Your network is at No3 among UK Power Players of Social Media

We all love a list... when we're near the top. And this one has 'me' at Number 3. 'PR Week Power Players of Social Media' is curated by @andismit, of PR outfit Escherman.
The 'PR Week' referred to in the title of this Peer Index listing is a UK publication for the PR industry. The listing was based on one originally compiled by PR Week and has since been augmented by Andrew (@andismit)
Here's how the scores are calculated.
Usual thanks are due of course to the network I am part of - everyone I interact with, everyone who responds to my posts, tweets with me, gives me the time of day... that's what gets an individual climbing a list like this.
I am merely one representative node of the success of the network we share. So well done all of us. Thank you.
To see the latest live listing of this particular peer index visit http://www.peerindex.net/andismit/group/pr_week_power_players_of_social_media

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Video: Clay Shirky at the LSE, part ii

Here's part II of the Shirky presentation on Cognitive Surplus at the LSE on  June 28, 2010.
Part one can be found here.
In this section Clay discusses some of the drivers behind behavioural economics, our intrinsic motivation towards community and how these motivations do a better job of holding us together than any amount of external rules.
He discusses what it takes to motivate people to participate - on three levels - communal (where it's mostly for each other), public (where it's for each other and those who choose to consume the outcome) and civil (where it's for the public good - where it's to make a better world/thing/outcome that really matters.

Enjoy, comment and standby for part III - in which Clay answers questions and gives brands a bit of a kicking.

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The UK's most influential comms professionals - on twitter

Edelman has used its TweetLevel tool to name yours truly among the UK's top 10 most influential comms professionals on Twitter.

You can read all about it in PR Week.
I'm a sucker for these things - which means Edelman's TweetLevel gets the requisite mention on this blog (which is kind of the purpose of these lists... PR types do a lot of this).

Can I recommend it to you?
Well, it apparently takes 30 stats that Twitter makes available to score influence, engagement, trust and popularity. And it churns out a top 10 that has me in it. So it can't be all bad then, can it (it's likely that those of you who do trust/engage with me may agree - that's the communities of purpose thing in action.)?


The power is in measuring within the niche. And at the moment creating a niche (top 10 of most influential comms pros in the UK and on twitter, for example) is a very manual process. So as a tool on its ownsome - little use. When some manual labour is applied? Potentially helpful - but don't underestimate the labour intensity.

Me? I'm still looking for someone to build Trends Among Friends. Any takers?

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Come on out the land is lovely - part II

Missed this myself when it came out (May 22 copy of PR Week didn't make it to my desk). Colleague has now sent me this snap. So I'll share it with you.
It contains my thoughts on the appointment of the Government's Director of Digital Engagement.
You might have to click on the image to enlarge it to read it.
The eagle-eyed among you will realise my title is slightly squiffy - I'm Director of Social Media at Brando Social (important distinction around these parts...).
It's the result of the questions that made me write this.

Goodbye Bauer Media - hello Brando Digital

I'm delighted to say I start a new job on Monday October 27. I'm leaving my role at Bauer Media (formerly Emap Consumer Media) to join the world's largest full service Social Media agency network: Brando Digital.

Brando Digital is a start-up with truly global reach, based in Camden, London.

I'm going to be Director of Social Media and work with a team of brilliant people to take companies, brands and organisations on their journey through and to the networked world.

I believe that listening to, learning from and participating in the networked world are the keys to understanding it, benefiting from it and becoming a humanised part of it - and so does Brando Digital.

You'll be able to learn more about Brando Digital on our website (Brando-Digital.com) when it goes live. It's a holding page at present - that's how new we are. Brando Digital is part of Brando World - of which more, here.

One of the big reason's I'm joining is the enlightened attitude of the organisation: They've been happy to recruit me on a four-days-a-week basis.
My fifth day (in a kind of self-funding google 20%-rule-model) can be used to take me outside the silo - doing my own consultancy work: from advice and analysis to workshops, speaking and conference organising. More about that will be published at http://fasterfutureconsulting.com when that url goes live in the next few days.

In the meantime, if you want to contact me about either working with the most faster-future-thinking, most globally networked* full-service social media agency there is (that's Brando Digital folks!) or about FasterFuture Consulting, drop me a line at: davidpcushman AT gmail DOT com

*Brando Digital has community and blogger outreach capabilities in EMEA, North America, Central and Latin America, Asia and Oceania; across English, Spanish (Catalan/Basque), Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese (Cantonese), Russian and Arabic languages.

PR: It ain't broke, but it does need fixing

There have been some wild stabs in the dark (back?) at PR over the last few days - notably from Mike Arrington and Robert Scoble.
Steve Rubel has been questioning the value of PR altogether in a world where we thrill in the discovery of the new for ourselves (we get more of a kick if this experience is NOT mediated).

And I've joined the fray with comments in mutliple locations. It's time to draw them together. (Image by candiceedicnac)

PR ain't broken. At least, it's no more broken than the next way-of-doing-things the mass-media, broadcast world presents us with.

Anything which involves mediation has to be rethought in the context of a world where communities of purpose can form at next-to-no cost - where control is simply routed round by people seeking their own co-created solutions;

PR is no more broken than broadcast media, than the music industry, movies or print.

It's no more broken than traditional visions of economics, politics, education or the law.

ALL need reconstructing to take account of the fundamental shift from a broadcast to a networked world.

To pick on PR is to miss the point. Everywhere there is mediation, the network will disrupt and is beginning to disrupt.

In the case of traditional PR, the kind of stuff that bugs Scoble et al (and frankly any traditional journalist since PR began) is the irrelevant.

PR, when driven from a broadcast mindset, aims for quality at the cost of relevance: A fabulous press release sent out en masse? Spam for everyone for whom it is not relevant. Relevance always beats quality.

PR has to take the same kind of approach as anyone wishing to spread or seed a message in the networked world (hello marketeers, advertisers, politicians, service and product providers?).

It goes a little something like this (those familiar with Why Traditional Ad Models Won't Work in Social Networks, And What Will, may recognise its evolutionary path!). See below. Relax. It's just 10 slides.

From broadcast PR to P2PR

View SlideShare presentation (tags: p2pr pr broadcast networked)

This speaks to some of the ideas we kicked around with the notion of P2PR.

But to dismiss traditional PR out of hand is at best link-baiting and at worst commercial suicide.

There's still huge swathes of value to be derived from taking traditional routes, reaching out to those who still broadcast in the hope of reaching their (ok dwindling but) still very large audiences.



No wise PR effort would do without it. And getting back to the basics of good human relationships with your intended broadcaster, so that you know what is relevant for them, will win you prizes here, too.

PR + P2PR = :-)