If you have any Google related account – you’ve probably received notification of their privacy policy massive consolidation to the tune not seen since the Toronto amalgamation.  Essentially, they are blending 60 privacy policies into 1 policy that covers all their products.   Aye, there within is to be noted.   They state:

Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience for your users across Google products.

In other words, your behaviours in YouTube may inform and result in better targeted advertising in your gmail account.

To get updated on this – I’ve noted a number of excellent blog posts already covering the topics..

• For a thought provoking consumers point of view on how changes affect you, read @beryn’s Big Brother is Thy Name Google?  (hey @beryn – check out my last reference)
• For a review of key points Google made to the Feds on their policy changes, read 5 Key points from Google’s privacy policy letter to Congress
• For a reminder on Google’s market share, see a new infographic Google Search plus your world
• For the most entertaining review that I’ve seen, read Pleated-Pants.com ‘s  Changes to Google’s Privacy Policy

In searching for Star Wars themed party things – I was appalled to discover ToysRus Canada  (@toysruscanada) considers 138 of their 139 Star Wars as toys for boys not girls.   I tweeted the #fail – wondering if I am making a mountain from a molehill.   But it continues to bother me and importantly, my daughter agrees with me - “I feel sad and its weird” she says to ToysRus Canada only listing 1 of the 139 Star Wars toys as a girl toy.

I had to wonder if this was hap-hazard product classification based on old stereotypes.    With gender specific filters – certainly there is strong responsibility to ensure accurate classification.   Could misclassified toys have a role in promoting old stereotypes?  Are girls not getting into Star Wars because a large toy retailer fails to include them in their toy recommendations – thereby limiting girls out of popular sci-fi experiences?

Low interest in Star Wars by girls would surprise me – especially these days with the successful Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon tv series and their strong female character leads like Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Senator Padme Amidala.   (And I do consider Ahsoka is a far better role model than dated princesses).   Could erroneous product classification give parents and boys the wrong cues about girl interests?

Upon a bit investigation, I found a wonderful anti-bullying essay by Carrie Goldman, @cmgsart , that I missed from November 2010.  She spoke about her daughter, Katie Goldman, taunted by boys in her grade 1 class who believed Star Wars paraphernalia to be ‘for boys only’.

Her blog post created strong internet support for girls who like Star Wars and don’t deserve to conform into traditional ‘sci-fi is for boys’ thinking.    It made me think about the role retailers, like ToysRUs Canada, has when you have gender based filtering on products – especially for kids.   Did it start with the boys believing Katie should not have a Star Wars water bottle or could they have gotten their cues from retail?

A little more investigation turns up a wonderful interview by Ann Hoevel, @cnngeekout , Geek Out! producer for CNN with Ashley Eckstein, @heruniverse and voice of Ahsoka Tano  –   “Her Universe is Ashley Eckstein’s Battle Cry” .   She highlights the 2011 shift in Star War popularity from boys to include girls as girls show they are not afraid to embrace sci-fi.

‘somehow even children hold fast to the idea that sci-fi is only for boys.   I think we have a responsibility to the younger fans today, and I think obviously we saw that with Katie Goldman, the ‘Star Wars’ girl. “

Ashley goes on to say “many girls are told “this isn’t for you – for so long. Told that, ‘just accept that (sci-fi franchises are) a boy’s and a men’s property,’ “ – well – @toysruscanada is doing the same thing.   [ Ann's interview with Ashley - excellent!]

Certainly, I have appreciated gender specific recommendations for gifting in the past.  And yet,  I think any retailer who offers an opinion on what is best suited by gender has a strong responsibility to ensure gender specific recommendations are accurate and do not uphold old stereotypes for either gender.   Toysrus – its time to look more closely at your 139 Star Wars toys and identify many of them as gender neutral.

Today – there are many owners of social media, let alone digital, within an organization.  Social media forces marketing, PR, customer service, and other departments to work together.

When you get many owners of social, the business starts to understand how social plays an intimate role in what they do.  That social is a behavior, a philosophy, a new way of operating and not a simple tactic –  that social evolves from a function to a discipline.   When business understand this, they will shift.

Employees will become digital citizens, its experts surfaced to its consumers, and act socially on an enterprise level.

But the pathway to becoming social is held back for two major reasons:

1.  Social media is relegated to a junior person on the marketing and PR team.

Importantly, I’m not trying to undermine what often is a passionate, intelligent,  social savvy crusader.   Social moves forward in a companies due to a crusader, a crisis or executive level support.   But that said, the crusader method of organizational change is a rare one.

My rant — as a result of a junior appointment,  these social media leaders deal with rounding error budgets, may have engagement that is more damaging to the brand than helpful.  They focus on tactics not strategies  (Should I advertise on Linkedin?, I have followers on foursquare, now what do I do?.. you know the situation).  They are operational players and may not even be responsible for strategy.  They often measure the wrong things.

When you understand that the future of social is becoming a social brand – you see that the number of digital owners must increase.  There will be required alignment to strategies and plans.  Cross functional leadership puts a heavy load on a junior social media individual.   These social media specialists are promoted to their level of incompetence.

2. People measure the wrong things in social media
I’m a pretty harsh critic when it comes to measurement.  I believe measurement is a systemic, abominable situation in most organizations.  Really.

When I measure for success, I focus on  4-5 different categories.  Market, Recruitment, Engagement and Conversion/ Monetization.

• Recruitment, or traffic includes the volume and size of your social presence, your rate of growth, hopefully compared to the industry.
• Engagement typically includes metrics that measure the level of interaction between your customers and your content and/or own community management.   You can dive deeper into analyzing influencers, etc.
• Conversion represents a focus on moving customers to action.  You can include or separate out monetization metrics.  [I like separating then - consider relabeling KPI – key performance indicators to key purchase indicators - it gives focus to what metric individuals are looking for]
• Other – where I can, I like cross reference metrics to validate the integrity of the data.. but I digress.

The problem with much of the social media success metrics – is traffic is the domain that people stay in.  They don’t broaden to look past traffic to engagement and conversion metrics.  They only measure, and so are only concerned with, 1/3 of their success.    These tend to be the same people who don’t believe SoMe can deliver ROI.  Well no wonder.

This was the crux of a recent keynote I delivered at IBM’s Retail Fall Showcase recently, invited by retail futurist, former colleague and friend @drodgerson - sharing the stage with two very impressive gods – deep analytical genius @eeksock and global retail emerging tech deep sme @smarterretail.   I was grateful to be honest with a crowd of 200 retailers/ibmers on my frustrations.   My full presentation is available from my linkedin profile – through slideshare.. [linked above].  Presentations from the event are also available.

I quickly turned to my twitter feeds to read condolences and reflection from my digital peers.  @kenschafer, always thoughtful and real, tweeted his moment of silence (which is a tweet with no content) and I noticed many followed suit.  Others have changed their profile pictures to Steve Job’s image – a quiet tribute. 

Apple.com has paid tribute as @lpgeffen said showing us that Apple was never about the technology but always about people.

Google has been quick to respond with a conservative mention below a plain google doogle.

And China’s Sina Wiebo - twitter like microblogging site - is paying tribute.

My twitter client (tweetdeck) crashed this evening.  The public outpouring was too frequent for the client to handle.  Fitting I think.