Volapukblog.com

Yup, it’s been awful quiet here… Not that there wasn’t much to tell, I just did not take the time to tell it. Blogging about driving fancy cars around in European cities is fun and easy, but it sort of gives the impression that it is all I do. It is not, but I just do not feel the urge to communicate about the fact that I work on strategies for niche products in specific demographics, chase new business, guide the production of press releases, case studies, by-lined articles and newsletters, set up press briefings and host interviews, play coach and coachee, think about the future, muse on the past, glorify and curse the present, and of course getonthebackofmilkcartonson stakesinthemiddleofcornfieldsoncoversoffuturehistorybooksonoldlady’s mantleswalkin’onwaternailedoncrosses…

When I was about 14, for some reason I suddenly really got into cars. I kept files of as much car brands as I could and tried to know all the models out on the market. Later on, it faded away until I couldn’t care less and I actually never owned a car until I was 28. Now I enjoy driving, but I know nothing about engines compared to some of the car nuts in my direct environment.
But today, while being in Geneva to create some buzz for Sony Ericsson’s car accessories, we were allowed to visit the Car Show itself… and boy, that was AWESOME!! It almost made me go VROOOOOMMMM. But not really.
A sea of shininess, squeaky rubber and suave boothbabes. We saw so many stunning cars that I just don’t know which ones to post (they’re all here).

It was very obvious that Italian car brands still find it important to express their knack for style. The Alfa Romeo booth was dazzling, with cars in the bloodiest red, pitch black and iPod white, all caressed by elegant ladies.

The same was true for Lancia, the supercar brands Ferrari, Bugatti, Maserati and Lamborghini. Why, even Fiat did its best! And they won the prize for the cleverest hospitality suite with ease. Wherever you were in the gigantic hall, you always had the gigantic Cinquecento in the back of your view.

I am truly glad I had the chance to walk around the show today. The 14-year-old in me says it was kick-ass. And the Greasemonkey agrees.

I did my first official TV interview today (I think). It was internet TV from New York… or was it Canada? Anyway, internet-tv still counts. As you can see, there are worse things than being interviewed in our Lotus Eliseabout cool gadgets by a sassy tv-show host. I hope the message - that there are much more interesting Bluetooth applications for cars than one may think - got across.
Right after this interview, the funniest thing happened. I drove to the end of the avenue to make a (legal) U-turn, right where the Guardia Urbana police station is. A cop pulled me over, and I instinctively checked my safety belt (check!), headset (forbidden in Spain!!) and ‘I Hate Pigs’ t-shirt (left at home). To my surprise, officer Antonio asked me if he could have his picture taken behind the steering wheel. While his fellow traffic officers huddled around the car, the policeman slipped into the driver’s seat to have the snapshot taken. When I got back into the car, they asked the obvious questions about break horsepower, engine and top speed. However , when I was about to leave he and some of his colleagues blocked the complete road. ‘You show us now how fast the car accelerate!’
For a moment there, I expected the old candid camera trick. And the moment after that, I was sure this was a local trick to confiscate cool cars. But then I just hit the pedal and with the roar of a million smoker’s coughs, I bulleted away down the street. I guess I love my job.

I am now in Barcelona for The Mobile World Congress (MWC), where I hope to see some pretty neat stuff, phones and their peripherals mostly. It’ll be nicely advanced and technologically nifty. But getting in is more of a ‘ape-uses-bone-for-a-tool-and-wahey!’ type thing.
This morning, I spent one and a half hour to get access passes for me and my fellow visitor/exhibitor/ blogger/non-approved-but-finally-confirmed-MWC-registrant Danny.We received more than a dozen e-mails from the GSM Association, and as I write, they are still dripping into my inbox. Even though I showed up at the registration desk with a mail saying it was the final confirmation of my registration, a kind lady told me that our passes were ‘pending’. Just after driving 1250 kilometers. Something else would soon be pending too, from the ceiling by its little hairs, if GSMA would not provide our passes quickly.

I’ll spare you the details but in the end, Danny got a press pass and I only got a visitor pass. Why not? Because my blog hadn’t been updated regularly. The lady admitted she didn’t really know a lot about ‘those blog things’, so she called in professional help… a jovial British guy who decided I did not qualify. I pointed at my tanned face (3 weeks holiday in December) and my blog post about not being able to go to CES in January, but that was to no avail. No press pass for me!

I object! My colleague Heliade flew out to Vegas - Vegas, Baby! Vegas! - for CES… and I don’t get to go! What the…!? I wanna go too, I want to complain too about the flight and the jetlag and the long walks through endless halls and the traffic jams and the crappy food and the lousy parties and the ugly people. Awww man!!!

(image courtesy of tomneil04)

now playing: Karma to Burn - Twenty

Maybe pregnant / or on drugs / on welfare
on top of the world / the honor roll / parole
reruns / in the Dodgers / backs of milk cartons,
on stakes in the middle of corn fields /
on covers of future history books
on old lady’s mantles / walkin’ on water / nailed on crosses
(RV, Faith No More, 1992)

Well, none of the above, I can tell you. But blogging definitely went on the backburner for the last couple of months. Not specifically for a lack of inspiration but mostly because September-October is a very hectic period in companies’ communications programs. So, where have I been then?… Unplugging of course!

One of the things I did, was to explain/visualise a testing event for engineers behind closed doors… The Bluetooth SIG UnPlugFest. Three times per year, the Bluetooth SIG organizes an UnPlugFest, where engineers of member companies (Intel, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Parrot,…) come to test their products and prototypes against each other. This time, it took place in a hotel in Brussels, ideal for us to do something around it. Yes, it was pretty geeky, with a sea of blinking leds, naked motherboards, oscilloscopes and whole nest of powerplugs. But the idea behind the event and the enthusiasm of the participants was great to capture.

Because they test prototypes, confidentiality is a very big issue for everyone at the UnPlugFest. Marketing or sales people are not allowed, it is the territory of the engineers. So it took a little bit of lobbying and subtle explanation to get access to the event. Naturally, I had nothing to gain by disclosing anything about future products present there. And even if I wanted to, being the complete opposite of an engineer (an ungineer), I saw nothing that even resembled a cool Bluetooth product (most of the stuff is tested on laptop platforms anyway).

So, what did I do? See for yourself in this 5 minute testimonial video. It’s not spectacular, but it does show how much trouble these engineers go through to make their products work with each other. That’s pretty impressive if you know that the companies they work for are direct competitors. Kudos to these guys, because they make us swear less and less at our phones, headsets, car kits and each other.

I read a blog post on an interesting topic: e-mail signatures and people’s tendencies to play around with these.
Let me put my e-mail signature to the test and see how it stands against Mr. Wagner’s theses.

Here is my current signature (slightly reduced font)…

And the statements…
1. Important people don’t bother with e-mail sigs.

Yeah. So? I am unimportant and I am proud. Leaving my signature out will not make me any more important, nor give people the impression that I am. People who think they are so important that they consciously leave out their signature in order to avoid unsolicited correspondence are probably not that important. The really important people have personnel to handle all their e-mail, so they wouldn’t bother with the whole situation at all. I have never e-mailed a person that important. I have e-mailed people who don’t bother with e-mail sigs. I tend to perceive them as two different categories.

2. The longer your e-mail signature, the lower down the food chain you are.

Agreed, some people have looong signatures, but these are often company policy. And people who enjoy adding lengthy film quotes, all their community avatars, chat nicknames and ecologically correct messaging are probably happy people, with a frivolous touch maybe, who are not bothered by their position in the food chain.

3. Marketing people have company slogans in their e-mail.

Like I do. That’s either harmless tribal behaviour or company policy. It’s what marketing people do: not just the slogan, but the whole e-mail will probably be dedicated to convincing the addressee that there’s something good about the company or the product they represent. Marketing people who don’t have company slogans in their e-mail are either cynical or forgetful.

4. Some people include sign-offs like “Cheers!” and “Thanks!” and “Best!”; others don’t bother.

Some men wear ‘m on the left, others on the right. Does Wagner want to point out that there is a lack of common courtesy in e-mails? I do not have a sign-off in my e-mail sig, but that is not because I don’t bother. It is because I want to customize according to the type of e-mail that I send. Formal messages get a ‘Best Regards’, informal ones get a ‘Cheers’, quick and dirty e-mails get nothing, otherwise they wouldn’t be quick and dirty.

5. Some people’s signatures are way too long.

Like I said in 3., that hardly ever seems to be their fault. I do however choose to put all my information on a minimum number of lines, separating the bits by a bullet or a vertical dash. That way, I don’t have to scroll my finger off when I need to read an early entry of a long e-mail thread. Signatures often take up more than half of the space in a thread. I want my e-mail client to autmatically hide all but one of the same signatures in an e-mail. My Outlook does not do that right now and I must admit that I don’t know where to tweak that setting :-).

Best regards,

D.

(More on this here)

What do you do when the e-mail server, the fixed line and the internet connection is down at work? Unless you have some off-line writing to do (like this morning), you can clean up your desk and cupboards or you can stare helplessly at a blank screen.
Or, you gather your stuff and you head to a place where you can get on-line again. In my case, the pub! Not to hang at the counter swigging beers, but to do the necessary minimum of e-mail correspondence.
You could’ve gone home and log in there as well, I hear you think… Why yes, technically that is correct. But: the neighbour’s kids are in the midst of their summer holiday and they are enthusiastically building a Harry Potter Pokemon Pirate’s nest in the yard, just below my window… they don’t do that in silence, I can tell you (and rightfully so). Besides, my other neighbour has decided it’s time to renovate that outside brick wall again, not to speak about the 16 Polish construction workers that are singing jolly songs while finishing a three-story apartment opposite our backyard.

While here, in the Roskam, there is nothing but the quiet rustle of the bartender behind the counter, a sporadic remark of the only other guest at the bar and some Westcoast cool jazz through the speakers. And an excellent free wi-fi connection. I am thinking of making this my office. They make a better cappuccino anyway…

Setting up a blog and keeping the content up-to-date is already a laborious task, but after that, there is an even bigger hurdle to take: how to generate traffic to the blog. In this respect, patience is a virtue and a must: a blog needs to earn its audience slowly but surely, and with the right approach a snowball effect can be reached over time.

A combination of the following tactics will certainly enhance the visibility of your blog:
Strong content
Readers will return to a blog if they have read a post that raised a sense of anticipation, provoked their thoughts or appealed to them in an educative or entertaining way. This is not an absolute science, but if it happens more than once, chances are big that a reader will bookmark that blog or add it to an RSS feed reader.
Search engines
Search engines from Google, Technorati, MSN or Yahoo! play an important role in helping potential readers to find a blog. There are plenty of technical tricks to achieve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but most of these are meant to superficially increase the ‘weight’ of a blog when it gets tracked by a searchbot that crawls the web. Besides, these websites upgrade their algorithms constantly which makes their engines smarter every time, so some tactics may have lost their impact by the time they get implemented. The most basic step is entering blog details into the search engine directory.
Cross-referencing and linking
Creating a community of likeminded bloggers can instantly attract an already existing pool of readers: this can happen by posting comments on other blogs, by posting a story about an article from another blog or by adding affiliated blogs to the links section, the so-called blogroll. To do this properly, you have to do the necessary amount of reconnaissance: look around for what is already out there that is relevant to your business biotope.
You can also Digg a post: bloggers can submit one or more of their stories. Visitors will be able to read your post and if they like it, they digg it. The higher a number of diggs, the more the story will be promoted and consequently, the more visitors a blog will get.
Ranking websites
Submitting a blog to a ranking website such as Technorati, gives bloggers an indication of how popular their blog is. It keeps a ranking system, but also informs about which other websites are linking to a certain blog.

To put it very simply, a blog is nothing more than a handy tool to manage web content in a very easy and accessible way. A blog holds up a mirror to the author, reflecting the variety of opinions an audience can have with regards to the blogger’s product, company and/or philosophy. If you want to make a blog part of the communications toolset, the following rules of thumb can be helpful.

1. A blog needs a long-term strategy
Not the blogger, but the readers need to be convinced of the value in a story. And there is nothing more pitiful on the internet than a defunct blog, or a blogger who struggles to get some decent content posted once every few weeks or even months. Drawing up a calendar and preparing specific posts in advance will help to ensure continuity. Daily inspiration, careful assessment of the news value, proper writing skills and the grapevine will do the rest.

2. Support your blog
A blog needs a bit of maintenance, especially when the flow of comments gets going. Spammers have found the blogosphere as well (splogs), so having sufficient resources to not only update and maintain content, but also to keep the look and format fresh, is a smart investment.

3. Sit back and relax…
If a blogger has done his preparation and followed the two previous suggestions, a blog will become quite an organic phenomenon, doing a lot of work on itself, like a 24/7 generator of attention.

4. …Get your feet off that desk and sit back up!
You honestly didn’t think it was going to be that easy, right? Blogs need constant attention, maintenance and continuous rethinking of its goals.

Setting out on a blogging adventure means that one needs to be aware of what is around. It is impossible to read everything or to participate in every web 2.0 initiative, but a blogger who has not prepared his battlefield – knowing both friend and foe - or frowns when he hears words like Myspace, del.i.cio.us, Digg, Second Life, YouTube or Flickr, has been blogging with his eyes closed.
Your audience is out there, making use of all these interactive solutions, including literally tons of blogs. You can reach out to them too with a blog of your own, but use it wisely.

You are convinced that you company has more to say than Paris Hilton, but how come that she and her underwear (or the lack of it) get all of the spotlight? A possibility could be that many companies do have less to tell than Paris Hilton’s underwear, if that could speak. Because it cannot, Paris just makes sure that lots of other people talk about her. In that respect, she is the Queen of Horizontal Influencing (no pun intended, but it’s good for a chuckle).
The first, simple thing to do is to make sure that there is information by your company available on the internet. Not in a static website form, but dynamic, fresh, regularly updated and not necessarily always related to your core business. If a rare species of bird is nesting on the company’s helicopter pad, it is definitely worth a blog post.

That being said, corporate blogging is not a frivolous undertaking on the side (although it sometimes, willingly or not, leaves that impression). It must be firmly rooted in the communications strategy. For a business, it must be scary at first. The fact that the content of a blog cannot, should not, be controlled completely must be a puzzling idea, to say the least, particularly for legal departments Nonetheless, that autonomy is crucial to its success. Posts on a corporate blog can be superbly written stories that provide remarkable insights into a certain matter, but there still is more to a blog than just good content (even though that is a prerequisite). It is what readers consequently do with that content, in comments, discussion threads or through links or cross-references on other blogs, that generates the true success of a blog.

Riding the blogging wave with the sole purpose of simulating buzz around a product or a service can be very counterproductive. The blogging community is a proud community, keen on its independence and proud of its authenticity. If a company tries to intrude by setting up a blog that pretends to be something it is not, that company will sooner or later have to run the gauntlet and undergo public shame. Sites like these are sometimes called flogs (from ‘fake blogs’). In this respect, blogs are no different from any other communication tool. Genuineness is a must.

Saying that a blog must be embedded in a company’s communication strategy automatically implies a certain amount of flexibility in the concept. As mentioned before, blogs take many different shapes, and it can be used to address practically every target audience.
Many companies started their blogging adventure in the field of internal communications by providing employees with webspace and time to share their thoughts and insights about their particular function. Some of these blogs are kept within the ‘safe’ perimeter of the intranet, on other occasions they are open to external audiences, to create a sort of corporate peephole for outsiders to have a look inside. It may seem like a tricky undertaking, but many companies have found a dedicated blogger community within their own ranks and managed to agree on a policy for what can and cannot be done as a company blogger.
A company seeking to develop or expand its thought leadership in a certain area can make use of an executive blog, in which the CEO – or CIO, CFO, etc –formulates her or his thought-provoking views on business, market, future, family, life or other little things that are running through her or his head one particular day. Such a blog can be a wonderful window on the charisma and personality of people that are not always as visible to the outside world.