Posts filed under ‘Great Blogs’
Building a Tribe of True Believers
Found via Ypulse, Dan Pankraz’s thoughts on tribal marketing for youth audiences spoke directly to what OneSeventeen Media knows motivates kids to engage. These principles will be put into application in PlumbBrain’s launch. To summarize at a high level, Pankraz calls on brands to understand the value of:
- Agitating and disrupting the status quo
- Connected collective
- Power people
- True believers
- Lead them
- Create culture
- Tribal identification
- Constant content creation and ongoing storytelling platform
Be sure to read the full post to understand the power of Pankraz’s strategy.
(Image found here)
Idea Inspiration for Folks in the Idea Business
As social-venture entrepreneurs, OneSeventeen Media is in the idea business. Our friend Lucy Bernholz shared a “55 Ideas on Ideas” slideshow over on Philanthropy 2173, and I enjoyed getting to take a minute peruse the variety of perspectives in relevance to OneSeventeen Media’s work. Three that stand out for me:
“Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.” Albert Einstein. [What I think Einstein might have had to say to those "mediocre minds" pictured above.]
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo
Life in the tech-start-up-fast-lane isn’t for wimps, and our team is convicted that the time has come to make relevant, social-emotional tools available to digital natives confronting the challenges of growing up.
I’m curious if any of our readers or anyone else on our team has some words of wisdom they turn to for inspiration? It’d be great if you’re willing to share them in the comments!
(Image found here)
52 Teachers, 52 Lessons
Mr. D over at I Want To Teacher Forever has been running a cool project called 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons for several months now. This week’s lesson comes from yours truly, and I appreciate Mr. D’s kind words about what OneSeventeen Media is up to! His blog has great information for educators and parents; it’s worth checking out.
Kids DO Care, Even If They Don’t Show It
From Radical Parenting’s interview with Michael J. Bradley, Ed.D.:
“The biggest misconception is that teenagers don’t care. Parents and teens often get in a cycle where they see the worst in each other and teens tend to put on the ‘I-don’t-care-face’ and parents begin to believe that. Kids are just putting that on, parents need to understand that teens do care.”
Dr. Bradley’s comment echoes what our youth consistently tell us: kids care about many things, and adults often don’t “get it.”
Youth Bored With Current Social Networks
danah boyd posted an insightful tweet earlier this week that is spot-on with the feedback we’ve received in our case studies and through our Youth Advisory Board:
She’s absolutely correct. Kids aren’t pursuing Facebook and other same-box-new-wrapping social networks with the same zest they did several years ago. Anastasia Goodstein at Ypulse dug a bit deeper into the dwindling flame of passion between kids and social networks saying,
“A bunch of folks (including me) began to comment and speculate about where the love has gone as well as where teens might go (short answer: they haven’t gone to any one new site or space just yet). I feel like we’ve been talking about youth social networking fatigue on and off for awhile, and really, given that they were the early adopters of these sites, it makes sense.”
I concur with Anastasia’s elaborations, and I have seen the same phenomenon among my peer group of twenty-somethings. Specific to Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook’s founder), was just a year behind me in college when he first opened Facebook up to college campuses outside of Harvard. My college classmates and I began our Facebook love affairs five years ago and the relationship just isn’t as steamy as it once was. I think for the twenty-something and younger crowd, there’s been a shift of perspective when it comes to Facebook. When Facebook first hit the scene, it was an incredibly enticing way to be a voyeur into the lives of our friends, friends of friends and the cute guy two rows in front of me in biology. As the service as developed and become more widely used, instead of being a novelty, it has become a basic tool that is useful, but not the thrill it once was (in the last month I personally know five friends who “quit” Facebook because they didn’t find it particularly useful and the novelty had dried up).
There’s a logical comparison to be made with email. When people first started using email it was really cool. I remember getting my first account in the seventh grade through AOL and getting such a kick out of sending one line emails to my friends asking tantalizing questions like, “Did you watch Friends last night?” and then eagerly awaiting a response. Now, email is a standard form of communication, and I don’t know anyone who looks at their inbox and squeals in delight. For Facebook’s early adopters, Facebook is the “new email,” meaning that it’s becoming a standard, efficient communication tool, but it is no longer exciting (I do not think Facebook will ever replace standard email). While Facebook is always open in my browser, I’d estimate I easily spend half the amount of time interacting with the site that I did two years ago.
What kids are waiting for is the next-generation of social networking to emerge where they can engage with fresh content and new-opportunities in a social context. PlumbBrain is the next generation of social networking that kids are asking for!
(Image adapted from danah boyd’s twitter)
The Voice of Reason in Social Media: danah boyd
Some of you looking to learn more about OneSeventeen Media are also interested in the larger field of social media, and I wanted to make sure you knew about one of the great minds in social media academia, danah boyd. In a word, she rocks, but for a better description of what she does and her relevance in the social media scene here are her own words:
My name is danah boyd and I am a Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. I recently completed my PhD at the School of Information (iSchool) at the University of California (Berkeley). My research examines social media, youth practices, tensions between public and private, social network sites, and other intersections between technology and society.
Definitely worth your time to check out in detail. It’s incredibly helpful that’s she’s even compiled a “best of” for you to catch up on her blog.
danah particularly caught my eye today for her much anticipated (by me at least!) response to two stories I’ve posted about in the last week: social networking making us dumber and measuring friends on Facebook. She’s right on too.
“The bigger issue is that performed network ties (“Friends”) are NOT the same as the personal networks that sociologists and anthropologists have historically measured and theorized about. Comparing them is futile at best and dangerous at worst. The Economist article mixes apples and oranges, creating a sense that the networks people maintain are the same that they perform through the public articulation of contacts,”
and,
“I would argue that we’re addicted to our friends, not the computer. When the computer lets us get access to our friends, we look like we’re addicted to the computer,”
are two of my favorite excerpts from her post. Be sure you read the entire thing and the comments.
A big thanks to danah for her insight and perspective!
(Comic by Marc Scheff found on danah’s blog)
Facebook Chat Definies Friendship? I Don’t Think So.
The idea of measuring an individual’s social network contacts and communication by a standard other than gross number of friends/contacts/connections (depending on the platform) intrigues me. Via ReadWriteWeb I learned about this Economist report applying anthropologist Dr. Robin Dunbar’s theory of network growth to Facebook’s platform. Excerpt from ReadWriteWeb:
How many friends can you really have on Facebook? According to Cameron Marlow, Facebook’s “in-house sociologist,” that number is four if you are male and six if you are female. As theEconomist reports this morning, Marlow’s research indicates that the average Facebook user has a network of about 120 friends, but only has two-way conversations with a very small subset of these ‘friends.’ Interestingly, even for those users who have a far larger number of friends (500+), those numbers barely grow (ten for men and sixteen for women).
Those numbers cited above are for friends that users actually email or chat with. When it comes to more casual one-way interactions like leaving comments on photos, status updates, or writing on somebody’s wall, those numbers increase slightly and the average male would then have seven friends on Facebook and the average female about ten.
As I also commented on ReadWriteWeb’s post, this is interesting information in application, and I would like to see this broken down by age demographic. I would venture to guess these numbers are much higher for younger verses older Facebook users. I consider the high number of daily Facebook interactions I have, as compared to my mother who might have one every two weeks (We’re working on that! She’s requested on my next trip home I teach her to “Facebook better”).
As an early Facebook adopter and avid user, I think there’s also a layer missing here. In regards to my closer friends, I definitely look at their content, and might make what this report considers “casual” contact (ex: commenting on their wall, photos or posted items), but for our significant communication I go to other mediums — either gmail, gchat, AIM, phone or text.
I communicate with people on Facebook chat or message because they are part of my less intimate network, and I generally don’t have other contact information for them that I use regularly (meaning that I probably wouldn’t text them on the phone number I got off their Facebook profile, or email them at the address their profile provides). There are of course exceptions, but this is my general rule of thumb. Honestly, I often turn off Facebook chat because it’s an inferior messaging service and anyone I really need to talk to has other, multiple means of contacting me.
So from my experience, the Facebook friends that I value the most, have the most personal communication with and who’s Facebook content I look at first, I rarely, if ever, communicate with in the manner this report uses to determine “friendship.”
(Thanks to OneSeventeen team member and Conversion Scientist, Brian Massey, for his help with the graphic!)
Youth Reflection: Learning from Phelps’s Mistake
Ypulse Youth Advisory Board member, Libby, has some insightful reflections on what Gen Y can learn from the recent scandal caused when a photo of Michael Phelps smoking from a bong was released to the media.
Libby’s reflections are a great example of what I also consider the most important takeaways from Phelps’s experience:
A) be aware of the activities you choose to engage in and their ramifications (it goes without saying that illegal drug use is never a good idea and not condoned by OneSeventeen Media)
B) exert caution in the content you post online and the content others collect and post online about you. Savvier tweens and teens grasp the point about not posting their own lewd content, but extending the criteria to the content others collect is key.
Libby provides an articulate example of the deep understanding of social media sharing today’s youth must sort out to be savvy 21st Century citizens. OneSeventeen Media looks forward to providing a forum and resources to help tweens and teens grow their understanding of digital citizenship.
(Ypulse’s YouTube channel found here)
Study: Happiness Is Contagious
I saw this CNN article about the contagious nature of happiness amongst social groups, via Steve Hargadon’s blog.
I first thought of my experience as a teacher. Particularly in a classroom setting, I saw the impact of my attitude and demeanor on my student. We definitely had the most productive learning days when I was in a positive mood or made the choice to be in a positive mood because I knew it was what was best for my students. Students generally responded to my enthusiasm and excitement with their own, greatly improving the quality of our limited time together.
Hargadon applied the study to online social networks, and I think he’s accurate in identifying the overlapping influences of attitude in both on and offline social networks. As continue the push to make PlumbBrain a reality, this is another great reminder about the power of a few people to positively impact others.
I once questioned one of my fellow camp counselors on her unwavering compassion and cheerfulness. She turn to me and said, “well you know Amy, attitude is a choice.” Such a simple concept, but it is reflective of her profound understanding of her ability to impact the experience of our young campers by choosing to look on the bright side of things. *cue Spamalot’s “Always look on the bright side of life,” because I couldn’t resist!*
This isn’t to encourage readers to approach all aspects of their lives as they would sunshine and puppy dogs (or kittens for you non-canine adoring), but there is an important take home message about the power we have to affect the lives of others by how we choose to perceive our own. Consider making a choice to reflect a positive attitude the next time you’re feeling less than chipper before an in-person meeting or online posting. You never know how many people you might infect!
Digital Citizenship for Parents
Vicki Davis at the Cool Cat Teacher Blog often has great resources centered around learning, technology and kids. An example of the great content she shares is below from her post A Little Digital Citizenship Parent Brainstorming: Share Your Thoughts. I really appreciate her comprehensive approach to teaching digital citizenship and urging parents to keep up with their tech-savvy kids. Be sure you check out the blog to see the diagram in its entirety.
