Rätten till ditt ansikte

Facebook har nu passerat en halv miljard användare. Siffran kan ställas i relation till exempelvis att 1,8 miljarder människor i världen använder internet.

Det innebär att nästan var fjärde internetanvändare i världen har ett facebook-konto. Om facebook var ett land, skulle det vara världens tredje största befolkningsmässigt efter Kina och Indien.

På facebook laddas text och bild upp och ner och vidare. 30 miljoner foton delas via sajten varje månad. Vi har tillgång till mer information än någonsin, det är lättare än någonsin att dokumentera, fotografera, distribuera och arkivera information, inte bara via facebook. Men informationens lättillgänglighet går inte nödvändigtvis hand i hand med ökad tolerans för att den sprids vidare utan samtycke.

Greken Minas Karatzoglis, som i flera år prytt Lindahls turkiska youghurt-förpackning, visste inte om att han hamnat i en bildbanks utbud, än mindre att han getts en ny nationalitet och gjorde reklam för youghurt. En vän såg hans ansikte i mejerihyllan och Karatzoglis protesterade mot användningen, vilket nyligen lett till ersättning på 1,7 miljoner kronor.

Var och en bestämmer alltjämt över sitt eget ansikte.




Anna Kiefer

Kommunikationsbyråns egen kommunikationschef med särskilt starkt intresse för framtidens kommunikationsvägar.

JG Communication är Sveriges största och, tycker vi, ledande kommunikationsbyrå. Vi hjälper våra kunder att skapa relevant dialog med de som betyder mest för dem. Vi gör det genom att använda de verktyg som betyder mest för oss, ord, ljud och bild.


Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

Wut u doing l8r

Wut u doing l8r. Can't wait to tell u bout JW. ROTFLMAO. Cya

What on earth is happing to our language? It started off with text (SMS) and then instant messaging. But now this shorthand is beginning to appear everywhere. It's not that I hate the lack of grammar and the spelling nightmare – who am I kidding, yes I do – but this need to abbreviate everything is destroying the richness of English.

Long considered the most diverse and expressive language in the world, English is being abused and corrupted in our haste to express ourselves faster. (I argue though the amount of time it takes to translate ROTFLMAO when you read is actually slower than reading the actual words).

My youngest brother grew up in the IM era (I did not) and has no trouble at all sending me long and complicated digital messages in shorthand. I struggle through them and get the idea, but I miss the emotion and connection I get when reading something in "proper" English.

I'm not suggesting a return to Shakespearean prose, after all Claudio's cry "Done to death by slanderous tongue, was the hero that here lies" is not that easy to understand at first glance either. I fear however, that our eagerness to embrace this abbreviated communication style is eliminating words that by their very nature can not easily be bastardised. How can you possibly turn magnificence, glittering, torture or translucent into four-letter contractions? How do you express the real joy of watching your child take his first steps with "OMG was gr8." And how does "143" really tell someone the depth of your feelings?
wot d hell

Michelle Walkden

Communications consultant

So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.

Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

Old media habits die hard

"Hotshot new media companies do not have a higher creativity quotient than older ones, they simply place fewer obstacles in the way of seizing the potential of technology transitions."

This comment from Lucy Küng, a professor in media management, got me thinking about my own experience. It's true, as a journalist in the traditional media realm, my day-to-day work was always about being credible; about being seen as reliable. The victim was often creativity.

For years though I clung to the "old ways" determined that the path I knew was the right one, and new media was nothing more than fluff and bubble that gave every tom, dick and harry the right to create their own brand of news. And the worst thing, people would believe it, despite the lack of credibility or reliability.

Clearly the fact that I'm writing this blog, and found Lucy's comment on another one, shows that my thoughts are changing. But what does that mean in regarding to my personal "technology transition." Well for one, I would never have got approval from my news editor to write this piece, and short of funding my own print run of news flyers would never have gained an audience for my thoughts.

Whether this post falls into the realm of creative is for you to judge. The opportunity to make it however has certainly changed the way I think about social media. I'm actually glad now that it exists.

Michelle Walkden
Communications consultant

Related links: Lucy Küng's original post

So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.


Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

Soffsurfare enar världen

Semester och soliga dagar, väljer du att ligga på din egen soffa eller någon annans? Över 2 miljoner soffsurfare från 238 länder väljer att bo hos varandra när de reser. De lägger ut en förfrågan på www.couchsurfing.org eller väljer mellan olika sofferbjudanden och det är inte soffköp det gäller, utan en sofistikerad förmedling av sovplats för resan.

Enligt soffsurfarna själva är den praktiska delen endast en liten del av surfkonceptet, som snarare består av en livsstil med djupare värderingar.

”Det handlar om så mycket mer än en plats att sova; det handlar om att dela åsikter och att bidra till ett mer tolerant samhälle, det är det som gör det till ett så bra projekt.”, skrev en ung brittisk soffsurfare på sajten igår.

En ung brasilianare skrev: "Soffsurfning är en jättebra motor för att länka människor som delar ideal, principer och värderingar. Jag har haft fantastiska erfarenheter som får mig att känna att jag aldrig kommer att vara ensam vart jag än åker”.

Vi bevittnar framväxten av den urbana globalisten som väljer den enklare boendeformen och integrationsmodellen framför traditionell charter. Här byggs solida nätverk för framtidens globala arena. Kommer morgondagens ledare att lösa de stora världsproblemen skafföttes?




Anna Kiefer

Kommunikationsbyråns egen kommunikationschef med särskilt starkt intresse för framtidens kommunikationsvägar.

JG Communication är Sveriges största och, tycker vi, ledande kommunikationsbyrå. Vi hjälper våra kunder att skapa relevant dialog med de som betyder mest för dem. Vi gör det genom att använda de verktyg som betyder mest för oss, ord, ljud och bild.


Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

Credible news organisations will survive

When Wikileaks began emerging as one of the world's leading sources of breaking news, it got me questioning whether or not major news organisations would survive.

I referred to this in an earlier blog post. What wasn’t clear was whether or not people trusted wikileaks or was it just the case that people leaked information there and then everyone else waited for the story to be verified by the news organizations they trust.

And just the other day, my old boss was in town. He's head of news and current affairs at RTE, Ireland's state broadcaster (Sweden's equivalent is SVT) so I had to ask him the question.

He was quite happy to see sites like Wikileaks and quite confident that RTE and the other trustworthy news organisations would actually thrive due to sites like Wikileaks.

Organisations like RTE are regarded highly credible and trustworthy. They never pay anyone for leaking a story to them. Paying a source lessens their credibility so they just don't do it. But leaking news to a web site means that you might just get a few dollars/euros for your troubles.

For the record, I have no idea what the policy at Wikileaks is when it comes to payment of sources but there is clearly an expanding amount of opportunities to leak a story and get paid for it now. But when it comes down to trust, we don't trust too many people these days and we will still rely upon the trusted news sources.

In fact, news organisations are finding new ways to utilize the tools available on the net to ensure better, faster and more accurate reporting. One particular tool is emerging where an alarm is sent to the news organization if one word happens to suddenly be used alot on Twitter.

Take the word ‘earthquake’ for example. If the word ‘earthquake’ pops up a certain amount of times on Twitter over a short period of time, a newsroom will be informed. The newsroom will also be given data as to where the main cluster of tweets is occurring using that word and it will also give you a list of people who are 'live' on Skype in that region at that time so news organisations can start ringing around and verifying the story.

The speed and interactivity on the net today, if used correctly, might actually give us more trustworthy news.

It might however put some of the less credible organisations under threat.





Colm O'Callaghan is JG Communication’s Head of Operations so when he’s not blogging he’s looking after the day to day business at this wonderful communicaitons agency.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.



Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

A politician's most common word

The Swedish general election is beginning to get more and more media exposure here and the communicative abilities of the two main leaders will have a vital bearing on the outcome of this one.

Sweden's Fokus magazine has recently done a nice piece on the differences between the two main political leaders, Mona Sahlin from the Social Democrat party and Fredrik Reinfelt, the current prime minister and leader of the Moderate party, the biggest party in the ruling coalition.

For me, the interesting part of the article came in a sidebar where Fokus reported the top five words used by each political leader in the five most important speeches made by each leader in the last two years. They both top their list with 'not.' Both then seem to think its more important to tell us what should not be done or what they're not going to do.

As a communicator, I would tend to advise people to focus on the positives. Tell people what you will do and what should be done.

Reinfelt then goes on to choose the words 'Sweden,' 'country,' 'work,' and 'people,' in his top five most used words. For a leader of the right-wing moderate party, it's interesting that 'work' and 'people' come up highly. The Moderates have also been keen to appear without ties and suits at many events in a communicative bid to show the public that they're one of the people too.

Sahlin chooses 'work,' 'Sweden,' 'want,' and 'none' in her top five. That 'none' would come in at number five and 'not' at number one doesn't bode well in my book.

Obviously the choice of words is going to have a bearing on the results of these elections. The policies of both political blocks are not so far removed from each other so the personalities are going to be a determining factor.

As political races go, this is a big one. The ruling coalition actually has a strong chance of becoming the first non Social Democrat government to stay in power for more than one election term. The Social Democrats have been in power for 65 of the last 78 years. If they lose this won, it could mark the end of Social Democratic dominance in Sweden.

May the best wordsmith win.



Colm O'Callaghan is JG Communication’s Head of Operations so when he’s not blogging he’s looking after the day to day business at this wonderful communicaitons agency.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.

Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation