Within Lucindigo my main focus is looking at digital media shift. A shift in traditional methods, with these methods developing and changing as new technologies come into existence to make processes and products better. I believe a great hindrance to moving forward (shift) in a positive way with adoption of digital media & new web technologies is that of habit (individual) or cultural tendency (organisational) around doing things the way we always have done.

A question that comes to my mind is how often should we analyse our processes or “the way we do it here?”

I am by no means saying processes are bad, just saying that in the majority of cases for ease (and so things can get done) they are probably not “audited” regularly enough. In many cases this audit may unveil new methods that make established processes much more productive and efficient. It may uncover new software/tools that make your end product much more visually hot. Of course there are a great deal of other benefits that can pay huge dividends to organisations for taking the time to audit and then the next step, to learn and adopt these new technologies.

Example 1 - A key example would be tapping into and building a presence in social media channels. I saw a new position description recently that most certainly didn’t exist 5, probably not 1 year ago - and that was for an “Online community manager.” The role of this person is to do just that, create and manage the businesses online personality; how the business interacts and positions itself within the community and controlling the information it provides about itself. Here is another definition here called “Social media relations”

The businesses offering these roles must have done just that, an environmental and internal audit, and realised that “the way they do it here” needed to evolve. I guess this applies right across the board, with value to be gained in different areas within all industries and then broken down further to specific roles.

Example 2 - Another example that springs to mind is that of press releases. First, read these rants from Tom Foremski that started it off. Then look at this proposed template created by Shift Communications here.This is v1 of their template, they are going to put out a v2 with feedback and new tech developments included in the near future.

Would be really interesting to know the increased distribution channels and readership numbers for those that adopt this new format of press release compared to a traditional press release. Also whether this method still hits the right targets, as in the realm of press releases the right eyeballs is often a much more important than the number of eyeballs.

Will look into this more and post a follow up soon.