WebComment

Twitter Lists are Only the Beginning

2009-11-10T19:53:41Z

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.

Meeting of the Minds

2009-11-04T16:14:08Z

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.

Twitter Lists are Here!

2009-11-02T16:06:53Z

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!

Social Search is Here

2009-10-27T21:04:37Z

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.

What's Web Comm Reading?

2009-10-23T14:43:19Z

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.

Blog Action Day Against Climate Change

2009-10-15T13:44:03Z

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.

Catching the Wave

2009-10-13T14:10:50Z

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!

A Day of Service and Remembrance

2009-10-01T18:46:53Z

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!

Where Does the Time Go?

2009-09-22T15:01:13Z

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!

The Revolution Will (Not?) Be Live-Tweeted

2009-09-04T17:51:36Z

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.

Welcome to the Jumble

2009-09-01T18:27:58Z

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!

The New and Improved Tufts.edu

2009-08-26T18:19:02Z

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.

When Content Takes On A Life of Its Own

2009-08-18T21:32:49Z

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.

A Source is a Source, Of Course, Of Course

2009-08-14T20:15:32Z

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.

Podcamp Boston Wrapup #pcb4

2009-08-13T14:46:40Z

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.