Just thoughts …

Category: Socialmedia

  • Social media and a sense of place

    Picked-up a link in twitter back in July to a post on the SustainableCitiesCollective – a forum I’d never come across before and one that I’ll dip into again. It aggregates blog posts and I picked up one from Julian Dobson who was commenting on the RebootBritain event. On his blog he posted – I’m sorry, Clay Shirky, nobody knows you around here. This is not only a wonderful title for a blog post but was also a very insightful contribution which caused me to think about new emerging digital divides,  such as those between the twitterati who profess to see the benefit of immersion in social media (using Web 2.0 tools) and those at the coal-face who either don’t (not even at the dabbling level), or who aren’t able to see how they can participate in any other way but at a trivial level – and thus contributing to the widely held assumption that indeed use of social media is all about trivia.

    I commented at length and then managed to lose the comment I was making before posting it. {Don’t go there … please.} However, I wanted to record what came to mind here, because I think there are threads of a piece of work to be done here.

    The most interesting point I felt is that Julian discusses the concept of place in the context of the use of social media. I didn’t know about digitalbutetown – a group in my own city. There’s no reason why I should, but it still came as a surprise to me because I like to think I’m pretty connected to what’s going on around me. It may have been discussed at the last meeting of trydan – a social media cafe group in Cardiff, but then again maybe it wasn’t. And that’s the point! Whilst we the enthusiasts are broadcasting to the world, the real value of social media moving forward will be where it is melded to social activisim linked to communities and places.

    In a previous existance I was really interested in environmental psychology, and ideas of environmental perception and sense of place – how peoples’ perception of their environment could in impact upon their behaviour.  Now, by appropriate use of social media we have the ideal vehicle to enable communities to come together, to share and reflect together, and to move forward (changing their environment) together.

    This post has been a long-time in “draft”, I’ll be returning to this theme and considering how social media could interact with ideas in environmental psychology to create different “sense of place”.

  • Context and language is everything

    [Originally posted on “MWE Social Media” on 8th February, 2009]

    Some colleagues of mine who keep an eye on what I’m up to on twitter, observed that through ‘Lofty Thoughts‘ I had announced the appearance of CardiffBlogs. They made some observations on the use of a corporate blogging platform, some of which I responded to. Nicky Morland from Anglia Ruskin University made the astute comment that the variety of socialmedia (or social networking) tools could be confusing to users – something I’d already hinted at in an earlier posting on this blog. I offered to write another post detailing my ideas on the subject. This is it.

    It is a subject I’ve blogged on several times on my personal blog ‘Just thoughts …‘, and I believe it’s one of the most important areas that potential bloggers should be conscious of. In several posts I developed my thoughts, and if you’ll excuse me, I’ll re-iterate them here.

    The first and probably most important consideration is whether socialmedia is for you. In the case of blogging, you have to consider what you want a blog for, and having decided that it’s something you want to do, for whatever reason, you then need to choose the most appropriate hosting for the blog – corporate or commercial platform, and whether you want to keep it private or make it public. In the post ‘Do I blog … or do I not?‘, I try and address that issue and suggest that this decision is of considerable importance because the context then directs the style of writing, the language that you use and the type of message that you communicate. For instance, on my private personal blog, which is restricted to my family alone, I’ve just recorded the number and types of birds in the garden and the state of our goldfish in the pond! This is of no interest to the world at large I suspect, but as a record, or journal entry, for me (and to assist my abysmal memory) and for the family as almost a shared letter – it may have some value. On my personal blog, I’ve just posted some observations on leadership that I recorded from a UCISA Directors’ Forum I had attended. I’ve already referred to my personal professional blog, and over time I’ll use this to record events, observations about Information Services (INSRV), the university and my inter-actions with other colleagues in other universities that might be of interest to colleagues both inside and outside INSRV and Cardiff University. It’ll essentially be a record of my work for INSRV.

    For institutions, they need to make a call as to whether they decide to host the corporate blog themselves, or not. In ‘where do you blog‘, I discussed some of the issues that need to be considered by an organisation before they decide to host their own blogging platform. Brian Kelly makes some interesting comments on the subject as well.

    The third issue is the connection between the author and their credibility; the authority of their pronouncements. The Web 2.0 world has created an environment where everyone is potentially an author and publisher. What I write on my personal blog is just that – personal; it doesn’t pretend to be the view of an Assistant Director of Information Services, and my references to INSRV or Cardiff are tangential and very occasional. So therefore the issue of Identity and Credibility is of interest because essentially in social networking you gain credibility from the people that look at, or comment upon, your blog posts, follow you on twitter, or whatever.By your followers – you are known.

    Finally, in another post I comment upon the ephemeral nature of socialmedia environments. If you’ve got something important to say – be very aware that socialmedia is not the place to write it for posterity. Also the choice of socialmedia is important and is intrinsically linked to the type of message that you want to promulgate. Surrounded by choice, the toolset you use for the message you want to convey, must be chosen with considerable care.