October 23, 2004
boris johnson
My favorite British politician, Boris Johnson is blogging.
For all you non-Brits, Boris is a journalist for The Telegraph, editor of The Spectator and now Conservative MP for Henley. He recently had a widely-publicised spot of bother with the good people of Liverpool.
I went to his blog and left the following comment:
Boris, not only do I recommend you become honorary MP for the British bloggers (if your Henley folk allow you), I’d also recommend you brush up on the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto (www.cluetrain.com)…
There are two big ideas in The Cluetrain:
1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets are now becoming smarter, faster than the companies that service said markets. A good example is what happend with the dear old Kryptonite lock earlier this month (As a bicycle rider, you must have heard about this scandal? Ask any clued-up blogger and he or she will tell you).
What is true for markets is also becoming true for Governments, as well.
And the changes will be profound.
To get a better idea, the person to read is a chap in New York, named Jeff Jarvis. His blog is www.buzzmachine.com.
Boris’ assistant left a message in my comments this morning– I was dead pleased.
If there’s something interesting happening with blogs, Jeff usually writes about it within hours, so I thought that would be a good starting point.
Other people I would check out if I were him would be:
Doc Searls, one of the authors of The Cluetrain.
Loic Lemeur, the young French entrepreneur behind blogging software in Europe. His man in London is Alistair Shrimpton. I would talk to them both about getting the Conservative party blogging, both internally and externally, using their software.
Joi Ito, the Japanese venture capitalist and blog visionary. Friend and business partner of Loic. Nice guy. Besides all his technology businesses, he is particularly well known for his ideas about the effects of “wired networks” on 1. “emergent democracy” and 2. culture in general. As Boris is the Conservative Shadow Spokesman for Art & Culture, he should find him REALLY interesting.
Neil McIntosh, who is probably the most clued-up, Cluetrain-savvy journalist in the UK. Works for The Guardian.
Ben Hammersley, freelance journalist and uber-smart techie anarcho crypto whacko nice guy all round. Knows more about this sphere than just about anyone I know. Smarter than just about anyone I know.
Robert Scoble, the best-known of the Microsoft bloggers. Always has an interesting angle on things. He has particularly good insights into positive-disruption technology within large corporations and burocracies.
Suw Charman, the uber-smart blogging chick in Dorset. She “gets it” better than most.
James Cox, British blog wunderkind and Tory activist. The blogging equivalent of the young William Haig. He knows his stuff. He’s probably after Boris’ job already.
Lastly, I would find out what RSS is, and start taking it seriously. In tandem with that I would get my blog linked up with Technorati.
There are plenty of other people worth noting, but as a jumping-off point, this will do for now.
It would be interesting if we could get the Tories to blog. Tony Blair’s New Labour will try to beat them to it, I reckon, but I bet they’ll shoot themselves in the foot, with all their control-freak-on-message trolls leaping out of the woodwork etc the minute anybody starts doing anything actually worth talking about.
The Blogosphere is not the Millennium Dome. The Blogosphere is not the Scottish Parliament Building. The Blogosphere is not “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”. You have been warned.
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A wee chuckle to start your day off right etc.
Not to get into politics here, but the only thing Boris Johnson is good at is being Boris Johnson. A little bit like Apple. In my opinion, of course.
Totally agree with the Labour party comment of course. Can you imagine? Central office would freak.
The only thing Hugh MacLeod is good at is being Hugh MacLeod.
So maybe it’s an empathy thing
Besides, being good at being “you” while still remaining on the front bench is no mean feat. Most MPs would utterly fail if they tried.
There’s been a Labour blogger for ages:
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk
Sure, I know Tom Watson. He’s good.
The issue is not which MP started blogging first. The issue is which political party can handle smarter markets.
Smarter markets are here to stay. Politicians are like anybody else– some have no problem with it, other are not so fortunate.
Boris is my MP.
Now, as a constituant lets look at what his site provides for me. Oh. 2 entries. Over 2 years.
Nothing else that relates.
As much as I like the man (and I do), his site is useless for his work as an MP. It’s pushing the Boris cult, nothing more. Of course inbetween publishing magazines, writing books, apologising to Liverpool and appearing on TV perhaps he can only spare one blog entry a year to the issues that affect those who voted him in.
Barry, the blog has only been live for 4 weeks. Most of the data you refer to is of the backdated variety; press releases, parliamentary appearances, articles, and like that. Give the man time.
Ah, so it’s backdated? Without, errr, marking it as such? Unless I missed a “all this is backdated” then oh dear, that’s rather close to lying IMO. Then there’s using his parlimentary staff for pushing non-political stuff? Hmm, wonder how close to the bone that is.
Nice layout though Tim, congrats on that.
To be fair to Boris, Barry, the folks in Henley knew full well that Boris “had a life” before they elected him. They also know he was unlikely to give it all up just to be a journeyman backbencher. And they voted him in, knowing this.
“Dear Mrs Jones, Thank you for your letter on the 16th of April regarding your leaky roof yak yak yak…“
I don’t think so.
Oh it’s not that Hugh (although the seat is a “safe” conservative seat, people vote on party lines, not for a person), it’s more that the site isn’t that useful for constituents. It’s not an MPs blog, it’s the blog of someone who happens to be an MP. *shrug*