ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Fraud prevention service CIFAS slips up on member details

This afternoon I received two emails from CIFAS the UK's fraud prevention service entitled 'Your personal data held by CIFAS'. In the emails I found the name and contact details of a CIFAS member.

Oops.

I then received this email from CIFAS head of communications Kate Beddington-Brown . . .

I am writing to apologise that a mailing error has caused emails to be sent to you with another individual’s work contact details within the body of the text.  If you have recently received an email from CIFAS with the subject line “Your personal data held by CIFAS”, then please delete it from your system.

The work contact details that were included in error in these emails were limited to three individuals who were on our mailing list.  These three individuals have been contacted and we have taken the necessary steps to rectify the situation.

I can categorically state that your details have not been shared or compromised and confirm that your own work contact details have not been sent to anyone.

Please accept our sincere apologies for this situation which we are taking very seriously.

I tried to call Kate to ask what had happened and how many people received the emails in error. Got the answerphone and no one is in until tomorrow.

I await the response, but of all the organisations to  send out such an email . . .

Video: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on future of journalism

Alan Rusbridger on the Future of Journalism from Carta on Vimeo.

Really interesting video from The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger as part of an interview (in German) 

Don't judge success on what you did yesterday

Was reading this piece on regional theatre last night and was delighted to find out how good the theatre scene is supposed to be in Bristol as it is just down the road from where I live.

Aside from developments on stage, I was struck by this quote from Bristol Old Vic's new executive director Emma Stenning on how theatres are reinventing themselves.

Stenning says that too many theatres believe planning a business means "deciding today what they are going to do tomorrow. Theatres are then encouraged to judge their success or failure on whether they actually did what had been decided. A more useful way to plan is to build an organisation that has the flexibility to respond to good ideas. The trick is to keep the organisation very nimble. We will run every project as if it is its own small business".

It's a very important point about how organisations judge their success. And how they stay 'nimble'.

Video: 40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes

Thanks to @Emmamaier for pointing me in the direction of this site. I like the video cut by Matthew Belinkie at overthinkingit.com. Lots of men delivering speeches . . .

The death of local journalism debate

Interesting discussion sparked by Henry Winter. Lots of good comments. Seriously, how great are local papers?

Where do journalists add value?

Second question of the week - this one posed by Jeff Jarvis in an excellent post. I hope Jeff manages to do the kind of audit of legacy news sytems he mentions.

I liked the following advice . . . 

Every minute of a journalist’s time will need to go to adding unique value to the news ecosystem: reporting, curating, organizing. This efficiency is necessitated by the reduction of resources. But it is also a product of the link and search economy: The only way to stand out is to add unique value and quality. My advice in the past has been: If you can’t imagine why someone would link to what you’re doing, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. And: Do what you do best and link to the rest. The link economy is ruthless in judging value.

Journalists: what are you doing differently?

Had a good chat with Lindsay, (maternity cover) content manager at roadtransport.com, about how the media is changing. One thing that he mentioned was for the need for journalists to be able to do things differently now that we have so many different ways of publishing, sharing and recommending content. It is an obvious thing to say and also a very good question to ask yourself.

If the answer is nothing, then it is time to act . . .  

What would you rather look at - map or hundreds of words?

Thanks to @twblog for pointing out this Travel Weekly article on travel writer Simon Calder's favourite emerging destinations.

Nathan our web editor (that's @twblog, by the way) has run the article in its entirety but has also done a Google maps mash-up  highlighting the relevant countries and Simon Calder's thoughts from the article.

The fact we have both map and words in the same article make for a great comparison. My view is that the map is so much more appealing than the long article. Maybe we lose out on keyword impact by cutting words for the map but visually we gain so much more.

This is a great example of what journalists are having to grapple with right now. The skill is to be able to use maps and words to create a really powerful and interactive piece of content.

UK budget 2009 - skills and training pledges

UK budget speech in full but here are the skills/training related points.

• Additional £1.7bn of funding for Job Centre Plus and the New Deal

• From January 2010, everyone under the age of 25, who has been out of work for 12 months, will be offered a job or a place in training. Those in work will receive a wage. Those in training will receive additional money on top of their benefits.

• Create or support as many as 250,000 jobs. This will include delivering local services, traineeships in social care, and other high demand sectors – as well as jobs for people of all ages in particularly badly hit communities.

• £260m of new money, for training and subsidies to help them get the skills or experience needed in sectors with strong future demand.

• We will also be providing extra investment, to ensure we deliver on our guarantee that every 16 and 17 year old who wants to stay in education or training can do so.

• Extra £250m this year and £400m in 2010-11 to deliver on government guarantee that every 16 and 17 year old who wants to stay in education or training can do so

• 54,000 new places, in sixth forms and further education colleges, for students in the next academic year.

The need for quality journalism

Felt inspired to post something on the Wall Street Journal story about the number of bloggers in the US after reading this post by Patricio Robles at econsultancy.

In paerticular, I liked the Patricio's use of a Mark Twain quote. In fact, i agree with the last section of his post so here it is . . . 

When Mark Twain wrote "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes", he certainly never envisioned the internet.

Tragically, thanks to the otherwise wonderful power of internet distribution, a lie can travel around the world while the truth is still looking for its shoes. That means that journalists of all types have a greater moral obligation today than they ever have.

There's no doubt in my mind that civilized society can't thrive without the institution of journalism. But flimsy reporting, weak editorial oversight and a 'report first, think last' mentality aren't going to cut it, no matter which 'media' carries the torch of journalism forward into the 21st century.