Taking over channels

The New York Times was hacked today, reportedly by a group called the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), who has claimed responsibility for a number of highly visible hacks lately. They claim to be using their methods as a way of getting the word out about their cause.  Basically, they take over the domain name of a well known publication like the Times and post their own messages to the site. In this case, they survived about 3 minutes before security kicked in and their messages were blocked. But they took the site down with them – NYTimes.com has been struggling for the last 24 hours to recover.

In old movies the evil antagonist sometimes intercepts the TV news report to say whatever he has to say – captivating the attention of the town, city, nation, or world (depending on his stage and the movie plot).  The idea is much the same here – take over the most obvious channel to the public you can find and use it for your own messaging.  It is the most complete form of interruption you can create in today’s society for news and information about the world around you.

When we look at the channels of communication that create and reflect culture in an organization, executives often get very excited about using them to push out a message. I’d suggest that can be as inappropriate as taking over a media distribution website to push your own agenda on people who otherwise wouldn’t see your message. If you want to ride a channel, get into the conversation instead of shutting it down. Learn to navigate through the discussions that are being had. Be a part of something instead of demanding that everyone pay attention to you for a moment in time.

I’m not making a political statement about SEA – just using the site hacking practice as an analogy for what I sometimes see happening in companies as they try to make one message stand out amongst a sea of information that is directed at the people who make up the organization. Before you take over, stop and ask yourself ‘is this the best way to use this channel? Is it the best way to connect with these people?’

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