Search results matching tag 'Barack Obama'

Take your Olympics and shove it!

822535 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:06:00 GMT

Everyone over here is shocked that the International Olympic Committee had the unmitigated cheek to award the 2016 Olympics to Rio, rather than Chicago. Rubbing salt in the wound by eliminating Chicago in the very first round of voting. Wankers!

But, I’ll make you a bet right now that most Chicagoans are breathing a great big sigh of relief. ‘Cos based on just about every other host city, the citizens end up paying for it for years after the event has been forgotten. From what I’ve read, the costs for London to host the 2012 Olympics have already tripled, and we’re still three years away from the opening ceremony! Your children’s children will be paying for this long after you’ve gone to that big agency in the sky. Montreal’s 1976 Olympics left the city with $2.7 billion of debt that it finally paid off in 2005. That's almost thirty years.

Why cities want this dubious honor is beyond me. The whole thing has grown into a travesty of the Baron’s original dream. It is now a commercial, nationalist, jingoistic joke, stuffed with all kinds of events that are merely a vehicle to sell more swoosh emblazoned junk to kids who can’t afford it.

Make it all amateur again (are there any left?) And cut out all the sponsors. But, you say, then the host cities wouldn’t be able to afford to build all the different venues… Exactly. So you go back to the original events, running, jumping, throwing a big rock, and naked men wrestling. And you do it on the sports field of the local secondary modern. You make a profit selling tea and renting deck chairs.

Oh, and you can Tweet about it!

Brown boosts his social media reputation

255762 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:35:00 GMT

It isn't all bad news for Gordon Brown. Those chumps at News International (my word of the day) might have dumped him, but his keynote speech at Labour Party Conference did much to improve his social media reputation and hit back at some of the negative coverage.

This is more from Yomego and its new social media reputation measurement system that I blogged about earlier this week. It found that across Twitter, facebook and the blogging community Brown boosted his reputation by 17 points. Considering the flak he was taking, akin to a rough night over Germany, that's an achievement. From a starting score of 42.59 out of 100, Brown moved to 59.81, according to Yogemo.

It audited the Prime Minister’s social media reputation the week before and then again the morning after the speech was carried out and it showed that noise levels were certainly up and that sentiment levels had also improved significantly, indicating that the speech was well received on social networks.

Clearly as Steve Richards, managing director of Yomego says Gordon Brown had a lot of ground to make up with Britain’s 30m online social network users when he stood up to make his speech.

"Before he started, Conservative Party Leader David Cameron rated a score of 62.49, 20 points ahead of the Prime Minister. But both had much to learn from other world leaders, with US President Barack Obama scoring 77.79 and French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy achieving 66.15."

How important any of this will be is really hard to tell. I sometimes worry that social media is a bit of a bubble, but then increasingly we see that bubble burst into the wider world. So while I possess a degree of skepticism about the impact Twitter and blogs et cetera might have on the a general election campaign I also think that six months down the line we might be surprised.

I also agree with a lot of the sentiment appearing on blogs yesterday that the long predicted decision by The Sun to dump Brown will be less significant than some think. Time will tell.

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Gordon Brown needs to consider his social media reputation

255762 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:28:00 GMT

Following on from Friday's post on Labour's Twitter lead, research says that Gordon Brown has a lot of ground to make up with Britain's 30m online social network users as he looks to make his keynote speech at the Labour Party conference this week.

Of course, his social media reputation is not the only thing he and Labour needs (a fight back would be nice, but not the place).

Social media agency Yomego carried out a Social Media Reputation audit (a new service it is launching) of the Prime Minister's online reputation looking across the spectrum at Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Twitter and YouTube alongside other social spaces such as blogs, comments, ratings, reviews and user-generated content.

While the party might have more MPs Twittering and engaging with social media, David Cameron's reputation in the world of Twitter, Facebook and the blogging community is ranked 20 points higher, which is of course ironic give what he thinks for instance of Twitter ("Too many twits might make a twat.") although he really should come clean about Facebook as well (I'm just sitting here drumming my fingers waiting for that one).

Out of a possible 100, the Prime Minister scores 42.59 in the audit, which measures the volume and newness of social media chatter and whether it is positive or negative.

To be honest the recent week's that Brown has been having that is almost better than expected. From here on out, and with his speech this week, the party and Brown have to get that higher.

According to Yomego, in Brown's case there was lots of noise, but opinion was almost universally unenthusiastic with his "sentiment" score lower than that achieved by British National Party leader Nick Griffin (seriously? I find that hard to believe, but that is what the agency says).

Tory leader David Cameron rated a score of 62.49 with the level of noise on social media networks achieving similar volume and recency to the PM, but the overall sentiment rating more than three times better than his Labour counterpart. Well the Tories are between 13 and 15 points ahead in the polls depending on who you look at so that is going to happen.

A ray of light for Brown comes from the Liberal Democrat who should be soaking up the anti Brown/Labour chatter, but while leader Nick Clegg scores a respectable 54.13 he is let down by a low noise rating. You mean no one is talking Clegg? Apparently he is not exactly inspiring the Lib Dems to new heights as the party's recent conference appeared to demonstrate (either that or Lib Dems don't chatter/make much noise in social media).

Steve Richards, MD of Yomego, says that the audits carried out so far have underlined how important it is for brands (political parties) to manage that social media noise and sentiment around them.

"The noise around your brand may be deafening but if that noise is overwhelmingly negative, its reputation will suffer real damage. Conversely, if positive sentiment about your brand is drowned out by your competitors, you won’t see the benefits.

"For politicians, with nearly 30m people in the UK alone regularly using a social network, social media reputation is an important barometer for measuring whether their message is getting through and how it’s being received. That’s particularly true as we enter the party conference season and all parties start gearing up for a general election next year."

Other stuff thrown up by the audit, but not strictly earth shattering (but here you are) are the high scores achieved by Barack Obama who scored 77.79 (shocker - he is the social media king, or president as he likes to be known) and French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy achieving 66.15. Does he Twitter? Do the French? I'm sure they do, but weirdly I don't think I have ever followed/been followed by someone from across the channel. The rest of Europe yes, France no.

I digress, um here's a bit of how they did the Social Media Reputation audit, which Yomego says is a first measurement system combining quantity and quality, with insight and will be officially launched at Mipcom 2009 (5th – 9th October).

The result is a total score out of 100, representing an average of the level and freshness of noise generated and the nature and recency of sentiment behind what’s being expressed.

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Election 2010: The Digital Media Battle

2175094 — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:15:00 GMT

We should all welcome Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s return to YouTube this week. He was criticised by Cabinet colleagues (aka our ‘Communities’ Minister, Hazel Blears) and widely ridiculed by the media for his ‘MP expenses’ video late last month. But Brown knows only too well that we now live in a world of 24/7 digital media and he needs to use these tools to get his message across directly to the British people (he’s doing something right - apparently the 10 Downing Street twitter site is the UK’s most favourite). Of course, Parliament is the hub of our democracy and policy statements should be made first in the ‘chamber’ (but few people watch or listen to proceedings). Door-to-door campaigning is very personal but it is also time-consuming and effective on a one-to-one basis. So, as the political fighting (and in-fighting) intensifies in the run up to the European and local elections next month, another ‘war’ is beginning to emerge: the politics of digital media.

The truth of the matter is that the Labour Party (the party of government) hasn’t quite grasped the concept of social media: it is in ‘catch up’ mode. This is because it has been the party of power for over a decade and is restricted by the limitations of the civil service which has yet to truely embrace the enabling power of the internet. It is trying though with the appointment of a Digital Tsar – although bizarrely this was widely criticised. It also has difficulty coping with a media where the ‘message’ cannot always be controlled. However, there are many examples of Labour MPs and other elected representatives who are embracing the media as a way to engage and interact directly with their constituents. Many now have blogs, twitter feeds, Facebook pages etc. However, the Conservative Party has stolen a march in this area, using social media more effectively as a campaigning tool. David Cameron has used webcameron from day one of his leadership. The number of Conservative-leaning blogs (such as Iain Dale or ConservativeHome far outweigh those of the political Left, although there is LabourList but even this is experiencing troubles). The Conservative blogs are also not afraid to criticise the party’s leadership (although remain broadly loyal). The Conservatives also had the ingenious idea of buying key ‘budget’ search words directing people to the Party's website during live coverage of the Chancellor’s statement . This is a new step in political battle to get your attention.

The politics of digital media is set to become one of the largest battlegrounds in the next UK General Election (odds on May 2010?) as campaigning evolves from television and newspapers to social networking sites and other ‘direct’ and participative approaches. We’ve all heard about Barack Obama’s use of social media during last year’s US Presidential Elections. He’s set the standard. Let’s now see how British political parties overcome the restrictions on party election broadcasting to get their message over to you and me directly on your PC, iPod or mobile.

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Blue eyed bankers and Berlusconi's latest colour quip

273167 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:53:00 GMT

It's slightly off topic but here at About Time Towers we take an interest in world events, since it's the bread and butter of our game (which we are currently updating for our upcoming travel game). While Gordon Brown was over in Brazil, he was thoroughly upstaged by President Lula Da Silva who laid into "white blue eyed bankers" for wrecking the world economy. He clarified this by saying that he personally had never met a black banker. I'm not sure how I feel about these comments - they are blunt populism if nothing else, and there is no doubt that Lula is a hell of a lot more popular at home than his guest, Brown. Poor old Gordon could probably learn a thing or two about communication from his host. Gordon is forever in the clouds dealing with the global economy, but he has never learnt the art of the pithy down-to-earth headline grabber. There is nothing very headline grabbing in anything he says, it invariably gives you a sinking feeling, regardless of your political sympathies. Lighten up, is how I might comment on his marketing skills. I myself am a proud owner of two blue-grey eyes, but I'll leave the protest to the world's yet to be spotted black bankers.

Meanwhile the world's most gaffe-prone prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has continued his Bernard Manning style quipping against his counterpart in Washington. Previously at their first meeting he commented on Obama's "suntan", causing a few raised eyebrows, although apparently Obama let it slip. This time Berlusconi said critics of the previous remarks did not get his sense of humour. That is correct Bernard. And just to show how funny he thinks he is, he added that his economic policy was not like Obama's, saying: "I'm paler, since it's so long since I went sunbathing." With Obama lifting all those troops out of Iraq, he could do worse than drop a few off in Rome and then ask Berlusconi to make a few more of his wisecracks.

Obama’s ‘Message of Hope’ and what this means for us here in the UK?

628994 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:56:00 GMT

It’s easy to become cynical about politics and politicians. I was in conversation with Sir Paul Judge on this subject just this week.

High up on the 18th floor of his magnificent London pad that overlooks the River Thames in Pimlico Sir Paul was waxing lyrical to me about the need for politics and politicians to get back to what really matters – what’s best for the UK and for the constituents who elected them rather than the direction of a political party.

And this is coming from someone who was Chairman of the Conservative Party!

But I couldn’t help thinking Sir Paul had a point.

Do we really need to indulge in discussions about the allowances claimed by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for her second home rather than thinking how many low income families will be able to afford to pay the rent next month?

Very quickly our conversation turned to the film I made for a special event at the House of Commons commemorating the inauguration of Barack Obama. You can view this in high definition by clicking on the following link:

Made in a record-breaking five days I was still rendering the film at the London College of Communication before I jumped in a taxi to the House of Commons for the live link with Obama’s inauguration, viewed on a sporadic web link via the BBC web site!

Despite the challenges this posed – including losing part of Aretha Franklin's performance! – the experience of witnessing history in the making will live with me forever.

What was interesting was the way in which people responded to Obama’s message of hope and where now everything is possible in much the same way that he has demonstrated.

Ardi Kolah is the founder & CEO of Guru in a Bottle (www.guruinabottle.com), a sales and marketing training and mentoring company that launches in a few weeks’ time. He can be contacted on 077100 77941 and ardi@guruinabottle.com

Obama digital guru says it can work for Labour

255762 — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Good piece in the Guardian today talking to Thomas Gensemer who was behind Barack Obama's groundbreaking digital campaign.

Gensemer is in town to launch an office of his agency Blue State Digital, which was recently appointed by a group fighting the British National Party's attempt to win seats in the European parliament elections this June.

Gensemer reckons he has some lessons for Gordon Brown and Labour having recruited 13.5m supporters and raised $500m for the Obama campaign via barackobama.com.

He told the paper that it isn't about the technology, but that the real questions are: "What are your goals, and how can you use technology to achieve them? Our biggest sales pitch is that we couple the services along with the technology. A lot of our competition just sells technology, and the types of organisation and causes that we like to work with, if I go in and sell them really powerful technology, it doesn't do them any good, because they don't have the wherewithal to make sense of it."

He says he wants to demystify online campaigning and argues that organisations can build very quickly if they do the messaging right.

We've seen that a lot recently with the anti-Israeli protests. I don't agree with these groups, but it has been interesting how these grass roots groups have used social media to organise very effectively.

Gensemer is right when he says that any campaign, be it the Democrats or Labour, has to nurture active supporters, rather than passive donors. It has to be about the grass roots, down to what the CLPs and wards are doing as much as anything.

Labour and Labour activists have already made a start with a couple of sites, which we've written about here. With the launch of Derek Draper's LabourList.org and the Party's Labourspace.com.

There's also been digital agency Tangent One appointing former Labour Party head of corporate comms, Paul Simpson, to manage its Labour Party account and Labour turning to Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch with constituents with a The new campaign that allows MPs to upload communication targeted at their constituents on Facebook, Twitter and through email.

Launching all of this is fine, but Labour like any party has to work hard to ensure that it gets the simple stuff right (Gensemer relates a story about people asked to email in their views – but four days and 78,000 emails later nothing had been read) and ensuring that social media becomes part of the DNA rather than window dressing. It is also essential, Gensemer says, that it is not about gimmicks, which is always a danger when new things (like Twitter) suddenly emerge and the bandwagon is boarded.

"They have focused too much on gimmicks and what they can sell to the press. Now Labour MPs are using Twitter, but the political capital that went into getting a couple of MPs to Twitter probably wasn't worth it. Prescott's petition on the bankers has 15,000 signatures, but what are they asking people to do? You could have asked for different things that would create a greater sense of engagement. None of this is a technology challenge; it's an organisational challenge, being willing to communicate with people."

Gensemer tells the paper he is convinced that the social media digital approach can work even in the much less geographically disparate UK.

And then he gets to what he is really here for: to win the Labour Party digital election campaign for Blue State Digital having already set out their stall with work on Jon Cruddas's bid in 2006-07 for the Labour deputy leadership and Ken Livingstone's unsuccessful re-election bid last year for London mayor.

"We're very eager, and I think it would work equally well here. I don't think they're going to raise a half a billion dollars, but it certainly would raise far more money than it costs and you could make a big difference. As our work with Jon Cruddas and Ken Livingstone shows, if you ask people to do things they will do it, in similar numbers that we see in the States."

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Labour Party wakes up to social media

255762 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:32:00 GMT

Much has been written about how important social media and online was to Barack Obama's presidential election campaign and now the Labour Party is moving ahead with its own plans with several different initiatives.

The first part of that was unveiled last week by Labour Party strategist, Derek Draper, who unveiled LabourList.org, which is designed to rival the Tory site ConservativeHome.

Other elements on the way include a "take to the web" initiative that will ensure that key ministers appear on popular online forums and on the social media front there will be a Labour Party HQ blog and a focus on producing virals and widgets.

The ideas were part of a presentation drawn up in December that grasps the real digital opportunity for Labour and that is building new social networks to replace those that have disappeared.

"As old networks (trade unions, branch meetings, etc) decline, we need to find and be involved with the new, online networks that are developing. Being in the community now also means being in the online community."

That's exactly what happened in America. Obama and his team helped build new networks that turned into a campaign winning machine. That's what Labour needs to do (in addition to traditional party foot soldiering on the doorstep) as well if it is to win the next election.

As that is what social media sites and services like Twitter are; networks small and large.

Another part of Labour's online social media strategy was revealed today by Marketing with the launch of Labourspace.com. It's a much needed site. The idea behind Labourspace.com is really simple. People get their own webpage within the Labourspace network where they can tell the party why they think Labour should be implementing their campaign ideas.

On LabourList today the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, writes about the how the Labour Party must be ready with a vision of the kind of society it wants to see and how Labourspace is part of that.

"How many of us know young people who don't have their voice heard and feel that society has nothing to offer them?

"The politics and the institutions we build must speak to their lives. We've made real progress in these areas, but there is more to be done.

"That's why today I am launching Labourspace.com - the Labour Party's campaign social networking site. I hope it will provide a unique home for organisations and people to host and promote their campaigns - and to bring their ideas to the attention of Labour ministers and the wider Party."

“Labourspace.com opens up a dialogue on the internet precisely designed to stimulate ideas on how Labour can build on the progress we have made. Between now and our next manifesto it will be canvassing the best ideas, and, I hope, fostering a two way dialogue between you and me.”

Balls says he will be regularly checking out the site. I hope he does and that other ministers do as well and find time to engage at that grass roots level as if they don't building sites like Labourspace is a waste.

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Bushisms: The Definitive Collection

2371004 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:53:00 GMT

On the eve of the inauguration of the 44^th US President, some guy named Obama, GoViral was gracious enough to provide me with proper send-off for number 43, George W. Bush, with a collection of his infamous gaffes, malapropisms and all-around cringe-inducing moments from his eight years at the helm of the Oval Office. Enjoy!

5. Is Bush an "Idiot"?

For those more interested, this is a discussion from NBC, trying to determine whether Bush is an illiterate idiot or actually clever, but just not very articulate.

4. Bush Dodges Shoes Thrown by Iraqi Journalist

The famous recent shoe attack from Iraq. Bush very swiftly dodges the shoes being thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter. In Iraq, slapping someone with a shoe is the worst possible insult. The United States President seems to handle it fine, though.

3. Top Ten George W. Bush video moments, Late Night David Letterman

Here is another brief compilation of Letterman's favourite Bush mess ups.

2. President Bush Makes Fun of Himself

President Bush speaks at a radio & TV correspondents dinner. He is definitely not without humour or charm. It only seems strange that his ability to articulate himself comes out the best, when he is not being serious.

1. Must See Hilarious George Bush Bloopers

This is a compilation of some of the funniest George Bush moments during his Presidency.

Obama has already saved the world by deleting Jonathan Ross from memory

1704826 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:29:00 GMT

What an exciting week. As any fule kno, tomorrow marks the inauguration of Barack Obama while Friday sees is the triumphal return of middle-aged potty mouthed lout Jonathan Ross.

It's been impossible to avoid the former - watching the news last nightm, the BBC's news anchor and Washington correspondent could hardly hide their saccharine joy and reverence at the event, while most other media outlets are treating it as if it were a Coronation from a bygone age rather than the formal swearing in of an elected politician in the twenty-first century.

While noting that it is, of course, an historic moment for the US I can't help wondering if the whole thing has got out of hand and that anyone who thinks that Obama is going to save all of the world's problems is clearly slightly deluded.

Even more exciting though, on Friday, Ross returns to host his stand-up ‘chatshow' vehicle on BBC One. Amazingly the world has not stopped turning since he was suspended three months ago and there have not been riots on the streets - in fact, life has gone on pretty much as normal and he had started to fade from memory. Given that the suspension of Ross coincided with the US election result, perhaps after all we have Obama to thank for something - keeping him out of the headlines/