I forgot to tag three others to continue the meme:

Neville Hobson: Tag! You’re it!

Allan Jenkins: Tag! You’re it!

(Dad with a new kid on the block — congratulations!) Jack Vinson: Tag! You’re it!

Technorati: scoop!, Jack Vinson, Allan Jenkins, Neville Hobson, Philip Young

Related posts: Scoop!, A prayer required for Jenkins’ Lady, He’s back! He’s back! He’s back! Oh, happy happy joy joy!, Any guns for hire?, FeedDemon Beta and the expansion of my information sources, Neville needs to book into the Podcast Institute, Lounging around in cyberspace, Allan Jenkins, where are you?, BCR Podcast #25 - An Interview with Shel Holtz & Neville Hobson

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At the delightfully fragrant request of Andrea Weckerle, I have flatteringly been asked to contribute to Philip Young’s meme-athon.

Whilst not a ‘true’ journalist, per se, I still feel that the erstwhile intergalatic traveller, Ford Prefect, qualifies, because of his extended entry about Earth in ‘The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘.

“If you were a researcher on this book thing and you were on Earth, you must have been gathering material on it.”

“Well, I was able to extend the original entry a bit, yes.”

“Let me see what it says in this edition then, I’ve got to see it.”

“Yeah, okay”. He passed it over again.

Arthur grabbed hold of it and tried to stop his hands shaking.

He pressed the entry for the relevant page. The screen flashed and swirled and resolved into a page of print. Arthur stared at it.

“It doesn’t have an entry!” he burst out.

Ford looked over his shoulder.

“Yes it does,” he said, “down there, see at the bottom of the screen, just under Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.”

Arthur followed Ford’s finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn’t register, then his mind nearly blew up.

“What? Harmless? Is that all it’s got to say? Harmless! One word?”

Ford shrugged.

“Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s microprocessors,” he said, “and no one knew much about the Earth, of course.”

“Well for God’s sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.”

“Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.”

“And what does it say now?” asked Arthur.

“Mostly harmless,” admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough.

Technorati: scoop!

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Adelaide’s own ABC radio station now podcasting

I notice that even our little old local ABC radio station is podcasting.

In a conservative town, with a conservative broadcaster, it is refreshing to see the use of new media.

Now, if only businesses could be encouraged to join in the game…

Technorati: adelaide

Related posts: Psychology blog, Alcohol as a nonverbal communicator of a society’s values

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I apologize to the regular readers of this blog.

Due to various pressures I have been a little ‘light on’ for in-depth blogging of late, relying on ‘clippings from the BetterComms garden’ as a way of staying in touch. I’m very late with my own podcast, my reports for FIR get to Shel and Neville closer and closer to their deadline…

It’s been hectic here at BetterComms Towers:

• A client’s new website, blog and podcasting initiative to get off the ground
• Another client’s integrated website and blog to design and manage
• A major essay to read for, then have a point of view about, then actually write up. I’ve been grappling with EndNote for referencing and so forth. After many years of dreaming of being able to afford it one day, it turns out that Mrs BetterComms, who is reading for a PostGrad Dip in Orthopaedic Nursing, is entitled to a free copy through her university. So I finally get a copy to play with — and lovely it is, too!

I’ve also been helping Mrs BetterComms put together a A1 poster presentation and a few essays for her study.

But once I have one of my client’s ’squared away’ then I will have a bit more space available for thinking about business communication.

Oh, and if anyone knows of any good reference material about the imago Dei, its various interpretations and the NT Christological understanding of it, please let me know. Ta.

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RGJ.com: Mall hopes WiFi gives it an edge – put one’s hands together in front of your chest and pray that someone in Adelaide gets the idea.

Fairly frightening what a committee can invent - “Say WA” What the? 18months and 32 people to come up with “Say WA”. You have to be joking!

Sorry, I’m Not That Kind Of Guy - “I’m not a blog kinda person”. And what kind of person isn’t or is a blog person? In an email with Trevor Cook about Iraq and blogging, I have a hunch that most bloggers are left- rather than right-wing in political stance. If you are shy, retiring or of an opinion you have nothing worthy of saying, then perhaps you are a non-blog kinda person…

Neville having trouble with RocketPost - I’ve sorted out most of my issues, which were WordPress configuration rather than RocketPost problems. But I’m still having a few challenges getting RocketPost to add more than two links in any one post — it just crashes RocketPost and loses the nascent post.

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I’m a Ferrari 360 Modena!

You’ve got it all. Power, passion, precision, and style. You’re sensuous, exotic, and temperamental. Sure, you’re expensive and high-maintenance, but you’re worth it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Hat tip to Bruce.

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Anyone looking for a great example of how an employee blog can serve as a tool for product evangelism need look no further than Chris Pratley’s OneNote blog.

Chris has cunningly, almost cryptically, named his blog Chris Pratley’s OneNote Blog — those crafty ‘Microsoft types’.

In his own words:

I am the Group Program Manager for Office “Authoring Services”. That means I manage the teams that design Word, Publisher, and OneNote (the “authoring” applications). I co-founded the OneNote team back in early 2001 and have been part of it ever since. At the same time I have been part of the Word team since 1995, starting on Japanese Word95 and growing to be the manager for the whole Word program management team.

This is a blog I have been reading almost since its release, because I wanted to understand OneNote and why it was different from, say, Notepad. It is, remarkably so, but the first release’s Introduction file wouldn’t have given you any clue.

I am a fan of OneNote, despite using perhaps only 2% of its capabilities — like MindManager, I figure that if I keep using it the ‘light bulb’ will eventually go on for me and the jigsaw fall into place. Regular readers of this blog will know that I avoid clichés like the plague — but I digress.

Chris very obviously loves his product. He describes the various new features coming up in OneNote2007 (which is going to be part of many Office2007 configurations, as well as a ‘stand-alone’ retail product) with tender loving care; he shows how to use these new features, what the implications are in ‘real world’ examples. He shows how he uses, for example, the new simple calculator built into the 2007 release. Not from a theoretical standpoint, mind you, but with real world examples. And Origami is a new ‘must have’ on my tech toys list for Christmas.

Now, as a developer, he has a privileged position to protect. Not only does he work on ‘cool’ toys but he also has certain non-disclosure obligations to his employer. Many of my clients would have apopletic fits at the freedom he seems to have to talk about his product. Indeed, in one post (the very last paragraph) he describes a possible feature of the Windows desktop in the release *after* Vista. In doing so he demonstrates that his employer is not just a rigid empire but one where “bringing a smile to a user’s face” is also important.

Chris shows, through his choice of words and his writing style, that the OneNote developers and managers actually do listen to customers, that customers do shape the product and make it better.

THIS is what blogging can do — bring a community of users and developers/designers together, via a common interface (the internet), in an open and transparent medium (a ‘social media’ tool, in this instance a ‘blog’), to develop and design and improve and generate further understanding and productivity improvement.

Bravo, Chris, and Bravo your employer.

[Update:] Great OneNote template for diary management - download link at the bottom of the page, along with a link to a great streaming video explaining how to install and use it. Thanks, Doug and Tracy. Other useful stationery and how-to items over on the official OneNote site

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On FIR #121:

• David Phillips’ report — brilliant!
   
• IABC Gold Quill awards — you mean I should have entered my blog, after all? What put me off was the measurement focus — how do you measure social media? By rss/feedblitz subscribers? So my blog is half as successful as, say, Neville, or one eleventh as Rubel’s?
   
• The idea that the ‘milling throng’ can determine editorial content — Hollywood celebrities are already ‘playing’ the paparazzi at their own game by working ‘quietly’ with certain paparazzi to give them ‘exclusives’ at the expense of their camera-toting colleagues, making one wonder how many of the ‘exclusive stories’ in the gossip rags by ‘undercover reporters’ are great PR management by the stars themselves.Thus, in the same way a record company can go out and buy a few thousand singles in a few record shops on a weekend to boost their latest releases in the charts, so the stars can manage their fans and favourite paparazzi to manage the ‘shock rags’ content.

News:

• BBC to re-invent online broadcasting: “He also showed off the BBC’s Integrated Media Player (iMP), designed to allow users seven-day access to TV shows. The iMP, which uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute BBC content across the internet, has been undergoing extensive user trials.” Cool!
   
• US debt allowed to go to US$9 trillion — anyone else worried by this?
   

General comms stuff:

• Ron on HR versus Comms in the corporate struggle: a great conversation happening
   
• Major Aussie lawyers encourage a corporate blog policy for their clients (thanks, Trev)
   
• “Why squander [negative space] when you can use it to generate an incremental cross-brand revenue stream…?” Harold Moonbayer”: Garr Reynolds illuminating marketing-speek at the speed of brilliance
   
• Dan York is interested in comparing sign-ups via rss versus Feedblitz/email: my experience is that it depends on your audience; readers of this blog = tech savvy = rss but readers of a psychology blog = not tech savvy = email signup
   
• The naked truth about teleworkers: why so many teleworkers demand leather chairs
   
• Don’t forget to attach the attachment: Andy offers a way of saving face in the corporate email jungle
   
• Builders — please stop and finish your work before going on to the ‘next cool thing’. Wise words from Seth

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