So I thought I’d take some time out to update y’all…

Work:

Continuing and growing responsibility at the coal mine has meant increasing travel, even more time out of the office and as such, more work required out of the office. It’s all fun and games though

Increasing talking opportunities has meant lots of spare time prepping material and scripts.

Nuts Challenge: Done.

My first assault course has proudly been placed under my belt. It went very well, clocking a time that set me in 60th out of over 1,000 competitors.

Completing it has most definitely made me focus again on why I am training so hard. I started to miss the odd training session, but the pride in completing the 6k in quite unpleasant conditions has relit the flame!

I was far fitter than I thought was, which leads me to my next point…

Training:

It’s going very well. I’m now clocking 16km runs in and around the hour mark, whilst also adding Insanity, squash, football, the gym and the occasional cross-country run for good measure. I’m looking to get my hands on a downhill bike so if you have one, or know of anyone selling one on the cheap, SG is your man.

My next event is Warrior Run, 12km… Bring it on! Then of course it’s Tough Mudder, a shit in the pan, 20km.

New Haircut

Yep, new haircut. Longer on top. Shorter on the sides. *thumbs up*

The lucky few of us who live in a society whereby we enjoy the freedoms of free speech is all too often taken for granted. This liberty appears to be under threat however, with a man recently losing his managerial job and getting a 40% pay cut. Ironically the man made his comments on Facebook, but his employers thought his opinion made his position untenable. Bollocks.

To set the record straight, SG is all for same-sex marriage, but he is also 100% accepting that people have a different opinion who wish to criticise it. It is within THEIR RIGHTS to criticise it. Well, so we thought…

When SG was younger, mother used to say ‘you can’t get on with everyone, dear.’ With this in mind, should we as a society expect to accept everyone within it? Of course not. Acceptance is a choice. Not a lawful (or social) obligation. Religious expression (from what I believe comes under the Human Rights and Equalities legislation) is a fundamental right to every British citizen, regardless of outlook, opinion and insight. Internal politics and regulations cannot conflict these fundamental rights either.

I for one do not believe that religion should have a play to part in law implementation, but quashing opinion will only create an even larger problem; an underground hatred for minority groups that could fester into real abhorrence, not just a mere difference in opinion.

So please Mr. Cameron, pass the same sex marriage law, but please don’t use this law to treat those against it as social outcasts or right wing ‘gay bashers’.

In the end justice was served. It was ruled by the High Courts that the man had been demoted unlawfully and was rewarded damages. End ending.

p.s.

Grow a bleeding backbone, public sector.

Here are the slides from today’s talk:

Here are the snaps…

What I find most interesting about the first meeting is the development of language, or the lack there of, between those who are in attendance. Generally it will start formal, objective and dare I claim, grown up, but almost like nature intended people change. Talk changes. Seating positions change. Volume goes up. Comedy is injected.

As meeting delegates relax and feel more comfortable with those they are meeting, they will throw in an occasional anecdote that offers insight to the personality, likes and interests of themselves, their colleagues and company culture. Similar to the dynamics of a first date. You know how far to push things. A chance to find the range you will playing in during future endeavours.

It’s also very interesting to see who marks the boundaries and who chooses to ignore them. The MD is usually the main culprit for both. The (wo)man in power who often doesn’t need to worry about power relations or more often the case I think, chooses not to worry. In one meeting I had, the MD declared in the direction of the competitor “I wanna crush them cunts’. Needless to say we get on very well.

Some of course won’t adapt, change or transition. The first meeting can have the same damp squib feel to it as the 51st meeting. Cold, distant and frankly officious, but this is fine. Business is business after all.

Meetings are obviously crucial for discussing key business details, but I just love the relationship and power dynamics in play during the process. I firmly believe the more people can be themselves at work instead of hiding behind some B2B alias the happier you will be at work and the happier you’ll make your clients/customers.

Meanwhile if you could give any advice around making meeting notes they’d be great fully received

In preparation for an upcoming training session I was searching YouTube in the hunt to find out how particular online communities have come together in aid of a particular effort or cause. Almost like a communicative ‘whip round’ if you will and I was astonished by not just the volume, but for the causes people are willing to digitally protest for.

Campaigns ranging from finding an ailing woman a replacement kidney to the annual phenomenon that is the top and hairy lip ritual of Movember. People go goo-goo for a good cause irrespective of its motives.

Steven Gradidge – Movember 2010

This is because the Internet is no longer an escape of real life through a network of hardware and software. The Internet is now a place where its actions can be felt and seen on its offline counterpart. This changes everything. It changes things because it there is now a required etiquette and an expected consequence to every click made online. There is no longer an online community. We are past that.

Take the recent dumping of England from Euro 2012. To some absolute fucking idiots it was justifiable behaviour to racially abuse Ashley Cole and Ashley Young as a result from them missing penalties. Obviously these vile trolls were reported to the authorities and are currently under investigation.

Now answer this; when would it ever be acceptable offline to speak to people in the way these trolls did to the two footballers? Never I hear you say, so why are so many of these trolling obscenities gracing our newsfeeds and timelines? This is not an isolated case either, with a student recently being kicked off his university course as a result of his racist tweets. #Gutted

More needs to be done. At all levels an emphasis on education is necessary to stress that every click, comment, post, tweet, blog post, forum thread has a potential consequence.

Does it make me cool, that I got it before the vast majority of the online community? No. All it means is that I registered an account before the masses caught wind of the latest and greatest social network in town. Or is it?

Over the next few years we shouldn’t be surprised to see a number of other social networks try to muscle in on Facebook’s monopoly. There is vast money to be made from it and it seems you only need to be slightly successful to get a few hundred millions dollars thrown your way to close-up shop. Mark my words, we will see lots. Shit loads!

There is a good reason why Pinterest is now the world’s third largest social media site whilst also claiming title to the fastest ever growing social network. Ever. This is because we are a world of social networkers. We are now happy using them. Communicating through them. Organising dates on them. Heck, even living our lives on them. It is safe to say that as a web generation, we are addicted to the ease of consuming content on Facebook, Twitter and the like. We are now socially networked to the eyeballs and saturated within the digital ecosystem of communication.

Let’s take a moment and evaluate what Pinterest is. It’s a photo sharing social network. It’s intoxicatingly voyeuristic with a premise wholly on the consumption of imagery with an incredibly alluding name to boot. It’s minimalist in design, pretty much clean of text and the signup process is virgin-quick. But it is only a photo sharing social network. That. Is. It. This isn’t new and it appears others are realising this oh so terrible news too. Don’t just take my word for it though, take a look at some of latest usage statistics…

It appears as people consider to jump ship across to Pinterest, the Pinterest boat is sinking.

This is what I have been telling my clients: ‘let’s keep an eye on it and see how it develops as a platform and then evaluate its potential as a marketing/communication platform in a couple of months’. How very holistic of SG, but I genuinely believe it.

So the next time a new Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Google+ (LOL) killer is announced, let’s not piss ourselves in excitement and avoid the digital pandemonium that ensues. Agreed? Good.

Quora anyone?

Rant over. Much love. x

There were some great talkers offering an array of thought provoking topics of discussion. Full of win. One subject that seemed to escape the radar of the speakers on the day was the impending EU cookie legislation. By no means is this a criticism, just a topic SG was expecting to be covered on the day. So why did so many brilliant speakers avoid the issue of the EU cookie compliance law when it promises to have such a fundamental impact on not just the SEO industry, but the Internet as a whole?

My suspicion is, as an industry, we are still quite happily playing ignorant. It’s easier to do than to fully investigate it and liaise with clients, third-party agencies, development teams, stakeholders etc. about the issues the law intends to uncover. Furthermore, this will mean budgets will need to be revisited in order to get the compliance implemented by the required (NOT desired) deadline date. Doomsday rather.

…and I stress: required. NOT desired.

First we must stop ignoring it. We can’t resist against the inevitable fact that soon, we will need to have the conversations we are not looking forward to having. Time to man up and The realisation is that the EU will no doubt look to come down hard and heavy on sites that are not compliant. Be it a fine, closure or castration by means of a blunt and rusty knife.

So put it in your diaries now: May 26th 2012.

Tick, tock, tick, tock…