Lafayette Twestival Ticket Giveaway

March 24 is Twestival Local 2011.

What is Twestival?

Twestival is a way for people to get together and donate to a local cause. It is mainly organized on Twitter, and showcases the power of Twitter to help people organize and do good.

What happens at Twestival?

Once you get in, you listen to local bands, talk to people, have a drink… it’s just a fun night out, but you know that the ticket money goes to a good cause. This year, the proceeds go to City Foods.

Twestival will be held downtown Lafayette at the Muse.

See more details here.

I believe it’s a worthy event, and a good opportunity to meet people from the community, many of whom love social media just as much as you do!

I know students are strapped for cash, and that’s why I want to give away some tickets.

I will give away 5 basic tickets to Twestival. All you have to do is write a comment below explaining why you want to go, or why you think people from the community should attend.

You do not have to by my student, or a student, to enter.

I will select the winners through a random drawing on Thursday March 24 at 2 pm, so make sure you enter your comment before then!

March 15: Adopt the Internet

Today is Adopt the Internet Day – Petfinder invites bloggers to spread the word about animal adoptions.

I’m happy to participate and feature an adoptable pet from the Greater Lafayette, Indiana, area on this blog. But, with so many adoptable pets out there, how can I choose just one?! There are almost 8,000 adoptable animals within a 100 mile radius…

I’m picking this one almost randomly (OK, she’s a cat, that’s not random):

From Cricket’s Petfinder profile:

Cricket’s owner died recently, and Cricket needs a new home. She is between 5-7 years old, she’s has had her shots and was recently spayed. She does not like to be with other cats, but is OK with dogs. She is a very tiny girl, with glowing green eyes and the softest fur we’ve ever felt on a cat. We know that her previous owner mistreated her by withholding food, and we suspect other cruelties as well because it takes Cricket a while to trust a new human. Once she trusts you, though, Cricket is the perfect loving kitty who will sleep with you and will sit in your lap for hours, purring like a motorboat. She’s called Cricket because shes always talking to her human, saying chirrup constantly. She’s had a very rough time and deserves a warm, stable home. Can you give it to her?

We kill too many unwanted animals in this country. You have to take a look at this Pawcurious post to get a sense of the scale of animal deaths in the U.S.

 

 

Natural user interfaces, movement, and emotion (Google Talk)

A Purdue ENE student posted this video on Facebook, and after watching, I had to curate it here. The idea is so simple, and so brilliant – after seeing the video, all I can say is “duh! – it makes perfect sense!”

Here’s the brief summary:

• we have the technology to interface with computers using movement – aka Natural User Interfaces (NUI) – like Xbox Kinect.
• movement of the body is related to emotion – something yogis have known for a long time, and modern research is confirming. For example, an open, expansive, body posture will make you feel happy and powerful (see, for example, this research study). Also, body posture and movement have social implications – for example, moving in sync creates liking & trust.
• Therefore, we should create interfaces that invite open, expansive, fluid body movements, in order to increase positive affect (put people in a good mood).
• Possible applications: Gmail TaiChi – Using TaiChi movements to sort through your Inbox in the morning; OR: A serious game for learning math that requires open, expansive movement is likely to reduce math anxiety.
• DUH! Brilliant!

Watch Katherine Isbister‘s Google Talk to grasp the details of this argument, and to see applications and interesting research projects:

The most valuable thing I learned in grad school

All the knowledge you could possibly want is out there. You’re a smart person. You can teach yourself anything you want. Then, why go to grad school?

What can grad school do for you that you can’t do for yourself?

In other words, why do you need a teacher?

I remember a time when I looked at an academic research paper, understood almost every word on the page, yet the meaning of the article as a whole was a mystery to me. Then a teacher came along, asked some good questions, and all of a sudden, the meaning of the reading appeared, as if a secret code had been deciphered.

The most valuable thing I learned in grad school has nothing to do with content. I learned how to read. How to think. I learned how to learn.

It’s this process of thinking, inquiring, and understanding that I hope to teach to my students. Beyond content, this is the skill that changes who you are forever. It changes how you see the world.

I asked my husband what’s the most valuable thing he learned in grad school. His answer was:

To know how to look for something when I’m not sure, and to know when I found it.

What’s the most valuable thing you learned in grad school?

Is Social Media for You?

I occasionally get invited to talk to local community groups and professional associations about social media – specifically, using social media to enhance their businesses.

I suppose people expect enthusiastic evangelism, hard selling, and a deep dive into social media strategies and tactics. Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong: I love social media. I use it, study it, teach it, research it, live it, breathe it, and have fun doing so. But I always start these presentations with an invitation to first think things through, and decide if social media is for you.

Here are the things I ask people to consider:

Your AUDIENCE -Who do you want to reach? Identify your specific stakeholder groups, and rank them in decreasing order of importance. Then, ask: Are they online? Do they use social media? What media do they use, specifically? Are they always connected, or people who only have Internet access at the end of a busy and exhausting day?

Your GOALS - What do you wish to accomplish? If there’s one thing you wish each stakeholder group to remember about you, what is that?

YourSELF – Social media takes time. It is a long-term commitment. Done right, it requires a change of lifestyle. Are you ready to invest the time and effort? The first 5 blog posts are very easy to write. But the 500th? Can you keep up the enthusiasm and generate content over the long run? Are you always connected? Do you have a smartphone? A digital camera? Or, do you have a lifestyle that keeps you away from the computer for most of the day?

 

I ask my audience to ponder these questions, and make an informed decision about what they want to do. Then, I provide incremental solutions, starting with what I think is the easiest/most familiar to them. Each person can pick and choose a social media solution that fits them best.

I am getting a bit tired of hearing consultants sell social media as a panaceum, and get people into a social media program they are not then able to sustain. I guess you can’t expect a person who makes a living this way to start a sales pitch with reasons why you shouldn’t buy… but that’s the approach I take. Oh, and then… sure, I move on to social media strategies and tactics.

QR Codes: (When) Do They Work?

I recently had an interesting conversation (actually, a couple of them) about QR Codes -Are they the next big thing? Will they save paper advertising?

As Nelu Lazar of Nehloo Interactive rightfully points out, QRCs are not so “next” – they’ve been around for more than 15 years. But, with the increasing popularity of smartphones, QRCs are crossing over from industrial uses into the consumer market.

So, are they the next big thing? I personally don’t think so. Based on what we know about human behavior, it seems to me that for the individual the cost of using QRCs exceeds the benefits. Let me explain.

Theories of human behavior, decision making, models of how humans navigate the Web and search for information – such as Information Foraging Theory (IFT) all agree that humans are inherently programmed to conserve energy – aka, to be lazy. There’s a quick cost/benefit analysis that goes on in our minds before we decide to engage in a behavior. And most often, we take the short, easy route. That’s why they tell you not to put important information on you website 2 clicks away. That extra click is effort (a cost), and many people will not expend it. So, the golden rule of Web usability, marketing, persuasion: MAKE IT EASY.

The reason why I do not believe in QRCs is because there are too many costs associated with them. In most situations where I see QRCs used, the cost/benefit analysis suggests that audience members will not use them. Let’s count the costs:

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1. You need to download an application on your phone.
2. When you see a QRC, you need to pull out your phone, then:
3. Turn it
4. Navigate to the application
5. Launch the application
6. Take a photo
7. Wait for the photo to be uploaded/processed
8. Wait for the information to download
9. Look at the site, video, etc. that the QRC links to

Some of these steps are based on assumptions that may not hold true:

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• The assumption that you have a smartphone
• The assumption that your network speed is high enough that the waiting time is very short
• The assumption that the photo produces a good enough image for the code to work
• The assumption that people want to get more information on their smartphones. I think some research is needed into the “get more information” behavior. It may be that when people are in “get more information” mode they want to be able to access it conveniently on a larger screen, where they have faster connection speeds, anyway. How many more steps would it take to get that information to your computer?

Given the many steps involved in using QRCs, the user needs to be highly motivated, either intrinsically, or by the benefits you offer at the other end. So, before you decide to use QRCs, I’d advise you to think about:

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• User motivation – what are some situations in which users are highly motivated to get to the next action, or to get more information? These are situations when users need something, rather than you needing to sell them something.
• Benefits – if users are not motivated by some sufficiently powerful need, what benefits are you offering at the other end, that make it worth the cost of clicking through? Not only do you have to make sure that those benefits are large enough, but you also need to think about:
• Communicating those benefits – I see many QRC codes that are mysteries. I have no idea what’s at the other end. In IFT terms, they have low to none information scent. You need to communicate clearly and convincingly what’s waiting on the other side, so the user can make an informed cost/benefit analysis.

I usually am an early adopter. I love new and shiny things. But I am very skeptical about QRC. Nelu pointed me to this blog post with ideas about using QRCs in education. They all sound need, but what problem do QRCs solve that cannot be solved more easily by using email or other form of digital communication? I rarely give any paper materials to students, if ever. So I do not need a link from physical to virtual space, because all of my written communication with students is digital, anyway.

To provide the other side of the story, I leave you with some readings that argue for QRCs:

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• 5 Unique Ways to Use QRCs, from Mashable
• 11 Must-See QRC Marketing Campaigns
• 13 Creative Ways to Use QRCs for Marketing, from Fast Company

But, I want to hear from you about evidence: When have QRCs worked for you? What numbers do you have that show the percentage of users who click through? I am interested in evidence that would prove me wrong – if you know of any, please post it in the comments below.

[Update, March 29, 2011] RWW covers a survey study on QR code usage.

Agenda Setting: Mainstream Media Drives Discussion on Twitter

Via Read/Write/Web:

Trends in Social Media: Persistence and Decay

What is going wrong for Jamie Oliver?

If you’ve been following Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution project, you saw that things are not going very well for him. The latest publicity stunt, in LA was attended by only 20 parents…

This is such an obviously good cause, in my opinion, that, just like Jamie, I am stunned. Why is he having so much trouble getting through to people? What is going wrong for him? What could he be doing wrong? I feel bad for the people he could be helping but isn’t, and, since he’s so adorable, I feel bad for him, too.

I’ve asked this question on Twitter, and people have come up with interesting answers about fighting the institutional powers, ingrained culture, years of advertising. They all make sense, and I am sure there are way more explanations than I can think of, but here’s my take:

Since Jamie is trying to change a well-ingrained health behavior, maybe theory can help him? Here, I turn to EPPM, a theory that’s been used a lot to change health-related behaviors.

EPPM is a theory that explains when fear appeals work or fail: When they persuade people to engage in the advocated behavior, and when they do not.

First, for fear appeals to work, they have to produce a moderate level of fear – too little, and there’s no motivation to take action; too much, and people freak out and retreat into denial. So, how do you produce a moderate level of fear? That’s a bit more of an art than a science, but one thing is clear: You have to show that the threat (the unhealthy behavior) is relevant to the target audience and is sufficiently severe. In other words, you have to answer the questions:

• Could this happen to me? –and:
• If it happens to me, how bad could it be?

So, let’s see how Jamie is doing. One of his preferred strategies is to show people, literally all the junk they’re putting into their (children’s) bodies: a busload of sugar, 2 gallons of lard. In terms of relevance, the message is clear: yes, this happens to me, I’m the one eating all this in my school’s cafeteria. But in terms of severity, there’s a disconnect. OK, so I ingest a busload of sugar… so what? What’s the problem with that? I think it’s possible that Jamie’s strategy is not driving the message all the way home. It is not helping people understand the consequences of eating a busload of sugar. How bad is it? What can happen to me? I’m feeling fine, thank you. Now, show me someone who suffers from health problems because of having eaten too much sugar, and I may begin to think about it. But make the example too scary and I’ll freak out and shut down. Jamie may be assuming his audience has more knowledge about the dangers of poor nutrition than they already do. This could be why his message fails at the severity level.

But let’s assume that Jamie manages to deliver a message that communicates both relevance and severity. That’s still not enough. According to EPPM, two more factors are needed for the message to be persuasive: response-efficacy and self-efficacy.

Response efficacy refers to the belief that the behavior Jamie is advocating is capable of actually solving the problem. Basically, that serving healthier school lunches would solve the scary health problems… but wait, he hasn’t quite established those in the first place, as far as I know.

Self-efficacy refers to the belief that the person is actually capable of practicing the advocated behavior. Here is where I see a double-layer of problems. At the parent level, it is possible that parents do not feel capable of feeding their children healthier food. I don’t know why, but I’d recommend Jamie do some research and find out. Could it be because they are overwhelmed by the amount of new information they need to learn about nutrition? Could it be because they don’t have the time to cook healthy? Could it be because they can’t afford healthy foods? At the school level, school administrators have to feel they are capable of delivering healthy school lunches now and in the long term. I assume these are poorly-paid, overwhelmed people, who all of a sudden have to figure out a whole new system of food purchasing, delivery, storage, and preparation. Not only is it adding work to an already exhausted system, but it is difficult, and probably expensive to sustain in the long-run. Low self-efficacy, on both the part of the parents and school administrators, may explain why Jamie’s message is not getting through.

But wait, there’s more. EPPM predicts that if people perceive a threat (something bad could happen to me – meaning the message communicates both relevance and severity), if either response efficacy or self-efficacy is low, instead of taking action to get rid of the threat (in this case, start eating healthy), they will take action to reduce their fear. This kind of action is counter-productive. It involves freaking out, tuning out, or denying there is a threat in the first place. I think this is happening to Jamie’s audience. Parents may be engaging in fear control processes, trying to manage their fear, instead of managing the threat. This could explain why Jamie seems to be failing to persuade people, why his message is not accepted and people are not engaging in the behavior he advocates.

If it helps you keep track of how EPPM works, here is a diagram that explains it:

This post is from the series For the Love of Theory, meant not only to help adorable Jamie, but also to demonstrate the power of theory and its capacity to make a difference in the world.

But, what other explanations do you have, about what’s going wrong for Jamie?

Short movie: The Note

This is a short movie made by students in our CGT department. I loved it so much, had to share it here:

Spring 2011 Course: Research focus: The social Internet

I’m offering my social media research seminar again in the spring semester. You can see last year’s syllabus on this wiki, but I am working on updating the course and making several changes.

TECH 621: Research Focus: The Social Internet

TECH 621 simulates an interdisciplinary think tank environment where students identify research questions and examine the impact of social media and social networking technologies on various aspects of society, business, culture, communication, web experience, and interface design.

The course integrates immersion in social media with consideration of several theoretical perspectives from diverse fields. Students complete an original research project customized to fit individual or team interests. The course encourages theoretical and methodological diversity.

During the Spring 2011 semester, the class will have access to proprietary online monitoring software for collecting and analyzing data.

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