The importance of YouTube: Learning Not to Control It

What will YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace and other Internet-based social networking technologies mean to business communicators? Most of them are still trying to work that out. And as the April attack at Virginia Tech showed, students are way ahead on this technology.

YouTube’s impact on the business world is obvious: Google spent $1.65 billion to acquire it, and now Viacom is suing it for a billion, for hosting video material that Viacom holds copyright on.

There is a wider significance, too — not only do millions of young people around the world spend inestimable hours searching, watching and posting videos on YouTube, now, students are getting suspended because of it.

Six students from the South Carleton High School in eastern Ontario were suspended for a day by their principal for participating in a “flash mob.” About 30 students mimicked the unaired commercial for Xbox by suddenly, seemingly without warning, aiming their fingers at each other in the cafeteria, saying “bang” and falling to play dead.

It’s an example of “flash mobbing,” a phenomenon shown in the Microsoft ad, that’s been played out by young people in places as far-flung as Gdansk and South Florida.

At South Carleton High, students planned the flash mob through the FaceBook website. Apparently, school faculty learned of the plan in advance and prepared to intervene. The reason: according to school board official, it was “threatening the moral tone of the school” and “stripped the ability of students to feel safe.”

It hardly seems like something to get suspended over; essentially, the kids were playing Cops and Robbers or some other elementary-school game. Who hasn’t pointed a finger-gun at a playmate?

The difference here is obviously the use of the Web-based social networking technology to plan the event. The principal’s reaction was clearly motivated by fear, fear directly tied to the fact that the student action was spread by the democratic, uncontrollable tools that youth are using. Clearly, there’s a fear of new technology here. If the Internet, which rightly evokes worries among adults about the safety of children, hadn’t been involved, would the principal have cared?

This is an important question, when you consider how students at Virginia Tech used social networking and the Internet in general to communicate during and immediately after the gun attack on April 16. There's no doubt that the technology and the websites that have become popular among students and other young people had real benefits in helping people deal with the shock and grief, and may even have saved some lives by informaing people durin gthe crisis. It's time to get past the fear, and to start looking at what's really working in new communications media and technology.

Business has been slow to start to take advantage of technology like blogs, wikis and social networking systems. But there are clearly a lot of opportunities here.

It hardly seems like something to get suspended over; essentially, the kids were playing Cops and Robbers or some other elementary-school game. Who hasn’t pointed a finger-gun at a playmate?

The difference here is obviously the use of the Web-based social networking technology to plan the event. The principal’s reaction was clearly motivated by fear, fear directly tied to the fact that the student action was spread by the democratic, uncontrollable tools that youth are using. Clearly, there’s a fear of new technology here. If the Internet, which rightly evokes worries among adults about the safety of children, hadn’t been involved, would the principal have cared?

The Hijab continues to make headlines

Girl’s ejection from soccer game touches a very sensitive nerve

Last week,Asmahan Mansour, an 11-year-old girl from Ottawa, was ejected from a youth soccer tournament in Montreal for wearing a hijab on the field. The event got front-page headlines across the country, proving that the hijab is a sensitive issue.



Photo: CBC news

The event made headlines in countries from Europe to Australia. A Written Words reader sent the following:

Egypt shows yellow card over hijab ban
Several dailies in the English-language press report that Egypt has warned of "mounting signs of racism and intolerance in Canada" over the recent game expulsion of an 11-year-old soccer player for wearing her Islamic headscarf. The article quotes the Egyptian Foreign Ministry: “The question of wearing the headscarf should remain a part of individual freedoms, so long as it does not harm security, public order or the values of a society.” However, the articles note the Egyptian ambassador to Canada, Mahmoud El-Saeed, has downplayed his Foreign Ministry's comments and said the criticisms levelled against Canada were only reflective of Egypt's "concern for the status of Muslims around the world." It is noted Mr. El-Saeed said he discussed the case with his government and assured them the incident was an anomaly in Canada. Mr. El-Saeed states: “I explained to Cairo that the situation in Canada is different -- it is a very tolerant place...This was just one soccer match and one province...I explained to Cairo that this was one incident, that the referee who made the decision was reported to be a Muslim himself ... and that this does not reflect the position of the [Canadian] federal government."

Meanwhile, soccer’s world governing body has failed to make any definitive statement about this issue.

While mainstream media tries to be neutral about this, shockwaves are spreading. Some Muslims, understandably, see the ban as symptomatic of the clash between secularist Western and Muslim values. Others see it as “Islamophobia.”

There is a lot of Web traffic on the issue, with the predictable number or ravers on all sides talking about discrimination and reverse discrimination and people taking advantage of Western freedoms to try to enforce an “alien” value on Western cultures. What that shows us is that the event has touched a very sensitive nerve.

We need to work out a way to talk about the conflict between the West’s ideas of religious freedom and freedom of expression — which support anyone’s freedom to wear any religious garment — other cultures’ ideas of religious duty, and Western concern over the freedom of individuals within cultures, such as Islam, to not be forced into religious observances if they don’t want to.

And for the record, I can’t see why a girl shouldn’t be able to wear a hijab when she plays soccer — it can’t interfere with other players.

When you know you’re being lied to

Gas prices in central Canada are spiking again to nearly a dollar a litre — for you Americans, that’s about four bucks a gallon. And some gas stations in Toronto have had to close for lack of fuel.

The reason, apparently, is a fire in a refinery on February 15. That’s led to a huge shortage of gas, and hence the price increase.

Come on: one refinery fire means there’s not enough gasoline in half the country? There have to be more refineries.

I think it’s just another example of big oil taking an excuse to gouge us consumers. And their cover story is a further insult. How can they expect anyone with a little intelligence to buy that?

I would have expected the oil industry to be able to come up with a better cover story for raising their prices yet again. In the past, Big Oil has used hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and war in the Middle East have to excuse their price gouging. This time, I want a better explanation than one fire.

What do you think? Post a comment and let me know.

Does this look bad, or what?

If the preview trailers look awful, just imagine what the movie’s like.

Wild Hogs, the laughfest with John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy, starts this weekend. From the preview trailers, it looks like the studio poured a lot of money into movie star salaries, motorcycles, cars, explosions and costumes. (Who knew there was a stretchy leather fabric for Travolta’s motorcycle pants?)

It looks like another predictable road-buddy movie. It’s been done so many times before — think City Slickers on Harleys. Who are these supposed movie critics who feed the studios lines like “Travolta, Allen, Lawrence and Lacey are a comic dream team”?

I suspect, as with most movies of this quality, that the best laughs are in the trailers, and none of those is original: guy gets poked by bull (Bugs Bunny did it best); bird poop on face; fire goes out of control. There is nothing new, nothing even remotely resembling some thinking. It’s a complete formula. We get the whole ho-hum plot from the previews.

I will even predict the ending: all four guys return home, chastened, with a renewed appreciation for their wives and families, and a release from whatever obsession had alienated them and prompted the road trip.

Zzzzz.

The studio’s aiming low: it even provides labels for the one-dimensional characters: “the rich guy,” “the geek.” We don’t even have to think. Not that figuring out those labels requires much thought.

Do we need mindless comedies? Absolutely. But they should be funny. So at least make the jokes unpredictable.

Yes, I know I’m criticizing without having seen the movie. So if I’m off base, you can criticize me later.