FULL DISCLOSURE

Quite often when I’m reading blogs, I see the phrase ‘full disclosure’.

e.g. "ACME brand should do this. (Full disclosure: I have consulted for ACME)."

I think this sort of thing is all well and good.  I’ve been meaning to write an agenda blog post to list out my agenda, so it’s all out in the open.  It consists of ‘3: Open up your walled garden’ and a variety of those sort of things (get a decent handset, MMS and the way it’s been marketed, stupid mobile operators not knowing what their customers want etc).  It’s patently clear if you read my text anyway.  However I’m a fan of the disclosure perspective so I’ll shortly be doing a blog agenda.   While I’m about it I thought I should also post a bit more about me rather than saying "Hi, I’m Ewan of Neo One" which doesn’t necessarily help you if you’ve just found this text in Google. 

Jeff Jarvis was the most recent person to use the phrase ‘Full Disclosure’ in a piece I read.  It was actually in a column he wrote for the MediaGuardian yesterday. Here a quote including the disclosure bit:

The Guardian’s primary landing craft will be its opinion site, Comment
is Free. (Full disclosure: I’ve given the paper my advice on how to
make CiF more compelling for my countrymen.)

I would much sooner read text like this:

The Guardian’s primary landing craft will be its opinion site, Comment
is Free. (I’ve given the paper my advice on how to
make CiF more compelling for my countrymen.)

Or, it would perhaps be better to allude to the involvement in the text itself. 

To use the phrase ‘full disclosure’ raises quite a few issues in my mind when I’m reading.  If you’re going to do a full disclosure, I think you should list your consultancy rate, the total amount paid to you by date, dates, times and durations of visits on site to the client, full minutes of the advice given.   Naturally this wouldn’t quite flow in a piece of text.

Standby for a range of disclosures from me.