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Apologies for the extended break between this and the previous entry, it wasn’t actually meant to be quite as long as it was. My last post, in early August, was just before I went to Scotland for a few days, and ever since I’ve been back I don’t seem to have got in the swing of updating my blog.
However, many long-running TV programmes have a “summer break”, and I think being away from a blog for a while probably is no bad thing. That’s not to say I haven’t actually written anything in that time, but I’ve never got to the stage where I’ve wanted to publish anything. Perhaps I’ll go back and you’ll see some ‘catch-up’ posts over the next few weeks.
I haven’t totally been skiving in my time away. As well as trips to Scotland, Wales and France, I’ve been busy at work worrying about the Olympic and Paralympic Games. But I’ve also been working on a new project (which, if truth be told, I actually did back at the start of summer but also seemed to get lost in the lazy days of September).
We Need Young People is an idea I’d been kicking around for a while. Partly it is me trying out some new technical ideas (everything from producing XML feeds to generating automatic Twitter updates). But primarily it is based on my thinking that “there must be a better way to do this.”
At work we regularly get emails sent around saying ‘we’re looking for young people to…’, whether it’s from a TV production company desperate for a teenage mum to appear in a documentary, to cash awards that are available for innovative projects initiated by young people. I’m sure there are countless projects, competitions, requests etc that are floating out there, all hoping to reach young people.
Email is obviously quite effective, but it’s not desperately efficient and also by only telling people you already know about projects, only the same young people hear about the same projects.
Surely, if someone could pull all this information together, and present it in a way that it could be divided up so the signal-to-noise ratio wasn’t quite so high, then it could become a really useful tool. Particularly if the data wasn’t just available on a single website, but able to be placed wherever young people, and their adult supporters, were likely to be looking.
So that’s essentially what I’ve built. Add your project etc (or one that you’ve found) by completing a simple form, wait for it to be moderated, and then watch as it is released for the rest of the world to consumer as they see fit. Or, take the data and build something clever with it; on your website, on Facebook or whatever you feel is most appropriate.
It’s early days, and I’m realising that like most great projects there needs to be a critical mass of data in the system before it becomes useful, but hopefully if people can see the benefit they’ll spend a bit of time adding their content.
Let me know what you think, it is very much a work in progress so it’ll develop over time and all feedback is useful.
And, I promise, it won’t be a couple of months before my next post.
Photo courtesy of Bob AuBuchon. Used under licence.
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At it’s best, there is nothing that compares to the brilliance that is radio. Working in radio was my first proper job, and despite moving into new media eight years ago I remain a total radio enthusiast. Not in the taking-photos-of-transmitters-and-collecting-jingles variety, but of the fact that radio, above all other mediums, can totally immerse you in an environment or experience. Programmes like From Our Own Correspondent or Simon Mayo or my friend Marsha’s excellent podcast interviews with comedians (I particularly recommend her chats with Andre Vincent and Micky Flanagan) all are ways that stories are told simply and powerfully.
It also appears that at its worse radio can be horrific. I still find it incredible that the biggest media story of last year involved a late night radio programme. However, the Ross/Brand affair is nothing compared to what happened in Australia, where two days ago an even more incredible example of when-radio-goes-bad was broadcast. The Kyle and Jackie O breakfast show, on 2Day FM, ran a competition where a mother made her 14-year-old daughter undertake a lie-detection test live on air. After some questions about whether she had bunked off school, she is asked whether she had ever had sex. A clearly distressed girl admits she had been raped when she 12. It is horrible car-crash audio.
From a radio producers point of view, I struggle to understand how such a stunt could have been allowed to go on air. The presenters have tried to defend their actions, claiming that’s one of the pitfalls of live radio, but I can not comprehend how they or their producers even let the competition go ahead, let alone allow the mum to ask her daughter about her sexual experience (even if they had no idea the answer would be what it was). Apparently their jobs are not under threat, despite Australian PM Kevin Rudd joining the chorus of criticism [Update. On Sunday 2nd August, Austereo, owners of 2Day FM, announced that Kyle and Jackie O would be suspended indefinitely as a result of this broadcast.].
Throughout the interview, you get the very real feeling that the daughter doesn’t appear to be a willing participant in the whole saga. Personally, I think there are huge questions the station has to ask about putting participants on air when they actively don’t want to be there; but perhaps the focus needs to be on the mother, who as one commentator described it was willing to “prostitute her daughter for a couple of free concert tickets.” As the daughter says after she admits the rape, and the mother concedes she knew about it, “yet you still asked me the question?”.
And that’s the real horror of this story. Yes the radio station was in the wrong, but it is the mother that really has questions to answer. What kind of parent would put their child through such an ordeal?
Sadly, it’s not the first time that such a thing has happened. A couple of years ago, an six-year old girl in the US had her prize revoked after she had made up a story about her dad being killed in Iraq so she could get some Hannah Montana tickets. Yet it was her mother who made the lies up, saying “We did whatever we could do to win.”
Let’s not forget the parents of Alfie Patten, who were quite happy to sell their son’s “young father” story to the tabloids despite the fact that he wasn’t the father and they should actually have been supporting him rather than running off to the papers.
And for the really sick parents, you need to look no further than the story of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old who committed suicide after an online ‘friend’ turned nasty on her. It turned out that the ‘friend’ was the mother of one of her real friends who wanted to find out what Megan really thought of her daughter. Lori Drew, the mother, was eventually found not-guilty because there was no law in place to cover such action.
None of these stories are anything other than individual examples of where parents go wrong. The vast majority of parents understand their obligations to their children; and would never dream of doing anything like the parents above. And yet, a small minority let them all down.
Isn’t that what they say about teenagers?
PS. I wrote something very similar a couple of years ago on YPulse.
Image courtesy of aloshbennett. Used under licence.
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Sorry, I do keep meaning to write a blog post but I’ve been busy over the last few nights (admittedly some of it was watching The Apprentice!).
Anyway, both the Guardian and Independent appear to have done big features on “young people aren’t so bad” this week:
Also:
- Stewart Dakers on why compulsory national service is a bad idea (Guardian, Tuesday)
- And this, which is a year old but I only discovered today at work (I was doing some research on knife stats among young people, which for obvious reasons are difficult to confirm). If you read Speak Your Branes you probably end up wondering what the point of Have Your Say style comments on the bottom of news stories are. Well, I found the answer this morning. The top response on this article in the Telegraph, from Ruth Ray, is beautifully written and a brilliant assessment of what is happening to young people on our inner city estates.
Images courtesy of desvilla. Used under licence.
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One of the strange things I remember from my time at university in Bradford was that the toilets at the Interchange (the train and bus station) were lit using blue lights. This was supposedly to stop junkies from using the lavatories to shoot up—the idea being that the blue lighting made it difficult for them to find their veins—although apparently most regular heroin addicts could get a hit with their eyes closed.
The same idea is being used by Layton Burroughs Residents’ Association in Mansfield, except it’s pink light they’ve installed in a subway and their target is young people not drug users. Pink lights are used by beauticians to highlight skin blotches, and the idea is that highlighting young people’s acne makes it less desirable to hang around at that spot.
I’m glad to see the National Youth Agency appears to have criticised this, although their statement isn’t particularly strong. But it follows the Children’s Commissioner’s attacks on mosquitoes (the audio devices used to stop young people hanging around) and it’s good to see agencies that should be promoting young people’s rights publicly defending them.
I was at an RSA event in Hertfordshire last year, discussing young people and anti-social behaviour with several members of the local police force. One the frustrations a police officer said he had was that too often they were called by residents who wanted the police to do something before any crime had been committed. Media and politicians have helped fuel a perception among the public that young people are a threat if they hang around, and that hanging around is a crime.
Undoubtedly young people hanging around can be a nuisance, and their presence can make other residents feel vulnerable. But that doesn’t make it wrong or illegal. And simply introducing a device designed to make it uncomfortable for them won’t solve the problem.
At my local supermarket there are often young people hanging around outside the entrance, particularly if you go there on a Friday or Saturday night. One night recently I witnessed some young people giving the security guard some agro, which provoked the guard to react and chase one of the teenagers until he caught him. As soon as he’d grabbed him the security guard didn’t know quite what to do (he could hardly beat him up in the middle of a Tesco car-park, and equally he couldn’t hold on to him because he hadn’t committed any crime), but what I found more interesting was the reaction of the young person he’d caught. From laddish bravedo, as soon as he was caught he turned into a petrified child screaming not to be hurt and begging for forgiveness.
That incident reveals one of the key reasons young people choose to hang around the places they do. Because they feel safe. Because there are people to watch over them. Because aged 14-15, you want the independence of meeting outside of the family home, but still with the protection that adults can give.
And if we started considering that when trying to deal with the “problem” of anti-social young people, we might finally start getting somewhere.
Images courtesy of dieselbug2007. Used under licence.
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The decision by Steve Ivell to fire 16-year-old Kimberley Swann over comments she posted on Facebook about finding her job “boring” is the latest in a long line of news stories that highlight the teething problems of two cultures, with completely different attitudes about the internet, trying to work together. It has many parallels with James Andrew’s infamous Twitter remark, except that he is a highly-paid executive and Kimberley is a bottom-rung admin assistant.
My initial reaction when I saw the story on the BBC was that Steve Ivell, despite being MD of a marketing company, hadn’t realised the negative impact the story would have on him and his business. As well as being one of the most read stories of the day, a quick Google search brings up countless blogs, forums, Facebook groups etc, all that seem to be highly critical of Mr Ivell. Anglers Net is one of the more polite discussions. As it’s a B2B company, it’s unlikely they are going to lose direct sales as a result, although Ivell Marketing has hardly demonstrated that they live the values of their Investors in People status.
But look at the comments posted on the Daily Mail’s version of the story and they are weighted far more in favour of Mr Ivell, and critical of Facebook and Kimberley for biting the hand that feeds her.
Dealing first with the issue of posting messages on Facebook, and the dismissal; my personal view is that a straightforward sacking seems unnecessarily harsh in the circumstances. Whilst presumably still within a probation period and therefore not covered by a disciplinary procedure, it would be difficult to argue that three disparaging remarks about the nature of her role (not her employer, or her colleagues or customers) to a limited number of people could be classed as gross misconduct.
Kimberley was not being malicious when she posted. She most likely did find the work boring (we all recognise those entry-level/summer jobs that are utterly tedious). She was, like many people, using micro-blogging as an outlet for her frustration.
As well as not understanding way one culture uses the internet, there is a wider issue about taking on employees of that age and recognising that they are not the finished article.
The government’s advice on Employing 16-17 year olds states: “Consider their immaturity as well as their inexperience”, and although this relates to health and safety, it applies to the rest of their employment as well.
Schools don’t seem to have taken a strong-armed approach to young people posting negative thoughts about their education unless it is personal against a teacher or another student. Judging by the number of “school sucks”-type comments on the internet, the entire school population would probably need disciplining if they did.
If a young person has therefore understood that that is acceptable behaviour, and school is the only organisational environment that they have experienced, then they need to then learn that (in this company at least) those kinds of comments aren’t appropriate. And understand that colleagues are not the same as school peers.
So, doesn’t Ivell Marketing have at least some responsibility for Kimberley’s development from child to adult? If it wanted an employee who “totally got work” then why did they take on a 16-year-old?
That’s not to say Mr Ivell should have ignored the situation, but instead allowed Kimberley to review her actions, understand what impact they have and learn from the experience (ooh, spot Kolb!). Had Kimberley continued to post negative comments on her Facebook (or at least not simply removed her colleagues as friends and notched up her privacy settings) then Mr Ivell would have been perfectly within his rights to give her her marching-orders.
Employers should be allowed to take on 16-year-olds who want to work, but they can’t ignore their responsibilities regarding the young person’s development. All it really would have taken is Mr Ivell to have asked Kimberley, “so, how do we make your job less boring?”
Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid. Used under licence.
