Why football wants to ban Twittering...

Over in the UK, Leicester rugby boss Cockerill did it earlier this month and back here in the colony, the NRL's Penrith Panthers recently had to defend themselves against having done it.

So what is IT? And why is IT such a big deal? 

IT is social media: sites like twitter.com and facebook.com.

If you're a marketer, you might ask, why are the powers that be publicly discussing at press conferences, how they are directing their advertising spend? Afterall, social media is just another media channel, isn't it? Well, yes... and no.

Social media strategy is different, because social media is fundamentally different to traditional media and marketing channels. Social media requires an entirely new mindset. Social media engagement means ceeding the sense of control and conversing dialogically (in a two-way conversation) in an interconnected globally networked mediasphere (the new mass market?) where anything can and usually does happen.

So, forget the catch phrases like Web 2.0 (that's marketing spin derived from five year old techno-speak), if you're a suit take a deep breath and visualise 'letting go'...then grab your iPhone 4 or blackberry and Carpe diem! Social media wants you two to get to know each other, before all the kids born with a username and password, lap you again in the Twittersphere.

Unlike every other form of mass media - social media is not something you can learn from a textbook or something someone can walk you through. 

YOU have to ENGAGE. YOU have to PARTICIPATE.

Think of social media as the new cafe, club or after match function. The only difference is, you're a novice again. If you can remember back to the time when your hands would start sweating just at the thought of a random social approach, well that's what social media feels like (at first). But just like your adolescent social awkwardness, you're social media stumbles will soon pass. I promise.

So what are you waiting for Mr Cockerill? Now that you've got your head out of the scrum (although I bet it doesn't feel like it sometimes now that you're an administrator), why don't you jump in and lead by example? 

After all, isn't it about time professional footballers got some help with professionally navigating the new form of media in rugby town? (Beyond 'Don't take drunk, naked pictures of you and your friends because they'll come back to haunt you!') Because the traditional benefactors of the game (the sponsors) are well-versed and engaged with social media as they seek new ways of developing intrinsic sponsorship values via integration. 

Worth considering, don't you think?

Introduction to Social Network Analysis

Why should brands bother with Twitter? This table says why | Social Media Today

Academic Crush #1: Clay Shirky

Everywhere I go at the moment, I keep bumping into Clay Shirky.

The man who could well be Tom Hanks' long lost twin (close your eyes and listen, you'll see what I mean) is arguably one of the most engaging new media theorists of our day.  A real social media expert, who doesn't use the cheesy title of one.

It's hard not to love how Shirky's brain works - and I suspect that is mostly because of the eloquence of his thoughts.

So why is Clay Shirky academic crush #1?

For me Shirky personifies the mechanics of the technical within the constructed communications networks of traditional media businesses. He embodies the new media mindset, for which the majority still struggle with the concept of ceding control, let alone grasp.

The internet, HTML: a Western invention?

In discussing Jacques Derrida's theories on the process and impact of writing on texts, in the greater debate of textuality, I couldn't help but be drawn into thoughts on production and consumption. Specifically, the production of the internet and the world wide web as western technologies.

Chinese students generously sharing and taking the time to explain what is ultimately a convoluted and time consuming process of creating text online via two different systems in order to replicate (via a chosen software) and produce, edit and consume in the western sense.

I had never thought of the internet as a western text, until now.

Which begs the question, what does the eastern version look like and what could we learn from it if granted access?

Write, don't just think

My brain travels at a thousand miles an hour. It always has.

I read constantly, yet, writing critically is proving a lot more difficult than I think it should.

I've decided to stop reading (momentarily) and see where that leads me...so far, so good :)

Dissertation: the process of not knowing enough yet...

Settling back into the adult world from academia is a process.

Keeping a foothold in both the professional and the academic is a privilege, a pleasure (and an all consuming pain) I would recommend.

Now that new specs enable faster, more fluid consumption of texts, the momentum of my research and processing of inter-related concepts, examples and ideas are starting to form again.

But what do you do when you are writing, knowing there are gaps that need plugging with theory beyond your current readings and no doubt gleaned from extracts, books and journals that are not yet in your reading tray?

Not knowing the detail is one of the most confronting aspects for professionals use to being the source of expert knowledge in their chosen field, on returning to tertiary studies mid-career. Everyday, I am astounded by how much I don't know and conversely, how much I am learning.

Now if I can just master being comfortable with my diminishing ignorance...

Writing The Screenplay

Although I don't necessarily agree with Tudor Gates' 'this is my screenplay and I'll write as much direction as I want to' approach, in his book Scenario, he poses six kinds of questions that a screenwriter should ask themselves during the writing process. I have found these monumentally helpful in maintaining a concentrated focus on the key construction drivers during the extended writing process. Gates' questions (verbatim) from his book Scenario (2002: p102) are:

1. Do you have a clear, well thought-out premise? Are you pre-plotting it?

2. Are there a protagonist and an antagonist who, in the course of their mutual conflict, will prove the premise? Are all your characters orchestrated to contribute to that same end?

3. What is the turning point in someone's life that will precipitate the conflict?

4. Do your principal characters change? Is there pole-to-pole movement? Does the situation change? Are the transitions effected smoothly, and not jerkily?

5. Does your screenplay have a logical, dialectic basis? Does the story, through its characters. move from crisis to climax to resolution in a pattern of rising conflict?

6. Does your dialogue reveal the characters and, in so doing, progress the story? Does it sound natural? Is the sub-text sufficiently clear for there to be no confusion - except of course when confusion is required?

What other questions are helpful for a writer to ask themselves during the screenwriting process?