Does transparency kill authenticity?
Imagine, if you will, the following scenario.
You’re walking your way through Twitter and the blogosphere when someone you like and respect a great deal sends you a direct message.
“Hey, I have this ticket to that huge expo you wanted to go to. I’m not going to use it. Do you want it?”
Well, you jump at the chance. You know that the ticket probably was a major investment for someone – your friend, or maybe a friend of your friend. You go to the conference and you have a fabulous time. You’re really grateful.
A couple of months later, that same friend sends you a second direct message. “Hey, I just got my book published. I’d love for you to read it and write a review. Be honest!”
Let me ask you two questions.
First, are you going to mention that this person gave you a ticket to that conference a couple of months back?
Second, are you going to say anything acutely negative about the friend’s book?
The conundrum is transparent
This seems to be to be a pretty quintessential example of the “can’t win” scenario.
In the interest of being transparent, people sometimes treat their blog posts like mini confessionals. “Oh, and I talked to this person in the street on May 27th, but now I’m just quoting them. And this person loaned me a quarter for a vending machine five years ago, but I’d have liked their book anyway. And this person I have talked to in real life on at least 3-4 occasions, but I still highly recommend you attend their webinar.”
People expect these kinds of confessionals in Social Media because one of the first things you hear when you go online is “be transparent.”
However, this also creates, at least in my mind, an issue of just how authentic we can really be online. It makes me wonder if people do nice things in this space so that you can owe them a solid later. It makes me wonder if you REALLY are being honest when you come clean about your friendship with an author and then in the next paragraph tell me why I should buy 17 copies of your friend’s book.
Another hypothetical
Let’s say that you’re doing another book review for a friend of yours (your friends are very accomplished!). You start out by saying that you both work for the same company, your boss supported the book, you wrote the forward, and you got a free copy long before it was released to stores.
What is the incentive for anyone to keep reading? With everything you just became “transparent” about, what are the chances that you’re going to go on to bash everything about the book? I’d say slim to none. In fact, I stop reading.
A real life scenario
This has been on my mind for a few reasons. I’ve encountered a lot of blog posts lately that have me concerned about how genuine some content really is. Are you bashing that person because you REALLY think they’re crap, or is it maybe because every time you do that you get 57 comments on the post? Are you raving about that book because you REALLY think it’s amazing, or is it because of all of that stuff you just “came clean” about?
It’s also on my mind though because of my recent experience reviewing The Now Revolution. It occurred to me, as I started reading, that I had been entrusted with two copies of the book before it even was officially launched. I was entrusted to review the book, and i was entrusted to then find a neat way to send at least one copy of the book out to my community.
Could I really say anything negative about the book?
As it happens, there really isn’t too much that bothers me about The Now Revolution. In fact, with just 2 chapters left, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a couple of years. But what if it hadn’t been? What if there had been a lot of points that just galled me?
I decided that the best path would be to be me. You know who I am. I think, to some extent, Jay and Amber know who I am. I’m not going to say negative things just because I want to create a riot on my blog site. I’m not going to gush at something that’s not gush-worthy.
I feel pretty strongly that I would take that line regardless of the situation. You expect it from me. I expect it from me.
It might be boring. It might not make me a lot of friends in some cases. But I have to be able to sleep at night.
What do you think?
What do you think? Would it be better for someone to not be transparent about all of their ties so that you could take their opinion in without all of that bias? Is it better to know where someone stands but accept that maybe it’s not 100% what they truly think?
What would you do? What do you see?
Let’s talk about it.
Image by Ivan Prole. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/iprole
20 comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Authenticity is such a hugely confusing issue online. On the one hand, there are its proponents, who say that authenticity and transparency should be synonyms. I think otherwise. Authenticity doesn’t require transparency; it requires integrity.
Now, that’s an entirely different can of worms, but; I can say that I have some nagging to do about the Now Revolution. There have been a couple of items I marked as things to ask Amber and Jay (if I get the chance) why they suggested or enacted them.
Does that mean someone else should share their concerns, especially having been entrusted (as we were) with a pair of pre-launch books? I dunno. I haven’t seen any reason not to trust your tact about the reviews.
You can share praise without going all promance (like bromance, but for professionals) over someone. You can share criticism without tearing someone’s head off. I think there’s a happy medium to be found, and it’s probably very individual.
I also think we’ve got a topic for #tweetdiner tomorrow.
Promance. Haha 🙂 That’s awesome 🙂
I think you’re right on the money. Integrity is a word that perhaps we don’t hear enough of online (interestingly). By the same token, one could also say that transparency doesn’t really matter if you’re authentic because you’d have nothing to hide, right?
Great comment, as per usual, Ian. Thank you!
Margie
Oh big and loaded topic. I think that Ian said it best – integrity but even more so, character. If I am afforded an opportunity to get something from someone and then something else, I feel compelled to admit. Maybe the law background in me from what feels like a gazillion years ago but the disclaimer is to me needed. I have to. I recently rambled on a post and did the disclaimer at the end which to me was not being transparent, it was being honest and a part of my character. Yes, I am friends with them but that did not influence me to talk about it (it really did not) so in my world it is not transparency per se, it is integrity and character. I guess I am what you see and what you see is authentic. I am different though.
Transparency goes so far. How much do we have to expose. Our team affiliations, sure, our deep personal lives – I do not think so. Is that not being authentic then? Well, maybe but business is business and parts of the personal life may hurt the business. But is it fair that people do not know it? Is it fair to even question that? IDK.
Should we shy away from promoting or reviewing if we were afforded a early copy? No, Should we be honest how we got it, yeah, I think so. Should this prevent us from saying what we really feel? No. For a book, that we feel underperformed we can talk about that how we expected more as the honesty goes to the integrity and character which is far beyond the transparency, I think.
Yeah, I think integrity may be the key here. Integrity is integral. haha 🙂
I think there can be too many disclaimers, and if you really overcrowd your blog post (or book, or webinar, or whatever else) with disclaimers, eventually people will say, “Um, ok, so are you just backing up why you are paying lip service to this?”
I think the way you do it is fine, but I have seen lots of other posts lately where you almost feel like the person had an obligation not just to do a post, but to do a post that was a rave review. To me, those are hardly meaningful.
Dear Margie,
I think one must save their confessions for the confessional. If a gift is significant then a mention might be relevant, however the reviewer and how their readers relate and know them is what is at stake here. So the real issue is not a gift its whether a gift could sway the reviewer. Because you see I know that you may accept a few niceties but I also know they would not sway your opinion. I also know that if an author started showering you with “other than” a few nice gestures you would become suspicious and say “hold on there.’ You see? I know you and trust your character.
Yours truly,
Gaga
Thanks, friend. I appreciate that!
Bah Margie, you worry too much. You’re working all the different angles and ways people can misconstrue things when all you really have to worry about is sharing your own thoughts on things. Say what you think, mean what you say, and don’t let people try to shoot you down just because you happen to know a guy who knows the guy.
The confessionals and inside stories definitely don’t add to a review. If anyone who reads has insight on your connections, it’s because they already know you elsewhere. Very likely they’ll have some trust in your judgement to begin with, so it won’t matter.
So yeah, the transparency happens in your social circle. When you’re writing for complete strangers, it’s a self-defeating waste of words 🙂
You’re the 5 millionth person to tell me I worry too much! I wish I had a prize for ya 🙂
I suppose you’re right – I wasn’t “worried” about it so much as curious. Wondering if anyone else has noticed that disclaimers seem to be out-weighing actual opinion. It’s a dangerous cliff’s edge, in my opinion.
But ok. I’ll stop worrying.
***Disclaimer because you said so!
The issue isn’t so complicated that most people can’t sort it out.
The ones who don’t either aren’t thinking very much; or don’t wish to be transparent.
Transparency always makes human interactions better for all parties.
Rousseau said it well: “The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.”
Ah, but you see, this is not really about doing something *wrong* but rather about doing something that isn’t full of meaning. It’s not wrong to say that you love a book and also that the author paid you to say that. Happens in ads all of the time. But do you really mean it? And if you don’t, why post it to your blog?
That’s the nut I’m trying to crack 🙂
It’s legal to do a paid endorsement.
Bit it’s questionable, ethically, to fail to disclose you’re being paid for the endorsement, unless the context makes that clear (like an athelete pimping for some cereal in a TV commercial).
It’s inauthentic to pretend you like something you don’t, whether or not you’ve been paid to endorse it.
We’re inauthentic all the time (we pretend to like Aunt Pat’s kale soup). We want to protect people from hurt feelings. Not a big deal.
So, if I am paid to endorse something and don’t disclose that fact, I’m being unethical; if, further, I don’t like the thing, I’m being both unethical and inauthentic. If I’m trying to protect the maker from hurt feelings, the latter might be okay. But if I harm people who act on my endorsement, it’s not okay. It’s a big deal.
Margie,
I don’t like the word transparency, unless you are talking literally about a piece of glass or material. This is a word that is tossed about by politicians, media, religious leaders and the last time I took a good hard look no one is transparent. And why should they/we be? Do we really know anyone virtual or otherwise that is totally transparent? And if you do come across that rare “openbook” I think we are shocked and pull back as if too much information has been provided. You talked about this in your post “Personal Posts Can Be Prickly.”
You mention the bloggers who lately seem to be writing posts in such a way that their base language and provocative attitude startles their long time followers. Will the real ———, please stand up?
Here is how I look at it: if a “friend” gives you a book to read and review, then I would expect the “friend” (if indeed they are really a friend) to appreciate your honest review. If not, then you don’t really need to call them a friend and they won’t ask you to write aother review. And I see nothing wrong, if fact I would encourage, the reviewer to spell out the relationship…college classmate, childhood friend, twitter follower, co-worker, relative.
The other day I saw a little video that Chris Brogan did. It was a tour of his office. And there on a table was a stack of books. He candidly remarked: “oh, and here are some of the books that have been sent to me to review…I am a little behind in my reading…if you see your book here…sorry!” I know Chris has often mentioned that there are some books he hands over to his father to read and review.
I think Ian is correct, integrity is the meat of this topic. My bottom line – if someone tells me they are being transparent…there is a 90% chance that they are hiding something relavant.
Have a good weekend.
Judy
Sorry for the typos…husband is wondering about dinner. Relavant s/b relevant and aother s/b another.
What a great comment!
It seems like a lot of people feel that if you hurt someone’s feelings or tick someone off by being honest, then you don’t really need to worry about the fact that they are upset. They don’t really qualify as a friend in that sense.
It’s a good way to think about it, and I agree, a lot of it does indeed come back to integrity.
As for transparency, I agree it’s an over-used word, and there are people who don’t seem to know what exactly it means. Transparent about my personal life? About my work? What?
Great comment, and again, thank you! 🙂
Great Great Great question.
here is how I look at this…learned while in Toast masters for years that giving a good evaluation is about pointing out what is good, in between sharing where there could be improvement and following up with what you received from message.
Why does it need to be different in giving a review to friend on book? I do not agree with everything my friends do or produce. I do not want friends who want just a yes man, not my style.
I think we have to ask ourselves, are we judging being transparent and authentic through either rose colored glasses or our own limiting beliefs. Sometimes we have to ask is this ego talking when expressing ourselves. Are you giving from a place of caring?
Loving the convo in #tweetdiner now. Thanks Margie as usual a deep thinker.
Thanks so much, Michele.
You’re right – if you are trying to buy someone’s good opinion, then your product may not be high quality to begin with.
And as Rick mentioned during the chat, the other temptation may be for people to gear more towards the “I hated this book” end of the spectrum just to avoid any raised eyebrows. Neither option is the best, certainly.
Glad you enjoyed the conversation – I always love it when you contribute here 🙂
Great, great, great topic that I’ve been wondering about a lot lately, as someone relatively new to the social network, and I love all the issues you’ve raised.
But here’s the deal about authenticity/transparency on-line, and us getting our panties in a bunch about it: seems like we’re all working on the assumption, in these discussions, that people “in real life” act as their authentic selves. Which none of us do 100% of the time. Or even close to it. We all have modified presences that we present to each other, depending upon circumstance and relationship (and myriad other things that happen to be affecting us at any particular time).
So, while all of these questions about the on-line life and presence are real and interesting, I’d like us to consider that there is no actual other place where we are always being our “real” selves, either.
Thanks for your great blog spot.
Phew, that’s a deep comment! And entirely true.
I guess in this context, it’s about being honest rather than a certain persona you’re presenting. Is that the same thing as authenticity? Maybe. Integrity? Definitely.
I’m going to have to think about this comment for awhile. Thank you!