The following is an image taken from the street artist Banksy.

Banksy is commenting on the ubiquitousness of closed circuit televesion and the spectre of living under a constant view of Big Brother. The irony is that Banksy painted this mural right next to CCTV cameras!

But this post isn’t about Banksy. It’s about privacy, or rather the lack thereof.

I recently attended a local technology meetup and met an individual from a company whose business model is based around collecting peoples’ information from social networks and providing them to credit bureaus. The rationale, is that businesses will pay money to verify an online customer/community member from said credit bureau. This is done to verify that a person is not a “bot” or a complete fake.

My conversation with this individual went as so:

Me: “So, you collect information on users from a variety of social networks and sell it to credit agencies?”

Person X: “Yup. And when businesses want to verify identities we put them in touch with the credit agencies (for a fee).”

“And how do you mitigate any privacy concerns?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well, do people know you’re collecting this information? And if you’re storing stuff on a server in the USA, can’t the NSA examine this data?”

“Well all this information is public. So people must not care. Regarding the NSA…sure I guess. But I don’t think most people would care about this.”

I don’t know. I sure would care. But then again, if something is placed in the public domain doesn’t it become available for anyone to view? What’s wrong with making money off collecting public information?

Maybe nothing. After all this isn’t illegal. But just because something isn’t illegal doesn’t make it moral. The onus for people is to educate themselves and understand that privacy isn’t a privilege, it’s a right. Nobody has to know anything you don’t want them to know, and you should be aware that what you put online is never gone and is never truly hidden. As our lives shift more and more online, this online permanency becomes more and more important. Have videos of a drunken frat party on YouTube? Get ’em off before you graduate and apply for a job. Put your phone number in your Google+ account? Be prepared to get SMS ads sent to you. Share information publicly on social networks? Get ready for credit agencies to know every bit of detail about you.

So think about what you put online and treasure your privacy. Because like all rare commodities, one day we will run out. As much as I like Banksy, I’d like it a lot more if we never had to see another mural like this one again.

BAMA 513 Reflections

The course served as a nice refresher for a subject I was employed in prior to my doing the MBA. I did gain some new insight into certain aspects of digital marketing. The discussion around how website content flows into a CRM via Marketo was quite fascinating. I also enjoyed learning about the McKinsey model of the consumer decision journey.

At first I dismissed the model as more consulting jargon and an attempt to glean more money from consumers. But upon further reflection, I agree with a comment made in class that the model does a good job of focusing on the individual consumer as opposed to the macro-level analysis of traditional funnel models. Social media has given consumers (and everyone else) a greater voice, which forces companies to engage in honest dialogue.

I have believed since 2009 that social media should be viewed as a skill set rather than a dedicated job role. As the industry is quickly evolving, it appears that this belief is becoming a reality. It is rapidly becoming a point of parity for anyone working in marketing, communications and public relations (regardless of their specific job function) to have some aptitude in using not only social media, but other digital marketing fundamentals (e.g. SEM, SEO, funnel design, CRM, etc.) Just as using Excel or Word was a differentiator and then become the norm, basic social media knowledge will too become a standard of industry.

The field of marketing is evolving at a swift rate, and I for one am glad for this upheaval. My previous experience at print media showed me the dangers of complacency and the necessity to embrace change. It is a fundamental truth in business that the only absolute is the absolute certainty that shit will change. You can either ride the tide, or be swept underneath and smashed on the rocks. This applies equally to individual careers as much as it does to companies. Never rest on your laurels, and never assume that you have learned enough to quit learning.

Group Project – Koerner’s Pub

Our group project for Koerner’s Pub was a fun experience. I enjoyed the group dynamics and everyone on the team (Nash, Tom, Yacine, and Eric) provided some good insight. The owner was very supportive of the project and best of all, we got to drink copious amounts of beer and sample the delicious menu of UBC’s best pub!

The project consisted of utilizing Koerner’s Twitter channel to drive traffic to Koerner’s Facebook page. We tweeted about food, beverages, and “lifestyle” topics and included a trackable link with every tweet. The result showed that people liked Koerner’s pub, had trouble finding the pub, and responded highly to video and photos. We also performed a website audit and gave several suggestions for greater engagement. The entire project ran for 5 weeks.

Our group then presented our findings to the owner of Koerner’s. Unfortunately, I could not attend the actual presentation due to commitments with my employment, but I was informed from the other group members that it was well received, although it did not provide any ground-breaking insights.

Challenges

The largest challenge for me was mustering the enthusiasm to continue on the project. With several group projects on the go, working part-time and looking for gainful post-MBA employment work I was exhausted. Having said that, if I could do it over I would have been more actively involved in the project. The stress of finding employment post-MBA has been weighing on me quite heavily, and this obsession has been detrimental to my final MBA period.

A major challenge was the limitation in scope of what we could accomplish. Koerner’s website didn’t appear online until after we had started. Driving users from Facebook to Twitter is not an optimal tactic, as the audiences on both platforms are quite distinct. Furthermore, we did not really entice visitors to the Facebook page by posting any particularly relevant content. For example, we tweeted a fun fact about Koerner’s with the promise to learn more via a link, but once a visitor reached the Facebook page we did not follow up on the promise. This is a dangerous strategy, as visitors may get upset that the link they clicked on did not deliver on what was promised. Best to mitigate this risk by providing visitors exactly what they expect to find.