Archive for the 'Announcements' Category

I’ve been invited to join a panel at “Digitise or Die: The conference for the book industry in the digital age” on 3rd July, held at the London Stock Exchange. The conference is organised by The Bookseller, the trade journal for the book industry in the UK. The blurb says:

The Bookseller is going to get to grips with the digital questions for the book industry once and for all.

Is the digitisation furore just a nervous reaction to experiences within the music industry - or is the heightening concern very real? Is eveyone prepared for the digitisation of the written word? What are the new technologies that publishers should be thinking about that could improve their online presence?

How can digitisation sell more books? What about digital rights and digital copyright? How do you find and develop communities of readers online? What are the differences in digital strategy of trade and non-trade publishing?

With e-books about to take off in the UK, isn’t it time the industry faced up to the changing consumer climate and technology?

These are just some of the questions that will be addressed at The Bookseller’s Digitise or Die full-day conference on 3rd July in London. It is fair to say, that you will definitely miss out if you are not there.

I’ll be on the panel discussing Digital Spaces, alongside Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur, I think, though it’s not clear from the draft programme yet) and Kieron Smith, managing director of BookRabbit, which is a cross between the book social network LibraryThing and online bookstore Amazon. The panel will be chaired by Jeremy Davis of Chameleon Net.

The panel topic will be:

Different kinds of digital spaces: @ home on PC, out on the mobile, paid for content, UGC what works on different platforms? To what extent do digital platforms fit into each other to enable content to live across hardware boundaries? How do young people in different cultures interact with digital platforms? (itunes, phones, PC, online etc…) and how does this culture affect the use of such devices?

This invitation came via a non-blog related route shortly after my series on audio downloads and ebooks so it feels to me as if there is some synchronicity going on right now. Given my background as a novelist and my current explorations of the social media sphere, what I’d like to contribute to the discussion, I think, is the use of digital spaces by writers and storytellers from a creative perspective. How can we use the new media to enhance the way we tell stories? How might the stories we tell evolve with new media channels? Is creating a story for online reading different from creating one for a physical book? Is it different for e-book reading? Is reading passe in the face of YouTube and Flickr?

I’ll be making notes and researching all this in preparation for the conference over the next few weeks.

If you have any thoughts, ideas or experiences of storytelling in digital spaces, please do get in touch so I can share your views at the conference as well. I’d also love to hear from you if you have views about ebooks and the current state of ebook publishing - and any thoughts about what you would like to see evolve in ebooks and digital publishing in the future.

You can get in touch by leaving a comment to this post, or emailing me via the Contact link above, or by leaving me a voicemail at http://www.jaxtr.com/yangmayooi. If I use your contribution at the conference I will of course give acknowledgement to you for the contribution so do leave a name as well.

If you’d like to come along to the conference, you can do so using the Bookseller’s booking form.

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I’ll be publishing posts on ZenGuide once a week, on Wednesdays or Thursdays, for the next little while.

The article I was researching and writing earlier this year about blogging in Malaysia has now been published in Communication World, the journal of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). It is featured in a special Asia-Pacific supplement under the title “Blogging Thrives in Malaysia.” The article examines the tension between political bloggers and the authorities as well as highlighting the success of non-political personal and business blogs in the country.

It has come together with the help of various journalists and bloggers who generously shared their views and experiences - thanks, guys! Much of the information they have given with me will also be useful for the book that I am working on about New Trends in International Public Relations.

Please feel free download the pdf of the article Blogging Thrives in Malaysia. By all means forward it to anyone who may be interested, with a link back to this post.

You can also download the article plus other articles I’ve written about social media from the box below.

This post appeared on my writing blog Fusion View yesterday

As I’ve blogged about before, I am co-authoring the social media sections of a book on New Trends in International PR to be published internationally by UK publishers Kogan Page in early 2009. I am trying a social media experiment as part of the book - I am posting my research online on a wiki and inviting readers to add comments and share their knowledge with me. I hope that you or your contacts may be able to help with this project.

Many books on social media as well as books on public relations have tended to focus on the West, and in particular the US and UK markets. But globalisation and social media, as you know, are rapidly changing the landscape of communications. Influence is shifting from organisations to individuals and the voices of Asia, Africa and non-Western cultures are becoming increasingly significant on the world stage.

Our book aims to explore the landscape of new communications from a cross-cultural perspective with special focus on Asia as well as other non-Anglo-Saxon cultures.

Would you - or someone you know - be able to give me an cross cultural perspective around how social media is used in Asia, Africa or South America? For example:

# What businesses in those regions/ cultures blog or podcast? What about not-for-profit organisations, politicians, campaigners, activists, solo professionals - do they use social media to help their enterprise?

# What is the impact of social media and networks like Facebook on business, culture, politics, relationships etc in those cultures/ regions?

I would like to share a strong cross-cultural perspective in the book, so I hope very much that you can help.

You can find out more about the book and follow my research at http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/.

For others who have already contributed to the project, please see http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/Acknowledgements+to+Contributors

If you’re able to share our views with me, you can contact me via the book wiki at http://new-trends-in-international-pr.pbwiki.com/contact.php or via the Contact link at the top of this page.

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Photo: from sxu.hu (free)

Following on from my post about the preparations for the EuroComm Conference in Barcelona last month, I’m pleased to report that we have just launched the website and blog for the Conference.

The IABC EuroComm Conference in Barcelona will take place on 4-5 Feb 2008. The website is at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/.

The blog will feature articles and posts on the theme of Innovation through Communication, which is the theme of the conference. We would very much like to engage in discussions and shares view around this theme even before the conference starts so we hope that you’ll come along to visit the blog at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/blog/.

Guest-bloggers include business communicators who will be speaking at the conference - they will be sharing their personal views on the blog in advance of the conference. There is also a core team of bloggers, including IABC members Marc Wright of simply-communicate.com, the online communications magazine, Kevin Keohane of SAS, the branding agency and Yang-May Ooi of ZenGuide, the social media consultancy as well as web usability expert, Giles Colborne of cxpartners, the usability professionals.

We are also inviting business and communications professionals to submit articles around the theme of the conference, Innovation through Communication. You do not have to be a member of IABC and you do not need to be going to the conference to submit an article. We’d just like to hear your views if you have a story or opinion piece that is relevant to our theme. You can find out more through our Article Submission Guidelines

The programme for EuroComm Conference is available at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/programme.html

Registration for the Conference is now open - find out how to register at http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/registration.php

For information about discounted accommodation during the Conference, go to http://www.salle.url.edu/EuroComm/hotel.html

You might like to come along to a discussion panel at the City Womens Network (CWN) on “Social Media: Online Communities” on 18 October ( 18.30 - 20.30pm). I’m one of the speakers along with a number of other web, digital marketing and business PR experts.

Here’s the blurb:

Using social media to build an online community around your business can be an effective way to retain clients, bring in new ones and raise the profile of your enterprise. In this panel discussion, we explore practical steps you can take to create and manage an online community relevant for your business.
We are proud to have selected a panel of speakers:

Yang-May Ooi, founder of social media consultancy ZenGuide and experienced blogger, will talk about strategies to keep your visitors coming back to your site and to develop your brand’s presence online.

Giles Colborne, President of the UK Usability Professionals’ Association and Managing Director of cxpartners, will guide you through the roles and responsibilities in managing online communities.

Kristen Berg, marketing strategist, looks at some examples of how brands have used communities, the strategic role they play and the potential value to the company.

Silvia Cambié, Director of Chanda Communications and Chair of CWN’s Membership Committee, will be moderating the session.

Organised by the Membership Committee. For more information, contact the organiser, Silvia Cambié, on silvia[at]chandacom.com.

Venue information:
Hosted by CO3 Limited
First Floor, Downstream Building No. 1, London Bridge,
SE1 9BG London, GB
nearest tube is London Bridge.

Time: 18.30pm
Date: 18 October 2007

Members: £20
Non-members: £25 (men welcome as guests)

It would be great to see you there. If you’re coming, email me and I’ll let the organisers know.

I will shortly be switching email notification providers from Feedburner to Feedblitz. The advantage of this is that, instead of receiving an email every few days, you will receive a weekly email digest of the latest posts on ZenGuide. This will minimise the number of emails coming into your Inbox while keeping you regularly updated with news and top tips on social media issues.

You don’t have to do anything to continue receiving weekly updates from ZenGuide. You will get an email from me soon saying “ZenGuide is changing newsletter delivery services” - this will have some helpful information about the new service. After that, the new service will deliver the weekly email to you every Thursday.

If you have any queries at all, please get in touch with me via the Contact link.

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is organising a regional conference for its European and Middle Eastern communicators with La Salle University in Barcelona on 4th and 5th February 2008. The theme is Innovation through Communication.

I recently joined IABC and I’m delighted to be part of the organising board for the EuroComm conference in Barcelona with the responsibility of implementing and running the conference blog. The website and blog are being developed by La Salle’s inhouse team and I spoke with their key conference organiser Alejandro Beya and web developer Carlos Ramil last week about infrastructure and design elements. They’ll be using Wordpress and I’m very excited to see what they are going to create.

The website and blog will be launching during October. I am pulling together our core blogging team and we are also inviting guest bloggers to contribute posts around the themes of innovation and communication. For example, we have invited the speakers to blog about the topics that they will be speaking on at the conference - from a more personal point of view than they might perhaps be able to offer in a conference room with scores of people, powerpoint slides and miked up to the sound system.

So far, the line-up of bloggers looks something like this:

Blogging Team/ Blog Management

Yang-May Ooi, communications & social media consultant, ZenGuide (UK)
Angie Macdonald, web writer & blog management specialist, ZenGuide (UK)
Marc Wright, internal communications expert, simply-communicate.com (UK)
Giles Colbourne, web usability expert, cxpartners (UK)
Kevin Keohane, brands expert, SAS (UK)

Guest Bloggers

Silvia Cambie, business communications expert, Chanda Communications and President, EuroComm Organising Board (UK)
Andrew Riley, assurance reporting and communications specialist, Harrison Riley and President, IABC UK (UK)
Ulrich Gartner, Vice-President of Communications Europe, AB Electrolux (Sweden)
Ian Anderson, Head of the Communication and Information Unit, European Commission (Belgium)
Martin Crocker, Marketing Communications Manager, Gemalto (France)
Rauf Hameed, Communication and Environment Manager, Tetra Pak Arabia (Saudi Arabia)
Ulrike Bleistein, Head of Pharma Informatics Communications, Hoffman La Roche (Switzerland)
Velin Velkov, President of IABC Europe and Middle East Region (Bulgaria)

We are still in the preparation stage so the list is likely to change and evolve. I’ll be blogging more about that and all the other news about the conference on the EuroComm Blog once that is up and running. For now, I just wanted to share this heads-up with you here while we’re waiting for the main site to go live.

Photo: thanks to danntara from flickr.com

For the book that I am co-authoring New Trends in Internation Public Relations, my co-author Silvia Cambie and I are required by our publishers to give this standard notice to anyone contributing to the book whether online here on this blog or via email, correspondence, interview or other means.

By making a contribution to the book, you are agreeing to the following:

# that we may use your contribution and edit it for any purpose relating to the book including use in any publication, media or any other form of dissemination

# you assign to us all copyright in you contribution and give consent for our use of your contribution

# you also warrant that nothing contributed by you infringes the copyright or any other rights of any third party or is defamatory or infringes the right of privacy of any third party

# you are not entitled to any payment from any source in relation to your contribution or any publication or dissemination of it

The reason we need this release notice is that the publisher needs us to give similar warranties and promises about the content of the book to them.

Thank you for your understanding about this.

I am delighted to report that my associate Silvia Cambie and I have been commissioned by business book publishers Kogan Page to write a book on New Trends in International Public Relations, aimed at business communicators, PR professionals and marketeers.

I will be focusing on the impact of social media on business communications and how PR practitioners can incorporate social media into their communications and marketing strategies. Silvia will be focusing on all the other key issues for practitioners such as corporate social responsibility, crisis communications and current hot topics and trends affecting international public relations.

We both have a strong interest in cross-cultural issues. Silvia is Italian and has lived and worked across Europe, speaking several European languages fluently. As for me, I have links with Malaysia and the Far East as well as being now based in London, UK. In today’s globalised world, PR practitioners are increasingly needing to work from a cross-cultural perspective so Silvia and I will be exploring the relevance and impact of cross-cultural issues for business communicators online and also offline.

I’ll be letting you know more details about the social media and cross-cultural issues I’ll be researching in the next few weeks. Silvia and I will both be blogging about our research and the progress of the book on our respective blogs and we hope very much that you will all be able to help us by adding your comments or sharing your experiences and thoughts with us. I will certainly give credit in the book and/or on this website to anyone whose contribution I use in the book - please see the contributors release notice for more details regarding contributions.

My dilemma is whether I should blog about this book primarily on my social media blog ZenGuide, because obviously, it’s all about social media - or, on my cross-cultural blog Fusion View, because obviously, it’s also all about cross-culture. If I blog about the book on both of them, will it get confusing if different people comment on one or other of the blogs? Would it be better to choose one of them and then stick to it? But Fusion View has a great international, cross-cultural community there already and I really would love to hear what everyone has to say there. But my cross-cultural readers may not be so interested in social media as such? But if I blog about the book on ZenGuide only, will I lose the cross-cultural dimension by focusing on my social media readers? You see my dilemma. What do you think?

Further information

Silvia’s blog X-Culture is at www.chandacom-xculture.com.

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