I’ve decided that it may be better to write about anything and everything until I find what my blogging voice is. So while I may talk about technology, social media and PR, I will also talk about anything else that catches my attention.
Such as the post that I wrote two weeks ago (now posted below) on skating at the Harbourfront Centre.
Hopefully this will help avoid blogging dry spells…
In an effort to get out and enjoy my Spring Break and explore the city, I went out to the Natrel Skating Rink at the Harboufront Centre today.
Skating there has been a part of my Canadian winter memories for about ten years now. Each winter I would go skating with my high school band or with a group of friends in the evening. Skating at night, we would enjoy the magical feeling of skating by the lake on the rink, lit up by Christmas lights and spot lights and listening to some oldies but goodies.
Today I did something different. I went by myself during the day and was pleasantly surprised. I was able to skate for more than an hour in the bright, soul-warming sunshine with only six others on the ice. At first it was quiet but half way through they turned the music on.
Either way, it was both refreshing and relaxing. I enjoyed the rush of the cold (but not freezing) air as I skated and watched couples – both young and young at heart – skate, dogs run by merrily with their owners, and some stray planes land over the water at the City Airport in the distance.
When I finished, I was happy that I took a chance. I got over my reservations about exploring on my own and got over my lazy desire to stay on the couch with my computer and the tv (which was great over the weekend but now it was time to move on).
Afterwards, I enjoyed a nice warm drink at a nearby coffee shop, as per tradition. I was happy I came and even happier to know that I’m taking two of my international friends from school there tomorrow.
One of the courses we are taking this semester is Event Management and our major project, as you may expect, is to work in a team to put on an event.
During our very first meeting, I suggested that we set up a wiki.
All of my group members had heard of wikis before but maybe only one or two of us had ever used them. So I quickly set up a private wiki on pbwiki and invited them to use it.
I had only briefly gone over why we should be using a wiki and so I think I will go into a bit more detail here.
What are the advantages of using a wiki?
What are the disadvantages?
Right now, it seems as if most of my group members are doing ok with the wiki. I understand that there is a little bit of frustration because a wiki doesn’t function the exact same way as a word processing program, but I think that will pass over time.
I’m sure that once we split up our duties, the wiki will be really useful for recording our findings and activities for each other to see.
Are there any other advantages or disadvantages for using a wiki? How do you use wikis?
Photo Credit: teemow – Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA)
I have been quiet for a while now on this blog but there is a reason.
I’ve been spending lot of time reading and listening to the PR and social media community. I have been doing this for months now but this time it’s different because not only am I’m learning from the online community (through blogs, podcasts and even tweets), but I’m also learning from school (with classes, readings and guest speakers).
All of this listening has made me so much more sure and excited about where I am going. So I think it’s time that I start writing and talking as I continue to read.
And so here I am with this post.
It is very early in my course and there are many other aspects of PR that I will experience and learn about, but I find myself currently intrigued by employee engagement. And with that, I am intrigued with how social media can be used in this process.
I feel that coming from a company like IBM, I’ve already been spoiled by social media in the workplace.
IBM uses social media both internally and externally to engage its employees. Internally, employees create podcasts, share bookmarks (through Dogear), connect on an internal social network (Beehive), collaborate using wikis, and converse through blogs.
Using social media, IBM is empowering employees to build and use these online communities to be creative, to collaborate and to innovate. In other words, by allowing the employees to connect, communicate and participate in new ways, IBM is giving each employee a voice and an opportunity to share their value.
I will not pretend to be an expert on this topic just yet, especially since I know some of IBM’s great social media evangelists who can speak at length on the importance of social media.
Over time though, I plan to discuss how IBM and other companies use social media to engage their employees and how social media can be used internally by communicators with their work.
For the time being, I will point you towards the following social media study on Scribd: The Corporate Newsletter Goes Social: IBM and Employee-Centered Social Media.
Photo Credit: Kris Hoet – Creative Commons License (BY)
Yesterday, in our Media Relations class, we talked briefly about Twitter and its impact on PR.
I’m not an expert on Twitter yet, but from reading various blog posts and talking to enthusiastic users, I am learning how Twitter allows people to build relationships, share information and interact in real time.
I mentioned to the class that on the night of the US Presidential Election, I followed the election.twitter stream. I was in awe as I watched hundreds of people tweet their immediate reactions to Obama’s win and it really hit me then that this was a moment I would never forget. That’s when I started to realize that there was something special about Twitter.
Yesterday, there were two great examples of the power of Twitter:
U.S. Airways flight 1549 crashes into the Hudson River
We were in our Media Relations class and our professor, Barry Waite, was showing us examples of media relations in the news. When he opened the CBC page, we saw that there had been a plane crash in the Hudson. He then opened Twitter and asked his followers to say hi to our class. A few minutes later, someone responded with a link to a story on how Twitter broke the first photo of the plane crash: http://ad.vu/2hrc. The class was amazed.
Toronto’s West End Blackout
I was at home working on the computer when all of a sudden my Tweetdeck (which I had installed only a few hours earlier) started making a lot of noise. I didn’t have the TV on or the radio, and so it was through Twitter that I learned that part of the city was without power. Quickly I picked up that people were using the #darkTO hashtag for the conversation and I began to follow it myself. People were posting TTC service updates, Toronto Hydro updates, phone numbers for help, and even supportive messages. An hour after it began, CBC posted this story: Twitter Shines in TO Blackout
What both of these examples showcase is the power to reach a group of people and share information instantaneously using Twitter. Media outlets were watching streams on both events and not only were they adding information, they were also using information from other tweeters to build their own news stories.
Here’s another story: A friend of mine ran to work in the morning because her apartment was freezing. A few hours later, she tweeted to #darkTO and asked if her area has power yet or not. She received a faster response (telling her no) by tweeting than if she had gone searching around the web for that answer.
Are there any other examples of how and why Twitter is so great? In what ways is it not?
Photo Credit: ComicBase – Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA)