close
Search:
Regular readers know that Iโ€™m passionate about three key areas: leadership; learning & enterprise 2.0. As a lifelong educator, married to one as well, and possessing a young brood already immersed in a 2.0 world, we strongly believe in raising our children to be collaborative, transparent, honest and innovative. But, alas, Iโ€™ve recently developed petulance for one of the worldโ€™s finest creations โ€ฆ Facebook. Mr. Mark Zuckerberg has arguably founded one of the most collaborative and people connecting applications in recent history. According to CheckFacebook.com there are well over 450 million registered users worldwide. According to Google, Facebook now occupies the #1 visited website with 540 million unique visits in April, 2010 (after removing Google itself from the research). Aside from the recent Facebook privacy flak, there is not a burning platform for Mr. Zuckerberg, Ms. Lori Goler (VP of Human Resources and Recruiting) and Mr. Elliot Schrage (VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy) to deal with, there is a raging inferno. Bullying and Facebook. It needs to be addressed โ€ฆ by Facebook. With such a commanding head start as the platform in which people are sharing, collaborating and connecting, it is appalling (given countless examples) that Facebook does not take the stance to ensure its users (particularly those in the 10-18 year old range) are more educated and aware of cyber-bullying. Recent examples involving Facebook & bullying, fromย 3 different countries include, but are not limited to: A review of Facebook Principles makes no mention, whatsoever, of ethics or social expectations but it does state:
Achieving these principles should be constrained only by limitations of law, technology, and evolving social norms.
What, may I ask, is โ€˜evolving social normsโ€™ and how can something that is evolving be the definition of your Facebook Principles? There is, however, a โ€œDefined Statement of Rights & Responsibilitiesโ€ for which I applaud Section 3 (Safety) Subsection 6:
You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
Frankly, both the Facebook Principles and Defined Statement of Rights & Responsibilities do not fit the task at hand. More must be done by Facebook to help the 10-18 year old age bracket be aware of the dire consequences of bullying, particularly cyber-bullying and particularly due to the fact Facebook has, more or less, become the de facto place for these assaults to occur. Mark, Lori, Elliot โ€ฆ I implore you to get in front of this inferno. Do not leave it solely to local school boards, local governments or community/N-F-P organizations to fight the blaze. Our kids do not yet possess the cognitive ability to distinguish social 2.0 norms in a 2.0 world; they need guidance, assistance, best practice and collaborative education to do so. Proven by Leslie Sabbagh with her piece entitled The Teen Brain, Hard at Work; (August/September 2006; Scientific American Mind), the prefrontal cortex is one of the last areas of the brain to mature. Thus, an immature prefrontal cortex is thought to be the explanation for why adolescents show poor judgment, an inability to think before they act, and as a consequence, bad decisions being made. This phenomenon is all the more exacerbated in the Facebook era. This is why cyber-bullying on Facebook is occurring; we need to rethink the plan. Steps to take, if I were Mark, Lori and Elliot:
  • Lead: get in front of this issue and begin leading โ€“ make it a part of the Facebook DNA
  • Educate: you not only have a collaborative platform, you have a learning platform. Begin educating your users specifically related to Facebook bullying, consequences, etc.
  • Collaborate: work with your millions of 10-18 year old users on the right strategies to implement
In the meantime, and until proven otherwise, my 7, 4 and 3 year old wonโ€™t be setting foot on the Facebook platform. But Mark, Lori and Elliot, I offer my hand in assistance.
WORK-LIFE BLOOM

PERSONAL ASSESSMENT

Find out if youโ€™re currently blooming, budding, stunted or in need of renewal through the Work-Life Bloom Personal Assessment.

START ASSESSMENT  

Testimonials

  • Dan Pontefractโ€™s keynote on the importance of workplace culture in employee engagement was excellent. ย Dan used his vast leadership experience to provide our conference attendees with practical strategies to build teams that are engaged and committed. His relatable, real-life examples were thought provoking, memorable and very personal, creating a connection to the audience. I would highly recommend Dan as an entertaining keynote speaker who delivers content that is relevant and actionable.

    Michelle Hillyard, Director SCU
  • We are so proud to have had you at our event. Your talk was a big hit. It moved us. We canโ€™t thank you enough.

    Malin Bjรถrnell, Salesforce
  • Dan challenged us to have clarity of purpose, both as individuals and as an organization. He related inspiring stories drawing on his experience in business, technology and academia. As he said, โ€˜There is no ownership without belonging.โ€™

    Christian Pantel, D2L
  • Fantastic engaging talk for our global partner summit. Thank you so much, Dan!

     

    Barb Kinnard, CEO Response Biomedical Corp
  • Dan not only brought his presentation to life with his charisma, but also content, style and presentation finesse. Our members were especially interested in his thought provoking and top of mind topic on the future of work and how weโ€™re going to be leading the next generation of leaders.

    Cheryl Goodwin, CPA
  • Dan is a conference organizerโ€™s ideal speaker. Not only did he inspire and energize our group, but he also masterfully adapted his content so it resonated with the audience and our conference theme. As a bonus, Dan is able to nimbly navigate to adjust to a reduced time slot when other speakers went over time without sacrificing the impact of his session.

    Director and General Counsel
  • Dan accomplished what we set out to do, which was not only to be inspirational, but also to leave everyone with tools and food for thought / self-reflection to improve their personal and professional lives.

    Hermann Handa, FCT

Media Appearances

sidebar hashtag menu home office pencil images camera headphones music video-camera bullhorn connection mic book books file-empty files-empty folder folder-open price-tag barcode qrcode cart coin-dollar coin-euro mobile user users user-plus user-minus key lock unlocked glass mug spoon-knife fire bin switch cloud-download cloud-upload bookmark star-empty star-half star-full play pause stop backward forward first last previous next eject volume-high volume-medium volume-low volume-mute amazon google whatsapp twitter dribbble behance behance-black github appleinc finder windows8 skype pinterest pinterest-o chrome firefox edge safari opera file-pdf file-word file-excel html-five asterisk search search-plus search-minus cog arrow-circle-o-down arrow-circle-o-up edit share-square-o check-square-o arrows question-circle arrow-left arrow-right arrow-up arrow-down mail-forward expand compress eye eye-slash comment twitter-square facebook-square camera-retro cogs comments thumbs-o-up thumbs-o-down sign-out linkedin-square external-link sign-in unlock feed bell-o arrow-circle-left arrow-circle-right arrow-circle-up arrow-circle-down globe filter arrows-alt link paperclip bars envelope linkedin rotate-left bell angle-left angle-right angle-up angle-down desktop mail-reply mail-reply-all chain-broken chevron-circle-left chevron-circle-right chevron-circle-up chevron-circle-down html5 unlock-alt youtube-square youtube-play dropbox stack-overflow apple windows trello female male arrow-circle-o-right arrow-circle-o-left wordpress file-image-o paper-plane paper-plane-o share-alt cc-visa cc-paypal cc-stripe bell-slash bell-slash-o facebook-official trademark registered wikipedia-w question-circle-o