The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Last night and throughout the morning I have experienced the good, the bad and the ugly side of social media.  As those of you have known me, worked with me and supported me over the past few years you will know that I am completely against design copycats.  I have written about this, about ACID, about intellectual copyright.  I have used my public profile as a blogger and through social media to support small creative businesses when people have stolen their designs.  So now I find myself caught up in an issue and feel the need to use my blog as a platform to make a statement, without trying to compact it into a 140 characters on Twitter or in an email that maybe misconstrued.

Yesterday a dear friend of mine discovered her designs were being used by somebody else, not once but twice.  Of course her creative community and friends rallied around, offered to help and support her.  This is what this community does, we support each other, professionally and personally.  Being part of a creative community means you have friends around the world, via social media, that are there when things go wrong or when things are amazingly good and everything in between.  I know I was not alone in my comments on this matter of design copy and we all did what we did with the best of intentions, to support our friend in her hour of need.

However I now face a barrage of tweets from somebody whose product list was questionable. Whilst my tweet of stealing a design has caused some upset it was not a stab in the dark.  There was evidence to suggest an issue and I was not alone in commentating about this.  Yet I will be more than happy to apologise, as I am sure others will be, if it is found to be untrue.

Over the years I have ensured integrity and ethics are at the centre of my public profile within the world of social media.  Every image has a link to the source, every review is my opinion and every sponsored post is stated as being exactly that.  When I have worked with creative entrepreneurs in the past years I have taught them to use caution when using social media and blogging.  Never do or say anything that can damage your brand, as one sentence can be seen by a million people within minutes.  

So now I hope that this matter can be closed and I can return to the prettier side of blogging.

Until next time, take care.

Zoe

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