Social Software Newsradar

Tomorrow will be the second of the four lecture and workshop sessions I'm scheduled to deliver on the City University MA in International Journalism course during the 2008/9 academic year.

I've given plenty of one off lectures at universities in the past but I having to come up with four distinctly different - and hopefully interesting, engaging, intellectually challenging and memorable - topics for lectures, much less turning them into proper presentations, is a bit daunting. Add to to that the two one hour workshops, one for broadcast students and the other for print students, and we're talking at least two, and potentially three, hours of different content each time. That's a whopping 12 hours of social media goodness to come up with, format, and present to a group of MA level journalism students. Not easy.

For the last lecture I asked my twitter followers to help me hone in on the most important topics. I then pebble blasted the students with a broad tour of the social media landscape, focused on the things that I thought might be useful for journalists. This time, I'm going to focus on finding contacts, content and context online.

I. Blogs

• Blog search tools: Technorati, Ice-Rocket, Google Blog Search
• Blog Directories based on geography (Global Voices) or niche topic (see MilBlogging)
• "Blog Rolls" of local bloggers like Manchizzle (Manchester) or St. Albans Blog

II. Twitter:

• Twitter Search (see also conventions - use of hashtags: #mumbai and @ replies: @cybersoc)
• Advanced Twitter Search and TwitterLocal.net

III. Content Sharing:

• Photos - Flickr tags
• Video - Youtube
• Live video via mobile - Flixwagon and Qik
  
  

IV. Reflection:

• Mumbai
  • Amy Gahran at Poynter on responsible tweeting
  • The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones on "the mumbai myths" (inc. links to some early tweets)
  • Telegraph article on how twitter and flickr used to break the news

• Virginia Tech
  • My live blogging of events as they unfolded
  • My follow-up post, where I started to ask difficult questions
  • Jeff Jarvis: "And so the key skills in a newsroom will not be to get reporters to the scene — that will come later, after the news happens — but to have antennae up to listen and find news reports as they happen, as people link to what’s happening. You can’t possibly have enough reporters, editors, producers to do that on your own. You need to have lots of friends who’ll alert you: When I put up a link here to something I find compelling — or even embed and broadcast it here, live — will I also alert CNN? I don’t know. Would you?"

• A warning about hoaxes
  • iReport on demise of Steve Jobs sends Apple stock price plumeting
  • Burning forest elk in Inverness hoax (Sky and Guardian used it in 2006 related to story in Dorset; CNN iReport in February 2008. According to my source [see link], "The picture was actually taken in 2000 in Bitterroot Forest, Montana, by a fire behaviour analyst called John McColgan."

And, finally, my first attempts at trying to use yahoo pipes to automate the searching, and some of the filtering, of social media content around breaking news. Also, check out Martin Belam's sport related stab at it.

If you have any links that you think would be useful, or advice I should pass on with relation to the above outline, please let me know. During the workshops I'm planning on having the students actually do some social media searching themselves and start aggregating it using xfruits and yahoo pipes.

An interesting bit came across my twitterstream the other day:

Gall’s Law

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.”

Yup, seems to hold for the complex systems we know and love: organic life, government, law, medicine…and of course Twitter.

Let’s imagine for a moment that it does hold. This would change lots of things, including much of the software world, which is laden with complex behemoths who frustrate us daily.

1. Building simpler software from the start
   Obviously, if Gall’s Law is true then more teams would start out building really simple software instead of overly complex stuff. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to think that way. Instead, the thinking seems to be, if we’re going to be as successful as (X), then our system needs to do more than (X). But in complex, social software, that may actually be impossible, since (X) didn’t spring fully-formed into life, either. Most of the software people try to emulate quickly took years and years to evolve to where it currently is. (as an aside, my recent argument is to focus on designing to support a specific activity and nevermind emulating success for its own sake)
2. Meeting solid metrics before adding features
   This is an interesting idea: make sure that your software works at some basic thing before you add features to it. I’ve seen on a couple projects in which there was a tension between the current under-performing software and the ambitious engineering plan that adds a lot more features. Which do you do? Stop and get people using the simple software first or push on and hope that people will come flocking after you’ve added a few more features? Well, according to Gall’s Law you get the simple software working first. My question is…are there teams who actually do this? Are there any that have actually said: “we have not reached our initial goals, let’s stop adding features and work on the ones we already have”?
3. Changes by design
   The overall effect of Gall’s Law is that most software would start off simple and evolve over time. So we wouldn’t end up with the software we imagined, but the software that managed to live through the early use and subsequent selection process. Accepting this as a rule, could we somehow plan for this evolution even though we don’t know what it will bring? Can we plan for this change? I think so, by building in feedback and reporting mechanisms and merely acknowledging to change the design based on such feedback.

Of course, the reason why we add feature after feature is because we don’t realize we’re doing it: we don’t see the accumulation of complexity…we only see adding “one more thing”. In the same way that a camel wouldn’t feel the slight addition of weight but ends up with a broken back, we don’t really feel each additional feature until its too late.

Gall’s Law might not be an actual law, but it sure seems like a good thing to keep in mind when you get into those inevitable project debates about improving what you have vs. adding new features.

This last Thanksgiving was marred by the horrible deaths of over 170 victims at Mumbai’s terrorist attack. If you weren’t watching, social media played a part in helping –and hurting– the event. First hand accounts were published on twitter, including pictures of terrorists in action, in fact Forbes called this Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment. Cities, authorities, states, and governments should have a social media plan in place to prepare for disasters of all sorts.

Social Tools Pervasive
Social Technographics research indicates that these social tools are readily available and are being adopted in US, as well as other cultures. Any person connected to the internet, or has a mobile device has the ability to share information as well as scan and learn from their network, take for example this lawyer who used his blackberry to transmit emails while under siege in Mumbai.

Social Tools Spread Word of Mouth, both Good and Bad
We’ve multiple accounts how individuals have used blogs, video, and now Twitter to rapidly spread information during a crises, from earthquakes in China, to Fires in L.A., to Hurricans in the South, and now terrorist attacks in India. A hundred years ago, we would never imagine how information could spread so quickly. These tools are powerful, they allow anyone to share –and hear– information transmitted from others in real time from anywhere.

We learned that both true and false information was being spread from these tools, in fact for days after this Mubai event rumors were still being settled. In fact, one of the concerns in this Mumai attack is that rumors were quickly spreading, and there was no central source to verify. In some cases, conversations in Twitter (and even the retweet) can influence press, and therefore spread information to other locations impacting how emergency services could react.

These Tools Enhance Existing Human Behaviors
Gossip, the need to connect, and communication are natural human reactions during a crises. Like a scene at a freeway car crash, most want to know what’s happening and in the excitement, jump in to monitor and participate. Jennifer Leggio indicates that the good and bad of humans quickly show on these tools –with mixed reactions. Amy Gahran provides us with why and how citizen journalists should react and behave.

Assume Terrorists Are Using Social Tools
We learned that the Mumbai terrorists were using Blackberry’s to communicate and monitor. This 10 man crack commando team was able to cause extensive havoc for 3 days. They were trained, funded, and had intelligence. Just as we should expect they are monitoring the police airways and public tv stations, we learned they were monitoring online the “police responses on the internet”. It’s so very easy to do, as people were tagging content #mumbai and it’s easily searchable by Twitter.

1 Enhance Communication Plans: First of all, just as municipalities have an existing communication plan (often a press statement from police or authorities to media) understand how to repurpose these messages and communication on social tools.

2 Experiment and Build a Base: Municipalities should experiment with the tools as we learned the Department of Homeland Security is understanding how to use these tools for disasters, so cities should also start to monitor, then experiment. Just as we saw with Motrin moms, they had no base to stand on to defend themselves in Twitter –the same falls true for any ruling body. Having a platform in advance provides benefits, as those who participate have power.

3 Educate, Train, and build Awareness Before an Event. Governing bodies often have mock emergency response trials, now, start to incorporate these tools into the planning process. You’ll have to indicate to the world what is an official channel, where people should go for news, and how each authority plans to respond using these tools. These tools can help educate citizens how to prepare for disasters, where to go for help, how to develop a family crises plan, and even basic life saving medical techniques.

4 Develop a Crisis plan: It’s far to bold to suggest that each governing body use these tools during an emergency. Perhaps they are focused on keeping information quiet in order to save lives, are unaware of what the truth is, or simply don’t have the resources. Even so, municipalities should expect information to rapidly spread amongst those witnessing the tragedy, and commented by others. Likely, like a triage plan, a similar plan for social media should be created depending on the type of disaster occurring.

5 Use These Tools To Rebuild: Even if the municipality chooses not to participate during the crises, these tools can help rebuild after the tragedy. The Red Cross has been using blogs, Facebook causes, twitter, and a variety of other tools to help spread awareness to drive donations, and to get people involved.

If you have other suggestions to help municipalities with understand and use these tools to their benefit, leave a comment below.

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• MediaPost Publications - Blogs And Mainstream Media Intersect - 11/26/2008
  Great roundup of existing stats, including this one: "95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs."
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I have commented recently on the newly-commonplace coldbloodedness that all the gung ho entrepreneurs and investors are spouting, where an eagerness to cut the throats of employees is now seen as a mandate from heaven and a civic virtue. As I twittered a few weeks ago:

[from 11:45 AM November 18, 2008 from web in reply to khartline]

@khartline I am sick of the macho 'shoot the stragglers' rhetoric the VC/CEO cult is chanting now, like there is virtue in coldbloodedness.

The indominable Halley Suitt takes exception to a recent post by Glen Kelman, in which he has internalized the bloodthirsty self-congratulatory tone that is endemic in Silicon Valley these days -- 'hire slow, fire fast' -- while never mentioning taking a pay cut himself:

[from The First-Time CEO’s Recession Survival Guide by Glen Helman, comment by Halley Suitt

CEO’s who earn 5x the salary of the guys they are firing should also figure out something about loyalty — the CEO should be the FIRST ONE to step up to the plate to take a cut in pay.

If you earn $250K annual and you’re going to show your board how macho you are by firing 5 people who earn $50K and not taking a pay cut yourself, you’re a jerk, and so are the people on your board — why not rethink it — save at least four of the best people by cutting your own salary to $50K and retaining your staff. The ROI in tough times by staff loyalty and your increased “good guy” reputation will be impressive. Be a mensch.

I don’t see much of THAT type of courage in Silicon Valley lately. All this bravado about cutting back and getting ready for hard times rarely includes the leader taking a hit … prove me wrong if this is not the case.

Another woman bucking the trend is Mary Hodder, who likewise jumped in on the guest post by Helman:

After you are a first time CEO (you can only be that once) you never look at employees the same way again. You may have had employees report to you before, but you weren’t in charge of all aspects of the company before the CEO position, as well as their livelyhoods.

People are relying on you to pay the bills, and make things stable enough that they can focus on their jobs.

I agree with Halley about CEOs having the courage to take a pay cut to retain people. When CEOs gloat publicly about laying people off as though they are doing something great for the company, I have the same reaction: did you take a pay cut, to help the company, the economy and your people along by being able to retain one or two of the staff you were going to lay off?

I find those announcements about layoffs by startups appalling because they don’t come with the CEO announcing his or her own paycut and explanation that they managed to keep one more person employed in a tough economy. There is balance and morality, where we need to staff as leanly as possible, but also think about how the economy grinds to a halt with high unemployment? For many of the startups that Techcrunch covers, who rely to some degree on ads/pageviews and consumer revenues to create their businesses, they are actually contributing to the economic problem when they lay people off.

Laying people off is not something to gloat about. It’s something to take seriously and show balance. morality and thoughtfulness for the company, the employees, and the economy going forward, as well as your own sacrifice.

To be fair to Helman, he never discusses a paycut, one way or the other. What Suitt and Hodder suggest is that before firing people, the CEO should look to make whatever cuts can be made -- in expenses, salaries, investments -- first.

There is a certain cavalier and MBAish attitude in tech -- and perhaps throughout American business as a whole -- where the senior execs are viewed as the stars of startups, and the engineers and other staff are considered dancers in the chorus line that can be swapped in and out like so many interchangeable pieces in an assembly line. Economy falters? Turn the dial down. Upturn in fortune? Turn the dial up.

What has been lost is the social contract between a business leader and the people that work for the business. Start-up CEOs believe that their primary social contract is with the investors, and maybe a small circle of founders. The other employees are treated like Aeron chairs or conference tchotchkes. A necessary expense; a means to an end.

A sharp downturn in the economy -- like crises in general -- can certainly bring people's core psychological beliefs out into the open. In the Valley, we are seeing a surge in social darwinist rhetoric, with the implicit message being that this new underclass -- those poor schlubs being laid off from panicked, cash poor start-ups -- have no one to blame but themselves. After all, they are picking the underperformers, right?

But the back story is the story. While the VCs and CEOs spin out interviews and panel sessions in which a sharp knife and a clean conscience read like a Greek morality play with the executives and investors as the heroes, the reality is much bigger. The gyrations of the managerial class -- and the efforts they take to deaden their feelings -- are just as much a tragedy as the outcome of their actions.

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