“Des Walsh & Friends” show to launch on BlogTalkRadio

I’ve been thinking for a while now about having another go at starting my own show on BlogTalkRadio and when I checked my account there yesterday I was a bit startled to realize that the last effort was a couple of years ago.

In the meantime I have endeavoured with my China-based colleague, Lonnie Hodge, to put out a regular show about China, China Conversations, but our efforts on that particular platform, while successful to a degree, were thwarted technically: much as we loved the basic BlogTalkRadio setup and the terrific support from the BlogTalkRadio people, we were too often in a situation where we could not deliver the episode of the day satisfactorily.

But I know that the system can work perfectly well from here in Australia, so there is no obstacle to my getting back to having my own show. Short story, I’m launching, or re-launching, my own show.

The question then was, what would be the focus of the show?

Social media? From a quick search it was evident that there was no shortage of shows about social media on BTR.

And frankly I did not want to restrict the range of topics to social media, much as I love the topic.

So what sort of a show would it be? After some cogitation and mind-mapping, I realised that what I really wanted to do was to chat with friends and colleagues, from the social media field certainly, but also more widely – business, government, the arts, literature, politics.

That felt good.

And thus was born the Des Walsh & Friends show, as a weekly show, a mixture of chat and interviews on a range of topics with a range of friends.

The show launches just under 9 hours from now, November 29, 1 pm US Pacific time, 4 pm US Eastern, and 6 am November 30 Queensland time in Australia. I don’t mind the early start as it’s unlikely the leaf blowers will have been fired up at that hour.

This is how I’ve described the show:

Des Walsh & Friends is a chat + interview show with an eclectic mix of Des’s friends, from social media, business, government, the arts and other fields of interest and endeavour.

I’m starting the show on the basis of having 30 minute episodes and will see how that goes.

My guests on the first episode will be San Francisco based Carlos Hernandez,  a great enthusiast for social media in business, and his business partner, Megan A. Bourne. Carlos and Megan participated in recent days in the Twitter-focused 140 Characters Conference , in Los Angeles, and I’m keen to hear how all that went. I’m hoping also to get some sharing from Carlos of his experience of BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.

This has all been put in motion pretty quickly, so I’m not expecting a huge audience, but the show will be recorded for the benefit of anyone who wants to download it and listen at their leisure. If you’re around, do drop in.

Why smart business owners cut through the noise and get the Twitter business case

I’ve been thinking about the comment I heard yesterday morning from an otherwise quite smart presenter on morning television, to the effect that everyone who goes on Twitter gets addicted to it and that’s why she is not on it. I didn’t get the exact words – let’s face it, who hangs on every word from breakfast television?

But I suspect that that presenter’s views on Twitter, if repeated in a local book club or at a barbecue would not be regarded as exceptional.

From a business point of view and going by various comments or reactions I’ve noticed in recent months, I believe it’s fair to say there are a lot of people in business who have heard about Twitter but have the view that it is some or all of the following:

• trivial
• boring
• time-wasting
• addictive
• maybe dangerous
• definitely irrelevant for any serious business

And just the day before I heard the comments on morning television, I’d had a conversation over a friend’s birthday breakfast event, with some also smart, professional people who were expressing a shared perception of Twitter as being about the most trivial of people’s daily activities and thus, by implication, not something which an intelligent person who valued their time would even consider.

The people at the breakfast listened courteously to my comments along the lines that:

• there is a lot of very useful information exchanged on Twitter
• there is a mixture of “serious” items and the more trivial, as there is in many or most conversations offline
• there are tools to facilitate intelligent, efficient use of Twitter

But my impression was that they chose to be at least skeptical, if not simply disbelieving.

As it was a social occasion on a relaxing, sunny Sunday morning, I did not pursue the matter further at the time, but I thought I’d have a bash now at identifying some of the standard myths about Twitter that would discourage business owners from even considering the possibility that Twitter could help their business.

There is a good, succinctly argued list of business benefits of twittering by Rob on the New Business Media (NBM) site, under the headings of:

• dialogue with customers
• free publicity
• build customer relationships
• research
• networking

Yes, Twitter can be addictive and time-wasting. So can cross-word puzzles, chatting on the phone, watching television…

But let’s get real. If businesses from the very small to the very large are getting on Twitter and using it to advance their business objectives, wouldn’t that suggest it’s worth a closer look? And the best way to get a closer look is from the inside, i.e. by joining Twitter.

Another reason for having your own and your business’s presence on Twitter is so you don’t have the problem others have had from fake Twitter accounts in their name or their company name. Twittersquatting offers a serious challenge to any business marketing strategy and probably a more serious challenge to businesses which don’t have any such strategy.

So whether a business is looking at using Twitter to help with its marketing in a positive, constructive way or simply on a more defensive, safeguarding the brand basis, now would be a very good time to take action, get an account on Twitter and find out first-hand what the fuss is all about.

By the way, I found it slightly Agent Scully-ish that when, on starting to write this post I checked as I often do to see what earlier posts I had on the subject, I found “Getting Serious About Twitter” posted on – yes, this day October 27 exactly one year ago.

Right now, I’m thinking maybe it’s time to do a webinar, along the lines of “If you think Twitter is too trivial for business, get over it!”. I’m wondering would there be enough interest? Are there enough business people who are not convinced, but intrigued or curious enough, likely to pick up on that?

In the past couple of years, since having the privilege of moderating a panel on blogging at ad:tech Beijing, I have been actively engaged in developing my business interests and connections with China, in association especially with my colleague Lonnie B. Hodge, and with that seeking to deepen and broaden my understanding of the complex world of modern China.

This month I have had the distinct honour of being invited to join China Global Speakers and have accepted.

Thank you Helen Zhang and colleagues. I trust you know I will do my utmost to live up to the confidence you have shown in me.

“Technology can only serve as a bridge, never as a destination.”

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming, Blog Action Day, Carbon War Room

• Des Walsh dot Com — Social media strategy + business coaching
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• louisgray.com: Technorati Roars Back To Life After Self-Imposed Slumber
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• Three Practical Videos for Setting Up a WordPress Blog — Thinking Home Business
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  (tags: blogging blog wordpress social-media socialmediakeys)

A week in November dedicated to how to use social media tools for business

In some recent social media workshops I’ve been struck by how much appreciation there has been when we presenters have taken some trouble to explain and demonstrate how various social media tools work. Even down to basics like how you go about signing up for Twitter or Facebook or on other sites.

It’s made me realise how mysterious and even confusing some of these tools can be for people who are new to them.

Come November, there will be an excellent opportunity for people to learn, from a range of social media practitioners, how various tools work and how they can be used effectively in a business context.

Spread over five days, from November 16 to 21, the Social Media Tools Week will feature a program of keynote presentations and what are described as “career development sessions”. There is a detailed agenda on the event site.

And according to the web site “Early bird registration will get a free pass …”. I’ve registered, not just because I love free, which I do, but more importantly because it’s an impressive group of speakers, from whom I am confident I can learn lots.

A special feature of the programming is that the timetable has been devised so as to accommodate, as far as possible, a range of time zones from US, Latin America, and Europe, to Australia and parts of Asia. Nice one!

At the session it became pretty clear that the consensus was to keep to our normal format of a discussion topic, followed by anyone who wants to speak getting 5 minutes on the wiki related topic of their choice, followed by up to 5 minutes of questions.  On the day of the meeting  I got a firm offer of sponsorship for the next meeting from ITBrix, and two other likely sponsorship candidates  - one via Twitter in the middle of the meeting.   So it looks like we will be holding London Wiki Wednesday meetings on the first Wednesdays of November, December and February.   However, we are desperate for venues and more sponsorship.  If you have a room that we can use for 30, 50, or 75 people, and/or up to £200 of your marketing budget to spare, we can give you some exposure and some link love. 

You can see the dozen or so people who came to the meeting listed at the sign up page.  I was hoping to See Euan Semple, but he was a late no show.  We started with a discussion I suggested on Google Wave and Google Sidewiki.  I wanted to see whether people think these are significant offerings or not, or whether they are part of a coherent Google plan to take over even more of the web.  It became clear from the discussion that most people haven't touched Wave, and those that have managed to get a valid invite haven't had time to really give an opinion.  That wasn't the case with Google Sidewiki, which got a universally negative response in the discussion.  Sidewiki is effectively a side page for every page and website on the Internet accessed via the Google Toolbar.  It has some wiki characteristics, in that anyone can add comments to it, but it's not like a wiki, because you can't edit the page like a wiki.  Basically anyone can comment on your page.  It's like Google is trying to take over all of the conversations of the web, which we all thought was pretty negative.  If you own a blog, or a wiki site, obviously you want to allow comments, negative or positive because  "all markets are conversations" and web 2.0 is all about that interactivity.  However, you want to have the ability to remove anything that is a personal attack or offensive, or which is spam.  Sidewiki doesn't allow you that kind of control.  I likened it to owning a building.  Google have just put up a billboard on the side and enabled the graffiti artists to come along and spray paint whatever they want on it.  Most people seemed to think that Gooble hasn't really thought this strategy through.  Sidewiki looks like an incubator product that has snuck out without much fanfare or thought, although with the power of Google behind it, it can always have the potential to be significant  None of us can really see it living long, and the consensus was this is very definitely bad or a misstep.

I was first up on the individual speakers, talking about Susan Scrupski's 2.0 Adoption Council.  I used Susan's intro slides to explain that it is a place for in-house professionals to collaborate and share their experience with adopting enterprise 2.0 tools and techniques in the enterprise.  I also explained the 2.0 Adoption Council Community, that we (ITBrix) just launched with Susan last month using the WordFrame platform.  This is a group blog, forum and collaboration space that pulls together content from any internal or external practitioners who want to join in and contribute to discussing 2.0 adoption.  We already aggregate content from over 90 blogs, including most of the leading experts on the topic. 

Harry Wood was next up talking about OpenStreetMap.  Harry jokingly, but quite accurately described it as some "open, half-arsed, wannabee Google maps", but that's typical English self deprecation.   This is a significant collaborative project like Wikipedia, with contributors adding functionality, and volunteers mapping the World and their local street steadily over time.  I was delighted to hear that all of their servers are provided by and sited at UCL, my old university.  This is an open project well worth some of your attention.

Last up was Proactive Paul Brannigan, talking about the way he uses wiki technology to help run his 5 person accounting practice.  For a start it was good to meet another blogging accountant.   Paul got interested in the wiki topic some years back when he attended PHP London and discovered they were using Pbwiki.  He talked about setting up a web design agency in the late 90s alongside his accounting activities,  developing sites in PHP and Perl.  He started using Wordpress for his blog, and then some ZOHO applications.  Eventually he decided to use DocuWiki on his own servers.  The practice uses VT Software for accounts production, and 3 wikis for collaboration.  One is for Paul's personal use, one is for his management team, and then one for everybody.  All of their operational procedures and processes are on the wiki.  It's great to hear a real life example of small business wiki us like this.

Although we only had 3 speakers, everyone got involved in the discussions.  The consensus  was that this was a great restart.  Hopefully we can find a venue for next month's meeting, but if all else fails we will strain our NYK relationship a little more.   And don't forget we need to find some more sponsors. (Note to self - when you bring a camera along, remember to take it out and use it!) 

Technorati tags: London+Wiki+Wednesdays, London, wikiwed, londonwikiwed, wikis, blogs, social+media, NYK, WordFrame, OpenStreetMap

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Top team to deliver social media strategy day in Las Vegas, October 14

On the eve of BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas next week, a group of very social media savvy people will be providing a focused day on social media strategy, targeted for executives.

Social media authority and national speaker Dave Taylor and Doyle Albee, President and social media practice director at public relations and capital management firm Metzger Associates, have assembled an impressive array of speakers with serious business as well as social media credentials.

Appropriately, there is a social media release with more details – on PitchEngine of course

Booking details here.

(No commission or other benefit to me in plugging this event, apart from the warm inner glow I will most assuredly experience if I learn that this post has been instrumental in helping someone get the benefit of the experience and wisdom of this team).

Image credit: The Las Vegas Strip at Dusk, Nevada Tourism Media Relations, via Flickr, Creative Commons

A view from a blogger outside the USA about the FTC’s new “guidance” on disclosure

One of my first thoughts on learning this week of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announcement on endorsements and testimonials was that as I don’t live in the US it does not apply to me.

One of my next thoughts was that it may be only a matter of time before there is an international conference of trade practices regulators and other countries will think, “What a great idea!” and play follow-the-leader.

So my freedom from living under the threat of fines or worse for recommending a friend’s book or course or whatever may be short-lived. Then too, I don’t have a problem with the principle of disclosure, although from what I’ve been reading around the blogosphere, I wonder if the public servants have made one of those classic mistakes, of creating a set of rules that can’t practically be enforced in any equitable way: I don’t include in “equitable” any selective targeting and cherry-picking of particular offenders or groups, by way of making an example of a few hapless bloggers and others who may be reported by competitors (see below for high level testimony to the FTC’s reliance on informers).

Background

Before I go on, and in case you didn’t catch the buzz on this matter this week and what it has to do with blogging, basically the FTC announced that it has approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act.  Significantly for bloggers, the sub-heading on the release on the FTC site is “Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements”.

The full 81 page document, which can be downloaded from the FTC site, has the formal title: “.16 C.F.R. Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising: Notice Announcing Adoption of Revised Guides” and is referred  to in the announcement as “the Guides”.

Some Views Around the Blogosphere

Bloggers’ concerns with the FTC announcement are encapsulated in the (wish I’d thought it up) header to Frederic Lardinois’ post on ReadWriteWeb:

FTC to Bloggers: Disclose Freebies or Face $11,000 Fine

Hat tip to Barbara Rozgonyi for her extensive roundup of views and quotes from various sources, including a very informative post by Jennifer Villaga at  FastCompany with a series of comments by Richard Cleland, assistant director, division of advertising practices at the FTC. Short story? Cleland is not impressed by “$11,000 Fines!” headlines on the subject and is at pains to present the Guides in a less scary light. The sting in the tail of his comments is that competitors are quick to report others and declares that the FTC has never wanted for offers in that regard (interesting: in Australia we call this “dobbing” and it is not a complimentary term).

In a typically thoughtful post Louis Gray tells us why he is not unduly perturbed by the Guides and offers an interesting reason as to why he does not think there will be much impact on bloggers -

Because good people will continue to be good, and bad people will continue to be bad. The people who have been in a gray area thus far, and have chosen not to disclose, will likely continue to not disclose – FTC regulations or not.

He hopes bloggers who have a regular commercial arrangement with companies will have a disclosure link on their site.

In that regard I had noted previously, and quite like, the way Chris Brogan has included a Disclosures and Relationships segment on the About page of his blog.

I’m also comfortable with referencing in or at the end of a blog post that some links may have the potential to bring me some commission (as for instance with this post today on another site), however modest that may be (I don’t think I have ever had a cheque from Amazon, as the commission totals have never hit the amount required to trigger one!).

So I am fairly well disposed to the idea of the Guides insofar as they are aimed at serving the community.

And as I said at the outset of this post, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before other regulatory authorities, including our currently rather gung-ho Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), decide they too want one of those Guides things and are able to persuade their political masters that this would A Good Thing (and did someone say “electorally attractive”?). So if I tighten up my act now I won’t have much need to worry when and if that happens.

Finally, given that some 50% or so of readers of this blog and about 75% of readers of my Thinking Home Business blog are in the US, I’d prefer to have practices in place that are no doubt going to become fairly standard and that readers will therefore come to expect (even for blogs being published from elsewhere and pace Louis Gray’s hunch that the “bad guys” operating in the gray zone will not opt for more transparent habits).

Please share your thoughts on this.

We are also happy to mention that the Development of our WordFrame v2.0 is within the scheduled parameters and the final phase of the applications development is under way.