Recently in Communication Category

To help us save the planet, what we need is lots of really heavy rubbish.

Go on. Start throwing it in the recycling bin. The more it weighs, the better.

That's nonsense of course - so why do we give our local councils recycling targets measured by the tonnes of waste collected?

As part of it's recent Climate Change Festival, Birmingham City Council challenged all residents "to increase the amount of waste they recycle over the coming months by at least 20 kg per person."

I was discussing the issue with someone who knows the waste management industry pretty thoroughly (someone who journalists writing about fortnightly bin collections would call 'an industry insider').

Whilst browsing the web the other day I happened across a fairly innocuous-looking story that, at first glance, seemed nothing more than one of those "strange but true" tales that you mentally file away to impress your mates with down the pub after work.

However, something about it set a few alarm bells ringing for me and, on further inspection, this throwaway story turned out to be a nugget of pure viral marketing gold.

It also prised open a family-sized can of worms in my hardened TV researcher's brain and set them wriggling in the part of my cranium that exists to remind me that the web can also be a truth-hunters worst nightmare.

The story concerned Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old kid in Texas who had been arrested after he swiped his dad's credit card and embarked on an epic $30,000 spending spree. This misadventure wound up with him and his mates holed up in a hotel room with a pile of junk food, a brand new Xbox and two nubile $1000-a-night prostitutes procured from the local whorehouse. It also landed Ralph in the arms of the law when the hotel room was raided by the local Texan constabulary after being tipped off by a delivery guy who'd supplied the boys with snacks.

Apparently our young hero claimed he was funding this escapade through the winnings of a World of Warcraft video games contest and, when the high-class call girls questioned his age, he convinced them that he and his friends were in fact "people of restricted growth" who worked for a travelling circus. Even better he went as far to inform them that, if they refused his custom, they would be in direct violation of the state's disability discrimination laws. Only when the boys seemed more interested in playing Halo than getting to grips with their "hired help" did the penny finally drop.

In a strange twist of narrative the poor, misinformed sex workers were released without charge whilst young Ralph was slapped with a three year community order for fraud, presumably ruing the day he figured out his dad's pin number.

Unsurprisingly the story turned out to be complete hogwash. It was later revealed to be the result of a viral marketing experiment by Cornish social media marketer Lyndon Antcliff (aka Lyndoman) who unleashed the story on popular finance site Money.co.uk.

Lyndoman deliberately laced his Munchaussen-esque tale with every conceivable narrative trigger point needed to ensure its viral success.

I've made a number of comments to a fair few people recently about the shortage of female bloggers in Birmingham, and I'm certainly not the only one. A prime example of 'be careful what you wish for' as, hot on the heels of my small rant, came an interesting and welcome invitation to be a guest blogger for the Birmingham Post. How could I refuse?

Looking around at my panel of esteemed bloggers in the Business section, I see that I am currently the single female voice. It's encouraging that the balance is starting to be redressed, but this is clearly not representative of Birmingham's business community. So an interesting conundrum presents itself. How do we encourage more women to make their voices heard, and why should they care?