Alphablogs

We help our clients to produce the work they need to bring out into the world, and then to share it via the wonderfully connective web of online media now available to us all. Isn’t that what this medium is all about? Isabella and I truly enjoy helping people get the word out, giving them the tools that empower them to take it on for themselves.

• If you want to produce, we can help you do that – writing, editing, video, slides, other media, we partner with you to help you make your mark.

• We find the best way for you to publish your work on the web, setting up flexible and adaptable websites and blogs.

• Next we help you in getting it to the audience you need to reach, and if you wish, we assist your navigation through the maze of Social Media.

Twitter Groups is Twitter application #37,941.  We’re trying it out right now, and have created a “Vancouver” Twitter group.  This, for now, is the home page.  The group’s page at Twitter Groups is here.

After not having posted here for quite a while, finally a sign that I’m still around here at Alphablogs!

Here’s an attempt at reflecting a Twitter conversation about social media etiquette, early adopters, morality, and all kinds of other interesting topics.  It was a worthwhile conversation, one we might continue, so I’d like to preserve it for posterity.  Putting the various strands together was an interesting exercise in itself, which is why it’s an attempt – I know I’ve missed a number of interesting contributions.

This first tweet by @shanegibson is, from what I can tell, what started it all …

Is there such thing as “Social Media Etiquette” or are most rules set up to fortify the position of those that already have arrived?

And because we early adaptors are so strange, you’ll have to start reading the conversation at the bottom!

moritherapy @raincoaster which brings me to another point: soc media allows for those wild ADD jump-abouts that i like to engage in. BAD in polite convo

moritherapy @lizstrauss i’m sure you’d have interesting things to say in this soc media etiquette convo w/ @hummingbird604 and @raincoaster

Tojosan @moritherapy stranger than what? I’ve been called strange before…as a matter of fact… )

moritherapy the “sweetness to strangers” thing is interesting. who is a stranger on twitter?

moritherapy sorry i missed all kindza yummy thoughts due to the thai emergency (looks like they’re going to sawasdee).

hummingbird604 @raincoaster How is it a contradiction?

moritherapy @hummingbird604 quick, what’s the best thai restaurant?

raincoaster@shanegibson Etiquette’s function is not to help people “connect and grow,” it is to provide norms so interaction can take place

raincoaster @hummingbird604 So stability is only situationally desirable? There’s a contradiction there. 42 minutes ago from web in reply to hummingbird604

hummingbird604 @raincoaster I wouldn’t classify it as a flamewar, is it? BTW – I have gotten no more new followers. You get more new followers than I do!

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Not in all cases and not at all times. I guess it would depend on the issue at hand.

raincoaster And on that anarchistic note, I’m off to make raincoaster soup. And I don’t care if it’s not normal.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Is stability itself a desired outcome? about 1 hour ago from web

hummingbird604 @moritherapy Institutions defined as rules and norms are what makes our world more stable. Living in constant anarchy? Not very stable.

raincoaster FYI y’all, Twitter-based flamewars about etiquette are great for getting new followers.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Although we did come to an agreement – early adopters set the rules and norms by arriving first to the party.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 No, you can see it. But it’s overlaid with sweetness like a tiger trap is overlaid with branches.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster But to see MY dark side, someone would need to be REALLY evil to either myself or my friends. Is that considered an “edge”

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Yes, it could well be the first disagreement. Except about men.

raincoaster @moritherapy The secret is, if you’re an early adopter you’re living in anarchy all the time…but you must constantly move on.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 You have an edge. Baldridge is like that perky girl played by Reese Witherspoon who has no dark side. I pity her.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster I don’t think I’m sweet in the Baldridge’s model. But I’m sweet in my own kind of way. Sometimes, disgustingly sweet

hummingbird604 @raincoaster I don’t think I’m sweet in the Baldridge’s model. But I’m sweet in my own kind of way. Sometimes, disgustingly sweet

moritherapy @raincoaster i’m a closet libertarian (or is that nostalgic anarchist?) and hope there won’t be too many norms. nor too many strict norms.

hummingbird604 @moritherapy I was being funny. Given how sweet I am, I was hoping everyone would see the contradiction in that

moritherapy @hummingbird604 YOU are saying sweetness is overrated? i’m speechless

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Sweetness in Baldridge’s case means you HAVE to respond to every stranger who speaks to you. It’s dangerous, inappropriate.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster And perhaps the very first time when we’ve disagreed on something!

hummingbird604 @raincoaster @GusF We should try Cipriano’s one evening

raincoaster @moritherapy See, reading guidelines before entering a social forum like Twitter isn’t really normal, is it?A reflection of the 1st adopters

raincoaster @moritherapy There are usually throwdowns when the initial elite begin to lose battles 4 defining the norms. It gets ugly, but is necessary

hummingbird604 @moritherapy And *that* exactly is what @raincoaster was referring to. Early adopters set specific rules/norms of behavior.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Miss Manners rules. Letitia Baldridge is very sweet, not very correct. Original Emily Post is my fave, new Posts are v v bad

moritherapy @raincoaster haha, that’s for sure, that we weren’t screened for socialization. good thing

moritherapy remember the brouhaha last year about twitter etiquette? o’reilly. here at twitter wiki http://tinyurl.com/2fs8yg

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Also don’t forget, early adopters in tech were never screened for socialization. That’s why the internet’s still so strange.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Now, on the miss manners books, I’m totally tempted to read them.

raincoaster @moritherapy Ann Landers don’t know shit about etiquette.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster And this last tweet (early adopters lead by default) is what I agreed upon

hummingbird604 Ok, so here’s the lowdown – made a normative statement of how I’d like the world to work instead of a positive statement of how it DOES work

hummingbird604 @raincoaster I *am* an academic. But I was looking for the latin root for morality (wikipedia entry much faster!)

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Again, I say early adopters lead by default. Noobs enter, take cues from what’s already happening, by definition between EAs

moritherapy @raincoaster i’d be interested in a conversation about etiquette, not a talk. unless you wanna be ann landers about 1 hour ago from web in reply to raincoaster

hummingbird604 @raincoaster But after re-reading, I am making a normative statement of how the world should work (or how i’d like it to work) instead of a

moritherapy @raincoaster would be interested in one of those papers on morality and etiquette

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Wikipedia? You disappoint me. I thought you were an academic. I’ll refer you to Miss Manners instead. Have all her books.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster I think the disagreement stemmed from what I implied as the norm (e.g. early adopters SHOULD lead) – a normative statement

ffer. Fingers crossed

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Your translation and equation contains a tautology. “Proper” does equal “good etiquette”.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Ok. On THIS I can agree.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Um, Raul, I KNOW what morality means. I wrote more than one paper on the difference between morality and etiquette.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Although I would agree with you about not confusing ethics with good etiquette.

hummingbird604 @raincoaster (definition direct from wikipedia – but Twitter doesn’t have footnotes!)

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Morality comes from the latin moralitas, “manner, character, proper behavior”. We make “good etiquette” synonym with this.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Early adopters lead the movement by default, not by awareness of moral burden. First people in a party set the tone.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Because we’ve been trained to use those as synonyms for “Desirable” and “Undesirable”. Do not confuse morality and etiquette

hummingbird604 @raincoaster Etiquette is a social convention built around norms of interaction. But if it’s amoral, then why do people say “good” or “bad”?

hummingbird604 @raincoaster – um, I might have misunderstood. But I stand by what I said – early adopters have a responsibility to lead the movement.

raincoaster @hummingbird604 That is not a responsibility. It is a sociological truism, a fundamental form of human interaction. Etiquette is amoral.

hummingbird604@shanegibson And yeah there’s such a thing as social media etiquette about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to shanegibson

raincoaster @hummingbird604 Not what I said! Early adopters bring their own preferences and work out a balance between themselves which becomes the norm

hummingbird604@shanegibson I concur with @raincoaster – the early adopters have the responsibility to lead the movement, not to stake a position

Miss604 @hummingbird604 @shanegibson … etiquette + Creative Commons in my books

…

Addition by shanegibson, with this useful comment: “What’s interesting is how each of us only had seen parts of this dialogue based upon who we were following in twitter too!”

If I had the time, I’d love to follow this dialogue into all its nooks and crannies, in order to pick up all the voices …

Anyway, here are the stray tweets:

@10thToTheFraser   @shanegibson definitely is SM etiquette. most of it boils down to the golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated.

@davemacdonald   @shanegibson great question. secondlife is apparently facing this now. For social media I think there are more early adopters than ever.

@IanWatt   @shanegibson I would be happy to teach the Social Media Etiquette class

@raincoaster   @shanegibson Hey, that’s why there’s always a market for new forums: ppl not well socialized to existing norm niches need them. Eureka!

@raincoaster   @shanegibson Define “growth.” I agree norms are useful in establishing connection. Got some great quotes on that too long for Twitter, alas

@raincoaster   @shanegibson That is a specialized social network with institutional norms. They tend to be less widely adopted. Not “wrong” just niche

@raincoaster   @shanegibson Etiquette’s function is not to help people “connect and grow,” it is to provide norms so interaction can take place.

@shanegibson @hummingbird604 great idea. I’m fascinated by the contrast and similarity with offline social networks and “classes” of networkers

@shanegibson @hummingbird604 @raincoaster RT @ariherzog Echoing social media empowering and connecting, you’d like this of mine: http://bit.ly/1csa

@shanegibson @raincoaster @hummingbird604 social media and networking etiquette should empower people to connect and grow not constrain or stratify.

(Oh, and moar funny pictures here)

Integrating my various “lives” – online and offline – is something that apparently is very important to me. I say apparently because sometimes I try to keep them separate and it just causes stress, annoyance and disinterest. In many ways, I am and want to be, an open book. For example, all my Vancouver blogger friends know that I just became a grandmother for the second time and my twitter pals know that I just had a wedding anniversary. On my other blog, Change Therapy, I talk freely about a lot of things – sexuality, religion, etc.

Mind you, that’s just my way of doing it. For some people, keeping the different aspects of their lives separate is important, works well, and is even enjoyable. There are all kinds of people who, for example, get a lot out of anonymous blogging; and I’m not talking about blog scrapers, trolls and porn bloggers here – just people who have chosen to stay anonymous, like Waiter Rant, Patient Anonymous or Going Private.

(Sidebar: Even whether one decides be highly transparent and integrated or private and compartmentalized, is a decision that’s influenced – maybe even determined – by one’s personal background, experience and personality type. Which explains why one does not have to be an extrovert to be transparent, or an introvert to be more private; such decisions come informed by many of the mind’s strands).

Carol, in her last post, was talking about integrating one’s online persona. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way that really works for me. In terms of pulling all the information together, of the ones I use, MyBlogLog and Facebook are probably the most comprehensive. But I really, really don’t like their layout; if I use such a social media tool it needs to look and feel comfortable; it needs to be a bit of a living room. Both Facebook and MyBlogLog have a bit of a mall feeling and I guess I’m of a generation and persuasion that doesn’t find malls particularly inviting.

I know there are many more such tools out there but I feel very unmotivated to try them out because so far, all of them have me disappointed (with a possible, very lukewarm exception of FriendFeed). Ideally, I’d like to see something that is

• comprehensive in terms of pulling together all my online presences (and actually does it; Tumblr, for example, promises to pull in my Twitter feed but doesn’t)
• easy to use
• responsive
• relatively hacker-safe
• fast (how much of a time delay would i put up with? 5 minutes maybe?)

and has

• clean layout that I can easily change
• tagging ability
• the ability to post extra material, ideally all the way from text to video (a la Tumblr, which, by the way, I kind of like – but see above)
• an FAQ that talks about more than just the very obvious
• easy, friendly and time-sensitive help (please NONE of that farmed-out help, for example like the one on Twitter; I really like the model that Dreamhost uses for support)
• ideally, the sort of follower-sorting that TweetDeck has
• public/private settings
• favouriting
• whatever back-end structure that’s needed to keep the thing working a good 90%+ of the time

Is there something like that out there? And would I/you want to pay for it? How much? Would it be okay to have advertising on it?

Or, here’s an idea. I was just wondering what the “meatspace” equivalence of such an online space would be. A sort of plaza, perhaps, or a park. It’s infrastructure.

What if governments started building such sorts of infrastructure?

Or should it be more like Wikipedia?

Enough questions for now?

Image by mike (el madrileño)

Carol and I haven’t spent as much time on Alphablogs as we’d like to. We both have and look after other blogs and lead busy professional and personal lives – but hey, how difficult can it be to write a post a week?

So, motivated by the promise to come up with three timed blogging goals by today, we sat down to talk about that.

“Alphablogs,” Carol said, “is a bit like a house plant that we don’t care for very well.” We also realized that like everyone else, at some level we’re selfish creatures – and Alphablogs is not giving us as much as we’d like.

Since this blog is our own creation, we really needed to remind ourselves that we can do with it whatever we want. I guess sometimes that’s a startling realization.

What, whatever we want?

Yup.

Okay then. What do we want?

We are not marketers. We know something about marketing – actually, quite a bit – but we’re not professional marketers. What we are is two women with lots of passions and interests, and when they are not expressed, we get cranky and lose our oomph.

So the obvious solution is to inject as much as possible of this passion and interest into Alphablogs.

We are both passionate about Web 2.0. About the immense possibilities for connection and creating and nurturing community, about the democracy of open source, about using the word, images and sounds in ways that are not only entertaining but truly meaningful.

Why don’t we write more about that? Because that’s another passion we share – writing. So … let ‘er rip!

We also figured that we truly enjoy having conversations with one another – so why not do that here on Alphablogs? Chances are others will enjoy our conversations, too.

So … these are our goals then:

1. To start a conversation and follow it, with at least one conversation post each a week, for two months, starting today, August 18.

2. To check in again on October 18.

And, since we’re so excited about the “fun” part of this, we both felt we could also do something that doesn’t seem so much fun –

3. For each of us to spend 30 minutes towards one item on our SEO “to do” list, by September 18.

Modest goals? Perhaps. But they are goals, and we’re committed to them.  Watch our Alphablogs plant grow!

A terrific little site called Brandoozie is a fun 2.0 tool for creating your own marketing materials quickly and easily. Sure you could go into Illustrator and use their templates in a pinch, but this might be all you need.

You can enjoy getting lost just playing with different fonts, colours and packages – the materials are sorted by industry so there are plenty of templates to choose from. You can also upload photos and other images.

It’s fun to watch the little gears turn and to see the materials building themselves before your eyes! Letterhead, postcards, business cards and sales sheets as well as trifold rack brochures, even a 4 page brochure – in minutes, and with high resolution output for printing. It’s beta right now and free to try – give it a test drive!

As you can see, these days I’m intrigued by the whole multilingual theme. So I thought I’d finally do something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while – write a bilingual blog post.

This was inspired by the German blog Blogschrott who asks bloggers who twitter to explain why they use Twitter. As you can tell from my last post, I’ve been reading more and more German Twitters – I get the impression that Twitter is just now becoming quite the interesting tool over in Germany.

So this is what I’ll do. First I’ll answer the questions in English, and then in German. (They won’t be exactly the same – I’m not applying for a translator’s job here Here we go

Why do you use twitter, where do you find meaning in it?

One of my prime motivators is fun, or a sense of pleasure and excitement. Every time I open my twitter page (I only use it in a browser), I’m happy. I like the visual appeal of both my site and of seeing all these neat avatars. I like the wittiness, intelligence and social consciousness of my Twitter friends. So the meaning is mostly pleasure – intellectual pleasure, sense-pleasure, and the pleasure of making and nurturing connections.

What do you tweet? Personal stuff, internet news, or a mix?

Anything and everything. It’s pretty impulsive (one of the other reasons I like it) I’d say 60% of the time I ask myself, is that of any interest to my friends? I do more and more retweeting, that is, passing on info that one of my Twitter contacts tweeted about – for example, a reminder to schedule cancer check-ups. There’s also little Twitter conversations. Lately, I’ve been posting a “global earth” motto every day, and a reflection on it, inspired by a list of things to do to become more globally and earth conscious that a friend had sent me a propos Earth Day. Once or twice a week I might mention one of my posts. Oh, and I also enjoy writing Twitter haiku, which I call twaiku – like this one here.

How do you use Twitter? Do you use a plugin, etc.?

As I said, I only use it via browser. I don’t even have the little Twitter widget on my blog anymore. I already spend way too much time on the computer, if I start using more than one medium to access something as addictive as Twitter, I’d never sleep!

Now for the German version:

Warum nutzt Du Twitter, wo liegt für Dich der Sinn?

Was mich motiviert is Spass, oder sagen wir mal Freude, oder ein gewisser Sinnesgenuss, eine gewisse Reizung. Jedesmal wenn ich meine Twitterseite oeffne (ich benutze es nur in einem Browser), freue ich mich. Ich freue mich darueber, wie meine Seite aussieht, und ueber all diese coolen Avatars. Ich freue mich ueber den Humor, die Intelligenz und das Sozialbewusstsein meiner Twitter-Freunde. Der Sinn liegt also in Freude – in intellektueller und sinnlicher Freude, und der Freude daran, neue Verbindungen zu machen and zu unterhalten.

Was twitterst Du? Eher private Sachen, News aus dem Web, oder ein Mix aus beidem?

So ziemlich alles. Es ist recht impulsiv (ein weiterer Grund, weshalb mir Twitter gefaellt). Ich wuerde sagen, 60% der Zeit frage ich mich, ob mein Tweet meine Kontakte interessieren wuerde. Ich “retweete” mehr und mehr, das heisst, ich gebe Information von meinen Kontakten weiter, z.B. hier, eine Erinnerung fuer Krebsvorsorgeuntersuchungen. Dann sind da auch kleine Twitter-Unterhaltungen. Neuerdings twittere ich auch taeglich ein Global Earth-Motto, und einen kurzen Gedanken darueber, inspiriert durch eine Liste, die uns hilft, mehr global und umweltfreundlich zu denken, die mir von einer Freundin fuer Earth Day geschickt hatte. Ein oder zweimal die Woche erwaehne ich einen meiner Blog-Artikel. Oh, und ich habe auch Spass daran, Haiku zu schrieben, die ich Twaiku nenne, hier zum Beispiel.

Wie nutzt Du Twitter? Über Twitter.com direkt, oder über ein Plugin? Wenn ja, wo liegen die Vorteile des jeweiligen Tools?

Wie gesagt, ich benutze nur die Webseite. Ich habe noch nicht mal mehr das kleine Twitter-Widget auf meinem Blog. Ich verbrauche schon viel zu viel Zeit mit dem Computer. Wenn ich mit einem weiteren Tool anfinge oder auch meinen Handy benutzen wuerde fuer sowas verfuehrerisches wie Twitter, wuerde ich nie wieder schlafen!

Image by smitty

Returning to the English is not the only language” theme, through my Twitter friend @Lotree I just came across a new Twitter meme (or tweme – you can see them all here; on Twitter you will see them identified with a # hashtag, like this one). They are German “Twitterweisheiten” or “Twitter wisdoms”. I quite like them so I’ll translate them here:

Sprachspielerin (“language player”, of the female sort, with her blog here) says

He who sows tweets shall reap a thunderstorm.
As you shout into the twittersphere, so shall it echo back.
There is no tweet unless you tweet it.
I tweet that I tweet nothing [leaning on Socrates]
You cannot step twice into the same tweet. Or: Everything twitters.
The tweet is the goal.

Lotree, a “reader and information broker” with his blog here)

More truculent than a tweet are often a tweet’s followers.

Werkstatt (“workshop” – a social science guy from my hometown Munich whose blog is called knowledge workshop)

And why Twitter and not, rather, Nothing? That is the question. [leaning on German philosopher Heidegger]
Whereof you cannot tweet you must keep silent.
Everything you can say you can say as a tweet. [leaning on German philosopher Wittgenstein]
Nothing is twittered as hot as it is cooked.
Where there is a tweet there is a way.
The next tweet is always the hardest.

rrho who lives in Berlin and has a blog here

Where there is one tweet there is more.

textundblog (“text and blog”) from Hamburg, a Spanish translator, among other things. His blog is here.

Speech is silver. Tweet is gold.

PickiHH Tina Pickhardt from Hamburg, who’s into CRM, with her Blog Themenriff

A hashtag does not a tweet make.

bosch who waxes intelligently at Boschblog:

Before the tweet is after the tweet.
And of course after the tweet is also before the tweet and vice versa.

jati – Jan Tissler, a journalist from Berlin who blogs here

The really interesting things happen bewteen the tweets.

Iranerin, an Iranian feminist in Hamburg, who has been blogging since 2004. Read it if your Farsi is good!

A life without twitting is a life without pleasure!

(Amusing little sidenote: I was just about to publish this when I realized that I had gotten my languages mixed up and capitalized the word “blog” throughout – for a momen I was confused … how do you write that in English again?)

It’s been a busy month, with all the activity of spring – new projects brewing and more to do than time to do it!

I recently interviewed Social Media Evangelist/Consultant and woman-about-town Monica Hamburg about one of her areas of expertise: Crowdsourcing. Check it out here in the YouTube version:

One thing this video doesn’t convey is Monica’s terrific sense of humour. You can find out more about that side of her through her blogsite(s). Contact Monica here.

Looks like this will be one of those “mark your calendar” events in Vancouver.

Bridging Media: Addressing the Challenges - this Saturday, March 29, 2008, 9:45 am – 3pm

Aimed to provide a bridge between the two communities of film/television and interactive/social media, I think this event comes just at the right time. The expertise we have here in Vancouver is remarkable, and the panelists assembled for this event have a lot to share in the short time they have available, so it looks like the whole day will be power-packed.

The tools are here and easier to use than ever, and the panelists are articulate and experienced in the slippery ever-shifting world of web/mobile/social media. Its free, its informative and it can change what you think you might know about social media, and more. Plus there is a door prize: a free pass to nextMEDIA, just before the Banff Television Festival.

Want to know who’ll be there? Go to the registration site and take a peek.

And did I mention that lunch is sponsored? Yes it is a free lunch!

Brainchild of Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave, the event now has a terrific team putting this together, with good will and sharp skills:  Cinci Csere, Monique Trottier and Monica Hamburg. I’m really glad to help out with this event and be in their company!