OK this really bothers me. Students at a number of top tech colleges worked very effectively at  ballot stuffing for a Victoria’s Secret contest. Oh I am sure that to most people it looks like a lot of harmless fun. To others it screams out that is was all Victoria’s Secret’s fault because they didn’t properly secure the site/process. I think that is called blaming the victim.

But to me it screams that we have too much acceptance of dishonestly. They shouldn’t have to lock down the site because people should not be trying to game the system in this fashion.

Time and again while I was teaching I heard from students that if I didn’t want people to vandalize the school computers that it was my job to make it harder for them to do so. Leaving any opening, no matter how small, was taken as permission by these individuals. “Does that extend to houses?” I once asked. “Yes” was the reply. Oh but not their house. If someone broke into their house there would  be serious consequences. But if they were found in someone else’s house there should not be a penalty because, after all, there wasn’t enough of a barrier  to keep them out so it would the home owner’s fault.

But coming back to the computer side of things. In the very early days of computers we didn’t have much in the way of security beyond physical security. If you were allowed in the room you could do what you wanted. But people could usually be trusted. We were all in it to help each other, to cooperate, and to stay out of other people’s business. That didn’t last long though.

So now we have online polls for all sorts of things and people are taking advantage of less than ideal security to cheat. Are laws broken/ Often, probably not. To many people if it isn’t illegal it is permissible and ethical. I would say that is not the case and gaming these systems is unethical.

“But no one is hurt.” Not true. People who honestly and ethically work hard within the spirit of the competition wind up having no chance. Their hard work goes in vain – often without them knowing they are doomed to be frustrated. The people who run the competition are hurt. In this case the servers actually crashed under the load. That cost time and money to correct. Plus the benefits the company hoped to get from the event are diminished. Even the publicity they are getting is not what they want.

I would argue that the perpetrators are ultimately hurt as well. They wind up being hailed as heroes and stars and “great hackers” while doing something of dubious ethics. Being rewarded for unethical behavior is not good for ones long term prospects of growing more ethical.

We really need ethical people in the software industry. Really. So when things like this happens I find it very depressing.

My Dad is 83 and I just found out that he has a Facebook account. It looks like my niece helped him set it up. He’s still not sure about the whole thing but he has never stopped trying to learn new things. Now the other interesting thing is that my son is not on Facebook. He graduated college just before Facebook really took off and wasn’t involved in it then. Now he works as a teacher is is very concerned about the problems many teachers have run into through carelessness. He doesn’t see a good enough reason to bother. I can’t say that I blame him.

But the most interesting thing about this is that it looks like the Internet is doing more to join grandparents and grandchildren that children and parents. I think there has long been the case of parents and grandparents joining together against a common foe – the generation in the middle. My own grandfather used to tell stories of running to his grandmother for “protection” from his parents.

These days children and grandparents live farther apart (at least in the US) than ever before. The distances can be overwhelming. But by using the Internet the generations can keep closer together. I’m not sure how it will play out over time but it is interesting right now.

BTW see also this article in the NY Times called Grandma’s on the Computer Screen.

I was reading a great post by Michael Hyatt (kind of redundant since he pretty much only posts great posts) titled Seven Ways to Build Your Author Brand Online when a number of thoughts came to me. First is that this sort of advice applies to a lot more than just authors. He’s a publisher so of course helping his and other authors is part of his reason for blogging. But I started thinking about consultants who need to build brands. Ted Demopoulos who is a consultant writes similar helpful things at his blog Blogging for Business by the way.

But as I was thinking I realized that schools should be building there brands as well. This is not completely a new thought for me. While I was a technology coordinator at Bishop Guertin High School we learned years ago that parents researching private schools were visiting the school web site to learn about it. It became a more important communication tool as a result. But it never really became a brand builder in the sense that people like Michael Hyatt or Ted Demopoulos talk about.

Seven Ways to Build Your Author Brand Online really talks about brands for individuals and not all of it is easily translated to schools. That is unless someone is ready, willing and able to stand up as the voice for the school. As the person who sets themselves up as an ambassador for the school to Cyberspace. This could be a development person or an admissions person in a private school. In a public school it could be the principal or someone else in the administration. It could be a teachers whose enthusiasm for the school, its programs and its students is contagious. Enthusiasm  is important (critical) for this role I think.

Many corporate bloggers and online activists are building their own brands in ways that reflect favorably on their companies as well as themselves. There is little reason if any that individuals from schools could not do the same.

Someone may ask why? Oh sure this is obvious (oh I hope so) for private schools. But public schools take everyone and people are going to send their kids there no matter what. Or so people say. But that is not always true – many people have poor perceptions of public schools that may not be grounded in reality. Also there is this matter of public schools being public institutions that require public support. People are much more likely to support schools with good reputations than poor ones. People are more likely to support schools that reach out into the community rather than try to exist as isolated fortresses.

Well regardless of if you are at a school, an author, a consultant, a worker for a company that sells products or what brands are important. And Michael Hyatt’s brand building suggestions look good to me. I’m doing most of them already and I like how they work for me. I just wish I could write as well as him.