Posts tagged as: fon

Mary Hodder is right about advisory boards

Posted on Monday, February 13, 2006 at 10:24 AM (permalink)

Mary Hodder's post on the FON advisory board correctly points out the problems with compensating advisors with stock. I don't know what the perfect solution is, but she does point towards it:

"I'd love to have their stock turn into something in a few years, a token for all their time and supportive help. A small gift for their enormous contributions at some critical moments. And that time doesn't including blogging. I don't need them to blog about Dabble and if it's going to cause problems for them, I'd rather they didn't. It's just unnecessary. But I do need their advice. And by calling them advisors, they get some stock. But it's token, a pittance, a gesture that doesn't begin to cover the help they are giving me."

If the stock isnt worth the bother and implied conflicts, shouldn't bloggers adopt a code that says "I can blog or be financially compensated, but not both"? If companies really want advice more than PR, and I believe Mary when she says this, then they won't mind losing the benefits of that blogger's influence if they have to pay them for their time. If bloggers don't care about the money, and I believe the FON advisory board when they say this, then they won't mind swearing off any future financial gain.

The only thing I object to is trying to have it both ways. This most clearly shows up when the word "yet" creeps into the disclosure. When a blogger says "I haven't been promised anything yet", or even worse "I haven't been paid anything yet," so it can't possibly influence me, he implies that either he is stupid or thinks we are. A better solution would be for bloggers to tell companies at the start, "I won't ever take any money from you, so I will be able to blog about this", or "I need to be paid for my time, so I won't ever be able to blog about this."

Tags: blogosphere disclosure ethics fon

How did FON's advisors disclose their relationship?

Posted on Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 11:13 AM (permalink)

This FON story may turn out to be an important step in the world of tech blogging, so let's take a close look at the way FON's advisory board disclosed their relationship when they posted after FON's announcement on Sunday. The members are listed on Fon's site.

Esther Dyson doesn't appear to have written about FON at all after the announcement.
Neither did Jerry Michalski.
Dan Gillmor:
"Late last year, Martin, a serial entrepreneur, invited me to join the U.S. advisory board for his new company. ... I joined the advisory board without asking whether there would be any financial reward. (The answer, it later turned out, was that there might be, depending on how the company did in the marketplace.) I believed in Martin and I believed in the idea of a bottom-up (with some top-down help) network that could have a real impact."
Joi Ito:
"I blogged about FON earlier when I joined the advisory board, but FON is an innovative company that is starting a movement to allow people who have Internet access to create wifi hotspots.
Ethan Zuckerman:
"I’m a member of FON’s board of US Advisors and have agreed to advise FON on moving into Africa when the company’s sufficiently mature. Between this relationship and my pre-existing friendship with Martin (all mentioned by way of disclosure), I’m not exactly objective about the topic of FON. But I do think FON’s potentially incredibly important for the developing world and that’s largely why I agreed to get involved with the project."
Ethan has followed up with a long post about this issue and a new disclosure policy he has adopted.
I couldn't find a blog for Andrew Rasiej.
Rebecca MacKinnon:
"(Disclosure: I am a member of FON's U.S. board of advisors) ... Last but not least, a few more disclaimers and clarifications. I've been pretty critical of Google lately. Now they are investing in a company whose board I'm on, and from which I may receive some equity. Nonetheless I have no intention of being any less outspoken about Google's recent forays into China's censorship quagmire. Nobody has asked me to moderate my statements and I have no intention of doing so. I would resign from the board before compromising on my beliefs."
David Isenberg:
"I met Martin when I was invited to Madrid on the first anniversary of the train bombing, last March 11. He organized the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security that I participated in. We produced a good statement there on the role of the Internet in democracy. I wrote a little bio of Martin here. I am proud to be a member of FON's US Advisory Board, but more than a bit nervous about how ready the FON implementation is for the general public. The idea, though, is wonderful. And the implementation will benefit from a culture of openness, transparency and receptiveness to suggestions from all quarters."
David posted a reaction to the WSJ story yesterday.
David Weinberger:
"Disclosure: I'm on the US board of advisors. ... Follow up to the disclosure statement above: The US advisory board for Fon has been working unusually closely with Martin and Fon's tiny staff. Martin has been unusually transparent about the process. The advisors are working on this because we believe in the power of wifi and the importance of getting it to places that purely economically motivated players will put last. The advisors are being financially compensated, but we haven't discussed the terms; that's not our primary motivation. Since I sometimes write about Google and Skype, you should know that they've invested in a company that I apparently have some financial stake in. "
Wendy Seltzer: "FON is a startup, of which I'm on the board of advisors, that aims to put wireless internet everywhere by linking sharing and commercial installations. "

So what can we make of all this? One curious point is the confusing way this advisory board is identified on Fon's own website. In between the listings of what appear to be paid staff positions, there is a heading "In the US," which introduces the board of advisors. But the term "advisor" only appears next to Joi Ito's name. It is hard to tell from this page exactly what the reltionship is between FON and the others. That is either sloppy writing or some clever co-opting. It is also interesting that the WSJ article quotes FON's founder, Martin Varsavsky, as saying that 'no compensation agreements are in place yet between his company and the advisory-board members, though he plans to "make a proposal" that they get paid in some way.' The key word in this sentence is "yet." Was this Varsavsky's way of offering the board plausible deniability? When they wrote about it they weren't sure if they would receive anything, so where's the conflict? Several of their own disclosure statements back this up.

Finally, I know many of these people, and in the case of Rebecca and Ethan especially, it is hard to find people who are more selfless and socially responsible. I feel a pang of guilt every time I see them at some Berkman function. But I'm afraid I can't buy Dan Gillmor's excuse in the WSJ piece that the advisors are "among the most honorable people I know." Dan is a veteran journalist, and he above all the others should know the rules of disclosure.

In the end, I don't think any of these bloggers did anything wrong, but in the terms of today's politics, they sure weren't careful enough about the perception of a conflict of interest. Their disclosures should have been stronger and the possibility of financial gain should have been more clear. At least some of them were aware that money could be coming their way at some point in the future.

My problem is that I'm conflicted too. As I said, I move in the same social circles as many of these people, and I've never met Martin Varsavsky. Could that be coloring my perception that the bloggers were naive at worst, while Varasvsky played them like a violin? Perhaps. Was my initial post on this inflammatory? Yes. Will I react differently next time this issue comes up? I don't know. I do know that the issue of "advisory boards" and their influence on the blogosphere will be seen in a whole new light from now on, and that is a good thing.

Tags: blogola fon

FON fuss may have been blogola

Posted on Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 9:09 AM (permalink)

I couldn't figure out the explosion of postings on FON that took over Tech Memeorandum on Monday. Now the WSJ has a story claiming that FON may have primed the blogosphere pump by putting some key tech bloggers on ~~the payroll through~~ an advisory board. Were all of the bloggers who posted on this story on the take? Of course not. Did some members of this advisory board post about FON without disclosing their financial relationship? The WSJ thinks so, and that could be very bad. I smell Forbes and BusinessWeek cover stories at the least. Even worse, this is an election year, and both the Democrats and the Republicans would love to change the subject to someone outside of Congress being paid off.

(via Paul Kedrosky)

Update: I've written an extensive post on just what was said by the bloggers involved. The result of this research has caused me to strikethrough the words "the payroll through" above.