Tech Culture

Are Social Media Consultants Harming Social Media?

The logic goes like this. The traditional marketing funnel is broken. You can't just throw a bunch of money at an advertising campaign and have that turn into customers. At least not to the levels you could when there were just three channels or four channels of communication. The web and social media has changed all that. So rather than waiting for customers to come to you, you have to go to them and engage with them in the same way they engage with each other. So that means blogs, that means Twitter streams and than means Facebook applications. Basically that means moving your marketing messages into the social media space . Most companies have little idea how the web works, let alone how people use it, so in order to reach this new generation of consumer, they hire the services of a Social Media Consultant.

How your online business can survive a global recession

Traditional business is simple. You create a product or service you think customers will want, and then spend money to drive people towards that product or service. If you're lucky, some of those people will want to user your product or service and you'll make money. This can be through direct charges or, in the case of content creation, selling this attention on to other companies.

Whither W3C?

I've been a strong proponent of web standards since first being introduced to them "back in 2000 by Jefrey Zeldman":http://www.zeldman.com/com0100b.html. I started discussing standards on my "local mailing list":http://www.brightonnewmedia.org/, then on my blog, and finally at conferences and events. I even "wrote a book":http://www.cssmastery.com/ on the subject.

More Blogging in Government

A few months ago I had the pleasure of being invited to talk to a group of civil servants on the subject of "blogging in government":http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2005/09/blogging_in_government/. The talk was part of a larger event that also covered web accessibility, so myself and "Tom":http://www.plasticbag.org/ were only really able to scratch the surface. The day was really fun, and I was surprised how interested people were in the subject. So much so, I was invited back to give an expanded talk, which I gave yesterday.

The Six Stages of Technological Acceptance

I was listening to "Derek Featherstone's":http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/ "WE05 podcast":http://we05.com/podcast/ the other day and he mentioned how the "5 stages of grief":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief mirrored many peoples experience of web accessibility. You would start off with *denial*, claiming that accessibility wasn't an issue that you needed to be aware of. You would then move into *anger*, being annoyed that you were forced to do something you didn't want to do. You would then start *bargaining*; "how about if I only reach single-A conformance?". You would next hit *depression*, being frustrated about how difficult things were. And lastly, you would come to *acceptance* making accessibility part of your every day life.

Blogging in Government

Today I had the pleasure of giving a talk to members of the governments e-communications network, part of the larger Government Communication Network. In the first of a series of events, the group invited a number of people from the web design community to discuss the subjects of accessibility and blogging. Along with Joe Clark, Alastair Campbell, Patrick Lauke and Tom Coates, I was given the honour of being asked to speak.