Archive for November, 2007

I’ve always loved a good cartoon, ever since the days of Bugs Bunny and the gang. This is by English animator Simon Tofield at Tandem Films. They seem to be one company that’s embraced the viral nature of the net and are proud that their film has been posted all over the internet - compared to other media companies who try to shut down anyone who tries to share something they’ve created.

I am pleased to announce that my social media consultancy ZenGuide and Chanda Communications are working with haute couture designer Roubi L’Roubi to create an online magazine, roubiMAGAZINE.com, to showcase the creative and cultural activities, events and personalities that are coming together as part of the Roubi network.

Our first articles for the magazine look behind the scenes at the music and talented individuals involved in the Tune Your Harps concert coming up on Monday 13 November at Claridges. We also interview the conductor Laurence Cummings and violinist Adrian Butterfield.

The concert is organised by the London Handel Society as a fundraiser for its 2008 Festival. There will be a champagne reception and dinner as well. Roubi has designed clothes for musicians and singers and is very much involved in this event on Monday. As he told my colleague Silvia Cambie for her article on the event:

He believes that working with musicians helps to elevate fashion to another level. “Fashion is just another form of art, very much like classical music,” he says. “Highly skilled musicians are the haute couture of music.”

I hope very much you’ll enjoy roubiMAGAZINE.com - and also be able to come and enjoy the music and champagne on Monday.

This is a cross-post from my social media blog ZenGuide

I set up my International Public Relations bookproject wiki a few weeks back but I’ve been hesitating about announcing it on my blogs. I finally blogged about it a few days ago and invited comments and input - and I hope very much that you will help me with my research by getting involved in this project. But the reason I hesitated is that having set up the wiki online, I found that I have a strong streak of “command and control” in my character.

I wrote my two novels all by myself and did not show them to anyone until I had finished typing “The End” on the last page. I did invite input from experts on some of the background information that I needed to create a real world for my characters to inhabit and I did occasionally discuss motivation and plot points with my writer friends. But I kept the bulk of the story and text to myself during the 18 months or so that each book took to write. And I felt very much in control as the author and creator.

So while the “social media”, open and transparent part of me is all for having a go with writing a book via a wiki online, the old-fashioned author in me has been feeling somewhat uncomfortable about this new way of doing things. Will people nick my ideas/ thesis? Will people give me unsupportive criticism? Will I feel pushed and pulled by others’ input? Will I no longer feel like the author of the work?

My worries took me by surprise as I had always considered myself an open and trusting sort of person. (Though perhaps my years of training as a lawyer has overlayed that with an armoury of suspicion…?) Friends and colleagues gave me differing views. Some advised, no way should I put it up online as people might steal my work. Others were more of the attitude: well, try it and see. The advantage is that I can invite the help of others who may have more expertise of a particular issue than I have and I always liked the saying, “two (or more) heads are better than one”. And since I may be approaching experts with whom I have no personal connection, I can refer them to the work online for them to get a sense of what the book is about and whether they feel comfortable contributing to it. Also, as I would like to include a strong cross-cultural focus, having an online presence accessible from all over the world can only be a good thing.

A number of much more well-known authors than me have shared their books online while they’ve been work in progress. Chris Anderson blogged his book The Long Tail and developed it with readers’ input. Marc Wright over at simply-communicate.com is also using a wiki for his book Handbook for Internal Communication, due for publication in March 2008. So I reckon, if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

So far, I’ve put out a few feelers to a number of experts and I hope to have spoken to an Italian writer this week and also a Korean social media / tech CEO based in Japan.

Do go and check out the bookproject wiki - and let me know if you have any thoughts on any of the issues I’m researching. Drop me an email via the Contact form above or add a comment.

Photo: thanks to smackfu from flickr.com (CCL)

The article I was researching and writing earlier this year about blogging in Malaysia has now been published in Communication World, the journal of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). It is featured in a special Asia-Pacific supplement under the title “Blogging Thrives in Malaysia.” The article examines the tension between political bloggers and the authorities as well as highlighting the success of non-political personal and business blogs in the country.

It has come together with the help of various journalists and bloggers who generously shared their views and experiences - thanks, guys! Much of the information they have given with me will also be useful for the book that I am working on about New Trends in International Public Relations.

Please feel free download the pdf of the article Blogging Thrives in Malaysia. By all means forward it to anyone who may be interested, with a link back to this post.

You can also download the article plus other articles I’ve written about social media from the box below.

This is the last in a three-part series by Alan Lane, about his experience of being inadvertently caught up in a war while on business in Beirut.

Part 1 of Escape from Beirut was posted here on Fusion View two weeks ago.

Part 2 of Escape from Beirut was posted up last Wednesday.

~~~

Alan writes:

Day six. The evacuation from Beirut’s Forum is orderly, well planned and a credit to Britain’s armed services. Families with children, those in wheelchairs and back-packers are part of the ensemble gathered for passport clearance, a feeling of desperation obvious among those taking a chance without the right documentation.

Security is tight. A British TV journalist filming the scene has his video camera confiscated by a guard. One by one we pass through passport control before leaving by bus for HMS York. On the quay, members of the media are anxious to gather our impressions on leaving a war zone. I do a live satellite feed interview with Ben Brown of BBC News 24. Once on board, we are asked to stay below while the ship negotiates the ‘safe passage’ negotiated with the Israeli and Hizbullah forces within the 12 nautical miles inside Lebanese territory.

Emotions are high as my fellow evacuees tell their stories in the cramped quarters of the warship, with children playing or asleep on the floor. It’s a story of separated families, abandoned homes, husbands electing to stay behind to run businesses, and an uncertain future of ‘not knowing if we will see each other again.’

We dock in Limassol in Cyprus at night after a surging 30-knots, six-hour journey. A clearing house for passport control with the Cypriot authorities has a Union Jack on the wall to welcome us. Calm is the order of the night, with rows of chairs each with a bottle of water. We are tired, hot and glad to be on neutral ground.

The fate of those who stayed is uncertain, especially for the Lebanese people. Without doubt, we had been the lucky ones.

Buses take us to the RAF Akrotiri NATO base, where immaculate, tanned British soldiers and women volunteers await to welcome us. One genteel volunteer asks me kindly whether I have been ‘affected by the bombing.’

Here, our quarters are a huge aircraft hangar lined with camp beds complete with clean sheets and towels for some 500 evacuees. Echoes of war-time Britain begin to stir.

After a shower in portable units outside, a welcome dinner is chips and beans, bread and drinks before we turn in for the night to the sound of helicopters and jet aircraft taking off.

Day 7. I rise early for the chartered flight to Gatwick, where on arrival I do a live satellite feed interview on the SKY News channel, and home in Dorset. Thoughts flood in on my escape from Beirut which had taken some 30 hours.

I recall the sights I did see in this troubled and historic country which would experience 34 days of war before a cease fire was called. The stunning caves of Jeita whose size and magic are straight out of the Lord of the Rings. The ancient harbour of Byblos, inhabited continuously for some 7,000 years. I recall the sights I missed. The Roman ruins at Baalbek, said to match anything in the Eternal City. The famous Cedars of Lebanon, said to have been used to build Solomon’s Temple.

I recall the noisy and joyous wedding celebrations around the hotel swimming pool that kept me awake until one in the morning before the serious bombing had started. How in a few days, an evening watching the World Cup on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea turned into a fully-fledged war zone. How locals despair that after years of rebuilding, their country once again is being demolished. How this beautiful, ancient land continues to be the punch-bag for Middle East politics.

~~~

Alan Lane is founder and chief executive of VASGAMA providing reputation management consulting to international corporations and government.

© Copyright: Alan Lane All rights reserved

Photo: showing Alan on his home balcony holding up a local paper with front page headlines
and pics of destruction in downtown Beirut -t thanks to Alan Lane

~~~

I really appreciate Alan taking the time to write about his experiences for this blog. For many of us, we are lucky enough never to be caught up in such a frightening situation. Watching the news reports from afar and in safety, it can be easy to numb ourselves and forget that real people suffer and real homes and lives are devastated. His account, for me, brings home the surreal feel of war and the beauty and humanity in a country torn by conflict beyond the control of ordinary people.

As I’ve blogged about before, I am co-authoring the social media sections of a book on New Trends in International PR to be published internationally by UK publishers Kogan Page in early 2009. I am trying a social media experiment as part of the book - I am posting my research online on a wiki and inviting readers to add comments and share their knowledge with me. I hope that you or your contacts may be able to help with this project.

Many books on social media as well as books on public relations have tended to focus on the West, and in particular the US and UK markets. But globalisation and social media, as you know, are rapidly changing the landscape of communications. Influence is shifting from organisations to individuals and the voices of Asia, Africa and non-Western cultures are becoming increasingly significant on the world stage.

Our book aims to explore the landscape of new communications from a cross-cultural perspective with special focus on Asia as well as other non-Anglo-Saxon cultures.

Would you - or someone you know - be able to give me an cross cultural perspective around how social media is used in Asia, Africa or South America? For example:

# What businesses in those regions/ cultures blog or podcast? What about not-for-profit organisations, politicians, campaigners, activists, solo professionals - do they use social media to help their enterprise?

# What is the impact of social media and networks like Facebook on business, culture, politics, relationships etc in those cultures/ regions?

I would like to share a strong cross-cultural perspective in the book, so I hope very much that you can help.

You can find out more about the book and follow my research at http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/.

For others who have already contributed to the project, please see http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/Acknowledgements+to+Contributors

If you’re able to share our views with me, you can contact me via the book wiki at http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/contact.php or via the Contact link at the top of this page.

bkprj

This is a collection of witty mashups of photos that have been doctored to create surreal takes on nature…

Thanks to Asohan Aryaduray for first sharing this video with me via Facebook.

I was in a business meeting last week in the City of London discussing social media with colleagues and clients. As the meeting wound down, we chatted about personal matters, sitting back in our chairs and packing away our papers.

As we looked round the table, we realised that none of us was a native Englander. There was a Sudanese, a German, an Italian, a South African and a Malaysian-born Chinese. We laughed at how we were all speaking English and how we were so comfortable with each other.

The Sudanese marvelled at how in his father’s day in Sudan, the local people could not own businesses and were truly second-class citizens under the British Empire. And here he was running a thriving business in the City, with clients from all over the world, including the British who had once ruled his home country.

I shared the story that my father and his brothers had told us - of how they were not allowed to enter the gentleman’s club in Kuala Lumpur during colonial rule because they were not white. There have been other stories across the Empire of how even sultans and kings had not been allowed entry to such places because they were natives. And just earlier this year, I had walked into a gentleman’s club - a woman and a non-white - on Pall Mall and I had been treated with respect and even deference by the English staff.

The South African had an ancestor who was closely associated with the creation of apartheid, to her shame and embarrassment, and yet she herself had marched against apartheid in her youth and makes friends based on a person’s character, not their colour.

For many of our generation living in today’s Western, cosmopolitan cultures, it’s pretty much a given that we take each person for who they are and it’s not about colour or gender or orientation or whatever. It’s difficult to imagine what it must have been like for our parents and grandparents - to have experienced blanket unquestioned prejudice, or to hold such prejudices as if they were the unswerving truth. There are still people and places where racism, sexism and all kinds of other “isms” still rule the day, unfortunately - so I’m not saying we live in a perfect world. There is still much to be done to remove inequality. It was just that on that particular afternoon last week, we looked at each other and delighted in our differences and the freedom we had to enjoy those differences here in London.

Photo: from freestockphotos.com

In the last few months, I’ve been involved in the preparations for the EuroComm Conference in Barcelona coming up early next year and I’m pleased to report that we have just launched the website and blog for the Conference.

The IABC EuroComm Conference in Barcelona will take place on 4-5 Feb 2008. The website is at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/.

The blog will feature articles and posts on the theme of Innovation through Communication, which is the theme of the conference. We would very much like to engage in discussions and shares view around this theme even before the conference starts so we hope that you’ll come along to visit the blog at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/blog/.

Guest-bloggers include business communicators who will be speaking at the conference - they will be sharing their personal views on the blog in advance of the conference. There is also a core team of bloggers, including IABC members Marc Wright of simply-communicate.com, the online communications magazine, Kevin Keohane of SAS, the branding agency and Yang-May Ooi of ZenGuide, the social media consultancy as well as web usability expert, Giles Colborne of cxpartners, the usability professionals.

We are also inviting business and communications professionals to submit articles around the theme of the conference, Innovation through Communication. You do not have to be a member of IABC and you do not need to be going to the conference to submit an article. We’d just like to hear your views if you have a story or opinion piece that is relevant to our theme. You can find out more through our Article Submission Guidelines

The programme for EuroComm Conference is available at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/programme.html

Registration for the Conference is now open - find out how to register at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/registration.php

For information about discounted accommodation during the Conference, go to http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/hotel.html