'What’s the Most Unethical Thing You’ve Ever Done...

...in Business'  is the title of the post I am referring to here. Michael Mattis posted a great challenge article today generating extremely interesting discussion on topic of work ethics. As it is with liberal ethics - the best way to learn it is to look at case studies, and Michael already has a few interesting comments. He asked his readers to describe their own experience of unethical behaviour at work. Here is one interesting example:

'Our department head (and my boss) was a super slacker. We conducted a cue and eventually after gathering much evidence against him, made a callt o the CEO of the company who was out of state.
As stated above this was not received well. We were thought of as deserters. In the end, he got sacked, I moved up, managed the department for awhile before the whole company fell in. Not sure what I DID learn, but I know that wasn't the right way to handle it, even though it seemed so at the time.'(kschroth)

So, we know that person felt obligated to report the manager for bad approach to work, still feels there should have been a better way to deal with the issue. It's clearly a classical example of conflict of values...and how often do we face it? What do you - as a manager - do if one of your team members is not delivering and you're loosing your business? HR procedure would ask you to collect evidence - but the very expression sounds rather unpleasant...would you?

I had to face that challenge myself and even though I felt I acted against my personal feelings I needed to admit that at work I am paid to ensure the work is actually done. I ended up judging the situation objectively, in terms of action>reaction and applied HR procedures. Even if they seem not perfect they are there for a reason, like any other law related rule - must have been developped based on human concensus - just as the liberal ethics is. So I think that was still ethical, but am I right?:)

I am eager to see more responses to Michael's article!

WOMMA's Influencer Marketing Handbook

Brilliant stuff! WOMMA launched Influencer Marketing Handbook - extraordinary set of info about types of influencers, ways of engagement and useful resources on the topic (really good list of readings!!!).

The whole document is a must read for all WOM marketers, obviously, I would like to quote two parts of it however, two key issues of influencer engagement that - from my experience - companies and/or people in general do not comprehend:

1.'Your best influencers may not always be positive about your product, company and/or services. In fact, your biggest fans may at times be your harshest critics. The fact they are sometimes negative will make them far more credible to their networks.'

2.'Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns.'

Expecting an influencer to praise shit, and to do it after two enagement e-mails or messages of all sorts is insane! All we are talking about it trust and loyality - not to the brand, but loyality to yourself. Any influencial, serious blogger, twitter user, etc will always be expected to write truth and only truth - since this is exactly the reason why we all post on-line - in our fields ruled by freedom of speech:)

Global Voices in Polish launching soon!:)

What am I talking about? See yourself here.

'Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore.'

If you know my blog, you have probably seen the post in September about Global Voices linking to their site and to my fellow blogger Jez Wegierski, who posted about Global Voices Summit in Budapest this summer. For those who see it for the first time I strongly advice to check out their Advocacy site, where you can find info about issues international bloggers face when beign deprived of freedom of speech.

I have noticed that their translation program lacks Polish, so I have written to them. I received great response and established very professional, pro-active and encouraging communication with cool people, as a result of which I hope to help them out to kick off the Polish site fairly soon.

If you are a blogger and you're interested in joing me or/and them, please let me know! I would love to share my volontary work with anyone else caring for the cause.

Freedom of speech is a sensitive topic, and the info there makes me realise how happy I am to live in the UK and be able to post whatever I want and access all the sites whenever I want to.

At American Studies we had a American Constitution class one ('Congress shall make no law...), where the teacher wanted to show us the true meaning of American concept of freedom of speech. It's importance actually. We were asked to take 10 post-its each and write one of our most important freedoms (freedom to, and freedom from) on each of those. Let's say this way:

1. Freedom to write my own opinions

2. Freedom to travel

3. Freedom from havng to attend one religious gatherings

4. Freedom to choose friends

5. Freedom to think and speak it.

6.  Freedom to eat whatever and whenever I want.

7. Freedom to access all books at local library.

8. Freedom from having to wear pink.

9. Freedom to write letters to my family abroad.

10. Freedom to leave the house.

Now, with all this in fron of our face we had to imagine being deprived of one of those. Talk about it. As we got rid of 9 post-its we were terrified. And smarter, if you knwo what I mean.

Freedom of speech is one of our basic human rights. We think it's so obvious, but is it?

Global Voices does a great job bringing the reality, the facts to the public and establishing dialogue among those who ae involved in protecting it. They encourage blogging. You can find their link on Amesty International site too.

BTW what is the freedom you would leave on the last post-it?

Blue Day 2008, Oct 10th- raising awareness of anxiety and depression

Blue Day 2008 is Australian initiavite to raise awarenes of anxiety and depression, but since it's based around social media, it has potential to become global. I actually think depression is a huge isssue, simply because it's very often ignored and untreated can hugely affect our desitions. While living in Hungary I had to face hte rality of it quite often. Hungarians, for some reason, tend to be very depressive. On the other hand their generel level of knowledge about psuchology is quite high, so treating depression simply by talking to your GP is not an issue, shame or a fault. It happens to all of us, but sadly we are used to ignoring it. I hope I will be able to post on the 10th and I encourage everyone to do so.



You can find them on Twitter as well.

Niebieski - Bogdan Sosnowski

Chcialabym powiedziec, ze ten post bedzie o Bogdanie, ale nie do konca...czesc bedzie o mnie. Dzisiaj dowiedzialam sie, ze obrazy Bogdana Sosnowskiego sa dostepne w calkiem przyjaznych cenach, i postanowilam zerknac na jego portfolio. Juz wczesniej pokazywaly sie one na sieci, chocby tutaj, czy na wystawach (jak ta tutaj), nie sadzilam jednak, ze znajde cos, w czym od razu sie zakocham i bedzie mnie na to stac!
A oto dzecko, które sobie zarezerwowalam:

Nazywa sie 'Trzy kolory - Niebieski' i jest moja miloscia od pierwszego...a fakt, ze tytul to jeden z moich ulubionych filmow przerazil mnie, bo nie znajac go zostalam zauroczona atmosfera tej pracy...to kolejny niesamowity zbieg okolicznosci mojego 'szarego' zycia...jak poznalam mojego ex-malzonka zakochalam sie w jego 'Lawendzie'...co ja mam z tymi kolorami? (I dlaczego w firmie przezywaja mnie Dirty Polish Goth'?:))

Bo ja jak glupia jakos mysle, ze nie moge sobie pozwolic na piekno, ze jest ono niedostepne dla smiertelnika, nie? Drodzy Smiertelnicy, jak jestescie zainteresowani obrazami Sosnowskiego, dajcie mi prosze znac na sylwiapresley[malpa]gmail.com albo napiszcie do autora (na jego stronie jest mail). Sa osiagalne, tylko my nie zdajemy sobie z tego sprawy...
Milego popoludnia!