A stew of possibilities

Here it is. Finally. That promised blog post.

The pressure to write this has been overwhelming and yet, I seem to keep finding other things to do like grade and prep classes and sleep and play WoW and ... well you get the picture I think.

I've had a bunch of social media swirling around me lately. The discovery of Ping.FM, having multiple classes create blogs for different purposes, Twittering and realizing that there is a way to save your Tweets (I'll get to that in a few), and having people send me requests to "social media" pass their info on...and then there's that internal clearspace thing...and the new Champlain Portal workforce group...

It makes me think about all the possibilities that social media is bringing. Things that I couldn't do a few short years ago, I can do now. So let's get to it shall we?

Social Media for GOOD
It's the giving season and it would seem that some people don't get that. For whatever reason a local Non-Profit dedicated to collecting toys for children was vandalized a little while ago. Someone or someones got their jollies by bust'n up toys. Great. Makes you wonder what the heck is going on in the world today for real. Enter NEW BREED MARKETING. Devin and the gang over there clearly felt that it wasn't good enough to talk about this one, they have taken action. They've created a donation widget that you can use to give money to the cause. You can also share this widget on Facebook and with tons of others...in my case I'm putting it right HERE:



Now that is the way to use Social Media. By the way, you can follow Devin on Twitter by going here: http://twitter.com/devin1682. They've raised over $3,000 so far to help out our local Vermont children. Spread the word, will ya?

Why I need more time to read Twitter
So here are the things I've learned recently because of the people I follow at Twitter:

1. Twitter Grader: A site that helps track your "popularity" on Twitter. Note that you can also grade your website and your press release -- it's from HubSpot. Why is this important? Because this is a business that is trying to get your business so they've created a way to drive traffic and get more people talking about them. If they can do this for themselves...what could they do for your business? Great marketing!
2. Chris Brogan: @Lizschlegel Tweeted about this guy and a recent blog post he had about how to get started in Social Media -- his scenario approach is readable and interesting. I'll be saving this one for my class next semester!
3. FTW: Learned from @agahran with a link to the urban dictionary that FTW means "For the Win" which is often snarky and ends a post.
4. Gender Inequity in Africa: @DaveTaylor linked to a news article from the UN News Centre. This is getting forwarded to my students who are working on the UNFPA Project for sure!
5. Help a Reporter: I've known about this one...but it was because of Twitter. So PR People, you should be following @skydiver on Twitter and you should register at the HARO website for sure.
6. TwitterTake: Another from @agahran. A website that will back up your twitters and export them to an excel file. Why would I want this? Well so I can keep all of this great info of course!
7. OneTeam: I learned that folks from @OneTeam have ordered my recommended books! (Ok, I know, personal gratification listing!)
8. How Businesses can get Started with Twitter: This one is an ongoing gem from @gahlord at Union Street Media.
9. Branding of College Students: This article came to my attention from former student @gracekboyle. Not only is the article cool, but I'm watching a former student ROCK the social media.

This is but a sample. Yes, it's in between the personal stories of people that I may or may not know, but look at all the things I have learned because I've been on Twitter?

Another Cause...and How Students are Learning the Social Media
There's a prof on campus (not me, believe it or not) who is asking their students to get the most "views" of some cause-related vidoes over at YouTube. One entrepreneurial student has reached out and asked me to post her "Vid" so she can get "peeps". So...here it is! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfnGOiFJUoo. The cause is 1% for the Planet.

This bring me to the point that will be another post that is swirling around in my brain -- that students aren't coming to college with the knowledge of how to connect beyond their friends with social media -- and that our job at the college level is becoming even more complex so that we can help them sort out the best practices on a moving target that doesn't have clear best practices yet.

Thanks @davidwolfe for PING.FM. You enabler you!

Social Media and the Presidency: Has social media changed our voting engagement?

As our country celebrates it's democracy today -- where we can vote without fear of taking our lives into our hands -- I thought it would be appropriate to consider how social media may be changing our voting engagement.

Not only have the politicians jumped on the social media bandwagon with social networking and twitters and blogs and community sites, but we've seen the conventions and the candidate debates turn into social media events through sites like Twitter and the mash-up of Twitter and CurrentTV.

Today, I Twittered while waiting in line to vote. I included #vtelxn so that my tweets would go into a "local" twitter meme for all Vermont voters.

Today, I'm seeing my Facebook friends "donate their status" to remind people to vote.

Throughout the day I'll probably watch http://election.twitter.com/ to get a flavor of what is happening around the country through people's tweets.

I'll check in at #votereport to see information about polling places -- is anyone having issues? What are the lines like?

Tonight, will I watch TV? Maybe. More likely I'll be online checking the different sites and streaming live commentary from various places.

There are a growing number of ways in which I can feel more plugged in to the election process. It's not about being fed information from the candidates, but rather seeing what others in my social media sphere are doing and thinking has allowed me to feel even more connected.

So as the media talks about unprecedented voter turnout. As we all get engaged this year because of so many issues, I'm left wondering if the social media so many are using is having an impact on the voter turnout. As you see your friends writing about voting and you follow others who write about the lines and what they are doing as they wait to vote, does that pressure you into going to vote? Does it make you feel like part of a bigger movement knowing that you also voted and you can actually see others engaged the way you are? Others all over the country?

It's a known fact in marketing that word of mouth and viral marketing has more power then direct messages from a brand. Social media is the biggest WoM out there right now and part of the voter turnout may, indeed, be because of this phenomenon.

So, get engaged and plug in. Be in the know. And above all exercise your right to Vote.

Recommended Books (From the Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam)

I was on a panel discussion today at the Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam about "So you wanna be an Internet Marketer".

I had the pleasure of presenting along with Greg Brand of Bluehouse Group (a former employer of mine from the late 90's) and Paul Skarvinko of Epik (Paul is a former Champlain Graduate!).

In true professorial fashion I brought with me a stack of books. Real books. Tangible, touchable, readable books. (I have a rep to uphold you know). I was asked at the end of the panel if I had a listing of the books for people and I of course said, "Well, I'll put them on my blog"....so here they are:

1. Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
2. Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
3. PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences by Deirdre Breakenridge
4. Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by Tim Ash
5. The Art of Digital Branding by Ian Cocoran
6. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li

I recommend these books to my students and actually in my Internet Marketing class the students are to select one from numbers 2-6 to read as supplemental -- based on their major area of study.

So there you have it folks! Enjoy.

Can one advise and blog at the same time?

The obvious answer to that question is No. This is clearly evident. I've not blogged since the great Twitter Debate experiment on the 2nd of October.

Advising began the week after that and over the past three weeks my days have gone something like this:

Get to work at 8:00 a.m., student, student, class, class, student, student, student, student, student, student, get my daughter from school, student, student, student, get home, eat dinner, grade, passout. Or like this past Sunday, it was church, bagel cafe, grade, IM interruption from student in Italy, from students working on midterm paper, from student needing advising help, grade, grade, um...

No wonder I'm tired (grin).

But it is my favorite time of the year. Great time to connect with students, hear about their successes and talk about how to overcome failures. Think about internships and study abroad and graduation and jobs and...well...it's a good part of my job. A really good part of my job.

The best things are the most exhausting I think.

You can lead a student to Twitter...but can you make them Tweet?

Tonight is the Vice Presidential Debate.

Last week was the first Presidential Debate.

I "hacked the debate" last week using CurrentTV and Twitter and posted my thoughts to #current. It was both really cool and absolutely overwhelming at the same time.

I talked to my students about it and they thought I was nuts. I could tell. If they were twittering during class they would have tweeted: "She's nuts"

But none of them seemed moved to take action to better understand the implications of mashing together TV and Social Media.

So this week, I have done what only a college professor can. I am DRAGGING my students to Twitter through an assignment. I have asked two of my classes to watch the VP Debate tonight and sign up for Twitter and tweet several times during the debate using #current or making sure they use one of the key terms (palin, biden) in their tweet so it gets captured by election.twitter.com.

Then, they have to write about their experiences in a discussion forum I've set up.

The classes are Internet-based Marketing and Technology: A Disruptive Force.

For the marketing students this is about learning how to play with new technologies, putting them in context and being able to assess how they work and if they are applicable to other marketing situations. As I told my students, if you don't play, you won't ever know if something like this could be useful elsewhere.

For the Tech as a D-Force class this is about disruptive technologies and exploring how technology has influenced discourse -- and is influencing how we can engage with the debates...sort of.

Most of my students have been resistant to Twitter. They "don't get it" and don't want to get it.

Tonight I'm making them try it.

We will see what happens.

Vermont 3.0 Blog: Keeping Company with some really cool local bloggers

I've been asked to become a contributor to a new local Vermont blog about Vermont 3.0 Tech Careers. It's a website devoted to a Career Jam (one of the sponsors is Champlain) event that began last year and will be held again this year on October 25th, and to the use of "3.0" technology here in Vermont. All of it pulled together by SevenDays. (By the way, I'll be on an Internet Marketing panel at the Career Jam this year which will also feature colleagues, Amanda Crispel on gaming and Frank Canovatchel on web development).

Yes...Vermont.

Land of Cows and crazy politics.

We got tech. Oh yeah baby, we got real tech.

So I'll be blogging periodically over there, and over here I'll blog about what I blogged about over there...and so on. Should be grand fun.

My first post went up last night and is about MicroBlogging using Twitter and Plurk.

I'm thrilled to be part of the 3.0 Blog team which includes:

• Lee Bouyea of FreshTracks Capital
• Cathy Resmer of Seven Days
• Bill Simmon, local writer and filmmaker

Check it out!

Social Media Analysis: The blogs of two would be "top dogs"

In honor of Blog World Expo...which I am NOT attending (follow the Tweet Stream here) I thought it would be fun to add another in my series on Social Media and the Presidential Campaign and how they are using their "official" blogs to communicate with you and I -- the people of this great nation.

First and foremost let's get really clear on what a BLOG is.

According to Knol (Googles response to the academic backlash against Wikipedia) poster Duncan Riley,

A Blog is a website that consists of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically and underpinned with a content delivery system which provides the ability to deliver content frequently and with little skill. Blogs have a strong focus on building meaningful social connections or virtual communities on any and all subject matters.

This works pretty well for my purpose today, which is to examine the blogs of Barack Obama and John McCain. That last sentence, in particular about "building meaningful social connections" is pretty key.

How are the campaigns using their blogs? How are they using technology to "build meaningful social connections"? Well in past posts I've highlighted how both campaigns are tossing out the MySpace and Facebook links and creating social spaces within their own sites. I've show how the campaigns are fumbling (like the text message VP announcement of Obama) and how they've nailed it such as McCain's site redesign or Obama's fun ring tones. It leaves the sense that the campaigns are innovative and are using technology to leverage their messages in new and engaging ways.

Or not.

First of all staffers are doing the blogging. Ok. I get it. Barack and John are busy guys. They have TV appearances and the same speech to deliver in every "battleground" city all over the country (well, not here in Vermont). They have snarky ads to approve (snarky, my new word of the day...had to work it in here), and fingers to point (ok, now that's me being snarky). There's no time to draft a blog post that personally reaches out to your constituents and the voting public. Those ads are just plain good enough. Um. Yeah.

I've been subscribed to the Obama Twitter for some time and I get a tweet every time there's a speech in some town (usually in Michigan) directing me to their site to watch the live speech. Ohhh Ahhh.

So why am I being so cranky about this? It's because it drives me crazy that they aren't using their blogs in a way that bypasses all the traditional political idiocy. Want some examples? Of course you do!

Obama

1. Voices for Change: Teresa in Michigan. A political sob-story about a troubled American. Nice touch at the end of the post -- a big red DONATE button.
2. Barack Obama on the Terrorist Attack in Pakistan. Copy of their official statement. Same thing I'll hear on the news channels and at those speeches.
3. Democratic Radio Address: Senator Obama on the Current Financial Crisis with a link to the radio address (wonder why this one didn't come through on my Twitter!).

McCain

1. Weekly Radio Address with link to the audio file.
2. Report on a McCain-Palin Event in Minnesota. Yeah. Picture of a big crowd. Update urges me to go to the action center to "take action".
3. Report from a McCain-Palin Event in Iowa. No pictures of this one.

Not one of these things brings me closer to understanding either candidate. I'm being refed and recycled the same stuff I can get anywhere else.

So what SHOULD they do?

Leverage the technology of course. Write something PERSONAL and PERSONABLE and not handled. For example wouldn't it be nice to go to the blog and see that Barack has written something like this:

Between speech stops and trying to figure out how to best address the folks in *insert struggling town here* as we watch the financial crisis unfold. This isn't about fluff like "from wallstreet to mainstreet". This is a financial crisis unlike any we've seen and it will be my job to take the reigns and make a difference. How will I do that? We need to protect the taxpayer and the homeowner. We need to make sure retirement plans are strong. I plan to examine.....insert actual stuff here... Well...times up. The bus has just pulled in to *insert town here*.

So that just took me about 2 minutes.

Imagine going to the McCain blog and reading something like this:

And you folks don't think I know how to use a computer! I'm very troubled by the economic issues we are facing. Just a few days ago, I said the fundamentals of our economy were strong. And then overnight we face perhaps the biggest financial crisis of our country. Like you I am saddened and more than a little frustrated. I believe in free markets and do not like to have too much regulation, and yet, there are times when we have to step in and now is clearly one of those times. In my speech in *insert town here* in the next hour, I'll be outlining what I think should be done. Yes there will need to be regulation and yes there will need to oversight but at the same time it is vital we strike a balance.

But I don't think I will ever see any of this.

Why?

Because they are afraid. All of them -- you know the them I reference. The handlers and advisers and dare I say PR and Marketing folks (shame on you!) who want to control everything. Script it all. Avoid room for mistakes.

Blogs are there to build connection and what these campaigns are doing is just using a space on their website to allow a group of people to write stuff that is all about give me money and here's my new attack ad and here's this sob story so you should vote for us...

Sigh.

No innovation here.

Of course, perhaps there's nothing wrong with this at all and I'm just a naive, out of touch academic who has no real understanding of the political process.

Sick and Blogging, but not sick of blogging

It's a record. Really. Less than ONE FULL WEEK OF CLASSES and I'm already sick. Really really really sick. Been down for the count for five days so far and it's getting old. Really really really old (see, I'm so sick I'm channeling my 11 year old daugher...Really!).

So why blog today?

Convergent forces.

Great NYTimes Magazine article about "Ambient Awareness" and Facebook and Twitter. I can't say anything that really makes sense at the moment about it other than it's really really really good ... and stuff.

Secondly, our own local Burlington Free Press which has been playing with the Twitter thing has made a welcome change to their process! Woot!

Here's the Tweet I received today: @dliloia @PMGCreative @ejyoung67 Made changes to BFP's twitter channels. Now separated by topic. This is to reduce the major tweet dumps. about 3 hours ago from web

So now there is actually a "news" feed that has already alerted me to a moose on the loose and ballots missing at a local poling station. Not just the articles that are in the paper. Yeah BABY! That's the way to use the Twitter! But wait...it looks like I can also subscribe to:

• bfp_local
• bfp_biz
• bfp_living
• bfp_opinion
• bfp_sports
• bfp_politics
• bfp_alert
• bfp_news

So I'll be sending bfp_alert directly to my mobile phone because I'm going to assume that it will alert me to the critical news like major catastrophies and shootings etc. and the others I'll just add to my twitter stream.

Good conversations going on out there folks. Join the "ambient awareness" and the local news alerts, stay informed and...stay well. *cough* I'm off to bed.

"Little Known Facts" about Sarah Palin

Update: already have news items about this too:

On Twitter, McCain veep choice Sarah Palin already a folk hero


It started roughly about six hours ago give or take. It was shortly after the McCain announcement of his VP pick: Sarah Palin.

As far as I can tell from the tweets, it was a lark. Yeah. That's it! A lark (love that word!). Anyway, a website was created called "Palin Facts". And then the tweets got started. Viral is NOT the word for this one.

Now you can add to the meme yourself with your "little known fact" about Sarah Palin. Some of my favorites so far are:

• Sarah Palin is Spartacus.
• Sarah Palin can win the VP nomination using nothing but a piece of gum and a paperclip.
• Sarah Palin shot J.R.
• Sarah Palin taught MacGuyver everything he knows.
• Sarah Palin can catch salmon swimming upstream with her teeth

There is now someone on Twitter calling themselves "thefakesarahpalin" and there is also already a facebook application that you can add to your facebook.

It was all started by this guy.

Hmmm...

So the question is...is this GOOD PR for Sarah Palin, John McCain and the Republicans...or is it BAD? What will they do with this?

If it were me, I'd let it ride. I'd follow it. I'd take the good ones. I'd play with them in my ads. But, it's not me.

Let's watch and find out...shall we?