Why I'm posting less frequently

August 29, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Writing Block When I first started blogging, I listened to advice that told me I should post at least daily and ideally more than once per day. As well, I was told that short posts are much better than long posts.

In the past half year, I’ve started to stray from this course. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I may fail to post on some days or even several days. And without doubt, most of my posts, are creeping up in length.

Why am I changing my ways?

Well, the first reason is based in how I select the blogs and posts that I make time to read. There is simply too much information out there that I would like to read and not enough time to read it all. So, I have to practise a form of triage on my subscriptions. I’ve realized that the blogs that I am most likely to unsubscribe from are those that have too many “me too” or trite posts.

There is a place for the quick one liner and simple observations: Twitter. I look there for quick pointers to interesting things. But I expect the blogs I read to provide something more profound.

This leads me to the second and more important reason I now post less frequently.
It’s become clear that the quality of my postings, not their frequency, drives both subscriptions and links to my blog. (How’s that for burying the lead?) I’ve realized that people are not reading me for the latest news. I believe they’re reading me in the hope that I will offer a distinct and thoughtful perspective on a topic they care about.

I can be offline for several days and return with a thoughtful original post – and what happens? The visits to my site will immediately jump back to the level they were at before I took my break. Of course, if I return with a “me-too” post, something which merely parrots things I’ve hear in the echo chamber, the audience will not engage.

So, seeing this, I’ve decided to post less often, to write only when I have something original to say. It may not be profound. But if it reflects my perspective in an honest and clear way, I know that the people who read my blog will return and continue the conversation with me.

UPDATE: Chris Moore skewers me for posting about not writing trivial posts. A good reminder that what’s important to one person carries little weight with another. 🙂

Canadians on the Power 150 Next 100

August 20, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Last week, I wrote about the Canadian marketing, public relations and media bloggers who appear in the AdAge Power 150. Dino Demopoulos left a comment on that post pointing out that there are several other Canadian blogs moving up toward that ranking – including his own blog, Chroma, at #151.

Lists like this are very valuable for allowing us to discover new and up and coming voices. So, to help this, I’d like to point to the hard charging Canadians who appear in the Power 150 “Next 100.”

I hope that you’ll invest five minutes clicking over to some of these blogs. If you do, I’m sure you’ll find new and engaging voices. And when you do, subscribe and join the conversation with them.

Chroma: Dino Demopoulos brings his perspective as a planner and communications strategist to media, culture digital lifestyle and marketing.

Buzz Canuck: Sean Moffitt explores all things connected to Word Of Mouth marketing. Practical. Intelligent. Leading edge. Sean’s part of my daily must-read list.

Common Sense PR: Eric Eggertson demonstrates that you can see a long way from the vantage of Saskatchewan as he writes about the latest developments in business communications. A b5media blog.

PR Works: David Jones, half of the Inside PR podcast team with Terry Fallis, is always trenchant, funny and irreverant in his comments on public relations and marketing. (Disclosure: David is a former colleague at Thornley Fallis.)

Student PR: Chris Clarke first started writing his blog while studying PR at Fanshawe College. It was pretty good. In fact, good enough that it caught the attention of the gang at Thornley Fallis. We hired Chris on the strength of the insight his posts showed.

Transmission: Mark Goren puts a human face on his Montreal-based marketing agency’s blog.

Social Media Group: Maggie Fox writes and podcasts about social media and marketing on her company blog. She joins Kate Trgovac as the second ranking female blogger on the list.

The Client Side: Michael Seaton looks at marketing from his perch as Director, Digital Marketing at one of Canada’s major banks, ScotiaBank. Michael has been a champion of new media in corporate Canada and he`s one of Canada`s leading Digerati.

Canadian Marketing Blog: The Canadian Marketing Association`s blog draws on contributions from a stellar cast of CMA members.

The New PR: Ryan Anderson looks at public relations in the online world from his position as marketing director for an interactive marketing firm.

Experience Planner: Calgary-based Information Architect Scott Weisbrod blogs about multi-channel customer experience, planning, design and management.

Praized: Sebastien Provencher brings a strong background in local search to his blog.

BPWrap: Barry Welford brings another Montreal voice to the party.

I said earlier that lists like this provide an opportunity to discover new voices. And in writing this post, I discovered some new blogs that I had not yet read. So, if my descriptions are a bit brief in a couple of instances, I apologize. But I’ve discovered and subscribed to all of these now and I’m looking forward to following each author through his/her voyage of discovery. I hope you’ll join me in this.

Linkworthy – BlogNation Canada, Publish2 and Blogscope

August 19, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

A set of links about start ups:

BlogNation Canada launches

Tris Hussey edits the new BlogNation Canada. There’s lots of interesting things going on in Canada Web community. So, Tris should have a steady stream of posts.

Publish2 Manifesto

Scott Karp announces his new venture, Publish2, “a social network and 2.0 platform … which aims to put journalists at the center of news on the web by creating a journalist-powered news aggregator.” Grounded in the belief that humans make better news judgments than humans, who better to make these judgments than journalists, including practitioners drawn from old and new media. Should be interesting.

A look at Blogscope, a new measurement tool for blogs

Jeremiah Owyang looks at Blogscope, an “analysis and visualization tool for blogosphere which is being developed as a research prototype at the University of Toronto.” In Jeremiah’s view, “The most interesting thing about BlogScope is that it’s feature set is available for free, so if you work for Nielsen, Cymfony, Factiva or others, … you should pay attention.”

Technorati and David Sifry – never say die

August 18, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I use Technorati. And I use Google. Each is good for different things. As a blogger, Technorati still gives me a better indicator of who is linking to me. Yes, I think that Technorati’s notion of “Authority” is nothing more than popularity. And in my business I know that profit is not the same as success (success is much bigger and broader than simply being profitable.) But, it’s still the best, most available indicator to me of whether my blog is having any influence, as measured by the people who think enough of my posts that they link to them.

So, as a tribute to Technorati’s relevance, I offer this set of links to posts about David Sifry’s departure from Technorati – as recorded by Technorati at 8:26 PM on August 17.

Sifry’s alert

David Dalka’s take

TechCrunch is less than sympathetic

alarm:clock posits several theories for what happened

Jason Calacanis’ assessment from a person who has been there done that.

Mathew Ingram‘s perspective

Brian Oberkirch gets the last word.

Canadians hit the Power 150

August 12, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

It was great to see many Canadian marketing and PR blogs show up on the AdAge Power150 developed by Todd Andrlik. The current list includes:

Adgoodness: Frederick Samuel showcases the best (and sometimes the worst) advertising the world has to offer.

One Degree: A Canadian take on Internet marketing featuring the views of a stellar cast of Canadian marketing practitioners.

Canuckflack: Long-time blogger Colin McKay draws from his eclectic interests to comment on all things online that interest him. And he shows just how interesting a sharp mind can be in the process.

Twist Image: Mitch Joel, Canada’s “mini-Seth,” blogs, podcasts, speaks and in the process creates a one man promotion industry. His enthusiasm is infectious.

Blogging Me Blogging You: Ed Lee knocks down the barriers between PR and digital media. Ed’s a transplanted Brit, but we’re happy to claim him as ours now.

My Name is Kate: Online marketer Kate Trgovac has two blogs on the Power150: One Degree and her personal blog, My Name is Kate. She clearly knows something that the rest of us want to figure out.

CrapHammer: Sean Howard has sent his blog into rapid ascent through edgy content and strong SEO.

thefruitsofimagination: a blog written by the employees of Leo Burnett Toronto. And agency blog! Why aren’t more companies doing this?

I have to confess that I was unfamiliar with some of these blogs. That’s one of the good things about lists like the Power150. Whether you agree with the rankings or the methodology or even the implicit competition (who can really deny being tickled to be on a list like this?), these lists expose us not only to the well established, but also to new voices who are making a mark.

I’d never come across Adgoodness, CrapHammer or thefruitsofimagination. But, as a result of discovering them on the list, I’ve subscribed to each. So the time I spent looking at the Power150 has yielded the return of discovery of three new blogs. That’s a pretty good ROI for a Sunday afternoon.

CBC blogging & Facebook policies

August 4, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

The Inside the CBC Blog reports on the introduction by Canada’s national broadcaster of two new policies governing use of social media by employees.

CBC’s Facebook policy

“The CBC is directing its journalists to avoid adding sources or contacts as “Facebook friends,” and to not post their political leanings on their profile.

It’s part of a short policy document distributed to CBC journalists surrounding the use of popular social networking site Facebook.com.”

CBC tells employees their personal blogs must be approved by management

“Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” now requires their supervisor’s permission, according to a new policy document.”

According to Inside the CBC, “this rule applies ‘not only to CBC/Radio-Canada journalists but to any corporation employee.’”

Hang on. This sounds a lot like the policy adopted last autumn by Canada’s Armed Forces. That policy states that, “CF MEMBERS ARE TO CONSULT WITH THEIR CHAIN OF COMMAND BEFORE PUBLISHING CF-RELATED INFORMATION AND IMAGERY TO THE INTERNET, REGARDLESS OF HOW INNOCUOUS THE INFORMATION MAY SEEM.”

OK. I can accept that the army might want to go to this extreme. After all, as their policy states, the inadvertent release of sensitive information about operations could put lives at risk: “OPERATIONAL SECURITY IS PARAMOUNT. IT IS INCUMBENT UPON ALL CF MEMBERS TO CONSIDER THE POTENTIAL FOR CREATING RISK TO THEMSELVES, THEIR FAMILIES, THEIR PEERS, AND THE MISSION BY PUBLISHING INFORMATION TO THE INTERNET. SUCH INFORMATION OR IMAGERY MAY, EITHER INDIVIDUALLY OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER INFORMATION, PROVIDE EXPERT ANALYSTS INSIGHTS INTO CF CURRENT OPERATIONS, EQUIPMENT, CAPABILITIES, TACTICS, AND INTENTIONS, OR MAY PROVIDE INFORMATION THAT PUTS PERSONNEL IN SPECIALIST ROLES OR THEIR FAMILIES AT RISK.”

But what is at stake with the CBC? Not lives. The embarrassment of senior management?

In this case, it looks like the CBC wants to roll the clock back to an earlier era when managers believed they could control communications. (I emphasize “believed,” because communicators know that we’ve never really controlled anything.) It’s incredible to think that an organization that gathers news every day from countless sources – authorized and unauthorized – would believe that a policy like this will achieve anything other than to make them look foolish.

How long will this policy stand before wiser heads retract it?

Shel Israel asks about social media in Canada

July 17, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Recently, Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, was commissioned by SAP to conduct a study of the state of social media around the world. Shel explains it this way:

Here’s what I am doing. I am trying to answer a single, overwhelming question: “What is going on in the world with regard to social media? I am looking for useful statistics, but those are often outdated before they are published as we learned with the book.

Mostly I am looking for real people with stories and personal experience about what is happening with blogging, video, online communities and assorted conversational media. I’d like to get some anecdotal granularity on why blogging is taking off in Poland these days, or how social media behavior is different in Italy than it is in Russia and Canada.

Shel sent me his questionnaire just before I left for vacation. It was a good vacation and I didn’t do much of anything, including Shel’s questionnaire. So, now I’m about to start. And I’d like the social media community in Canada to have a go at the answers with me.

Here are the questions that Shel put to me.

You are very much in touch with social media in the US and Canada. How would you describe the similarities and differences of the social media evolution in the two countries?

The journalist Mark Evans has written often about how slow Canada’s business has been to adopt to blogging and social media. Do you agree with him? If you do, why do you think this is and do you think it is a trend that will continue?

Which social media tools are the most popular in general in Canada? What about among business users?

Canada is a bilingual country. How has this impacted social networks and blog audiences? Do you think social media can play a role in bringing French and English speaking people closer together in Canada?

Is social media in Canada just for young people or is it spreading across multiple age barriers? What do they talk most about? How much of the conversation is business oriented?

Who or what are the greatest influencers on social media in Canada?

You and I have talked about Canadian businesses wanting greater access to American markets. How does social media lay into that strategy?

Can you give me one or two brief case studies of social media in Canada impacting business?

What trends do you see in Canada these days?

Additional comments

In the next few days, I’ll post about each of Shel’s questions. As I do, I’d welcome your thoughts on both the questions and my answers.

Please post any comments you’d like to offer and I’ll incorporate them in my responses.