Find me/my brain there.

Read more on Elliot Owl

And then a couple of days ago, we see Iceland ads racing around Twitter and blogs.

Yes it’s a little weird, and I find myself fidgeting while I’m watching it – I’m just not sure if I should be singing along, admiring the cinematography, or mimicking some of the hilarious dance moves (check out the dudes at 01:11), but I think I actually enjoy it.

-

Read more on Elliot Owl.

Group120

Read more about that on Elliot Owl.

-

I think this is a fantastic project, one that I am very excited about and would like to spend as much time on as I possibly can. I’m wondering if I can make this the subject of my research project? Glad I have a meeting with Adrian in a couple of days. Will definitely be bringing this up!

I’m not the most academically-inclined person; I fare a lot better doing hands-on practical projects, rather than the theory (hah, so why are you doing Honours, you dummy). So CommRev definitely scared me a little. I found the readings extremely difficult to process and understand, and would get extremely frustrated when it took me longer than thirty minutes to complete a single reading – pretty much the amount of time it took me to do reading logs back while in my undergraduate year. Yeah, I’m a ‘skimmer’ aka The Lazy Reader. I skim articles and somehow manage to pull out important points (usually found in the first and last paragraphs of the text), and can usually churn out a pretty decent reading log quickly. I found that this method wouldn’t work in Honours. So I toiled and laboured, but as soon as I got into the swing of things, it started getting better. The first assessment task was a little bit of a struggle for me – I just couldn’t understand some of the key concepts, and it was making me very worried. I did better than expected (I expected to fail, ha), and Peter’s thorough feedback really helped me understand what went wrong and why. I worked on it, and the second assessment task was a lot better for me. At the end of everything, I’m quite proud to say that I have certainly grown in the semester. While I’m not ready to take on a 70,000 word PHD thesis anytime soon, I’d like to stay that I’ve taken one step forward.

Transient Spaces was another interesting course. I like that we explored Community as a theme. Jenny had always urged us to look for the ‘conflict’ in the community, which I liked as well because it helped me find an edge to my documentary, so that I could make it worth watching/looking into. I was excited for this course because it let me be open with the execution of my documentary. I definitely wanted to take advantage of this to work hand-in-hand with my research project that was going to be based on social media and new media technologies. I have to admit that I kind of went into this the wrong way round. I decided on the execution before actually deciding on the content. Naughty of me, I know, but it was interesting going through the thought process from the opposite direction. After a shaky first few weeks, I finally decided on a community to base my documentary on. I’ve always been really interested in their activities and have even participated in some, so this was a fantastic excuse for me to get up-close-and-personal, for lack of a better term. Production was heaps of fun, and even editing! I had minor technical difficulties in between but sorted them out pretty quickly. I decided to do the whole Facebook-theme right at the end; a result of The Epiphany Toilet (true story). I got some positive feedback during the presentation, so I’m very thankful for that. Overall, Transient Spaces = success.

I have to admit, I spent most of my time this semester focusing on my research project. I came into Honours knowing exactly what I wanted to do, and I built my research project on that. I hate to admit it, but it felt that CommRev and Transient Spaces were taking away the precious time I could and should be spending doing my research project. I know, I know, I’m a terrible person. After the first few weeks, I learnt to embrace it / suppress the hate (can’t tell the difference at this point). I’m proud to say that I’ve made leaps and bounds with my research project. In a few months, I’ve set up an “official blog”, of which I have been faithfully updating every few days (minus the last two weeks – uni crunch time, yikes!), created accounts on multiple social networking platforms like Twitter, FourSquare, Tumblr, Delicious and Blip.fm. I have made it a habit to be active on all these platforms, and in a short span of time, am proud to say that I already have a (very) small following. I also continuously keep myself updated with industry news, so research doesn’t really feel like research. As a result, I had absolutely no complaints about doing my Lit Reviews. I’m currently in the process of finishing up my 5,000 word essay as I type this, but I’m not very much fussed, even if it is due in a few days. My only worry is that I have way too much information to cram into 5,000 words! It should all be fine though, I’m excited to get good and properly started on my project and do a smashing job for next semester!

-

Overall, it’s been a pretty good couple of months. I’m proud of what I’ve done so far, which is great. Here’s to the next half of 2010!

“Community in general concerns particular forms of belonging and the decline of community can be a decline only in particular ties of belonging, which must be measured by the rise of other forms of belonging” (p.41)

Jenny Preece (2000) talks about how the definition of community has evolved over time:

“Initially, comunities were characterized mainly by their physical features, such as size, location and their boundaries. During and after the industrial revolution, cheaper transportation made it easier for people to move from place to place and physical characteristics provided a less reliable basis for defining community.” (p. 348)

We see a greater transformation of “community” with the digital age where geographical and even cultural boundaries become almost obsolete. Howard Rheingold (1994) tells us about virtual communities: “A group of people, who may or may not meet one another face-to-face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. (p.57-58)

There has been much debate amongst scholars about whether “virtual communities” can and should be considered “real communities”. Some say that no because virtual communities lack the physicality and connectedness that a “real” community offers. Other say yes, that virtual communities are simply “real communities” redefined in the current digital age.

Oren and Amitai Etzioni (2010) encourage us to think about the advantages and disadvantages that these communities have, rather than trying to decide whether virtual communities are “real” or not. According to them, the two are separate forms with very different characteristics. While real communities provide far more emotional feedback than virtual communities (especially with body language), the latter allows members to ignore geographical and sometimes even cultural boundaries that would have otherwise been a barrier to particular communities.

The “Virtual Communities VS Real Communities” debate was put forward to friends of The Real World. There was a fairly equal split between both sides of the argument, with both making equally valid points. Find out more here and here..

–

References

• Delanty, G. (2009) Community, Routledge: UK
• Etzioni, A., and Etzioni, O. Communities: virtual vs. real. Science 277.5324 (1997): 295. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 27 May 2010
• Preece, J. (2000) “Sociability and usability in online communities: determining and measuring sucess’, Behaviour & Information Technology, 20:5, p. 347-356
• Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA

The Real World is an exploratory documentary project about the validity of virtual communities as “real communities”. This project focuses on flash-mob communities in Melbourne, Australia that are based online. It features two communities that have been very active in recent years planning and executing annual activities that are attended by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of participants.

While these communities are based online (in both cases, on Facebook), they have also managed to project physical presence in real life. The question is: does this make them a “real community” in the traditional sense?

1. Indicate two things that you’ve done well, and why doing these well is important.

One of the things I’ve done well is keeping up with my blogroll and links. This is especially important for the topic I’m working on because new technologies and industry updates come up a dozen times a day so being out in the loop could mean that I am missing out on a crucial bit of information that may help when I’m trying to predict ‘the next big thing’ or what the market might be leaning towards. Some of the fantastic resources I keep updated with include Mashable, Wired Magazine and mUmbrella. In order to do this, I subscribe to RSS (via Google Reader) and Twitter feeds and keep myself connected 24 hours a day on my laptop and mobile phone. I check these feeds for interesting news when I find I have a spare moment and bookmark those that are relevant. Aside from RSS feed updates, I use Delicious to help keep track of my bookmarks. I use tags so that I can easily track back when I need to. I also have Evernote installed on my laptop which helps me quickly pull out images and blocks of text and store them on a scrapbook that I can later go back and refer to.

I have also been looking at a range of media for information. This includes podcasts, vodcasts, films, documentaries, blog posts and journal articles. “Cross-platform content” is definitely a buzz term in this industry and I must be familiar with all the channels that information may be delivered so that I may utilise them as effectively as possible in my project. By recognising the different ways and methods these mediums may be manipulated to best suit the purpose, I will be able to develop my own effective and efficient media plan that is suitable for the purpose that I am working towards.

2. Indicate two things that you have learnt to do better, and why this matters.

Blogging and writing consistently is something that I have tried to do better this semester, and I do believe that I have achieved just that. I have found Evernote to be extremely useful for me in this respect, as I use it to store bits of important information that I can comment on later. It works like a virtual scrapbook, which is fantastic because prior to this, I found myself forgetting to talk about or develop on ideas that I’ve come across online. Evernote helps me keep an archive of my thoughts and findings, and its integrated text editor allows me to write down my opinions and ideas that I will later formulate into a coherent blog post. In doing so, I have a record of my thought process which helps me a lot in my work.

I have been keeping a close eye on my references and bibliography this semester – something that I haven’t done consistently in recent years. Usually, I leave referencing to the last minute, which usually means that I’m left scrambling to fill in missing bits of information that I had lost. By using plug-ins like Zotero and Delicious, I am able to keep all my links and references in order for future use. When the time comes, I can easily extract all this information with a click of a button. For a 15,000 word project, this is bound to save me a fair bit of time and effort.

3. Indicate two things that you could have done better, and what you will do to actually do them better in coming weeks.

While I have spent a fair amount of time concentrating on current news and market trends, I feel that I have been neglecting the more academic-type reading in the form of social theorists like Shirky, Rheingold and so on. I definitely have to start paying attention to the basic theories behind social media in coming weeks because without it, my project will not have a solid foundation to stand on.

I also have not been sticking to the timeline that I set for myself a few weeks ago. This has proven to be a pretty messy task – I’ve just realised that I’m about three weeks behind schedule for some of the things I had planned on doing. As a result, I am now rushing out my CommRev and Research Workshop Lit Review assignments – something that could definitely have been avoided if I had followed the work plan. This has definitely been eye-opening for me. I cannot afford for this to happen at the final stage of my project next semester. After both essays have been submitted in less than two weeks, I will be reviewing my work plan and forcing myself to follow it strictly. This time, I must remember to be realistic about the amount of work I can accomplish; I must keep in mind that I get very quickly distracted, so multi-tasking is key to keeping up productivity.

Back to the topic at hand, Jenny got back to me with pretty positive feedback, which surprised me a little. She liked the structure and the content, which was excellent. She did say that I had to work on tying together all the content though,  which gave me a little headache. My site is non-linear with no fixed narrative. Users could consume the information in whichever method they wanted to – they could go through links in any order they pleased. If I were to write a conclusion, there would be no place to put it, because a conclusion is like a bit fat full stop, and I just cannot have a big fat full stop on a website! This site doesn’t work like a blog. It isn’t chronological, so there is no start and certainly no end.I had no idea where I would put a conclusion.

After spending a fair amount of time debating about this. I decided to create a page titled “The Theory”. I had initially included some academic research into the “About” page, which I hoped could tie all the different opinions and thoughts together. Jenny had implied that this wasn’t enough so I had expanded on that, and gave the theories its own space. Here is an excerpt from the page:

We see a greater transformation of “community” with the digital age where geographical and even cultural boundaries become almost obsolete. Howard Rheingold (1994) tells us about virtual communities: “A group of people, who may or may not meet one another face-to-face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. (p.57-58)

There has been much debate amongst scholars about whether “virtual communities” can and should be considered “real communities”. Some say that no because virtual communities lack the physicality and connectedness that a “real” community offers. Other say yes, that virtual communities are simply “real communities” redefined in the current digital age.

Read more on The Real World: The Theory.

I had also rewritten the About page as, having a second look at it, I felt that it didn’t express enough about what the whole project was about.

Hopefully these changes would be a good enough change that can secure me a decent mark when we finally present our projects on Friday!

• What is it
• Statement that it is the current climate
• Information flow
• Networks
• Social media
• Who uses Web 2.0 (target market)

Assumption that brands are already using social media:

• If the brand hasn’t even considered this, question is why not
• What tools are available
• How to effectively use tools
• How to produce effective cross platform content
• Are your consumers absorbing the message – studies about how media is consumed in the Web 2.0 age

Brand equity:

• The definition of
• Why it is important
• How it will affect your brand
• How to maintain/increase brand equity
• How social media plays a role

Case studies:

• Two success stories + one fail story
• Variety of industries, using a variety of mediums to send their message
• Social media marketing doesn’t start and end at Facebook and Twitter
• Strategies – e.g. media buying, creative style

The future / Web3.0:

• What is
• How to manage marketing to suit this change