I believe that if you live long enough in a place, it becomes part of you.

This is why I was really excited to hear about an interesting experiment with citizen journalism in the Czech Republic.

I spent the first half of the 1990s in Prague working as a reporter. What made the job so interesting was not only the historic time (only two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall) but also the stories ordinary people would tell me when I was researching my articles.

Czechs have a unique way to relay facts. A fascinating mixture of magical realism and sobering analysis.

These are ideal components for the new venture launched by PPF Media. The group has set up a network of cafés in a number of Czech towns where people can go to surf the web, drink coffee and chat about local events with journalists who work there. The product is new type of reporting, which mixes the skills of professional journalists with those of the readers.

The network is coordinated by the “Futuroom” based in Prague, where seasoned editors work, adding national and international content to the local stories. The “Futuroom” also serves as a multi-media training centre and has already attracted the support of partners like Google  and the World Association of Newspapers. 

If I close my eyes and think back of the days when I was working at the English desk of a Czech news agency, I can see myself typing on a keyboard in the early morning in a semi-dark room with the snow silently falling outside.

Were we all working at an experiment? Did we contribute a least a little to the amazing progress that Czech journalism has made in the past 20 years?

I am humbly hoping for the answer to be “yes”….

My co-author Yang-May  and I look very happy in this picture.

Our book has been nominated for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Awards!

I got the message the other week in San Francisco…first thing in the morning when I turned on my Blackberry. I was rushing …. I had to jump in the shower and almost forgot about it. But in the course of the day, the thought came back to my mind and began to sink in.

When Yang-May got the news, she remembered writing the book in her pyjamas early in the morning…

Awards and pyjamas are such a funny juxtaposition…

Yesterday, we gave a talk at the Institute of Directors together with Giles Colborne on Creating Value through Web 2.0 helped by panel chairman David Wootton.

Many of the questions we were asked dealt with the ROI of social media for small and medium-sized businesses. We used our blogs to provide examples for some of the answers.

I have been blogging on XCulture for over two years. It has been a fascinating journey. One that has taken me in many unexpected directions. The part I enjoyed most has been floating ideas for our book and observing the reactions of my readers.

Click here  to download our IOD presentation.

It is June and it’s time to leave for San Francisco again.

At the end of the week, I will be attending  IABC’s international executive board meeting.

I am thrilled that my friend Mark Schumann is taking over as chairman. Mark has a great sense of humour. And we will probably need it in the years to come…

One of the issues we are discussing in California is the direction in which the communication profession is going and where it will be in 10 years from now.

At the moment, it feels like walking through a maze at a summer fair. You can only go forward. You can’t turn back. There is nothing to go back to.

Journalism, as we used to know it, is no more.

And the power of social media is chipping away at corporate communication’s old command-and-control culture.

The more I work with organisations to introduce Web 2.0, the more I realise that it is mostly about relinquishing fear. I believe communicators can play a major role in removing resistance and developing what Kevin Roberts calls “emotional connectivity”.

Now and again, I still meet people convinced that blogging and Twitter are only used for weirdoes who want to upload their frustrations on the internet.

So, it was refreshing to read an interview with Queen Rania of Jordan in which she calls social media “a catalyst for the advancement of everyone’s rights…It’s where people can find and fight for a cause, global or local, popular of specialised, even when there are hundreds of miles between them.”

Who needs to know how to exit the maze?! I just love the “attraction economy”.