Category: TG@CF

An archive of the posts on the original Thought grazing blog, created to support the Social Media Cafe established at Cardiff University in 2009, and held in various venues – with the quality of the discourse being more important than the quality of the coffee! [I’ve tried to attribute authorship of posts wherever possible.]

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New term, new venue, same format

We’re kicking-off the new academic year with a meet-up at the new Costa Coffee on Park Place – the old Registry Office building – on Thursday 29th September. The quality of the coffee has been an issue through the past 12 months, indeed it has been suggested to be the main reason why we haven’t attracted thousands to our social media cafe events, so we’ve moved quickly to try out this new venue … and it has CAKES too!

The format of our meet-up is the same as ever … that is, it has no format other than the topics brought along by the people who chose to join us for as long, or as short, a time as they wish, or are able, to attend. Someone will be there from 11:00am and we expect to be coffee’d out by about 2:00pm. Then fully caffeined-up you will spill out to write the blog post you always wanted to, to investigate Google+ (well some of you might), to engage with the digital literacy agenda and CU’s JISC-funded project, or to play with the new whizzy Web 2.0 tool you’ve just learnt about.

One thing for certain is that there will be iPads, iPhones, Android-devices etc a plenty and they’ll probably be using Eduroam, MiFi and other networks to keep us all connected. So you need not miss anything going on in the outside world and you might just benefit from chatting with someone else who’s interested in using Social Media in Higher Education.

See you there!

Btw. There is no truth in the rumour that “Thought grazing” will have a pre-release iPhone 5 to examine – but that doesn’t stop us talking about it.

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Google+ does it for me … big time!

I was ready for a move away from Twitter and my usage had dropped even before G+. I had already made the decision some months ago to do more in Facebook with “real” friends and family. Then G+ came along and I found that I could do what I wanted to do all along.

Which was …
a) to be able to write posts that were not cryptic or had such silly abbreviations, or had such bad English that the only thing it made you look was either incredibly clever, or silly, or both depending upon who was reading it;
b) to get involved in meaningful (sometimes) dialogue with people I didn’t know but who shared an interest with me, maybe it was just G+ itself at first but now it’s broadening to photography and I suspect in time to travel, walking and genealogy interests who will get circles of their own too [NB most of those I engaged with on twitter were people I DID know – they’re all in  my acquaintance circle now – who are a very diverse group of people who I’ve “collected” mainly from work encounters] ;
c) to engage with family and REAL friends in a more closed (dare I even say safe) environment using photos and videos as the trigger for engagement.

As a consequence, I was then able …
d) to reduce my time on Fb to that of just a quick glance to see what friends were up to, comment and perhaps send them an invite to G+;
e) to make my contributions on twitter to be either i) trivial and light-hearted banter – yes, I know … but social can mean that too, or ii) informative in the sense of sharing links, publicising blog posts, etc, or iii) just being friendly.

Either way my twitter follows will shrink over time I suspect (as will my tweets), and my Fb friends have already shrunk in terms of the ones that appear on my newsfeed. In passing, I guess it’ll be the API that determines the success of Google+. If it allows thoughtful integration of streams without adding to the noise then I’ll be a happy bunny.

Google+ does it for me big time!