Retro Communications

I came across this post on Lee Smith’s Talking Internal Communications Blog. I think what Lee points out is that, as communicators we tend to flock to the new channels and act as though the old channels are dead. Of course, they aren’t and as we begin to understand the new channel – or in this case the new world(!) – the place of the old channels in the overall landscape clarifies. I think that’s what’s happening with retro communications. The nature of face to face and audio may change – it’ll probably become less formal as social media drives more familiarity and accessibility via conversations – but they’ll still be an important element of the communicators portfolio.

Apple versus iRiver

I confess I'm not an Apple fan when it comes to mp3 players. I don't like the way in which iTunes and iPods lock you in to Apple as a supplier. So I was particularly distressed that the Amazon page for my trusty old iRiver H140 states that the iRiver is no longer available and the replacement is the Apple iPod. If I were iRiver I'd have something to say about that!

Melody Gardot

I love soft jazz. Singers like Eva Cassidy and Madeleine Peyroux can be found on my iRiver. I would have loved to have gone to hear Billie Holiday in her prime. And having had a musical education, I particularly a good melody. So it was great to come across Worrisome Heart - the debut album from Melody Gardot (You can hear Melody sing the title track on NBC here). It’s smooth, well crafted, with an acoustic-bluesy edge. I especially like the fact that she wrote all the songs herself. I don’t think there’s a stand out track – they’re all good – although I love the feel on Quiet Fire. Enjoy!

What a great video!

Which one are you?

Number 4282

Well my number arrived for the Silverstone Half Marathon today. The race is on 9 March. I'm number 4282. I've got one long training run this weekend, then a short run early next week following which I'll be resting before the big day. Sub two hours and injury free means I'll be lining up for the London Marathon in April so there's a lot to race for. Wish me luck!

Nostagia

I’m getting older. As I do I’m getting more nostaligic. And the web has enabled me to not just reminisce, but to travel back to those days. I can get the music I remember from just about anywhere. The TV programmes are on those obscure Sky channels. I can get the games, the clothes and anything else from eBay. I can even re-find my old friends through social networking sites such as Friends Reunited. Lots of people have speculated on what is behind the ‘nostalgia boom’ – some say it’s a longing for simpler times. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that the marketeers have moved in and we now have ‘nostalgic marketing’. It’s a shame not even our memories are free from commercialisation!

Facebook on the slide ?

As suspected, the number of Facebook transactions has started to decline. See the BBC story this week. I guess we all knew that would happen. The quote from Nic Howell is most revealing though. Nic says "Social networking is as much about who isn't on the site as who is - when Tory MPs and major corporations start profiles on Facebook, its brand is devalued, driving its core user base into the arms of newer and more credible alternatives.” This is yet another example of where corporations, representing the status quo, try to move in everyone moves on. I predict this will keep happening as Generation Y people know instinctively when they’re being sold to and when the commercial boys have moved in. And so far , they’ve been able to stay one step ahead.

FInal preparations

I haven’t been doing much running recently. I’ve been doing quite a few miles on my bikes, but have been trying to protect my delicate calves so that I can at least have a shot at the London Marathon. I’ve only managed one or two runs a week for the past couple of months. I abandoned my target of 4 hours for the marathon some while back when I realised training wasn’t going too well, however, with the Silverstone Half Marathon looming I thought I’d better see how things were. So this morning I jogged my 8k circuit twice and managed the 16k in a pretty steady 1 hour 30. My average pace was 5.37 per km, which is well within two hours for the half marathon. And no injuries or twinges! Silverstone, here I come!

Holding Back The Tide

A colleague alerted me to this during the week. iReport.com really does make everyone a journalist. I know it’s being run by CNN who will be looking at it as a way to find a role in the new world, but it struck me as yet another example of how the connected world is changing things we’ve previously thought untouchable. I blogged a few weeks ago about how RSS and the blogosphere is threatening newsprint, this is another example of the same thing. And if you apply the same lessons inside an organisation, how long before we see the end of internal staff newspapers and new websites and move to an entirely user generated news structure? Those with corporate communications responsibilities will just be another user and it’ll be what they say, not their position in the organisation, that will determine their importance. Fortunately, a few are beginning to get it now.

Is there such a thing as a corporate blog?

We've been doing a lot of thinking in the office about blogging. In the midst of all this, I've been slightly uncomfortable with the whole notion of the 'corporate blog'. Blogs are places where conversations happen, and conversations happen between people, not between a person and a corporation. I accept that there can be such a thing, but I think organisations have to be really careful to create a blog that has real personality. Otherwise it ceases to be a blog and becomes just another traditional 'channel'. Authenticity is key, as the blogosphere has an uncanny knack of exposing the inauthentic. Just ask Walmart.

Media Snacking

I just love the idea that Neville Hobson talks about on his blog - the mobile screen as a new canvass. I think many people wonder about how we're all going to be able to watch movies on the small screens on our mobiles. The point is that - in line with all other content becoming available in small bite-sized chunks - it'll herald a different era of content making and a different set of content makers. Hopefully anyway.

And what about this.... Digital paper rolled up inside your phone. If it comes to the market it will stimulate a whole type of content, perhaps less snacking content and more substantial material. We'll see I guess.

Interview for Communicators in Business

I was recently interviewed for the CiB website as a pre-cursor to me speaking at thier annual conference. You can find the interview here.

Get Into London Theatre

Living close to London and having kids who are growing up fast and largely independent means Kim and I have much more leisure time than we used to. We're both theatre lovers, and are usually pretty good at finding good deals on tickets. However, I came across this site the other day which has offers just for the next few days. I know there are sites like Lastminute.com, but they don't always have that many great deals. I'll be trying this new site over the next few weeks so will find out first hand if it's any good.

Facebook Fatigue

I blogged about people tiring of Facebook a few weeks ago. Seems the numbers bear me out. Have a look at this piece on The Register.

I still think it'll have value for niche communities, particularly inside an organisation. But maybe 'friend fever' is over - until we all migrate to something else that is !

RSS Readers - the new editors?

I don’t read a newspaper on a regular basis. I usually get one at the weekend, but vary which one from week to week. There was a time when I believed that newsprint would always be around, even in the face of competition from the web, because people need someone – journalists and editors – to aggregate and make sense of the news for them. I’ve changed my mind. The bloggosphere makes sense of the news for me now, and my RSS reader aggregates it. Print will survive I’m sure, but it will retract further into niche areas – hence the overloaded magazine shelves in newsagents – but the days of the daily paper must be numbered, surely?

PR Week

Last week I spoke at the PR Week Social Networking & Blogging in Practice conference at the Thistle Marble Arch. Unusually, I managed to get to the whole event. Which was quite interesting. Here are some rambling notes to self.

First off, I was surprised at how many people there were attending. It was certainly one of the larger conferences I’ve spoken at in recent years. This seems to have caught the organisers by surprise as the room was very full – not enough tables for everyone – and with low ceilings and no stage it was difficult to both hear and see.

Then there was the audience profile. I seemed to be the only person talking about how this impacts inside an organisation – all the other slots were about the external impact, which seemed to make the event unbalanced. At the start of my session I asked for a show of hands on who was interested or working in employee communications. Only about a quarter of the room put their hands up. I think that in itself is quite interesting as I’ve blogged before about blending and how it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between inside and outside.

I picked up some nice quotes from some of the speakers…
“Happy customers blog, angry customers blog louder.”
“Blogs are powered by emotion.”
“Bloggers aren’t shy.”
“Conversation is king – content is just the stuff people talk about”
“The conversation is happening without our permission.”

There was quite a lot of discussion about corporate blogs. I’m not convinced there can be such a thing as a corporate blog. By their very nature, blogs are personality driven. Without the personality, it becomes just a publishing channel with Forum type functionality. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is substantially different in nature to a true blog.

The most interesting part of the day was the panel session – interesting because the panel members were all representing ‘old media’ – and had very old media views. For example, newspapers using blogs just as an outlet for content that doesn’t make the daily printed version and so on (that’s a niche channel, not a blog). The panel could have been much more lively if there’d been a blogger who wasn’t a journalist, or an ex-journalist with a stake in the traditional.

Having said that, one of the panelists - Sara Lloyd from Pan MacMillan talked about “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”. I found that a great way of thinking about Generation Y and the rest of it.

And there were a lot of references to ‘mainstream’, when people were actually talking about traditional media. I wonder when the number of people reading and writing blogs becomes such that the blogosphere becomes the mainstream?

The afternoon included a great session by Will McInnes on the practicalities of blogging. It was great fun, and perfectly illustrated the point that many people in our industry talk about the new social media world, but few really understand it. Will does.

All in all, whilst I think we’ve come a long way I the UK, we’ve a very long way to go before we understand that the old notions of control are breaking down and the PR people have to forget about spinning stories, but joining conversations.

Watching TV

We had a huge plasma screen on demo at work the other day. 103 inches. It was enormous – the size of your living room wall. And it was a seriously good quality picture. Clearly these things are designed for presentation suites, and very large houses where there is perhaps a home cinema. I can’t ever imagine having one in my own home. But then I got thinking about how television viewing habits are changing. Firstly, people are watching less scheduled TV but are using PVRs, Sky+ etc. to watch things when they want to, and also with so much more niche content available, what one person watches may not suit others in the family. So people tend to be watching TV on their own – sometimes over the internet on a PC screen, sometimes when the TC is ‘free’. This solitary experience is very different to the collective family experience of sitting down together to be entertained.

So maybe these huge screens, with the capability of multiple windows on one device mean that families will be able to sit down together once more, this time watching different programmes on the same screen at the same time. A bit far fetched? Maybe. But people already multi-task when it comes to entertainment – just watch a teenager at home. Of course, the sound would need to be sorted out, but that would be relatively easy.

I wonder.