Can you really block my voice?

June 16, 2009June 15, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Q: What might Tehran and Southwest Airlines have in common?

(No, it’s not another ‘peanuts’ joke.)

A: An intolerance with passengers text-chatting online.

Dan York, a tech strategist, author and blogger discovered to his dismay that while Southwest had begun a WiFi Zone on board some of its flights, (and is big on, and well known for using Twitter,) it cut out Skype chat.

But blocking speech at 30,000 feet is the least of our worries in a world that is increasingly intolerant of dissenting voices. It took on a new dimension in Iran this week, in the aftermath of the highly contested elections. The Associated Press reports that the government has stepped up its Internet filtering and Iranians are unable to send text messages from their phones. The Guardian had this to say:

“Mobile phone text messages were jammed, and news and social networking websites – including the Guardian, the BBC and Facebook – as well as pro-Mousavi websites were blocked or difficult to access.”

But can a government really ‘block’ people’s voices in this age of leaky media. While Twitter is being blocked in Iran, some tweets that get through publish the addresses of proxy servers that can be accessed undetected.

Someone uploaded —to Flickr! — this screen capture (left) of tweets found using the hash tag #iranelection.

And then the opposition candidate MirHossein Mousavi has been tweeting, as we know.

Despite all this other forms of technology –including jamming –are being used to circumvent the government clampdown.

Even Arab satellite TV news station Al-Arabiya was shut down.

I don’t think we will see an end to governments trying to curb dissent using intimidation and technology, but these events are unwittingly providing those who favor democratic processes good examples of how best to adapt to the next clampdown, the next autocrat, the next crisis.

Quotes for the week ending June 13, 2009

June 13, 2009June 13, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“Authentic communication is the new requirement, a paradigm shift has already happened, and most companies and communicators haven’t made the shift.”

Barbara Gibson, in her last post (The Last Hurrah) as outgoing IABC chair.

“that onerous system of checks and rewrites and hand wringing where legions of non-writers add their personal stamp to a piece of communication … to the point of unreadability.”

Steve Crescenzo, citing one of the two biggest obstacles to effective internal comms. The other is an overzealous IT Team.

“Twitter Tees brings community-powered t-shirt design to Twitter.

Threadless, which launched a way for Twitter users to vote on 4 T shirts with tweets that include “in space, no one can hear you tweeet” and “140 is the new 420”

“He’s the most … trollish person I’ve ever worked with!”

Leo Laporte, after cutting off Tech Crunch’s Mike Arrington, who suggested that Laporte had received a free Palm Pre.

“Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? Because the card in my camera automatically added location data to my photos, anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flatscreen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map.”

Israel Hyman of Arizona, who claims his house may have been robbed because of his Twitter updates.

“We got the cure for Search Overload Syndrome.”

Microsoft Bing copy, on Facebook

“Every three years, the world completely changes, which makes strategic planning difficult. But while you can’t predict a future, you can prepare yourself for multiple futures.”

Mike Curran, the unofficial jobs guru of Silicon Calley, who is retiring after 23 years as director of NOVA

“we forgot the relationship part of public relations”

Lee Hopkins (@leehopkins) tweeting at the #IABC09 conference in San Francisco this week

“Although the pandemic appears to have moderate severity in comparatively well-off countries, it is prudent to anticipate a bleaker picture…”

Dr Margaret Chan, Dir Gen of World Health Organization, on raising the global pandemic level to Level 6

“a high-stakes poker game”

Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, on North Korea sentencing of two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee

My foray into podcasting – Light Bulb Moments

June 11, 2009June 12, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Happy to note that I now have six podcasts published on iTunes.
They are also here at the Decision Theater blog.

More to follow!

I began the podcasts, Light Bulb Moments as a complement to the Decision Theater blog that bears the same name.

But none of this happenned overnight. Podcasting is an interesting a curious exercise. As those who do it will tell you, there are many components to it, from the interview prep, to the editing (if you’re not going live to the drive, as some pros like Mitch Joel and CC Chapman do), and the publishing.

My deep appreciation to two people –fellow IABC members– who have been my inspiration to get started: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. For the past –what was it?– three or more years I’ve listened to several communications and PR podcasts, and still do. But For Immediate Release has been one show I never fail to get back to. I learned the nuts and bolts of the trade from their book, How to do everything with podcasting, then took a class at ASU, and jumped in. Suddenly the deep-end doesn’t feel so intimidating.

A note about Light Bulb Moments. It’s a sort of a peek behind the curtain, if you will, at what goes on here at the Decision Theater.

The core area (left), a room with floor-to-ceiling screens is a high-tech interactive environment. It’s used for planning –scenario planning– systems thinking and policy making.

We work with cities, businesses, govt agencies, school districts / schools and non-profits; more recently in pandemic influenza planning exercises. It looks very complex from the outside. So since part of my job is to communicate and distill that complexity, podcasts are perfect for this. It lets me capture the light bulb moments, plus the nuances –right down to the ambient sound.

Full-on social media coverage for IABC World Conference

June 8, 2009June 10, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

While I had to skip attending this year’s IABC World Conference that kicked off yesterday, it may be the year that best defines how how communication had turned a corner, with so many ways of covering an event.

Check this list of staff covering the event via Twitter.

Just a cursory search of the usual tools and you’ll find many ways to follow people and presentations, back-channel chatter, and some background to the events. Here are a few. I will update this as the conference proceeds.

Twitter, Of course. The Hash tag is IABC09. Goes without saying that almost everyone member at the conference is tweeting.

AudioBoo. The podcasting app for iPhone users. Already people like Donna Papacosta and Bryan Person have uploaded content.

For Immediate Release podcast. Show #455 from the conference flow.

Twitpic: Bryan Person, Shel Holtz, and others capturing the conference photos

Flickr: images from Linda Johannesson and others

YouTube. Again the IABC09 tag brings up new content all the time. (Must watch: Hilarious ‘Grumpy Old Men’ series.)

PROOF POINTS:

Real-time coverage: Within minutes of Best Buy’s Brian Dunn receiving the 2009 Excel Award, I was listening to a snippet of his speech, uploaded to AudioBoo, by Neville Hobson.
Member participation. Linda Johanneson, traveled to San Fran on a scholarship. Instead of providing a conference report when she returns, she’s documenting it at a blog (Outathagate) as it happens!
Podcasts from Bryan Person recorded in his iPhone: DailyBoo

Untangling social media’s Knots, Twine, Flakes and Waves

June 5, 2009June 5, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Is this the year of excessive networking?

I came across yet another interesting way to pull together a social network from a thread of tweets. It’s called TweetKnot.
Hard to not think of Twine, and what it stands for, huh?
I had just signed up with PageFlakes, which has been around but I have to admit is a pretty good aggregator of many other tools such as Facebook, Twitter, email etc.
And this week was awash with news of Google Wave.

Oh, my!

Are we getting to the point where we may need an aggregator for our aggregation tools?

Got a minute? What are the criteria you use for trying out a new communication tool? Take a quick survey here.

I will report results of the survey here in a week. Thanks.

Hoipolloireport

Angelo Fernando's blog since 2004

My foray into podcasting – Light Bulb Moments

Full-on social media coverage for IABC World Conference

Untangling social media’s Knots, Twine, Flakes and Waves