Archive for October, 2008

Like many people, I have been keeping track of the financial news regularly throughout the day. I tried to catch the TV news all the radio bulletins if I am at home. Otherwise, I check out the newspaper websites online. The press reports talk about a “rollercoaster ride” and indeed, there are developments every hour with share prices plummeting and then recovering, up and down, throughout the day.

Back in the days of print, newspapers would have found it difficult to compete with the broadcast media in terms of delivering up-to-the-minute dispatches. However, moving online has enabled publications like the Guardian and the Times etc to bring updated news easily and quickly to their readers in almost the same way as broadcast news bulletins. In particular, I am following the Guardian’s live blog of the financial crisis .

At times the Guardian’s live blog updates every 15 minutes or so. Where it does not have any hard news, it brings commentary from web and blog sources so it is quite a good site to keep an eye on for a very few on the credit crunch developments.

Social media tools such as blogging are excellent for fast, up-to-the-minute updates. You do not need to be a major news organisation to use blogging and other such tools to keep your readers informed at regular intervals — this is especially handy for businesses and other organisations at those times when it may be critical to keep your customers, clients and other stakeholders updated. For example, it can be reassuring for your customers not just to be told that “it’s business as usual” on your main website but to be refferred to your blog for regular updates about a developing situation that affects your enterprise.

It goes without saying that if you promise regular updates on your blog, then you must follow through and deliver those regular updates — ideally, you should set out minimum timescales e.g. at least once a day, or every hour or at least three times a day etc. And when you are going to wind down those regular updates, it makes sense to say that on your blog as well.

Of course, you may not be able to reveal confidential or sensitive business information about that developing situation affecting your enterprise on a minute by minute basis. However, if there is information that can be sensibly released, then it is worth considering doing so as part of your regular updates. Also, it may be sufficiently reassuring for people to know that the situation is being attended to and that more information will be provided at such and such a time in the future. It’s like when you are stuck on a train that isn’t moving, it’s helpful when the driver comes on and tells you that it’s due to signal failure and even though he may not know when it will be resolved, he will keep you updated from time to time — you still have to wait the same amount of time whether he says so or not but somehow, it feels reassuring and less stressful and frustrating.

Photo: of “The writing on the wall” thanks to Overseas Development Institute from flickr.com (CCL)

My father continues his Memories of Malaya series, with more recollections of the joys of reading during his childhood.

He writes:

When we grew a little older my Mother would borrow books from the Kuala Lumpur Public Library which was well stocked with books of detective stories, mystery stories and books for teenagers.

The library was started by the British expatriates and it catered for the lonely planters in their rubber plantations and miners in their tin mines where the nearest neighbour could be some distance away. Most of them did not go in for literature. There were some books of literature which were for the civil servants. The books my Mother borrowed were by Enid Blyton: her famous five series which we found thrilling and “unputdownable” as the Americans say. Then we graduated to reading “Children of the New Forest” by Captain Marryat, Treasure Island (the abridged version) 20,000 leagues Under the Sea, etc.

Then there were the memorable few months when the whole family minus my Mother read Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” All four of us brothers would sit around a table each with a copy of the book. The four of us read the book together. Our ages ranged from ten, my youngest brother, eleven, twelve and thirteen, myself. So although my youngest brother was only ten he was going through the same exercise as myself. In fact this brother also joined us in the Chinese lessons when the tutor came to the house to teach all of us at the same time. This early start for my youngest brother meant that he grew up to be extremely able scholastically and I’m proud to say he topped the country in the Cambridge School Certificate in both the “O” and “A” levels.

My Father would be lying on a kind of sofa-bed holding his own copy of the book. Each of us would take turns to read a page or two from it. The reading would usually start about 9.00 pm after we have had dinner and it went on until eleven or so until my Father got tired when we would stop. We enjoyed the reading sometime but I became irritable when I became sleepy but we did not stop until my Father said so. We became fond of the characters like Mr Peggotty and Betsy Trotwood, the eccentric aunt who treated David Copperfield with kindness. I tended to identify Mr Murdoch, David’s stepfather, with my Father because they were both equally harsh and strict as my Father was with us sometimes. My Father would make us stop to look up in the dictionary if we could not give an accurate meaning of a word. I must say that my vocabulary was very much improved from these reading sessions.

I still remember learning the words “simultaneously” which appears in the first paragraph at the beginning of the book and “vicissitude” which is a chapter heading. We became so fond of the eccentric aunt that we name our two dogs, one “Betsy” and the other “Trotty” for Trotwood. Father would always tell us to enjoy the English language. When we finished the book my Father wanted to start it all over again but fortunately for some reason, I cannot remember, this second reading was not pursued.

memmlya

Last week, I went to see Joan Baez at the Royal Albert Hall, celebrating her 50th year in music with her Day After Tomorrow tour. It was great to see this legendary figure live, singing some new songs and also a range of ballads and protest songs from her long career. She will always be associated with protest and the spirit of ‘68 and it seemed right to be at her London concert on the 40th anniversary of that momentous year.

This video is from 2005 and although this was not one of the songs she sang last week, I think it is one that sums up what much of her life and music has been about.

Enjoy…

Dulwich Picture Gallery is running an exhibition on the theme of What Are You Like?, based on a Victorian parlor game where you create an image of yourself based on a number of your favorite things e.g. your favorite book, animal, music, place etc. Some friends were telling me about it the other evening and someone said, “The modern equivalent is Facebook, isnt it?” - which started me thinking…

On social networks like Facebook and MySpace, you can show off to the world your favourite music, movies, books and interests as well as who your friends are. On MySpace in particular, you can redesign the look of your page with wallpaper that reflects your personality and you can play actual music that plays when your visit to comes to your page. On both social networks, you can add a picture of yourself and people often change this photo to reflect their current mood or status. Some people use a photo of their dog or a cartoon image of themselves. All of it is a way of saying to the world: this is who I am.

It seems to me that this is a very human instinct going back beyond the Victorians playing their parlour games to time immemorial. Wherever we humans have been, we have wanted others to know us. Perhaps those ancient hand prints and paintings of buffalo in dark primeval caves are no more than a prehistoric people’s way of saying, “This is who we are. This is what we are like.” Archaelogists usually interpret these markings as religious symbols or cultural totems but perhaps they might be no more than the graffiti of a Neanderthal teenager who might have been trying to impress a girl… (”Me, I like bison, you like too? Look, me have big hands, you - hands so small and sweet.”)

We tell each other what we are like when we first meet as friends or when we go on a date. We want to find common interests and we want the other person to like us. We often present ourselves in the best light or at least, in light of that we think will appeal to the other person. I guess this is what we are doing on Facebook and MySpace when we share our music and favourite things online for our friends and also the world to see. On the Indian marriage and dating site Shaadi.com, users can include information about themselves such as their hobbies, interests and also there Indian astrological signs. They can also add photos and videos, and in fact the more information they include in their profile of the more helpful this is to the “eMatchmaker” that will be searching the database to find mutual matches for them. So, In the same way that the Victorians bonded with their friends - and perhaps grew closer to potential love matches - during the fun and flirtation of their evening parlour games, these days we find friends and modern day love matches via the pixels of online digital parlours.

So, lets see - what I would put on my Facebook or MySpace profile ( if I ever got round to filling those boxes in):

• My favourite animal - hmm, the problem is I dont really like animals.
• My favourite clothes - a pair of old, comfy jeans.
• My favourite place - home.
• My favourite pastime - writing and blogging.

Picture: thanks to mrnizz.blogspot.com

For background to the project, read my post about the involvement of my social media consultancy in Dulwich OnView