Wednesday Caption - SOPA and PIPA special

There is a lot of debate over SOPA (the “Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (the “Protect Intellectual Property/IP Act”) which are in the process of being perhaps put through in USA. I thought I'd throw in my tuppence worth over here in London by taking joe adams' image from Flickr (which could be blacklisted as a result of the legislation) and using it for this weeks Wednesday Caption.

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. Basically I went on holiday and Nick moved house. We could have updated but hey, it was Christmas. We ate - and didn't drink alcohol!

What do you think about it all?

Image by joe adams

Here is a great video explaining it all.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

How To Create Social Media Accounts

A client is taking the long term view of social media and making a brave and sensible step in encouraging all of their marketing people to get accounts on the main social media sites where they don't have them already, and to use them to engage on behalf of the organisation.  Accompanying this is training, coaching and policies and guidelines on how to use the various sites & tools.

We will be doing the training. The people attending will have been encouraged to set up their accounts beforehand.  We wish to offer them advice on what they should consider, before setting up the accounts on say Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Foursquare, YouTube & Flickr.

My initial thoughts are below.  I'd be interested in your views - whether additions or corrections.

1. If you haven't seen the site you are signing up to before, take a look, see what people share, how they call themselves (usernames) and what images (avatars) they use to identify themselves.
2. What username do you want?  It makes sense, unless you have specific reasons to not want to do this, to have the same name on each social media domain? e.g. mine is nickodoherty on most sites.  But nowadays most common names have been taken.  Simple ways to create an identity that people will identify as you, but that are less likely to be taken are: 
   1. Replace letters by numbers in your name. So my user-id on most sites is nickodoherty, but I could replace i by 1, and o by 0 and come up with n1ck0d0herty. Replacing e by 3, s by 5 also work. 
   2. Use a phrase with your name e.g. nickthebeekeeper or kentishnick. 
   3. Embed your name in other letters e.g. xxnickodxx.  
   4. There are still many ways you can include your real name in a user-id.  Or you can choose a complete pseudonym in e.g. pinknebulae, drybeer. goforth 
   5. In all cases keeping the user name: short - less than ten characters ideally; long lasting - something that you won't quickly outgrow and want to change; and hard to spell wrong. 
   6. Practical implications are: a)  that you may want to have the account setup screens for each site open in separate windows and get to the point of finding whether a username is available on each of them before commiting on any. 
   7. Having chosen a preferred username are there acceptable variants, if for instance the preferred names is available on all but one site e.g. in my case  I might accept a variant on that one site such as odohertynick, n1ckodoherty, nickpodoherty
3. What avatar or physical representation do you want to have?  In some cases, like LinkedIn a photo is recommended but not demanded.  Something that people who know you will associate with you is sensible, say a chess piece if you are a chess player.  My business partner Cormac uses this avatar, but has started using a photo with avatar embedded on sites or in situations where a photo makes sense.
   
4. If you have a work email and a home email it might be an idea to set up a separate email account for social media domains because:
   
   1. the volume of stuff that might come through depending on your account settings might be annoying in the other email accounts.
   2. some sites e.g. Flickr demand that you sign in with a Yahoo id, Facebook or a Google account.  If you don't have any of these, it will offer to set you up with a Yahoo id (email account) which you don't have to use for email but will have to use to sign in to Flickr in the future.
      
   3. If you are going to have an additional email account because of Flickr, then it might be better to make a conscious choice between Yahoo and Google.  I wouldn't advise on using Facebook ids to sign into other social media domains until the current situation on Timelines and "forced sharing" is better understood.  I have both a Yahoo id and a Google account, and the Yahoo id is the email address for my Google account.  Strange and with forethought I might have done differently, but it works.
      
5. Order of setting up accounts: if you do not have a Google account, you will need one for Google+, and can use it to sign into Flickr, it can be based on a Google email address (Google email account is separate from Google account) any other email account.  So the initial decision is really about whether you want a separate email account for social media. Once you have decided, I'd suggest setting up a Google account 
6. Most social media accounts request a small biography have a look to see what others have provided and having something prepared that you can cut an paste in.  Keep it short.
7. On some sites you will be asked to make initial decisions about how your posts will be treated.  If in doubt, choose the most restrictive to begin with.  So on Flickr, you can make the photos you share there available for all to see, or friends to see or just you to see.  You can relatively easily change this decision later. So why not start with friends as the default.
8. In most cases on starting a new account with these sites, the site asks if it can look through your address book for friends who are already there. It is safe to say yes, the sites above do not automatically request a connection. You have the final say. It is always useful to have a few people as "friends" or "connections" or "in circles" just to see how that aspect of it works from the beginning - so we will be recommending to our client contact that he makes his accounts availabel in this way for the first week of this activity.
9. For more information on setting up accounts on these sites, look here
   1. Creating a Google account Youtube video
   2. Facebook  Youtube video
   3. Twitter  Youtube video
   4. LinkedIn Blogpost
   5. Google+  Youtube video
   6. YouTube  Youtube video
   7. Flickr  - Youtube videos

Case Study: How Social Media can help a Racecourse Events Planner

Most racecourses have 20 or so racing events a year, the rest of the time the facilities are available, but are not used for racing.  The Events or Conference Team at a racecourse help to ensure that the mainly fixed assets are offering a return for more than 20-30 days a year. The following is generic advice to these teams on how to get the most from Social Media:

Listen

The key strength needed to get benefits from Social Media is to listen. Listen to what people are looking for, listen to when they are looking for it. Social Media can help you find people who are looking for venues for events.  Persistent search or RSS can help increase your capacity for listening.

Image by Jim Callender

Join in the conversation

If you have found people who seem to have a need that you can meet, then talk with them. Explore, exchange, have a conversation. If you are new to Social Media, a note of caution, be certain that you are talking with them, not broadcasting - there is a great difference.

Tell people about what you can offer.

Anyone who has a service or goods to sell should be blogging. Blogging is the best way of telling people about what you have to offer. The trick is knowing what to say and keeping it relevant.  Give some ideas about who else has used the racecourse for an event, get them to talk about how it went, share photographs and video. Use Flickr, YouTube and Facebook fan pages to let people know of events that have taken place, and events planned. Get onto Twitter if your target demographic are likely to be using it.

Use your Networks

"Social Network" is not just a funky name, it's an approach that is changing the face of business every day. Chances are that if you are not using your social networks then you are a step behind. Perhaps the biggest network available to racecourse events teams after the satisfied previous customers are the visitors to the racecourse race meetings.  They have seen the racecourse at its best, but may not have thought of it as a place to host their next event.  How can you connect with them?

Reboot Britain 2009 From The Other One

Image by: 13bobbyAfter the introductions, welcomes and fire alarm instructions  Jonathan Kestenbaum of NESTA set the scene and explained what the conference was about.

The need for radical transformation of the UK analogous to switching off and on a PC that has started to slow down and behave irrationally. Jonathan said that he now understood what was meant by a perfect storm (and we had one coming up) as:

• A bankrupt public purse is being challenged to meet the rising expectations of the public.
• Society has found new ways of self organising.
• No shortage of ingenuity on the Internet.

Jeremy Hunt MP started the substantive discussion.  To begin with I wasn't sure whether to be more mesmerised by his ability to speak lucidly on social networking without notes, or the fact that for ten minutes he was so even handed in his scarification of government and all parties' use of the digital tools available to them that it was hard to tell which party he represented.  Mentioning Farnham was a clue.

I attended two sessions on the application of technology to learning.  The first from Playgen was interesting and the presenter, Kam Star, did a good job of outlining the value of games as a learning tool that added value by delivering a hands-on feel. The examples of games developed for particular purposes or organisations highlighted the learning potential. For instance what do you think of the government's flood protection policy.  The answers given after playing a game where you managed these resources for ten years differed considerably from those given before. Dawn Hallybone a teacher at Oakdale Junior School  bubbled over with excitement, and completely swayed the audience with her infectious enthusiasm,  as she described the use of games to engage and to enable pupils to learn.  When good behaviour is rewarded with extra time learning (using these games) you know that you are at a different kind of school. She described how using the games improved results however measured, and how the results convinced her initially reluctant head mistress, converting her to an evangelist to game based learning.  See Guardian article.

Image by: oddsocksMartha Lane Fox (Lastminute.com founder and now the government's New Champion for Digital Inclusion) talked about the digital divide in the UK.  Those without good access to the Internet tended to be the economically poorest or the oldest.  But whilst access to tools and networks  and skills to use them were two of the primary barriers to equality, a frequently overlooked factor is motivation. However, Martha told a pertinent story of visiting a day centre where old people were shown how to use the technology and why.  A lady, most of whose family had left for another country was introduced to the web stuff primarily via Skype where she could talk to her grand-children for free, and Flickr where she could browse their photo albums.  With this motivation to get started she was open to learning more. And as she said "You go back and tell them, duckie.  Giving us access to this stuff saves money.  If I couldn't come here and use this stuff I'd be in an old people's home."

Charles Armstrong of Trampoline Systems gave a great demonstration of new open source software One Click Orgs aimed at making easier the creation and management of groups and their establishment as legal entities, e.g charities or beekeeping associations. The sartorially relaxed Charles showed how the software would enable virtual engagement with little or no need for (regular) physical meetings.  The software enabled a constitution to be created, membership to be managed, and decisions voted on and recorded, according to whatever rules were agreed.  One consequence of this approach not discussed was the impact on "the committee", aspects of which become largely redundant, in particular the role of Chair and Secretary.

I also attended the Towards an Interactive Charter session.  Neither Cormac or I wanted to miss it.  Whilst the intent of the session was to focus on Government and why they were not using the interactive / social tools for greater effectiveness, a lot of the delegate discussion was talking about business, in particular large organisations.  The view from the floor seemed to be that many large organisations were no better than government.  Tim Davies' 50 hurdles to government take up of  this technology are relevant, but seemed to overlook a more fundamental issue that Cormac has referred to in his review, that the most senior levels do not "get it". I have a more cynical view that some of these do get it, but do not need it themselves because they are there already, and have no intention of increasing the chances of being asked to leave before their due time. Providing potential upstarts with them means to be more effective is not in their interests.  As Martha Lane Fox said earlier in another context motivation is key.   One speaker from the floor got a laugh by pointing out that this issue is not new. "Ten years ago we were being told that this new technology - email had no place in government.  That if introduced people would be using it all the time and there'd be no time for real work ...." which many people would agree was an astute observation.  Tom Watson MP promised to raise awareness of the outcome of the charter once developed.

I ended the day with a long session with the developer Stan Stalnaker founder of Hub Culture and Ven - the social media alternative currency.  Stan has views about how business will operate in the new economy and how people will operate.  Stan expounds the P2P approach that Groundswell also develops.  That in the near future we will operate increasingly People to People with less need for large organisations. One interesting aspect of the session was the use of a wiki called the Hub.  It seems a functional and easy to use wiki as was demonstrated by real time use as the group brainstormed ideas for applying the P2P  concepts to big issues like Democracy, Public Services, Health and the Economy.  The real interest however was in the easy facilitation by Stan of a discussion that did raise interesting ideas about how Britain could be rebooted. One of the few sessions were ideas were being generated as opposed to being reported.

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Handy Links

• Nick's Review on Bright Beehive
• Reboot Britain schedule
• Google's Blog Search for Reboot Britain
• Flickr's tagged photos of rebootbritain
• Horward Rheingold's mentions in Twitter for Reboot Britain
• List of attendees ordered by first name by Tebbo

Reboot Britain 2009

Reboot Britain saw a 700 strong bunch of social media crew congregate in Institute of Electrical Engineers on Monday 6th July 2009. Organised by NESTA the idea was to see how social computing can be used to reboot the British economy. As the sessions were running concurrently Nick and I decided to split up for most of the day's events in order to take in as much as possible. Reboot Britain Through The Medium Of LEGO! It was very much a politically themed event with the Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt stating his case for the Conservative party being a political party which is more in favour of decentralising which is what this stuff is all about - it helps small companies, voluntary organisations etc. He argued that government expenditure of over £25k should be transparent on the web. When the whole expenses thing broke out I tweeted (as I am sure many others did to) that we should have a real-time feed of all expenses that are being filed. This would have to bring about more "bang for your buck". I floated in and out of a few things at the start with people telling me nothing new mostly based around why working collaboratively is such a great idea. There was a session on banking where Kris Jenkins from Bullion Vault sold his company quite well. It allows people to buy gold which is stored in some Swiss warehouse and which holds its value pretty strongly. I thought it was an interesting model. I only caught the end of Mick Fealty aka Slugger O'Toole's chairing of The Stalemate and thought he did a great job of collecting four very intricate questions and then having his panel answer them in under five minutes. That was one of the most impressive things for me all morning. There was a social LEGO stall in the coffee area. A lady beside me, Laura Hyde from Chain Reaction, explained that the idea was to get people to make things out of LEGO that we think would help reboot Britain. This was collaboration on many different levels. The lunch was amazing. It was good to see Jeremy Gould who I met once before and have since got to know him much better via his online presence. I met Jeremy when he was nearing the end of his tether in Whitehall so when Tim Davies delivered his 50 Small Hurdles to Online Engagement in Government it was funny to see Jeremy exclaim "Why didn't I do this a year ago?".  (Check out more at http://www.interactivecharter.org.) I felt during the Interactive Charter session that there is a definite "them and us" mentality when it comes to this stuff. The guffaws of incredulity of the other side just not getting it and being so far behind. To be honest it reminded me of the mentality of Northern Ireland politics. In order for anyone to progress you must find the common ground with your opposition. Then you have to build on that. I think that there are too many in this area of the webby world that are unsympathetic to the "misgivings" of the other side. That for me needs to be addressed as much as "them not getting it".That shirt is clashing real bad with your shoes A big problem with the event was the technological infrastructure - or lack of. The wifi was very flaky but it wasn't just the attendees that were suffering, Lee Bryant had to deliver his entire presentation without slides due to the "entire building" requiring a reboot. Lee was urging us to build our own infrastructures and was particularly critical of the government.  They need to focus on doing more with less - fund smaller innovative projects rather than throwing money away on projects with the companies they outsourced to then turning the problem back on the government. A comment I particularly loved around call centres being a system where companies pay a bunch of people a whole load of money for to get your customers to actively hate you. Howard Rheingold was the highlight of the event for me. He delivered a bunch of info which I tweeted. Here's a better synopsis:

• We have to go beyond skills and focus on literacies. It's not enough having the equipment, it's knowing what to do with it. "We have to be a detective these days" he said. Funny but a coder told me that back in 2000 when I was dealing with the UNSUBSCRIBES of the Spice Girls' mailing list.
• RSS and Twitter are not a queue they are a flow. I have been telling people that you have to see Twitter as a rainfall and it's up to you to look at the raindrops.
• Social capital as "knowing how to get things done without going through official channels."
• If you don't take the risk of failure you won't be able to achieve things.
• You can download HR's socialmediaclassroom.com for free.
• YouTube & Digg = http://www.youbama.com/ - a product of a student of @hrheingold
• "Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him."Ernest Hemingway, 1954 Read Rheingold's post on Crap Detection 101
• Crowdsourcing the filter is worth looking at if you want to filter out the crap.
• Schools need to rethink their structures and ways of working. There is no backrow in a circle - this was tweeted quite heavily.
• Schools are places where we park our kids when we go to work.
• One of Rheingold's instructions was that only 3 kids were allowed to take notes on the wiki. The rest had to add after the lesson. Nice.
• Another of Rheingold's instructions to his classes was "5 of you can take notes on laptops but if a 6th laptop opens then all of you must close your laptops." This enhances collaboration from the outset.
• Can't help but think that these kids are going to be so frustrated when they hit the "real world" of business.
• HR's shoes are clashing with his shirt real bad :'( Nice belt though :)

After the event a lot of us headed to the RSA for some free drinks laid on by BSCE the sponsor who then proceeded to thank people before handing the (barely working) mic over to Dan Hannan MEP. It was a long day and I didn't fancy listening to another Tory M(of any)P spouting politics, however, he was good...really good. He discarded the mic and commanded the audience like a young Christy Moore did as Mick Fealty put it. Hannan explained with great passion that it's so easy for us now to buy a car on eBay yet to get a driver's licence on the web is practically an impossibility. It's not that the government is any less crap than it used to be, they are operating at the same crapness. It's just that we as a world have moved on but they have stayed still. And it's not just Labour and the Tories that needs to step up to this plate. It's all parties. "Do you know which political party gets the most hits on the web? The BNP!" Sobering end to the day.

Handy Links

• Nick's Review of Reboot Britain
• Reboot Britain schedule
• Google's Blog Search for Reboot Britain
• Flickr's tagged photos of rebootbritain
• Horward Rheingold's mentions in Twitter for Reboot Britain
• List of attendees ordered by first name by Tebbo

Two Blog Or Not Two Blog?

I have been blogging since the time when blogging required you to hardcode a page in HTML. Whilst it is true that blogging tools have made the physical process easier, there are other factors which still need consideration. Online identity is a serious thing. Our online identity is not only our Google results, our CV or our street-cred - it's who we are and, more sombrely, our epitaph. We really ought to give our online presence careful consideration in every respect.

In the past I have been very experimental with my online image. I used to update my Facebook profile picture a number of times a week - mostly whilst on holiday! In the end I decided that I was spending more time than I was prepared to give and ended up with the avatar that I use today. (Go here for fuller explanation.) Now I am facing a new dilemma: blogging in two different places.

When I was setting up my blog I took some advice from Euan Semple. I was of the opinion that I ought to have two blogs: one for business and one for pleasure. When I asked Euan why he had only one blog he explained very simply "It all comes from the same place. My head is all jumbled up with all kinds of stuff so why separate it?" I took his point and my head and shoved it all into the one blog, itiswhatever.com. Now my dilemma is different as I need to draw attention to my work blog in order to generate traffic and hopefully some work. Let's not kid ourselves, we're all at it - we are all blogging, and we are all blogging in different places, different styles with different people. When I upload new photos to Flickr or comment on my cousin's holiday photos in Facebook I have just updated my online presence, and therefore blogged. And I don't even need to mention how I micro-blog in Twitter. I am now embracing the opportunity of blogging in different areas (but with one avatar!) Footnote: When I was in PwC I was blogging in two places anyway as I had my own internal blog in which I posted some very useful information that could be used by the whole organisation. As I said, your online presence is your epitaph.

The key Social Computing engagement points

LinkedIn	Social networking for professionals. A great resource for the individual and increasingly for the organisation. Users can manage their image and their network . Organisations can use it for recruiting, headhunting, alumni management, professional advice e.g. on sourcing niche suppliers. All organisation should be aware of it and like sites.
Facebook	The biggest Social Networking site with over 200M users. Some organisations have tried and failed, and some have succeeded at banning access to Facebook from their internal networks on the basis that staff spend too much time on the site. However some recent research suggests that dipping in and out of the site increases productivity. Other organisations are beginning to develop a presence on Facebook, for recruitment purposes, to promote products, or to publish information. Of particular interest to organisations dealing with consumers, or with a large recruitment requirement.
YouTube	YouTube is, but not just, a video sharing website. It has been successfully used for viral marketing; staff training; consumer engagement in many ways, not least using their videos on how to get the best from your products, and the dialogue that usually ensues from any posting. With YouTube you have free hosting of content, ease of use and great statistics on who is accessing the videos. Barack Obama famously has his own YouTube channel which he uses to inform his subscribers as well as welcoming their videos for feedback. Today he has over 172,000 subscribers and his channel has had over 21 million hits.
Flickr	Flickr is, but not just, a site to share photographs and short video clips. Many organisations have encouraged people to publish interesting photos of their photographs. Again the dialogue that follows have given insights to the organisation whilst presenting them in a more human light.
Twitter	The ultimate elevator pitch. What can you say in less than 140 characters? Used by business folk to find out what is happening before the press publish it. To get access to what is happening in conferences before the speaker has sat down. To stay abreast of the important publications on-line, and all important publications are online now. Variants can be used as an intra-organisation tool with benefit if you are big enough. Try it for a week.
Second Life	A virtual world populated by images that people wish to project of themselves. You can do most of the things in the virtual world that you can in the real world - but you can experiment with things that you wouldn't try in real life. For business it offers huge opportunities for training, for development through role playing and for a different kind of meeting. As the interface to Second Life becomes more sophisticated it will provide an even more compelling environment for gaming, training, and interacting with people who are geographically dispersed.
Community Spaces	Forums and community spaces were the fore-runners of the current social computing tools. In various forms these have been around for over 20 years. The primary functionality offered was the threaded discussion - someone posts an opinion or question and others reply. The functionality of a community space can be provided by a group blog.
Blogs	Blogs are short for Weblogs. This highlights their origins as an online diary, originally used by research scientists to log their work so that they could rapidly find others working on the same topic and collaborate. Easy to set-up, they require discipline to keep updated. Blogs work better when the identity of the writer is not hidden behind a corporate screen. For a larger business a question to address is will you have one or many? Search engines love blogs, so if you want online publicity for your organisation - Blog!
Wikis	A wiki is a document with many pages where each page can be worked on simultaneously by a different author. A wiki is a website. So whilst pages can be structured like a book the power of links means that you can navigate through the pages in different ways. The power of the wiki is best exemplified by Wikipedia an online encyclopedia that competes for volume and accuracy of entries with Britannica. As a tool it is a great way for companies to harness the collective knowledge of their employees and potentially of their customers.
Social Bookmarking	This enables our favourite websites or documents to be shared widely, within or beyond the organisation. This knowledge sharing tool can be extremely powerful and some large organisations are claiming millions of pounds worth of saving annually through its use.
RSS	RSS is persistent search. You keep getting updates, to your question, or from sites of interest. RSS enables you to get regular updates from the insightful journalists, authors and bloggers that you enjoy reading. Carefully selected they enhance the likelihood of you finding answers before others have formulated the question. More prosaically you can use it to be informed when your company is being talked about and to become aware of news that will impact your company if you can articulate what is important.
Podcasts	Podcasts are audio or video recordings - mini radio or TV programmes, that you can subscribe to. Your PC or other device is notified when a new podcast is available, and downloads it to yout PC, phone or MP3 player for you to listen to at your leisure. Current business uses are primarily as a marketing channel externally and for training internally.

Beekeeping And Social Computing

I am new to beekeeping and decided to build a hive from a flatpack kit, mainly to get a deeper appreciation of what the hive is about.  It took 12 hours to build a workable hive - making the base, the "lifts", the roof, the "supers" and each of about 40 individual brood or honey frames. Instructions to build a frameThe instructions were good(ish) - but output oriented as opposed to "how to". However there were so many repetitive tasks where I eventually found a more effective way to do it than the way I started.  If I had started the way I ended up doing it, I think the build time would have been closer to 8 hours. I volunteered to write up an article on my experience for my local beekeping association - passing on a few of those tips, to save the next person, or maybe a future me, those hours.  But what an application for Social Computing: maybe an entry in a beekeeping wiki; definitely a candidate for a YouTube entry, particularly for those lifts that the instructions said push together, but where I found a large rubber mallet to be the only way to get the joints together.  You really need to see it to believe that this is the right approach :-)  Flickr photos to show the angle of attack to put the fiddly little tacks into the frames so that they did not poke out the other side. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - I did not think of this in the excitement of getting the flatpack hive delivered.  Actually I did not know this approach would be of use until well into construction, and by then I just wanted to finish, not least so that it would be ready to accept a swarm. The idea of applying some social computing tools to make this task easier is still valid, but now I have to wait until someone else has a flatpack kit ready to assemble.  Then I can annotate my first draft wiki article with photos and videos of intermediate stages, so others can learn and then augment that learning. It is a mindset thing - I think of how to apply social computing when "at work",  but when in home or rural mode it is not the first thing to cross my mind, nor "has anyone else done this already?" :-(