Jennifr.net: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09
cyberdoyle
· 3 months ago
well said. light blue touch paper and retire. Sighting land Cap'n, land ahoy.
mimangelo
· 3 months ago
Hi Jay Jay,
I don't know if you went to the 'corporate blogging' discussion at 3.30, with Kara Swisher. That was by far the most entertaining and informative of the day, mostly dealing with the politics of setting corporate blog tone and complaint/query response rate. They also finally brought in the potential influence of African bloggers/views enabled by smartphone systems and the Mumbasa broadband cable. Still not revolutionary (or even particularly original), but far far better informed than the stale mumblers hypothesising around the science talk ["We need to get scientists from different areas collaborating via social networks"; "But they're fundamentally shy and don't have time!"; "But we need to get scientists from different areas collaborating via social networks..." rpt. ad nauseam].
All in all, I wanted to say your blog is entirely justified. It was a grandiloquent and poorly-considered waste of time - I almost regret my early-morning train ticket.
Well entertained.
jayjay
· 3 months ago
Thanks for your kind words. It's hard to be open about things like this when you have the Guardian saying the complete opposite (were we at the same event?) - I think you may like this post about the hashtag (http://bit.ly/325lsU) , and Brian Kelly's interesting observations about the lack of social activities pre and post event. Heard a lot of good things about Kara Swisher's discussion (I'm assuming because she didn't get wishy washy or fluffy with the details) - I wish I'd have seen it, but you'd have never got me in a session on corporate blogging from the first impressions (been there, done that - biggest problem, I feel, is trying to get your colleagues on board, and that's enough to put a plug in it) But then again, I didn't learn anything new from the sessions I did choose to go to, so I'd have probably been better off sticking a pin in the programme and picking something random!
I'm glad I went - gives me an idea what to do differently. And it won't take much to try something different! ;-)
AJCann
· 3 months ago
I'd argue that the value you get out of/add to conferences is inversely proportional to the number you attend. In other words, far too many conferences these days, too many "professional conference goers". Want to know why? Hint: follow the money.
jayjay
· 3 months ago
Yeah completely agree. I'm disheartened that I'm only 10 months into this and I've managed to become this cynical. I was expecting at least a year before I started wanting to scream during a conference! ;-)
Ben
· 3 months ago
You mean social media is just like, well.... everything else in normal life?
How soon before it becomes corrupted by business interests? Pay-to-tweet, rival closed-groups, Paid-for followers?
I take it the conference wasn't great then?
jayjay
· 3 months ago
Yeah exactly. If we talked about going to the pub with similar grandeur, we'd all be laughed at. It *can* be incredibly superficial (as a topic) when there isn't any substance to it. It's not hard to add some, just need to case study a tiny little bit of it and then we could actually compare it to other things.
Having a bunch of "experts" sitting around on panels, all of which pretty much agreeing with each other, does not maketh a conference. I assume that most people there weren't present for a social media circle jerk (pardon my expression, but I can't think of anything else to describe Friday) People went to learn something new about the subject that has been dominating mass media for the last year or so. I doubt many got much from it - and I betcha that any one of the panel would have been far more interesting if they were asked to present something a little most substantial about their interests or backgrounds.
There were too many people asking "how do we make money?" - well, it's the same way we've always made money - either hard work and determination and/or exploitation and clever bullshit marketing. I think we're already seeing the examples that you've suggested - but the wonderful, great thing (that nobody mentioned) is that we can ignore it all if we really, really want to. :-)
There are many reasons why online comments are not challenged ;-) I did enjoy reading your tweets on the day - but, criticism is easy, especially in 140 characters in an ephemeral twitter. I'll be impressed to see your constructive, thoughtful alternatives, eg in the case that interests me, to what is already happening in science.
jayjay
· 3 months ago
Hi Maxine - thanks for your comment. I agree, it is easier to criticise (especially online) but when you are at an event, tweeting under your own name, it should be just as easy to challenge - in the break, on the twitter fall (low barrier to entry and all that) -
I doubt I can impress you, as I'm not in your field nor have the experience to challenge in that way(although was very interested in your panel about scientific dissemination - which I did write about briefly in the live blog) - this is something that I don't know much about, but from communicating with several science academics and librarians (and following Ben Goldacre's work) I have a developed an interest in the debate. I'm not qualified enough to really have much to say on that. Will keep following however, in particular anything about open access.
Having put on my own social media topic seminar (http://usesandabuses.wordpress.comhttp://usesandabuses.pbworks.com) - I completely understand how hard and challenging it is to put a conference of this nature. It completely clashes with traditional notions of events - let alone challenging trad media studies. It's almost hypocritical to put a 1 to many event on when we're talking about many to many, interactive cultures- it can make for awkard, conflicting experiences. I had a challenging backchannel who actively critiqued my speakers (some of which had never experienced the backchannel before) - but it showed some fascinating activities - how people deal with it, how it effects the day, what it does to the dynamic of the room etc
I think mainly, I was really looking forward to hearing Oxford's Internet Institute's take on it - and unfortunately I was disappointed. The value is probably proportional to the opinions of the bloggers I have in my network.
All Comments
light blue touch paper and retire. Sighting land Cap'n, land ahoy.
I don't know if you went to the 'corporate blogging' discussion at 3.30, with Kara Swisher. That was by far the most entertaining and informative of the day, mostly dealing with the politics of setting corporate blog tone and complaint/query response rate. They also finally brought in the potential influence of African bloggers/views enabled by smartphone systems and the Mumbasa broadband cable. Still not revolutionary (or even particularly original), but far far better informed than the stale mumblers hypothesising around the science talk ["We need to get scientists from different areas collaborating via social networks"; "But they're fundamentally shy and don't have time!"; "But we need to get scientists from different areas collaborating via social networks..." rpt. ad nauseam].
All in all, I wanted to say your blog is entirely justified. It was a grandiloquent and poorly-considered waste of time - I almost regret my early-morning train ticket.
Well entertained.
Heard a lot of good things about Kara Swisher's discussion (I'm assuming because she didn't get wishy washy or fluffy with the details) - I wish I'd have seen it, but you'd have never got me in a session on corporate blogging from the first impressions (been there, done that - biggest problem, I feel, is trying to get your colleagues on board, and that's enough to put a plug in it) But then again, I didn't learn anything new from the sessions I did choose to go to, so I'd have probably been better off sticking a pin in the programme and picking something random!
I'm glad I went - gives me an idea what to do differently. And it won't take much to try something different! ;-)
How soon before it becomes corrupted by business interests? Pay-to-tweet, rival closed-groups, Paid-for followers?
I take it the conference wasn't great then?
Having a bunch of "experts" sitting around on panels, all of which pretty much agreeing with each other, does not maketh a conference. I assume that most people there weren't present for a social media circle jerk (pardon my expression, but I can't think of anything else to describe Friday) People went to learn something new about the subject that has been dominating mass media for the last year or so. I doubt many got much from it - and I betcha that any one of the panel would have been far more interesting if they were asked to present something a little most substantial about their interests or backgrounds.
There were too many people asking "how do we make money?" - well, it's the same way we've always made money - either hard work and determination and/or exploitation and clever bullshit marketing. I think we're already seeing the examples that you've suggested - but the wonderful, great thing (that nobody mentioned) is that we can ignore it all if we really, really want to. :-)
I did enjoy reading your tweets on the day - but, criticism is easy, especially in 140 characters in an ephemeral twitter. I'll be impressed to see your constructive, thoughtful alternatives, eg in the case that interests me, to what is already happening in science.
I doubt I can impress you, as I'm not in your field nor have the experience to challenge in that way(although was very interested in your panel about scientific dissemination - which I did write about briefly in the live blog) - this is something that I don't know much about, but from communicating with several science academics and librarians (and following Ben Goldacre's work) I have a developed an interest in the debate. I'm not qualified enough to really have much to say on that. Will keep following however, in particular anything about open access.
Having put on my own social media topic seminar (http://usesandabuses.wordpress.com http://usesandabuses.pbworks.com) - I completely understand how hard and challenging it is to put a conference of this nature. It completely clashes with traditional notions of events - let alone challenging trad media studies. It's almost hypocritical to put a 1 to many event on when we're talking about many to many, interactive cultures- it can make for awkard, conflicting experiences. I had a challenging backchannel who actively critiqued my speakers (some of which had never experienced the backchannel before) - but it showed some fascinating activities - how people deal with it, how it effects the day, what it does to the dynamic of the room etc
I think mainly, I was really looking forward to hearing Oxford's Internet Institute's take on it - and unfortunately I was disappointed. The value is probably proportional to the opinions of the bloggers I have in my network.
Thanks!