My mother suffered an explosive brain aneurysm (aka brain haemorrhage) a couple of years ago. She survived (much to the surprise of the doctors) but she is not the woman she once was.
On the night of her haemorrhage, several hours after the haemorrhage, I had a conversation with her which has stayed with me because it was so surreal!
Me: Hi mum, how are you feeling?
Mum: Sore
Me: (checking the extent of the brain damage): You know Mary is coming home?
Mum (recognising my sister’s name): Mary is coming home? Is she bringing the kids?
Me: (relieved that she knows who I am talking about): No
Mum (Disappointed): Oh!
So far so good, I try probing a little further, mentioning the name of a good friend of mine, living in London at this time.
Me: And Amanda is coming home next week
Mum: Little Amanda?
Me: Yep!
Mum: That’s nice.
Ok, so she knows my sister and a friend of mine - now to see how aware she is of her current situation
Me: Do you know what happened to you?
Mum: No
Me: You had a brain haemorrhage
Mum: Oh. That’s serious.
Me: Yes, that’s why mary is coming home
Mum: Mary is coming home? Is she bringing the kids?
Me: Uh oh!
I saw on Loic’s site where a group of Danish students at the IT University of Copenhagen have produced what they claim to be the first open-source beer! The recipe and brand are under Creative Commons licences.
According to the Wired article,
the students said they are interested in seeing how their beer will get better once it is out in the world, acquiring slight improvements as the recipe is shared
Sounds very cool, but isn’t this just home brewing with a fancy name?
Matt points out a very interesting article on how to use your email client application more efficiently - I’m definitely going to try out some of its suggestions. I know I am a slave to my email app right now!
Kudos to Michele for pointing out the Organic SEO Wiki - the “organic” refers to the manual type of page optimisation, as opposed to automatic submittal and page alteration.
Everything on the site
can be implemented by one person, rather than having to hire a firm and pay big bucks for them to do the same stuff
Perfect for DIY SEO enthusiasts - and the fact that it is a wiki means that you can contribute to the site as well.
The Financial Times has written a thoughtful piece about corporate blogging - when the FT starts writing about blogging, you just know it is time to take it seriously!
In their piece, the FT is mainly giving another list of what not to do’s (along with illustrative examples) but they also say
The advent of blogging is starting to make companies think about how they will be expected to engage their customers and employees in two-way conversations in real time - whether they like it or not.
No one is sure how blogging will change the corporate communications business, but there is a view that companies should get involved - and now.
This is a valuable vindication of my harping on at business people to blog for some time now! And they hit on the heart of the matter for many businesses when they say
blogging is transforming the way companies communicate and, for a customer, direct contact with an employee is so much more preferable than dealing with a huge faceless corporate behemoth. Robert Scoble, a Microsoft marketing executive specifically hired to blog about the company, has emerged as one of the blogosphere’s most popular citizens because he pulls no punches when it comes to his employer.
He argues that Microsoft’s tolerance of employee blogs - some of which are quite critical of the company - has helped shift perceptions of the software giant from strongly negative to surprisingly positive.
And if blogging can help Microsoft soften its image, imagine what it could do for any other company.
And finally, the most telling comment of all in the article -
the corporate blogosphere remains uncharted territory as executives, public relations staff and legal experts are just beginning to work out how they might harness the potential of web logs without putting themselves or their companies at risk
This is especially true in Ireland where blogs and particularly business blogs are still virtually non-existent - the lack of personal blogs is partly explained by the high price of broadband here but the lack of business blogs appears to be mainly due to fear and inertia.
UPDATE:
The Financial Times article referred to above has gone subscription only since I wrote this article - if anyone could send me the full text of the article, I would be obliged!
Recent Comments