A few disconnected muses

This time of year there is not much going on in the 50-plus world. Sure, the world is experiencing financial hell and damnation, there is carnage in the Middle East and the expectation of 2009 are equivalent to Armageddon, but that will all wait until 2009.

Much more interesting is to muse about a few things I have seen in the past couple of days.

Twitter
It is great to see that twitter is now using the video made by commoncraft.com to explain what its service is all about. I reckon these videos are a fantastic way of explaining Internet enabled services. Have a look at their explanation Social Networking.

Social Networking

I have long thought that the future of social networking will be determined by how corporates incorporate the functionality into their online presence. This article from E-Marketer comes to something like the same conclusion

The example that is used to illustrate the trend is the way a Johnson & Johnson has created a social network for families who have children with diabetes.

Government Speak

If you want something to sound important make it sound complicated. I think this must be the first lesson taught to all employees in the UK’s Public Sector. If the truth will be told I can think of some people in my own profession who suffer from this problem.

What do you make of this 61 word sentence?

“Given current efforts to consolidate and extend existing Londonwide shared intelligence capabilities into the London Clinical and Business Support Agency (LCBSA, aka "the London Hub"), it is a particularly opportune time for INEL to determine our near and longer-term health intelligence strategy and its internal capability, to complement and build on services we will be able to access via the hub.”

OK, now you understand?

And finally, what was the most searched for term on the WARC (World Advertising Research Council) web site during 2008? Give you a clue, it begins with ‘r’ and ends with ‘n’. Yep, you got it. RECESSION.

Now as I read forecasts and pundits views about the marketing world I think they should be labelled ‘AR’ and ‘BR’. Any market forecasts made before the credit crunch and the ensuing recession are not worth the paper they are written on. What do you reckon? Dick Stroud