Mathew Ingram is a print and online journalist who covers business and technology for Toronto's Globe and Mail. He is also an organizer of Mesh, billed as Canada's Web 2.0 conference, to be held this month in Toronto. One of the conference's primary topics will be the political implications of new communication technologies.

 

Marshall:

If you were to select two or three of your favorite memes right now to describe the relationship between what some people call the Mainstream Media and the new media emerging online - what would they be? What kind of societal implications do you expect those to have?

Mathew:

I guess when I think of traditional media (I prefer that term to "mainstream" media) I think of a walled fortress, or a man at a pulpit preaching, or a guy with a megaphone standing on a tall stage before a big crowd -- and when I think of new media, I think of a group of people standing around having a conversation. Some people are talking louder than others, some people are clearly smarter than others, and some are drunk or noisy or acting like idiots. But within all that there is something of value -- and the more that traditional media gets involved in those conversations, the more relevance it is going to have and the better relationship it will have with its readers.

Marshall:

I think it's widely perceived that the corporate sector is getting a handle on using the new communication technologies that you blog about better than people focused more on politics have so far, but that the corporate sector is struggling to deal with the decentralized ethos around those tools. Would you agree with that assessment of the situation?

Mathew:

I'm not sure that the corporate sector has really gotten the message faster, but it may be using blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies more -- simply because reaching out to users or consumers or clients is of paramount importance for businesses (at least smart ones) and the Web is just another way of doing that.

I think to this point, political groups and parties and so on have seen it mostly as a way of doing marketing -- either pro- or anti- some cause or candidate -- rather than as a way of enlarging the conversation to include the people who are closest to a particular issue. So I think there's a lot to learn there.

Marshall:

What kinds of practices do you see that are working best for organizations seeking to engage in those online conversations as something other than marketers - but who still want to maintain their hard-earned branding and prestige amongst the extra smart people and the loud drunks of the blogosphere?

Mathew:

I would say that while it sounds trite, the best approach by far is to be honest and direct, and to respond as quickly as possible. If you try to cover something up or spin a story or engineer the kind of coverage you want, you will almost invariably fail -- and that will set you and your brand back even further, since it will make you look not only stupid but dishonest as well.

If someone is saying something untrue about you or your company, then respond in the appropriate forum -- such as your own blog -- and set the record straight. If you treat people honestly and with respect, they will (mostly) respond in kind. And even if they don't, then you get points for having taken the high road.

Mathew Ingram writes a column in the Globe and Mail's online edition and a personal blog at mathewingram.com/work. You can import the following OPML file into your feed reader to subscribe to both sources of Mathew's writing and all future interviews here on Net Squared. A live preview of these feeds can be toured in the box below, the left border moves up one level.