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We Made It for Crisis!

So we all crossed the finish line, well those who started! The rest cheered us from the pub. Yes, a bunch of us, very kindly sponsored by our clients hobbled across the finish line of the Crisis Square Mile run on Thursday evening. Here are some pictures to show the hardship, from limbering up in the taxi on the way to the start to reading the paper whilst running, we couldn't resist! Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, we raised £425!

Tech news links 11/06/08

Great post from Ryan Carson demonstrating the benefits of Quik or Seesmic for the instant interview

Online ad spending in Europe maturing, from survey by IABEurope on eMarketer

Latest live onlinevideo numbers, from Ustream via Readwriteweb

Mobile web stats, from Computerworld report

10 mobile social networks, from RWW

Mobile phones expose human behaviour, from BBC Online

And in case you didn't see all the coverage Chameleon got for Sniff here's the Telegraph's take

Two weeks is an eternity

I came back from holiday last week to the usual mass of emails, conscious that I'd not really read any news while away (which was nice) and thinking "I need to update the blog". Travelling to London on the Monday morning, I was gifted a lovely example of how internal communications needs to be improved in large organisations so employees understand how super-connected the world is.

I was sat on the train opposite a "high flyer" from one of the UK's largest communications companies (x) who was on a conference call about a deal with one of the world's largest business intelligence companies (y). She didn't wish to be quiet on her call and announced to the whole carriage: "Well it sounds like y is as good as managing its data as x".

I had my mobile with me and could have posted this annoucement straight to Twitter. I was still in holiday mode though and thought this would be cruel at the time. But a hardened hack might not be so charitable, particularly if the conversation is about something more juicy than data.

I'm sure there's loads of examples of overhead conversations on trains but it's similar to when you present at an event now, remember it's not just to the 30 people in the room or in the carriage you're talking to!

Innovation at the Innovation Edge Conference?

I attended the above conference today to hear what the presitgious speaker line up had to say about innovation. Here are a handful of comments from the likes of Chris Powell, Jonathan Kestenbaum, Tim Berners Lee (what a nice guy), Sir Bob Geldof, Sam Pitrada, Helen Alexander, and Rt Hon Gordon Brown. You choose which ones you support!

Chris Powell, Chairman, NESTA

Innovation is a necessity to address the social and economic difficulties faced today
Need to stimulate and push innovation

Johnathan Kestenbaum, CEO, NESTA

Liberate innovation in the UK
NESTA is the source of authority on how innovation can flourish in this country

Quoted Rober Kennedy "The future belongs to those with passion, reason, courage."

Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the world wide web

Took his inspiration from a book called 'Enquire Within for Everything'
Commenting on him journalist Jonathan Freedland said "he's done more to change the world than any politician"
TBL said the following:
Give your people innovation time. Most ideas come from the boss not saying yes but more importantly not saying no!
Technology should be neutral and not intefere with how people want to interact
I want the web to support society and democracy
There are more web pages than neurons in your brain
I made the web to solve working in dispersed groups
Innovation is a collective rather than about individuals
It's about collaboration

Sir Bob Geldof



This is a small crowd for me as I'm a global megastar (tongue in cheek - he'd just arrived from Germany where he'd played to millions)
Necessity must be the mother of innovation. A mother's desparation is the father of necessity.
We are running out of everything, air, water, food, so never more than before innovation is everything
Poverty is shit
Has Britain become a risk averse nation?
We so fear failure no one tries anymore - the essence of entrepeneurialism is to try and fail
Innovation is about collaboration
The political climate doesn't give it to us anymore
Political and social paradym must be about dialogue and cooperation
You don't die of drout you die of politics
We need our social entrepeneurs to be innovating and progressing, our politicians and financial institutions supporting it. Is this happening? No.
All change comes from the self

Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission, India

India has 10m new phones every month
Invention is for mankind
Innovation requires a lot of collaboration
Innovation is creativity, curiosity and collaboration
There's too much greed in this world

The panel, when asked the one thing Gordon Brown should do, answered as follows:

Sam Pitroda - encourage risk takers, visionaries
Helen Alexander (CEO The Economist Group) - get out of the way......clarified with get the 60 year olds out of the way, be less institutionalised
Bob Geldof - all of the above plus - to put his intelligence to find a political rhetoric to match the absolute needs of this country in words that make sense

Rt Hon Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

I pledge to you that we will do our best to break down the barriers that exist [to innovation]

Tech news links 17/05/08

Google's Friend Connect launched this week with big claims to socialise every website, from BBC Online

Did Twitter break China earthquake news?, from BBC Online

Techcrunch confirmed Comcast bought Plaxo this week

Disqus and Seesmic launch video comments, from a VC

Twitter app Twitbuzz

Facebook raises $100m to expand servers from Mark Sweeney at the Guardian

Interesting take on our generation of Web heads, from Readwriteweb

Engaging post on Web 2.0/social media by Dennis Howlett who works entirely "in the cloud"

Jack Dangermond of ESRI Inc gave a keynote speech at Where 2.0 this week on the future of GIS, here he is interviewed on Government Technology earlier in the year giving his vision

Our virtual lives

We went to watch an amazing performance this week at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol that merges dance, theatre and video. If you get a chance to see it or the theatre company, Precarious, it's well worth it. The production seamlessly merges video images within the choreography and acting of the troupe, providing an artistic reminder of how intertwined our real lives are with the virtual world. The video above gives a taster. Wait until two minutes or more in to get a real idea of how the projections are used including the woman's dance in a birdcage.

Tech news links 11/05/08

Google possibly launching Friend Connect platform tomorrow to push profile information into third party websites, from Techcrunch

...following MySpace annoucement on data portability this week, from BBC Online

Lots of social search engines getting hype this week like Flock and Yahoo Glue beta

Facebook counteracts privacy bandwagon with child safety announcement, from BBC Online

European mobile TV stats from New York Times

Couple of interesting P2P stories from Readwriteweb who says (like Skype) P2P may be the only model that could disrupt Google and stats on latest traffic from Wired via Jemima Kiss

Couldn't post without a Twitter story, stats on microblogs, from RWW

Last another facsinating New York Times story about journalist, Michelle Slatalla, and her 10 year old daughter's social media habits, via Danah Boyd

Facepack funny

Had to post this from BBC for spot on accuracy as featured in Rory Cellan-Jones' post on dot.life blog with latest UK user stats for Facebook.

Tech news links 02/05/08

Myspace charges for app, from Social Times

LinkedIn ad rates, from Silicon Alley Insider

Social media challenging traditional, from Readwriteweb

Great Twitter case study on Zappos Shoes, from RWW again

"Real" Twitter numbers from TechCrunch

Podcasting ad spend stats from eMarketer

Brits addicted to social networking, from PDA writer Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Facebook privacy issues roll on, from BBC Click

Tech news links 25/04/08

New SF report Maggie Shields starts at BBC's dot.life blog

Jemima Kiss analysis of Telegraph's online reader stats jump
Web 2.0 conference took place this week. Readwriteweb roundup excellent as always

Future social media stars? From O'Reilly at Web 2.0

How to build an online community, from Newswire via Strange Attractor

And what every company should be monitoring, from Newswire

Stats from Society for New Communications Research on company reputation and social media, from Clickz

China overtook US in terms of internet users this week here's a link to World Internet Use Stats. Remember the majority (80%) of the world don't have internet access!

Developments with iGoogle hint at future for social networks, from Readwriteweb

Favourite article of the week is Vic Keegan's CCTV in our pocket demonstrating real-time video from our phones. Everyone is accountable.

I want you to want me

Fascinating art installation from Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar combining online dating postings, touch screen technology and software to give an amazing insight into people's online relationships. From Danah Boyd's blog.

Tech news links 18/04/08

Twitter hits front page of Guardian

Google ad revenue to overtake ITV, from BBC dot.Life

Twitter saves lives, from Mercury News

News of the World triples web traffic to 3.67 million unique users, from Press Gazette

Daily Mail Group claims it reaches 45 per cent of UK from Press Gazette coinciding with its website facelift this week

Decline of tech stories on Digg with stats, from Readwriteweb

Love this from Readwriteweb - real people don't have time for social media

MyGamma one of the world's biggest social networks, from Vic Keegan

CBS launches citizen journalism site, from paidcontent.org

Sixapart launches Facebook app that may make integrating social media posts easier, from Cnet

Ticketmaster caught out with fake Facebook fans, from Techdirt

Bobbie Johnson on how he uses Twitter

Parting thoughts...

Today’s eForum demonstrated that the Web has exploded to offer at our fingertips all of humanity’s knowledge and creativity as well as its darkness and depravity due to Western governments’ light regulatory touch.

Web 2.0 technologies have given us the ability to communicate and collaborate on a global scale, creating new models of content creation and business as a result of largely unbridled innovation.

The problems associated with the lack of central control over User Generated Content (UGC) have also been driven by Web 2.0 technologies - copyright infringement, abuse and cyberbullying, privacy and internet bandwidth capacity - will continue to dominate (figures listed in today's Twitter postings here) as Web issues.

But a sustained light touch for regulation is needed, so those that have created the greatest internet platforms encouraging the fastest technological, social and cultural developments in the history of the world can solve the problems – and they will.

(For more on eForum visit the chair of the discussion and Ofcom Consumer Panel member, Roger Darlington's blogs where he will likely post his thoughts here)

Westminster eforum 15/04/08

eForum on web 2.0 about to kick off with formerchair of Internet Watch Foundation.

Tech news links 09/04/08

Intruders Web 2.0 TV station acquired by Malhmo founder Jason Calacanis

ABCe Feb figures showed Guardian approaching 20 million unique users and Telegraph growing quickly from Press Gazette

How people use Twitter research from Readwriteweb

BT gets down with the kids and uses social networking for its global workforce from Computing

Corporate blogging article from Roy Cellan-Jones and interesting discussion thread

Trendrr seems interesting evaluation tool for social media multiple datasets from Readwriteweb

BBC’s social networking policy for journos

Over the air conference - food for thought

Over the air with a good atmosphere, gadgets galore and insightful presentations is providing plenty of food for thought.

Bean bags are filling and ideas are starting to buzz around for applications that will be developed over night for entry into the competitions.

Going over to Over the air?

With a great line up of speakers Over the air, which starts here in London on Friday, is the hot tech ticket in town this week - all 400 places have been snapped up by wireless and mobile "developers, designers, hackers and entrepreneurs" and prizes for projects developed at the all night hackathon are expected to be fiercely contested.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Most Influential PR?

Well, I was shocked last night when I found out that I have been listed as one of the most influential people in PR in PR Week's Power Book. Completely forgotten I had completed a form many months ago and so a nice surprise for me at the launch of the Power Book (wondered why I had been invited!) at the Maddox Club (wouldn't advise it for use for anything other than a cool place for a drink) in London. Anyway, on my way home, with my Power Book proudly tucked under my arm, my father called so as any daughter would do I shared my new status with him. First he laughed heartily and then his only comment was 'Is it hardback or paperback?' - nice to know you have the continued support and admiration of your parents.

Tech news links 17/03/08

Managing director of Guardian says digital media is "smashing traditional media business models" from Press Gazette

Friendfeed is getting a lot of hype - bring all your social media feeds together as one, from ReadWriteWeb

Neil McIntosh does a nice job on the fallout from the Lacey/ Mark Zuckerberg interview at South by SouthWest digital conference in Austin - note, when speaking in public remember it's no longer to the 30 people in front of you

Bebo bought by AOL, from PaidContent's summary of news updates

Interesting stats - China is about to pass US in terms of internet users from Strange attractor

Three new mobile social networks taking off big time... from 1000heads - kind of like Twitter with more social tools

Web user behaviour tracking (which has been going on for years) gets another look re privacy issues from BBC's Darren Waters

Womma post linked to MediaWeek figures on amount of social network users going mobile

Lecture in Leeds

Helen and i have just given talk to students at Leeds uni about social media. Only three bloggers in the audience but lots of interest at the end of presentation. Dont think number would be same in US uni.

Chameleon in Bristol

New office view over the South West city.

Tech links 20/02/08

Interesting snippets over the last two weeks...

Yahoo buyout story of week with Microsoft and News Corp in the pot from BBC Online

Darren Waters and Rory Cellan-Jones reported all last week from 3GSM via mobile phone video footage and their dot.life blog. Loads of interesting interviews to check out all loosely still around whether internet services work on the mobile. Link here has details of Nokia's idea for mobile content and social networking share.ovi.com

Sessmic gets Valentine's funding round from great and good from FT

PDA roundup includes Spinvox (that Chameleon PR launched) hook up with micro-blogging platforms. Talk your microblog into your mobile and let Spinvox do the rest!


Interesting take on describing social media "campaigns" from buzz marketing


Tips from Charles Arthur on managing your RSS feeds

From BBC - eBay to ban negative seller views - mutal feed is what their whole company was built on, the ability to gain real feedback from sellers and buyers. If the process is squewed we only get one side of the story?

Web 2.0 book might be worth a read detailed on CNet

What does Web 2.0 mean for your business from Mycustomer.com

How Google search works from redorbit

Trouble at t'Facebook mill from Slashdot

Personal best - that's what the clock says

I completed Sussex Beacon half marathon on Sunday - with no end of performance stats to expose the part-time runner.

Runners' bibs had a chip inside that triggered the timer as they went through the start and they were tagged by the timer at the finish for their time; others checked their times for each mile their watches (well, some did). Best of all, cutting edge runners had a chip in their trainers that provided real time data wirelessly to their i-pod.

Had I connected my i-pod, it might have provided these real time updates:

Through the start - 5,000 runners, families and photographers everywhere - very sunny after a freezing night

1 mile - moving up nicely, though overtaken by a basketball player with ball (get me) and worryingly, Spiderman, Batman and Robin without real running shoes on

3 miles - too easy - the feared London Road hill was just a mild slope

4 miles past the Grand Hotel - scene of last night's fire and my interview with Red FM (Were there any flames? Well, no, actually); right hip starting to complain

5 miles - like the beach huts but there's a lot of wood washed up on this beach; more families, children wobbling alarmingly on new bikes very near the runners

6 miles - left knee now complaining

7 miles - on the promenade - dying for an ice cream; I'm catching the sun now -am I really this slow?

9 miles - I can see the finish line below, only one more long loop round the Brighton marina development and we're in

10.5 miles - that's a cliff - we have to run over the top - before we even get to the marina

11 miles - top of the cliff ... another photographer... raise knees and try not to look too washed out

12.5 miles - last water station; fantasising about ice cream now; slice of banana will have to do

Finish - manage token sprint but 2hrs 25mins? People do whole marathons in that time.

Monday: Amusing wait for time to be published online, and, of course, all those photographs

PR 101 - 10 Top PR Tips

Just attended a very well qualified event held by Sally Whittle and her colleagues from the team at the:101. Their first Meet the Media event for 2008 was delivered by a panel of esteemed journalists who contribute to some of the country's leading newspapers and magazines. They shared with a packed room of PR professionals their pleasures and trials of dealing with us PR folks.

Here are their top 10 tips:

1. Timing is everything - know the deadlines of the journalists and publications you are dealing with
2. Nobody likes a spammer - tailor your stories don't round robin
3. Journalists want stories not releases - make your story topical, make it mean something to the journalist and their readers
4. Most people don't have PHDs - don't get too technical, make the story relevant
5. If it didn't bounce it arrived! - don't phone up to 'see if you received my email' - if they're interested they'll phone so again make your story relevant
6. There are good celebrities and bad celebrities - if you have to use them then make sure they are current and appropriate
7. 'Fess up when things go wrong - be honest, if a story isn't going to work out phone the journalist to let them know in a timely manner, everyone makes mistakes!
8. It's all about the case studies (personally I think this should be point number 1) - note to clients - invest in developing a case study programme - this is exactly what brings a story to life and should be mandatory support to any story
9. Don't send attachments/photos....if the journalist likes your pitch they'll come back for more...let them know there's more available in the body of your pitch
10. Nothing beats reading the paper - before speaking to a journalist take a good look at their publication and double check that the story you are pitching is really relevant.

Other pertinent things to note:

Many journalists archive all emails and even if they don't respond this time they may come back in the future via a search of their emails - so make sure specific keywords are included in your emails
The subject line on an email is all that matters - get it right - make it the headline of the story, don't be obscure, don't try to make it funny
Journalists track blogs for research and sanity checks so make sure you are contributing to them but note that they would not necessarily use them as a basis for a story
You MUST listen to the journalists agenda and be prepared to shape your story to fit it
Deliver a package of information - your story, supported by a case study, an analyst quote, relevant statistics, avilability of good photography etc - all in one go! The better you package your story the more success you'll have
Before you pick up the phone to a journalist have a rethink - do I really have something to say? can I make 3 bullet points out of what I'm going to say?
Knowing an analyst or other third party has been briefed on your client/product etc is a godsend for a journalist - it means they don't have to trawl round to find one. If you provide a quote from an analyst the journalist will suspect that you have 'paid' for it so don't waste your time - just provide a contact

So thanks to Sally and her team for 'from the mouths we feed' advice on PR best practice. Oh yes and don't forget their media requests blog.

Tech news links 01/02/08

Social media news

Youtube to pay out for user generated content from Jemima Kiss’s PDA

PDA round up from Jemima Kiss

Hull Daily Mail launches website written by local community from Press Gazette

New comScore stats highlight by The Register demonstrate fall in social networks popularity.

Having gone through the hype of MySpace and Facebook, it will be interesting to see where the cool kids will go next. Boredom is the big networks' biggest threat because of our six second attention span, anyway what was I saying....?

Social journalism

Guardian’s vlogging experiment on Current TV here – with Seesmic gaining popularity and Qik (mobile vlogging websites) seems like early tech adopters are trying to get back to video blogging (but from mobiles) to generate conversation as vlog responses which was what Youtube was about originally and not just pirate content online

BBC bureau and correspondents/stringers around world map mashup from Stuart Pinfold


Mobile video reporting from Davos via Darren Waters at BBC Dot.life

Social media comment/ideas

Different take on WOM influence and reach from Guy Kawasaki

The idea of market readiness is interesting and certainly rings true for the explosion of Skype. Niklas Zennstrom often said that the reason that the internet telephony product got so big was because broadband pentration around the world had reached the right level (and speed). But in terms of PR we did concentrate on the early adopters and the half of the world that go out and seek information as opposed to the other half who are just happy to receive it.

Danah Boyd on Economist's social networking debate

Facebook backlash continues from Neil McIntosh

Social media research

The next evaluation of social media measurement from WOMMA blog

Comscore figures show dip for Independent website from Press Gazette

Blue sky not thinking

Top of first run of week in Serre Chevalier

Tech news links 19/01/08

According to Experian social networks account for 1 in 5 page impressions in the UK - from BBC's Darren Waters dot.life technology blog

More from Experian research on the power of the Web 2.0 superadvocate with large following and the power to make or break brands with their online comments - from Utalmarketing website

Jemima Kiss's PDA gives a great round up of this week's stories.

Also profile on YuuGuu computer screen-sharing business community here

Scrabulous-Facebook lawsuit brought by Scrabble games companies - some people just aren't happy with free global marketing - from BBC Online



Comment on Tom Hodgkinson's Facebook article in G2 section of the Guardian at the beginning of the week.

Most of the original article is based on this video posted on Youtube

While the article was written to be extreme, we should know the background and motivations of the people that hold our information (if we have chosen to post it truthfully). Personally I see the handing over of our personal data as a trade off for being connected 24/7, so that if I witness something I want to publish to friends and the wider world, I can do so instantly via a blog or social media platform. Everyone is accountable.


Guardian technology podcast with Bobbie Johnson reporting from Macworld

Twitter mentions for US elections candidates from Mike D at 1000heads

Delmonte example of using social media for research and product development from Wall Street Journal's Emily Steel

Tech news links 13/01/08

Social media

Wikia Search gets drumming - from Business Week's Brian Burnsed

TechCrunch UK's Mike Butcher's take on using Twitter for conversation

Business execs snub Facebook according to Silicon.com CIO jury with just one out of 12 using it for business, the rest preferring sites liked LinkedIn

Guardian's Kevin Anderson experiments with video discussion site, Seesmix, encouraging feedback on the US elections

From TechCrunch, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman invests in discussion aggregator and management service, Grouply, with others

Research

Web 2.0 threats from Quocirca's Fran Howarth

KPMG and Economist Intelligence Unit research finds data concerns hold back Web 2.0 adoption on econsultancy

Social journalism

Guardian's Charles Arthur - "Distribution is king, not content"

Press Gazette highlights problem of young/new journalists been worked to the bone in quest for content

Top Digg stories from 2007 from Press Gazette

Chinese blogger trying to record protest gets beaten to death by authorities from TechCrunch - demonstrating citizen journalism's importance in some countries over others

Stuck at Swindon

Trying to get to Bristol in SW floods on Friday night. Commuters from London wait at Swindon station for news.

Tech news links 06/01/08

Social journalism

What makes an online journalist from Kevin Anderson – Guardian/Strange Attractor

Online figures for national newspaper sites for December from Press Gazette

dot.life blog launches on BBC with Darren Waters and Rory Cellan-Jones posting – Rory is off to CES

News

Guardian's Jemima Kiss' PDA roundup

Bebo named top social networking site by Which for privacy and security from Guardian’s Rebecca Smithers

Wika Search planned launch 7th January 4 as possible Google search rival from VNUnet

Scoble booted off Facebook for allegedly running scripts on his page – not so open a platform then from TechCrunch's Mike Butcher?

And the explanation why from Jack Schofield with more Plaxo PR further to up-for-sale stories

Cyber thieves target social sites from Mark Ward at BBC Online

Using social media

Future business uses for Twitter from JP Rangaswami

8 reasons to embrace WOM from WOMMA

2008 predictions

BBC Online’s Bill Thompson predictions for 2008 including Facebook location-based services

Library House social media big sale prediction

2nd Tech Weekly podcast from Guardian more predictions