At last year’s general election, less than two-thirds of the public actually turned out to vote. Even worse, from 18 to 24 year old bracket only 37 per cent of them bothered to dis-attach their headphones, power down their PC’s and put down their beers long enough to help decide upon their future government.

Which brings me onto my main point – surely if there’s money to be invested then the best outlet would be implementing an e-voting option? With many UK counties trialing online voter registration and the recent online Census option, surely the security risks could be mitigated with the best-in-class technology?

I recently heard a statistic that 98% of people that “like” a business Facebook page will then never engage with it. So what’s the issue – the platform or the business? Should businesses just steer clear, or fundamentally change the way they engage with users?

Quick office poll shows that our top three fave organisations on Facebook are:

www.facebook.com/bbcbreakfast

www.facebook.com/Google

www.facebook.com/clinique

So what are they doing well? Most importantly they seem to be asking questions and tailoring content to talk to users as individuals – rather than spamming them with marketing messages.

With proclamations from Mr Zuckerberg that Facebook is the website killer, not to mention social media gurus advising that investment should be directed into fostering communities and brand advocates through the likes of Facebook… It looks like our generation will be witness to a huge change in the way businesses talk to their customers. Power to the people and all that

Well, it looks like the title of my previous blog, “The sky is the limit for cloud computing!” was quite prophetic, with rumours abound this morning that BSkyB is reportedly going to buy The Cloud!

And it looks set to be a pretty good investment, what with Gartner’s report on Friday citing that cloud computing will be a top technology priority for CIOs in 2011.

There really is massive excitement around all internet service-based technologies – definitely an area to watch this year!

P.s. See what I did with the picture – Sky/ Cloud… Clever, no? I’ll get my coat

Photo by Flickr user jimflix!, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

With 2011 looking set to be the real year for cloud computing, not least because great oracle Gartner has predicted that the total global revenue for 2011 cloud services will be up 19 % to $81.3bn, here at Speed we are hitting pitch-a-mania as it tops the journalist agenda across the board.

With that in mind, I took it upon myself to help my fellow Speedsters exorcise their cloud computing PR punning demons, lest they creep into any client collateral! Favourites below… Let’s take bets on how many will be hitting the headlines this year:

• Get your head out of the clouds
• Blue sky thinking for cloud computing
• It doesn’t have to be a cloudy day with SaaS
• Clearing the fog around cloud computing
• Is your cloud computing strategy up in the air?
• Don’t let SaaS cloud your judgement

• You’ll be on cloud9 with {insert client name}
• Never a rainy day with cloud computing

And the best…

• Do you only have nebulous idea about cloud computing?

Photo by Flickr user Extra Medium, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“BBC seeks older female newsreader”

Remorse over Arlene aside, it sends out totally the wrong message. It looks like the BBC is looking to up its old biddy and women quota, in order to appease grouchy viewers.

This positive discrimination approach is rife across the UK. I also saw it at a recent Girl Geek Dinner gathering, whereby some die-hard feminists were complaining that women were discriminated against in technology and there should be more jobs open to them…

Now I for one do NOT want businesses to feel pushed into employing women over men. In my opinion, it should always be the best person for the job. These whiny women are doing the rest of us a disservice, because quite frankly, when I get to the top I don’t want anyone tarnishing my achievement by claiming it was easier for me to get there… I want my success to be my own!

Joking aside, it’s interesting to see exactly how much competition exists between the two social networks, especially given the news that Twitter has expanded its terms of service to allow advertising on the site.

Facebook is currently the world’s largest social networking site with 200 million users, but Twitter is fast catching up with 44.5 million users  and 15-fold  growth  year-on-year.

Let the fight continue…

That also makes it the perfect election topic. The Conservatives were on quite a roll with their NHS-bashing “we’ll just rip it all out because it smells of Labour” manifesto. Until now.

Turns out there’s something we Brits do better than moan: we look after our own. As soon as the  Americans  started bashing the NHS, all our hitherto grumbles were forgotten and replaced with big fat NATIONAL PRIDE. Akin to our kids and parents, we can say what we want but everyone else can just keep their big mouths shut.

All thoughts over over-investment; under-delivery; waiting lists and postcode lotteries were cast aside as a distant memory. Instead we started joining Twitter groups to talk about the beautiful institution that is our wonderful National Health Service  – check out the #welovethenhs stream .

In fact, it’s been so successful at resurrecting some NHS love that I’m getting a little suspicious that there may have been some underhand PR wizardy at play… Thoughts on a postcard please ;o)

Every PR company has their own name for it: news-jacking, issue jumping, trend tagging – but let’s be fair, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet ;o) Any PR worth their salt is like a raved dog when an issue breaks and they want to get in first with their client comment.

I mention this because sometimes I see examples in the media that can only be described as shameless and I am rather annoyed I didn’t think of them.

The most recent and, in my humble opinion, FABULOUS example was by accountancy firm Baker Tilly that jumped on the release of the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and worked out that Hogwarts wouldn’t be able to retain its status as a charitable independent school without offering almost £1m in bursaries to disadvantaged magic folk.

Its fun, interesting & refreshingly NOT about the “current economic climate.” Pure genius!

As a blogger myself my answer has to be no. I also write news, features and other content for online and print only magazines – and I still feel comfortable with blogs. I think the difference lies in ‘free’ blogs that you can sign yourself up for via Blogger.com or other similar sites and those that are branded as part of an established publishing organisation. If someone beats you to a story with an unknown blog then it’s not a big deal. If someone beats you via a recognised media channel then it should be a wake up call.

How much do you use blogs to source news stories verses PRs?

That’s a tough question. I might guess at it and say it’s 50:50. But there are other factors to consider too. There are personal interest areas, there’s contact from people that you know and then there’s a variety of other social networks that also carry news ideas.

Have you ever sourced a news story via Twitter?

I don’t know if ‘sourced’ is the right word. I have researched, discussed, been inspired by and finally promoted my own stories on Twitter. Put simply, Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread, but I think it’s more important for freelancers like myself than staffers.

Do you prefer Twitter for personal or professional communications?

I never use Twitter for personal communication. For me it is a hard-core communication tool for professional use only. I don’t swear either.

Did you have a favourite tech story in 2008?

That’s just too hard to pin down. I would probably say that anything by Adobe ranks fairly high on my scale. The release of Creative Suite 4 made my life so much easier, it’s a superb product.

What do you think will be the hottest tech issue in 2009?

Delivery of optimised virtually hosted desktop application infrastructure. Well, you did ask – so I thought I’d be specific.

What is the worst PR pitch you have ever had?

I actually used to be in PR and I am quite open about that. So I may be slightly more sympathetic to the idiocy of putting a junior on the phone to ‘sell in’ stories by reading a script out over the phone. My favourite howlers mostly lie in the construction and holiday homes field when people pitch me their ‘developer’ stories and haven’t taken the trouble to work out that I cover ‘software developer’ issues.