Manitou Heights

One of the Twitter feeds that I follow is from GCI Communique, the first public relations firm in Norway to specialize in the use of digital media. I also follow the feeds of a couple of the people who work there, so I not only get a sense of what GCI Communique is doing, but of the personalities that are driving it.

GCI Communique is aimed at the Norwegian market and most of their information is written på norsk (in Norwegian). As that's my second language, it's allowed me an interesting view into how one business in another country/culture is using digital media and exploring the implications of that use.

On April 22, Fredrik Johnsen posted to the GCI Communique blog (that's blogg in Norwegian) with "Hvem blir Norges første webtalsmann? (Who should be Norway's first community manager?)". The posting gave examples of people currently recognized as social media community managers including Lionel Menchaca of Dell (a customer of GCI Communique's parent company GCI Global), Connie Bensen and Jeremiah Owyang.

Johnsen chose the word "webtalsmann" because there really isn't a word in Norwegian that means "community manager." This apparently sparked some conversation about what Norwegian word or term would work best.

The next day, April 23, Johnsen's colleague Marius Eriksen posted "Hjelp oss å finne det beste norske ordet for “community manager" (Help us find the best Norwegian word for "Community Manager")." That same day, a number of GCI Communique employees twittered the article and asked for readers to respond. They received more than 75 submissions and on April 25, Eriksen announced a poll with 47 choices and again invited readers to vote for their preferred term.

I couldn't resist. I made a suggestion — and it was included on the list. The terms that have received the most votes so far are (with my feeble attempts at transliterations from Norwegian to English) are:

1. Dialogsjef (Dialog chef)
2. Samfunnskontakt (Community contact)
3. Nettgartner (Net gardener)
4. Nettsamfunnsansvarlig (Net community responsibility)
5. Community-ansvarlig (Community-responsibility)

My suggestion isn't among the top five — but that's not the point.

I find this unfolding story fascinating. Technology is adding new words and terminology to the vocabularies of languages all over the globe — word and terms that simply didn't exist yesterday. And, in this case, a public relations company offered the opportunity for any Norwegian speakers to actively participate in the process.

Will they have a run-off vote? We'll see. In any case, I'll be interested to see which term comes out on top and I'll report it here. After all, how often does one get to blog about the creation of new word in another language?!

As they say in Norwegian, kjempekuul! (Super cool!)

UPDATE:

As of Monday, 28 April 2008 at 8:00, almost 100 votes had been cast and the top choices were:

1. Dialogsjef 15,90 % (Dialog chef/chief)
2. Samfunnskontakt 12,20 % (Community's contact)
3. Nettsamfunnsansvarlig 8,50 % (Net community responsibility)
4. Nettgartner 7,30 % (Net gardener)
5. Community-ansvarlig 6,10 % (Community responsibility)
6. Nettverkskoordinator 4,90 % (Networks coordinator)
7. Webkoordinator 4,90 % (Web coordinator)
8. Nettkontakt 3,70 % (Net contact)
9. Nettambassadør 3,70 % (Net ambassador)
10. Dialogansvarlig 3,70 % (Dialog responsibility)

On Wednesday, 30 April, GCI Communique will send the top five choices to the Norwegian language board for consideration by their experts.