These storms started from sunspots sited on Tuesday followed by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), effecting our part of the solar system by Thurday.

Originally, scientists and space observers, were not impressed with the level of geomagnetic interference the solar flares caused, but they are now seeing continued activity in the wake of the CME. Today’s forecast calls for a 40% chance of a X-class solar flare. X-class flares are the highest and carry the most significant chance of causing communication interruptions.

The storms are not seen as a threat to people, but they can cause problems with radio and satellite communications across the world. So far the interruptions have been minor, with some blackouts to ham radios and minor airline delays, but scientists are keeping a close watch to determine if there is more to come.

These brilliant images from NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory show the most recent solar flare activity under different light spectrums.

These photos, submitted by David Tremblay to spaceweather.com, show the sunspots observed with the naked eye during a dust storm in Alto, New Mexico.

The Northern Lights may be visible as far south as Ireland

The science is basically nano-capacitors in a can, that can be sprayed onto a tree or a pole to make an antenna. The “paint” also can boost an existing antenna’s signal by over 100 times, and if put underwater, it can send a radio signal a mile.

Chamtech asserts that their spray-on nanotech makes existing antennas more energy-efficient by limiting the amount of heat they put off, but the obvious boost in signal ranges has more profound implications. While it is not too clear how one would go about picking the right sized tree to transmit the right signal, existing antennas are perfect to be coated with the nano-paint. To have a signal boosted from 1.5 to 200 meters in a matter of minutes is a pretty big deal, and Chamtech’s underwater capabilities might help to solve historically difficult submarine communication.

And she thinks that Twitter and text messaging is helping our kids with the art of poetry.

Talking to the Telegraph, the 55-year-old poet said that “the poem is a form of texting…it’s the original text.”

Her argument in support of social media and mobile communication stems from the fact that poetry and Twitter have a lot in common. They are both forms of communication that rely on economy of language – saying what you want to say with less.

“[Poetry is] a perfecting of a feeling in language – it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.

We are reading less now than we did and a lot of young people spend a lot of time in front of a computer on Facebook or tweeting.

We’ve got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them.”

She says that poetry is the literary form most suited to survive the “age of Twitter and Blackberry” because it is about brevity, and therefore more accessible.

I’m with you, Carol. I, for one, have been know to make use of the 140 character limit to showcase some of my awesome haiku skills.

Let’s think about your basic txtspk.

“Y r u doin that bro?”

“I kno rite? srsly, its fukkin dum”

It all seems to be a descendant of Shakespeare or Milton or Yeats. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day // yo, word.”

And this, my friends, must be the work of a modern day poet –

But in all seriousness, does Duffy have a point? Poetry is all about creating emotion and conveying complex ideas with sparse language – showing not telling. Is all that Tweeting and Texting allowing people to practice their poetry, without even knowing it?

It’s true that studying poetry helps you to be a better prose writer, as you learn how to be concise and how to use only 5 words when you want to use 15. In the same way, Twitter teaches us to use 140 characters when we might want to use 500.

Is poetry being kept alive by social media and texting? Let us know how you feel.

45% of those surveyed said that their use of email at work will most likely increase in the next five years. 51% said that it would likely stay the same. Only 4% thought it would decrease. At home, 36% of those surveyed thought their email use will increase, 55% said it will stand pat and 6% said it will likely decrease.

This shouldn’t shock most of us, as email has become such an integral part of almost everyone’s lives. Hell, the AP stylebook recently decided to go with “email” instead of “e-mail.” It really is it’s own thing – not just an electronic type of regular mail.

What is interesting, however, is when the study talks about specific tools for communication in the office. As expected, 96% of those surveyed says that in the past year their email use has either increased or stayed the same. Social Media, SMS, Phone and Face to Face communication has also all increased. The only form of communication that has declined is instant messaging – 14% saying it has increased, 15% saying it has decreased and 71% saying it has stayed the same.

As part of this study, Microsoft has also given us an infographic about the history of email. it tracks the service from its beginnings in 1965 at MIT (I know, 1965!) to Facebook integration with Microsoft Office web apps in 2010. Be warned, it is a little Outlook – oriented, as would be expected with a Microsoft infographic. It does chart the 1998 release of the Tom Hanks – Meg Ryan romcom You’ve Got Mail, which obviously makes the whole thing worth it.

Under terms of the agreement, Verizon Wireless acquired former Centennial wireless properties, including licenses, network assets and more than 117,000 current subscribers, in six service areas in Louisiana and Mississippi. The service areas are Lafayette, La., LA-5 (Beauregard), LA-6 (Iberville), LA-7 (West Feliciana), MS-8 (Claiborne) and MS-9 (Copiah).

AT&T previously divested former Centennial properties in Alexandra, La. and LA-3 (DeSoto) to MTPCS. With the completion of the sale to Verizon Wireless, valued at $235 million, AT&T has satisfied the divestiture requirements of the Centennial acquisition.

AT&T completed its acquisition of Centennial last November. In May, it was revealed that Verizon would purchase a portion of the company from AT&T. This came as AT&T announced that it would purchase a portion of Verizon’s divested Alltel assets.

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Communication has never been so easy, widespread, or cheap in the history of our species. The social web and the proliferation of mobile devices with access to it, has given ‘‘everyman’ unprecedented access to ‘everyotherman’. The traditional gatekeepers of information – what we used to call mass media (TV, newspapers and print media) have become at best, just another signal source and at worst irrelevant and unnecessary.

We are texting, Twittering, Facebooking – hell, I think there are still a few people MySpacing. We are doing all of this and we’re doing it pretty much everywhere and anywhere we go. We use our PC’s we use our laptops, netbooks and phones – our access options get more diverse and available every day it seems like.

But is this a good thing?

Like anything else, there is plenty of good and bad here. The biggest and most obvious benefit of this communication and access is that we can be updated and informed 24/7/365. We can chat from pretty much anywhere anytime. Many of us can work from pretty much anywhere anytime.

It’s the golden age of ‘anywhere anytime’ information and contact. Of course it’s simultaneously the biggest downside too. Trouble is, having the ability to work, chat and stay updated any time is that you end up doing all of the above all of the time. To put it bluntly, there is no escape here.

Sure, you can turn it off. You don’t though, do you?

Do you feel like you need a break from the ‘network’? Sound off in the comments.

What about the art of conversation? Some would argue it’s being lost in the shuffle, I think a more apt assessment is that it is simply evolving and suffering some growing pains in the process. We get our news and give our views, for the most part, about 140 characters at a time. That means we talk a whole lot, but we don’t say much when we do. We don’t have the time or space for details anymore.  The news is the headline and vice versa.

Not ideal, maybe, but the upside is we are at least participating in the news. We aren’t just having it spoon fed to us by ‘old media’ editors and interests.  So we are a little light on the details.  It’s a decent trade off I think and you never know, we may get a little more into the details as we move along.

Another big plus is the fact that our collective horizons are being broadened. A lot of people criticize Twitter as a platform for some rather mundane details. I have frequently heard comments like; ‘do I really care or need to know what Terrell Owens is doing RIGHT NOW?’.  Well no, maybe you don’t.  At the same time, I think that’s a fairly narrow minded take on Twitter.

Twitter updates, even the mundane ones, often give you some insight or perspective into how people in other parts of the world or in different social circles ‘see’ things on a daily basis.  I’m not saying that insight is always good or positive.  However, becoming more conscious of larger society or world views would seem to me to make us somewhat less disposed to or at least more aware of local or regional biases. I don’t see that as a bad thing at all.

I do have one major gripe with all of this though. Cell phone etiquette was already bad 10 years ago.  It’s getting much much worse now. Updating your Twitter, checking your Facebook and all that is fine and good…  but not if that attention is being diverted from someone sitting right next to you.

Do you think it’s rude when people you are with spend their time texting? What’s your take?

It’s not dissimilar to one of the classic rules of retail.  If you are with a customer in your store, and the phone rings, you never ever leave that customer to take a phone call.  Likewise, if you are out with family, friends or especially a client or customer, you should always give precedence to the people sitting in front of you over your contact list. We’ve all been on both ends of that and we all know it’s rude.

Beyond being just plain rude, it’s also more than a little weird. I have seen whole tables of people clicking on their phones, barely acknowledging each other.  Ironically enough, if you ask them, they are often working on getting some more people to join them. The sound of ‘social’ is the muted click of a rubberized keypad and no, I don’t think that’s cool at all.

Hopefully though, we can get the physically social reconciled a little bit with the digitally social. The Brave New World of communication is happening right now at Twitter-speed and while the abilities of our toys has somewhat outstripped our ability to use them appropriately, I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives.  It’s an exciting time to be alive really, as long as your batteries hold up.

Blogs became a problem quickly once the meme hit critical mass a few years ago. What used to be a novel event – an employee being fired for blogging – has become so standard that it is hardly newsworthy anymore.

While a blogging policy may work to an extent on a top-down basis, even if the company comes out occasionally looking like the bully, what do you do when an executive airs the company’s dirty laundry? Pack your desk, probably, as the company’s often sunk when that happens.

It used to be that the main risk you faced was an employee blabbing at a bar to a few indifferent earlobes, or worst case scenario, a disgruntled employee going to the press with a complaint, whether valid or not. But there was no guarantee the press would cover the incident.

And now it’s out there, just out there, on blogs, on social networking profiles, over instant messaging, via SMS, on YouTube, on Twitter. Everybody has their own personal broadcast network.

On a macro-level, that’s a good thing. It gives voices to the voiceless, puts pressure on the corrupt, robs the powerbrokers, spooks the machine. But idiots, too, can use it. And humans, who sometimes make mistakes.

Michael Krigsman at ZDNet, writing specifically about Twitter and the danger it poses as a many-to-many communication device, suggests companies have three options when dealing with a new platform that’s clearly not going away: ignore it; block and/or monitor; establish clear information-sharing guidelines. He recommends the last one, with strong enforcement.

But there’s something else that could evolve as well, something that will make the communication professionals job easier in the long run. It’s an optimistic model that will have to allow for the occasional negative exception.

When everyone’s a potential whistleblower, and the ears potentially listening to that whistle are ever expanding, we could see the rise of greater corporate consciousness toward ethical consistency, Google’s Don’t Be Evil philosophy expanded beyond Mountain View. This is a somewhat traditional moralistic view, an invisible eye that makes you behave.

I told you it was optimistic, as even Google has trouble with it. But the potential is there, a goal to strive toward, if a company is in this game for the long run. Transparency breeds trust (or distrust, if you don’t watch it), and when there’s trust and fulfillment of trust, controlling the message is easier as there is less to control.
 

Arranged by Parys Communications, one of 3’s PR agencies, the meeting was an informal get-together to exchange some views and hear 3’s thoughts about their plans for 2008.

I have a connection with 3 as I’m one of the group of bloggers and journalists who are trying out 3’s new Skypephone. The phone’s on free loan for three months courtesy of 3. I’ve already written a bit about the Skypephone and I may well write more in future.

So, to the meeting.

An immersion into a disruptive company’s business thinking, is how I might summarize it. We heard thinking and received detailed information on the types of handsets 3 might be offering during 2008 plus a glimpse into 3’s roadmap ahead.

Adam Davis, 3’s Head of Marketing and Product Management, is a man whom every gadget geek would envy as he pulled from his case prototype phone after phone from Nokia and Sony Ericsson that may end up in 3’s handset lineup.

Much of the talk was about the Skypephone and 3’s plans for it next year.

It’s quite apparent that 3 want this phone to be a big market success. Indeed, they said the greatest attention will be given to improving aspects of the Skypephone such as a better camera, HSDPA connectivity and maybe the ability to make and receive SkypeOut and SkyepeIn calls respectively.

The latter is extremely interesting. I wonder what we’ll see there. If you can make and receive low-cost calls via Skype to and from normal phone numbers, where’s any incentive to use the Skypephone to make regular calls via 3’s cellular network?

While we were talking about the Skypephone, I took the opportunity (somewhat cheekily, I admit) to go on a bit about the very poor coverage of 3’s 3G network where I live, which is the place where I most use the Skypephone.

Not sure what will come from that although Carl Taylor, Director of Network and Application Technologies for 3’s X-Series phones, did ask me questions. Maybe a new cell mast for 3 in my neighbourhood is in the offing

Reality, though: the success or otherwise of the Skypephone will rest to a great extent on a user’s ability to just use it. If you can’t get a 3G signal most of the time – my experience, and you need 3G for Skype to log in and synchronize – this phone will not succeed.

Ken Young, a journalist and one of the bloggers who was there and who writes The UK Mobile Report, has an excellent commentary on the meeting, recounting and describing just about every aspect of it, and in some detail.

My overall focus was a bit different to Ken’s and the other bloggers, all of whom are immersed in mobile technology and the telecoms industry.

I was mostly thinking about the meeting, the people involved and what it might mean to 3 from a public relations point of view.

Better still, from a blogger relations point of view.

Since I first got to know a bit about 3 and its PR approach from being present at the press launch of the Skypephone at the end of October, two words have stuck in my mind when I think about 3:

1. Nimble
2. Disruptive

(I was going to add a few more words – poor 3G network – but that wouldn’t really be fair.)

The way in which the press event was organized, and the way in which invited bloggers like me were treated, was impressive. Professionally organized and run. I even managed to interview John Penberthy-Smith, 3’s Marketing Director, for an FIR podcast.

It is a pleasure to be involved with smart communicators in such a setting, which then sets a good framework for relationship development.

And so it also was with last week’s meeting with 3.

I gather such outreach to bloggers is a bit of a new thing for 3. It’s actually new to a lot of organizations. There’s no manual or handbook yet on how to do it. And it’s quite disruptive.

I’m doing it, too, working with one of my own clients where part of my work is doing that, ie, identifying and reaching out to influencers in the social media space.

As one being reached out to, I’m observing what 3 and their PR agencies are doing which, frankly, is good learning for me as well.

Guy Middleton, 3’s Head of Corporate Communications, and our meeting host, deserves full credit for enabling this outreach. I don’t know whose idea it was – an initiative within 3 or suggested by Parys Communications – but I think 3 will gain measurable benefit in the long term for connecting with individuals who have some influence in their own niche areas.

If this is complementary outreach to traditional outreach including media relations, which I suspect is the case, then 3 are making a good start in gaining ground in a big area of attention – ground where I don’t see much, if any, action from competitors like Vodafone or T-Mobile.

Disruptive is good.

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The study revealed that 40 percent of men 65 and older prefer an interactive message from a company they have expressed interest in, compared with 23 percent of females of the same age.

"Marketers must take note of the growing propensity of middle-aged and senior men who have begun turning to online resources to respond to direct mail," said Jim Litwin, vice president of market insights for Vertis Communications.

"Adding an Internet component to direct mail campaigns targeting the older population may greatly increase the overall effectiveness of marketers’ spending, particularly as men reach retirement and find more time to surf the Web."

For a good number of U.S. retailers, the issue is that when they have an email sign-up program, many do not follow up with customers.

Two-thirds of personal care businesses surveyed did not send a welcoming email or a sales offer, according to E-Mail Data Source’s "2006 Retail White Paper" report.

Even companies who just sent a welcome message in the first month could be considered late if they did not send an email within a few days.

"Just as the CAN-SPAM Act makes it illegal for marketers to take longer than 10 business days to unsubscribe someone from their e-mail program, perhaps it is unwise (if not illegal) to take longer than 10 days to respond to a customer who has subscribed on a company site," said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.