I recently attended the Media140 DigitalBusiness conference in Perth and liveblogged a panel discussion on Jumping on the social media bandwagon. Participants in the panel were: Louise Bourke, Venessa Paech, Kate Carruthers and Rod Farmer. Some useful information presented, with key points emerging concerning future social media innovations, importance of identity in social media use and more. Click to read more
Disclaimer: live-blogging Digital Business, Media 140 Joanne Jacobs, 1000Heads Reflects on the bad reaction she got from many businesses in the mid-2000s when attempting to promote the value of social media. What is the value proposition of social? How are stories crucial? what is happening with mobiles? Emphasises that businesses can’t manage conversations, can’t manage communities, and can’t control the message. Reflects on the gap between marketing now, and marketing as represented in programs such as Mad Men. Value proposition for social business is its use for all business activities – not just marketing, but HR, logistics and so on. For example, using twitter’s private functions to connect people and share critical information. ‘Social’ means saving money, not just bringing in more business. But it is not just technology – “we are the ones who made these technologies”. “Social media came about because trust in corporate messages had declined” – in other words, what we think of as social media is the result of many aspects of the managed, controlled marketing process which had come to dominate consumer life in the 1990s. Crucial to the power of social media is trust, and trust is formed through social interactions. Social interactions … Click to read more
Disclaimer: liveblogging (for more information about this event, see Media 140 Digital Business) The Hybrid Media Challenge: Taming the Coming Perfect Storms Gary Hayes, ABC EMphasising that the ABC is a leader in multi-patform media, but there are more challenges ahead. Ecosystem of devices that each user has, forming effectively a single ‘platform’ for which multi-platform development and distribution is essential. “Transmedia is about keeping the user engaged with the story”, across platforms. Hayes identifies “transmedia rituals” and “multiplatform cultures”. There’s not as much distinction anymore between media as content and media as interaction, ‘media’ encompasses it all. Mobile access to ABC content is growing rapidly, around 1% / month at the moment, with more and more time being spent in this form of access. [Personal media is, truly, coming away from a fixed location and into the hands of people where they are, at this moment.] Hayes argues that the business of ‘doing’ media online (not just watching, but also creating, sharing, reviewing) is taking more and more time, time that is taken from the traditional patterns of ‘media viewing’ of TV and other old media. Second screen Social TV is a key phrase helping to define the approach … Click to read more
I recently attended an excellent presentation by Catherine Middleton at the Australian Media Traditions conference at which she discussed the contradictory positions of the Government and the NBN Co on the way in which we might understand the difference that the National Broadband Network will make. Her paper was entitled, “Have We Ever Needed a Killer App? What could the NBN learn from the 1990s?”. Here are some notes, with a few asides from me. Middleton begins by reminding us of the importance of the rhetoric of the “killer application” in the policies and plans of broadband development. She notes that, often, this “killer app” is located in the future, still to arrive but promised or imagined. Broadband networks were initially understood as delivering content to people in a manner like television; but the alternative perspective which Middleton’s research has clearly demonstrated is that the broadband is a network – in effect, broadband is its own killer application, infrastructure to enable connectivity and user-based activity. Her problem is that the Autralian government promotes the NBN as infrastructure, as a network, but the NBN Co is building a model which implies content delivery. Recounts the history of trials for broadband … Click to read more
Disclaimer: liveblogging Nicholas Proferes, “Oh, the Ethics You’ll Know” Analysis of research ethics from the Air-list – using nvivo. Ethics is a strong component of the air-list discussion. When is something public? Private? Both? Are author intentions important? What about context in which originally published? Note the link between ethical debates and new platforms/ technologies. Importance of graduate students in stimulating debate. Problem of using analog analogies: nuance of digital realm lost? There is a challenge to make space for new approaches to ethics. Outstanding – Dr Seuss is honorary member of AoIR from now on Alex Leavitt, “How I Saved An Internet” Looking at Encyclopaedia Dramatica – archive of digital subculture. Assumption of net researchers is that the space / place we visit online sort of ‘stays there’. But it is not that way. Leavitt found that ED was completely deleted one day. And Oh Internet was created in its place. (but along the way, all the wiki edits which Leavitt was studying were lost). Nice contrast of ephemera vs visibility. Leavitt restored the wiki from oblivion (not always without complaint). Importance of researchers’ relationship to the objects they study. Clever, researchers serve and protect the Internet Janet Salmons, … Click to read more
Disclaimer: Live blogging Growing Knowledge: what is the future of research? (details) A Times Higher Education debate hosted by the British Library, featuring Matthew Gamble, David Gauntlett, Alex Krotoski, Ben Hickey and chaired by Phil Baty. Phil Baty starts the debate: it is fundamentally about the way that IT will profoundly change the nature of research. Introduces the speakers. Hickey (A-level student) Has grown up surrounded by network technologies and assumes they will be crucial at his time at university. he ponders however whether the research collaboration between people and computers might lead more traditional people to question the validity of his work because the boundaries between him as researcher and technology are indeterminate. [Cyborg researcher?]. perhaps universities, because of their traditional outlook, may hinder learning and research. On the other hand maybe technology creates too narrow a vision and the voice of experience from earlier times can shed revealing light on a problem. Points to a problem – younger people with whom Hickey spoke are largely uninterested in universities and research, seeing it as irrelevant and distanced from the real-world problems they face. What is revealing about Hickey’s contribution is the way in which someone who have grown … Click to read more
Listening to Michael Dyson, from Monash talking about portfolios in teacher education: great presentation. Dyson says: Education of educators is first of all premised on turning them into people who practice self-development. gives example of very first unit. [So, care of the self is central, and making students include themselves as subjects in the learning process - nice!] Learning is change dramatically – globalisation, computing, and so on. [But, perhaps, there is an important qualification on some of the more optimistic claims for 'new' learning: learning is embedded within society in ways that shape those possibilities in ways that are not entirely concerned with 'better' learning. At the very least, the definition of better is contested: is it cheaper? is it more orderly and commodifiable? is to linked to national norms and needs?] The creating mind is the goal. [Interesting - not creative, but more positive and active - creating. Good difference] Reflection is essential to achieving the kind of succcesses in self-developmental learning; using Dewey (2003), emphasises “active persistent and careful consideration”; reflection is not taking “things for granted…[leading to] ethical judgment and strategic actions” (Groundwater-Smith, 2003). [ Further work needed, perhaps, to understand reflection for this new generation, … Click to read more
Keynote speech by Doug Schuler at the Research For Action workshop, Making Links Conference, in which he discusses civic intelligence, giving a series of examples and summing up with key definitional points. Click to read more
A liveblog of a great talk at the OII by Steve Jones, founding President of the Association of Internet Researchers: Steve is musing on the way we think about Internet researchers, 40 years on. Click to read more
Keynotes, Day 2, EDEM10 Conference The Promise and Contradictions of E-Democracy, Obama Style Micah L. Sifry (Personal Democracy Forum) Sifry begins by drawing a distinction between the social media, Internet based mobilisation from Obama during the election campaign and the lack of such activity within the administration, since Obama’s victory. At first (for example the Transparency and Open Government directive), there was a strong sense of Obama moving towards digitally enabled collaborative and participatory government. But, we have ended up, Sifry says, with an administration that is centralised and traditional and dominated by the big institutions. Sifry demonstrates that the USA is now in an era of mass participation in the electoral process; gives the example of the Vote Different citizen advertisement pro-Obama and against Clinton. Sifry asserts that Clinton campaign was a monologue – not a conversation; scripted and led from the front by Clinton; Clinton was ahead clearly in 2007 and Sifry claims the Internet was the key factor which pushed Obama ahead. Relations between citizens and activists, not just between citizens and the leaders/ politicians are what the Internet enables; that said, the mass mobilisation effects did depend a lot on Obama’s personal qualities and the particular … Click to read more
