Ged Carroll

Category: ethics | 倫理 | 윤리학

Ethics: moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity. I went to school with people who ended up on the wrong side of the law. I knew more of them when I used to DJ which was my hobby since before I went to college.

I probably still have some post-it notes around the place that I used as bookmarks from when I used to work at a call centre but that was about the extent of my ethical transgressions.

My business experience meant that I dealt with a lot of unpleasant unprofessional clients, but didn’t necessarily see anything unethical in nature. When I started writing this blog I was thinking about culture rather than ethics and the most part still do.

But business and work changed. Ethics became more important:

  • When I started in social and digital campaigns I didn’t think about ethics as a standalone thing. It was just part of doing a good job. It went without saying.
  • I don’t think any of us back then would have foreseen slut shaming, trolling, online bullying, dark patterns and misinformation

Now things are different. The lack of ethics is impacting all parts of business life.

  • How ad tech data is used
  • How content is created
  • How services are designed
  • How products are made

I think that much of the problems with ethics is cultural and generational in nature. The current generation of entrepreneurs have perverted knowledge in the quest of growth hacking and continual improvement and change for its own sake. Its a sickness at the centre of technology

  • Mulan live action trailer & things that made the week

    Mulan live action film trailer

    Disney posted this beautiful trailer of the Mulan live action adaption this weekend. I presume it was to try and take the sting out of a black mermaid earlier this week on Chinese social media. The Mulan live action film will have to meet the exacting standards of fans who loved the animated version of Mulan and avoid communist party imbued fascism

    McDonalds bacon rolls

    Kudos to my former work neighbours at Leo Burnett London for this lovely bit of craft in a McDonald’s UK ad for bacon rolls

    40th anniversary of Sony Walkman

    Sony have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Walkman. There used to be a lovely museum of Sony gear through the ages that was not only great to behold; but an education in product design. Anyway check out this short Sony video of Walkmans

    Doxxed colonial policemen

    I’ve been following the ongoing events in Hong Kong with interest. It seems that the Labour Party proved to be more effective than the government in striking out for the Hong Kong people. Shadow minister Helen Goodman doxed one of three British expat senior policemen who were involved in the harshest Hong Kong police action to date on June 12. The Times newspaper published the names of the other two officers Rupert Dover and David Jordan. Their identity had appeared on Hong Kong protest banners after June 12 and were well known to the expat community.

    The June 12th tactics were more suitable for Northern Ireland during The Troubles than the kind of demos one would see in Hong Kong. Superintendent Julian Shave’s profile on LinkedIn (since removed) showed that considered himself an expert in counter-terrorism. There was nothing about his expertise in the use of tear gas against Hong Kongers.

    Given Goodman’s and the Labour Party’s stance about this, Messrs Dover, Jordan and Shave might think of looking for a job in Bahrain or China’s burgeoning private security sector, rather than risking a day in a UK court under a future Labour government…

    K-pop idol experience

    Hallyu or Korean popular culture has been on a sustained boom since the early noughties. A key part of this has been the way Korea seems to mass produce boy and girl bands in a much more consistently successful way than the likes of Japan. They even seem to do it even better than western producer dynasties like Simon Cowell, 19 Management or Stock, Aitken and Waterman. This documentary by Asian Boss is very insightful on the idol experience from an insider and how she’s pivoted into being a YouTuber

  • Chinas booming streetwear scene + more

    Inside Chinas booming streetwear scene – Inkstone – great video on Chinas booming streetwear scene that’s morphing into someithing very different

    Tesco Is Said to Work With Israel’s Trigo on Cashierless Stores – Bloomberg – if Chinese cashier less stores experience is anything to go by, this might not be a good idea

    ‘Adapt or die’ – Martin Sorrell’s message to ‘Pavlovian’ ad industry holding companies – Mumbrella Asia – S4 Capital’s low overheads and a cheaper wage bill due to the average employee age being 25 at Mightyhive – the programmatic firm – and 33 at MediaMonks, the production house, meant it could deliver greater bang for the buck than the networks – so its not a smart marketing play but a manpower cost play? We’re better run because we employ cheaper staff? Sorrell gets made to look like a chump in this article; I’d also suggest that he does his homework looking at effectiveness and creativity more closely

    Opinion | A Major Police Body Cam Company Just Banned Facial Recognition – The New York Times – interesting move by Axon. The US seems to be doing to facial recognition what the EU did to online data with GDPR

    FCB parts with Nivea amid rising tensions, including allegations of homophobic remark | AdAge – client reported said ‘we don’t do gay’ on agency call. That’s being leaked from FCB staff or freelancers

    Crazy/Genius: Are Influencers Frauds or the Future? – The Atlantic – the dystopian age of whuffie capitalism

    Nike Withdraws Products After Brand Partner Vexed China for Supporting HK | Jing Daily – Nike and the bullshit of brand purpose, especially when you contrast this to the Colin Kapernick campaign. When sales are lacklustre principles go to shit

    Huawei Personnel Worked With China Military on Research Projects – Bloomberg – looks like a mix of internal security work (analysing emotions in online video content, and external security on collecting and analysing satellite images and where 2.0 data. One also has to remember that Qualcomm has got a heavy national security background in the US. Given the current situation this news couldn’t have landed at a worse time for Huawei.

    Naomi Wu has an interesting discussion on professionalism versus engagement to maximise pay off on video. You need to have 2 million+ viewers to make the transition from 1080P to 4K worthwhile

    Carrefour sells 80% of China grocery business — Quartz – surprised they didn’t use China to jump start experience on e-commerce so they could take Amazon on in the home market. Talk about a missed opportunity

    China’s millennials are mourning the end of an era in online hook-up culture | Quartz – really interesting, given how early marketers like China Merchants Bank used drift bottle for its CSR programme. Its also unsurprising given China’s tightening grip on media distribution

  • Agnotology + more things

    Agnotology and Epistemological Fragmentation – Data & Society: Points – well worth a good read. Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. This reminded me a lot of work that was done by large corporates on tobacco health and more recently on peak oil and climate change. More recently it seems to be culture and value related; where the results don’t fit the wider progressive view in academia. That too isn’t healthy. More consumer behaviour related posts here.

    WePresent – lovely creative brand building work by wetransfer and an amazing 404 error message page. Each of the works presented here are very thoughtfully curated for a creative audience. Its all amazing.

    Gigalife by Vodafone | FaceTime families: What 5G means for those who stay in touch by screen – not a lot, wi-fi and 4G is more important and perfectly adequate

    When manipulation is the digital business model – dark patterns as we call it in the trade (paywall)

    Facebook’s off-again, on-again affair with privacy – Axios – less of a pivot and more of a zig-zag. What appears to be apparent is that Facebook’s internal values are at odds with wider society and there won’t be any meeting of minds any time soon.

    Leo Burnett, Lucky Generals and Ogilvy decline to pitch for Audi – Leo Burnett London, Lucky Generals, Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi London and VMLY&R all declined to take part in Audi’s advertising review. Which is a pretty damning critique of either Audi’s pitch process, or their reputation in the UK as a client. Given how toxic Boots or Samsung are as a client, this is a pretty damning indictment of Audi as an organisation in the UK. This is a world away from when Audi’s Vorsprung Durch Technik ads went head to head with BMW in the 1980s and 1990s.

  • Is Brexit bad for Europe + more

    Judy Asks: Is Brexit Bad for Europe? – Carnegie Europe – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – interesting take on Brexit from a US perspective. Is Brexit bad for Europe focuses on the EUs role on the world stage including regional and global security. According to my reading of Is Brexit bad for Europe there looks to be opportunities to grow in defence research and development and upgrade the economic performance of the EUs smaller nations.

    5G Deployment State of Play in Europe, USA and Asia | European Parliament ITRE Committee – interesting snapshot on 5G adoption across the EU (PDF)

    Microsoft worked with Chinese military university on artificial intelligence | Financial Times – US worried about dual use of the technology (paywall)

    Toyota will put Tundra, Tacoma trucks on a single platform, report says – Roadshow – interesting that Toyota is embracing the Volkswagen Group approach to vehicle engineering. I didn’t realise that Toyota no longer sells the Hilux in the US, apparently its because it isn’t big enough

    Panda TV’s demise makes way for gaming giant Tencent to dominate live streaming too | SCMP – China’s Twitch goes under, leaving Tencent to dominate live streaming too. This reinforces the oligarchy running China’s online sector from financial services and e-tailing to gaming and media

    DJ Craze: “Sync is your friend… embrace technology” – News – Mixmag – wow, controversial. This is the reformation of the DJ world. The problem with these things is that once people know the button is there new DJs will skip the valuable learning process of beat mixing

    Facebook ‘morally bankrupt pathological liars’, says NZ privacy commissioner – AdNews – 5 I’s pattern starting to emerge on Facebook. You take this stance with the UK’s proposal to treat social networks as publishers and Australia’s daft views on crypto. There are lots of reasons to criticise Facebook, but this isn’t one of them. Instead its cynical pandering to the populist political peanut gallery. More related content here.

  • A Shadow Intelligence by Oliver Harris

    I was given a galley copy of A Shadow Intelligence to read.

    TLDR: version of my review is that its a thoroughly modern spy thriller.

    The protagonist Elliot Kane is a British intelligence officer who has returned from Saudi Arabia to London. He is sent a video of himself in a room that he’s never been talking to a man that he doesn’t know. Harris takes the reader on a spy story that takes place in the Central Asian republics between China and Russia.

    It is a thoroughly modern book:

    • Addressing the confluence of interests between government and businesses going abroad that had long driven policy and actions in Africa and the Middle East. But is now driving along the Silk Road with the expansion of China’s Belt & Road Initiative and the quest for oil and mining
    • Privatisation of military, cyber and intelligence capabilities. We know have a private intelligence and military industrial complex. Edward Snowden worked for Booz Allen & Hamilton. Palantir do data analysis for intelligence, as does Detica for the UK. SCL Group ran outsourced psychological warfare programmes for western militaries and supported political interference in the developing world
    • Technology including modern information warfare over social media channels, fake news and deep fake videos. Even pretty crude efforts at the moment drive effective disinformation campaigns, deep fake video and audio completely undermines what the nature of truth is.

    Kane comes across as a jaded, human bookish character more George Smiley than James Bond. Harris did his research really well. He brings alive the locations and the main characters.

    If I had one criticism it would be that the end felt a bit rushed, rather like the author was trying to exceed a word count. Despite this I am happy recommending A Shadow Intelligence as a good leisure read. More book reviews here.