Social Networks
Entries related to social networks, group psychology, anthropology, and really any of the social sciences.
Rapture Road Trip Diary - ShakeDown BBQ
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/21/2011 - 11:01As we started our trip to Virginia yesterday, we listened to various tunes appropriate for a pre-rapture road trip. First up was Freebird, “If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me.” At various points along the trip, we listened to other songs that fit the trip. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, we pulled over to switch drivers so Kim could search on the cellphone for restaurants while I drove. The restaurants we had chosen before we left didn’t seem as promising as we had thought. One was about fifteen minutes of the interstate and had mixed reviews. The other was in the middle of a college town that is having graduation today.
Kim spent some time using Yelp’s app, and we finally got off the road in Grantville, PA. There were three choices. One was a hotel restaurant that got good reviews. However, the hotel had some crowd in it and the idea of eating in a hotel restaurant didn’t really fit the bill. The second choice was a dive bar that sounded promising, but perhaps not with Fiona. We ended up using the GPS to find our way to ShakeDown BBQ. It was really good, with a nice smoker and pile of wood out back. We need to go out and give it some good reviews, especially for people heading down I-81. Afterwards, Kim asked what the implications of location based restaurant review sites for national food chains might be.
Why do people stop at McDonald’s or Waffle House? They know what they are going to get. Stopping at The Farmer’s Wife’s Country Kitchen could provide something really good, or something really disappointing. As more people start using location based restaurant reviews, we could see a return to the local mom and pop restaurants that serve up great food the way we used to see before the branding and malling of America.
Of course, a lot of people don’t use location based restaurant reviews on their smartphones yet, so we may not see it as a disrupting technology all that soon, but in my mind, the sooner the better. Oh, and if you’re ever traveling on I-81 around Grantville, PA and looking for some really good food, be sure to checkout ShakeDown BBQ, but check in on your smartphone so you can find it and be sure that they’re open when you are passing by. And yes, they take plastic.
Mental Health Month Blog Party
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 05/18/2011 - 18:02So, today was the APA’s Mental Health Month Blog Party. I wrote about it on my work blog, and shared information about it on the APA’s Facebook Page.
I’ve had a pretty busy day, so I haven’t had a chance to check out many of the other blog posts. It looks like they managed to break 100 blogs participating in the blog party by 5:30. There is still time to join in, so, go out and read some of the other blogs about mental health, and consider adding your own. If you do, let me know.
Should Doctors and Patients be Friends Online?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/30/2011 - 08:46As many of my regular readers know, I have been a long time advocate for social media and I over the winter, I took a position as Social Media Manager for The Community Health Center, Inc. headquartered in Middletown, CT.
With that, I’ve joined the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network. Recently, we’ve been having a discussion about whether doctors and patients should be friends online. It started around the blog post, Boundaries in all their shades of gray.
It seemed like much of the discussion was focused on the doctors, and not on the patients, so I thought I would try to get a sense of what everyone else is thinking. So, I posted a question on Facebook:
Would You Like Your Doctors to Follow you on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites?
So far, close to 70 people have responded. Over half have answered ‘no’, which I find quite interesting and I plan on writing more about this soon.
First, however, I need to note various problems. This is not a scientific survey. Anyone can change their vote at any time. The folks being surveyed are my friends on Facebook as well as any friends of friends or other people that might have stumbled across the survey. The current results are shown, which may influence responses, and there is not exploration into the demographics of who has responded and only a comment section where some people explain their reasoning.
There have been various comments that reflect some of the underlying thoughts.
“Don't see why would it matter. I mean, it's not like my doctor is the only one who gets to see me naked ;-)”
“my dr. has his hands full trying to get my blood pressure under control.”
“I'd like my doc to be my friend on facebook, with the caveat that insurance companies NOT be able to use any info on my FB page to block access to care.”
“there's far too many ways institutions can use 'raw data' as implications, wrongly I might add.”
“I don't imagine there's anything on my Facebook that could negatively affect my care or coverage, but you know? People have been unpleasantly surprised by things like this before.”
“I don't get the issue... If you're hiding things from your doctor, that's kinda short sighted isn't it?
If I've learned anything from House, it's that the thing you are lying about is the thing that is killing you!”
“I'll bet it's a generational thing ... When you're almost 50 you remember a time when every little thing about you was not instantaneous knowledge to everyone who's ever met you.”
So, what do you think? Please, consider adding your vote and your comments.
QR Code Adoption
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 21:14Lee Odden over at ToPrankBlog put up a blog post today, Will QR Codes Gain Mass Adoption?.
His post ends,
as creative and interesting QR codes are, I’m a bit skeptical in terms of mass adoption. For some reason, I can’t imagine consumer behavior changing to start scanning codes for things when they could just search or enter a URL. There’s also the technology that needs to be adopted by more devices.
Granted, I was a bit skeptical of Foursquare and Twitter too, but also Google Wave and Second Life.
What do you think?
My regular readers will recall that I've talked a lot about QR codes, as well as Google Wave and Second Life. So, I wrote a fairly long comment, that stands pretty well as a blog post of its own:
I am an innovator/early adopter in the technology adoption lifecycle, so I've always been a fan of new sites and new technology, whether it be Foursquare, Twitter, or Second Life and Google Wave, so it should come as no surprise that I'm QR Code believer.
First, however, let me offer a brief digression about Second Life and Google Wave. I don't believe either of those ideas failed. What failed was the companies efforts to promote it. I've spent a lot of time in Second Life and alway felt it was seriously mismanaged. I started talking a lot back then about the importance of open source virtual worlds, and just as we see Second Life dwindling, we are seeing more and more interest in OpenSim, an open source version of Second Life servers. While I have less for criticisms of Google, I find it interesting that while Google has stopped promoting Google Wave, they handed to code over to Apache, and there folks working on various open source Apache Wave servers. (I've run both OpenSim and Apache Wave servers).
Okay. Back to QR Codes. People need a reason to scan a barcode, whether it is a one dimensional or two dimensional bar code. In supermarkets, where UPC codes have been around for a many years, and during the early years, were rarely scanned, it is only in recent years we have gotten to the point of consumers scanning bar codes as they check out. They get something in return, a shorter wait in the checkout line. (At least in theory).
If people will scan UPC codes for some value, they will scan QR codes if value is presented to them. I've seen small specialized cases where that value exists: Scanning a QR Code at a museum to get information about a painting. More information for those who scan QR codes. I've heard stories of people scanning QR Codes in Japan to request taxis pick them up at a taxi stand. Better service for those who scan QR codes. I've heard stories of QR codes on Real Estate ads as a more efficient way of asking for information about a house for sale, but I haven't seen that and don't have details. That said, the QR Codes that I've scanned in magazine articles have not provided me any benefit.
So, will QR Codes make it? Yeah, when some creative people find ways of using them to provide value to customers that they can also profit off of, and I'm sure there are some creative people out there that can pull it off.
Personality Types and Blogging Styles
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 20:02Recently, I just stumbled across an interesting website, Typealyzer. It analyzes the text of a blog and predicts the personality type of the author. According to the site, Orient Lodge is written by someone INTP. I’ve taken various personality tests, and I normally lean towards the introverted side of things, although it isn’t a strong tendency and sometimes I even show up as extroverted.
Likewise, I tend tot sometimes show up as perceiving and other times show up as judging. In fact, on the Human Metrics MBTI style test, I showed up as INTJ.
On the other hand, the My Personality Test on Facebook, said I was ENFP a couple years ago. Unfortunately, the test didn’t work properly the other day when I tried it, so I’m not sure if things have just changed that much, or if there is something different about the test.
With that, my most strongest trait tends to be intuition instead of sensing. With that, I put the blog I write at work through the Typealyzer and came back with a personality of ISTJ.
Do I have a different personality at work than I do at home? Do I present myself that differently in my personal writing and my work writing? What about you? If you’re a blogger, what does Typealyzer say about your writing?
