May 09 2011
From David Steele comes this nice infographic that can easily be reinterpreted OUTSIDE of business. (Link below the image.) So no Monday video today. It is Monday Infographic. (Well, since I shared an image from a business, what do you think about this upbeat video ABOUT a company?)
For more great infographics, see here. (Hattip @DavidSibbet )
The Steel Method | The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Social Media for Business.
May 03 2011
Thursday I’m a guest respondent for an ODI webinar on networks in international development. My friend and colleague Simon Hearn at ODI suggested a quick check of their online meeting room my heart dropped a bit when I heard they were using GoToMeeting . While GTM tends to offer a lower price point, there is a cost. It is a very one way medium. There is no shared participant chat room. Questions go only to the moderators. Control of the visuals (which are pretty limited) are in only one moderator’s hand at any one time.
Now, does that feel right for a session on NETWORKS? I didn’t think so. So I challenged Simon for some options. (Boy, with friends like me, doing this at the last minute, who needs enemies?) I said, let’s experiment!
For example to facilitate loose connections so powerful in networks, let’s set up a parallel chat. My first choice these days is http://www.meetingwords.com – an instance of the open source Etherpad hosted by Peter Kaminski. But alas, I didn’t know if it can scale for 100 participants.
I personally like IRC but it is pretty geeky for the unintiated. We were looking for something with little or no sign in requirements and easy, peasy interface.
Of course since I can no longer keep up with the rapidly growing and changing constellation of tools (volume and a 53 year old sleep deprived brain), I turned to my network — this time using Twitter as I find it a fast, effective environment for these quick, specific questions.
Within minutes the answers started coming from @lblanken, @qadmon, @band @livlab, @bmann, and @kabissa. I had three functional options within 30 minutes and Simon and I immediately started testing some of them.
Here are the options we are now considering:
Bottom line… my network curates my tool choices.
Could I have done this without my network? No way. That’s why understanding networks, having some sort of semi-shared language to talk about them is SO important. I’m looking forward to the ODI talk on Thursday.
If you are a network junkie, check out ODI’s two new papers:
Not Everything That Connects is a Network and Mind the Network Gaps.
Oh, and thanks to my dear Twitter friends!
(Edited at 10:40 am PDT to add another link)
Mar 10 2011
This is a crosspost from the Network Weavers Community of Practice!
On today’s full community “share fair” meeting the concept of tweetups and tweet chats came up. I mentioned that there is an open Google doc listing some of the more well known tweetups and I would share it, so I wanted to post that link and a few others here. In poking around, I found a few more lists (Meryl’s list was updated just last week!) and resources.
How to Run Twitter Chats
There are both technical and facilitation things to consider to effectively pull people into a coherent interaction on Twitter.
Hashtags Resources
A hash tag (i.e. #nwwcop) is a way to aggregate tweets during a tweet chat and to aggregate tweets with other digital content with the same tag.
How to Capture the Content of Twitter Chats
Here are just a few of the tools you can use as interfaces for the tweet chats themselves and to aggregate the content. See the “how-tos” above.
Strategy
I think the last bit of thinking — that really might be best considered first — is thinking about WHY you want to do a Twitter chat. Thinking about intent, about purpose, can be a productive precursor to planning and action. Smile. Visit some twitter chats. Experience them. Then think about your community and network. What would work? Twitter chats are inherently open – is that ok for you? Do you want to have a defined group, or attract people to the twitter chat topic? Food for thought, eh?
Mar 07 2011
Last November I was pleased as punch to be part of the Orton Foundation’s “Community Matters” gathering in Denver. Little did I know I’d be creating learning partnership with Suzie, a fabulous, pink person who is thought to be a puppet by most human beings. Fun doesn’t come close to describing the magical experience. Thanks, CM10 crew for the video and thanks, Suz!
Nancy & Suzy_INTRO TO TWITTER from CommunityMatters on Vimeo.
More here: http://screenr.com/8kl
Feb 15 2011
Months ago I got an email from Trish at PKids, an organization devoted to childhood immunization and disease prevention, asking if I’d do a webinar in the way off future of February. Well, today was the day. Last week in preparation I realized I had to get my act together. With most of my current experience in international development and my maternal/child health days nearly 15 years old, it was time to tap my network. So before I share the slides I want to send a Twitter thankyou/shout out to all the people who provided retweets, links and information. You are the best, @eekim, @stephenjdowns, @SusannahFox, @epatientdave , @garyschwitzer, @SocMediaRckStr, @RavennaBlog, @CAPublicHealth, @paularobeson, @eqpaho, @CDCgov and all you other social media health geeks!
Here are the slides and attached is a PDF file with the slide comments (WhyMeWhyOnlinePKIDSFinalwnotes) which capture the basic narrative of the presentation. If you register on the PKIDS site, you can also access the recording of the webinar.
