Listening to my 11-year-old and his friend talking about various things - mostly Warhammer - this weekend, I heard plenty of "awesome" and "immense". They also use the High Rising Terminal inflection a lot - making statements sound like a question. My daughter (15) also uses awesome and HRT a lot, but my son (14) doesn't.
As a keen student and observer of language, I noticed a couple of years ago that my wife (mid-40s) uses the High Rising Terminal too. She said she picked it up from her fellow students, who were mostly in their mid-20s. What she didn't pick up was "awesome". In fact she never says it. In fact I don't know any adults who do, apart from a woman in my Twitter feed who hoped we all had AWESOME weekends.
These are just a few examples. My current hypothesis is that mature adults (30+) who want to sound in tune with the times can feel okay using the High Rising Terminal but don't feel so comfortable using "awesome".
Monday 18 October 2010
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Newsletter dinosaurs - pushing in the age of pull
In an era where news is pouring out of every media orifice, where newspapers are struggling, where news is cheap as chips, do you need another newsletter? Really?
Newsletters as advertising by another name - a variant on advertorials. The sender may have the highest intention to provide high-quality information, but the format and form of delivery is purely promotional. Fair enough, except that it's push in a world that's increasingly moving to pull. It's broadcasting.
From the user/receiver perspective, I see two main modes with regard to information. One is specific need and the other is general curiosity.
If I need information on a particular subject, I'll seek it out when I need it and look for the best sources available. And sorry folks, whatever area of expertise the newsletter covers, there are none that I need regularly enough to warrant even skimming a newsletter.
For general serendipitous curiosity, I go to high-quality sources that consistently hit the mark - podcasts from the BBC and a few others, a few newspapers online or on apps, social media sites and Twitter.
I do receive "newsletters" - maybe a dozen or more - but 99% of the time I bin them immediately on receipt.
Newsletters as advertising by another name - a variant on advertorials. The sender may have the highest intention to provide high-quality information, but the format and form of delivery is purely promotional. Fair enough, except that it's push in a world that's increasingly moving to pull. It's broadcasting.
From the user/receiver perspective, I see two main modes with regard to information. One is specific need and the other is general curiosity.
If I need information on a particular subject, I'll seek it out when I need it and look for the best sources available. And sorry folks, whatever area of expertise the newsletter covers, there are none that I need regularly enough to warrant even skimming a newsletter.
For general serendipitous curiosity, I go to high-quality sources that consistently hit the mark - podcasts from the BBC and a few others, a few newspapers online or on apps, social media sites and Twitter.
I do receive "newsletters" - maybe a dozen or more - but 99% of the time I bin them immediately on receipt.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Is the Internet whipping up anger?
There are an awful lot of very angry people out there. I'm not talking about the oppressed toiling in appalling conditions, who may well be angry. Rather I mean people with homes and health care and relative financial security.
When I was a lad, the most angry person around was Alf Garnett on TV, the working class bigot who ranted about immigration and left-wingers. In the 80s it was Ben Elton doing his rantathons on TV.
Now with the Internet we can tune in to angry people all over the world - the denizens of Fox TV in the States, jihadis from who knows where and ordinary bloggers incensed by whatever - after all there's plenty to be incensed about.
I reckon the Internet has warped the balance of the planet by amplifying two naturally-occurring emotions - lust and anger. And I'm REALLY ANNOYED ABOUT IT!!!!!! ;)
When I was a lad, the most angry person around was Alf Garnett on TV, the working class bigot who ranted about immigration and left-wingers. In the 80s it was Ben Elton doing his rantathons on TV.
Now with the Internet we can tune in to angry people all over the world - the denizens of Fox TV in the States, jihadis from who knows where and ordinary bloggers incensed by whatever - after all there's plenty to be incensed about.
I reckon the Internet has warped the balance of the planet by amplifying two naturally-occurring emotions - lust and anger. And I'm REALLY ANNOYED ABOUT IT!!!!!! ;)
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Social media: Rocket fuel or snake oil?
There's a lot of talk around about whether corporates "get" social media. The word among those with an opinion (social media fans) is that they don't.
Maybe part of the problem is the handle "social media" and the way it has become a buzzword. Hypsters and knee-jerk neophiles have proclaimed it the answer to everything, so cynics and knee-jerk neophobes have dismissed it as snake oil.
Social media: Rocket fuel or snake oil? Strip away the jargon and the froth, and what have we got? New ways for people to do what people have always done: connect and converse with each other.
I suspect that one reason why social media have not penetrated deeper into the the corporate mainstream is that many, if not most, organisations have very little idea about connecting and conversing in whatever way - online or offline, among themselves or with the outside world.
There's an excellent book by John Seely Brown called The Social Life of Information (my Amazon review here >>>>) where the author describes the difference between process and practice among Xerox technicians. Process is what the manual and the system tells them to do to fix customer problems; practice is how they meet up mid-morning at a cafe and swap stories and tips. Guess which achieves the results....
Connections and conversations are the means whereby problems find their way to solutions, whereby bits of the puzzle find each other, whereby fragments of ideas come together and ideas find people to turn them into reality. Social media are "just" a way for people to connect and converse more widely.
Maybe part of the problem is the handle "social media" and the way it has become a buzzword. Hypsters and knee-jerk neophiles have proclaimed it the answer to everything, so cynics and knee-jerk neophobes have dismissed it as snake oil.
Social media: Rocket fuel or snake oil? Strip away the jargon and the froth, and what have we got? New ways for people to do what people have always done: connect and converse with each other.
I suspect that one reason why social media have not penetrated deeper into the the corporate mainstream is that many, if not most, organisations have very little idea about connecting and conversing in whatever way - online or offline, among themselves or with the outside world.
There's an excellent book by John Seely Brown called The Social Life of Information (my Amazon review here >>>>) where the author describes the difference between process and practice among Xerox technicians. Process is what the manual and the system tells them to do to fix customer problems; practice is how they meet up mid-morning at a cafe and swap stories and tips. Guess which achieves the results....
Connections and conversations are the means whereby problems find their way to solutions, whereby bits of the puzzle find each other, whereby fragments of ideas come together and ideas find people to turn them into reality. Social media are "just" a way for people to connect and converse more widely.
Sally shows smart side of social media
Yesterday evening I had a long chat with Sally Church, a Brit working in the States.
Sally has a highly specialised line of work. She earned her PhD in respiratory medicine and now specialises in helping pharma companies working on cancer and leukemia. This is serious, hard science. Not woo-woo, not fluffy and not self-regarding webby stuff.
She runs a specialist blog on her subject - Pharma Strategy Blog - tweets many times a day, and gets business from both. In fact, as she tells it, her clients know that the best way to get in touch with her is by DM on Twitter.
The great thing is that Sally has found this out by trial and error. Not only does she have amazing expertise in her own professional field, she's also built up a body of practical knowledge about using social media in a highly specialised, hard-edged field.
Sally has a highly specialised line of work. She earned her PhD in respiratory medicine and now specialises in helping pharma companies working on cancer and leukemia. This is serious, hard science. Not woo-woo, not fluffy and not self-regarding webby stuff.
She runs a specialist blog on her subject - Pharma Strategy Blog - tweets many times a day, and gets business from both. In fact, as she tells it, her clients know that the best way to get in touch with her is by DM on Twitter.
The great thing is that Sally has found this out by trial and error. Not only does she have amazing expertise in her own professional field, she's also built up a body of practical knowledge about using social media in a highly specialised, hard-edged field.
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