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After much thought I have decided that the Open Eye Blog needs a new direction.
Over the last few years the blog creation process was essentially about something noteworthy catching my eye, me digesting it, coming to a view and writing about it. In short an old fashioned creative process that took a lot of time and only really allowed me to focus on a few key things.
However, the communications world and the technology that supports it, has changed considerably over the last couple of years and a faster, more nimble, more eclectic approach to publishing is now possible. Great iPad tools such as storify.com enable not only searching and clipping across platforms such as twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube and google, but Storify also enables web clipping from any online source and ‘drag and drop’ copy building.
Secondly, the information available to me and the way that I can access it has also changed considerably. Great apps such as Flipboard provide me with the content that I’m interested in, and deliver it to me in the way that I want and at a time that I want. This improved search funnel provides me with a much richer vein of relevant material to bring to you.
Thirdly, the way that I work has changed. One of the buzz words of the moment is ‘content curation‘ which, according to Google, is ‘essentially the organising and sharing (some might even say ‘repackaging’) of content in ways that are meaningful to a specific target audience’.
I am an active twitter user (follow me at twitter.com/openeyecomms) and every day I curate and share information that I think is relevant and meaningful to my followers and to this particular niche. The problem for me has been that most of my twitter followers aren’t subscribers to the blog and most of my blog subscribers (roughly 1,000 of you) don’t follow me on Twitter. therefore I have two largely separate audiences to service with information and, hands up, in building my twitter follower base (I like the immediacy and it’s one of the best real time search engines there is) I have neglected the blog because it takes considerably more time to do.
Fourth. Overwhelmingly most of you who subscribe to my blog do so by email. In the past this has meant that I have had to write with email in mind and largely without being able to include so much of the really great multimedia web based content that is available to me.
Fifth. Most forces now have desktop web access rolled out to all staff. In the past this wasn’t the case. So the capability of you the reader has changed too.
Taking all the points together, I have come to the conclusion that maintaing the current way of doing things is not really sustainable anymore.
If I want to retain your interest and support, and I do! (an increasingly difficult task in a world of multiple channels and limited time) then I am going to have to change the game and step up the pace.
What all this is leading up to is a new style of Open Eye Blog that brings with it a change of content material (more video, twitter clips, images) drawn from across all the sources and more frequently updated. More of a focus on providing multimedia information and less of a focus on what works in an email delivery environment.
Changing things is a big risk. I will stay focused on the issues and style of stories that you have found relevant and useful over the last five years or so and I hope that you will stay with me.
Let me know if you have (or foresee problems) with the delivery of the new style blog updates to you. Remember: if you can’t get it at work because of internet access issues, you can always sign up at home!
As always, it would be great to hear your views and feedback. Message me on twitter.com/openeyecomms or email me mike@openeyecommunications.com (and don’t forget to pass this on to someone you think may find the blog useful).
Oh, one last thing. Don’t forget that toplical and relevant Government and agency reports are still regularly uploaded to the Open Eye Communications website. Go check them out.
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