An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

Columbia University, Rodin's Thinker, via flickr user wallyg

Yesterday, Mark C. Taylor, chair of Columbia’s religion department, wrote in a NYT Op-Ed piece, End the University as We Know It:

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

From this controversial opening, Professor Taylor argues for a hgher education system that follows an interdisciplinary, collaborative model that mobilizes scholars around problems and produces scholarship in a more consumable fashion. 

Social media applications/tools have enabled its users to do what Professor Taylor is advocating. Twitter enables the rapid mobilization to address problems. Wikis result in information in a consumable fashion via real time collaboration. All of this consumer generated media (CGM) creates a body of knowledge whose value comes from the integration of various perspectives. Holding the appropriate context and understanding how the various pieces fit should be a driving force in these collaborative processes.

Do graduate students and scholars miss the point if they think that their training prepares them only for the profession of their graduate degree, be it academia, journalism, law, planning, business, etc.?

Yes. Absolutely yes if they cannot connect what they know and what they are learning to value creation and problem solving. Thinking about the process of learning, what is being learned and what that means are some of the values of a liberal arts education. Does this create students who can apply their skills in different contexts?  Will these students have more options than those who cannot?

Professor Taylor leaves us with valuable advice: 

“Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” 

Applying this entrepreneurial perspective higher ed will enable it to evolve with society.

This morning I woke up to a lovely reminder from Mack Collier about #blogchat, the Sunday evening Twitter chat that happens on a weekly basis. Mack specifically called me out (Thanks Mack :)) and of course, six people repeated (retweeted) Mack’s message that included the targeted reminder to me. Two others also passed the message along about #blogchat but stripped out the An-targeted reminder. 

Of the six who repeated Mack’s message with the reminder, five were those I wasn’t following nor were they following me:

• @aaiello
• @DavidSpinks
• @Eric_Urbane
• @AYoungOne
• @timjahn

The only one I was following was @arikhanson. Beyond the conversation from #blogchat are the five I discovered because they retweeted Mack’s reminder to me.

# Blogchat. Sundays at 8:00 pm CST. Be There.

Then yes.

Earlier this week, Danielle Morrill and I gave a talk about Twitter to a group of entrepreneurs in Seattle. I wanted them to take away that the social value and the business value of Twitter went hand in hand. I also approach Twitter as a channel to find brand-evangelists, discover opportunities to help others, and share useful information. As a data nerd, I like to attach metrics to pretty much everything.

Some quick metrics to take away from Twitter include # of following to # of followers. The closer those numbers are to 1:1, the more likely it suggests reciprocal relationships, assuming that those you’re following are following you back and vice versa. DocuSign has nearly a 1:1 ratio of those it follows to those who follow it:

DocuSign's Twitter Metrics 368:374

Tweetstats, from Damon Cortesi, generates a lovely graph that tells you how many @replies you tweet (indicating conversation) and to whom you interact with the most.

DocuSign Replies ~ 61% of its tweets

In the Twitter Talk, one of the attendees said:

This is a way for me to broadcast what my company is doing

Um, share. Absolutely Twitter is a way to share what your company is doing. Why? Because people (potential customers, users, employees) care. However, they don’t care if your only interest is one way data flow. They want to know that the feedback they’re giving you is going somewhere, being considered, and possibly having an impact.

Twitter is a one-to-many content sharing application. It’s like having a back-and-forth conversation in a public space. You are having a directed conversation that is indexed by Google and then searchable.

Starting social media with listening, understanding what the audience wants/needs and then generating content gets you to…

PARTICIPATION

If you aren’t comfortable with putting out, you should start by listening. Integrate feedback into product development, messaging, customer service…

Listening alone creates value for business. Actually participating enables you to create and realize even more value.

CRAVE has invited Danielle Morrill and I to speak at this month’s Coffee Chat, called Twitter Talk.

Learn about how Twitter came into existence and how it fits with other social networking and social media services, such as Facebook, as branding tools. Even if you’ve never used a service like this before, discover the power and simplicity of sending short messages (140 characters or less) to a group of friends and followers interested in what you have to say. This talk will include discussion of how to create an engaged community on Twitter, how to develop an audience of relevant Twitter users, and how to share valuable information about your products and content in an appropriate fashion - often referred to as “Twitiquette” (Twitter etiquette). 

It’s this Sunday, 4/19, from 2-4pm, at Dreamclinic, 902 NE 65th, in Seattle. Register at Seattle 2.0 or on the CRAVE Web site.

Hope to see you there!

I say this because I’ve added yet another social media application - Tumblr. Do I really need another? No, not really. But do I love me some Tumblr? Yes, yes really. Why?

I can send pictures from my phone to a special Tumblr email and get the pictures online easily. I can import tweets from Twitter. I can quickly post little quotes, and even regular blog posts.

Lately, social networking applications seem to be moving towards cross-posting functionality. I can Jott to my Twitter and have the tweet sent to my Tumblr. I’ve already written about Twhirl’s auto updates to Jaiku and Pownce. I’ve also used TwitterSync to sync my Facebook status messages and Twitter.

As I let myself get so super obnoxiously busy, this functionality is becoming more important for effectively managing social media use. Of course, much of the fun of social media is the social aspect. Join Whrrl, become part of my friend network, and let’s meet up for coffee, at one of the top shops in Seattle.

Today I received a message from Doug Haslam that made me do a double take:

My yelp of excitement at the news (as well as the salivating all over my laptop) prompted a friend of mine (let’s call him Social Media Stupid, or SMS) to ask “What’s Jaiku? Pownce? Are those new things?”

As I tripped all over myself to try and explain those microblogging applications as well as Twitter, he asked me “Don’t you have a blogroll or a homepage or something that links all of your online social media activities?”

An blushed.

SMS said: “You know you could make one really quickly and it’ll take you 2 seconds.”

Well, maybe more like 4 seconds because I need to get all of my accounts together and organized – hence the loving on Blist.

I may be young, hip, and social media savvy, but I can always learn something from someone.

Thanks Social Media Stupid - You’re not stupid at all.

I spent 15 minutes talking to Michael Martinez today, a luxury I hadn’t had in a long time. We caught up a bit – we talked about my professional progress and the use of various social media applications, including Twitter.

Michael also gave me two pieces of unsolicited advice:

Advice #1 from Michael Martinez:

Blog more often than once every two weeks.

I got scolded. Perhaps that wasn’t Michael’s intention, but that was the communication I got loud and clear. My current boss once gave me feedback: “Communication happens at the receiver.” I can be as clear and unambiguous as possible, but the communication really happens when someone receives the message I’ve put forth. No message put forth? No communication, because I dropped the ball. I took took Michael’s feedback as a scolding, because I needed a kick in the pants. In trying to manage my time and life better, I’ve allowed things to slip, such as this blog. I haven’t been on Twitter as much either, which leads to this vague, disconnected feeling.

Between various applications I use to manage my time and life, I’ve also found I’ve added some analog to my life.

The short list of applications includes:

• Jott which I use to send myself SMS and email reminders in an effort to keep myself together
• Xobni which gets me more excited about my work email than I deserve to be
• RescueTime which provides analytics about the applications in which I spend the most time on a weekly basis
• Whrrl which tells me where to go for dinner. Because I’m that decisive.

The short list of analog includes:

• Moleskine Notebook for the times it’s not polite to Jott
• Multicolored Gel Pens because they’re pretty and provide a quick visual way to convey an additional layer of information. You know you love color-coding!
• Sticky Notes, for the notes I want to ensure stay on my desk.
• MyLackey.com because I rather do something else other than pick up dry cleaning.

The glue that keeps it all together for me is coffee. Even after twelve glorious hours of sleep, I jones so badly, I still have my giant coffee of the morning.

So I’m back in the saddle. That means Advice #2 is another post for another time.

A few days ago I did a good thing - I downloaded Xobni and made Outlook something I’d want to use. Generally, I find Outlook slow, sluggish, and great at hiding my messages. We’ll pretend that folders to organize emails don’t exist in my reality.

Outlook with Xobni is still slow and sluggish. The benefit of Xobni is that my messages become magically unhidden! I spend less time in Outlook looking for things, which cuts down the number of actions I’m taking inside of Outlook, which minimizes loading time for opening emails and ultimately, saves me time.

I use Gmail. I love Gmail. I use and love Gmail because it’s email made stupid easy. I have zillion MB’s of storage. My email box is my own personal index that I can take a Google Search bar and find the relevant emails that I’m looking for. Using Outlook made me wish I could just forward all email to Gmail.

So Why Use Outlook?

Business. It’s just business. The company email goes to the Outlook, and Xobni makes the Outlook like Gmail on crack. Not only does Xobni thread email conversations, it also pulls out the attachments, and provides analytics around email exchange frequency and time of day these email exchanges happen. Xobni also includes social connectivity information for your contacts. Hence Gmail on crack.

I’d like to thank Chris Apollo Lynn and Marie Williams for hooking me up with Xobni. You guys rock! How did I hear about the Xobni? Via my current favorite microblogging app, Twitter.

It All Goes Back to Twitter

Twitter and Xobni have gotten it right in so many ways. Twitter makes expressing yourself stupid easy. Some might think just stupid, but really, it’s stupid easy. It’s so simple, you really aren’t missing anything. There’s only so much complexity that 140 characters can hold. Xobni approaches the stupid easy a little differently - it’s only fairly intuitive and the sluggishness coupled with my impatience creates a different experience from that high energy, zippy thoughts flying around on Twitter. Xobni’s strength comes from enabling you to find the messages you need easily.

I’ve got 4 Xobni invites left - leave me a comment or send me an email with a funny story about email and I’ll pay them forward. Or as always, tweet @anwith1n

Of the multiple Google Maps and Twitter mashups out there for Super Tuesday, the one that got me thinking was the one from Google and Twitter especially given the question asked by Valleywag, “but what about Jaiku?”

What about Jaiku?

For those not in the know, Jaiku positions itself as “an activity stream and presence sharing service that works from the Web and mobile phones.” Jaiku, Ltd. was founded in February, 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from Finland, and was aquired by Google in fall 2007. Jaiku’s service is very similar to Twitter’s.

So why the mashup with Twitter and Google, not Jaiku and Google?

Valleywag theorizes: “What this tells us: Jaiku, which has a much smaller and more European user base than Twitter, isn’t really doing it for Google…” Perhaps. Perhaps this is true. The question is - why?

An Bui’s Theory on Jaiku’s User Base:

1. Jaiku’s userbase is more European because it started in Finland. I’ll analogize to the correlation between Facebook’s userbase and education level. Facebook’s userbase tends to have a higher education level because Facebook started out of Harvard. Also, Super Tuesday is about US politics. The number of Europeans who care to report about US politics is probably not as high as the number of Americans who care to report about US politics.

2. Jaiku’s userbase is smaller because it’s in closed beta. You need an invitation to join. I don’t have one. I’d like to get one, but haven’t, hence no review about Jaiku yet. I’m interested in getting one though, if anyone wants to invite me.
I think the mashup for Super Tuesday paired Twitter and Google because Jaiku’s userbase wasn’t the target market. That the Jaiku userbase is smaller is an immaterial fact. A Super Tuesday mashup could have served as an opportunity to sign up more users for Jaiku. To say that Jaiku isn’t really doing it for Google is a leap of logic I’m not comfortable making.

**update** Check out Vanessa Fox and her post on search engine land about the Web and 2008 Elections, which addresses not just the mashup, but also videos, trends, and use of SEO.

On an unrelated note - Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

Twitter, my current microblogging application of choice, alternates between being available and unavailable of late. Ev and the rest of the Twitter team are working hard to resolve user issues. In the meantime, have you thought about giving Pownce a try?

Pownce - What is it?

Pownce is a social networking and micro-blogging site started by Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, and Shawn Allen. Pownce allows you to access your existing social networks, including:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• AIM
• MSN
• GTalk
• Your blog

all from a single user interface! 

Share links, files, pictures, events, and micro-blog posts with the public, your friends, or in private messages. Pownce became publicly available January 22, 2008, and people are still learning about its existence.

I’m still developing my Pownce network - unsurprisingly, the social network with the most crossover is Twitter. Some have said it’s like Twitter on Steroids but I’m hoping it’s more like Twitter on coffee, my personal obsession. Since my Pownce network is so limited, I’m encouraging you to take this opportunity to try Pownce with me.

Get Pownce. Add me as a friend. Let’s figure out Pownce together.