I have a long history of publishing e-newsletters and an even greater belief in the reach-ability of them. When I consider some of my larger e-mail lists and the associated click-through statistics it becomes crystal clear that they work, period.

The thing is about email is that it is still one of the best communication technologies around for broadcasting news, your updates appear into peoples' in-box, there is no effort on the part of the target at all, and let's face it we are lazy, we forgot sites, we often can't be bothered to go chasing up the news.

Some say what about RSS feeds and feed readers? I say that the majority demographic there is for Geeks and Nerds, for people who are like me and work on the Internet. I also say that my sister and the girl next door are not that type of person, in fact the majority of Internet users are not feed readers, and it is the majority I am interested in typically, it is they I predominately wish to reach.

Newsletter systems can also bring about an important personal connection, or personalisation, unlike an RSS feed from let's say a Blog, which is just generic albeit with many Bloggers liking to use the term "YOU", to give a sense of connection. But you can go deeper than than, a newsletter sign-up form can contain personal data which can then be inserted into an authored newsletter, which gives the communication a far more personal flavour.

This personal touch is powerful, in my experience it has proven to aid considerably in building up credibility (which does take time), and it also aids in giving the reader a sense of inclusion, being part of the "club" if you will.

Some people do not like email targeting and selling, and I say to them they are fools basking in a non-existent demographic, in an minute fish-pond of supposed "friends". If you genuinely have something to sell you cannot expect people to come looking for it, you need to push it in front of their noses, and not just once, but repeatedly.

If you'd like to see how I use a few key personalisation matches try the following Social Media Mafia form, you'll be sent an email and asked to "opt-in" and then you'll receive the first instalment which is pre-written, but will contain some of your personal entries. Don't worry I'm not selling things on this particular list ;)

Technorati Tags: blogs communication credibility data email feeds internet newsletters personal reach rss selling social media mafia technology email newsletters personal data reach rss feeds blogs social media mafia internet credibility communication technology s

So we have just under two-weeks left until MediaCampBucks08, I'm getting excited about it all now.

A quick mail then to mention a few things:

This is the second camp we've run at this venue and many of you will know the routine, same building, same kind of format, same places to eat on the day. All pretty straightforward and simple, nothing complex, heaps of wi-fi, tons of rooms, coolio bananio people.

MediaCampBucks08

Things You Can Do:

I'm a great believer in reaching-out to people who are NOT in the know, people who are not swimming in the same small pond as us, people who are not early adopters, and people who probably have never heard of the term social media, or new media, have no idea what a Blog is, have no concept of Web 2.0. These are the people that will benefit most from MediaCamp, not the existing practitioners.

SO, with that in mind, I encourage you to post a Blog about the event asap, send emails to your groups of friends, encourage people to take a look and think about coming. Bring people along who you think may benefit, like the local cafe, the B&B up the road, your CEO friend who needs to come up to speed on communications technology. Your friend at the local paper, the college PR rep, the school governor, you get the picture, talk to people.

Start Tagging:

Start mentioning the camp in your channels and tag it with: mediacampbucks08

Flickr Group:

MediaCampBucks08 Flickr

You can see a bunch of pics from last year's event there, join the group and add further pics.

Audio/Video Promos:

If you fancy making a short audio promo I'll play it on AC Radio this week and next week (include your own links), you can also upload them to the Wiki. Same thing applies for video, some of you are video people so how about making a short talking head video about the event and posting it and tagging it?

There seems to be some interest in virtual attendance, there is a page on the wiki. I'm more than happy for anyone to use my private island in SecondLife. should it be needed as a venue.

Sponsors:

We have enough sponsorship to cover everyone with a t-shirt, cool eh? Eaon is banging away on sourcing the cloth. We should have a size for everyone. However, we can also do with more wonga, maybe the bar bill can be covered, maybe we can get some other goodies, sponsorship is always needed: sponsors

Live Music:

Mikey 12 Casts has organised a complete evening of live music in the student union, pretty coolio bananio that will be, 4 acts or so!

That's about it for now, though be prepared for more communications in the coming days.

Technorati Tags: audio blogs bucks camp event flickr media medicampbucks08 people reach-out sessions venue video vlogs medicampbucks08 media camp bucks blogs reach-out sessions vlogs event people venue flickr audio video

Today the BBC reports Identity 'at risk' on Facebook yeah and that's news?

I hang out on Twitter a lot and it always amazes me how there is such a band wagon "fashion" approach to some of this technology, you know a real sheep follow concept going on.

People have been flabbergasted that GASP you could have details stolen on the internet, OMG shock bloody horror, that is such HUUUUUGE news!

Reality check.

To quote: "Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application." Uhh duh, so that's not happened in the previous 18 years or so of the public Internet? - It's rife!

Seriously though, phising and various other methods of data-mining have existed forever, where there is data available on the Internet a hacker will always try to retrieve it, that's the job description, am I one? No, I'm not, but I've understood that since day 1, it's so obvious it hurts, is it just me?

I've heard people talking of closing accounts, never using FB again not doing this not doing that, goodness me it's barfable really.

Two key things here:

1. Never put your DOB online
2. Never put YOU information online (I mean official YOU stuff, address, financial stuff)

It's quite simple, if you put personal data online, you can expect to be targeted no matter what the platform, if you put your trust in an online platform you are a fool, they are all crackable.

I'll be continuing to use FB and the Internet, I'll just tread with caution as I always have, and if I were you I would not follow "fashion", that's silly. Do we need a nanny do guide us through these treacherous waters? No, we just need not be fashion victims and be self-responsible, and in most spheres in mind, if you follow fashion you are blind.

Rant over.

P.S. this is not targeted at anyone in particular, just generalised.

Technorati Tags: accounts facebook fashion flock hack job phising privacy sheep twitter facebook privacy accounts fashion twitter sheep flock job hack phising

This is Brett Hurt Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice whom I met today at Internet World.

Now the interesting thing I thought about Brett is that he knows how to make friends, engage with people, seemed to be open minded, and generally enjoys interaction with new people, he doesn't foolishly judge too quickly, which always gets my interest every time.

To give you an opposite example.

The first exhibitor I walked up to at IW today was an older gentlemen representing a company concerned with CRM, you know, management of customer relationships (cough cough), and as it happens I have had CRM on my mind for a project recently. So picture this, I had a Nikon around my neck, was wearing torn jeans, a t-shirt, slightly unshaven look, and my usual blue glasses, a normal day for me then, (as you can see here) nice eh?.

So, as I say hello to this grumpy old guy, first thing he does is starts to look me up and down and begins asking me questions to validate myself (no shit),

• HIM: "how many employees do you represent then"

• ME: "I'm a web strategist, one of my clients has global representation"
• HIM: "show me a card then"

blah blah (insert longer story here), really boring me already dude.

So it got to the stage where I couldn't give a fuck how good his software may have been, the mere fact he made a judgement call on my appearance along with his decision to try and assert me to validate myself to him (like that's going work), was enough for me to just politely fuck-off in the other direction.

Now, moving on to Brett.

Brett on the other hand, you see, took an interest in a potential conversation with me and found out that I might post some pictures of the IW event onto Flick, the fact that hey this might be a really good moment for a Blog post to come from it, a moment captured where people interact with good outcomes, a memorable exchange.

Brett pulls his shirt open revealing a green t-shirt and says "put Bazaarvoice loves osborne" on it. I have no idea what that means, but it is of little significance. It's a message, it's a reach, it's an enagagement to someone, a client, a prospect who knows?

Job done for me, I couldn't refuse this attitude, it's perfect, and goes to show that if you think you are above your station (the first guy) you might need a reality check. The internet is not all about suites and boots.

Go visit BazaarVoice.

Technorati Tags: bazaarvoice branding communication networking social t-shirt bazaarvoice t-shirt branding communication social networking

Tomorrow evening is the Social Media Mafia "sit down" dinner in NYC.

The event is taking place at the Trattoria Dopo Teatro at 7:30pm, tomorrow (April 24)

125 West 44th Street

Looking forward to seeing you for big eats and some drinks, and plenty of geekery.

Send me an SMS tomorrow if problems: +447824776785 send me one anyway :)

Technorati Tags: dinner friends mafia media sit-down social dinner sit-down social media mafia friends

Facebook chat will aid in the reduction of publishing on the platform: Discuss

So Facebook rolls out a chat application this morning, I log in to find a list of "online friends" ready as potential victims for me to pounce on for synchronous chat!

I don't know about you, but I do like live chat, I mean hell I've used it as a business platform for about 8 years, chatting with clients and students all over the world, it's always been my office. I remember using Yahoo! extensively with students for 4 years, as our "virtual classroom", and even added away messages like "this is my office knock first", or "I'm in the garden making fireworks", poor attempts and installing a sense of go away I am busy right now.

So I'm comfortable with chat.

Already today I chatted with Jeff, Maz, Daniel, Ben, Matthias, kfir, CJ,

I do prefer though the time one has in email, the reflection time, to ponder and to measure, chat removes that and of course demands immediate attention.

Regardless of how you feel about chat itself, do you think it might actually decrease the amount of publishing on the platform itself? If you can instantly contact and ask a friend something, why would you publish, notes, forums posts and various bits and bobs?

What's your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: chat class facebook friends IM synchronous facebook friends chat class IM synchronous

I've (as in my web development company) just finished a BETA mobile site for my client SAE.

I'm not sure about you but I find myself more and more using my smart phone for staying "connected" when out and about. I have a Nokia e61 which is basically my mobile computer, in fact I very rarely use it as a phone in the traditional sense, I have a another device for that.

The main sites I use on my phone are Twitter, Gmail and Facebook. Armed with those three sites I can cover most of my day to day communication addiction needs.

Now and again I might pop into YouTube (really cool service) for a distraction and often I'll sneak a look at BBC too, actually as I start to think about it I use more than the initial three sites I mentioned.

What is interesting though is that there are a staggering amount of web sites without an optimised mobile version for us "out and about" type people. Just try your favourites on your phone and see what utter nonsense comes up, you'll be surprised.

If you find some good sites please list them out below in a comment, oh and also have a look at my client mobile site, let me know if it works or not on your phone?

Point your phone here: http://m.sae.edu

Appreciate it.

P.S. you can screen shot and add html in the comments.

Technorati Tags: browse cell client connected mobile phone sae website phone cell mobile website browse client sae connected

I've decided to re-publish some of my older work from the 90s and early parts of the 00s. I was Blogging, like many of us were, before Blogging existed.

It seems to make sense to put things on this central blog now.

Today I re-published a paper I wrote in 2001 which is an evaluation of a pilot course I ran for my company Audiocourses.com. As I re-read the text it amuses me how much of what I was saying in 2001 is brand new to a lot of people today in 2008, why is that? I'm not sure exactly, possibly I will claim I am pioneering, possibly I will claim I adopt VERY early, before ideas are born, whatever it is I'm not sure.

Here is the paper: Course Evaluation

Note one interesting and amusing aspect is that I mention SAE, the largest provider of media education in the world, which is now a client of mine.

Funny how things work out.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about the paper, through comments.

Technorati Tags: 00s 902 adoption blogging company education pioneering provider re-publish sae re-publish blogging company 902 00s pioneering adoption sae education provider

I just read Will McInnes Blog concerning MeasurementCamp and my brief thoughts are as follows:

A superb idea indeed and more importantly the correct format IMHO, structure is needed, probably more so when overt hierarchy is missing (though it exists covertly).

Sadly I heard about this late, not sure how, I just did, so I couldn't attend. However, had I been there (and I do hope to come to the next one), or one of them, I'd have suggested a branch or "gravitating crowd" invest a significant amount of time in some thorough research of the psychological/sociological nature.

There exists decades of academic research into "social behaviours", numerous models for how "social influence processes" operate, and in my personally limited research these are widely varying models, suggesting that not ONE model is proven as "correct", I can think of at least four.

It just seems to me that until that "nut" of conceptualising "social influence" is understood, choosing ONE model, and the measurement of it, will always be aimed at a "moving target", if you will.

I'll attempt to disseminate my research on this as I go along because it does fascinate me how many people seem to dive head-first into it, as they want to believe it is true - influencing that it.

UPDATE 15.04.08: I asked a psychologist friend Jo Jordan what her thoughts were on this (she commented below). Jo also helped my thoughts greatly on this topic by drawing pictures of my thoughts, I have posted them below.

Figure 1.1 Pre Social Media

Figure 1.2 Adoption of social media by many advertising agencies

Figure 1.3 True representation of the complexity of social media processes. Note that the community nodes may start as being the same singular community though as they are organic and constantly changing they naturally morph into different communities (with different perceptions), with different processes with time.

Take some time to look at these diagrams, Figure 1.1 is the easiest to understand, most simple, and the method by which advertising has worked for a long time. Figure 1.2 is where I think a lot of agencies are currently operating, almost using social media as a "bolt-on" with no "feed-back" loop, and also the potential to derive a crude metric based on purchases, proving the source of influence is registered. Then Figure 1.3 clearly indicates a complex system of organic processes, each highly dynamic, and each two-way dynamic node contains multiple models of influential process, depending on ones school of thought (belief) for influence reception (there are many models as stated previously).

It is with these further thoughts we are heading towards a more "process" oriented metric which rather than looking at the outcome (as in traditional above the line metrics) we instead study (or measure) the relationships in the nodes.

This post is now a work in progress.

UPDATE 14.04.08: I'll be adding a resource list in this post as they are collated

Social Influence Measurement Resources

• Situating Social Influence - Winter A. Mason, Frederica R. Conrey and Eliot R. Smith, 2008

• Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming - Jane McGonigal, PhD
• Design Of Online Communities

Technorati Tags: blogs camp influence measurement measurementcamp social social influence measurement blogs camp measurementcamp