I think we all get that feeling that the rest of the world has gone completely mad. When we are sitting in meetings listening to the boss tell us he’s installing artificial darkness generators to combat the automatic lights.
I find that in my work life I often think to myself that the way people are tackling a situation is completely bonkers, and over my time with the IEC I’ve learnt that thinking like that can be a very dangerous thing. An experience recently has made me think that when people are being bonkers its usually that I just don’t have a good handle on what I think of situation.
Recently I have had a ‘is everybody bonkers’ experience around web analytics in CETIS. The funny thing about web analytics is that they mean something different to whoever is looking at them. The web developer, CEO, comms coordinator and blog poster will all have a different view on what the stats mean and how they can help them.
While thinking about web analytics I went to an online event organized by UKLON and yesterday a blogpost written by the same people was sent round internally. The post highlighted that most people come to the blog through twitter rather than Google, and then in bold stated:
“The conclusion I have reached: most people now view posts on this blog following alerts they have come across on Twitter rather than via a Google search or by subscribing to the blog’s RSS feed. Or, to put it more succinctly, social search is beating Google and RSS.”
‘BONKERS!’ I thought. Of course if you have a highly active twitter account, your going to get more traffic that way and any decisions on organisation structure based around that is recursive feedback. Twitter won’t last forever, have people really forgot about the Digg effort? Hasn’t Google strategy for the past year been to move in the social search direction? I consoled in the fact the article was written by somebody who fiercely argued android would never catch on…
But of course the statement isn’t bonkers. It’s correct. He clearly is getting more hits through twitter and this information means something to him. Am I the bonkers one? No, we just have different opinions and in fact a problem lies in the fact that my opinions that haven’t formed yet. This reminds me of my pet hate in IEC meetings, the phrase “you are half right”. I think I should remember when we think things are bonkers. Are they bonkers, or do I just not know what I think yet.
Will stop wittering on.
0 Comments