My Internet Lectures

Monitoring, measuring and evaluating online content

2012-01-16T13:16:00.001Z

The growth in the range of media available for people to read and watch is significant.
Many media have significant readership and often very large numbers of contributors.
To be able to manage this media explosion I have been working on software to provide the basic elements needed to assist communicators access the data needed.

The inforgraphics I have been using to brief software engineers are provided here:

There are more which I will make available in due course.

Anatomy of news

2011-05-30T11:16:00.000+01:00

It was late on May Day 2011 when Kristen Urbahn’s life changed.

At precisely 7.24 in the evening, her husband changed the way the whole world understood that news was no longer the purview of the ‘news media’.

Of course for the Tweeting wife (@KLF0131) with a husband at work and a big house move on her mind, the emerging seismic global realisation may not have been big on her list of top events. After all, she and her husband had been in public life long enough for her to know that momentous events often come from the White House and her interest in the two Dachshunds, evident in her Facebook profile, probably were a higher priority .

A graduate of University of Kentucky in 2006 Kristen Urbahn (nee Forcht), a staff assistant at the Republican Leaders Office in Washington and the glamorous young treasurer of the Christian Law Society, moved into Capitol Hill North on Aug. 18, 2009. It was time for a move when Yale graduate Keith was catapulted into global headlines. The imminent announcement of Osama Bin Ladin’s death came from Keith, and part time navy intelligence officer and Chief of Staff for former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who tweeted “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden.”

Keith had fielded a call from what he only described as a “connected network TV news producer” who asked him to be put in touch with Mr. Rumsfeld for an on-air interview. Bin Laden, it seemed, had been killed, and the network wanted reaction. With so little to go on and no confirmation for the story, he turned down the invitation.

“I mentioned it offhand to my wife, and just threw it down on Twitter thinking there surely have to be a couple of dozen other people who have heard the same rumour and thought of [doing] the same thing,” he told The Observer.

He was not the first reporter. Shortly after 4pm EST on 1 May Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual on Twitter) was live-tweeting a series of helicopter flypasts and explosions and was unwittingly covering the US forces raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound. Meanwhile somewhere in the vicinity @m0hcin was reporting And soon a local Twitter conversation was gaining ground.

The news was out.

According to Brian Williams, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor, some journalists received a three-word e-mail that simply read, “Get to work.”

The Horn picks up the story: “At 9:45 p.m., Dan Pfeiffer, the White House Communication Director, tweeted “POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time,” a message that was shared with White House press corps. The president had not spoken by that time but news outlets like CNN, New York Times, and CBS among others confirmed Osama’s death by 10:40 p.m. “

Maggie Fox the founder and CEO of Social Media Group provided a time line of events:

10:25 – Twitter is on fire, with a tweet from a CBS news Producer (Jill Jackson) with fewer than 4500 Twitter followers) confirming a leak that Bin Laden is dead retweeted over 1000 times
10:50 – The White House invites Facebook users to discuss the pending announcement (where the Presidential address is also scheduled to be broadcast)
10:53 – print media demonstrates where it can’t compete so well, with a journalist for a major national magazine noting that this announcement was going to “profoundly screw up” their Royal Wedding edition.
11:15 – Osama Bin Laden’s death confirmed by the White House

At 11:35 p.m, President Obama addressed the nation to announce that Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, an operation carried out by US Navy Seals. The White House YouTube Channel , with the full press corp, revealed the story.

For Kristen Urbahn, thoughts of house moves and the dogs vanished.

Obama’s announcement was more of a confirmation to millions of Twitter and Facebook users around the world who were informed about the Al Qaeda leader’s death through social media platforms.

Within about two hours of reports first surfacing a Facebook Page titled “Osama Bin Laden is DEAD” has already accumulated more than 150,000 “likes.”

A soldier in Afghanistan learned about the death of Osama bin Laden on Facebook, reported the Washington Times. A TV producer in South Carolina got a tip from comedian Kathy Griffin on Twitter. A blues musician in Denver received an email alert from The New York Times. And a Kansas woman found out as she absently scrolled through the Internet on her smartphone while walking her dog.

A Guardian article revealed that the spike was so large that some news sites were struggling to cope, and seeing their response times slowed so that they took six times longer to respond, or even crashed under the load. Mobile sites were particularly vulnerable as people logged in from smartphones wherever they were to read the news.

Twitter announced that “from 10:45 p.m.-2:20 a.m. ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second.” The number surpassed 5,000 at 11 p.m. and remained that way past the president’s remarks with details reported CNN.

At geo-location service Foursquare, more than 185 people in San Francisco had "checked in" to a "Post-Osama bin Laden World" using their smartphones.

The daily visits to US News & Media websites reached a three year, 200% week on week,- hike reported media watcher Hitwise, for the second time in a year on Monday, May 2, 2011 following the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The previous peak was on March 11, 2011 from the news of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Although Keith Urbahn says "My source was a connected network TV news producer. Stories about 'the death of MSM' because of my "first" tweet are greatly exaggerated," He was in the spotlight. However, it was the confirming Tweet from Jill Jackson , the CBS News Capitol Hill producer, that created the storm.

Ben Parr, Editor-at-Large of Mashable , published a Mashable Poll showing how people found out about the story.

At first the event did not go well for the White House. Press Secretary Jay Carney who had been appointed in the previous February, took plenty of heat, evidenced by Washington insiders telling The Telegraph that he’s “floundering.” Events moved fast.

Richard A. Grenell director of communications for President Bush in 2001 and a partner in the Los Angeles-based Capitol Media Partners, said it’s obvious Carney is nervous about what he says on the record.

It was Twitter that fired off the media frenzy and required fast work from the White House PR operations and for traditional media to catch up, monitor and aggregate new from many sources. The White House had to come to the party fast to keep up with the news event. This is ‘always on’ media and needed brisk responses by the establishment. The mix of media interaction and aggregation was fast and dramatic. Even the BBC had to use Google Maps to show the site of Bin Laden’s hideaway. This is complete change in media dynamics as we understood it only months ago.

The Telegraph showed just how it is possible to snatch defeat from the mouth of victory.

Toby Young commented:

“In the global battle for hearts and minds, it is essential that the leader of the free world exudes an air of calm authority at this time. Yet the White House’s handling of the media in the aftermath of Sunday’s events has been breathtakingly amateurish, planting seeds of doubt about the legality of the operation and about Osama bin Laden’s death that would not otherwise be there. The constantly changing narrative – or “fact pattern”, as one White House official described it – suggests that the president and his advisers have been caught on the hop and have no clear strategy for dealing with the fallout from bin Laden’s death.”

No one could doubt that the media, and ordinary people, fed the frenzy fast. Some information passed on and was fresh, some was a bit old (in internet time) before it was shared. The timeliness of response and reaction is a study in how fast information is now spread around the world. The full timeline of tweets is recorded by Mashable and confirms the sequence as the events unfold. The story was global inside ninety minutes.

The reach of this story is astonishing and reflects so much of what we understand about how social media in particular takes information from organizations and spreads it round the world.

The web monitoring company http://www.akamai.com, reported on the spike in news coverage representing a 28% increase in North America and 24% increase in global web traffic compared to the averages for that time.

We know that organizations are porous and that information leaks out of organization, including the White House. Keith Urbahn and Jill Jackson not only knew, they made the story public really fast and to a fast growing audience.

What makes this story so fascinating is how we can explore the lives of the actors involved.

The nature of internet agency has changed people’s lives. Four years after Keith and Kristen met as aides in Sen. Mitch McConnell's office, they became inextricably linked by so many people to the events in Pakistan and Washington. Kieth, became known as ‘HotDamn’ by his friends and became a minor celebrity. IT consultant, Sohaib Athar a graduate of Preston University and living in Pakistan, has been plucked from obscurity and will forever be associated with the events of May 1 2011. "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who live-blogged the Osama raid without knowing it," he tweeted after connecting president Obama's announcement to what was taking place in his neighbourhood.

Their very personal stories can be woven into world events by an author three thousand miles away and in minutes. Facts checked, names times and places all verified and confirmed by third parties. Building a story round a company, product, event or person is just as easy.

Such is the transparency provided by the internet, we even know the names of Kristen Urbahn’s dogs and a very human story is told.

The abundance of information and necessary curation needed to bring the strands together is part of the process of understanding what is useful and helpful but what happened in the hours and days after the event are equally fascinating.

While this story is one of our times, the nature of Reach, Timelessness, Transparency, Porosity, Aggregation, Abundance, Curation and Internet agency are by no means a mystery. Five years before Kristen went to university, in a shed/come office in Wiltshire, not far from Stonehenge, the notion of these drivers formed into another book by the authors Online Public Relations which is now a business best seller with a third edition already on its way.

Not only were these amazing multi media events startling, they we both expected and predictable.

A business manager needs to be able to understand what is going on here. What we are seeing is how a story, and it could be about anything, can burst into life and drag you or your company with it – even Sohaib Athar (who almost instantly became Pakistan's first Twitter user to surpass 100,000 followers)and his wife and son get pitch forked into the maelstrom. Indeed, it could be you or your company!

For many managers there is a wish for publicity. In another era that was just plain expensive.

Now, and for many obscure reasons, your company is part of an online story in many types of media affecting not just stakeholders but a much wider constituency.

Measuring and Monitoring Using Google tools.

2010-07-06T19:38:00.000+01:00

Introduction
This is a live report using embedded data to show how online monitoring can be implemented using standard tools available online.

The client
The client for this report is United Biscuits and we examine it online presence and influence with stakeholders using standard tools.

The visible presence
United Biscuits is associated online and in time with many people, organisations.

How often searched for
An indication of how well known and how interesting a company is online can be judged by the number of times it is searched for. Today people are more at home using Google to find a web site than they are by bookmarking a site in their browser. The following chart provides a clear insight into the popularity of United Biscuits online.

For more detail, these data can be downloaded as a CSV file here.

Interest Over Time

And now to try it out.

What is PR

2009-12-29T17:41:00.002Z

Richard Bailey has opened the debate again for the new year.

As always a topic for a big red trout. I rise.

Partly I have an interest because of professor Jim Grunig's view of PR and wonderful critique of Philip and my book Online Public Relations. In time, I will respond to "Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalisation" but confess that Professor Gruig's 30 year research jump on our view is going to require the kind of research that only private funding can deliver in the UK (where PR research was once generously funded by Prudence in sackcloth and now he has now spent all his money no longer charioteer of virtues.

I do have some grounded research

My view is that public relations is not derivative. However, managing relationships suggests there is a power vested in the practitioner that will bend the will of the public in relationships. In a democracy, this is not possible. In a wired society even harder. In other forms of governance, it can only be temporary and then only when supported by corporate and or political coercion. Optimising relationships is more attainable. It is not so far from Cutlip, Center and Broom who do not claim the management of relationships for the profession. The nature of public relations management is in the development of actions that will deliver a nexus of relationships which can be used as the definition of an organisation, and as a matter of course, a successful organisation. Coarse, was too narrow in his definition (nexus of contracts). Some descriptions like communications management ("For a business to run efficiently, good lines of communication must be established between management and staff, from top to bottom, as well as suppliers, investors and even customers" say Edward de Bono and Robert Heller - how simple can you get)and reputation management which Carol Friend brought from Cees van Riel and Charles Fombrun when she was active on the CIPR Council are derivative. Ideas Management is very interesting. But is this no more than promoting ideas to publics - advertising? But why not include the other concepts. For example, perhaps post modernists are a little idle (derivative?) and rhetoric (as logic and grammar) is but a tactic.

What will be interesting will be the history of PR project by Tom Watson which will give a longer perspective.

The driver behind modern social media

2007-11-12T19:58:00.000Z

This video is a visual interpretation of a contribution to For Immediate Release, The Hobson and Holtz Report.

It explores developments in psychology, human evolution and the brain sciences as motives for our use of social media. The would seem to be some very powerful drivers that explain the human need to be online and take part in generating content, sharing it and interacting.

(It takes a while to download)

How to embed a hyperlink

2006-11-02T11:34:00.000Z

What you have to do is to create some text.
The you get a hyper link like this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT4dpFpiTgk

and then you mark some text easy huh!

Social Media -stuff you can change and share

2006-10-30T19:10:00.000Z

Here is an diagramme you can share. Click to enlarge or go here to share it.

Online Culture and Language

2006-10-30T18:34:00.000Z

There are a number of definitions of culture which I shall deal with first.
What is becoming evident is that in less than three years we have a different understanding of the breadth of cultures available on-line and the extent to which different platforms and channels for communication mediate cultures and are created by cultures is significant.

How individuals navigate

2006-10-23T23:09:00.000+01:00

This lecture explores the significance of search in Internet interactivity.

Tools and techniques for developing on-line PR plans

2006-10-18T20:19:00.000+01:00

This post applies to a period in time. In another time there may be other tools and techniques and it is important for all practitioners to keep up-to-date on what is available.

Once again, this presentation uses social media to provide the slide show.

To Go back to the lecture, click here.

Planning and Managing Online PR

2006-10-18T19:57:00.000+01:00

Planning and managing online public relations is just like off-line.

The lecture uses another form of social media to aid deliver and will examine the elements that need to be considered for on-line public relations. The lecture will use the key terms used in the ePR lecture and will go through the process and of on-line PR planning and management.

The process for planning and management is described in the presentation below.

For this presentation, I am using another form of social media. In this case, you can go through the show here. and, in addition go to the host site and share it with other people.

In addition you can go to the host site here and share it with other people.

The seminar will go through what you may want to achieve based on a scenario you can find here.

The discussion will be based round a scenario in which you have been asked by your boss to consider the value of enhancing the online presence, such as upgrading their website and being involved in development of social media . Using the CIPR online presence you will prepare a public relations based plan for the development of the online presence of the Institute to meet its core aims and objectives. You will examine the online landscape for the Institute, develop a strategy and will identify tactics and timescales to meet the objectives.

For tools and techniques you may find this post helpful

Use and Gratification in the use of Interactive media

2006-10-16T20:45:00.000+01:00

In this lecture I aim to use a different form of interactive social media.
I will present the lecture using a slide show that is available as a social media site (I am using SlideShare) .

You will be expected to develop your analysis of a web site using this medium for you presentation and will make it available on your blog.

Additional research will show you why and how and why people use different forms of social media from this list.

You can download this slide show here.

Reading for this lecture
There are some recent papers embeded in the presentation.
In addition, the following will be useful for your studies:
Eighmey J, (1997), ‘Profiling user responses to commercial Web sites’, Journal of Advertising Research; May/Jun; Vol. 37, Iss. 3; pp59-66

Katz, J. & Aspden, P., (1997), ‘Motivations for and barriers to Internet usage: Results of a national public opinion survey’, Internet Research, Vol 7, No 3, pp170-188

Korgaonkar P & Wolin L (1999), ‘A multivariate analysis of Web usage’, Journal of Advertising Research, March/April, pp5368

Lee, B & Lee R, (1995), ‘How and why people watch TV: implications for the future of interactive television’, Journal of Advertising Research, Nov/Dec, 9-20

Lin C (1999), ‘Online-service adoption likelihood’, Journal of Advertising Research, March/April, pp79-89

Molesworth, M & Jenkins, K, (2002), Young adults’ uses of commercial and non-commercial Internet content, Academy of Marketing Conference Proceedings, Nottingham, July

Perry, M. & Bodkin, C. (2000), ‘Content analysis of Fortune 100 company Web Sites’, Corporate communications: An International Journal, Vol 5, No 2, pp87-96

Raman N & Leckenby J, (1998), ‘Factors affecting consumers ‘Webad’ visits’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol 32, no 7/8, pp 737-748

Stafford, M. & Stafford, T., (1996), ‘Mechanical Commercial Avoidance: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective’, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Vol 18, No 2, pp27-38

What is on-line PR about?

2006-10-12T10:48:00.000+01:00

For Seminar 1 we will discuss:

What actually is online Public Relations? Moreover, how important is it to overall public relations practice? You will need to consider your experience (either directly or your observations) of online public relations during your placement. Why was the Internet used as a PR tool, how was it used and with what effect? If your organisation did not use the Internet either at all or very effectively, why was this? If you return to your placement organisation in the future what improvements in their use of the Internet could they make, and how would you encourage them to achieve this?

Lets do this simply

2006-10-09T18:49:00.000+01:00

Technological

In reality there is no such thing as 'The Internet'.

It is based on computers that are connected usually by cable, satellite or wireless telemetry so they can a) receive, b) re-route and c) transmit data. Then there are others that just a) transmit and b) send and a few computers that just receive.

In the case of the Internet computers are polite to each other and use a common protocol called the Internet Protocol (IP).

This means that when information is sent from one computer to another it has proper manners.

These manners are in the form of digital greetings at the beginning of small digital packets of information and a proper farewell at the end. Sometimes the greeting is such that the computer politely sends it off to a neighbour and sometimes it recognises it has come to stay. It is called packet switching.

Packet switching is the most used technology for both data and voice communication worldwide. It is relatively new and replaced the old telephone type of communication which was based on the idea of circuits (creating a single end to end connection between sender and receiver like an old fashioned telephone operator 'connecting you'). This means that a dedicated circuit is tied up for the duration of the call and communication is only possible with the single party on the other end of the circuit.

With packet switching, a system could use one communication link to communicate with more than one machine by assembling data into packets. Not only could the link be shared (much as a single person post letters to different destinations), but each packet could be routed independently of other packets.

The greeting description on each packet helps the receiving computer to decide what to do with it.

There are a lot of Internet applications that are not important to public relations. Then there are some that are familiar. Examples of Internet protocols you may have heard about include packets of information with a greeting that could be a telephone message (Voice over Internet Protocol - VoIP), or email (Internet Message Access Protocol), a Web page ( using HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol), File transfer (File Transfer Protocol). There is almost no point in knowing about this stuff except to realise that there are different 'protocols' that seem to offer the same thing on computers but that are really quite different. For example: Email is not the Web.

Because all of this stuff is based on packets of information and 'packet switching' it can be split up and sent by different routes and computers and re-assembled when it arrives at its destination.

After leaving CERN in 1980 to work at John Poole's Image Computer Systems Ltd., Tim Berners-Lee returned in 1984 as a fellow. In 1989, CERN was the largest Internet node in Europe, and Berners-Lee saw an opportunity to join hypertext with the Internet: "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and — ta-da! — the World Wide Web.

Social

Global, Connected, Knowledge, Interactivity, Commercial, 'Social Capital' are all things associated with the Internet.

In less than 20 years we have become a dependant society.

The predictions of a decade ago have happened.

We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

On average, we can anticipate that nearly half of the population is spending 23 hours online each week of which under three hours are spend on banking and buying stuff.

Our challenge is to be able to capture the interest of these people for the other seven hours they are online each day as they multi-tasking watching TV, listening to iPods and and texting their friends.

Economic

Early pioneers in commercial applications like Amazon.com showed the way. Despite the dot com bubble bursting, retailing online has flourished.

Tesco takes £2.5 million every day on-line.

Jennifer Risi, executive vice president of Weber Shandwick's Global Strategic Media Group explains, "The genesis of the Creativity Economy is relatively easy to trace. The twin forces of globalization and easily accessible information, thanks in large part to the Internet, means that knowledge has become a commodity. Thanks to advances in manufacturing and productivity across virtually every sector, once-vital business factors such as quality, price and product are now easily duplicated across the world. Since product innovation is much harder to achieve, leading companies are coming to view intangibles such as creativity and innovation in business processes as paramount to future success."

Another car reduces productivity another Skype user increases it.

Politics

Erm... truth in politics?

There is even more of this stuff here.

NEXT

Your task is to comment here:

BAPR Introduction

2006-10-09T17:43:00.000+01:00

Hello!

OK, you guessed... this ain't powerpoint.

We will get to that later, but all we do is about social media (for all the misgivings about Wikipedia), I references a wiki - we walk the talk and so we will use it... starting right away with a combo blog and podcast and a lot of embedded hyperlinks, which you will find tedious unless you are using a tabbed web browser.

Yes... there is a lot of jargon to learn.

But this is where the future of Public Relations lies and you are on one of the few courses with a social media module - a career boost of HU - UGE proportions.

I Europe, online reading is now bigger than print and radio combined. Think of all those folk still doing ring rounds back at the office. DoDo or what!

So this is where it is an there is a lot to know.

The first thing you need to know is that everything you do on-line is traceable. All those indiscretions thus far are out there and can be found. Some are very visible, some less so.

In this course, you will be involved in social media. You will learn about web sites, blogs, wikis, podcasting and much more. In addition, you will try them all out - in public starting with contributions to my blog, then your own and then... well who knows.

Scary?

Yes!

But we will put it in context and you will need to note this URL.

http://netpr.blogspot.com/2006/07/epr.html To be able to participate in future lectures and seminars, you will find that this is pretty much essential.

In addition, you will find that this blog has lots of very handy resources and a helpful blogroll for your dissertation.

To keep up with what is going down in online public relations you will need to master RSS and this may be a good service for you to use.

Our mission today is to provide a background to the key technological, social, economic and political factors which have shaped the development of the Internet. You should also be able to assess which of these factors is currently dominant within the Internet.

NEXT

Seminar 1

Seminar discussion

2006-10-09T16:11:00.000+01:00

The Lecture set out to:

To define interactivity in the context of digital media (we looked at traditional models, communication flow and dynamic distributed networks)
To assess individuals motivation and ability to interact via digital media ( we looked at Sullers model Necessity, Pride, Competition, Mastery, Perfectionism, Adventure, The Carrot, Magic and delight).
To assess the impact of digital media interactivity on communications (Reach, Speed, Transparency, Porosity and Agency and the range of platforms and channels)
To suggest criteria for classifying web use and web contents according to their level and type of interactivity (we discussed Jackson and the concept of a user being the nexus of values)

We will review a number of sites

To review web sites according to it’s interactive functions (type of communication, motivations to use, impact on communication, Jackson model or nexus model).
To discuss the appropriateness of functions for communication with key audiences (ibid)

CEMP esp. Interactive studies
Bournemouth University
For Immediate Release

Discuss: should you be involved. A blog? a wiki? a podcast, your RSS feed?

Remember, everything you do and say on the Internet will be there forever - your reputation is in your hands.
Remember, if you make a claim, when a student re-visits it in 10 years time will it be dated and, if so, how will the student know?

Reading

2006-10-09T15:50:00.000+01:00

Events are moving fast.
Need to look for up-to-date research
Needs to look at current comments and research (be VERY critical)
Add to the PR Bibliography. (prbibliography2006)
Study e-PR (a lecture of about an hour)
Applications of new media are listed here - they show how different organisation are using Social Media.
Use hyperlinks in the lecture as indicative only.

*

Hoffman D & Novak T, (1996), ‘Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations’, Journal of Marketing, Vol 60(July), pp50-68
*

Ghose S & Dou W (1998), Interactive Functions and Their Impacts on the Appeal of Internet Presence Sites’, Journal of Advertising Research, March/April, pp29-43
*

Jackson M, (1997), ‘Assessing the structure of communication of the World Wide Web’, Journal of Computer mediated Communication, Vol 3 No 1
*

Johnson I, (1999), ‘What’s the value of interactive advertising? ‘,Admap, Feb
*

Pavlik J (1996), New Media Technology, Allyn & Bacon – Chapter 5
*

Perry, M. & Bodkin, C. (2000), ‘Content analysis of Fortune 100 company Web Sites’, Corporate communications: An International Journal, Vol 5, No 2, pp87-96
*

Raman N & Leckenby J, (1998), ‘Factors affecting consumers ‘Webad’ visits’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol 32, no 7/8, pp 737-748
*

White R, (1995), ‘Interactivity: paradigm shift or quantum leap?’, Admap, october, pp19-22

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Classifing use and content

2006-10-09T15:14:00.000+01:00

Can we classify use and content?

Did Jackson get it wrong?

Is Web-based communication the hypertext link
Is Web-based communication social

Is it a combination?

Is a definition of a blogger as being the nexus of values at the core of a community of other people (who will be, predominantly) connected through blogging channels.

Where there is commonality of values across a wide range of individuals, they might be considered to be a public (Grunig and Howe) , with common values they share passionately (e.g. the notion of professional public relations). Thus, from time to time they coalesce, because they have common cause (many shared values). Such a coalition can, and probably would be, within a small group which is the nexus around the blogger.

Classification:

Native - primitive - skilled users
Platform for communication
Channel for communication
Tags (Hyperlinks, XML, Microformats, LSA concepts, Keywords, Social Media tags)
Search engine friendly
Dark web
Environment, values, interactive competence, time (Social Space).
Hyperlinked communities

Traditional social segmentation and stakeholder analysis.

What is a power blogger anyway?

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Impact on communication

2006-10-09T14:51:00.000+01:00

User options:
Choice of channel (user chooses)
Choice of content (user chooses)
Choice of time (user chooses)
Mono/multiple concurrent channels (uer chooses)
One to one, one to many, many to many, many to one (user chooses)

Is this a threat to :
Publishing
Marketing
Mangement

Overview
Wide range of platforms and channels
'Replacing' or adding to exisiting media

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Motivation to use interactive media

2006-10-09T13:52:00.000+01:00

What motivates?

Within organisations
In 'Social Space'
Between organisations and 'Social Space'

Motivation to try new media from platform/channel to next:

John Suller:

Necessity:

Pride:

Competition:

Mastery:

Perfectionism:

Adventure:

The Carrot:

Magic and delight:

Also

Valuable psychology is emerging to help understand motivations.

Connect - Six degrees of separation (S. Milgram, The small world problem. Psychology Today 1(1967).

Jon Kleinberg

Baird and Fisher

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Models of Interactivity

2006-10-09T13:15:00.000+01:00

We can use this Hoffman and Novak gaming model to explore interactivity in many modes of social media.

The expansion of on-line media includes many platforms and channels for communication.

The assessment of the extent to which interaction is optimised and the effects of interactivity is an area for rich research.

NEXT

Many to Many Communication

2006-10-09T12:44:00.000+01:00

From Hoffman and Novak

A message is made electronic...It goes into a network
All networks are connected
Control over the message is lost

Always!

In Reality, the network looks like this.
(Phillips,D)

NEXT

Interactivity in a digital context

2006-10-09T12:26:00.000+01:00

Traditional models:

Models of mass communication (e.g. Lasswell 1948; Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955).
The primary feature of Figure 1 is a one-to-many communications process, whereby the firm transmits content through a medium to consumers. Depending upon the medium (i.e. broadcast,
print,billboards), either static (i.e. text, image and graphics) and/or dynamic (i.e., audio, fullmotion video and animation) content (see Bornman and von Solms 1993) can be incorporated.
No interaction between consumers and firms is present in this model. (e.g., see
Kotler 1994, chapter 22).

Interpersonal and Computer-Mediated Communications. Based on traditional models of
communication from sender to receiver, presents a simplified model of interpersonal
communication.

Communication flows through a medium individuals. This model incorporates a feedback view of interactivity, consistent with Rafaeli’s (1988) definition of interaction as "...an expression of
the extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission (or message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmissions."

Computer Mediated Environments: "a dynamic distributed network, potentially global in scope,
together with associated hardware and software for accessing the network, which allows consumers and firms to :
1) provide and interactively access hypermedia content (i.e. "machine interaction"), and
2) communicate through the medium (i.e. "person interaction").

Hoffman and Novak

NEXT

Interactive Media studies - Introduction

2006-10-09T12:11:00.000+01:00

I will introduce theory about the nature of interactivity and as a group we will compare this with our own experience and consider the implications for communications. Ojectives are:

To define interactivity in the context of digital media
To assess individuals motivation and ability to interact via digital media
To assess the impact of digital media interactivity on communications
To suggest criteria for classifying web use and web contents according to their level and type of interactivity

Index of posts.

1 Introduction
2 Interactivity in a digital context
3 Many to many communication
4 Models of Interactivity
5 Motivation to use
6 Impact on communication
7 Classifing use and content
8 Reading
9 Seminar discussion

NEXT

Developments for using new media for online lectures

2006-07-14T15:45:00.000+01:00

So far so good

This experiment in providing online lectures and podcasts is proving to be interesting.

The experimental part of this suggests that Blogger is not the right platform but it has proven to be an easy way to experiment.

Reaction from people who have have commented has been positive so that is an encouragement.

Average visits to the site are 4 per day. It is not too bad because there is no promotion for this site so it is all WOM. Page views would show that visitors are just lurking although there have been some in-depth visits.

No one has yet been all the way through the ePR lecture but the podcast downlods have been as high as 20 for the opening post to as low as 3 for the 'consistency' page.

This would suggest that some people are accessing the podcast elements from elsewhere which means that the source information needs to be on each podcast..

Improvements

There is a need to add improved access to academic and other resources both online and in print.

These references need to be on each page and accessible from a post page or more helpfully on a wiki (perhaps a cross post of the lecture text, podcast and references) to allow authors to propose added sources (it would also provide experience of and opportunities to use wikis as well)

I also need to add other important sources to help people stay up to date (such as the Hobson Holtz Report podcast).

I want to add a capability for people to comment using text and voice and this is one way that it can be done (go on... try it!) in addition to using normal blog comments.

Perhaps there should be scheduled chat available too which would show how chat works.

Using services like Skype conferencing, it may also be possible to have online seminars..

Evaluation

I am examining how I can add surveys for assessment. This would offer a list of question and then would have a times session for answers to a randomly selected sequence of open and closed comments. It would be really cool to have the users of the system marking the answers using a wiki but with the student remaining anonymous.

This could be extended to blind marking by selected tutors online using a wiki too.

Page layout needs a lot of attention too.

In addition, I suppose I should put a Creative Commons licence on each post, podcast and other elements.

Reading List

2006-07-12T18:24:00.000+01:00

This is a list of texts and resources that will be considerably expanded

Main Texts

Haig, M (2001) The essential guide to public relations on the Internet London: Kogan Page.

Holtz, S (2002) Public Relations on the Net second edition, AMACOM

Horton, J (2001) Online Public Relations: a handbook for practitioners Greenwood Press.

Phillips, D, (2002), Online Public relations, London: Kogan Page.

Witmer, D (2000) Spinning the Web: a handbook of Public Relations on the Internet Longman

Other texts that will be very useful to you include:

Bayne, K (1997) Internet Marketing Plan, Wiley.

Bickerton, P et al (1996) Cybermarketing

Bimber, B, Davis, R (2003) Campaigning Online: the Internet in U.S. elections Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bouwman, H et al (2005) Information and Communication Technology in Organisations: adioption, implementation, use and effects Sage.

Campbell, D & M (1995), Doing Research on the Internet

Castells, M (1991) The Information City: information technology, economic restructuring and the urban-regional process Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M (1996) The rise of the network society Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M (1997) The power of identity Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M (2001) The Internet Galaxy: reflections on the Internet, business and society Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chadwick, A (2006) Internet Politics: states, citizens and new communication technologies Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chaffey, D Mayer, R. Johnson, K & Ellis-Chadwick, F (2000) Internet Marketing, Prentice Hall.

Chaffey, D (2003) Total e-mail marketing Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.

Chen, S, (2001) Strategic Management of e-Business Wiley.

Collin, S (1999) Integrating Email: from the intranet to the Internet Digital Press

Coupey, E (2001) Marketing and the Internet: Conceptual foundations Prentice Hall

Coupey, E (2005) (second edition) Digital Business: concepts and strategy Prentice Hall.

Davis, R (2005) Politics Online: blogs, chatrooms and discussion groups in American Democracy London: Routledge

Fellenstein, C (2000) Exploring e-commerce: global e-business and e-societies Prentice-Hall

Forrest, E (1999) Internet marketing research: resources and techniques, McGraw-Hill.

Franklin, M (2004) Postcolonial Politics, the Internet and Everyday Life Routledge.

Gibson, R , Nixon, P, Ward, S (eds) (2003) Political Parties and the Internet: net gain? London: Routledge

Hauben, M, Hauben, R (1997) Netizens: on the history and impact of usenet and the Internet IEEE Computer Press Society

Heath, R (ed) (2001) Handbook of Public Relations London: Sage – see section four, public relations in cyberspace.

Holtz, S (1999) Public Relations on the Net New York: American Management Association.

Howells, J (2005) The Management of Innovation and Technology: the shaping of technology and institutions of the market economy Sage.

Johnson, A (2002) Understanding the psychology of Internet behaviour

Jones, G (ed) (1998) Cybersociety 2.0, Computer-Mediated Communication and Community Sage.

Korper, S (2000), The E-commerce book,

McDonald, M (1998), E-marketing : improving marketing effectiveness in a digital world Prentice Hall.

Marshall, K et al (eds) (2005) Government policy program impacts on technology development, transfer and commercialisation: international perspectives Haworth.

Middleberg, D (2001) Winning PR in the wired world McGraw Hill.

Morris, S (2000) Wired words: language is the new identity FT.com.

Moschovitis, C Poole, H Schyler, T, Senft, T (1999) History of the Internet: a chronology 1843 to present

Pavlik J (1998), New Media Technology, 2^nd Edition, Allyn & Bacon.

Paswan, A (ed) (2003) Internet, Intranets and Extranets: new waves in channel surfing Haworth.

Peterson, R. (ed) (1997),Electronic marketing and the consumer Sage.

Reedy, J Schullo, S & Zimmerman, K(2000) Electronic Marketing Dryden

Rogers, E (1995) Diffusion of Innovations London: Free Press.

Scoble, R, Isreal, S (2006) Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers

Shields, R (2003) The Virtual Routledge.

Shortis, T (2001) The Language of ICT, London: Routledge.

Sindell, K (2000) (e-book) Loyalty marketing for the Internet age

Slevin, J (2000) The Internet and Society Cambridge: Polity Press.

Steinbeck, D (2000) The birth of Internet marketing communications

Thurlow, C Lengel, L Tomic, A (2004) Computer Mediated Communication: social interaction and the Internet Sage.

Toulouse, C Luke, T (eds) (1998) The politics of cyberspace London: Routledge.

Turban, E Lee, J King, D Chung, H (2000) Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective Prentice Hall.

Van Dijk, J (2006) The Network Society second edition, London: Sage.

Wallace, P 1999) The Psychology of the Internet

Watson, R Berthon, P Pitt, L & Zinkhan, G (2000) Electronic Commerce Dryden

Journals

Corporate communications, An International Journal

European Journal of Marketing

Harvard Business Review

Information, Communication and Technology

Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy

Journal of Computer Mediated Communications

Journal of Interactive Marketing

Journal of Marketing

Journal of Public Relations Research

Public Relations Review

Public Relations Quarterly

PRism (online at http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/prism_on-line_journ.html

Website Promotion

Trade Press

PR Week.

Note also that newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent and the Sunday Times have regular weekly sections which look at the use of the Internet.

Web-Based Resources

Academic sites

http://ecommerce.vanderbilt.edu/index.html elab (formally Project 2000 at Vanderbilt, major Internet research center)

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/ GVU at Georgia Tech (major Internet research center)

News and Information sites

http://www.zenithmedia.com/ Zenith Media (good links to other sites)

http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/ US Internetnews

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/ Cyberatlas (news and information)

http://www.100hot.com/directory/100hot/ Hot100 most popular sites

http://www.forrester.com/ Forrester Research and e-commerce analysis

http:// www.oftel.gov.uk Oftel site with news and information

http://www.itvreport.com/ News and information on digital TV

Online Sources of Information

http://britishlifeproject.co.uk

http://www.internetworldstats.com

http://www.open.gov.uk

http://netpulse.politicsonline.com

http://www.pewinternet.org

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

http://www.technorati.com

Adapt to the web or fail, Reuters chief warns 'old media' | Press Gazette

2006-07-06T17:15:00.000+01:00

Adapt to the web or fail, Reuters chief warns 'old media' | Press Gazette: "The editor-in-chief of the world's largest news agency, Reuters, has warned that many established 'old media' companies are likely to fall by the wayside in the internet age.

Geert Linnebank said:

'...that although blogs provided a 'richer' way of telling the story, they also raise issues over accuracy.

'Our traditional model involves checking first and then publishing. This clashes head on with the blog model, where you publish first and check later.'

He added: 'The need to be faster, more complete and more comprehensive is ever present and perhaps more so than before.

People want to know what's going on, they want it now, they want it everywhere and they want it in fantastic quantity and quality.

"Many new players will emerge from nowhere around blogs, video contribution sites, around new technology or in some way we haven't thought of yet.

He continued: "Some established old media companies will reinvent themselves very successfully, building new business on top, around or underneath their existing ones. And quite a few of the old media companies will fail because their readers or viewers don't view them as relevant any longer.

He concluded: "Perhaps most important is a real desire to listen very carefully to our readers, viewers and audiences — if we don't, they'll simply turn away and look for another place."

The same, it could be said, applys to the Public Relations industry.

ePR

2006-07-03T11:02:00.000+01:00

This is a three part introduction to the Internet for Public Relations students and practitioners. It is the first in a series of modules progressively introducing aspects of Internet mediated practice.

For more information about other modules please go here.

This module aims to:

Raise Your Awareness of the significance of the Internet
Show you how pervasive it is
Demonstrate that it is a PR Opportunity and Threat

The module is delivered in three parts, each taking about 40 minutes in a combination of online, interactive and self assessment modules.

Each of the part comprises a combined lecture delivered using social media in the form of blog posts and podcasts allowing students to comment, contribute and progressively explore further resources.

Hyperlinks to knowledge resources, books and papers, expert knowledge or opinion are provided throughout to facilitate a wider understanding.

The three parts to this module are (you can go direct to each item/post by clicking on the hyperlinks below):

Part 1. Background to the Internet:

Introduction

A Brief History

Multiple channels for communications

Mobile Internet

Part 2. Internet Mediated Public Relations:

How 'Internet PR' fits into 'Normal PR'

The Internet as a core discipline

The five key elements

Reach

What publics want to know

Finding out about publics

The five elements reviewed

Part 3. Rules of engagement:

Each post (page) has a link to a commentary podcast which you can listen to as you read the notes. Just click on the podcast link which will open up a new page for the podcast and then return to the notes page to follow the commentary.

To begin this module please click here.

BAPR module page is here

Internet mediated practice

2006-07-03T10:47:00.000+01:00

This is a series of Modules with associated online lectures to help Public Relations practitioners entering the realm of Internet mediated Public Relations.

It is a currently evolving series delivered using a range of online, multimedia tools.

In this series the modules include:

ePR an Introduction to Internet mediated Public Relations practice

Planning and Management which is in development based on this post in June 2006.

Tools of the trade An extensive module which expand on use and application of the communications channels identified here.

Creating Online Assets which is also in development and is based on these posts created in 2006.

To return to Home click here.

Results of on line surveys are here.

What information do we need to be able to make decisions

2006-06-09T18:47:00.000+01:00

Decision about transparency
Intelligence gathering
Stakeholder mapping

We can see how the reactive and interactive organisations can increase their asset base.

Gaining a return on such assets requires a further level of decision making.

The organisation has to decide the extent to which it is prepared to be transparent as well as allow internal and external stakeholders to influence its systems, processes, patents, copyright, products, services and tangible assets.

This requires intelligence about the 'Digital self' through monitoring its own (and probably competitor) Internet presence of technology drivers such as hyperlinking (its own and that of third parties and intra third parties).

There is aneed to identify search engine visibility, cache copies of pages and sites.

There are the on-line properties (provided by people, web sites, social media etc.).

This should lead to comprehensive mapping of existing and potential stakeholders and their network of stakeholders too.

This stakeholder analysis also has to be capable of identifying the relative significance of stakeholder groups to aid decision making and deployment of resources.

The organisation is seeking to know the extent of its 'Digital self' asset acquired through Internet interaction and the extent it remains positive and is not put at risk.

It has to 'map' its the stakholder that have an influence or assets that have power/importnace and influence. It has to recognise the attitudes of such stakeholders and when they are of significance.

How an organisation should landscape its environment, set objectives develop strategies and tactics to access all this wealth is the subject of other lectures.

Thank you.

Previous Post: Loss of Control

Home.

Loss of control

2006-06-09T18:41:00.000+01:00

Control ceded to the Internet
The Internet is a driver of 'Real self' activities.

(Click to enlarge image)

The information created on-line by Internet technologies and by people interacting with the organisation's 'Digital self' has an up-side and a downside.

The development of the 'Digital self' asset, an advantage) is largely beyond the control of the organisation ( a possible disadvantage). Organisation can influence these elements but they are now 'owned' or 'controlled' by them.

In addition the 'alter, digital self' begins to influence and is the driver for response and reaction of the 'Real self' organisation.

Previous Post: Growing the Corporate Asset

Next Post: What information do we need

Growing the Corporate Asset

2006-06-09T18:37:00.000+01:00

Clear understanding add value
Understanding and engagement enhances productivity
Engagement delivers added value
The process increases the asset base of the organisation.
There are capacity issues.

(click to enlarge image)

The extent that external stakeholders and internal stakeholders have both clear idea of the assets of an organisation and are able to interact with them in order offers both mutual and added value.

Clearer cognition and participative engagement of internal stakeholders using Internet technologies has advantages for clearer understanding, information empowerment, and peer engagement to enhance productivity.

External stakeholders can equally engage to acquire more, relevant and timely information and knowledge and can engage in interactions for higher value of delivered outcomes in terms of specific product/service and brand values, time and cost.

This level of mutual benefits adds value to relationships (brand values) and reduces cost of engagement.

As the 'Digital self' grows through engagement (more hyperlinks and comments – providing search engine 'Google Juice' - for people and organisations interested in corporate values), its digital asset grows, delivery improves and productivity increases.

Governing factors include capability to respond, and continuing capability to create convergence of corporate values (values attached to tangible and intangible assets) to attract interactions.
The effect has implications for all corporate assets.

Previous Post: Creating Wealth

Next Post: Loss of Control

Creating Wealth

2006-06-09T18:25:00.000+01:00

Organisational Tangible and Intangible assets
Explicit Tokens implicit values
Without relationships assets are valueless
Relationships need a medium
Relationships attract when there are values in common between entities
Interaction creates wealth

Organisations have many assets
Tangible assets (tokens) may include: premises, cash, creditors, equipment, work in progress, stock. Some tangible assets are negative such as debtors.
Intangible assets (tokens) include: patents, copyright, trademarks, processes, know-how, know-what, brand values, stakeholders (sometimes, and narrowly called human capital when referring to internal stakeholders).

Neither tangible or intangible assets have any value without relationships. These can be physical, technological, inter-organisational and personal relationships. Relationships require a medium in which to inter-react.

Relationships have in common explicit nomenclature and associated value/s. A relationship is formed when the (implicit/ tacit /metaphoric) tangible, values are commonly held by the entities (physical, technological, inter-organisational and personal relationships) involved.
The relationship can be between any of the entities and between two or more entities.

Human and many Internet driven entities are attracted to each other when the values are predominantly coincidental. Like attracts like.

When entities interact they create added values (wealth).

In inter-human relationships, dissonance is created between entities who have divergent values.

Previous Post: The Interactive Organisation

Next Post: Growing the Corporate Asset

The Interactive Organisation

2006-06-09T18:21:00.000+01:00

Decisions about response levels
Decisions about interactivity
Adding to the eFootprint
Increasing relationship assets

(Click to enlarge image)

Organisation have to make strategic decisions about the extent to which they respond to the effects of the 'Digital self'. There will be a trade off between the cost saving/income generating advantages and the cost of servicing these new capabilities.

Such decisions include the extent to:
The extent it will add content on-line such as web, email, Search Engine Optimisation, e-commerce and data accumulation for the web, financial and other regulatory data, promotion and news for stakeholders.

The extent it will react to the Internet including making Internet properties available to internal stakeholders such as access to email, the web, Instant Messaging.

The extent to which it will recognise and respond to the Internet technologies (search engines, hyper links, databases), people responding directly with the organisation on-line and people creating works on-line that are about the organisation but which do not have a direct link to the organisation (but which will probably be associated with the organisation by search engines and hyperlinks).
These considerations will include the cost of time versus facility as the primary consideration.
Involvement between and organisation with on-line communities adds to the eFootprint of the organisation and also increases the the 'Digital self' assets of the organisation.

This would suggest that engagement with the on-line communities (technologies, organisations and people) will have an effect on the intangible asset value of an organisation.

Previous Post: The Reactive Organisation

Next Post: Creating Wealth

The Reactive Organisation

2006-06-09T18:14:00.000+01:00

Internet creates two way information flow
Internet adds new Assets
Internet technologies create new relationships
Internet creates new types of relationships
Where the 'Real self' and 'Digital self' are very different there is 'cognitive dissonance'

(click to enlarge image)

As the Internet affects organisations, there is a two way flow of information from the 'Real self' organisation and the 'Digital self' organisation.

This adds a new range of (intangible) assets to the organisation including new processes and original responses to the new circumstance. In addition new relationships are created in new ways (email, web, Database interactions, Instant Messaging, social media etc).

The organisation is changed by its 'Digital self' and has changed its asset base. Its internal stakeholders respond to the influences of the 'Digital self' using a range of channels.

Where the 'Real self' and 'Digital self' are very different there is 'cognitive dissonance' among stakeholders (internal and external). This devalues the asset (even turning it negative).

These channels offer the means to respond and react to the people and technologies that affect the organisation.

Previous Post: Digits Influence Organisations

Next Post: The Interactive Organisation

Digits influence organisations

2006-06-09T18:12:00.000+01:00

Internal and external stakeholder awareness
Noticeable difference between 'Real' and 'digital'
External influencers use the Internet
Internet activity demands attention
Promotion, sales and revenues
Internet has an effect.

(click image to enlarge)

As organisations increase their eFootprint stakeholders become more aware of the organisation. Internal stakeholders become aware of the 'Digital self' and notice the dissonance between their model of the 'Real self' and the on-line alta-organisation.

They are influenced by on-line actors affecting the organisation (search engine ranking, on-line responses and form filling, email, Instant Messaging, references on other web sites, on-line media content, comment in blogs, wiki's, podcasts and other social media).

Some of these media demand attention. These include email, On-line ordering, recruitment and Instant Messaging. Some of this content becomes indispensable. Such as on-line data on Intranets, extranets, web based resources. Some information is invaluable for sourcing vendors and supplies and requires connection to search engines.

Creating presence and selling on-line creates revenues.

The Internet affects organisation.

Previous Post: The nature of the 'Digital self'

Next Post: The Reactive Organisation

The nature of the digital 'self'

2006-06-09T17:51:00.000+01:00

Not real to 'us'
Juxtaposed fact fiction present and current information
Real to the world
Breadth and depth of content
A competitive advantage

(click image to enlarge)

Internet content is not the 'Real self', the 'real' organisation or the 'real' person it is a construct (mashup) contributed by a person, company, other people and Internet technologies. It also juxtaposes history and current information and presents this person to the wider world.

People use the Internet to find out things, to interact and they rely on it. On-line, an organisation seems to be the 'Real' thing. In many cases it is the only reality they know.

Most organisations are best known by their on-line presence. It is how stakeholders discover information about them from their web sites, from search engines (example) and through discussion (example) and context created by third parties (example) and interactions (example).

The numbers of web site links into the organisations site is very important (see: example 1 and compare with this one example 2) as are social media links (see example 1 and compare with example 2).

As organisation get involved in Internet activities and Internet technologies and other organisations make them more visible across the Web there is a combination of influences that affect the digital 'self'. Social media is particularly imortant for gaining a digital footprint. A case in point is a personal blogger who ranks second to an institution with a full time Internet team in Google, the most popular search engine.

Organisations involved in Social Media become more visible and they are set in a wider social context On-line. Their eFootprint' gets bigger and is more noticeable.
The nature of hyperlinking and search engines is that as an organisation becomes more linked across the Internet. Its ranking by search engines goes up. In addition, the breadth of content and extent of people and their Internet presence influences visibility and understanding.
The 'Digital self' creates competitive advantage.

Previous Post: The Digital Company

Next Post: Digits Influence Organisations

The Digital Company

2006-06-09T17:48:00.000+01:00

The digital company
The corporate 'Digital self'
Web sites and pages
Hidden corporate content.
Internet added contribution
Third parties
Social Media

(click image to enlarge)

Companies have a digital self.

Some of this 'self' is created by the individual or company in the form of web sites, entries in portals, discussion lists etc.

The 'self' is in response to the need to be visible to attract customers, employees and suppliers. To be evident to services and regulators.

It has a presence in the form of hidden content (often in databases) which is accessed by people on line as they buy, sell, add their information via the web etc.

This content is added to by the Internet. This is done when people create hyper links, when search engines index web pages and when other technologies link the organisation with other Internet services.

In addition, there is a range of media that links to the organisation. This includes email, Usenet, personal or interest groups including NGO's and when people comment about the organisation on-line.

Add to this content in web sites, email, search engine data, blogs, podcasts, wiki's chat discussion lists, Usenet and a host of other on-line properties and the 'digital self' can be extensive.

Previous Post: The Real Person

Next Post: The nature of the 'Digital self'

The real person

2006-06-09T17:37:00.000+01:00

People have models of the world in their heads.
It is their 'Real self'
These models vary with context
People have a model in their heads about their organisation, the 'Real self' organisation.
There is a different and 'new' model, the 'Digital self'

We are quite clear that people carry a model of the world and their place in it round with them. They do not see the world as it is but from a personal perspective. In addition, these perspectives change depending on context or social role.
People respond to environments from an impression of the world they carry with them. It is view that changes to a greater or lesser degree depending on the context in which they find themselves.
At work, people respond to their work environment and interact according to the context of work.
To employees and other stakeholders, this context is the 'Real self' (see graphic). It is a 'Real' organisation.
Today, there can be a new and different 'self'. It is applicable to people but, more importantly, to organisations.
It is a 'self' that emerges in cyberspace as people and companies interact on line.

Previous Post: Aims and Objectives

Next Post: The Digital Company

Aims and objectives

2006-06-08T17:44:00.000+01:00

This is an on-line seminar into why organisations need to take Social Media seriously.

The objective is to offer information and resources to learn about the implications and effects of of having an on-line presence which takes less than an hour to complete.

You will learn about how much control the organisation exerts in cyberspace

You will learn that the Internet affects your on-line presence in a form over which the organisation has no control but can have influence.

It will be shown how different influences change the relationship between the on-line stakeholders and the organisation.

Finally, this seminar shows why there is a business case for further exploring Web and Social Media to optimise return on assets at least cost.

Previous post: Building Internet Assets

Next Post: The Real Person

Building Internet Assets

2006-06-08T15:57:00.000+01:00

Introduction

Why should a Public Relations practitioner have an interest in Social Media?

Basically, there are three reasons.

These are new capabilities for communication
It is no longer cost effective to use a narrow range of communications channels.
Social media gives organisations disproportionate competitive advantage.

This is an interactive blog seminar.

It allows you to comment on any of the points made and you can share the content.

At the bottom of each post, you will find a 'previous' and 'next' link that will take you through the sequence of points made.

You can leave comments about each point made.

You can also search this blog and you can contact me quite easily too.

In adddition, it is an application of one of many social software facilities available to communicators.

Home

Next Post: Aims and Objectives

What are Intelectual Assets? Tokens and Values

2006-05-18T00:08:00.000+01:00

These intellectual assets are easy to describe.

We can be very explicit about them. In well run organisations they are described in explicit terms which also describe the values the organisation ascribes to them these are tokens by which the organisation is known and the values ascribed to them are the benefits the organisation shares internally and externally to create wealth.

These tokens are valuable assets. They can be kept on a computer They cost little to use and service.

But, there is a significant cost associated with maintaining these assets to be able to access the values they hold.

Yet almost all of such assets are wide open to competitive pressures and to being disintermediated. Someone else can have similar assets too.

But there is one asset that is very special and that is the subject of another lecture.

It is about relationships.

The greatest asset of them all.

Previous slide

For more of David Phillips work and his blog.

What is the nature of business knowledge.

2006-05-18T00:05:00.000+01:00

What are intellectual properties?

Intellectual properties have value

The IP that has value

If we look into the intellectual properties of businesses, we can get some idea of the value that is inherent in a modern business. Of course, there are inventions and techniques, sometimes these are patents, trademarks, processes and copyright.

These are intellectual properties that have value and retain their value as long as they remains secret.

Unfortunately other organisations are inventive too and they too have patents, trademarks and copyright. Near copies and alternative technologies and methodologies are the competitive threat to these assets.

Then there are processes. These are also important and are how organisations create and maintain the flow of work and value as it passes through the operation.

This is how quality, standards and efficiency are maintained. These may or may not be unique to an organisation. They are essential and many businesses are marked out for being excellent because they have effective processes. There are other assets such as lists about customer, vendors and ingredients, components, and archives.

Next slide Previous slide

How do we survive?

2006-05-18T00:01:00.000+01:00

How do these disintermediated businesses get customers?

How to they source specialists?

How do they motivate them to use the new communications tools will customers be happy with an auto dealer without a workshop or a lawyer clattering away on a computer keyboard?

To understand this, we need to look more closely at that computer and telephone on the back seat of the Law and auto repair businesses.

Next slide Previous slide

Where did the money go?

2006-05-18T00:00:00.000+01:00

Today we recognise banks as places to deposit money, borrow money and access money. But already there is an online bank that cuts out the bank building and the bank manager and allows you to deposit and borrow money and get better rates than from a traditional bank and PayPal provides other banking facilities at a rate that is unheard of in traditional consumer banking.

But now Estonians can even replace money.

The digital rip tide does not meander to the intermediaries, it goes direct.

Next slide Previous slide

All companies face a problem

2006-05-17T23:48:00.000+01:00

I have described how, using the Internet, a quarter of Gross Domestic Product growth within the EU and 40% of productivity growth can be ascribed to Information and Communications Technologies. It is because information is available, can be found and used.

This means that the the auto service shop and the lawyer can be cut out of their business by the keen amateur. Their whole business model is under threat.

Once there was an industry called the package holiday industry. These people took the hassle of holidays and put together packages that included buses to the airport, flights, holiday hotel accommodation, meals and entertainment. They 'manufactured' a 'product. Today anyone can create such a holiday. Ordinary people have become 'manufacturers'!

Other businesses that disintermediate include Amazon.com and eBay, Wikipedia.org. Dell.com.

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Fast moving streams flow in straight lines

2006-05-17T23:08:00.000+01:00

Both of the businesses I have described use the power of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).

They use these technologies to stay in touch with their customers and vendors and a host of other people.

They exchange knowledge with them and provide the infrastructure for the businesses to work.

However, all this information is also available on-line. It is in the public domain.

The law and legal argument is visible for all to see.

How to be your own lawyer is available.

In addition any lawyer can be an expert in any branch of the law with the click of a mouse.

Equally the spare parts and tools, instruction manuals and facilities to repair and maintain a car are all available online and enthusiasts are there to help to (try Usenet as well)

Anyone can be a a specialist auto repair person and anyone with a passing interest can be an expert in a very short time because all the information needed is available on web sites and in discussion on line.

This information is a fast flowing flood of up to date information, opinion and comment. It flows though many channels for communication.

It means people can get to expertise if they want to.

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The online lawyer

2006-05-17T22:49:00.000+01:00

Instead of having all these lawyers in an office, the law fim can contract work out to specialists such as business, personal, contract lawyers and so forth.

Of course, it too would have a web site, would contribute to discussions about approaches to practice using blogs, will manage course cases and advice using specialist web sites. Wiki's can contribute to understanding.

Instant messaging can be used to aid conversations.

And Voice over IP telephone conversations can be held (and recorded) .

The communications tools mean that things can be achieved now that were not possible at the turn of the century (you can even colaborate to write a book).

And so, the lawyer too can put its business on the back seat of the car to be able to move.

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Staying in touch

2006-05-17T22:41:00.000+01:00

Of course, the auto business would need to be able to stay in touch with the market place, customers, contractors and parts vendors and, because of the Internet, this is not too difficult.

There are web sites, to act as brochures. Some sites can be used to help achieve customer payment, there are cell phones and text messaging to be able to contact the suppliers and to manage each repair job the use of a wiki can ensure that the spare parts vendor knows what parts will be needed and when.

In this way the auto business would not need a lot of tangible assets and could manage the business using a telephone and a computer. The auto shop would now be able to move the business using just the back seat of the car and would not need a freight container at all.

Well, if the auto shop can disintermediate, why not the lawyer?

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Enter disintermediateion.

2006-05-17T22:40:00.000+01:00

The Auto shop could take another route.
Instead of having all these employees and all this equipment, the business could contract out work to specialists.

It could manage auto repair and service work but not actually do the work and so would buy-in a body work specialists, an engine specialists, a electrical specialists, and upholstery specialists etc. as and when needed.

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The asset rich organisation

2006-05-17T22:37:00.000+01:00

The difference in the structure of the two businesses has one very dependant on Intangible Assets and the other requiring a lot of tools and equipment to do their job.

The amount of tangible assets is five times greater for the repair shop for half the turnover of the Lawyers.

Put another way it requires ten times as much by way of tangible assets to generate a million Euro for a motor repair shop compared to a lawyer.

It seems that the garage will, forever have this problem of requiring a lot of space and tangible assets.

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A tangible business

2006-05-17T22:35:00.000+01:00

An automobile repair shop servicing motorcars and employing 10 people with a turnover of 1,000,000 Euro might need five freight containers to move their business.

Their intangible value per freight container is only 200,000 Euro/containers. While it would be difficult to imagine each of the employees contributing 200,000 Euros to the business each year, they might contribute 50,000 Euros of turnover per year.

The tangible assets deployed per employee of the auto shop is 50% of a container.

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Lawyers and Auto mechanics

2006-05-17T22:33:00.000+01:00

Let us examine two businesses.

The first is a firm of ten lawyers, interested, expert, sincere, personable and believable lawyers.

The second is a busy auto workshop with ten mechanics whistling happy tunes and joking about their adventures on the previous night.

A firm of 10 lawyers might turnover 2,000,000 Euro per year but could move their entire office in one freight container so their intangible value would be 200,000 Euro/containers.

It is not difficult to imagine a lawyer contributing 200,000 Euros to the firm per year. The tangible asset deployed per employee is 10% of a container.

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Measuring Intangible Assets

2006-05-17T22:30:00.000+01:00

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is mostly about Intangible Assets and to be able to be active in this area, we have to be aware of what is at stake.

So, what are the difference between tangible and intangible assets?

We can test what this means by comparing tangible and intangible value.

If you ask how many twenty tonne freight containers it would take to move a business from one location to another you get an idea of the tangible assets of a company.
If you then divide the total turnover of the business by the number of freight containers you get some idea of the value of the intellectual properties of the business.
The company that has the highest value per freight container is the company with the highest valued intellectual properties.

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Why the Internet is important

2006-05-17T16:14:00.000+01:00

A quarter of Gross Domestic Product growth within the EU and 40% of productivity growth can be ascribed to Information and Communications Technologies.

This means that, once one puts aside primary industries like agriculture, extraction industries such as coal and aggregates, nearly all the important activity in our economy is based on Intellectual Properties.

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New Media, Economics and Relationships

2006-05-17T11:52:00.000+01:00

This lecture, first given in Estonia, looks at how 'New Media' interacts with the economy. It also shows how organisations big and small can create new opportunities because of the digital tsunami.

This part of this lecture is using a Blog. Blogs are a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles, most often in reverse chronological order. They are really easy to create, people can commentate about posts, cross index comments between blogs and monitor them easily using techniques like RSS.

Because blogs allow comment about content as it is 'posted' it is a social medium, the most important part of New Media. You can add your comments to the lecture when ever you like.

Another 'New Media' entry is the wiki. The link to 'New Media' at Wikipedia or Vikipeedia, is a classic example of how new media interferes with old economics.

It is the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It has taken the place of Encyclopedia Britannica, once the flagship encyclopedia. It has more pages and is comparably (though differently accurate). For most applications it is ideal. But what of Encyclopedia Britannica? It had to change to survive. It is no longer just printed books.

We have all heard of Dell (no shops), Amazon (no shops) and eBay (auction without a location)and Skype ( a free telephone).

These companies are examples of companies that have taken out part of the value chain. Any part of the value/supply chain can be removed in this process from supplier to manufacturer to distributor to retailer to customer.

It is called disintermediation.

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How Internet PR fits into 'Normal' PR

2005-12-16T19:11:00.000Z

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Fitting into 'Normal PR'

The difficult thing to see is how the Internet fits in with 'normal PR'.

We are aware of there being many channels for communication. In PR we use channels for communications like the press, radio, TV, leaflets, posters and direct mail.

The Internet offers a wider range of communication channels. In the UK this provides access to over 30 million people who use desktops and laptops.

In addition to computers, the Internet is used on other devices such as cell phones, digital and satellite radio and TV.

There are other devices that use the Internet too. Many of those gaming machines used by younger brothers are Internet enabled devices too.

All these devices ofer a range of communications channels. These channels can mix and match in variety of ways.

Some channels are quite familiar and include email, instant messaging, web sites, Usenet, discussion lists, weblogs (blogs), Mobile Blogging, wikis, Chat, Bluechat, RSS connectivity. And for those who find this a mystery is is worth using an open source citizen maintained encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which is more than just a source of encyclopaedic knowledge. There is a good page about New Media here.

For practitioners who want to make a personal link, there is SMS, voicemail, mobile audio and mobile video and content designed for Blackberrys and PDAs.

A There are also many virtual communities on line. These too provide communication and interactive opportunities. So much for the past. Now we are seeing new developments that are even more useful.

We can use our imagination on how to use a paper-thin electronic-display technology so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging, from milk cartons to boxes of Cheerios, or it could be used as an intelligent leaflets and much more.

What about interactive posters? When a camera phone user takes a picture of the bill board, they are directed to a website that features real PR content.

In addition to watching movies or football match,there are a number of PR applications for broadband mobile that can make these developments much more interesting fun and engaging because mobile is two way.

Can celebrity or political campaigning do without Vlogs? How cool can a creative PR make vlogging? Here a blog post includes a podcast with video. There are other services to help too.

Then there is on-line broadcasting with podcasts. Here is a way for providing content for iPods and CD's and, of course online audio content.

Interactive television has long way to go too. Imagine people pulling PR messages from the push medium of TV?

Then, there is the capability to use gaming, such as X-box to interact with your communities.

And this leads us to imagine how many new communications channels are out there and the ability to integrate these many technologies into PR techniques.

Of course, you may want to keep an eye on what is happening on-line and can build your own monitoring and research resource too.

The range of communications channels for use by Public Relations practitioners is extensive. Here is a sample:

Muds like Second Life See also Social Media

Media relations

Mobile voice

Other web sites/portals

Own site

Podcast

Point of sale

Press Radio and TV advertising

RSS & RSS optimisation

Search engine optimisation

Search engines

SMS

Social Media See also MUDS

Wiki's and similar

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This page has an associated voice-over (known technically as a podcast). Click here and a new window will open at a different web site: Our Media (www.ourmedia.org). Start the audio and then return to this page to follow the lecture and notes. When the lecture comments are complete you can explore hyperlinks on this page and then go to the bottom of this page and click 'Next' to go to the new page

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More blogs about Internet PR.

Online Public Relations - an introduction

2005-11-08T15:39:00.000Z

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Our Objectives today:

Raise Your Awareness of the significance of the Internet
Show you how pervasive it is
Demonstrate that it is a PR Opportunity and Threat

The hyperlinks in this lecture are indiactive only. They offer access to a range of resources and can be used for later study.

To follow the sequence of lecture 'slides' you can link to the next and last post in running order from the hyperlinked text below.

Next

From Antony Mayfield:

Rupert Murdoch hails the coming revolution that the Internet will bring:

"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy - not just companies but whole countries."

"The chief executive of Reuters took it upon himself this week to spell things out.

Speaking at he OPA (Online Publishers Association) conference in London, Tom Glocer warned “old media” against ignoring blogs and consumer-generated content. He said that there was a danger that the media would react with "protectionism", trying to keep out consumer content.

He added that there was a clear role for Reuters as a “content facilitator, tools provider and editor” in the new media world, a clear echo of the Director of the BBC's World Service and Global News division Richard Sambrook's comments last year about the future of news organisations.

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More blogs about Online Public Relations - an introduction.

Reaching constituents

2005-11-06T12:33:00.000Z

We looked at different communications channels here and here.

Using multiple channels is important.

Optimising the reach of your message require people with skills in the area. We site optimisation is a significant industry in its own right.

But all these devices and desires are naught if you don't have good, interesting, rich, publics focused content AND interactivity with the on-line community.

To understand on-line reach you have to recognise that it is networked and not hierarchical.

The Internet communities offer great insights into how people regard what you do... It is a big open and ready to interact marketing sample of millions – or one.

On-line PR is very much a two way symmetrical world. Listening (monitor, analyse, evaluate, respond) is as important as acting. That is how the big brands did so well (ask Google, Dell, eBay, Last Minute). But reacting and responding requires consistent effort (ask Google, Dell, eBay, Last Minute).

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Consistency

2005-11-06T12:09:00.000Z

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Consistency

In examining Richness as part of your on-line Public Relations strategy, we have looked at the range of channels and ethics but there is another issue.

We need to be consistent.

An organisation that is inconsistent only confuses its constituents. They then have doubts. Sometimes this is a result of confusing messages. Sometimes it is because of confusion caused by unjustifiable claims. Often it is because a policy change means that existing on-line content is out dated.

If you make a claim, it has to be supported by the fact.

A PR consultant that claims to be "one of the world's leading public relations agencies " would suggest that its would be one of the leading public relations agencies when looking for a Public Relations consultancy.

Where better place to look than in a search engine like Google. It should be on of the leading companies when searching for an agency.

One might search for 'Public Relations' and one would be disappointed.

One might look for 'Public Relations Agency' and not find an immediate link.

What about 'Public Relations firm'? That would be even less helpful.

One can have quite a list:

international public relations consultant

or global public relations consultant

or 'leading public relations consultant'

or 'leading public relations agency'

In fact, we find that in the biggest PR shop window, The firm does not live up to its claim. There is an inconsistency that can give rise to doubt and criticism.

A very common lack of consistency is when organisations announce job cuts and, at the same time, have vacancies advertised on their site or on this party recruitment sites.

There need for communications policies to ensure that the organisation is consistent in what its says is important and there are some high profile examples when this has created problems.

Consistency is really important as this article shows with a quote that cannot be helpful: “More PR strangeness from Sony: Niall O'Hanrahan, a representative of Sony Computer Entertainment in Ireland has added his words to the boiling pot of Sony sound bites.”

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Your content has to be ethical

2005-11-06T11:26:00.000Z

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Your content has to be ethical

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Read more

A UMass study by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Chancellor Professor of Marketing, interviewed 74 different business bloggers to identify what makes some stand out more than others. The paper (PDF) .

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Richness

2005-11-06T11:15:00.000Z

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Richness

All you do online should have a good brief.

Content for purpose (web, email, blogs, SMS etc all have different styles and content)

You may recall the wide range of channels for communication we touched on earlier and that we find that people find your content using a range of channels. This means you may have to re-purpose information for range of channels.

Take a simple press release.

You may want to produce it for an email or for a web page or for a blog. You would have it in your virtual press room. You could add deep briefing about a product, annual report or service with a detailed wiki. It could be that it needs an SMS alert and may need to have a range of visuals ranging from video, photographs in a range of formats, diagrams. You might want to make a podcast or videocast available. Some content may be purposed to go in Flikr or iTunes. You will want to add RSS feeds for some content and will have Search engine optimisation headlines words, phrases and links and there will be social media tags as well.

If you think about it... if the press release is only a page in an email and on your web site, is the investment in creating the story truly a complete investment or is the job only half done.

Richness may mean having a lot of information on your web. This is the Chicargo Tribune.
You may need a virtual press office like this one.
You may want to provide information in a form that appeals to your target public like Captain Chemo.
Here is a fun view of the future.

You may want to provide your target public with loads of fun.

You may even want to use tools on-line to re-purpose content like this.

Online content is also about adding stuff to other peoples sites. Sometimes this is within structures and rules such as when using an online media release distribution agency or news agency (especially for financially sensitive content).

Then there is social media and the words and images that are relevant appropriate and within you guidance policies.

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Internet strategies

2005-11-06T10:54:00.000Z

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Internet strategies

On-line PR practice requires you to:

Examine how you can acquire, develop and publish rich, deep compelling attractive and interesting content.
Review and adopt all channels for communication relevant to your publics
Look at opportunities to develop, optimise and add reach for your organisations' presence.
Evaluate who claims allegiance with your organisation to develop a wider relevant constituency
Develop strategies and tactics to create a natural and beneficial attraction between constituents and your organisation.
Use the skills of other people whose domain of PR practice encompasses the technologies involved.

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The five elements reviewed

2005-11-06T10:40:00.000Z

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The five elements reviewed

The Internet is not just the web. It has many facets and provides many channels for communication characterised by five things:
Reach
Speed
Transparency
Porosity
Agency

There are many domains of public relations practice that serve the PR needs of organisations. The writers, ambassadors, issues managers, community relations specialists and event organisers. The specialist in print, radio and television communication. Then there are those who are involved in website management and there is an emerging cadre of people who excel in the social media. In areas of mobile communication, cellular content there are specialists not forgetting the people involved in search engine optimisation, tagging and RSS.

In Public Relations practice we need to have a broad understanding of each of these specialist areas and how they fit into the processes of relationship management.

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Internet Agency

2005-11-06T10:35:00.000Z

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Internet Agency

There are two areas of Internet agency that act on our messages.

This first is easily predictable. When people see messages and they can influence them, they very often do. Sometimes it is a comment about the message and sometimes it re-phrases the message and on other occasions it changes the meaning of the message.

The second form of Internet Agency is less obvious but probably more powerful. It is the work of technologies.

The Internet acts as an agent on messages. This is true of text, sound, pictures video and even computer programmes.

Organisations provide information across cyberspace. Much of that information is changed through the comments of people, in transit by editorial influence or by machines. The Internet acts as an agent.

Most Internet Agency is benign. It is not much more that the general miss reporting common in all forms of communication.

Some is less so.

While there are many instances of companies going to law (and sometimes winning), the fact is that organisations loose control of their identity and messages on-line.

Learning to work with the grain of the Internet is all important.

There are activist sites of every nature who delight is changing corporate identity and messages. They cover industries like the auto industry, Airlines, banks, fast food, manufacture, Legal and many more. Many web sites have been hacked including the Scottish Parliament. The effects of social media is a matter for a some debate but the main issue is that it has an effect. A PR practitioners will want to have contingency plans ready for such events.

Its a good idea to have a look at how technologies act on messages too. Nearly every message made available in digital form is available using Internet technologies. One of the first agent to act on them are search engines. We are familiar with some such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and Technorati. There are many more. Some look for text, some for sound, some for pictures and video. Others seek email, SMS, and computer code. Some are very specialist and some look for the trail that messages and interactions leave behind as they pass through the network.

These technologies roam the Internet looking for content and index it. That is, keep a record of it. Most then make this information available online for people to search.

In doing so they juxtapose information which presents it in a way that is helpful, unusual, unexpected or unhelpful.

Then there are those technologies that facilitate or enhance the capability of people to change messages as they permeate the Internet. An example is the ability to receive a text message, edit it and re-send it to other people and wikis are purpose designed to aid editing online.

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Loss of control

2005-11-06T10:28:00.000Z

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Loss of control

There was a time when basic media segmentation made it possible to distribute different messages thorough specialists media to highly focused publics. Today, this is not possible.

Once a message is released into cyberspace it is available to anyone and everyone who cares to find it. In other words, a message designed for one public will also be exposed to all other publics.

The control over what messages are available to which people is now down to the people themselves.

It is possible to see both the press release and the news reports.

For example, one can compare a Government press release with its Newspaper counterpart and an associated blog post.

This does not mean that one should not craft messages for special publics, far from it. However, it does mean that trying to force a message on a public, lack of empathy with publics or obfuscation, will fail.

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How messages move

2005-11-05T19:36:00.000Z

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A message is made electronic...It goes into a network
All networks are connected
Control over the message is lost

Always!

In Reality, the network looks like this.

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Porosity

2005-11-05T19:34:00.000Z

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Porosity

Large numbers of people in organisations use email. Many use Instant Messaging. The use of SMS in business is huge and the use and applications of sound and video in the work environment is growing.

All this means that information 'leaks' out of organisations.

Many companies monitor email to attempt to detect confidential information leaking out via email. But this is but one (and not very effective) form of leakage.

There is a need for employee policies to be in place to make clear what is acceptable for use of email, Instant Messaging Blogs and other electronic communication but it is not common. As internal publics, such advice and guidance is essential.

Porosity can have significant consequences and can even bring down Cabinet Ministers.

The helpful assumption all practitioners should make is that everything is visible. Ethics rule.

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Transparent memories

2005-11-05T19:27:00.000Z

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Transparent memories

One of the drawbacks of transparency is it has a number of facets.

The information provided by an organisation does not die. It lives on... an on... and on in cyberspace. The LeedsMet web site (www.lmu.ac.uk) looked like this in 1997. That was when the Tesco site looked like this. A decade earlier, the Microsoft site looked like this and after two decades perhaps it blushes a bit when it remembers this page.

In addition the comments and criticisms of past generations still live on.

This means that any information your organisation offers to the public sphere including information offered by people has a very long half life.

There is a further consideration. Branding and corporate identity takes avery long time to become accepted on-line.

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The Internet has massive penetration of people's time

2005-11-05T15:19:00.000Z

There was once an assumption that on-line use would be limited to the amount of time people would have available for the Intent. Two things have changed. The first is convergence. SMS, photo/voice and video blogging, web radio and TV and interactive TV are all examples of several channels providing cross platform content. In addition, people multi task. They use the go on-line, phone, SMSand watch TV at the same time. A classic example is people following Big Brother online and on TV and sending sms votes at the same time.

According to Forrester Research, the Internet comes second only to radio for the time people in the USA spend on media.

Time spent on-line

Reading newspapers 3.4

Reading magazines 2.4

Watching TV 2.8

Watching movies on video or DVD 3.5

Listening to the radio 7.4

Playing video games 1.2

Using the Internet 5.9

This is shows a similar trend that was becoming apparent in Europe some years ago. Apparently use of broadband is distracting people from TV and the Internet is catching up with TV viewing.

Back to Lecture

Transparency

2005-11-05T14:36:00.000Z

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Transparency

Transparency, as used in the humanities, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning used in the physical sciences: a "transparent" object is one that can be seen through.

When government meetings are open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to discussion, they are seen as transparent and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest.

In economics, a market is transparent if much is known by many about:

What products and/or services are available.
What price.
Where.

In communication studies, Media is transparent when:

there are many, often competing, sources of information
much is known about the method of information delivery
the funding of media production is publicly available

Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly.

All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, the decisions about the decision making process itself, and all final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly archived.

Transparency makes organisations efficient. It means that information that can be trusted and available to people who need it when they need it in an environment where they can act on it will be more efficient that one where gate keepers restrict access. Gate keepers tend to accumulate rubbish, take time to respond, stifle initiative and need to control activity.

When people want to find out about something, they will seek out information in many ways. If you frustrate their search, they will look for alternative sources for the information.

For this reason, if organisations want information to be available, they have to publish it or create an environment for publication. If they don't, someone else will – it may not be accurate, it may even be unfriendly.

The simplest, fastest and cheapest way to publish is through application of the Internet.

In the past, companies did not like to share much information with employees or other people for fear of competitors using it to advantage.

There is a different approach today.

Acording to Frank Buytendijk, Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Hyperion,

“The case for corporate transparency is compelling. With perfect corporate transparency, everyone within a company has access to relevant information. Management accurately represents the drivers of the business. Annual budgeting is replaced with a system of continuous planning supported by a collaborative process. Every manager knows exactly how his or her decisions affect other aspects of the company. There is visibility into how external changes impact internal matters. And the organization is able to predict precisely how the market will respond to various activities.”

He then deals with the other side of the coin. What is interesting is that he is quite open about the transparency issues that face his company on the company web site. He is 'transparent'.

So, there are good reasons for organisations to be transparent.

But you, being a Public Relations person will think of this differently.

Your mind will go to the publics involved.

What is the environment for this information,
What are the transparency objectives,
Who are the publics?
What do we know of them?
What channels for communication are open for the transfer of information provided?
Which channels are best to meet the organisation's objectives/
How will they regard information presented to them because of corporate transparency?

Organisations are transparent online in many ways.

In every sector, public, private, not for profit, organisations make their supply chain available to vendors to take advantage of enhanced production scheduling and just in time deliveries. The employment of the best practitioners in the world in design and development may mean using an expert half way round the world requiring open and transparent interaction. To produce goods and services we use contractors and expose our needs and aspirations to them on line. Then there is process information, interaction with eGovernement Internet enabled regulators and public utilities, There are recruitment and employment policies, markets, product distribution, pricing, and customer care all to be made clear, all using multiple channels for communication and in a mashup of digital data, plain conversations and all manner of other digital techniques in-between.

Much of this information is open and in the public domain, some is password protected or encrypted.

In addition policies are made public, it saves having to deal with every enquire with paper, post and people.

This means our competitors, and a vast array of stakeholders can find out a great deal.

In some cases, being open means that critics have ready answers and in social media, criticism is often answered by ordinary people who point to corporate content that makes policies and practice clear.

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The background music to the podcast, is by Alexye Nov called Dance Of Life on Saturn and is provided via the podsafe Music network at http://music.podshow.com/. Details are available here

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Speed

2005-11-05T12:11:00.000Z

You can download a podcast about this page here

Speed

There are three parts to Internet speed.

The first is the speed it takes to harness the network. The second is speed stories spread and jump from one medium to the next and the third is the short time the practitioner has to respond to both the traditional and citizen journalist.

Broadband is faster than dial up and makes web browsing faster and better.

The introduction of faster speeds means that we can get better services because more information can come to you each second.

You can test the speed of your service quite easily.

If you send big chunks of information to people accessing your web site, blog or other Internet channel, it will take longer to download and people don't like to wait.

This is why you need to be aware of the typical type of connectivity available for your publics. Is it Broadband or dial-up?

Broadband (which ranges from 2 Mbps to 6 Mbps with some people now getting 8 Mbps and others even more). Broadband, delivers the exciting content online. It also enables VoIP telephony, games and podcasting at speeds that are acceptable and quality that is tolerable. In the USA nearly half of home users have broadband. The international telecommunications Union is of the belief that about a quarter of the population has access to it.

The bigger the bandwidth the better.

But don't bank on it.

A very large part of the population is still using dial up connections.

Speed is also significant for the time it takes for news and information to cycle round the world.

We can look at a story that broke on 20^th June 2006. It is the financial report from British Energy, a Nuclear power generator.

This story went round the world and was available through many online channels.

From the initial Company statement, most media had the results available on line in an hour (Usenet showed its age and the shift to blogging was without a comment for many hours).

Company statement.

Search engines.

Reuters report.

Blog post.

Newspapers comment.

Usenet interest (still waiting).

We see here that the news 'hops' from one channel to another and is available across many channels (and search engines) very quickly.

It was global. It was multi channel.

And to make our point about speed, this news was spread by the Internet was much faster than newspapers, radio and television.

The third element about speed is the time it takes to respond. An out of date web site is not smart. It talks to the visitor of slovenly behaviour rather then up to date and respectful content ready for the visitor.

Then here is the question of response times. If it is hard or slow identifying a spokesperson, many people, like journalist will go elsewhere. They do not have time to fill in forms or hunt for an email address or phone number.

In addition, if a request is made for information and it takes hours to arrive, either the contribution is ignored or, worse, a one sided story results.

This is especially true of citizen journalists who can easily vent their frustrations in public.

The issues for companies for ignoring citizen commentators can be quite dramatic. Not all citizen journalists are professional and yet some are very good and have considerable credentials as well as reputations.

Thus the third element to consider is the response time and capability of the Public Relations department in maintaining up to date content, monitoring coverage across many media and responding to a very wide range of publishers.

The speed effect of the Internet on Public Relations practice is another key feature.

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The background music to the podcast, is by Alexye Nov called Dance Of Life on Saturn and is provided via the podsafe Music network at http://music.podshow.com/. Details are available here

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Reach

2005-11-05T11:24:00.000Z

You can download a podcast about this page here

The important thing to know is that the Internet can be available to a lot of people. It has reach.

We have seen how a celebrity is mentioned across many channels on-line.

Sheer volume of coverage across many channels and through many posts to chat, Usenet, blogs etc. do not represent reach but do raise the chance of being noticed on-line.

There is the potential for millions of people to see what you do as a public relations practitioner on-line.

But with millions of mentions out there about millions of people, companies, government departments, academic organisations and a myriad of other organisation as well as ordinary people, being exposed to anyone is not a foregone consequence.

In fact, exposure to anyone is dependent on the desire of that person to find you.

Being seen on the Internet comes about because what you have published is interesting either to a person or a machine.

People seek information on-line.

They are active in seeking it.

They have an issue (publics form round issues – Grunig and Howe 1984)

People learn about your Internet presence from a number of sources. It can be through personal recommendation, an advertisement on or off line. It can be because someone uses a search engine or through use of a hyperlink. Search engines index and rank sites in many ways. The most successful ones identify the sites that are most 'connected' to similar sites and/or search engine queries.

But sometimes, people find Internet content from a rinted newspaper. The Norther Echo invited its readers to listen to a podcast by the Brish Prime Minister on 3 July 2006 - here is the podcast.

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The background music to the podcast is by Alexye Nov called Appeal to Heavens and is provided via the Podsafe Music network at http://music.podshow.com/. Details are available here

Finding out about publics

2005-11-04T19:55:00.000Z

You can download a podcast about this page here

Finding out about publics

From the last page, when we found out about how people find out stuff from the Internet, we now we have a good idea of what active publics find interesting on-line.

We can see what they see by monitoring the range of media such as web sites, Usenet, blogs, wiki's, podcasts and much else beside.

We can also discover what people want to know by the language they use in social media and by the questions they put to search engines. These are aware publics and we may need to find out more.

This intelligence is very important. It may be that we use it as a form of market research.

From analysis of web page content and the behaviour of web site visitor analysis you will also discover the interests of your visitors.

This means that it is important to know what people find interesting on your site so that you can give them more of the same and encourage their interest and loyalty.

You can also find out how popular web sites are using surveys and statistical analysis of web traffic to sites.

Recent research into the effect of one medium on another and the effectiveness of PR techniques showed that in some sectors, the use of surveys as the means to generate press coverage, had both an effect on bloggers as well and their comments.

More information comes from Web Analytics, a blog by Michael Rappa at North Carolina State University with lots of information about how to find out more about on-line (web) publics.

Finding out about your on-line publics is very important. You will need to use a range of resources and it does take time.

Bearing in mind that the value of your on-line footprint and the fact that this is the biggest shop window your organisation has, this is time well worth spending.

Nielsen Netratings provides a significant amount of information about Internet users and their interests. The ClickZ news about Internet use is a good resource as is Pew Research.

To familiarise your self with Web site Internet Metrics have a look as some of these:

http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

http://www.keywordmax.com/

http://www.coremetrics.com/

http://www.omniture.com/

http://www.webtrends.com/products.aspx

http://www.phpmyvisites.net/

http://www.websidestory.com/

http://www.sane.com/

There are some interesting experts like Marshal Sponder and his blog is here.

Jason Burby is also an expert.

For blogs monitoring and evaluation is available at:

http://performancing.com/

http://www.blogbeat.net/

http://www.measuremap.com/

http://www.blogpulse.com/

from

http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/

To go to the next page:

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What publics want to know

2005-11-04T19:42:00.000Z

You can download a podcast about this page here

What publics want to know

Because your organisation has a web site or any other online property does not mean that anyone will see it or hear it.

People search for information they want to know about when they are curious or have an issue and at a time to suit themselves.

Information will come to them because they know where to look. For example a favourite web site. Often this is a site that is bookmarked on their web browser. They may seek the information using a search engine or because they have created an RSS feed. The may search using social tagging, Some search engines use social tagging to aid searching.

There are two elements here. The first is that bookmarking is archived using hyperlinks, the very backbone of the web. The second is that people use words to search for what they want.

Hyperlinking is important. It is how we can signpost and direct people to web sites, web pages, and thinks like pictures and even podcasts like this one.

We can embed hyperlinks into documents, PDF's, emails and, for some SMS messages.

But, this form of navigation to information can be ignored.

When people use words to find out what they want to know, they are expressing explicit interest.

If we can find out the words people find interesting, then we can use these words as signposts as well.

Finding these words is not as hard as one might imagine. One can use semantic content that people use when they are communicating on their web site, emails, blogs and other communication. This is a process that uses Latent Semantic Analysis. There are a number of commercial products (here I declare an interest) available, often used for summarising documents but which generate 'concept words' to help.

In addition when people use search engines to find out about organisations, they also leave a trail of their interests.

Google exploits this and we can find out what people are looking for in Google trends. Another resourse from Google may help you tag press releases, blog posts and web pages is a keyword generator.

In addition, Wordtracker identifies the words people use to find out more about organisations. And you can try it out here too.

Questions asked about Tesco (and how many times) taken from 341 million search queries from September to November 2004 showed a range of interests:

tesco1225

tesco uk131

tesco car insurance106

tesco insurance98

tescos86

tesco online75

tesco broadband50

tesco stores38

tesco finance27

tesco logo25

tesco travel insurance24

tesco tools22

tesco online shopping21

tesco home insurance18

tesco vee18 ( a controversial singer – is this a problem for Tesco’s PR department – do they know?)

Essentially we are looking for those words (for example corporate and product brand values) that represent the values our organisation and its publics have in common.

Once we have this intelligence we can create content in context for publics for activities such as social bookmarking and tagging and search engine optimisation (which is quite a specialist activity).

One thing we are finding out is that people like to be guided to but can be very upset if they belive that they have been hoodwinked into going to a site they did not want (we will see why when discussing the speed and the Internet next.

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The background music to the podcast, is by Alexye Nov called Dance Of Life on Saturn and is provided via the podsafe Music network at http://music.podshow.com/. Details are available here

Mobile Internet

2005-11-04T19:18:00.000Z

You can download a podcast about this page here

Mobile Internet

For most of its life, the Internet has been associated with computers, latterly with PC's. These needed to be connected to a wire to link them together.

They were tethered by this wire.

Now we have laptops, mobile computers and because we can transmit radio signals from the wire to the laptop, they have become mobile.

Mobile technologies have freed the Internet from the desk and workplace.

Mobile Internet has been available for a long time using Satellite connections. But this did require bulky equipment and was (relatively) high cost.

There are a lot of devices that make the Internet mobile such as laptops with wireless LAN technology, mobile phones, wearable computers and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) with Bluetooth or IRDA interfaces, and USB flash drives and portable media players such as iPod.

For the communicator, this is important because it means that both content on the mobile device (e.g. Laptop) and Internet content is available almost anywhere there is connectivity.

There are a number of types of mobile connectivity. WiFi is a technology based on wireless local area networks (WLAN). The Internet information is broadcast to an area (hotspot) such as a café or library so that, for example laptops and telephones such as Skype (a Voice over Internet Protocol – VoIP telephone network) can access the Internet. Some Wifi networks are big and cover whole cities (see also Wimax).

Then there is cellular telephony, which is the same network as the one used by mobile phones and which is now bringing Internet to mobile devices like cell phones and PDA's. This technology will also provide podcast downloading from 2007 and even faster and better quality content.

Cellular communication is very important to public relations. It encompasses telephone, text, photo and video communication. There are some very famous cases of people transmitting video from cell phones that have found their way to blogs, newspapers and television.

More than 89 million text messages are sent every day. SMS is also available via web, and TV.

SMS to web and web to SMS is an application as is SMS to IM and Chat.

The use of PDA's to provide mobile Internet access (including email and web content) is growing.

Post text and pictures to blogs in (near) real time. The ability to post voice, music and video to blogs is now a reality.

The implications for communicators is that with a cell phone of a lap top anyone can be a reporter or commentator from anywhere and their content and comment can be available globally in a few minutes.

Examples of PR application of mobile is seen when, at exhibition and conference organisers make facilities available for journalists to use wifi as well as bloggers and podcasters.

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The background music to the podcast is by Alexye Nov called Appeal to Heavens and is provided via the Podsafe Music network at http://music.podshow.com/. Details are available here

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More blogs about Mobile Internet.

Internet PR is Multi Channelled

2005-11-04T18:37:00.000Z

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The Internet has Multi - Channels

The Internet offers many communications channels and they all are available to affect organisations and people.

Just look at how much is available about Madonna to over a billion people.

In the last month, There have been several thousand press articles about Madonna. Click here to see how many have been indexed by Google News.

Madonna fan site pages on the web run to millions (half a million refer to Leeds Met)

The oldest form of conversations on-line is Usenet. Over the years there have been over a million personal comments about about Madonna.

It is not unusual for Bloggers to comment about her. Since June 2005, there have been several hundred thousand blogs about Madonna. These are comments by people like you.

Then there is comment in Chat Rooms and on instant messaging.

Madona is mentioned in Wiki's such as Wikipedia and on a great many others.

She is heard on-line in many podcasts as well. Has anyone else seen/heard Madonna's podcast? She's set up a new 'confessions' line for her album promo. People just call up and confess random things.

Of course there may be comment on on-line radio or television.

Internet use is now becoming the dominant channel for many people, replacing TV.

Each of these as well as many other channels for communication are available to the Public Relations practitioner and to a wider public.

It becomes quite clear that if your organisation needs to have an effect on consumers or other organisations, it too will need a big digital footprint.

Most of the comments and contributions to the Madonna on-line image are from third parties. This time the third party content and comment go well beyond newspapers to fan sites, blogs, wiki's, usenet, podcasts and all that social media that is the responsibility of the public relations practitioner.

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A core discipline

2005-11-04T16:50:00.000Z

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A Core Discipline

There is no such thing as e-PR. There is the practice of public relations and there is the Internet.

The Internet is directly significant to most people in the West and influences everyone directly or indirectly however remote and at every age.

There are 1.2 billion people who use the Web.

Today, our government, public services, defence, commerce and social activities cannot operate without use of the Internet.

Our organisations have a 'digital presence'. t is an asset.

They do not control a large part of this asset. It provided by third parties and needs good Public Relations to nurture its value.

To achieve the simplest objectives, practitioners use the Internet.

That means that public relations has to be involved and has to use the Internet.

To re-enforce the ubiquity of the Internet, this year, I am providing this lecture as a blog (weblog). It took me the same amount of time to put this on-line as it does to create a power-point presentation.

PR and the Internet are not a separate activities, they are an integral activity for practitioners.

For information about how many people have access trends and resources click here.

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A Brief History

2005-11-04T16:16:00.000Z

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A History

1962 Data is split into tiny packets that may take different routes to a destination – the net.

1969 ARPANET the forerunner of Usenet.
1971 E-mail invented
1976 Queen Elizabeth sends an e-mail.
1988 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed
1991 World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN
1995 Chartered Institute of Public Relations Conference is put on alert about implications of the web (Dr Reginald Watts, Dr Jon White, Tom Brannan, David Phillips
1997 Google apeared
2000 UK CIPR/PRCA Internet Commission report – The Death of Spin
2001 Dotcom bubble burst and the 'Web was finished
2002 SMS
2003 TV, Radio, Web, Email, Usenet, SMS, Blogs, video and mobile phone technologies converge.
2006 British Brime Minister makes first newspaper podcast.

For more information at the Internet Society click here.

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Full Reading List

(opens in a new window)

Further reading for this page:

Blood, R (2000) ‘Weblogs: a history and perspective’ online at http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Briggs, A (2002) A Social History of the Media: from Gutenberg to the Internet Routledge. Chapter 7

Castells (2001) Chapter 1

Chadwick (2006) pp38-48

Coupey, E (2005) pp5-6

Eccleson, P (1999) ‘New Technology Briefing: an overview of the Internet’ Interactive Marketing 1 (1) pp68-75

Holtz (2002) Chapter 1

Moschovitis, C Poole, H Schyler, T Senft, T (1999) History of the Internet: a chronology 1843 to present

Naughton, J (2000) A Brief History of the Future: the origins of the Internet Phoenix.

Pavlik (1998) Chapter 3

Winston, B (2004) Media Technology and Society: a history from the telegraph to the Internet Chapter 18

Five key elements

2005-11-04T16:03:00.000Z

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Five Key Elements

Five key elements

Reach
Speed
Transparent - for competitive advantage
Porous – because everyone has access
Lost message control because of Internet agency

Reach - of the Internet is huge but your content might only reach one person (you). Of course it could reach millions.

Speed – Information flows very fast. For all intents and purposes, at the speed of light.

Transparency – Everything you put on-line is effectively available for anyone else to see. This means you can make a lot of information available for publics like customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, local communities, special interest groups.

Porous – The Internet is available to anyone and everyone. This means they can publish information about your organisation and they might not ask you first.

Agency – as soon as a message goes out from your organisation, you loose control of it. In addition, people can change your message and make it available on-line and, sometimes, machines can change your message too. The Internet is an agent in its own right.

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More blogs about Internet public relations lecture.

And you can always take advice given to Simba

2005-11-04T15:18:00.000Z

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Finally

So just for empathy's sake.. this lecture has gone on far enough.

This is the first time I have experimented with combining blogs and podcasts as a lecture. As always, comments are welcome.

The podcast is hosted by Our Media on the Internet Archive and throughout, the background music has been by by Alexye Nov via the Podsafe Music Network.

Internet commerce is making it a hot area for work . The pressure to follow the buck and not follow good practice is huge. Don't do it. Shabby practice destroys companies and your reputation will follow you round the Internet forever.

The five things to remember about Internet mediated Public Relations are that it is affected by Reach, speed transparency, porosity and Internet agency and that you will need to consider four elements in developing stragies:

Richness, Reach, Constituency and Empathy.

And, here is just what you need after a long hard lecture.
Just click here and enjoy.

Picture: Walt Disney Pictures

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Hello World

2005-11-04T15:02:00.000Z

This is the first post. It is needed to set up adsense and is useful for testing.