Thing 7: Birdie Song

Thing 7: Twitter

I have a lot of preconceptions about Twitter and its function in society so am hoping to be surprised by it, hope it has some relevance to me and my development as well as holding my interest.

In my view there are two sides to Twitter and its followings.

One - You hear of Twitter and Tweets being used in everyday media with talk of she said this and he said that and of photos that someone has posted drunk, and I have been left thinking who really cares what flavour of pie Jason Biggs thinks is the most wholesome or why why Cameron Diaz chooses that type of hair gel? Does Twitter open us up to criticism and expose us to embarrassment and even harm? Through following our favourite celebrities and hanging on their every word (or 140 characters of type) are we encouraging online stalking? I have read recently of a thing such as a 'Twitter Troll' and found that this was a term used for some sort of online bully. I am not sure if this is something that I want to be part of or involved in. 

The second - In the not so distant future Twitter and Twitter posts will become a great source of knowledge and study for social sciences and cultural studies, and it has already been used as a means for some to document 'real time' events such as riots and looting. It may even serve as a means of representation for the time period. This is something that I can see has potential and value to the academic society but also poses the question on how institutions such as libraries can collect the information and preserve it for future use.

I will take Twitter with an open mind and use the 23 Things programme to explore the many avenues of use that are suggested to me.

Getting started:

On creating a Twitter account I was a little dubious of the terms and conditions, particularly the abstract below:
'You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).'
It is always a worry to me that the ownership of my online content becomes someone elses after publication and this statement does not comfort me.

Still I in the name of progress I have flittered on, hindered shortly only by the current issues with Tweets and IE8. I am now available to stalk at your pleasure. @jwitter_bug.

Thing 6: 'Jason Partridge' The Brand

Thing 6: Consider your personal brand

A google search on my own name brought up various LinkedIn profiles of 13
professionals (having not yet explored LinkedIn, none of the profiles were of me!). Varoius websites that offered finding addresses and phone numbers for my name search, which I am pleased to say could not provide my address and telephone number. There were also other offers for searches via several social media websites and a website related to real estate.

I switched to images (for interest and amusement) and actually was able to find my facebook profile quite quickly from the profile picture. This was a little suprising and I am not sure how I feel about the profile picture being so readily available from a quick search - it will likely influence what I add in future.

Following the same guidelines in searching through socialmention and MIT’s Personas project which showed similar results.

Adding Library to my name search allowed me to narrow my namesakes and I found my Google+ account quite quickly. Though as my Google+ account is a recent venture, there is very little information displayed.

It would seem from the searching that my online profile is very limited and this was what I was expecting. My Facebook account does not see much activity these days and is more often updated by other people tagging me in posts and photos than of me adding anything myself. The largest contribution to online activity I have had recently would be the Blog I am writing now and the 23 Things programme - hence the reason I have joined!

I think that keeping a online presence and in particular a professional one is important and is something that I am looking to increase for myself and develop as I become more intune with what is available to me.

As such I have recently taken MySource Matrix CMS Training (Content management Systems workshop for website editing), joined the 23 Things programme, signed up for seminars 'Facebook: pages that work', 'Engage: Careers and Social Media' and 'LinkedIn: Designing your academic profile'.

Thing 3. My experiences with social media

Thing 3: Use your blog to write a short post about your experiences with social media

This is the first time I have attempted a blog and am still not sure what I am doing so bear with me. My social media experience up to now has predominantly been Facebook, with some browsing but no interaction through MySpace, Youtube (if that counts) and a brief flick into Twitter.

Other experiences of social media would include a chat room and working group based through courses I have taken run through the Open University where I had uploaded information and shared projects, graphs and photographs. 'Social Network' the film is also worth a watch!

Through doing the 23 Things programme I hope to increase my knowledge of the social networking programmes that are available to me, how they are used by students and academics around the University and further afield in research, and how I can make the most of them for both personnel and career development.