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.

Richard liked the Swedish kitchen appliance company’s newsroom but had a few observations about ways it could be improved. The single comment to the post (as of this writing) comes from Anders Edholm, an Electrolux representative, explaining why some things were done the way they were and acknowledging that some of Gatarski’s recommendations should be implemented.

It’s particularly gratifying to see a company like Electrolux. It’s not a high-tech company. It’s not a massive General Motors-like corporation. And it’s not based in Silicon Valley. Yet the company clearly recognizes the value of expanding the definition of “media” and presenting content in a manner that makes it easy to use online.

The newsroom currently features a tag cloud (tags link to related press releases), video and images (including company videos on YouTube), blog posts about Electrolux products on Engadget and Gizmodo and a series of RSS feeds. The whole site is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license.

Using the Shift Communications template for a social media newsroom, it’s easy to list elements that could be added down the road to enhance the site. Technorati tags, purpose-built del.icio.us accounts, and an RSS-enabled events calendar leap to mind. It would also be great to see the press releases housed in the newsroom adopt the social media press release format.

But it’s easy to point out what’s missing. Mainly I wanted to add my congratulations to Electrolux for not only launching the newsroom but also for walking the talk by joining the conversation about it that Dr. Gatarski began.

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Should Company Employees Blog?

Cheryl Snapp Conner et al., Snapp Conner PR

If a company blogs, expect reactions. Be open to that dialog, be open to that conversation, be prepared to engage with it to go with it.

If your company blogs, blog consistently. Have something to say—make it interesting, compelling, relevant. Make sure it’s something worth reading about. Don’t just use company brochure material, people. Otherwise, save your breath.

It’s important to monitor the blogosphere—watch your employees.

• Personal websites and blogs are positive—they’re a chance for the company to spread its “good news” far and wide.
• Create a policy to give to your employees, explaining what they’re allowed to talk about on their personal blogs.
• Tell employees to include disclaimers on their sites explaining that they’re employed for such-and-such a company, but you’re not a legal representative and don’t speak for the company.
• Let employees know that you’re watching the blogosphere and that negativity (not to mention illegal statements) can result in termination.

Ask yourself: Why do we want to blog? Make sure you have a purpose—Educating clients? Communicating with customers? To provoke conversation and improve client relations (garner new clients/build trust with existing). By creating that blog, you’re allowing the people that you associate with (clients, customers, media) to let them know that you do know about the topic that you’re promoting.

It’s an open forum—there will be people that make comments and ask different questions and start creating a question there. Have the blog start a conversation. By doing that, it’s not going to be just you talking, but it will be other people as well.

PR 2.0

Chris Belden, Politis Communications

Considerations when starting a blog
It’s a versatile tool, and it’s not a bad idea to consider it. Things to keep in mind.

• time: blogs are time-consuming (in the end it can be beneficial—Three little letters, ROI). You could also consider team blogging.
• Content: be passionate about your topic; if you aren’t it’ll show. If you are; it’ll show. Choose something you want to write about. Larger sites have content strategies.
• Comments: on/off? (“As a purist, I tend to think they should be on. They could be moderated, but they should be on.”) Comment from Director of Interactive Media at KSL.com: “It’s a constant debate for us. It’s ‘darned if you do, darned if you don’t.’ But usually in the comments you’ll get the real story.”
• Ghostwriting: “As a purist, I’m against it. What I do agree with is ‘Ghostediting.’ Client writes it, I edit it. We don’t write for the 80% who don’t know how to write; we write for the 20% who do.”
• Frequency—his rule of thumb: 3-4x/week (moblogging, twitter may change that)
• Plugins. Plugins that can make things a bit easier on the technologically impaired (talking WP)
• SEO—don’t miss an opportunity to boost the visibility of your site. The basic techniques: headlines (catchy) (and use keywords!), keywords, links—sparingly (depende).
• RSS—keep in touch with your visitors without them having to visit your blog all the time. Ties back into #7—catchy headlines = clicks
• Team blogging—in-house project. One way to get it done. Pass the buck, but have internal policies.

On Receiving Negative Comments
If you’re scared about receiving negative comments—then what’s wrong with your product? People are going to talk about it; why don’t you want to hear about it?

• Have a strong comment policy
• Blogs are lightning rods
• You can choose on a per-post basis with most blogging software.
• Respond on others’ blogs! (Good, pertinent, respectful comments—and if you got that turned into a post on their blog?! Woot!)
• Good PR will sink a bad product or a bad company faster than anything—you have a crappy product and get covered on the Today show, you’re a goner.

Leveraging Blogs

• Use well-known bloggers in your area: find them on Technorati, Google Blog Search.
• Bloggers tend to specialize, be a bit more cutting-edge. Turnaround time may be faster, no deadlines, good SEO, good links.
• Some bloggers influence mainstream media. One blogger promoted a product on his blog, and then on a radio show that afternoon (wow!)
• You can also build good, long-term relationships with bloggers. Be judicious!

The web is changing a lot of what we do in our industry. They’ve moved from the trend phase. But in the end it has to be a decision—how is it going to affect you, bottom line, etc.

What Your Attorney Hopes You Know About Business Blogging

Randall Bateman, Bateman IP Law Group and Brian G. Lloyd, Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless

For the full slides on avoiding copyright infringement, SEC violations, etc., see IPthoughts.com.

Making ‘Sticky’ Business

Liz Strauss, LizStrauss.com and Successful-blog.com

7 keys to a blogging relationship

1. Show up whole and human—recognize all the individuals that come; show up with your head and your heart. If you’re just an information blogger, they’re not going to feel there’s a human on the other side of the screen. That’s the key to having a community. People want to feel that there’s someone on the other side of the screen listening.
2. Talk in your authentic voice.
3. Tell your own truth.
4. Have room for folks to tell theirs, too.
5. Don’t try to tie ideas up in a bow. Liz calls this her biggest mistake in blogging. She comes from educational guide publishing—highly structured, tied up neatly in a bow writing. That’s not how conversations work! Leave a list at seven—let your readers finish your top 10 list! If you finish the job, all they can say is “cool.” If you don’t fill it all in, they get to participate.
6. Half the show is in the comments—where all the relationships happen. A blogger reads the comments; a nonblogger never reads them.
7. Be helpful, not hypeful. . . . . make everything about them, not you. You can talk about a product, even, but you have to be helpful. Everything has to be about them.

What makes it sticky? (from Making it Stick by the Heaths, she thinks?)

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Credible
• Concrete
• Emotional
• Story
• Satisfying

Sticky shorthand—What you really need to know

1. Your head
2. Your heart
3. Your life—why should I care? What’s its meaning in my life? Why should I want to? What is the compelling story that makes me fall in love with it?

Story from The Tipping Point:

Educating two groups of students about tetanus shots: group 1 gets a nice talk about how it’s good for you; group 2 gets scare tactics. Both groups convert at 3%. Repeats the experiment, adding a map to the student health center and the health center’s hours to the literature. Conversion jumps to 28% (both groups).

The additional information changed what the students were getting from a lesson and information to make it personal and practical. It showed them how to fit it into their lives. Now they knew it wasn’t a lesson anymore; now they knew how to use it. (98)

Any product that works—if you look at it and say, “but how do I fit this into my life? Why would I want to use it?” Those are the two key questions.

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