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August 27, 2009
Twitter 101
If you need help understanding Twitter, the folks at Twitter would like to help you out. So they've created a web guide that explains it all to you.
For a different perspective, there's an interesting New York Times article about who uses Twitter (hint: It's not teenagers).
Gotta go tweet now.
Posted by Alison Davis at 03:18 PM
August 24, 2009
How cool! Video in a print publication
Broadcast network CBS has come up with a very cool concept for attracting attention for its fall season: embedding a video in the September 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly so that readers can see a preview of the lineup of new shows.
A two-inch screen starts playing as the page flips open; characters from the show “The Big Bang Theory” tell how to use the technology to view sneak peeks of “Two and A Half Men,” “Accidentally on Purpose” and the network’s drama show lineup. the speaker is located below the screen. There’s also an ad for Pepsi Max (Pepsi co-sponsored the ad).
Technology was developed by a company called Americhip: The screen can play about 40 minutes of video and the battery last 56 to 70 minutes without needing to be recharged.
CBS did not reveal how much the ad costs, but is limiting its distribution to New York and Los Angeles markets.
Wouldn't it be cool if we could include video in future editions of our print publications?
Posted by Alison Davis at 02:34 PM
August 21, 2009
Where in the world is John Adams?
Last time, I wrote a blog about a fascinating Twitter feed chronicling a journey of the second U.S. president, John Adams.
Now, an enterprising Tweeter has created a Google map that follows Adams’ progress at sea.
It’s a great example of how visuals bring content to life. The map illustrates how extensive the journey was, and how long it took to travel using wind power in 1809.
Enjoy your weekend!
Posted by Alison Davis at 05:06 PM
August 07, 2009
If John Adams could Tweet, so can your leaders
I’ve led a couple of workshops on social media lately and encountered a number of nervous communicators, HR managers and attorneys. They tell me that social media is risky, because it’s so unstructured.
If you're one of the nervous ones, I recommend this article from yesterday's New York Times. The Massachusetts Historical Society, using the Twitter tag JQAdams_MHS is posting entries from the diary of John Quincy Adams in 1809, when he left Boston to serve as ambassador to Russia.
The Tweets began on August 5, the 200th anniversary of Adams’ departure from the United States; they will continue through the end of the year. Although our second President usually wrote long diary entries, this particular diary is Tweet-worthy, since each entry is no more than a line long. (Adams may have used this book as a reference for other documents.)
Here’s today’s Tweet: 8/7/1809: Fog. No Observation. Spoke a fishing Schooner from Grand Bank, bound to Plymouth. Read Chantreau’s travels.
This isn’t scary; it’s fun. And if John Adams could write Tweet-worthy posts, so can people (even leaders) in your organization.
Posted by Alison Davis at 08:30 AM
August 04, 2009
Is letting people participate really so scary?
You probably know that Davis & Company holds an ongoing series of web workshops (Here's our fall schedule.) Our philosophy about participation can be summed up as follows: Participants get full rights. They chat (and everyone can see what they write). They take part in polls (and we share results). Draw, doodle, annotate. Freely voice their comments or questions (by phone).
But this summer I’ve been presenting for other organizations, where the practices couldn’t be more different. These organizations place all kinds of restrictions on participation:
What’s going on here? When I ask, organizers tend to claim that the reasons they don’t give participants more leeway is because of “time management” or “distractions” or “confidentiality.”
But I detect a whiff of anxiety behind the rational. Here’s what they’re really worried about: What if participants misbehave? What if we lose control? What if something happens that we didn’t plan for?
My response is this: You get what you give. If you run your workshop as a one-way experience, then people will sit there quietly and passively. The trains will run on time, for sure, but the session won’t be dynamic and participative.
If, however, you turn on all the tools and let participants . . . participate, chances are they will. Oh, occasionally, you may get someone who talks too much or doodles while the speaker is speaking or writes something strange in chat. But what’s the harm? It just makes the experience more human and real.
And isn’t that more cool than being completely (and boringly) buttoned down?
Posted by Alison Davis at 04:21 PM | Comments (2)