Is it any wonder Ireland doesn’t understand blogs?
Published June 6th, 2005 in PR in IrelandAs reported in the Irish Times last Friday, Ireland ranked 19th out of the 25 EU states for broadband penetration. You get a clear picture on how far behind Ireland is when you see that countries like Lithuania and Estonia are ahead of us.
So is it any wonder that blogging hardly registers in Ireland? Every day I read about new corporations that have started to blog, but I meet very few PR practitioners that even comprehend the word.
I bring all of this up because of an interesting article I read on Cnet by Paul Lamb. The article, ‘Digital divide has not disappeared’, purports that technology is increasing inequalities between people.
The way I see it, Ireland’s poor broadband penetration rate is creating a ‘knowledge gap’ between PR practitioners in Ireland and other parts of the globe. We are stuck in the position where all these marvelous initiatives are taking place in the world around us (not just the US, GlaxoSmithKline has started blogging in France), and when we manage to finally catch up we won’t have a clue about mainstream techniques like RSS or podcasting.
Ireland will literally be playing catchup for things like blogging, and it will be people coming from outside the country that will be driving these new tools and techniques forward. Consultancies will miss out on opportunities because we probably will look like backwater hicks if a buzzword like blogging doesn’t even register on our radar.
Should PR practitioners have anything to do with blogs? Sure! A blog is just a tool, without any practical advice on how to communicate with your audience it is effectively useless. Because of the very nature of the blogosphere an organisation should carefully plan out what it is that they want to say, otherwise they can get torn to pieces by KOLs and their blog will be finished before it even got started.
As a comment in a survey on future PR trends conducted by Pinnacle Worldwide points out (courtesy of Keith Jackson on Corporate Engagement), “Clients do not know how to use blogs or derive benefit from them.” At the very least we have to be aware of them. Just as we would read papers every morning to hear what is being said about our clients, we should be listening to conversations about them online also.
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Agreed … but, bear in mind that pretty much all businesses have broadband or better, so I don’t believe that lack of broadband is the reason why PR practitioners are technophobic. It’s just an industry culture, the same in the states - but the 1% of PR people there are as numerous as the whole profession here, and that’s why they seem more ‘up-to-date’ with things. All it takes is to read the posts everyday about how traditional ad/marketing/pr firms are going to ‘die’.
Good work with Blog by the way - nice to see regular posting, and a bit of a clear-consistent voice coming through. That’s how to build traffic and reputation! Fair play. Like the design as well
The general ignorance of blogging you refer to is the very reason I organised a “Blogging for Business” event in the National Software Centre next Thursday.
The aim of the event is to educate business people on the advantages to their business of blogging.
For more info see http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=47
You’ll have to run a similar event in Dublin soon Tom
Piaras,
Was just surfing the blogosphere this afternoon and came accross your blog. Was particularly interested in reading about the state of blogging in Ireland. I’m a native of county Laois and a frequent visitor. Am thinking of possibly doing a seminar on “internal corporate blogging” in Dublin sometime early next year.
I’ve been publishing a blog (www.TheDeevyReport.blogspot.com) for the past six months. This INTERACTIVE platform is so much more effective than the traditional static website.
Your blog looks good. At some time you might want to add a photo and some additional bio information.
Regards
Ed Deevy
Piaras
Ignore my comment about the bio information. Just realized you have included this info…
Ed Deevy
Piaras
Ignore my comment about bio information. Just realized it’s included.
Ed Deevy