Why don't we reflect more? (Social Web Post-Mortem)

I'm really glad we have to do post-mortems in my social web class. For all the personal reflection that is incorporated into the BGI curriculum, it's rarely the sort of reflection on one's work that I think breeds a good practice of iteration--something that we've been taught the value of in our marketing class but have not been required to implement into our projects.

Definitely, the biggest challenge was keeping up with my blog postings or spending too much time on each post. I guess this class really verified for me my tendencies toward perfectionism. I really am surprised to learn this about myself because I generally do not think of my work as very good, but rather sloppy (oh wait, isn't that exactly the sign of a perfectionist? Doh!).

In the end, I simply had to get over perfectionism. But that's not exactly an answer. Getting over perfectionism really requires a lot of personal awareness and consciousness. It seems to be a daily practice...as well as a daily commitment. I don't think I really got over it, but I know that I forced myself to post by putting the assignment in context of other larger assignments. At least, I would tell myself, a blog post is not a final 30p research report.

Also, having to edit video quickly and for brevity, really drives home the learning that one can shoot from the hip when choices need to be made quickly with less deliberation. Anything that fails, can always be redone. I wish we had more opportunities for 3 hr assignments with actual deliverables in our other classes.

Fail fast and often. Iterations. -----> These have been my greatest learnings in this class.

Iterative Improvement


I found myself wanting to learn more about social media campaigning. We sort of did this with the social change project, but it was a bit more than we could chew. I can see the next installment of this course being for people who are now comfortable using the social web. In that course, I can see us learning social media metrics and designing campaigns. This class ignited my interest in the social web and I am ready to take the more advanced version of the class or be directed to the equivalent outside of BGI if necessary.

Overall, BGI could really benefit from incorporating more social media into their curriculum. However, this would require more interaction from faculty and I'm not certain that faculty either have the will or capacity to interact with students to the degree that social media would allow for. For instance, if I write a blog post every week about my learnings in the class before the Elluminate, will a faculty member have actually read my post and quoted it in that day's class lecture slides? I don't know. If anything, the Social Web for Social Change class definitely makes the case for smaller classes.

Check out my post on Best Elluminate Practices for more ways to incorporate the style of Christopher Allen's Social Web for Social Change class.

Using Metrics in Strategy and the De-Evolution of Using the Social Web

This academic year, I find my personal use of social media to be declining. I'm attributing this trend to my increased use of social media for professional and academic work. In all honesty, it's no fun when you *have* to use it and you're attempting to use it for specific or (worse) unspecified purposes. My marketing project, which will rely a lot on the social web, has taken over my daily thoughts to the point that I'm no longer wasting time on the web surfing. And if I do find myself taking that odd break, I'm not as inclined to share what I'm reading with my personal network. In a way, that would be creating yet another obligation on my to-do list. The obligation would be to respond or discuss what I'm posting with anyone who has a reaction to it. Of course, I'm still posting but not to the extent that I was last year. I'm also more interested in using the web for research over entertainment. I've definitely got some goals to meet and find that there is always more and more avenues that I have not fully vetted.

Happily, I just got a book in the mail for my winter break "fun" reading, which is on Social Media Metrics (actually that's the title).  I've been engaging social media for a while now and wish there were more information on how to measure one's impact or success. So far, after cracking open the first few pages in the book, I'm delighted to see a list of 100 ways to measure social media. There were many that I had not thought of or considered. The book also frames metrics for social media as a way to meet social media strategy goals. Goals like, "increase web presence" are a bit too broad and this is an issue I've run into while working on strategy for a local start-up. Social media goals should be in line with your concrete business goals, which could include things like:

• increase revenue
• lower costs
• increase customer satisfaction

Ask yourself every day, "is our strategy leading us to acheiving these goals?" I've read on several blogs that there is no way to measure social media ROI and that anyone who claims they can, is selling snake-oil.  Well, I hope to find out more about this and implement it over the break. I'm sold on the importance of social media. But now, I want to see how well I am using it. Why can't personal pages on FB have stats like they on other pages?

Online Facilitation

I'm loving this week's topic as it is very relevant to what I am currently working on with The SmartGirls' Way. Right now, we're focusing on filling a blog with content and bringing in readers. Eventually, we will have to be facilitating intereaction in an online community, but as of now, we don't have any models of what that might look like. For now, we have no website or platform except the Facebook page and the blog. Yet, this doesn't seem to be gettting the kind of community building we ultimately want. Is there a place to find different models of online community working? I'd really be interested in reading some casebook material on this if it exists!

Enhance the Holidays via Facebook!

We just had Thanksgiving and we're about to embark on the holiday season! This is one of my favorite times of the year...mostly because people are updating Facebook like crazy! I look forward to all of your new photo albums. I love reading people's updates about the friends and family that are gathering. Some people even share their family's traditions with their FB network. Personally, I love this! Here are some other cool holiday uses for Facebook:

-Set up a FB "Group" for crowd-sourcing gift ideas for hard-to-please people. Don't know what to get dad? Easy, set up of a group for the whole family (except dad) and post your ideas along with your budget and concerns...

-Donate your status to raise money for charity

-Set up a google alert feed for Holiday events and activities in your area...then post the links that will likely flood your inbox to your Facebook feed and invite your friends!

-Ask your friends to share their favorite recipes, traditions, whatever! Facebook is your gateway to expanding your idea of "holiday" traditions.

These are just some things I thought up...but I bet there are tons more ideas out there!

Source

I am not a Cyborg

I'm having trouble connecting to the topic of Ambient vs. Immersive Media. I frequently engage in ambient media. My Facebook and Gmail account are constantly open in my web-browser. I also listen to talk radio constantly throughout  my day. Often, NPR is playing and I am only catching snippets here and there. I can function without these things in the back ground as well. I do not have a smart phone (yet) and when I am out, I rarely engage in ambient media.

When I think about "immersive" media like World of Warcraft and Second Life...I get an icky feeling creeping up the back of my neck. It's fine that other people engage in these activities. I had never considered them to be social activities until this class but now I can see how it is social. However, when I've experienced immersive media, it's often been through indirect channels. For exampled, I was living with someone who was using immersive media as a means to avoid social interaction with me.

Facebook is a very social place for me. I had not considered it as a form of immersive media but now I am reconsidering that because depending on how you use it (and considering how I use it) I can see it as another immersive extension of one's social life. I often have to pry myself away from it and tell myself that no one is posting because everyone's gone to bed. I wonder what Facebook would be like if everyone used it the way that I do? I could forsee it becoming a lot like Second Life.

Please enjoy this awesome excerpt for the Korean film: "I'm a Cyborg, but that's Ok"

Dear feminism...sometimes you suck when I'm looking for peer blogs.

My Beat Blog is not where I would like it to be. There is so much good information out there that I can use for my topic but my problem is synthesizing it in a timely fashion. I'm having trouble formulating and organizing my post ideas. Each post seems way too complex to manage. Also, my search for peer bloggers has not been fruitful. Ideally, I would like to find business bloggers who are writing about gender inequities in business but it seems that the blogs I find specific to women focus on career advice or coaching. Another blog I found was (annoyingly) geared toward career fashion advice for female MBAs! This is all from a Technorati search.

I suppose there is an audience for these kinds of blogs (seems like the 'professional' version of cosmo magazine) but these blogs don't seem to discuss and address the systemic issues that prevent gender parity in executive leadership or the persistant gender pay gap (all of which have been unconstructively blamed on women's choices). I also want to find blogs about the kinds of business cultures that weaken opportunities for inclusion of all female employees (irrespective of race, class, age, or sexual orientation).

The blogs that I did find on systemic issues tended to be attached to legal organizations or women's organizations. These blogs had very few comments and few regular updates. The topics were mostly news items and based on policy updates or proposals. I didn't get the impression that interacting with these blogs would generate more traffic to my blog. Also, so many feminist blogs tend to look at the  harmful impact of media and domestic violence. This is all important stuff, but where are the business blogs? There are tons of articles about women in business and women lacking rank or positions. There is tons of research about the ways women are treated differently in professional settings...but it seems no one is collecting and discussing that information in one place.

It occurred to me that there could also be a generational/technology gap. Women who have experienced the kind of systemic discrimination I want to look at are older and may not be fully integrated into the blogosphere. I would argue that the most active feminist bloggers are under 40 and do not have the years of professional experience to discuss these business issues in depth. Also, I wonder if women who are tech savvy and in the business world are worried about "outing" themselves if they bring up these issues in the public blogosphere. There is a lot to risk when you stand up and say, "hey, actually you guys are not really helping us out."

For now, I'm following a few of the career coaching blogs and I found one or two pro-women blogs that  are written by men. I would like to find more of these male-written blogs because I see a lot of these system issues arising out of the challenge for one dominant group (in this case men) to empathize/imagine what it is like to be in the less dominant group (women) and to instigate cultural changes accordingly. After all, it was men who gave women the vote, and men who allowed women to legally make decisions about their own bodies and open bank accounts on their own. Therefore, it will be men who create a more inclusive business culture and climate.

I would like to learn more about submitting posts as articles to aggregator sites. I've read a few "How to generate traffic" articles but all in all, I guess I'm looking for a quick fix and my peers.

Don't Waste Our Collective Time: Elluminate Best Practices

Elluminate is the online classroom that we all have to use at BGI. It's a little clumsy but not impossible "to get right." Week after week, I wonder if the one hour we have together in Elluminate will be used effectively or ineffectively. I'm sad to report that it's usually the latter. Part of this problem is technical and for whatever reason, we are still using a platform that has a lot of technical bugs. Another issue, in my humble opinion, is that traditional pedagogical techniques do not translate well to Elluminate (and I care to bet that they don't translate well in a regular classroom anymore because those modalities of learning are so outdated and do not capitalize on the tools we have at our disposal). Here are some Elluminate best practices that Christopher Allen uses in his Social Web for Social Change course. I think the secret to his success in maximizing Elluminate time is a combination of the prep work we do before the class and then after.

1. Assign SHORT relevant online (youtube videos, blogs and articles are good) pre-class readings to be done BEFORE the Elluminate.

     Pro: Gets you ready to discuss the current week's topic in class without burdening you. Also, it enables you to spot any areas you may need to ask questions in. The amount is so manageable that you can read everything an hour before class starts in order to be really fresh. 

     Con: Sometimes this can add too much work to the week. 

2. Spend first few minutes discussing some of the things students produced for the class the week before, share insights and puzzles, give props to good work, quote our work in your slides! 

     Pro: This proves that you care about our work and that you are reading what we write. Also, helps us feel more connected to the rest of the class and allows us to comment and discuss. 

     Con: May cut into "lecture time."

3. Spend a few minutes to call on individuals to summarize the pre-readings. 

    Pro: Shows the readings are meaningful to the course and you can cover and discuss the basics of each article out loud. Also, some of us may not have gotten to read every single article so this is good to get everyone on the same page. 

    Con: It's possible that no one has read the pre-readings. This could be because there was too much assigned or because the connection to the week's topic was not made in the readings and people lost motivation when asking themselves, "why is this relevant?" 

4. Let the pre-reading discussion go into the lecture time: lectures should be short, like 20 to 30 min with comprehensive slides. 

    Pro: A great lecture should expand on the pre-Elluminate readings, not summarize or repeat them. 

    Con: This may be a hard way to do complex topics that should not be over-simplified. But these topics can be expanded upon in the post-class readings. So, it's not necessary to go into crazy depth in class. 

5. End the class with a summary of what is due by the end of the week and the topics of what will be covered next week. 

   Pro: Keeps us in the loop and on track about assignments in case there are any differences or updates. Allows for questions about discrepancies. Helps maintain continuity of the course instead of the class just ending on a random note. 

  Con: Unless prof. is very good with timing, this could make the class go over time. 

Finally! My personal brand video is DONE!

Am I writing correctly for my audience?

I just finished up this simple article about considering one's audience and I'm realizing that I may need to do a complete blog redsign/overhall over at Secretariain't. DARN IT! My goal is to reach an American male audience, but it occurs to me that my Beat Blog looks way too "girly" or "angry feministy"...like, the title is a bit in-your-face. And here, I thought it just had "Mad Men" chiqueness. I'm guessing what I really need is some good male feedback about the blog design and about the posts that are already up. But all of this "catering to the audience" in the context of my Beat Blog topic recreates an age-old scenario of the opressed group having to cater to and educating their own opressors in the *hopes* that their message will be taken seriously. This quandry leaves me at an impasse...am I creating my own problematic scenario by insisting on speaking to the group that I believe can tug most effectively at the strings of power? Or maybe I'm worrying too much about things that I ultimately have no control over? At the end of the day, I know I'm dreading another 4 hr redesign. Is it possible to talk about women's issues to a reluctant audience without being pre-emptively dismissed as angry or wrong?

Ease into your morning with me! I'm watching social change on Youtube!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm looking forward to making my own inspirational change videos this semester. But for now, I'll leave you with these. I get a little teary-eyed when I watch them, but still...I really love the messages.

Let's get the ball rolling with MJ!

thebetacup: 60 Seconds To Save The World from the betacup on Vimeo.

All I want for Christmas is...

After a lot of deliberation I chose to cover women's issues in business as my BGI Blog Beat:

Secretariain't

(a big thanks to JP over at Everyday Cyclists! for the title)

I was choosing between this issue as well as the topic of color-blind racism in the Pacific Northwest. It was a very difficult choice to make because both are passionate topics for me and ones that I take very seriously. In the end, I chose my topic because it aligned nicely with another blog that I'm working on right now over at The Smart Girls' Way, which covers many topics related to women in business but specifically to the unique talents that women bring to the business world. Aw, reading that last sentence just makes me feel oh-so special.

In my beat, I'm hoping to discuss the barriers that women face in the business world but also to take a look at the solutions that have worked to alleviate some of these barriers (I'm trying to keep it positive you know?) Last year, I complained constantly about the lack of coverage of domestic women's issues in the BGI curriculum and got feedback that I sounded "too angry" (you'd be angry too, trust me) and that no one wanted to listen to an angry person rant. So, here is my attempt at making the conversation "constructive" and "productive" for my audience.  But I apologize in advance, cause there is a lot of hate out there and it gets me down sometimes to the point of ranting. 

Ideally, I would like my audience to be men. Weird right? Hear me out. Women have access to and personal knowledge of the barriers they face, but in honesty, I see men's raised conciousness and subsequent alliance to be the main solution for alleviating these barriers. My secret wish is for a male reader to write me a message saying at first, they either didn't have women's issues on their radar or outright did not believe in them but that after reading my blog, they have come to see how these barriers perpetuate around them in their every day lives and that they are no longer going to unconsciously participate. That is what I really want for Christmas. I hope you guys can make my wish come true!

And for funzies, I've left you a Mad Men video featuring Christina Hendricks discussing Joan Holloway's surprise about the new girl who seems more interested in finding a career than a husband at the office ( I have absolutely zero nostalgia for the 60s except maybe the occasional pillbox hat):

The New Shut-Ins: People who aren't using social media (Part 1)

One thing that I can't get enough of right now is the emphasis on social media as a tool for REAL SOCIALIZING! (Take that skeptics!) And this is where I describe my personal evolution of Facebook usage that began at a time when I was looking to have real meaningful connections with real friends...because it didn't all start out with smiles and sunshine.

I wasn't always a Facebook junky. Actually, I was very scared of putting myself out there and updating my status back in the days when FB statuses' default was "Nina Carduner is..." (I'm so glad Zuckerberg nixed the 'is' because that was totally annoying and made everyone sound like a narcissistic d-bag.) To me, Facebook was a possible extension for the exclusionary social circles and cliques that existed around me in highschool and college. I imagined the cool people stalking all the "shunned" on FB to find fodder for cruel mockery. My college had a FB prototype for this very purpose: Faces of Beloit (but we affectionately called it Stalkers of Beloit and trust me the cool kids were all a-mocking). But my usage of FB really started to shift during a time when I was farely socially isolated and pretty desperate to connect with anyone, good or bad.


Earliest remaining FB photo c. 2006


I had just moved to Seattle from Berkeley, CA just two years out of college and I didn't know ANYONE!!! We all know how crazy difficult it is to make friends in the post-collegiate world because there are no regular classes, activities, or social clubs to bring you together under a common interest. Meanwhile, if there are, you're too busy pounding the pavement to get a sucky entry-level job. I didn't make many close friendships in the Bay Area (though overtime some have really blossomed but that's thanks to the mighty "evil" FB) and when you move to a city for a boy (like I did, who I coincidently reconnected with on FB prior to dating him), you REALLY don't know anybody. In Seattle, I didn't know how to connect with new people because my various jobs left my work settings and schedule inconsistent (and be honest, Seattlites are known for being introverted and uninterested in meeting you). I was also dating a grad student who was flooded with work and research. I was pretty much on my own. So, after landing in Seattle, I descended unwittingly into the Facebook.

Around this time, Facebook was making a LOT of changes that made it easier and easier to connect and express oneself. It got rid of the stupid 'is' after everyone's name and enabled you to 'share' websites as well as 'like' whatever people had to say or share. First, I shared stupid harmless memes like baby animal videos (still do, thank you very much) and obvious popular humor pieces that were circulating the interwebs (you know, stuff you saw on ebaumsworld before YouTube was cool). Don't get me wrong, every time I shared a super mainstream non-confrontational link...I was sweating bullets, wondering:

Oh my god, what are people thinking of me?
Do people hate the stuff I'm putting up?
Do I look like a narcissitic jerk-off?
If I supposedly don't care what people think, why am I thinking these thoughts?

Complicated, I know. But don't worry, you get over that.

Then one day, I opened an anonymous message in my FB account and discovered that my worst fears had come true...

Stay tuned for the next part in the series!!

WOW! I am a BRAND!

I had the amazing opportunity to learn about my personal brand over the weekend at the first BGI intensive  for the year. This will be a heavy photo post because I really want to record the awesomeness that was given to me. If you ever want to compare the way you perceive yourself to the way others perceive you--I highly recommend this exercise:

1) Write down a few words or key-phrases you would use to describe yourself and some of the things you are passionate about.

These are mine (please ignore spelling mistakes) :

(Personal Description) 

Old Soul, Deep Caring, Engaged, Courageous, Committed

(What matters most)

Justice, Authenticity/Truth, Service

2) Now, other people in a group (without knowing or seeing what you've written about yourself) write post-it notes with words and key-phrases they would use to describe you. 

What other people said: 

 


I'm pretty amazed at how many post-its I received from this exercise. To me, that signals that I'm living pretty out-loud these days. I was also excited to see the similarities between "my words" and "their words." Some words were the exact same words! I'm really happy about this exercise and I'm getting inspired about my own keywords. 


So...I just combined them all and MADE A TAG CLOUD with THIS!

And looks like the winners are:

 VOICE~COURAGEOUS~CARING

Now...all I have to do is put these words through a few "thesaurical" iterations and I'll have my brand!

Crafting my personal brand...

Transparency/Authenticity is good marketing. So why is "privacy" sacred?

We're always talking about the value of transparency in our organizations, corporations, and governments. Today, the marketing class emphasized the importance of authenticity, not lying, telling the truth, being open and transparency in company branding. We were told that a commitment to these qualities will build trust and cultivate relationships with our customers. And trusting relationships are what will build our brand's visibility. So, why don't people see the connection of openness to their personal brand? 


My question logically stems from the observation that such organizations, companies, and governments are composed of individuals who may or may not have strong feelings about the so-called violation of privacy that presents itself online. I once read in PsychologyToday (I know super trashy and I can't find a link!) about a study that showed, maybe somewhat ironically, that people who did not gossip were less trusted by their peers. What do these results signify about the perception of privacy? The study concluded that sharing information via gossiping was a form of trust building and intimating close connection between individuals. Gossiping or sharing? It's a fine line, right?


At the end of the day, I do believe that "sharing means caring" and I keep that in mind in my Facebook activity. My status updates aren't just sharing about the intimate details of my daily life but also articles, links, and jokes that I've come across during the day. If you're not creating this type of "entertainment and information" value for your network, then maybe you're not serving your friends (I'm looking at YOU people who post their daily schedules and what you ate for dinner). At least, that's what I think. 

Source

We expect large behemoth's (that are now considered individuals) to be ethical and transparent...so why do we cling so deeply to the opposite in our personal lives to the point that we've dubbed it positively as "privacy?" Meanwhile, I also feel bothered by the way we sometimes treat *other* people's privacy. For example, I think of the endless photo-streams of people's children on FB, Flickr, and YouTube. These are great platforms for sharing family photos with close friends and families...but at the end of the day, those kids had no say in whether or not their images could be shared with the world or to strangers they didn't know. Ultimately, we all have to choose what we're comfortable sharing with our networks and the world. 

For more info on different kinds of privacy, I really enjoyed reading Christopher's break down of the 4 kinds of privacies!

Considering my passions for a BGI Guide "Beat"

Over the last year, social justice has been one of my biggest passions...and social justice specific to racism and women's issues within the realm of business. However, I'm also more recently becoming extremely passionate about documenting the ways in which social media has created or aided activists in achieving social change. 

Based on my passions mentioned above here are some ideas:

Barriers & Solutions to Women in Entrepreneurship

Pros:

-Great opportunity to be an expert for the work I'm currently doing with SmartGirls

-Relevant to BGI and a discussion I feel has not been present in the BGI community

Cons:

-Too much murky research

-Not sure there are many solutions with proven track record (if there was, it would not be a problem)

-Huge scope

-Somewhat disillusioned with topic because I find it depressing

"Color-Blind" Racism in Seattle and the PNW

Pros: 

-Specific scope

-Already have existing resources and contacts with anti-racism blogs

-Extremely passionate

Cons: 

-Could be all-consuming since I'm super interested in the topic

-Tons of information

-Emotionally exhausting

I have a few more ideas out there...but not as well-formed as these. Help!!

Traditional Authority v. Web Authority

I've been having an ongoing heated discussion with friends about the democratization of information across the web. The main concern I run into over and over is that the internet is mostly anonymous and may not contain correct information from sources that can be trusted. They complain there is no way to be sure that information is being shared by experts or valid authorities and if it is, it's getting lost in a sea of viral garbage composed by plebeians, hacks, and fakes. As a result, they argue that no "real" social change can come about with the aid of the social-web because *everyone* gets a voice and that drowns out the nuances of discussion. Hateful comments under any Justin Beiber youtube video come to mind (count the number of comments before you get to someone calling the popstar and all his fans "gay"-usually less than 1). But luckily, I will point out, Justin Beiber isn't out to create social change...at least not any that I can identify.

Source

This concern puzzles me, for it implies that information that is not online is more correct, less biased, and more easily fact-checked. These arguments also appeal to a much more traditional (and I would argue, backwards) form of authority and I have a real problem with traditional authority (scholarly journals, encyclopedias, newspapers, traditional media, etc) as the be-all end-all source of information.


From a social justice perspective, traditional authority has been the source of so much injustice in the world. Traditional authority has been composed of the privileged few, namely western wealthy white men. There was once a time when you could walk into any western library (arguably, a holding ground for authority) and know for certain that every book had been written from a wealthy white man's point of  view, with few notable exceptions. I think of all the erroneous textbooks that are circulating freely in the American public school system with enormous information gaps and blindspots. The internet poses a huge challenge to this type of authority because it gives authority to anyone who participates in the creation of the "story" and gives others a chance to back them up. And don't worry, there are plenty of experts on Wikipedia. In fact, it's now considered more accurate by experts than non-experts. So, if you begin to defend traditional authority, reflect upon how your mind has been shaped by the agenda of a traditional power hierarchy that is hell-bent on keeping the rest of us quiet.

To me, the internet is no different from a library but there are a few differences (from a social justice perspective) that make the web a far superior source for trusted and accurate information:

1. Greater access to more information 
2. Faster access to more information
3. Wider variety and diversity of sources
4. Opportunity to compare diverse dialogues and discussions on any given topic
5. (and more importantly) Opportunity to participate in the storytelling of said topic 

So, if you are a nay-sayer and skeptic of the quality of information and dialogue that is on the internet, will you throw your hands up in the air and unplug? To do so would be forfeiting your chance at participating in the story. So, why not take up your pen...er keyboard and join the conversation. How else will errors be corrected if we don't crowd source the correct information while we wait for more sophisticated algorithms to do so?

Don't hate! Participate, infiltrate, appreciate, repatriate, emulate!