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 Catching up on a world of change
Wednesday, 5th September 2012
By
Robin Neidorf
Abstract:
Global events provide a context for observing the scope of change in the information world: Social media was an essential component of coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, unlike the Beijing Olympics only 4 years before. FreePint Reports published this month provide a similar opportunity to step back from the busy desktop and consider the full range of tools that impact how we go about research, news and media monitoring, and gathering intelligence about this world around us.
Article:
If you put a frog in a pan of boiling water, it hops out right away. If you put a frog in a pan of water and slowly bring it to a boil... poached frog.
In other words, it's hard to notice even important changes when they're taking place slowly, all around you.
That's one reason why global events like the Olympics provide a useful framework for seeing the impact of incremental changes over time. The 2012 London Olympics were the first games to be covered comprehensively by social media. In fact, some elements of the Games were directly affected by social media, as James Mullan points out in his recent article. It's a marked contrast to coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in which social media played a minor if any role at all.
The impact of new tools and technologies on research, news coverage and media monitoring is dramatic and comprehensive. Yet from the perspective of a busy desktop, it's hard to sort out what's important and what's merely noise. FreePint Subscribers get the benefit of three new reports published last week:
Amongst them, these three reports provide 130 pages of guidance and perspective - a chance to step back from the day-to-day and consider the wider impact of incremental change on our profession.
FreePint Subscribers have immediate access to these and other articles and reports to help them keep track of their fast-changing environment, and avoid discovering themselves in hot water.
If you're not yet a subscriber, start the process by asking "How Can FreePint Help?" I personally review every submission, and I look forward to hearing from you.
By Robin Neidorf
Robin has been working with FreePint since 2004, and, since joining full time in 2006, is responsible for strategic planning, product development, relationship management, research and communications. She currently heads the FreePint Research division.
Robin Neidorf ran a research and communications consulting business for 10 years, prior to joining Free Pint Limited. As a consultant, she focused on strategic planning, using information to make better decisions, and creating effective audience-focused communications across different media.
Robin has worked with a wide range of organisations in the for-profit and non-profit sector. She has developed online communities, publications and distance learning modules for a range of business purposes. She is the author of Teach Beyond Your Reach: An instructor's guide to developing and running successful distance learning classes, workshops, training sessions and more (second edition, Cyber Age, 2012) and the co-author of E-Merchant: Retail Strategies for e-Commerce (Addison-Wesley, 2001).
Robin can be reached at robin.neidorf@freepint.com
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