Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
April 1st – An Important Lesson in Content Production & Retrieval
Thursday, April 01, 2010 by Bryan Anderson
Most of the time, writing a blog post is as simple as discussing
the latest news or interesting industry topics. Even when it's
a relatively "silent" news day, there's always the occasional
review or opinion piece. But on April 1st, the line
of "real" and "fake" gets blurred and in some cases
misinterpreted.
Originating in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the day of
practical jokes grew from a tale in which the main character is
tricked by a fox on, what was interpreted at the time to be, April
1. As cultural tradition adopted the day of good-natured
deception, some highly creative responses emerged.
The technology world holds its fair share of historical April
Fool's Day distractions. Just last year, the jests ranged from
claiming a man-made LHC black hole to Africa's 'highest-speed' internet connection to the entire internet
needing a reboot. Of course, from a truly technical
standpoint, it was the conficker virus that held our
attention.
We've had our fair share of technical tumblers this year as
well, including the following:
Google - Renamed itself 'Topeka' in honor of the
Midwest town's effort to receive Google's fiber optic cables by
planning to switch its name to 'Google'; also introduced Standard Voicemail Mode
SocialText - Released an "Enterprise Chatroulette,"
figuring to capitalize on Randomize Productivity Managemnt
(RPM)
Qualcomm - In a video press release, the company explains the
reasoning behind recent "butterfly attacks"
There is a massive list over at Techcrunch.com that you
can check out if you have some (okay, a lot) of time to spare.
With all these activities, there are a few things that we can
learn from an enterprise standpoint, especially those looking for
advice or professional resources:
Check your research sources. April
1st may over exaggerate this point, but on any given day
you may come across an article or research that has been
falsified. Before you know it, your direction is based off a
phony tip.
Discover unique content, produce unique
content. Thousands of people have found the
adventure in searching for different April Fool's pranks for the
very same reason that all users turn to the internet - to find new,
engaging content that can be used and applied.
Research will help you avoid 'misinterpretations' in
your content. You can't forget to stress 'content'
and 'context' in the same sentence. Imagine if a company had
planned a major announcement on April 1st - is that the
kind of engagement they want with a serious statement?
Be proud and share your content. Whether
it's blog posts, company articles, industry opinions, or
research/case studies, your production will be helpful to your
audience and possibly to a secondary following.
Remember, above all else, keep your data and hard work backed
up, especially if an April Fool's joke goes horribly
wrong!
Until next time -
Matthew Hymel
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
Rochester
IT Support & Consulting
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