Early consensus on The Conversation?

The Conversation launched, buzzed, and now what? Made an impression? Filled a much needed hole in social media and online blogging? Changed the way the creative industry accesses and shares information?

I've bookmarked it, I check it most days as I do with many other blogs, and, quite frankly, I am far from captivated by it. Rather than let my tongue form too much of a barb I decided to bullet-point my impressions of it; keep it simple stupid, if you will.

• It seems to me that a lot of The Conversation is shameless self-promotion. Far from criticising self-promotion (as a graduate I need to jump on that band-wagon as much as the next job-seeker), I do, however, object to having to sift through the dust to get to the diamonds.
• The majority of decent blog posts from the big names are featured on their personal/company blogs anyway, so it seems The Conversation serves as a kind of character-limitless Twitter where people can promote their blog posts for the time they can keep them in 'recent entries'. Surely Twitter does a similar thing, right? In all honesty, I'd rather read a blog post that someone tweets about than puts on The Conversation. I say this because the people I follow on Twitter are people I follow for a reason; The Conversation has no such filter system. Is this too cynical/snobbish an opinion?
• I know there is mixed opinion regarding where the line is drawn between Marketing and PR; however, I feel The Conversation would certainly benefit from some such differentiation. Granted, I am interested in what both sides of the coin have to say, but I like to know which side of the coin I'm listening to before I engage. Could The Conversation be split a little into more specific field areas? Perhaps I'm naive, but would a tech PR really care what a marketer in finance thinks about stuff, or vice versa?
• It's a little cumbersome. Put simply, the website isn't the slickest I've ever seen, and is a little disappointing given the size and reputation of the body it serves. My main issue is the inaccessibility of past content. If I neglect to log on for a day or two, I may miss a wonderful article by someone unknown to me because it is not displayed and I cannot check up on the author since I am oblivious to them; ergo, opportunity missed.

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh. In fact, I am being a little harsh. The website is clearly still in the development stage and, no doubt, much consideration is being taken to improve it according to the feedback (positive and negative) they have no doubt received from many areas. But, I can't help but express the same concerns I first voiced upon hearing about the endeavour: should there be more exclusivity similar to a LinkedIn group, for example. More policing of content and marking of content that is irrelevant.

My last post on this topic got some great responses from a great mix of people, and one concern I particularly liked came from Lyanna Tsakiris who pointed out that exclusivity rather defeats the object of social media and networking. I agree, and realise my rather exclusivist stance wasn't ideal; but, The Conversation seems to have landed a little too close to my conservative worries. There are posts on there that bear no relevance to anything and are surely of little interest to many people. Do others share this concern?

I can't help but feel like the website needs to open up a little in terms of feedback from those who contribute. Similar to Tripadvisor, for example, where each contributor builds up a profile of involvement, if you will. If a post is irrelevant then people should be able to label it as such and put it up for verification. Equally, those contributors who most interest you should be able to be put into a kind of 'favourites' section for you to gain easy access to who you pay most attention to. Much like Twitter, you can choose to pay attention to the people who interest you, and ignore those who do not — and I mean that in the most liberal way where we are free to make those decisions ourselves.

The consensus upon launch was 'wait and see'; I wonder what people think after the initial introduction?

Will a meerkat's ambassador have Diplomatic Immunity?

It is almost impossible that anyone has escaped the whirlwind of fur that is Aleksandr Orlov. Since first appearing on our screens in January 2009, the Russian meerkat has since been given the kind of back story that makes the well-documented life of Prince William look relatively empty. He has a family tree going back generations — each meerkat in turn also having a back story — a fictional, autobiographical film about the company he is the face of — The Journey of Courageousness, The Battle of Fearlessness, and The Streets of Ambitiousness — and, as if that wasn't enough, a comprehensive website about the town in which he resides, Meerkovo (no prizes for spotting the pun). In light of all of this, and the incredible number of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter followers, I was a little short of gobsmacked to see them offering £40k for a 6 month position as the official Ambassador of Meerkovo.

Why? I found myself asking. A brand image that, to many people, is pure genius must surely be sailing along quite nicely without needing to wave a cool forty grand paycheck under some one's nose to boost the already sky-high profile. To give you a humbling statistic, the fictional Aleksandr Orlov has almost three times as many followers as ex-PM Tony Blair. I'm not saying Tony Blair should have a sizeable following, but he did run the country for a decade!

The job is advertised very simply, and one would assume it will be a very high profile brand ambassador position, being a presence at all manner of sporting and cultural events (I can't help but hope the successful candidate might be invited to the royal wedding). But, other than gallivanting around, tweeting a little bit, and living the high life on such a tidy wage for just 6 months work, what will this person bring to the brand? One suspects it is a drive to convert Compare the Meerkat followers into Compare the Market followers — ironically the meerkat's problem generated the same problem for the brand.

In the world of social media there is a colourful history of corporate blunders, the sort of blunders than can set back a brand's image years in a matter of seconds. The beauty of Mr Orlov is that, as a CGI animal with a suspicious Russian dialect, he is largely immune to social blunders — there isn't much chance of catching him with his trousers down at any time soon, so to speak. So, why would a company bring the fallibility of a human ambassador into such a successful campaign? Could this all back-fire in a moment of blissful stupidity? The speculations are endless.

But, is it possible to 'fault-proof' the lucky candidate in some way? The possibility is no doubt there, but removing the humanity from what is perhaps a ploy at enhancing humanity would be rather short-sighted for any business. Perhaps the best solution to this risk then is to hire someone less fallible than your average joe, but surely this isn't possible? The thought of a successful marketing, PR, brand ambassador leaving their job for a 6 month jaunt into the world of CGI mongooses and dodgy, if infectious, catchphrases seems a little unlikely to me. Maybe I'm too negative. If I were to put my positive hat on I might be inclined to say they will hire a graduate with some flare, some drive, and a great deal of acumen (probably more than your average graduate); after all, the deadline and interviews seem to coincide with most other creative industry graduate schemes and it would be a great opportunity for anyone starting out in that vocation. But here the problem lies: gamble on a graduate, or try to poach a professional? Tricky stuff.

The questions remain open, and maybe someone will be kind enough to answer them, but for now I've decided to find out the answers the best way possible: I've filled out my application. Ultimately, I'd be glad to be a CGI meerkat's right-hand man; he can't be more intimidating than some other bosses and, who knows, maybe that invitation to the royal wedding will come pretty soon after my first pay-check. Here's hoping.