Summary: I’m happy to share my discussion with Andrea Weckerle about her new book, Civility in The Digital Age: How Companies and People Can Triumph Over Haters, Trolls, Bullies and Other Jerks. Andrea is founder and president of CiviliNation, a nonprofit that takes a stand against online hostility and cyberbullying. She earned her law degree at the University of Richmond, and underwent extensive mediation training. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Public Relations/Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. After law school, Andrea worked within the Legal division of Ernst & Young, where she helped design alternative dispute resolution systems for Fortune 500 companies. Before founding CiviliNation, she ran her own boutique communications consultancy. Read more about Andrea here. Here are the show notes: 00:01 Welcome and introduction 01:50 Interview begins with a discussion of why Andrea wrote this book and how she approached the topic. 02:55 Andrea Weckerle’s definition of civility 04:22 Situations where civility is absent; bullying for sport. Andrea discusses content-based conflict; personality-based conflict; power-based conflict and identity-based conflict. 07:30 Recognizing and managing anger; best practices for civility and for protecting ourselves against those who aren’t civil online; problem has to be approached from various angles, including digital literacy; value of knowing your own conflict style. 11:00 Knowing what your goal is; don’t feed the trolls; what to do when someone says something untrue about you online 12:35 How you take corrective action matters; if, when, how 15:45 The value of saying “I’m sorry.” 18:25 The importance of digital literacy; we should be teaching this to our children 21:20 Checking our biases and beliefs 22:15 Donna believes those who most need this book will not read it; Andrea wants to help ensure that we are equipped to deal with them. 23:45 Holding people accountable online; helping friends when they are attacked 24:55 Andrea encourages comments by those who’ve read the book. 25:34 Podcast promo by Max Christian Hansen for Word Shots 27:42 Donna recently returned from IntraTeam Event Copenhagen; will be producing podcasts with some speakers from this conference. 28:05 Promo code for Donna’s Hands-on Social Media Workshop in Oakville April 13 28:50 Where to send comments; email donna at trafcom dot com or comment here on the show blog. Theme music for Trafcom News Podcast is “Beneath Your Surface” by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley.
