I’m currently in the UK, in London, where today I led a workshop for Melcrum on New Communication Technology: Add Value to Internal Communication with Social Media. This was a full-day workshop which provided a great opportunity to address topics surrounding organizational communication and new media tools in some depth. A terrific group of communicators […]
Category: Communication
NevOn joins Corante Network
I am delighted to report that NevOn – this blog – is a participant in the Corante Marketing Hub, part of the new Corante Network that launched today: With the launch and development of the Corante Network, Corante has partnered with scores of the blogosphere’s most respected thinkers and writers in specific categories to bring […]
IABC Europe conference kicks off
Arrived in Paris late last night, ready to participate in the IABC Eurocomm conference which formally kicks off today and runs through tomorrow. I’m moderating the opening session discussion panel on the giant global focus group. No prizes for guessing what this is about at a conference full of communicators! So, my fellow conversationalists – […]
The conversation is rapidly evolving
As I relax on my train journey back to Amsterdam aboard the high-speed Thalys TGV, I sit in reflective mode regarding this morning’s terrific panel discussion on the giant global focus group at the IABC Europe conference in Paris. Not long after the panel was over, Niall Cook posted a commentary to The Plenary Panel […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #90: December 1, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments discussion (changing intro music for FIR book review podcasts; working on new H&H Report intro music for show #100; World AIDS Day; Blog Marketing book for review; tapping into FIR; Sony BMG going down the drain; two sides of crisis communication; new media tools not so effective in parts of Asia; […]
Growth of the global internet
It won’t surprise anyone to learn that the top language of internet users is English, according to stats from Internet World Stats: English represents the language of nearly one-third of all internet users, according to these stats. What’s especially interesting, though, is to see the growth rates of languages other than English during the past […]
At the bleeding edge with Skype 2.0 beta
I installed the new Skype 2.0 beta for Windows the other day – and uninstalled it yesterday. Lots to like about it, especially the video calling capability which worked faultlessly when I tried it with a Philips Toucam webcam. Overall, this new Skype version has a rather bright program interface for my taste plus pathetic […]
Les Blogs 2.0 kicks off today
The Les Blogs 2.0 conference in Paris formally starts today and runs until Tuesday evening. The event is completely sold out. Lots already been going on over the weekend, judging from the rapidly-growing Technorati tag list. What’s the event about? Absorb this, from Loic’s opening remarks: […] We believe there is a revolution going-on. We […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #91: December 5, 2005
Content summary: A special edition: Neville and Shel discuss the future of public relations and the skills communicators will need to succeed in a forever-altered communication environment. The discussion includes listener feedback. Show notes for December 5, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 75-minute conversation recorded live from Concord, […]
Reflecting on Les Blogs 2.0
Worthwhile being there is how I’d sum up my experience of Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. I didn’t get there for day 1, arriving only in the evening (and so made it to the blogger bash), but I did spend day 2 listening, learning and conversing. Meeting new people, and re-meeting […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #92: December 8, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ audio and email comments (a proto-vlog in Australia; the future of newspapers; IBM’s podcasting guidelines; what’s the best tool for starting an electronic conversation?; PR and propaganda; offending employees with guidelines for personal presentation; how HR can use blogs; more on the future of PR to add to show #91); Wikipedia dust-ups; […]
BBC getting into blogging
The BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, started a blog last week, called Nick Robinson’s Newslog. His first post includes this text: […] The BBC is about to start a trial series of blogs, each of which will be built using the kind of software employed by millions of weblogs around the world. This is the […]
Cool Nokia N70 is the business
Yesterday was a rare day, a day during which I enjoyed playing around with a gadget purely for the sake of it. Getting to know it a bit, trying things out on it to see how it works. Generally, just having a great deal of fun with it. The gadget is the Nokia N70 smartphone […]
This podcasting dope is addictive
News of what two big companies in entirely different industries are doing with audio as part of their communication is a great example of imaginative ways to use this communication medium. First up is health care products manufacturer Johnson & Johnson who is using podcasts as part of a campaign to promote its Acuvue contact […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #93: December 12, 2005
Content summary: Yahoo! acquires del.icio.us and teams up with Six Apart to offer Movable Type; IABC adds new media categories to Gold Quill Awards; Irish government uses RSS to deliver budget information; the Wikipedia class action lawsuit website; Nokia’s blog relations campaign for the N90 smartphone; listeners’ audio and email comments (from Geneva to Zurich; […]
Oil blaze communications challenge for Total Oil
I’m following the still-breaking news about the massive oil terminal blaze in Hemel Hempstead in the UK that started on Sunday – what some reports are saying is the biggest fire of its type in Europe since 1945 – and thinking about PR. In an event that’s making news headlines worldwide, this has all the […]
FIR Interview – Rick Klau, VP Business Development, FeedBurner – December 13, 2005
In this edition of For Immediate Release podcast interviews, Shel and Neville enjoyed a 53-minute conversation with Rick Klau, Vice President of Business Development for FeedBurner, the RSS service. Download the conversation here (MP3, 21MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and our future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with […]
A standard symbol for RSS?
One of the topics Shel and I discussed with Rick Klau of FeedBurner during our FIR podcast interview with him on Tuesday was about the challenges of helping ‘normal’ people understand what RSS is. The acronym itself and the little orange icons with ‘RSS’ or ‘XML’ you see everywhere really are not helpful to the […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #94: December 15, 2005
Content summary: Personal video uploads at YouTube.com: the new ‘Flickr for video’; self-destruct SMS messaging; the Structured Blogging Initiative; are Nielsen TV ratings headed for extinction?; Wikipdia gets high ratings for accuracy of science entries; listeners’ comments discussion (PR and propaganda; show format and length; Nokia N90 blog relations campaign; emotional links; working with IT […]
Six Apart: Perceptions and the role of communication
This is clearly not a good time for some companies offering blogosphere services. Last week it was Six Apart’s nightmare with the TypePad service outage for almost a full day. Now it’s the turn of del.icio.us which is still suffering in the aftermath of a power failure at their datacenter last week. If you try […]