Archive for the ‘ Social Media ’ Category

Homeless Man with a Golden Voice

This video has virtually blanketed the internet today. I saw it on BuzzFeed this morning, which was pushed there by Reddit some 9 hours ago. Then I saw it on Laughing Squid followed thereafter by Gizmodo, and I hope a ton more.
I’m really look forward to seeing this guy landing a gig out of all this internet hullabaloo.

Watch it, then comment below on whether your think he has a shot.

2011
01/04
CATEGORY
Interesting Things
Social Media
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Thoughts on Reciprocity & Twitter

After a lengthy conversation regarding Twitter and reciprocity, I began considering my own usage regarding Twitter and how it has changed over time.  I began going through those that I follow and decided to unfollow a ton of people (this continued the next day because there were so many), but what really took so long wasn’t really the unfollowing but actually adding everyone that I had been following into lists so that I wouldn’t “lose” them. I realize now that as I say this, I’ve basically taken the same approach that I have to BACN (or e-mail that I want, just not right now), because at one point in time I had desired to hear what that person had to say but over time I really had just been ignoring there tweets and moving on to those that I care about anyway, so why not shove them into a corner… :-D

So as I began the process of unfollowing and adding to lists I realized that this isn’t going to be a perfect system but nonetheless one that is necessary for the time being. I didn’t really follow any of the other approaches at unfollowing like JustUnFollow, or others that came before this. Near as I can tell, the only thing that I will lose is for those that I previously was following to DM me. Most of my usage happens at work, other than that I catch replies through my phone and the occasional scroll through as well on the phone. But I believe that now there is more engagement needed I could see access increase at home as well being that now I would be going to Twitter not just to see what was going on but now since I have to actively switch through lists, I find myself thinking about going to Twitter so that I may find out more about a particular subject or group (naming the lists appropriately to fill those buckets).

All of that being said I found myself considering ways in which Twitter could be improved through facilitation of what I’ve laid out here (the adding to lists to find out about specific topics).

The first deals not with the topic thing but instead with the realization that many people are receiving too much noise by following too many people.

  • Follow on a trial basis: Allow the option to follow for on a set period of time, after which the person is unfollowed and added to a private list

And here are a few on how lists could work better

  • I considered user curated lists but I haven’t even seen anyone using them on Facebook yet so…
  • Integration with a service list WeFollow that allows you to assign yourself specific tags, so that users won’t be forced to create the list to add you to (UPDATE: Turns out that Twitter has begun doing this, albeit sneakily)
  • More simple interface for lists, the thought here would be to present the user with those the follow (specifically if it could be more apparent that specific followee’s aren’t associated with a list.
2010
11/22
CATEGORY
Social Media
3 comments

I Follow Too Many On Twitter

Tonight I spent some time with those guys you may have heard of that are on a crazy road trip across the US inspired on Twitter usage in middle America, @OnTheRoad. And after the conversations that were had this evening at The Beerhive (a mighty fine establishment), many a conversation were had regarding twitter usage (and on a lesser note the Twitter Data Center which has cause all sorts of ruckus here in Utah for some unknown reason). The topic of discussion was regarding how Twitter and its champions have seemingly done the service a… well disservice, when it comes to promoting the ideals and purpose of a tool such as Twitter. When it comes down to it, the usage of Twitter has been all the more beneficial for those that have used it and not decided to engage with every person that has followed them or merely moderately caught their interest. And I realize that I’ve been following too many people that even marginally peak my interest on Twitter. And to that end and to the end of making Twitter more useful for me, I shall be making an attempt to clean up those who I follow. Feel free to get offended, I won’t mind.

If you’d like to talk about Social Media or Twitter feel free to jump into the fray that is the comments, I thoroughly enjoy the discussion!

2010
10/29
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Social Media
1 comment

Church & Communication

Recently I was approached by the church I attend, K2 The Church, to participate in a team that their primary focus will be to evaluate and to architect the future of K2′s communications.

The breadth and scope for the team reaches quite far and wide, from outlining internal communication, communication within the membership and external communication. They’ve lined up an extraordinary team and I have have high hopes for what it is we’ve set out to do. My primary focus will be on Social Media Strategy, unsurprisingly. Some of the preliminary steps that we will be taking will be evaluating all of the aspects of communication that the church is using as well as simultaneously researching all of the tools available to churches for communication (most undoubtedly some may not even be targeted at churches). Also, and this is my primary reason for posting here is to ask you what your thoughts are on church communication, what tools you know of that are out there and what your churches communication strategies have consisted of and most importantly any online resources that could be provided to help guide and structure our communication strategies going forward.

Here are some of the sites/blogs I’ve found thus far that discuss this topic:
Be Deviant
Tim Schraeder
Church Marketing Sucks
The City

2010
10/13
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Religion
Social Media
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Social Media Strategist

As someone who recently posted about “Crisis of Career Identity” the next logical step to be taken is an effort to flesh out what something of interest might be.

A little over two months ago I put forward a request at my place of employ for a change in title or more accurately what would be an addition for my title. (Suffice to say that meant me grabbing the graphic designer as he designed new business cards and having him change what my title.) The title I was requesting was “Software Developer & Social Media Strategist”. The “Software Developer” part was already there and the addition was “Social Media Strategist”.  I decided that this should be my title when I realized that all of the strategy regarding Social Media  when it came to the company were in the end ultimately in my domain of knowledge. I wouldn’t make the final decision but I would be involved in the decision and I was the gatekeeper if it needed to get to the next level in the company hierarchy so suffice to say, the strategy itself was left to me.

There are two aspects of the business that require decisions in social media. First there is, for brevity,what I’ll call marketing , pretty much anything that goes outside the company. Next you might say that I you haven’t heard of the company I work for in social media so I must be doing a poor job. Fair enough, but everything as far as marketing goes has been pretty much on hold until we determine the direction we desire to go in our branding strategy which although I can speak at length regarding ultimately isn’t my decision nor has my opinion been asked. The second aspect is development, and being a developer myself I very well have volumes I can speak to in this regard as well. However it has also been put on hold until we get a client that actually wants it since the development time won’t be allocated until we get that client (its really a backwards approach).

What are your thoughts?I believe there to be a very specialized skill set needed to accomplish this sort of work. That being said I’d like you to be gut-wrenchingly honest here. if you perceive such a role as fodder then say so.

2010
10/13
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Job Hunt
Social Media
1 comment

Open Letter To Utah Pulse

I submitted this to the UtahPulse.com feedback section earlier tonight.  Enjoy.

As a member of the Utah tech community I hoped to find UtahPulse.com as a place to connect, learn & find fresh utah oriented content.  Unfortunately that is not what I have found.  I hope this feedback finds a reader who understands that this criticism may seem harsh on a beta site but without such feedback this site won’t make it out of beta.

What I have found has been a drab site with little content (forgivable as its in beta) and what content I have seen does not grab the reader in any way shape or form. What I have seen is a press release aggregator. Zions bank is a great member of the community, but the link & image at the top of the page is more than enough to advertise for them, no need to reproduce every tech related topic from them and make UtahPulse look like a shill for them.  Additionally, there are no images for a story therefore making the content seem dry, newswire-like.

Integrating yourself into a community like the tech community of Utah will take much work but I don’t believe that it will be hard.  You need to get people into the community not just a site.  If you are to join the tech community of Utah then you must /join/ the tech community of Utah.  What I mean by that is that you should be networking with the networkers & utilizing the technology talent that is readily at hand.  Get local bloggers to blog about UtahPulse, get involved in the worldwide discussion. Join & use tech that excited the tech members of the state you are trying to grab the attention of.  What about a fan page on Facebook?  Thats pretty mainstream.  How about organizing a meetup using Upcoming.org?  Or how about getting really crazy and utilizing the bleeding edge that we are using like Twitter? Or how about grab a Qik account and broadcast live online from a cell phone some of the pivotal tech events that occur on a weekly basis.

The conversation is waiting for you, are you ready for it?

This message brought to you by: http://www.cluetrain.com/

2008
06/25
CATEGORY
Utah Bloggers
2 comments

Twitter: Above and Beyond

I sincerely feel as if I am beating a dead horse here and probably preaching to the choir in regards to the usefulness of the social networking tool known as Twitter.  But after seeing this article in regards to how a UC Berkeley student was able to notify his fellow students of his arrest and them in turn notifying the proper authorities to help him get out I don’t think I can say it enough. Oh, did I mention?  The guy was in Egypt.  Being arrested for taking photographs of a noisy demonstration.  And those authorities his friends notified?  Oh little groups like the embassy in Egypt and UC Berkeley itself to which they were able to provide legal counsel to get him sprung.

The ease of use for what was referred to in the article as a ‘wire service’ was probably pretty incomprehensible just a decade ago.  In addition to that it has much more real implications locally, today I found out about a meetup with a few locals and someone from Seattle that was in town just to sit and lunch and discuss whatever we felt like discussing.  This has particular interest to me because I am legitimately thinking of moving to Seattle or Portland or San Francisco (Live in one of those cities? Follow me on Twitter!).  And I just made friends with someone who lives in one of those cities.  When using networks like Twitter you’ve got to go above and beyond, you’ve got to think of the possibilities of how it can affect you on a day to day basis and how it can affect you in times of crisis.  So, I challenge you;  If you haven’t signed up for Twitter yet, then do so.  If you have already friend me up and then proceed to friend up someone in another city… You never know when they may come to yours or vice versa.

2008
04/16
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Job Hunt
Utah Bloggers
1 comment

Sarcasm and Twitter

So, by my very nature I’m a little sarcastic.  Perhaps the better way of putting it would be that I have a much more dry sense of humor.  Witty retorts and clever jabs are a means of expression for me.  The question of this post is whether or not sarcasm and other forms of dry humor communicate well over text, more specifically over 140 characters on Twitter.  The challenge has always been there while using text.  How many times has an instant message or e-mail been ill received due to some clever remark tossed in as a bit of funny to lighten the day when really all it accomplished was to raise the ire of those it was directed towards?  More often than I can count before I send a message I am rereading it and trying to determine double entendres and those words that might sear or cut the flesh of another.  So, the recommendation in this regard is to take care in the words used and only use the choicest of phrase that may cause a giggle on the other end, but beware such hilarity is not for the faint of heart.

The second difficulty with using a medium such as Twitter is the complications that could arise due to a lack of response.  No one feels the need to use “lol” except under the most exceptional of circumstances or under the guise of a most polite of response.  The medium doesn’t hold up well to this sort of twitty banter, in fact it has been known to collapse due to it.  There are always those around that will not quite get it until it is pointed out to them.  All I can say to that is there is nothing to be done.  If they can’t get it off the bat, and it has to be explained to them, then they will never find it funny.  You can only respond with kindness and prepare for the backlash of those folk who just don’t get it and probably never will.

Ideally with such limited amounts of characters as one has on Twitter I would recommend all of the usual inserts that can be made but of course you’ll need to shorten them i.e. drop the dashes in smilies, when using tags drop the vowels etc.  The other thing that I believe will be wholly necessary is a decent vocabulary, gain it through any means necessary i.e. reading more frequently, reading the notecards from your SAT’s, and stealing dictionaries from little old ladies. Wow, almost 450 words… Am I a windbag or what?  Please comment and relay how you feel about dry humor in these times of decreased character counts.

2008
04/03
CATEGORY
Social Media
1 comment

PodcampSLC 2008

Had the pleasure of attending the first ever PodcampSLC today, it was a blast! The event occured last Saturday the 15th of March. I met some really great people and had some fairly in depth discussions on podcasting. Everything from how to do a proper phone interview to the deeper stuff like monetization and marketing in this Web 2.0/Social media world. First off I’d like to thank Thom Allen of CouchCast and Brad Baldwin of Rocky Mountain Voices for putting on an awesome event! For the first one ever it went pretty smooth, except for that not being able to leave the building after 2 o’clock else you would get locked out part… That was a bit of a downer. So I’ll go ahead and recap some of the discussion that we had right here.

First off, it seems that doing a phone interview should require a landline for the person that you are interviewing. Evidently this is not only to avoid the risk of the call dropping but also to increase call quality and/or prevent interviewee from calling you while going southbound on the I-15 in a convertible. While I agree with this suggestion in principle there will most definitely come a time where the landline will not be an option. Nowadays its entirely plausible to encounter a handful of people in a day that just do not have one. I encounter that person fairly early when I look in the mirror. So, all in all a good rule of thumb but sometimes it just isn’t going to cut it. My preference would be Skype, but thats because most who I would interview would have this medium available to them.

The other thing that I wanted to bring up in regards to PodcampSLC was the last session that I attended which discussed in it what seemed to be the business aspect of podcasting, it hit this note quite hard and it was very interesting and we even had someone from Podango to speak on this. This session, while interesting and comprehensive could have lent itself much more to promoting a podcast and building your podcast rather than seeking out new monetization methods. Although this probably is due to my focus in communities at the moment. I think that we didn’t get the chance to hit this topic due to time constraints (and it was a long day as it was) but fortunately I came across (via Scoble & Calacanis’ twitters) a video by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV which explained everything that would have needed to have been covered. Here’s a link. Watch it, learn it, live it.

Check out the photo’s I took at the PodcampSLC on Flickr!

2008
03/21
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Utah Bloggers
1 comment

SMS Podcast Episode 1

Wanted to make a brief mention of the new podcast that I have launched title the SMS Podcast.  The idea is to focus on news in the social media space.  Head over to SMSPodcast on wordpress to check it out.  Feel free to leave feedback anywhere you know I’ll be (Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, this blog, or the SMS Blog).

Thanks!

2008
03/12
CATEGORY
Chronicles of Youth
Social Media
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