Are we S.A.D? Bring on H.A.P.P.Y

As the British weather continues to confusedly wreak havoc, more and more people are joining the army of those who have just about had enough of these torrential and extremely undecided days. Will it rain, snow, shine or gust? Do we wear a hat, sunglasses, wellies? All of the above?

I, personally, have heard a number of people say; “I swear I’ve got that S.A.D. yano…?!” or something of the like, but are people in Britain really suffering with S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? Or do we just love a good moan? As soon as it’s too hot, we love a good whinge then too.

Don’t get me wrong, this weather is cack and it’s gone on for way too long, for my liking. (I love a good moan too).

In the space of all of 5 minutes, a news report on Radio 2 said:

·           This has been the coldest March in 66 years.

·           It was colder than December, January and February.

·           A lot of people have been suffering with sunburn

·           …..ey?!

We’ll soon be getting to work by gondola or skis.

For some, S.A.D is obviously a genuine problem, with symptoms including

·           Depression

·           Sleep problems

·           Social problems

·           Anxiety

·           Loss of libido

·           Over eating

Sounds bloody awful right? And as it seems the start of spring has been cancelled, the misery for the sufferers is prolonged.

As for the rest, we’re not S.A.D, we’re just M.O.A.N.E.R.S. Bring on ‘summer’, with the possibility of some rain, British gondolas, heat waves and undoubtedly BBQs, garden parties and beer gardens at every single possibly opportunity. Heck, I’d even welcome the bees?!

Bring on the British summer, so everyone can be H.A.P.P.Y!

Crisis Management; The art of the impossible in today's 21st century game of Chinese whispers?

 Trying to prevent havoc reeking before the world knows about it now is like trying to ask Kerry Katona to finally do us a favour and draw the curtain on fame; it’s just not going to happen.

News doesn’t primarily come from news papers anymore; we see it on Twitter or Facebook first. Checking social media has become a compulsory procedure for most people before they even get out of bed in the morning!

Take, for example, the horse meat scandal. My twitter feed was filled with endless (and mostly lame) horse meat jokes before I had even switched on the news or picked up a paper. But how awesome is that? Scary. But awesome!

Potentially stories could get dangerously mislead and out of hand before we can even say ‘Crisis Management’. Twitter is like a 21^st century game of Chinese whispers, it’s become a news source, whether reliable, or not, like social media’s answer to Wikipedia.

Twitter has around 500 million users. So, 500 million people could potentially hear your side of the story. Amazing right? Use it! Yes, news of your crisis could break out; in fact, news of your crisis will break out. But your reaction can get out just as quick.

If anything, this horse meat scandal became more of a mockery than a problem; not only were people more bothered about who had the best horse meat joke but most were questioning how big a deal it really was? Why don’t we eat horse? Why don’t we ride cows? I’m sure there are very feasible explanations to both but you get the jist. A quick flick through the paper a couple of weeks later and I saw adverts from Tesco, Aldi and Morrisons, each simultaneously pressing how amazingly fresh and pure their BRITISH meat is, with their customers best interest always at heart. All hail British farmers and that money shaped hole burning through their pockets. Crisis? What crisis?

Twitter provides a platform for topical debates and opinions which could steer towards you in a positive way. Use it! Do not let it use you!

I will leave you with some Twitter Statistics, courtesy of http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/

Statistic Verification

Source: Twitter, Huffington Post, eMarketer

Research Date: 9.5.2012

Twitter is an online social networking website and microblogging service that allows users to post and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. Launched in July of 2006 by Jack Dorsey. Twitter is now in the top 10 most visted internet sites.

Twitter Company Statistics	Data
Total number of active registered Twitter users	500,250,000
Number of new Twitter users signing up everyday	150,000
Number of unique Twitter site visitors every month	180 million
Average number of tweets per day	55 million
Number of Twitter search engine queries every day	1.6 billion
Percent of Twitter users who use their phone to tweet	41 %
Percent of tweets that come from third party applicants	60%
Number of people that are employed by Twitter	175
Number of active Twitter users every month	100 million
Percent of Twitters who don’t tweet but watch other people tweet	40%
Number of days it takes for 1 billion tweets	5 days
Number of tweets that happen every second	8,900
Twitter Annual Advertising Revenue	Revenue
2013 (Projected)	$399,500,000
2012	$259,000,000
2011	$139,000,000
2010	$45,000,000