Month: February 2008

Redesigning DavePress

I have been wanting to give this blog a redesign almost ever since I started it. For some reason I just haven’t taken to the Mandigo theme I was using – a bit dark, maybe? I do think that darker themes are less forgiving of some of the clutter that we bloggers like to fill our sidebars with.

So, I have settled on PopBlue, by Bob, which is a much lighter theme and hopefully the single sidebar will focus attention on the content rather than the widgets and other crud. I ‘designed’ a quick logo, using an icon from the free Crystal Clear set and a bit of text.

Couple of jobs to get done though, including:

  •  Sorting out the CSS for images so that text floats nicely  around them in posts (any help gratefully received…)
  • Making blockquotes stand out a bit more
  • Replacing the standard search bar with my Google CSE one

So, there is plenty to be done…

Social Media Risks

One thing that came out of the recent barcamp for UK government types is that as much as those who really dig this stuff do their best to champion its use wherever possible, it really comes down to how senior managers feel about it.

The issue, of course, is one of risk. Doing anything different is inherently risky, and when that something different is directly engaging with people through an online conversational medium, then it’s even riskier. I don’t think we social media enthusiasts should ignore the fact (and it is, I think, a fact) that there are some really quite persuasive arguments as to why government, or indeed any organisation, shouldn’t go near this stuff.

Shel Holtz has come up with five common reasons why organisations won’t risk social media:

#1 – IT won’t let us

IT doesn’t want to spend the time or money to test social media software on company networks, claiming it can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take up to a year to make sure applications don’t conflict with existing programs. They also resist external hosting, asserting that it puts company data at too much risk. (Makes you wonder how much they care about our 401(k) data, since that’s never housed on internal servers.)

#2 – It will be abused

Employees will say inappropriate things. Customers will complain. Bad language will appear on comments. People will insult management. We’ll end up spending time on issues we don’t really think are important. Care to add to the list?

#3 – Management fears loss of control

The company has invested considerable time, effort, and money to craft a brand image that will be completely destroyed if we open it up to the masses. Besides, transparency is a bad thing and we don’t need our internal workings on display.

#4 – Legal and regulatory risks

Nobody likes a lawsuit. Besides, the Securities and Exchange Commission will the company if an employee inadvertently makes a forward-looking material statement. Pharmaceutical companies fear the FDA’s punitive powers for promotion of unapproved indications while the financial services industry fears fines from the bodies that regulate their activities.

#5 – We don’t have the time or resources

Communicators are already overworked. Where are they supposed to find the time to do all this new stuff? How can they even stay on top of the ever-shifting social media landscape?

These are all valid points, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t convincing counter-arguments, or mitigating actions that can be made to minimise them. In a future post I will cover what we can do to convince people that these are issues that can be overcome.

Digital Curator

One of the interesting discussions at yesterday’s focus group meeting at Ruralnet was around the idea that by aggregating all the content that’s out there on rural issues, Ruralnet might end up overloading people with information. In other words, no matter how well tagged and categorised content is, an awful lot of people just don’t have the skills or the experience to deal with a huge amount of information.

What sort of skills are required? Some are:

  • The ability to scan web pages and articles to check for relevance/interest
  • The use of RSS to subscribe to content you are interested in
  • Using tags to further break down content to identify the stuff you really want
  • Using tools like social bookmarking to clip content to read/use later

Steve Rubel has written an interesting post today, entitled ‘The Digital Curator in Your Future‘:

The call of the curator requires people who are selfless and willing to act as sherpas and guides. They’re identifiable subject matter experts who dive through mountains of digital information and distill it down to its most relevant, essential parts. Digital Curators are the future of online content. Brands, media companies and dedicated individuals can all become curators. Further, they don’t even need to create their own content, just as a museum curator rarely hangs his/her own work next to a Da Vinci. They do, however, need to be subject matter experts.

The point here is that the tools are not enough. Google Reader, Del.icio.us etc already exist and can be used to manage and view information. But the need is there for a guiding human hand, someone used to dealing with large amounts of information and with the ability to be able to spot at a glance what is useful, and to whom.

This is yet another facet of the role that is emerging, including the community facilitators that Steve Dale has written about, and the online community organiser that Seth Godin has discussed. Bring in other elements: Steve Bridger‘s buzz director, David Wilcox‘s institutional hacker, Nancy White‘s community technology steward.

Slowly there is a job description building up for a role which is needed within every organisation – the only issue is, do they know it yet?

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