Bluegrass Consulting: Blueblog

Friday: 20 November

This could be a little weird to read in a blog… but I was watching an episode of ‘Californication’ the other day - and I stumbled across this fantastic quote…
For those who don’t know the show - this extract is a quote from an author speaking on a radio about his new job as a ‘blog writer’. He says:

“People… they don’t write anymore - they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it’s just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King’s English.”

Now I have to agree. There are some people out there who think that by smashing a few thoughts or ideas on a keyboard and posting it on the web - they are indeed opening the lines of communication in a significantly more profound and diverse way the oldies of the previous generations would ever have dreamed they would be able to do.

I guess this school of thought is somewhat true. Instead of the good old telegram, telex, letter, telephone call, or chit-chat over coffee or lunch - all of which (except the telephone) take at least a marginal amount of effort, thought or forward planning to get going… - Today - we can simply text, blog, chat, tweet and status update all day to our hearts content, and we don’t even really need to think about it. I guess it also effectively gets the message (whatever it may be) out there and across for the all of your mates to see!

But - in doing this, what are we actually doing for the English language, or indeed for our refined and defined (…some more than others) interpersonal communication skills?

Another question: How long has it been since you pulled out a blank piece of paper and wrote a letter to someone, using correct language, diction, grammar and spelling? No spell-check or “fragment consider revising”?

Now, I’m not judging anyone - nor am I saying that it really matters when the last time you partook in this archaic method of communication actually was… but for many, many, many years this was the ultimate method of communication.

Even when the Fax machine was born… you still needed something written on paper in order for the ’state-of-the-art’ facsimile technology to do its bit.

If the technological means of communication today, namely email, blogging and tweeting simply enhance our ability to “traditionally” interact and communicate… I say bring it on! - It opens up the doors and multiplies the contact points one thousand fold and allows all of us to refine our command and mastering of the English language!

However, if we are indeed destroying the traditional means of interaction and communication by sitting at a desk, on a train or in a car “updating” the world through LOL, BRB, LMFAO, ROFL, and whatever other acronyms there are out there, through blogs and quirky-funny one liners, never actually having to spell a word, or for that matter know how to use that little thing you need to use when making one of those little smiling faces,  I ask you world… what is happening to the skills the ancients once mastered?

I guess more importantly I ask - do they in fact matter anymore?

Do we need to know how to write, to spell or to punctuate?

(NOTE: Any pedantic, high-school English teacher out there that notices any spelling, grammatical, punctuation or factual errors in this piece of literature - are to be reminded that this is in fact a blog… and is thus exempt from English language usage rules and regulations)

Semicolon, dash, close-parenthesis…
Nathan.

PS. If you ever get stuck understanding the new world lingo - check this out… it may help!

Friday: 18 September

LISTEN TO ONLINE CONVERSATIONS

• Conduct a conversation audit - Analyse who is talking about you, your competitor, your issues and find out what is ‘hot’ now and likely to remain popular for a reasonable amount of time

DETERMINE KEY CHANNELS

• Find out where your audience is talking online and which of these places are most important to your campaign
• Develop a presence in these digital environments - you don’t have to invest huge amounts of money into web design I the content/purpose of the site is strong enough (content and purpose should be first priority, design: second)
• Choose tools to use in these environments that are appropriate to your campaign

CREATE AN EDITORIAL CONTENT STRATEGY

• Develop a forward focussed editorial strategy - this needs to be relatively fluid to account for the interest and issues you receive throughout your digital campaign but it should include the key messages and specific activities of interest to maintain consistently interesting and purposeful content.
• Tools can be used to schedule the publishing/tweeting of content (such as peoplebrowsr) but these tools should be used with caution
• Aggregated information from quality sources can also be used to bolster the content but should not be solely relied upon
• Content should be driven by the brand where possible

DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!

• You need to provide readers with something - whether it be you taking them on a journey, giving away prizes, recognition, a laugh etc
• Make sure that you have integrated tools into your content that will allow the user to easily virally spread your content
• Invest time to make sure the offering is a genuinely attractive, interesting and (relatively) sustainable one for the reader
• The content needs to feel unscripted, fresh, organic, instant and creative - not ‘suit language’ or marketing mubo-jumbo (bloggers and social networkers will not read this let alone spread it virally & it could be used against your brand by networkers who are keen to shoot down ‘corporates behaving badly’!)

DELIVER ON EXPECTATIONS

• If you set up expectations that you are there to listen, then you need to continue listening and responding in a timely matter
• Quite a large amount of time is required to build strong relationships
• Try to make it clear if the campaign is only a short term campaign… don’t let it die unexpectedly
• Maintain consistent updates across all channels to give readers a reason to come back to your site

Annabey

Thursday: 17 September

There are about a million reasons why your organisation should be engaging online these days… Here are five that come to my mind - let me know if you have any to add!

Online engagement is another communication channel an organisation can use to reach large numbers of people, instantly

Online engagement can be targeted to and reach specific audiences (and you can establish and connect to key influencers)

Online engagement can be useful for communicating detailed or technical information (whereas normal TV, print or digital ads cannot convey such a level of detailed information)

It forms an invaluable platform for further/future campaigns - You never know when you might need a few people ‘on your side’ online (get your positive messages out where crises often break first!)

Public third party endorsements add to your brand’s reputation and appeal

Annabey

Monday: 14 September

When we think social media for advocacy - we usually think Facebook, Myspace, Twitter… sometimes YouTube… but how often do we think of Flickr?

A picture can tell a thousand words - so why don’t we use them when we’ve got something to say that we want other people to listen to?

With mobile phones these days - we all have a camera handy, so it’s a perfect tool to capture the moments that help make our point.

Not to pass up on the behind the scenes stuff as well. People love seeing what goes on backstage (I guess its that big brother, voyeurism in all of us). Barrack Obama has been doing it since before he was elected. He now allows everyone to come inside the White House and travel on the road with him.

It gives people that insight to the person (or indeed to a cause) that they wouldn’t under normal circumstances get the opportunity to see. The setting up of an interview, a work in progress… it could really be anything. It allows people to connect on a different level than they would if they were simply being spoken to.

It really opens up a new avenue into online advocacy.

You can also ask people to upload photos that relate to the issue you are campaigning on. You can set up a Flickr group, adjust the privacy settings to whatever you are comfortable with and allow people to become part of the campaign by contributing.

The more people that contribute - the more it will naturally spread.

It’s a great tool that I’m sure will be tapped more and more. The possibilities, especially for politicians and specific advocacy groups is enormous and I’m sure we will see it being used more and more into the future.

What do you think? - Also - Check out the Bluegrass Flickr page!

Friday: 31 July

Google have estimated that the internet has “over 1 trillion” web pages. That works out at over 150 web addresses for each person on the planet!

However, according to latest internet user statistics - only around 23.8% of the population (or approximately 1,596,270,108 people - give or take a few) are internet users.

So with that in mind - I guess that means there are about 626 web pages per internet user out there in cyberspace.

So - if you have a spare 1.9 million years (and a lot of coffee) you could conceivably spend 1 minute reading every web page on the planet - presuming you don’t need sleep that is!!

But surely there aren’t 1 trillion sites worth reading! - What do you think the best/ most worthy website is??

NB: Workings;

NOTE: How did I get 1.9 million years?? - (this has caused a bit of contention - as some websites are claiming that you would only need 31,000 years to read the web) - please see my workings below:

1,000,000,000,000 - one trillion pages… hence one trillion minutes to spend one minute reading each page.

60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 365.24 days in a year (average)…

Thus… 60 x 24 x 365.24 = 525,945.6 minutes in a year.

1,000,000,000,000 minutes divided by 525,945.6 minutes should give you the number of years it would take to spend a minute on each website… right?

= 1,901,337.32 years

Yes??… yes. 1.9 million years (give or take a couple thousand).