politics

Bored of slogans? Or just politics…

May 18, 2010 By Dan Thornton

An article on the PRWeek site reveals research that apparently ‘Election slogans failed to resonate with voters’ (in the recent race for a new Government in the UK).

And some of the opinions on why this may be seem to be about ‘cut-through’, ‘lack of funds’ and bad luck.

What noone seems to have pointed out is that the voting population of the UK are being bombarded with slogans via marketing and advertising almost every second of the day. (And as someone who works in digital marketing, I’m not blameless).

What did seem to catch on were some of the viral content – whether official or unofficial, and maybe that’s because it was the only part of the actual election that many people actually felt a direct involvement with?

Matthew McGregor summed it up on the Guardian’s Tech Weekly Podcast (He’s the London Director of Blue State Digital, who were behind the Obama election campaign in the U.S).

The big difference across the Atlantic was that the use of social networking and communication/engagement in the U.S was directed at empowering engaged supporters to go out and spread the word about Obama to everyone around them, especially those offline.

Whereas in the UK we had an election which was reported far more digitally than ever before, one which was commented on far more digitally than ever before, and one which is likely to have a bigger effect on the digital future of the country than ever before – but no noticeable change in the level of direct interaction and involvement in politics.

If you want cut-through and engagement, give me honesty and transparent, and then give me ways to interact, contribute, and feel like I’ve had some impact. Spin never cuts through, and passivity doesn’t get shared.

A compilation/best of/round-up/braindump…

March 12, 2009 By Dan Thornton

Call it what you like, but for various reasons I’ve been blogging-lite, and have 100 things floating around my head which I need to expel in the blogging equivalent of an exorcism. And I’m sure you know all about Facebook’s new interface/look, and Google adding comments in Google Reader, so I’ll at least try and unearth some other stuff.

A great post by friend and former colleague Angus, which adds to the interesting and equally great original post on newspaper business models.

That somehow led to me thinking about ‘micro-careers’, and how the collapse of ‘a job for life’ and fears about security can somewhat be alleviated by the internet, and the fact you can form several careers by playing around and experimenting with different skills. E.g. writing, photography, video would have been entirely silo’d careers, but look at Christian. It allows you to experiment for little or no cost, and then focus on the things that give you the most enjoyment, best results etc – and you’re able to still do a day job to pay the bills if the fun stuff doesn’t support you.

The most idiotic attempt to cash in on a ridiculous patent award goes to worlds.com, for claiming a patent on all virtual worlds (From Venturebeat).

The most interesting thing for me about Robert Scoble leaving Fast Company, and Jason Calacanis/Mahalo employing a now convicted hacker, isn’t the idea that the loss of Scoble’s sponsor means social media has failed, or the fact that in a 3-5 interview process, the Mahalo team failed to perform a quick Google search.

The interesting aspect is that both Scoble and Calacanis published their stories as soon as news broke, and that we expect it and accept it. Compare that to the hundreds of more traditional companies which are issuing redundancies at the moment.

If you’re wondering why politicians seem to be increasingly ridiculed and ineffectual, here’s a good example of the reasons why. The Conservative Party have wasted time and money that could have been used to benefit voters/constituents for a service to send a fake letter from Gordon Brown.

Compare that to the amount of brilliant apps coming from quick, effective and cheap hack days, like the Guardian Hack Day, for example.

I feel better after that! Incidentally, when I’m not writing a new post, I’m normally twittering: @badgergravling, sharing stuff via Google Reader, or starting to get a handle on using Friendfeed effectively.

Isreali Consulate using Twitter for Press Conference on Gaza

December 30, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Just spotted that the Israeli Consulate is using Twitter for a press conference on Gaza attacks.

Spotted via Doc Searls.

More information, here.

Really interesting example of how politics and world events are intertwining with what some people still see as a niche networking platform – but one which in my opinion radically changes the dissemination and interaction with information.

I wonder how international diplomacy may change with UK, U.S and Canadian politicians already in evidence. For instance, UK ministers on Tweetminister, US Congresspeople on TweetCongress, and the same opportunities and tools for collaboration and interaction which individuals and businesses are already able to benefit from?

Update: @rafaelprince has a log of the conference here.

Update 2: It’s also inspired a great post by Laura Fitton on ‘Microsharing as Humanitarian Act‘ – well worth reading.