A very long time between posts...

Hi there,

Thanks for visiting! I've moved to a new blog: http://surpliceofspirit.blogspot.com/.

Cheers,
Melanie

Some good tips for writing online

Er, it's been a long time between posts!

Came across an interesting post today about myth-bashing in newsrooms from the Media Guardian's, Jemima Kiss. She reviews three main conceptions about online journalism, posed by Online Journalism Review editor Robert Niles.

He says that:
- Detail is good
- Attention spans are not the issue
- Get the figures right

All sage advice really, for anyone writing for an online audience.

New white paper on Social Media

We've just released a new white paper on social media, called Tracking the Influence. Influential web strategist, Jeremiah Owyang and Dow Jones' Matt Toll co-authored the report, which was based on the discussions from a blogger round-table held late last year.

For communications practitioners who are new to the whole social media phenomenon, the white paper basically tries to answer the question "why should I care about it".

It sets the scene with a discussion about the nature of Net-based conversations, the breakdown of barriers between buyer and seller, and the troubling stats that very few people trust CEOs. Troubling if you're in the PR team supporting that CEO and substantially more worrying if you are in fact a CEO.

It then looks at the discussion from the blogger roundtable, which pulled together influential bloggers and communications professionals. The participants sought to define what was important in social media, why we should attempt to measure it, and what those measurements should entail. The concepts of engagement, community, influencers, reach and sentiment generated much debate.

The paper concludes with some ideas around what capabilities an organisation needs to understand and drive sucecss in the world of social media, and lists a stack of helpful resources.

It's worth a read, particularly if you've been getting regular requests from your mates to join facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Plaxo etc.

New Survey: New Technology Tools Have High Acceptance Rate in Public Relations

We have just completed a survey in conjunction with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) which shows that that new communication technology has been widely accepted by the public relations profession.

The survey, “Wired for Change – A Survey of Public Relations Professionals and Students: Attitudes, Usage and Expectations in the New Communication Technology Environment,” was conducted to gain insight into how the more than 32,000 professional and student members of PRSA and the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) view the role of technology in shaping future communication practices.

You can read about the findings in the press release, and there's also a 10-minute webcast of the survey via Webmasterradio.FM.

More hype around Corporate Buzzwords

Word Play once again gets tongues rolling, as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Management Line blogs report on some new Factiva media analysis.

The analysis looks at the frequency of terms such as "fast track", "going forward" (as opposed to "going backwards"), "user friendly", "empower", "downsizing", "multitasking", "core competency", "customer centric", "client focused" and "rightsizing" in the mainstream media, and tabulates them in charts. You can also see which publications most frequently quote these terms, althought bear in mind, it's not necessarily the publications that are the gobbledygook-touting culprits, but the spokespeople they are quoting! There's a healthy discussion going on in the blogs about what other terms annoy people.

My colleague in Australia, Chris Pash, developed the analysis using our recently launched Factiva Insight: Agency Analytics.

Factiva Insight: Agency Analytics is cool because it allows users who are not necessarily familiar with boolean search strings and power searching, to access our vast content collection and media analytics software, to create insightful charts.

The product is designed for PR agency teams who need to create quick but robust media analysis for use in pitch development, account planning and client management. For us, internally, it's a great way to generate meaningful content that gets the Factiva and Dow Jones brands out there.

New white paper available: Best Practices in Media Measurement

Dow Jones recently commissioned Professor Paul Argenti of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business to write a thought-provoking article about the evolution of and best practices in media measurement.

A key driver of the growing importance of media measurement is the increased number of C-level executives demanding accountability from their communications departments. Without
using new media-intelligence technologies, it is impossible for public relations or communications professionals to be truly accountable, comprehensively monitor media coverage, or make fact-based decisions regarding communications strategies.

This white paper is intended to help communications professionals understand how new media- intelligence technologies are changing their roles. It also provides ideas about how media measurement can be adopted to add more value going forward.

Feel free to download a copy of the article here.

Cynthia leaves hospital

I was really pleased to read this morning that Aussie plane crash survivor and Sydney Morning Herald reporter, Cynthia Banham, is leaving hospital tomorrow.

It's less than four months since she somehow made it out of the horrendous plane crash at Yogyjakarta airport, that claimed the lives of 25 people including 5 Australians.

As I said in a previous post, I truly admire Cynthia's courage and strength of character - both in her survival and her ongoing recovery.

Best wishes to you Cynthia.