Following on the corporate/blogging theme that I picked up on earlier, I see that Johnnie Moore and Max Blumberg (I didn't reallise that you guys knew each other, let alone set up a blog together!) have been busy being interviewed in the Telegraph talking about the impact of blogging on companies. In particular I note Max's comment at the end of the article. My reaction? I have no problem with anybody throwing money in my direction for maintaining a blog... it might even result in me posting on a more regular basis!
Many thanks to Johnnie Moore for drawing my attention to Shawn Callahan's mention of a new
report by Edelman and Intelliseek on Employee Blogging. It's fairly comprehensive and as well as making a strong case for companies to consider entering the blogosphere, it includes real examples of various types of corporate blogs as well as examples of company policy guidelines. There's even a neat little glossary for people like me who are a bit slow on the uptake...
My former (future?) colleague Antony Mayfield has some useful advice for companies that are toying with the idea of engaging with the blogosphere (or 'buzz space' as it includes more than blogs alone).
This is an area that has fascinated me for several years and it finally appears that companies are beginning to recognise the impact that 'informal publishing' (for want of a better expression) can have on reputation and sales.
Antony's advice is sound and I particularly like his second and third points; like anything else (CRM, relationship marketing, paper recycling...), if a company is to be successful in its approach to new media forms it needs people to buy into a coherent, well thought out policy.
My view is that companies that bury their heads in the sand because they are too old-fashioned or, as Antony politely puts it, "timid" to address the phenomenon of web-based communications may well be heading for a shock some time soon. Fortunately, I know of some interesting developments that promist to make tracking 'buzz' considerably easier and I intend to write about some of these at some point in the future.
Thanks to David Rossiter for drawing attention to Antony's blog.
I'm a tad late with this, but my excuse is that advertising is not really an area in which I claim any expertise - hell I don't even own a television* much to the consternation of most people I've told.
Notwithstanding the above disclaimer, this article was recently flagged up on Soflow.
Even a non-telly-owner recognises the stereotypes.
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*not that I seem able to convince the UK TV licence people without them conducting a physical search of my home. Interestingly that means they are accusing me of breaking the law and require that I prove my innocence even though they have have a complete lack of evidence... I sometimes wonder if I am actually living in the UK!i
This is just a quick note to say that the Spin Bunny blog appears to have disappeared again. Please don't say this is a permanent state of affairs as I find their stories hilarious.
For those who haven't a clue what I'm on about, Spin Bunny is a blog that looks at the PR business (mainly) from a UK perspective. It's irreverant and pithy to the point of being potentially libellous on occasion. A couple of agencies have been subjected to ridicule in recent months and the site was taken down a while ago when it was threatened with legal action.
I did notice a short-lived post that took a swipe at an agency that I know fairly well (I used to work for a sister agency based in the same building). Even though I thought the attack was completely unfair, I do hope that the Bunny's demise is not due to that entry, after all the carrot eater has been horrible to pretty much every agency that has attracted its attention and people in PR really ought to be able to deal with criticism in a good-humoured way, especially when it comes from a fluffy wabbit...
I deleted a couple of comments on this thread. We don't want any unpleasantries now, do we? I still don't have a clue as to who objected to our furry friend, but it would appear that he was delicious with a mustard sauce...
/Dom
PS It's been several weeks since Spin Bunny disappeared this time and a resurrection is increasingly unlikely. It's not just me that's missing our furry friend, Catherine Helzerman as well as Clive Armitage at Bite PR at Bite PR agree that it's a sorry state of affairs.
Actually, I'm rather surprised that someone else hasn't started a replacement scandal blog...
I can hear you all baiting your breath in eager anticipation of the latest installment of my fitness regime... OK, OK, here it is:
The first week went really well. I wasn't aching too much after the weight training sessions and yet I generally felt that I was pushing myself. It was two sessions on the lower body (legs and tum) and one on the upper body last week. I wouldn't say there's any visible difference, but even after just one week I'm feeling stronger.
Unsurprisingly the cardiovascular (CV) side of things is much tougher - I was a sprinter at school and have never been any good at running long distances, so this was always going to be a challenge. Notwithstanding that though, I found that I actually can run for 20 minutes and have energy to spare. My average speeds on the treadmill over the three sessions improved from 9.1 to 9.4kmh and then to 9.7 on Saturday. I so impressed myself that I decided to increase the gradient to make things a little tougher.
So everything was going swimmingly until today. I was at a business school alumni shindig last night and as a result didn't make it to the gym until late in the day... boy what a difference that made. It was another CV session today and looking at last week's progress I should have cruised it. In fact it was really tough and I only managed to run for 11 minutes (I did say that I've always found distance running difficult, didn't I?). Admittedly I had increased the gradient AND I was running at a faster average speed than last week, but I was pretty disappointed that I didn't manage the full 20 minutes. Of course I could have done it, but for some reason I decided after 10 mins that I didn't have the stamina and once that decision was taken, I didn't have the desire to carry on.
I did go and push a few weights as compensation, but it didn't help. I felt bad for the rest of the day because I'd let myself down. I don't know why I found it so hard - perhapd the gradient or the speed, but really I think it was the fact that it was late in the day whereas I had intended to go first thing in the morning. I had already let myself down by not making it to the gym earlier and as a result I was less committed.
I'm beating myself up a bit over this because the CV sessions are important to me - I know that I can build muscle and strength, but I really want to tone up and lose a bit of weight. The only way to do that is through CV exercise and watching what I eat, which brings me to the food thing...
The food part is definitely the hardest part for me.
I love good food and drink; always have done.
Eating lots of protein isn't a problem, but cutting out carbohydrates is. Apart from the requirement to reduce intake of beer and wine (I think I mentioned I was at an alumni gig last night... well I was at a book signing for the launch of the Beermat Entrepreneur II tonight and it was sponsored by Cobra beer - incidentally, if you haven't seen Mike and Chris perform you're missing out... and as for Mike's alter-ego, well, it's a mind-blowing experience - so it would have been rude not to avail myself of all that free booze...
The trouble is that if I successfully build some muscle but don't manage the CV side or cut right back on the carbs, I'll have the opposite effect to what I'm after.
Still, I'm bound to have minor setbacks and I am just going to have to learn to be a good boy, or... pass the beer nuts!
I've just banned the 160th IP address from this weblog.
Link Spam aka Blog Spam (Wikipedia defines it here: Blog Spam) is one aspect of blogging that I didn't realise I would have to contend with AND IT'S REALLY ANNOYING!!
The process of removing a comment made by a spambot (or by anyone actually) involves 16 mouse clicks - I counted this morning. I don't know if this long operation is due to using Moveable Type, but according to the above page on Wikipedia, MT blogs do attract more than their fair share of this type of vandalism.
I'm still trying to work my way round under the MT bonnet, but I haven't found a way of preventing comments from being posted before I get to read them... if I do, it'll make my year!
This is obviously a desperate and hopeless plea, but if you read this and you are the proud owner of a spambot, please stop it! I'd rather close the site down than advertise links to buy your horrid products.
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PS The counter is now at 161...
For avid readers of this exciting thread, you'll be pleased to know that as of October 19, 2005 I'm about to hit to hit the 200 mark - I'm currently standing at 197 following 15 (!) attacks today and yesterday.
I did a little research and Julian is correct; there is a one-click solution, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Consequently I'm left with the sixteen-click version.
Apparently it's much less of a problem with 'later' versions of MT... need to investigate why I am using such an archaic version!