Automaticness… what a word! At five syllables and with an awkward ‘c’ butted right up against an ‘n’, arguably it’s a little clunky and brash. I think of it as a teenager of a word trying to out-attitude a parent. Of course like the adult-in-the-making, it’s an unofficial word; ungraded, made-up and yet to be lexicon-ised. But it sounds so cool. Don’t you love the irony of a bolshy juvenile pouting angst and fury who unwittingly delivers a word so alluring you can’t wait to get out there and try for yourself despite being positively past the teen years?
Sadly I can’t claim to be the mother of this invention. My respect (and thanks for this linguistic gift) is due to the verbal audacity of Paul Armstrong, Head of Social Media at Mindshare, a global media network company. He put ‘automaticness’ out there for our enjoyment during his presentation at Mumsnet Blogfest 2012* recently. Speaking to a packed auditorium of bloggers, he spanked out his enthusiasm for Social Media and invited us all to embrace the newest technology available, Armstrong insisted: “Google is the way forward”. He certainly held my attention firm for the allotted 40 minutes of seminar giving on the subject of working online to best effect. His enthusiasm for his subject was palpable and infectious. “Facebook is the Daddy! – used by more than a billion people, and more than 34 million in the UK”, he insisted. “But Google+ is the new SEO crack!”. Armstrong is a copywriters dream with his munch-size quote habit.
Working with Google/Google+ will give online wordsmiths what Armstrong termed automaticness. It made instant sense. You just get the concept wrapped within. The notion that something is possessed of the drive and energy to make things happen in the right order without further input required. Repeat it to yourself and note the gratifying roundness of sound it makes when spoken loud. Auto-matic-ness. It has a great beginning, middle and end – a lovely completeness about it. I love its precocious use of 6 vowels to 7 consonants. Of course it’s not a proper word but it should be… in fact for Nickyswords henceforth it shall be.
*Sponsored by top dog of cyber-search engines, Google, alongside high street names including Boden and Skoda, the 2012 Mumsnet’s inaugural Blogfest event was a fierce opportunity to sharpen our cyber-wits with up-to-the-minute advice on working online. A fabulous line-up of writers, journalists and speakers included Caitlin Moran, Miriam González Durántez, Doctor Tanya Byron, Suzanne Moore, Rachel Cusk, Tim Dowling, Liz Jones….Mumsnet Blogfest 2013 is a must-go-to.
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