News and views

Two great blogs this week that have had me giggling away to myself:

Matt on ten ridiculous stories about Twitter and Drolgerg on how to annoy people via Twitter

Happy days.

Of course on a more serious note there have been two really big stories today - the pirate bay ruling and the Digital Britain conference.

The pirate bay story has caused a big stir but the main thing that seems to be coming across is that there are plenty of other torrent sites that we can use in the meantime. It's a step up from jailing kids for illegal downloads, but it's still not really effective.

On another note, Digital Britain was apparently off to a cracking start this morning with the video links to journalists failing...so we're really getting to grips with digital then!

Word of the Week

This weeks WotW is brought to you from Dictionary.com:

ephemeral

\ih-FEM-er-ul\, adjective:

1. Beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day; as, an ephemeral flower.
2. Short-lived; existing or continuing for a short time only

Love it.

The War in Education

A story in the Guardian this morning has caused a bit of a stir. Boldly headed "Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake up."

"Has the world gone mad? Guardian says primary school kids to be forced to learn Twitter..!?" @ruskin147 (aka Rory Cellen-Jones of the BBC) declared on Twitter itself in response.

My problem is less with the fact that the proposal to change primary education includes new technology as it is with the way this story is written to make the changes sound more dramatic than they are and create a negative out of what is actually a pretty positive change.

Example one:
The journalist states - "However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes."

But then goes on to say - "The proposals would require: Children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell."

So which is it? Do the kids have to 'master it' as the journalist tells us or is the suggestion that children should be taught the basics of new forms of communication in the same way we were taught about newspapers and pupils now learn about the internet?

Example two:
The journalist says - "Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned."

But again goes on to say - "The proposals would require:Children to be able to place historical events within a chronology. "By the end of the primary phase, children should have gained an overview which enables them to place the periods, events and changes they have studied within a chronological framework, and to understand some of the links between them." Every child would learn two key periods of British history but it would be up to the school to decide which ones. Schools would still be able to opt to teach Victorian history or the second world war, but they would not be required to. The move is designed to prevent duplication with the secondary curriculum, which covers the second world war extensively."

Fair enough, no? It's not saying don't teach these, it's just opening the options to avoid duplication with what pupils will learn in secondary education.

Hmm, seems to me that the Guardian went for drama over substance to get people to read this story. At first glance I was with Rory Cellen-Jones - why on earth would kids need to learn about Twitter at school? But in context it seems to me that the plans merely bring education into the 21st Century, teaching kids about important technologies that are shaping our culture, not least in the way that we receive and interact with news.

Fresh Air

As many of you know, as of Thursday 19 March, I now work for Speed. No, I haven't moved company, Lighthouse and Rainier are now one and the same under a new brand along with Mantra, BMA and Custard. We have also moved into some rather lovely offices in Leicester Square.

Now that the sun is shining a little more often I have decided that rather than stuff myself onto a packed tube train in the mornings I'll walk from Blackfriars. So far so good, the walk takes me along the river and then up through Covent Garden and it's a lovely way to start the day - aside from the bit outside the Walkabout bar on Embankment where I have to side step piles of vomit from the night before!

It's actually surprising to see how many people run, cycle and walk to work. Surprising in a good way. Unlike my counterparts on the tube, these people smile, don't walk into you, help each other out when items get dropped and are just generally much happier. There is a small part of me that will miss the stories of the people on the tube who stand in the middle of the doorway refusing to stand aside to let me off, or the person who stood with their elbow in my back for two stops, but as I'm still getting the overground train I can still enjoy the people who stand in front of the ticket barrier and look for their tickets.

Ah the benefits of fresh air and sunshine, I'm nearly not grumpy in the mornings.

Councils leaders are finally on my side

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will no doubt know that one of my pet peeves is the use of meaningless jargon. So you can imagine how chuffed I was to see this story on the BBC

WOO HOO - finally the council is on my side for something ;-)

Social Media Validation

I may be a bit late to the party on this one (unlike me I have to say, but I heard it wasn't a free bar) but I've come across some really interesting research (via the wise Mr Stallard) from Forrester validating the importance of social media in the B2B decision making process.

Great news for us social media champions it seems. But wait! There is an interesting debate forming as Dave Raffaele of Quaero points out. He says - and I paraphrase - that marketers get it but until there is a visible ROI they are too busy to engage in what is a time consuming new communications channel until there is a clear value. Dave is a supporter of Social Media, he's just explaining a clear industry viewpoint - please do read his piece to get the full view on the valid points he puts across.

I agree with Dave to an extent, there are early adopters who are up and running with social media and for those that aren't quite up to speed it can get pretty annoying to hear these buzz words bandied about. I'm a Facebook and Twitter user but it still annoys me to hear about them in conversations and news articles at times.

Like it or not Social Media is here and everyday it is proving its value more and more both within the business environment (relationship building) and outside of it (news communication) but with the research from Forrester so clearly demonstrating that decision makers are at the very least observing Social Media channels it seems to me that those who aren't getting on and getting involved may be the victims of " you snooze, you lose".

Weak story week '09?

It's been one of those weeks where I feel all I've been doing is shaking my head and sighing over what seems to qualify as news. First there was the Daily Mail front page shock story that using Facebook could increase the risk of getting cancer and then several stories about Twitter including this gem from PR Week.

The first paragraph of this story in the Register pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.

Social media is growing and is becoming more important particularly for those of us in PR as it is another great way to build and manage relationships. And yes, it does sometime generate news stories - when someone sends news of a plane crash via Twitter first, that is news. But writing about it for the sake of it is, well, pretty naff.

There is a lot to be said for Twitter and when I heard that PR Week was running a story on Twitter (via Twitter from @david_singleton, news editor of PR Week) I kind of expected something a bit more in depth than a fairly weak piece of research based on the number of users within PR agencies.

Bring back real news and analysis!