Isabel Walcott Hilborn

Google: Evil OK, in China

Cross-posted at the Supernova Conversation Hub:

Google is bringing the issue of protecting human rights at the cost of the company's market share to a shareholder vote - as reported by Joseph Hunkins at WebGuild.  The two proposals up for a vote are that Google would strictly control censorship and data sharing to protect human rights, and that Google would establish a Human Rights Committee to monitor these issues.  Google recommends no to both proposals, and they'll be able to point to the fact that their shareholders voted these proposals down as an excuse for not doing them.

The approach is an attempt to justify Google's capitulation to anti-democratic policy from countries like China - behavior that they've been called to task for engaging in because of their "do no evil" mantra.  The sad thing, to me, is that giving a question like this to shareholders: "Should we do the right thing even though it means making less money?" is giving it to the wrong party to decide.  Shareholders don't say no to profits. 

It's the users who should be asked, and the users who can decide to abandon the Google ship if they see objectionable, hypocritical behavior.  Insofar as a choice to deny human rights may alienate Google users, the stock prices could fall on a "no" vote -- but most of the time issues like human rights in far-away countries can't compete with great technology and brand.  An effective boycott is unlikely, a yes vote is unlikely.  Perhaps "do no evil" and "make money in China" are fundamentally incompatible.  Perhaps a mantra change to "do no evil except in countries led by repressive dictators" is in order?

Best Revenge Song Ever?

I was in the post office yesterday and heard Carly Simon's wonderful "You're So Vain" (Pity about the shoulder pads in this video - I think her big smile is really cute at the end). 

It struck me what a great classic relationship revenge song this is, and made me wonder about other revenge songs.  "I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee" is a particularly poignant commentary on love gone wrong.  And "you're with some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend" is so harsh!  I love how the bitterness contrasts with the happy-go-lucky upbeat tune.

So then I got to thinking about the totally rocking "Song for the Dumped", the first Ben Folds song I heard at Brownie's in the early 90's when he was still playing to small crowds and jumping all over the piano (Mark Bonasera where are you now?).  A completely different style but it is also a potential winner.

When I surfed YouTube this morning to find a fitting tribute for a friend's 50th birthday, I knew I was on a roll and would have to blog about revenge songs. I found this song this guy wrote "for" his ex-wife on the occasion of her 50th and laughed until I cried.  Not at his lyrics but at his performance (sorry dude).  Listening to it again I am already giggling.  It only takes about 30 seconds to get the picture, but there is a nice bonus lyric at the very end if you have the stamina.

I'm sure all three of these targets have heard the song that was written for them and had that feeling that we all know they should have had.

Send in your favorites and I'll make a top ten list.

I'm blogging for Supernova

I've been doing some posting at Supernova's Conversation Hub lately, and I'll be doing some more over time.  I'll try to post reminders here but you might want to subscribe to that RSS if you don't want to miss a beat.

The Supernova conference, June 16-18 in San Francisco, has been one of my personal favorites for years, and this year I'm working with them.  I highly recommend you register now, before the prices go up.

My Conversation Hub posts so far this year:

http://conversationhub.com/2008/03/11/will-aggregated-social-graph-mean-privacy-violations/

http://conversationhub.com/2008/03/10/more-apres-mixer-posts/

http://conversationhub.com/2008/03/09/last-weeks-mixer-an-inspiring-conversation-starter/

http://conversationhub.com/2008/03/06/supernova-mixer-tonight-in-san-francisco/

Disillusionment

This is so sad.  If you can't trust Eliot Spitzer to be an honest politician, I don't think you can really trust anyone anymore.  He did so much for Wall Street, and for New York.

I don't really get why prostitution is illegal, and I don't think public figures should lose their careers over their consensual sexual behavior.  However, in this particular case, like in the recent Larry Craig scandal, the unforgiveable hypocrisy is the problem, not the action itself.

I've always thought of Spitzer as the king of clean.  I guess it is always the ones who protest the most who have the most to hide.  Sigh.

Two Different Viewpoints

I really liked Chris Carfi's post yesterday.  David Cushman is in the market for a car and has used his blog to invite someone to sell him one.  Chris picked up on this and used it to write a little lesson about how businesses should think about marketing.

Chris' point: while companies are focusing on their viewpoint, customers are focused on theirs, and the two aren't really meshing.

My take on this is that in the past, customers probably had to flex a little bit and see things from the vendor's point of view, and vendors got spoiled and started, foolishly, to insist on this.  I relayed a story about a case like this, also involving a car sale, a few months ago.

These days, the balance has shifted to put the power into the hands of the customer.  This is what Cluetrain is all about.  So companies are focused on Selling; they Market because they have discovered it helps with sales; and they Support because they have to, it helps with sales, and it's an extra revenue stream.  End of story, right?

Wrong.  As Chris points out, these three functions are the flip side of what the customer is doing:
- Search (Marketing is supposed to reach the customer during this stage)
- Shop (Sales supposed to kick in here)
- Help (Support supposed to address this need)

Chris' view is that the vendors are in a "transactional mindset", and if they had a "relationship" with the customer they'd have David's business already.  The reason this is true is because if more companies saw the need to maintain a connection with their customers even when their customers weren't in the process of buying something, they'd have a good way to ask their customers for referrals. 

In particular, referrals could be incentivized - and although many businesses do this, many more that could do not.  If I could make $1K by reading David's blog and telling my auto dealer about him, I'd be on the phone to my dealer right now.  Or even if I weren't compensated - if I just had a friendship, or if I'd gotten a referral from that auto dealer for my business and owed him one.  There are lots of ways to build a relationship.

High-end, high-touch businesses do this as a matter of course, but thanks to the Internet (and no so incidentally tools like Chris Carfi's cerado, now everybody can do it.