Measuring Social Dynamics of Social Media

Ian Wood will speak about "On Measuring Social Dynamics of Online Social Media", at the Australian National University in Canberra, 11am 17 August 2015.

"Modelling and measuring social processes such as the dynamics of social identities and norms, community rituals, shared symbols and beliefs etca is an area at once immensely important and immensely difficult. Some progress has been made with modelling such processes, but measuring them has been largely elusive and usually remains the domain of subjective interpretation of social and cultural artifacts.

This work makes some small inroads into methods for quantification of social processes and into the collection of social media data containing the rich dynamics needed to capture their traces. I present a system for the collection of richly dynamic Twitter data using a novel approach to identify a targeted Twitter community. Data was collected from the apro-anaa (pro-anorexia) community operating on Twitter for 2 years 9 months, resulting in a corpus of over 1.2 million tweets from 300 thousand users with records of over 3.2 million changes to users follower lists and profile metadata.

Three methods for investigating aspects of social dynamics are presented with the collected pro-ana data as a test case: an approach to combine Bayesian topic models with word frequency based psychometric tools to identify corpus-relevant contexts of the target psychological phenomena; a Bayesian model, applicable to large data sets, which associates topics generated by topic models of text data with communities inferred by network community detection models; a methodology for identifying linguistic markers of group induction processes."

Studying the Chinese Internet

The Australian National University has presentations on "Studying the Chinese Internet" (研究中国互联网／ 研究中國互聯網), Friday 1 August 2014. The workshop is free and it is possible to register just for day two. A small group is learning social network analysis today, using the free open source NodeXL and VOSON software. Tomorrow's presentations discuss the results of using such research and the challenges involved:

Day 1 (Thursday 31 July) – Small group training in social media analysis

Instructor: Dr Robert Ackland, Guest lecturer: Prof Jonathan Zhu

Day 2 (Friday 1 August) – Research presentations

9.00 Welcome

9.15-10.30 Keynote presentation

“Charting the Landscape of Chinese Social Media: What We Know and What We Don’t Know from Existing Research”, Prof Jonathan Zhu, City University of Hong Kong
中国社会化媒体研究的已知与未知 / 中國社會化媒體研究的已知與未知

10.30-11.00 Morning tea

11.00-12.30 Paper session 1

“A Web Analysis of HIV Information Delivery in China”, Dr Robert Ackland, Australian National
University and Dr Jiaying Zhao, Australian National University
爱滋病信息的传递 :
基于网络的分析 / 愛滋病信息的傳遞 :
基於網絡的分析
“Predicting Depressed Individuals with Suicide Ideation Using Social Media Data”, Jin Han, Australian
National University
微博社交网络抑郁用户识别 / 微博社交網絡抑鬱用戶識別
“Analyzing Events in Chinese Microblogs”, Dr Lexing Xie, Australian National University
社交网络上的新闻事件分析 / 社交網絡上的新聞事件分析

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-3.00 Paper session 2

“Preliminary Analysis of Muslim Networking on the Chinese Web”, Dr Wai Yip Ho, Hong Kong Institute of
Education and Dr Robert Ackland, Australian National University
中国穆斯林网络的初步分析 / 中國穆斯林網絡的初步分析
“Multiple Identity Formation via Social Media by Professional Chinese Immigrants to Australia”, Dr Jerry
Watkins, University of Canberra and Dr Chong Han, University of Western Sydney
社交媒体上的多重身份构建:以澳大利亚中国技术移民为例 /
社交媒體上的多重身份構建:以澳大利亞中國技術移民為例
“Human Flesh Searching in the Greater China Region”, Dr Lennon Chang, City University of Hong Kong
分析大中华地区人肉搜索之现象 / 分析大中華地區人肉搜索之現象

3.00-3.30 Afternoon tea

3.30-4.30 Paper session 3

“Institutional Analysis of Chinese Internet Governance: Some Tentative Thoughts”, Ryan Manuel,
Australian National University
关于互联网体制与管理若干问题的分析 / 關於互聯網體制與管理若干問題的分析
“Internet Use in China: Citizens, Consumers, and Social Consumption in Chinese”, Dr Michael J. Jensen,
University of Canberra and Wei Si, University of Canberra
因特网在中国的应用 :
公民 ,
消费者与社会消费 / 因特網 在中國的應用:公民,消費者與社會消費
4.30-5.00 Wrap up

Why Was I Banned from LinkedIn?

A few days ago I LinkedIn.com blocked my access, due to complaints from members that I "... sent or posted unsolicited messages via groups that appear to be phishing, spam, or abusive in nature ...". However, in a Kafkaesque twist, the complainants, messages and groups were not identified. Instead I had to agree to "... adhere to the LinkedIn User Agreement and Privacy Policy from this day forward", thus admitting my guilt, without knowing what it was that I was supposed to have done.

As well as blocking access to sending positing to discussion groups and administering the groups I run, my LinkedIn profile was also blocked. As I was blocked, I could not appeal to other LinkedIn members for support, or even to ask what I had done wrong.

So I agreed to LinkedIn terms. I was admonished to "... make sure any links and comments you post are appropriate for the Group ...", still without saying what group or what had been inappropriate. My access and profile were then restored: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomworthington

As I still don't know what it was I said to cause offense, or in which group I said it, this has made me wary of posting anything to any LinkedIn group on any topic. I have resigned from most of the LinkedIn groups I was was a member of, to prevent accidentally posting something which may give offense and might get me banned. Also I found myself avoiding responding to, or even looking at, postings in non-LinkedIn groups, in case there was something I might do wrong there.

Previously I had reported some postings to LinkedIn, usually of the "Have your PHD Thesis Written for $10!" variety. I assumed there was a process where the poster would be told which posting was objected to and why. But this is not the case, instead you just find yourself banned.

It is worrying to think of the power which those administering such social media services have. A corporation, or government, could impose very effective social control by these means.

Email Still Best for Event Promotion

Getting people to come to free seminars at a university can be difficult. So I am trying the web based ticket sales system "Eventbrite" for my talk "MOOCs with Books" on 8 July at ANU. It may seem unnecessary to issue tickets for a free event where there are usually plenty of seats. But the ticket system's website provides a useful way to promote an event. Also potential attendees may feel more commitment to the event if they have been issued with a "ticket", even though there is no financial penalty for not turning up.

It was relatively simple registering the event in the web based system. As the event is free, there is no charge for using the system (a commission is charged on credit card sales). After entering the event details I selected the option to have the event promoted in an email newsletter and on social media. So far 12 tickets have been issued. This may not sound a lot, but it is for a university talk.

According to the Eventbrite system, about 58% of the tickets were referrals from their email newsletter, 25% from a search on the website and 17% from LinkedIn. No tickets came from Twitter or Facebook promotion. This is not surprising as the event is a professional, rather than recreational, one. What is surprising is how important a relatively old fashioned email newsletter is, compared to social media.

Government Online Engagement

Greetings from the Department of Finance in Canberra, where I am taking part in an "Online engagement course for the APS". The idea is to give public servants the skills and guidance to engage on-line, with a strategic approach by agencies. Having run several such workshops for government and as a formal university course, I was invited along. At the moment I am looking at how to teach professional skills online and some of these may be of use for the public service.

In my ICT Sustainability course I have students discuss the topic on-line each week. It takes several weeks for the students to establish a balance between the informality of an on-line forum and the need for academic rigor. Public servants will similarly need to balance the norms of the social media forums they are using and the legal and other requirements of government.

Online Engagement Courses for Government

The Department of Finance is considering a series of short courses on social media for the Australian Public Service ("Proposed online engagement courses for the APS", Pia Waugh, AGIMO Blog, 7 March 2013). These are to give APS the skills to engage online with and foster a more strategic strategic approach by agencies. Input and collaboration is invited from agencies and organizations. Based on experience of having run several such workshops for government and a formal university course (as well as spending the last year studying how to teach professional skills), would be to develop the courses for pure on-line delivery and use that material for the live workshops. The on-line versions of the courses could be made freely available for use, perhaps even as MOOCs.

Each course would include relevant information, resources, discussion and hands-on experience. Attendees could work through a number of hypothetical situations (including their own if they wish) and develop new skills that could be applied immediately in their agency.

Course 1: Using social media in the public service
This course would likely cover the following:

• An introduction to social media – adapting to the changing expectations of the public, and some lessons learnt from leading case studies from around Australia.
• Understanding online engagement – the difference between broadcast, consultation, co-development and customer service. How to determine the right approach, tone, tools and strategy for any situation.
• Online community development – how to build a constructive and useful online community of participation with social media.
• Professional versus personal – finding the balance for public servants. Will include best practise social media policies and management.
• Building a public narrative – the importance of “filling the vacuum” with facts, evidence and credible sources. The imperative to be an authoritative source of knowledge in the face of myriad agendas.
• Dealing with online conflict – how to mitigate risk, be on the front foot and tame the trolls.
• Iterative policy – how to monitor, measure and iteratively improve your social media approach, to be able to respond quickly and effectively to new opportunities and challenges.
• Monitoring social media (for individual users, topics, groups) – how to keep across the news in your area of interest.
• Where to from here – support mechanisms, other training and skills development options, existing policies, precedent principles resulting from public sector engagement in Australia to date.

Course 2: Managing social media in your organisation and developing an online engagement strategy
This course would likely cover the following:

• Existing strategies – learning from the strategies employed by leading case studies across the APS.
• Monitoring social media – following your brand, creating notifications, identifying problem areas, how to track trends, themes and sentiment of online discussions.
• Appropriate strategies for specific goals – the difference between broadcast, consultation, co-development/crowdsourcing and customer service, and specific strategies for each. Mapping goals to tools.
• Managing your staff online – how to find the delicate balance between mitigating risk and encouraging the productive use of social media by your staff. Practical strategies, policies and how to deal with issues.
• Analysis tools – how to get the most of social media data, mapping your participating communities, how to identify if you are being “gamed”.
• Building a strategy – mapping your goals, communities, resourcing, developing appropriate success criteria.
• The role of “apps” and mobile computing in your social media strategy. ...

From: "Proposed online engagement courses for the APS", Pia Waugh, AGIMO Blog, 7 March 2013

Crowd Share Innovation: Intensive Creative Innovations

The book "Crowd Share Innovation: Intensive Creative Innovations" is being launched at a free event this evening at the OBJECT AUSTRALIAN DESIGN CENTRE, Surry Hills, Sydney. The book is the result of a collaboration by the  collective called "Groudbreaker" and UTS u.lab.

At least I think that is what is happening, as it is very hard to tell from their poor quality, slow to respond web sites, which consist mostly of images of text. Where there is readable text, it uses terms such as "industry engagement are infused", which sound impressive but do not communicate much. But I thought I would go along to see if I could find out what this is actually about.

Strategies for managing social media information

The NSW State Records Authority has issued a draft "Strategies for managing social media information" for comment by 15 March 2013. The thirty five page document covers:

1. Strategies for managing social media information
2. ... determining what records need to be
   captured
3. How do I capture social media
4. Some retention and destruction
5. Frequently asked questions

Social Media for Society

At an Australian National University seminar today Roger Clarke, asked what social media for social purposes, rather than as a commercial product would look like. It occurred to me that as well as looking at the technical aspects of how to build social media tools it would be worth looking at what were the characteristics of successful off-line social groups. There are organizations which have commercial and social purposes, such as cooperatives and body corporates.

At its essence, social media is about supporting social groups. Part of the function of the software could be "social location", helping the individual find like minded people. Perhaps rather than pure social purposes, new social media software should concentrate on connecting groups of people who come together to achieve a common purpose. Examples are professionals who just to improve their profession, business people who need to cooperate to some extent while also competing and people who live in cluster housing and need to sort out common chores.

One natural place to start for university researchers to start would be at the university, which is an institution established to allow academics to come together to teach and research. The university works through social networking. Groups of teachers are brought together to explore how to improve their skills, students are brought together to learn from each other and groups of researchers form to do what they could not do alone. There is a minimum of formal structure for most of these activities, with the university providing the environment for collaboration.

There has been extensive research in pedagogy about how to foster and accelerate workable groups of students who will trust each other enough to learn together. There has also been research on "learning circles" and other mutual collaboration groups. There has also been some research on how research teams are formed. In recent years this research has had an impetus with the adoption of on-line education and the need to emulate or replace the face-to-face communication methods. On-line pedagogy now has a number of well establised techniques for accelerating the trust process between staff and studnts. Those for research collaboration are far less developed on-line.

Research supervision is an area where on-line techniques are still in development and so would be a useful area to investigate to use of social media for. In my studies for a postgraduate certificate in tertiary teaching I am looking at how existing on-line pedagogy for courses can help graduate research students.

In terms of a software implementation, Google sponsored the OpenSocial set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for social media applications to interface. This would allow a system to be built without one central server and have different user interfaces. There are also several open source distributed social network projects building social network services.

Using Social Media in Local Government

The University of Technology Sydney have released "Using Social Media in Local Government: 2011 Survey Report" by Karen Purser (June 2012). As well as the full report, there is a summary available.

Table of Contents

2. About the Survey
2.1 Methodology
2.2 Sample
2.3 Questionnaire
2.4 Coding
2.5 Statistical significance
3. Executive Summary
4. Detailed Findings
4.1 Understanding of social media
4.2 Use of social media by councils
4.3 Ownership of social media inside council
4.4 Social media policy
4.5 Staff use of social media
4.6 Councillor use of social media
4.7 Social media evaluation
4.8 Opportunities and effective use of social media
4.9 Barriers and risks of using social media
4.10 Use of social media in an emergency
4.11 Social media tools
5. Conclusions
Appendix - Survey Questions ...

3. Executive Summary
Social media has really only been around for ten years. The year 2002 saw the launch of the first significant social networking site, Friendster. Myspace was launched in 2004, followed by Facebook in 2006 and Twitter in 2006. Not much is heard of Friendster or MySpace nowadays, but according to research conducted by Sensis 2 in 2012 - Facebook dominates as the most used social networking site, being used by 97% of social networking participants or 6 out of 10 Internet users. This was unchanged in the past year. Facebook is used by more than 95% of social media users from both sexes and at least 93% in all age groups. LinkedIn was the next most popular social media platform, being used by 16% of social networking users, up from 9% last year. Twitter was used by 14% of social networking site users, up from 8% last year, and Google+ was used by 8%.

This represents a massive change in the way people communicate with one another, and with the organisations they interact with, including local government. ...

In considering future use, councils are most likely to intend to use Twitter, followed by mobile apps like Snap Send Solve and the Youtube and Facebook.

Interestingly, while some rural/remote councils felt that social media was not relevant to them or their communities, one rural/remote council had found that they were able to communicate much more effectively with their residents via social media as they were too geographically dispersed to support a local newspaper.

As might be expected, the strongest drive for a council to use social media came from staff responsible for communications (41%), and communications staff “owned” councils social media initiatives in 61% of cases.

The majority of councils were developing (50%) or had in place (26%) a social media policy of some sort – in most cases (84%) the policies were based on an existing policy of another organisation and either adopted with little change or used as a framework for a more tailored policy. This suggests a need for the development of standard social media tools and resources which can be easily tailored to suit individual councils.

Just on half of all participating councils who are using social media confined its official use to one or two staff members, most likely the in the communications team, where one exists. A further third of councils expanded their use of social media to key personnel throughout the organisation. ...

Few councils (21%) provided social media training for their staff, and even fewer (9%) provided social media training for their elected representatives, although many supplied them with smart phones and tablets which can be used to access social media, and 64% of participating councils had one or more elected representative who used social media to comment on or discuss council business. ...

Interestingly, 14% of those councils who were using social media had also found it to be useful to manage controversial issues, address public misconceptions and build positive reputations, and a further 10% had found it effective for emergency management. ...

The most significant barriers to the use of social media were to do with a lack of resources and a lack of knowledge. In particular a lack of sector wide guidelines and education was cited as a barrier – coupled with a lack of understanding of social media inside the organisation. ...

Significantly, much of the perceived risk associated with social media use clustered around information management and record keeping issues, suggesting a lack of clarity around state record keeping regulations as they relate to social media and commensurate uncertainty within the sector as to their responsibilities.

Further uncertainty was evident when councils were asked about the extent to which they
might consider using social media in an emergency, following on from the experience of Queensland councils during the floods and cyclones of 2011.

Importantly, a key finding of the Queensland Flood Commission of Inquiry Final Report was that Councils that have not already done so should consider how social media may be used effectively to provide accurate information about flood levels and local conditions to residents during a flood event.
...

From: Purser, K. (2012) Using Social Media in Local Government: 2011 Survey Report, Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government, University of Technology, Sydney, Retrieved from: http://www.acelg.org.au/upload/program2/1340860323_SocialMediaReport_web.pdf

Government: 2011 Survey Report, Australian Centre
of Excellence for Local Government, University of
Technology, Sydney

Social Media and Information Security Governance

Greetings from the CSIRO centre in Canberra, where Jo Stewart-Rattray is speaking at an Australian Computer Society meeting on "Social Media and Information Security Governance". Jo emphasized the high level governance, rather than management or technical aspects of social media's use in organizations. Also mentioned was the Australian Government's work on a Cyber-Security White-paper.

Jo pointed out that while technologies may change, many of the governance and security issues are the same: today's cloud server throws up similar issues to last century's computer bureau.

In terms of social media, Jo pointed out that some organizations has set up their own internal social media services. These provide similar features to Facebook, but are for staff only. I have used Yammer in this way at CSIRO and ANU. She cited the "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon (by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker, 5 July 1993) and how some people will put on a false personal online.

Jo suggested that external experts are needed for security policy review due to the rapid developments. I suggested for Canberra it is useful to get someone with a uniform on, for credibility. She argued that personnel need some leeway on the use of social networking at work (apart from high security sites), with practical guidelines.

Organizations harvest social media information from the web. Jo pointed out that this information needs to be protected, as it may contain details about individuals, including staff. While the individuals volunteer information online, they may not realize how much information is available. It occurs to me that it might be useful to provide each staff member with a harvested profile about themselves, to increase their awareness of what may be inadvertently released.

Jo mentioned some standards, such as ISO 38500 Corporate Governance of IT, ISO 27002 IT Security Techniques: Code of practice for information security management, COBIT 5.0 (new version this year), and the Business Model for Information Security.

Jo will be speaking in Bella Vista NSW 31 May and Hobart 5 June.

Internet Transforming Politics and the Media

One example of a journalist who cannot be accused of not giving a topic the depth of analysis it deserves is the ABC's Eleanor Hall. She has just completed studies at Oxford University Internet Institute on the use of the Internet in politics. Her carefully researched 37 page Trinity Term Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper "Politics in the Youtube Age: Transforming the Political and Media Culture?", is available online. She argues that Obama's use of the Internet was not the grassroots campaign it was portrayed as, but had strong central coordination.

I concluded that the Obama campaign is less revolutionary than it at first appears and that there are a range of reasons why it is unlikely that British politicians will follow even some of the more riskfree elements of the Obama e-campaign.

The Obama campaign showed that online social networking can be a powerful political tool and the US President’s web supporters are justified in claiming this as the first election victory for YouTube politics. But it also showed that a web 2.0 community can be harnessed to a fairly traditional campaign hierarchy and could be open to manipulation by the very political gatekeepers it claims to
be challenging.

Obama’s is a story of how web 2.0 helped an outsider to get into the race for the White House but then how the candidate’s campaign used social networking to increase several important levers of its power. The campaign amassed a huge database of supporter contacts and information, it raised the biggest war chest of funds in US history and it used the web to marshal and direct its online supporters. It also used the internet to counter one of the other political power centres in the campaigning environment, the mainstream media. In doing all of this there were negotiations made and, sometimes uneasy, alliances formed.

The Obama team directed political activity but did not squash dissent, as campaign directors in a TV age campaign might have done. It broke away from the old “war room” approach to data that was characterised by secrecy and central control and gave supporters more autonomy in the way they involved themselves in the political campaign. The web 2.0 community showed it was powerful and Obama’s embrace of it meant many more citizens did engage in the political process. But this was still a political campaign with the goal of winning power and was strikingly similar in key respects to an old-style top down, command and control political operation.

As for British politicians emulating elements of the Obama e -campaign to re-engage citizens and reinvigorate the democratic process, most players agreed it appears unlikely to happen any time soon, despite the expenses crisis. While many MPs and citizens are increasingly using web 2.0 to engage in politics, institutional and cultural differences between the US and the UK make it unlikely Britain will ever see Obama-levels of enthusiasm for using web 2.0 in political campaigns. ...

From: Politics in the Youtube Age: Transforming the Political and Media Culture?, Eleanor Hall, Trinity Term, Reuters Institute Fellowship, University of Oxford, 2009

Mobile Internet taking off with Younger Australians

Last night Scott Ewing from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation reported on a survey of Australians use of the Internet. This is part of the World Internet Project (WIP), looking at Internet use over time and accross countries. Some of the more interesting results are that 19% of Australians don't use the Internet, 94% of 18 to 24 years olds do and of them 20% use the Internet on their mobile phones. The published report is available: CCi Digital Futures Report The Internet in Australia 2008. Scott and his colleagues will be talking in Melbourne, PERTH, BUNBURY, HOBART, Adelaide, SYDNEY and other locations.

What do Australians do online?

Scott Ewing from the World Internet Project (WIP) will speak on the social, cultural, political and economic impact of the Internet and other new technologies at free ACS talks around Australia in October and November 2008:

Location	Date
Canberra	7 October 2008
Melbourne	15 October 2008
PERTH	21 October 2008
BUNBURY	22 October 2008
HOBART	28 October 2008
Adelaide	29 October 2008
SYDNEY	24 November 2008

ACS Branch Forum (Final EDxN for 2008)
The World Internet Project What do Australians do online?

CCi Digital Futures is the Australian component of the World Internet Project (WIP), a collaborative, survey-based project looking at the social, cultural, political and economic impact of the Internet and other new technologies. Founded by the UCLA Centre for the Digital Future in the United States in 1999 (now based at the USC Annenberg Centre), the WIP is now approaching 25 partners in countries and regions all over the world.

The Internet is everywhere, at work, at home and on the move. If the Prime Minister's plans come to anything, it will soon be in every school. The underlying technologies are scarcely three decades old, and some of the most popular sites, such at You Tube and Facebook, are only a few years old, but this new world of information and communication is now, for many of us, an utterly everyday experience. What is equally remarkable is how little we really know about how the net is used, where and by whom.

Researchers are tackling these and other questions on several fronts. The answers will tell us a great deal about what sort of people Australians are becoming in the new era of networks. They will also tell us something about the real prospects for turning Australia into one of those new, desirable 'knowledge economies', based on innovation and creativity. What is the point of this sort of research? A global, long-run study of the net is useful for many people: for policy makers, for consumers, businesses and innovators. This kind of knowledge has another possible benefit, if it can help make what now seems strange a bit less scary. We could then spend a little less time worrying about what the net might do to us or our children, and some more time figuring out what it can achieve for us all.

Biography:

Scott Ewing

A Senior Research Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology's Institute for Social Research and at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation, Scott Ewing has fifteen years experience as a social researcher, both at Swinburne and in the private sector. Currently managing the Australian component of the World Internet Project, a global survey of internet use and non-use, Scott's research interests include the social impact of new technologies and the role of economic evaluation in social policy. He has taught at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level and his research output includes a book, a book chaper, numerous monographs and reports, ten journal articles and many conference papers (both published and unpublished).

What is the news from 1911?

Google now has a news archive which can show a timeline, with news items sort by dates mentioned in the articles. I was looking for my name and was surprised to find a mention for 1911. This turned out to be a blog posting from me about Marion Mahony Griffin's sketches of for the 1911 Canberra design competition. This was quoted in the Technorati blog, which apparently rates as a news source for Google.

The distinction between a media release, a blog and a newspaper seems to be blurring. This will take some getting used to. I am more comfortable with the old fashioned system, where the journalist took a copy of my media release and rewrote it to pretend it was their own work. ;-)

China and Australia using New Media for Governance

Greetings from the Creative Industries Precinct in Brisbane, where the China, East Asia, Media, New Media Conference 2007, just started. About one third of the delegates are from China and I am feeling a little out of my depth, not from the overseas visitors, but the media studies emphasis of the conference. To me the Internet and web are for carrying "stuff" and I worry the stuff gets from author to reader; exactly what the stuff is I don't much care. The other speakers at this conference are vitally interested in the content and its effect on society.

I will be on two panels at the conference. As I am last on each panel, I don't expect I will get to say much, but prepared notes and slides anyway:

1. "Inventing a New Media for China Beyond the Olympics", 11:25am, 5 July 2007. In this I suggest the Internet and web can be used for a blend of education, media and administration to create consultative government of local communities. This can be applied to an apartment block in China or a remote aboriginal community in Australia.
2. Web Site for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Integrating Sport, Money, Phones and Politics, 2:30pm, 6 July 2007. I give a quick rundown of the various web sites created for the Olympics. BOCOG invited me to Beijing to give some advice on the web site in 2003. But I point out that the new Beijing 2008 Olympic Web site does not comply with accessibility standards. As a result it will be more difficult to use, particularly for those using mobile wireless devices and those who have trouble reading the languages provided.
   

Comments and corrections are welcome.

Also Graham Young, Chief Editor, On Line Opinion, has arranged Pizza tonight for the opinionated (I am on the advisory board for the publication). Contact him for details:

ps: Photo is of Terry Flew at the launch of his new book "Understanding Global Media" at the conference.

Sport, Money, Phones and Politics in the Chinese New Media

The program is out for the 2007 China Media Centre Conference in Brisbane, 5 to 6 July. Somehow I ended up on two panels. The extra one is Friday, 6 July: Globalisation, Ideology and Theory, with Lian Zhu (University of Bournemouth, UK), Terry Flew (Queensland University of Technology), Xin Xin (University of Westminster).

I will be talking on:

Web Site for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Integrating Sport, Money, Phones and Politics

Balancing the competing demands for the 2008 Olympic web site are as delicate as that of any gymnast. China needs to meet the requirements set down by the International Olympic Committee, the needs of internal readers, and the international media. The Sydney games made tentative steps towards a web based Olympic experience, which Athens retreated from. Beijing 2008 will be the first games of the new Web 2.0 era. How are issues such as control of content handled, what role will mobile phone based content have? Tom Worthington will discuss the issues from the point of view of someone involved with the early planning. He was an expert witness in the Australian Human Rights and Equality Commission on a case involving the Sydney 2000 Olympics web site design. He was invited to Beijing help in planning for the Beijing Olympic web site, with Chinese and International Olympic officials.

The other is Thursday on Re-Imagining Global Media, with Terry Flew, John Hartley and Michael Keane from Queensland University of Technology, Anne-Marie Brady (University of Canterbury, NZ), Jack Qiu (Chinese University Hong Kong). I am talking on "Inventing a New Media for China Beyond the Olympics".

It occurs to me that systems for community consultation in indigenous communities in Australia could also be applied in China. A village and a high rise apartment block are both forms of community which need day to day decisions to be made about them. Perhaps the same web based systems could be used in an Australian rural community and a Shanghai apartment block.

Inventing a New Media for China Beyond the Olympics

The 2007 China Media Centre Conference is 5 to 6 July in in Brisbane. I will be speaking on "Inventing a New Media for China Beyond the Olympics":

In the past few years the Internet has gone from being a theoretical idea invented by a few western scientists funded by the US Department of Defence, to an essential part of world commerce and culture. Much of the technological infrastructure of the Internet remains the same even with developments such as Web 2.0 However our methods of work and analysis have yet to catch up. The Web created a new wave of grass roots publishing following on from email. The operation of the web for the Beijing Olympics will be the test case both for China, and all organisation structures. Within the Internet has always been the Trojan horse of grass roots participation; with Web 2.0 this will emerge to will challenge traditional power structures world wide.

Cross-disciplinary analysis is needed to understand the interplay of technology, politics and commerce. Media and cultural researchers need to throw off their arms length analysis and embrace the new media in order to understand it.

In 2003 the Beijing 2008 Olympic Committee invited me over to advise on their web site design. Also some of the students I teach web design and e-commerce to are from China. They will be the ones implementing Internet, web and mobile phone based systems which will be the platform for new media in China. One student just completed a special project to modify the Wikimedia to include advertising.

Corporate social networking with web 2.0?

The IT business media seem to be taking Web 2 seriously, so perhaps it is time to look at it. But there seem to be several concepts mixed up together (or perhaps "mashed up"?). Sorting this out may solve some problems in corporate document management and academic publishing.

One is the use of AJAX and similar technology to provide a more interactive interface via the web. Another is traditional office applications provided via the AJAX interface (such as word processors and spreadsheets). The third is on-line meeting places, such as MySpace.

There is also YouTube, a video sharing web site, which usually gets mentioned in the same articles but does not seem to have anything to do with social networking or corporate applications, but just gets included because it is popular.

Capitalizing on Interactivity, Mobility and Personalization by Donna Bogatin, January 22nd, 2007:

Categories: Business Models, Web 2.0, Culture, Google, Blogs, User-Generated Content, MySpace, Social Web, Amateur Content, Self-Promotion, Google Software Applications, Social Networking, Social Media

Is MySpace coming to the enterprise? According to Business Week it is.

On what does Steve Hamm base his assertion? IBM's announcement today of “Lotus Connections.”

IBM describes its offering as “the industry's first platform for business-grade social computing”:

Lotus Connections facilitates the gathering and exchange of information through professional networks, provides a dashboard-like view of current projects and connects users to like-minded communities. In addition, Lotus Connections removes the need for multiple social software applications, providing businesses with a single destination for building professional communities. ...

Corporate social networking is name of game with Lotus Connections, By Stan Beer, 24 January 2007 :

While Microsoft has been trying to win Web 2.0 corporate hearts and minds with Sharepoint Server, IBM threatens to steal the show with a new corporate tested offering called Lotus Connections. Web 2.0 in the consumer space is all about social networking as exemplified by sites such as MySpace, YouTube and FaceBook. Users of these sites with common interests can network, share ideas and provide each other with information that builds upon their mutual knowledge base.

The idea of using more interactive web applications makes sense in the corporate environment, provided you have the bandwidth and processing power to do it and accept its limitations. In some ways this is a step back to centralized mainframe computing, with the web application running on the server. If the central application stops, no one can do any work. This would be a good way to go if you have a new application to introduce across a wide network.

The extreme case seems to be to run your corporate service on someone else's web server. Google have a service called "Google Apps for Your Domain" which provides online tools for email, instant messaging and shared calendar. The idea is that the same tools used for Google's Gmail and others are available for use by companies, educational institutions and other organisations. They use the Google system in place of their own in-house software.

Google are not charging for these services, but presumably are doing it to make people more familiar with Google's services which have advertising on them:

Google Apps for Your Domain lets you offer private-labeled email, instant messaging and calendar accounts to all of your users, so they can share ideas and work more effectively. These services are all unified by the start page, a unique, dynamic page where your users can preview their inboxes and calendars, browse content and links that you choose, search the web, and further customize the page to their liking. You can also design and publish web pages for your domain.

I remain a bit skeptical of online meeting places as a business tool. Any form of collaboration requires skills from the participants. Not everyone has these skills and corporations will need to invest in training and staff to make them work. As well as cooperation, workplace involve competition. Perhaps rather than a social network, an information market would be a better model for the on-line workplace. Also much social networking takes place outside the organisation.

Are companies prepared to formalize and document online the process by which their staff trade information with other organisations? In many cases these contacts take place verbally and informally, while tacitly endorsed by superiors. If the contacts took place via a computer system, all transactions would be recorded and could be used in evidence in court. Much of these contacts would be considered unethical or illegal, limiting the scope for using a formal system.

What has this to do with corporate document management or academic publishing? Organisations, particularly governments, are having difficulty with staff filing electronic documents properly. Academia are having difficulty over the role of academic publishing. In both these cases the problem is that the records manager or librarian sees the document or publication as an end in itself.

But the office worker or academic author sees them just as part of a process; a byproduct of doing some work or some research. By incorporating the social network process in the system used to produce the document, keeping good records or publications will be a natural by product of the work. This is more than just an automated work flow which prompts you for some keywords before you can save a document.