When you start thinking in 'tweets' is it time to worry?

When I was 14 years old I took part in a fairly typical school exchange trip, staying with Carola Herman and her lovely family in a small town just outside Frankfurt, Germany. I was three years into learning to speak German at the time, but a couple of hours a week at school and no previous exposure to native German-speakers meant that my language skills weren't up to much. I stumbled my way through the week able to understand much of what they said to me, but struggling to communicate back. So focussed on trying to speak the lingo, a few days into the trip I found myself unable to think in English. If I couldn't think what I wanted to think in German, I couldn't think at all. A very frustrating and bizarre experience.

There's something about immersing yourself in a culture with such vigor that means you inevitably end up thinking in terms of that culture too. And so, as I was driving along this morning and thinking about the day ahead, I realised that I was thinking in 'tweets' - that is to say, every one of my thoughts had to be 140 characters or less, or I would be thinking about how I would communicate this or that on Twitter. At regular Friday afternoon pub sessions with friends we've also giggled to ourselves about how you stop thinking about people with their real names and start thinking about them and referring to them as their Twitter alias instead. Even my fiance is at times no longer Nathan, but instead @NZMorris. I think there should be a medical name for this condition - twitteritis?

An apology to my blog (look what I've been up to!)

I'm afraid I've been ignoring you, my beloved blog. It isn't that I've fallen out of love with you, it's just I've been a little distracted lately. I'm afraid, dear blog, that I have been playing away a little. At the beginning of this week I created a new social network on Ning for communications and marketing professionals working in the Higher Education sector. HE Comms has been so much more popular in its first week that I ever dreamt it would be, so I've been spending time building on it and further developing it in a bid to spread and retain that initial interest. And, yes, I have also been blogging on HE Comms. It's not the end of our relationship, my dearest lovely blog, but I just need to share my time equally and work out what I post here and what I post directly to HE Comms. You're part of HE Comms too, and feature on the 'other blogs' feed, so don't feel too left out. Who knows, perhaps even some of our new friends on HE Comms might come and spend some time with you my little blog. Keep heart, I haven't lost interest.

Letter to PR Week

Week before last PR Week published an article suggesting that PROs could learn a lot about social media from the US presidential election campaign. Sure, I agree that the candidates are using social media extensively in their campaigns, but I'm not convinced that they're using it particularly well in some cases - Twitter being one such example. So, I wrote a letter to PR Week to say as much, extracts from which were published in Friday's edition. I thought it would be good to post the unedited (albeit restricted to 200 words anyway!) version of my letter here:

Watch but don’t learn from Obama and McCain

Observing the use of digital media in the US election campaign is indeed fascinating. However, I would warn against PROs ‘learning’ from Obama and McCain’s online efforts (News, 10 October). Both campaigns use online media as a one-way communication tool. Their use of Twitter is one example. Obama’s ‘tweets’ tell us nothing more than what rally he is at and where to watch the video. Of the nine tweets made by McCain so far in October, seven of them merely provide links to the latest ads.

Both camps are failing to maximise the true value of social media: community and conversation. They can use social media as a listening tool, and certainly are using it to enable Joe Public to endorse their campaign, but they should also be using it for real conversation that they participate in. Through platforms like Twitter you want to know that it is the man himself busily tweeting on his blackberry between speeches and meetings, not someone hired in to churn out impersonal announcements. PROs could learn far more from the latest celebrity ‘tweeter’ @stephenfry.

International PR - focus on India

Some of my readers may recall that back in February I chaired a CIPR Education & Skills sector group panel discussion on international PR. Following that event I blogged about the ethics of engaging with PR 'norms' in particular countries (specifically in China) and how easily this sits with a UK perspective of PR conduct. This blog post was also converted into a shorter article for ConnectEd, the newsletter of the CIPR Education & Skills Sector group.

Today the headline 'Why do PR people pamper the media?' posted by @IndiaPRBlog on Twitter grabbed my attention. This blog post, written by Vikas Kumar provides an interesting insight into the practice of gifting journalists to get them to cover your story or event. I thought my readers might be interested to read this too, particularly in light of earlier posts.