Archive for July, 2009

Opposition leader David Cameron appeared on radio this morning and took a cheap shot at Twitter, saying “the trouble with Twitter, the instantness (sic) of it – too many twits might make a twat.”.

We only get the glib soundbite from Cameron – crude language and all – and it adds nothing to the topic of discussion. So ironically, Cameron is guilty of being as trivial, whether by accident or by planning, as the Twitter users he presumes to criticise!

But there is a grain of truth in the point he was apparently trying to make. Yes, anyone using a communication medium – especially one so relatively new – should be aware of its limitations and be careful to avoid being misunderstood. But that’s self-evident isn’t it? That goes for blogs, television, the press, Facebook, YouTube and any of the other media “outlets” you might speak through. Radio too.

With Twitter and other social media platforms, politicians and the public sector can communicate directly with people, without the filtering or editing that takes place in traditional mainstream media. His language is unfortunate and misses the point. But I guess it’s good to hear Cameron speaking with passion and an authentic human voice. He could have posted it on Twitter.

Meanwhile Simon Dickson has some insights into Whitehall and a recent Twitter strategy document for civil servants:

Yes, Neil’s document is lengthy; and he admitted from the off that it would seem ‘a bit over the top’. But if exciting new tools like Twitter are to make it through the middle-management swamp of the Civil Service, they need to be wrapped in boring documentation like this. Whether or not it ever gets read, mandarins need to feel that your Twitter proposal has received the same proper consideration as the other (weightier?) items on their to-do list. ‘Dude! This is so cooool! We should so be doing this!’ will not get you very far.

We’ve been working with National Theatre Wales on their online community strategy. Earlier this year we unveiled a social site based on the Ning platform.

It’s similar to Facebook in some ways except that it allows a level of detailed conversation probably not possible before. We’ve had many people join and, importantly, participate on there – actors, writers, directors, technical people and of course audience (like me).

NTW wanted something which would complement and support their work and their ethos of boldness, openness and experimentation. National Theatre Wales are like the host of a party – on the site there’s a great deal of freedom in the topics you can discuss. Feel free to sign up and try it.

If you want to be precise about terminology you could say it’s both a “social network” site and a “social networking” site. It’s a subtle difference in wording but a big difference in practice. In other words, it not only supports existing connections between people (like Facebook friends) but encourages new connections to form between people who wouldn’t otherwise know each other. (If you’re interested in some background to this distinction, check out USA-based researcher danah boyd’s thoughts in this area. Not for everyone but you might like it.)

So it’s been fun to work on the site – with NTW and their visual branding partners Elfen – and now see people discussing things and blogging about theatre and related topics. And it’s genuinely exciting to think that people will meet “in real life” and work on new projects together as a result of this online community and the various groups it now holds.

Currently we’re gearing up to November’s announcements of next year’s theatre events. More news soon.

In the meantime, here’s a great example of a discussion which resulted from a blog post.

Mike Wesch of Kansas State University is among our favourite commentators on social media and culture.

Here’s a new 33-minute talk from him called The Machine is (Changing) Us – YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity. (I said ‘new’ but he does reuse some parts from a previous talk about YouTube which you may have seen).

In the course of this entertaining talk he mentions: Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’, television, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, free hugs, narcissism, a history of “whatever”, a brief history of “meh”, video blogging, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. It’s well worth a look.

We just watched the video over a huge curry lunch. Let’s just say we don’t think we’ve fully digested either yet…

This is a 20-minute video from a BBC event with an insightful speech from creator of the web Tim Berners-Lee plus a question and answer session.

Here’s the background to BBC’s Digital Revolution project around the 20th anniversary of the web.

This blog post Why comments suck (and ideas on un-sucking them) has good advice among the hard talk. Sample:

One last thing: Stop making excuses. I know none of this is easy, but you really should have only one choice — either have comments and do them properly, or don’t offer comments at all. And if you’re offering them solely to increase page traffic to boost revenues, give up. Just quit. You’re hopeless.

It’s aimed at newspapers – who are still getting accustomed to the people formerly known as “the audience” – but you can apply it to any blog or community on the web.