Week 3 - Blog Posting #6 -Communities of Practice

A few months ago, I was posting on Twitter (like just about everyone else on the site) about what I was doing--which at that moment, was trying to purge some spammy comments from several of the networks I belong to on the social networking portal, Ning.com. I posted an update something like "[what is] up with spam on the Ning pages? Anyone else seeing this? #ning". Within an hour, I received a DM (direct message) from a representative at Ning asking me to email her details about the spam, with a promise that she would look into it. It was the first time that social networking had introduced me to a new type of "customer service", one that was at first a little creepy (after all, I didn't actually seek resolution from anyone at Ning directly), but ultimately refreshing: companies and businesses ARE listening to their consumers.

Chris Brogan, a consultant who (according to his blog) advises "businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value" (Brogan 2009) writes very eloquently (and prolifically) about how businesses need to "grow bigger ears" and "start by listening". It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the more progressive (and successful) corporations such as Starbucks, JetBlue, and Dell have been using

Twitter to reach out to their consumers for some time now (Twitter Brand Index 2008).
While business is just now "getting" the power of social media, it still boggles my mind how so many teachers, administrators and other stakeholders in the educational community are terrified of it. I'm still trying to figure out why...
Well, we certainly wouldn't want school to be too much like the business world, would we? :)



Brogan, C. (2008, November 22). If I Started Today [Web log post]. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://www.chrisbrogan.com/if-i-started-today/

Twitter Brand Index. (2008, August 08). Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://blog.fluentsimplicity.com/twitter-brand-index/

Week 3 - Blog Posting #5 -Social Media

Social media has impacted the way many of interact on many levels: how we communicate with friends, how we interact among ourselves and with instructors in schools, and how we collaborate and exchange ideas and market in the business world. This shift has impacted not only the digital natives and "millenials", but affected all age groups: grandparents adding grandchildren on their Myspace friends list, professors and students on Twitter, co-workers sharing LinkedIn connections (and searching Facebook to screen prospective hires).
Karl Fisch's "Did You Know" series of videos, which began to circulate on the internet in 2007, highlighted some of the staggering facts surrounding the rapid adoption of the internet and its communication pathways such as social media. The technology has evolved so rapidly that the video contineus to be updated regularly, with its most recent iteration (see above), version 4.0, surfacing in mid-2009.
When Twitter.com was launched, critics scoffed, calling it an unnecessary addition to the many other means for people to update on the web, asking, "[what are you doing]..who cares?"(Lawley 2007). However, less than three years later, people look to twitter much in the same way they once looked to broadcast news and later, internet search engines. Microsoft's newest search engine, Bing, now integrates twitter search; this year's litany of high-profile and celebrity deaths were searchable on twitter and Wikipedia before news stations like CNN were announcing them to the public.

The community is talking, and the community is listening. The community is winning.

Fisch, K. (Director). (2007, November 01). Did You Know? Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K04o2ic4g-A

Lawley, L. (2007, March 06). Thoughts on twitter [Web log post]. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/03/06/thoughts_on_twitter.php

Is social media a fad?

Watch this video, then we'll discuss.

(Watch it on YouTube here)
(I'm just posting this for my classmates, not as an official class assignment)