“Facebook drives more traffic than Twitter” ran the headline in May, after a Pew study seemed to show that Twitter just wasn’t as good for traffic numbers as people had thought. But there were problems with the study’s methodology, as many people, including Steve Buttry said: The PEJ report acknowledges that the Nielsen Co., the source of all the data… Read more →
Earlier this year I did some work for OldWeather.org, a citizen science project that is transcribing weather and other data from old ships logs. As part of their website progress assessment, I hand-analysed their web traffic referrers to see where people were coming from and whether we were reaching our core communities. One of the things I found was that… Read more →
I had to dash out for a lunch meeting, but I was happy to make it back for Marc Reeves keynote. He is the editor of TheBusinessDesk.com West Midlands. I found myself applauding over my morning coffee when I read his recent speech to the CBI. His frankness and lack of sentimentality was refreshing. He started that speech with this… Read more →
If you can get past the slightly rambling intro, this conversation between Jonathan Fields and Tony Schwartz is a fascinating look at what’s wrong with the way we currently tend to work. It really starts to get interesting about 8 minutes in. Although very focused on American business and culture, pretty much everything they say relates to British and European… Read more →
I’m very wary of what sort of metrics and definitions of success are used to decide whether a project is working or not. To often, the wrong metrics and definitions are used, resulting in bad managerial decisions that are based on flawed assumptions. A couple of good posts about how metrics and definitions of success (and, therefore, business models) can… Read more →
How much enterprise software is truly fun to use? Aarron Walter discusses the importance of fun in his article Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users. It’s a very interesting read with some enlightening examples. But to take the ball and run with it a bit, I think ‘fun’ is one reason that people who use social media can… Read more →
Johnnie Moore has a great podcast episode talking with Viv McWaters and Roland Harwood on how an undue focus on metrics can get in the way of real thought and understanding. I see this frequently myself, too, when people want to focus on ‘return on investment’ or ‘success metrics’ for social media at the cost of understanding the intangible results,… Read more →
Friend and colleague Stephanie Booth writes about the blogazine, which I’ve covered here already, and the frustration she feels when faced with blogs that only post excerpts to their front page (and, I’d add, RSS feeds). I want to pick up on the point about partial posts and want to say in no uncertain terms: Partial posts or excerpts are… Read more →
(If you haven’t already read them, you might like to take a look at Part 1: The webstats legacy, Metrics, Part 2: Are we measuring the right things?) and Metrics, Part 3: What are your success criteria?) In the last instalment of this series I mentioned that sometimes there just aren’t objective metrics that we can use to help us… Read more →
(If you haven’t already read them, you might like to take a look at Part 1: The webstats legacy and Metrics, Part 2: Are we measuring the right things?) It’s never been more true to say that just because we can measure something it doesn’t mean we should. The temptation to amass as many stats as possible about our social… Read more →
Suw is one of the UK’s social media pioneers. With over a decade of social media experience, Suw has helped clients worldwide use social tools for collaboration and communication internally and to build customer relationships externally. She has a comprehensive understanding of strategy, implementation and social functionality design (building social interaction into the heart of a website or application).
She writes regularly for Forbes.com on publishing, self-publishing, crowdfunding and alternative business models for authors.
Suw is herself a self-published author. Her first novella, Argleton, was described as "an absorbing and satisfying story" and comes "highly recommended, especially if you like maps or are a computer geek". She is currently finishing up her second novella which will be out early summer 2013.
Chocolate and Vodka is her personal blog where she writes about writing and any $random_subjects that catch her eye. And yes, she's married to Kevin.
Kevin Anderson is the editor of the Media Development Investment Fund's Knowledge Bridge site and newsletter. The Media Development Loan Fund invests in independent news organisations in emerging democracies, and the Knowledge Bridge project is designed to help these news organisations make the digital transition.
Kevin brings almost 20 years of journalism experience to his work. Since 1996, he has been focused on digital journalism, working for a wide range of news organisations. He brings a depth of experience in reporting, editing and digital development to his work. In 1998, he joined the BBC and became their first online journalist based outside of the UK, covering the US for its award winning news website. After coming to the UK in 2005, he developed a blogging strategy for BBC news, helped launch a programme on the BBC's 5Live covering weblogs and podcasts and was on the team that launched the interactive radio programme World Have Your Say on the BBC World Service.
From 2006 to 2010, he worked at The Guardian as its first blogs editor and then as its digital research editor. As digital research editor, he was responsible for monitoring key developments in digital media and evaluating their value to Guardian journalists and our audiences. From 2010 until he joined MDLF in 2012, he worked as a freelance journalist and with Suw as a digital media consultant and digital journalism training working with news organisations including Al Jazeera, Reed Business Information, Czech TV and CNN.
