UPDATE: About 45 minutes after posting this article, I (like a million other people around the world) learned via Twitter that Osama bin Laden had been killed. That was about 45 minutes ahead of President Obama’s official announcement. Compare The New York Times' writeup on how the news leaked out with Australian Broadcasting Corp's Storify version to get a feel for the curation tool’s ability to provide context in an entertaining way and help readers make sense out … [Read more...]
Archives for 2011
State Department Abandons Cold War Mindset!
April 26, 2011 by
I was greatly relieved to learn the U.S. Department of State is recalibrating its public diplomacy efforts toward social media and finally abandoning its Cold War mindset. As part of these efforts, America.gov, an ambitious public diplomacy portal launched during the Bush years, has been shut down. According to The Hill: A message on the front page of America.gov informs visitors that, as of March 31, the site is not being updated and will be archived. A notice … [Read more...]
Social Media & Measurement: Elusive But Not New
April 23, 2011 by
Microsoft Director of Corporate Communications for Citizenship Tom Murphy recently wrote a thought-provoking blog post on how social media is clearly important but not the end of public relations and marketing as we know it. "We should all embrace social media where it is useful, makes sense and has a practical use, but the baby needs to remain safely in the bath," he wrote. I am completely with him about embracing and mobilizing social media to support your … [Read more...]
Future Is in Creating Strategies, Not Copying Tactics
April 18, 2011 by
How not to react to social media is found in a famous exchange between Alice and the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.” It might seem obvious that you must know where you’re going to get anywhere. But because social … [Read more...]
HOW TO: 10 Ways to Engage ‘Luddites’ in Social Media
April 10, 2011 by
As more organizations decide to open up and join the Web 2.0 interaction revolution, some will flounder or even fail at it. Why? You need to get enough of your organization on board to really scale. Problems are inevitable if you can't inspire the technophobic "luddites" within your organization (Late Majority and Laggards on the Rogers Adoption Curve) to adapt. Distributing social media policies, mandating use of wikis or collaborative planning software, etc. … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Treesaver & Accessibility
April 1, 2011 by
My April 2011 video clip of the month features a pre-release demonstration of the free open source dynamic publishing platform Treesaver. Online publications created with Treesaver automatically adjust to the size of any screen (you've got to see it in action). Treesaver is a lot like the Flipboard iPad app except it's built with web standards—HTML, CSS, and Javascript. That means you can just design a publication once and the same code will work on any device … [Read more...]
40 Tweet Gems from NEMA’s #SMEM Camp
March 25, 2011 by
After participating in the Emergency Social Data Summit remotely last summer (see my 30 Tweet Gems from Emergency Social Data Summit wrap-up post, I was thrilled to learn the public was invited to attend the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) Social Media in Emergency Management (SMEM) Camp yesterday in Alexandria, Va. I signed up as soon as I cleared the date. Why? Of all the ways social media can make a positive difference in the lives of ordinary … [Read more...]
Mobile the ‘Missing Link’ in Revolution 2.0 Debate
March 22, 2011 by
"I'll send you the email tomorrow when I have power. We're in a brownout," a volunteer I was coordinating with in Kenya tweeted in a direct message to me using her cell phone. The exchange (for one of my non-profit clients) brought home for me the "missing link" I think many are missing in the debate over social media's role in the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. To connect to Revolution 2.0, you don't need a computer. You don't even need electricity. All … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Be a Good Twitter Citizen During a Crisis
March 13, 2011 by
In the wake of Japan's earthquake and tsunami disaster, a handful of pranksters elected to play on fears and launch hoax tweets, fooling thousands if not millions. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokemon, become a Trending Topic yesterday on Twitter after Twitter user @xCyrusAndLovato tweeted "The creator of Pokemon died today in the #tsunami, #Japan. RIP: Satoshi Tajiri. #prayforjapan." It turned out to be one of many online rumors, some more harmless than … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Andy Carvin & News Curation
March 1, 2011 by
My March 2011 video clip of the month is a PBS News Hour interview of Andy Carvin, (@acarvin), National Public Radio's social media guru, on how he used Twitter to curate social media to turn himself into a "real time wire service" for the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. I chose the video because Carvin’s work curating the news provides a hint of what news and information management can look like in an increasingly networked world. From a cubicle in Washington, … [Read more...]
Google Tests Crowdsourcing Search Result Quality
February 19, 2011 by
Did news of J.C. Penney successfully gaming Google to deliver its website No. 1 search results disgust you? How about news of the New York eyewear merchant who used cyberbullying to get top Google rankings and more business? Now you—and the wisdom of the crowd—can take matters into your own hands to stop content farms and websites using shady black-hat search engine optimization (SEO) methods from appearing high in Google search results. Thanks to an … [Read more...]
Egypt and the Rise of the Social Media ‘Swarm’
February 11, 2011 by
Last May I wrote that "we are on the verge of a massive shift in the way we communicate and inspire action." As I watch jubilant Egyptians in the video below celebrating the resignation of their 82-year-old former president, I think I can safely say that paradigm shift has arrived. The leaderless Revolution 2.0 in Egypt, and earlier in Tunisia, illustrate how powerfully social media can be used to galvanize real action in the real world. Social media contributed … [Read more...]
Using Social Media for Emergency Response
February 5, 2011 by
You've got to check out this fascinating video of Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), explaining why his agency plans to engage the public more in disaster response via mobile phones and social media. "A government-centric abroad to solving disaster problems will fail in a catastrophic disaster," he says. "It is a brittle system that does not have the resiliency that we have when we can incorporate the rest of the team: … [Read more...]
HOW TO: Top 10 Social Media Tips for Online Success
February 5, 2011 by
Today’s reality is that your organization needs to be on social media. You can no longer rely on issuing press releases and keeping your website up to date to get your message out. You must proactively lead conversations and participate in stories using Internet- and mobile-based social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. To successfully start and maintain your social media presence, however, you need to know what works and what doesn’t. … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Creating a New Narrative
February 1, 2011 by
My February 2011 video clip of the month features the founders of the nonprofit Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony" or "witness") discussing the revolutionary free and open source software they created for crowdsourcing and democratising information. If you haven't been following Ushahidi and crisis mapping, you've got to check the video out. The Ushahidi story is amazing. Ushahidi collects eyewitness reports sent in by e-mail and SMS/cellphone, allowing "everyone … [Read more...]
Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS feed