How Meta’s Changes to Content Moderation Might Impact Canadian Government Organizations 25 Jan 8:31 AM (last month)

A client recently asked me to assess the potential impact of Meta’s latest changes to its content moderation approach, specifically regarding their effect on Canadian government organizations. I’ve summarized some key findings below, as I believe they may also be valuable to others.

What’s the issue?

Meta, the parent company of global social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, recently announced that it will remove its third-party fact-checking program and shift away from extensive content moderation. It plans to replace its existing content moderation system with a crowd-sourced “Community Notes” model similar to the one used by X (formerly Twitter). This development raises concerns for Canadian government organizations, many of which use Meta’s platforms for communication, outreach, and engagement with Canadians.

“We built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts. That’s millions of people, and we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship”

-Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta

Context

• Content moderation on social media involves monitoring and regulating user-generated content to ensure it adheres to the platform’s community guidelines and complies with the legal requirements in the countries where the platform operates.
• On January 7, 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a significant shift in the company’s approach to content moderation. Citing concerns about the political bias of its 3^rd party verifiers and a desire to promote free expression, Mark stated that Meta will discontinue its fact-checking program and reduce reliance on content moderation teams.
• Meta previously employed a combination of artificial intelligence, human moderators, and third-party fact-checkers to identify and address content that violated its policies, including hate speech, mis/dis- information, and incitement to violence. This system, while imperfect, aimed to create a safer and more trustworthy online environment.
• Meta plans to replace its existing system with a crowd-sourced “Community Notes” model, similar to the one used by X, where users can comment on the accuracy of posts.
• Meta hasn’t released specifics about how its own version of Community Notes will work; however, it is likely going to be similar to X, where approved contributors call out content deemed false or misleading by attaching notes providing more context.
• This decision follows previous policy changes that reduced the visibility of political content and loosened restrictions on controversial topics like immigration and gender.
• Meta plans to phase in Community notes in the United States over the first quarter of 2025 and continue to improve it over the year.
• While there’s no confirmed timeline for expanding Community Notes to Canada, it’s highly probable that Meta will eventually implement this feature globally, given its goal of promoting user-driven content moderation.
• Meta plans to relocate its remaining content moderation teams from California to Texas, which some experts suggest could further influence how content is moderated.

“As we make the transition, we will get rid of our fact-checking control, stop demoting fact-checked content, and, instead of overlaying full-screen interstitial warnings you have to click through before you can even see the post, we will use a much less obtrusive label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it.”

-Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer, Meta

Key considerations

Pros:

• Greater user engagement and sense of ownership.
• Diverse perspectives reduce perceived bias.
• Facilitates more open dialogue and a wider range of views.
• Less risk of over-censorship.
• Avoids false positives (i.e. blocking content that shouldn’t have been blocked).
• Users can personalize their experience and curate their content.
• Advertisers may benefit from a more lenient content policy, which could allow for a wider range of creative and targeted marketing strategies.
• Users who value free speech and less restrictive moderation may increase engagement, creating more opportunities for advertisers to connect with specific audiences.
• For government organizations, platforms with high user engagement could still serve as valuable channels for outreach and public awareness campaigns.
• Relaxed policies on sensitive topics (e.g., immigration, gender) could foster more open discussions and engage users who felt previously censored, potentially broadening public discourse.
• Greater user engagement could increase participation in conversations on topics critical to policy development or public awareness.
• Meta’s reduced reliance on fact-checkers may appeal to users who distrust institutional interventions in content moderation.

Cons:

• Accuracy and reliability of content may decline.
• Possibility of false balance and bias in Community Notes.
• Incentive for malicious actors to infiltrate Community Notes with AI and/or bots.
• Potential harm to public trust and discourse integrity.
• Higher exposure to harmful content like hate speech.
• Public trust in Canadian government organizations may decline if misinformation about them increases as a result.
• Risk of creating even greater echo chambers and deepening polarization.
• Sharing critical information with diverse audiences and minority communities will likely become more complex.
• Advertisers may reduce spending or withdraw entirely due to concerns over brand safety if their ads appear alongside harmful or controversial content, potentially decreasing platform revenue and trust.
• A decline in public perception of Meta’s platforms could impact their effectiveness as communication tools for government organizations.
• Government agencies might face reputational risks if their messaging is associated with a platform that is seen as unreliable or polarizing.
• Relaxed policies could lead to the normalization of harmful stereotypes, discriminatory content, or misinformation, creating a more hostile environment for marginalized groups.
• In response to Canada’s Online News Act (Bill C-18), Meta has already stopped displaying news content on its platforms in Canada. This and the shift to Community Notes could further amplify misinformation and disinformation, complicating efforts to share accurate and trusted information.
• Meta’s perceived alignment with specific political figures or demographics could harm the government’s reputation for neutrality, making government engagement efforts on Meta platforms more challenging to justify.

What to do for now

At this time, I think Canadian government organizations should closely monitor how Meta’s content moderation changes unfold. These platforms remain key for reaching many Canadians, especially given the ongoing effects of Bill C-18 on news content. It’s important to keep an eye on how these changes impact public discussions as they roll out in the United States. Once the changes are introduced in Canada and there’s more clarity on how Community Notes will work, organizations should evaluate whether participating as contributors could help build trust. This is also a good opportunity to reassess whether Meta’s platforms align with your organization’s strategic priorities and social media engagement goals.

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How Adopting Content Provenance Standards Can Help Government Organizations in the Fight Against Mis- and Disinformation 13 Nov 2024 10:07 AM (4 months ago)

If you’ve been on social media lately and stumbled across some interesting content, not even controversial, just interesting, you might have found yourself wondering if it was real. You’re not alone. The social web is full of AI slop these days, often making it hard to tell what’s authentic and what’s synthetic.

YouTube is overflowing with AI-generated media, from unofficial movie trailers and music videos to fake live streams strategically timed to coincide with real events. Other platforms like Reddit, Facebook, X, Threads, and LinkedIn are also saturated with AI-generated content, which people are increasingly getting used to.

While this influx of synthetic content may seem harmless, it gradually erodes users’ trust in what they see online (or, at the very least, fosters widespread skepticism). As a result, when actual genuine content conveying important information is circulated online, people are increasingly likely to question its authenticity. Basic watermarks, logos, and content styles are now far too easy to replicate. This is where newer forms of content provenance and credentials come into play.

Understanding content provenance

Content provenance refers to the basic, trustworthy facts about the origins of a piece of digital content (image, video, audio, document). It may include information such as who created it, as well as when, where, and how it was created or edited. Unlike basic metadata, which can be easily modified or removed, content provenance uses cryptographic encryption to securely embed this information, making it tamper-resistant and verifiable. The content author always has control over whether provenance data is included as well as the specific data it contains. Think of it as a digital “paper trail” that gives content a trackable origin and journey, helping users verify its authenticity.

Important Note: Verifying the authenticity of content is not the same thing as verifying its accuracy or factualness.

Key players at the moment

Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI): A community of media and tech companies, NGOs, academics, and others working to promote the adoption of an open industry standard for content authenticity and provenance. It’s the driving force behind the development of the C2PA technical specifications.

Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA): Think of this as the technical implementation of the CAI. The C2PA brings together a consortium of technology companies, including Adobe, Google, and Microsoft, along with a growing list of media outlets and other stakeholders, to create open standards for digital content provenance. The goal is to enable publishers, creators, and consumers to easily trace the origin and history of digital content, verifying that it has not been altered or manipulated.

Main components of C2PA

The C2PA specification: Defines the metadata fields that should be included in digital content, their structure, and how they’re cryptographically signed to ensure security.

Software Tools: These tools apply the C2PA standard to content by embedding C2PA credentials directly within the content and allowing other C2PA-compliant tools or platforms to verify these credentials (e.g. TruePic).

Display Mechanisms: Web browsers, image viewers, and platforms are being designed to intuitively display C2PA credentials to users. This often includes the automated appearance of the Content Credentials (CR) pin, indicating that verifiable provenance information is available. Users can click on this pin to review C2PA-verified information, helping them trace back to the content’s origin and verify its authenticity. Note: You can also try the CR verification tool, which allows users to upload and verify content with embedded credentials.

What governments can do

For government organizations, maintaining public trust is essential, especially in an era when misinformation and disinformation spread rapidly, and digital manipulations are harder to detect. Adopting content provenance standards like C2PA can play a significant role in ensuring that official communications and social media content are trustworthy and verifiable.

Here are a few ways government departments and agencies can start implementing these standards effectively.

Implement C2PA Standards for All Visual and Digital Content: Begin by incorporating C2PA standards for all images, videos, documents, and multimedia content shared by government departments. This ensures that each piece of content has an embedded digital record that shows where it came from, who created it, and whether it has been modified.

Use the Content Credentials (CR) Pin for Public-Facing Content: Automate the display of the CR pin on content shared through official channels, signalling to the public that the content has a verifiable provenance. This can be particularly effective for high-stakes communications, such as public health advisories, election-related information, or emergency broadcasts.

Educate Employees on Verifying and Using Provenance Data: Training communication and social media teams on how to verify and embed C2PA credentials will ensure consistent use of content provenance across the organization. This training should cover the basics of digital authentication, how to check for provenance data, and how to respond to public inquiries about content authenticity.

Build Public Awareness of Content Verification: Encourage citizens to look for the CR pin on government content and provide resources on how they can independently verify authenticity. By promoting the use of C2PA, government organizations can empower citizens to be more informed and skeptical of manipulated content. Over time, if digital media lacks provenance information, it won’t automatically mean it’s fake, but it should prompt citizens to take a closer look. As content provenance standards are increasingly adopted, the absence of verifiable credentials should suggest that a piece of content hasn’t undergone rigorous verification.

Moving forward

Content provenance and verification standards like C2PA are powerful tools for restoring trust in digital media, offering government organizations a way to protect their reputations while setting a standard for accountability and transparency. For citizens, these standards provide a tangible method to verify content authenticity, and as more platforms adopt them, content verification could become a natural part of online interactions and a cornerstone of digital literacy. I’m genuinely curious to see how this space will evolve; for now, it seems like a step in the right direction.

Other related initiatives worth checking out

I’m including a few links to related initiatives for those of you interested in learning more about this topic. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Project Origin: A joint effort by the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, Microsoft, and The New York Times to establish a way for publishers to provide signals of editorial integrity for news content. They have partnered with C2PA. https://www.originproject.info/

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI): A collaboration between major news organizations and tech companies aimed at stopping the spread of disinformation, especially around major events like elections. https://www.bbc.co.uk/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/

The Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI): Spearheaded by Reporters Without Borders, this initiative focuses on promoting transparency and accountability in journalism, which can be related to how media content is produced and shared. https://www.journalismtrustinitiative.org/

The Deep Trust Alliance: An organization that works to combat deepfakes and other synthetic media through the development of technology standards, policy frameworks, and market-driven solutions. https://www.deeptrustalliance.org/

The Partnership on AI’s Media Integrity Steering Committee: An effort to bring together a range of stakeholders to combat disinformation and media manipulation through research, discussion, and development of best practices. https://partnershiponai.org/program/ai-media-integrity/#steeringcommittee

Canada’s Digital Citizen Initiative: A multi-component strategy that aims to support democracy and social inclusion in Canada by building citizen resilience against online disinformation and building partnerships to support a healthy information ecosystem. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-disinformation.html

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Canadian Government AI Chatbots: A Natural Next Step or Destined to Fail? 13 Aug 2024 6:00 AM (7 months ago)

Ever since the early days of Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of an AI-powered, government-vetted chat interface (voice or text) that could provide plain-language answers to specific questions about government services, eliminating the need to navigate and search through departmental websites.

While individual Government of Canada (GoC) departments and agencies have long experimented with simpler “programmatic” chatbots on their websites and social media, most of these never really took off. They were quite basic and required human intervention very early in the conversation (i.e. as soon as the question fell outside the basic preset parameters).

Fast-forward to 2024, and the use of AI chatbots for government service delivery is now a hot topic. Here in Canada, the government has updated its AI guidance resources and is working on an AI strategy that encourages departments to experiment with generative AI, including chatbots, to improve public services.

On the international front, there are numerous examples of government chatbots at various levels of government. Many have been around for years but have gone through multiple iterations. Noteworthy efforts include:

1. Dubai: Uses the chatbot Rammas, a virtual employee of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). It has been enhanced with ChatGPT, allowing it to handle a large volume of inquiries (over 9.6 million as of 2024).
2. Government of Singapore: Uses its in-house Virtual Intelligent Chat Assistant (VICA) platform, which powers various agency chatbots (e.g. Captain Green) as well as the centralized AlphabotSG, and integrates with and learns from the various agency-specific chatbots.
3. Australian Government: The Australian Taxation Office uses a chatbot named Alex, which assists with various taxation-related queries and improves user navigation on the agency’s website.

While these and many others not listed above tend to work quite well, it’s worth pointing out that most are still limited to individual departments or agencies of government rather than centralized government-wide efforts (with the exception of Singapore).

Current options for Canadians seeking government information via AI

As Canadian citizens become accustomed to interacting with increasingly intelligent AI chatbots developed by the private sector (general and task-specific), they will likely expect a similar capability on government-run websites.

When looking to use a chatbot to inquire about government services, Canadians already have several options:

1. Using a free, publicly available generative AI chatbot, such as Perplexity, ChatGPT, CoPilot, Gemini, etc., and instructing it to only use the information found on gc.ca or canada.ca domains for its sources.
2. Using a customized AI chatbot developed by an individual or organization for a specific purpose. An excellent example is TaxGPT, which Paul Craig developed to help Canadians with their tax filing questions.
3. Developing a basic AI chatbot independently using OpenAI’s GPT builder or a similar easy-to-use tool. An example of this is my plain-language Canadian Government Services Navigator, which I created to assist Canadians in finding and using federal government services.

The elephant in the room

So why on earth should the Government of Canada (GoC) invest in creating or managing its own AI chatbot(s) when citizens can already easily use existing AI tools to access government information? What’s to stop government chatbots from facing the same fate as GoC website search tools, which have been largely abandoned in favour of people preferring to use Google?

The case for a GoC AI chatbot

When looking for information about government services, especially those that don’t involve providing sensitive private information, most Canadians simply want accurate and up-to-date responses as quickly as possible. However, they also need to trust the source. While I’ve tried to achieve this with my own chatbot by instructing it to only provide information from official government sources, this assumes that the sources themselves are up to date and that the chatbot is actually following instructions. The responsibility lies in the user to ensure that the responses are indeed reflective of the provided government sources.

Having AI chatbots reside directly on government websites or apps would add an extra layer of credibility. The gc.ca and canada.ca domains are powerful brand components encapsulating the trust and authority of the Government of Canada, which is generally high—though I’m setting aside the 2024 Edelman GoC trust barometer score of 49%; let’s leave that for another post.

Even though there is always a risk of hallucination and errors, which can be addressed in a disclaimer, a chatbot backed by the authority and credibility of the GoC (i.e. residing on canada.ca) will have some key advantages over third-party tools:

1. It will be perceived as more trustworthy when it comes to the accuracy of information due to the oversight that would be required.
2. It will be used by significantly more Canadians, especially those who don’t currently use AI tools to find government information.
3. It will provide the GoC with valuable usage data, allowing for continual improvement in online service delivery. Note: I’m only referring to chatbots used for conveying publicly available information rather than handling sensitive personal information requests.
4. It will be the only one that can ensure up-to-date information is being used, as it will be connected directly to official government data sources. Perhaps other AI tools can be blocked from scraping these.
5. Ideally, it will seamlessly integrate with various services and databases across departments, providing a more cohesive user experience (something a third-party tool wouldn’t have access to).

The end of government websites

AI chatbots may end up being just a temporary blip in the evolution of online government service delivery, but I believe they will play a significant catalyst role in the shift away from government websites as we know them today.

Eventually, I can see us having access to a single, secure, multi-modal (text, voice, video) AI-based government virtual agent of some sort that offers a fully personalized experience and remembers our interactions. This means we’d need to feel comfortable sharing sensitive personal information with the AI, just like we already do with secure online government forms, websites, and applications. While we might not be at that comfort level yet, I believe it will happen sooner than we think. We’ll just need the “erase AI memory” button to always be a click away — and trust that it will actually work.

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Social (Behaviour Change) Marketing Statement of Ethics 26 Oct 2023 11:31 AM (last year)

I’m pleased to announce that the International Social Marketing Association (iSMA) has officially adopted a Social Marketing Statement of Ethics to support the ethical conduct of social marketing professionals, including practitioners, scholars and students.

Why adopt an ethics statement?

Social marketers working across different social contexts often come across a wide range of diverse ethical issues. Any behaviour change programs and projects that seek to influence individuals and communities should, therefore, be developed and delivered in a way that demonstrates that these ethical concerns have been identified, considered and addressed.

Having worked on various social marketing initiatives over the years across many cultures, I welcome this long-overdue addition to the social marketing field and encourage other practitioners to reference and adhere to the ethics statement whenever possible. I genuinely believe that adherence and reference to these principles throughout program design and delivery will go a long way toward building trust with audiences, stakeholders, and those in charge of policies/laws that can affect positive change.

The core principles

The six social marketing ethical principles, as outlined in the official statement, are as follows:

1. Respect and Sensitivity: Respect for people’s privacy, autonomy, diversity, free and informed choice, rights to participation and non-participation, inclusion and exclusion, and control over their lives.

2. Social justice and fairness: Promotion of social justice and avoidance of unfair distribution of benefits and burdens.

3. Openness and transparency: Transparency of goals, methods, intended and achieved outcomes, data ownership, and potential or apparent benefits and risks to target group(s) and society.

4. Avoidance of conflicts of interest: Avoidance of potential or apparent conflicts of interest, including opportunity for personal and reputational gain or avoidance of loss; promote public trust in social marketing.

5. Duty of care and non-malfeasance: Endeavor to do no physical, psychological or environmental harm and exercise a duty of care, integrity and professional and scientific responsibility.

6. Serve public interest: Fulfill social and political mandates and identify responsibilities and accountabilities for all stakeholders.

For additional details, please refer to the official statement.

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The Convergence of Citizen-Centric Concepts in the Canadian Government: Marketing and User-Centered Design. 13 Sep 2023 11:24 AM (last year)

Earlier this summer, the announcement of a new Minister for Citizens’ Services by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) got me thinking about the drastic increase I’ve noticed in the use of audience-focused business processes and terms across the Canadian public sector. While there is never a shortage of new management buzzwords that come and go with each season, I do think this is a step in the right direction for the public service as a whole.

The marketing mindset

As a strategic marketing consultant who specializes in government initiatives, I have spent a considerable part of my career explaining to public servants what marketing is, what it is not, and how a marketing mindset in a government organization can help it improve its services/programs, and provide more value to taxpayers. 

The biggest obstacle has always been the many preconceived notions of what “marketing” entails, as it is often confused with profit-driven sales, advertising, and top-down demand generation. 

At its core, marketing places great importance on understanding the needs of the customer (target audience). I like to think of it as a planning process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for your audience.

Marketing should always begin with audience research to better understand audience wants, needs and pains regarding the service, product, or program. This research should then (ideally) guide decisions about:

1. segmentation and targeting
2. positioning (value proposition);
3. actual product/service design;
4. price (non-monetary or monetary);
5. location/channel;
6. promotion (tactics and messaging).

The importance of research

In most government organizations, the “research” component is outside the jurisdiction of the folks responsible for marketing, which means if it does take place, it isn’t done in a way that is specific to the marketing initiative (i.e. the right questions aren’t being asked). As a result, most marketing initiative attempts in government end up reverting to top-down communications, primarily focused on raising awareness/uptake rather than ensuring the service or program is actually meeting the needs of the audience.

User-centred design (UCD)

Enter the newfound popularity of user-centred design and its related terms across government (i.e. design thinking, usability, user experience, etc.) At its core, UCD is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. Remember that “designers” can be anyone responsible for developing a government service or program.

Similarities between marketing and user-centred design

While marketing and UCD can be considered different domains, they intertwine in several ways. Here are a few:

1. Customer at the Core: Both marketing and UCD prioritize the customer (i.e. user of the service, product or program). Where marketing seeks to understand and tap into customer needs and desires to shape these services, UCD ensures that services are designed keeping users’ needs and feedback central.
2. Iterative Feedback Loop: A key characteristic of UCD is iterative design, wherein products/services are continuously refined based on user feedback. Similarly, a marketing mindset is about constant adaptation to market reactions, trends, and audience feedback.
3. Value Proposition: Whether it’s creating a user-friendly online passport application interface or crafting a campaign attempting to get people to compost, both concepts revolve around the value proposition. It’s about answering the user’s fundamental question: “What’s in it for me?”
4. Empathy-Driven: Empathy is crucial. Marketers must empathize to resonate with their target audience, and user-centred designers must empathize to create solutions that users find intuitive and helpful.

While these processes each have their unique nuances, they converge in their end goal: delivering value to the intended audience and ensuring satisfaction.  

A step in the right direction

At the end of the day, regardless of the terminology and specific processes being used, I’m just happy to see more focus finally being placed on the end-users of government services. I genuinely hope that the creation of a Minister of Citizens’ Services role continues to emphasize this importance and encourages public servants responsible for service/program delivery to incorporate more of a marketing (or UCD) mindset into their work.

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Operational Transparency in Social (Behaviour Change) Health Marketing 23 Dec 2021 11:28 AM (3 years ago)

Here’s a radical thought.

What if all health-focused social marketing/behaviour change efforts by public sector organizations were required to show the strategy behind each campaign? I’m thinking of an actual “operational transparency” link at the bottom of any video, image, infographic, etc. This link would point to a downloadable folder that would have all the raw files, data, research, and draft documents that led to the current health approach being promoted (essentially an expedited, proactive version of ATIP “access to information and privacy”).

Perhaps that is exactly what we need in order to rebuild the deteriorating trust in public sector institutions. Of course, this link would not be for everyone, but everyone should at the very least know that it’s there. That, in and of itself would help.

Some people would welcome it with open arms, and others, of course, would proceed to criticize each and every decision that was made along the way.

But what’s worse? Informing people that increasingly don’t trust you and think you’re hiding information from them OR Informing people that increasingly don’t trust you but at least know that there is no malicious intent behind your decisions? Perhaps the latter will eventually reduce that decline in trust, which is far more important for the long-term health of a democratic society.

It would surely be an interesting approach. Something to ponder as we enter yet another pandemic-dominated year. Stay healthy out there folks.

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Utilizing Simulation Training to Advance Technical Experts to Trusted Strategic Advisors 13 May 2021 11:11 AM (3 years ago)

Business leaders are intimately familiar with how important strategy is to any successful business endeavor. Just how many times have we heard those same business leaders say that they want their teams to be “more strategic”. But what is that message truly trying to convey? In our experience, it means enabling people to think beyond their immediate functional roles and to take confident action that positively impacts the organization as a whole.

Navigating the gap between strategic knowledge and strategic implementation isn’t easy. There are so many factors involved in enabling a strategic culture. One of which is experience. And while it is true that trusted strategic advisors are crucial to business success, their knowledge is not something that’s magically bestowed upon them but rather learned, and there are many ways that business leaders, human resources, and corporate training departments can help employees learn to become better strategic advisors.

Simulation training is one approach that has proven wildly popular with team managers and team members alike. Critically, simulated challenges allow for consequence-free experimentation. Making a potentially risky decision can create fear of the so called “career limiting move”. With real life simulation training there are opportunities to learn from mistakes in a safe and supported environment. Teams are motivated to leave their comfort zones and experiment with new ways of thinking for strategic decision-making that can deliver impact.

Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders^® developed by UK-based Archetypical Ltd. and now offered through The Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing, is an immersive learning experience built on a familiar game from our youth but with a real-world business twist. Structured game play helps teams navigate the ambiguity between theory and practice by deliberating on complex business scenarios. Working in teams, players help an aspiring executive in a fictional multinational organization to direct their strategic decisions to be recognized as a business leader. Random twists and unexpected events mirror real life’s unpredictability, challenging players to gain different perspectives while honing strategic skills in a harmless sandbox setting.

Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders is an exciting simulation training program that has proven to be an engaging way for teams to learn as it throws them into an experience with challenges, risks, loss and gain. While the setting itself may be sandbox-esque, the intensity of the encountered scenarios offers an opportunity to learn under pressure and make snap strategic decisions, ultimately flexing skills as a strategic thinker and shaping participants into more confident advisors. While exploring the game’s real-life scenarios and dilemmas, participants also reflect on different advisory styles, identify areas where risk-taking is appropriate and are encouraged to stretch beyond their usual roles and responsibilities to improve performance!

The goal of the program is simple: to bridge the lingering ambiguity gap between theory and practice. To provide the tools for employees to build confidence for engaging with senior leadership and the know-how to flex in their roles to get the best results for their organizations. This simulation program can provide an incredible opportunity to practice those skills in a comfortable and exciting setting.

Investing in employee growth and development doesn’t begin and end by equipping them with the tools to boost productivity. Organizations that facilitate personal growth among their employees are more likely to increase employee retention, attract top talent, keep their teams engaged, be future ready and strengthen the internal talent pipeline. In fact, LinkedIn’s Workforce Learning Report states that a whopping 93 per cent of employees stay at their organization longer if they are offered career investment opportunities.

Creating environments, opportunities and time for your team to develop the skills needed to best serve the organization is important for everybody. And while there’s no such thing as a shortcut to strategic development within your organization, simulation-based learning opportunities, workshops and sessions can help do the heavy lifting that will ultimately make sure every business decision is a strategic one.

Register for Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders today!

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What You Can Do About “The Social Dilemma” 17 Sep 2020 1:14 PM (4 years ago)

If you haven’t done so already, do yourself a favour and spend 96 minutes tonight watching “The Social Dilemma“. This is a decently put together Netflix documentary outlining, among other things, how and why the pendulum has swung too far in terms of citizen use of and addiction to social media, driven in large part by algorithms optimized to exploit our data for clicks and profit. Don’t worry, you’ll likely get your 96 minutes back in the form of saved time by not checking your social feed for the rest of the night. Sadly, most people will go back to their regular routine by the time morning rolls around. The dopamine hit that comes with checking their feed is simply too good.

To those of us working in the digital space, there is really nothing new here. However, the fact that this documentary has hit mainstream audiences (ironically, thanks to recommendation algorithms) did remind me just how important it is to continually educate and build up the digital literacy skills of all internet users. The intent of this post is not to provide a synopsis (there are more than enough of those out there), but rather to share some high-level thoughts on what I liked and disliked about it, as well as concrete actions people can take.

What I Liked About It

• The people interviewed were former senior social media company employees, investors and/or technologists admitting that things have gotten out of control. This ups the believability quite a bit. I remember watching the U.S Senate Hearings with Mark Zuckerberg and cringing at some of the questions being asked by uninformed Senators, completely unaware of how the Internet works. Not the case here.
• It emphasized the sheer scale at which all of our micro-engagements (likes, glances, searches, comments, clicks, hesitations) are monitored across all platforms and mined in real-time by AI-driven algorithms optimized to keep us engaged, regardless of the effects this may have on our health or the health of society.
• It covered the business model dilemma at the heart of all of this. Primarily that we, “the users”are the product (i.e. our data) that brings in the profit thanks to all the 3rd party individuals/organizations (including both state and non-state actors) willing to pay for this data so they can influence us through modern advertising techniques. This can be anything from getting us to purchase a product to small nudges in opinion on a social issue, which lead us to behaviour change over time. While it can be argued that the latter can be a good thing if it’s, let’s say, a public health organization basing its messaging on science, it becomes more problematic if it gets in the hands of someone or some organization that has malicious intent or is trying to advance their own idea of what is good for society.
• It addressed the fact that real people are getting hurt, manipulated, abused, and in the worst cases killed as a result of the above.
• Rather than simply pointing fingers at social media company leaders, it touched upon the fact that nobody set out to design these platforms with malicious intent. Lack of ethical control measures? Yes. Willful blindness to issues being raised by whistleblowers? Yes. Hubris? Yes. The desire for profit? Yes. But not malicious intent. While that doesn’t justify what these platforms have become and how they are used with malicious intent by others, it does help to shift the focus inward to examine our own behaviours, since without us (i.e. the product /data) there would be no platforms.

What I Didn’t Like About It

• I don’t think it went quite far enough in exploring how a certain percentage of social media users (a minority but often the most active) are simply negative, broken individuals spewing hate on others. That’s a human problem that existed long before social media. No algorithms can be blamed for that. They amplify it, but they can’t be blamed for it.
• Most daily social media usage has moved to so-called “private” social media (i.e. instant messengers). Most of these are not driven by algorithms or recommendation engines but rather by humans. The forwarding of messages on these platforms can lead to the rapid spread of disinformation. True, there are bot accounts disguised as individuals, but they are created by humans.
• It didn’t cover the rapidly growing area of ethical algorithm design and government policies in the ethical use of algorithms. A good example of this is the Government of Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision Making.
• It missed an opportunity to provide tools and resources that people can immediately use to help them reduce the ways in which they contribute to the problem.

What You Can Do To Help Minimize “The Social Dilemma“

• Turn on and use the screen/app limiting features of your smartphone. On Google/Android phones the built-in app is called Digital Wellbeing and on iPhones, it’s Screen Time. Study your own usage and set controls for each app. You can set a hard stop for all social media past a certain time.
• Go to your notification settings right now and ask yourself if you really need to be proactively notified if “friend/organization X” posts something. What will happen if you miss that selfie? Please, for your own sanity, turn at least 3 notifications off. Imagine the exponential effects this would have if everyone took this step.
• If you have young kids ( I have three for the record), seriously ask yourself if they need to be on public social media. It’s no longer just about “trusting” them to do the right thing. They might be doing everything right but that doesn’t stop them from being exposed to bad actors and manipulated over time as the algorithms learn about their preferences. I realize that many people use dedicated accounts these platforms provide for kids but I find that approach only feeds the beast. Imagine all the precise data (i.e. personal behavioural profiles) the machines will have by the time your kids are of age to create regular “adult” accounts.
• Discuss, discuss, discuss. Talk about this with your friends, family, colleagues. We need more people talking about this to keep it on the radar as a pressing issue (not just when there is a Netflix doc about it). Eventually, the folks that are civically engaged (you perhaps?) will write to government leaders pushing for more digital literacy education (i.e. self-awareness as to our own role), better regulation, and the need to build responsible digital engagement into the curriculum of the public school system. Given the effect algorithms currently have on our lives and society as a whole, it’s crazy this hasn’t become a major election issue other than from the perspective of “influencing” an election.
• Use basic tools like Snopes. com to verify links before sharing anything that creates an emotional reaction in you. Better yet, do some basic detective work yourself by getting familiarized with tools that can be used to detect fake photos, accounts, emails, etc. (refer to slides 22-28 in this presentation I posted).
• Next time you see something on social media that triggers a reaction, take a deep breath, put down your phone/screen, and go for a walk outside. There is still hope for us.

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It takes a community to effectively spread evidence-based COVID-19 messaging 20 Jul 2020 7:55 AM (4 years ago)

Over the past few months, I’ve been very much impressed with the COVID-19 related communications coming out of my local health unit, Ottawa Public Health (OPH). Their work on both Facebook and Twitter has been exceptional. Specifically, what really sets them apart from many other health organizations at the moment is the tone being used to convey important COVID-19 information. Rather than the dry top-down comms of old, I would describe their comms as a smart blend of witty humour and light-touch sarcasm, all the while remaining professional, open and empathetic, in an environment where health information changes rapidly as new evidence comes in. This is definitely no easy endeavour, especially with the existence of difficult online personalities, many of whom essentially wait for OPH to contradict themselves on an earlier message in an effort to discredit everything they are doing (instead of acknowledging the fluidity of this topic). I can see how it can be tough to stay motivated but thankfully OPH has stayed on course and their efforts are now clearly paying off.

Here are a few of my favourite OPH tweets…

Friendly jab at Toronto, home of Ottawa’s rival hockey team…

Cheeky response to news of certain residents berating cashiers…

Poking fun at conspiracy theorists…

All of these may seem trivial in the greater scheme of things, but when you take a step back to see the birds-eye view of how catchy health information like this spreads, the network effects of maximizing the visibility of credible health info can be tremendous, especially when influential accounts from other communities are lured in to participate.

To better illustrate this, I performed a quick data pull and community visualization using social network analysis techniques of nearly 12,ooo tweets mentioning @OttawaHealth or @OttawaSante over the course of 4 weeks (June 17-July 7, 2020). As seen in the slide I created below, there are nearly 7,000 unique users interacting with the Ottawa Health account from a variety of closely-knit communities. Each one of these accounts helps expose the content from Ottawa Public Health to their own respective followers and communities, in an exponential fashion. It’s worth noting that at present time, most of the fringe conspiracy/disinformation accounts tend to be drowned out to the periphery and/or to their own small, like-minded community clusters, however, they should be monitored for growth on a regular basis as they can grow rapidly to form a disproportional footprint, especially if they use black-hat bot-driven techniques (see my presentation on the anti-vaxxer community).

For those interested, I’ve also created an interactive web-based version of the graph below (although not as pretty and without a legend) and a hi-res image of just the graph. Feel free to shoot me a DM on twitter (@mikekujawski) if you have any questions.

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COVID-19 Commercials – A united message or simply a lack of creativity? 28 Apr 2020 12:57 PM (4 years ago)

You’ve probably seen a few COVID-19 TV commercials by now, maybe even shed a few tears. Empty roads, parked airplanes, deserted cities, playgrounds with no kids, you name it. If the location once had people in it, it is now being shown as empty with some sombre piano music concurrently nourishing our auditory senses and reminding us what we are all missing. Each commercial then shifts gears and moves into a more positive tone, usually mentioning the fact that we are all in this together and encouraging us that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel will soon be visible. Most end off with thanks and appreciation for our health care workers (well-deserved, of course).

So what’s the big deal?

It depends on who you ask. I came across this video mash-up of COVID-19 commercials the other week, which pretty much highlights what I’ve pointed out above in a mocking way. Have a look.

I have seen many of these ads circulate individually now across various marketing and communications communities, and it’s been interesting reading the different reactions depending on where they are shared. In general, emotional (yet uplifting) ads such as these resonate well with consumers in times of crisis, hence why most brands took this approach in the first place. Yet I’m also seeing folks criticizing these brands right now for not taking the opportunity to stand out with unique positioning, instead, opting for a predictable message, and unimaginative ad. Joining them are people that have a healthy distrust of consumer brands and corporations to begin with, not at all buying these corporate attempts to demonstrate caring.

What do I think?

I believe the unique positioning here is actually the similarity. While I doubt it was approached strategically in a coordinated manner between so many industries, the likeness of each one of these ads builds a stronger whole of something bigger than the individual brand itself. We are legitimately in this together. I believe it’s better to show our similarities than pointing out differences right now in an attempt to be “king of the hill.” This similarity of commercials is also a compelling way to strengthen and help promote key government health messages that often don’t get the same reach on their own.

In summary, the similarity of commercials like this would be a travesty at any other time. But it’s COVID-19, and it’s not a normal time by any means. I, therefore, don’t mind the approach many of these brands have taken.

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