Melcrum are offering three of their most successful publications to you at a bargain rate for this Christmas. Yes, it makes you think ‘Why?’ Why, if they are so successful, would they drop the large cash cow and give these reports to you for a heck of a lot less than normal? Come on… have [...]
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The wise Chip Griffin has started a fabulous meme over on his Media Bullseye site. Chip argues persuasively for the ‘throwing out’ of the ‘rules’ we leading-edge social mediarists have sometimes insisted be followed. As Chip says, I’m here to tell you that most of the rules are bunk, and we as an industry to [...]
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Steven Noble from Hill & Knowlton Australia has very flatteringly asked me to be involved in the ad tech two-day conference in Sydney, March 12-13. With three separate but overlapping tracks, there’s a stack of goodness on offer at the conference; here’s just a sampling: Understanding Virtual Worlds Social Media and CGC: has a [...]
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Orange France and VF Italy have both announced plans to launch mobile podcast services shortly. Both services support Java and Symbian devices and offer an innovative user experience compared to basic Wap-enabled services. The Vodafone service will allow users to browse a catalogue on-line and subscribe to a podcast of choice. The user is notified [...]
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There are almost as many Top 100 blog lists as there are centimetres around my girth. Of particular interest to me as a business communication consultant are those blogs that revolve around either my industry or my location — based on the logic of ‘how can I advise my clients effectively if I cannot get [...]
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And in this week’s report: the election is over — now what will happen about Australia’s atrocious broadband? Australian financial institutions not ready for Web2.0, but realise that consumers are demanding it Australian Federal Police (AFP) acknowledge their lack of skills within virtual worlds, so will set up island in SL and recruit savvy teens [...]
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‘Professor’ Hopkins rises from his deathbed to encourage Australian corporations to follow in the footsteps of ABC (that’s the Australian Broadcast Corporation, to you Yanks) and Telstra and venture into social media, and to welcome the reappearance of Meryl David—a reminder that blogs can be a good way to stay in touch with friends and [...]
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Hearty Aussie congrats (which means ex-employees getting up and accepting the award before you can get to the stage) to Mitch Joel and the crew at Twist Image. A couple of days ago… at the Canadian Marketing Association Annual Awards, our company, Twist Image, took home the first-ever Digital Innovation Award for “setting new standards.” [...]
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My first cup of coffee in a fortnight and already my brain is whizzing. There’s something happening in the corporate scene in Australia around ‘Social Media’, but I can’t put my finger on it. I have been giving loads of “Introduction to Social Media” presentations around major corporations in Australia, across all sorts of industries; [...]
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My colleagues at Melcrum have just released the first in what will hopefully be a growing series of ‘How to…’ reports. The first, “How to get started with podcasting in your organization“, is now online and ready for purchase. Ever thought of creating a podcast for your company but not sure where to start? Want [...]
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I recently picked up a copy of Bob Bly’s excellent ‘Super Productivity for Writers’ e-book and wanted to share with you some of his gems.
Here’s his seven common time wasters that he says writers (and I say everybody) should avoid:
1. Excessive blogging (more than 10 minutes per day) – unless that’s your job, of course!
2. Random web surfing (continuing to surf after you’ve found the information you need)
3. Attending meetings of writers groups, marketing clubs, etc. You can learn and network, but you lose half a day
4. Social or business lunches with other writers, editors, publishers, clients. A waste of time and you can lose nearly half a day
5. Volunteering for committees and similar activities. Every hour you spend on administrative nonsense is an hour you don’t write
6 .Sending or receiving jokes, photos, videos and other junk content via email (or my pet hate – Facebook requests to add time-sucking applications or join groups of no interest to me). Stop wasting other people’s time and yours
7 .Letting a ringing phone interrupt your writing. Get caller ID and call them back when you have finished (or better yet, set the phone’s ringing tone volume to ‘silent’ and get an answer machine to take the call for you)
Even though Bob is focusing his material on writers, of which he is a superb one, the advice found on page 22 of his book applies to all of us methinks.
As he points out on page 21, with an average lifespan of seventy- five years, we have only 27,375 days from the time we are born until the time we die. And since we’re asleep for a third of that time, we have only 18,250 days we’re actually awake and active.
How you spend this finite amount of time is mostly up to you. To maximise your productivity, income and output as a writer, writing must be a priority.
If you prefer to garden, that’s perfectly fine; but don’t complain that your colleague who spends those hours in front of the pc is getting more work done than you are. It’s your choice.
Wise words, indeed. Get a copy of this brilliant book and be careful out there…
I love Bob’s material – as I write I have 26 of his publications, each a worthy addition to my knowledge library.
Bob Bly is the man McGraw-Hill calls 'America's top copywriter.' Bob has written copy for more than 100 companies including Boardroom, Phillips, IBM, Medical Economics, AlliedSignal, and Lucent Technologies. He is the author of more than 60 books and a columnist for DM News and Early to Rise.
Making Social Media Work for Your Business - just published!
Social Media: The New Communication Landscape - for Ark Group
How to get started with podcasting in your organisation - for Melcrum Publishing
Contributing author to:
How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues
How to communicate with hard-to-reach employees
- for Melcrum Publishing
How to use social media to engage employees - for Melcrum Publishing
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Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John Havens.
A belter of a book and a 'must read' addition to any communicator's bedside reading table if they are serious about introducing social media into their communication plans. It includes a fabulous chapter on transparency and business (hint: you want to photocopy it and give it to your CEO!)
Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.
Not just a book for academics, it's chock-full of great ideas on how to effectively and efficiently research your employees, customers, the marketplace and other stakeholders
The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.
A fabulous book that gives a clear, clean overview of what Twitter is and WHY you should be engaging with it. THEN it goes into depth with so many tips and ideas that they should have sold the book for twice the price!
Practical SEO Copywriting: a ‘must get’ book. My mate Glenn Murray has written a bottler of a new book on search engines and copywriting.
In a cunning twist of bizarre nomenclature, he’s titled it Practical SEO Copywriting. The cheeky little fox! It’s a DIY guide to writing online copy for both human readers AND for that 400kg gorilla we lovingly call ‘Google’.
The danger, Glenn quite rightly …err …writes is that focusing too much attention on all of the supposed SEO ‘tricks of the trade’ will make your copy all but unreadable by the human brain. You know, all that stuff bandied about by the so-called SEO (search engine optimisation) experts: keyword frequency, exact string versus individual words scattered across the page, page length, alt tags, header tags, and so on.
Not that this stuff isn’t important – it all is, and more besides – but Glenn argues persuasively that by far more important is the ability to write copy that people will actually want to read – and link to!
