PR and Communications Blog Insights Ireland – Digitalised Communications http://www.eoinkennedy.ie Traditional and Online Merged Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:27:01 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 Time for Bing to Shine as Viable Search Engine. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/time-bing-shine-search-engine/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/time-bing-shine-search-engine/#respond Tue, 05 Apr 2016 11:30:33 +0000 http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/?p=4068 I have not used Microsoft’s Bing search engine in quite a while.  Despite great promise at launch in 2009 it still lingers at sub 10% usage versus the omni present Google.  I find the results take a good bit more work...

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Bing Glowing

I have not used Microsoft’s Bing search engine in quite a while.  Despite great promise at launch in 2009 it still lingers at sub 10% usage versus the omni present Google.  I find the results take a good bit more work and less customised for Irish searches especially from my laptop.

However most of the time I use my iPhone for a large portion of searches and this is where Bing and alternative search engines have sudden become really important.  The iOS 9.3 update caused all sorts of problems particularly with trying to open links in searches.  Searches on the iPhone delivers the results but would not open the website when you click on the results.  A real problem when you are out and about and fully reliant on always on immediate answers to problems.

My own work around was to use Bing which although not perfect was good enough to find what I was looking for and it struck me as a perfect opportunity for Microsoft to remind the world that our over reliance on Google is not a particularly good thing.  Bing has now mentally moved for me and will probably impact on my future search activity.  I have downloaded the latest iPhone update which promises to fix the issue but the opening for a competitor has crept in.

Its an interesting conundrum for Google who is not to blame but opportunities like these do not present themselves very often for competitors and surprised I am not seeing more advantage been taken of it.  We are creatures of habits and engrained behaviour is very hard to change.  It also shows a chink in Google armour – however small and temporary.

Personally I will be using alternatives more from a position where I was happy to just get one view.

For anyone interested Wikipedia has a nice collection of the other many search alternatives.

 

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Will Data Kill the PR Star. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/public-relations/will-data-kill-the-pr-star/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/public-relations/will-data-kill-the-pr-star/#respond Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:57:23 +0000 http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/?p=4057   Last week I chaired a low key session with the PRII on the topic of Data Driven Journalism that ended on a more positive note than I had expected.  Some very pragmatic pointers from the session and although its not...

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Image courtesy of News Access

Image courtesy of News Access

 

Last week I chaired a low key session with the PRII on the topic of Data Driven Journalism that ended on a more positive note than I had expected.  Some very pragmatic pointers from the session and although its not quite revolution it’s a trend that is sure to continue, at an accelerated speed.

Data analysis has always been a key driver in the media but in 2009 when the Washington Post let award winning journalist Dan Froomkin go, supposedly because of low website views, I often think that the die was cast for its future central role.

Since then we have seen an incredible explosion in the amount of data being shared.  We have witnessed articles written by algorithms and algorithms that decide what news we get to see and don’t.  It was only time before these started to impact on the PR/Journalist relationship.

In one way data and data crunching is nothing new to the PR industry.  We became experts in the survey release, punchy statistics and more recently generating eye catching infographics.  Whats different is the speed, volume, scale, availability of open data and the variety of tools that are available which brings up important areas like skillsets and training for the industry.

When you gloomily look at this area logic would say we are also not far from PR pitches being potentially decided by data crunching algorithms – based on past and projected viewership, which is a scary prospect.

The three speakers on day gave a really deep dive in their allocated 10 minutes so I have tried to capture some of what they covered.  The speakers were:

Cyril Moloney, a Senior Account Director at PSG Plus specialising in online and tech PR.  

Pamela Duncan, who is one of the main contributors to the Irish Times’ data-driven journalism initiative;  

Dermot Casey, a director at Near Future and a Storyful pioneer; 

First up was Cyril Moloney who helped to put these developments into context and also some steps the industry should take.

His takeaways.

  • “Don’t believe algorithms and data scientists will replace PRs/journalists, but we (PR) need to evolve (the human element/story context and the ability to tell a good story will only be enhanced by data journalism)”
  • “More the change – more the same – PR and data stories (indexes, consumer surveys), but we need to evolve beyond short term use of these tactics”
  • “PR measurements need to reflect digital and we as an industry need to better implement the Barcelona Principles of measurement for clients”
  • “However PR needs to evolve as data journalism will change the playing field in terms of story pitching and news (in some respects, mirror a digital newsroom)”
  • “Great opportunity for PR to use data journalism techniques to create better stories”
  • “Agree standards and processes and share data sets with the media (to avoid the “my data scientist is better than your data scientist” scenario) – a big risk, but potentially big gain for transparency and trust (can’t be about your Google analytics alone)”
  • “Great role for citizen data journalists /data scientist PRs to spot trends and issues for clients”
  • “PR training will have to evolve to incorporate data collation, clean, analyse and report”
  • “Transition will be a challenge (traditional PR still here/and clients may have to lead with their chin and consider digital not just print – but better data and measurement is the reward). Clients may resist this as a ‘fad’, and push back”

He was followed by Pamela Duncan from the Irish Times Data Division @irishtimesdata which launched a few weeks ago and has been producing some interesting infographics, visualisations and data driven stories.  She gave some fascinating insights into how this all works in the Irish times, the type of stories, the tools you use and some useful pointers on how the PR industry can help especially in terms of type data you look for.

The main tools used are Excel and also Datawrapper amongst a few other specialist tools but spreadsheets are the first thing she opens up every morning.

Some takeaway quotes.

  • “Data journalism is worthwhile: it’s not a fad, it’s not something that is going away because more and more data is becoming available all the time and the tools to tell the story are also on the increase. “
  • “We are interested in data journalism because there are some seriously good, important and worthwhile stories in the available data and it’s always been the job of journalists to dig them out”
  • “I think there are benefits to both PR practitioners and journalists if they can include interesting data sets with reports/surveys etc: if I get a dataset and the data is interesting enough to warrant a graphic or interactive map then the story either gets more space in the paper or more traction online: so there’s an advantage for all sides.”
  • “PR practitioners are already providing data: it’s in the body of the report or in indices in the back pages. But if I have that data in accessible format – we’re talking Excel here, nothing scary – then I can easily examine and make graphics or interactives using that data if it warrants it. If it’s in a non-readable PDF it’s much harder sell.”
  • “That said I wouldn’t encourage PR people to take huge time over building graphs and maps because, chances are newsrooms are going to have to recreate them using the programmes and software that’s compatible with their systems”
  • “But quality of the data is paramount: if you are going to give me a report and a data set attached to it I need to be able to rely on it. So there is, I suppose an argument for PR people to be trained in some data journalism skills – again an Excel course would probably suffice for most.”

My takeaway from Pamela was that interpretative content like press releases and summary reports gives useful guidance but the raw data is where she her own unique angles from.  Gone are the day of surveys of 10 people and hiding certain things in reports if the full data set is issued.

Finally Dermot Casey from Near Future gave a good overview of what is happening internationally, how data driven reporting is driving change and how data compiling was handled and evolved in Storyful.

  • “Lost of investigative journalism is data journalism in slow motion.”
  • “The inverted hierarchy is Compile / Clean / Context / Combine / Communicate”
  • “The local is global.   The Trichet Letters from EU to Ireland was a Data Journalism story over a very small Data point.”
  • “Los Vegas Sun looked at 2.9 million hospital records and found 300 preventable deaths from analysing the data. Nevada brought in six pieces of legislation on the back of it.”
  • “In Storyful debunking is as important as finding information. Is it true. Is it real. Can you prove it.”
  • “”We found some of the key background information by Anders Behring Breivik  the Norwegian gunman. We curated the information in real time and then dug into his background and found his manifesto. It was designed to be found but not to be too easy to find.”
  • “With Syria we’re watching a war where both sides are documenting their war crimes in real time. And Storyful has worked with YouTube to preserve important video.  But sometimes videos are fake so how do you know its true. Is there really a shark on the New York Stock Exchange (but there are tweets and video). Those Tornado photos from New York, they’re 1973 not yesterday.”
  • “The Google Truth project is interesting in this context as soon when you google for Measles you won’t get any information on anti-vaxxers. They’re rolling that softly through other areas, so what does that mean for journalism and for PR people and are Facebook doing something similar.  In many cases 90% of traffic to sites is coming from Facebook and from Google.”
  • “Algorithms are already deciding what’s important (AP publish 3,000 stories per quarter written by Robots).”
  • “Role of the tools is as an Exo-skeleton helping Journalists sift through 90% of the rubbish so they can focus on the 10% of value – Storyful has built a suite of tools to do just that.  Other people are doing it as well.”

With about 70 people in attendance the response from the floor was slightly muted.  Jacqueline Hall enquired about the state or readiness and future training requirements.  Cyril Moloney felt the industry was around a 2 on scale of 1-5 while Pamela Duncan felt that even improving basic spreadsheet skills could help a lot and Dermot Casey has some ideas about a data driven journalism course.

Sinead Whooley questioned how new all this was.   Data has always been central but agreed that the tools gave new scale and importance.  She also tackled the elephant in the room about the reluctance for open sharing of data by some PR practitioners.  This reluctance is frequently due more to massaging figures and controling the message – a topic that arises a lot in the PR/Journalist relationship.

Although there were clear opportunities highlighted during the session there was a overall sense of pessimism about the future of PR but Padraig McKeon finished on a very positive note of the industry ‘lifting up its head’ and that the real future lies with those who control information.

PR’s has an natural affinity to this role but the potential to be left behind or overtaken by others who embrace the tools and technology is, in my opinion, very real.

However my gut feel is glass half full for an industry populated with some great minds.

Keith Bohanna from Near Future live streamed much of the session using Meerkat.

 

 

 

 

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So its all about the money. Top 2015 Predictions. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/so-its-all-about-the-money-top-2015-predictions/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/so-its-all-about-the-money-top-2015-predictions/#respond Wed, 25 Feb 2015 08:33:42 +0000 http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/?p=3771 One of the phrases from last nights OMiG event in Galway last night that has stuck in my mind is one by Sean Earley from New Slang  “If its not worth spending money on, its not worth posting” Ever since...

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Its al

One of the phrases from last nights OMiG event in Galway last night that has stuck in my mind is one by Sean Earley from New Slang 

“If its not worth spending money on, its not worth posting”

Ever since organic reach within Facebook plunged to near zero content marketeers have advocated media spend to get any sort of visibility within the platform.  However what Sean is advocating is that you need to allocate budget to pretty much all content.  It show how blurred the lines have become from the days when ‘Paid’ media were interruption promotional ads, ‘Owned” was organically rich and discoverable interesting content you seeded and ‘Earned’ was pure editorial you worked for with good content.  As interruption based marketing becomes increasingly filtered and blocked its no surprise there has been a rush to content based marketing.  Good content will always do reasonably well but needs patience and rule of thumb figures quote 5X effort per piece of content in terms of promoting it.  Sean quoted a 50% (of budget) media spend allocation for videos.  Gone are the days when creating good quality content was the hardest part – the journey is only beginning then.  This really impacts brands on these platforms rather than publishers who are treated kinder by the algorithms but its not unusual for journalists to have a modest budget to help promote stories.  Some Irish companies read these signs well in the early days such as PropelAd  who had a scientific/algorithm driven approach to selecting content that had the attributes of virality which they boosted with the Facebook ad engine.  Earned media is not immune either with services like Outbrain and Taboola further blurring the lines with their offer of ‘surfacing’ earned content on news sites.

This all led to some interesting discussion with Oisin Browne from the CityBin company who felt that social should remain social with great content and bought media on the platforms focused on revenue generating activities.  Expect lots of judgement calls but with the platforms calling the shots the choice might be limited.

In general this is all good news for the agencies and possibly in particular PR agencies who never really managed to get any of the media spend pie allocation.  If they can continue to be the creators of good content and clients accept the need to back it up with decent media spent it is going to be very disruptive in the PR/Advertising industry.  The ad industry will not let go easily and in fairness there is a very specialised skill set in media buying that few in PR possess.  However the ease of running ads and promoting content through these networks has become so user friendly that the barriers to entry are very low.

Sean called out Twitter cards as one particular area to watch this year and there are lots of really good deployments visible daily on Twitter.  For a nice introduction see RazorSocial’s tutorial.

Sean’s talk mainly looks at the trends for 2015 which is always a tough ask and risky.  My personal favourite was the rise of the new Bebo which is his favourite social network, so brace yourself for more platforms to get your head around and manage.  There were also some nice pointers on the need to have a good multi media mix in posts with photo updates scoring lowest on unique organic impressions.  Video scored the highest and the need for a coherent video strategy was well made.

Social Media Predictions for 2015

Social Media Predictions for 2015

Some of the other trends discussed are below but lots to digest.

  • Continued rise of video.
  • The dawn of Twitter zero.
  • Hacking and experimentation with new platforms.
  • Switching of of always one by brands.

 

 

 

 

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You learn a lot by judging. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/social-networking/you-learn-a-lot-by-judging/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/social-networking/you-learn-a-lot-by-judging/#respond Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:40:16 +0000 http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/?p=3762   Strange things can happen once you have been asked to judge something. As a learning opportunity it cannot be matched. Today I spotted the tweet looking for judges for the SME awards  run by Damien Mulley. From previous experience...

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Judging Awards

 

Strange things can happen once you have been asked to judge something.

As a learning opportunity it cannot be matched.

Today I spotted the tweet looking for judges for the SME awards  run by Damien Mulley. From previous experience I know I am writing off at least a days work, which in the land of self-employment means no revenue for that time.

Before you jump right into it or press delete think about some of the reasons why you would make the investment.

What’s involved?

In general judges are asked to review a large short list and some follow up rounds. In reviewing you are given criteria guidance and the best awards have pretty frictionless online recording systems (drop down boxes 1-10 type). Of course you need to review each site – check out the content, gauge the interaction, evaluate the look and feel, measure the consistency amongst other criteria. All of this takes time, patience, a good deal of attention to detail and can be pretty tiring work.

Why would you put yourself through it?

Learning

Personally I have found that I benefit a lot from the being forced to broaden my reading horizon and expand out of my comfort zone. We are creature of comfort and lots of really good content just never reaches me despite being on social and search quite a bit. The range of writing styles is also fascinating and I always pick up some nice tips from the observation. Look and feel of websites change extremely quickly partially as technology changes (think mobile and swiping) and the ease of changing themes in wordpress. Being exposed to a wide variety in a condensed period really sparks off ideas.

View the world differently

We process so much content on a daily basis that we rarely evaluate or critique it properly. In the world of 140 characters we might follow a link to long form content but speed-read and jump off elsewhere, never to return.

When you are judging a site or service you see things that can otherwise be invisible and you also notice things that should be there. The process really sharpens up your ability to critique something and to truly consume it – a handy skill outside of awards.

Feeling good about yourself.

Awards take a huge amount of organisation and commitment to pull off well. Most awards start off with an admirable ethos to inform, educate, acknowledge (great work) and connect (award ceremony itself). They also offer an opportunity to generate large sums of money, which can rapidly become the main rationale for organising them and really sour the ethos. When organisers strike a balance between the commercial and educational basis they can really create something that genuinely enhances the community. It does feel good to be involved with something that rewards great work, raises the standard and acts as a beacon and roadmap for future work.

We all have a ego.

Being able to say you were a judge of an awards ceremony does offer some blagging rights and also confers a reasonable amount of perceived expertise/wisdom. Nothing wrong this once you use in moderation. Its easy enough to subtly drop in some observations on web design, content marketing etc into client conversations that you picked up as a judge. In a world of vanilla sometimes small differentiations can help. Some award organisers will promote your role as a judge which helps spread the word (link also helps).

Its good to be involved.

One of the things I have picked up from attending numerous awards ceremonies, networking meetings and conferences is that those who just pay the ticket price and show up on the day get much less from the experience from those that plan their attendance. Judging naturally forces this upon you but it means that when you arrive you have a list of those whom you have good reason to meet and some really good conversation starters.

And finally.

The decision to gift your time as a judge should not be made lightly – don’t do it if you cannot do it right – and don’t expect immediate commercial return. However if you enter with the right spirit you can learn a lot in very short period and create some genuine goodwill by helping to improve the business environment. Karma and Serendipity are alive and well.

To date I have helped judge the Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards, the Blog Awards, Blog Awards Ireland and helped with numerous others from PRCA awards to the Repak Recycling Awards.  Today I signed up for the SME Awards  and the Online Marketing in Galway awards. Interestingly the OMiG award detail ‘What’s in it for you?’.

 

 

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Data Driven Journalism. Watch out PR. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/online-pr/data-driven-journalism-watch-pr/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/online-pr/data-driven-journalism-watch-pr/#respond Mon, 09 Feb 2015 14:14:26 +0000 http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/?p=3744   The formal launch of the Irish Times data section last week unveils an interesting emerging picture in the world of data driven journalism. Social media and Twitter in particular have been very fertile grounds for journalists but the pure volume...

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The impact of data driven journalism on PR

 

The formal launch of the Irish Times data section last week unveils an interesting emerging picture in the world of data driven journalism. Social media and Twitter in particular have been very fertile grounds for journalists but the pure volume of data is a mixed blessing. Lots of new information but the sheer amount of it can be hard to handle.

This is where the data journalists step in.

Over the last year Irish media outlets like the Irish Times and the Irish Independent have been rapidly recruiting graduates and researchers from the Insight Centre. Some of these have done very interesting semantic analysis on elections for Irish online news sites in the past so its not hard to see their usefulness to the traditional media industry.

The first wave of data driven journalism is likely to involve crunching of large scale data sets to produce some nice tidy news and feature stories/infographics. This will probably be followed by long tail focused articles that hit very select niches and probably seem out of place with the normal selection of articles.

This development and the increasing appearance of infographics, video, audio and other content forms are to be welcomed.

However I have some nagging dimmed alarm bells ringing in the deep recesses of my brain when I think about some potential directions these developments could go.

Ever since the sacking of the award winning Washington Post political journalist Dan Froomkin due to poor website site traffic figures in 2009, the potential for algorithm and data driven decision making taking over from journalist gut feel has been pretty clear.

This will all have a big impact on the PR industry. On one side new content forms are good but if algorithms were to utilised to decide if something was covered or not – this is bad news.

Take this small example of what currently happens every day.

PR executive phones journalist to pitch story. They have a well oiled pitch, customised to the papers profile, they know its in the journalist interest area and they have a friendly relationship – all good practice. Journalist listens to the pitch, visualises the articles, does a mental run through of pitching it to the editor and if he trusts the source and has enough autonomy to make a decision then its green light.

Now picture this future scenario.

PR executive repeats process. Journalist puts the article pitch into the news algorithm cruncher. This checks for similar stories or companys name, checks the amount of web traffic it generated, the amount of social sharing, the influence of the company, the likely readership of the piece, the ad potential and produces a report to say this article is not commercially viable.

Journalist says the machine said no.

How do you argue against data?

I love the insights that data can give but really hope these developments do not see the human element being removed.

Not everyone is as gloomy Luke Capizzo portrays a less scary world for PR in his analysis

Taking the journalist side there are some nice snappy quotes in this piece by the Data Journalism Handbook including the ominously titled one “An Answer to Data-driven PR”

Journalist and PR companies utilising and crunching data is nothing new but now the tools are much more sophisticated, the news environment is much more competitive, investment in journalists has dropped and the rush to get stories out first has increased.

As new business models emerge I imagine they will introduce new challenges and opportunities.  Take the above example with a publicly accessible tool that could scan a PR pitch to see if it was likely to be accepted by an editorial team – could save a lot of time and effort for both sides.

Watch this space for a lot of disruption.

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The New Rules of Marketing and PR. #book I read http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/online-pr/the-new-rules-of-marketing-and-pr-book-i-read/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/online-pr/the-new-rules-of-marketing-and-pr-book-i-read/#respond Thu, 24 Apr 2014 10:04:54 +0000 http://eoinkennedy.ie/blog/?p=584 I felt my head nodding a lot as I read David Meerman Scott’s updated ‘The New Rules of Marketing and PR” which has been on my reading list for a long time. Updating a book of this nature can be...

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I felt my head nodding a lot as I read David Meerman Scott’s updated ‘The New Rules of Marketing and PR” which has been on my reading list for a long time.

Updating a book of this nature can be tricky, especially in world of shifting sands and on occasion the updating feels like new case studies rather than a fundamental rethink.  In 2007 I can imagine it would have had a much bigger impact on my thinking.

The book is well laid out with stand alone chapters although I went through it from front to back.  In scanning a book of this nature you can easily miss one of the main attributes, which is his first hand experience of actually doing much of what he writes about.  I did pick up some handy tips and in some cases a nice way of branding something that most PR companies have been doing for a long time without a term for it – newsjacking.  This practice of jumping on to an emerging news topic with your own value add content is not new (although twitter does add an extra element) but I can see it popping up on lots more PR plans.

For the last few PR companies who are purely focused on publicity and the traditional media this book is an absolute must.  For those who are awash in social media and the evolving trends it’s a good reminder and a handy reference tool.

 

I agree with the author on the demise of interruption marketing but the impact of key influentials versus smaller groups as in Paul Adams book Grouped is up for debate.

 

Book cover of the New Rules of Marketing and PR

David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR

Although I see an almost daily demise in the newspaper industry there is still plenty of value in traditional media relations and the skill of gaining earned media.  The PR skills of negotiation, content creating, selling stories, influencing content creators are timeless and will continue to be in demand.  The key is understanding the trends and riding the wave.

 

The book is available on Amazon in printed form or audio.

 

 

 

You can also see Mr Meerman Scott in action being interviewed on YouTube.

 

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Online Book Club Anyone? http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/online-book-club-anyone/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/online-book-club-anyone/#respond Mon, 17 Feb 2014 16:39:55 +0000 http://eoinkennedy.ie/blog/?p=576 I have finally managed to get back to my reading list and really enjoying physical books again.  I recently finished Paul Adam’s book Grouped.  This book is now likely to gather dust regardless of my intention of using it as...

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I have finally managed to get back to my reading list and really enjoying physical books again.  I recently finished Paul Adam’s book Grouped.  This book is now likely to gather dust regardless of my intention of using it as a reference book.

With this in mind and with the www.congregation.ie #cong13 hat in mind I was going to offer the book up as part of book club.  Some very simple rules.

  • Available books to be offered on Twitter using #congbookclub and book name.
  • Open call for people interested in reading.
  • First to DM or email address gets the book posted to them.
  • Return the karma if possible by posting back another book.
  • Use #congbookclub to let people know who has what book.
  • Write your name/twitter hand and date on the inside cover as record of who read it.
  • Try to read the book as quickly as possible and offer onwards via #congbookclub.
  • Try to review and share your views on Blog/Twitter.

Happy to kick off by offering Grouped by Paul Adams to the first person who DMs or emails me their address – eoin at congregation dot ie or Eoink and Congregation13 on Twitter.

Share social media books you have read

Share social media books you have read 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76686348@N05/

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Books I Read #4. Grouped by Paul Adams http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/books-i-read-4-grouped-by-paul-adams/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/books-i-read-4-grouped-by-paul-adams/#respond Mon, 17 Feb 2014 15:39:43 +0000 http://eoinkennedy.ie/blog/?p=571 Despite all  the leaps in technology we are still complex social creatures and an solid in-depth understanding of psychology rather than technology will define the winners in marketing and business.  Paul Adam’s book ‘Grouped’ is a surprisingly short read (it...

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Paul Adams, Grouped

The power of friends and small networks.

Despite all  the leaps in technology we are still complex social creatures and an solid in-depth understanding of psychology rather than technology will define the winners in marketing and business.  Paul Adam’s book ‘Grouped’ is a surprisingly short read (it took me two afternoons and I am a slow reader) but its insights are based upon a lifetime of research as evidenced in the long reference lists.  He debunks certain commonly held truths (the primacy of the ‘online influencer’) and also gives a succinct analysis of human behaviour.  I studied psychology in college and really enjoyed the pragmatic, if possibly selective nature of the why we do certain things.

Paul works for Facebook and previously Google so sometimes the books feels initially like an justification of why certain services are so good for business but rapidly it become clear that the online functions we see and accept on these platforms are based upon a deep understanding of anthropology, psychology and human interaction.  A ‘like’ feels like such a frivolous thing until you start to think about permission marketing and changing attitudes.

Some of his takeaways are:

  • The web is being rebuilt around people and the social web is here to stay.  Those who can market to connected groups of friends will win.
  • Our immediate networks are small but those closest to us have a disproportionate impact on us.
  • The impact of influencers is overrated in spreading ideas over the structure of networks.
  • Our non conscious brain drives most decisions, emotion carry more weight and we look for things that match our beliefs.
  • Information overload will increase emphasis and reliance on friends for evaluation, decisions and information.

The light presentation of conclusion makes this book seem like common sense but its only as a glance back through the pages that I get the deeper meaning and significance of his points.

A lot of work went into making it this simple.

On a complete aside Dublin does get a few mentions and its interesting to seem Jameson Irish Whiskey mentioned a few times as a case study.

You can see more about the author here.

 

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Insights from 57 social media experts. http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/insights-from-57-social-media-experts/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/uncategorized/insights-from-57-social-media-experts/#respond Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:25:49 +0000 http://eoinkennedy.ie/blog/?p=562 I have been a bit neglectful of the blog in recent times but I promise I have been busy elsewhere online. At the end of last year year I had the pleasure of organising a social media ‘unconference’ called Congregation.ie....

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I have been a bit neglectful of the blog in recent times but I promise I have been busy elsewhere online. At the end of last year year I had the pleasure of organising a social media ‘unconference’ called Congregation.ie. #cong13

Congregation logo
It was a fascinating journey from the initial meetings with MKC Communications, who sponsored the event, through building the website, finding the experts and watching a really interesting content marketing approach unfold (including 57 posts by Irish experts).  I found the advance sharing, online socialising and the use of Audioboo by participants particularly fascinating.

The day itself tried out an experimental approach in networking and information sharing and I have compiled the insights from the experience and the 57 papers from the participants in a free eBook.

The eBook is available by clicking the image below or visiting this link.  You have a choice of formats:  a downloadable pdf or an ePub – the latter thanks to Bernie Goldbach (if you prefer to view on your mobile device).

#cong13, congregation report, congregation eBook

Click to download the Congregation eBook

The only ask is that if you are sharing online that you use #cong13 in any tweets or posts.

If you like what you see and are interested in #cong14 drop me a line on eoin@congregation.ie.

Eoin

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Markup: HTML Tags and Formatting http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/web-design/markup-html-tags-and-formatting/ http://www.eoinkennedy.ie/web-design/markup-html-tags-and-formatting/#respond Sun, 15 Dec 2013 12:29:20 +0000 http://us-themes.com/wp/Vittoria/?p=68 Header one Header two Header three Header four Header five Header six This is default paragraph. Morbi sagittis sem quis lacinia faucibus, this is a text link orci ipsum gravida tortor, vel interdum mi sapien ut justo. Nulla varius consequat...

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Header one

Header two

Header three

Header four

Header five
Header six

This is default paragraph. Morbi sagittis sem quis lacinia faucibus, this is a text link orci ipsum gravida tortor, vel interdum mi sapien ut justo. Nulla varius consequat magna, id molestie ipsum volutpat quis. Suspendisse consectetur fringilla luctus. Fusce id mi diam, non ornare orci. Pellentesque ipsum erat, facilisis ut venenatis eu, sodales vel dolor. Suspendisse consectetur fringilla luctus.

Single line blockquote:

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Multi line blockquote with a cite reference:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things. Steve Jobs – Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference, 1997

Unordered Lists (Nested)

  • List item one
    • List item one
      • List item one
      • List item two
      • List item three
      • List item four
    • List item two
    • List item three
    • List item four
  • List item two
  • List item three
  • List item four

Ordered Lists (Nested)

  1. List item one
    1. List item one
      1. List item one
      2. List item two
      3. List item three
      4. List item four
    2. List item two
    3. List item three
    4. List item four
  2. List item two
  3. List item three
  4. List item four

HTML Tags

These supported tags come from the WordPress.com code FAQ.

Address Tag

1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
United States

Anchor Tag (aka. Link)

This is an example of a link.

Abbreviation Tag

The abbreviation srsly stands for “seriously”.

Acronym Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

The acronym ftw stands for “for the win”.

Big Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

These tests are a big deal, but this tag is no longer supported in HTML5.

Cite Tag

“Code is poetry.” —Automattic

Code Tag

You will learn later on in these tests that word-wrap: break-word; will be your best friend.

Delete Tag

This tag will let you strikeout text, but this tag is no longer supported in HTML5 (use the <strike> instead).

Emphasize Tag

The emphasize tag should italicize text.

Insert Tag

This tag should denote inserted text.

Keyboard Tag

This scarsly known tag emulates keyboard text, which is usually styled like the <code> tag.

Preformatted Tag

This tag styles large blocks of code.

.post-title {
	margin: 0 0 5px;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-size: 38px;
	line-height: 1.2;
	and here's a line of some really, really, really, really long text, just to see how the PRE tag handles it and to find out how it overflows;
}

Quote Tag

Developers, developers, developers… –Steve Ballmer

Strike Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

This tag shows strike-through text

Strong Tag

This tag shows bold text.

Subscript Tag

Getting our science styling on with H2O, which should push the “2” down.

Superscript Tag

Still sticking with science and Isaac Newton’s E = MC2, which should lift the 2 up.

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