The Power and Politics of Blogs – Virtual Reality of Civic Initiative

The Power and Politics of Blogs by Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell is a good, though a bit outdated in terms of data on blogs, introduction to social media aimed for politicians and business people that are not familiar with the blogging and social media concepts as it gives a good and thorough overview of blogs, the blogosphere and how it interacts with the “regular pulling of the strings”.
I agree with the authors that an average blogger is a mediocre Jack that reaches a very limited audience and does not know nor care much about the politics and economy but it is the vast social media network and the tendency to link and repeat the prominent message within this network that generates the resonance that can have a superior impact on economy, politics and any given policy at hand.

Things That Every Social Media Course Should Start With – Know What You Put On-Line

Like Jeff Cain I came out quite empty when I searched Internet for e-professionalism, save references to Jeff Cain and to his article Online Social Networking Issues Within Academia and Pharmacy Education in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education that states all the basics, I presume all social media related studies should began with.
To quote the obvious: one should think before one acts, for Facebook pages, blogs and other social medium are not only viewed by ones private life friends but also employers, relatives (yes, somebody can actually print out your post and hand it to your mom), marketers trying to sell one something and possibly also criminals and con artists, that can use this information for questionable deeds that can cause one serious harm. The conclusions drawn for pharmacy students hold true for social media and any other faculty as well.
For example a HR executive from TeliaSonera related company told the press quite openly that they search online forums and social media for background information prior even considering one for the post. The whine about ones employer, a blog post on a conned vacation, when company thinks one is at a sick leave, a picture of somebody intoxicated or sleeping with a face in a plate can seem funny at present but probably will destroy every good career option for ever.
Thus I strongly agree with dr. Cain that all students using social networks should do it cautiously for besides the obvious gain in social capital that these networks give they also possess a danger to ones imago if used carelessly and without guided me 2.0 building in sense that one only posts what one knows one will benefit from in the future.

A Portal to Media Literacy by Michael Wesch

Thanks to useful link in Kaja Tampere’s blog I just finished watching Prof. Wesch video lecture A Portal to Media Literacy.
I really like his approach to learning, and his concept of making up ones own mind and seeing the connections out there, that brings education back to good old Jesuit principles nowadays followed only in a handful of private schools that educate a few elected thousand students. But then again, if one just follows it blindly, then in my opinion he renders his own suggestions by pointing students toward the Wikipedia and similar places as a source because irrelevant the discussion behind the wiki articles they are and remain PR writings merely mirroring the necessary public opinion on the matter and not the financial and political ties behind. But if one possesses the capability to think on ones’ own then Weshe’s guidelines are the best on learning I have heard through formal education system yet and his data gathering and connection making suggestions are essential to prosper on every walk of life.
To conclude I would not limit this video to e-learning but would expand it to every other 2.0 field, especially enterprise 2.0 and me 2.0.

Second Chance for Crowdsourcing

As I received some well deserved critics from my course mates for not being constructive about the crowdsourcing in my earlier post I decided to read some more on the subject to become more adapt to the concept and that led me to a wonderful book Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World by Prof. Alex Pentland.

The book turned out to be a very interesting reading material and though I got to it by searching for crowdsourcing materials it covered a lot more. The aim of Pentland's study is to reveal and distinguish the biological honest signals in human communication and to study the effects of subconscious signals to the outcome and the effectiveness of the communication, resulting in so called “reality mining”, giving off the true intent of the communication parties and the means used to achieve them.

The book also has some very good explanations why the crowdsourcing does not appear to be so effective, calling the prime obstacles that crowdsourcing or any other collaborative tool meets the idiots and the gossip.
The idiots in Prof. Pentland’s book represents the phenomena that not the best but most prominent idea gets the most of support and the gossip means that this idea gets repeated again and again by subtle groups that try to sound smart by mimicking the already approved idea. In turn the book also claims that individual are not necessarily better as humans do not make rational, logical decisions and tend to be social in thinking anyway so my opinion is that if one wants to call follow a leader a crowdsourcing then it’s ok, as long as we acknowledge and harvest it accordingly.

A Policy Paper on the Youth Perspective on e-Society

Just came from the final drafting meeting for the policy paper on the Youth Perspective on e-Society. If all goes well and the paper passes there will be hopefully some additional EU wide means to help the youth to build a bridge over the digital divide.
Estonia has the leading position in e-governance and e-society so far but it seems as if the old Europe has finally started to catch up. If we want to remain on the forefront the “Tiger” has to wake up and soon.

Siemens Goes Bat Sign

Just landed in Frankfurt and was greeted by a large Siemens sign next to an airfield put up to greet the passengers on a landing plane. Clever move and a good example to all of us- nothing says thank you for visiting Estonia better than a Kalev chocolate bar on a departing flight but what is there to say hello and welcome to Estonia on incoming flights or around the airfield. My connecting flight to Torino will be leaving soon but a food for thought: what would be similar welcoming sign to our blogs, web pages and services?

Searching for Hot-Spots Ended with Hot Shots

Search for hot-spot WiFi areas in Tallinn began with a small group of three but after awhile the small group grow into noisy, takeaway late loving lot. My Nokia N95 8GB became our WiFi detector and camera for the photo proof.
We found our first and the most loved WiFi area before even leaving for the journey from just outside our campus.
Our destination was Kumu in Kadriorg, as we felt an urge for that special “culture shock” to scare off our International student/s and perhaps for some also to enjoy the “art”.
On the way we passed Methodist Church, Weizenbergi cafe and had some nice time in Kadrioru Park and a little cafeteria there. My Nokia spotted rather few wifi free areas on our way but that was mainly due to off-season as Tallinn city has so far provided free public WiFi in Kadrioru park for every summer for the last three years.
The grand finale of our hunt was Kumu. For some it was the first time to visit the art museum and they decided to go for the exhibition. The others, more familiar with the place, cut their culture experience short and disappeared to the coffee shop downstairs.
One thing led to another and courageous search for hot spots ended with hot shots. But here are the hot-spots we found on the Google map.

Does Social Media Connect or Isolate?

Prof. Haamer held a lecture on student convention about the impact of urbanization to human interaction and pointed out a peculiar find from a study on the Victorian society: a research indicated that while people lived in the farms they visited their neighbors roughly five times a week but when the same families moved to settle in barracks and work in the factory they visited their neighbors roughly five times in two months. Then the professor asked: was a distance a connector or separator and offered his view that sometimes a bit of distance supports the human interaction. I came across a similar theme in the paper by the scholars from the University of Pennsylvania and the Pew Internet Project called “Social Isolation and New Technology” that tries to challenge that theory and claims that Internet has no or but a little-positive impact on human interaction.
The study does not cover the quality of those interactions but claims amongst else that the ones who maintain a blog are more adapt to confide in someone who is of another race and that the social network of the Facebook users in particular is broader. I personally do not see the interaction between the maintaining a blog (unidirectional communication) and social dialogue but who am I to argue ;)
The findings support the claim that Internet and ICT in general enlarges ones social networking quality and scope but there was also some evidence that the use of social networking services (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn) substitutes for some level of neighborhood involvement e.g. the users of social networking services are 30% less likely to know at least some neighbors.
In my opinion this was an interesting study and I do agree with the authors that while ICT solutions strengthen and help to maintain our social network one can not solely rely on the Internet based social networking services.