Australians – officially the world’s most prolific social media users

The Nielsen Company’s most recent social media research has revealed that Australians are spending up to seven hours each month on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.  This figure is substantially higher than the global average of five and a half hours.

Australia has jumped to the top of the leader board ahead of the USA, Britain and Japan. The research found that almost ten million Australians are spending time on at least one social networking site. With a population of 21 million, this figure equates to almost half the country.

Facebook topped the list as the most popular of all social networking sites, with over 8.2 million unique visitors per month, followed by YouTube, then MySpace and with Twitter coming in fourth.

So, if Facebook is the most commonly used social networking site and Australian’s are spending 7 hours a month interacting on social networking sites – How come there are only 357,871 fans on the Australia Facebook fan page?

Is social media becoming more or less sociable?

The murder of a Queensland schoolgirl, a video of a group of teenage boys in Italy taunting an autistic boy, a $30,000 defamation verdict and Lara Bingle have all combined in the last week or so to show that the world may at last be starting to catch up with social media.

The growth of social media over the past decade has been exponential, so much so that the legal and ethical restrictions that society has for virtually all other activities have struggled to seem relevant.

“The internet is different”, people cried, “Its very basis is the free exchange of information.”

Well, maybe.

A Victorian man posted an anonymous comment on HotCopper, a stock market discussion forum. The comment, about a WA technology security company and its managing director, was defamatory. The managing director tried to get HotCopper to identify the poster. HotCopper refused, but was forced to by a court order. The registered name ended up being false but the poster was eventually tracked down and taken to court for defamation – the result being the $30,000 verdict against him. Two other supposedly anonymous posters on the same site have court action pending against them.

The moral: a court has shown that anonymous is no longer anonymous, and the normal rules of law will apply to anything you say.

In Queensland an outpouring of grief over the murder of a young girl led to a tribute page being set up on Facebook. That page was defaced, with people posting insulting and derogatory remarks and links to porn sites.  The call was for Facebook to “do something”, with the general tenor being that Facebook and other sites should be responsible for the material they contain. But, as University of NSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre executive director David Vaile was quoted as saying on smh.com.au, making website owners or internet providers more accountable for online content would lead to their demise and see the end of free social networking sites.

The moral: administrators of Facebook pages need to be aware of their responsibilities. If you set up an open site then you should be able to moderate it – around the clock if necessary. If you can’t then either don’t set up the site or bring in reinforcements.

In Italy, the six month suspended jail sentences given to three Google executives has led to a further outcry. The executives were on trial for defamation and for violating Italy’s privacy laws. The trio were found guilty of the privacy charges in that they were held responsible for Google having hosted the offensive video. The video was online for around two months but was taken down as soon as Google was informed of its contents.

Google announced it would appeal, saying the ruling “attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.”

Google said the European Union law gave hosting providers “a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence…  If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.“

Well, again maybe.

It would certainly create havoc with the Google business model, but perhaps that’s what the judge was getting at. The reasons for the decision have yet to be published but Marc Rotenberg, writing in the Huffington Post, says that there seem to be similarities between this case and cases in the early 1900s which established a person’s right to privacy in the US. Those cases established that a person’s image could not be used for commercial purposes without their permission. Rotenberg says that the Italian case hinged on the prosecutor’s claim that Google was making profit out of the video, which was driving people to the site and its advertisers.

The moral: not certain yet, but it may well be that if you are making money by hosting advertisements on site then you may end up being viewed as a commercial operation rather than just a host.

And to finish with Lara Bingle, the social page habitué who announced that she was taking legal action against AFL player Brendan Fevola after a nude image of her was made public on a website and in a magazine. The picture shows Bingle naked in a shower trying to cover herself.

Bingle is taking action “for breach of privacy, defamation and misuse of her image.” Just what that will result in is anyone’s guess, but it could end up a cautionary tale about mobile phone cameras, ease of downloading and the relentless spread of the web.

The moral: be careful of the company you keep.

Tweeting trees and dogs, has social networking gone too far?

People have argued that social networking sites such as Twitter are a waste of time. Do we really need to know what our friends are doing every second of the day, when they have just brushed their teeth or drunk a coffee?

But if you thought it couldn’t be taken any further, think again. We are now seeing tweeting trees and dogs.

Is it really necessary to know how many people have ‘stroked’ the leaves of a tree at MWC? Or what a computer believes our dogs are thinking when they move or make a sound?

To give some background, Sony Ericsson developed a device that makes a tree tweet. At the 2010 MWC they hooked up a tree to an electromagnetic field sensor that enables it to detect motion. The tree tweeted such things as, “My leaves have been stroked by 52 friendly visitors. I’m starting to like MWC. #ectree.” Also, Mattel is about to launch a toy, ‘Puppy Tweet,’ a collar which detects when your dog moves or make a sound then randomly selects one of 500 pre-written tweets to post to Twitter.

People seem to enjoy reading this kind of information on Twitter, with 515 people already following the tweeting tree. Personally, I am not sold, I believe that there is much more fascinating information out there to read and wont this sort of information just clutter the already information overloaded net? Though, I am interested to see how far people will go with social networking.

Freedom of choice, not prescriptive parenting is what’s really best for mums and kids

The Sunday Telegraph published a story yesterday (‘Part-time mums are the best’ , 28 Feb 2010, p3) with University of New England research showing mothers who work part-time raise healthier children than stay-at-home mums (SAHMs) or those with full-time jobs.

I work part-time at Australia’s leading public relations agency, so my first conceited reaction was self-congratulations. All the effort of juggling kindy pick-ups, drop-offs, interrupted sleep and three full working days was worth it because according to the latest research, my kids will eat less junk food, watch less TV and are less likely to be obese or overweight.

But a skinny latte later, it occurs to me the headline is bonkers.

All mums – whether they work full time, part-time or don’t mix paid work and parenting are just doing what they feel is best for their family. Branding SAHMs and full time workers as mums more likely to have unhealthy, unstimulated kids is unhelpful and insulting.

Calling for more flexible and family –friendly work programs is great: but only if the mums in question want to actually take that route.

I’m lucky. I work for Howorth, part of Ogilvy PR Worldwide. I’m in the office three days a week, arriving late when I’m dropping the kids at day care and leaving early when it’s my turn to pick them up. I make up the lost hours from home when the kids go to bed and every couple of weeks I’ll put in a late Sunday night at the office to protect both the professional standard of my public relations work and the quality (and enjoyment) of my parenting.  I enjoy the freedom to contribute financially to the household and the mental stimulation of the public relations career I’ve been fostering for more than a decade. But that’s me and my story – it’s not for everyone.

My octogenarian father-in-law thinks women’s liberation did nothing for women – not because he’s a misogynist – but because he thinks the pressure on mums to perform the different roles of bread winner and parent is a heavy burden. He knows we disagree. In my opinion, what women have now is the freedom of choice.

It’s a freedom the community should support not by decrying SAHMs or full-timers, but by providing viable options so mums can choose what’s right for their family at any given point in time. That includes family friendly jobs, but also unconditional paid maternity leave; affordable, safe community childcare and less sensational headlines casting judgement on how women choose to do the most important job: raise their kids.

Is sustainability and climate change still on the agenda?

While the planet continues to warm, Australian politicians are using the science around climate change as a political football. The question has to be asked, is this political “static” causing the issue to slip off the agenda in the world of C Level decision makers?

The Opposition leader in Australia , for example, says  that we  simply have to get used to a world with an average mean temperature 3 degrees hotter, despite the impact this will have on usable land for food production and water resources a. So is the issue still on the corporate agenda?

PWC’s 13^th Annual Global CEO survey released in January 2010 had some interesting feedback from major decision makers from companies in every region.

Their key concerns (those rated ‘somewhat concerned’ to ‘extremely concerned) on sustainability, were:

• Climate Change 2009 – 26% and 2010- 37% or a 42% increase in the level over  the previous year’s survey. So the issue is growing in importance and ranks even higher than terrorism.

• Energy Costs 2009- 50% and 2010- 54% or an increase of 8% on the previous year. A high level of concern. (Yet OgilvyEarth has created internal programs that have reduced companies’energy use by 8- 12% in twelve months with added benefits of high levels of employee engagement and improved employer brands. So why are companies fighting internal programs when there are both brand and cost saving benefits attached?) The same report showed that 75% of these CEOs saw employee engagement as a key issue after the GFC. So an easy win.

PWC’s report re-inforces our own OgilvyEarth research findings in which C-level executives link sustainability strongly to corporate reputation. The PWC report found corporate reputation as a key concern:  “ Participation in industry initiatives to improve the sectors reputation” at 64%, ‘Expansion of CSR programs ‘ at 50% and ‘Engagement with NGO’s that affect reputation” at 31%.

But back to the specific issue of climate change : The PWC report revealed that 60% of CEOs are making preparations for the impacts of climate change. An average of 48% of CEO’s in developed nations saw that climate change would lead to significant new products and services and for the same group 61% reported that acting would increase their reputation.

So the issue of sustainability is not only still well and truly on the agenda but is also going to have significant opportunities for those business leaders who have the vision to invest in a solution.

When is enough government communications too much?

When I was a spin doctor working in state government communications we were told we had to get at least two decent stories up on radio every morning and at least one good story on TV in the evening.

This wasn’t because of some principled commitment to open and transparent government, but was a deliberate tactic to use up the limited airtime available for political stories so our opponents couldn’t.

The Rudd Government has enthusiastically adopted this approach, but as a government communications strategy for a national administration it has an inherent weakness.

Most people don’t pay very much attention to state politics. When they hear a state minister talking it’s really just background noise. But what they’re not hearing is the opposition.

More people pay attention to national politics, mainly because this is the level of government that takes away a third of our wages every month.

So if the Federal Government communications strategy is to get up on every story they must have something meaningful and relevant to say.

I’m not convinced Australians are really interested in what our political leaders think about the latest controversy engulfing Kyle and Jackie O, or that they want to hear federal ministers talking gravely about the latest horror smash when road safety is the responsibility of state governments.

By following this strategy the risk is that people stop listening altogether. And that’s dangerous for any government.

Ogilvy Sydney Event With Radian6 Co-Founder Chris Ramsey

We are lucky to have Chris Ramsey, one of the co-founders of Radian6, here in Sydney next week and are hosting an event with him at Ogilvy House in St. Leonards. The session will be held next Thursday morning and the topic will be “The Social Web: A Guide for PR Practitioners”.

The event is being organised by Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence and In the Public Interest (Frocomm Communications). Here is some information about the session from the event flyer:

The speakers will discuss the following topics:
1. The power of listening, analysing & measuring: Chris Ramsey, Radian6 USA
2. The power of engaging: Brian Giesen, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence
3. Q&A with audience

Date: 4th Feb 2010
Time: 7.30am-8.00am networking; 8.00-9.00am presentation
Venue: Ogilvy House, 72 Christie Street, St Leonards NSW
Price: $25 (+gst)

REGISTER HERE!

Tiger Woods’ Brand: Before & After

What do hydrants, voicemails and denial have in common?  They’re all now closely associated with the Tiger Woods brand, according to new research from Nielsen Online.

Today, Nielsen Online provided me with a Brand Association Map demonstrating the impact of the controversy on the Tiger Woods brand – based on analysis of online discussion about Tiger Woods both before and after the controversy.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the recent controversy the Tiger Woods brand has gone from being closely associated with video games, golf and other sports to other, well, less wholesome topics.

While the jury’s still out on how long it will take for the Tiger Woods brand to recover, one thing’s for certain – these less wholesome associations will take far longer to fade away.

What’s hot in 2010?

It is getting to that time of year when the industry analysts get out the crystal ball and start to highlight some key trends and forecast for 2010. First cab off the rank is Gartner, and this is their top 10 strategic technologies for 2010:

1. Cloud Computing
2. Advanced Analytics
3. Client Computing
4. IT for Green
5. Reshaping the Data Center
6. Social Computing
7. Security – Activity Monitoring
8. Flash Memory
9. Virtualization for Availability
10. Mobile Applications

The list is considerably different from Gartner’s forecasts for 2009 — Green IT, which was named as the number one priority in 2008, and dropped down to number 10 in 2009, is now back at number four. Virtualisation was number one in 2009, now at number nine. We assume Advanced Analytics is another name for Business Intelligence, which sees it climb from number nine last year to number two. Other technologies dropping in priority include enterprise mash-ups, servers beyond blades, specialised systems and unified communications, which all fall out of the top 10 list.

Gartner goes on to say that CIOs will be challenged to balance cost, risk and growth in 2010. The demand on IT organisations will be greater transparency and accountability. Gartner predicts few IT leaders will receive budget increases in 2010, which may mean more of the “mend and make do” approach.

It is agreed that 2009 will go down as the worst ever year for the IT industry, but 2010 will see spending increase with 3.3% growth. Gartner’s Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research, said: “2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of CIOs the IT budget will be 0 percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011. While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012.”

Sondergaard adds that business intelligence, virtualisation and social media will continue to dominate IT leaders’ agendas in 2010.

How much of this holds true, only time will tell. We’ll update on what the other analysts say for 2010 as soon as the details are published.

Enterns are the new interns

In the current economic climate, one would expect to see a rise in internship programs as people across a wide range of industry sectors struggle to find paid work and opt for any foot in the door with big brands and firms (something that an unpaid internship offers). On the contrary, could the GFC and rise in unemployment be responsible for a rise in the ‘entern’?

• There is a growing groundswell of entrepreneurs, and they band together;
• There are websites, forums, portals and blogs both dedicated to them and run by them;
• Yet again, we are seeing an upsurge in start-up companies by young founders; and
• Today’s business leaders are getting younger (see my247, Danoz Direct, Strike Group Australia, Moi Moi Fine Jewellery, Geekversity etc…).

Today, everyone is an entrepreneur and the art of entrepreneurship is a craft that cannot be taught.

Will we see more people bypass traditional internship programs, education institutions and other formal training programs as they start to hone their entrepreneurial skills and focus their efforts towards developing their own start up companies?

Something for smart companies and formal training institutions to think about…

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