Entries Tagged 'Blogging' ↓

Who said it was only living, breathing people that could blog? That’s just plain old fashioned.

Here’s a plant and a rather famous bridge in London that have both started Twittering.

The ideas are endless. I’m thinking about hooking up my fridge so you can all shout at me when I go for that second helping of chocolate cake.

I’m making the fifth and final New Media 4Cast  at the moment. This episode will look at social media for creative people. It’ll be a good way of bringing together everything we’ve been discussing over the last year.

For this episode I’ve interviewed two of Brum’s most illustrious social media gurus Pete Ashton and Nick Booth. They both made a similar point which really struck me.

The crux of it was about elements of social media not having to be finished off, complete and polished. Whereas traditional media (newspapers, TV shows, films) rely on being produced in this way, with social media the depth comes from how these individual pieces are linked together, built on and discussed on to create something that is a whole.

The problem is, so many people are scared witless of blogging and spend far too long worrying about whether their posts are right, complete or perfect.

I was delivering a lecture yesterday to a group of creative industry types and this point seemed to hit the button. I think a lot of early stage bloggers become gripped by fear as I did when I first started. "What if people don’t agree with this?" / "What if I change my mind?" / "Will this sound stupid in 3 years".

My advice is simple. Screw it, just start writing.

Impactt are one of the world’s leading ethical trade consultancies.  They work with many of the world’s leading companies to improve labour standards and have been pushing things forward in this field for ten years. Looking at their client list is like taking a walk down the high street and they’re hugely respected in the industry as a company effecting real change for workers.

I’ve been working with the company’s team to develop a new web strategy; the first phase went online last week and you can see the results at impacttlimited.com

A few notes on the project:

My work is now primarily about strategy rather than straight builds so I’ve spent a great deal of time getting to know the company, the issues they’re working with and the team who run things. This has been fascinating, and also very good fun.

We started with the Global Microbrand principle (stay small and sell all over the world), and tweaked it for a social context (stay small and influence all over the world). It’s key that an innovative company like this are telling people what they’re doing both from a commercial and social point of view. If they can provoke a discussion both on their own site and elsewhere, that’s even better.

Impactt had been producing a printed newsletter full of stories on labour standards ("The Meteor"). We decided after some thought to move this over to a new, two-pronged strategy, and worked with the team to re-develop The Meteor as a blog and a live news feed.

With the help of Mark McGuinness we worked to map out the style, content and potential audience for the blog and coached the team as they made their first tentative footsteps into the blogosphere.  It’s now up and running and I must say, they’re doing an excellent job.

I think it’s vital to avoid a technology led approach with these things. I have a pet phrase which goes something like "Giving someone a blog is like giving them a blank piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything until they know what to write". The potential readership of Impactt’s blog is a group of people who have huge influence in this field so there’s a big opportunity here to really help make change happen globally.

The Live News Feed is a great feature which allows users to receive the latest news on labour standards daily or weekly. It has the double function of keeping clients, and everyone in the office up to date with the latest news, all filtered by one person. 

Making this happen was an incredibly simple combination of delicious, Google Reader, Feedburner (all free) and a bit of training. This to me embodies the power of what can be done these days with free software.

I also worked together with the team at Rolled to build a brand new, fully content managed, accessible and (in my opinion) beatifully designed website. I’m really pleased with how this came out and initial feedback has been very good.

Moving into the future I’m keen to start looking at the company’s use of video and audio. There could well be a new podcast on labour standards coming your way soon!

I must extend a great thanks to the Impactt team for pulling together and really doing a great job of getting content together, no easy feat when you already have a full time job to do.

Incidentally, I’m not the only one with a pet saying about blogging. Mark McGuinness has one too: "A blog is for life, not just for Christmas".

Food for thought as we enter into the season of goodwill.

I’ve recently been reading the book Clear Blogging by Bob Walsh and must say it’s the first all round introduction to blogging (both personal and business) that I’ve come across so far.

It’s pretty comprehensive, covering both the whys and the hows. Clearly written, easy to implement into your daily life - exactly the kind of book I like. If you’re blogging, I recommend getting a copy.

technorati tags:Books, Blogging, ClearBlogging

If you’re a Blogging, Flickr or Del.icio.us addict then it’s worth checking out Flock, “the social web browser”.

You can blog, post photos, read RSS feeds all using the software. My favourite feature after only using it for a day is the ability to post favourites and have them go straight into your del.icio.us account. Sad isn’t it.
I’m using it right now to write this post and I must say it’s pleasant being able to write my post directly into the browser - however it is a bit limited in that you can only post, not edit or anything else.

I’m trying not to get too attached to it though - my money is on the fact that Google are probably developing their own version of this right as we speak. It probably won’t be long before they yet again sweep away this little niche of the market by simply doing it better than anyone else.

One of my plans for this year is to really get this blog going. I think part of my problem has been the fact that I haven’t actually been reading many blogs until now, but a bit of time spent over Christmas has now left me with a Google Reader nice and full of juicy RSS feeds.
As time goes on I’ll start posting some of my favourite blogs here. Here’s the first installment:

I really love this one. Springwise provide subscribers with their “Daily fix of entrepreneurial ideas”. For example, a great post the other day on a company providing Customised Love Songs. You send them the outline ideas, they write, produce and package up a tailor made song for that special someone in your life. (As a musician I think I don’t think I would quite be able to live with myself if it was my job but the idea’s great).

Mark McGuinness writes a blog on creativity, coaching and business with great passion and clarity.

He’s really on a roll at the moment and seems to keep coming up with really interesting stuff. I think his post on “Why Enthusiam’s Better than Confidence” is inspired and quite a few others seem to agree.

Finally (for now) there’s Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis who’s writing some really interesting stuff about how media is changing. Probably my favourite topic at the moment.