Although the session had an agenda, it suffered from the following issues:

1. Long sessions for each subject  – I could see the expressions on peoples faces, gasping for a water!
2. No time-outs
3. Simplistic use of note taking, for example: A list of issues parked on route on one flipchart rather than using consolidating techniques such as 6 hat or Yellow Post it. NB Over 26 attendees sat in a u-shape room layout and the room was very stuffy after the first hour.
4. Very quick introductions
5. Limited context outlined for the event
6. Other attendees who appeared as interested parties rather than main contributors
7. Loose agenda
8. Strategic importance not communicated
9. A dominance of resolution passing by a large number of supplier attendees
10. Low interaction between the attendees

The two latter items were of most concern. For example, at one point a resolution was agreed regarding the provision of data entities for the deaf. It emerged at the end of the workshop day that the attending representative of the deaf medical team felt shy about contributing. Maybe it was the facilitators responsibility or the structure of the day that contributed to this failing. Or, was it because sometimes people can feel it easier to communicate discretely!? Consider how vocal some people are by email and when you meet them in-person, they are as sweet as pie! It is almost as if they have a different personality or feel more liberated to speak their mind with the protection of the machine in sight, especially if you set-up a masked identification.

Using Twitter  could be one way of bringing greater contributions from the range of personalities in attendance at a typical project or discussion workshop, training session, classroom or website / development / test feedback session / webinar / discussion panel / public meeting.

A practical example can be reviewed here.

Twitter can support

Remote monitoring in the classroom or project workshop session – project #tags via a white board in the classroom
Remote monitoring for distance learners / Attendees – (see below for a list of on line tools)
Opening up discussion to students who would be reluctant to participate.
Collated writing notes can be posted later

The following on line resources can prove invaluable for getting people to engage either in public or via a protected name.

What the Trend?: Learn about what tags are currently trendy – suitable for research

Twubs: Aggregates tweets and imports pictures to help illuminate the topics being discussed.

Hashtags.org: Great at showing you its use over time and recent tweets.

Tagalus: A dictionary for hashtags.

With the introduction of a social media-friendly remote control, Television is now being introduced to the Social Networking atmosphere, where now you are able to tweet, updated your Facebook status and blog all without accessing a mobile device or computer.

There have always been previous speculation about the mashup of Web and TV, however with social networking on the rise this seemed like a bold move to make, making television web interactive.

Yahoo TV WIigets have embraced this new Web/TV mashup, and  offers a well-designed, fully featured client that lets you post tweets from your TV. This widget displays the most recent tweets or updates, whether it is from you or someone else. The updates are real-time, so there is no need to refresh or re-boot to get recent updates. While watching television you can be interacting through your social mediums about juicy bits of a favourite program.

The anti-Twitter site has been launched, and the main feature that keeps audience  coming back is the fact that Woofer gives the user less character limitations. Meaning that the user does not have to worry about shortening their post to accommodate the character limit.

The downside to having so many characters is there is more freedom to rant, where every ‘woof’ is equivalent to a ‘tweet’, with 1400 characters the user has the option of writing a short story if they so wished. This also leaves us to question if it was written would it be relevant for reading, as it would not be short or to the point any more.

With their 1,400 charcter limitation, Woofer raises an important point that twitter probably needs to address.

Woofer

Facebook has recently introduced an app that allows you simultaneously update both your facebook and twitter, in order to save a lot of time and keep both social friends from either network updated on your everyday activities, leaving no one in the loop.

The tool is known as  SocialToo Status which allows the updating of your personal wall or status with one update through Facebook.

The only downside to this tool is that in order to take full advantage of the dual status updater you will need a SocialToo account, to connect both your Twitter and Facebook feeds. The process from here is fairly simple as once you are signed in your practically ready to tell both worlds what you are up to!

According to SocialToo Status :

When your status is published via SocialToo Status your updates appear in your personal stream, along with a link to each destination we also sent the status update to.  This helps promote your other Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts.

Here’s how to get Started:

1. Go to http://socialtoo.com and click on the “Facebook App” link in the upper-right corner – you’ll want to hit “allow” on the prompts when it asks you so we can properly publish status updates to your stream.
2. Once the app is added to your account, you’ll notice on both your home page and/or profile page  a new green SocialToo Status quote icon in the “attachments” section.  You’ll probably have to hit the down “more” arrow to get to it. The more you use it, the more likely it will appear outside that drop down in the future!
3. Click on the green quote icon, and a new SocialToo Status-branded Publisher will appear.  Congrats – you’re all set up!

So no need to be switching back and forth through your social sites to update your status or even worrying that any are being neglected!

In speaking about having sole audio-blogs, Twitter it seems is way ahead of the game when compared to other social networks and the various apps that they offer.

Now Twitter offers the choice of listening to tweets on your phone! Once again the range of expectations that twitter brings to social networking never ceases to amaze.

Twuner I understand is quite fun. The new technology twitter brings us a combination of text and speech and is only designed for listening to audio tweets through the medium of your phone.

The great main advantage is that this caters to those at a disadvantage reading twitter messages, making it easy for them to send and receive tweet messages.

There are minor errors as one would expect with speech recognition devices and Twuner is no exception, i.e. pronunciation of slang and foreign words and having URL links in audio form can be a bit pointless. Though there is the choice of male and female voices both are a bit impersonal and might take some getting used to.

Many tried the twuner and have said that this is not one that wil be taken by the pubic readily as twitter, like most social networks is considered a visual medium, Twuner suprising all odds accomplishes the audio tweeting task top of the game.

So give it a try, Twune into Twitter!

Today I got up at 4.15am (!) to get the 6.35 train to Leeds for an e-Learning project for one of our clients. The project involves developing innovative and engaging e-Learning that will complement a face-to-face conference. My role was to observe the current face-to-face course and use this as input for the complementary e-Learning we will develop.

Although today we were expecting heavy snow in London later this evening, in Leeds the snow came down very heavily last night. I’m due to be picked up from an office near to Leeds station; therefore, last night I exchanged mobile/cell numbers with that person.

I’ve just received a text from him saying he may be late coming to pick me up. In turn I sent him a text and suggested that he could keep track of my status/update from my Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/drsavi. I even sent him a pic via my mobile phone to show him where my train had temporarily stopped. OK, this does assume that mobile technology masts are all working but we can consider this facility in the context of how Twitter/social networks can be used for conferences: For example:

• Updates for delegates pre and post course via a dedicated Twitter account
• A dedicated course logistics Twitter / Ning account
• Pictures of course activities / delegates
• A good fun way of staying in touch with curriculum development, e.g: like an Alumni

In terms of other everyday uses. Imagine losing your wife/partner in a busy shopping mall !
Assuming you want her back you could also privately Twitter your status and she/he will know exactly where you are.

NB Maybe it’ll be good in my case not to tell her that you are browsing for Jazz/Soul CDs!

Tweet By Live Video Stream.

Evidently, It is not enough to have mini messages being poured out to millions of daily followers, twitter now feels the need to broadcast your tweets live by means of video.

Formerly known as Mogulus, Livestream has launched a broadcasting system built on twitter known as TwitCam. More or less like a video chat but with the slight addition of your twitter credentials, TwitCam has easily become a simpler way of relaying your daily activities to an avid follower.

Putting it simply, twitter users need only to log into twitcam.com using proper identification and the TwitCam software will automatically detect the video camera installed, create a page for the live video then broadcast and posts the link in the your twitter feed so followers can join live.

Now live video chat in twitter is available with just one click!

Another additional quirk to this tool is that while engaged in TwitCam, you can further interact by tweeting normaly to other followers.
Forget about that pesky 140 character limit, the TwitCam requires no limit, is completely free and takes sociability further into the clouds.

To try out for yourself  how this new tweet tool works Click Here

For such a popular social security network site you would think the security would be on an iron grid lock, however this is not the case as there have been several cases of hacking and stolen identities being reported on the site. Quiet recently where the security documents of the site were stolen and published an admin from twitter released a statement saying ‘..the publication of stolen documents is irresponsible and we absolutely did not give permission for these documents to be shared.’
We are forced to question for a social site that is so prestigiously known for their A-list members with the likes of President Obama, Oprah and now even Her Royal Highness the Queen being apart of the network, how can such a site be so easily hacked?

Accounts of several of these famous names were reportedly hacked or compromised repeatedly. It was reported that twitter admin documents were leaked revealing member’s valuable account information.
Though twitter has issued a formal statement stating that they “… are pursuing a path to address the harm caused by these actions and as noted yesterday, we’ve already reached out to the partners and individuals affected.”

It still leaves all their users to question, am I safe on twitter? Is my personal information, messages, numbers etc and the information of my network of friends safe? Can i really trust this site?

What however is certain is that the twitter security or admissions office probably needs a new plan of action on how their files are handled, stricter practices need to be put in place to ensure that privacy is maintained.

With a network of millions of users relaying different types of personal information that is thought to be over a secure mode of communication, this issue needs to be addressed as a top priority. This not only brings us to question the fallibility of twitter but also of other social network sites and how much information should be divulged to these ‘secure’ sites?

Read More here on Twitter Security Breach

With social networks such as twitter and facebook on the rise, it is evident that email is no longer virtually the most effective means of communication. With junk mail and cluttered inboxes, using email as a main virtual means of communication is not very popular as it once was.

It has been said that email is slowly on the way out and many people now agree that the direct mail function of twitter and facebook is a far better mode of communication and is more effective, and it is more likely that people will respond to a direct message on twitter than to every email received.

Let’s take a look on the advantages of both methods of communication:

Advantages of Social Networking

• Much faster and easier to update link and promote information or any sort both on wireless systems.
• With one click your feed generated is communicated through all contacts, and social feed updates can be linked to display on relating blog sites for easy access.
• You have the option of distributing to thousands of people through Twitter’s main website.
• Reaches more people via mobile phone, even if they’re on vacation.
• A history of your updates is stored conveniently on your profile.
• The subscriber list is stored and managed for you on your account.
• Very interactive, extensible messaging platform with open APIs.
• Many other compatible applications being developed such as (Twitterific, Summize, Twhirl, etc.).

Advantages of E-mail

• E-mail is practically universal.
• Lets you integrate HTML links in the format you want, and even images into your “newsletter”.
• Far more formatting options are available.
• It allows for a more “personalized” communication with customers or friends.

While both Social Networks and Emails certainly have very important place in private life and in business, the question remains does Social networks have enough flexibility or scope to replace email. On the Internet, people tend to scan things very quickly, never remaining on one page for more then 20 or 30 seconds unless something really catches their interest. Therefore, the only way to get your message quickly across is with a short and simple one-line message notifying them that there’s something new that they may be interested in, such as a new blog entry, product, or event. Social Networking accomplishes this perfectly, by being short precise and eye catching with the use of the different applications available to each site, such as a bubble tweet!

With the comparisons made above it is evident that both Social networks and Email have their separate specific and important place in the world of info-share. Email is still far more for detailed sharing while networks such as twitter and facebook are the tools of choice to bring attention or alert breaking news, a more instant interest. Taking everything into consideration, I personally think it’s safe to say that neither will be replacing the other any time soon.

]]> http://www.drsavi.com/email-vs-social-networking/feed/ 0 http://www.drsavi.com/twitter-cynics/ http://www.drsavi.com/twitter-cynics/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:37:08 +0000 drsavi http://www.drsavi.com/?p=292 I wrote about this video recently at my personal blog. In an article called the ‘true value of twitter’.

Since watching the video, I’ve changed who I follow and what I choose to share.
Not because the video is cynical about people who love to ‘life stream’ but because the value of twitter is lost amongst business cynics.
I love the line from the video:

Question: Who are they talking to?
Answer: Noone and everyone!

Clearly, there is a benefit to sharing experiences as it is both dynamic and direct.
The potential of mind-casting from a streaming of relevant content perspective far outweighs trying to search or even research for the latest information.

Watch and enjoy it again! In other words this is worth re-tweeting!

Click here to view the embedded video.