Labels? “Warning, this video may contain scenes of drunk people”

Posted by: Conor O’Neill | Feb 6, 2008 12:26:35 PM

Damn, that last line would have been a much better post title than mine! Yeah, I only bring the issue up for discussion because I think it’s something that we’re going to have to be increasingly concerned with. As I say I thoroughly appreciate informative videos like Paul’s other ones and your Cork OpenCoffee ones and Pat Phelan’s travel ones, etc. But I’m thinking ahead here and realizing we’ll probably have a few QIKers at the Irish Blog Awards and similar sociable events this year and wondering if we’re going to have people streaming video from inappropriate situations? What are the ground rules? What etiquette applies?

Posted by: James Corbett | Feb 6, 2008 12:47:48 PM

It’s a discussion that has to happen and I think it’ll be a major issue as services like Qik are adopted by the greater web community. Over time, though, people will become comfortable with such invasions the same way we don’t think twice now about the plethora of CCTV cameras watching our every move.

Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | Feb 6, 2008 1:09:17 PM

Having had people shove cameras into my face and say “Can I put you on my Flickr?” I’m pretty used to this, but there is a time delay between the act of recording and the act of uploading. Qik, and others like it, destroy that delay (as you point out), and without immediate web access - like in a bar - you can’t delete something that fast, and even if you could it would be already online. Once on the the Internet, always on the Internet, right? Mind you grown-up, ‘digital savvy’ people in a bar will pale beside what will happen when more nefarious people get hold of this mobile tech. Interesting post!

Posted by: Mike Butcher | Feb 6, 2008 2:20:59 PM

My response

@James - I think you’re right. We do face a potential problem and a lot of care should be taken when streaming live to the Web. I’ve since removed my videos of last night but for different reasons.

Please note that everyone around the table were aware up front, that I was going to stream live. In fact, I spent about 5 minutes trying to change the SIM from my iPhone to the N95 so I could do it. With this post in particular I think you should have asked if anyone genuinely didn’t want to be filmed.

Some people put their hand in front of the camera when in fact, they love it. No, I’m not saying that no means yes or maybe

Do you use Qik and if so, do you worry about the privacy you just happen to capture in the background?

Regardless of the outcome, the Microsoft $44.6b bid for Yahoo! is likely to hog the entire media stage this week. So don’t even think about launching a new product or service as it’s not likely to get noticed.