SOCIAL MEDIA FOR OUTREACH AND EXTENSION

Beyond Facebook and Twitter

Being Social, Online.

It’s not a new thing. The “original internet”, aka Arpanet, was

developeed to let scientists connect to each other

IRC, E-mail and Usenet all have a long history, pre-dating “the web”

Instant messaging pre-dates the internet

Facebook and Twitter

Everybody is doing it. Large auidence

Facebook < 400 million accounts Twitter 15 Million accounts

New audiences, new demographics Publicity, recruitment and awareness

But, Should we do it?

The cat’s already out of the bag. Many units and people have already

established a social presence online Taming the cat (actually, it’s a snow

leopard now). Understanding why is as important as

knowing how All those new people are

waiting/expecting you. Audience/stakeholders/eyeballs

Obligatory Warning

It’s social media, not personal media or private media. Always assume it’s public. Never assume what you say/do online is

private. Never assume that things that are private

now will be private tomorrow.

Social Media is more …

Crowdsourcing: Science Disaster Recovery Election Monitoring

Social Learning. Fundraising/Microenterprise.

Why Social Matters?

Social implies a kind of openness. Opens channels for 2-way communication

Creates a new space for knowledge creation. “Users” become co-creators

Provides real time feedback and input.

More, or less, connected

Crowds and Communities. Are social:

Crowds gather and disperse Communities persist

Rise from shared interest. Have generated a new generation of

“social” tools.

The Crowd at Work

The crowd is action oriented.

Many disparate parts, loosely joined.

May only communicate with one destination.

Think flashmob.

It’s a SMS World

SMS enabled a rapid burst of growth in crowdsourcing apps. Opens participation to a broad cross section

of societies and cultures Removes the barrier of broadband/last mile

issues

The Value of the (sms enabled) Crowd

Mass, distributed contributors have shown the power of the crowd: Disaster response:

Ushahidi Election Monitoring:

Frontline SMS Independent news reporting:

Plane lands in/on Hudson River

Pre-existing Crowds Moving Online Citizen Science. Shopping. Auctions. Online galleries/portfolios.

Community focuses attention on issues like reputation, trust, boundaries and membership.

Smaller and more closely connected.

The Facets of Community

Boundaries/Networks: What domain defines the community?

Identity and reputation -Whuffie: You own your words

Trust. Duration:

Communities can endure, though membership may change.

Network or Community?

What’s the difference? Is a crowd a network? Twitter users?

Why does it matter? Types of interaction Degrees of difference

Impacts strategy for engagement.

Technology doesn’t create community

As technologists we forget, sometimes, that it’s not magic. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean

they will come Remember Maslow’s hammer

Increasingly, like seeks like.

Who do you trust?

Gas Leasing – a failed community: Tools were put in place to facilitate dialog Nobody talked. Why?

Sides had already been chosen Cornell was not viewed, by one side, as a

neutral arbiter No comprehensive strategy for using social

media

Separate, but together?

A challenge: Can social media mediate?

We’ve been bowling alone – have we now begun to bowl alone, virtually?

What is the strength of virtual ties? Does it matter? Online/rl?

The future begins tomorrow! Social media are(and have always been). We now have new ways of connecting. People participate. So, what’s next?

Personal Learning Environments User crafted

learning. Mixed media. Distributed. Chaotic?

Illustration by Gretchens Frage - (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gretchensfrage/3379888408/)

Location

Augmented reality ties virtual to real This is powerful because:

We’re still human and live in the world Events happen at places Knowledge is tied to the world Marketing

Never confuse virtual with real. It's not that Twitter publicists of the

Iranian protests haven't played a role ... They have. It's just not been the outsized role it's often been made out to be. And ultimately, that's been a terrible injustice to the Iranians who have made real, not remote or virtual, sacrifices in pursuit of justice. GOLNAZ ESFANDIARI Foreign Policy June 07, 2010 The Twitter Devolution.

Mash it up!

Humans are social animals. Contrary to the impulses of some in IT,

people seem to enjoy other people Being social means encountering others –

deepening understanding (hopefully) Technology facilitates social connections

that can change the world. Maybe slowly, and bit by bit-but that’s not

nothing.

Contact

Paul Treadwell pt36@cornell.edu @ptreadwell http://www.paultreadwell.com

Teri Solow tms45@cornell.edu @tekniklr http://tekniklr.com