Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on October 9th, 2008
Tagged as: Uncategorized
I know. The blog’s been dormant. But as you can see, I haven’t.
Many years ago, a person much wiser than me said that before a lion pounces, he takes two steps backwards.
Well that’s more or less what I’ve done over the past few months and what you see here, and hopefully will continue to see as the plot thickens, is the result.
Lingolook now has a new look and an entirely new raison d’être. I have had an Italian blog since I first started blogging but it’s been out on it’s own, often left fallow and the coherency between one train of thought and the other was, well, haphazard at best. Now they’re coupled, and this is the one stop place for updates on me in my native and adopted languages. Looking forward to seeing how visitors move around this site.
This is also a “holding site”. I’ve stolen the name from the world of business but modded it for a web-based world.
In a few weeks Lingolook will become a limited liability company whose sole purpose is to plan, build and follow my own web projects and maybe pick up a few clients along the way.
I am not a stationary object and have many ideas just itching to get out. The first two are already on their way with a third due very soon. This is where I will group them, share them experiment with them and discuss them. It’s also a place where I can showcase clients’ sites and projects.
Work and learn then. Hands on all the way.
So the time to shine has finally come. Thanks Valeria for suggesting the title to this first post of the new site, and thanks to the amazing guys at The Blog Studio for putting it all together so well.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on July 11th, 2008
Tagged as: Uncategorized
Here’s a beautiful, if entirely random piece of software art for those of us who treasure the words we use.
It’s called Wordle and it makes a buzz-cloud image of the most common words on a particular URL, or piece of text.
Here’s what my blog looks like today. What does yours look like?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on June 26th, 2008
Tagged as: Social Media
The word of the week in my neck of the woods is coherence:
Dictionary.com gives the definition as:
Coherence (co·her·ence)
Pronunciation [koh-heer-uhns]
noun
1. the act or state of cohering; cohesion.
2. logical interconnection; overall sense or understandability.
3. congruity; consistency.
4. Physics, Optics. (of waves) the state of being coherent.
5. Linguistics. the property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken discourse that stems from the links among its underlying ideas and from the logical organization and development of its thematic content.
It’s the second and third definitions I’m interested in.
This week - in reality it happens every week - I stumbled across a number of incidences within my jurisdiction where people in positions that count (I’m talking VP marcoms worldwide, Head of Digital Marketing and the list goes on) have proved that while they are ultimately responsible for the web strategies and social initiatives of their respective companies, the day-to-day complexities and overwhelming commitments they have are asked to deal with means that their hands are tied.
In one case in particular, one of them wrote a lengthy blog article about the latest social technologies and then responded to a comment asking when his company - the world’s #1 pasta company - was to adopt social media with a friendly, “let it go”.
My question is why wouldn’t a company like that want to start using social media?
On the other side of the coin, my own little one-way run-in with Publicis just goes to show that many professionals and companies who market themselves as conversation catalysts (oxymoron intended) are simply not firing on all cylinders.
So why is this?
How is it possible that the message isn’t flowing through the corridors of power 1.0?
The answer I believe lies in coherency. If your company adopts an eco-friendly approach, you can’t do it with just the packaging and expect people to buy into it. Likewise that “please do not print this” message at the bottom of emails convinces no-one that you’re on a mission to save the planet.
Coherency means adopting it throughout the business, so that the company wholly adopts the attitude and its customers can feel it.
And with social media, it gets worse because whereas we instinctively know when we’re harming/saving the planet, it’s a damned site harder to know when we’re being truly social (meant as an effective approach to social media that brings ROI to the company and benefits to the customers), which makes it a lot easier to sell as for many (buyers and sellers), it’s snake oil.
I guess now that SM has started to go mainstream, it’ll be slowly diluted down and squeezed of every ounce of credibility. But just like HannanCustoms takes the common bicycle and does something incredible, there will always be a place in social media for true coherence.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on June 20th, 2008
Tagged as: Uncategorized
It’s not every day I choose to rat on a colleague. Nor is it a practice I’m particularly comfortable with, yet there’s something about the way this episode demonstrates how some agencies boast unrealistic claims of starting (or igniting) conversation with all its connotations of immediacy, transparency and honesty that just pisses me off.
Two days ago, I received a Google alert for the keywords “Acer Gemstone Blue”. There have been so many of these of late I’ll admit to no longer giving them more than a quick glance but this time rather than seeing a re-hash of my own writing, I saw the title “Ugly Aspirations“.
Click.
The site I’m now on is part of Publicis, a London-based agency which, by its own claims, is “Part of the 4th largest communication network, spanning 104 countries and all 5 continents” and whose mission is to …”Ignite Conversations with ideas so infectious that consumers adopt them as their own and pass them on“.
Even better, is this:
“Our Values: Lionhearted
We are fearless, proud and honest: we always do the right thing, for the greater good of our clients, brands and colleagues
We work with total openness and co-operation: we are all on the same side; we behave like friends.”
Wow! An agency I’d be proud to work with.
But back to the article.
Not a long one, but written to dismantle everything my colleagues and I put into the Acer Gemstone Blue launch campaign. That in itself is not a bad thing, I love constructive criticism and am always ready to learn.
But alas there’s nothing constructive about it. It’s just a low-handed attack on the work of a competitor (note their client list includes HP and their case study post proudly shows off their efforts.
OK. While I’m the first to welcome advice, I’m also not afraid of defending my work, which is what I did.
After two whole days, my comment is still “awaiting moderation”. So much for the immediacy and transparency of conversation.
You want to ignite a conversation? Then you’re starting a debate and you’d better invite the accused along or at least be prepared to hear him out.
You want to prove you know what Messrs. Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger were getting at in their original masterpiece? Then you’d better be ready to stand by what you publish (which brings into question the very 1.0, command-and-control practice of moderation).
You want to sell your clients on Web 2.0 (conversations)? Then you’d better look it up before you attempt to score a few cheap points at someone else’s expense.
It’s not my business to police the web and name and shame those who breach my own self-appointed laws and standards but this is a blatant example of an agency that either a) doesn’t get it, or b) thinks it’s clever enough to get away with not honouring its own mission and values.
Either way that damages both their and my reputation.
Maybe I don’t want to work with them after all.
UPDATE: It’s now the end of July 2008 and my comment has yet to be approved. I think rather Ignite Conversations, Publicis does a pretty good job of dowsing them.
UPDATE 2: Two months have gone by and the comment is still unapproved. I wonder if Publicis has the balls to give a critique of the Aspire One…
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on June 19th, 2008
Tagged as: Uncategorized
Don’t always take this route to express what’s going on my end but this is exception to the rule is truly worth it.
I can’t resist a song plug and this morning the very first thing I read on Twitter was a mention for “A Beautiful World” by Tim Myers from Meg Fowler.
What a beautiful song! The melody, the lyrics and most of all the vibes. They all align just right and make this my own personal candidate for the song that best represents what social media should be about.
Maybe it’s me going all soppy. Maybe I’m tired of fighting corporate resistance to the changes social media will inevitably force on them. Maybe if we could get 100 CEOs to listen, the transition would be just a little smoother…
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 17th, 2008
Tagged as: Uncategorized
Yesterday I had proof that more is better.
That promoting yourself horizontally is more effective than doing it vertically.
And that the thicker you spread yourself, the wider your reach.
We all have our Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Flickr accounts, we have Squidoo lenses StumbleUpon pages, we share our del.icio.us pages and the younger amongst you might even have MySpace pages (mine’s neglected). This week I finally got myself on Friendfeed although I’m a little lost on that one.
The one I had left for dead was LinkedIn. It seemed a little too staid for my tastes. Almost 1.0 in its formality.
With LinkedIn, you link with people you actually have a working relationship with, so the big players in “real life” have a natural advantage as they simply have more clout here.
Because of this, and because I was focused on other areas of connectivity, I had been ignoring LinkedIn for long enough for my Pro account to expire.
Then two days ago, I updated it and within 24 hours, I was contacted by none other than the offices of Leo Burnett in Turin.
Just goes to prove that the thicker you spread yourself, the tastier you are.
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