Tweeting

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk
 

I was recently persuaded to try Twitter after observing its use at the NLab Social Networks Conference, where a live feed of everyone’s tweets appeared on the main presentation screen throughout the event.  This could be used playfully (a message appearing behind presenter Steve Clayton read: “Steve is a vista pimp”, which later sparked some twitter interaction) or more meaningfully for people both within the conference theatre and those who were unable to attend, but could follow proceedings via Twitter.  We also discussed the way Twitter could be used as a “global pub” – a way of throwing questions out into the community and receiving “trusted” responses or generating debate.  It certainly got me curious about the Twitter-buzz…

 

As I have mentioned previously, I am an avid Facebook status-updater thanks to my iPhone, so never really saw the point in using Twitter as well.  However, in the name of experimentation, I signed up and quickly discovered how easy it was to integrate Twitter with both my Facebook profile and my website, so my updates automatically appear everywhere I could possibly wish.  It was extremely easy and suddenly I started to understand why Twitter is a much better interaction tool than the Facebook status update alone.  Excellent!  Couldn’t be happier!

 

But there was one slight snag with this brilliance.  The snag was a question of grammar:  how does one construct a tweet that makes grammatical sense in all of the different contexts in which it appears?

 

I might tweet:  ”Wondering how to use grammar!”

Most mobile phones (including the iPhone) would automatically capitalise the first letter of the text message.  

As a tweet, it would be delivered to my followers in this format:

custardether: Wondering how to use grammar!

This would appear in Facebook as:

Kirsty Wondering how to use grammar!

On my website as:

Twitter Update:

• Wondering about grammar!

 

To capitalise, or not to capitalise?  And what about the ubiquitous “is” – subject of much debate within Facebook?  It is implicit in the context of Twitter, as the service is based on the premise that you are answering the question: “what are you doing?”.  But as soon as you take the answer (your tweet) out of that context, it can require an “is” to make grammatical sense.  The app integrating Twitter with Facebook has recently stopped automatically inserting “…is Twittering:” when adding a tweet to one’s Facebook status, compounding the problem.

 

In reality, this is not a big issue.  As online readers we are use to ellipsis and a general relaxation in punctuation conventions.  After all, the essential message (”what am I doing?” or “what is my current status”) is conveyed in all circumstances – just not as elegantly as one might wish.  

 

As with all grammatical questions, it comes down to style.  What we consider hard-and-fast rules-that-have-existed-forever today are merely popular stylistic conventions which will evolve in time to form new hard-and-fast rules, which people will also believe have existed forever.  It will be interesting to see how those developing the applications responsible for integrating the various status update mechanisms handle the grammatical issue create a seamless integration – or whether we as readers simply adapt to accommodate the clunkiness of the sentence structures created.

 

I think I will now go and take refuge within the pages of Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves, where there is safety for my inner stickler.  I will keep tweeting though!

NLab Social Networks Conference – Panel

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

The conference concluded with a panel session consisting of Roland Harwood, Chris Meade, Vijay Riyait, Andrea Saveri. Here is a brief summary of the questions raised and some of the responses…

 

o.    How do you get people to see that these tools are not just time wasting devices?

-       more conferences

-       more opportunities for people to get together and learn form each other (both small and large businesses)

 

o.    What social networks would you keep?

-       Roland = Twitter and Facebook

-       Andrea = del.icio.us and blog aggregator

-       Chris = Facebook and the blog (as a platform for everyone to have their say)

-       Vijay = Facebook and Twitter

 

o.    What is the killer reason for cash-tight, small businesses to use social networks?  What is the commercial incentive?

-       depends on the business

-       saves money

-       most businesses are already doing social networking offline, but now they can do the same thing cheaper and quicker online

-       you wouldn’t expect a return on the plumbing, but the business cannot function without it

-       expand markets and jump out of small market niche

-       getting information/feedback

-       collaboration

 

o.    Do people get fed up?  Users are more savvy and will spot the agenda

-       people still want stuff and want it sold to them in a way that is authentic and relevant

-       there is always a competition when new technological developments come along, so it will sort itself out

 

o.    We haven’t addressed the massive shift in landscape (China has more graduates than we have children).  How much do you think social media will support this shift in landscape?

-       China has the large number of bloggers, so they are participating

-       The collaborative nature of the net means that people will swarm together

-       Anyone on the internet can make a change that will affect everyone else on the internet

 

o.    Social networking enhances relationships with customers and forces traditional businesses to think about how they do business.

-       we need case studies from academia to businesses

 

So, the final thoughts for the day?

 

Lots of mystique gets built up, but Andrea recommended that businesses pick one small, low risk thing to experiment with to find out what’s right for their business.

NLab Social Networks Conference – Jim Benson

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

The concluding keynote for the day came from Jim Benson, who discussed how to get the most from your social media experience – given that small businesses do not need more stuff to do!

 

He used a flow diagram to demonstrate that if you want benefits out of a community, you have to put stuff in.  You can get good business advice from a system like Twitter, if you participate in the community, but you have to be clear what are you seeking from the community, whether it is a tangible or an intangibles benefit.  You also have to be aware that you cannot just be a leach – because people will pick that up and you will not get the benefit of the community, as it is not community behaviour.

 

Benson emphasised that it is important to know your limits in relation to social media.  He advised businesses to recognise which networks are appropriate to their needs and to experiment.  This was one of the most important messages of the day for many of the delegates – the idea that you do not have to be on and involved in everything going!  Benson explained that simple, “old fashioned” emailing lists are often the strongest social networks.  His advice was straight-forward: start small and work your way up… directing your use to your immediate needs, your business and your business’ personality.

 

The personality of a business is important.  All businesses rely on their proximity to clients and to information – the community involvement needed to get these things may be in different geographical areas and social networks can lower the costs in achieving these things.

 

This all lead to a discussion about over-hyped social networks, whether all of the tools are appropriate to every business’ needs and how businesses have adapted their use of these services to meet their own needs.

 

The key idea that I took away from this discussion was the view that social networks are a mechanism for saving money as well as a way of making money.  An idea that many of us loose sight of in our quest to monetize every second of time we spend working.  Later, Andrea Saveri would crystalise this for everyone by pointing out that plumbing is essential for all businesses, but you wouldn’t expect to make money out of it.  Social networking is exactly the same – essential, but not necessarily a means of directly generating income.

 

I went on to participate in Jim Benson’s workshop entitled “Dealing with the Negative: What to Do When Social Media Bites You”.  In my own business experience I have found that the mental barrier many people face is the idea that people can “say” bad things about your company online and it appears in print for the whole internet to see for all time.  One of the aspects of the Women, Business & Blogging conference that interested me most was how to deal with negativity, which can inevitably occur, and I didn’t feel that I was fully equipped to deal with this, despite extensive discussions – focussing mainly on cyberbullying.

 

In the workshop people discussed their own worries and business circumstances in relation to this issue and we were able to formulate some conclusions about good ways to mentally and actually handle negative comments made online.

 

1.            Monitor reviews – reach out the individuals when things go wrong and try to undo the damage by responding constructively.  Not only will this help to resolve the problem for the individual who has had a bad experience of your company, but will also look good to others – showing you care and will act if things go wrong.

 

2.            Search – the Americans use a website called “Yelp”, which collects reviews of businesses.  Make searching part of the process (an element of PR) to ensure that you stay on top of things and can therefore respond

 

3.            Be present and engage with people – I have observed quite horrific amounts of negative press against a company in one social network, the company response to which was nothing… nowt! They just ignored it and hoped it would go away.  However, part of the point of a social network is that people want to be engaged – they want the conversation!  They will certainly not think better of you if you are not prepared to enter into the discussion with them.

 

4.            Recognising that actually, negative criticism is useful because it is an untapped area of feedback – giving you the opportunity to respond and correct an issue.  If people say it online, you can generally find it.  If they say it on a bus or over dinner with friends or in the pub, you have no way of accessing that feedback and acting on it to improve your business.

 

 

5.            The Net appreciates openness.  Hands up if you get it wrong, and discussion all the way – it will help to build a relationship with your customers and foster trust.

NLab Social Networks Conference – Ken Thompson

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

I was very interested to hear Ken Thompson’s talk, having read his white paper about the concept of Swarm Teams and explored his website, which goes into the biological parallels of his system in more details.  Swarm Teams is a text message-based system, similar to Twitter, but based on the way teams work in nature.

 

He posed the question: What can we learn from nature’s social networks?

 

To address this question, he started by describing the traditional team model that we are all very familiar with – the Military-style team:  getting people to do what they don’t want to do and if in doubt, don’t do nothing.

 

In comparison, he then looked at biological teams and the way they operate.  He described how he got into this line of thinking when designing online systems, starting out with the creation of the Bumble Bee blog to collect articles about using biology to improve teams, then leading to Swarm Teams – a text message system enabling people to operate like a bioteam.

 

He highlighted the main benefit this system can have for small businesses – namely getting small businesses together to go for big contracts by creating a network. 

 

In addition, he described SwarmTribes – a version of the Swarm Teams concept – which is used to connect the likes of musicians with their fans – developing a degree of intimacy between bands and fans.  This is aimed mainly at small bands who want to develop their fan base and interact with them – having a conversation as Steve Clayton described earlier in the day.

 

The main benefits of swarms are:

 

1. You can ask the network
2. When one knows, all knows
3. Mobile co-invention

 

Thompson then demonstrated SwarmTeams by getting us to join his swarm using our mobile telephones and sending messages (on silent mode!) comparing soccer teams with work teams

 

He pointed out that no one gets as excited about their work team in the same way as they do about their football/sports team.

 

He moved on to talk about collective leadership – noting that natural teams are not lead by only one single leader the whole time.  Instead, they work on the principle of the right leader, for the right task at the right time… single leadership teams are not relevant in nature.

 

He explained that short messaging is what creates dynamic mobile teams both in nature and in human interaction, compared to document messaging, hence a surge in sms messaging – this is a natural, instinctive form of communicating and disseminating information.

 

The structure Swarm Teams is designed to mimic works on the principle that you should not try to broadcast to the whole group – but instead go to the best communicators.  The whole principle of mimicking the way communication works successfully in nature seems completely obvious when it is explained, but for some reason it is not the way our management structures and work teams work. Thompson’s advice was to treat social networks like living networks and to remember the very poignant statement that: “The most successful teams on the planet are not human teams” when using social networking to develop cohesive teams and communities online in our business practices.

NLab Social Networks Conference – Andrea Saveri

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

Andrea Saveri from the Institute for the Future had so many fascinating things to say that my note-taking rapidly descended into desperately trying to write down everything she was saying. 

 

Her theme was the amplified individual: the superheros within organisations.  She also explored how the practices of amplified individuals and the tools they use can benefit organisations. 

 

The trick is to use social networks and the associated amplified individuals to actually to amplify what small busineses do well – build relationships, understand niche markets, be agile in exploring new areas – and to help make up for what small businesses lack – management expertise, training, access to capital, limits of small business infrastructure (a negative from the perspective of the rest of the market).

 

She went on to describe amplified individuals in slightly more detail.  Amplified individuals are highly social – using social interaction to filter information and deal with information overload.  Online, this can mean the use of social tagging (i.e. del.icio.us) to see who else tagged pages and go talk to them, whilst filtering information to find what is meaningful.  It can also include sharing photos and using tagging in Flickr, engaging with social objects around which people gather such as a product, visual stimuli etc, using aggregators like Digg to filter information or Twitter, which gets businesses into a social network and is a quick way to source, filter and disseminate information (such as during the fire disaster in San Diego recently).

 

There are other ways in which social networking tools can be used by amplified individuals to benefit business.  Social networks enable people to collectively solve problems using intelligence of crowds – effectively expanding staff, without hiring staff (a huge benefit to a small business) – and collaborative activity. Wikis are great for exploring new areas – asking people to contribute to a knowledgebase.  In the words of Harold Rheingold: “get other people to scratch your itch”.  There are also market predictions aggregators available, which are good for small businesses to gage market predictions rather than having to do all the research in house, which is obviously costly. 

 

Social networks also enable businesses to tap into crowd spirit – running competitions asking customers to submit design ideas, which can be voted to be produced in prototype can engage the customer and aid the again otherwise expensive process of product development within a small business.

 

Saveri also advocated putting out problems to attract creative minds – possibly offering payment – who could provide a solution to a specific problem.  This gets people out there with skills to start submitting solutions – effectively leveraging intelligence to get it to your problem.

 

Another suggestion involved using alternate reality games for training and development in a cost effective way – creating them in such a way that people have to collaborate to solve the problem/mission/quest rather than working alone, thereby using a game framework to get people to learn.

 

But this is getting away from the theme of the amplified individual and on to the myriad of ideas for the application of social networks.  Back to the main thrust of Saveri’s speech:

 

Amplified individuals are highly improvisational.  They are also highly augmented – using different tools to enhance cognitive abilities and coordination skills.  Small business employees and leaders often wear many hats, so need these skills to context-switch, often using devices to enhance memory, concentration etc.  Life Hacker is an example of such a system, featuring anti-procrastination alert.

 

Saveri noted a number of emerging super-powers of amplified individuals:

 

Mobability – they work in large groups, organising and collaborating with lots of people simultaneously.

 

Influencing – they are persuasive in multiple media spaces/contexts

 

Ping quotient – they have a high ping quotient, in other words they are responsive to other people’s requests for engagements

 

Protovation – they are fearless innovators, working in rapid iterative cycles

 

Open authorship – they are comfortable creating content resources for public consumption and modification, particularly given that lot of online work is about putting up drafts or perpetual beta versions

 

Multi-capitalism – they are aware of the many different forms of capitalism and their respective values – be it natural, intellectual, social or financial capitalism… with particular understanding of the notion of reputation as a currency (social capitalism)

 

Longbroading – they are able to think in terms of higher-level systems and see the big picture

 

Effective signal to noise management

 

Cooperation radar – they are good at spotting the best collaborator for a particular task within a social network

 

These skills things all amplify small business’s ability to increase their scope – working around the constraints of big business.

 

Saveri concluded by explaining that it is about economies of sociality, not economies of scales, and about asymmetric power – i.e. using these tools to amplify your impact, even though you are small, and using tools to be responsive to niche markets and also resilience when these disappear by identifying new niches.

NLab Social Networks Conference – Roland Harwood

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

Harwood’s whirlwind talk collected together lots of thoughts, research and parallels considering the question: “Are social networks the new cities?”, a title which Harwood noted is more than just a metaphor. Social networks are already starting to fulfil some of the functions that grow cities – creating a networked business economy and fostering public characters, who act as connectors within communities, developing common experiences and associations for those within the community.

Harwood referred mainly to two texts: Jane Jacobs’ “Death and Life of Great American Cities” and Steve Johnson’s “Emergence”. He talked of the rise of urbanism in the world and the way in which technology changes places. People who study urban growth, look at the rule of technology. He also noted that we are only at the start of understanding how the web is changing places…

In a quote from Jacobs, Harwood explained that the essence of cities – why they are exciting – is the freedom to walk around the busy streets – in a car-dependant society you are isolated from other individuals, whereas whilst walking the streets in a city means there is interaction and changed behaviour in response to your actions and those of others.

What interested Harwood about social networks is the way you interact with people you don’t know well – the weak ties. I referred to this recently in my post Translating the Reality into the Virtual when I noted that we have taken the “Christmas card list” social convention online. In online social networks you can build relationships with people who are on the periphery of your network –sometimes building relationships before you meet people.

Harwood went on to say that social networks allow communities to form in our pockets, which replaces the isolation of cities. For communities to develop, there has to be a balance between the quality of interaction and the convenience of interaction. Cities erode both of these elements, whereas social networks help replace them.

NLab Social Networks Conference – Steve Clayton

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

Steve Clayton is the author of the “Geek in Disguise” blog and works as Software + Services lead for Microsoft.  He opened his keynote by verbalising what many of us feel when considering social networks – we are reaching information overload!

 

The main theme of his talk followed on from this by discussing ways to make these experiences more meaningful.  Using social networking in business, he argued, is all about generating trust and building trusting relationship with customers.  He demonstrated this with a cartoon showing that “all products are conversations”

 

Clayton asked us to think about where we go to search for businesses when we have a need.  He demonstrated with a hand pole that more people now search using Google than with a hard copy of the yellow pages.  However, he noted that we usually get our quality recommendations and advice at the pub or an equivalent social environment – you believe the advice you given by others in this environment, because you have interacted with them.  Google is not always a trusted environment for recommendations, as many of the top ranked results are paid advertisements, not necessarily the most appropriate recommendation for your needs.  Blogs are fast becoming the social network equivalent of the pub – the way of recommending and locating quality recommendations and reviews.

 

Clayton next examined how communities can play with corporate marketing materials and make them social objects.  He showed what happened to a promotional video for “Gears of War” when users remixed the sound in an amusing way.  How, as a business, do you deal with this?  Well, if you follow the example of Microsoft in this case, you learn to recognise that once your promotional material is out there on the web, it can be come a social object for communal play, and that this can be a positive thing, as many more people are interacting with it in a more meaningful way, because they are engaging in a community activity – talking about your piece of promotion, which can be far more valuable to you as a business than getting precious about it.  In the case of the “Gears of War” promo video, about 1000 mash up versions were created by internet users, making it a great, but unintentionally viral piece of marketing.  People wanted to talk about the video, have a conversation around it and engage with it – thus developing a kind of community ownership.  This was definitely an aspect of social activity on the internet that I had not previously considered, and whilst you cannot engineer such a situation easily, if it occurs it can certainly be useful feature of social activity on the internet.

 

He also showed a leaked internal video comparing Mac and Microsoft packaging design, which somehow escaped onto the web.  As an internal spoof poking fun at themselves, this could have been disastrous for Microsoft’s corporate image… but instead they discovered that people had a conversation around the video and from it formed the opinion the Microsoft had a sense of humour.  People wanted the company to have a personality and to be connecting with them in this very personable way – engaging them in conversation. 

 

The strong emphasis throughout Clayton’s talk was the need for conversation and user engagement with your company, its products and its marketing.  To get higher up on Google (without paying for the privilege) you need to get people to have a conversation with you and therefore link to you.

 

The two-way, conversation aspect of engagement with internet-based customers is what most companies get wrong.  Clayton noted that 70% of small business have a website – but 2/10 do not have contact details on it, so no one can engage with them in conversation and therefore build up a relationship that may lead to a sale or a recommendation.  Monthly website updates are most common, but Clayton suggested that companies need to be updating more often to generate conversations and therefore a link with their customers.

 

A good example of this was Clayton’s citation of English Cut, tailor of Savile Row who set up a blog talking about suits.  The blog did not try to sell a single product, but instead just talked about fabric etc, engaging interested people in a conversation.  He got lots of links and therefore the blog reached the top of the Google results for Savile Row.  He has a great online brand image, but the blog itself is not sales orientated.  However, the conversation has generated huge amount of business – more than the company can possibly deal with.

 

Microsoft has used blogging to have direct conversations with customers – a point discussed in detail by Eileen Brown at last year’s NLab Women, Business and Blogging conference.  Engaging in conversations builds up trust.  He also noted that Twitter is fast becoming like a global pub where you can go for a response from people you may not know directly or in person, but because you have this intimate, direct relationship through Twitter, you trust what they have to say.

 

Clayton had a few recommendations for us to conclude, which I will include here so I for one can locate them in the future:

 

“The World is Flat” – a book about globalisation and how the internet has flattened the arena for conversation.

 

Common craft.com – short videos explaining social networks

 

Change This.com – archive of free manifestos

NLab Social Networks Conference – The Opening

 

 

 

X-posted from custardether.co.uk

Well, it has taken a little longer than I anticipated to formulate my account of the recent NLab Social Networks conference, held at DMU on 19th June, following the IOCT Salon.  However, I have finally made sense of all of my notes!  So, without further ado, as they say….

The Opening Address

 

Professor David Asch opened the conference by briefly putting Leicester in the context of the day’s theme of social networking – a diverse community working to connect and network to build cohesion.  He noted that there is a need to academically examine how social networking is affecting us – whether it is making life better or more complex.  He highlighted the role of DMU in this process and the academic work going on here.

 

Professor Asch’s own research covered business competitiveness at the turn of the millennium – looking in particular at the impact of the Internet on the way companies compete in terms of economic theory. He noted the difference between searchable and unsearchable items in relation to internet sales: searchable items have defined and can therefore be purchased online or offline.  However, if you are purchasing an unsearchable item (usually a service) – how do you know what you are buying or whether what you have bought was the best that you could?  Asch’s interest was therefore in the way in which the internet and social networks have developed to address this problem since he was researching the issue from an economics stance in the late 90s.

 

What became apparent throughout the day was that the development of social communities on the internet does not just benefit those purchasing “unsearchable” items.  Social networks allow internet users to get advice and recommendations about all types of retailers, and to make better informed decisions about which retailers to trust, regardless of the type of product they are buying.  The key to the day was developing an understanding of how to harness this proactively both for marketing purposes and for the management of company image….