Information Superhighway Four: The Construct Additional Pylons Edition

FableVision, Boston Games For Change, Harvard Free Culture, and the Public Radio Exchange Proudly Present…

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY FOUR: THE CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS EDITION
A Gathering Of Boston Tech

January 31st, 2009, 8:00 – 12:00
Berkman Squared, 50 Church Street, Cambridge MA
RSVP on Upcoming

Boston is full of cool Internet people. Why aren’t they meeting each other?

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY is Boston’s monthly party gathering hackers, activists, artists, designers, nonprofits, startups, academics and general geekery to hang out and connect with one another.

* No agenda, no “networking,” no presentations. Just beverages, food, ideas and cool people.
* Best of all the price is free, just like the current market value for the Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.

* This time: come out and meet Boston’s gaming peeps! We’re gathering startups, nonprofit game developers, researchers, and (as usual) a few awesome curveball guests for the mix.

* Also, come and play games! We’ll have some cool newer fare set up on big screen and projector — but will also be working the nostalgia circuit (read: Sam and Max, Doom, Chrono Trigger, NetHack) with a bank of slick XOs courtesy One Laptop Per Child.

With Featured Guests and Organizations:
* Gary Goldberger (FableVision)
* Gene Koo (The Berkman Center for Internet and Society)
* Jon Radoff (GamerDNA)
* Josh Diaz (CMS / GAMBIT)
* Scott MacMillan (Macguffin Games) and Darius Kazemi (Orbus Gameworks) (Boston Post Mortem)
* MacKenzie Sigalos and Katelyn Foley (One-For-All)
* Keith Hopper (Hopper Analytical / NPR)
* Andrea Mercado (Technologist)

Also Sponsored By Information Superhighway Alumni:
Beth Coleman and Kevin Driscoll (CMS), Mel Chua (Hello Silo), Steve Garfield (Founder, Boston Media Makers), Nate Aune, Brian Del Vecchio and Jon Pierce (Betahouse), Brett Stilwell (Pecha Kucha Boston), Mac Cowell and Jason Bobe (DIYBio)

ISFour Theme Song

Website: http://twitter.com/infosuperhiway

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: berkman, boston, event, geeks, informationsuperhighway, ish4, me, tech

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Video feedback highlights:

• Merlin talks about how you can control who has access to your time, how, and by which methods. It’s not impossible magic, it’s about choices you make according to the value you assign to tasks, meetings, interactions, and relationships. I make these choices all the time, by way of who gets access to me via which social networking sites, my status on chat, when I answer emails, and how/when I use in-person/phone communication. Just because I have Piper (my Blackberry) with me at all times doesn’t mean I’m a slave to her; she’s my right-hand gal, and I access her as necessary, not every time she makes a noise.
• Towards the end, Merlin tackles the tough bit of not being the only person who believes in these tenets, and how to figure out how it works in the group work dynamic in bite-sized pieces. I’m looking for a place that either a) already believes in these methods and is open to working through them, or b) willing to be open to experimenting and compromising on how things are done using methods like those Merlin outlines, where the bargain will work both ways.
• Learn to use tools better. Read Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home. Have the conversations with people about how you communicate, and don’t assume people use text, email, Twitter, wikis, Facebook, LinkedIn, chat the way that you do, or at all, for that matter. Understand when you should have a conversation with someone, and have it. And be mindful of other people’s time tokens.

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Post tags: communication, gtd, howiroll, jobhunt, merlinmann, social networking, timemanagement

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I won’t rehash the event too much, since the video will give you most of the information you need, and the presentations are brief and worth the time. Suffice it to say that at least 2 of the presenters, Hubspot CEO Brian Halligan and Visible Measures VP of Marketing and Analytics Matt Cutler, focused on the numbers. Not that this is bad, it’s actually really interesting to get a glimpse of how the numbers come to be, and how they are used.

Overall, the gist was that old advertising doesn’t work anymore, and people find what they need through searches and social networks as opposed to clicking on blunt force ads. So, by using resources (money, people, time) to create a presence in social communities instead of buying Google AdWords and pursuing traditional advertising methods, you increase your visibitlity, and therefore your ability to reap monitary rewards. However, the trick is knowing where on the Roulette board to put your chips, and how many, based on who lives and plays in each space, and what types of content they find valuable, and without ROI assessment, it’s a tough bet to make.

Both Hubspot and Visible Measures seem to be getting the numbers right. They’ve found ways to generate followers in various social networks online, they see the eyeball potential of all those followers, and they’ve even been able to turn some of those eyeballs into actual customers. These are PR/analytics firms, whose customers are other businesses… more on that in a minute.

Brian Halligan mentioned during the Q&A that, while many of the people in the room might not want to hear this, the future of good “advertising” is really in hiring content creators instead of PR people, to create content to drive traffic to businesses and brands. Cool commercials, online only content, music videos, free articles, games, toys, all sorts of stuff, because users finding your content is the new way to attract attention, not by in-your-face methods like ads. Be findable, and be cool.

So back to the people in the room being mostly PR people… I had an interesting conversation with Chuck Tanowitz before the presentations began about how he believed that the future of PR is possibly for companies to bring in journalists as an impartial third party to create content about the companies, just to get the word out about what they’re doing and why people should care in the content realms that people live in. After the presentations, this fed into part two of our interestin conversation on how some marketing people (especially on higher levels) don’t understand how the new web is really about user-generated content on the user’s level (not necessarily shiny, polished, or high-quality), and how that supports the craving for real transparency (because people aren’t stupid, and they can tell that something too shiny, polished, and high-quality is really just choreographed and not entirely transparent advertising).

Given that much of marketing/PR/analytics see potential in the numbers of followers they garner in any given social tech outlet, and that, on a business-to-business level, they are seeing some measurable ROI by how many new customers they bring in, but can only have faith in the rest of the subjective and human element of social networking ROI that can’t be measured — being a fan may not lead to them making money right now — I have questions from a consumer perspective for you. Those who are in the business, take off your business hats if you can before your read and respond.

• Do you follow companys on Twitter, join groups/become fans of companies on Facebook, subscribe to RSS feeds, sign up for email newsletters, join groups on LinkedIn, etc., based on the brand of the company alone, or does it have something to do with the people and personalities who represent these companies? Are you drawn to the people, who lead you to the companies, or does it matter?
• Following companies on Twitter: do you do it? Why, or why not? What kinds of content draws you to them, or pushes you away from them? Is an all link feed just spam to you, or is it better than RSS? Do you prefer people from companies who interact as humans first, employees second?
• Are you loyal to personalities, or to companies? Say you love yarn, and you buy yarn from a company because you like dealing with a specific person… then that person goes to work for another yarn company. Are you loyal to the yarn company because it’s great, or to the person because they’re great?

I do agree that good content is the best way to attract attention. I’m just trying to suss out whether the numbers would work out the same way for business-to-consumer interaction. Let me know what you think of my braindump on this… I look forward to your answers to the questions.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: roi, smb10, social media, Social Media Breakfast, social networking

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Right now, I’m not actively spending my days pouring over job listings and sending out cover letters, and I won’t be anytime soon.  Instead, I’m spending way more of my time just talking to people, not in the “I want a job from you” kind of way, but in a “hey, we both do interesting things, and I have the time, so let’s chat” kind of way. If jobs come out of these relationships, then that’s super. If not, that’s totally fine, since the relationships are more important to me. If a job falls in my lap in the midst of everything I’m doing right now, and it’s the right job at the right place, I won’t say no. People I know are sending me links and leads to jobs, which is always helpful, as long as they fit what I’m looking for. But otherwise, I’ve eschewed the traditional job search for now.  More importantly, I’m resting, spending my time doing things I’ve needed and wanted to do, and just enjoying life.  I’ll let you know when things change in that respect.

So what am I looking for?

Better time: First and foremost, regaining and maintaining a sense of work/life balance is of the highest priority.  When I was freelancing in technology many ages ago, I did a much better job managing my time and preventing work time scope creep, but it was still a bit crazy. When I was working in librarianship, the freelance work seemed to never end, and between the crazy library hours schedule and side work, I was working all the time, and I could never do things at night (which I really like to do).  So, a more normal workday (Monday through Friday, 9am-ish to 5pm-ish, occasional nights and weekends), is my ideal situation.

Not in a library:  I don’t want to work in a library or for a library vendor.  If you want clarification on this, you’re welcome to leave a comment.  (As a side note, at some point soon, I may be changing the name of the blog, so that it will no longer be a misnomer.)

Easier commute: This includes walking distance, T (Boston area public transit subway), bus, or any combination thereof, at less than 45 minutes one-way.  I’ve done the driving commute in the Boston area, and it’s really just a stress generator for me.  I think I’d do it for the right job, though.

Excellent organizational culture: I’m looking for a place full of a good number of people who are smarter than me, with a professional, collaborative nature.  I want to work with people who understand technology, and I’d love to work with some geeks again.

My position? Well, that’s the interesting bit.  At this point, my firm belief is that I’ll know it when I see it, but I’m open to suggestions.  I think that I’d do well in a consultant (internal or with a consulting company, not on my own) or client services position, and tech support/management, but I’m not limiting my options to that. My nature is to be a problem solver.  I can plan, I get human behavior, I can Geek-English translate, I work well with others in a team or as an individual and/or leader, and l learn quickly.  I have hands-on tech skills, everything from configuring and tinkering with WordPress (although I will admit there are a few things I haven’t gotten around to fixing with my theme, too busy living ;D) to fixing computer problems, and I’m a natural tinkerer.  I’m never afraid to say “I don’t know.”  I’m really good at using, planning, teaching, and counseling on social networking technologies.  You can get a full run-down on my experience and skills on my LinkedIn profile.

That’s where it’s at.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: career, jobhunt, jobs, me

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I spent a good amount of the morning trying to feverishly tweet about Twitter Vote Report, a project quickly-yet-skillfully implemented in just three weeks by Allison Fine from the Personal Democracy Forum and Nancy Scola, Associate Editor of techPresident (Fast Company story). This project is proof that a huge tech project can be produced in a truly grassroots fashion, wrangled via a fantastic wiki, contributed to by volunteers, and get the attention of outlets like CNN (can’t find a link, but I know people saw it), Mashable, and rocketboom. Three weeks, kids. Amazing. I wish I had done more to help get the word out (I’ve tweeted off and on about it in the past few days), but still, I think the turnout was impressive.

Twitter Vote Report was designed to take in data from hashtags in tweets and reprocess them into mashups like Google maps to track wait times, machine problems, registration problems, fraud, and overall good/bad feelings about the voting experience. Most people new the basic #votereport hashtag, but not many of the other tags were used, or used properly, enough to help the other apps pick up the data necessary. On the enormous upside, it’s impressive that Twitter Vote Report offered a “don’t Twitter, never will” set of options, to broaden the scope of participation, including posting transcriptions and sound files of phone messages. I think that, with enough time to seriously market the tags, or perhaps even some sort of structured form-based input system for people may need it, it could be a serious way to track the next set of elections.

It took me approximately 53 minutes to vote. It was worth it. I tweeted my vote, and even took listeners into the voting booth with me via a recording on Utterli:

The rest of the WBUR Twitter Central crew arrived in the early evening (in order of appearanc): Jeff Cutler, Gradon Tripp, Scott Frazer, Deb Agliano, and Adam Zand (there were more Twitter peeps posting off-site, check out the search for everything hashtagged #wburvote). The entire event was peppered with exceedingly exciting and scintillating conversation, excellent snacks, and lots of fun watching the numbers roll in. We were interviewed on video, talked to WBUR staffers about what exactly we were doing and many aspects of the social web, pictures taken. The staffers were really happy to see us there, and very curious about what we were doing, which made for a very positive and open environment. Everyone had different approaches to the “reporting” idea: Jeff corresponded with Twitter followers and friends about their experiences and tweet bits, Adam posted many utters, I messaged followers with questions and comments while I trolled different Twitter searches, and everyone tweeted their hearts out. The WBUR Twitter effort even got a shout out on the air, which is awesome progress.

When I started this post, I was drinking a Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, watching Obama deliver his FTW (abbrev. internet slang, “for the win”) speech, still tweeting, at home, in my pajamas, just after watching Jon Stewart announce Obama’s win on Indecision 2008 and helping a friend find a live video stream of the speech for his sister in China. It’s been a day of meeting new people, coining new phrases (Scott gets a super gold star for “premature calculation,” a danger of overly-excited polls, but nothing to be ashamed of ), and feeling really connected in person *and* by way of technology with the rest of the nation on this momentus occasion. It was definitely a treat to use the social web’s powers for good today, and I’m excited for what the future of interaction holds for us.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: election, election08, social media, social networking, Tweetup, twitter, vote, wbur, wburvote

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Sarah’s Cucina Bella
http://sarahscucinabella.com/

Sarah moderated this festive panel.  She didn’t have as much opportunity to speak as the other panelists, but she did talk briefly about a few things:

• How long does it take to create a quality blog post for a food blog?  It’s like a 4-5 hour endeavor, from picking the ingredients, to developing the recipe, to buying the food, making the food, taking pictures, *eating*, cleaning up, then writing it up.
• Food bloggers have tremendous community, and do a lot of charitable works (see below for examples).
• She doesn’t have time for Chowhound or Yelp, she prefers to put the time and energy into her blog.
• She keeps her cooking blog separate from her review blogs (see her list of blogs on her site).

Nika Culinaria
http://nikas-culinaria.com

In terms of social networking, Nika  maintains an account on Flickr, because she’s photographer, so she takes food photos there.  She’s on Twitter as well, but mostly to kvetch about the election.  She’s also got a Facebook account, but not as a “refresh all the time” sorta thing.

Nika recently went back to work full-time, and she has kids.  As a science writer, she’s always writing in her brain.  She’s got many blogs, to keep her thoughts separate but robust.  The writing process is organic, but doesn’t take very long, and she may or may not edit, and she does write better at certain times of the month than others.  Once she writes her posts, then she shoots the photos, and it’s impossible to say how long it takes, it’s a constant process.

When she goes into social media, it’s about politics, not food.  When she Googles for food content, she finds she most often hits Chowhound results, and the quality of the content she finds varies.

If she says something on her blog, she’s responsible for it because it’s her identity.  On Chowhound, people have more of an opportunity to be anonymous, so the quality may not be there.

She’s all about taking good food photos!  She offers a Food Photo 101 class on her blog, and she worked with another blogger who came to her with the idea, for people with point and shoot cameras and not much experience with photography.  You can also search the web for tips and tutorials.  In the end, it’s a matter of practice and staying away from the flash.  It’s easier to shoot apples than, say, soup, or oatmeal.  Know your camera, use the manual a lot (the simplest functions usually give you the best results), nd a studio near a window or something is especially good. Do give yourself space to learn!

The only numbers she really thinks about are Google PR stats for her ads.  Other rankings for the popularity of food blogs isn’t something she has time to look at.

Lydia Walshin Perfect Pantry
http://www.theperfectpantry.com/

She’s *very* ingredient oriented.  Lydia was a food writer before she was a food blogger, and she thought blogging might be on the same level as “root canal,” that’s how little she knew about it.  She came to it trying to figure out how she could be different from all the other food bloggers out there.  As she examined her “not so perfect” pantry, she realized that she had accumulated so many odds and ends that she didn’t know about, and she figured other people might think the same thing.  She looked at what should be there, what she didn’t need, what she could use and how, and that was her way into the market

Lydia uses Twitter because that’s where she found the greatest number of bloggers in her universe.  If she only could pick one, Twitter would be it, since that’s where her friends are.

In food blogging, you need to choose where you will be present.  She chooses to be present on her blog, and responds to blogging, and she has the “smartest commenters on the planet!”  She wants to encourage this type of interaction, so if she had to choose one place to really be present, it’s on her blog on her site, since that’s where she wants to keep the conversation.  It makes her a better blogger, and provides the best interaction for her readers.

She writes predictably, 3 times a week, and she’s working on some long features (right now she’s got a series on “other people’s pantries”).  Quality is always what’s going to keep high quality readers and commenters coming back.

The food blog community is a welcoming community for first timers.  Everyone is here to help, there’s an answer to every question, and help is only an email away.  Social media or no, it’s like no other community out there.

She’s not a chef, but she’s a foodie.  No matter what your level of food professionalism, food people are giving people, and food people online are no different.  What they’ve been able to do through social media and other connections, they raised almost $10,000 for the UN food program, Kiva to make micro-loans to organize their own choosing.  Food blogging and social media have given her the opportunity to create non-profits very easily.  She’s been running a concept of “Drop In And Decorate” making cookies to give to people in need around the holidays in Rhode Island.  She ran it by her 30-40 food blogger friends, and not only did they write about it, but it was picked up by many magazines, and it’s now a national non-profit organization, and the food blogging community continues even today to promote and foster the growth of her organization.  The food community makes things happen, and you can get the help and publicity you need with little to no outlay of cash.

When she goes to Chowhound, she finds it’s full of people who have tons of free time, and tons more money to go out to eat than she does.  She tends to double-check reviews with people she knows.

Photography is not her strength, not enough space and time to get it right, but she does her best.  3 sites where you can see the accepted standard for styling food for photos (a good way to learn):

• tastespotting.com
• foodgawker.com
• photograzing.com

Also, Lou Manna has an excellent class on taking food pics… he’s book, too, which you get if you take his class.

As with any other community, if all you do is take, you won’t get anything in return.  If people comment, answer them.  If they offer her a link, she sends a note saying that she doesn’t do link exchanges like that, but she will follow their blog and link to them when possible.  It’s like being a good neighbor in your neighborhood; think of your blog as a way to share your neighborhood,  not just something for you.

She doesn’t write about anything that isn’t in her pantry and being used.  It’s important to have an honest relationship with all food PR people.  She has developed a document she sends out to PR inquiries, letting them know what she reviews.  If it’s something she discovers to be a great pantry item, she might write about it.  Any non-perishable item that she doesn’t use or reveiw is donated to her local food pantry, and tells them that.  Her highest priority is to retain her readers’ trust.  If you want to see her PR communication document, contact her and she’ll send it to you.  Just find your ethical compass.  Keeping faith with readers, PR people, advertisers, makes your blog a more trusted blog.

Kalyn’s Kitchen
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/

If you learn one thing in session, you need to learn that if you choose to blog, you should blog about something you are absolutely passionate about.  She’s actually retiring from her job as a third  grade teacher to blog full time.  She got “really fat” eating M&M’s in too many teacher meetings, so she found the South Beach diet, and as a foodie, she needed to strike a balance.  People noticed her losing weight, and wanted her recipes.  As word got around, it got to be a pain to send things out to one person at a time, so her kids recommended she start a food blog, and she’s still on Blogger where she started.  She had some really lucky breaks, but it was really, really hard, since it was at least 2 months into blogging that she realized you could cut and paste!  But her learning has been exponential so far, but there’s so much to learn, the only way she can keep learning is to quit her job and go into full time blogging.

Comments are the most important things for her online.  She’s got a robust community, and that’s where she spends most of her time interacting.  She actually doesn’t use social networking to promote her blog.  She does, however, use social networking to get to know other bloggers on Twitter and Facebook, and make connections with people who read her blogs.  But not so much for promotion.

Food blogging is so unique because there are so many aspects to food, so there are so many food blogs to choose from, and it’s all about how you approach it.

In terms of bringing people to your blog, it’s all about the content.  She started writing, and she had no idea that people would come back to her blog and start from the beginning.  Write about what you love, what you would want to do, something you talk about the time, something with passion.  Your passion shows in your writing, and keeps people coming back.  If you’re just starting out, go to the Elise Bauer’s “How to Build blog Traffic” on the BlogHer site to learn how to get people to your blog.

How much time does she spend maintaining her blog?  She doesn’t really watch TV anymore .  She reads cookie magazines at lunchtime, she sneaks it in anywhere she can.  Some say she should write more often, but she disagrees, it’s better when she goes at her pace.  She often prays that her kitchen is in one piece before she goes to work on Monday, since it’s crazy, messy, busy work.  If you want to make money on your blog, you need recipes, since people look for that.  Plan your meals, make it, take pictures, clean up, eat, then write it all up.

She loves Chowhound.  She also says to check out Food Blog Search.

It’s hard to get into food blogging right now.  Find 10 people at the same level as you, and make friends with them, it’s a support group.  Also, be really generous with your outgoing linkage and gain food blog karma, since it will come back to you.

When she first started blogging, she was excited about freebies and opportunities to review cookbooks.  This was before she realized that everything stays up there forever, and it’s like eternal free advertising for that item.  It’s not that she would never accept anything for review, but she’s way more careful now.  It has nothing to do with her, like, say, a request to review handbags, she’ll delete it.  Since her focus is low-glycemic index, it needs to meet that criteria.  If it’s something interesting, she does send a note saying that she doesn’t think it’s fair to her advertisers to just review something out of the blue, and refers the company to BlogHer to invite them to their advertiser program (since her ads come from there).  Rarely, if it’s something really new, and soemthing she’d really like to try, she tell them to send it.  Otherwise, she’ll give them the “try buying advertising” note.

Kaylen’s kitchen pics she has a list of things she totally loves, and with such a limited list of things, it kinda gives her blog more cred because she’s so very picky and selective.

Other tips from the panel:

• Apparently, recipes can’t be copyrighted.  Your blurb that describes the recipe can be copyrighted, and if you describe a step in a very specific, arty way, then you can copyright those bits.  You also can’t copyright a set of ingredients.
• All the same, provide good linkage if you use someone else’s recipes.  It’s about sharing, it’s not about getting attention for yourself.
• Check out VeganYumYum’s “Food Photography for Bloggers.”
• Other good food photo stools: Natural light, natural lense, tripod, SLR, copy of Lightbox.
• Good sites for n00bs: Food Blog Sc’ool and Serious eats.
• Spark Recipes: get nutritional info on your recipes for FREE.  But be a bit careful, have a disclaimer unless you’re a health/nutritional professional to note where your sources come from.
• Advertising etiquette: just don’t stack them over your content.  A good decision tree: are you enhancing or obstructing the reader experience? (Note: BlogHer gives you the opportunity to opt out of specific advertisers.)
• Get involved with the community, be a good citizen, and tap them for information as much as possible.  It’s not a competition, everyone helps everyone.
• Always take pics, even if you don’t write them up right away.
• Never snipe at other bloggers, ever, anywhere.
• Think about whether or not you want your name out there, and if not, use a pseudonym (I’d also say askpeople before you use their real names, too).
• Don’t be pressured to write more often.  Give your best to each post, don’t go for quantity of posts over quality of posts.

My note on Yelp

I wasn’t too thrilled with how Yelp was addressed by the panel.  It didn’t seem like most of the panelists even knew what Yelp was, or had ever visited the site,, and as a social networking site in its own right, I think it was summarily overlooked and even a bit frowned upon.  I’m very active on Yelp, and while it can be used as just a review site (for more than just restaurants, by the way), it’s more of a community if you participate in the community by going to events, sending compliments to people, posting and readin the Talk section, creating lists, and more.  I don’t trust every review outright, but of the people I know on Yelp, I would trust their reviews hands down.  I would have been happier with the panel if it really addressed how all of social media could save dinner, as opposed to just about how blogs can save dinner.  I know many a dinner has been saved for me by my community on Yelp.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogher, blogherboston, dinner, food, foodblogs, foodies, Yelp

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Step 1:  Make everyone stand up and find a spot along the wall.

Step 2:  Now having everyone stand in front of another person.

Step 3:  Have everyone talk to the person in front of them for about 1 minute.

Step 4:  Announce a “shift!” and have everyone take a step to their right.

Step 5: Rinse and repeat as long as time will allow.

I came in a little late in the game, since I was at the registration desk when this networking two-step began.  But I was encouraged to jump into the fray, and quickly found myself chatting with Colleen Kaman, who ended up being one of the speakers in the first session I attended today.  In the few minutes of hopping to my right, I picked up 5 business cards, made 5 connections, and ended up talking to Lilly J., author of Consuming Lilly for an extra 10 minutes.

Utter chaos?  Kinda, yeah.  A minute is not nearly long enough, especially given that every “shift!” had to be announced repeatedly for another *minute* before it actually happened in the line.  Totally worth the chaos? Absolutely.  It’s one of those things about social networking:  whether you do it online or in meatspace, a little chaos goes a long way to community growth.  Added bonus: there’s no time to be scared or nervous, you just gotta do it.  Talk about personal growth.

Idea for you: try a little “speed dating” in your online social networking.

Step 1: “Walk up to” a Twitter feed that looks kinda interesting, or happens to be using the hashtag #blogherboston.

Step 2: Send the equivalent of a 1 minute chat in the form of 140 characters.  Tell them why you follow them, or something interesting that might be interesting to them.

Step 3:  See what happens.

You know, just for kicks. Not on Twitter?  No worries.  Try leaving a brief comment on a blog, something really simple.

I’d love to know hwat happens, so drop me a comment and lemme know how it goes.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogher, blogherboston, networking, socialnetworking, speeddating

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My first full session (I caught the tail-end of the speed dating bit of the opening session, but I’ll talk about that later) was meant to be focused on how social media can actually help support traditional media and even save it from going the way of the dinosaur.  The discussion was a little all over the place, and with good reason, since there’s no easy answer to reconciling one medium with the other.  But the fact that the session went non-stop until the end with energy and discussion speaks to the fact that it’s not impossible, and we had a lot of ideas on the subject.

Our fearless panel

• Lisa Stone, moderator
• Lisa Williams, the creator of H2OTown (Watertown, get it? ) and a leader in the PlaceBlogging (or hyperlocal) media movement
• Sarah Corbitt, GateHouse Media New England’s director of online content development, producers of WickedLocal
• Teresa Hanafin, Boston Globe’s Director of Community Publishing
• Colleen Kaman, current MIT media researcher and Emmy-nominated journalist/documentarian (I met her during the speed dating thing, she’s awesome)

To be honest, the first portion of the session made me feel like I’d walked into week 4 of “Online Advertising 101″ without doing any of the homework.  I understand online advertising conceptually, but when it comes to the technical details of CPM (cost per thousand impressions when it comes to web advertising), run of paper vs. run of site advertising, and numbers, numbers, numbers, I was a bit lost, but I tried to do my best to keeep up and grok it.  I will say that many interesting resources were mentioned during the talk that I can imagine would be useful to advertising gurus and novices alike, since a huge part of the traditional vs. web problem is driving revenue to the right places:

• BzzAgent:  company that specializes in finding your target market, giving them access to your product/service, then turning that into a word-of-mouth buzz for you.
• YouData:  kinda like social networking for advertising…. you post what types of advertising you want, advertisers post what kinds of ads they offer, and you find each other.

If you know of more sites like these, or even informational articles and such especially catering to bloggers who are new to the whole blogging for revenue thing, please share them in them in the comments.

These advertising resources are indicative of a trend that many of the panelists acknowledged, and Lisa astutely summarized, after we got past the bulk of the blogging-for-dollars speak: growing and sustaining an excellent community is the key to growing and sustaining an excellent business model; it’s all about business models that promote quality information, and having equal interest in growing the number of users you reach as well as growing revenue.

Simply: relationships and user content.  Let me take you where I’m going.

On one hand, Sarah Corbitt talked about how difficult it can be to get traction with advertisers in terms of advertising on the more social parts of their sites, because the content isn’t necessarily controlled by editorial, and the advertisers don’t want to be so closely related to such free flowing content and the controversies that may ensue.  It’s an odd duck situation since, as Theresa Hanafin explained, generally when you provide quality content, the advertisers just follow your lead.  It’s also interesting that Colleen Kaman noted that companies seem to view communities as more stable than they actually are; communities are constantly evolving, so advertising and outreach priorities need to be flexible to match the change.  Lisa echoed this sentiment, “In the long run, Google eats everyone’s lunch,” since destination sites like the one she runs will never keep up with the growth of the internet.

So, how do people who run media sites get to take advantage of how the internet grows as a whole?  And how does this connect to traditional media?  Theresa believes that, eventually, advertisers will come around.  Lisa reminded us that if you create something that is valuable, you can sustain something that’s worth getting a sponsor to support it.  Even beyond the advertising issue, Theresa believes that all big media companies have a responsibility to take advantage of the role as publishers and to publish/aggregate more than outlet-generated content.  While social media can help save traditional media, traditional media can also support and grow social media by becoming a distribution network for the reader/writer, and for every site that’s relevant in a particular channel, including the local bloggers, municipal sites, and more, not by taking the content, but linking out, using the standards they apply to the content they generate to pick and choose the content they link to.

It’s also a matter of media outlets and leverage, Colleen explained, as a key to taking a successful user-generating community to the next level, but also for people to help each other.  She cited the example of iReporter, and how CNN isn’t sure what to do with this successful content outlet… they know they need a social network of some kind, but they don’t know what do to next.  If CNN doesn’t act quickly, then they’ll lose the momentum they have with that community.   (I know some of my readers have issues with iReporter, and I encourage and welcome your comments, I only ask that you keep it on the topic.)

Don’t forget about helping the community thrive even outside the confines of whence it came, which may sound conterintuitive, but seriously, if you love it, set it free, and it’ll come back.  An audience member talked about how many of their community members choose to take conversations from the more “public” sphere of their web site’s social network (I missed the name of this woman, if you’re out there, please comment!) to a more “private” community on the BigTent site.  Many of the panelists agreed that this is a wonderful thing to foster, and encourages your community’s bond with your product/service/site: by providing them more freedom to pursue their community as they see fit, you make them comfortable with what you have to offer, and foster the relationship.

I could go on for days about this session, but I’m sure there will be many other posts to peruse, since it seemed like everyone at BlogHer who has a Twitter account was in the same room ;D.

Communities, like viral messages, are organic, they are fostered and not engineered.  The key to loyal and strong communities is the freedom to let them grow and give them what they need to thrive.  Once traditional media embraces the concept, especially given what I heard in this session, I feel that it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship with social media.

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Out of that thinking came a decision: I’m leaving.

So wait, what does that mean?
I’ve given a month’s notice at my library. My last day is September 5, 2008.

What are you going to be doing next?
Something different. My goal is to head towards some sort of client or project management role, in the Metro Boston area, with a preference for technology and social networking/media/software. But really, I’m open to just about anything that strikes my fancy, pays a decent wage, and excites me intellectually (I have a few irons in the fire already). In an ideal world, I’ll be back at work somewhere as early as October, since I’m looking forward to a month off before I do anything real.

But why?
After a long, hard assessment of my professional life, I’ve found that library profession is not a cultural fit for me. I’m a lifelong patron and a fan of libraries, but I’d like to be in a different work culture where people are truly, deeply tech- and geek-minded, because I miss that a lot. I’ll definitely be able to apply the valuable skills I’ve acquired from my 5+ years in the library world to future professional endeavors.

Is this a permanent goodbye to libraries?
I’m not sure yet. We’ll see.

What will happen to your blog?
I’m still thinking about that. I am interested in using it to launch a social networking experiment to help me find a job, much like this one, since this is a shift that might be interesting to carefully and diplomatically document. Other than that, I’m not sure if I’ll just keep posting to it as-is, leave it up as an archive somehow, move myself to a new domain altogether, or hand it over to someone else. Figuring it out will be its own adventure.

I’m feeling confident about my decision, and I’m looking forward to what the future will bring. I’m in a debt of gratitude to the people who helped me throughout my decision making and exit strategy formulating process, which has been many months in the making. You kids know who you are, and you rock my socks. I’m also hoping to keep in touch with the many colleagues who have become friends.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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