I’m pretty excited to be taking a challenging position with a great company with many opportunities for the future. I’ve updated my About page, explaining exactly what I’ll be doing

Practically speaking this job means that Mark is responsible for developing and implementing new ideas to help Green Options continue to grow as the Internet’s leading site for people interested in making green choices for a more sustainable future.

Hopefully I’ll find the time to blog here about what’s going to be a most exciting endeavour.

What have I been up to?

• Got a new job - more information in the next couple of weeks when I start
• Got married - and enjoyed a great holiday afterwards
• Implemented a new web-magazine format together with Green Options
• Didn’t do much blogging..

Will be getting back into the habit again soon…

Update: I’m starting my new role on Monday 25th August. Will tell all on Monday, once I’ve finishing handing over and tidying up at my current company.

I’m much intrigued by Google’s new Google Lively beta. Try out my test room..

However, it was 10.30pm and the last espresso was wearing off, so still flushed with my recent Digg success I decided to take a short-cut. Instead of writing a more worthy blog post, I wrote a very quick made-for-digg piece, substituting content and insight for short and controversial statements in the form of a simple list. Topped off with a tempting headline I posted and submitted to Digg before going to bed for the night.

Waking up the next morning, I was pleased to see that I’ve finally got the hang of social media - my submission had quickly gone to the front page with 11,000 page views so far, and counting. Once one masters the formula it is surprisingly easy to draw a lot of page views and many (good and bad) comments.

Why Digg’ers Get The Posts They Deserve

I was rightly criticised by many diggers for the slightly content free nature of my post. However, If I had taken the time to write a proper post, with a title that reflected its true content and purpose, such as "British Government: Economic Arguments For And Against Micro-Generation" my post would have fizzled and died on social media, and only the small, yet growing EcoWorldly faithful would have read it.

This is nothing new - tabloid newspapers have always outsold the quality press, and whilst Digg’s editorial democracy is still a great way to read the web, its still about quantity over quality.

But the worst part, as a blogger, is that it’s addictive. Throughout this post, I have had to constantly refrain from writing provocative statements and suppress the temptation of submitting this piece to Digg for a shot at the front page together with an even more insulting headline. My future blogging could be forever compromised..

Anyways, my EcoWorldly post still got 11,000 page views..

(Note: if seen on Digg, it wasn’t submitted by me)

Ok, it took a while, and it’s not exactly a lifetime achievement, but pretty satisfying after not getting more than 50 Diggs for anything until now.. One more thing to cross off the list.

Digg the snowman

My current blogging pipeline is overflowing with about 30 post ideas waiting to be written, although I’ve had a few other projects to keep me busy in recent weeks - more news about that to come soon. What I really need is a couple of days off just to sit and write all of the things I need / want to write. Not sure when that will happen though.

In the meantime, I did finally manage to finish off my Winston Churchill post that’s been sitting in my drafts for months - part 1 and part 2.

More soon..

TalkClimateChange

Business As Usual For Climate Change? - Following the coverage of controversial new research suggesting that "global warming may be on hold", I’ve looked at how this issue was reported and what this means.

What Is Climate Change Causing Today? - Did global warming cause my computer to die?

Decision Time: The Climate Is Changing - - An interesting comparison of headlines over the past few years showing just how quickly the wind seems to change.

Most Stupid Idea Ever? - Something that I thought was pretty stupid, but which I’ve actually had to acknowledge as being not too far from sensible in a post scheduled for tomorrow.

EcoWorldly

Are You As Green As India & China? - A bit of credit for the East for a change..

In the pipeline:

Winston Churchill & Global warming, solar power in Europe, something on social media and the altruistic power of the Internet, bio-fuels & farm subsidies and more..

I’ve been very generous to Vista over the past year. Many friends and colleagues, the press, and particularly the blogoshpere have been scathing about its performance, reliability and compatibility.

So far I’ve been confused as to what all these people are complaining about. Vista has some great new features (I can’t live without the search), it’s much more secure, and is much nicer to look at for 14 hours a day compared to it’s predecessor. Ok - there have been a few hiccups along the way, and there are a couple of annoyances, but nothing to write home about (or blog about).

Until today.

(more…)

So here are the two posts that I have managed..

Cars Might Fly - even though I do love cars, I can’t help the feeling that they are becoming increasingly impractical in modern (or rather ancient) cities.

Tsunami Survivors Still Struggle - a couple of photos and the rather sad truth that I witnessed whilst away last week..

Will be back with more next week, and any other thoughts that pop-up in the meantime..

Will be back with more soon - just in case you had thought that I’d disappeared.

TalkClimateChange

TalkClimateChange Takes a Holiday -Something To Consider In The Meantime - As I’m about to take a short holiday I thought it worth taking a brief step-back to re-think the objectives of TalkClimateChange. Probably not much is going to change, but it’s always worth considering.

Stern Report Not Right or Wrong, Just Irrelevant - An evolution of the thinking in my the previous post.

At The Bar of TalkClimateChange - The left, right and in-between.

Why I’m Green - My thoughts, for the record.

EcoWorldly

British Weather: So-lar, So-Good? - I was surprised at just how effective solar energy can be, even in a place with miserable weather like England.

Bush Climate Speech - World Reactions - Much of the world wasn’t happy..

NowSourcing

The New Social Media Democracy - My continued thoughts on the future of blogging.

TalkClimateChange

25 Years Later, Climate Change Becomes the New War? - Commentary on the George Bush climate speech of last week. I wasn’t going to bother covering it, but had to in the end.

The Tide Is Coming In… - Plans to let parts of England lie underwater, and the real decisions that we need to make.

Something For The Weekend: Al Gore’s New Video - For what it’s worth.

EcoWorldly

Extraordinary Lengths: Walking Across America For Climate Change - extraordinary lengths indeed.

Reclaiming The City From The Car - bit of coverage for an interesting cause

La Marguerite

Green Advocates Failing in Climate Debate - Some questions that have been occupying me for some time, with some surprising answers. This was picked up on a number of blogs and I have a follow-up post planned for next week.

Coming up for next week:

Why I’m Green, and The Future of The Climate Debate on TalkClimateChange. Reactions from around to World to Bush’s Climate Speech on EcoWorldly, and several unplanned bits & bobs elsewhere.

Social media will undoubtedly change things for everybody, from bloggers at the lower end of the media food chain to the global news corporations at the top. Like good politicians, bloggers need to master the process of building a following and becoming nominated to stand in the daily social media elections (my own best performance has been a miserable 50 diggs, and about 15 stumbles – pretty poor), but what are the further implications of the social media phenomenon? Knowing that this revolution is coming, which strategies can be employed to fully exploit the opportunities that social media presents beyond simply becoming a top social media community member?

You can read my thoughts on this issue in a guest post I’ve written at NowSourcing.

EcoWorldly

Permanent Link to Grumpy Climate Change Commentator - Bangkok Climate Talks - A post written under the influence of the Monday Blues.

The Spy Who Was "Plane Stupid" - Was about to write something much more boring when this great story came along.

TalkClimateChange

Tired Mondays: Striking a balance on climate warnings - The blogging week got off to a slow start!

Nuclear Power, Good Thing, Bad Thing - The summary of the TalkClimateChange "Live Debate". Currently looking out for a new topic with some additional experts.

Coming Off The Nuclear Fence - Finally, it happened.

Permanent Link to Grumpy Climate Change Commentator - Bangkok Climate Talks - Just a quick post - I’ve noticed that we get fewer visitors during weekends, so plan to post short bits and pieces on Saturdays from now on.

A couple of new and interesting posts are in the pipeline already for next week, and I expect to be back up to full blogging speed in a few weeks..

Putting pen to paper for Bus Transportation Week I began to make a few notes about bus travel in Switzerland – the country that I usually cover on EcoWorldly. My notes read: reliable, clean, efficient.

Not much of a story there.

When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.

Still not much to write home about.

And then I read Pem Charnley’s article about bus transportation in Britain, which struck much more of a chord. Having recently written here about the woeful state of British rail transportation, I thought it might be appropriate to continue Pem’s theme and recount my experience of bus travel when I returned to our sunny island for a brief visit recently.

The story starts in the West Midlands with a Saturday shopping trip from my residence in Warwick to the nearby town of Royal Leamington Spa. As before, I shall evaluate the transport infrastructure of the 4^th richest nation in the world using some carefully chosen criteria.

(more…)