So, what do you do? Complain to family and friends? Tell everyone how much better things used to be back in the day? There is another option. You could actually do something about it.* (Yes, even in apathetic Ireland.)

Grannies on the rampage
You could, for example, follow the example of the Raging Grannies, a loose but flamboyant collective of older American women who campaign for peace, justice, and social and economic equality.

Sporting large, vividly-coloured hats and using street theatre to get their message across, the Raging Grannies protest on all sorts of hot-button issues, including banking reform, immigrant rights and the environment. As their website says, they deliberately set out “to shock with their unladylike antics” and they seem to have a marvellous time doing it.

The Grannies are part of a wider global movement that sees older people becoming actively involved in campaigns for social, political and environmental change. In 2008, we saw a powerful example of the energy and determination of older activists, when thousands took to Irish streets to protest against cuts to the medical card scheme. Ultimately, the government rowed back.

Elder activism
Elder activism, as it is called in America, has a long and proud history. In 1970, a lifelong activist named Maggie Kuhn was outraged at being forced to resign at the age of 65. In response, she founded an organisation to campaign for social and economic change. Initially known as the Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change, it quickly became known as the Gray Panthers, because of the older profile of its members.

Since then, the Gray Panthers has been an influential activist group, particularly focused on health care reform, but has also campaigned on issues such as ageism, arms dealing, education, the environment, housing, public welfare and workers’ rights.

More recently, Grandmothers Against The War (GAW) has had a high media profile. With their catchcry of “Take us instead!”, GAW members have protested vigorously against the Iraq war, asking the US administration to send their grandchildren home and to dispatch them to the front line instead.

A leading older activist is our own much-respected former President, 65-year-old Mary Robinson. Among the many organisations in which she is involved is an independent group called The Elders, made of up of senior world leaders. The 10 members also include Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu, while Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi are Honorary Elders. They work both publicly and behind the scenes to help end conflicts and alleviate human suffering.

Get involved
But you don’t have to be a distinguished world leader or have such lofty goals to be an activist. You can become involved in a local community group or small activist organisation. You can write letters, hand out flyers or help to organise information meetings. All you need to be an activist is time, energy and some firmly-held beliefs.

There are many Irish groups, from human rights campaigners to eco-warriors to animal rights crusaders, who are always appealing for volunteers and would be delighted to have some experienced individuals help with their cause. If you’re not sure where to start, have a look at the Volunteering Ireland website (www.volunteeringireland.ie), which lists plenty of opportunities to help with campaigns.

Not only is activism good for the world, it’s also good for you. It provides a social outlet and is a way to meet like-minded people. It can also to lead to an improved sense of self-worth from the quiet gratification born of helping someone people and the sense of deep satisfaction that comes from contributing towards positive change.

So do yourself a favour. Get active and help make the world a better place. Stll not convinced? Then think about all the ripples that might be created when you drop this one activist pebble into the world’s great big pond.

*Article inspired by Martin Luther King Day in the United States, January 18thUseful links

www.raginggrannies.com            Raging Grannies
www.graypanthers.org                 Gray Panthers
www.gawba.org                              Grandmothers Against the War (GAW)www.theelders.org                        The Elders
http://iscp.wordpress.com         Irish Senior Citizen’s Parliament
www.volunteeringireland.ie     Volunteering Ireland

Have your holidays left you wondering if all is as it seems? The season is a time for long-distance travel, bittersweet reunions, long chats and lots of observation. In the year or so since you’ve been separated from family and friends, you might have noticed the things that changed: your brother’s thinning hair, your niece’s new baby, your wrinkles and everyone’s increasing age.

If you’re like me, you might also have wondered if you’ll ever see some of them again. Was this holiday the last time you’ll hug and talk to your ageing parents or dear friend?

Realising their fragility, and perhaps your own, marks the start of an awareness of our own mortality and it’s not pretty – some of us go quickly, while others just fade away.

About 12 years ago, I visited my father in New York during the winter holidays and knew something was different about him. As we were leaving the local train station for the return flight home, I became very upset. My husband and I were both puzzled. It had been a good visit but it was harder than normal for me to leave. “Dad’s not well,” I said. “I just feel it. Something’s not right.”

Many of us have had this strange experience. The Dad I had known was a lively, generous man who was fond of jokes, stories and entertaining. He was always the centre of attention and when he threw a party everything was the best, the biggest, the brightest.

Enter the shadow
I didn’t put my finger on it that day but somehow he had faded a little. On the holiday, we’d sat at the big table discussing our plans for the coming year and I looked at him. He was a quiet shadow figure; a bit blurred around the edges. He seemed to be slowly, almost imperceptibly, fading away.

It made no logical sense. Aged 60, he was still working in a big Wall Street firm and loving life as a government bond trader and senior manager. But the change that I sensed in him wasn’t just the slowing down that we all experience with age. He was quieter and far more uncertain of his steps and memories.

I questioned him but was told everything was fine and to stop worrying. Within months, he was diagnosed with diabetes and then he told us that he had not been able to feel his legs for a couple of years. Typical Irish man! He had suffered in silence rather than admit to some health ‘weakness’.

He packed in his beloved job and began visiting specialists for his legs, eyes, diabetes and memory loss. Any time the memory issue was pointed out, he became angry and said there was nothing wrong with him. There was no way he would go to a neurologist – they were head shrinkers!

Time passed and a retirement that should have equalled golf and days of leisure became a dark and anxious time. Visits to the golf course lengthened as he struggled to find his way home from a course he had used for more than 20 years. Some days, in his confusion, he pulled to the side of the road to calm his anxiety and pounding heart. Where was he? Where had he come from? What on earth was he doing?

Since he refuses to see a neurologist, there has been no diagnosis bar some kind of diabetes-related dementia or possibly Alzheimer’s. My stepmother has gone through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. It’s exhausting for her and sad for all of us to be so far away.

Learning to cope
How do we cope with our parents’ frailty and the abyss of personal mortality? Everyone is different but I think laughter soothes the soul. Life isn’t fair but it’s the way we cope with it that helps us survive and thrive. Carers need to laugh when they can or they will quite literally cry themselves sick.

A friend recently told me a story about Alzheimer’s care and it might make you smile.

A neighbour had lived in the American mid-west when he was growing up, the youngest of three boys. Their grandmother lived with them and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s while they were in their teens.

To the delight of their parents, Tom’s oldest brother offered to take grandma out for a drive each Friday afternoon when they got back from school. The outing provided Tom’s parent’s with some needed down time from the tireless care and monitoring that their grandmother required. Each Friday, the parents would watch from the window as the oldest boy would walk their grandmother to their station wagon. He opened the door for her, sat her down in the front passenger seat and strapped her seatbelt. His younger brothers took their seats in the back.

It was a lovely family scene.

On these trips, the teenagers would drive their grandmother to the local Beer Barn, a drive-thru grocery establishment. The station wagon would pull up to the window and the 19-year-old brother would tell the clerk: “She’ll have a case of Coors Light” and nod to his smiling grandmother. The drinking age was 21. The clerk would look at her through the driver’s window and conclude that she was clearly of age. He would order a worker to load a case of Coors Light into the back of the station wagon and would take the money from the oldest brother.

Tom said they would bury the beer in the snow next to their basement door when they got home. Grandma always seemed to enjoy the ride and she never recalled enough detail about where they went to expose the caper.

You have to smile. Dementia is not funny – and Dad certainly isn’t getting any better – but laughter certainly brings us all together in a positive, life-affirming way.

“Do you have an iPhone?” and “Have you seen this cool new app?” are phrases that have the relentless pester power of the childhood mantra “Are we there yet?” That kind of ongoing consumer validation is a marketer’s dream, but it comes at a price. A product that has as much power for a love-in, also has that same opportunity to become a target of downright hatred.

Many iPhone users are positively evangelical in their praise of the phone. Haven’t you heard through the grapevine and news reports that this brand of mobile phone can save your life, help when you’re lost, make you laugh and communicate all of life’s most important events?

When a happy slappy iPhone user takes out their iPhone to show their latest app I roll my eyes, sigh and watch the parental glee in their eyes. I feel like screaming but I’m also tempted to go buy one because apparently, iPhone-a-phobes like me are really bad people.

Saving lives one app at a time
American filmmaker Dan Woolley claims that an iPhone medical app saved his life after the Haitian earthquake disaster. He was in the country shooting a documentary about Haitian poverty. When the quake struck, he was buried in rubble. Luckily, the iPhone first-aid app he’d downloaded showed him how to make a tourniquet for this leg and stop the bleeding from his head. It also led him to a safe place and allowed rescuers find him.

For some, it’s love at first sight. There’s a guy on twitter who uses the @iphone moniker and says he’s just “a dude with an iPhone who likes stuff from Apple”. What have they put into this phone that makes people become slaves to its charms?

Some people can’t stand touchscreen functionality. My non-touchscreen business phone and I are really quite happy together. It’s easy to use for phone calls, email and internet access. It doesn’t demand that I caress its screen or zoom in to view photos of other people’s babies. I never use the music or camera functions and I’m quite happy with my uncomplicated relationship.

But now that iPhone app save lives my stance is a bit like despising Lassie and Florence Nightingale. In word of mouth marketing though there’s always a place for the haters and, on the flipside, you can read Twitter postings from @ihateiphone.

This seminal phone from Apple has also been targeted for satire. American comedy site landlinetv.com has a spoof ad claiming Google released a new f*** you iPhone app that drives iPhone users crazy.

No matter where you fall in this debate, the recently-released Vitrue Social Media Index 2009, the iPhone was the most talked-about brand on the social web last year.

The internet has revolutionised word of mouth. Not only can brands benefit from positive buzz online – Daft.ie became one of the most visited sites in Ireland despite spending almost nothing on advertising and marketing – but they can also produce viral media, such as videos or Flash games, that is specifically designed to get people talking on email, Facebook, Twitter and so on.

But it can take a brave brand to push word-of-mouth marketing. Viral campaigns and customer-generated reviews can work wonders for a brand, but they’re risky. Recent research by information management firm Convergys found that a negative review or comment on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube can lose companies as many as 30 other customers.

And that could be an under-estimate. When Sacha Baron Cohen’s film Bruno opened in July 2009, it made $14.2m on its first night, but ticket sales fell drastically the following day, leaving overall sales for its first weekend as much as $20m down on expectations. What happened? Negative word of mouth. Time magazine said the following week, “Bruno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect”.

Be credible, not clumsy
So you want to use social media to generate word-of-mouth marketing? Use social media first. Understand it. Do your research. It’s not enough to jump in, pushing a company’s product or services. That’s just annoying and intrusive to other users.

You have to be properly involved, discussing relevant issues, making special offers and helping customers. The tone must also be right. It must be honest and credible, not patronising or “sales-y”.

Notoriously, Habitat got Twitter very wrong. It began to tweet last year, but instead of using relevant hashtags (words preceded by a ‘#’ to help users track topics on Twitter) such as #furnituresale or #homefurnishings , it used popular hashtags, such as #iranelection and #iphone. Twitter users were outraged and much negative press followed, leaving the company to apologise profusely and reassess its social media use.

Using social media is a high-risk strategy. If you get it wrong, the online world can quickly turn on your brand, heaping scorn upon it and ripping it to shreds. Almost worse, it might just ignore you.

Success comes from engagement
You can encourage it and facilitate positive word of mouth. Give customers something good to talk about , listen to what they have to say and engage with them. In the US, blue-chip companies like Ford and Coca-Cola have teams that monitor what is being said about them online and, crucially, respond personally to that feedback. As Andy Sernowitz, recognised as the leading American word-of-mouth guru , says:  “People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.”

Haiti survivor praises iPhone app:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/haiti-survivor-iphone/

“Google” releases new f u iPhone app: http://landlinetv.com/?p=189

It is easy to see why there is a strong desire to storm the bastions of Geekdom. Its citizens tend to be young, savvy, earn a good crust, and, vitally, are curious enough to buy ground-breaking new gizmos.

The geek was the person with the brick masquerading as a mobile phone; the one happy to splash the cash on a HD-ready TV years before there was anything to show on it.

The geek’s cupboards are littered with devices that never quite made it; the Betamax recorder, the minidisc, the Cross Convergence Pen. The geek doesn’t wait around to see how the market will react to these new products and doesn’t really care about the high price to be paid for getting in ahead of mass production. Obsolescence is collateral damage.

Rather than staring alone into their Gameboys circa 1989 while the rest of the lads were out kicking a ball around, Richard Delevan of McConnellsintegrated argues that technology had the effect of transforming geeks into attractive people to hang out with.

“These were the people who really knew what was going on and what the future held. These were the people who were ahead of the pack and everyone else wanted to be in the know,” he says.

Delevan also argues that with the ubiquity of the Internet, this has now transcended into a wider role as key influencers – to such an extent that they must become core to any marketing campaign.

“Geeks are nodes of influence in a social network and become the main attraction because of their knowledge of the latest software, for example,” he says. “These are the guys you absolutely need to have onside.”

An influential geek can now decide the success or failure of a product. Companies can throw vast amounts of marketing money at a launch but if Geekdom gives a product the thumbs down it could be game over.

American Dick Carlson, a self-confessed e-learning geek says: “Social media now lets you build a following online where you can share (and sell) the stuff that’s in your head. Through social media, you can connect directly with your audience – no agents, publishers, editors or gatekeepers – and gain immediate feedback. With low start-up costs, you can affordably create your own little knowledge factory online.”

The rise of geek chic

In the 1970s, The Fonz dismissed them as squares on Happy Days and how we laughed. Ten years on the geeks fought back when movies such as Hackers and War Games showed tech-savvy loners unafraid to battle the status quo.

Simultaneously, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were developing Microsoft and Apple while George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were playing around with science fiction sagas, special effects and animation.

Geeks were starting to make good money playing to their strengths – computer programming in the wee small hours, attention to detail and facilitating fledgling communication online.  They may have lived on Pot Noodle and quadruple espressos but boy could they take a business into a whole brave new world! Now, countless millions of geeks earn a living from jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago.

So, how to reach the geek?

Like other groups in society, geeks tend to congregate around certain interests. TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica and, of course, the geekiest of them all, Star Trek, all attract a cult following.

But it would be a huge mistake to pigeonhole the geek or, even worse, to patronise. It would be equally wrong to assume that because someone is willing to pay a lot of money to own a new device makes them an easy marketing touch.

Kathy Sierra, a founder of the community website javaranch.com, argues that geeks are not anti-marketing but they do hate being insulted – just like most people, really.

“Geeks hate being treated as though they’re too stupid to recognise when you’re lying, so don’t bullshit. But if you go out of your way to make something sexy, there’s no reason you should be afraid to flaunt it. It’s not hype if it’s true.”

So, in other words, marketing to geeks is not rocket science. You have to appeal to their interests but under the anorak they are just human beings like the rest of us.

The truth is out there.

Margaret E. Ward is managing director of Clear Ink and a self-confessed communications geek.

Risteard Cooper, master of ceremonies for the night, said the judges thought “What is striking about insolvencyjournal.ie is the quality of its execution. Great content, up-to-date, with very high quality visuals used to illustrate data. It is a fantastic example of how good content can keep browsers on the site and more importantly coming back for more,” he said.

The Insolvency Journal attracts over 40,000 visits a month – an impressive number for a site that only began in late 2008 and launched officially in February 2009. The site provides  insolvency news, features, opinion and statistics from Ireland and the world.  It has fast become one of the top industry resources for insolvency-related news and analysis.

Clear Ink managing director Margaret E. Ward said “We’re very proud of Clear Ink’s veteran editorial team: Larry, Philip, Doug and Colleen. Their work on the site was both outstanding and innovative. They went the extra mile for the client – working weekends, providing free editorial advice and developing many, many contacts over the last year. Thanks also to the brilliant tech master at amweb, Cormac, and the design team at Rain.”

Based on the success of Clear Ink’s many specialist editorial websites during 2009 (accountancy, law, business/economics, over 50s, journalism, marketing)  Ward says the firm plans to expand its independent editorial services to other professions. “Specialist industries have a huge need for high quality, well researched news, behind-the-scenes analysis and lively features. We’re very fortunate to work with some of Ireland’s most highly regarded broadsheet journalists in providing quality content for our clients. Their journalistics skills and integrity really add to the depth of understanding in each of the industries they cover.”

Please feel free to add your comments/ suggestions, concerns and correct me if I have anything wrong. However, no jargon is allowed.

The government is spending your money –  and gambling with your children’s future – so you have a right to have your voice heard. Please comment.

The questions:
1. Form: Why is NAMA a commercial entity? This lacks transparency and accountability…not open to scrutiny by public or journalists.

SPVs are dodgy accountancy vehicles used by Enron and Worldcom to hide funds. At their most basic, they just move numbers from a public spreadsheet to one that’s encrypted with a password. Has a Wizard of Oz feel to it: “Don’t look behind that curtain, there’s nothing there”. This does not really give you confidence in their overall purpose does it? International investors will not be fooled.

The shares in these SPVs will be held by 49% by NAMA and 51% private investors. So, who will own the majority shareholding of the SPVs – banks, pension funds, developers – and will their interests be in the public interest? Doubtful. A potential conflict of interest? Most certainly.

2. Valuations: prices to be paid by government for bad bank loans is out of whack with reality and it increases the risk of reinflating the property bubble. As a commercial entity, it seems strange that NAMA would buy property at more than it’s worth. It’s a bit like a business owner going into an auto showroom, looking at price tag and saying: “I’ll pay you 30% over the sales price” for that transit van. It does not make commercial sense.

3. Risk sharing: this is the really scary thing. The risk is still on us, the taxpayers – not on the risk aware shareholders who bought the stocks or the experienced bondholders – who were unaware of the gamble they were taking by electing a government who “looked the other way” when developers, business people and bankers were gambling BIG MONEY using risky derivatives called CFDs. Our regulator was like Homer Simpson at the controls of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.. snoring away. (See Lessons from the D’Oh School of Economics” on this blog)

4. Cost: a huge burden is being placed on every taxpayer to fund this open-ended money pit. Our services will be cut and our children forced to emigrate – once again – to find work. Is it really worth the price? There ARE other, quicker, ways to get the economy moving.

5. Transparency: Where is it? Nama is getting muddier, and more complex, by the day. If you can’t explain something clearly then it’s possible you’re either trying to hide something or do not understand it yourself. Either way, it’s not a good governance strategy.

6. Time: will it take a generation to unwind? What does that mean for our health as a nation?

7. Teeth/ Consequences:  will Nama take a tough enough line on valuations and developers? This is crucial. Will any property developer, banker go to jail, go broke, etc. as a result of NAMA actions.

8. Money, money, money: the banks do not have enough money in the coffers, or capital. What capital ratios are banks are obliged to have now and in the future? (The capital ratio is the percentage of a bank’s cash on hand to its risk-weighted assets, or the stuff they have that can be converted into cash.)

9. Future funding: Will Nama lead to a large shareholding in the main banks if they can’t raise private equity? They have no cash.

10. Cash flow: The biggest question of all – since it’s the purpose of Nama – how EXACTLY will it lead to more money flowing to businesses?

11. Supervision: Who will set and monitor the costs for running NAMA – including consultants’ professional fees – to ensure value for money, transparency, accountability? Will it be the Comptroller & Auditor General, Irish accountancy firms or independent international audit companies?

12. Stability: will NAMA force banks to split in two – commercial and investment – to ensure no bank is “too big to fail” ever again? A purely commercial bank focuses on consumers’ needs and ensures good lending practices. Investment banks can take all risks – and the consequences good and bad – without jeopardising the economy.

Paul A. Volker, former Federal Reserve chairman who is also one of the architects of Obama’s economic strategies thinks this is essential for the recovery and stability of the US financial system.

13. Control: Will NAMA give the government more, or less, control? The government is seems currently unable to force bankers, developers to pay back funds, face criminal charges, hand back bonuses… so will NAMA give them more control over those issues than partial, short-term nationalisation?

14. Future stability: In future, will banks be forced to save a certain percentage of all deposits/ funds in their coffers (”fractional reasoning” – usually 13%) before they invest/loan the rest? Usually, when they take in €100 they keep €13 rainy day money and loan out of invest the €87. At height of boom they lent/ invested ALL of it, leaving the vaults empty. Now they are borrowing money so they have something in the vaults when the government, and international observers, comes for a look-see.

15. Regulation: Will NAMA suggest new regulations to ensure this mess cannot happen again? Is this in its remit or will lessons be lost due to “gagging” clause?

US regulators may be given power to take over failing firms that pose a risk to the entire financial system and unwind the firm’s derivatives contracts, pay the parties less than what they’re owed, or transfer the contracts to another, healthy financial firm.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/03/new-too-big-to-fail-bill_n_343818.html

16. Accountability: why aren’t the boards of the banks gone? Will NAMA have any power to force out those who were on boards at time of reckless lending? Why are we still funding Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide? They are not of systemic importance to the economy.

17. Conflicts of interest: the people needed to do the NAMA job are property, banking and legal experts yet they have the most to gain. How can conflicts of interest be avoided?

Interesting issues raised by others:
Complexity: Hugely complex project management/ organisation challenge faces Nama valuers: http://www.garrymiley.com/2009/07/31/WhatIsTheStars.aspx

Secrecy/ Gagging clause: “hope you cover the clause forbidding NAMA from criticising govt. A corollary of blasphemy prohibition?!” From a tweet to @marklittlenews.

Please add your views here….

The “Too Big To Fail” legislation currently being debated by a House committee has been widely criticized as toothless. But one provision gives the federal government a powerful mechanism to prevent another implosion like the one that launched the current financial crisis.

The bill, which would give the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation the power to take over failing firms that pose a risk to the entire financial system, gives the FDIC the authority to repudiate the firm’s derivatives contracts, pay the parties less than what they’re owed, or transfer the contracts to another, healthy financial firm.

Perhaps most importantly, the FDIC would have the authority to delay the parties from closing out their contracts and taking their money with them. That’s part of the reason why the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy announcement caused the financial markets to crash, and it’s what helped bring about the demise of the 158-year-old investment firm — everyone wanted to get their money out before it was too late….more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/03/new-too-big-to-fail-bill_n_343818.html

 The combined forces of slashed communications budgets, job cuts and a renewed focus on the competition have many firms in a panic looking for the next cost-effective tool. But, it’s like your mother always said: “Would you jump off a bridge just because John is doing it?”

Checking the top and bottom togs
Blogging is a simple, inexpensive way to share information with colleagues and employees. The author simply types up the message, posts it online and readers take a look. Blog messages can be top-down (nothing to do with convertible cars) or bottom-up (definitely not associated with after work drinks).

Internally, executives often use top-down blogs to communicate strategy, announcements or company status and to build team spirit within an organisation. Bottom-up messages are more community spirited and can be written by anyone from managers and project coordinators to new recruits. 

When done properly, blogs can actually replace the thousands of screaming “urgent” and “important” emails that employees ignore each day. Ideally, in-house blogs are a corporate collective brain housing memories of experiences, events, lessons learned, successes, failures and general information.  

Blogs have many benefits — from project management, team building and communication to idea development and knowledge sharing — but they need to be developed using realistic strategic thinking.

Hot or cold audience?
Corporate culture is a very specific thing. It trickles down from the top and is often based on leaders’ personalities: formal/ informal, jargon-happy or straight-talking, conservative or experimental, old or young, technology competent or newbie.

Leaders who are secretive, formal and unwilling to share details on the inner workings of the organisation are unsuitable candidates for a blog. Blogs should be open, honest, interactive conversations that invite comment. They’re more like a roundtable discussion than a passive lecture.

Shallow or deep purpose?
Good communications have specific objectives and blogs are no exception. They can be a short, sharp information tool. This might include a blog that reports – in an interesting way – on the progress of a short-term project or goal. Or it could be a HR blog that acts as an internal bulletin board or the “what’s on?” section of a newspaper. However, these blogs will struggle to attract repeat readers unless they are written in an entertaining way and provide information that’s important to the audience.

Deeper blogs need short, medium and long-term goals. Maybe a newly appointed CEO needs to raise her internal profile or a manager needs to bring together diverse teams?  Blogs like this must be carefully planned and constructed to ensure they get results.

Taking the plunge: top tips
1. Know the blog’s purpose. Internal corporate blogs should be linked to specific corporate strategic goals. Don’t just start a blog because it’s the new technology, someone thinks it’s a brilliant idea or because your competitor is doing it. Your blog must have a focus and a strategic communications purpose.

2. Find and maintain a voice. Blogs must have a recognisable human voice. Although some internal blogs are ghost-written by marketing staff on behalf of an executive, it’s important that they use the “real” voice of this person. Authors should think like a speechwriter: follow the person around for a day or two taking notes of their turns of phrase and speaking patterns.

3. Be open and transparent. Blogs are designed to be interactive so you should invite comments. It’s essential that the blog responds to, or manages, both positive and negative reader opinions. If it does not address the hard questions, it loses all credibility.

4. Have clear terms and conditions. Blogs are not a free for all. They’re a place for controlled but open discussions. Develop clear written policies on anonymous or defamatory postings and stick to them.

5. Be timely. You can’t expect staff to keep checking the blog hoping that something new has appeared. Announce your publication dates and stick to them.    

6. Plan, plan, plan. Although corporate blogs might seem like a few informal scribblings written when the author has a few spare minutes, they’re definitely not. A good blog is a strategic corporate communication that is planned to within an inch of its life. All good writing takes time, planning and effort.

It’s ok if you don’t have an internal blog. They’re not for everyone or every company. Some people never learn to swim and, for them, there should be no shame in being wise enough to get the towel and go home.

Margaret E. Ward is managing director of Clear Ink, the Clear English specialists, and a blogger www.stronglanguage.ie.

Critics say the new rules are yet another example of a head-in-the-sand approach by regulators, pointing to the relaxed accounting standards last year that enabled banks to avoid marking the value of the loans down. This is doing long-term damage to the economy, they say, because it ties up bank capital, preventing them from resuming lending.

Critics say a wiser approach would be for regulators and banks to deal with problems quickly like the Resolution Trust Corp. did in the early 1990s during the last commercial real-estate crash. Back then, the RTC helped purge the financial system of toxic mortgages”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125694507086819833.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us