A Question of Authenticity

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (here) that I am trying to grow my @ShiftingStories twitter account, not least with a view to publicising the book in the run up to the launch, in the hope of shifting a few more copies. That seems a reasonable and sensible thing to be doing.

However, something else happened that made me realise the need to manage the boundaries and ethics of promotion (and particularly self-promotion) with great attention. Someone I don't know sent me a request to connect on Linked-In. Normally, I ignore these or turn them down, or if I am feeling nervous about whether it's someone I have met and forgotten, send a note asking when we met.

But this time, because growing my social media presence is on my mind, I accepted. I then got a message back, quite friendly, but very much about promoting this chap's business. Not too bad, but not quite the spirit of the thing, I think. But then, and this is what grated, he endorsed me for five skills: executive coaching, leadership development and so on. Yet, to my knowledge, we have never met, still less worked together.

All of which made me feel that this was somewhat insincere - untruthful even. And worse, that by accepting his initial request, I was colluding with this dishonesty.

The irony, of course, is that following this blatant flattery, I am much less likely to do business with him than I would have been if he had left it at the straight promotional plug - which at least had the virtue of honesty. Apart from anything else, why should I believe those quoted on his page as endorsing him?...

And that gives me pause for thought about how best to promote my book. Overt promotion is I think absolutely appropriate. I have written and published it for a reason: I think I have something of use and interest to say, and I want people to read it. Growing the book's Twitter account very deliberately seems appropriate too: it is transparently an account for the book, and it is in the nature of Twitter to connect with people you don't know. But there is clearly a boundary, and I think you cross it once you start feigning interest in things or people you are not interested in, and that you are way over it once you start giving feedback on people you have never met (or books you have never read, come to that).

Of course, I may be doing the chap an injustice: I notice we have several connections in common, and it may be that they have all been singing my praises to him, so he feels he can endorse me with total honesty. I would like to believe that, I really would. But I have my doubts...

Shifting Stories

This week I have sent the final proofs of the book to the publisher. That follows several weeks of proofreading, amending, re-proofing, catching a few more errors or infelicities and amending, re-proofing. And then a catastrophic computer failure (the screen dying) on the part of Jane’s Mac, on which the book was. Fortunately we had an up-to-date backup, so were able  to buy a new machine and rescue it. 

In celebration of finally sending it to the publisher, and also because I was running a workshop on Shifting Stories for leaders at Sunderland University, I launched a Twitter account for the book: @ShiftingStories.

The idea is to start the process of engaging people in conversation about the ideas in the book, signpost the new website (to follow) where I hope more extensive conversation will take place, and, of course, prompt people to buy the book when it is published.

So if anyone has any expertise on growing a Twitter account, I'd be most interested!

I also had the good fortune, this week, to learn from Mark Reed how he has been successfully marketing his excellent book: The Research Impact Handbook . This is selling extremely well, and he kindly shared his marketing strategy with me. The first thing to say is that Mark’s book looks excellent: I have only had time to dip into a borrowed copy so far, but that was enough to convince me to buy it.  But there is no doubt that one of the other reasons it is selling well, is that Mark has given serious thought to his marketing strategy, and I look forward to learning more from him.

I also announced the other week that I had seen Mike’s latest design for the cover of Shifting Stories, and this seems like a good time to post that to this blog: so here it is.

I am also toying with writing a short book on one particular story and how it may be shifted. I imagine calling this one: One Day They'll Find Out: Imposter Syndrome and Other Stories.  I would be very interested to know if anyone would find that a good topic. One option would be to make it available as a free .pdf book, as a trailer or taster for Shifting Stories. But as I say, that is still at the 'toying with the idea' phase.

Due Process

I am a fairly informal person, with little love of bureaucracy, though I do recognise the needs it serves and indeed the importance of those. In particular, bureaucracy is developed to mitigate and manage risk, and to improve efficiency.

And that particular part of bureaucracy known as 'due process' is meant to minimise the risks of a miscarriage of justice. 

One of the growing risks for many organisations is reputational damage. It is so scary, so toxic and in the age of social media can occur so rapidly, that it can be tempting to react very quickly to any threat.

But we skip due process at our peril.

I have not written so far about the Tim Hunt affair. That was partly because I wanted to take my time to reflect on it; but also partly because I wasn't sure how accurate initial reports were. 

Various institutions reacted with extreme rapidity - presumably to limit the reputational damage they feared from being associated with his alleged remarks. But I am beginning to wonder if their haste may not have damaged their reputations too - because they did not follow a due process.

In any just system, however open-and-shut a case may appear, it is fundamental that someone accused has the right to present his or her case.  Tim Hunt was denied that right before being told to resign.

Now it appears that the main witness for the prosecution (as it were) may not be a credible and reliable one, and the case may be less open-and-shut than it appeared. And that leaves the institutions concerned with the unenviable prospect of - possibly - having to review their hasty decision once they have examined the available facts more closely.

For myself, I thought the twitter response was brilliant: the #distractinglysexy selfies posted of women engaged in every type of scientific endeavour was a wonderful demonstration of what needed to be said, and was witty and not abusive.

But I found it less edifying when those who questioned the rush to dismissal were portrayed as the establishment closing ranks to protect one of their own.  That may have been what was going on, but I am not convinced. I don't think it irrelevant that women scientists who have worked with Hunt thought the reported comments were not typical of the man they knew; and now it turns out that the initial account is not only contested in several details, particularly the context; but was also promulgated by someone whose own accuracy and veracity do not seem to stand up to scrutiny.

Those who insist that the response was proportionate to the harm his alleged comments are perceived to have done point out that he is not being stripped of his livelihood; they are honorary positions from which he has been forced to resign. 

But I think that, particularly to a man at his stage in life, reputation is important, and that we are all entitled to our good name, unless we forfeit that right.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

I do not know whether Hunt is as foolish and mysoginistic as the initial reports suggested, though increasingly I am doubting it.

But my real point is that, like anyone else, he should be deemed innocent until proven guilty, and that the lack of due process in the way various institutions dealt with the PR crisis is an injustice, and reflects very poorly on them. Surely the correct response would be an immediate statement distancing themselves from the reported remarks, and including that they were going to investigate further, including asking Hunt in for a meeting to hear his side of the story.

Experiments with Twitter

The other day, prompted by a comment from a colleague, I decided to experiment with live tweeting during one of my workshops.

I sent participants a note in advance explaining that, and mentioning a few ways it might be used, including questions, feedback to me, and so on, but saying I did not wish to constrain them and would be interested to see what happened. I told them the hashtag we would use.


So on the day, as well as the projector connected to my laptop for a few slides, I had a second projector and screen in the corner of the room, to which I connected my iPad, which had Twitter open, displaying tweets with the appropriate hashtag (initially, just one from me).

I mentioned the Twitter experiment again at the start of the workshop, including the hashtag on an introductory slide, and then waited to see what happened.

In the event, there were just two tweets from participants, to which I replied.

At the end of the day I asked participants for their views on the experiment, and they said:

• It had not been a distraction
• It was interesting to see what others had commented on (and I, too, had found that interesting to see)
• It had not really been necessary for questions etc as the session had been so interactive and participative: perhaps it would be more valuable for a larger group (nb there were 14 people on the workshop).

I learned a number of things from the experiment. Firstly here are things I noticed and will do differently:

1  My iPad ran out of power before the end of the day (and the charger uses the same slot as the output for the projector, so I had to re-charge during sessions which meant the tweets were not visible, which was a disincentive to tweet further). So next time I think I'll alternate between my iPad and my iPhone being connected to the projector.

2  The image size was much better when the iPad was in Landscape rather than Portrait orientation.  So next time, I'll make sure it is Landscape from the start.

3  Even so the image size was a bit small: so next time I will find a better position for the projector so tweets are easily read from the back of the room.

4  I initially replied to the tweets without using the hashtag, so my replies did not show up on screen. I then retweeted the replies with the hashtag, but as tweets rather than replies, so they did not 'nest' with the tweets to which I was replying. So next time I will reply with the hashtag included.

NB One thing I got right which I must remember next time is to use a unique hashtag that is unlikely to be used by anyone else, and to check that it is not being used.

I was lucky, too, to have Janet Lavery on the workshop. Janet has some expertise in using technology to enhance learning, and gave me some valuable tips at the end of the day, for which I am very grateful:

1  It would have been better to state the purpose of using twitter in the introductory letter, not say it was an experiment (apparently, experiments demonstrate that the word experiment lowers participation rates!)

2  It would have been better still to have given them specific things to tweet about: eg when doing group activities, the observers could have tweeted observations, and these could have been reviewed together after the activity. It is important to make clear that it is not compulsory - some people don't like social media.

3  It would have been better at the start of the day, when I asked people to put their phones on silent, to have encouraged them to leave them on the table, so they were accessible for tweeting (most people put their phones away, once on silent mode, from force of habit).

4    It would have been better to set aside some time (say just before each break) at least to acknowledge, and if appropriate discuss, tweets so far.

5  It is important to do a screengrab quite promptly, if you wish to save the conversation, as things may disappear.

I'll be very interested to hear from anyone else who encourages live tweeting during workshops; or anyone who has experimented with this and decided to stop.

I'm inclined to give the experiment another outing, informed by the learning so far, and see if it does add anything of value to the workshop. What I'd like, in particular, is if it develops into a conversation that lasts beyond the workshop, which might help with the retention, and transfer, of learning.

A Heart-Warming Story

My last post was about a social media debacle.  This week, I have been struck by something much more positive - again on Twitter.  (I'd hate you to imagine I spend all my spare time on Twitter, but I do find it fascinating!)

Stratford Caldecott is dying of cancer. His family (whom we know) are naturally distraught; but not focusing on that, they have instead been focusing on how happy they have been as a family (see a moving piece here), and how they can make Strat's last day's a bit happier.

Apparently Strat has always been a huge fan of Marvel comics, and was sad that he was too ill to get to the cinema to see the latest Avengers film, and was likely to die before it was out on DVD.

So his daughter, Sophie, took to social media to run the #CapFor Strat campaign.  She posted on her blog about her father, and wanted two things.  One was to have a private viewing of the new Avengers film at their home before the DVD is officially released, so that Strat can see it.  The other was to have the stars of the film send her photos of themselves holding signs reading [character] for Strat. Within 48 hours she had selfies from The Hulk (who seems to have been one of the first, and prompted some of the others), Captain America and many of the rest of the cast; and also the promise of a private viewing of the film at their home.

She also got a massive number of messages of good will - and many funny selfies - from complete strangers.

Click on the hashtag  #CapFor Strat on Twitter to see the huge, and heart-warming response. This is what social media can do at its best: forge connections of compassion and understanding across huge numbers of diverse people - and educate them too (in this case about prostate cancer).  For Sophie's later reflections on this, see her more recent post here. 


For the record, when I'm on my deathbed, I wouldn't particularly want the Avengers assembled; but if you could arrange visits from, say Asterix and Obelix, or Mafalda, I would really smile.

What's going on?

People are often surprisingly interested in the other things I do, apart from the particular context in which they've encountered me.

So I have started this blog and a Twitter account as a way of giving people a glimpse of the range of things I get embroiled in.

Some entries will be straightforward accounts of what's going on, where that's in the public domain. For confidential work, I will change names, organisations, timelines etc to protect my clients' identities, whilst telling the stories I think people will find interesting and instructive.