Blog of Alex Griffiths (AJAG)

2012 State of the Union Address Tag Cloud

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:02:00 -0800

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Why Work doesn't happen

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:10:00 -0800

Great talk by Chicago native Jason Fried:

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Social Media Monitoring is the greatest opportunity of the next decade.

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:30:00 -0800

A bit of background It is early days in the social media space but it is changing the world we live in. The market has experienced a rapid ascendancy, claiming large audiences and frequent attention at the cost of traditional media companies whilst redrawing the landscape in the view of those who pay for media - the advertisers.

In the first decade of social networks, some key trends have emerged:

Web users like socializing online where they have a common connection to a theme or other people
Most large traditional media companies have failed to utilise the potential of the web in their content and are now threatened by their own high cost financial model
Online communities or tribes can have a dramatic effect in the real world
The web user no longer gets their news from just 1 provider
Advertisers are more focused on conversion to sale then where they place their media
Monetization models have stabilised around display and performance but are supplemental to content.
In social media the content is free to distribute and can be cheaper to produce.
The depth of measurement available in online advertising has facilitated a better price discovery process relative to traditional media
All social networks that have achieved scale have been funded it on a freemium model, the pursuit for profits and VC payback has begun
There are lots of social media consultants and it considered and art not a science
The market is moving at a very fast pace
This real time chatter covers all subjects and languages
Governments are not exempt - national security, elections and the freedom of information are all effected

A new marketplace needs new tools

These are plenty of success stories to inspire and entice new entrants. But these successes have one thing in common - they were successes by early adopters of technology. What about everyone else - the other 97% of web users who are happy with e-mail and still use mobile phone to makes just make calls and send invoices on fax machines. How should they get involved in this new frontier of marketing? I'm not sure there is an answer to that yet but there is a nascent but rapidly growing group of companies that are rapidly bringing to market a new breed of online discovery and productivity tools to address this problem. Their target markets are the media agencies, companies (of all sizes) and every niche or cluster of users that wishes to use social media and the data it yields in a more productive, structured and measurable fashion. These SAAS (software as a service) technology companies build, develop and sell social media monitoring systems. If you are an early adopter then finding the information is not the problem - its the time it take to do. There are plenty of free tools on the web if you know where to look. The problem is assembling it in a format so it can be sent to others to be analyzed and then making it easy to undersand so that something can be done about it.

The Process

I think that a successful social media monitoring and engagement program needs to follow some basic steps to get a ROI.

Set objectives and value metrics
Define scope of activity
Set budgets, allocate tasks and define success to those involved
Select your tools
Listen
Filter
Triage
Engage
Measure
Don't stop

Another view on this process is described by the diagram below. I think we have all been thinking along the same lines but as ever with an emerging market the language is still a little fuzzy.

http://www.kenburbary.com/2009/10/introducing-the-social-analytics-lifecycle/trackback/

The Problems

"Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit." - William Pollard

I think this quote pretty much covers the situation we are faced with. There are lots of social networks that have search features built in to their sites. Some have opened their search engines to other search engine so that we can see the results all in one place. But how do we get all the data in one place so we can analyse it? How do we define what we are counting and make it easy to understand? The average CEO doesn't relate to the new language of retweets, mentions or followers. I believe there is a genuine demand for a simple tool that is waited equally across the process so that is doesn't generate too much information so it can't be processed quickly. Similarly it must be an end to end product. By that I mean that I must be able to listen, sort, act and measure the effect of my engagement. My view is that most of the products spend to much time on the listen and machine based sorting tools and not enough on the act and measure part. In short I see the problems in the social media space as:

Making meaning from social content or data and deducing actionable data
Tagging or grouping content and profiles so that they can be analysed in depth or acted upon separately
Visualizing what is happening and presenting it to clients and management
Creating automated responses to basic questions
Creating action, objective or campaign based templates that can be measure and compared
Share responsibilities and manage accounts as a team
Measuring ROI over time

The right tool is.......

There are lots of tools out there. There is a great list hosted by @kenbarbury at wiki.kenburbary.com/home. As you can see, there are many companies that have spotted the opportunity and are trying to solve the problem. In my view, the tools are still finding their way. They have different language, coverage and approaches. All have strengths and weaknesses. I'm going save how to choose a social media monitoring tool for another blog post as this is already a bit of a rant.

Why is it such a big opportunity?

"Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family." Kofi Annan

Imagine being able to look at a crowd and know what they want. That is the implication of a good social media monitoring process. You can learn how they feel about you, your product, your brand, your competitors or discover what they want, need or are willing to share. The potential spans commerce (products and services), politics, research, medicine and almost everything western civilization holds dear. In my mind, it is the biggest opportunity for the next decade.

During this decade the race is on to find the tools, methods and means to unlock all that potential.

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Gordon Brown has a vision.....yes....really.

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:51:02 -0700

I couldn't believe my eyes. This is a good speech. I'm so glad that a leader is thinking about this big picture in the context of the web. Mr Brown - This could be your election campaign. Why not experiment and make the next election about the big picture and how the UK fits into it. You might to have anything to loose. BTW I might be able to help you out by then ;)......(more on that later). :)

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A review of Prezi.com - A new way to do presentations

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:00:00 -0700

I've spent a lot of time watching presentations. I've also spent a lot of time giving presentations as well. I think there are several key components to delivering a good presentation. Prezie helps make 2 of these components easier (BTW - I'm still working on what makes a good blog post!). The 2 areas I want to focus on are: - An engaging visual display - Know your subject A recent Ted talk discusses how the brain makes meaning and I think the key to a presentation lies in the key lessons mentioned here. After all, if you can get your audience to truly understand the pitch you will get a lot more from your time. If they aren't interested it will be because you are in the wrong place or you have a weak product. If they are interested you can move them down the sales funnel. Either way, you will get more signals from a successful presentation.

Lets me show you what I am talking about. This is a prezi:

I've been a big believer in the 10/20/30 rule promoted by Guy Kawasaki for some time and I think that principle can be applied when using prezi. I've also been a fan of the "Who is the dick on my site" presentation style by Dick Hardt. Writing a good prezie will force you to re-examine how you want to organise your thoughts and point of view. I like to think that I can show both the micro and macro view of a subject using prezi and by doing so I am forced to look at priorities in a different way. The non linear zoom allows you to present context. I have found some people can get a but woozy if you change the viewing axis too often but the vast majority of responses to the presentations are very positive. The big problem for this tool is that companies are wedded to Powerpoint though so its going to be an interesting journey for this company. Here are a few of my efforts: Work flow for a charity campaign

Digital strategy for a charity

What I can't do with a prezie:

Add a lot of video - the file limit is 100mb
Add a wide variety of standard objects - limited to box, bracket, circle
Vary the style of connector objects such as arrows or lines
Get the image quality to be high enough
Copy the format of an existing object
Get prezie stable using Google Chrome
Get prezie to display text the right way round on the strategy presentation above!

Looking through the help it looks like there are a number of tips and tricks I can try so I'll let you know how it goes. My next goal is to make a video presentation (without paying!!) using prezie but that is for another blog post. Keep it up Prezie - you are doing a great job and I believe you have a great product. Microsoft has once again proven too slow to innovate.

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Will Iran be the first real digital revolution?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:27:58 -0700

Wow...what a day. Four days after an election with numerous credibility issues the people of Iran are shouting back but not just in the streets. It seems they have walked in silence to avoid confrontation but that did not last long. They need to vent some anger and chose a significant place to do it. It directly challenges the authority of a regime that has squashed opposition. There has been some great coverage but not always by the big companies (see #CNNfail). As usual, its the Twitpic, twitter, youtube, mobile video feature set being utilise to convey real emotions and at a volume that has not been since the revolution, 30 years ago. Check out the coverage on the web, a good help guide can be found as usual on mashable. A list of tweople who are covering events from Iran. Google can help you filter news here. This is where the TV and newspaper companies are getting their content..... I'm worried about the reaction overnight. I wonder how many tweople will disappear over night. Check the #iranelection for more info... I think the only thing that can save them is turning out in more numbers. This needs to spread now. Will the government cut the communications to stop its only hope? Come on Internet!! The data files will out eventually. This is another live story brought to you by the power of the web. These events reinforce the benefits of accepting it and embracing it.....more then they are now. Update:

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

From http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/dear_cnn_please_check_twitter_for_news_a...

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Time to Restore the Earth

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:07:32 -0700

I've been busy for a few weeks now with travel and working on some ideas and thought it was time to share some of the notes and thoughts I've put together. A good friend of mine, Julian Walker introduced me to Peter Phelps a few years ago. Peter is a great Entrepreneur with a fascinating story to tell. His travel have taken him across the globe and across many markets and he is has been very successful. We met again at another event organised by Julian not, to talk about those part his activities, he wanted to talk about something bigger - The Earth. There were many other great people there and the day was very inspiring but I couldn't help but feel that I could help with this project. To my shame, I'm not an active volunteer in charity work. I donate money occasionally and recycle at home but this project and approach caught my eye. This was a project that needs the ultimate campaign and social media could make it happen. The Restore The Earth campaign has the ultimate objective. I let the site do the talking. http://www.restore-earth.org We are launching in 2 weeks and have selected a designer and chosen Wordpress, Huddle and Twitter to try and mashup a framework to deliver information and increase and display participation in restoration of the evirnoment. Here is the strategy proposal: http://prezi.com/56064/ Here is the workflow: http://prezi.com/100213/ These are the drafts put together for internal purposes. As ever, I'm all ears if anyone has anything to say. I'm looking forward to spending time on this. It's going to be a great challenge with a worthy goal.

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The truth about the media industry

Tue, 05 May 2009 19:18:00 -0700

I spent a couple of hours on Youtube last night and found some great piss takes of the industry so I thought I'd share them. Unfortunately I think I've met most of these people. Sit back, relax and prepare to LOL.

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Crowds are getting organised

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:18:08 -0700

The number of examples of digital crowd sourced information and coordination is growing. I saw this and it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to see it working where it really matters and all the benefits can be realised. IT done right. I've been spending a lot of time looking at site user interfaces and wondering when we will see the shift in presentation that unlocks more productivity for users - 3D views on lots of information. To me - views on large volumes of data seems to be an underfunded area and the tools for doing this are few and far between and vary in quality. We can get stats but where can we get insight? We need a social media dashboard... News organisations and PR people beware. This will change the game like big bang did in London in the 80's. Maybe this is this answer?

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Twitter has the velocity

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:34:39 -0700

After reading, mashable earlier on twitter recent growth spike, I've just been playing with compete.com and found some interesting trends to share. 1 -Twitter's velocity is reletively high both historically and compared to its social rivals. 2 - Website Traffic is rising but is way short of fb and ms 3 - Twitter has risen up the long tail 4 - Google trend shows there is a long way to go NB API use not included. I've been wondering when twitter will tip in terms of user numbers. How long will it take to reach 100m registrants? My prediction is by November 2010. I'm now activily looking at twitter business opportunities and have some ideas. I think this is going to be an exciting space over the next couple of years.

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Jump or get pushed - The newspaper industries problem

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:20:16 -0700

I have just read the latest numbers on the newspaper industry and started wondering how these businesses might be saved. What would you do if you were put in charge of fixing that. It's a big problem. The scale of the challenge needs to be recognised:

Rapidly eroding market share for ad dollars
Old product with declining market share for consumer attention
Poor stats/analytics relative to digital media
Relatively expensive distribution method
Lower ROI per for web user then via print copy subscription
Relatively higher costs then other media
Editorial style that limits readership numbers - brand is too focused in some cases

The question needs to and is being asked (see the layoffs happening all over the industry) - how many print, mobile and web publications can the ad market sustain and how should media companies be competing in a new landscape where digital media is significant? Free CD's doesn't do it. One site http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com has some interesting ideas. The next 5 years will change the media landscape more then ever as connectivity becomes a utility rather then a luxury and mobile web usage becomes mass market. How will newspapers survive? The UK bg guns in print do have some great starting points to trade from:

A national and in some cases an international brand
A readership base
Content Established and respected print forums for discussion
Some cash Lots of talent
A website with traffic to build on
Interest in mobile

But will that be enough? Do the economic realities of 2009 mean that the print model that has been so strong and popular is now not feasible? Newspaper fans will argue that the value added and quality is worth the costs. I'm not so sure consumers feel the same way. I think some paper such as the Guardian,Times and FT have made progress with their sites I still visit them no more frequently then foreign papers/blogs in english. My news coverage has evolved into what is popular (I generally scan this part) and what is interesting. I consume from media companies, they are all competing for my eyeballs and attention. The onlne ad market is growing fast even in a declining environment and they haven't played their biggest card yet - the letters page. Why isn't there a community view of the comments on all stories. The data is in there but it hasn't been drawn together yet. Newspaper readers are not a community yet. If they were is would be a lot more valuable and it also opens up lots of new monetisation options. Who will step out first and go web first before anyone else. The question is being asked of US papers now. Will it be the same here in 6 months? This is what I think web first strategy for a news paper would look like:

Limited planned and post delivered distribution. Print available by subscription to home/business/shop/high traffic spots.
Free and subscription model for more benefits.
Consolidate print operations and lowers costs further.
Consolidate local cost effective local operations
Scale down operations not up
Create digital distribution everywhere, web/mobile smartphone app/mobile/widget/desktop
All content types created - video/audio/print/text - branded and pushed to subscribers
Heavily social and community based - focus on community reaction to articles
Get marginal revenues - syndicated content deals - as content gets older it is sold at market price
Personalised control of news for user - give up some control
Simplify ad model and focus on creating measurable targeted response using less advertising space
Personalised control and distribution to web/mobile/ipod
Focus of Operations on productivity and volume of quality content per salaried person.
Create remote working conditions for all paid content generators - everyone is a blogger with ID
Create journalist work environments around the city in partnership with other papers
Editors form the operations desks
Fully digitise operations
Announce news everywhere that people meet - acquire users through relevance to discussion
Become real time not daily
Go global, look at language conversion
Focus on allowing local to be generated and aggregated by users
Open standards on feeds and API use
Compete everywhere - your brand will give you access everywhere

The results need to be a high traffic visibly active onlne venue for up to date news, relevant peer comment and community interaction. This can be organised around a theme or geography. Looks like an internet company doesn't it.... They will need to fund this transfer but media companies need to go digital first, lead and educate the market (while they can), enhance the convenience for the user or they will be pushed out in first the US and then Europe or under in the next 5-10 years. People are harder to monetise online but the print advertising days are numbered. It will form part of the market but its value will decline. Just my 0.02. There is a dark prediction that all advertising online is doomed but I think the key to that article is that there is a limit on how many ad dollars will be spent on it not whether it ceases to exist in the short term. His vision may well take longer to happen but he has point. At what do point do we no longer need advertising? Has anyone noticed that your can't read a broadsheet or mini paper on a train in rush hour anyway? Let me watch it or listen to it. I need more convenience if I am to go back to "getting a paper".

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Theodore Roosevelt quote

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:40:17 -0700

I saw this quoted in a blog post the other day. I wanted to share it.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

"Man in the Arena" Speech given April 23, 1910 26th president of US (1858 - 1919) Good luck to all those in the arena. It as good a time as any.

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The Credit Crunch and Its Impact Explained

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:19:38 -0700

It seems that all we hear about these days is the credit crunch and misery of its effect on the economy. The downside effects of the economy is front a centre of peoples minds but speaking to lots of people in the USA and UK it has struck me that there is a real lack of understanding of how this has happened. The media haven't taken the time to really explain it to people and give them a proper overview of how it can be stopped from happening again. Whilst browsing around the web, I thought I'd draw together the best explanations of what has happened and the most useful information I have found. Its definately out there, it just isn't being out in front of enough people. There are obviously a lot of other factors that have influenced the situation but I thought these videos did a good job explaining the major factors. Values of banks before and after crunch began: [caption id="attachment_171" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="bank market caps"]

[/caption] Useful sites for more details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7893317.stm http://www.ft.com/indepth/global-financial-crisis http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c2c12708-6d10-11dc-ab19-0000779fd2ac.html We live in interesting times......

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An overview on twitter and guide on how to get started

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:27:30 -0800

If you know and have used twitter extensively then this post may be a bit of a bore, but recently I have been asked by a number of friends:

"what the hell is twitter about?"
"why do I care what you had for breakfast?"
"why would I want to know your GPS coordinates?"
"are there any hot chicks on there?"

So I decided not to repeat myself constantly and thought it might be of use to explain it in depth for those who are interested. There is tons of information on the web already (which I'll use to avoid repeating the good points others have made) but I wanted to add my 2 cents on what I thought was most important as an individual (not a corporate brand) and also point out the most important opportunities to get something out of it - which is the whole point of using it. Before I get started - if you don't get it, don't worry - you aren't alone. There is a commonly understood process to accepting and using twitter. People often go through the "5 stages of twitter acceptance". Have a read of this article. I found it to be remarkably accurate. Most people are at stage 1 or 2. So, here goes: 1. What is Twitter? Twitter is a simple, free and open messaging system. I like to think of it as an open instant messenger with the world. Anyone can view messages and members can join in (more like a forum then traditional IM like MSN/Yahoo/ICQ). You can access it from your computer or mobile phone. For me, twitter is a way of saying anything to anyone who is listening via any web capable device. I can search all the messages people have sent (or tweets) in the past and find other people who are focused on the same subjects or thoughts as I am. I can then engage with them in further conversations around those subjects or anything else I choose. I use twitter differently to other social networks. I like to say that Facebook is for the people I already know and have met. Twitter is a tool i use to find the people I should meet in the future as they have similar interests and I can judge whether they have anything interesting to say by seeing their tweets. Twitter likes to say "what are you doing" but I find that I use it to say:

What I'm reading
What I'm thinking
What I want to find out
What I like or don't like
Where I am
Where I'm going
What I want to other specific people

One of the big differences between twitter and other services is that you can fully access twitter's features from other websites. This is due to twitters approach to programming and a thing called an API. For example - I can go to another site like www.twitterfall.com, login (using your twitter username and password) and then use all the twitter features from that site. The same cannot be said for other sites like facebook or myspace. They only allow partial information to be added from other sites - if at all. You can watch this video for another (and probably better) way of looking at it. The video implies that you should use twitter for people known to you - friends and family. I use it for a much wider social group - everyone I should have met but haven't yet. I use facebook for people I have a closer connection with as I can share much more detailed/rich information. 2. How do I get involved? Go to www.twitter.com and register. Choose a name that you want to be found as on the web. Personally I think its best to be yourself on twitter, but there some instances where you might want to take on another persona. Once you have registered, fill in your details such as your bio (profile description), location (city) and upload picture of yourself. Other people will view your profile and will make a judgment - do I want to follow this person? I make this judgment based on:

similar interests
usefulness of your tweets
similar location
similar sector of employment
your number of followers and friends

Here's a great article on why people will not follow you. 3. How do I get set up? Twitters website is very basic and to be honest it doesn't help you understand the service. My advice is:

Go to www.tweetdeck.com and download/install the program.
Start the program and login.
Play with the features and say Hi to the world.
Search for a subject you are interested in by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the top left corner.
View some tweets and see if you find anyone of interest.
If so follow them and say why you followed them. Its about reaching out.

You can also search your gmail/yahoo/hotmail address book on twitter.com to see if anyone else you know is on twitter. If there are follow, if there aren't go and find people to follow. You can also use a service called www.twollo.com to find interesting people (there are others as well). You login and search for keywords that people have in their bio's or tweets. The system will automatically follow them. Don't worry you can unfollow them later if you wish. This will allow you to tap into a stream of tweets around a subject or theme. There are many different approaches to following other twitter users. Some people keep private, others follow a few people who are know to them. I found the best way to meet other interesting people was to follow lots of people who have similar interests and then filter them down depending on if they engage with me or if they tweet interesting things or not. This is a personal thing and is part of the discovery process of twitter. Ask for help, you'll be surprised how many people will reach out to answer questions. Don't take it personally when people unfollow you. It's different for everyone. This is where you need to invest some time. This stage will take time but you'll go from 3-5 on the twitter acceptance scale and find you have unlocked a powerful tool that can enhance your online experience. It may also help your business. Small, medium and large businesses can reach out to their consumer base, suppliers and competitors and talk about anything they want. Opportunties will follow quickly. 4 . What is the opportunity? This is the thing. Twitter is so flexible and simple it can be used for many different reasons and in many different contexts. I am using it to widen my professional network and meet new people who I can share useful information with. I hope to find people I can work with and learn from. You may want to keep your circle tight and private - such as just for your family. The opportunity for instant communication can be with whoever you wish. Its up to you - that's the point. The benefits I have experienced are:

Great connections with interesting people
Interesting content from lots of sources
Breaking news updates
Real time chat with knowledgeable thought leaders
Hours of entertainment
A wider range of reading from links people post

The bigger your network the more likely you are to find value in the information you get from twitter. Listen to what the web has to say. There will be a lot of noise but within that noise will be some really useful stuff. You just need to learn how to tap into it and filter out the crap. Some people only choose to follow the people they perceive as thought leaders but I think that having you ear to the ground will allow you to get chance across more interesting people and opportunities. 5. How do I manage/track my account? You can manage your account on twitter.com and use lots of tools that can help you refine and track your accounts performance. Have a look at my blogroll (on the right side of this page) for useful twitter tools. Twitter tools generally follow themes such as:

Statistics about your account and usage of twitter
Suggestions about who to follow
Directories of users
Applications you can download to access twitter on your computer or mobile phone

6. Who should I follow and who else uses it? That is up to you. You are in control. Lots of different types of people use twitter for lots of different reasons. Some examples include:

Celebrities to reach out to fans
Entrepreneurs or CEO's to communicate a vision
News outlets or Bloggers to spread the word about their publications
Journalists to allow stories to come to them
Moms to share useful info
Companies to collect feedback and communicate with their customers
Politicians who want to talk to voters
Real estate companies who want to attract business

The list could be endless and is constantly shifting. The simplicity of the tool allows it to be applied to any type of communication. Check out this article to see a list of directories. 7. What a pile - this is another fad for geeks..... Well maybe. Plenty of people think like that. Time will tell. But remember people said the same about the web, blogging and online shopping. Microblogging is here to stay in my opinion and it will take a few more years to become a mass market product. I am often accused of being a geek for using twitter - this doesn't bother me but it frustrates me that people are slow to try new things using the web. This is an amazing communication tool and yet we are not amazed. I plan to take advantage of it whilst everyone else catches up. It may give me an edge. I would encourage you to invest some time in twitter and find out for yourself. My prediction is that twitter will become like an interactive phone book. You will be able to look people up and the communicate with them in a safe controllable way. There are issues with twitter but the community is great and cares too much to see it fail because of a few bozos. 8. @AJAG's top tips:

Fill in your bio completely - work out who you want to attract and the context of your use. Update it over time.
Change your background - check out www.freetwitterdesign.com
Be you, not your ego
Post useful info like good links and thoughts about things going on in the world
Reply to people who direct comments at you
Reach out to others - don't be shy
Go through who your friends follow and follow the ones you like
Follow mrtweet and get recommendations around your interests
Go to twollo.com and autosearch people with interests like you - e.g. digital strategy
Go to http://nearbytweets.com
Find lots of people you like and follow lots of people they will follow back if your profile is interesting
Link to your company, linkedin profile or blog
See directories like this one - http://justtweetit.com/
Download or visits the twitter tools that utilise the API and play with them
Treat people as you wish to be treated
Don't be rude or swear
Don't get into arguments - ignore or block the bozos
Don't try to be too funny or controversial all the time- 140 characters limits you and not everyone wants that
Don't tell people about the mundane - no one cares when you got up or went to the toilet

Basically - imagine your boss or grandmother is watching. This will keep you to constructive meaningful engagements. Everything else is a waste of your time. If you wish to be a persona then the opposite of the advice above applies.

9. Some great articles/videos on Twitter.

10. Advanced stuff When are familiar with the basics check out:

If you are feeling really adventurous you can go to a tweet up and meet other tweeps. But remember the basic safety advice when meeting anyone you have met online. There are some nutters out there. I'll update this article over time to share more info as I find it or learn more. So there you have it - enjoy. I hope that helps get you started. Tweet me if you like this article - I'd love to hear if it helped. I'm @AJAG. Check out my bookmarks for more info I have collected over the last 6 months on twitter.

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A view on President Obama's speech to congress 24 February 2009

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:38:08 -0800

I watched the speech and thought it was very inspiring. President Obama has a difficult challenge with the Economy at the moment. He has to:

Set Expectations realistically
Show he knows people are hurting
Inspire America to rise to the challenge
Prepare sectors of business and the population for more pain
Avoid talking the markets down further
Get past the blame game
Get unregulated markets back under control so they can be deleveraged and lower exposure

I thought there was a good balance of all of these. America is a great country that has proven its ability to rise to huge challenges. Many in the population have the drive and capability to deliver when called on. I think linking patriotism to the way forward is sensible but risks a swing toward protectionism and a focus on "buying American". This would be a mistake. China won't like that and might stop buying US paper. That would be a huge problem. Whilst China has no incentive to see its savings decline in value, they have deeper pockets at the moment and are still growing (even in at a declining rate). China holds many of the cards at the moment. It will be interesting to see what price they extract for cooperation. I'm my opinion increased interdependence and coordinated actions will lead to a quicker recovery and in all likelihood decrease the chances of animosity between the major powers of the world. The last thing we need now is Russia, India or China to pipe up and count on US weakness or unwillingness to take on more responsibility in international affairs. The republican response was interesting. It tried show the difference in the big picture view. It kept on with a call for tax cuts (surprise surprise) and reinforced the big government vs small argument which separates the parties. I'm not convinced that the way forward is just returning money to people via tax cuts. They will save it, pay off debts and wait and see. Those aren't bad things but they won't create jobs at the rate needed fro recovery and increase tax receipts. That will also not solve the bigger issues that must be acknowledged (e.g energy independence, US carbon emissions and global trade). America need more and better quality infrastucture and more research and development. That won't come from entrepreneurs and corporate america (in this climate at least). As ever it isn't a black and white situation and the solution will most likely involve a mixture of all the suggestions/policies. The markets are struggling to find equilibrium and aggregate demand/supply is in flux. This will take time to settle down. Price discovery will be rocky and reactionary. The markets will need several quarters of positive corporate earnings and a higher confidence in financial stability and consumer confidence to call a recovery in process. Here are two other ways of looking at the 2 speeches (From wordle.com):

We live in intersting times. The next year will determine much more then the fate of economies of the world. New opportunities and risks will present themselves. I'm keeping an eye out...

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Need some inspiration?

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:46:37 -0800

For those who spend a lot of time on social media or the web in general these videos will be old news. But for those of you who haven't found TED.com this will be a great post.

Every now and then I need inspiration. I love big ideas and love to hear people who are passionate about solving big problems or breaking new frontiers. I've picked my top videos from TED so you can watch them and see what I'm talking about.

Sit back and enjoy - you may find that couple of hours will have passed by the time you finish looking at this site. Visit www.ted.com and let your imagination fly. You can also follow TED on linkedin and twitter.

A personal goal for me would be to be invited to give a talk at this conference. I have a huge amount of respect for many of the people who speak and give great performances at this conference.

Do you have a favourite TED talk or site that inspires you? Leave a comment below a share it with me.

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The first post

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:25:43 -0800

Hi there, I've finally managed to get some time and start my blog. Its not been a big priority for me before now but now I feel its time to walk the walk and share my thoughts, notes and ideas with the web. A little late to the party but hey, better later then never. I've been watching the evolution of the web with fanatic like regularity for about 10 years now and over that time I spotted some trends, made some great connections and been involved in some cutting edge projects. Most of the time I left the shouting (or bragging) to others but now its different. I feel I have a lot to offer and this blog is my way of acting on that. You can check out my resume, see what I'm reading and observe my twitter conversations all via these pages. By the way, please get in touch if you want to connect or if you think I can help you with something. I'm involved in lots of projects and do most (but not all!) of them for fun, to learn and for the challenge so ask away - what's the worst that can happen?

: Image via Wikipedia

At the moment I'm in Chicago, Illinois and loving it. I'm doing some networking, working on some ideas and generally taking a breath after a crazy 8 years of being involved with Oncampus which I founded in 2000. I am looking at several new opportunities at the moment and should they come to the boil I'll jump straight back in. In the meantime I intend to think, write and connect with like minded people. Over the next couple of weeks I intend to blog about a number of subjects which are generally themed around:

The best products on the web (which I had experience of)
Web strategies that work or don't work in the digital space
Cool Mashups and applications (mobile and Iphone)
Great content that you can get for free
Current events and interesting things that don't make the news
Commentary on/around some of the arguments/debates taking place on other blogs
Events I've attended

I hope they are useful to you. Here we go!

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Starbucks viral mail - I wonder if its true

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:04:55 -0800

I got this today from a friend. I wonder if there is anything behind it. I'm going ask them. I'm only posting it for that reason.

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I can only pass this on. Words fail me.

Recently, Royal Marines in Iraq, wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees, and to request that they send some of it to the troops there. Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should support them by NOT buying any of their products! I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground, fighting street-to-street and, house-to-house.

If you feel the same as I do then pass this along. Thanks very much for your support. I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.

Sgt. Howard C. Wright 1st Force Recon Co 1st PLT.

PLEASE DON'T DELETE THIS. .. PLEASE PASS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR E- MAIL LIST, IN MEMORY OF ALL THE TROOPS WHO HAVE DIED, SO THAT WE MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE !

Also, don't forget that when the Twin Trade Towers were hit, the fire fighters and rescue workers went to Starbucks because it was close by for water for the survivors and workers, and Starbucks CHARGED THEM!

AN ADDED NOTE TO THIS: STARBUCKS HAD STORES ON SEVERAL MILITARY BASES IN THE UNITED STATES. THEY ARE NOW BEING REMOVED BECAUSE OF THIS.

There are 227 Starbucks stores across the UK, and there's no doubt that our soldiers would get the same response from this company, so let us do our bit and boycott Starbucks to show them how despicable their actions are.

I never liked their coffee anyway

P.S: They went further into the mire last night by p*ssing off the UK Business Secretary Mandelson....

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5757842.ece

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CBOT

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:32:12 -0800

I love this picture. I worked here for a year in 1997/8. It was one of the best experiences of my life and taught me a great deal. I learned from some great mentors and made some great friends. I also spent a lot of time laughing. There were some real characters down there.

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Great sunset

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:06:00 -0800

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