Month: November 2012

It’s Not a Conversation, Stupid

Posted on by in Social Media, Writing and tagged , , , .

Heads up chaps. While this post is to do with something that’s ongoing here, in the good ‘ol UK of GB’n’NI (although, if anyone’s feeling radical, I’m not horribly possessive about NI and, quite frankly, think it would probably be best if we just quietly gave it back, without much of a fuss, d’you see), there’re bigger issues up for grabs here.

I am, of course, talking about what we might call (and probably will fairly soon) McAlpinegate or Twittergate, which, for those who don’t follow current affairs in the UK, and I suspect there may be a few, is the threat, by lawyers working on behalf of Lord McAlpine, sometime Treasurer of the Tory Party and all-round Big Beast, to hunt down and punish those Twitter users who promoted and furthered certain recent (and unfounded) allegations about aforementioned former Treasurer. (And breathe.)

Be that as it may. It’s a lead in to a couple of issues. The first is one that I’ve posted about before – and I know that linking to oneself is the height of vanity publishing, but, hey, I’m flexible enough – and is the propensity for ostensibly sensible people to go all yoghurt-brained when confronted by social media in all their myriad forms and with all their myriad possibilities, and to start publishing things that are either inappropriate, or offensive, or cringeworthy or simply just cretinous in the extreme. I called it Twitterette’s Syndrome. (Thank you. Yes. I thought it was brilliant also.) It is this, in part, that has lead to certain Twitterers leaving themselves open to a right royal suing for libel. Ouch. Costly.

The second is an issue that is raised in this rather edifying piece from yesterday’s Evening Standard, a widely-read (and quite informative) newspaper, based here in London. The issue is that social media, by their very natures, encourage people – if not into full-blown Twitterette’s, at least into unguarded and unwise commentary. As the author, Sam Leith, rightly points out – social media, through their informality, lead us to believe we’re engaging in conversation.  By dealing in the moment-by-moment, that all is temporary. By being streams of content, that they’re transient.

None of this, of course, is true. If you Tweet something, you are publishing.

And what was it someone once said? ‘Publish and be damned’? How, I sincerely hope, very appropriate.

Not just me, then………

Posted on by in Social Media, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , .

Good morning, dear blog snorkellers all, and welcome to the bloggy equivalent of diving for meal stars in a tank full of spiders and cockroaches but, thankfully, without Ant and Dec. For those of the faithful that haven’t got a clue what just went down there, it’s a knowing and thus quite irritating reference to the current expression of the Great British zeitgeist, ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’ only, of course, they’re not and everyone (secretly) wants them to stay there. Especially Nadine Dorries and Helen Flanagan, two people without whom I am absolutely certain the world would continue on its merry way, not in the least bit troubled by their absence.

So, you must be whispering amongst yourselves, ‘why has he called us here’ – on a day like today, as we barrel headlong into a gripping British winter. Well, since you ask, it’s for reasons social mediaeval, trotters mine and something that you may be interested in persuing yourselves. It is this – see – an article by one Charlie Brooker, reproduced here by linkery to t’Guardian newspaper of this parish, without so much  as a ‘by its leave’ or, indeed, permish from Brooker himself. I do hope he’s not overly bothered and decides that it’s a) too much faff and b) uneconomical to get all McAlpine on my ass. As the Mercans might say if they knew who McAlpine is and were as able to bend the English language to their will as I am.

I’m in agreement with this train of thought because it suits me to be so. Anyone who knows me will know I’m not a great fan of t’social, and this article posits that “Like the wheel, social media is another invention that is starting to resemble more of a millstone than a breakthrough.” It also suggests a few simple rules to solve a problem like the internet. Unlikely, you may say. P*ssing in the wind, you may say. Important, I say, and eminently necessary as we spiral headlong into a digital despond where, OMG, everyone is LOL, or worse, ROFL, or even, at the extremes of society, RAOTFLMFAO.

I think it’s code for ‘I’m a Luddite, Get Me Out Of Here!’ And I’m waiting for my request to be granted.

Some More Thoughtful Social Media Commentary

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Internet, Social Media, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

You know me, not much of a socio-mediavelist on the whole – but, still, I bet you thought I’d gone a bit Southern (for my friends from the United States and America, ‘southern’ in this context means ‘effeminate’, not ‘toothless, hairy, armed and smelling of bourbon’) (and for my UK fans, yes, I am a southerner, so it is perfectly alright for me to use the word ‘southern’, as it is not offensive. In the same way I could use the word ‘gay’, if I wanted to) (which would be offensive) when I stopped ranting about t’social and how it represents a direct road to hell for civilsation as we know it.

Anyway, rumours of my descent into southernness have been greatly exaggerated, as demonstrated by this article from that stalwart bulwark of editorial honesty (on matters communication), Communicate Magazine. I cannot tell you how much I echo the sentiments in this article – not all of them, obviously, there is some very Southern thinking contained within – and how I am in complete agreement with the school of thought that says social media are completely irrelevant. (OK, that’s not EXACTLY what it says, but near enough as makes no difference. To my mind.)

I also admire the (again, to my mind) extremely clever way that one of the authors – the one in the right, obviously, the one on the side of truth and justice – has designated social media ‘SM’, which, of course, is simply shorthand for a very Southern practice indeed.

Yes, I am wholly in favour of one half of this article.

The one that I wrote, clearly.

 

Further Adventures In Language

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Social Media, Writing, Writing and Language and tagged , , , .

Hello. You still here? Amazing.

Anyway, many, many moons ago when the world was young and fresh and full of surprises – for me, anyway – I discovered American English. Or, rather, I was dunked in it, like a reluctant digestive into a large cup of cold sick, immersed by virtue of where I worked. I discovered it was at times lazy (aluminium, chaps, aluminium), misunderstood and misused (no, you will not be with me momentarily, neither have you misunderestimated my capacity for rage and revenge) and sometimes simply made up on the spot. I know that powerpoint is a (fairly) new thing, but we could to do better than ‘bulletize’ when trying to convey the act of translating an idea or theme into or on to a powerpoint slide. After all, as a valued commentator pointed out to me, bulletise is what US infantry do to the Taliban. (Is that a little risque?)

So, it’s been a while, and – having escaped the clutches of the Americans – the horror of daily acquaintaince with what can only be described as the English Language Chainsaw Massacre was starting to fade. The dreams had almost stopped, I’d been weaned off the sedatives and my current boss’ inadvertent use of the not-word ‘foundationed’ in a live media interview resulted in little more than goosepimples and a slight dimming of my peripheral vision.

It was all getting better. Until today. Now, before I go and unveil this latest verbal atrocity which – yes – comes wrapped in the Stars ‘n’ Stripes with a billet doux from Uncle Sam – may I say that there is something even more insidious at work here. Which is that people I would consider perfectly sane, normal people – the sort of people that one might almost have a drink with (if they were paying) – seem to be perpetuating this nonsense.

You all know the rules. You see a twisted or maimed word, phrase or construct and you put it out of its misery. You do not pass it on. You do not ‘like’ it. (Is is me or is the word ‘like’ too close to ‘lick’ for comfort? It simply backs up my deep-seated belief that the vast majority of people who are ‘liking’ things on the old social media are also the sort of people you find licking shop windows and moaning.) Anyway, this latest linguistic travesty came to my attention because people have been passing it on. Had they not, everything would be alright.

And here it is. I have removed the company name to spare its blushes. And to avoid the blog coming up in searches.

“Throughout November, employees in 30 offices spanning 23 countries will come together to support a variety of projects to help those in need and improve our local communities through volunteerism.”

Volunteerism. What – in the name of all that’s holy – is wrong with the perfectly acceptable word ‘volunteering’? I mean, it’s not like there was a gap in the dictionary where they word they wanted to use wasn’t, is it? There was a word, for God’s sake – a good one, one that’s been used before to great effect – but no, far better to make one up. And while you’re at it, why not make one up that sounds like a personality disorder? Excellent. Well done, you.

I’m just going to sit here quietly until the darkness goes away.