Conferences
New Government Meets New Media
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 15:23One of the interesting discussions at Gov 2.0 Camp New England last weekend was about New Government meeting New Media. How do the two inter-relate? How should people in government use new media to more effectively serve the community? How should people in government relate to bloggers, citizen journalists and others in New Media?
#gov20ne pregame
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 03/06/2010 - 05:57In a little while, I will hop in the car and drive up to Boston for Gov20camp. It is an unconference about using social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative government. I always approach unconferences with a little trepidation.
Often, they start off with a time for everyone to introduce themselves. With large unconferences this sometimes gets skipped, or everyone is asked to describe themselves in three words. This is complicated by other factors. One of the rules of unconferences is ‘No Rockstars- everyone is an equal’. On the other hand, people go to unconferences to network and to find the next fun new project.
So, write now I’m thinking of introducing myself as an ‘Activist, Writer, Geek’. I do hope I find some interesting new ideas to explore and I sure hope that the conference will be dominated by discussions instead of presentations.
I also typically approach unconferences from a group dynamics perspective that I’ve gained from going to Group Relations conferences in the tradition of Tavistock, A.K. Rice, and Wilfred Bion. During my drive up, I’ll be thinking about how I approach the conference. How can I listen and learn as much as I can, while at the same time sharing whatever information I might have and doing any networking that might lead to fun new projects?
Looking at the agenda and ideas posted on the #gov20ne wiki, I see space for three sessions. Another rule of unconferences is the rule of two feet. If you are in a session that just isn’t doing it for you, get up and go to a different session. I hope that I won’t end up hopping around sessions like that very much. Walking into a new session part way through can be a little disorienting. Are the questions you are having things that have already been discussed? So, hopefully, I’ll only attend three sessions. Maybe it will be four or five. However, it is likely to be much less than the twenty six session ideas currently listed on the wiki.
Some sessions are likely to be introductory. What is Gov2.0? How do you tweet like a pro? What are ‘camps’ (or unconferences)? They would be good to go to, especially since I’m helping organize PodCampCT, but I’m not sure these sessions will be as valuable to me as some others. Some sessions will have an international flavor. What can we learn from the Haiti Quake response? What can we learn about organizing data from the Dutch Taxonomy Project? There is a session on Web 2.0 and foreign policy. Again, these sound pretty interesting, but probably have less of an immediate impact on me.
There are a couple session listed on Geographic Information Systems or GIS that seem particularly interesting, but again, may be getting a little too nitty gritty for my interest this time around.
For me, the big issues I’m looking at are around engaging citizens, video and public meetings, and the role of the new media. Hopefully, these will be lively discussions that I’ll tweet about during the day and have some good blog posts about afterwards.
Okay. I’m getting excited now. I need to wrap up a few things and get on the road.
Liveblogging - "Be the Media You Want to See: How Social Media and Citizen Journalism Are Changing the World"
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 16:13
#socialmarketing Convergence CoverItLive Page
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:03This page is the CoverItLive aggregation of the #socialmarketing TweetChat that is taking place Thursday November, 19th at 12 noon, Eastern U.S. time.
You can join in by tweeting with the hash tag #socialmarketing via Twitter, Tweetchat, or other Twitter tools, or by posting comments in the CoverItLive frame while the chat is occurring.
Example QRCode pointing back to this blog post:
#socialmarketing Convergence, The Long Tail and The Innovator/Influencers
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 10:36Today at noon, Eastern U.S. time, @ckieff and I will do a Social Marketing Tweet Chat. Chris runs the Social Marketing firm, 1 Good Reason and we often chat at various conferences. He has been running the Social Marketing Tweet Chat for some time now, and asked me to join him to share some of my perspectives.
While I pay close attention to social marketing, I approach it more from the technology side than from the marketing side. I typically present myself as an “Old guard, hardcore geek”. The closest I get to marketing is when I describe some of my work as “helping people tell their stories on computers”. So, I will present a different perspective than some of the other folks that Chris often speaks with.
The current themes that I’m most interested in, in this area, and that I expect to explore at lunch time are convergence, the long tail, and the technology adoption lifecycle. In short, I believe that too many marketers do not spend enough time focusing on convergence. Various forms of digital technology are rapidly converging, but too often, it seems, marketing campaigns are not converging.
At the conferences Chris and I attend, it always seems like all of the focus is on the really large publishers. However, the long tail suggests that marketers, and especially those focusing on a social component, need to look more at the publishers that are not at the top of the A list. That is where the social action really is taking place.
Finally, I suggest that marketers should look more at innovators in the technology adoption lifecycle instead of early majority, late majority or laggards. The innovators are the folks that test out technology, when they find a product they like, they become the champions of the product and are the most effective influencers for a product. It seems like technology firms understand this, but few other firms seem to focus on who the innovators and early adopters for their brands might be. As an aside, the original research that led to the sociological model of the technology adoption lifecycle was based on hybrid seed corn sales in the 1950s.
So, join in at noon and share your thoughts for what I hope will be a lively discussion.
