In a recent post, I commented about the desire to have it all in social media (e.g. Twitter), via the current phenomenon of associating an employer's cooler branding with an individual's Twitter account, but adding in a contradictory disclaimer stating "opinions are mine" or "opinions are my own, not my employer's", etc. What-ever.
I am not going to go back into why it is not possible to so have it all, but rather, I will utilize a very recent example to further underline the point that just because it's social media does not mean that you can say/do whatever you want, as long as you have some kind of disclaimer.
Employers don't care as much about some arrogant-sounding disclaimer on a social media account which you use to promote yourself ,via their brand, than they do about how much something you do say impacts their brand negatively. Disclaimer or no disclaimer, if you associate their name, brand and trademark with something risque, you can expect there to be both scrutiny and discussion.
I read with great interest of the recent firing of a female consultant-employee, Adria Richards, who is something of a self-proclaimed tech expert, social media evangelist, brand advocate and blogger, among other activities. It seems that as part of her duties for SendGrid (a cloud-based email service provider), Ms. Richrards was attending the PyCon conference in Santa Clara, and overhead some offensive comments from two men sitting behind her at the meeting.
Having been offended by what are presumably quite typical jokes/comments from relatively young men (I find no need to repeat said comments in this piece) to her rear, she tweeted her commentary (plus their photo!) out to the masses. Not satisfied with that, she went into further details on her blog targeting the men in question, and further appeared to have contacted the conference organizers asking them to deal with the men in question.
To cut a long story short, what happened next has all of Silicon Valley buzzing, and it sure raises the issue of how social media is not simply a useful tool for spreading your word (whether it's warranted or not), but that it can and will be used against you when you mistakenly assume you are so important that you can say whatever you want. Wrong!
First off, the men in question were escorted out of the conference. I mean, really?! Had they made their offensive comments (I think a penis analogy was made) to or about Ms. Richards, fair enough. But she overheard two young men simply using some tech-speak terminology in analogy to the penis, and it seems doubtful that they were trying to offend anyone. There was zero claim of an "anti-women" sentiment in their joke, it seems.
Have we become so politically correct today, that as long as your beef is apparently coming from a stiff politically correct place, then the world must be seen to agree?! So now we cannot joke about anything that some prude or reactionary will rail against, because if it becomes public then it will be used against you in a barrage of public outcry and media scrutiny?
One of the two men in question was subsequently fired from his job at PlayHaven, a game company, and Andy Yang (CEO) even took to the company's website to address the issue. All this with no recorded proof of what they said or in what context or tone it was said in. A father of three, now sitting at home unemployed. Quite a victory for our Ms. Richards, you might say?! Nope.
In a quite ironic twist of fate, it did not go unnoticed that in her Twitter bio, Ms. Richards did what I warned about in a recent blog, and allowed herself the luxury of associating that account with SendGrid. One of those terrifically cool-sounding co-branding titles such as "developer-evangelist for SendGrid". Couple this with her own outbursts on her website/blog, and well, it was only a matter of time.
The irony was emphasized by the subsequent firing of Ms. Richards from her position, by SendGrid CEO Jim Franklin who said that she had crossed the line. The very person who SendGrid had hired to improve brand awareness and help build a stronger sense of community had in the end become a divisive force within the company itself, as well in the larger community. She had to go.
Her mistake was not the fact that she complained about offensive behavior, even if she did take even that way too far. The biggest error she made was posting a photo of the "offenders" in her tweet, with no actual evidence of what they said or its context, obviously with the intention of exposing them. Jim Frnaklin suggested that this alone was enough for her to be fired, given that she was there on SendGrid's behalf and used a Twitter account on which their name is associated.
It is unclear what will happen to Ms. Richards now, because who is likely to want to hire someone that appears to be both a loose cannon and/or a divisive individual with an agenda, when seeking a social media and brand evangelist? But I would worry a little more for the father of three who made what was probably meant to be a joke among two colleagues, and who ended up losing his livelihood because of it. The punishment is totally out of line with any supposed misbehavior.
However, the story makes the point that I made recently, quite perfectly, and demonstrates the risks of insisting on having your company's name on your Twitter bio, just so that you might look even a little bit cooler than you are as a mere individual, speaking for yourself. People insist on needing to have both - "My Twitter comments are totally my own opinions and even if I post naked pics of myself, just because I have Company X associated with my account, it should not be assumed that they approve of it, which thus allows me to post whatever I want, right?" Wrong.
Either align your Twitter with the branding of Company X and stick to it, or feel free to be a lot more risque on your Twits primarily by keeping Company X off your profile. Even then, with some companies you should still be careful if you worry about keeping that precious job.
In this case, one single tweet has severely disrupted two lives (at least) and caused the loss of two such precious jobs, and that is surely an indication that the stakes in social media have just gotten higher.
"What you say can and will be used against you in a court of (social media) law, you have the right to an attorney and if you can't afford one, one will be appointed to you."
All this over some form of penis referencing in a joke. As much as this case is destined to become some kind of cause celebre for those insisting it's really about discrimination against women in the workforce, I would suggest that it's all attributing way, way too much importance to the penis - and coming from a guy, that's saying something! ;) - Kevin Mc
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