Q-bits

Interesting campaign now being launched by Greenpeace UK against Nestle, the maker of Have a Break, KitKat using social media tools. Makes one think twice before taking another bite of chocolate.

The survey results are in on the social media profile of international organizations and the figures are looking good. All in all, about 61 respondents from some 36 international organizations participated in the survey. This included but was not limited to the United Nations family of organizations. The survey ran for two months, from 25 November 2009 to 25 January 2010.

I would be analyzing the results in more detail in the coming days. But for now here are the main highlights:

With the apparent holiday silliness now firmly behind us and with the the dawn of a new year and new decade, it is high time to get down to the serious stuff.

For me that means finally getting serious on starting and finishing that dissertation on social media, which would hopefully land me that long awaited MSc, if not a place in the now very crowded arena of social media experts. Work-wise, it also means finishing up this loooooong, drawn-up project for a redesign, nay face lifting of our organization’s public web site. And finally, it means getting a serious handle on whether I should jump career and workplaces this close to retirement. (Yes, head hunters, let it be known indeed that I ‘could be’ available.)

Lest I get carried away on that topic, here’s a link to a survey I’m currently running on organizations’ use of social media. Please participate if you’re in anyway involved with social media in your company or organization. I would need as diverse a respondent as possible. So far,I’ve received more than a 100 visits already but 70% abandon or do not fill up the survey (normal numbers, they say).

Happy New Year to one and all.

Mashable call this slideshare presentation (by Marta Kagan) their most retweeted post of late. Maybe because of the implied expletive. Or despite it. Judge for yours**f.

I should have seen it coming. But I admit the last time I wrote a post [Just Blame It On Twitter] about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and the like, I got it all wrong. Wasn’t it only last Christmas, when I proclaimed my rare presence in all these social networking sites? The situation has drastically reversed since then.

I’m blogging even less but twittering more, which through the magic of shared APIs, then automatically updates my Facebook status. Same goes when I upload a picture to Flickr or a video on YouTube. And everything gets aggregated somehow in FriendFeed. To top it all, most family members, old townmates, my entire alumni association, current and past friends and work colleagues have build up social profiles. So me, the most private of persons, is connected now as never before.

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I know. You’re probably up to here with all this buzz about social media and how it’s going to redefine how mankind communicates. But believe me when I say that this post has a definite rhyme and reason.

The research topic for my masteral dissertation – on corporate communications and public affairs – is on social media. Particularly, I’m exploring what this would bring to organisations in terms of outreach and communications and what sort of factors will determine whether they float or sink in these turbulent waters. Briefly put, I’m doing a lot of reading, and cross-referencing of sources be they books, articles, web stories, blogs, comments or twitter feeds. And all these stuff are scattered all over the place – in my home computer, my laptop, my work computer, my Basecamp account, as well as random scribbles on used table napkins.

Then it just occurred to me that I had a blog – oft ignored and seldom updated but a blog, nevertheless. Add what better way to keep track of random thoughts and stumbled-upon resources than this?

So with this post, I am starting a category on social media and I ope you bear with me if you have had enough of this topic already. You can always go back to updating your Facebook status and finding and linking with friends if what you read here is not to your liking. But if you stick around, we may learn something new together and in the process change the way the world communicates.