Category Archives: Social Media

Grammar’s Greatest Protectors Actually Doing Most Damage to Language

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By Jason Menard

Today is National Grammar Day and while there appears to be increasingly little to celebrate if you survey the linguistic landscape, perhaps it’s time to reassess where the actual blame lies.

We all know about the challenges to the language that are our youth. Schools have increasingly abdicated their obligation to teach, instead settling for the lowered bar that is comprehension. Text and on-line messaging have also conspired to diminish the language as the next generation’s current form of communication is actively impeding their ability to express themselves.

So we could blame the kids – after all, that’s the easy way to do. Continue reading →

More than a Follower – Six Types of Twits

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By Jason Menard

Social media is still in its infancy – and like all infants, the various components of social media are growing and developing at varying rates. While adoption amongst the masses seems to be fairly well advanced, social media’s language skills are woefully underdeveloped.

Now this isn’t another tired old criticism of LOL-speak or the bastardization of the English language by textually active youth. What amazes me is that in today’s world – where people tend take offense to the slightest perceived insult – one social networking term has been allowed to stand without question:

Follower. Continue reading →

5 questions with Jay Menard

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5 questions with Jay Menard (from Marketing in a Social Age)

This may be one of the most “heart” 5 Questions I have done.  By heart, I mean that Jay tells it like it is and that he’s not afraid to let everyone know what’s really important.  I hope you enjoy this one.
“By day, Jay’s the writer/editor for the Canadian arm of an international corporation. By night, he’s a corporate communications/social media consultant, hockey writer, and columnist. Superseding all, however, is the fact that he’s a husband and father of two…”

A Feather in Canada’s (Internet) Cap for the Future

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By Jason Menard

On-line public pressure may not only serve to pull the plug on a move to cap Internet usage in the Great White North; it may, in addition to serving as a cyber-feather in our collective caps for democracy, show how we can get people involved in the political process in the future.

Lazy, apathetic, disinterested voters have been both the bane and the boon of politicians for years – a bane to those interested in making change; a boon to those who are content with pushing their agendas through parliament before the masses catch on – but a recent kerfuffle in Canada has shown that there’s something that can be the great equalizer.

The Internet. Continue reading →

Some Businesses Need a Kick in the Assets

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By Jason Menard

To paraphrase John Hurt in the film The Elephant Man, “I am not a stakeholder, I am not an asset or a resource. I’m a human being. I… am… a… man.”

I’m Jay. Nice to meet you. However, if you go by the way businesses speak about its employees, one would think that people are no more important than the computer they’re working on, or the phone with which they’re calling you. Continue reading →