Posts Tagged ‘BlogCampaigning’

It used to be that you could get away with just a website. Then you needed way to collect email addresses so that people could subscribe to it. Then those forward-looking social media pros started saying that RSS was the future of communications, then Twitter. Whatever the medium, its always been about making it easy for your audience to get updates from your website.

With that in mind, I set up a Facebook Page for BlogCampaigning. All it will really do is pull in posts from here, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t become a Fan.

-Parker

Well, I’ve gone and done it. I’ve installed a WordPress plug-in that adds a Like button to every post here on BlogCampaigning. (The plug-in is available via the WP directory, or via Studio Nash Vegas.)

Using the toolkit on the Facebook Developers site, I also added a Like button to the sidebar of this blog. It’s alright for now, but I think I might try one of the other options (creating a Facebook Page for BlogCampaigning, and including some code linking to that) in the next few days to see how those work out for me.

Although I’ve noticed that my “Likes” have shown up in the Recent Activity on my Facebook profile, I’ve yet to notice any “Likes” in my main Facebook news feed or on any of my friend’s profiles. Is this because it still isn’t widely used?

What do you think of the Like button? Does it even matter? Has it changed your Facebook or web experience? Have you seen any great uses of the Like button?

-Parker

PS: If you like this post, don’t forget to click the button below.

I think that anyone who has been blogging for a significant amount of time understands the concept of blog fatigue. You get tired thinking up new posts all the time; you wonder where it is all leading. It has happened to me a few times.

In fact, when I first started to write the title to this post, I thought it felt awfully familiar. Then I remembered that I wrote a similar post almost exactly two years ago (“BlogCampaigning Is Back“) where I said that “Jens has been trying to sort out his life back in Germany, and Espen pretty much went AWOL in Norway.”

Some things never change, eh?

The good news is that after a month of contemplation, I’ve added a fresh coat of paint coding to the ol’ blog, I’ve got some good posts lined up, and we’ve even got a new author starting in the next week or so.

Added on to the fact that Heather and I both started new jobs, Jens is almost finished his thesis and it seems like a pretty good time to get a fresh start.

Thanks for continuing to read BlogCampaigning!

-Parker

Recently I wrote a post for BlogCampaigning on my experience transitioning from a vinyl DJ to a laptop DJ, which, from personal comments, appears to have been generally well received. But the only comment anyone actually posted on the blog was quite negative and passively critical. Initially, I wanted to tell the semi-anonymous commenter where to go, but I decided to take the high road, thanking the fellow for his post and offering a very brief apologetic response.

I was wrong. I’ve thought about it, and I now recognize that that person’s comment was uninformed and thoughtless, and I had no reason to apologize. I don’t want to insult him, and I hope this response doesn’t simply come off as petty. I have a far more appropriate response in mind, and it is basically a brief description of the nature of entertainment media today.

In his passive-aggressive note, the commenter appears to make three points:

1. DJs who use iTunes (or similar software) don’t deserve to entertain club or bar crowds.
2. Whatever happened to DJs who can match beats by simply listening to songs (as opposed to using software to digitally and automatically beat-match)?
3. DJs today suck.

Where to begin?

First, the nature of DJing has changed completely in recent years, and “disc jockeying” is basically an anachronism in the same way as “film processing” or “going to print”. With digital music collections advancing far faster than physical collections, and the ease of collecting and transporting digital music, it should be no surprise that DJs are turning to software solutions. And now, there are hardware solutions, as well, to replace bulky turntables and CD players. Everyone who wants to be a DJ has already got a laptop. A DJ starting out now would almost be a fool to choose physical media over virtual. As for iTunes, well, as I said in my original post, it’s not good for DJing, and it’s not appropriate for DJing, but in a pinch, which is where I found myself on that night, it will perform the required function.

What software or hardware one chooses to use, however, is basically irrelevant—a simple matter of pleasure or circumstance. I started DJing on a kit hobbled together from whatever bits of stereo equipment my friends, Josh and James, and I had at home—and later some rented gear. Even when MP3s came around, I only used them to create mixes that I could play on CD decks. But if the software existed at the time, I almost certainly would have chosen to use a laptop over CDs. (Vinyl is always a special case.) The only relevant question is: how well does the DJ entertain the crowd?

So, complain all you want, but this mode of DJing is just the way it is and will be. Frankly, these days I’d be more surprised to see a DJ using turntables at a club than using a laptop—with or without some extra hardware.

(I’m not saying I fully approve of the rise of the laptop DJ. As with photography, and journalism, and any other medium that has found itself in a similar situation, not everyone who performs as a DJ deserves to call themselves a DJ. There is a core skill set that one must develop, and no software or hardware can allow a person to bypass that process. No doubt many DJs today never bother to acquire those skills; but this has ever been the case.)

The other thing is that the digital revolution has caused a tsunami of DJs, just as it has turned everyone into a photographer, and a web designer, and an illustrator, and a journalist, and a media expert, and so on. There’s more to this: I don’t want to get into the details, but the expanding middle class has somehow achieved a sort of critical nexus of leisure time and disposable income that practically compels their young to go to bars and clubs and dance. In Toronto, at least, new bars, clubs, and restaurants open all the time and everywhere. Each one of them needs to entertain their clientele—ideally at a low cost—and more than ever now the common factor is the DJ.

More venues + more leisure time and money = more DJs

Unfortunately, as I touched on above—and in this I agree with the commenter—more DJs doesn’t mean more quality. In fact, it almost definitely means lower quality overall; but it doesn’t simply mean that all laptop DJs are awful or that the club owner has hired his inexperienced cousin who just downloaded some trial software and wants to give it a go. There are certainly many experienced and skilled DJs who use (and choose) computers over traditional DJ gear.

You know what, I’m not even ashamed to say that I have played a song here and there from YouTube when I haven’t found it in my collection. I would never do this in a club or bar with a high-quality sound system, but for a private party or a standard bar night, why not? If you can mix it and make it fit, and it sounds good, that is really the only issue.

You’ll probably be better off paying attention to what music the DJ is playing and how well she does it, rather than the gear she is using. If you find it still doesn’t live up to your standards, you can always try your hand at DJing yourself.

Thanks for your comment.

Earlier today, I watched this interview (embedded below, via BoingBoing) with RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, in which he talks about how much of a geek he is and how that influenced his music.

“I’d rather raise nerds than raise gangsters”, the hip-hop star says as he talks about his interest in new music-creating software, and that hip-hop has a lot of geeks amongst its ranks.

I’ve been saying that the Wu-Tang Clan were huge needs for a while now. Last year, I wrote that that they were huge nerds (“36 Chambers of Social Media“) due to the fact that they were obsessed with Kung-Fu movies and Voltron, and I’m glad that the RZA has confirmed my thoughts.

For examples of some of their music and its relation to nerd culture, check here.

My CNW Group colleague, friend, teammate, and BlogCampaigning contributor, Heather Morrison, has put together a great report about the way that Canadian law firms are using social media.

Omar Ha-Redeye said it “is likely to become one of the primary sources for Canadian firms looking to enter this area.”

Steve Matthews called it “a nice overview of the benefits of social media investment.”

And Garry J. Wise wrote that it “thoroughly canvasses the key social media platforms and provides much-needed context via thoughtful comments from several Canadian lawyers who are constructively engaging online.”

So what are you waiting for? Download the PDF via the link below:

Canadian Law Firms And Their Use Of Social Media

-Parker

It brings a tear to my eye when I realize that Espen Skoland wrote the first post on BlogCampaigning three years ago today.

Almost 700 posts later and we’re still blogging. We don’t write about American politics as much as we used to, but there is still the occasional political post from Jens and I always try and mention communications or PR.

Thanks to everyone for reading!

I wonder if we’ll go another three years? And is there anyone out there that has been reading BlogCampaigning since the beginning? (if so, leave a comment or send me an email – I can be reached at  parker (at) blogcampaigning (dot) com).

For the past year or so, legendary founder of BlogCampaigning, Espen Skoland, has been MIA from both the blog and personal correspondence. In that time, I’ve done a few searches on Google for his name, but thanks to BlogCampaigning, nothing ever showed up except for the stuff he wrote here. At least until last week when I found Espen’s profile on the website of the company he currently works for, Geelmuyden.Kiese (they’re a Norwegian PR agency):

Just look at how proud he is to be posing for a corporate photo, wearing his fancy black sweater and with his collar buttoned down. He’s probably forgotten a lot of English, but I’m ready to forgive him for his absence if you are.

-Parker

Before embarking on ANY kind of communications campaign, you should know the audience you’re trying to reach.

Yeah, there are a ton of great sites out there that would be neat to reach out to. But if your audience isn’t there, what is the point? According to a recent post on Business Insider, 69% of adults don’t really know what Twitter is. Unless your audience is part of the 31% that does understand and use the service, you are probably better of focusing your effort elsewhere.

Similarly, a recent post on TechCrunch about Friendster, shows that the social networking site we North Americans might have thought of as dead is still alive and well over there. Any kind of marketing campaigning focusing on people in that area of speakers of languages from there might be better off focusing their efforts on Friendster than on Facebook.

Not only is it a good idea to know your audience in order to know where they are looking, but it will also help give you an idea of what they are looking for. To grossly simplify things, someone trying to reach college students might be better off with a series of entertaining online videos, whereas someone trying to reach purchasers at businesses might be better off providing their audience with printable, fact-filled PDFs.

-Parker

The whole reason I got involved with BlogCampaigning was to check the grammar on Espen’s English writing (he’s Norwegian, in case you missed it). When Jens started writing for us, I edited his posts as well (based on my small sample size, I’d say that Norwegians frequently mix-up singular and plural when writing in English and Germans write paragraph-long sentences rather than using a few periods).

Now, we’ve got someone else to do that copy editing: Adam Gorley. He’s a Toronto-based professional copy editor, and he volunteered to have a look at each of our posts before they go live. I’ve never thought I was a perfect writer, and I’m sure that long-time readers of this blog will have noticed a few typos, grammatical errors and even unfinished sentences here and there. I don’t envy the work he’s going to be doing on Jens’ posts.

I’m hoping that with Adam Gorley’s touch, these things will be a thing of the past.

He’s @AdamGorley on Twitter and he also maintains his own blog of miscellany at AdamGorley.Blogspot.com. While he’s gainfully employed right now, I’m going to go ahead and say that if you need any help with Copy Editing, he’s probably your man.

-Parker

(PS: I wanted this post to be a surprise for him, so he didn’t actually get a chance to edit it. Any errors are mine)

(PPS: Once I saw Adam play a 90-minute game of Ultimate frisbee wearing only sandals when everyone else was wearing cleats – that takes guts)