Finfluencers, ftw – What’s in a name?

I recently presented my work-in-progress paper titled ‘Finfluencers, ftw’ at Australia’s corporate law conference (the body that runs it is called SCOLA and it stands for Society of Corporate Law Academics and the body aims to represent corporate law academics in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia more generally. I do hope there is more happening on the Asia front but I was very happy to run into some academics and PhD candidates from Singapore, Taiwan, and India.) At the conference dinner, I was told that a group of people were debating what ‘ftw’ stands for – this tickled me no end. At my actual paper session, our very wonderful chair said he initially thought that my paper was titled ‘Finfluencers, wtf’. Another presenter (and friend) added that my paper could have been titled ‘Finfluencers, wtf or ftw’! I’ve really had great fun with the title of this paper and enjoyed my fellow academics engaging on the title as well.

Ok this is not entirely a bubble-blowing post. Here’s the substance – my paper will address the basics about finfluencers and the regulatory moves (posturing) in this regard in some countries. My paper also has an Asia focus. But really my paper is a ‘big picture’ analysis of the changes that hashtag capitalism is heralding. Teaser line about this argument is: ‘On the internet, no one knows if you are a shareholder.’ Alright I admit that this post has been a bit of a tease but if you want to learn more about the ‘big picture’ look up posts on ‘hashtag capitalism’ in this blog.

Finally, since I’ve been thinking and working on what advice early and mid-career researchers might value (because me and a co-conspirator, Dr. Rangika Palliyaarachchi have been involved in putting together a Next Gen Forum that seeks to nurture and build the next generation of corporate law scholars in the region), here’s some advice. Enjoy the job! Blow some bubbles (if that’s what you enjoy). That’s the secret of scholarship with original ideas.

Lessons in everything

We live in an extraordinary time. (But Dickens’ statement about it being ‘the best of times’ and ‘the worst of times’ is always applicable.) Okay, why are we in an extraordinary time? We have some semblance of free markets that don’t close the gate on all women like before. I had dinner with an older friend yesterday who was telling me that she never went into legal practice because it was not open to women. She became an academic instead. Of course, this is not an isolated story. I can thing of the celebrated RBG who had a similar start to her career. I read the book, Lessons in Chemistry which follows a female chemist’s desperate journey to make a career in a world that did not see women as chemists. In today’s world we not only have discrimination law but corporations attempting to (or being pushed to) do much more than that via diversity measures. We might have got lost in the woods a bit in terms of how we are going about ‘doing’ diversity. We might be so lost that the gates of many institutions may be closed for people who think differently. (As I say in chapter 1 of my book, diversity of thought is just as important as other kinds of diversity.)

As someone who has worked a lot on diversity in corporations I’ve encountered one set of voices being dismissive about any work about diversity and another set of voices being dismissive about someone who dares to have heterodox views on the issue of diversity. Within these constraints (the worst of times), I have found amazing academic and non-academic friends, and a lot of strangers who come from both sides of the ideological divide who have have thoughtfully engaged with my work (the best of times). I have also found institutions (publishing houses, editors, etc) that have been willing to publish work espousing heterodox views and for that I am grateful. Before I close off this rumination, I want to acknowledge Prof Katy Barnett’s recent substack post about how she had a fulfilling conference because that post sent my thoughts in this direction. People tend to take stock of how far they have come and where they need to go at the end of each year and I hope that academics can think about how to make institutions more open to different ideas.