Hi, it’s me, I haven’t updated my blog for awhile - haven’t had much to say.

I suppose it’s because a lot of the work I’ve been doing is about cutting out the noise and clutter - you know, taking long, wordy pieces of writing and ruthlessly cutting it down until the message is clear.

I wonder if that’s the main difference between quality writing and rambling blogs or quality video versus the large amount of crap in the 25+ hours of content uploaded to Youtube ever minute?

In today’s digital age creating content is easy BUT creating good content is harder than ever.  Below is a snapshot of the amount of content created in 60 seconds - it's bamboozling and makes you wonder how you can create cut through?

The analogy I often use is the best designs are those that appear simple - the iphone comes to mind; a duck gliding across the water - below the surface there’s a whole lot going on.  

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Did You Know That - In 60 SECONDS

• Search engine Google serves more that 694,445 queries
• 6,600+ pictures are uploaded on Flickr
• 600 videos are uploaded on YouTube videos, amounting to 25+ hours of content
• 695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are published on Social Networking site Facebook
• 70 New domains are registered
• 168,000,000+ emails are sent
• 320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated on Social Networking site Twitter
• iPhone applications are downloaded more than13,000 times
• 20,000 new posts are published on Micro-blogging platform tumbler
• Popular web browser FireFox is downloaded more than 1700 times
• Popular blogging platform Wordpress is downloaded more than 50 times
• WordPress Plugins aredownloaded more than 125 times
• 100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn
• 40 new Questions are asked on YahooAnswers.com
• 100+ questions are asked on Answers.com
• 1 new article is published on Associated Content, the world’s largest source of community-created content
• 1 new definition is added on UrbanDictionary.com
• 1,200+ new ads are created on Craigslist
• 370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users
• 13,000+ hours of music streaming is done by personalized Internet radio provider Pandora
• 1,600+ reads are made on Scribd, the largest social reading publishing company

Creating Compelling Content

Here’s five tips for creating content that hopefully engages and shares

1. What's your objective?  Is it just to express your personal opinion OR does it have some other objective?
2. Who is your audience and what are their needs? You can't be all things to everyone so visualise the types of readers you want and understand what they want.
3. In terms of content there are six key questions to work with - Who, What, When, Where, How Much and Why?  What answers are important for your reader.
4. Tone: Is easier to be yourself - be real, natural and conversational - we’re all becoming highly tuned at filtering irrelevant BS.  As a reader I want to get to know you - your opinions.     
5. Is the content likely to be shared?  Does it have a call to action?  Does it entertain?  Does it have a logical flow so that it is easy to read?  Write - proofread (something I'm guilty of often neglecting) - rewrite - cut - post.

Publicity and Public Relations

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we all share and consume information.

From a business and government point of view the challenge is how to manage our brands and news in this constantly evolving online social media environment.

At the moment on Twitter and Facebook people you don't even know may be discussing your products or services and influencing other customer behavior.

Managing media is no longer just a carefully crafted press release or a nice long lunch with your favorite journalist. 

Across Australia journalists and leading bloggers may be preparing their next piece based on your business.  Customer may be sharing and Tweeting about you now.

The Solution

Do you have a social media strategy?  Are you monitoring Twitter and Blogs for comments on your brand?  Do you have an online relationship with the media, bloggers, your influencers, early adopters and customers?

We can help.  Give us a call on 02 8005 8072 or contact us

The Gatekeepers

Maurie the doorman stands with his arms crossed outside the football teams locker room and lets the TV Crew enter.  It wasn't like that in the old days he thinks to himself.

Gatekeeper (plural gatekeepers)

1. A person who guards or monitors passage through a gate
2. A person or group who controls access to something or somebody
3. A common butterfly, Pyronia tithonus.

From the earliest days of society we built walls around our towns and cities to stop attacks and keep our people and businesses safe.

In most sports, arts and business we have also have gatekeepers - those burly guards at the door of football team locker rooms, nightclub or building; the Artist Manager; the CEO's Secretary or Personal Assistant filtering calls, interruptions and potential time wasters.  All diligently protecting the jewel from the masses.   

As people we also build our own walls and our own personal gatekeepers.  

Emails, Advertising and Marketing Communications

Today we're all bombarded with thousands of messages per day trying to get us to do something or sell us something we mostly think we don't need.

All those messages a bit like rock star fans screaming for attention and action.

Our mind, as the gatekeeper, constantly filtering our sensory inputs for what is important. 

Not everything has the same level of importance and there is ofter a difference in perspective to what is important between the sender and the gatekeeper.

Maurie has a job to do and he'll do it to the best of his ability. 

More than often, the gatekeeper is unaware of the any bigger picture issues and problems but if the gate is closed then no solution can gets in.

Understanding Problems and Discovering Solutions

Every person and business has challenges - more time, more money, more happiness.

Back in the old days solutions weren't as easy to find as a Google Search but a "solution" is much more than a product or service.

What makes us select this product or service over someone else?  What are the most important elements to sales and marketing success?

• A real solution to a customers problem
• Getting past the Gatekeeper
• Trust in you to deliver the solution
• The price the customer is prepared to pay

The greatest influences on our decisions - trusted Word of Mouth (WOM) referral - and that's were Digital Media Strategy (DMS) and online social media marketing comes in.

Watch more Revver videos on AOL Video

Quality Rises to the Top

Last month we mentioned a great video from a Sony/BMG conference in Rome 2008 about the exponential develop of technology - the articles also showed a 1957 RAND computer promotional video, the key point the core messages about technology growth are the same.  

Anyway, the old link was broken but happily the video reappeared today via a viral email - such is the fundamental principle that quality content and production tends to rise to the top - by that I mean it engages with the audience (builds brand), informs (WIIFM for the viewer/ consumer) and motivates action (ie Seth's megaphone/ Forresters Technographics - to consume to create).

If it was Sony that put the video out into cyberspace then well done - this is clever thought leader branding.  

I should point out that the raw content is based on a slide show called Shift Happens

Some points

• China will soon be the #1 English speaking nation in the world
• Todays learner will have 10-14 jobs....but the age of 38!
• The top 10 in demand jobs did not exist in 2004
• There are over 2.7B searches on Google each month
• There are more then 3,000 new books published every day
• The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years
• By 2010 it is expected to double every 72 hours
• By 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capabilities of the entire human species  (note: see creative economy) 

The facts are we adapt, the Y gens of today will be considered the dinosours of their grand children and so on.  One thing that stays constant in the world of change is the human connection - friendship, wisdom, trust and creativity.