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Closing the US Gender Gap in STEM

SUPER inspired on my way to work listening to this story this morning. I was a casualty of the misogyny of university level Engineering/Computer Science – quit both degree paths after being exhausted dealing with my peers and teachers. My nerd powers were just not strong enough for the non-stop eye rolls, loud sighs and general exclusion I experienced. So good to hear some avoided or plowed through it and are still fighting the good fight.

It’s worth noting, though, that women approach things different not because of biological reasons, but because of societal, especially in the examples given in this story. Other cultures without our weird gender divisions do not have the same issues. So try to qualify statements of “women do it this way/men do it that way” with a quick “in our society” before/after (even if it’s just in your head).

How One College Is Closing The Computer Science Gender Gap

Adorable. AND Inspiring. Harvey Mudd President Maria Klawe

COPPA/FTC- you make it so difficult to help you out

So I have a reputation as somewhat of a COPPA compliance warrior – so much so that my co-workers have been known to groan when I mention registration or database needs.  It’s an odd thing to have attributed to you, especially with no legal experience SLASH a general frustration with legal risk aversion in general.  But when you have been working on kids websites and communities for coming up on 15 years, you kinda get a hang for the ins and outs of the laws that surround it (or at least you SHOULD).

That’s the thing.  COPPA is required. It’s not a choice.  You have to comply.  If you don’t, you get in trouble – like super expensive trouble – in dollars and negative PR.  So you just do it.  I always find it odd when people brag about it or add it as a tagline to their branding.  It’s akin to saying – “My name’s Harry and just so you know, I definitely DON’T punch random strangers in the face.” Duh, Harry, but thanks for letting me know.

But COPPA compliance has become alot like speeding on the highway.  Many people obey the speed limit, but many more edge a bit over the line.  When they see a cop, they pull back and pretend that 55 is totes what they were driving the whole time. But then they inch back up to 65 or 70 the second they are in the clear.  I’ve heard some people actually see a speeding ticket every now and then as a valid cost of driving – a tax they are willing to budget for.

Much the same, companies have started inching over the compliance line on COPPA.  I actually have been in meetings with kids brand execs (NOT my current ones ;) ) that considered having a slush fund set aside in case their was a sanction levied against them.  But even Pollyanna-well-intentioned brands sometimes find themselves inching toward or even over the COPPA line.  You know why?  Because it’s SUPER hard to comply to in the internet/digital culture that we are in right now.

COPPA was put in place to protect kiddos from nefarious marketers who wanted to sell personal info. It was not for predators or decency or to teach personal accountability in identity protection.  But, with our culture of fear, those are the things that people think it’s in place for.

Is it good that a byproduct of this rather draconian law imposed on site operators so they don’t profit from the sale of kids info, ALSO helps prevent kids from distributing personal details about themselves in public forums?  Maybe – but I’m not sure that that remote and avoidable byproduct outweighs the other hurdles the law imposes.

You see, the whole thing is predicated on parents being super engaged in their children’s online lives.  Ask a parent about this and they will undoubtedly say:

“YES! Of course, I want to know what is going on with my child online AND to help them make good decisions accordingly!  I am an amazing parent!”

This is evidenced in tons of surveys.  But do those surveys follow up with the parent (and I mean REALLY follow up – not just ask the parent in another survey) with a

“Ok, parent, but do you REALLY? Are you ACTUALLY the super engaged parent you painted yourself to be?”

Chances are, if that followup actually happened, the answer  would be dodged with an excuse about lack of time or understanding, lament of the speed of tech advancements or a bold faced lie.

Truth is that, anecdotally (albeit with my use-cases in the thousands), parents don’t know about COPPA and their assumed required involvement.  So we can demand verified parental consent til the cows come home, but if the parents don’t understand that is something that is needed, all the FTC is protecting is a child’s ingenuity to lie about their age, while simultaneously making it harder for an an ethical site operators to pay their staff while providing good content for kids.

Unless these impositions on the site operators are coupled with a robust (and effective) campaign to explain to parents WHY and HOW they need to be involved, COPPA is simply discouraging smaller brands away from quality content from kids, encouraging children and parents to learn truth-dodging techniques in registrations and forcing the nefarious operators deeper into the shadows to avoid detection.  Only bigger brands can afford the legal counsel needed to check that they are in the right.  The ones who can’t afford will simply not offer the content, or worse, slap a “over 13″ stamp on it and skirt their responsibility.

The internet is based on communication channels – especially in the age of social media that is now the norm.  By starting from the false axiom of parental involvement and prohibiting use of the now standard means of communication until this involvement is verified, you are setting up either a web of lies OR limiting our next generations ability to learn how to use these channels correctly.  Both are horrible choices.

And don’t even get me started on how most of the mobile rules don’t even have a path to compliance…

Instead, we should flip the paradigm:

  • For the operators – we make the compliance voluntary and, therefore, honestly brag worthy.  Make it like shopping on a secure site – you get the security so that your customers feel safe.  If you don’t have that seal or badge or OK from the FTC, parents/kids would think twice before using their site.
  • For parents – we give them back their parenting responsibilities.  If they think their child shouldn’t be giving out info online, the parents should be punishing the children for breaking their house rules, not blaming the sites for making it too easy for their child to give out info.  And we should be helping parents understand this and how to do this – not assuming they are already there.
  • For kids – we teach them media awareness, basic stranger/danger skills and critical thinking.  If they aren’t ready for it – their parents shouldn’t be letting them use those sites – whether they are 8, 12, 15 or 17 years old.

I am not naive, I know this isn’t going to happen this year or even next.  But I am optimistic as to this happening at some point.  Until then, I will remain the compliance warrior, marching and marching on.  But I have 10 million+ kids and parents on my compliant site – so you better believe I’m gonna start the first steps toward a more rational model now.

Safer Internet Day!

Yeah, I know.  First, Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD) and now Safer Internet Day?  How many trumped up days do my peers need to feel good and noticed?  (The answer is infinite – we are passionate, insatiable service providers, so we will take whatever we can get.)

That said – the twitterspheres I pay attention to were all over Safer Internet Day yesterday.  For really great resources, run a twitter search on #SaferInternetDay or #SID2013.

At Animal Jam, we launched a new Parent Video series that we are calling Animal Jam Parent Connection.  We will go through tips for frequent issues parents deal with and review some of the offerings we have at Animal Jam.  This first one focuses on teaching good password habits.

I host the first, and my aversion to myself being videoed aside…, I think it came out ok.  Let me know what you think and if you have ideas of other topics we should cover, like parent controls, bullying, naiveté, safe chat habits, etc  :)

Digital Kids and 2013 Predictions

I am excited to be involved in this years Digital Kids Conference as an emcee for the first day’s talks.  It’s collocated with Toy Fair again in NYC, so we should have a nice crowd.  Tonda, Chris and crew are promoting on the regular social channels – Facebook, Twitter, etc.

There is also an affiliated Digital Kids Safety Summit as well – you know I’ll be THERE too.

In prep for the conference, I was interviewed about my predictions for our industry in 2013.  Here’s a snippet:

“The new COPPA articulations have changed the digital climate. COPPA requires a level of parental engagement and involvement that many families don’t realize. Parents don’t understand how much parental consent they have to give, and new online safety and privacy articulations are going play an important role in online parenting,”

You can see the whole interview here.

Hope to see you all there!

 

Weddings! Nature! There’s life outside of work!

I am not the best at posting things of late.  Give me break!  It’s been mildly consistent for over 6 years!

The long and short of it is that life happened.  Big time.  This cool guy Kelty said he wanted to marry me.  I said yes. (That journey’s a feminist memoir in itself that I will gladly tell whomever would like to share a nice bottle of vinho verde or malbec sometime).

Then we did a roadtrip to bring my car to Utah, I looked at tons of amazeballs Chicago venues and went to a friend’s wedding as well.  Oh, and we managed to get my soon-to-be-stepkids (!!!) on their first camping trip (to Moab! the lucky ducks!)

I have been a deliriously happy workaholic for years now, bouncing from project to project, conference to conference, country to country, with not a plan to stop.  Having a stupid happy off-hours life now as well is taking some getting used to – kinda like getting ANOTHER latte when the large one you just had, had caffeinated you just fine.  But I am doing well adjusting, I think.  Time will tell, but the extreme way that life dumps either good or bad things on me seems to be evening out.  (a gal can hope, right!?)

Long winded way of saying I am still here and I ain’t going anywhere.  I am still going to live this life harder than most of my peers.  I am just being forced to round out some of my rougher edges.  And, apparently, I will retain my awesomeness, so good deal. ;)

Network makers responsibility

I think a great deal about my responsibility as a kids community producer in establishing and maintaining a healthy and safe culture in the communities I manage.  This has been the case since I began in 2000 and is a constant driving force in my career.

With the addition of Social Media to the landscape and the mass market adoption of the online world, I often feel the personal responsibility to act as a steward to this Digital Citizenship/Netizen culture with those I interact with online – be it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or whatever new site anyone is jumping into at the moment.

So danah boyd’s article on online networks and their role in our society was very exciting for me to stumble upon this week.  It’s a couple months old now, but the concepts are textbook caliber and really made me reflect on the more conceptual aspects of my day to day work.  I am proud that her final statement in the article is one that I remind myself of on a regular basis.

One thing’s clear: it’s high time we examined the values that are propagated through our tools. We all need to think critically about the information we create, consume and share. We all need to take responsibility for helping shape the world around us. – danah boyd

Definitely worth the read for anyone interested in the shift our collective societies are taking and the unique concerns that apply to the digital space, as well as the ones from the offline space that have followed us online.

Digital Kids Pasadena

Hey all,

As many of you know, I co-chaired the Digital Kids (formerly Engage) this year with the lovely Izzy Neis, Regine Weiner and Amy Pritchard.  Had a great time and I thought I would update my notes on my panel and my musings here.

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My panel was on Parent Controls  We were tasked with presenting the parent controls we have on each of our sites – mine for Animal Jam, Hillary for Everloop, Holly for AOL and Sebastien from Oregon Scientific .  What follows is the rant I built up during/after the panel. ;)

SO, Kids site owner…

You have a Fort-Knox caliber security system that makes registration super secure – nice!
You have reports on your child players’ usage and maybe even what they learned – cool!
You allow the parent to see who your child’s buddies are – neat!

While this exercise is fine, what I thought more valuable from the panel was the conversation we were able to have after with audience.  Parent controls are not required by law, so those of us who have them are already above the bar.  We can dust the dirt off our shoulders and congratulate ourselves, or we can talk for real about them.

Truth is, not many parents use parent controls.  And when they do, it’s usually because the are in a negative mood – their child was caught trying to swear, their child gave out their password and then is confused why they were “hacked,” their child “borrowed” their parent’s credit card and bought a membership or some virtual currency.  All of a sudden Mom/Dad/Grandma is SUPER interested in how to control their child’s activity on their favorite sites.

If the only time you engage with your parents are in these reactive and often negatively tinged situations, you are doing a disservice to your parent audience and your brand.  Parent controls are simply one pillar in what should be a larger parent communication strategy.

This strategy should encompass the parent controls, yes, but also:
- Your registration process
- Your tone in your parent focused area of the site
- The messaging and frequency in your parent emails and newsletters
- How contests are managed
- How your customer service reps interact with parents
- Your refund and retribution policies
- Your crisis management plan
- Your Social Media strategy

If parent controls are the only thing you have worked on, or if they are worked on in a vacuum without realizing how they intersect with these other parent communication channels, you are at best missing valuable audience engagement opportunities and at worst, losing customers.

Don’t assume that your Parent Controls are a “If you build it they will come” situation.  Most parents, like you, are busy.  They don’t even look at your site when their kids start playing.  Best case, they do a quick scan of your site to determine that it doesn’t offend them in some way.  Of course, there are parents who will sit with their children and explore all the sites they play on diligently to make sure they comply with their parenting pedagogy.  But these parents are a minority (albeit a vocal one.)

The average parent DOES discover your controls and other parent communication when their child is crying about something regarding your site.  Like I said before – they’ve been “hacked,” they’ve been bullied, they’ve been banned.  The parents are suddenly transformed into Momma and Pappa  Grizzly Bears, ready to defend their angels from the brutes of the Internet, usually holding you, the site, as the main offender.

You think this Hulk-esque mood will be placated with reports or the ability to deactivate newsletters?  Nope, they need their indigence/fear/rage to be acknowledged, validated and calmed.  That’s your job as a Community Management (or Customer Services, depending on your corporate structure).  In the process of calming their nerves, you can use the existence of your Parent Controls as evidence of your brands commitment to partnering with the parent.  Sometimes its the mere mention of their existence, sometimes its a patient walkthru of the tools – but usually it’s then that the parent becomes impressed and/or calmed by your commitment to their child’s well being and their own state of mind.

An important caveat here is that an equal amount of parent’s first engagement with parent controls is often to extend abilities, rather than remove them.  This is usually done to stop the incessant pleas to turn on some feature for them, usually chat or other interaction tools.

Now this could all change as our parent audiences get more comfortable with the technology and/or those who grew up online become parents.  But we aren’t there yet.  Until then, we need to stay eyes wide open regarding these communication avenues and not discount, ignore, or over-emphasize any particular one.