Sunday, August 23, 2009
Use Social Media to Fight Plagarism and WIN!
I wrote about plagiarism and how it is so common in the work place a couple of weeks ago. Sure enough there was another big story on the horizon. There's a very popular food blog in Delhi, Eat Out in Delhi that's run by Hemanshu Kumar. We've heard about it because we've read the reviews in Time Out Delhi. Being big foodies, we love reading, watching, and talking about food. I personally love the fact that the Delhi National Capital Region has more things available (which are even delivered to your doorstep).
The story of plagiarizing EOiD blog started with a classic Indian outsource scheme. SpiceJet outsources its content needs of their in flight magazine, Spice Route to Maxposure, which then outsourced it to Hirak Gautam, who is a freelance writer, who happens to be a 'chef' at a Delhi hotel (I'm assuming it has some stars). The supposed author, instead of doing his own homework searches reviews on Google (or directly went to EOiD site) and manufactured his own version of reviews, et voila, there's an article made! Easy right? After all, what are the chances of people reading 'print' on a flight reading 'online' articles or blog posts?
Last week, a regular reader of EOiD found the article on Spice Route. It was practically copy-pasted from the EOiD blog, without credit to Hemanshu or EOiD. The reader then took a picture and informed Hemanshu. He posted the story on EOiD and there was an immediate out cry in the Indian twitterverse. With comments going up on EOiD post about the case. Hirak Gautam, the so-called "author" was forced to set up his own Twitter account and reply for his mistake. The excuse? He was on a deadline. A representative from Maxposure also commented on the EOiD post saying, "strict action will be taken on this issue". The next day, Mail Today published a story on EOiD about the SpiceJet fiasco. According to the article, Hemanshu is demanding compensation and a published apology. You can read more about the story here.
We were all excited and spoke about the case extensively at the Gurgaon tweet up last night. We were more excited because we watched the story happen and tweet and spoke about it to our online friends, and twitter followings, in a sense we WERE part of the story and community.
The three lessons I take from this sorry mess:
1. Plagiarism gives freelancers a bad name. It gives India a bad name. It gives outsourcing a bad name. There's a lot of talented writers, chefs, and Indians out there and they all write their own original pieces. Not everyone is a horrible lazy writer (aka douchebag). If you are, you should change your profession -- I don't care if you're a kickass chef with connections. You should just remain a chef. (No offense to my kickass friend chefs who write their own pieces, you know who you are.)
2. Editors in India need to be proactive. Spice Route does have editors ya? What were they doing? Don't they check facts or check the copy? Stop being cozy in your 9 to 5 job and start checking the damn copy for real. You're as accountable as the guy who copied it. The article would've never gone to print if the so-called editors were doing their job. There IS a "job" attached to the title you know. (Frankly, I'm surprised that EOiD was as polite and peaceful as they've been in handling this. If it happened in my friend circle, the people/companies involved would've been flamed, torched, and burned left and right.)
3. Things can change, they have. And yes we can! As consumers of social media, it is our job to inform the community when we spot stuff. If the reader who was on the plane didn't inform EOiD, the story would've never gotten out. We can use the power of social media to improve our world.
Jeanne said last night that, "As consumers of social media, we shouldn't be tweeting for tweet sake but help bring about awareness and change." This is what open web should be doing.
We're still waiting on how this story is going to resolve itself. The ball is in Maxposure/SpiceJet's court now. Keep your eye on @eoid for updates.
Photo by: Rebecca Jackson
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
What makes your readers click through?
Reading the Newsweek article about a study on how being right handed or left handed affect our decision making process had me thinking about placing buttons and links on a website so people click. There is a reason why people click on certain links and not others. Take a moment and think of those annoying pop-up ads. Have you ever clicked them by accident then realize a moment later and go, "DOH!" -- that's when your brain automatically takes over because you're so used to clicking certain messages on your computer. Of course, the word that you're linking counts, too. Read this Copyblogger post to know more about that.
When I took over the newsletter department for a job, increasing clicks was one of the biggest challenges. I had been managing blogs and knew nothing about email marketing. Our boss wanted a huge increase in clicks, my immediate boss, a veteran in the industry thought it was near impossible. Both of our jobs were on the line. I had a theory that colors played an important role in click psychology, not just words. For the demographic I was working with it was easy to know what colors will get most amount of clicks, all I had to do was look at magazines like Martha Stewart Living. Proving my theory to both my bosses was another challenge. Working with a legacy template, I had to literally cajole tech to track individual links so we knew what each link was doing. Or else we would be flying blind for any changes done to the template, no matter how subtle it seems to the end user. I went under the radar, hand coded each newsletter, stripped legacy junk coding that got the email stuck in filters. Sometimes you have to fly under radar to get the job done.
Once the figures came in though everyone was happy. Clicks increased, some weeks better than others but it was an upward slope. Eye balls and clicks means dollar signs in Internet marketing. Your content writer or web editor should be aware of what's going to bring in clicks and more visitors whether you're writing a web copy, email copy, or a simple blogpost. And if they make it work, they can not just recover the cost of your email marketing operations but can literally float their own salaries.
Same thing goes with social media buttons, where are you placing them so that you get more tweets, bookmarks, and eventually more traffic? Is it on the right hand side or left hand side? Bottom of the post or the top, or both? Are the colors, font, and images recognizable or is it becoming noise to the reader? Think carefully but don't put buttons everywhere and over do it. Sometimes too many buttons and too many ads can be a turn off.
Photo by: Jared
Monday, July 20, 2009
Plagiarim: a National Pastime?
Bad writing is one thing, straight off plagiarism is another. I'm really tired of seeing this happen over and over, especially in India. And just because you give the person credit as a name doesn't mean you have the permission of that person to post it. You need EXPLICIT PERMISSION or some sort of an agreed license like the ones from Creative Commons.
Here's a bad case of copy-pasting that I came across recently:
On July 17th, a twitter by the name of @ruplal sent me a message a brand new site to take a look. The site was: http://kolkatatech.com. I think I had been tweeting about my concerns of riots in Kolkata and how work would be interrupted that day. A lot to my friends are in Kolkata, a portion of that friend circle is in tech. I checked the site, which happened to be a blog that doesn't seem to be proof read. Indian English is fine, and typical, but then I saw a familiar name: Angsuman Chakraborty -- an acquaintance who runs a company in Kolkata. We've met a couple of times at BarCamp and other tech network/unconferences. I thought, well, it's about time someone starts writing about the Kolkata tech scene since it badly needs to start moving and growing.
I thought Angsuman was starting a new blog, but it was very unlike him since his core audience is not really Kolkata. He wouldn't limit himself for just Kolkata. (It's not economically viable.) I checked the other posts and it seems the blogger(s) has been "borrowing" content from other folks. I thought, maybe it's a syndicated blog of some kind. I sent @ruplal a message, checked profiles on LinkedIn of the co-founders of the site. And checked back with @augsuman on Twitter. I asked him whether it was a new site he was putting up or just random copy-pasting. I really didn't think it was. Angsuman replied this morning that it actually was a copy-pasting job using his name on a post about Google Chrome.
I wasn't surprised but I was a bit disconcerted -- 'pissed off' might be the term. Copy-pasting happens ALL THE TIME in India. I've seen a very unethical boss do it, colleagues do it, I see it on blogs again and again. There are instances where I've refused candidates to join my team after evidence of plagiarism in their sample writing. It's a sin that has no redemption. It gives India a bad name. It gives writers in India an even worse name. Plagiarism might not get you in court in India, but you're still breaking international law. If morals and ethics don't appeal to you, as a blogger you should know that Google will penalize the blog for duplicate content -- it will hurt you in the end. If you don't have the time, resources, or talent don't bother running a site.
Have you seen cases of copy-pasting and plagiarism? Do you confront it or just ignore it because it's so common?
Photo by: Esther_G
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Re-Sparkling The Inner Writer Spirit
I admit, I've been in a very bad rut as a writer lately. After writing a lot when I was working, I almost totally stopped writing after I quit. Then life got in the way like trainings for solar panels, travels, moving to a new city, not having time for/by myself, trying to fix Internet and electricity problems, battling Twitter withdrawal... you get the picture. You sink into that dark hole of uninspired procrastination that some writers call 'the block'. I can write a dozen excuses but that'll make me just more depressed. It's true, I get depressed when I'm not being creative. There are a couple of things to make me inspired again, maybe you can use some so here are my techniques:
1.Writing needs inspiration: take a walk outside and observe.
I live in a great place where I can see wild peacocks, woodpeckers, other birds Southeast Asian birds I can't name, cute squirrels, plus the occasional street dogs and cats. I usually walk the dog in the morning after everyone leaves. Go over to the park across the street and look at every little detail of grass, creatures, and plants all around. The bird songs and squirrel squeaks for cautioning their scurry are really amazing. When Grace and I walk into the park all the creatures go on high alert. They're not used to seeing a Greyhound and a short Asian woman roaming around. Being two feet away from a pair of woodpeckers hunting for insects makes me really happy, makes Grace (the dog) happy too because she gets to sniff the grass and roll around. When we have our fill, we head back home to write and Grace to move pillows around and become the queen of the bed. Sometimes being out and about, meeting new people and experiencing new things will inspire you to write.
2.Get in the writing mood: listen to music.
I got this tip when I was working with Trayce Gardner, the founder of Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Center. She works on her script or editing her students scripts with the perfect sound track in the back ground. It really worked for me later when I came to India and had to work in a very chatty office environment. We were elbow to elbow on our workstations (it's normal here) and the only thing that kept me sane and focused was my music. You can have playlists set up for different occasions and different moods you're setting up in your scenes, articles etc. Punk always wakes me up in the morning and techno/trip hop keep that energy level up. I transition into a more mellow Norah Jones, Ani Difranco type in the evenings and even venture into classical at night. Find the music that inspires you, put you “in the mood”.
3.Focus (which I don't do enough of) on the matter at hand.
I have too many ideas when I sit down and start writing. I always need an outline, formula or plan. I also tend to get back to the top and edit and re-edit. Half the time, writing is about sitting down and following a habit, practice or a discipline. Folks don't always see this boring side of writing. While editing is a good habit, you need to let go and have the writer in you do his or her own thing first before you start moving things around. (Yes, I'm writing this to remind myself.)
I think Syd Field wrote the best technique on how to deal with the problem of too many ideas. In his book, Screenplay, he wrote that a screenwriter will have another plot or film in mind when he or she starts writing. He said that you should take time and write out those ideas elsewhere then come back to your original story. Focus and do one thing at a time. Don't just write, write with a purpose and a plan. Don't get up until it's done, or until you're ready to look at something else, do something else and come back for editing. Once you're done with that go back to the other thing you had in mind and finish that off.
4.Find the right writing tools for you.
The fact that I've spent most of my adult life in trendy social media sites doesn't stop me from being an old fashioned writer. Plus I'm a huge pen snob. I have a particular brand of note pads, note books, and particular pens I write with. In India I found Nightingale and Matrix brand stationery to be the best to write long stuff in and small, blank paper note pads for taking notes and brainstorming. I carry that everywhere. You need to look for the tools that inspire you. Is it a slinky? Is it a Staedtler pen, or a Sharpie? A fountain pen, a ball point pen, mechanical pencil? Is it candy? Do you write best straight on the computer or are pens and papers better for you? You need to explore your options and pick the best tools for your own tool box.
5. Ask yourself hard questions about your writing.
What makes you stop? What makes you lose focus? Is it the way you fuss around with words? Retweeting or replying on Twitter all the time? Too many tabs open on your browser or too little? You're not getting enough time? Not the right environment? If you want to be a writer and stay focus, you need to ask these questions and make the environment right for you.
6.Tackle your weakest links.
Once you've asked the questions and experimented around with answers, you'll be able to re-spark that kick ass writer in you. But being a writer doesn't end there. Keep exploring, keep reading about writers and what they do to keep going. Read Screenplay by Syd Field -- even if you're not a screenwriter. Download and read How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) by Mark McGuinness follow Copyblogger's blog. Follow fellow writers on Twitter. Who's your favorite writer? What does he or she do to get the ball rolling?
I know first hand that being a writer is a lonely job but there's nothing like feeling accomplished and satisfied at the end of the day. Are you a writer? How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired?
Photo by: the trial
