WebComment

You may have seen our post last week heralding the arrival of Twitter lists and pointing out some of the ones we've created for the Tufts Twitter account. But now that the "OMG! They're here!" factor has died down a bit and people are really beginning to play with the new functionality and figure out what it all means, there are some interesting insights being bandied about.

One of them ties into the notion that the next phase of content management (I say that as a principle, not an application) on the web is content curation. Writing for CNN.com, Mashable founder Pete Cashmore says that Twitter lists are the latest indication of a model moving toward real-time information curation, a role he says that journalists -- perhaps being pushed out of the print model that has dominated up until recently -- are well-equipped to fill.

In the attention economy, wherein the scarce resource is time and the abundant one is content, those who effectively allocate our attention create value. Where value is created, it follows that money can be made. The inevitable outcome: Web curators are not just real-time but full-time. ... Journalists, it would seem, are well-placed to capitalize on the trend, since directing an audience's attention via links is not materially different to editing a newspaper or magazine.

In a similar vein, multimedia journalist Adam Westbrook recently blogged about a new venture, led by London's Headshift, exploring the marriage of social media, journalism and user-generated content using a curation (as opposed to moderation) model. Headshift's Robin Hamman blogged in more detail about the idea, which is currently being demoed at Climate Pulse around the topic of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

In plain English, Climate Pulse basically monitors and aggregates blog posts, news websites, twitter tweets and a wide range of other sources we've configured in the backend. An editor can then curate this content and display it as they wish - for example letting the flow appear as a raw feed, tagging or geo-tagging content, featuring the best stuff, etc.

Though the functionality and the ideas are relatively new, they were put to the test in the journalism world last week in the wake of the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas. Major news organizations, as Poynter explains, used Twitter lists as a means of curating information on the breaking news story in real-time from a variety of sources.

Currently, we try to curate some of the Tufts-related content we find on the social web. It's a rewarding, albeit manual process. It will be exciting to see more tools like this develop as content curation becomes an increasingly popular model of managing and presenting user-generated and social content on the web.

The real-time web continues to evolve and define itself -- and defy definition. Hard to say what will come next, but it's sure keeping us on our toes.

Last week, I attended a brown-bag lunch meeting at the offices of Academic Technology, a group within University Information Technology that provides technological support to learning initiatives on campus. They are an innovative bunch -- just check out their projects (including the suite of applications that powers this blog!) -- and I was excited to sit down and chat with them.

The topic was Twitter, and I talked about my experiences running the @TuftsUniversity account -- successes, failures, lessons learned. We talked about listening in the social space and building community. They are interested in potential applications for Twitter in the classroom, so we brainstormed about ways that might work (e.g. live hashtag stream projected during a lecture, tweets from the field during experiential learning opportunities).

One thing we all agreed on is that Twitter is not an endpoint; rather, it's a model for a new way of communicating, and we have to be prepared to adapt to future iterations of that model as they come down the pike. I am excited to see how models of community-driven, two-way communication on the web will be applied in the classroom, and I am sure the sharp brains in AT will bring some good ideas to the table.

Above all, it's always nice to reach out to other groups around campus and trade experiences and ideas, meet new people and see things from a different perspective. We're all busy at our desks with our tasks at hand, but lunch meetings like this one are great ways to get out of the office, learn something new and develop a relationship.

The wait is over! The @TuftsUniversity Twitter account finally has Lists, Twitter's new tool for organizing and promoting collections of followers. Right now, we've created lists for official university entities, student groups, schools and a list for each campus, but since this is so new, that all may change.

Also, @TuftsUniversity is already listed on nearly 20 lists, mostly those created by members of the Tufts community or other higher ed professionals. Thanks!

It will be cool to see how the use of Lists evolves. Half of what has made Twitter a compelling tool is how the users have hacked what was given to them, so we'll see what the masses make of Lists!

Oh, what will they think of next? In the growing trend of finding ways to get all of our online ducks in a row, Google has unveiled Social Search, which extends the Google gaze on any given topic to all social content -- YouTube videos, blog posts and, yes, even tweets and public Facebook status messages -- created by our contacts.

George Snell over at High Talk has some good observations on this topic -- mainly, are we becoming too dependent on our social circle as information filters? In a similar vein, lots of folks talk about Twitter as an RSS-killer. But as discussed in this space a few months ago, a peer-mediated forum for information on any given topic is no substitute for an unfiltered stream subjected to our individual judgment and discretion.

Here's a thought: What happens when social search expands beyond simply my Google contacts? What if I do a search for a restaurant or a individual on Google and I can see every tweet, yelp or blip on that topic, along with the relevant webpages? The closer we get to a single stream, the more excited I get. But that excitement is tempered by a couple of reminders that the emergence of Social Search brings to the fore.

One reminder is that content published publicly -- no matter if it's a news article on the front page of NYTimes.com or an unprotected tweet -- is out there. Once you hit "share" or "post" or "update," it's out of your hands and it's just currency in the information marketplace. So while we get the benefit of so much more information and perspectives at our fingertips via Social Search, we also have to be mindful of our own contributions to that data pool.

It's also a reminder any given entity is no longer necessarily the prime authority on itself. For people seeking information, there is an increasing number of voices to listen to. The challenge for that entity? Not to speak louder, but to speak better -- and, of course, to keep listening.

A few weeks ago I tossed out a question to the Web Comm staff over email: What are some blogs you like? In other words, what's Web Comm reading?

The answer: A lot. We're a diverse bunch here--developers, writers, editors, managers, administrators, and often several of those at once--and that's reflected in what we read. We're also a little goofy and zany at times (more on that later!). Dump that in an office suite, stir liberally, let stand near a computer, and you get a reading list that looks a bit like this (cue up some background music, please).

If there's one place where everyone's interests converge, it's social media. Mashable, one of the more all-encompassing social media blogs, came up a few times in the responses I received, as did Chris Brogan's blog. Because the very nature of social media is connection and convergence, most of the blogs that cover it do so in combination with one or more other topics, or from a specific perspective. It's hard to talk about social media without talking about the technology behind it or without discussing what it is that people are being social about. Some of the more tech-oriented blogs Web Comm reads--sites like TechCrunch and Web Worker Daily, both mentioned by developers--also have a heavy social media component these days. You just can't talk about communicating on the web, or the nuts and bolts of the web, without talking about social media.

There's also a whole category of blogs about higher education and the web that are popular with Web Comm. The web is the web is the web, you might say, but in higher ed, we work with different constituencies with different information needs and varying levels of technical skill and understanding, and it's helpful--and I'll admit it, at times a good reality check--to read what others in the same boat are doing and thinking about. Georgy, our managing editor, is particularly in tune with this genre of blogs, and collegewebeditor.com, .eduGuru, and Karlyn Morissette's blog are some of the places we turn to for information on trends and innovations in web marketing and communications within higher ed, and for comic relief that sometimes hit a little close to home, more than one person mentioned Tales from Redesignland.

Many of us in Web Comm would identify as journalists or recovering journalists, and even if we weren't, we'd probably follow what's going on in journalism. News organizations, in spite or perhaps because of precarious financial situations, are at the heart of many of the debates about the future of content and communications on the web. I can't start my day without a little doom and gloom from Jim Romenesko at the Poynter Institute, and for heavy thinking about where journalism is going, The Nieman Lab is not to be missed. The Columbia Journalism Review's suite of blogs, including The Kicker, offers an insightful critique of the full spectrum of journalism, and for astute media criticism from a local voice, a lot of us turn to Dan Kennedy's Media Nation (dork moment: we sat next to him at an AEJMC event in Boston in August!). Engaging blogs about the practice of journalism abound, and two of our favorites are Adam Westbrook's blog, which has a focus on multimedia, an area where we're expanding our reach, and the diverse and fascinating 10,000 Words.

You can start reading here if you've been skimming until now because you're just interested in the zany side of Web Comm. Web Comm is a state of mind, as I like to say, and a grab bag of hobbies and interests creates that state of mind. Kaitlin likes The Uniform Project. Teresa doesn't miss Neatorama (exactly what it sounds like!) or Mike Reiss's ESPN blog about the New England Patriots. Georgy and I often greet each other with, "Did you see Passive-Aggressive Notes today?" Web comics like xkcd and Cat and Girl are popular, and the list wouldn't be complete without two of my favorites, Boston.com's first-rate photojournalism showcase The Big Picture and the flashback-inducing We Have Lasers!!!!!!

But... the prize for best answer to my question goes to Mike, one of our developers, who submitted one blog, and one blog only: Upcoming Horror Movies. That, my friends, is Web Comm, and what we are reading.

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event uniting the world's bloggers around the issue of climate change with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Sustainability and environmental awareness are incredibly important issues here at Tufts, and Web Communications is no exception.

Here is a neat little tidbit: Did you know that darker website color schemes can save energy? Mark Ontkush estimates that if the homepage of Google.com went black, we would save 750 megawatt hours per year. Someone even created Blackle, a black-backgrounded version of Google. This information makes us doubly proud of the darker hues that mark the new Tufts.edu, a page that many folks on campus load up daily.

What else can you do? University Information Technology publishes a helpful set of Energy Saving Guidelines for Personal Computers [PDF], with tips on how you can adjust your day-to-day computing habits to save energy.

To complete our Blog Action Day contribution, here are some fun green facts about our office:

• One time, on a summer Friday, six of us wanted to go to Davis Square for lunch. Rather than take two cars, I volunteered to reduce our carbon footprint and ride my bike to and from the restaurant, and a friendly challenge about who would make it there first ensued. I am proud to note that I was both the first person to arrive at the restaurant and the first person to return to the office. Bikes FTW!
• Honorary Web Comm member/actual Photography staffer Joanie is an Eco-Ambassador, so she keeps us in line when it comes to being environmentally friendly.
• We have a fake ficus in our office with Christmas lights on it, but the Christmas lights run on a timer so we don't leave them on overnight. It gives our office cheer year round!
• We also work in an office with timers on the lights, so if there is no one around the lights will turn off. Of course, that means they also turn off if you happen to be relatively still for a short while...

Check out our Blog Action Day post on Jumble, where we'll hopefully be aggregating more Blog Action Day content from the Tufts community.

Google Wave invites are finally dribbling out, and here in Web Comm we've been lucky enough to snag a few. Not much to report yet -- the potential is still more impressive than the practice, at this point -- but we're continuing to play and push it to see what it can do.

To that end, I created a public wave for the Tufts University Office of Web Communications where hopefully, down the line, people can engage with us to share ideas, offer feedback and perhaps collaborate on content initiatives. You can find it by searching for "Tufts University Office of Web Communications" or looking for the public wave tagged "tuftswebcomm" (hint: you want to use the query with:public tag:tufts -- more Google Wave tips here).

No matter what purpose Google Wave ends up serving -- because I think that is still very much up for grabs -- it's definitely pushing us toward the next phase of the web: collaborative communication. We're opening up the creative process and making it more participatory and two-way, less top-down. It's pretty exciting. Stay tuned!

I joined the GFWC Marlborough Junior Woman's Club in spring 2003. In September, after we returned from our summer hiatus, I saw in the newsletter a request for donations for the 9/11 baskets. I had to ask someone what they were. I found out that our club collected snack and fun items then distributed them into several baskets. Then, on 9/11, we'd deliver the baskets to the police and fire stations in town - just a simple thank you for their service to us. This project has always been near and dear to my heart. So this year, I got the wild idea of proposing it as a community service project for our division - University Relations. Mary Jeka, the Vice President of University Relations, loved the idea and asked me to coordinate with the Community Relations department to make this happen. So I did.

Initially, I started out thinking we'd deliver baskets to the Tufts police station and those stations closest to the Medford/Somerville campus. Ultimately, we decided that it was best if we delivered to all the police and fire stations in Medford and Somerville as well as the Tufts police stations in Boston and Grafton. That turned out to be 17 baskets - much more than I'm used to working with. I sent out an email to the division proposing the project and it was well received. People could participate as much or as little as they wanted. They could donate items for the baskets, help make the baskets and help deliver them. The response was great from all over the division! We collected plenty of terrific things. Community Relations gave us recyclable tote bags with the Tufts logo on them to use as the "baskets." On the 10th, a bunch of us gathered in a conference room and assembled the bags. It was a lot of fun and a bit of a challenge to make sure we had evenly distributed baskets.

The morning of the 11th, we loaded up two cars with bags and set off in different directions. We had three routes all together. Suzanne from PR and Gail from Publications delivered to several stations in Somerville. Georgy, Kaitlin, and I from Web Communications and Julie (our photographer) delivered to the other side of Somerville. We came back to the office and got another load and picked up some more people. This time Leslie and Lisa from Publications joined Kaitlin, Julie and me and we set out for the Medford deliveries.

We had a great time talking to the police and fire personnel and hearing their stories. Some were funny. Many were sobering. In all instances, they were surprised and happy we took the time to thank them. I get the impression we don't thank our police and fire people very often. Yes, they chose that job and yes, they know what they're getting into, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't tell them from time to time that we appreciate them. For me, that's what 9/11 has become. A day of remembering. A day of appreciation. The attack on September 11, 2001, while physically in New York, was an attack on America. And while I can't begin to imagine what it was like to be in New York that day, much less to deal with the tragedy first hand, I can recognize that our police and fire, from all over the world, run into dangerous and deadly situations every single day while we're running out.

There is a brotherhood among police and fire that is especially evident on this day. Every single person we talked to today mentioned their "brothers" in New York. Some knew people personally who died. Others know people who continue to work in the city today. Still others jumped in their car and drove to New York to help. So, while our local police and fire may not have been there on that horrible day, if there had been a magic time machine, they would have been there instantly.

So on this day of service and remembrance, we hope the police and fire who service the Tufts Medford/Somerville campus know we truly do appreciate what they do for us!

We've been pretty busy over here in Web Comm since the fall semester started up, so apologies for the blog silence. Here's are the highlights of what we've been up to:

- Check out events.tufts.edu -- we've dressed it up with a new front door where we highlight some of the coolest events coming up on campus.

- If you are on campus and see the infoscreens, you may notice some new types of content. We've routed more of our content feeds to the screens to keep them better updated with more content.

- We did a whole bunch of coverage for the students' return to campus, which we collected here.

- We're still going strong on Twitter -- won't you follow us there? -- and working behind the scenes to build real-life user communities to talk through our successes and failures in the social media space.

- We're expanding our collaborations with our colleagues in University Relations -- stay tuned for continued joint efforts with Photo, Publications and others.

There's more, of course, but that's some of the fun stuff. Any suggestions for directions we should explore? Let us know!

On September 2, Tufts welcomed 1,313 members of the Class of 2013 to the University. Web Communications was on hand to document the day’s events along with our colleagues in University Photography. Move-in for new students is in the morning, and a festive outdoor ceremony welcomes them to the Tufts community in the afternoon.

Matriculation day is one of our biggest one-day events—in fact, it’s one of only two events all year (the other one being Commencement) that merit the ordering of lunch for the whole editorial team. We work almost non-stop from before 8:00 am until after 6:00 pm to report and write, photograph and process, and record and edit the text, photos, and audio that tell the story of the day. My assignment—besides driving everyone to and from campus—was to live-tweet the Matriculation ceremony in the afternoon.

Live what? Last weekend I had a conversation with my boyfriend while standing on line at the supermarket about covering events live on Twitter.

“Well, you write little snippets about what’s happening, and people who are following you on Twitter can keep track of what’s going on at the event where you are,” I said, removing items from the cart.

“So… it’s sort of like journalism in real time,” said Jay, whose day job involves something with engineering drawings that I don’t really understand.

“Yes, exactly!” I said. The cashier looked at me, startled. “It’s journalism! That’s exactly what it is!”

So there I was on Wednesday afternoon, sitting next to a column in front of Ballou Hall, typing furiously with my thumbs on my Blackberry. I decided to take a holistic, observational approach to the afternoon’s events, noting what was happening and what I was seeing, both verbally and with the occasional photo (uploaded via Übertwitter, my Blackberry Twitter client of choice, for those who care).

The voice of @TuftsUniversity on Twitter is conversational and friendly, but it’s the voice of the institution rather than any individual, and it’s a professional voice. At Matriculation, and in general, my mental guideline is to report what I’m seeing rather than editorialize about and to not write anything I’d be embarrassed for a senior administrator or my mom to read. It’s not my voice; it’s the University’s.

Twitter is not a science, nor will it ever be, and my coverage was not without a few hiccups and glitches. At one point, Übertwitter freaked out and switched accounts on me, and two tweets went through from my personal account. I also look forward to the day when uploading photos via Twitter is faster. In my experience, Übertwitter is faster than Twitpic, but both are slow enough to slow down the flow of conversation.

With live coverage on Twitter, it can be hard to strike a balance between too much and too little coverage. We got feedback by way of @ replies from people who wanted us to keep the news coming, but we also had at least one follower unfollow us (temporarily, we hope!) because he found the volume of tweets overwhelming. Looking back, there were a few I could have cut, but I think the stream conveyed a sense of the events and atmosphere of the day, and that was the plan. But still, lesson learned, and it’s something we’ll keep in mind next time.

Lately in Web Communications we’ve been talking a lot about new channels for content distribution, and we’ve also been talking a lot about using the stories we cover and the content we create as opportunities for us to learn while telling the Tufts story—sometimes even while shouting it—in new ways and to different people. Everyone on our editorial team has a background in journalism, and we put that to use to be journalists in the universe of social media and the web. It’s a new definition of journalism that may seem jarring, but it’s one we’re working with and molding as we discover and define new aspects of communicating on the Web.

Our Matriculation coverage, on Twitter and elsewhere, represents a synthesis of those ideas and goals. We used new channels (Twitter, the Tufts Photo blog) to get the Tufts story out to different and wider audiences, and we put together some features based on new ideas we felt would work on those channels. Many of these ideas came on suddenly or started small: A picture of a father in a funny t-shirt led to a slideshow of dads for the Photo blog, for example, and a brainstorming session in a meeting last week led to the audio slideshow "Along for the Ride," about what new students brought with them to Tufts.

Next week we’ll meet to discuss the coverage—what worked and what didn’t—and above all, what we learned from it. And next time, even next week or next month, we’ll take those lessons and produce something newer and better.

As we delved deeper into the social media realm and saw all the rich, awesome content members of the Tufts community were posting on their blogs, YouTube, Flickr and elsewhere around the web, we were in awe. There must, we thought, be some way of pulling this all together. All of this stuff. This big ol'... jumble.

So, what else could we do? We started a blog. The goal of Jumble is, as the site simply states, to feature the best of Tufts on the web.

Admittedly, this is somewhat of an experiment. Maybe it will be a wild success, or maybe it won't take off. But as we've been maintaining Jumble over the past month or so -- a summer month, mind you -- the rich, varied, engaging, high-quality content we have stumbled across has left us giddy. And we hope you'll like it, too. Let us know if you have any suggestions -- or better yet, submissions!

Last Friday was a pretty exciting day around here, as it marked the debut of the new Tufts.edu, a collaboration between the Web Communications and Publications groups here in University Relations.

The project took more than a year, and included countless hours of research, design work, content development and coding, but we're pretty pleased with the results.

The best thing about this site is that it really belongs to the university. So much of what you see is based on research, user feedback and usability testing results. It's amazing to get that feedback, but it's even more amazing to see it implemented in a tangible way.

You can learn more about the project's goals and accomplishments on our Transforming Tufts.edu site. We're also looking for your feedback, so share away. Soon, we'll be posting some of the feedback we've received and updating on changes we make along the way.

Thanks to everyone from the university community who helped make this new site a reality! We couldn't have done it without you.

I love how social media still has the ability to surprise me.

Back during our live-tweeting of Commencment, we posted photos from the ceremony, including this one offering a wide shot of the stage and the assembled graduates. Just today, we received a couple of cool replies from someone on Twitter referencing the pic:

hey @TuftsUniversity, I found myself and @briancmuse in this picture you posted: http://twitpic.com/5cyrd

@terrovision you're in this pic from @TuftsUniversity too! http://twitpic.com/5cyrd I miss it. Keep posting pics of campus!

How cool is that? Three months later, and our content is still out there, fostering interaction and forging connections. Just goes to show, you never know how far one little photo or one little tweet can go.

Whether you are maintaining your own social media presence or that of your institution or department, you may currently be focusing on creating a name for yourself and your web personality. But once you've moved from the "getting your feet wet" to the "diving on in" stage, it is important not to forget the value of your audience.

For both the Tufts Twitter and Facebook pages, we try to actively engage our audience several times per day, asking them to share their thoughts and opinions on everything from favorite professors to dorm room must-haves. By doing this, we are not only fostering community relationships, but also building a pool of valuable sources who are the eyes and ears of your community.

Over the past few months we have found and developed a few stories from ideas our Twitter followers have pitched to us. After throwing out a question for possible video opportunities, we received suggestions that we are now putting into action, so not only are we gaining content ideas, but we're also taking a step back and learning what is important to the community we are serving.

Just remember, your community can serve you as much as you can serve them.

This past weekend, I was fortunate to attend the fourth installment of Podcamp Boston, held down by the harbor at the UMass Boston campus. Branding itself as an "unconference," all of the sessions at Podcamp Boston are proposed by the attendees, and spontaneous sessions are encouraged and frequent. There is no top-down dissemination of information or insight; the attendees are considered the experts. It was a great opportunity to learn from a mix of top practitioners, earnest amateurs and all the folks in between.

(I was only able to attend day one, but you can retroactively, virtually attend yourself by revisiting the #pcb4 backchannel on Twitter for both chatter during the conference and links to post-conference wrapup posts -- like this one! -- or look for some presentations uploaded to Slideshare.)

Here are some insights I gleaned from the day:

• Measuring the impact of social media - There were no fewer than three scheduled sessions, and certainly more conversations, on this topic. The answer seemed to revolve around finding ways to measure the depth of engagement, and the understanding that it is a more qualitative than quantitative value. Anecdotes and case studies are key.
• Developing community around content - In this two-way era, the push message has gone the way of the dodo. Because even when you push a message, it gets pulled in a thousand different directions -- syndication, retweets, Facebook, you name it. The more you can create a community around the content you create, whether it's updates to Twitter or videos on YouTube, the more you can be a part of that conversation and reinforce the connection between the communication and its point of origin.
• Do more awesome things! - With all of this push to measure, optimize and syndicate everything, we can sometimes forget the most basic -- and important -- thing of all: to create! And to never stop thinking and coming up with new ideas. When it comes to innovation, you've got to be a shark and never stop moving. And for us, that means trying new things, and keeping up our stream of creation.
• It's not about us, it's about you - Our goal shouldn't be to think we're awesome, a fellow Podcamper observed. Our goal should be for the end user to feel awesome because of their association with us. How do we get there? By building community, by being a part of the conversation, by keeping up that connection with our audiences and growing it.
• Educate to innovate - Working in our office, we have a lot of information and insight to share. The more ways we can find to share it with the university community -- like this blog! -- the better. We can both help others and learn from others as we all explore this ever-shifting web world.
• Be agnostic... platform-agnostic, that is - We live in a cross-platform world. We are not magazine editors, web developers, newspaper reporters: we are all communicators and creators. Forget about the platform; focus on the message and adapt it across mediums.

You know what I always say -- or maybe you don't, but here it is -- a team that eats together, stays together.

The members of Web Communications have a wide range of interests, but one thing we all love is food. For many of us, Fridays mean Friday Lunch. When recently going over our values as a department, Friday Lunch came up, and it was only a half-joking suggestion.

We love heading out to patronize local establishments, whether it's the old dependables like Not Your Average Joe's or Bertucci's, or maybe something farther afield like Jose's Mexican restaurant in Cambridge, or something smaller and down the street like the Teele Square Cafe. Sometimes we talk about work, or maybe something non-work related on the web, but usually we're just hanging out, relaxing -- and usually laughing.

During the rest of the week, there will usually be one or two Dunkin' or Starbucks runs, which provide a nice opportunity to step out of the office, grab a pick-me-up, and recharge the batteries for the afternoon stretch.

Our eating is not limited to outside of the office. We usually don't turn down any excuse to brighten a meeting with some cupcakes (the Web Comm treat of choice, it seems -- we love the ones from Lyndell's, though Arthur's makes good ones, too), or perhaps the much beloved Two-Bite Brownies from Whole Foods in a pinch. Yes, Web Comm most definitely has a sweet tooth. You should see the eyes widen and the drool run when someone brings in fresh baked treats from home.

Mmmmm... the downside of writing a blog post about food -- now I'm hungry!

We've been really excited to add more Tufts schools and groups to our social web gateway, most recently the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy (fan them on Facebook!), and we're always happy to talk to people who want to jump into the social media sphere.

But (there's always a 'but') one question that any school, department or organization should ask itself before hopping on the YouTwitFace bandwagon is: Is this right for us?

While services like Twitter and YouTube are game-changers and it is very enticing to dive in without really thinking out a strategy (an action usually driven by not wanting to "fall farther behind the curve"), groups should always ask themselves a couple of key questions before turning down Social Media Lane:

• Who are we talking to? What audiences are you trying to reach? Who's out there? Who do you need to be reaching out to, and in what fashion? Some of this, you learn as you go, but having at least a basic idea of who you'd like to reach is good -- and it may inform whether you commit to social media at all...

• Is this right for us? Will using these services enable us to create the community we want to create, reach the audiences we want to reach, share the messages we want to share?

• What do we hope to achieve? Just like any project, you don't do it for the sake of doing it -- you need a goal, a purpose. Do you want to boost interest in a program? Cultivate awareness of services? Drum up attendance at events? Having those goals in mind from the outset will structure your engagement and, again, tether your social media activity to a broader strategy or goal.

• Will we do this beyond today? There may be a lot of excitement around building a presence on Facebook on Tuesday, but how much will that enthusiasm have waned by Thursday, or the following Tuesday or a month from then? If your social media presence is thought out and tethered to a larger strategy or goal, that makes it more likely that you will sustain that presence. Another factor is...

• Do we have what it takes? Creating a YouTube channel may seem like an awesome idea -- it may even dovetail with your broader communications strategy. But... do you have videos? Or resources to get videos made? Can you really maintain engagement on Facebook if you're short-staffed and need to devote staff to executing the core responsibilities of the group? If you're interested in a meaningful social media presence, it's worth figuring out how much of a priority that is, what level of engagement and activity you would like and how many resources you can reasonably dedicate to making that happen.

Wow. Just over a month ago, I thought we were more or less on the curve when it came to the move toward real-time communications on the web. But that's the thing about this new, wacky world we're in -- even a month can bring changes and discoveries that make you revisit what you were thinking before. Here are some of those recent observations, shedding even more light on the real-time future ahead of us on the web.

Qik It!

Services like Qik empower mobile phone users (or at least, those with supported models) to not only shoot video on their phones, but stream it live, posting links via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or a number of other social outlets. There are other accessible live streaming video services out there, like Ustream, but live mobile streaming video is an incredibly intriguing -- and potentially powerful -- innovation.

Streaming video is becoming increasingly accessible and expected, and it is also being democratized thanks to services like Qik. Michael Jackson's memorial ceremony on Tuesday was expected to bring down the (virtual) house via the high number of people watching it streamed online, and while the internet did not buckle, it did bend. Speaking of Facebook, their rollout of the Live Stream Box to the general user base is exciting given the awesome potential of combining social interaction on the web and live video.

Catch the Wave

Almost lost in the shuffle of more recent announcements about Google Apps, Google Chrome OS and Google finally dropping the beta off ubiquitous services like Gmail was the May announcement about Google Wave, the real-time communication platform currently in development. Google Wave is expected to bring information sharing and online collaboration to the next level. And why not? The minds behind Google Wave also spawned Google Maps.

Social Status

Twitter currently rules the real-time search and status world, but Facebook is making moves toward snatching that crowd. By adding the option (and strongly encouraging users) to make status updates public, in addition to rolling out a real-time search engine, Facebook is seizing on the notion that real-time is ready for prime-time.

Lifestreaming

The concept of lifestreaming is not new, but it's been getting a lot of attention lately. Wordspy defines lifestreaming as "an online record of a person's daily activities, either via direct video feed or via aggregating the person's online content such as blog posts, social network updates, and online photos." One of the most obvious examples is Friend Feed. Not everyone appreciates the idea of lifestreaming, but it's gotten some big boosters -- namely top web thinker Steve Rubel, who made a big to-do of his shift to the lifestreaming platform Posterous and subsequently got a lot of folks chattering about lifestreaming. The lifestreaming movement reflects a desire by some to weave together the disparate threads of the social web into a single fabric, an unbroken narrative. What do you think?

I was recently asked to compile some overview points defining social media, and I thought I would share them here. Yes, there are a lot of blog posts, YouTube videos and other sources that attempt to define social media. But I think it's important for us to express the attitude with which we're approaching that realm. We're not looking to exploit, capitalize or monetize. We just want to be there, to enrich and be enriched. With that in mind...

What is Social Media?

• Social media puts the power to create, rank, disseminate and organize content in the hands of the users.
• It is organic, authentic, viral and powerful.
• It's all about building connections and sharing information.
• It draws from the power of the community and is not a top-down model.

Key principles of social media

• Social media is about conversations, community, connecting with personalities and building relationships. It is not just a broadcast channel.
• You shouldn't engage in social media unless you think it will help you meet an organizational goal; don't do it for the sake of doing it.
• Relatedly, find your audience and find your niche, and target your communication and engagement to that audience/niche
• Authenticity, honesty and open dialogue are key. Don't be afraid of hearing criticism, and don't be afraid to respond
• A big part of social media is listening. Social media not only allows you to hear what people say about you, but also to respond. Listen first, speak second.
• Be compelling, useful, relevant, engaging. Don't be afraid to try new things.

What are we missing?

When you arrive at a party, you may chat up the guests and poke into various conversations. Nothing wrong with that. But if all you did was yammer on and on and interrupt other people, you would end up being 1) unaware of what other people were talking about and interested in and 2) rude.

Interaction and engagement define social media, but that doesn't just mean connecting and communicating. It also means listening. When you enter a space, like a party, it usually helps to mill around a bit first, get a feel for the vibe, take in the tenor and subjects of other people's conversations. Then, when you're comfortable, you can engage.

As much as we're out there interacting on Twitter and the like, we're listening to what people are posting on YouTube and Flickr, what people are blogging about, what links they're saving on Delicious, what they're tweeting about. While we do a lot of pushing and publishing, it's refreshing to do some listening as well, not only to see what people like or don't like about Tufts at any given moment, but also to get to know them a little bit. Instead of thinking facelessly about "students" or "alums" as an audience, I can think of specific students whose YouTube videos I've seen or tweets we follow. The work we do is already very "human," but by listening and getting to know your audience and the community you've built, it becomes even moreso. And when you do communicate, you're more informed about who you are communicating to and what they want to hear.

What, however, if the person at the party is making a disparaging comment about your new shoes, which you happen to love? Then again, you may overhear the person across the room mentioning how you drove her to work for a week when her car was broken, and how sweet that was of you. When you listen, you hear the good and the bad. The wisdom in social media comes from knowing when to simply take it in, and when to interject.

Recommended reading

Chris Brogan does a lot of great thinking about listening, from the nitty-gritty of "growing bigger ears" and building a presence framework to understanding that people won't embrace every thing you do or say (and how that's okay).

What role does a stripped-down, image-free, data-driven document play in providing you with relevant, engaging online content from a variety of sources? More than you might think.

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary, depending who you ask), is a method of publishing regularly updated web content so users can easily receive it in an automated fashion via XML files, typically through a feed reader such as Google Reader, Bloglines or Netvibes.

Hopefully, that description was unnecessary. But maybe it wasn't. RSS -- despite the ease and convenience it affords for taking in multiple streams of content from a variety of sources -- is not exactly a household word. It's no Twitter. Heck, it's no HTML.

Way back in 2003, Amy Gahran (co-editor of the excellent Poynter E-Media Tidbits group blog) realized that the term "RSS" would be a non-starter for the mass audience and ran a contest to find a new, more accessible word. The winner was "webfeed," and while it has caught on in some contexts, it has not become widespread. While the orange icon has become somewhat ubiquitous on blogs and news sites, the fail whale probably has more cultural cachet, at this point.

There has been some debate recently about the future of RSS. In a hotly debated post, Steve Gillmor of TechCrunch declared RSS to be dead. The reason, says Gillmor, is that social media applications such as Twitter have supplanted tools like Google Reader by being superior, peer-moderated news aggregators, filtering the unyielding stream of news and information in a newly real-time world. He's not alone with that idea.

RSS advocates (that includes us) point to the fact that none of that peer-reviewed content would rise to the top if not for power readers filtering the tide of content through their RSS readers. RSS feeds are a great resource for websites looking to beef up their content offerings for site visitors. Even Twitter draws heavily from RSS, via services such as Twitterfeed. Some people may look at the Twitterfeeds of the world as a crutch for organizations that want to be on Twitter but don't want to "man up" and put the time in to personally engage and build a community, but I see the news we pipe in via Twitterfeed as a valuable complement to our community building with @TuftsUniversity.

Maybe the fact that its identity and branding are still in flux have inhibited RSS from becoming a part of the average internet user's lexicon. In addition, it feels like elements of RSS are constantly subject to debate -- full text feeds versus partial text feeds, Bloglines versus Netvibes versus Google Reader, and of course the debate over loss of site traffic and design elements.

But the one thing that can't be denied is the value of RSS as a powerful, flexible tool for content dissemination and distribution. RSS puts the control in the hands of the reader to select from endless streams of content and easily peruse dozens of sites in one sitting, and gives the website owner the ability to both feed out content robustly and pull in streams of additional content. So goodbye, bookmark button. Hello, orange icon. Content is king. And long live the king.

Today, I "attended" the Penn State Web 2009 Conference Social Media Summit, organized by Mark Greenfield at the University of Buffalo. While the larger conference was taking place in State College, several people participated in the two-hour summit via online audio/video teleconference (as well as the Twitter backchannel).

While there were some technical difficulties, there were a lot of great presentations and discussions about the applications of social media in the higher ed realm. I followed the summit via our new Twitter persona, @TuftsWebComm, and shared some snippets I thought particularly poignant. There were good insights on how to measure the value of social media, the merits of relenting control on the social web, building and maintaining relationships, effective uses of tools like Twitter and the power of conversation.

Thanks, Mark, for organizing the summit and opening it up to so many members of the higher ed community!

PS - Any suggestions for a good TuftsWebComm Twitter avatar??

Amid all the chatter about video and social media and the latest shiny, spinny thing to emerge as a must-have for your online presence, you can't ignore the things that really, truly are must-haves -- the basics, the things people needed five years ago, need today and will need five years from now. It can sometimes be easy to lose them in the mix.

Particularly for a university, maps are one of those must-haves. You can tweet or create awesome videos about your charming, leafy campus with its spacious quads and awe-inspiring brick facades, but what good does it do if people can't get here, or find their way around?

With this understanding, we set about overhauling our campus maps, using the Google Maps API for Flash. We're currently beta-testing the Medford/Somerville version of the map now, and maps for Boston and Grafton are in development for launch in the coming months.

One good sign for us is when the Google Maps API enthusiasts started tweeting (and re-tweeting) about the map. That told us we were on the right track.

We're not the first to go down this road (no pun intended), of course. A lot of universities are doing very cool things with Google Maps for their campus map solution. But what's the next horizon? Check out this Google Earth tour of the University of Colorado campus. Can you imagine swooping down from outer space onto the Academic Quad? Yowza. I get dizzy just thinking about it. But also excited.

Tech Specs

The map's Flash file was created using Adobe Flex Builder 3 and the Google Maps API for Flash. The Flex Builder is a nice tool for creating rich user interfaces. It has a lot of out-of-box UI components which are easy to use and look good.

Most of the data in the map application is stored externally in an xml file. When the map is initially loaded, the xml file is parsed and the data is converted to objects which can be added to the Google map.

Generating the xml file with all the data was easy thanks to the Symfony PHP framework. Symfony is extremely useful and saves you lots of time when doing more mundane tasks like building and rebuilding database tables. There's definitely a learning curve at the beginning, but life is much easier when working within such a structured environment. Things are organized. It's good to be organized.

As the web has evolved, one thing has remained constant -- a growing need for immediacy and timeliness. It's not enough to receive e-mail or read blogs; I need to be pinged when new messages or posts. When my friends post their status updates, I want to be informed at that moment. Don't post your event recap after the fact -- live-blog it, or live-stream it. I don't just want to know the clicks in the past three days -- tell me who has clicked in the past three minutes. I don't want to read about history after it happens; I want to read about it as it happens.

Since its inception, the internet has been playing catch-up to the speed of life. When people think about the next step in the evolution of the web, one answer is gaining more and more consensus: real time.

'...We'll Cross the Streams'

Forgive the "Ghostbusters" reference, but it is actually appropriate in this context. Allow me to explain. In recent months, the emphasis on real-time has become apparent. Twitter's real-time search results have become increasingly popular, putting pressure on Google. One feature that emerged from the aftermath of the big Facebook redesign several months back was the "live feed" of real-time status updates, and FriendFeed has gained plaudits for similar functionality. Publishing mechanisms have become more instantaneous, more mobile, more nimble.

A recent post on TechCrunch draws the distinction (referencing John Borthwick's thoughts on the matter) between pages, the static way in which we have viewed the web up until now, and streams, which the author argues are the next dynamic wave of content consumption. (Here is a really great overview of the concept of streams, though the concept has been around in one form or another for a while.)

'We're in Now Now.'

(Another 80s movie reference -- this time, "Spaceballs" -- but again, relevant!) The new standard for organizing content, the article contends, is by "nowness." Nowness goes beyond publication; the essence of nowness is conversation (read: social media), both among trusted sources and in the bigger crowd. That's why social search like Twitter's is becoming so big. That's why Twitter and Facebook are increasingly more important as referrers than Google for many blogs and articles. That's why Wikipedia and the concept of crowdsourcing have become new standards of information aggregation.

One consequence of social media and syndication is that content distribution becomes something akin to throwing out a message in a bottle -- a bottle that you've hopefully equipped with a tracking beacon. I can nail a copy of my message to the tree on my island and hope that people swim up to come and take a look, but when I cast it out in the bottle, it's hard to say what will happen. Maybe it will sink to the bottom, or maybe it will wash up on the shores of Slashdot. Maybe someone will find it, make a thousand copies and distribute my message farther than I ever thought it could go. Maybe someone will find it and burn it to a crisp.

I'm About to Lose Control and I Think I Like It

Essentially, the process of content distribution becomes completely decentralized. You have your centralized placement, sure, but the real magic is happening out there in the stream, in the social web. If you have your ear to the ground, you can see what's going on, but if you don't...?

People get very concerned about controlling their content, knowing exactly where it is at all times and who is messing with it, but the age of control is over. Traffic and syndication are no longer linear. It is hard to predict how the stream will behave. And the stream is powerful. It can carry you away if you're not prepared. But it can also bring you great benefits.

So, how will the shift to real-time affect universities? It makes it all the more important for universities to already be present in the stream, watching and participating in conversations, adding to the mix, responding when appropriate. We need to enable our content to be dynamic, to be fed out and enter the social mix. We have adapt to the new metrics -- retweets, favorites, recommendations, diggs, tags, trending topics -- of the social web as a means of tracking our relevance.

Also, there's a lot going on at universities, and we're always looking to stay relevant. Part of embracing the stream is to tie what's going on within our walls to the topics out in the stream. The overlap potential is huge, it's just a matter of capitalizing on it.

It is also important to understand that though the stream can be harsh at times, it can also be self-policing and self-correcting. It may not be possible to put out every fire or address every red flag, but that goes with the territory -- and that's OK. Embracing the stream means letting go a little bit. It may be hard to maintain a balance between presence and restraint, but that's the challenge of the stream -- getting wet without falling in.

Here at Tufts, this is our challenge as we venture farther and farther out into the stream. So, what else should we be doing?

Yesterday, someone inquired via our Twitter account, "Who's the most innovative & forward-looking person in your web communications department?" I do not know this individual, or why in particular they asked this question, but I thought it was an interesting one -- because I didn't have an answer. That, however, is the way it should be.

Our department was built to not be centered around application development, or creating content, or web project management. Rather, it is ideally a melding of all three, working in concert toward the university's communications goals. It's not something you find at every university -- I've heard a lot of war stories of content people warring with the IT department over getting content posted, or application developers hoarding ownership of the university web presence to the exclusion of a useful communications strategy, or content people having no clue of how to work with a web team. It's rough stuff.

I'm happy to say our department is different. By bringing together members of these three groups in strategic synergy, the walls are down. Our goals are shared. No one prong trumps another, and one cannot truly succeed without the other three.

Of course, in our line of work, the key to success is staying ahead of the curve. I like to think that we all push each other to innovate, think big, be a little crazy now and then.

So, to answer the original question, I think that we're all more forward-thinking and innovative by virtue of working together. Sitting alone in my office, I could some up with a lot of great ideas, but they won't mean much if I can't bounce them off somebody -- particularly somebody coming from a different perspective -- and tear them apart a bit. And I sure as heck wouldn't be able to implement them by myself.

The Boston Celtics have superstars on their roster in the "Big Three" of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, sure, but the motto that got them a title last year was ubuntu, an African term meaning the emphasis of collective success over individual achievement. As Garnett said, "Anything is possible!"

(By the way, if you want to join the team, here's your opportunity.)

So you say you are a Twitter skeptic?

I will admit, I was as well. I thought, I have a Facebook account, I update my status there, do people in the Internet world really need more me?

When we started the official Tufts Twitter account, however, I started to play around with it a little more in my free time trying to figure out what it was really all about. How does one use such a tool effectively on both a personal level and on a university level? How can we really use this to continue to build on the Tufts brand?

The perfect example of this -- Tufts Commencement.

This weekend we joined a number of universities, including BU, Vanderbilt and Arizona State, testing the waters on the process of live-tweeting commencement.

In the weeks leading up to commencement we asked seniors to share any pictures, videos or stories using the hashtag #tufts09, which helps sort the material and make it easy to search, and we announced that we would be live-tweeting the event.

So the day of I went, cell phone in hand, and began to update the account via text, sharing observations and posting photos via Twitpic. Unfortunately, due to the rain, my phone began to short, but luckily Tufts Photo members, who were tweeting from the photographers perspective, were holding down the fort in Packard and had a computer ready to save the day.

From the time we began tweeting to the end of the work day we had about 50+ tweets and over a dozen students and alums were communicating with us through the #tufts09 hashtag. Some are still communicating with us are even days later.

Looking back at the day, here are some of the more interesting observations we have taken away:

--The pictures we sent via Twitpic proved to be fairly popular. Some of the shots had nearly 80 views.
--Links we posted through Bit.ly, which is a great URL shortener that also tracks the number of times the URL is clicked, were also well received. The link for the commencement story featured on the homepage later that day has seen over 100 views.
--We received positive feedback from alums and others who followed us

-@julieburrows The first commencement I've ever watched twittered. #tufts09. A mix of news, quotes and emotions (most poignant). Congrats grads!
-@punkaroo_banzai best follow all week: @TuftsUniversity

Overall, despite some technical difficulties, we think it was a success. We started a conversation, which is exactly what Twitter is all about.

I recently attended a higher ed conference where Twitter was a very popular discussion topic, and I think one of the conference speakers described it best:

"Imagine having a question and finding yourself in a room full of experts on that topic."

That is what it's all about. Don't be afraid to start a conversation...people are listening.

Need tips on how to get started? Check out Mashable.com for some interesting insights into Twitter and other social media tools.

We're big on multimedia journalism in this office, and here's a fun (albeit dorky) video that shows off all the components required to make it happen.

The site where "The ABCs of Multimedia" is hosted is called 10,000 Words, which covers the intersection of journalism and technology. In our office, we keep apprised not only with what our peer institutions and others in higher ed are doing, but what the emerging trends are in online media overall. As I like to say, we're not necessarily just competing with Other U., but also NYTimes.com and other online news sites. So, the more we glean from their playbook, the better we'll be.

From video content to social networking, the web is heading in many directions at once. But one common denominator to that explosive growth is the mobile sphere. If anything happens on the web, it's going to happen on the mobile web, as well. As more and more people acquire smartphones, iPhones in particular, we are going to have to focus energy on shaping our communications to fit that medium.

We are well aware of that here at Tufts, which makes us particularly proud of our tufts.mobi web site. As the mobile web continues to evolve, we look forward to developing the Tufts presence there and making tufts.mobi a top destination for the Tufts community on the go.

The folks at MIT also have a good head start on this with their excellent mobile platform, but they're not keeping their ideas to themselves. Through the MIT Mobile Web Open Source Project, developers can work together to create mobile web sites that cater to higher ed audiences, whether they are students, faculty, staff or visitors. The best web innovations, I find, are products of collaboration, so it will be interesting to watch and see how this group evolves the mobile web in the context of higher ed.

Welcome to the second reincarnation of the blog for the Office of Web Communications. We hope to use this little slice of web-dom to talk about cool apps, communications trends, spiffy accomplishments, nifty things our colleagues at Tufts are doing on the web and whatever else comes to mind.

One thing we're very interested in is social media. Since we started it some six months ago, our Twitter presence has grown to have more than 1,250 followers (we even got a mention on the New York Times website!). We also have a Facebook fan page with 3,163 fans. However, we understand it's not about numbers and accolades. It's about community. While we've done a good job at beginning to build a community via Twitter, Facebook is still somewhat uncharted territory, and we look forward to exploring how best to communicate via that channel.

While we have presences elsewhere (including YouTube and Flickr), we are still feeling our way around the social media sphere. If you have any suggestions, please send them our way!