Thoughts on My Top 40 Selection

Recently, I was honored to be selected as one of Canada's Top 40 under 40 presented by Caldwell Partners and The Globe and Mail. I've known for over a month that I was going to receive this recognition prior to the announcement this week. It was a tough secret to keep, but it was worth it because since the news became public I have been overwhelmed with congratulatory notes from friends, family, colleagues and peers.

While I haven't been to Toronto to let it really sink in and celebrate with my fellow classmates, I have had some time to reflect and share some initial thoughts about being named one of Canada's Top 40 under 40.

• First of all, I want to express how appreciative I am of this honor. I look at my fellow classmates also selected this year and I look at the alumni from years past and I am humbled to be in such company.



• This honor has to be shared with my wife Julia. It's real simple, I am not a successful entrepreneur without the love and support of my wife and best friend. When I was making NO money years ago, she stuck with me, it's as simple as that.



• My business partner Maurice is the rock that I lean on. Be it good or bad, Moe is always there for me. Always.



• Lets face it, I am not selected for this award without the success of ICUC. While I might steer the ship at ICUC, it's the entire team that is the reason we have had the success we have had. It is this team that I am most proud of and should share in this award.



• I have mixed feelings about being the only Manitoban selected. While I am certainly honored, we must have some other worthy candidates from our great province?



• Speaking of Manitoba, where are the Manitoba Alumni? I haven't heard a peep from any of them.



• I am looking forward to meeting and learning from the other members of this years class as well as the previous years alumni. What I look forward to most however, is the chance to make some new friends and build some new long lasting relationships.


Thats it for now.

Named as one of Canada's top 40 under 40

Today has been one of those special days in my life. I am honored to be selected as one of Canada's top 40 under 40.

From Number One SnowStreet

Great content, bad design

I wish the National Post iPad and iPhone app made the sidebar and bottom bar hide when in the app.

Very poor use of screen real estate...

Thoughts?



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Playing With Blogsy

Trying a new blogging platform on my iPad.

Un-Masking Spidey...

It sure is thin

I still Live Here

What is this dusty old thing?

Let's talk Social Media in Montreal

Hello Montreal...

I will have the great pleasure of visiting Montreal next week on March 16th and 17th to visit some clients. I do have some time available to meet with anyone wanting to get together to talk social media, user generated content, social media monitoring or content and community moderation services and explore opportunities to work together. Want to connect?

DM me @k3ith or contact me at icucmoderation.com

Keith

Winnipeg Tweet Up - March 10th - #wpgtweetup

Hey Winnipeg... Come join Adam Dooley (Dooley Communications) and myself at the first (is it the first?) Winnipeg Tweet Up.
Here are the details:

• Date: March 10th
• Time: 5-7pm
• Place: Confusion Corner Bar and Grill

Come on down and join us for a Twitterini and a chance to see who is Twittering in River City...

Please DM @k3ith or @adamdooley if you need additional details.

The color within a comment

Is the color of the text in this sentence black or blue? The answer is obvious isn’t it? It`s blue of course. I thought I would post this question in order to shed light behind the content moderation process and how we work hard every day working to prevent inappropriate and offensive content from appearing online.

ICUC Moderation Services has been moderating online user generated content since 2002, and in that time we have moderated hundreds of millions of messages, photos and videos for some of the world’s biggest brands. Currently my clients rely on the expertise of ICUC to minimize the risk that comes from participating in an online world that is increasingly being populated by user generated content. These clients rely on us because they trust us. They trust the many processes, procedures, and best practices we have implemented to ensure minimal risk is exposed when moderating their online content or community.

Our moderators are well trained, spending weeks (and sometimes months) of training along with an ongoing training program. We conduct regular workshops discussing hate /racism and human rights issues. We work very closely with our clients in creating and managing ongoing updates to the content moderation guidelines.

Unfortunately however, it is not as easy as reading a paragraph and making a decision that is black or white. What might be offensive to the eyes of one reader might be clearly agreeable to another – or simply offensive but not hateful. This is proven every time we sit down with a client to craft a set of moderation guidelines.

As well as we are prepared, and as knowledgeable as we can be, offensive content is unfortunately still going to make it online and onto a moderated website. Simply put, achieving 100% perfection is difficult if not impossible because when dealing with a person’s point of view, it is never black or white. What is entirely possible however is through both technology and people, to limit, manage and reduce the amount of offensive content that can potentially appear on a website.

Let me use this analogy to better set expectations. It has become an accepted norm that enterprise applications should operate 99.9% of the time. So if that’s the case, let’s then assume the same principles apply for online content moderation. A website that generates 100,000 comments per month will have about 100 offensive and inappropriate comments each month that will offend someone. Think about 100 comments that spit vitriol, hate, abuse and anything else that you can think of that is offensive.

Of course the alternative is having no content moderation at all and I don`t have to tell anyone what kind of can of worms that will open. While I personally agree with an open discussion and freedom of speech, it is not for everyone. I will add that if people are offended by what they see up there now, you should see what we have had to remove.

In closing, I can assure you we take content moderation very seriously and take the responsibility we have to our clients very seriously. We carry no personal views when conducting our job but simply follow the guidelines that are set in front of us. It is a difficult job, balancing and understanding people’s points of view, but it is a difficult job we are happy and proud to have.