Social Media – Page 2

University College, Dublin

The Merits of Social Media for Academia

Finally. The philosopher in me always wants to work up from first principles, so I felt like I had a lot of work to do before I could write this. I’ve written a bit about some ways to think about social media and online spaces, what engagement means to me, and what I look for in improving communication. Now, and only now (Thanks Kant, you big jerk), do I feel comfortable talking a bit about the value that social media has to higher education for teaching, research, outreach, and mentorship. This is just an overview, there’s a lot to say on the subject, and I hope to do more than scratch the surface, and share what I do every day, when I’m not creating pages, sitting in meetings, and taking care of assorted administrivia.

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March 14, 2013

Social Media

The Birthday Party Theory of Personal Communication

We’re all busy. Our lives are saturated with events, information, and things to do, so many that it’s more common to feel that things are slipping through your fingers like a buttery sponge than that you have nothing to do (side note: If you don’t have anything to do, I can find something for you to do). Your message, whether it’s an event, a vote, a lesson, or an idea, has to penetrate the cloud of tasks and commitments a human carries around with them. Automation does not do that, it just adds to the cloud. It piles one more thing into it, more often an unwelcome intrusion than anything else. If you want to make sure you reach someone, you have to focus on them as a person. One way to do that is to think of it as a birthday party.

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February 28, 2013

Humans! Become passionate about education!

Social Media

Smashing Looms

This is one of those things that everyone in communications has to talk about at some point, preferably early on. I like to think of it as smashing your looms, after the fictional General Ned Ludd, but what it really means is that automation kills communication. Well, it wounds it gravely, and your messages will ultimately limp rather than leaping like they should.

Other things which are dead: this analogy.

Automation can be your greatest ally when communicating with large groups of people or when using a lot of different media, but it is an ally of the most insidious sort. It breeds a level of laziness which can poison your efforts in the long run. Today I will prove that this is the case. That is my mission.

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February 21, 2013

Social Media

Defining Engagement

It may be Valentine’s Day, but that’s not the kind of engagement I’m referring to. No, engagement is a really popular word right now. I thought about being a word snob and inventing my won hipster word for the same phenomenon, like “Ascultonation” (if you know the root of that, you might also be a word snob. Please feel free to use it), but engagement is exactly the right word for what you want. It describes the condition you’re trying to evoke down to a T. Engagement is more than talking at people, and it’s more than getting them to listen.

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February 14, 2013

Headspace / Social Media

What It’s For

Headspace

A question that comes up more frequently than most in discussions of social media is “What’s it for?” It’s usually connected to concerns about return on investment which, given last week’s post on scuba diving, are entirely reasonable. Why would you spend a lot of time and effort on something without knowing what it’s for? There’s a problem with this question though, because it doesn’t quite make sense in the context of social media. Social media isn’t a tool, like a hammer. It’s more like a park. It’s a space.

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February 7, 2013