Aindriú Conroy aka Ain is a young lad from Kildare with a nice folky sound to his music. Sounds much older than he is. He plays Whelan’s on the 7th, 13th and 22nd of May as part of their residency series.
You can listen to his tunes on his mySpace. Check out Sunday. Great tune.
Photo owned by Chance Gardener (cc)
Eamon Ryan’s biggest fan (not me) has her own blog now. Yay.
Maybe it was herself then that paid for this statue of Eamon.
Pre-experience design. Fantastic post from Russell Davies.
This is interesting. A house from IBM’s master inventor that Twitters its energy usage.
FatFreeCart – free embeddable shopping cart for your website or blog
April and May seem to be some kind of season of data breaches. Hospital records now.
While in Italy a pissy Govt published everyone’s income levels before they left Govt.
Via Jazz Biscuit, the new Carlsberg ad:
Will try to get Fluffy links out later today! Meanwhile. Have this:
It’s the new world of communications where the web has gone all cluetrain (which means it’s not broadcast it’s conversations) so it’s not enough to fire out a press release or write a brochure website and leave it at that. Statements are no longer respected.
Conversations and soliciting feedback is where it’s at and now that the customer is starting to get spoiled with that, many companies will have no choice but to start engaging with the public where on the public’s patch such as blogs, discussion forums and social networks.
But you can hardly just connect to a lot of people and see what they say. This is where technology comes in. Gee whizz! (Internet on computers joke inserted here)
This is another blog post on an ongoing (it seems) series about communications. I previously covered Blog Crisis Management, Corporate Blogging and Community Managers.
So where does a company start?
Google.
You can just use basic Google search to see what is being said about your company and your products. Do searches for the company name, product names but also for the company domain name and even the main staff in your company.
Go to Google.com/alerts and sign up via email to get web search, blog search, news, video and Google Groups results sent to you for your searches. Google Alerts is fantastic and very useful BUT you only get results via email. Google killed their search API and there’s not an RSS feed for the main Google Search Engine.
If you have a feedreader such as Bloglines or Google Reader or others you can get searches sent via RSS feeds to you for Google Blogsearch, Video (inc YouTube), News, Groups etc. Everything except the main search engine results.
Go to: http://blogsearch.Google.com and bung in your search and look at the left sidebar on the results page. You can subscribe to the search using via email, RSS or Atom.
Bloglines is a web based feedreader and if you have an account with them (which is free) you can also do searches like Google Blogsearch. I use both just in case one spots something the other doesn’t.
YouTube is a little more difficult to sign up to. If you want to subscribe to an RSS feed for “Bertie Ahern” then the search feed is http://youtube.com/rss/tag/+Bertie+Ahern.rss. They don’t really advertise this and there is no quick link at the sidebar of search results.
Like it or who cares what you think 🙂 Twitter has a huge and very active community talking incessantly in small bursts of text. Twitter is a text message rebroadcast service and a lot of the usual first movers are on it. There’s a very healthy community on it now.
You can now subscribe to searches on Twitter and see who is talking about your name, domain name etc. etc. and what they are saying too. Tweet Scan is a service which allows you to monitor Twitter for various words and phrases and you can be notified via email RSS or even Twitter itself when people mention you. With people moving some of their conversation on to Twitter and away from blogs, this is definitely another place you should have that virtual glass up against.
Yell if it changes is run by Gordon Murray. Yay Cork! It can notify you when
* a website is updated
* a website changes Google Page Rank
* a website receives more incoming links
* a website changes position on Google
This is good just to let you know about new links to your site and if you go up and down in Google rankings but this is much more important for monitoring your competition. You should be watching what your competitors are doing and know when and what they update on their website.
These are some of the free tools available to monitor the net but there are good private ones too. However unless they are using old API keys for the main Google search engine then they might not be as good as the free ones. Enjoy stalking yourself.
Once again the Cork to Dublin train delayed due to “technical difficulties”. That wonderful catchall that covers everything from train being broken to staff still being drunk from the night before to the staff once again having yet another fight with the station master.
Irish Rail – Getting there when they’re good and ready and if you’re not happy about that then they’ll strike.
Update: 8.05 and everyone is on board, 35 mins late so far. Not letting anyone else get on-board but not leaving either. Oh, minds changed, letting people on again.
Tip: Seats 5 and 6 on the Cork to Dublin train have power points.
This was passed on to me. It might be of use.
Bloggers Wanted
Are you a financial blogger – or want to be a financial spread betting
blogger – interested in discussing stories about assets trades: (the
good, the bad and the ugly) and other areas of interest to financial
spread bettors?You may have your own blog or you may take part in discussions on
other blogs or forums.You must be passionate about the financial markets; particularly
equities or individual shares in the UK and Irish markets. Writing
experience and a keen sense of humour are needed.You don’t need to be a blogging expert, but you should understand
blogs and know how to make comments and add hyperlinks.Possible areas of interest:
• Equities
• Indices
• Forex
• Commodities
• Economic indicators
• Stock broking fundamentals
• Education
Contact us, indicating your area of interest or expertise and include
a paragraph or more about your experience or the reason you would like
to get involved.We will provide you with useful and valuable tools and information.
The site is already up and running. We also pay a non-commission based
competitive basic salary.So if you think you have what it takes. Email the following
information to blogs@paddypower.com• Your Full Name
• Email Address
• Phone
• Country
• Region
• Area of Expertise
• Your Blog URL if you have one – otherwise a sample of your writing
• 2-4 paragraphs about what you’ve done before
• Anthing else you think is relevant
There’s an article over on PR Squared that says every PR person/firm should be immersing themselves in Twitter and seeing how people are interacting on it. There’s also been article after article about the fact that we’d want to be careful with how we interact on Bebo, Facebook et al as HR people and bosses are watching what we do there. So?
Googling isn’t enough…
No longer are they just Googling us if we apply for jobs, they are Facebooking us too and maybe the really clever ones will look us up on Twitter. I can’t find a link to it now but there was a great example of a guy looking for an investment off a VC that insulted the VC as he was about to meet him or maybe it was after. The VC had subbed to the guys Twitter to see what he was like. He found out. There’s all these rules for HR departments about only being allowed to assess you based on your CV, references and their interviews with you. They can’t bring anything else into it. I’m sure though that while it is never written policy or official, they do probably Google you. Which really doesn’t bring back much apart from Axe Murderer type headlines.
Photo owned by oxfam international (cc)
Through interacting with people on blogs and Facebook (to a lesser degree) and Twitter (to a much stronger degree) I’ve made some good friendships and learned a lot about people I’d consider to be my peers. Over a while you’ll see those people you know you can work with and know you could never work with. I really think a HR Department should be sitting their arses into that interaction space or else encouraging their staff to do so. Though I have a weird idea of what HR should be about compared to what they think they should be doing.
HR Departments are the humourless spinster types with rulers instead of the cool teacher that let you watch the Life of Brian during religion class. I really think that a company should give time off or “late” starts for their staff to attend networking events during the week. Let them get to know people, potential clients as well as potential staff. Then do the same for blogs and websites and industry discussion forums. Let them to get to know everyone in the industry not just the company. Attach the usual opinion not of the company of course.
The telecoms industry in Ireland is tiny and everyone knows each other and people move back and forth between companies a good deal. They all know of each other from interacting with each other during and after work. CVs seem to be a formality for some people that switch jobs. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Wouldn’t it be better for you if you could choose who you worked with and HR also were able to identify the best candidates because they knew them a bit more than the show they put on during their interviews?
Mulley won’t get jobs because of this blog…
I figure I’ll get work from my blog (and I do) and my LinkedIn and as a result of my behaviour and misbehaviour on Twitter. I also won’t get work because of my antics (Green Party Communications Manager, Fine Gael Youth Campaign Manager for example) and that’s pretty much fine for me. I wouldn’t like to work with a group that have a cork up their arse because I use curse words and it’s nice there’s no awkwardness when I’m in there. I’d also like if my HR department managed to avoid hiring the headcase who gets upset that I laugh too much or the way I hang up my phone.
Great essay from Marie Mulholland on the Marriage Equality group and their aims.
And then head over to Neilformer’s NEW blog and read his article on the issue.
Planning has started for BarCamp Belfast 08
Gordon’s doing a warts and all blog about his experience starting out with a new product.
How stupid are Marvel stopping a fanboy screening of Ironman?
Number plates to screw with speed camera databases.
This is a very short but inspiring article of what the future for some markets are.
# An abundance of information can create a scarcity of context
# An abundance of choice can create a scarcity of advice
# An abundance of content can create a scarcity of time
# An abundance of people competing for your attention can create a scarcity of reputational ways to choose among them
The BBC are going all techy with their Mayoral coverage.
Meanwhile I’m shocked Bertie didn’t win politician of the year.
via IGIF Nike ad – Music is Saul Williams – List Of Demands (Reparations)
Queens of the stone age – Feel Good Hit Of The Summer (done to House clips)
Making a Gabillion Dollars With Community Marketing…or something like that – Tara Hunt
Community Evangelism: Tools + Techniques by Anil Dash and Deborah Schultz
Community 2.0 Community Bootcamp: the technology part by Tara Hunt
Haydn Shaughnessy is a journalist, writer, producer and owns the Haydn Shaughnessy Art Gallery in Kinsale. This is a guest post from Haydn about his latest project:
Because brands have pushed us to desire what we cannot afford, because banks as brands have lent us the money, because there are tough times ahead ….
The new social media project One World Wallet is part statement against the brand, part social media art work, part social network, part product, part virtual art production house. Wholly novel. It is a project of art label start-up This is Not A Brand and it’s a way of trying to make sense of social media from a creative cultural perspective.
“Bring a little culture into your wallet and be known for how you spend rather than what you buy.”
Ideal for downturns in the global economy and as an antidote to what we’ve experienced over the past decade.
On Oneworldwallet, you buy an art-inspired wallet for all your spending needs and in return get a selection of free art downloads made from a virtual wall of wallets constructed in Second Life. As more people buy so the project issues more art products based on the wall and on members own contributions – photo uploads, blog posts, videos, whatever…. You too are a part of the art.
As an art work it will grow out of member contributions, examples of which are previewed on site (scroll to the wallet wall pictures at the bottom of the home page).
Once a member has bought a wallet the network will offer regular free art downloads (no shipping out of paper after the first wallet is posted), some created from network members’ uploads, some from the virtual space in Ten Cubed (the wallet wall), that we have created in Second Life as part of the one world wallet project.
It’s an exploration of how social media will affect art and art economics as well as a social media art work in its own right and a collaboration with and between an artist and social network participants. It’s so multifaceted it comes with five pockets.
And it’s an occasion to say I’d rather buy from inspired people that I know or meet rather than from a corporation. Time to say not to brands and hello to a little more culture.
Wallets cost Euro 40 (approx US $63) with up to five free art downloads on day 1, for the greedy. Euro 1 per sale goes to Amnesty and their Universal Declaration of Human Rights initiative.
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