I think newspaper executives would be wise to read your post. Here is a key target demographic clearly saying that she not only chooses her media (as she might well always have done) but that for her, any form of media is just one voice among many.

Regular readers of your blog know that you are grappling with ways of integrating all the various storytellers you wish to listen to and engage with. Guardian columnists, Newsnight pundits and humble social media bloggers are all part of the media/story/conversation mix that you are constructing for yourself.

There is no one simple answer to how to make money out of these spaces or these practices, but it is clear that unless traditional Big Media is willing to be less arrogant - assuming it is some divine right to people's attention -it faces a difficult future trying to carve out its niche in the conversation economy.

Traditional media does have a role in that economy. Its intelligent and articulate journalists and commentators have a unique contribution to make but that uniqueness is just one uniqueness among many!

The challenge will be finding a way in which those voices can not only play an active part alongside other voices but could perhaps find ways to facilitate the conversations. In short how traditional media, or more correctly the voices within it, can become the "conversation attractors".

At one level I’m pleased that they are so vague. I think it would have been a real mistake to try to pin down every eventuality or situation and come up with particular solutions to what will inevitably be very subtle problems and issues. Following the Microsoft -style "blog smart", we trust you to do your job, style guidelines seems to me the only really viable way forward.

Of course for somebody obsessed with ideas of language and discourse, there are huge problems with the way these are written. Concepts such as "fair", "honest" and "transparency" are such powerful ideologies and open to such massive amounts of discussion, debate and repositioning that arguably they become useless.

I think in particular there is a problem in that clearly these guidelines are aimed at the lower levels within the civil service who are doubtless going to be paranoid about what they can and cannot say. In some ways these guidelines feed into the paranoia.

What I would have liked to see is a more active and positive approach which worked on the basis of "permission" and encouragement. Rather than giving vague ideological parameters, these guidelines could actively encouraged these front-line communicators or service delivery teams to speak with real voice and to tell the business story.

Arguably what is needed is a much more strategic approach addressing the issues appropriate to and of concern to management as well as those likely to be storytellers.
This problem is particularly apparent in guideline number four. It says: "wherever possible, align online participation with other off-line communications." This is clearly positioning social media storytelling as merely another channel for delivery of messages rather than as a conversational space. Rather than encouraging people to engage in conversation and storytelling, this guideline appears to be pushing civil servants in the direction of using these "channels" (sic) to market, promote or even "spin".

What's different about the RAF is that the YouTube storytelling and the new spaces have all be set in motion by the bosses. They have empowered their people to tell stories. They are also actively looking at how to enable 'unofficial' storytellers across the Force to connect together with others. They have a very open attitude to trusting their people to be professional in these spaces. Yes of course it's a recruitment thing but it's also bigger than that, it's about trying to find ways to tell the 'RAF story' in new ways.
Disclaimer: I have been working with the RAF and COI on developing the initiatives and strategies so yes, I am a bit biased about it!

I'm afraid in my experience the question that gets asked most is: "So how do I control the message?" to which of course the answer is: "er, sorry, you can't!" You then have to pick the client up off the floor and gently introduce them to the idea of developing conversations, open source content relationships and the wiki-wisdom of crowds. It's not surpising these people have built careers on being 'in charge of comms' and have had PR people whispering control in their ears for years. We have a lot of work to do in helping them becoming facilitators and enablers of conversations rather than targetters of messages.

Of course you've done it now Emma... Polyvore is going to be overrun with 40-something web geeks claiming cred because a cool 10 year-old pointed them towards it. I reckon the truth is you've found a REALLY cool site and are putting us all off the scent by sending us to Polyvore. Smart move.

As well as being willing to fail, I think we need to be willing to start. Too often we feel the need to be able to see the end: "what's the ROI on blogging? the return on conversations?" rather than being willing to get stuck in and see what happens. my favourite Party metaphor again. You can go with the plan to cop off with person X and be miserable because you don't or you can go and enjoy yourself and heh maybe meet person Y instead, a person you'd have missed if (s)he wasn't on your Party Gantt chart.

I've been working with a client looking to recruit and talking to them about simply getting existing staff telling micro-stories. If you can't get your business story down to 140 characters, maybe it's not clear enough. And if you can, heh that's attractive.

Sure PowerPoint is evil. Sure top-down is non crowd-sourcing. Sure podiums are the new pulpits. Sure presenters are autocrats but let's leave room for storytelling as well as conversation. Sometimes listening is participative and interactive too.

I think your analogy of the Beeb in the 50's is right. It's all so very comfy. "Ask me anything you like" he says from his leather armchair, puffing sedately on his pipe, turning to his butler and chuckling about how quaint the prolls are when then pick u0p- crumbs from his table... The problem is that no-one seriously believes that a) questions will REALLY be answered but more importantly that b) anything will happen on the basis of it. The power-full know that YouTube may shift the discursive agenda (when it is under the control of its users, crowdsourcing ideologies and hegemonic blocs) but there is a lag before that emerges in policy. A walkaround shaking videos and kissing webcams is not good enough. Far better (he says brandishing his Conversation Audit/Atrtractor idea) to really listen to the conversations and then join in where appropriate rather than demanding they come to you.

Don't get me started on awareness raising! But the issue is more fundamental than being up-to-date on technologies et al. There is the huge cultural hurdle. The new Live-Wiki-Open Source-P2P-crowd sourcing et al world demands they forget more or less everything they have been told about marketing, business, teams and communication. They have to be willing to question their own job titles and career paths. There is a lot at stake. I too have faced questions like the ones you smiled and nodded at. But I think they hide deeper worries and problems that, yes, they should be working through but maybe we need to be doing some webtherapy, so they can Get It.

I think it's incumbent on conference organisers to enable their events to be more open source. 'Live Blogging' should be everyone's job at an event. Multiple stories, perspectives, before, during and after. The problem of course is that conference organisers are still stuck in the old 'my content' model, seeing their job as selling rather than enabling content. They could make money by setting networks in motion, enabling conversations and then selling added value services on top rather than keeping the discussion IP in house and forcing Dave and David to try and leverage it open.

Love the idea of "online space may become the frontiers". Too often we think of online as destinations rather than spaces that are starting points, meetings between discur4sive planes, processes not products etc. Let's keep it active and see this world that's evolving as just that... developing, a frontier to explored not a land to be colonised.

The problem is, compulsion leads to stasis which leads to loss of voice which leads to death of Blog which... Let's separate candidates on the basis of their openness, honesty and voice. And if Candidate X has got a real Blog, chances are those traits will show through.

Happy birthday. If you could only find a way to measure your conversational presence across other spaces, you could add that to your achievements. That's where you've really made a mark, I'd say.

Been online menopausal meself... Blog crashing brought on existential crisis. Ended up going back to something I rant about in workshops "it's a party stop demanding everyone comes to your corner of the room. Get out there and chat". So I've decided not to relaunch a Site (with a capital S) but continue to make notes on Twitter and in my analog notebook (photoed and put on Flickr) as well as coCommenting like this. It's quite liberating not to have a another hungry online child. Hopefully any client will still find my ideas - much better than them finding me.

I assumed the Gov was following me anyway.

On David Wilcox's recommendation:

http://theinternationale.org/back-the-bloggin-bosses/

Thanks for the link David. Just top let you know, I have set up a page on 'content to be different' so there is a nice simple URL for anyone to link to:

www.theinternationale.org/back-the-bloggin-bosses/

One would hope journalists would agree but speaking as a former hack, those walled gardens are very useful for hiding behind. Makes you feel like an embattled war correspondent, which I guess they are.

Anyway I agree that the RSA would be foolish to try and contain this discussion even if they could. Far better to encourage as wide a conversation as possible. Why not launch a specific tag and then encourage debate anywhere and everywhere and let the tag do the formatting and collecting and connecting. Let the tags form the new walled garden.

If the RSA doesn't do it, someone else will... or already has

I think it's worth noting that this discussion you guys are having carries more authenticity and weight because you both sign your posts. We as bystanders can find out more about you, contextualise your contributions and decide whether to have content relationships with you. If one or both of you had remained anonymous, the discussion would, in my eyes, have seemed less grounded and relevant.