Spurred by the comments left on other articles, I just want to clarify how this whole Toshiba-story developed. Quite a tragedy, since the lovetolead-site is almost dead, this week only a dozen bloggers submitted an article. Quite a tragedy as well because an idea that started good (but had some flaws) was driven into isolation due to the miscommunication on all sides.
I personally hope that the site regains some attraction again - and I want to sincerely apologize to everybody who felt obstacled by my actions. I had three aims: raise awareness for the needs of bloggers, point to conceptual flaws and explore the mechanisms of social and virtual networks. Nothing more, nothing less. Here’s what happened:
About three weeks ago, I was contacted by Lovetolead. I thought the site was a good idea, but when I saw the implementation, I was a litte bit more skeptic:
- the whole voting system simply invited manipulation
- the questions seemed very superficial to really stir a debate
- the terms of conditions allowed arbitrary decisions of Lovetolead
- the relationship between Toshiba and the agency implementing the site was unclear: Was Toshiba a sponsor of the site? Was the site solely developed for marketing-purposes? What would happen after Toshiba stopped its sponsorship?
I submitted an article and started to talk with friends about the site. They voted for me and joked that I should bribe people for voting. I don’t like bribing. However, I realized that I don’t really need the laptop. Maybe somebody else would rather like to have the laptop. I had the idea that I simply could give away the laptop among all the voters, thus allowing the people voting for my article to have a better chance. None of this contradicted the terms of conditions and I never expected that this would be sucessful. I thought that the site would enough attract enough other people that my small campaign would be neglectable.
Nevertheless, the results were overwhelming. Within hours my article was voted to first place and I started leading the competition by a safe margin. Lovetolead? Sure! It was great to see how simple a social network of real people can overroll large virtual networks.
At the same time, I contacted Toshiba and the Lovetolead-Admins. I openly told them what I did. I published it on my website. I offered them my help, told them that I know enough about blogging to at least help them avoid their major flaws and that I had concrete ideas for improving the site. I asked them to come to Berlin or fly me over to London or Neuss for a personal meeting.
The reply was clear: “No time”, “No need” and “Toshiba does not get involved”. Both the Toshiba people and the Lovetolead people indicated that they want to talk, but not now. I said that for me it does not matter when to talk, but that I would see it as a very urgent issue and that they should not underestimate it.
After the first round and me winning the laptop, I took a break. I wanted to see whether other bloggers would copy me methods or would even use more drastic ones, like the anonymisation of the IP-number . The next round showed the same results: one blogger was leading by a comfortable margin. Whether he manipulated the votes or whether simply his article had a decent quality, I do not want to judge.
But the results were less submitted articles and less interest by the blogosphere. The principle is very simple: people don’t like situations in which it is clear who is winning. People did not like when Michael Schumacher was winning Formula One every year. If Germany wins the Soccer Championship every time. Head to head races are what people like. Lovetolead - yes, seeing somebody else constantly leading - no!
Other bloggers and NGOs contacted me and wanted to achieve similar results. It was clear that the voting system was very open to manipulation and that a lot of people wanted to have their share. Some had even very good ideas in mind (like donating the laptop to a charity-funds).The third round opened with another bland question. However, lovetolead had changed the voting system. From now on they only showed the first ten places. Also you had to vote yes or no on each article. But it was unclear how the rank was determined and how the no-votes counted. Instead of proving explanations, lovetolead kept silent.
I asked my friend laberena to submit an article. This time the laptop was given on the condition that the winner would have to donate 500 Euros to a charity. The response again was surprising - a large number of people voted for the article.
The article did address the question, but maybe not in the way that the Lovetolead-People wanted. However they left the article online until it started to get a lot of votes and went up to 1st place. Then they deleted the article.
Laberena submitted another article. Again, it went up to 1st place. Again, it was deleted by the adminstrators. Other articles which completely did not address the topic were not deleted at first. At the same time, some comments on the lovetolead-site and on my blog became increasingly hostile. Through other channels though, I received lots of support.
At this moment, there is no need to continue this soap opera. I personally think it is clear that the set-up of the site is problematic and the fact that since yesterday nobody has submitted an article is a witness to the disaster. And still they do not want to listen - instead of blaming their own communication, they are blaming me. As if the person who is bearing the bad news is the one to blame? Sure enough, I helped that the flaw became visible.The Lovetolead people have now more than enough time to fix the problem.
The first problem they should fix is their own communication. Yes, I advise people on their communication strategies. I will leave it to the people I work with to judge my abilities. But you can only advise somebody if the person wants to have advise. Putting carrots in your ears and saying “It was not me” surely won’t solve the problem.
Again, I hope that the site regains a little bit more of visibility. But the first thing that bloggers normally do when writing articles is to search whether other people wrote similar things. And if they end up here, they might get a different impression of lovetolead.
If I see visible signs of admitting mistakes and changing communication at lovetolead, I will immediately report about it here. I will be the first to admit that my judgements were wrong if the site becomes an overwhelming success. Good luck.
