LJ Advisory Board

[rm]

Well, I've been officially certified as a candidate in the LJ Advisory Board Election and I've been offered the opportunity to talk a little bit about where I stand in a post that will be linked to from the poll

Comments

[pyrop]

• I have an extensive professional background in public relations and marketing.
• I have the previous experience of working for an on-line community of which I was also an active part.

Can you expand on this? What company did you work for in PR/Marketing? What did you do there? What on-line community? How were you an active part of it?

[insomnia]

I can attest from my time in the early days of LJ that is is talented at what she says that she's skilled at, but I don't know how much she can answer about the specifics right now, as she is in Italy.

That said, some of this info is available in her bio. You may also want to check out her post and responses in my ljunited community. We voted overwhelmingly to endorse her, in large part because her POV is very much in line with the community's goals.

[jesurgislac]

When is she due back from Italy, if you can say? Because my query - without which, no vote - was concerning the original SixApart/LJ Abuse attack on journals: suspending people who had a default icon of a baby breastfeeding, and doing so while simultaneously claiming "oh, we'll work things out, we'll look into this".

When the big fannish issues of 2007 came round, they were reprises.

[insomnia]

I think/hope she's getting back after this weekend. I hope she can get back in touch with everyone, because she *WILL* be very busy upon returning. It was an unfortunate time for the trip, really, but she is doing quite well anyway.

If I remember right, rm opposed any kind of action against the breastfeeding userpics. I know I did. It was a stupid ruling that victimized mothers, and, in some cases, was even applied to icons that contained classic works of art!

Basically, she strongly approves of the goals of LJ United, which supports people's rights to post what they want to the maximum amount possible by law, copyright, and as necessary for issues of harassment, etc.

Unfortunately, there was far too much effort made to "child-safe" LJ, and the actions that were taken were aggressive attacks on the community as a whole, without people actually filing complaints about any of the content. There were no victims... except for ordinary members of the site.

[insomnia]

Oh, and btw, you *REALLY* should consider joining LJ United, because I am aware of your statistical work on LJ's shrinking as far as site activity goes. In fact, it's part of the information I am hoping that we will convince rm to bring to the attention of the advisory board should she get the nomination.

If she doesn't win, it will be harder to do that, but it will still be our goal to arm the decision makers and other board members with information, so that they can make informed decisions... and knowing that LJ is at risk of dying out without a real emphasis on growth and on loyalty to their customers is a big part of the equasion.

Basically, our goal is to be around even after the election, in order to influence the powers that be as best as we can.

[pyrop]

If you want to solicit me do it in private.

[insomnia]

I'm not trying to sell you something. I just believe that you have a habit of putting together good information that should be brought to the attention of the community as it's released, as it could help to inform both them and to ideally inform others in the advisory board of the issues that LJ faces.

[rm]

I worked in public relations and marketing for About.com (originally The Mining Company -- I worked there through and was involved with the name change and the IPO), Neale-May & Partners (PR agency) and Brainlink International (computer security/HIPAA compliance firm), as well as several other companies on a freelance basis. I've been quoted here and there in PR trade publications and in industry-related books.

I was an active community member at Mindvox where I later became a staff member. Mindvox was a high profile BBS/ISP combo in the 1990s. It no longer exists, but a Google will bring up a lot of media, including a rather embarassing article by Sassy magazine that includes comments I made when I was 18 (17 years ago).