The Process

What if there were no stop signs, and some marketeers were charged with inventing one?

Made me think of this story from last week: 'Blackburn's new £60,000 logo almost same as Barrow ‘branding’'. (Er, the logo isn't on the council website ;[ Neither is Barrow's).

Have neither heard of 'brand continuity'? Then again, the story includes this hysterical line: 'The two PR companies involved say they have no idea why the two images are so similar.'

Because logos are invariably drawn from a fairly limited pool! Just like there are only 12 master formats of advertising! How many times have you seen a 'swirl' logo or a heart? Being original is very hard work.

Obama is not the messiah, he's just a very safe man

Impeach Bush? Nah. Too much possible retribution. (n.b. 'boy' omitted in post title for obvious reasons).

Tech note: MSNBC's video implementation is the best - here's Olbermann, here's Newsnight.



Never - once - had this with Olbermann.

Sigh, better than iPlayer methinks. Dissident? Moi? Though the blog promotion is in the Beeb's plus column.

'Below the fold'.



Vs.

myid innit

Both ElReg and PSF have covered the comically noteworthy MyID (youth ID - tell us what yah thinking, yah, for when one is questioned about one's age, innit) site launch by - note, remember this name - an outfit called virtualsurveys (that's a link to their inept 'yofftube' page) for the Home Office. (Webshite, they do 'research 2.0', innit. Also they have a link to a 'accessible site').

PSF flavour (a .gov.uk firewall beckons):

However little did the Home Secretary know that this carefully-scripted PR 'quick win' was about to mutate at internet speed into a horrendous, humiliating and increasingly out-of-control PR catastrophe ...

We contacted Mr Comley [VirtualSurveys man-o-the-moment] for comment and put to him that as access to the site is restricted to 16-25 year-olds only, whether it was not slightly disingenuous for him to be using 'yoof-speak' and posing as a 'buddy' to other users, not to mention his comments about being encumbered with a student card. His response on that later ...

Within hours of the Home Secretary's fanfare launch, word had got out among anti-ID card campaigners who then flocked in large numbers to the site. By lunchtime a horde of protesters had effectively taken over the site, with the MyLifeMyID forums now consisting – to huge embarrassment for the Home Office - almost entirely of comments criticising, denouncing and condemning the ID scheme in no uncertain terms.

For some reason I find the accompanying video cringe-worthy hysterical (yas thinkin' 'David Brent'?). Jacqui looks like she's talking to five year olds, 'now children'. Not. A. Natural @YouTube (unlike Mike Gravel). Plus the filming is way far from flattering. Where were the minders demanding the lighting be, er, altered?

Couple of points which skipped the, natural, opprobrium:

They broke the ethical code - you should say what use information supplied on sign-up will be put to (why it says elsewhere 'we won't resell your email address')



This from an outfit which self-describes thus:

"Virtual Surveys, founded in 1998, was the first full service agency in Europe to specialise in online research. As well as recognised experts in website research, Virtual Surveys are one of the leading exponents of conventional research online.

The company has grown by 45+% per annum for the past 3 years. Our success can be attributed to our experienced research team, providing high quality online research and website expertise to a range of the UK's leading organisations."

The Home office is mugs, thinkest thou.

Oh g*d, how much did this cost?

Seriously, how much did this this cost?

Secondly, last week I was getting a 'you must register' message on clicking on 'more information on ID cards'.

Now I'm getting 'The following information has been copied from the Home Office Immigration & Passport Service website'. Literally. It sez this. Innit.

And youse has to register to click onda poll.

And is asking 'To which ethic group do you consider yourself to belong'?

Inept? Comedy? Where doth one start? We have so many options. Press attention, where ist thou?

I'm sure some bean-counter will attempt to spin this as a sucess but - pa-lease - do us all a favour and document where you went wrong. Seriously. It would help. But I really don't expect this to happen and, I guess, that's the problem.

And on the right side, you will see ....

I've added a few things to the right-side column and the latest has prompted me to note this.

Dave Briggs aka davepress gets enough praise from everyone else around the egov network (deflate! deflate!) but has made a good start to sainthood with 'one site to rule them all ... ' in PublicSectorBloggers, which I'm running the feed from. It's "Lots of UK Public Sector Blogging in One Place!"

Two points:

1. I am not defined by my job! Do not append my workplace after my name (I think this holds for most of the others too)! Not just for reasons of 'oh, shit', but also because we range far beyond and do not want to be pigeonholed. I think I speak for all ;]
2. Why is everyone not pushing full post feeds? It's embarrassing to see mine, cartoons and pictures 'n'all, in there like a flasher where everyone else is being a little tease.

David Osimo made a good point in a comment about tag clouds for public sector blog interest (thinking globally, mind) - I've shown some practical, useful tag cloud usage in this post about their use in the US primaries.

I seem to have removed other feeds. I actually don't remember (no jokes please). But nobody's seemingly noticed and, but, the only one which actually got clicks was the egov victoria one.

As well as PSB, I've got a few buttons.

Donate to Myanmar cyclone appeal is still running. This is the 'official appeal', Milliband favorite avaaz.org's appeal came without a button! There's two Zim buttons: one for methods of support, which are not pointless, as moans from the regime have made clear; another for donations to relief. The last is a button for Global Voices, which I wanted to highlight. This brings local blog voices from all corners of the world together and promotes them and is inspiring and fascinating. Go look.

I've also added but not noted my own button to encourage signatures to the petition to Gordon Brown about not deporting gay + lesbian refugees. Go look at the site for harrowing story after harrowing story. Support please by signing the petition. Tell your friends. Think about adding the button. Please.

Last point. 'Video' is now my top tag. This must mean something. What is it.