If you’ve been following the controversy over the 2012 Olympics logo, you’ll see a familiar pattern.

Many new logos, and brand names even, seem odd and –as Londoners complain– say nothing about them.

I have a strong opinion about this one. I think it’s not very inspiring. Vibrant, yes. But hey, I don’t live in London, and it’s easy to be critical when you’re not privy to the brief or the marketing context.

This is turning out to be not just a branding nightmare, but a PR one –with the organizers seeming to not want to listen to the protests.

I like the fact that they are now at least asking people to create and submit a logo design.

They welcome user generated content, with ‘downloadable ‘templates’ backed up by a huge section on the use of and removal of content. Yes, they will moderate comments, they say!

In defense of the edgy (or odd) logo, it is in sync with their objectives:

“London 2012 will be a Games that make the most of exciting new technology to get people closer to the action..”

“The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks.”

As for what will happen when a logo isn’t working in isolation and has more context, see what ordinary people are submitting to not the IOC site, but Flickr.

With the penchant for standardisation in various industries, products and services, one would expect the same to happen in media circles as well. As we aggressively pursue world standards such as the ISO 9000 ISO 9002 etc etc we are seeing communication departments reaching out for that coveted honour of being labelled “ISO Certified”.

Anyway that is not the subject that I wanted to discuss. I am referring to the global approaches to media. I am talking about how very differently one journalist communicates from another in a different country. I am thinking why isn’t there much of an effort being made to cluster some of the disparate approaches to media and harness the goodness of the common appeal.

Am I too vague? Okay let’s do examples. IABC Chair Glenda Holmes visited Auckland and she got a massive media coverage with her photo et al displayed prominently at that. Great. Previous IABC Chairs have visited Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong and there has been no media coverage but they got media coverage in Malaysia, for instance. IABC President Julie Freeman visited Manila and there was unprecedented media attention. But when she visited India there was no media interest.

If we analyse the situation, we can’t say that the coverage happens in smaller countries or less developed countries. The whole thing defies logic. It is like a lottery - you win some place you lose some place.

Same with conference coverages. Conference organisers crave for some press attention to boost their marketing efforts. But the only coverage that they willy nilly end up getting is at the expense of paid commercial coverage in most countires. I am sure Ragan, Melcrum, Ark, IQPC and other organisations may have had similar experiences that they may like to share.

So where does it boil down to? Are we saying that this sort of uncertain media happens in the case of professional associations alone and not for the government departments, the public sector undertakings, the quasi-government sector or the private sector?

The growth of podcasting, and the trend toward knowledge-sharing on a large scale may teach us something about the gray area between ‘walled gardens’ and the great outdoors of the online world.

I’ve been looking at this parallel with regard to Live Blogging we got into recently.

With podcasting, specifically with colleges adopting this medium in droves, it’s not exactly like the arguments surrounding Live Blogging with regard to speed and ethics etc, but there are similar concerns:

1. Does a college of professor give away too much by posting a podcast available to anyone, including non-students? UC Berkeley has courses not just on iTunes but also on YouTube. Here at ASU, lectures are being posted as podcasts and even PDF files! There has been some talk in other areas about students being able to miss class because the lectures are available on their iPods.

2. Is this, on the other hand, just another way to broaden the conversation, share knowledge, and bridge distance using the available technology at this particular time?