March 05, 2008
36 Ideas - #3: Shout Out (Twitterpation)
Advance Preparation
Optional, but Recommended:
Create a small selection of questions that are difficult to answer. The criteria for questions are that the questions should not be easily discoverable on the Internet with a search, but are easily answered if you know the right person. The best questions would fall in the category of "I know what I need to know, but I don't know where to look for it (or I can't ask)." Examples:
- When is the administrative assistant's birthday?
- How can I integrate the del.icio.us player into a Typepad blog?
- What are some examples of really good surveys?
- How do you wire tail lights on a Bronco?
- Where is the best place on the body to get a tattoo?
- What was the name of that font we used in our newsletter ten years ago?
- How do you sync data from the iPhone app to a desktop app?
- School is closed. What time is the PTA meeting?
Estimated Time
10 minutes
Introduce the Exercise
As everyone comes into the room, hand them a slip of paper with the instructions: "Please write down a question, not necessarily a reference question, that you consider a 'stumper' or hard to answer." Put all the questions in a box.
Let's Do It
1. We need 2 volunteers from the audience.
2. Thank you for volunteering. Would you please pick two slips of paper from the box. If you know the answer, please put the slip back in the box and choose a different slip.
3. Pick whichever slip you think is the hardest question. Go out into the audience and choose 3 people you will ask the question. Whisper the question to each one of them privately, and have them whisper back to you if they know the answer. Make a note of the answers. If you finish the first question before we call timeout, continue with the second question. When we call TIMEOUT return to the stage.
4. Leader waits a maximum of 5 minutes and calls TIMEOUT.
5. Hang on to the questions you already have. Please choose a new question from the box. Again, this needs to be a question for which you don't know the answer.
6. Would you please read the first question you 'researched' and the answers you received. How confident are you that you now have the right answer? How much time did it take you to get the right answer (or how long do you think it would take to get the right answer using this approach)?
7. Would you please read to the audience the last question you picked?
8. Anyone in the audience who thinks you know the answer please stand up.
Take Home Message(s)
What we hope this will show is the power of "crowdsourcing" for unusual reference questions. It is sometimes more efficient to ask a question simultaneously of a group than to seek out people one-by-one who might know the answer.
Connect the Tech
This is an illustration of what happens when people ask questions on a microblogging forum such as Twitter. Other microblogging forums are Jaiku and Pownce. This is also similar to using the "Questions" application in Facebook. In all these examples, the question goes out to your chosen community, and the answers come from that community, but not necessarily from the individuals you might have thought most likely.
Caveats or Drawbacks to this Exercise
If someone put a really inappropriate or embarassing question in the box, that might be annoying. This wouldn't work with a really small group.
Posted by pfa at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2008
36 Ideas - #2. What's a social network? (Ribbon game)
Advance Preparation
Purchase a lot of different kinds and colors of ribbons. Minimum of 30 pieces of ribbon, preferably in a minimum of 7 different styles/colors/lengths. Minimum recommended length for a single piece of ribbon is 1.5 yards. Optional: It makes the ribbons a little easier to grip if you tie a small knot at both ends of the strips of ribbon.
NOTE 1: Yarn may be substituted, but is not as durable or visible.
NOTE 2: Many fabric stores will sell bags of ribbon remnants at a relatively low cost. Ask if they have this, or ask when they might next have this.
NOTE 3: If you do use ribbon, you probably want to ask people to give them back, since this can get a little expensive.
Estimated Time
10-15 minutes.
Let's Do It
1. We need a volunteer from the audience, someone who knows a bunch of people here. This person will now be referred to as Mr/Ms. X.
2. Thank you for joining us! Here are five pieces of ribbon. (NOTE: These five pieces may be in different lengths but should all be the same color.) Hold on tight to one end of each piece of ribbon. Now, ask five people you know to come on up here. Give each one of them the other end of one of your pieces of ribbon.
3. You next five people are now known as Mr/Ms A, B, C, D, and E. You all get 4 pieces of matching ribbon, but each of you has a different color. Hold on tight to one end, and look for people you know to hold the other ends. Here are the rules. You may NOT give the end of one of your ribbons to Mr/Ms X. You MAY give an end to one of the other people Mr/Ms X knows (Mr/Ms A, B, C, D, and E). You may also call up someone else from the audience.
4. We have a few more random pieces of ribbon left. Those of you called up by either Mr/Ms A, B, C, D, and E may take a piece or two of ribbon to connect to anyone you know who is already up here. This assumes you are not already holding one of their ribbons.
5. Now let's look at the connections. Everyone up here has at least 1 ribbon in their hand, and Mr/Ms X has 5. Does anyone else have 5? If you do, lift your hands up. 4? 3?
Take Home Message(s)
This is an illustration of what is an itty bitty teeny tiny social network. The idea is to make overt and visible those invisible connections between one person and another, and those people and others. Each person has their own social network, but the social networks of one person and other people often overlap. This is what leads to the concept now known as "6 degrees of separation."
Connect the Tech
Here we illustrated a face-to-face social network. A fundamental concept in the online social networking environments is that the same kinds of connections still hold true, even online, even in virtual environments. (Discuss examples or illustrations of online social networking tools/resources.)
Caveats or Drawbacks to this Exercise
May not work with a very small group who all know each other well. Works best when the space has two levels or an incline, so that the pattern of ribbon connections can be made visible.
May not work with a very large audience, simply because of lack of visibility.
OPTIONAL: If you can get above the group of ribbons, consider taking a photo of the connections and projecting it on a screen for the rest of the audience to see. This is especially helpful with a very large audience.
Posted by pfa at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2007
36 Ideas - #1, Variant A: Who's Your Neighbor? (Social Calisthenics)
Advance Preparation
None
Estimated Time
10-20 minutes
Introduce the Exercise
Once standing, please stay standing. If you don't recognize the name of the technology or the examples, assume you are not using it. Terms will be defined later.
Let's Do It
PART 1:
1. Is anyone here using Second Life? If so, please stand up!
2. Does anyone here share presentations or educational content via Slideshare or Classroom 2.0 or similar sites?
3. Does anyone here contribute content to a social news site, such as NowPublic?
4. Is anyone here in Ning? If so, please stand up!
5. Is anyone here in another social networking site (Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, or other)? If so, please stand up!
6. Is anyone here using microblogging (Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr)? If so, please stand up!
7. Does anyone here share images via a photosharing site (Flickr, Zoomr, SmugPhoto)?
8. Does anyone here share, collect or comment on content via a social media site (YouTube, iTunes, Last.fm, Justin.tv) or by podcasting?
9. Is anyone here using social bookmarking (del.icio.us, Digg, Connotea, 2collab, CiteULike, StumbleUpon, etc.)? If so, please stand up!
10. Has anyone here ever edited or added content to a wiki? If so, please stand up!
11. Does anyone here blog, even occasionally? If so, please stand up!
12. Does anyone here use a social shopping site, such as Amazon? OK, everyone standing now?
PART 2:
1. How many of you use 3 or more of these tools? Please remain standing, everyone else sit down.
2. How many of you use 6 or more of these tools? Remain standing.
3. How many of you use 9 or more of these tools? Remain standing.
[4. If there is still a crowd of folk standing, start listing individual tools until most of them drop out.]
3. When you get down to one or two folk still standing, start Part 3.
PART 3:
1. OK, everyone sitting down, take a good look at the folk standing. How many of you know them or recognize them? Please stand up.
2. Folks still sitting, do you recognize ANYONE who is standing? If so, please stand up.
3. Repeat as necessary until a significant portion of the audience is standing.
Take Home Message(s)
1. Social technologies are ubiquitous.
2. Social technologies connect people (duh!).
Connect the Tech
Most people get involved with social technologies because they already know someone else who is using whatever it is. Which people in this room were using which technologies? Does knowing that certain folk are using certain technologies make them (either the person or the technology) more intriguing to you?
Caveats or Drawbacks to this Exercise
None
Posted by pfa at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
36 Ideas - #1: Who's Your Neighbor? (Social Calisthenics)
Advance Preparation
None
Estimated Time
5-10 minutes
Introduce the Exercise
Once you are standing, please remain standing until instructed otherwise.
Let's Do It
1. Look at the people on both sides of you. Do you recognize either of them? If so, please stand up!
2. Folks still sitting down, look at the folks around you in any direction. Do you recognize either of them? If so, please stand up!
3. Folks sitting down, look up and down the row in which you are sitting. Recognize anyone? If so, stand up!
4. Folks seated, now look around the quadrant of the room in which you are sitting. Recognize anyone? If so, stand up!
5. Take a good look around now, at all those standing people. Anyone look familiar? If so, stand up!
6. People standing up - is there anyone sitting down near you? If so, you now have 1-2 minutes to ask questions to find out if you know anyone in common. As soon as find someone in common, be sure to stand up! On your mark, go!
Take Home Message(s)
It's a small world, and even in a big room in a strange city, chances are you probably know someone.
Connect the Tech
Most people get involved with social technologies because they already know someone else who is using whatever it is. They spread by osmosis (or a virus? airborne?). Look at how many people in this room know someone else in this room, and imagine the potential for an idea to spread throughout this community.
Caveats or Drawbacks to this Exercise
This would only work in a largish group of folk that know each other moderately well. A small group that works together every day would not work, nor would a new group of people where they've mostly never met anyone else there.
Posted by pfa at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
36 Ideas: Teaching Web 2.0 Concepts
David Rothman and I are going to be copresenting as invited speakers on Web 2.0 and social technologies at the May 2008 Medical Library Association. We thought it would be a really interesting idea to include some audience participation exercises to illustrate fundamental social technology concepts and applications. We had a couple ideas of our own about this, and will be blogging about it (and tweeting and querying Facebook friends, etcetera).
A little over a week ago, I went to a local real-world social networking group - A2B3. A2B3 is a motley collection of geeks, tech wizards, corporate startups, educators, students, hobbyists, politicians, activists, and various other identities who gather once a week for lunch and to discuss interesting ideas. I tossed this idea out to them for starters, with a couple examples, and collected a fascinating collection of cool ideas. I hope to expand on some of these over the next few weeks and months as we develop our ideas for our presentation. In addition, hopefully, this might become a useful collection of teaching concepts for other folk.
What I give below is the scenario I provided to the group, and the notes I took of what they said. Not all of my notes make sense to me now, but those that do will turn into separate blog entries of how we envision they'll work. This is just a sampler to whet your appetites and fire up your imagination. Feel free to add more in comments!
SCENARIO:
You have a room full of people, around 100-200. You want this group to do a few exercises that would illustrate in real world terms the types of connections and interactions that social tech applications facilitate. How would you do this?
IDEAS:
1. Who's your neighbor? (Who do you know.)
2. What's a social network? (Ribbon game)
3. FB Beacon shoutout model (a.k.a. Twitterpation)
4. Reputation networks (verify identity)
5. Playing phone (twitter relay, twitter storm)
6. What is a seminal moment?
7. How would I tag myself? (Self-sorting exercise)
8. Sort in Space (Geographic sorting)
9. Gift introductions
10. Issues of trust
11. LinkedIn Intros
12. 43 things
13. Collaboration
14. Flickr tags (photo sorting)
15. Magazine routing (items of interest)
16. Saving articles to share, ie. digg
17. Ranking and shoutouts
18. Key person who becomes link of influence (gatekeeping)
19. Use all channels available / Common ground / Conversation
20. Proximity (connection to real life)
21. Graffiti is Facebook (used to be tagging)
22. Turf relationships
23. "PlacesDowntown" (a.k.a. Twitter)
24. Pair an open source expert with novice and get them to come up with a new open source project
25. Monkeys Mixer (marriages, divorce, pair up your friends via email)
26. Critical Mass (i.e. fax machines)
27. The Ladies that Lunch (collaborative decisionmaking - refining suggestions of lunch venues)
28. What is a Flickr Topic Pool? (sorting by image prefs)
29. Gallery Night (What is an PhotoBlog?)
30. Rumors
31. Objects of Fascination
32. Organizational Nucleus
33. 57 miles (sticker + serendipitous encounters)
34. Ann Arbor Birthdays
35. Sort by: (geography); then secondary sort by (interest / skillbase / hobbies / pets / cuisine / gender / generation / ... )
36. Game Show Host (come ooonnnnn down!)
Posted by pfa at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)