Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
I Went to SXSW and All I Got Was…
SXSWi 2009-Sketchnotes-Final Badge by Mike Rohde
This year was my first trip to the SXSW Interactive Festival, and I’m finally getting a chance to cull my impressions and thoughts about everything I experienced.
Event:
- It’s all about the people. Yes, I saw some inspiring and informative sessions, but I also came away having met a lot of amazing people, some for the first time and some who I’ve known or worked with but never met in person. The sheer quality of most everyone I met was pretty incredible. I was a bit nervous attending by myself, but I quickly learned that you’re only alone if you want to be at SXSW.
- It’s ok to check out. Wonderful people aside, I reached a point around the 4th day where I kind of maxed out – on lack of sleep, on energy of making new introductions, on mental capacity to focus on one more session. So, I unplugged. I rented a bike, and spent a couple of hours outside in the sunshine. Biked the path around the river, ate Tex-Mex at Chuy’s & blackberry ice cream at Amy’s, perused the rows of boots at Allen’s Boots. It was probably the single best decision I made the entire time I was there, and gave me the energy to finish out strong. (I also had to learn at SXSW that it’s ok to walk out of a session if it’s not doing it for you. I got stuck in one that I really should have left, and didn’t make that mistake again.)
- You can’t be everywhere. I had to come to terms with not being able to attend everything I had hoped to. (There were a couple days in particular where a number of really strong sessions overlapped.) I’m sure I missed some great things, but know I will be able to catch most everything online. (Some videos are already up on YouTube, podcasts on SXSW and more video promised to come.)
- Preparing is good. I spent some time before leaving for SXSW planning out a schedule (with built-in overlaps) using both the my.SXSW site and the SCHED*SXSW site. (The SCHED site ended up being the better performing of the two and included more unofficial events.) I imported both to iCal and my iPhone, and it made decisions and getting around much easier (especially if I was ditching one session and heading to another).
Themes:
From the various keynotes, presentations and panels I attended, seven themes emerged for me. (I tried to sample across a range of corporate, non-profit and education sessions – areas where I’m involved professionally – and also a few purely inspirational sessions that weren’t necessarily business-related.) (more…)
Facebook vs. Control: Smackdown of the Week
smackdown stage by linxbas
There’s a big brouhaha going on about Facebook’s new(ish) Terms of Service, updated earlier this month but called into the spotlight this past weekend on Consumerist and a number of other sites, including the MSM.
The biggest part of the debate hinges on who controls a user’s content, and what happens to that content even when users have removed themselves from the site.
Protest groups have formed on Facebook. Bloggers like Perez Hilton are calling for a boycott. People are deleting their accounts (but, with about 175 million members, I wonder if that has even a symbolic effect?).
The outcry prompted a response from response from Mark Zuckerburg on the Facebook blog yesterday, and says, among other things: (more…)
My Year in Review Comes Down to One
Into the fog by raindog
This time of year is ripe for reflection about the year past and prognostication about the year to come. Best-of lists, predictions for the new year, goals – many good & inspiring thoughts and ideas, but they’re so numerous it can become hard to digest even one more.
But I hope you will take just a little time to digest this one.
As I thought about the year past, all of the power of social media came down to one thing.
It wasn’t new in 2008, but it was new to me.
The most truly powerful communication and social media tool I used last year was CaringBridge. It’s a free, non-profit service for individuals or families during times of illness or treatment. It allows you to create a personalized website (either public or private) with a journal/blog-like feature, a section for photographs, a welcome or background page, and a guestbook for people to sign and leave messages.
It’s a service I hope most of you will never need, but it’s important, and it’s important to know it exists should you, or anyone you know, find yourself in need.
I was referred to this service during a time of intense family crisis last spring. During family crises, just like business crises, it can become difficult and burdensome to communicate. Have we communicated with everyone we need to? Have we forgotten anyone? Does everyone have the same information or the information they need? These questions are pretty universal, during any crisis. But all the updates, all the repetition – it can be crushing during a personal crisis.
CaringBridge was a lifeline for my family. The founder of CaringBridge describes it as a kind of “compassion technology,” combining “the human elements of care and concern with the Internet’s ability to connect people.” The private site we created gave us one central place to keep far-flung family and friends informed, and we drew strength from the messages of support from around the world.
Often with social media, we focus on what the tool or service is, versus what it does.
This is a powerful example of the doing. And something I will try to take with me into the new year.
When a Tweet From Mumbai Reaches Around the World
Mumbai by karmadude, under a Creative Commons license
Like many people in the U.S., I was out of town for Thanksgiving when I heard about the Mumbai attacks last week. After a Wednesday afternoon spent grocery shopping in Denver, CO, my family and I returned to my relatives’ house, turned on the news, and saw our first reports about the horrific attacks on CNN. Trying to learn more, I pulled up Twitter on a laptop, and searched for reports about what was happening. A flood of information started coming in.
Apparently, I wasn’t alone in using Twitter to follow the crisis. Twitter is a social networking tool that allows users (“Twitterers”) to post 140-character updates (or “tweets”) to their followers (or the public – over 80% of the 6 million users have public pages), either online, via text message or through other tools. This New York Times article notes that, “At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word ‘Mumbai’ in it was being posted to Twitter.” Approximately 80 tweets were sent via SMS (text message) every five seconds (CNN).
(more…)
Journalism Isn’t Dying, but It Will Never Be The Same Again – It Will Be Better
First In a Series: The State of Journalism Today
I’ve had a lover’s quarrel with journalism most of my adult life.
As in any lover’s quarrel, I get pretty heated when journalism lets me down. But only because the love burns deep within me.
I so want journalism to thrive; to prosper; to fulfill its stated mission, and to deliver the value it promises. But too often, and seemingly with increasing frequency, journalism fails to live up to its stated ideals.
I’ve made a pretty good living helping people navigate the vagaries of journalism – protecting them from its excesses, helping them capture the best of journalism to mutual advantage when they can. In the process I’ve gotten to know a lot of journalists and to care deeply about their craft. And to lament the deteriorating state of the business.
Today I begin a multi-part look at the state of journalism, its role in our democracy, and the challenges it faces.
My first post is about the future.
The Conventional Wisdom is Wrong
The conventional wisdom is that journalism is dying.
I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
Journalism isn’t dying, but it is in the throes of a revolution that will transform it – for the better. (more…)
A Sea Change in Political Communication
David Katz via Obama for America
It’s been a little over a week since the 2008 election came to a dramatic close with Barack Obama as our new President-elect. There’s been a lot of discussion and agreement about how the Obama campaign was significantly better at harnessing the power of social media to drive support, action, donations, votes, and eventually victory, remapping the way a campaign communicates with supporters along the way.
The Internet has certainly been used in previous political campaigns (notably Howard Dean’s). But the tools, the candidates, and the rate at which constituents consume various social media channels have evolved tremendously since 2004
The younger generation voted heavily for Obama (the NYTimes notes that “more 18-29-year-olds went to the polls this year than in any election since 1972,” with 66% voting for Obama). As noted on another blog, “this group is likely to engage in two-way conversation with staff, volunteers, and clients, rather than one-way broadcasts, the style of communication most often used by organizations now.”
Worth Reading: Countering Violent Extremism: Beyond Words, by Amy Zalman, Ph.D.
Countering Violent Extremism: Beyond Words
by Amy Zalman, Ph.D., EastWest Institute.
Words matter.
Words shape world views. Words provoke action and reaction, which in turn provoke more words. Getting the words right is critically important. Getting the action right is also critically important. And aligning the words and actions is even more important.
Much public diplomacy and other national and international discourse of the U.S. government in recent years has gotten it wrong.
A new policy paper by a Dr. Amy Zalman, published by the EastWest Institute, highlights the mis-steps of the recent past and prescribes solutions for future public discourse.
Dr. Zalman is a senior strategist at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where she focuses on trans-culturally astute research for U.S. government clients. She also writes the “About Terrorism” reference website for New York Times online division About.com. She has a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from NYU and is highly proficient in Arabic. I met her when we were NYU faculty colleagues.
In reading Dr. Zalman’s assessment of and prescriptions for future public diplomacy I was struck by how much her underlying philosophy aligns deeply with Logos Institute’s own philosophy about communication as an instrument of strategy. And also how her assessment provides valuable insights not only on ways to counter extremism, but also on best practices in strategic communication across a range of disciplines. (more…)
Rumor Control: Keeping Momentum in a Presidential Campaign
Senator Barack Obama yesterday announced an effort to deal with rumors in a timely way, to prevent them from taking hold and throwing his campaign off balance.
He’s right to be so concerned. Rumors can throw a presidential campaign off its game, and provide adversaries, critics, and opponents with a first-mover advantage that’s hard to beat. The last 20 years teach a great deal about the importance of effective rumor control.
The Secret of Quick Response
The Red Herring of Social Media
While many of us feel comfortable with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, something like Pay Per Post (PPP) and Pay Per Vote blogging would probably make us feel quite uncomfortable and could disturb our sense of social media authenticity. Most of us have a blogroll we trust and turn to for wisdom on a regular basis. Could we still trust blog posts if Pay Per Post blogging could potentially corrupt social media?
Because blogs and social media web sites generate a lot of traffic, adopting social media tools has become a magic pill for increasing online rankings and amping up revenues.
But is adopting social media tools a magic pill or a red herring? And is a company that seeks lucrative deals in the black market of social media jeopardizing its reputation and creating mistrust among its stakeholders? (more…)
The Times, They Are A-Changing…
The 1960 televised debate between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy was a turning point. It forever changed politics. The power of the visual image to emphasize sizzle over steak was initially a surprise to political scientists. Kennedy’s win, attributable to his superior performance in the debate, wasn’t supposed to happen.
And TV also changed the way Americans experienced the world. Suddenly, TV was the medium of social cohesion.
We watched as Walter Cronkite wiped a tear and announced to a stunned nation that President Kennedy had died.
We watched as Cronkite provided live commentary on the moon landing. And we watched as he pronounced the war in Vietnam unwinable. Vietnam became the first “living room war,” playing out on our TVs.
I believe that history will look back at the 2008 election and declare that it too represents a turning point. (more…)