{"id":10116,"date":"2016-11-04T15:22:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T22:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10116"},"modified":"2016-11-04T15:22:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T22:22:18","slug":"not-everything-on-the-internet-is-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/not-everything-on-the-internet-is-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Everything on the Internet is True"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Charlene Li\u2019s work, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead, <\/em>she describes a business and leadership world in which openness is the new key to success.\u00a0 Her book is divided into two parts: what is openness and how does a companies and leaders achieve openness.\u00a0 For her, she does not just think it is a theory, but rather an imperative in today\u2019s culture.\u00a0 The reason for her case is the boom of social sites in this technological age.\u00a0 She states:<\/p>\n

Not only is the number of people going online growing, but the time they spend and the kind of things they do online are both also multiplying.\u00a0 According to the internetworld-stats.com, 1.7 billion people globally are active on the internet.\u00a0 Penetration ranges from 6.8 percent in Africa and 19.4 percent in Asia to 74.2 percent in North America\u2026.Adoption (of social media) has been quick: in September 2006 only 32 percent of all active internet users around the world had watched a video clip online; by March 2009 it had grown 83 percent (p. 5).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In other words, companies and leaders are forced to engage because everything is public knowledge in today\u2019s world and news travels fast.\u00a0 Li goes on to explain how business practices are changing to deal with this new landscape and companies are learning how to be open with a variety of issues.\u00a0 From business practices, employee\u2019s salaries, and future endeavors, companies are embracing this new model.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

REFLECTION<\/p>\n

In this new booming world of openness, there are some pitfalls.\u00a0 For instance, champions of openness (Google and Facebook) have become under ire of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for refusing to release their privately developed algorithms. RT, an internet news site explains:<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of \u201cnarrowing perspective,\u201d and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?”<\/em>\u00a0said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user\u2019s liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user\u2019s own media interests (https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/364235-merkel-facebook-google-algorithms\/<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\n

I bolded the last lines to make my point.\u00a0 While millennial companies want to embrace openness, I have to wonder if this is a gimmick, a sham, or an illusion.\u00a0 I truly appreciated Li\u2019s book and I agree with a great deal of it, and I plan to use some concepts to let people be engaged more.\u00a0 I have also given away a lot of power in order to increase \u201cbuy-in.\u201d\u00a0 These are core concepts that I believe in deeply.\u00a0 However, I also believe that this book is a product of Millennial dreamers and their worldview.\u00a0 Deeply engrained in their mindset is this belief that if the world would share more, be more inclusive, and everyone would get a trophy, then the world would be better and there ultimately be peace.\u00a0 This is a delusion that devalues leadership.<\/p>\n

CONCLUSION<\/p>\n

Li\u2019s book was written in 2010 in the midst of the euphoria of Barack Obama\u2019s first term.\u00a0 The world felt like it was on the brink of change that would usher in a great peaceful revolution. There was a great deal of promise about openness, hope and change.\u00a0 In 2016 however, we are about to elect one of the most secretive presidential candidates in our history (Trump will not release his taxes and Hillary is deleting emails by the thousands).\u00a0 I both agree and disagree with Li that our culture is becoming more and more open.\u00a0 I agree that it is open because of technology, but the skeptic in me just says that leaders are learning to give a false appearance of openness.\u00a0 Again, I appreciated some principles in Li\u2019s book, but I struggled with the basic premise, and I am just being open about my view on this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Charlene Li\u2019s work, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead, she describes a business and leadership world in which openness is the new key to success.\u00a0 Her book is divided into two parts: what is openness and how does a companies and leaders achieve openness.\u00a0 For her, she does not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[220],"class_list":["post-10116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-li","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}