I remember when I first started hearing about Twitter, in the summer of 2006 less than six months after the service started earlier that year. As the year progressed, the name kept popping up in blog posts and comments – what social media was, really, back then – until I decided to see for myself what this thing was all about. And so, today marks my eighth #Twitterversary – eight years ago on this day, I signed up with the handle of @jangles. My Twitter ID number is 47973. (Did you know every Twitter handle has a corresponding ID number?) I’m still not sure if that number has any significance that makes it generally interesting. For instance, does it signify that […]
Personal Development
Would you be happier without Facebook?
If you were not happy – outraged, even – with how Facebook behaved over the mood experiment they conducted last month, an experiment from a Dutch creative agency might be right up your street. What Facebook did was manipulate information posted on nearly 700,000 users’ home pages that showed that the social network could make people feel more positive or negative through a process of emotional contagion. Now Dutch creative agency Just has come up with 99 Days of Freedom, a call to action for Facebook users to demonstrate their disapproval of Facebook by switching off from the social network for 99 days. […It] asks users to refrain from Facebook use for a period of 99 consecutive days and report […]
A hangout on the future of communication
In just three weeks’ time, on June 18, FutureComms14 takes place in London. This one-day conference, organized by MyNewsDesk UK, will firmly ask a big question: “What’s the future of communications?” The line up of speakers will offer some compelling answers to it that will undoubtedly include insights. You really can’t ask for more from an event. I’ll be there, too, moderating a panel discussion on the technologies of PR and chipping in with a few perspectives as well in the context of that big question. Yesterday, four of the speakers – Deirdre Breakenridge, Danny Whatmough, Paul Sutton and me, Neville Hobson – got together in a live Google+ Hangout On Air video panel discussion, ably moderated by Adam Cranfield, […]
If you attend one comms event this summer, make it #FutureComms14
A really good conference for communicators takes place in London next month, and plans are well advanced for a day of valuable professional development, strongly focused on the question “What’s the future of communications?”and how to address it: The disciplines of PR, marketing, social media and digital are converging and evolving at a breathless pace. Modern marketing communications is real-time, multimedia and multichannel. The challenge we face is to learn new skills, master new technologies, while maintaining focus on the key business goals of reputation and performance. FutureComms14, organized by MyNewsDesk UK, takes place on Wednesday June 18 at The Crystal in London’s Docklands. The themes for the day that underpin the agenda are pretty compelling: Where is PR, communications […]
Redefining today’s communicator in Norway
When I look at the landscape of the communication profession around Europe, I see similar issues that concern communicators, most notably how strategic are communicators (and the profession itself), abiding by codes of conduct and practicing ethical behaviour, and being professional. It’s a topic in the front of my mind as I finalise plans for a keynote presentation to the members of the Norwegian Communications Association on March 27. The devil’s in the detail, of course, and what’s hot in one country isn’t necessarily at the same temperature in another. In the UK, for instance, a current strong focus is on professionalism following the findings published by the CIPR last month in its ‘state of the profession’ survey and a […]