Reunions and Awakenings

It’s been twenty-two years since I graduated high school (holy cow it seems insane to say that!), and this past weekend I spent a few hours with some of my closest high-school girlfriends.  We’ve met a few times in the last several years, usually over a holiday when most of the girls from out-of-town would be around visiting with their families.

The last time we met was four years ago at my house and it was a fantastic evening. Two of us were pregnant at the time and we spent hours and hours catching up, eating great food, and laughing at stories we all had to share. It was really special and made me so glad to reconnect with friends I’d spent so much time with in high school.  I’m sad to say that this time was much different.

This time much of the talk was technology-related and I guess that’s to be expected when you look at how much has changed in our culture in the last several years, but what surprised me is that I was surrounded by a group of people that were so negative about technology and how it’s being used today.  Some of the comments made were about Facebook with one friend asking, “Is it like email?” and “Is it like chatting?”.  Other friends complained about cell phones and how they hated feeling like people could call them all the time. Another friend went so far as to say that soon children would be born with only thumbs because all kids do these days is text.  Also heard that evening, “Aren’t you glad we didn’t have cell phones and camera phones when we were younger? I’d have HATED for all we did to be captured!”.

I tried to explain Web 2.0 and what it’s all about and how important it is, and why they should care, but I’m fairly sure no one heard me. I tried to explain Facebook and why they might want to be there and connect with others, but I don’t think they ‘got it’. I tried to tell them that younger kids today prefer texting to emailing and chatting because it’s mobile and they can stay connected wherever they are, but I don’t think they cared.  It honestly made me frustrated, confused, and sad. I left the party wondering when my friends changed and why they no longer seemed to care about how the world was changing around them.

I think that we forget that not everyone knows about how things are changing. Not everyone has a Facebook profile, or a text messaging plan. Not everyone knows what a blog is, or RSS. I didn’t even mention twitter because I was afraid their heads might explode or they’d come after me with fire and pitchforks.

When you’re as immersed in the culture as much as we are, it’s so easy to forget how far others are outside of this circle.  When you read books like The Rise of the Creative Class, it saddens me to feel as though I’m leaving my friends behind.

My friends are intelligent people. They have full-time jobs, they work with teenagers, they have children, they’ve graduated from prestigious schools and work for wonderful companies.. and they don’t get it.  If *they* don’t get it.. how many others don’t get it either.  How can we help them to understand and see the benefits if they’re so far behind that they don’t know the difference between email and IM?

We’ve talked previously about ‘invitations’ and how important it is for us to invite people to participate in our online communities, but more and more I’m thinking we need to dig a little deeper than that. I think we need some serious hand-holding, demonstrating, and mentoring to bring people into this conversation.  We owe it to them to not let them fall behind.

Educause 2008 – Crafting a Campus Identity: First-Year Students, Residential Life, and Social Networking

Notes from this session at Educause 2008:

How are today’s undergrad students using social networking applications are part of their campus lives?
How might student use impact recruitment and retention?

Today’s Students:

Net Gen students use a variety of technologies to structure and organize their lives – for entertainment and communication
These students have high expectations regarding networked campuses
It’s unclear how well student technology use translates directly to teaching and learning (Wagner, 2005)

Today’s Institutions:
Struggling to meet students high expectations regarding technolgy
Institutions increasingly using Web 2.0

Horizon Project’s Call for Scholarship recently identified social networking tools as a possible education tool for building learning communities (October 2007).

30+ years of research has built on Tinto’s findings that student persistence is related to social and academic integration (1975)
Students have showed that web-based collaboration tools can increase retention in courses (Fisher and Baird, 2005)
Others have found that online social networking can increase social engagement (Lento, Wesler, Gu & Smith)

Most students start w/ MySpace but then transition to Facebook because it’s “simpler”, it’s “what college students use”.

According to presenter’s study:
63.4% of students log into a social networking site several times a day.
Only 32% of students indicate that they use a mobile device to connect to a social networking application.

Discussion related to getting students involved in the social network before they even arrive on campus so they can begin to connect with each other and make the transition easier. Students have joined Facebook groups/MySpace groups related to their residence halls.

“Does Your Preferred Social Networking Site Improve or Enrich Your Non-Academic Life at ASU? – 70.3% of Facebook Users from survey said ‘yes’”

Some students may feel like an outsider if most other students do not use their preferred social network.

We Should Really Talk More

So I arrived at Tampa today around noon and was able to attend the keynote session, but I think the discussions that I had with people individually today proved to be the most beneficial thing I’ve done so far, and I have no doubt that over the course of the weekend that will continue to be the case.

Just based on the few conversations I’ve had today with folks from other universities and businesses using Second Life, I really feel like all of us.. and I mean *ALL* of us need to spend some quality time together. Talking. Listening. Learning.

My position is unique in that while I’m the social networks adviser for the online campus of a large public university, I am not tasked with figuring out how those tools would work in a classroom setting. I don’t have to base decisions on pedagogy, curriculum, or evaluations. I have the freedom to use and explore new technologies with the goal of learning if and how they can be used to build a stronger community of online students, faculty and staff.  While this freedom is something I certainly am beyond thankful for, it does make conferences like SLCC a bit challenging because I feel as though I am here representing an educational institution and therefore the educational track is where I should be, but at the same time so much of what is being talked about in the educational track is based on instruction and courses and getting buy-in to teach courses in SL that I really don’t feel it’s solely where I belong.  Don’t get me wrong, I am so thrilled that so many people are using SL in education and that so many more keep learning about it and making efforts to pave those roads and start using this really powerful tool to help us rethink what a classroom might be – I applaud each and every person taking that step. It’s not easy to be the first person on a campus trying a new technology, learning how to use it and making it happen with limited resources and even more limited support from administrators.  Having workshops and sessions related to getting started and ‘best practices’ are invaluable and providing them is something we have to do.  In my position, though, I’m not sure I get the most benefit from these sessions and so I find myself perusing the scheduled sessions for this weekend and thinking that perhaps the session in the community track on Open Source would be a better fit, or perhaps a session on how to create machinima to better promote our Second Life projects might be something I could learn a lot from.  So I think that this weekend I will pick and choose from all three tracks and meet some new people, learn some new things, and have a different perspective when I return.

I think that’s what I’ve gained so far in just the few short hours I’ve been here: the realization that we all need to communicate more. Business needs to sit down with education and talk.. REALLY talk about what’s going on with education these days.  Education needs to sit down and talk about how to create community and what that entails and education also needs to listen to business and think about what we can learn from them. I’m not just talking Second Life here, I’m talking big picture.

Big topics in education now are the ideas of open educational resources and the sharing of information. Openness, Innovation, Collaboration – all hot topics and yet I sat here today and listened to corporate people ask me if we’re keeping social networking internal and how we’re going to ‘authenticate’ and basically control the discussion and keep things amongst ourselves.  To me, that’s completely missing the point.  The point is not to keep the discussion among ourselves but to open up our community, discussions and content to the world so that everyone can participate, learn, and contribute.

Our world is changing, slowly.. but it’s getting there. It’s not about keeping things closed, and guarding our secrets. It’s about opening up, sharing, and trusting that doing so will make us a better stronger community with new and creative ideas of how to collaborate.  I heard some doubt and negativity today in discussions of interoperability and the idea of combining virtual worlds with each other and having one truly connected metaverse, but I also sensed hope. People want to dream, but they’re afraid.  We need to stop guarding our secrets and start opening up and dreaming a bit.

The Future

I was watching the start of the Democratic National Convention the other evening and was lucky enough to catch John Legend’s performance. I think he’s so amazingly talented and it’s always so inspiring to listen to him perform, convention or not.

Anyway, the song he sang had a line in it that said, “The future started yesterday, and we’re already late.” and I thought about how powerful that message was, especially in relation to technology and what we do on a daily basis.

There are times, I’m sure, where all of us feel as though we spend so much time explaining to people *WHY* they should take advantage of all of these new tools and technologies we have at our disposal, that we are losing ground and losing time.  I know that I personally feel sometimes that what we *NEED* to be doing is a mile in front of what we actually *are* doing and I feel as though I spend a lot of time keeping my eyes on the competition out in front of us while yelling behind me “HURRY UP!! COME ON!! We’re going to lose them!”.

I do, however, realize that not everyone is ready or as eager for change as others. Some people feel very comfortable and very safe with the ’status quo’ and will only change when forced to by something outside their control. Some people are hesitant, or frightened of the unknown and what it will mean for them.  We need to understand that. We need to recognize that fear, and help them work through it. We cannot, however, afford to just let them stay where they are. We cannot “save ourselves” in this. To make change and to be strong as a community, we have to help others move forward too.

We need to show them how to use RSS, why twitter is beneficial in creating community, and how to create their own blog. We need to demonstrate and explain the benefits of using a wiki, or why a Facebook page allows students to connect with you on a more personal level. We need to create virtual environments and encourage everyone to participate. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind. We owe it to them.

“The future started yesterday, and we’re already late.” – John Legend

We need new phrases

I don’t know about you lovely folks, but I’m getting tired of using the terms “social networking” and “online community”. Not tired of being a part of all of it – not by a long shot, I think we’re just breaking the ice on these things – but we need some new words to describe what we’re talking about.

Why are we calling it an “online community”. Community is community. Who cares of we’re sitting face to face or typing avatar to avatar. We’re a group of people, together, *united* with something in common.I wonder when we’ll get to the point where it really doesn’t matter if the community exists on our street or on our blog. I hope it’s soon.

Also, “social networking” is really starting to become this sort of ‘catch-all’ phrase that is losing meaning for me.  What *is* social networking? To me it’s just finding ways to connect with people and meet people that you might not otherwise have run into if you weren’t online and involved in communities where you get introduced to people because they either have the same friends you do, or the same interests.

I certainly don’t want this post to come off sounding cynical or negative because that’s not at all my intention. I’d simply like to think about some other terms for what we’re talking about here because if all of this is really just getting started (and in my opinion, it is) and I’m already tired of typing, reading, and hearing those phrases … then we’d better start thinking.

Any ideas?

What’s an eight-hour work day look like?

I’ve been reading some things here and there lately about flexibility in work hours and how we should probably rethink that whole idea of an eight-hour work day. I’d certainly say that, at least in some professions/positions that should be a thing to consider.

I’m certainly not saying that I think flexible hours will work in every situation, but I do think that expecting someone to sit at their desk from 8am until 5pm and be completely focused on work during that time and then leave at 5pm and ignore work until the next morning at 8 is ridiculous in this day and age.

When we’re connecting with students, working on projects and using our gorgeous Web 2.0 tools to weave our community magic, and eight-hour work day is a thing of the past. If I’m adding students on Facebook at 10PM and writing on their wall and joining groups they’ve asked me to join, I’m still at work.

The problem for me is that I *love* my job. I have no desire to turn off the lights at 5pm and ignore all of it until 8am the next day. It’s not how I function. I’m constantly connected, constantly interacting (unless I’m sleeping, but that doesn’t count – and actually my iPhone is about 1.5 feet from my bed during that time as well and if I wake up in the middle of the night, the first thing I do is check email and twitter), and I love that. I love social networking and community building.

Now, if I’m not at my desk at 4PM because I have to run my very active and athletic 14-year old to practice, is that still frowned upon? Is it still a bad thing to “leave work early” when in fact, I never leave work at all.

What’s an eight hour work day look like? I have no idea. I can’t remember.. it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.

Social networking for teens

I took my 14-year old to the local office supply store today to get her school supplies. She’s going to be a freshman in high school this year so she needed the usual: binders, folders, pencils, pens, and notebook paper.

As we were walking to the check-out line, I saw a huge poster near the copy/print area of the store that announced the “Social Networking Cards” you could have printed there. There was a teenager on the poster and the sign said something to the effect of “Let everyone know where you are”. I have to say that I was slightly surprised to see it. I guess I just thought that teens already knew the online communities they all belonged to and wouldn’t need to announce it with cards, but maybe not.

The more I work with social networking and the ways to let everyone know “where we are” the more I think these little cards are a great idea. I do think that we’ll make some for World Campus to hand our staff and students and let them know what we’re up to and where they can connect with us online if they choose to do so. It’s one thing to just say “we’re on Facebook, twitter, Second Life, YouTube, and Flickr” but it’s quite another to hand someone a cute little card that bridges the gap between on and offline connections.

Collaboration

I spent yesterday (yes I know I didn’t do my blog post yesterday, I’m making up for that now) in an all-day session reflecting on the past year in my organization and talking about where to go from here. Apparently one of our focuses for the upcoming year is “Collaboration”. Imagine that.

I think that those of us heavily involved in online communities have been collaborating for years, so it was nice to see that was a theme for our organization this year, but I wonder what that really means to the organization as a whole.

I’m quite sure that for some people “Collaboration” means that they’ll try to work a little better with the person beside them, or down the hall, or in another area of the department and don’t get me wrong.. we need to do that. We all – *ALL* – need to make an effort to be a little nicer, a little kinder, and a little more caring in our daily lives, myself included. I do think, however, that the idea of collaboration goes far beyond our cubicle walls and extends outside our building, university, town and state.

Every day that I think about the friendships, connections and relationships I’ve built just over the past year in online community I try to imagine what it would be like if that sense of ‘belonging’ and desire to work together encompassed the entire world. Can you imagine what it would be like if the whole world was on twitter? (We’d see that fail whale a lot, no doubt)

Imagine someone from a small country saying they needed medical supplies. How quickly would those supplies arrive from someone in another country that had the means and desire to provide and help? The collaboration we’re seeing in our local online communities are just the smallest, tiniest ripple of what we truly could do if everyone was connected.

Let’s collaborate with the world.

Connections

Technology is a wonderful, beautiful, amazingly powerful thing. I get crazy excited about the thought of getting a new computer, a fancy hot laptop or a new iPhone. I love iPods, flash drives, external hard-drives, etc. If it’s new and somehow related to technology.. I want it.

Using technology without people though.. is pointless. All of the technologies and tools that I love, are all about connecting people and learning from each other. Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Second Life, IRC, etc, etc, etc. Without the people.. there’s nothing.

The power of these tools is in the people it connects. If I can meet you and talk to you, I start to learn from you. I start to understand how someone can think differently or do things in a way I hadn’t thought of previously. We start to connect and learn from each other and then maybe there’s a personal connection. Maybe you look at my Flickr stream and see photos of my children or friends, or cupcakes I’ve made, and now that professional connection has stepped outside the lines into a personal connection. Now there’s a new level to the conversation and it continues to expand and grow.

I’ve been connecting with people online for many, many years now. It started in a BBS and IRC and has continued changing and adapting through the years. The technology keeps changing but one thing always remains constant.. the people.

Change

There’s a lot of talk lately about a topic that I love: Change.

We’re hearing politicians talk about change, educational institutions are having discussions about changing thinking and being more ‘open’ and we’re even hearing about all of the change that’s happened in China recently as part of the the Olympics coverage.

I thrive on change. I love switching things around and seeing what happens. I love new things, new perspectives and experimentation. Change is GOOD for me.. when I’m in control of it and/or know that it will happen. I think that’s the key.

If I’m going along and then people change the plan on me out of nowhere, I will freak out. I will completely lose all sense of self and stability and it will take me a long time to become centered again and feel like I’m going in the right direction. If, however, I am aware that change is on the horizon and know to be prepared for it, and have some of idea of how this change will affect me.. then everything is good.

I think that our social technologies are all about change. They help us see things differently, they provide us with new perspectives and hopefully help us make new connections. I think maybe we should work harder to not only tell people about these things, but show them how to use them, and explain how these tools can make a difference. Show them how to embrace the change and move forward. It’s one thing to go around telling people to “Drink the Kool-Aid”, but it’s quite another to take the time to explain and show them how the tools work and how using them has the potential to change things.