The Daily Telegraph has benefited most from the scandal because it broke the news is small chunks and put a dedicated team onto the story. This resulted in large circulation gains for the publication.
Not to be outdone, The Guardian has it's own unique take on the story and instead of relying on its journalists to sift through the mountains of documents, it built a web application and invited "the crowd" to help.
"The application itself was developed at breakneck speed: coding began on Thursday 11 June, and was complete - aside from ongoing bug fixing as people began using it - by 3.30pm Thursday 18 June.
In the application, at mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk, each MP's expenses and claims are presented as a set of images, and users can determine - and detail - what entries there are on a page, and decide whether the page is unimportant, interesting, "interesting but known" - such as a duck island - or worthy of investigation.
Within half an hour of the launch, more than 2,000 pages had been reviewed. Future additions to the application may include a "top analysis" ranking for those who have contributed most to sifting the pages - a task which the Telegraph's team, despite having a three-month lead, is not believed to have been able to achieve."
We haven't seen the end of this. I think it's safe to assume that other publications and media outlets throughout the world, will be putting their source material up for access for the crowd. This alone is not especially interesting, but how the get to use the crowd, will be.
Posted by Ed Cotton
It reads a little like a field manual for a new potentially hostile territory.
Here's what they say about meeting etiquette.
"Meetings and greetings
• It is important to both start and end appointments on time. If you’re driving between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, add 20% to your travel time and always take highway 280 over highway 101 if you can—it is usually faster and always prettier. When possible, schedule your meetings between 10am and 3pm to avoid rush hours.
• Don’t be offended if people neglect to shake your hand or take your business card in large business meetings. Americans (and Californians) are more informal than you may be used to.
• Having said that, carry as many business cards as possible, after making room for all the newest high-tech gadgets.
• Be generous with your contacts. People here will remember and reward you if you give them the name of someone who may prove profitable and interesting for them to meet.
• Put your mobile phone on silent during meetings and only take a call if it is truly urgent. Best practice is to warn your interlocutor ahead of time that you may need to break for a call.
• If you are responsible for only part of a larger presentation it is not considered rude to leave after your part (including the question-and-answer session) is over.
• Resist your natural modesty. Promoting yourself and your company is expected. Just be gracious about it.
• For better or worse, Americans are an optimistic people. As the old song goes: “accentuate the positive.” Everyone else will."
The last two points are especially important for the Brits, who tend to spend a lot of time doing exactly the opposite.
Posted by Ed Cotton