New Media

If companies want to build their brands through social media, they’ve got to give up the kind of control that is the holy grail of traditional corporate communications.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the PR strategy of Olympics organizers, who are caught between old and new worlds of community engagement. New media is about free participation and building a community, and VANOC’s approach offers a lesson in recognizing the fine line between sabotaging community relations with excessive control and letting the bloggers run wild.

Read the rest of my BC Business column about how businesses can build a social media strategy on top of their traditional communications and marketing capabilities (and avoid the pitfalls of trying old tactics in a new medium), Let’s Get Social. Enjoy.

PS: What do you think of the cartoon image Antony Hare drew for me? I think it’s pretty cool.

PPS: Kris Krug was kind enough to update me the other day on the status of his alternative media centre for the Olympics, the True North Media House. Since they didn’t actually have a name for their group when I interviewed him, the place-holder name being tossed around at the time of the inverview was the Independent Media Centre, which I abbreviated in the article as IMC. I’m informed there is already an IMC that is not at all related to True North Media House, so where you read IMC in my column, please translate it as True North Media House, to avoid confusion.

KK also took exception to the following line in my column: “IMC spokesperson and web 2.0 entrepreneur Kris Krug says the people behind his group are overwhelmingly pro-Olympics and pro-business and are not remotely related to such groups as the new-media anarchists behind the Resistance 2010 campaign, with their No Olympics on Stolen Native Land motto”

While I was strictly correct in that the True North Media House is not the same organization as the Resistance 2010 campaign, Kris wants to make clear that anarchists and people of all stripes and affiliations are welcome under the big tent that is True North Media House. Glad we cleared that up.

The Taliban-Sharia party seem to have forgotten that there’s a recession on and the people just won’t stand for higher taxes. Conservatives and Liberals alike will surely take them to task on this issue:

Dawn.com: “The Taliban on Wednesday night demolished 11 houses of the Sikh community in the Orakzai Agency for refusing to pay ‘Jazia’.

Earlier, the Sikh community had postponed its decision about vacating the area following the demand of the Tehrik-i-Taliban for payment of ‘Jazia’ being non-Muslims for their protection.”

Seriously, at times like these, one breathes a sigh of relief at being so remote from the ground zero of such injustices.

It might seem like ludicrous fear-mongering to suggest that Canadians in any community might soon have to pay protection money to any particular ethnic group (well, unless it’s extorting it’s own ethnic constituency, as the Tamil Tigers have apparently done in Toronto for years). But Sharia law nearly became a reality in Canada not too long ago. And most of us were probably very surprised to learn that Canadian taxpayers are already subsidizing polygamous families made possible by marriages performed under Sharia.

Orakzai sounds far away, but it isn’t so distant as we think.

I’m honored to be profiled today on the Normblog (Norman Geras), who conducts a weekly profile feature on bloggers of note. Norman is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester and a founder of the Euston Manifesto Group and one of the principal authors of the manifesto.

There you go: I’m notable. Mom, it’s official!

For those interested in the influences and philosophy of the Currents author, feel free to visit the Normblog profile of Jonathon Narvey. Here’s a taste of my survey:

Who are your intellectual heroes? George Orwell, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, to name a few.

What is the best novel you’ve ever read? 1984. As relevant as ever.

On this May Day, Terry Glavin continues his relentless assault on the corruption of the left, with an eye to its pragmatic and beneficial root values that will guide the progressive movement’s reconstruction (sooner than later, one hopes). An excerpt from The Fighting Spirit Of May Day: What We Want For Ourselves We Demand For All:

May Day and Labour Day arose from the same uncomplicated basis of working-class unity. A fair day’s pay for an honest day’s work. What we want for ourselves we demand for all. Any saboteur of this common purpose is a scab.

Nowadays, Canada’s union officials are just as likely to be engaged in highbrow apologetics for the worst enemies of the world’s bravest workers. It’s commonplace now to happen upon union officials at rallies where everyone’s shouting slogans that give courage and comfort to despotic regimes that distinguish themselves by busting unions, jailing union organizers and lynching strikers.

As Glavin points out, labour leaders like Sid Ryan are becoming increasingly disassociated from the rank and file. If there is hope, it lies in the proles.