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.

anti-social socialising

I came across this article earlier in the week about the anti-social networking sites Enemybook and Snubster.

I found the concepts of these two sites quite intriguing. Social networking sites that designed to provide a platform for anti-social behaviour. Are these just tongue-in-cheek parodies getting pixel-space on the back of the current Facebook-fad or are they a subtle indicator that all elements of human behaviour will find a mechanism for expression through t’internet, no matter how petty?

I raised the article with my colleagues on the Online MA in Creative Writing & New Media, who also raised the issue of employer-googling, which is becoming an increasing concern to those of us who actively engage in the web. What damage are these type of applications likely to cause? Will they be viewed as a light-hearted game or taken seriously?

What it all comes down to really is whether it is necessary to broadcast one’s frustrations and annoyances about those around us. You could argue that if people devise these applications, people must feel the need to have this type of feature, for whatever personal theraputic reason… so let them use t’internet for that purpose. Alternatively, you could adopt the stance that lables these as dangerous gimmicks (or just regular gimmicks) which only encourage out the worst in people. We already have plenty of examples of how t’internet can be used to feed the worst elements of the human psyche…

My personal view? Well, it makes perfect sense for these applications to exist and if there is a demand for them (beyond the hype and humour factor) then they will continue and develop along with that demand. They represent an element of social interaction that is just as real and valid as any other. Afterall, it would be naive (dare I say wishful?) to expect people to leave their hang-ups at the door when they come onto the net. I wouldn’t use them, and find the whole idea of anti-social networking quite repulsive – where it is genuinely meant. However, I do find it interesting to watch the discussion generated as people observe afresh elements of their day-to-day interactive and communicative lives from the real world translated to the online world. It is almost like looking in the mirror and seeing the enlarged pores we try to ignore each day illuminated with satirical disco lights – puss and all!

Gross, but life.

community laughter

I have just returned from a fabulous production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Penelope Keith, currently playing at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Last minute tickets are truely a fantastic blessing!

I say this not to envoke jealousy (although it really was a very good show!). I mention it because something occurred to me as I returned with my young ward on the Number 5 bus…

The Number 5 bus is not the most inspiring place in the world. A journey on it can be called a life experience, but that is as far as it goes. However, on this particular journey, I observed that the production was far funnier than the recent film production. My neighbour’s daughter is a big fan of the film (mainly because the cast list includes Colin Firth), but even she agreed with me that the play was much funnier. The whole audience was laughing all the way through, in fact. The lines were the same, the sets pretty much the same… but it just seemed to provoke more outright laughter.

It occurred to me that this is true of many plays and films: if you watch as part of a community, you gain more from the experience – particularly with humorous pieces. You don’t need to know the other people in the audience, or even speak to them (except to apologise for squishing past them to get to the loo in the interval – of which there were 2 on this occasion). Being with other people who are laughing and sharing the experience makes it a more involved experience than simply being a passive observer in front of a small screen.

Maybe it is this community of viewing that humour on the web is missing – although there are admittedly some very funny things out there. Maybe the experience could be enhanced by watching in real time with other people… hearing them laugh, being able to whisper cynical comments to them, or even pull faces at them. I know we can already participate in group events such as concerts in Second Life, but are we really experiencing the presence of others? Or are we just seeing animated representations of these others and being left to imagine the web of people around us – prehaps speculating who is really there and who has popped away from their machine to make a cup of tea?

Personally, I would prefer to have the real contact – prehaps by combining a VoIP feature. Wouldn’t it be great if you could choose who to sit next to at an online event… see their faces by webcam and “whisper” to them directly whilst watching a performance… hear the laughter and mutterings of the rest of the audience… prehaps have a scheduled break for ice cream…

Maybe one day we will. I’m not sure whether I would participate, or whether I would still hop on the Number 5 down to the proper theatre with its confined seating and exorbitant ice cream prices. I would just be interested to see whether the live element really makes things funnier or whether it was just the fantastic skill of Penelope Keith…