Passion Points

Oops. I coined a new piece of jargon yesterday. Didn't mean to. It just slipped out.

I was looking for a way of describing both the people who are excited and the things that are exciting in our markets.

And out it came: Passion Points.

Let's look at the second instance: things. The Passion Points are the things that excite our audience. This isn't generally the day to day stuff of their business lives (our sites are all b2b remember) - it's the stuff that generates real passion and excitement.

In agriculture we refer to it as "tractor p*rn"; in road transport, it's big lorries. Boys and their toys, I suppose.

When encouraging user contribution or engagement, these passion points are the way to go - best return for least effort.

Of course in some cases, people are passionate about their jobs - it's a vocation. Our CareSpace community for social workers has taken off really well because these people are passionate about what they do (I'm reasonably sure they don't do it for the money).

The other application of Passion Points is people. Who are the journalists in our organisation that are really passionate about what they're covering? This is important because the biggest "threat" to our business as publishers comes largely from bloggers who are often passionate non-professionals. It's their passion that's makes them exciting and makes it difficult for "career journalists" (those who are journalists by trade and move from market to market writing about different things) to compete with them.

Luckily we have many impassioned and dedicated journalists working for us but I confess that when I was an editor here some years ago I would have failed the passion test; in those days we were only competing with other trade magazines.

But what about the people we employ who - although diligent and skilled - are not passionate? How do we help them compete?

I'm reminded of the late Bob Monkhouse's observation about success in showbusiness: "The secret of success is sincerity. Fake that, and you've got it made."

If only it were true.

Speaking of "over there"...

Mark Easton, the BBC's home editor, saves the Churner Prize a job on his BBC blog:

After my post on Friday looking at the hospital admission figures for stab and gunshot victims in England, a story was widely reported that knife violence accounts for 14,000 people in Britain being admitted into hospital last year.

You may have seen it in the Independent on Sunday which claimed an exclusive and then almost everywhere else, including the BBC.

Well, I have checked out the story and discovered that the figure includes not only attacks but also accidental injuries from knives and other sharp implements. If one looks only at assaults with sharp objects (stabbings to you and me) the figure for the UK halves to about 7,000.

Yet at the time of writing this, the BBC News story still reports that "An Independent on Sunday investigation suggested that almost 14,000 people a year are injured in knife attacks" which while being the truth - the IOS did suggest that - isn't what you could really call the whole truth.

A one-off blunder or a symptom of blogs being "somewhere over there"?

Why would anyone want to blog with us...?

I was delighted to read Robert Niles' article on Online Journalism Review: Five steps to encourage readers to blog on your website

As my regular reader knows, we have been rolling out Community Server across many of our websites. The original intent was merely to up our game in terms of discussion forums, but we have also been using the photo gallery and blogs functionality with some surprising results.

In Farmers Weekly Interactive (our first launch) we weren't sure whether to bother switching on the blog functionality. Would farmers really blog?

The answer, it turned out, is yes, yes, yes, yes and several more in that vein.

Robert Niles explains why people might decide to blog in one of our online communities rather than elsewhere:

Anyone can start a blog, for free and in minutes, using established and popular services such as Blogger and Wordpress.com. What would entice a reader to avoid those options in favor of maintaining their blog on your website?

The answer is one word: community.

Most readers, like professional writers, want an audience for their work. Putting a blog online isn't like putting a magazine on the rack at Borders. Starting a blog on Blogger, while technically simple, does little to put a writer's word in front of a potential audience. Promoting the new blog remains the writer's responsibility, and many fall short of the challenge.

Launching a new blog within an established website community, however, gives a new blogger a head start on promoting his or her work. Within the community, bloggers become the audience for their fellow bloggers' work. And if the blogging community is part of a larger content-driven website, such as an online newspaper, non-writing readers can more easily find and become fans of a new blog.

He then goes on to provide five steps for encouraging this which I won't rip off here; read them on his article.

Co-incidentally, we've been doing a bit of work lately on encouraging the people who are blogging on our community sites to do it more, faster better etc - this article is going to help us encourage even more people to blog with us, thanks Robert.

Turning the editorial process into content

I'm always last to find these things, aren't I? Really useful post from Robin Hamman about how editors and journalists can create content out of the work process.

It has always struck me as a blogging approach which should be easy to sell in to traditional editors and journalists (or at least since the process of traditional editors and journalists no ceased to involve half a day in the pub).

While a glimpse behind the scenes of a B2B magazine might not have quite the same glamour as that of the BBC, I think the (apparent) transparency and honesty is rather engaging.

The editor of Farmers Weekly, Jane King now has a blog in the heart of the magazine's online community in which she introduces "behind the scenes" news such as changes in personnel or why certain decisions have been taken. I think it's a great idea.

Anyway, as Robin is following up a previous post, I hope he won't mind me quoting his ideas and examples from that:

1. make your RSS subscriptions publicly visible (example: BBC Manchester Blog)
2. use del.icio.us or another social bookmarking service to store and share links to your background research (example: Jemima Kiss / Guardian PDA Newsbucket)
3. share your rough notes, meeting minutes and preliminary results as soon as you can (example: iPM)
4. post photos, audio and video as and of your work (example: Reuters Mobile Reporting Kit
5. don't just reply privately to emails and comments, quote from them and respond publicly (example: BBC Internet Blog)
6. spread your content around automatically using the import feature of the different blogging and social media services you use
7. use your downtime to microblog, giving audiences a sense of immediacy (example: twitter feed for the BBC Rugby World Cup Blog)
8. blog site statistics (ranging from user numbers to social network friends - I'll probably use TechPresident as my example)

Successful beatblogging saves, not costs, reporters their time

Nicely expressed by Daniel Victor in a post called "Why I'm beat blogging: It helps the print product too":

In a fraction of the time and effort, it accomplishes all these goals that any reporter would share:

* It can drastically increase your quantity of sources
* It can drastically increase the diversity of your sources
* It can positively develop your relationship with sources
* It allows you to stay in constant contact with those sources without picking up the phone and calling them individually
* It encourages those sources to share story ideas or current happenings
* It can lead you into background or context to your stories you wouldn’t otherwise know about

Along with these additional benefits that the new-media types love:

* It encourages a sense of community
* It gets information to people in the form that they choose
* It allows for a depth that the print product can’t achieve
* It makes the news a conversation instead of a declaration

And while you're there, read Daniel's marvellous rebuttal of some precious anti-blogging nonsense.

Lesson: Why corporations are nervous about blogs and forums

Expanding our Web 1.0 websites (the traditional we-publish-you-read) to embrace blogs (we-publish-you-respond) and user communities (you-do-what-you-like) is not always an easy sell.

Understandable objections include the risks of libel, but there are also (mostly) unspoken concerns about loss of control.

So yesterday's announcement that our parent company Reed Elsevier is to "divest" itself of Reed Business Information has meant that controls over the message going out are much more difficult to manage than they would have been 10 or even 5 years' ago.


Of course, all our bloggers know their contractual obligations but it's interesting to see who has mentioned the news and where. There is one on Kieran Daly's aviation blog; another on the ICIS Chemicals Confidential blog.

Given the somewhat emotional nature of the news and the ease with which a blogger can publish his or her thoughts, they are quite restrained really.

As we get further down the line towards a sale or a floatation or whatever from the "divestment" is, I imagine guidelines on what can or can't be said may become rather more explicit. Not least for legal reasons.

But you can't stop people asking. An eagle-eyed American farmer picked up that RBI was up for sale and posted on the Farmers Weekly forums, worried that "if this is true and comes to pass, the forum will be much changed or even deleted??".

This is rather touching but then another forum regular posts some speculates about who might buy RBI.

Editor Jane King does the right thing and explains that it just business-as-usual here at RBI, and it is. Surprisingly, it really is. You wouldn't believe just how usual business here is.

It's the quality of the journalism that counts, not that of the medium

More on the BBC's multimedia experiment with mobile phone video. I'm going to be urging all of our journalists and editors to take a look at the results of the BBC's experiment.


Rory Cellan-Jones explains here the process they used when video blogging from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As RCJ admits, opinions are divided over what is the "appropriate" level of quality but that may be mostly about the "appropriate" level of quality for the BBC.

He thinks a tripod and a better mic would probably have worked wonders.

Interesting, though.

BBC video blogs with mobile phones

Thanks to Trevor Goodman for bringing my attention to this... The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones and Darren Waters will be video blogging using their mobile phones from the Mobile World Congress.

It's obviously a bit of a gimmick, but for the BBC to be effectively saying the quality of the picture isn't the same thing as the quality of the post should be reassuring to the journalists who still believe that every video report requires expensive kit and technicians. If the BBC is up for it...

Here's the introduction:

Digital journalism tools: Twitter

Dan Blank has put together a handy summary of how journalists can get real value out of Twitter. Dan has brought together information from various sources so it's worth checking out his post in full .

One of his sources is Darren Rowse who has outlined these nine ways in which twitter helps him up his game as a blogger (but they are equally valid for journalists too)

• Research Tool
  
• Reinforce (and expand) Your Personal Brand
• Promote Content
• Extend Audience - Find NEW Readers
• Networking
• Previews
• Speedlinking
• Story Gathering
• Find Out What People REALLY Think.
  

read dan's post for more detail.

Bloggers entitled to protect their sources

Thanks to colleague Andrew Doyle for spotting that a US court has ruled that bloggers are as entitled as journalists to protect their sources.

The BBC reports that computer firm Apple brought a lawsuit to make fan site Think Secret reveal who had leaked details about the cut-down computer.

Apple is notoriously secretive about forthcoming products and it sued Think Secret claiming that bloggers should not enjoy the same rights to protect sources granted to mainstream journalists.

A California court initially sided with Apple but the hi-tech firm lost the case on appeal. The outcome of that said bloggers should be considered as journalists and subject to the same protections.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) aided Think Secret in its legal fight to stop Apple forcing it to reveal its sources.

But it reports that the end result of the case is that Think Secret will be closed down.

Think Secret issued this press release:

Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret's publisher, said "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits."

which is presumably the blogging equivalent of "spending more time with his family" in UK politics.

But a good judgement, nonetheless.

Blog readability scam - an inspiration

Charles Arthur has blogged a great post on The Guardian about a cunning scam which gets bloggers to unwitting link to a commercial site offering loans to boost its Googlejuice.

But I believe that 20% 0f every idea is good and to be nurtured.

Exposed: another fiendish way to make money on the web relates how a number of prominent websites have been conned into linking to a company by publishing a "blog readability" score on their website.

It's interesting because it fits in with a number of conversations we've been having here, lately:

1. Finding ideas for compelling widgets for other people to put on their sites and blogs.

2. My "Seven Deadly Sins" theory of human behavioural motivation. Sounds grand, doesn't it? It's not. It was one throwaway slide at a recent conference.

Anyway, I'm stretching it because I don't think vanity is strictly speaking one of the seven although it could come under Pride, I suppose. Or Gluttony.

Anyway, the point is that appealing to the vanity of bloggers ("Hey! My blog has great usability!") is probably a great starting point for devising that killer widget.

Oh, in case you can't name them, the Seven Deadly Sins are:

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride

I shall work my theory up into something publishable at some point...

What's the deal with blogs? Good video

Just found this What's the Deal with Blogs? video.




What I really like is the way it uses video. Simple animation.

It's an ill wind...

There's nothing like a forest fire story for moving web news forward. We've had our own equivalents here recently and it's brilliant for helping focus the mind on what news is really about.

Martin Stabe reports how a San Diego TV station:

has responded to the crisis on its patch by taking down its entire regular web site and replacing it with a rolling news blog, linking to YouTube videos of its key reports (including Himmel’s), plus Google Maps showing the location of the fire.

There are links to practical information that their viewers will need at this time, including how to contact insurance companies, how to volunteer or donate to the relief efforts, evacuation information and shelter locations.

It’s an exemplary case study in how a local news operation can respond to a major rolling disaster story by using all the reporting tools available on the Internet.

Update: Mark Potts has a great blog post looking at the online coverage of the fires. What’s missing from local media’s coverage, he says, is user-generated content. Not so at the San Diego NBC station, though.

Both the Los Angles Times and San Diego’s public broadcasting station KPBS are using Twitter to provide rapid, rolling updates of the fires. A piece on a Wired blog explains how to do it. Both are also among those tracking their fire coverage on Google Maps.

All that and celebrities' houses in peril too. It doesn't get much more exciting than that.

Should journalism students be taught HMTL?

Many thanks to my colleague Kieran Daly for spotting this version of the chestnut "Should journalists be taught HTML?". This time, the question is posed by the appealingly alliterative Mindy McAdams.

For us, the question is mostly an "old dog new tricks" issues, but Mindy is speaking from a pedagogue's perspective (Damn. Can't stop myself alliterating now Mindy, you Minx)

Anyhoo, I think the answer is almost certainly "yes and no" but my bigger, stroppier questions are "What the hell are they teaching kids in school these days?" and "What kind of skills and attributes should a prospective journalist student have?"

Stroppy Question 1. What the hell are they teaching kids in school these days?

I have no idea, but based purely on casual observation, it sure as hell isn't touch-typing (or, "keyboard skills" as it's probably called these days) which I find amazing. So many people work on a computer (and those that don't probably use one at home) that it's amazing that touch typing isn't a mandatory subject in school in the interests of productivity and health and safety (RSI and all that).

As for learning HTML, well, given that they use computers in schools, you wouldn't think it would take much curiosity to pick up something about HTML along the way.

Stroppy Question 2. What kind of skills and attributes should a prospective journalist student have?

Well in addition to the traditional list...

1. Touch typing (see SQ1 above)
2. Blogging (if they don't already have a blog, how serious are they about journalism? And what does it say about their ability to just get on and do stuff)
3. If they are doing 2, how much have they picked up about HTML and CSS along the way? If they're using Wordpress or Blogger they probably haven't needed to learn much to make it do what they want, but they will if they have any...
4. ...Curiosity

Turkish blanket ban on Wordpress

Extraordinary. Had to look at the date to check it wasn't April 1st.

Incredibly, all Wordpress.com blogs have been blocked in Turkey. "Explanation" here.

The Bourne Supremacy - behind the journalistic times

The Guardian's review of The Bourne Ultimatum is understandably rather dominated by excitement at the fact that the film features a Guardian journalist.


In an exciting (especially for us sad Londoners) action sequence set in Waterloo Station, hero Jason Bourne is trying to prevent the hapless journalist from being assassinated by the CIA.

I'm sure my blogging colleague Mr Tinworth will be chuckling at reviewer Peter Bradshaw's criticism of the scene:

But there are inaccuracies. The Guardian stylebook clearly states that if you are under a hail of bullets in a public place from an assassin run by a deniable intelligence unit, you have to duck into the nearest internet cafe and start blogging about it to keep the readers informed.

Regardless of that, it's a movie that's worth seeing.