sarahphelan.ie » In The News

Fred for 2FM Meteor Awards Hope for 2009

sarah — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:20:03 +0000

Voting has opened for the RTÉ 2fm Hope for 2009 Meteor Award and the great band Fred need your votes! It’s the one award that the public can vote for, and can do so online on the 2FM website here.

If you still haven’t voted already, here are some easy instructions from Joe Scanlon on how you can get your vote in for the great Rick O’Shea who is up for Best National DJ.

Newstalk Nation Survey- Would you participate?

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:35:57 +0000

Newstalk are running a nationwide survey at the moment in an effort to guage the feeling of the listener on a range of subjects.

The results of the first round of questions was published this week, in which it emerged that 48% of Irish workers would take a pay cut if it meant it would get the economy back on track (mp3).

The head of SIPTU claimed the question was slightly misleading, suggesting that implying some kind of guarantee that the action of the pay cut would be somehow related to an improvement in the economic situation would effect the outcome of the survey. (I’d agree somewhat – maybe cynically – I do think this would have effected the percentage).

Would you be willing to sign up for such a survey? Do you think these type of polls make any difference besides being a water-cooler conversation piece? Or is this just another example of slacktivism and a diversion from the discussion of the real issues and substitute for real action? Or does this it cut right to the core of the issues of most importance to most of us?

I’ve been an avid listener of Newstalk for some years now and have signed up myself; I’ll post again on the survey and its findings.

Be careful what you say..?

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:40:07 +0000

Just as I’m about to get cracking on writing my first post, I came across this link from Problogger on Twitter which made me think a little about what is said online and the effect it can have.

The story is about a guy who, on his travels to give a business presentation in Memphis, twitted about the dislike he took for the city.

Possibly underestimating the possibility of someone reading this in the town, or in Fedex where the presentation was to take place, an honest if not slightly insulting opinion backfired in big way.

It’s easy to feel cosy in the Twitter community conversing with friends and peers, but everything you say while your account is unprotected is cached by google and is in the public domain. This can be retrieved by friends, business associates and prospective clients or employers alike. And anonymity isn’t always guaranteed!

Does this mean that people can’t be honest any more and that we should only say nice things if we can’t say anything at all? I hope not! There’s a difference between being bitchy and being critical however. And there’s a difference between frank observations made to those close to you and posting scathing remarks that anyone in the the world can read.