I'm a great believer that the printed university or college prospectus is not dead, nor will it be so for a while yet. However, I think universities and colleges are increasingly becoming aware of the need for their print materials and online presence to interact with each other to enhance the student experience. However, to date this is very much limited to including urls in print materials to direct students to further information online, some of which is beginning to be quite exciting and interactive, but some of which remains very static and web 1.0.
A few months back I posed the question on this blog about how augmented reality (AR) might be able to enhance campus tours. I think the potential for this is huge. Today, however, having just been playing with the General Electric Company's Smart Grid Augmented Reality programme I'm beginning to think that the potential for AR to really bridge that divide between the print prospectus and the online experience could be huge. What if you wave a department's page from the print prospectus at your webcam, and it launches a range of videos from students in that department, welcoming you and sharing their experiences and telling you about the course? Or you wave the page telling you about student accommodation at your webcam and suddenly you're launched into a virtual tour of the different student halls, and watching 360 degree animations of student rooms? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and where you think this might go. Personally, I think it's pretty exciting!
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Sometimes leaving technology aside is no bad thing
It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I love social media and fill my life with it. I've had many positive experiences of using it for professional purposes, and even some for personal issues too. Some of you may recall, for example, how I embraced the support I received through my social media networks when my bunny, Herbie, passed away in April last year. So, this morning I was browsing back over some of the things that I had posted as notes on Facebook over the years, and I came across this one from March 2007, when I was still working for Research-TV at the University of Warwick:
Sadly, almost three years on, I realised that I just hadn't learned anything from that experience. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it. If anything, since I started my own business in September 2007, I grew worse. As most of my work is focused on social media, I have a professional excuse to fill my life with social media interactions. Ironically, clients are always asking me about the separation of personal and professional in social media spaces and how to deal with that, and while I'm happy to give them sound and solid advice on this, for me personally I have always been happy to be a fairly 'public' person online. It has proved to be good for business, and at times good for personal comfort and social interaction.
But something has changed recently. (And, yes, before it is pointed out to me I do see the irony of delving into my personal life in a blog post in order to suggest that too much social media can be bad for you ...)
I've had some fairly big changes in my life recently. I'm single again for the first time in seven years (I was due to get married in March this year but took the difficult decision to call it all off) and I moved house two days before Christmas. There has been an inevitable impact on some of the relationships I have with other people. Friendships, relationships and my own sense of 'home' are being redefined. My work has very much been (other than my family of course) the key constant in my life throughout this period. You all know how much I love my work - I'm one of the lucky people who look forward to getting stuck into it everyday, love the people that it brings me into contact with, and thrive on the challenges that it brings. However, having a job that depends on me spending so much time in social media spaces, where many of my friends also have a presence, has put an interesting slant on my personal life lately - not always for the best. This is a rather long winded way of saying that I've come to realise how much damage an innocent 140 character tweet or a text message can actually do. It rarely tells the full story, it can leave us wondering, and it can leave us filling in the gaps for ourselves, putting two and two together and coming up with 27 (or sometimes coming up with four but not always liking what that means).
The point here is a fundamental one about the way in which we communicate, hence why I'm allowing myself to wear my heart on my sleeve in what I would ordinarily perceive to be a 'professional' blog. While social media spaces, including instant messaging and text messaging, are a great way of keeping in touch and by their very nature are chatty and conversational (I tell my clients how important this is), tone, style, content and language used remains as critical as it does in any other form of communication. Without paying attention to that, messages are misinterpreted and damage can be done. But how can we do that effectively in just 140 characters? It's a challenge for us all to grapple with and to think through the consequences of every tweet, and every text message. The need to write, review and re-write before we hit the send button is one of the things that makes me a little nervous about something like Google Wave, for example, where that essential process of good communication is taken away.
So, last weekend I took a break and visited Marrakech with a good friend for a girly weekend away. While the blackberry and laptop came with me, I stayed off of Twitter, messenger and Facebook and I learned the value of silence. I think I appreciated the city more for it, and I think that blocking out the noise and buzz of everybody else's lives for just a few days has been a positive experience in helping me to recover or understand who I am and what I am about. I'm also learning a lot about happiness, serenity and positivity right now too. And so, I've started to carry with me a little notebook in which I write down the silly little every day things that make me smile or make me feel good. A friend has suggested that I used tumblr for this purpose, but I think I've rediscovered the joy of writing some things down on paper, with ink, and keeping them just to myself. Any while it's ironic that I'm sharing all of this through a blog post, it felt like an important experience and message to share as it spills into our professional lives too and is a message that I often repeat to my clients. Social media is a wonderful thing, and presents communications professionals with great opportunities, but it is not everything. Sometimes pen and paper, a conversation on the telephone, a face-to-face meeting or saying nothing at all is for the best, so everything has to be done with balance, and with close attention to message, tone, style and consideration of impact before the appropriate 'channel' is selected for that communication. I know this all too well in my professional life, but didn't think about it for my personal life and it's clear now that too much technology for communications and not enough face-to-face has not been for the best. It's funny, I often advise clients to learn from their personal interactions in social media spaces and then apply them to their professional experiences, but for me I'm learning now that I have to apply some of the lessons of my professional experiences and knowledge of such spaces and apply it to my personal circumstances.
Today I spent 4 hours sitting on a train travelling up to Newcastle. Always a great opportunity to get my head down in silence and crack on with the "real work" of writing proposals and developing quotes for potential clients, I despaired when I realised by the time we reached Birmingham International that the 2 little old ladies sat opposite me were also in for the long haul.
I felt awkward as I boarded the train and had to get one of them to take her feet off of the seat opposite so I could climb over and sit down (spotting her walking stick just made me feel worse). I felt awkward again when I got my laptop out and had to edge a space for myself on the table where their magazines and used coffee cups were strewn. And the silence that fell upon them when I returned from the buffet car clutching a small bottle of wine for myself was something not to be missed. I had to do all I could to stop myself from smirking. Daft old ladies – don’t they know that it’s the "done thing" for us busy 21st century women to wind down of an evening with a glass of wine?
So, they twittered away about the trip they had been on, discussed (while I sipped my wine) the alcoholism of one of their friends, criticised a 50-something for "not getting any younger", and shared their £2.95 buffet-car tuna and cucumber sandwich (after splitting the cost) as I hastily and lovingly buried the receipt for my tea and wine in my purse for the expenses claim.
But with the wine taking its usual evening effect on my stress levels, and with the laptop momentarily put away, I started listening to the sense that they were talking. When I pulled my laptop out again, one of them asked the other why she hadn’t yet bought herself a laptop. She said that she was perfectly happy to be using her PC, that she loved being able to book flights online, and that she really didn’t mind working from her bedroom. I advised her against buying a laptop, suggesting that you’re always just too close to work when you have one.
When they departed the train at Darlington, I actually felt quite lonely and disappointed that they didn’t say good bye or wish me well as they got up and left. It’s all very well burying myself in technology on the train, as I am wont to do, but I really hope that when I’m 70 I have someone to sit with and have a good old gossip with on the train. And I really hope that I don’t care what the 20-something sat opposite me thinks either.
Sadly, almost three years on, I realised that I just hadn't learned anything from that experience. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it. If anything, since I started my own business in September 2007, I grew worse. As most of my work is focused on social media, I have a professional excuse to fill my life with social media interactions. Ironically, clients are always asking me about the separation of personal and professional in social media spaces and how to deal with that, and while I'm happy to give them sound and solid advice on this, for me personally I have always been happy to be a fairly 'public' person online. It has proved to be good for business, and at times good for personal comfort and social interaction.
But something has changed recently. (And, yes, before it is pointed out to me I do see the irony of delving into my personal life in a blog post in order to suggest that too much social media can be bad for you ...)
I've had some fairly big changes in my life recently. I'm single again for the first time in seven years (I was due to get married in March this year but took the difficult decision to call it all off) and I moved house two days before Christmas. There has been an inevitable impact on some of the relationships I have with other people. Friendships, relationships and my own sense of 'home' are being redefined. My work has very much been (other than my family of course) the key constant in my life throughout this period. You all know how much I love my work - I'm one of the lucky people who look forward to getting stuck into it everyday, love the people that it brings me into contact with, and thrive on the challenges that it brings. However, having a job that depends on me spending so much time in social media spaces, where many of my friends also have a presence, has put an interesting slant on my personal life lately - not always for the best. This is a rather long winded way of saying that I've come to realise how much damage an innocent 140 character tweet or a text message can actually do. It rarely tells the full story, it can leave us wondering, and it can leave us filling in the gaps for ourselves, putting two and two together and coming up with 27 (or sometimes coming up with four but not always liking what that means).
The point here is a fundamental one about the way in which we communicate, hence why I'm allowing myself to wear my heart on my sleeve in what I would ordinarily perceive to be a 'professional' blog. While social media spaces, including instant messaging and text messaging, are a great way of keeping in touch and by their very nature are chatty and conversational (I tell my clients how important this is), tone, style, content and language used remains as critical as it does in any other form of communication. Without paying attention to that, messages are misinterpreted and damage can be done. But how can we do that effectively in just 140 characters? It's a challenge for us all to grapple with and to think through the consequences of every tweet, and every text message. The need to write, review and re-write before we hit the send button is one of the things that makes me a little nervous about something like Google Wave, for example, where that essential process of good communication is taken away.
So, last weekend I took a break and visited Marrakech with a good friend for a girly weekend away. While the blackberry and laptop came with me, I stayed off of Twitter, messenger and Facebook and I learned the value of silence. I think I appreciated the city more for it, and I think that blocking out the noise and buzz of everybody else's lives for just a few days has been a positive experience in helping me to recover or understand who I am and what I am about. I'm also learning a lot about happiness, serenity and positivity right now too. And so, I've started to carry with me a little notebook in which I write down the silly little every day things that make me smile or make me feel good. A friend has suggested that I used tumblr for this purpose, but I think I've rediscovered the joy of writing some things down on paper, with ink, and keeping them just to myself. Any while it's ironic that I'm sharing all of this through a blog post, it felt like an important experience and message to share as it spills into our professional lives too and is a message that I often repeat to my clients. Social media is a wonderful thing, and presents communications professionals with great opportunities, but it is not everything. Sometimes pen and paper, a conversation on the telephone, a face-to-face meeting or saying nothing at all is for the best, so everything has to be done with balance, and with close attention to message, tone, style and consideration of impact before the appropriate 'channel' is selected for that communication. I know this all too well in my professional life, but didn't think about it for my personal life and it's clear now that too much technology for communications and not enough face-to-face has not been for the best. It's funny, I often advise clients to learn from their personal interactions in social media spaces and then apply them to their professional experiences, but for me I'm learning now that I have to apply some of the lessons of my professional experiences and knowledge of such spaces and apply it to my personal circumstances.
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