68th Four State Regional Technology Conference, November 11th 2010
Social Media – Instruction on Emerging Tools to do Business
Wells Hall presented a wonderful presentation on social media. He started off by showing us a short video interviewing different students and staff on different subjects related to social media. This included what their definition of social media and social networking. Mr. Hall defined social media as “the ability of people to communicate with each other”. Social networking is the “ability of people to network to other people by sharing ideas”.
Mr. Hall then went on to discuss the internet. The first time he use the World Wide Web, he said it was very emotional and that he didn’t know what was out there. Mr. Hall told us a little bit of history, starting off with the Iran election of the new dictator. During this government election the Iran government had a censorship on all forms of publication, but people used their cell phones to tweet information so others would know what was going on. “People have a voice”.
Mr. Hall then told us about connectivity and the 6 degrees of separation, which is a human web of connectivity. Everyone in the world is six steps away from others on the planet. See illustration.
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| wikipedia.com graphic |
Convergence is like the snowball effect. The examples Mr. Hall gave us was: British singer Elaine Page, who is known for her wonderful voice; and Susan Bayle who was just another nobody. Susan Bayle was on a talent show sung beautifully and the next day her performance was on YouTube. Over 60million people viewed it within a few months. Her album which featured the song “I Dream a Dream” was the best selling album of 2009.
Mr. Hall then moved to the history of printing and communication, starting with Gutenberg, who invented moveable type. The greatest thing every made. Gutenberg was named #1 man in the last 1,000 years. Farnsworth the father of television was also discussed. He would read books all the time. One day he read how the television was not working out, and he solved the problem.
Where does social media fit into education? Art? History? Science? The answer is social media fits everywhere in all subjects.
Applying social media to a business steps are as followed:
Plan - You need goals and a team.
Listen – Official sites and fan sites.
Participate – Create profiles, follow and join.
Evaluate – What is negative and what is positive.
Respond – Send thank you notes, for an unhappy customer you need service recovery, monitor, and always provide correct information.
What should we teach children of these concepts? Should we just give them the tools and say go for it. No, we need to teach them to be imaginative and creative and to make the tools they need for themselves. An example Mr. Hall gave us was mimeo.com, who are a large online printing company that created their own tools.
Mr. Hall closed with the new renaissance, “what once fit in a room now fits in your pocket, and in a few years what now fits in your pocket will be able to fit in a blood cell.”
