Will be interesting to see the papers tomorrow – see what planet The Australian is on; they were a little wacky today – may be they couldn’t read the ABC website just after lunch either.

May be the same planet as Sloppy Joe… he played a very loud shocker today.

Right – off for dinner with Aunty Kez – find her on Twitter and follow the great unbeliever…

Laters

OzCar

The OzCar biff has been entertaining – someone is due for a royal (or republican) shoeing when the truth does out. Even-money at the moment on Wayne Swann and Malc Turnbull for me – fence sitting lefty that I am. Should be fun and games in the press tomorrow.

Kids Evicted from Playground

Sarah Hanson-Young has been in the news for bringing in her small bay during a Senate debate – well, I think it was the last waffly bits before a vote (or a ‘division’ in the Westminster parlance). Anyhoo – the President of the Senate threw Sarah and child out – well, asked for the little blighter to be removed.

That all caused a bit of a brouhaha – was lucky enough to be in a cab enjoying Talk Back radio with some of Sydney’s finest reconstituted jocks – and the terminally bored phone-inerers. All a bit much to some – I would have thought only conception or delivery of the child in the Senate would have been considered worse.

I don’t think either  Hanson-Young or Bob Brown are requesting that kids be allowed into the Senate full-time; might as give ‘um cigarettes to stunt their emotional and physical development rather than suffocate in the hot air of the Upper House. But a smidge of commonsense would have ended up in no news headlines at all and Australia could have carried on with Masterchef and figuring out why Rove McManus is funny.

Clients and the Interweb

Had an interesting chat with a Client this week. All up for this web thing… but. Apparently – and thinking about it for a little longer, I think this might be the general rule rather than an exception – only two people in this particular organisation can officially discuss, er, stuff. And seeing as both sit on the board, I can safely assume they won’t be wanting to Twitter or run the corporate Facebook page.

I think this poses one of the biggest challenges to corporates today; unwinding ‘push’ structures – blasting out some message or other about how good you are – no questions asked. I don’t think I have seen one company older than 5 years old who have managed to evolve. It’s obviously slightly easier for smaller or younger (usually web-based) companies to do this (although many don’t).

So what do you do? Well – if I had the solution Sir Alan Sugar would be touch-typing this for me while Eva Green butters my toast. But it all comes down to trust, I reckon. And it’s going to have to happen a bit sharpish. Trusting your employees enough for them to be able to reply in the corporate name – without dropping a C-bomb or going loco – so that they can have a conversation with your customers.

There – that wasn’t too painful?

But there’s more – it’s trusting and allowing your customers to tell you what they think – in the public. Most Clients I meet are desperate to “engage” with their customers. Just gagging for “dialogue”. But only if it’s nice… otherwise we don’t want others to see it. And this is the catch-22; why don’t they want others to see it? Cos they might believe it! Even if it’s bollocks… and why, dear Client? Cos they trust Trevor from Tweed Heads – who’s married to his sister – who’s also his mother – more than Corporate Rapacious Associates Pty.

So – suck it up – it’ll make you a better organisation; people will let you know when you’re great. When you’re truly awful and everything in between. Most people in that situation can distill Trevor and his demands for S&M gear in your Supermarket as being wanton drivel. Cos they trust you more. And why? Cos Joe Public sees you doing something about the things you are rubbish at… and you get better.

And lastly… move along – nothing to see

Sadly. What got into The Times this week? I suspect jealousy! Acclaimed blogger, NightJack, was named this week. In The Times. Now, as I see it, it’s a very thin line between a journalist keeping his or her sources protected and a blogger being able to keep his or her anonymity. The really annoying thing is that NightJack wasn’t reveling national secrets or promoting racial or sexual hatred – but sharing the experience of being a copper. The gushing about ‘writer advised on how to evade long arm of the law’ is such a load of poppy-cock I can’t believe they got their knickers in a twist – unless it’s a reaction to ‘Citizen-journalism’ – off our patch, you fuckers, or, er… we might lose our jobs. Oh dear. Patrick Foster – I wouldn’t shed a tear.

Oh – one last piece of crap

<hangs head in shame> What on Earth were they thinking?

So a blog – or humorously ‘clog’ – so while away hours. Seems like a good idea; I can share the work I should be doing whilst tapping away wishing the magic account service fairies do stuff ready for Monday morning.

Meeting with Brian tomorrow – he’s a social media & WOM guru type chap from the US. Should be fun – a ha – now I can let you know how it goes. Should be an interesting catch-up, mind you. My client has certain issues with the web – and control of content; this seems a little bit ‘barn doors – horse bolted’ mentality – but I guess slightly understandable; but trying to get them to think about, let alone consider, Digital Honesty is our task for the next 6 months.

Been getting into this digital stuff recently – hard to explain why; apart from ‘it’s the way everything is going’ which seems a little lame. There seems to be a sense that you can do virtually anything on ‘tinterweb these days – and silly things like that float my boat. Two recent examples are; setting my Foxtel set-top box (although my box isn’t set atop my set…) from the office – kinda cool. Just waiting for the iPhone app to go with it; I think the Sky+ app is the second most popular in the UK.

The second was having websites in PowerPoint – simple but bugger me, you’d have thought our chums at Microsoft would have filled that little gap natively a while a go. Anyway – I was impressed, even if the looks I got from Clients and colleagues was one of stunned disbelief.

So will share other embarrassments and ‘new’ discoveries on these very pages.

TTFN