Under some circumstances a headline like that above could send shivers down your spine. But, check out this story in The Register. The Central Office of Information (another scary name) - which Wikipedia describes as "The UK's marketing and communications agency" - has begun to monitor conversations in the blogosphere through the agency's Media Monitoring Unit. Purpose? To get smarter about public opinion.
"The move reflects concerns within departments that government is largely ignorant of much of the debate taking place online. "MMU director Clarence Mitchell said: 'Clients have told us that campaigning and debating are taking place online to such a degree that there's a whole new medium out there. They don't want to be blindsided by material appearing from the web out of the blue in the external media, so the online monitoring product we've been working on over the last year is really going to help'."
Listening is definitely a step in the right direction. I'm often asked: "Where should I begin engaging with the blogosphere?" I mostly begin by advising people to "listen," the metaphor that's most often used in conjunction with "conversation." Listening is not a bad way to start but remember its only the first step.
Have a look at the comments generated by the original post, for me it conjured up images of the movie V for Vendetta. I hope they get to the conversation part soon! Disclosure: the "Mike" who commented - That wasn't me!
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