This is no ordinary lady I am talking about, this is tallship Thalassa. Named after the Greek sea goddess of the same name, the daughter of Aether and Hemera, the tallship is rigged in a traditional three masted style. The sight of this beautiful ship coming to rest gracefully onto the jetty at North Greenwich Wharf filled me with anticipation and joy.

The trip from Greenwich to Tower Bridge and back again had been organised by LondonLaunch and I had been lucky enough to fluke my way onto the VIP list, along with my partner Laura Andrew. I’ll be honest with you, Laura is not quite as home on the water as am I and had admitted previously that she was nervous about the cruise. She needn’t have worried because the minute she set foot on the Thalassa she relaxed totally as, I think, did all the guests aboard that evening. It’s my very personal experience that many vessels have that effect on people and Thalassa is certainly one of them.

Once aboard the crew began serving drinks and nibbles and the party was immediately in full swing. However, I wasn’t there for a knees up and quickly abandoned Laura with her glass of wine to make my way up to the wheelhouse. I’m most comfortable at or near the helm of a boat and so I asked the crew if I might join them on the bridge. To my surprise and delight they replied “yes, of course” in their wonderful Dutch accents. I was in the best seat in the house, surrounded by sumptuous wood panelling, state-of-the-art instrumentation and all with a magnificent view of the ship, the Thames and London. I sent a text to Laura and she soon joined me and the crew on the bridge. From there we enjoyed a fabulous three hour cruise chatting to the ship’s master (owner), the first mate and the other crew members.

I felt so at home up there as we cruised the old girl smoothly up the Thames. From this privileged vantage point I listened to the fascinating radio chatter as the various ships and boats on the Thames kept in contact with each other and the Port of London Authority to ensure safe navigation. The Thames Clippers, the fast passenger service, were constantly zipping past the Thalassa. Each time they came by they first radioed the skipper to check it was ok to pass and to inform him of their intentions. The talk was polite but businesslike. Conversation was minimal to keep the radio channel free and yet it was always extremely courteous and good natured. This radio talk is specifically designed to ensure the safety of all river users. I couldn’t help wishing that the same spirit of courtesy and collaboration was present on the capital’s roads, instead of the bad tempered and sometimes lethal combat that is currently in place on them. After all, safety is just as important on the road as on any river.

We headed back to Greenwich as the cruise drew to an end and I asked the skipper if this was the part he liked least. Manoeuvring 48 metres of steel tallship on a very blustery day with the winds swirling randomly around between the buildings is no easy task, and it’s made harder still by the presence of the Thames Clippers as they nipped on and off the pier at Greenwich. The skipper is responsible for the safety of the passengers both on the Thalassa and the Thames Clippers. The answer he gave was simply brilliant: “No, I love this part because it is like dancing with her.” And it was quite a dance. Graceful, with difficult steps and performed by two experts. It was an amazing end to an unforgettable journey and has totally changed the way I feel about doing tricky manoeuvres aboard my own boat in difficult conditions. In future, when the going gets tough, I’ll just slip on my dancing shoes and relax into the task.

The evening aboard Thalassa proved to be one of the best of my entire life. My only problem now is where to find the money to buy such a ship for myself. I want an ocean going ship, a beautiful one like the Thalassa so bad I know it is going to hurt, and hurt bad, until I get one.

Now where did I put the deeds to my soul and the Devil’s personal phone number…

For more information about tall ships on the Thames please visit:
http://www.sailroyalgreenwich.co.uk/

Being found – and thus heard – on twitter means being both person and twitter search friendly and to do that you must obey certain rules and conventions. Cross these lines and not only will people stop listening to you but twitter search will drive you down the search rankings into the pit of oblivion. Here are a few pointers to help keep you out of the pit.

Be real

Twitter is a very human environment full of real interactions between real people. Sadly, it is also inhabited by hordes of robots busy following people and posting tweets. While using auto-posting and auto-following apps might seem like a great way to lower your twitter workload they are very much frowned upon by twitter’s search algorithms. If they see you following and unfollowing people by the score on a daily basis they’ll assume you are gaming the numbers and it’s to the pit you go. The same goes for repeatedly posting the same links or tweets, and word on the street is that tweets sent using auto-scheduling are given less weight than tweets sent manually by real people. Not only are these practices frowned upon by the search engine but you’ll find they’re not popular with real people on twitter either – and they are your target audience. Build up a follow/follower list organically and make an effort to send your tweets manually rather than automatically. If you are greeting new followers with an auto-DM that pushes a link at them, stop it now. I recently did a straw-poll on twitter about this practice and almost every single respondent said they instantly unfollow anyone who uses this technique. It’s just not personal enough for twitter so stop it now!

Be complete

Twitter’s search favours those with completed profiles. Make sure you fill in all the details and add a photo – people on twitter really don’t like to converse with an egg (the default twitter avatar). If you are a person, then please upload a picture of you – not your dog, baby or favourite view. I keep saying this but twitter is personal and people really do like to see who it is they are talking to.

Be social

Twitter is about interactions. While lurking is fine if you just want to read and learn, it won’t help you if you are trying to promote yourself or your products. While twitter’s search frowns upon repeats it does like activity. Try and post updates at least daily and always answer tweets directed at you (known as mentions or @replies). Try to think of twitter as a cocktail party where anyone’s invited. You’re free to talk to anyone and should rightly expect an answer, even if it is a polite no thank you. The same goes the other way, if someone starts a conversation with you then make the effort to engage them. It’s good for your reputation (as measured by apps such as Kred or Klout) and it’s good for your search position.

Be nice

I keep saying it, don’t I, but twitter is personal. Once again the cocktail party analogy serves us here. Be nice and treat people with respect and good manners. Remember and abide by normal social etiquette. For instance, would you walk into a party and shout: “Hey, I’m a twitter ninja and can help your business succeed!” – No, and if you did you’ll find it very hard to engage anyone in conversation and you certainly won’t get a single new customer this way. Instead, be subtle, be interesting and be polite.

Be Positive

Don’t moan too much, be positive. Many people seem to use twitter to tell us about their latest illness or personal problems. A little bit of this is ok, twitter can be a great support network. But if you are constantly moaning and griping people will quickly tune out and this will not serve your mission well.

Be generous

If there’s one thing that will help you raise your profile and get noticed on twitter faster than anything else it’s good content. Posting links to your own photos and blog articles is an effective way to drive traffic to your content but it’ll work even better if you also share other people’s great content. The more interesting, inspirational and useful your shared links are, the more likely people are to click through to your own content.

The iRun brings together all this hi-tech kit and mounts it to various frames and holders hung around his neck – and even worn on his head as a hat. It’s a lot of stuff to carry but it allows him to record and live stream videos, track his runs using GPS and even send tweets. Sending tweets involves a text to speech method that actually relies on someone in an office somewhere typing out his dictated tweets. That’s perhaps not the most hi-tech part of the operation but there are still not many good speech to text twitter clients around.
Yes, Joseph is a bit of an Apple fanboy. So much so he’s even used GPS tracking to run a course in the shape of an Apple through Tokyo.  He did this as a tribute to Steve Jobs when he resigned from his post as CEO of Apple. Just a few months after completing the run Jobs died, making the tribute even more poignant. He posted it on the web and it went instantly viral.
As well as running the Apple, Joseph has also completed a run in the shape of a bear for the city of Berne. I wonder what shape would be suitable for London, Olympic rings?
Speaking to Joseph it’s obvious that his enthusiasm and desire to do good is what’s driving him to complete marathons with several kilos of tech hanging around his neck. The weight of all that equipment means that even though he’s an accomplished runner he’s now taking over six hours to complete a marathon!
He’s certainly not driven by money as all this is done in his spare time, normally he works in video production back in Tokyo – his adopted home city. I hope that Joseph finds a way of monetizing his exploits with the iRun, I’m sure there must be plenty of opportunities out there for him to do so. For now though he’ll have to carry on doing his day job and raising thousands of pounds for charity. But who knows what the future holds for him – great things I hope.

http://josephta.me/

Email, Dropbox, WordPress, the cloud and social media – they have all become deeply embedded in a journalist’s working life. There was once a time when simple things like fact checking, getting quotes and contacting sources involved dictionaries (printed on paper) telephones and even time in the pub. Now we can use the web for all of these operations and we can do it all instantly. At least we can if the internet connection is there.

Take away that internet connection and the modern methodology falls apart very quickly. Worse still is that the old ways of doing things, while still valid, just don’t work anymore – or at least not as quickly. We’ve become addicted to this constant connection. We can’t manage without it.

Here at Le Web in Paris the wi-fi is problematical, sometimes it works but more often it won’t. Uploading text is hard enough, getting pictures and video online can be a real chore. The result is we feel disconnected from our lifeline, our work is fractured. We fret and moan that we can’t do our work properly, or quickly enough.

The connectivity we’ve grown up to depend on is now vital to our operation. Take it away and we flounder like a fish out of water.

There’s two morals to this story. The first is that organisers of events MUST pay more attention (and even dedicate more of their budget) to the connectivity issue. Inviting journalists and bloggers and then not giving them their usual route to their audience is counter productive.

The second moral of the story is that the way we are doing things is constantly changing and turning back the hands of time is impossible. Modern journalism depends on our ability to connect to the wider world, preferably instantly. And, having done this job in the non-connected era I can assure you that we are indeed, better connected.

I’m writing at #LeWeb, where Renault are showing off their embedded tablet technology. Renault kindly demonstrated the system to me, they call it RLink. It might be cutting edge for the automotive industry but in truth it’s not particularly futuristic. However, it did give me a tantalising glimpse into what the future of motoring might look like.

A tablet computer running RLink will be embedded into the dash of future Renault Clio and Zoe models, if you select it an option. The tablet, running on a specially customised Android platform, will allow the driver to interact with the vehicle using both the touch screen and voice recognition. Special safety overrides are built into RLink in an attempt to stop drivers using the system at inappropriate times. Renault will launch RLink at the Geneva motor show in 2012 and hope that at least 50 specially designed apps will be available to download to the tablet by the time it is ready to launch.

As well as the usual GPS stuff, RLink uses race-car style datalogging to monitor your driving and can even offer advice to help you to hone your eco-driving skills. A readout shows how economically your driving style is and gives tips on how to improve it. Renault even plan a crowd sourced league table which will allow you to compare your driving with other drivers of the same model. I like the concept of people getting competitive over how frugal their driving is – it makes a change from bragging over how fast you can lap the Nurburgring.

If you drive an electric or hybrid car the system will help you to manage the car’s charging. For instance, it can be scheduled to run the air con, while the car is still plugged in, to warm it up or cool it down. Doing this while the car is still connected to the mains helps you to save that precious battery charge – while also making your first few minutes in the car more comfortable. Like with the fossil fuel cars, the system can help you tune your eco-driving to maximise range between charges. Finally, if you are running low, it’ll direct you to the nearest charging point.

Renault say we spend an average of 35 hours in our car each month, and three of them are spent stationary, engine off and waiting for something. For these tedious moments RLink allows you to upload and browse photos – and even watch movies. Hopefully there’s a safety override to stop people watching Harry Potter films while driving (or at all!). Just as with many in-car systems, this one connects with your phone to allow you to call up contacts, make calls and play music stored on your device or on the RLink tablet.

Renault are also developing social media apps that will allow you to tweet, via the voice recognition, while you drive. Renault have yet to finish this app (and to have it approved by Twitter) so its exact capabilities are not yet finalised.The ability to stay connected to my social network, even while at the wheel, is a beguiling one. I’m already working on how to embed a similar system at the helm of my boat.

Embedding a tablet into a car is hardly futuristic, it’s simply using existing tech to extend the capability of the car and enhance the driver experience. But, with a little imagination, once can easily imagine a future scenario where the tablet, or whatever form factor future devices will occupy, will allow the driver to do more than just control the music and make phone calls. There will come a time when the embedded IT in your car will allow you simply to jump in and state your desired destination. The car will then drive itself while you listen to your emails and browse twitter. Perhaps this future will reconnect the American youth with cars – probably literally.

Having stumbled upon them this morning on the Internet, I felt the need to reproduce them here for all to read:

GEORGE ORWELL’S SIX RULES

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

“If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of
the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.
Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase…into the dustbin where it belongs.”

Take a few moments to listen to this — and then give yourself some time out to reflect upon it.

Thanks.

My Plea For more humanity

Here’s Celia Lacy’s take on the event:

Celia Lacy talks about LincUpLive

Here’s Tim Downing‘s take on the event:

Tim Downing talks about Linc Up Live