September 2008 - Posts
Did you know your government – federal, state, and local – is in the grassroots information network? If you thought twitter was just micro blogging the latest celebrity or personal news gossip then you’re missing out on the information underground. I keep finding cool people/organizations to follow. Recently, I found a bunch of interesting government related ones I’m excited about. I can’t wait to see how they tweet.
Thought, I’d share of a few notable ones but remember to check on the person you are following to make sure they are the real deal.
My favorites to watch so far are the State and House floor. No one really wants to watch CSPAN but don't you kinda want to know what your government is doing during the day? Also, I see a lot of potential in twitter for feeds like the crimestoppers. They could do amber alerts and breaking news alerts right to your feed. News in the twitter world can faster than the real news. This has all be fun for me to watch. It's your government, by the people, for the people - in action!
When does social media not matter? I found out that answer for myself yesterday when I participated in United Way’s Day of Caring. Groups of Blackbaud employees, organized by our awesome Corporate Relations and Philanthropy team, dispersed into the community to help our local nonprofits.
I was part of a team assigned to the Lowcountry Food Bank. The Lowcountry Food Bank is an amazing organization who’s mission is to feed the poor and hungry of the ten coastal counties of South Carolina. They are currently in construction on a new warehouse in Charleston where they are going to be able to grow and help even more people in need through education and feeding the hungry.
My fun assignment was to pull and cut vines and trees off a fence at the back of their new property as well as rake the debris from the ground near the fence. They even gave me some shears, crazy huh? And even though I did battle with some sharp vines that left me scarred today, I loved every minute of the physical task. It wasn’t about social media, software, or technology. It was about doing one small task to give back. Eventually, they are going to be able to use the reclaimed fence to grow fruits and vegetables. How cool!
I’m so thankful Blackbaud encourages us to live what we believe. Yesterday was such an awesome opportunity to really get involved and directly help a nonprofit. And, we in turn were given a tour and educated on the mission of their organization. Now, I want to volunteer there more!
I hope everyone else was able to do something philanthropic for Day of Caring and if not, every day can be a day of caring. After all, volunteering rocks!
We all know in the last year or two tv and movies have invaded the Internet in all new ways. (My favorite... hulu.com). But yesterday, when I got home from work I was flipping through the channels and stumbled onto Oprah using Skype on her tv show. What? When did that happen? She had a regular show on her favorite music artist discovery of the summer Charice. I don't know much about Charice and would have changed the channel except Oprah had two regular ordinary people on the show participate via Skype (phone and video). I think they were just fans of the singer. They participated from their own home. I thought that was pretty cool. Usually TV is heavily produced but bringing the audience into the show, even if they can't come to Chicago, is sweet and oddly feels more authentic!
This week's task is to finally bite the bullet and learn some more about Skype. After all, if Oprah starts using it, you know all the rest of the media are going to jump on the bandwagon.
Are the emerging social media tools becoming ingrained in mainstream media? If yes, I guess we need to start looking further on the horizon for even cooler ways to interact.
I was a child who spent hours and sometimes days reading. I could actually sit still (in one place) and get absorbed in a story. Now, I can't sit still to read a book I know I will enjoy without bouncing up to check the news, sports, weather, friend updates, and messages (all on my computer). With social media, stories are broken up into tiny pieces. You either have to get the entire story out of a tiny bit of information or you absorb over time in fragments. Sometimes those fragments don't even come from the same people.
As a result, I bounce around from website to website, from social medium to social medium, collecting information all day long. I'm sure somewhere in there I'm making sense of what I'm reading and learning, right?
Alan Porter responded to our Documentation blog post on Google Chrome's Comic Book Documentation on twitter by sharing his thoughts from his own blog.
A point he made about why the comic book doesn't work got me thinking. He wrote… "There is no single voice and no narrative."
And for some reason his thought stuck in my mind and started weaving it's own weird interpretation in my head.
Social media is the opposite of single voice. Social media's narrative is not traditional. Alan is, of course, correct that all communication is about a story, a story told through a conversation (synchronous or asynchronous). However, I'm now thinking about how emerging forms of social media change the rules around stories and conversations.
Can we still read stories the "old way" or will social media in its friendly-sized chunking ruin our attention span?
Do you find yourself bouncing from screen to screen, sign to sign, and visual cue to visual cue (You might want to do a little self-examination at work and at home)? Does Google Chrome's comic also not work because it's just too dang long. I mean, who got beyond page 5 of the book? I did but only because I was just looking at the pretty pictures and not the text.
The question I have then is, how do you communicate and how do you teach when the rules around stories and conversations are changing?
My bad. I wish I could say my blog disappearing act was a result of these two distracting me...
L-R: Hanna, Ike
But in reality, I've been absorbed in my little world where I've been split between The Education Edge, Student Information System beta (and preparing for release later this year) and The Raiser's Edge.
However, over the past two weeks something on my periphery caught my attention. It was the emergence of the national conventions, Democratic and Republican, and their use of YouTube to bring you speeches and behind the scenes footage.
I loved that they integrated all forms of video to make you feel like you were part of the convention even if you weren't there. I'm guessing they will not only make connections with their audience but also inspire some to take up political activism even if they had never done so before.
Even if you're not political or even if you like some other side than the left and right, it's interesting to take a step back, tune out the politics, and just see what actions they are taking from a social media perspective. I know I'm not the type to sit down every night during the conventions to watch. I just don't have the attention span anymore. But, give me short little videos I can have some control over on YouTube and I'm a happy clam. Social media under my control (the user) and not dictated by anyone else.
If you want to do some investigations yourself, check out both their channels on YouTube (click on the respective images).
Have you ever thought about creating a YouTube channel and start sharing information about your organization? Or, do you already have a channel? I'd love to see some examples.