The Social Networking Girl

We’ve had some discussion recently among the local twitter community here at Penn State about how many people we all follow on twitter.. and why.  The consensus was that most of us try to follow no more than 100 people and all for the same basic reason… it’s not beneficial. At more than 100 people, conversations begin to become fragmented and you can’t really feel connected to more than that many people.  While this may not be the case for everyone, the majority of the people I’ve spoken with at Penn State feel this way.

It was interesting then, to read this post from ReadWriteWeb today discussing this very thing. An excerpt from the post here:

“Research by Robin Dunbar indicates that 100 to 150 is the approximate natural group size in which everyone can really know everyone else. “Human beings ought to live in groups of around 150 people, judging from the logarithm of our brain size; and sure enough, studies of hunter-gatherer groups, military units, and city dwellers’ address books suggest that 100 to 150 is the natural group size within which people can know just about everyone directly,” writes Jonathan Haidt in the book “The Happiness Hypothesis,” drawing on research by Dunbar.”

The post also discusses the difference between the amount of friends a person might have on Facebook as opposed to twitter and for me there’s a difference.  I feel as though I could have a million ‘friends’ on Facebook and be fine with that because it’s not conversational in the way twitter is.  It’s like the difference between a dinner party and attending a Penn State football game. I’m ok hanging around with thousands of people as long as I don’t really want to get to know all of them. If I want to spend quality time with them.. then I’d prefer the dinner party.

Just came across this post on ReadWriteWeb that references a study that will appear in New Scientist Magazine that has found that things like blogs, instant messaging and social media sites are better than traditional media in times of emergency because they connect people and provide warnings in real-time.

It’s a really great post and definitely worth reading. I love that they’ve used real examples of how all of these sites and tools have really been useful recently. They’ve also shown the real value of using these things in emergency situations.

I wonder.. with the proliferation of blogs, twitterers and people using these tools, if at some point “traditional” media will disappear. It seems, at least for myself, that more and more I’m tired of the ‘drama’ that old-school media brings to the table and I just want to get the quick, honest assessment from a ‘real’ person on the front lines.

I just read a blog post that I saw posted on twitter related to Second Life and businesses. The article refers to McKinsey & Company (a managment consulting firm) and how they are saying that companies and businesses that are not engaging in the use of virtual worlds are doing so ‘at their own peril’.

I found this section of the article really interesting:

“The next phase of Second Life’s development, analysts said, would involve businesses developing very specific 3D applications, which for instance would enable them to conduct virtual meetings, saving on transport costs, and to undertake advanced staff training.

Trucking companies, for instance, are teaching drivers how to parallel park their vehicles using simulations built in Second Life; Hilton, the hotel chain, is collaborating on a tool to train receptionists in virtual lobbies, and energy giants are developing applications that can help them to train staff on how to deal with a hostage situation on an oil rig.”

For me, that’s the difference that virtual worlds bring to the table. It’s experiential. You *do* things there. I had someone tell me in a meeting one day that he’d “rather look at a real photograph than look at that same thing built in Second Life”, because it seemed “fake” to him. I understand what he’s trying to say, and nothing in a virtual world will ever be truly exactly as it is in RL (at least not for the foreseeable future) and so perhaps to some folks it can feel like we’re not being honest or truthful in what we’re representing in a virtual space. The ability, however, to *experience* these spaces is what makes it so powerful. Looking at a photo of a dorm room, for instance, is much different than having your avatar walk into that room and experience the space. That experience, in my opinion, actually IS more real than looking at a photo of the space.

For people not aware of or using virtual worlds to conduct business, meet and socialize with other people, or as a creative outlet, then perhaps these environments do seem ‘false’, but for those of us actively using the space it’s incredibly real.

It was announced today - Linden Lab has a new CEO.  Mark Kingdon, formerly of Organic, Inc. is now the CEO of Linden Lab and the man now tasked with bringing Second Life to the next step (and hopefully many more steps after that!).

From the quick amount of reading I’ve done since I saw the announcement on twitter, I have to say that in my opinion, I think Mark might be a great fit and just the person we need right now. I love that he has a background in business, economics, AND art. Maybe he’ll realize how powerful and talented the Second Life community is, and maybe what we’ve seen so far is just the beginning of some really fantastic stuff.

When I attended the TLT Symposium a few weeks ago,  we had the good fortune of being interviewed by the roaming podcast team.  They asked our opinions on how we liked it, what we thought about some speakers and what we were getting out of it. It was just posted online today so give it a listen if you get a chance.

Podcast here.

Today’s my post-TLT recovery day and I’m feeling like there’s so much I want to say about it, but I’m having trouble finding the words to express it.

The keynote from the event was delivered by Lawrence Lessig and was something I was really looking forward to. I did not come away disappointed as it was even more than I’d hoped it would be. The one thing that did surprise me, however, was how emotional his words were for me. I’ve found myself overcome with emotions at other times in my job.. typically when I’m trying to express something that I’m very passionate about, and I think my emotions at the keynote yesterday reflected those same things. I could hear and feel the passion in Lessig’s voice as he talked about creativity and expression and how desperately important it is that we truly *rethink* the way we look at things and create policy. I could feel the energy in the room as we all sat there, and I felt it carry through the day as we broke into our sessions and met, learned from and connected with people from all over our university.

If I had to pick one thing that I will take with me from this symposium, it’s the feeling that I now belong to a community that values the same things Lessig spoke about. People that are energized, connected, and wanting to make changes. Many of the people I connected with at the symposium were people I’d never met face-to-face, but had come to know on twitter in the weeks prior to yesterday’s event. Having met this group online, through a social networking tool added such amazing value to the symposium for me because I was immediately welcomed as part of that group when I arrived and I spent the whole day strengthening my ties with that group and connecting with others that I didn’t previously know.

In my first session, we talked about encouraging social networking for our students to allow them to make connections online, outside the classroom. As a social networks adviser, I obviously believe in the power of online connections and I have a little different perspective than a faculty member who’s considering using these tools in the classroom. There was a woman sitting in front of me who truly did not understand how using social networking in her classroom would benefit her students. She also felt that it was rude for us to sit there using twitter and text and chat to connect with others and share what was going on with our session while we were there. She felt it was more important for us to listen and pay attention to the speaker and not use these technologies during the session. It made for some very interesting discussion and that carried throughout the day. I met that same woman again in the afternoon, and she said “So if I were going to sign up for this twitter thing.. how would I go about doing that?”. I laughed, and several people around explained to her how to do that, and we all shared cupcakes and laughter and connected again. I love to think that after a day at TLT, seeing how all of the ‘twitter’ peeps were connected, conversing, and learning.. she felt that perhaps indeed there might be some value to using it. I truly hope to see her on twitter soon. I’d love to connect with her.

Online communities built through social networking are synergistic, powerful, amazing groups that have the power to change lives, policy, and perspectives. Sometimes we just have to build these communities one person at a time.. and that’s fine with me.

One of my feeds (academhack) led me to this fantastic post about Classroom 2.0 and the use of twitter in class. I’m an avid user of twitter, but I must say that when I was first introduced to it I didn’t “get it”.  I gave it some time and when I came back, I realized that twitter did serve a purpose. Not only did it allow me to connect with and meet new friends, but it gave me the opportunity to hear perspectives from people that I’d never hear from otherwise.  I can follow along as the President visits Africa (thanks @newmediajim!) and I can read where Barack Obama’s headed next on his campaign.  This is what twitter does for *me* but you can make it work for you as well.

The blog post I was reading today talked about participatory learning and using twitter, YouTube and blogs in the classroom. I especially loved this section of the post:

“And then it struck me that since I was showing Howard Rheingold’s vlogpost, we might actually be able to FIND Howard on Twitter and, perhaps, use Twitter to allow the students to ask him about his video. To do so would, in my view, convey the immediacy of social and participatory media in a way that nothing else would.

To my delight, Howard was not only available but sent a message to our class! It was very cool to move from the recorded Howard to the live-virtual Howard. So I said to the class, “That was Howard Rheingold. And here he is in our Twitter! Do you have anything to ask him about that video we just watched - or about Twitter?” … a couple of the students took the plunge and Howard graciously replied (one had even read his Virtual Community book for a prior course). This was a very generous gift of time from a guy who is teaching three courses and functioning as a human server for a most inhuman volume of requests for time, insight and connection. Thank you Howard!”

I *love* this. This is exactly what makes Web 2.0 in the classroom and in education so exciting and amazing. To think that we still have our children sitting in front of textbooks reading things that were probably already outdated decades ago and yet we still continue to teach them in the same way, from the same materials.  When I think back on my days in middle school and high school I remember certain moments from my classes and any and all of them involved participatory learning. Whether it was making up my own version of the “12 Days of Christmas” that involved tossing Barbie Dolls off a filing cabinet, or acting out scenes from Hamlet in a Fisher-Price Little People Castle while “King For Just One Day” by the Thompson Twins blared in the background, they stuck with me - they had an impact.

I’m not saying that I think every teacher or every subject is best taught using Web 2.0 technologies, I just think that we’re doing a disservice to our students if we don’t at least learn about and try to incorporate participatory learning into our classes to make things a little more relevant.

There was some discussion/conversations today about twitter and pownce.  If you’re not familiar with either, here’s a quick description. Twitter is really micro-blogging: in 140 characters or less, answer the question “What are you doing?”.  That’s the premise, but it has become much more than that. You can follow certain people and they follow you. It gives you the ability to tell a lot of people - all at once - exactly what you’re doing, thinking, or planning. It’s a great little tool.  Pownce is very similar, but also gives you the ability to send files and links while allowing you to organize people into groups.  Pownce also allows more than 140 characters which provides a little more flexibility.

When I started using twitter, I thought that it felt ‘arrogant’ and that I would never use it. I couldn’t understand why it was important for me to tell anyone else what I was doing.. it felt almost like shameless self-promotion to me.  I signed up and then posted nothing at all except for one comment that I later took down.  After a few months, more and more people that I knew were using it and so I signed up with another account and decided to give it another shot.  I use twitter a lot now and I’ve found it really helpful for a lot of reasons. The main reason for me to use twitter is really just to keep up on what ‘leaders’ in certain fields are doing.  Seeing them post about what they’re using, or talking about helps me to know what to keep an eye out for and what might be the ‘next big thing’. It makes my job easier.  Twitter also allows me to keep people up-to-date on what I’m doing on a certain day or where they might be able to find me, and gives me the opportunity to have discussions with several people at once.

The discussion today started with someone asking (on twitter, mind you) for people to come “play with him” on pownce.  Those of us following that person immediately ‘friended’ him on pownce and the conversation began.  From what I could see, everyone in the discussion really felt that pownce was a ‘better’ tool than twitter simply because you can send files and links, organize into groups and easily follow conversations because all replies to a specific post are threaded.  Pownce is good and has potential to really be a useful tool.

Some comments were then posted on twitter regarding pownce and that it seemed to be a good tool, and to my surprise those comments were met with an almost hostility from others on twitter in some sort of territorial defensive way. It was as though making a comment about the benefits of a different tool somehow offended users of the other.  It was an interesting discourse.

I do wonder, though, with all of the social networking sites and tools out there, how do we truly decide which is best for us? Is it the one that provides the most features (like pownce) or the one that has the largest community and therefore the most interaction between people (twitter - at least for now).  And when the next one comes along.. then what? Do we leave the other sites and flock to that one or do we continue to spread ourselves even thinner by staying involved in all of these communities just so we’re sure that we’re not missing anyone.

Read this blog post today about government agencies that are using twitter. Pretty interesting stuff. I love twitter. I’m a twitter addict because it allows me not only to keep up with people that are leaders in their field, thereby keeping me ‘in the loop’ on new emerging technologies and developments, but it also allows me to communicate what I’m doing with a bunch of people at once, in real-time. It’s a handy tool.

How’d I learn about government agencies using twitter? Through twitter, of course.

I read a fantastic blog post today about using twitter in the classroom.  I love reading things like this that make me nod my head and think “Exactly!”. Even better is sharing things like this with other people.

The article talks about using twitter and now it increased the sense of ‘classroom community’ and encouraged discussion among the class. It’s a great read.. linked -

here.