Mann on Obligations and Your Blog’s Community

This episode of ‘The Sound Of Young America’ podcast was recorded live at the Integrated Media Association conference in Atlanta at a session with the slightly disconcerting title of ‘Blow Up Your Brand.’ It is a round-table discussion covering a range of online activities. The content that is relevant to this research begins at about 37 minutes when contrarian blogger Merlin Mann talks about his experiences dealing with the community that builds up around a high-profile blog. He makes a number of admirable points.
“If you put out great work that says a lot more about you than a press release.” [28.29]

“Creating community is not as simple as turning on comments.” [37.40]

“Any time you turn on a community aspect it not only needs moderation of some kind, but you are obligated to listen, respond and then show how that input had an effect on what you do. And if you do that I think it is very cynical.” [38.10]

“If you encourage community and social media around what you do, you need to be prepared for the day that it goes in a direction that you never expected and becomes wildly successful in a way that you are completely unprepared for. And your PR people are going to have a stroke when they see all the @ responses on Twitter. People giving a very unvarnished public opinion that you asked for.” [43.22]

“Know where you stand on that and understand that, at a certain point on the web, you give away a lot of control when you accept somebody else carrying your freight.” [43.48]

TSOYA Podcast, 27 March 2009

The Sound of Young America

Initial Call for Irish Design Blogs

I sent this email out to contacts in my network to gather some initial blog addresses for my MA research.

I am researching the uses of blogs by Irish design companies and by Irish designers.

What I need to do at this stage is pull together a quick list of blogs by Irish designers and if possible Irish design companies. So if you can send me on links to any that you know of, your contribution will be most appreciated.

This is very preliminary work, so go as broad and wide as you can — I will filter later. It is more important that I get a comprehensive sample to start off with.

I'll just be looking through them — at this stage this is not a call for people to interview or anything as involved as that.

The term ‘blog’ is wilfully elusive: so if you are not sure if something is bloggy enough or not, just go ahead and add it in anyway.

I am also interested in designer's personal blogs. Whether they are freelancers using their blog as part of marketing (Like Benny here) or designers doing their own thing quite separate from whatever design studio they work in. (Like Con here.)

Also the blogs don't have to be writing-orientated. Link-blogs or design reference blogs full of deadly cool visual stuff are just as valid. (Like this kind of thing.)

I am also looking for any Irish design companies or designers micro-blogging on Twitter (like this). In my research I will eventually need to focus on applied use of this for some defined aim: most likely marketing. But as this stage just seeing whether many in design industry are availing of this channel at all shall be productive.

I will aggregate all of the results onto a web page as some kind of shared resource listing. I will circulate that once I get it lashed together.

Also, do feel free to forward this email on to anyone you know who may be able to point me towards some relevant blogs. (That way I can tick the box beside Research Aim of “Leveraging the sophisticated network effects of online social networks to gather information”.)

Thanks in advance.
Aiden

Quote of the Day 27/03/09

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”
—Walt Disney

My Thought for the Day 26/03/09

“3K+ words written, now I need to get the train into college library, but it is really lashing rain. Therefore: Motivation Level = Low.”
2:25 PM Mar 26th from Power Twitter

Cutting Through the Dissertation Fog

I am trying to tie down my Dissertation Research Question in detail and that is still proving to be somewhat of a challenge. I imagine that it is the absolute cliché of the MA student that one finds more and more interesting avenues of investigation the more more reading and researching one conducts. My  initial research this last week has shown me that.

I now have a very clear sense of why a defined and locked-down trinity of Question, Aims and Objectives can serve as a necessary merciless filter for keeping laser-focus on the end-goals of my Dissertation.

My Thought for the Day 22/03/09

“Doing some initial online research into corporate blogging. Oh yessiree that’s one fine can of worms you have opened up there Mr Kenny...”9:31 PM Mar 22nd from Power Twitter

My Thought for the Day 19/03/09

“Attempting to construct an irrefutable wall of logic: each component self-evident, elegantly reinforced & interdependant. (Not quite there.)”11:23 PM Mar 19th from twitterrific

My Thought for the Day 13/03/09

“Social Media defined: the most efficient method yet devised to allow companies to show the world that they hire people who cannot spell.”
08:22 AM March 13, 2009, from my Twitter feed.

Quote of the Day 05/03/09

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving the non-essential things undone.”
—Lin Yutang

Quote of the Day 01/03/09

“To get your ideas across, use small words, big ideas, and short sentences.”
—John H Patterson