Twenty-seven minutes before mainstream media broke the news of Whitney Houston's death last Saturday the story was on Twitter.

The news was first tweeted by @ajaDiorNavy, with a mere 14 followers at the time, who's "Aunt Tiffany", an employee of Whitney's, found the diva dead in her bath.  An hour later it had been re-tweeted 2.5m times.

It's been a bad couple of weeks for TripAdviser, as the Advertising Standards Authority started investigating allegations of endemic Astroturfing on the famous hotel review website.

"Astroturfing", in an online context, does not mean the replacement of a lawn with synthetic grass, but the attempt to artificially create "grassroots" opinion on review websites in order to promote products or services.

The recent financial disaster at UBS brought another UBS story back into the news. Back in January a detailed dress code guide for UBS staff was leaked to much hilarity.

There was also advice on how to apply body lotion and perfume, on not eating garlic and not to have tattoos.

This was held up as an example of an organisation obsessed by detail and interfering in its employees lives.

A "fondleslab", for those not down with the kids, describes any portable touch screen device so beloved by its owner that it is incessantly fondled in public.

I swapped the faithful fag packet and lighter combination (which served a similar social purpose) for an iPhone a few years ago, but now, to keep down with the kids, I need an iPad 2.

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Chris is MD of social media strategy company Friend Digital

If you enter a Sustainability/CSR/Environment competition and lose, you should ask for a review of the judging process, plus a refund for the time and money spent for the application.

Over the last thirty years, the corporatisation of sustainability has led to a multitude of annual events. During these events, media publishers, trade associations and other professional event organisations aim to present awards to the greenest companies. Similarly, rankings of the Top 100 Green Companies are now common features of the annual calendar. Yet, no one seems to question the biases and problems of these often costly (for the losers) PR exercises.

I feel the need to make a case to support PowerPoint as I think it has a bad press - even beyond it having been spawned by the universally used and equally unpopular Microsoft.

The main benefit I see is that PowerPoint forces you to arrange your thoughts in a logical sequence - although you can easily shift things round if you change your mind during the design process.

Most of all though, it makes us be BRIEF.

As an academic, I am surrounded by colleagues who are immersed in their subject. For many years, if you asked me to tell you in 5 minutes what my PhD was about, I couldn't tell you.

Now I can (at emergencies, fire commanders focus on four key factors when making their decisions...). PowerPoint is great at making you do this.

If you like to hear innovative ideas and live in the West Midlands, you have certainly heard of TED and TEDxWarwick. If not, it is time to reconsider your use of social media.

What is TED? It is an event organisation dedicated to the sharing of knowledge and ideas to inspire people. The speakers are some of the best in their fields.

I have been living France for the last eight weeks and thanks to social media no-one seems to have noticed.

A few of the favoured hostelries around Brindleyplace are down on their profits but largely nobody seems to care about my physical absence.

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I saw reported in the Post last month that our intrepid restaurant critic was taken aback by the proactive way Carluccios responded to criticism (incidentally their restaurant in Stratford is one of my favourite places!) so I hereby offer one of our largest companies the same opportunity. It is in fulfilment of my brief to name names and my previous attempt to bring down the dreadful online shopping business La Redoute has either failed as they are still in business or perhaps I succeeded and they have made major changes? Either way, I wouldn't know because of course I don't shop there any more. So I am now going to direct my attention to a local supermarket in the hope of assisting the new(ish) CEO Philip Clarke understand where there might be a weakness in the juggernaut that is TESCO.

My favourite television moment EVER featured Five Star, a UK pop group the Jackson Five could've been, had they been 75% more rubbish.

They were on kids' entertainment show Going Live, cheerfully answering calls from excitable younger viewers. Amidst the standard 'what's your favourite colour?' style of gentle interrogation, one child got on air to put his query to the popstars du jour. The young viewer paused, readying himself for his moment of broadcast glory. Then, he delivered the bombshell question: "Why are you so f*@!ing crap?"

The reaction of Five Star was, ahem, worthy of five stars, taking the criticism with admirably good grace. The reassured look on their faces said it all: 'say what you like, pre-pubescent airtime abuser, watching at home in your jim-jams - we have fame and fortune. You, child, have school on Monday.'

It was an essay in how to handle criticism. Regrettably, during 2010, some of our city's representatives in and around local government haven't always reacted with such grace under media scrutiny.