Written on February 27th, 2008 by Nick Booth
You may have heard me before railing at the term user generated content. It infuriates me because it embodies two ideas: “you mean we can get them to make films for us for free?” and “Well yes they can use our space but only when and how it suits us”.
It begins with the assumption that you can’t trust the public – or rather the public is just too risky to trust. This has shaped too many public and private sector approaches to sharing with the audience.
Websites don’t exist without links, they don’t exist without readers and hence they don’t exist without community. It is the users, the comments they make, the virtual, intellectual and actual links they establish through using your content that turns it from a string of one and noughts into something with influence in the world.
Without the user there is no content, so learn to trust us.
Written on February 27th, 2008 by Nick Booth
I thought I was going mad – but only if Jon is too. We both know that twitter knows best and (thanks again jon) the Dutch are tracking the story for us.
Update 3 Jo Geary found this link – 4 earthquakes dotted arou nd the country – nearest is Nottingham. Beats phoning the police press line.
Update 4: Others experienced it in similar ways with confirmation coming through twitter of similar.
http://johnleach.co.uk/words/archives/2008/02/27/300/
Should I laugh at “Well, either a fat bloke just fell out of bed or there has been a minor earth tremor in
Nottingham“? In Leeds Ross at Democracypr tells us: “And the BBC web site? A note on the ticker – “Reports of tremor felt in West Midlands. More details soon.”
No need to bother, I’ve found out all I need use my own network of citizen journalists.”
Update: 01.33 Lisa Dowd on Sky tells us that because she can’t get through to the police she can’t really tell what has happened and only new it was an earthquake because she felt it last time – the Dudley earthquake. Get social Lisa – we can tell you what’s going on.
Update: 01.35 Joanna has google map up with epicentre before sky know what’s what.
Written on February 27th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Green Works Recycled office furniture “there’s a discount for registered charities” courtesy cased.
“I never knowingly slept with a windows user”, from the soon to be released film MacHeads (hat tip Brian)
Free is the Future (don’t tell Steve Jobs) (nod to Joanna)
Written on February 27th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Brummies offer you space to dial and rant.
Written on February 26th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Simon Heffer has updated the style guide for the Daily Telegraph including:
“Increasingly, as the distinction between publishing the newspaper and producing the website fades, we will stop using such words as ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ in copy except when necessary to avoid confusion or to promote exclusive stories.”
“On the internet the priority for any headline is to inform search engines (and therefore readers) what the article is about. Its language should therefore be concrete, not abstract, and contain full names.”
Quite right. Please add “blog posts should make frequent reference to the evolution of the web and recently launched Apple devices to encourage people to comment and link” and also “please allow people to trackback without having to login in to your stupid site”.
Written on February 26th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Perhaps inspired by the buy-one-give-one-away early campaign from the One Laptop per Child programmes an environmental housing developer in Sacremento is offering BOGOF on Houses.
If you buy one of their US homes they will train a mason in Burkina Faso to build a home there.
They call the project Real Estate Development 2.0. I like the idea and the communications built around it.
Hat tip Nick Temple.
Written on February 26th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Last Thursday I was at the launch of Creative Republic, a self organising body to strengthen the voice of the full breadth of the creative industries in Birmingham. It has been pulled together by some very fine people and they are asking you to lend them your support by signing up to their charter. As Stef lewandowki puts it “This is open to anyone who considers themselves as working in a creative or cultural role or organisation in Birmingham and the region, as well as people who are just interested in supporting what we are doing. We’re throwing the net wide – and over time we hope to be representative of as wide a group of people as possible.”
I’ve done so. Without our names behind them these names won’t be able to apply the influence our business deserves. Oh and don’t forget to link to the site, as these people have done, and so have …..
Written on February 26th, 2008 by Nick Booth
Thanks Jon and Pete for finding this link for us.
Written on February 22nd, 2008 by Nick Booth
As you might gather I’m keen to see lobby groups, charities and the social sector using social media, but tone of voice is everything. I found this film through John Hemmings blog. There’s something about it that troubles me. It follows an Ofsted report highlighting important failings with the court support service CAFCASS.
The video is discordant. The combination of the emotive images (I imagine none of which show actual abuse by cafcass?) and the ‘told you so script’ grates.
So congratulations to Mothers for Justice for having their case supported by Ofsted. But please think again about how you convey your message. It’s now time for action, so tell us what you want to happen or tell us a story which will give legs to the campaign for change. Pressure groups are well placed to tell stories of real people’s real experiences and that’s where the emotional impact should be found when using social media.
Written on February 22nd, 2008 by Nick Booth
Patients in Cleveland Ohio will have their medical records held in their own Google accounts, according to Webware. This of course means they can be accessed anywhere by anyone the patient permits. Of course if public records are held in such a way then government (us) will need to find ways to guarantee access to the web – a little like our political fathers ensured clean water and effective sewer. There are concerns in principal about privacy – rightly so – but who claims that my medical records are currently private? Hat tip Idealgovernment.