I’ll be speaking for the Greater Cincinnat ASTD chapter on Tuesday night. You don’t have to be a member to attend, but it will cost you $20.
I’ll be talking not about learning or training, but about building your personal brand using Facebook and more importantly, LinkedIn.
Social networks are everywhere. We’ll take a quick tour of LinkedIn and Facebook, setting up profiles and exploring options such as groups and pages. It’s time to establish your personal brand online.
click to view full invitation
The session will be held May 20th at DeVry Institute in Mason. Your $25 (or $15 for members) includes dinner, which is nice. You can register here or pay at the door. If you register after 5/17 or pay at the door, add $10 to the cost.
Just a couple quick, but important items to mention today:
First off, I’m dipping my toe into the professional blogging pool. Really. I’ll be writing tech posts on Brian Solis’s bub.blicio.us. If you follow PR at all, you might know Brian from his PR 2.0 blog. If not, perhaps you know him through his book, Now is Gone, with Geoff Livingston.
As a side note, in a previous post I mentioned how Twitter flattens the org chart. This is particularly true in this case. Here is an author of a book I happen to really enjoy, and a leader in Public Relations and Social Media. I followed him on Twitter. He expressed a need for a writer on Twitter, I replied, and here we are. He may be in California and I may be in Cincinnati, but Twitter flattened it all out and made everyone approachable. I love the new Web.
Next, on Tuesday we had the first Social Media Breakfast in Cincinnati. SMB was founded by Bryan Person in Boston and is infiltrating other cities. The first Cincinnati SMB included Cincinnati, Dayton, and Louisville. I took some notes, but none of them are half as great as the writeup by Jason Falls, so check that out here.
Sometimes I get so caught up in my Real World Work that I have no time to catch up on RSS feeds. That means I miss stories like this in the New York Times. Two prolific and well-read bloggers have recently passed away, at young ages, and a third had a heart attack.
While it took the NY Times to come out and say it, many are putting this towards Type A personality stress. They blogged themselves to death. Particularly in technology, the stakes are high. You want to scoop other technology blogs out there, you pull all nighters, and you survive at your computer.
There is a direct correlation between the weight I gained this year and the increased time I’ve spent at the computer. Now, I’m not trying to scoop someone else (heck, I can’t even keep up with all my feeds), but I am trying to at least stay on top of social media. Every day there’s a new app out there and I try to get a beta invite and at least familiarize myself with it. That’s on top of my Real Job, which is, at this very moment, a technical documentation project.
I’ve taken control and made the decision to get healthy and spend less time at the computer and more time visiting the gym and eating regularly and correctly. But not all bloggers can do that – there is an amazing amount of blog fatigue and stress if you let it get to you. If I actually worry about it, the wine blog can get to me – I haven’t had an original post in days. As great as it is, blogging can have a downside, but you just have to take control and maintain a work-life balance. And you have to remember that it’s just a blog. The world won’t end if you miss a day or two.
Twitter is already being used in academia. I think we could easily adapt some of those uses for the corporate training room.
ChitChat: Students may continue the conversations outside of class using Twitter. This is especially important when the class is spread out via elearning. The students have a shared experience – your classroom. This conversation and experience now continue outside, the same as with a wiki, yet with less effort.
Connection with VIPs: You can follow the big names. For instance, when it comes to Web 2.0, I follow Geoff Livingston, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, and Jason Falls, amongst others. What is often surprising to me is when they follow me back. Twitter flattens the org chart. Your CEO can twitter and in the process, chat with employees that also Twitter. Suddenly, everyone is just a Twitterer. It’s a great way to learn from the experts or access the executive tier.
Question and Answer: Twitter can provide instant feedback. It’s great for question and answer. Recently, Geoff Livingston was guest lecturing at University of Maryland. He asked Twitter – what advice would you give students for graduation? He received tons of responses, live, which were shared with his students instantly. Another Twitterer once demonstrated the power of instant feedback by asking Twitterers to call him on his cell phone while he was giving a presentation. The constant flow of calls was so much he had to beg folks to stop calling him. His point was well proven. This can also be used with GroupTweet to pick a specific distribution list for your question tweets.
Twitter Tracking: I actually have a few issues with this one. I don’t use Twitter on my phone very much. I set up phone notifications for a few folks for one month, and it was too much. Not being 22 or younger, I don’t like getting constant text messages. Maybe I just need an unlimited texting plan. So now I just get Direct Messages only via text. Twitter Tracking is a cool feature that needs to be expanded to the Web. Currently, you can send Track Instructional Design (for example) to Twitter via SMS and you will recieve an update whenever someone tweets using the phrase "instructional design." You get the update via your phone. The concept of tracking, however, is fantastic. Want to know what’s up with the latest iPhone update? Track iPhone. To turn it off, simply send "Untrack iPhone" via SMS. A nifty web-optimized replacement tool for Twitter Tracking is TweetScan. For education, Twitter Tracking (even through TweetScan) could be used to track instances of language use, specific conferences, and so forth.
Note Taking/Sharing: You can ping specific tweets/thoughts as Notes using TwitterNotes. You can then share the notes with the world – or with your class.
I’m using Twitter so much that I thought it was high time I explored how it might be used professionally within a learning environment.
Microblogging (whether Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, or something that isn’t here yet) has endless possibilities for the classroom. How much can you do in 140 characters? A lot, it would seem. The #1 advantage to microblogging is that it breaks boundaries – you are no longer confined to a computer and can explore the world. Twitter (et al) allows you to use any number of third party programs or simple text messaging on your mobile phone, no matter where you are.
Here’s a video from the Chronicle of Higher Education that I found via Brightcove. Tomorrow I’ll post on other uses I’ve found for applying Twitter for learning.
In our current [to use a buzz phrase] new media landscape, industries are overlapping. I increasingly see overlaps between marketing and learning. I find myself doing more than just dipping a toe in the marketing pool anymore, as use of social media tends to encourage a full dunk.
So I was happy to see it works both ways. I was reading Digital Next, an Ad Age blog, when I came across a post on "Unlearning" that I think is something we should consider in the Learning field.
The writer was watching his 4 year seamlessly adapt to using a Wii controller. When his mother tried it, however, she was unable to adapt.
And then it dawned on me. The technology itself isn’t difficult to
understand. In fact, Nintendo makes it painfully obvious that they
intend to casualize the console. There is very little to retain when
using a Wii. What is difficult, is the "unlearning" process. In fact
I’d argue that "unlearning" is far more cumbersome than "learning."
Through the eyes of my mom, I’ve handed her a remote control — one
that looks very similar to the same remote she may have at her house
that she uses to change the channels on her television. Her use of a TV
remote is a learned, patterned behavior, unbreakable and obviously
indistinguishable from a product of similar form factor.
The Learning industry is facing something similar. What happens when the digital natives outnumber others in our companies? Many people will need to unlearn a lot of how we do things – how we approach things.
Right now, it’s all still new enough that we sort of let it go when our attempt at integrating new media fails. For instance, I am part of a small charity committee. After our first benefit was over, I lost patience with the amazing amount of email and attachments flying back and forth. No one ever knew if they had the latest version of a document and keeping up with the changes in emails was next to impossible. So I created a wiki.
For over a month, I’ve been pushing the wiki. Posting on the wiki. Adding attachments to the wiki. Then at a meeting last night, one girl says, "I don’t like the wiki." Why? "I’m just not happy with it. It’s easier to use email." Translation: I know how to use email and see no reason to add a new behaviour or admit there might be a better, newer solution.
Sigh. She’s only 30. But it proved to me that age is not a defining factor in adapting technology. This particular girl is highly intelligent and highly organized. But she relies on paper, binders, and email. This works for her the way a chalkboard works for an older college professor. Why put the notes on Blackboard LMS when the chalkboard works just fine? Why change what works?
We all have habits we hang onto. I just really believe that in the next few years we will all need to adapt or be left behind. We’ll need to unlearn if we want to participate. We can’t be afraid to unlearn. So the question becomes, how do we cope with those who don’t want to participate? The girl who refuses to use the wiki?
Are you going to camp? Podcamp? If you’re unfamiliar, I suppose it sounds a little odd. Perhaps a camp with podpeople from a horror movie.
Well, it’s not that, and it’s not really a camp. It is, however, a day full of information on podcasting, blogging, Twitter, and all sorts of social media. There are a lot of reasons to come to Podcamp Ohio:
It’s free!
If you read blogs, listen to podcasts, are involved in Facebook groups, or are just curious about social media, this is your chance to learn more!
If you’re already involved in social networking, this is a chance to meet people you probably talk to all the time – except now you get to meet them in person.
There are all sorts of neat sessions. Personally, I’m looking forward to the WordPress 101 session (and I’m also presenting on Twitter).
It’s an unconference, so you can present if you want to. By the people and for the people …
It’s a relaxed way to learn more about new media, whether you’re a novice or an expert. Everyone there has similar interests and want to help others learn more.
It’s free!
Podcamp Ohio is taking place on June 28, from 9 am – 5 pm, in Columbus, Ohio. The cost is free, and the payoff is more knowledge and more contacts.
Social media and collaboration is the future, and the here and now. The collaborative Web isn’t just for teenagers – it can be used for networking, and for business.
Social media use the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and
video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP,
to name a few.
Web 2.0-savvy panellists include:
FRCH & PR Blog’s Kevin Dugan
Web 2.0 consultant Michelle Lentz
Pause Magazine Editor in Chief Chris Bergman
This is your opportunity to get the answers you want about Social Media and how to use it effectively. Join The Women’s Circuit as we talk about the best ways to integrate social media into your business or organization.
Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:30 am – 1 pm @ Airport FastPark Offices 250 West Court Street Cincinnati, OH 45202
Members are encouraged to bring your friends and colleagues.**Non-members are welcome.** Lunch will be available, please RSVP at RSVP@TheWomensCircuit.com by
4/8/08.
Kevin Dugan, over at the Strategic Public Relations blog, twittered about Colin McKay’s new missive: The Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organizations.
You can skip my banter and just go download it, for free, here.
If you don’t mind my conversing a little, here are my thoughts.
I think anyone trying to integrate social media into any size organziation needs to read this. I said it at TechKnowledge in my wiki session and repeated it many times since:
Social media fails without commitment and buy-in from its users.
I’ve always advocated the stealth approach to slipping in social media. I’ve discovered, though, that many times the stealth approach doesn’t cut it. You have to Herd people to the media. "I have a new file you need. Go download it from the wiki." Herd, herd, herd.
That said, Colin McKay (whom many of you may know as the CanuckFlack public relations blogger) really hits the nail on the head with this booklet. His stealth approach covers everything from making sure you have a clean online reputation to feeling out other guerrillas in your midst. And then you launch geurilla warfare.
Right, I can’t explain it. Just go download and read it. It’s only about 23 pages and has a big font.
I will say that I’ll be using this, with full attribution to Colin, in the Intro to Web 2.0 class I’ve been asked to create.
Using my adorable little FlipUltra video camera, I took "YouTube
Quality" video of David Pogue as he performed at our opening session.
Here’s David Pogue performing The Sounds of Silence – about tech support and dying computers.
