Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Facebook CEO not just a greedy pig; also a dangerous geek

05.25.2010 by David Murray // 7 Comments

The conspiracy theorists among us—and who isn't lately?—believe Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suckered most persons in the civilized world into revealing our every lofty hope, filthy desire and gnawing fear on his website, and then turned all the information over to corporate marketers to take whatever advantage they can.

Which, technically, is true.

But a sentence in Zuckerberg's apologetic op-ed yesterday revealed that another factor is at work here. Regarding the recent disastrous privacy policies, Zuckerberg said, "Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted."

Granular controls? No, I don't want granular controls. I don't know anyone who wants granular controls.

The conventional thinker will leap to say Zuckerberg should have done focus groups to see what people thought of his policy.

I will leap back and say, If you need focus groups to tell you that the average overworked, overwhelmed, information-overloaded American doesn't want "granular control" of his or her privacy settings, you're too geeky to be trusted to run anything nearly as socially important as Facebook has become.

I'm not quitting Facebook, but I am hoping its leaders somehow get replaced by people who know more about human beings than this Asberger Zuckerman.

Categories // Uncategorized

Memo to misspeakers: You have to explain your intentions, not just apologize for your “actions”

05.24.2010 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

Today senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal has issued an e-mail apology which sounds angry: "I have firmly and clearly expressed regret and taken responsibility for my words. I have made mistakes and I am sorry. I truly regret offending anyone." You expect the next sentence to be, "Are you fucking happy now?"

Why aren't we happy? At my Vital Speeches blog, I explain.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // "misspoke", apology, Richard Blumenthal, Vietnam

Friday Happy Hour Video

05.21.2010 by David Murray // 3 Comments

This one goes out to you, Eileen Burmeister, from WGCL.

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