Thursday, January 12, 2012

So hard to keep up!

You may remember that I stated, when I started Clearly Derby, that I wanted to address the peoples' complaint that local government isn't transparent enough.

My hypothesis was that if we pay attention, go to a few meetings, read the news, ask questions, and generally inform ourselves of what's going on then the transparency could be discovered right there all around us.

To test my theory I started Clearly Derby with the objective of trying to keep track of meetings and all the government events that are happening.  In other words, Clearly Derby would become the model informed citizen of Derby.

Well, I want to tell you that this isn't as easy as I thought it would be!  If I were working full-time and had young children to care for, I simply could not keep up with what's happening in Derby!  There are so many meetings, and so many questions, and so many ongoing projects, and so on and so forth.  It becomes a full-time job to just keep track of everything.

I will keep going with Clearly Derby but I feel I've tested my theory and found it lacking.  I will continue with Clearly Derby for my own enjoyment and to share what's going on for your benefit as well.  Together I think we can make government more transparent, if not crystal clear.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Back to the Blog - ROI you say?

I'm ready to start some regular blogging.  Look out!

I was thinking about ROI (Return on Investment) lately.  People seem to either love social media and fully believe in its power or else they scoff at it.  The first thing they will say is that it's impossible to show that the use of SMM (Social Media Marketing) gives you any ROI.

Since I just spent major hours, over several months, trying to promote a political candidate using SMM, I wondered, was this time wasted?  My candidate won, but I don't know that SMM had anything to do with that really.  It could have been the mailers, lawn signs, and talking to the voters by going door-to-door.  These are tried and true methods for winning.

But I had an epiphany the other day!  I was thinking, if you are a good Christian you expect to go to heaven (that's your ROI for being devout).  But you don't know that you'll go to heaven, or that there even is a heaven for sure.  It feels right, your family does it, and the Bible tells you it is so - so you go for it.  But you have no guarantee.

Here's another good one: if you exercise and eat right then you'll be healthier and live longer - that's your ROI for all the celery and jogging.  Are you sure about that?  It seems to make sense - it seems logical - but they are always changing the rules about what to eat, how to exercise, and whether you should be extra thin or not.  It doesn't seem like they are so sure.

I don't think one should scoff or opt out of something that seems logical and looks promising just because one can't pinpoint a precise ROI.  For the most part, we have to have a little faith and use our heads - there are no guarantees!