Thanks for the plug, John Bishop

Speaker, trainer and consultant John Bishop has given this blog a very nice plug in his newsletter, Communications Line.

The future is a foreign country

They are doing things differently there, to misquote and paraphrase author L.P. Hartley ('The Go-Between', 1953). Nowhere is this more apparent than in new media, or social media and the confusing tangle of acronym-ed technologies called the internet. I am not deterred, frightened or daunted by this new world, but I don't claim to have a grip on all of it either. That's why we need ambassadors and interpreters, emissaries who bravely go into the ether and come back with baubles and tales of the new sights, sounds and experiences. Much like Marco Polo and other explorers who went from Europe to Asia and came back with spices and other goods to enliven medieval life.

One such ambassador is Simon Young, who started as a writer on marketing and communications (he appears regularly in Marketing magazine). He presented at the Strategic Communications and PR Forum in Auckland on Tuesday and blew his (quite small) audience away with his depth of understanding about the wired world. He talked about his media consumption - where he got news and information and how he entertained himself. Not much of it was about conventional media. Fine, I said, great lifestyle, wonderful experiences, where's the cash flow? I'm an ambassador, Young replied. I get paid to explain it to people like you. You can see more of him at http://www.simonyoungwriters.com/ and http://www.madyoungthing.blogspot.com/

John's a fount of knowledge, and I'm not just saying that because he gave me a plug! :) Check out the rest of his newsletter for more tips on the future, plus listening tea, Gore-y science, Rock'n'roll, governance 'by design' and permission to enjoy cheap wine.

I'll post here when I've uploaded my presentation notes to the SimonYoungWriters website.

Other presentation notes (including John's) are at Conferenz' website.

Update: my presentation notes, brief as they are, are here.