CopyBlogger: Should We Be Worried About Fast Food Content?

Earlier this week on TechCrunch, Michael Arrington wrote an alarmed post about “fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content today.”

Mom and pop operations and hand-crafted content sounds an awful lot like you and me, doesn’t it?

So is this actually something we need to worry about? Is what Arrington calls “the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale, force fed to us by the portals and search engines” going to destroy the businesses we’re building on a foundation of high-quality content?

Arrington is deeply concerned about sites like AOL and Demand Media, which scrape and mash real content into something that’s theoretically legitimate (since it was compiled by a human being rather than a piece of software), but in practice gives no value to the reader.

This “mainstream spam” can be efficiently optimized for search, or thrust onto the unsuspecting eyeballs of AOL users. (Haven’t the poor things suffered enough already?)

Arrington believes there’s no hope against this onslaught of junk content, which is going to overwhelm all of the good stuff.

Clearly, we’re all doomed
Arrington advises content creators (that’s you and me) to:

Figure out an even more disruptive way to win, or die. Or just give up on making
money doing what you do. If you write for passion, not dollars, you’ll still
have fun. Even if everything you write is immediately ripped off without
attribution, and the search engines don’t give you the attention they used to.
You may have to continue your hobby in the evening and get a real job, of
course. But everyone has to face reality sometimes.

Apart from the whining, the exaggeration, and the hysteria, the problem with Arrington’s argument is it’s based on a number of bad assumptions.

Specifically:

Bad assumption #1: Search engines and mega portals are the only way to get traffic
AOL is feeding their content slop to their “massive” audience (which, in fact, is shrinking at rates that would make Biggest Loser proud). Arrington makes the assumption that those AOL customers won’t come find your non-crap content, because the fast food stuff is the only thing on their radar.

This then leapfrogs to another bad assumption, that the only way anyone sees content is to find it on a mega site like AOL, or via a search engine like Google.

Links from your favorite bloggers count for nothing. Tweets from a friend count for nothing. Facebook pointers count for nothing. Email from your mom counts for nothing. No one ever points a friend to genuinely valuable content and says, “Hey, you should check this out, you would like it.”

Bad assumption #2: Readers will keep reading crappy content
AOL’s user base is still big enough that I’m sure they’ll get some readers at least skimming their stuff.

But when it comes to content, Darwin rules. If content doesn’t meet the needs of users, it dies. We can’t even force grade-school kids to read what doesn’t engage them. What makes us think that AOL can “force feed” their users anything?

And what makes us believe that even if those users do skim AOL’s lame content, that they’ll never read anything else, or that, when they have a particular need or concern, they won’t go actively looking for something more useful?

Business tip for TechCrunch: when you find yourself afraid of a stumbling dinosaur like AOL, there’s something gravely wrong with your thinking, your business model, or both.

Bad assumption #3: Google would rather serve fast food content than your content
Now I hold no illusions that Google is a benevolent, all-knowing deity that rewards the just and punishes the wicked. But based on observation, it’s pretty clear that Google would rather serve good content than scraped and mashed junk content.

Google wants their searchers to find a good experience on the other side of their search result. If sites like Demand Media, a video producer that slaps together 4,000 videos a day in what amounts to content sweat shops, can deliver content worth watching, they’ll do well.

If they don’t deliver something worth watching, they don’t give Google’s searchers the experience Google wants to deliver. Which means Google becomes less valuable.

Google can’t be “force-fed” any more than readers can. There’s no reason to believe they’ll treat this “hand assembled” spam more kindly than the bot-created kind.

Bad assumption #4: Content means news
Arrington also says that sites like the New York Times are “outright stealing” his content and passing it off as their own. (And he warns you, little mom and pop, that your content’s going to be stolen without attribution as well.)

By “stealing,” Arrington apparently means that when TechCrunch publishes a breaking story, the New York Times often writes a story on the same topic, using their own reporters and neglecting to thank him for his tireless journalistic efforts.

If you’re not TechCrunch, this is not a problem that you need to spend even four seconds thinking about. You already know from hanging out on Twitter and reading blogs that news spreads more quickly than anyone’s ability to control it, and that nobody “owns” a breaking story.

For those of us who create “hand crafted” content, what we say isn’t nearly as important as how we say it. We rarely break news (although occasionally we become the news.)

If readers want the latest news, they rightly go to a site like TechCrunch, the Times, or, increasingly often, Twitter.

It’s when they want useful knowledge, insight, or analysis that they come back to us. Plus, there’s a reason we get you to focus on delivering educational content versus commodity news, right?

We’re valuable precisely because we can cut through the noise and give them only what’s useful and relevant to them.

I’m sure it’s irritating to Arrington not to get a linkback from the Times, but that’s his headache, not ours. He seems to be doing ok without it.

Bad assumption #5: You need millions of eyeballs to make a living
There’s an implicit bad assumption behind all of the explicit bad assumptions in Arrington’s post, which is that the only way you’ll be able to make a living with content is to attract huge amounts of traffic.

In other words, the only possible model is to attract enough attention (via search engines, for your breaking news) to monetize your site with advertising.

But you already know that’s not a business model for the real world.

Let’s say you have a blog that gives business advice to yoga teachers. You’ve paired that with a simple but effective marketing system to sell group coaching, individual consulting, and information products to readers who want to go further with what you’re teaching. You only need to find a few hundred customers a year to make a very nice living.

No fast food content generator on earth is going to outrank you for “how to run a yoga studio.”
If a cheap, scratch-the-surface video or post does outrank you for that #1 spot, the reader quickly finds out that the fast food content doesn’t meet her needs at all. Click goes the back button, and she’s looking for you again.

Your content collects links from like-minded people, because it’s cool and valuable.

Other yoga teachers (and herbalists and organic co-ops and past-life regression therapists) will spread the word about you faster than Google ever could.

You have no reason to run advertising for anything other than your own products. So you don’t need to pull hundreds of thousands of “eyeballs” to make a decent living. You just need to make a great connection with the right 300 people.

So what should a “whole food” content producer do?

Exactly what you were doing yesterday.

Keep your eyes on your audience, not Chicken Little pundits telling you (again) that you can’t make a living.

Keep following the First Rule of Copyblogger. Keep creating content that rewards the reader for consuming it. Keep cutting through the clutter and noise by being smarter, more relevant, and more interesting.

Fast food content is just the latest incarnation of an old affliction — spam. If it hasn’t killed us yet, this new version isn’t likely to make much of a dent.

For content-based marketing strategies that work in the real world, sign up for the free Copyblogger email newsletter, Internet Marketing for Smart People. It’s packed with the information and advice you need to create real business success, and it’s 100% hysteria-free.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

Picture This! Artwork, Graphics and Visualisation for better data management

"A good sketch is better than a long speech..." -- a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte
The ability to visualise the implications of data, is as old as humanity itself.

Yet due to the vast warehouses (quantities, sources, and silos) of data being carried around our global economy at an ever increasing rate, the need for superior visualisation is growing dramatically.

Over time we will naturally migrate toward superior visualisations to cope with this oceanic tide of information or be lost in the tidal wave that engulfs us.

Our ability to deal with data, in a non-visual and graphical nature, is self limiting. Whereby the human becomes the squeeze point where data grinds to a complete halt, awaiting further decisive action.

Neanderthal Approach
Since the days of the cave paintings, graphic depiction has always been an integral part of how people think, communicate, and make sense of the world. This modern world is no different, new information systems are at the heart of all management processes and organisational activities.

The good news is that even in a world of information surplus and overspill, we can draw upon deep human habits on how to visualise information to make sense of a dynamic reality and enable understanding and comprehension.

Moore's Law
The quality, timeliness, granularity, and volume of data has increased greatly. Also, with the ever improving assistance of Moore's Law, we have the power to recombine and analyse the vast stream of information at a price point that makes even very advanced visualisation techniques within the reach of any business.

The Power of Three
Working with my clients, I've seen three primary benefits of superior graphic representation:

1. Greater visualisation is more efficient — they let people look at and absorb vast quantities of data quickly.
2. Graphics or visual representations can help an analyst, or a group, achieve more insight into the nature of a problem and discover new understanding.
3. Better visualisation can help create a shared view of a situation and it will establish a shared alignment on needed actions.

Data Combination
In addition to arranging the information to create shared understanding, visualisation gives us the ability to combine data to create a new insight, quickly and clearly

Mapping Tools
The quality of cheap mapping tools and the availability of vast quantities of free or inexpensive data is growing. The planet is becoming "smart" in the sense that we can track, monitor and see much more of both the built and the natural environment.

The Challenge
The challenge is that if management teams do not consciously build in great visualisations, their organisations will waste an inordinate amount of time, sifting through the quagmire of bits, and may not even get to the effective insights they need.

Collaboration
Perhaps most perniciously, people will be too focused on their own part of the puzzle, never getting to the shared and collaborated understanding that allows teams to take the right action in a tight time-frame.

Questions?
Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is there a simple map or maps of information that could make my life easier?
2. Do we have the ability to take this data mountain and synthesise it into these new forms?
3. How much time does the organisation waste arguing about the facts instead of deepening understanding or crafting solutions?

YouTube Better Watch out: Koobface Botnet Exploits Social Engineering Sites

The Koobface botnet, one of the most efficient social engineering driven botnets, is entering the Xmas season with a newly introduced template spoofing a YouTube video page, in between enticing the visitor into installing a bogus Adobe Flash Player Update (New Koobface campaign spoofs Adobe’s Flash updater), which remains one of the most popular social engineering tactics used by the botnet masters.

What is the Koobface gang up to? Would they continue sticking to their true nature and rely on social engineering tactics, or would they start using active exploitation tactics such as client-side exploits?

Let’s discuss some of the new developments introduced on the Koobface front over the past week, and try to answer these questions.

Experimenting with client-side exploits - last week, for the first time ever, the Koobface botnet started serving client-side exploits by embedding two iFrames on the hundreds of thousands of Koobface-infected hosts, for a period of several hours.

Despite its reliance on outdated exploits used by the web malware exploitation kit in question, this does not automatically mean that their “infection optimization” strategy would go in vain taking into consideration the fact that a huge percentage of users/enterprises continue failing to properly manage their “software inventory”.

Whether the gang would re-introduce the use of client-side exploits (drive-by download) remains yet to be seen, however, this move directly contradicts with the infection model of the botnet, which so far has been exclusively using social engineering tactics. Read More.......

Employees Breaking the Chain of Command - Need to be Heard

Employees sometimes feel the need to go over their boss’s head and take their problem higher up the chain of command. Understanding why this happens can help leaders address underlying organisational problems.

The three main reasons that employees go around their boss are very clear.

You're not listening to me!
The greatest number of cases involve unresponsiveness; supervisor or managerial inaction. When an employee questions or expresses dissent to a manager, it was either dismissed, ignored or re-buffed with an unfulfilled promise.

You have no idea what you're doing!
The second driving force was a manager’s apparent incompetence or low performance. Employees regularly report concerns about how their boss is performing; mismanaged tasks, scheduling vacations, managing workflow processes, conducting performance evaluations, etc.

You're only out for yourself!
The third option is unfortunately about questionable behaviour carried out by the manager. This can include employee harassment, (both physical and emotional/psychological) unethical behaviour, and regular or blatant abuses of organisational policies and practices.

Suffering abuse from, finding fault with, or having reduced respect for their managers and supervisors is fundamentally the reason most employees decided to circumvent them.

Why are you bringing me this?
If you are approached by an employee who has skipped around the normal chain of command, it is your duty to give it some close thought. Employees who break the chain of command do so reluctantly and with some fore-thought. Many times they feel the need to emphasise their point and the unethical nature of the complaint.

Perhaps they have exaggerated the severity or urgency of the topic, but this is done to justify going around their manager. You need to be aware of this, because if you also dismiss this approach as being trivial or concocted, then you are in danger of commiting a greater sin against the individual, his colleagues, with whom he will share his experience, the organisation and yourself.

You will be seen to be endorsing a poor manager who is operating at a low level, abusing employees and implementing bad practices. You risk being condemned by the employees as being of a similar vain.

Conclusion
Employees will only circumvent their manager and reach out to someone higher in the organisation after a great deal of soul searching and when they feel they have good cause. They are being dismissed, ignored, and /or abused. Are you listening?

Finding another executive position

If you talk to recruiters and headhunters that are specialising in executive searches, you will discover taht they are all saying the same thing: Talent cannot hide, if you're good, we'll find you. This may or may not be simple rhetoric but for today's executives whose phones are not ringing off the hook, we thought it might be useful to ask about the dos and don'ts of raising one'sprofile and getting picked up on a recruiter's low frequency radar.

For my part I will concentrate on the IT profession. A survey of 150 enterprise executives and IT managers found that while 38% found their current job through a personal network, 30% worked with a recruiter to land a job. Leaving 32% to wander in the wilderness.

Executives not looking to move, the headhunters we interviewed said there are ways you can make yourself useful that will pay dividends down the line and mistakes that can, put you in the doghouse forever.

First, you need to establish some kudos. After years of operating on the outer rim of the C-suite fishbowl, enterprise IT managers /executives are in deep. The executive IT manager role has moved to the forefront. It's a true C-level position.

The IT manager has found a seat at the table but IT managers are expected to contribute at board level. They are not an overhead to be controlled and contained, or a back-office function to ignore until something happens. They are a business enablement function that needs to be developed and cherished.

With the status comes pressure. There is zero tolerance for anything but solid execution, benefit achievement and results. The board room and sponsor expectations are higher than ever.

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."

The IT manager /executive operates on a different level than several years ago, when IT was at the epicenter of the tech bust. IT managers /executives are expected to be more business focused and enabling. There isn't a job that IT doesn't support and the extent of their financial spend and budget control is often the biggest in the company.

Moreover, despite all signposts pointing to a rough road ahead, recruiters remain busy, even if they are looking over their shoulders. Good candidates have multiple options and are difficult to retain.

Here are some suggestions, from the macro to the minuscule, for managing your career, so that you have multiple options too.

1. Track record

This speaks to the cardinal rule of recruiters: Build something and they will come. IT managers /executives who are going places stay at one organisation for a long enough time to deliver.

If you haven't been through a business cycle or two, I don't care how good you are, you can't claim success or real experience. A year or 18 months usually doesn't cut it. You have to be at an organisation long enough to live with your decisions, to make adjustments, to fix you're mistakes and to build on the things you've got right.

IT manager /executive searches often begin with very specific queries from client companies. A CEO of CFO will come forward and suggest that they want to drive a massive transformation of the business and require a strong IT manager /executive who has successfully completed major systems integration. Given some more specific information, the search is then on, where that talent exists.

Companies know that you don't always have full control over how long you last in a specific position but you should have management power over your career.

You have to look at your career and ask, 'Am I continuing to progress, am I getting broader, bigger and more complex responsibilities, am I building a portfolio of experience that will be valued by the next company, or the company after the next company?" Look for good companies and good leaders from whom you can learn.

Remember, nobody is going to do that for you. If you sit back and let your career happen, you might get lucky, but you might not. I wouldn't be too comfortable in letting fickle lady luck and moody madam fortune decide where I end up or what I am able to do.

2. Visibility

About two-thirds, maybe even three-quarters, of the people that headhunters contact during executive searches, are already in the headhunters' databases. It's their job to know who is out there before they are hunted but that leaves a good chunk of good people who have slipped under the low frequency radar. This includes those who are working so hard they haven't had time to put their head up.

Leave behind the cloak of invisibility and the anonymous mantle of obscurity. All headhunters stress the importance of getting on the speaker circuit and raising your profile. When doing a search, the first place to go is to the top expert in the field who is talking about this subject. Identify a topic you know well and have a lot of experience in and tell your vendors that you're available to speak at events.

Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well staged performance. Surely our profession would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results

If it has been some time since you last agve a talk to a big audience, you can first get on a panel or a forum, which may be easier than giving a direct speech. People are always hungry to get expert speakers. It is actually easier than you think to be on a panel or a forum.

If you are selected as a speaker, prepare, prepare, prepare. Word travels fast if you fail to meet expectations.

We are a big fan of LinkedIn, but it must be used strategically. Your information must be accurate and concise. Hide your connections, but do connect to as many good people as you know. It is only prudent that you should ignore any request from somebody you don't know, and do ignore it, there is no need to write back and justify your actions.

3. A trusted source to recruiters

The covenant of eternal employment was broken some time ago, hence the need for a strong professional network, which includes headhunters and recruiters.

You need to proactively build a relationship with executive recruiters in your space, so you come into their mind before insignificant others.

Good recruiters have visibility into the marketplace. Over the course of a long career, a recruiter can act as trusted advisor but good relationships are a two-way street and mutually beneficial.

Good headhunters are busy and they're going to be spending most of their time on the searches they're being paid to do, not just giving out superfluous career advice to you. You can make yourself useful to them, in ways that will repay you many times over.

If you're the IT manager of Acme and used to work at GE, the headhunter may call you and ask to talk to the best IT person in your organisation, with Six Sigma process improvement knowledge. The question is are you willing to give them that information? If they ask you for a reference for a candidate that you know from a previous position, would you provide this?

When it comes to your own career, don't exxagerate or fudge. If you're thinking of leaving but can't really move for the next eight months because you're due to come into a major stock option, you'd better say so. Be honest and good recruiters will be honest back, sometimes painfully so. They don't work with people who are lying and exaggerating. It's not worth their while because ot erodes their integrity.

4. Go best, young execs

A word to the wise for the up-and-coming executives: Ambitious professionals look for the next rung up, the job nobody thought they could do, to prove themselves but the wise investment might be a lateral move, if there is an opportunity to learn, grow and work with the best.

These can be great learning environments and worth the investment and sideways step. Clearly, it's best to make the investment early in your career, if possible, when you have a little more flexibility in the scope and scale of role you can take.

In any case, big organisations, the Microsofts, Dells, GEs and Procter & Gambles of the marketplace, tend to hire "bigger than the role."

These companies are so complex, the matrix is so difficult to get your arms around. To put you in a stretch role in an environment where you don't know the company, you don't know the political landscape, is really difficult. It's a unique individual who can take on those two variables and be successful.

Their view is to put you in a role that you can do, so you're not underwater from day one. As you progress and figure out how things get done, they will expand your role. It is an expansionist veiw, limited only by what you are capable of.