‘TweetCamp’ was a ‘BarCamp’ like UnConference held in Richmond on Saturday 27June.
I realise I’ve just opened with three geeky nouns that may make no sense to half my readers; I’ll start again.
‘TweetCamp’ was the name of the Twitter get together that I attended and participated in on Saturday. It was hosted by GumTree in the GumTree / eBay / PayPal offices in Richmond.
As it was a ‘Camp’, the day was fairly unstructured, with a good deal of the content being provided by attendees, who were all active participants, rather than passive ‘attendees’. The organisers had worked with various sponsors to provide food, drinks and treats for everyone, so there was a good buzz going right from the 9:30am breakfast with mymuesli.
We were all there to talk about our use of Twitter; I first heard about TweetCamp on Twitter (tickets arranged through EventBrite) and I signed up without really knowing what it was all about. I was excited to think I might meet some of my friends and followers from Twitter.
I am on holiday in France right now, so it’s great to have a guest post from Jules. Standby for more posts from guest luminaries :)
I’ve learnt a lot about communication in the last couple of years since I’ve been working for Wedge’s voluntary organisation, and I think one of the most important things Wedge has taught me is how to respond to criticism and / or hostility (and indeed whether to!)
I’m an impulsive person, passionate, fiercely loyal and quick to anger, which makes for an explosive temperament that I’ve had to learn to control when dealing with other people. Sometimes I get emails that are pure hatred, and there was a time when such things bothered me greatly. I’d get upset and angry, and I’d respond similarly – which only really served to fuel the other person and convince them they were right to tell me what a bad person I am. These days I ignore such things completely. It’s not easy, but instead of getting upset I just laugh at them, quickly click delete and then push them from my mind completely.
Working within Internal Communications, I have deadlines every day for tomorrow’s key comms. Even though our company won’t fall over if I don’t publish a new ‘news’ story on our intranet, I pride myself in keeping our front page fresh through the working week.
I maintain a publishing schedule, a pipeline of urgent and upcoming stories, and so I’m constantly living in the future, mentally speaking.
I travel too much, I know I do. The length of my commute to and from the office impacts my life, drags me down, and reduces the amount of work and fun I can fit into my day. Plus, public transport isn’t always pleasant.
One of the reasons I don’t go to the gym or night school is because I’m so tired and busy all the damn time.
I really would like to spend more time in my home office, working for the voluntary organisation I founded back in 2002. I would like to spend more time online networking with professional communicators, but it’s all I can do to keep up with my Twitter connections.
I spend most of my time in the office, in bed, and on my commute to the office.
Half the time I reckon I should do more online, increase my blogging, launch a company, publish my novel and plunge further into professional networking, maybe on Linked In. The other half I think about unplugging, reading more books, writing, and ignoring the transient online hullabaloo. What’s a boy to do?
[Wedge]
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It’s common sense to keep your trap shut if you’re in a meeting and feeling out of your depth. If you’re worried that people might think you’re a fool, don’t open your mouth and confirm it!
But, it’s human nature to gabble on isn’t it? Some people just have a need to fill the silence, to hear their own voice. I know I can twitter on and on if I feel like I’ve got a captive audience ;)
Sometimes, I feel that people offer their opinions when what we’re asking for is their professional assessment and for their action. Sometimes, I feel people should just get on with the task in hand rather than express their personal preferences.
Too often, we mistake ‘I don’t like it’ gut feelings with ‘this won’t work because of X’ professional assessments. Even in big business, we champion that which we like, sometimes regardless of the practical evidence.
Internal and External Communications can suffer from this wind-bag pontificating too I fear. Some time ago, I was asked to publish an intranet article celebrating the ‘birthday’ of one of our computer systems. OK, that’s fine, but you see, the article had no story, no news, no messages.
Something different for you; an audio file for you to listen to. You can listen right now below, or you can ‘follow’ my audio blogs over at AudioBoo. A ‘Boo’ is three minutes long or less, and seem an easy way to audio-blog by iPhone or phone call. I say it’s the Twitter of podcasting.
Or you can read my thoughts on podcasting within your company below - not an exact transcript, but identical content to the short audio blog.
The popularity of podcasting and video blogging, ala YouTube, must have some impact on the way we communicate within our companies. I know when I publish messages from our CEO on our intranet they are popular and valued, generating a wealth of feedback. There are many people within the company who don’t have access to the intranet though, so our CEO, and other execs, record the message on a phone line, so people can ring up and listen. Basically, it’s podcasting over the phone. Several people listen each week. Not a huge audience, but if they don’t have access to the intranet article, we have a duty to provide alternative communications.
But personally, I’m not sure the popularity of podcasting and video blogging on the world wide web should influence professional business critical communications too much.
Author : Lillian Cohen-Moore I died for this country. Then.. …I came back. Mock me all you want. Say, no, what I mean to say is, “I would have died for this country.” Or, “I nearly died for this country.” You weren’t there, were you? With the grit in your eyes and the suns streaming down on you. The sand [...]
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My name is Wedge, it really is, and I'm a writer and editor, specialising in Internal Communications with a sideline in Media Relations.
I work in the commercial sector and also within the voluntary sector, and I deliver training on writing for the web and on emotional wellbeing, across the UK.
I'm very happy to claim my opinions and the ideas on this blogsite as mine and mine alone. You're visiting my site and I'm pleased to share my thoughts with you.
kilobox communiqué discusses the theory and practice of 'Internal Communications', touching on all aspects of good communication including writing, channels (e.g. intranets), best practices, technologies and the needs of the audience. I re-launched kilobox communiqué in July 2008, and I'm thrilled to have met so many communication professionals and practitioners online. I read every comment.
Working within Internal Communications, I have deadlines every day for tomorrow’s key comms. Even though our company won’t fall over if I don’t publish a new ‘news’ story on our intranet, I pride myself in keeping our front page fresh through the working week.
It’s common sense to keep your trap shut if you’re in a meeting and feeling out of your depth. If you’re worried that people might think you’re a fool, don’t open your mouth and confirm it!
Something different for you; an audio file for you to listen to. You can listen right now below, or you can
“Hi Wedge, I’ve got a couple of podcasts I’d like to pop on the intranet for people to download and listen to.”
