Peter: Dad which hand does Rory McIlroy lift his ball out of the hole with.
Me: I don’t know Peter. Ask Mum.
Leo: Dad you know that song Lacrimae by Moby.
Me: No.
Leo: Well it’s the longest song on my iPod.
Nerdy Boys
Reply
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Cats. They’re Cat.
I was walking through our utility room when one of the cats that come and go round our house ran over my foot.
I considered for an instance if it had been a squirrel or worse again a mouse or a rat what I would have done? Why do we have these varmints in a state of semi domestication in our homes. It is absurb when you think about it.
I read some woman in the Irish News today who in her spare time catches feral cats and checks them for Cat AIDS and Leukaemia. The question rising in my throat was why? Imagine having so little to do that you can spend your time chasing cats.
Who was it that decided to tame the common cat? We have one called Dylan named after its predecessor also named Dylan after Bob but pronounced Deelon. It’s a long story but the cat responded to being called in that way one time I had too much wine.
The other cat is called Mugsy after the Tyrone footballer. He is a neutered Tom. The cat not the footballer that is. He only comes into the living room at night, is rarely to be seen during the day and occasionally urinates in the old downstairs toilet which is now a cloakroom/storage room.
I’ll makes the decisions about room use Cat if you don’t mind. He will lick your foot if you have no shoes on – any cat that licks my foot deserves treatment. He’s also a bit quick to put the dukes up.
Anyhow, I know some people like Cats. I don’t. Mugsy likes me but only when he is in the living room. Elsewhere in the house he runs away or swings his claws. He’d bite you too if he had the chance.
Cats. They’re cat.
Feeding Time at the TwitterZoo
Piece Written for the Marketing Institute of Ireland blog
The say build it and they will come. I say, if you feed it, it will grow.
I have been using Twitter for a period of time now for a client, and the evidence is clear. If you make an effort to constantly post on a series of topics, provide information of value and genuinely make an attempt to build contacts and interact with people your contacts will grow exponentially. This in turn can add value to your business. Quickly, you can build a channel of contacts and routes to market that you can take advantage of. It takes time, patience and a little ingenuity but it is worth persevering #IMO!
The value of communication using new media always appealed to me. The interesting thing is you didn’t always know how it would work but it was interesting when it did. Plus you didn’t have the problems of hundreds and thousands of brochures sitting with no place to go.
In my previous life, we developed an e-zine that pulled together news sources from across different platforms and pumped this information out on a frequent basis. It was basically a digest of what was going on. At the time, because it was an information source that people had opted in to, rather than being something they just received, it was the one source of news that we knew was of value. People liked it; quickly it became a valued vehicle for those who likes that sort of thing. And there were a lot of them.
My boss hated it. He didn’t get the fact that people signed up for it. Or that it drew together information published in different places. Or that it was essentially an online and therefore ephemeral communications tool. He would ask his secretary to print it off so he could read it and then would give us grief for wasting time re publishing information from its original source. He would focus on typos caused by the originator, or scowl at a name of an author he disliked. Basically he just didn’t get it. I haven’t spoken to him in years but I would safely predict that ten years on, social media would not be his forte! #oldschool
Other forms of information dissemination: the clippings service, assembled and distributed vie the web at great cost; the internal staff newsletter; the swathe of moronic and mundane information notices (‘The Toilet Block in Corridor 4 will be closed until Tuesday 13th’). All of these were instances of what I christened institutional spam. At one stage we discovered that the media clipping services posted online was being viewed by one member of the senior management team. To compound matters he had moved on to a new position in a different institution. All that time and effort, discussed at a senior level, an essential service. Unused. Unviewed. Ignored.
What I like about Twitter is the ability to multiply information virally round a series of contacts. Via ReTweets, Repostings, links to article, and the upsurge in the Dailies – online newspaper digests – your information is being pumped out to an entirely new audience. The single most important currency is the currency of your information. I ReTweeted recently a piece of interesting news that elicited about thirty new followers in a one-hour period.
On another occasion I attracted one high value follower by virtue of the fact she knew I was able to give her a contact for a television programme she was doing but in order to exchange the details confidentially she needed to Follow Me. This is a foible of Twitter, but it also safeguards people from unsolicited private messages. Contact duly delivered we are now in contact and my new media follower knows that I am a reliable source of information.
If you multiply that on to business, how easy is it for you to generate thirty new leads in a one-hour period without having to get up from your seat? If you had new offers, a new product, new premises – Twitter is there to pump out the information to your audience. In real time, easily and effectively. Bolt on further detail via your website, blog or current news reports and you quickly add value.
Key to this is to understand using of #hashtags. The hashtag or # is put in front of the important words in your tweet so that these will appear more easily in Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category. Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet and hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.
You can have a bit of fun too with your hashtags, they may never appear in a search but may be able to make a subtle or not to subtle point in your message. #longwinded
One other aspect of Twitter and indeed Facebook to bear in mind is ‘When to feed the animals?’
There is no point pushing out information of value at times during the day when people quite simply aren’t paying attention. By observing the behaviour of your followers you will know the best time to fire out a piece of information.
If you are targeting US followers remember they will be active when you’re not. Also the Tweet can be quite an ephemeral communication so you may try the same piece of information in a different way. Hopefully your followers will think enough of your content to send it on to their own contacts. The links within your tweet will hopefully attract in people keen to learn more.
Also, remember, when it’s out there, it’s out there. If you disseminate information it can be hard to put the Twitter genie back in its bottle. That’s a lesson for another day. #oncebitten
The Fountain of Knowledge
The Irish Times & Powers Whiskey recently ran a short story competition. This is one of my two entries. Neither won but I like them anyway. The subject was to write 450 words on ‘What Really Matters.’
McCool, man-big-boy, arrives by the Pool. Surrounded by nine hazel bushes, leanto under overhangy rock, little fire wisps smoke thonder.
From the undergrowth emerges a dishevelled figure. Old, craggy, birdsnest of a beard home to flora and fauna galore, and more. Torn britches, baggy woollen jerkin. Behind trails a shaggy dog.
McCool, by the pool, observes the scene unfold. The oul boy calls the dog, sounds like Endamine, sits down by the pool and flicks a spinner off the end of a rod into the blue water.
Eyes gleaming, he fixes his gaze on McCool. “I saw you arrive with yer iPhone, yer sneakers and yer shades. If ye wanna stay, ye can help.’
“That’s cool.” replies McCool. “Help what?”
“Catch fish. Salmon. I catch, you cook, we eat.”
McCool the fool, says “As a rule, don’t eat fish, only dolphin-friendly tuna.”
Whatever. Beady eyed, the oul fella glares, ignores, continues:
“Been after it this years. Gold with a red triangle. What a fish, some dish.’
Suddenly the line yanks, yaws and pullies – huge, the golden Salmon arcs out of the water. Golden, beautiful, knowledgeable. Gleams in the evening sun.
“Holy Mackerel’ says McCool, falling off his stool, “Can we catch it.”
“Yes we can” replies the oul fella, knee deep in the drink. “we will fight and we’ll be alright.”
Struggle continues, line-pulls and calms. “Hasn’t gone away you know” says the oul boy. Authoritatively.
McCool, no longer cool, reaches for the net, salmon-leaps again.
“It’s got magic Powers.”
“Something like that” mutters the oul boy, salmon-steering to the net.
Ashore. Despatched. Fishgutted. Washed.
Spit speared searing sitting above smoking fire. McCool receives his barked instructions:
“Cook, don’t taste. Understand, the fish is mine. Whomsoever tastes firsts sees the light.”
McCool intrigued: “You what?”
“I’m first, you’re second. That’s the way it is. Now, I’m for the yard”
Spit-turning, McCool, still a fool, drops shades in the flames. Reaching firewards, dripping Salmon sauce scalds his hand.
McCool, definitely not cool leaps himself. Salmon-like, handsucks, yowling in pain.
Old fella bolts from the bogs alarmed, distraught, crestfallen, severely peeved.
“You taste the fish?”
McCool, mouth-a-drool: “Just a soupcon…” Eyes a-bright, no more the fool.
“You may have the rest, now you’ve a taste for it.” And, with that he roaded McCool.
Sad perhaps, seat-settled by the fire, beside the pool. A single salmon soars from the water.
Dogwards says he: “Well Endamine, canine friendamine…”
Cap-snaps the golden bottletop, laughs aloud.
“Plenty more fish in the uisce eh….? It’s not what you know that really matters. But how you use it.”
Jug dips a little poolwater diluting slightly his Powers Gold Label. The real Fountain of Knowledge.