Into the Social Matrix

In previous blog entries, I've mentioned my friend Paull Young, a social media expert working in the public relations field. The first entry came after he spoke to my Interactive Media class at Fordham University a year ago, and it was entitled The Professionalization of Social Networking, and it was followed by Social Media on Social Media. Of course, you will want to review those posts before continuing... Well? Okay, maybe later then.

So, anyway, Paull recently came back to the Bronx to give another talk to this semester's Interactive Media class. Which was great, I might add. And this time, he taped the talk because he was asked to do a video lecture for students at his alma mater, Charles Sturt University in Australia. As he writes on his blog, Young PR, in a post entitled An Introduction to Social Media for Undergrads:

Last week I visited Lance Strate’s class at Fordham University on the same mission, so I took the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. While Bathurst and The Bronx have nada in common aside from alliteration, the principles of social media unite PR students around the world.

You can read the entire blog post, it's not very long, by clicking on An Introduction to Social Media for Undergrads and you'll find that it includes the video of the lecture, which Paull posted on Vimeo (an alternative to YouTube that allows for longer videos), but being as always public service-minded, I'll embed that video right here for your convenience:


Paull Young on Social Media from Paull Young on Vimeo.

So, take a little time and enjoy the talk, and the outrageous Aussie accent while you're at it! And while we're on the subject, Time-Warner Cable's local news channel, New York 1 (channel one on local systems in NY and NJ), ran a story on social media that also featured an interview with Paull Young, and his colleague and boss Rob Key (who I met along with Paull last year), from the PR firm called Converseon, Inc., or in Twitter-speak, @converseon. Unfortunately, they won't allow me to embed the video report (how old school, how old media Time-Warner is, and to think that they once were buoyed up by Atari videogames, and later became known as AOL-Time-Warner!!!!). So, I'll just have to give you the link and trust in your good graces to go over to their site and watch the news report: Cleaning Up Your Cyber Image For Employers. There is some text on that site, so I can give you a quote to let you know what it's about:

Learning how to cleanup your online presence is an imporant step in staying ahead of the game when it comes to potential employers. NY1's Tara Lynn Wagner filed the following report.
Sure it's called MySpace, but nothing about it, or any other social networking site, is really yours. The photos, status updates and videos you post on the World Wide Web are there for the whole wide world to see, and while the whole wide world may not be looking, potential employers are.

"More and more employers are beginning to use Google and are becoming more adept at using social media to help find information about both current employees and potential employees and perspective business partners," said Converseon CEO Rob Key.

Key's company, Converseon, is a social media agency that helps companies manage their online reputation. Key says the first step to cleaning up your cyber-image is to do a Google search.

"Look at Google images, go to YouTube and search for your name there as well, you will be amazed at how many places you may end up that you don't know," said Key.

We then get to the point about how a new medium defines, and redefines who we are, our identity and our selves:

Key says when it comes to the web, job seekers need to see themselves as products being promoted. The more content you create for yourself, the more control you have over the impression you give an employer.

"You can find my blog where I've been writing for several years, you can find my linked in profile which is really my very professional CV online, you can find my Twitter page, you can find my YouTube videos," said Converseon Social Media Strategist Paull Young.

Young says while it's okay to have fun with these sites, his Twitter page announces that he is very handsome and intelligent. He adds it's important to know your audience.

On Twitter today, a number of folks have commented on the description of Paull as "very handsome and intelligent." Leave it at that. Anyway, he goes on to note the breaking down of barriers that is characteristic of all electronic media:

"Your mum could read it, your employer or future employer could read it and your significant other could read it. If all those things are fine, then you shouldn't have any problems," said Young.

But when it comes to the question of what is the role of public relations in the new social media environment, here's the answer:

While accentuating the positive is easy, eliminating the negative can be tricky. Key says you can contact the owner of a site and ask politely that the unflattering material be removed and he says you should take advantage of built in security features that allow you to untag yourself from photos posted by others. This enables you to control your image, rather than letting other people define who you are, a definition that can come back to haunt you.

"When it's digitized, it's there forever so something you do at 18 at a college party may likely be here in 10 or 15 years. It's kind of like that tattoo you got one night and years later you are going to regret that you have it, but it's going to remain there," said Key.

And there you have it. But don't take my word for it, go and get it straight from the horses' mouth. And tell them I sent you!

Program Launched

So, I told you about my new, added responsibilities as Director of Fordham University's new Professional Studies in New Media program, for our School of Professional and Continuing Studies, in a recent post with the rather straightforward title of Professional Studies in New Media.

And in that same post, I also mentioned the launch event, which took place this past Thursday, May 31st, at our Westchester campus, featuring a panel discussion on Working With New Media that I moderated, with panelists Constantin Basturea, Robin Colner, Chris Cornell, and Paull Young.

Well, the event was a great success, or at least I think it was, and I thought I'd share with you the article written by Janet Sassi for Fordham's eNewsroom.  It's called Roundtable Launches Fordham Program in New Media, as you may have guessed, you can click on the link to see it in its native habitat, or stick around and see it here and now.

Oh and here's the photograph, taken by Janet Sassi that was included with the article:

 

And the caption that came with it reads: "New Media panelists (l to r) Chris Cornell, Robin Colner, Paull Young and Constantin Basturea" (no, I'm not there, I was standing off to the side, which is fine with me).

So, anyway, let me get to the article now, and along the way I'll intersperse some other photographs provided courtesy of Chris Cornell, and I'll use his captions as well.

Four years ago, Chris Cornell ran a picture framing gallery and didn’t know what social media was, or how to set up a WordPress website. Then, in 2008, he found his platform.


“I became a Twitter evangelist,” said Cornell, who created the first Westchester ‘Tweet-Up” in 2009 and who is now social media director for Thompson & Bender, and a columnist for Westchester’s Examiner News.

 Thompson & Bender Director of Social Media Chris S. Cornell

talks about social media during Fordham University's 

panel discussion on new media held Thursday, March 31 

on the school's Westchester campus. Photo courtesy of Andy Goodman.

Five years ago, Paull Young saw a Tweet asking those who cared about clean water to request donations for charity:water in lieu of gifts on their birthdays; he set up an account, blogged it out, and was able to raise enough on his birthday to finance the building of one well in Africa.

Cornell and Young were part of an expert roundtable, organized and moderated by Lance Strate, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies, that helped launch the Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies’ (PCS) new program, Professional Studies in New Media, on May 31.

Paull Young, director of digital engagement at charity: water 

with Dr. Isabelle Frank, Dean, 

Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies.

Panelists were unanimous in their view, which was, as social networks proliferate and the cyber universe expands, businesses and institutions need to do one thing to stay competitive: dip in and be there or risk being left behind.


“A lot of people are naysayers to social media, and they don’t see the benefits and refuse to get into it,” said Cornell. “The only way you can really see the full opportunities that social media present is to look at them from within. Every time you take a step, it brings new opportunities to leverage and magnify.”


The PCS’ new program, housed at the Westchester campus, focuses on developing new media expertise through courses such as Digital Design for New Media, Social Media Marketing, New Media Metrics, and Issues and Ethics in Cyberspace.


With the recent IPO of Facebook, and the exponential development of new networking platforms, organizations have untapped opportunities for selling products, tracking customers/followers, raising funds, and building brands, panelists said.


Young, who is now charity:water’s director of Digital Engagement, said the non-profit company does 75 percent of its fundraising on line. The organization, dedicated to bringing clean water to people worldwide, is planning to raise $25 million this year.


He described the power of social media, referencing a blog that was posted recently by a mother who was proud of her daughter for raising $362 for charity work: the girl wrote “Giving up my presents was really easy . . . I don’t need all that stuff.”


He reposted the girl’s comments, and people donated even more.


“That’s a movement. And that is social media amplifying word-of mouth,” said Young, who helped charity:water become the first non-profit to have one million Twitter followers.

Constantin Basturea, vice president for strategy, 

Converseon (social media agency) 

with Digistar Media founder and CEO Robin Colner.

Niche platforms, said panelists Constantin Basturea, vice-president for Strategy, Converseon, and Robin Colner, president and founder of DigiStar Media, are likely to become more valuable resources in the future. Pinterest, said Colner, offers a market that is 87 percent female, between the ages of 24 and 45, and whose time on site is an hour and a half, whereas time on a mass platform like Google Plus is “maybe three minutes?”


The cyberworld will continue to be “very fragmented” said Basturea, which is another reason why keeping abreast of new media is important.


“Is this madness going to end? No. Are there going to be less platforms? Yes, if you consider less being 500 versus 1500,” he said. “You have to figure out if there is value for you or your clients in a platform, and at what point in your client’s development, or the platform’s development, it makes sense to jump on the bandwagon.”

Dr. Lance Strate, the director of Fordham's 

Professional Studies in New Media Program, 

served as moderator of the panel discussion held at 

Fordham's West Harrison campus at 400 Westchester Avenue 

on Thursday, May 31. Photo courtesy of Andy Goodman.

Strate, who directs the Professional Studies in New Media program, said the program will sponsor more roundtables in the fall. For more information on PCS ‘ Professional Studies in New Media, visit the website.  

Westchester digital marketing professional Rhonda Hurwitz (left) 

and Intelligist Group Principal Alan Berkson (right), 

with Paul Young, the director of digital engagement at charity: water.

And let me add that there was a very lively question and answer session involving the panelists and the audience, which included some outstanding new media professionals, such as Rhonda Hurwitz and Alan Berkson, shown in the photograph above.

In sum, it was an energetic, enlightening, and altogether auspicious launch for our new program.  

And, it was only the beginning!

What the Students Said About Westchester's Working With New Media Panel

So, in my last post, Program Launched, I gave you a run down of the new Professional Studies in New Media program that I developed and now am directing on behalf of Fordham University's School of Professional and Continuing Studies, which is being piloted on our Westchester campus.  

And I told you all about our program launch event, a panel discussion entitled Working With New Media, which featured Constantin Basturea, Robin Colner, Chris Cornell, and Paull Young, moderated by yours truly. If you missed that post, or need to refresh your memory, go review Program Launched and then meet me back here.

So, I am also teaching a summer session class for Fordham College at Rose Hill, Introduction to New Media/Participatory Media, and given the relevance of the panel discussion, we arranged to have the students attend the session, which they did.  And several of them posted their impressions of the panel on our class blog, which our students had decided to name (get ready for this one)...  hmmunications.

So, I thought I'd share their response here, while also providing a link back to the original post.

Here's what Liz Moore had to say about it:

Our class attended an event at Fordham's Westchester campus in place of class on Thursday. The event was a presentation to kick off Fordham's School of Professional Studies' New Media program. Four panelists whose careers deal in new media use in marketing and public relations spoke about their experiences, as well as about the importance of social media use for business purposes. The presentations were interesting to hear because this use of social media is so different from the way most college students use social media. When I hear the phrase "social media," my first thought is Facebook and keeping in touch with friends. Each of the four panelists had slightly different experiences, but they all drove home the point that social media is extremely helpful and necessary to drive profits in this day and age, and that a University program that concentrates on New Media will be very helpful for students.  

And now let's hear from Angeli Ledda:

Although the New Media event our class attended last Thursday was catered towards [continuing ed] students, I still found the launch to be very informative. Through their professions, the four panelists explored the multifaceted aspects of social media. I found it compelling the way each professional was able mold the different platforms into marketing tools for their respective clients. Furthermore, I enjoyed that the panelists specialized in different categories of clientele such as small businesses, large companies, and non-profit organizations. Hearing their experiences definitely gave me some perspective of what I plan to do in the future. The panelists' insights made me realize how powerful and valuable social networking could be in the business world, especially on the internet. When social media is brought to its full marking potential, it can bring great success to any business. Information and advertisements concerning businesses are easily accessible, are spread much faster, and can be seen by a vast range of viewers. The idea behind New Media seems to be that internet platforms appeal to the realms of both pleasure and business. 

 Julie Bochat also provided some comments:

This past Thursday our introduction to new media class attended a very informative launch for the new program for new media at the Westchester campus. I found this conference very helpful since it shined light on the importance of social media for big, small and non-profit businesses. Each of the four panelists provided great information to help businesses grow. They also stressed the importance of social media and that in order for a company to grow and be known, social networking is of huge importance. Since these media industries are expanding rapidly, this conference showed the significance of keeping up with the emerging trends and media platforms. It also reiterates that the world is becoming much more visual and in order to spark awareness and provide good customer service, a company must be on all of these popular sites.

 And last but not least, here are Rachel Madacsi's remarks:

When I was first told that there would be a special presentation with four professionals involved in new media, I was ecstatic.  When I finish my last year of college in the upcoming year, I would love to be involved in the public relations field, and more specifically involved with new media.  Constantin Basturea, Robin Colner, Chris Cornell, and Paull Young were all very helpful when explaining what each of them do within their company.  I never knew that there were companies out there that help other companies execute social media in the right way, like Constantin Basturea does.  I really liked the how Robin Colner helps those smaller companies who do not have the money and resources to use a company like Constantin's at Converseon.  She teaches the smaller companies how to use the right information and what keeps them moving in the wrong direction, which is definitely something I can see myself doing in the future.  Chris Cornell is also helpful in what he does because he helps companies produce things that the people want.  I think it is a great quality to have to know how to make a company successful through new media.  I am glad that Paull Young went last because his accent was fun to listen to and it was also calming to know that someone as young as him can be successful.  I always thought that I would have to wait many years to become extremely successful, but if there is something out there that I am interested in, Paull Young taught me that I should chase my dreams and do as much as possible to make them come true.  All four speakers were clear in what they were saying and I am thankful that I got to go to a presentation like this one.  Although social networks seem to be primarily to a young audience for entertainment purposes, or at least that is what I think, it is a growing medium used for many big and small companies around the world.  Knowing how to use and navigate through these sites at a young age will hopefully help me when I am looking for a job in this field in the future.  

Oops, and I almost missed one more from Scott Forba:

During the panel discussion on Friday one of the most interesting points made was on how we come upon information and entertainment on the Internet has changed. Sites that aggregate content, such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, Tumblr, and Digg are replacing search engines. What does this mean for the supposedly participatory nature of New Media? While people do make much of this content, such mindless autonomous acquisition could return us to earlier, more television-like, types of acquisition. 

And there you have it, five student testimonials that indicate that our launch was pointed in the right direction.

 

The Professionalization of Social Networking

This is adapted from a post I just put up on the Interactive Rams blog. During our last Ineractive Media class meeting yesterday here at Fordham University, we were fortunate to have a guest speaker come in. His name is Paull Young, and I initially met him, and his colleague Rob Key, when they invited me for lunch after reading the New York Times article about social networking, where I was quoted several times (see my previous post, The Secondary Orality of Social Networking).

Paull is a Senior Account Executive for Converseon, Inc., a social networking consulting firm, and he give a talk to our class about professional opportunities associated with social networking. He was a dynamic and engaging speaker, especially for an Aussie (just kidding there), highly knowledgeable, and I know everyone learned a great deal from him.

If you click on the link, you'll find that Converseon lists among their services conversation mining (monitoring online conversation about a product or brand), affiliate and search marketing (including search engine optimization), brand reputation management (public relations extended to the online environment), and blogs and social media. Basically, the idea is that most companies don't have a clue as to what the new social media (aka Web 2.0) are about, how to deal with their negative consequences, or how to approach them for their own benefit, and that's where Paull and his colleagues come in. Paull has been blogging for many years now, and his own blog focuses on public relations, and appropriately enough bears the name, Young PR.

During his talk, Paull introduced an interesting concept, astroturfing, which is the oppposite, in a sense, of a grass roots campaign (not to mention a form of evil PR and marketing). With astroturfing, what appears to be a grass roots initiative, or messages produced by private individuals, is secretly the product of organized effort, work done for hire, on behalf of a political group or corporation. Paull provided us with an example that is both amusing, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's animation for Monty Python's Flying Circus, and at the same time highly sinister because it masquerades as something done by some guy in his basement who just doesn't like Al Gore, but was actually produced and paid for by commercial interests. Here's the video:





Well, the good news is that Paull and some of his colleagues got together to set up an Anti-Astroturfing site and campaign. And just to be clear, he's a list of definitions from their site:

Definitions

From Wikipedia: In American politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, or similar entities by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.

From answers.com: Astroturfing describes the posting of supposedly independent messages on Internet boards by interested companies and individuals In American politics, the term is used to describe formal public relations projects which deliberately give the impression that they are spontaneous and populist reactions. The term comes from AstroTurf -- the fake grass used in many indoor American football stadiums. The contrast between truly spontaneous or "grassroots" efforts and an orchestrated public relations campaign, is much like the distinction between real grass and AstroTurf.

From the Jargon File: (The Jargon File is a compendium of hacker slang)
astroturfing: n.

1. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant 'concerned citizens', paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group (AstroTurf? is fake grass; hence the term). See also sock puppet, tentacle.
2. What an individual posting to a public forum under an assumed name is said to be doing.

Oh, and here's their logo:

It is certainly a pleasure, and very much in keeping with our outlook here at Fordham University, to be dealing with professionals who have a firm commitment to ethical practices and a reflective approach to their business.

Anyway, just as another example of the new and powerful phenomenon of social networking, Paull gave us the example of one of the most popular recent videos on YouTube, "Star Wars according to a 3 year old," which at the time of this writing, is up to 2,892,082 views!!!! It is an altogether charming little home movie, I must say:




Paull also showed us the highly successful YouTube campaign "Will It Blend?" which promotes BlendTec Total Blenders with the kind of stupid human tricks that David Letterman is known for. Here's the example he showed us, featuring Chuck Norris:





And Paull showed us one of Converseon's projects, Second Chance Trees for American Express, which was set up on the Second Life, the 3-dimensional virtual reality social network, where they created a place on Second Life for people to enjoy, and gave people an opportunity to buy trees that would be planted both in the virtual world where they can see them, and in the real world where they otherwise would not be able to see the results of their donation. Anyway, here's the YouTube video on the project, which interestingly includes "machinima" among its tags (see my previous post, Last Round of Screenings and Conversations):





And guess what? There's another YouTube video featuring a presentation by Paull Young on this project, so let's take a look at our friend here:



Not surprisingly, Converseon also has its own blog. And Paull also mentioned another website/blog worthy of our attention, FORWARD.

Interestingly, the fact that Paull spells his name with a double "l" came up, along with the point that it turned out to be fortuitous because otherwise he would not be easy to pick out from all the other Paul Youngs when his name is googled. And that gave me the idea that in the future parents will want to give their kids unique names, in order to optimize their kids for search engines--in this way, technology may alter the time honored traditions by which we name our children. And you can probably say goodby to John Smith!

But, you can also say G'day Mate to Paull!!!

All A Twitter

So, one of the things that Paull Young brought up in his talk to my class this past Tuesday, a topic that kept coming up when we went out for dinner afterwards, was Twitter. This wasn't the first I heard of it, my friend and colleague Paul Levinson, who got me started here on Blogger, and over on MySpace, has been mentioning Twitter for a while now, but I didn't see it in action until Paull Young demonstrated it in class, and then continued to interact with it afterwards.

Twitter is a relatively new aspect of social networking, and it has been referred to as microblogging. It's micro, because you only have 140 characters per post. So it's kind of a cross between blogging and instant messaging, kind of an IM that goes out to whoever is subscribed to you.

I suppose the short message format is perfect for short attention spans--it's an ADHD world out there, but more importantly, the format will obviously limit the kind of post that you can put up. So, with Twitter what you tend to get are updates on what people are doing, for example Paull posted that he was going to Fordham to talk to my class. Then, some people who had something to say about Fordham responded (what they said I won't go into).

Or you can post a thought that occurred to you. I subscribed to Howard Rheingold, or as they put it, I'm following him, and yesterday he sent out this message:

Assuming Twitter continues to grow, early adopters have higher chance of becoming hubs in small world network via preferential attachment

Or you can post a URL for an interesting website, blogpost, video, etc.. For example, earlier today, Paull Young sent out a link for this video, which is pretty funny I think, and worth including here for its own sake:



In case that doesn't work, you can go view it directly on the Boing Boing TV site.

I should note that Paull economized in the post by utilizing TinyURL.com, a service that gives you a short web address that will connect directly to another, longer one. This seems to be all but indispensable for this new medium. It's also worth noting that the URL came across as a hot link, meaning I could click on it and go to the website, rather than having to copy and paste it into the browser.

What adds to the functionality of twitter is that it works with mobile devices, so for example I have the messages coming in to my cell phone as text messages. You can turn it off, thankfully, but I can see right off the bat that I am going to have to monitor my cell phone's battery more carefully, and recharge it more often. But this does allow you to post to twitter by sending a text message, so you can continue to communicate and interact on the go, without a computer.

Now I can just here my dear old mentor, Neil Postman, saying, "But Lance, to what problem is this twitter a solution?" I can also hear a crowd of his former students noisily echoing that question--be quiet, will you?! I myself have to ask myself, self, is this anything more than a time waster? Do I really need to inform the world of what I'm having for lunch? Or learn when other people are getting up or going to bed? Admittedly, it might be nice for family members to be kept informed of what their loved ones are up to, especially if they are a distance away, but that is quite different from having a number of people who you may or may not know following you, and you in turn following them.

Having been on twitter for all of two days, I think it's a bit premature to offer any kind of extensive assessment. In part, I am just letting you all know that I'm now doing twitter, and in fact I've added a twitter widget to this blog. If you haven't noticed it yet, look over to the right, your right, not mine, under my picture, and the line that says "About Me--Lance Strate," and the one that says, "View my complete profile" and you'll see it: "Twitter Updates," followed by the ten most recent entries. I'm sure it's quite clear that we're dealing with an entirely different kind of animal here, more like a telegraphic dispatch than the epistolatory medium of e-mail, or the weblog form of publication that I am engaged in here.

But, if nothing else, from now on you can get my twitter updates from this site, even if you're not on twitter. And that means that even if I haven't posted a new blog, you can still get some new content when you come to the site. For what that's worth.

Now, I'm sure this post seems altogether a statement of the obvious to anyone already using twitter. Sorry about that folks, but I know I have readers who don't do twitter yet, and may never do it at all. Plus, I have been doing a related form of microblogging for a bit longer--in January I started using the MySpace version of twitter, which involves a combination of posting a short message as a "Status Update" and indicating your "Mood" by choosing from a preset menu that includes many emotions, and also strange entries like blank, crunk, jedi, knighted, ninja, and quixotic. This is a less extensive format, one that's fully integrated into the MySpace environment, with almost no functionality outside of it, but there are enough similarities to give me some additional insight into this mode of communication.

So, I will offer some preliminary reactions and highly tentative thoughts on this medium.

There is no question, on the negative side, that this is a distraction, and no doubt it is a time-waster, and addictive to boot. Of course, that's not unique to twitter, it can be said of most new media today,a nd their older counterparts. I will say that as a form of microblogging, the amount of time spent on this medium is relatively miniscule, much less than the time it is taking to write this blog, for instance, or even to deal with my e-mail. It's the nanosecond culture, an aspect of cybertime at work (as I wrote about in my anthology, Communication and Cyberspace).

What it does provide is a sense of connection. I'm sure the value of feeling like you are never entirely alone is much greater for single people who can feel fairly isolated than it is for busy family types like myself who want nothing more than some peace and quiet and solitude, but I can still see the attraction it would have for everyone. I have observed that on MySpace, when you post your status, sometimes people respond though their own status messages, or by sending a private message. I've had comments when I've quoted lyrics, for example, people saying they like the artist too, and I've seen and participated in the exchange of humorous messages. On MySpace, updates lead to increased online interaction. I would assume that to be the case with twitter as well. And increased online interaction can, in some instances, lead people to interact as well offline, by telephone or in person. My conclusion, then, is twitter means never having to be entirely alone. It also is another means of blurring the distinction between public and private, and undermining privacy, but that's the general thrust of all electronic media, after all.

On MySpace, I've also had people showing concern when I've posted something like I'm not feeling well or I'm aggravated about something. That sense of connection can also provide a feeling of security, the security that accompanies the feeling that you are never quite alone. Maybe no one can rush to your aid, but they could answer a question, offer suggestions, search for information for you, provide comfort and emotional support, etc.

And there there is the power of collaboration to enhance productivity. For example, I tweeted--twitter messages are referred to as tweets, and the verb form, to send a message on twitter, is to tweet--that I was working on a blog about twitter, and received a response from Paull Young which began with a joke and ended with a helpful reference: "Keep it under 140 characters ;) I wrote one on the biz side recently:" and this was followed by the URL to his Converseon blog post, Examples of Twitter Providing Business Benefit. Some of the key points he makes there is that twitter can be used to build a knowledge network--in fact, what I am doing right now in including his suggestion is a fine example of that, as well as a crisis warning system, a method for recruitment, and for beta testing systems, websites, etc. But you can read Paull's post for yourself, after you're done reading this one I hope.

Then, I got a response from Ted Baker, one of my students in my Interactive Media class--see our Interactive Rams blog. Ted is the most computer savvy member of the class, and was already on twitter, so while Paull Young was demonstrating it via computer projection in our class, Ted had located him and sent him a reply message right then and there, which gave me a chuckle I might add. Anyway, Ted replied with, "don't forget to post a link here when you're done" and I answered back, "I'll include the link, but the post itself will be very basic"--exciting stuff, I know. But in all seriousness, Ted's suggestion is worthwhile in that I might not have thought to do it, or might need the reminder.

In truth, I am quite used to promoting various things on MySpace, mainly though their bulletin function, which sends a message that goes to everyone in your network (everyone you are "friends" with), although there are people who don't read their bulletins, or don't keep up with them when they're not logged on. The status updates can be used to promote things too, although you can't add hot links like you can on MySpace bulletins and with twitter, but they can alert people that you've just put a post up. I've also found that updating my status leads to more blog hits in general (they are measured internally, that is, only the number of logged in MySpacers are counted), and more comments left on the blogs, than I would otherwise get. It seems that just reminding people that I exist gets a certain percentage of them to go to my MySpace blog and see what's there.

So, another conclusion is that microblogging can be used to get attention for yourself and whatever you're doing, for publicity and promotion in other words. In semiotic terms, this form of messaging is a sign that points to and directs people to something other than itself, and has a strange sort of indexicality.

I also got a response from Jamie Grefe, who I have never met, although I did have some contact with him prior to twitter--a week ago he sent me an e-mail explaining that he was a graduate of Grand Valley State University in Michigan, having studied with my friend and colleague Corey Anton, was very interested in media ecology, and is now living in Japan. I'm not sure how he found out, but not too long after I signed on to twitter I got a notice that he had started following me (I get notified by e-mail whenever it happens), and I then reciprocated. So anyway, Jamie replied, "looking forward to reading this. Found a Twitter FanWiki: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/" and this site indeed looks very interesting. I've bookmarked it and I'll explore it more thoroughly in the near future. Thank you, Jamie!

Oh, funny. I've been going back and forth to twitter to get the responses from people and just check the updates, and I noticed there was one person who was sending messages much more frequently than anyone else, and the messages themselves didn't make much sense. I was following this person because I had gotten the e-mail saying this person was now following me, and so far I've universally reciprocated (the only person I'm following who isn't following me is Howard Rheingold). But I've been hearing my cell phone alert going off over and over again in the other room where it's charging, and all of the messages from this one person is driving other peoples on to older pages, which I find a little annoying. So, the bottom line is, enough is enough, and I'm no longer following this particular individual.

Okay, back to being serious. In today's e-mail newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education, there was a notice of an article about twitter--what synchronicity! I saw it mentioned and set the link aside knowing I'd be doing this blog post, so let me now read it as I continue writing this entry. The article is entitled Forget E-Mail: New Messaging Service Has Students and Professors Atwitter--wait a minute, they stole my joke, the one I used in my title, a twitter, well, I guess that's pretty obvious, huh? Well, there's no copyrighting titles, not that mine is the same, it's just what we arrived at the same pun, so I'll leave mine be. Anyway, the article is from the issue dated February 29, 2008 (p. A15) , and the author is Jeffrey R. Young (maybe a relation, Paull?). The article begins with some basic information, which we've already gone over, about what twitter is and how it works. But since reinforcement is educationally sound, here it is:

Anyone who feels overloaded with information from e-mail, blogs, and Web sites probably won't want to read this. But some professors, librarians, and administrators have begun using Twitter, a service that can blast very short notes (up to 140 characters) to select users' cellphones or computer screens.

The practice is often called microblogging because people use it to send out pithy updates about their daily lives. No need to wait until you are back at your computer to let friends know that you loved the latest Paul Thomas Anderson film or that you thought of a new idea for an academic article while waiting in line at the grocery store. Twitter lets you send a text message from your cellphone to a set list of contacts, called followers, who can set the system to receive messages via their cellphones, their instant-message software, or a Web-based program.

Now, with the preliminaries out of the way, the writer moves from twitter in general to its presence on the college campus:

As iPhones and other "smart phones" become more popular on campuses, and as computing becomes even more mobile, it seems that some form of Twitter-like service may become part of student and faculty life. But the technology has potential costs in terms of money and privacy. Some observers, essentially arguing that there is such a thing as too much information, say that Twittering will never catch on the way blogs and e-mail have.

Here we also see some of the negative aspects of the technology being mentioned, much as I did earlier in this post. That continues as we transition into the question of what would be the specific educational applications of this new medium?

David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, says he was reluctant to try the technology. Mr. Parry's first instinct was that Twittering would encourage students to speak in sound bites and self-obsess. But now he calls it "the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I've ever done teaching."

Last semester he required the 20 students in his "Introduction to Computer-Mediated Communication" course to sign up for Twitter and to send a few messages each week as part of a writing assignment. He also invited his students to follow his own Twitter feed, in which he sometimes writes several short thoughts — not necessarily profound ones — each day. One morning, for instance, he sent out a message that read: "Reading, prepping for grad class, putting off running until it warms up a bit." The week before, one of his messages included a link to a Web site he wanted his students to check out.

The posts from students also mixed the mundane with the useful. One student Twittered that she just bought a pet rabbit. Another noted that a topic from the class was being discussed on a TV-news report.

The immediacy of the messages helped the students feel more like a community, Mr. Parry says. "It really broke down that barrier between inside the classroom walls and outside the classroom walls."

Now, I think that sense of community is a very powerful and significant effect of all forms of social networking. It doesn't happen automatically, but, as Lynn White, Jr. said of technology, it opens a door. Now, it also seems entirely appropriate to be using twitter in a class on computer-mediated communication, or interactive media, for that matter, where part of the point would be to study the new medium. But how about for any other type of class? Well, the article continues with an example from an English course:

Jason B. Jones, an assistant professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, uses his iPhone to post a message to Twitter after every class session as "a way to jot down a little reflection about the class — how it went, things that were frustrating or worked really well — so that I can remember them later." Students who see the messages often give him a reality check, though. "If I thought something didn't go well, I've had people say, Actually we understood that fine, we were distracted by something else or we were just tired," he says.

Next, Blackboard is brought up. For those not familiar with it, Blackboard is educational computing software that schools purchase, that automatically create a private site on the school's computer system for each class, with the students enrolled in the class also signed into the class. You can post your syllabi, handouts, and assignments there, send e-mail to all the students at once, and have online discussions. It's not that different from systems ranging from the old America Online and Compuserve sites and other bulletin boards, to Yahoo! with its groups, Google, and MySpace, Facebook, etc. Blackboard isn't as good as the contemporary social networking sites, but it exists within the university's computer system, behind its firewall, it's purchased and the content owned by the school, and it offers a measure of privacy. Now, here's what the article says:

Blackboard plans to add a Twitter-like messaging tool to its course-management system, which is used at hundreds of colleges around the country. The company recently announced plans to acquire NTI Group, a company that sells text-message notification systems to colleges for use in emergencies. NTI's systems don't have all the features of Twitter, but they could be used in similar ways.

"We're going to incorporate that technology at the classroom level," says Michael L. Chasen, president of Blackboard. For instance, he says, "Professors could send a message to their entire class to let them know that class has been canceled this week."

After all, Mr. Chasen says, many students now communicate primarily using their cellphones. "Having the ability to do mass messaging is becoming more important on a campus," he says.

Now, back to the downside. You gotta love how these articles swing back and forth in this way, fair and balanced, objective reporting, at least in style if not substance. In this case, the problem is that when it comes to cell phones, texting can cost money:

But not every student is excited to see a professor's message on his or her cellphone. It can cost money, for one thing, since many cellphone plans charge a few cents for each text message received. (Companies also offer flat rates for unlimited text messaging, and students who are frequent texters often have such plans already).

I know I have to get on an unlimited plan now. Then there's the problem of transparency. Unlike e-mail or text messages which are sent to a specific recipient so that others have at least some difficulty accessing them, twitter is an open medium:

Twittering also creates a public record of every message sent — at least on the service's default settings — because all Twitter users get Web pages where archives of their messages are posted. So students and professors should be careful what thoughts they share.

Of course, the same is true of Facebook and MySpace profiles, pictures and videos posted to social media sites, and even for e-mail messages which can be intercepted, read by administrators, and forwarded inadvertently or intentionally.

Anyway, now it's back to that sense of community, and in this instance, professional collegiality:

Some college officials are using Twitter to keep in touch with colleagues at other universities. For Laura J. Little, the instructional technologist at Marietta College, that means following the Twitter feeds of people she knows as well as people she's never met.

"I like skydaddy," she says, referring to the Twitter nickname of Corrie Bergeron, an instructional designer at Lakeland Community College who frequently posts links and thoughts. "It's probably really relevant to folks who are isolated in their field," says Ms. Little, noting that she is the only instructional technologist at her college.

Or, as Mr. Bergeron puts it, "It's like a hallway conversation at a conference."

And there is the added benefit of collaborative learning, and immediate consultation:

Twitter can be a much faster way to get help from colleagues than sending an e-mail message to a list or posting a question on a blog, says Ms. Little. Once when she was preparing a presentation, she posted a question to her contacts on Twitter and got an answer in just a few minutes. "If I had posted that on a blog post, it would have taken three hours."

Finally, we have the example of twitter being used by university libraries:

Kenley E. Neufeld, library director at Santa Barbara City College, recently set up a Twitter feed for his library, and he posts announcements about closing times and encouragements to visit the library.

Other libraries and groups are also blasting out updates via Twitter. At a recent conference in Philadelphia, the American Library Association set up a conference Twitter feed, says Mr. Neufeld.

I found this a bit disappointing, as this seems fairly trivial. I would imagine that a more valuable use would be to function as a virtual helpdesk, to get a librarian's aid and advice when you are in the middle of researching something. Sure, we can access Google, but sometimes we need help knowing what to ask, or which of the many answers we get from a search is worth our attention, or where else we should be looking.

Anyway, the article ends on a mixed note:

Still, Mr. Parry, of Dallas, admits that he's seen many colleagues try Twitter and drop it in frustration.

"I think people see it as too noisy," he said.

In other words, it's not for everybody. Maybe not, maybe not, but right now it's all right with me.

Social Media on Social Media

In a previous post entitled The Professionalization of Social Networking, I wrote about PR professional and social media expert Paull Young, of Converseon, Inc., who came to speak to my Interactive Media class. I'm pleased to report that he recently was interviewed on the program Happy Hour, which appears on the Fox Business Network cable channel.

Now, I have to confess that I never heard of the Fox Business Network cable channel before, I guess this is their answer to CNBC, and I'm not entirely sure that our cable service even carries it. But fortunately, though the magic of YouTube, I was able to view the segment, and share it with you.

The setting of this program is intriguing, bringing to mind the long-running sitcom Cheers. It certainly looks good, although I have to wonder if all that background noise is such a good thing? It certainly becomes more and more of an issue for us old folk, although the interviewer and interviewee's talk was totally distinct, so maybe they do know what they're doing. Oh, and kudos to Paull for not letting the old Aussie accent get the better of him (but what's up with that sweater, man?).

Of course, as any media ecologist will tell you, in the end, no one remembers much of what you've said on television, they just remember that you were on television, and that is impressive! And so much more when it can be amplified via the internet. So, you can go directly to YouTube to see the clip in its native environment, or just watch it here. And this is what the person posting it wrote:

Paull Young of Converseon discussing Social Media and small businesses on the show Happy Hour. The big social media secret is to listen to your customers and give them something that they want. Who knew?

And here's the interview:

Blogs Don't Kill People, People Do?

So my friend Paull Young, social media public relations maven displaced from down under to NYC, posted a thoughtful commentary on his blog, Young PR, entitled: Blogs Don’t Influence People - People Do. You can go read it, and meet me back here if you like. I won't mind.

Anyway, it was a thought-provoking post, and it motivated me to write a comment in response that I left on his blog, and that I also thought I'd share with you here:

Great blog post, Paull, and I agree with your main point entirely: "The power of blogs and other forms of social media comes from the relationships they enable through conversation." In other words, it's not about the content, messages, information, or memes being sent and received, it's about the connections being made, and the relationships being forged. This is another way of saying "the medium is the message," because what McLuhan meant by medium is closely related to what psychologist Paul Watzlawick meant by the relationship level of communication, as opposed to the content level. We tend to ignore the medium/relationship, and pay attention to the content, but it is the medium/relationship that has the more significant impact on us, individually and collectively.

The one point I would take issue with is your appropriation of the NRA slogan in this context. If you really consider the analogy, you are in effect saying that social media make no difference in our lives, because people would be communicating and relating to one another no matter what, and social media are just another means to that end, neutral in and of themselves, entirely subject to individual choice about how they are used.

From the media ecology perspective, technology changes human relationships and human affairs. Guns do kill people, in the sense that they facilitate aggression, increasing the potential for violence. And blogs do influence people, in the sense that they facilitate communication, increasing the possibilities for forming and maintaining relationships. Simply put, we have a greater number of relationships because of social media, with less regard to geography, and with greater variation and diversity, while also increasing our ability to find others who share our interests and biases. As McLuhan explained in Understanding Media, the medium is the message in part because technological change alters the speed and scale of our communication.

And well now, I guess I've got a blog post of my own here!

And so I have! Content emerging out of relationships, that is exactly what we're talking about, that's the power of social media!

Professional Studies in New Media

So, back in 2010 I agreed to develop a new program for Fordham University's newly renamed School of Professional and Continuing Studies.  The program is called Professional Studies in New Media, it draws on courses offered by our business school, as well the Department of Computer Science and Information Science, and my own Department of Communication and Media Studies.  

So I prepared the curriculum, which also incorporated some new courses with the PSNM designation, working with Dean Isabelle Frank, and getting feedback from other faculty, and it made it through the gauntlet of administrative hurdles, and received approval from New York State in the fall.  And I was appointed Director of the new program.

The program is being piloted at Fordham's Westchester campus—did you know Fordham has a Westchester campus?—which is near White Plains, in West Harrison, NY, at 400 Westchester Road. And while it was approved this year, the approval came too late to get the program really underway, so its official launch is 2012/2013 school year.  Being part of the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, it's an undergraduate degree for students who never got a BA or BS, or did some work towards the degree but never completed it.  

I think it's a great opportunity for individuals looking to get up to speed and get a background in an area where employments opportunities exist, and are on the rise.  I know there's also great interest in a certificate program, and that should be next on the agenda, but first we want to get this program on the way.  So, if you know of anyone who wants or needs a Bachelors, please let them know.

You can check out the program on the program page on Fordham's website.  Here's some of the write-up:

From surfing the web to social networking to smart phones, we live and work in a world shaped by online communications, electronic media, and digital devices. The media industries in this area are expanding rapidly, and every business and organization today needs individuals who understand the new media environment, and know how to keep up with emerging trends and innovations in this ever-evolving landscape.

The page has a Link to Curriculum that I developed.  I should add that the site itself needs some tweaking, but all of the essential information is up there.

 

And that includes out upcoming launch event, in celebration of this new program. It's coming up fast, this Thursday evening in fact, so please take note!

In case the information isn't clearly visible, you can access the flyer from the box on the lower right of the program page by clicking on it (it will be removed after the event of course).  But the basic information is:

• The event is free and open to all
• There will be refreshments served (that's a biggie, I know)
• We'll have a panel discussion on Working With New Media
• I'll be the moderator and the panelists will include
• Constantin Basturea, Vice-President for Strategy at the social media agency Converseon
• Robin Colner, President and Founder of the digital marketing firm, DigiStar Media
• Chris S. Cornell, Social Media Director at the public relations firm, Thompson & Bender
• Paull Young, Director of Digital Engagement at the nonprofit organization, charity: water
• The event will run from 7:00 to 9:00 PM
• And once again, it's Fordham University on 400 Westchester Avenue in West Harrison, NY

And there you have it, please help us spread the word about the program, and I hope to see you on Thursday evening!

Strate Talk on Twitter

So, in my previous blog post, You Are What You Tweet, I wrote about a less-than-pleasant incident that I experienced on Twitter and used it as an occasion to apply communication theory to social media. The overarching point is that the messages we send online become statements about who we are, in effect creating a self or persona and entering into a relationship with others. We are the sum of our communication behaviors, at least insofar as others are concerned. This is something that we talk about in the field of media ecology, along with the fact that our identities, relationships, and selves change in response to changes to the media environment.

So I was very pleased indeed to receive a message from one of my twitterkin, as some refer to folks they follow and are followed by on Twitter. In this case the individual could be taken for actual kin, since she shares the same last name as me. In truth, we are not related, I'm not related to anyone named Strate (outside of my immediate family), it was a name change as a result of my parents' immigration to the United States and naturalization as citizens. But I can't help but feel a sense of kinship with Ms. Strate nonetheless, as she did when she first contacted me. I think human beings are naturally hardwired that way, we gravitate towards human connection--we're social animals, after all, meaning that we are nature's own social media.

When I first started on Twitter about a year ago, my friend, the public relations professional and social media specialist Paull Young (see my previous posts All A Twitter and Social Media on Social Media) gave me a shout out, and I wound up connected to a bunch of PR professionals, students, and faculty, which turned out to be an unexpected treat. And Katherine Strate is a PR student at the University of Georgia, and a rather bright one at that. Naturally. Her Twitter name is @katlady, and here's her profile picture:



I was going to say something about good looks running in the family, but, well, again, we're not really related so never mind about that. All right, you may think this post is going nowhere fast, and maybe it is. But as I was saying, Katherine sent out a tweet saying that she liked my post and had written about it, sending me a URL for her post on the Public Relations Student Society of America at the University of Georgia website/blog. Her item is entitled From a Strate: You Are What You Tweet, and I want you to go read it now, or as soon as you're done reading this post. Just click on the title and go on over there.

Interestingly enough, Katherine's post also appeared on a site called tweetmoney, it's the same post but if you want to see this other site as well, just click on that name and show me the tweetmoney. This site has a subtitle of Using Twitter To Make Money Or To Start A Business @ TweetMoney. No comment.

So, that's pretty much it. Go check out Katherine Strate's post, From a Strate: You Are What You Tweet, maybe even leave her a comment, and tell her, um, well, tell her Strate sent you.

The Scoop About Social Media

It was great having social media PR maven Paull Young visit my class at Fordham University today, he's always a big hit with the students, and not just because of his Aussie accent.  Anyway, he used a YouTube video in his presentation that I don't recall seeing before, one that provides a basic explanation of social media (which is the focus of my class, after all).  It's called Social Media in Plain English.  And here it is:

It's a sweet metaphor for relaying the scoop about social media, to be sure, and clearly, it's an explanation geared towards the business sector more so than it's aimed at us intellectual and creative types, not to mention your basic amateur social mediator.   And, as they explain it, it's a "simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media. This video comes in an unbranded 'presentation quality' version that can be licensed for use in the workplace."  

If you're interested, go check out the website for CommonCraft, where they say, "our product is explanation."  In this instance, at least, I say, kudos for their production values.