In Praise of Ravelry

Got your Google+ invite? Yes? Created some circles, placing people where you think they belong in your life then moving them about every time someone else you know appears on the site?  Wish the circles would overlap because you just can’t resist a decent Venn diagram? Want a Ninth Circle of Google+ where you could banish those people you never want to interact with?

Well, I can’t help you with any of those questions but asking them got me thinking about how and why I use social networks.  Maybe it goes back to those chat rooms when AOL was the only game in town and I had two kids in diapers (not to mention the two huge dogs and one large husband to care for) so uninterrupted face to face chats with friends over coffee or at a bar just weren’t going to happen.  We mommies opened up our chat rooms in the morning and popped in and out as naps and videos allowed.  My children survived to enter kindergarten and my marriage probably lasted a few days longer due to the opportunity to converse with other adults with similar interests and issues.

Fast forward a significant amount of time and we have Twitter.  I signed on initially to share a conference experience at NYU but then discovered what a wonderful platform it was to converse with friends, network with professionals, and keep in touch with the world outside my classroom.  This lasted about two years but then the school community jumped on board and, well, it became a case of “be careful what you wish for”. Used to be a great platform for self expression, now not so much, but that’s how I learned to manage Facebook lists.

Now we have Google+.  Just about the time I got my invite, @hoxtonhandmade tweeted an article from Slate entitled “A Tight Knit Community: Why Facebook Can’t Match Ravelry, a Social Network for Knitters” (more about @hoxtonhandmade in a few).  Ravelry was founded by a husband and wife team and has just four employees to keep a social network of over a million members going.  No pretty diagrams, no chats based on sports metaphors, just forums, groups, shopping, and a way to catalog all my favorite patterns and yarn as well as ask questions of other knitters as I strive to be more than a novice.

I have over 2000 followers on Twitter, close to 200 friends on Facebook, over 30 folks in my Circles on Google+ … and 3 friends on Ravelry.  One to one connections aren’t as important as sharing a passion for a specific topic with the group at large, and you needn’t post all over the place to feel like you’re a participant. While I’ve never joined a knitting group, I get the impression that Ravelry is like those chat rooms the moms ran way back when – a group of people discussing their knitting successes and failures as well as resources and entertainment.

I tend to visit the groups that focus on the various podcasts I love.  The Knitmore Girls, Electric Sheep, and A Playful Day are my favorites (although I’ve found I slip into a decidedly British accent for no reason these days I swear, and the latter 2 podcasters love of mustaches and ale is an added bonus).  Yarn and pattern recommendations are easy to follow up on Ravelry, and when I’m looking for that perfect next project, these podcasts tend to at least give me a push in the right direction.

I admit, after catching up on A Playful Day’s podcast I’m seriously lusting after Madelinetosh DK yarn, and @hoxtonhandmade’s essay from awhile back about acrylic yarn made me feel not so bad about using Red Heart over fancy alpaca or cashmere.  After all, I am a new knitter, poor teacher with two expensive teenagers … and acrylic was certainly alright for Grandma!  I wish The Knitmore Girls hadn’t timed their first vacation with mine, but their return in September will make that month just a bit more palatable!

The best part of Ravelry for me, though, is exactly what made me first love Twitter.  A wealth of timely information and a group of experts to provide almost instant answers to pressing questions.  I recently decided to knit this pattern from The Brisbane Courier‘s Thursday, November 29, 1928 edition, based on this version created by Ravelry member KnittingAnd.  When I couldn’t quite figure out how to attach the lining, I emailed her and got a quick response even though she’s in Australia!

A successful social network for me at least is one that provides a platform for people interested in a similar subject to share ideas, ask questions, and provide information.  When I joined Twitter, I wanted contacts in tech and marketing, asked and answered questions about those topics and then education.  Yes, it’s great to send random thoughts out to the twitterverse, get your news almost immediately in your Tweetdeck stream, and casually chat with friends throughout your day, but for real social media value, I think specialized networks are the up and coming platform not the meganetworks like Google+.

I may be wrong (and please tell me if you think I am), but I wouldn’t be surprised to find there are other very successful specialized social networks out there…

My Foodtown needs Foursquare

On Monday, I attended The RealTime Report in New York.  I’ve been blogging about the various case studies over the past few days, but today I’ll take a look at one of the many informative panels.

Another part of #RLTM was the panels on various real time topics.  My personal favorite was “Real Time, Right Place: Getting Customers to Check In” especially since I’m conflicted about the value of geolocation social networks like Foursquare.  The best observation of the day came from this discussion: Groupon deals encourage new users, Foursquare rewards loyalty.  From a marketing perspective, that’s brilliant (and simple), and for a consumer like me, this clarified their use and makes it easier for me to know when and why to use them.

Adrian D. Parker, Social Media Director of RadioShack, shared their approach to Foursquare.  Now, I have a Radio Shack about a mile from my house.  Last time I stopped in, I needed a battery for my car key.  I did use my iPhone when I was there because the salespeople were uncertain what battery I needed and how to install it.  Thank goodness for the internet! However, I didn’t tweet or checkin while there.  Didn’t occur to me, after all, it’s Radio Shack not a restaurant, coffee shop, or clothing store!

According to Mr. Parker, I’m in the minority.  After being hired 18 months ago, Mr. Parker took a year to educate the company about Foursquare.  He took a test and learn approach, starting with a limited month long campaign. From this, the company learned that

• Foursquare users spend 3 to 4 times what a nonuser spends in one visit.
• Foursquare is an excellent way for consumers to rediscover Radio Shack as they rebrand themselves as “The Shack”.
• Foursquare can be used to encourage users who check in to make a purchase.

Radio Shack also began using a Foursquare page to provide information on promotions as well as real time reports from customers at various locations.  What began as a test a year ago has become a significant promotional venue to reinvent the brand, attract customers, and make sales.

Gowalla is another geolocation platform and panelist Matthew Shadbolt, Director of Internet Product & Marketing at The Corcoran Group, briefly discussed ways to use Gowalla as a marketing tool.  One of the unique features of Gowalla is its trips, itineraries of various locations based on a specific subject.  The Corcoran Group’s approach to home sales is that it’s not just about the home, it’s about the neighborhood.  By providing helpful information about a locale after a Gowalla user checks in, this company demonstrates its knowledge about the area on a individual, more personal basis.  The creation of “trips” within various neighborhoods in New York City shares with potentials homebuyers the highlights of living in that particular locale.  After a user completes an entire trip, Gowalla notifies Corcoran so they can reach out to that individual to start a conversation about the experience and perhaps spark interest in one of their properties for sale in that vicinity.

Mr. Shadbolt also mentioned that platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla can be utilized by companies with no bricks and mortar presence to promote their brand.  For example, when a Foursquare user checks in at Times Square, The History Channel responds with a message informing the visitor that the original name for Times Square was Longacre Square.  Not only does this promote American History, it raises awareness for The History Channel and their on air offerings.

My favorites story and one I wish would be implemented in my home town was Pepsi’s partnership with Safeway and Foursquare.  When a user shops at Safeway, they receive a promotion for a Pepsi product based on their lifestyle information gathered by Foursquare .  For example, let’s assume our shopper is a young and visits the gym often.  When they check out with their groceries at Safeway, if they’ve thrown some Gatorade in their cart, they automatically get checked in at Safeway and receive a promotion for Gaterade when they hand their Safeway card to the cashier.  For Pepsi and Safeway, this initiative provides vital data about their consumers and their lifestyle and promotes more purchases.  The ease of use of this approach cuts out the primary obstacles to geolocation promotions: the multiple steps a customer must go through to receive an offer and the time and effort to educate staff.

I spend a lot of time at the grocery store.  This type of promotion would be the best thing in food shopping since I discovered Peapod!

Every member on the panel cautioned that social media doesn’t replace paid, targeting advertising.  Formal marketing campaigns drive potential customers to earned avenues of marketing like geolocation social media platforms which promote purchases.  Finally, I get how both company and consumer can benefit from social sites like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Now, to convince my local Foodtown to get on board…

Bravo Conquers Social TV

Anyone who’s read my blog posts over the past years or knows me in real life must know how much I LOVE Bravo.  Now, the whole Housewives series leaves me cold, but I was hooked by Jonathan Antin and Jackie Warner way back when and watching Top Chef is sacrosanct in my house.  (Don’t get me started on Top Design.)

This past Monday at The RealTime Report in New York, Lisa Hsia, Executive Vice President of Bravo Digital Media, and Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Wiredset Trender, presented a case study of Bravo’s foray in to social tv.

Bravo’s fans are passionate and the majority are early adopters who engage online often, both true of this blogger.  The first attempt to combine social media and traditional broadcast grew into Bravo’s real time social viewing party.  Viewers can express their opinion on Twitter with a chance to see their tweets during breaks in the show, tweet with stars like Top Chef Judge Toby Young, vote in polls during the broadcast, interact through Facebook Connect, view behind the scenes content, and have a chance to win some swag.

Who doesn’t love swag?

Hsia saved the best for last: Bravo discovered that 40% of the online participants weren’t watching the show. Growing their audience using social media created more interest and I’m sure future viewers and any traditional advertising accomplished. The creation of a “coviewing companion app” for iPad provides the ability to push content to the viewer during both the show and commercials increasing the impact of advertising.  By making their on air ads interactive, Bravo allows customers to request for information or answer a poll while an ad is running which provides vital consumer data to their advertisers.

Bravo discovered that an users spend an average 23 minutes engaged online.  In response, they created Tweet Tracker, a visual interactive timeline of tweets about their various shows, conducted tweet battles where viewers can debate the merits of various contestants, and the Talk Bubble with celebrity and viewer tweets.

Bravo’s highly successful social TV formula:

Get that? Ok, I couldn’t resist using Data for data, but here’s the equation:

real time + data + social + video = social tv

Simple huh?

Social TV combines the swarm behavior of apps like Groupon or Foursquare with openness and real time engagement through Facebook and Twitter.  By increasing the interaction and enjoyment for the fans, Bravo benefits with a larger audience which drives content and advertising which promotes interaction and enjoyment for fans …

… and we’re back at that virtuous circle again!

Eventbrite & Facebook: Perfect Together

On Monday, June 6, 2011, I attended the RealTime Report in New York City.  A rebranding of TWTRCON, this year’s conference focused on more case studies and “tales from the trenches”.  Over the next few posts, I’ll share those case students that really exemplify what real time marketing is and how companies are leveraging this approach to marketing.

One of the first speakers of the morning was Tamara Mendelson of Eventbrite.  I’ve used Eventbrite’s ticket service as both an attendee and an event planner and find them to be extremely efficient. This case study examined of “The Value of Being Liked” and the reach of event sharing on Facebook.

Back in 2008 when Eventbrite first took a look at the origins of traffic to their site, they focused on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo to promote their brand and events.  SEO became their primary online marketing focus, but over time they became aware that both organizers and attendees shared event information on Facebook.  Initially, users would copy and past event information into Facebook to share with friends.  When Eventbrite realized that their fastest growing inbound traffic came from Facebook, they worked with the social media company to create the capacity to “Publish to Facebook” now available.

Facebook is now the second largest traffic source for Eventbrite, with Twitter and Linkedin also in the top 10.  The ability for ticket buyers to immediately publish event info to their Facebook page and Twitter feed provides a real time opportunity for event organizers to promote their offering to a more receptive audience.  After all, if you friend is going, aren’t you more likely to go along too?

The concept of the “virtuous cycle” was first mentioned in this case study.  It’s been awhile since I heard this term used, but I quickly realized that this may be the beauty of social media and promotion in real time.  I purchase a ticket on Eventbrite then push that to my Facebook page, my good friend @mswas sees that I’m going and realizes that we haven’t seen each other for awhile, clicks on the link, purchase a ticket, posts it to her Facebook page … infinite loops in programming may be very very bad, but in real time marketing, they are priceless!

Below is a wonderful graphic that quickly explains how Eventbrite’s metrics with regard to Facebook integration:

What’s in your lunchbox?

I attended two conferences in the past few days: the Emerging Learning Design (ELD) conference at Montclair University and The RealTime Report (#RLTM) in New York.  The audience at ELD was primarily educators at the college and high school level.  The latter event was all about business, and I’ll be blogging about both this week.

First up, ELD.

Bringing little experience in social media with them, attendees at ELD asked the types of questions business people asked in 2008.  Many needed to learn the basics of Twitter and Facebook: whats a DM, how do I set up a Facebook page with students and still respect privacy, etc.  The concerns unique to education were rarely voiced.  When issues like the  amount of time teenagers spend on Facebook were raised, those asking the questions had difficulty opening their minds to the idea that the platform may be new, but the need to socialize with peers has been around as long as we’ve had teenagers!

I knew I was in trouble when the first keynote speaker opened with the question, “How many of you don’t know why anyone would want to use Twitter? Who cares what you had for lunch!”  This brought to mind a variation on the Ralph Nader quote about politics: “If you’re not turned on to social media, social media will turn on you.”  To give them credit, every educator there realized they were late to the party, knew Nader was right, and wanted reach students in the 21^st century via social media.

Probably 25% of the attendees actively use the major social networks, and I even got one LinkedIn invitation while I was there.  Signficantly less than the networking done at #RTLM, a few educators scribbled email addresses rather than hand each other a business card or send that LinkedIn invite.  Perhaps along with the basics of social media, educators need to realize the value of networking.

That first keynote presentation by @intellagirl (another member of the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Stripe”) about how to integrate and assess whether a social media tool is an appropriate addition to curriculum was the highlight of the day.  By addressing the strategic, tactical, and operational aspects of a platform, educators take into account not just what this new technology can do, but how users interact, what conceptions students carry with them when they enter the classroom, and what purpose each social media platform serves for the vast number of people that use it.

For example, Twitter’s strategic advantage is the massive user-to-user communication that takes place in its online space as well as the ability promote and manage a brand or idea and hopefully generate income.  Tactically, Twitter allows users to send short multi-use messages within a flexible network.  The constraint of 140 characters ensures the brevity and timliness of tweets.  The operational aspects include hashtags, DMs, RTs, and all the many conventions we use on Twitter.

How teachers integrate Twitter and how students react may or may not work the first time – @intelligirl shared a wonderful story about using Facebook with graduate students that initially failed because of the students’ concerns with privacy. However, using this approach does help determine whether Twitter is useful in a specific curriculum, how it might achieve specific educational goals, and how instructional/user-created content will mesh student/user-created content.

As one of the few educator attendees personally and professionally immersed in social media, I became less of a participant and more a supplier of examples from both my employment as a teacher and my freelance experiences.  @andimulsh‘s use of the #upperclassy hashtag for her Advanced Journalism students became the hit of the workshop that dealt with integrating social media into the classroom.  My experience with @cooperhewitt when I organized a field trip to their Design exhibit last fall prompted  discussion in a social media in the arts workshop.

By now, my readers probably think I didn’t enjoy this conference or learn anything I’ll take back to my classroom.  So wrong! In addition to the first presentation, @lthumann‘s direct approach to Twitter in the classroom should be useful to any educator who hopes to incorporate that platform into his or her lessons:

Twitter can be used to

1. build apersonal brand (great for high school students with portfolios)
2. learn to be concise (remember 140 characters?)
3. personify characters on Twitter (great creative writing exercise)
4. collaborate on same topic with different cultures (Millenial penpals)
5. bring experts into the classroom virtually (the first thing I did with Twitter and @chrisconn)

For beginners and seasoned Twitter users, these suggestions can be attempted in any classroom for any age group of students, including adults!

After lunch where I learned Montclair thinks everyone eats meat, tweeted about it, and learned I wasn’t the only disappointed veggie attendee, Craig Kapp’s presentation on Artifical Reality really intrigued the geek in me.  Technically sophisticated, I did enjoy his examples of how AR is available for use today and will certainly try a number of websites and programs he explored with my Advanced Java class.  You can check him out at his blog  – well worth a visit if only to see what’s happening in the world of AR.

ELD12 is scheduled for June 1, 2012.  I look forward to attending once again to see how far educators go with social media in their classrooms over the next year.  I bet every teacher who attends ELD12 will know that Twitter is so much more than what we’ve had for lunch today.

I’m going to TWTRCON!

Last June, I was fortunate enough to attend TWTRCON, advertised as “a full-day immersion in the mobile, social and realtime web” in New York City.  Active in social media for 2 years at that point, I’d organized a jersey shore social media event in 2009 but was (and am) employed full-time as a New Jersey teacher. Opportunities to hear leaders in the industry discuss how they integrate Twitter into their marketing plan were few and far between due to my schedule and income.  I was lucky enough to attend TWTRCON via the “Go Standby” program (a deep discount, trust me), and I chose to write about the experience over on the VoxPopNJ blog.  This year I’m attending the event, now known as The Realtime Report, through the same program and will blog about the experience here.

In preparation, let’s look back at last year’s event.  Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker, and as a former stay-at-home mom, Martha and I had a “history”.

During a panel featuring a spokesperson from NASA, PETA decided to hijack the twitterfeed (yes, I’m a vegan, no, I don’t agree with their tactics).

Finally, I attempted to embrace geolocation software but as the summer progressed, I found it sadly lacking at both Chili’s and Chipotle.  I will say that both venues have improved considerably with regard to social media, but I’m still not motivated to check in anywhere at this point in my social media career.

I’m looking forward to lots of new ways to leverage social media at The Realtime Report in June.  Check it out, and if you decide to come, follow me on twitter and let me know how to find you there!  I’ll also be at the Emerging Learning Design Conference at Montclair University on June 3rd.  While directed at educators, I’ll share what I learn here as well, or you can join me at that event too!

Ode to Code

As I thought about this blog post, I was tempted to write either a poem or a blog post in code.  Sadly, my ability to write poetry peaked in high school with my own version of a Cantebury tale, and so few readers would understand a post in code that I created the list above then sat down to just write.

Language: it’s what I love about code.  Over the decades I’ve been coding, people regularly remark, “You must be good at math if you’re good at programming.”  This is a blatant fallacy .  I learned to code because I suck at math!

Way back before my kids were born when I wrote marketing proposals for an engineering company, I came in contact with a phrase I still shudder to hear: “billable hours”.  As an English major, I could write glowing prose about how my company was the best one for any job, but I had no idea how to figure out the proposed cost of the mechanical and electrical systems contained in these bids.  The engineers had to do this, but anything done for my department wasn’t “billable hours” so guess how quickly those guys got to my requests.

Even bribing them with an expense paid meal rarely worked … and this in the era when drinks were still de rigueur at lunch!

Looking back over my life thus far, I realize I do my best work when angry, and this was one of the first examples.  Fine, I said to nobody in particular, if they won’t write the individual estimates, there’s got to be a way to automate this.  I kept all the proposal information in a database – anyone remember dBase III? – and wrote a few simple scripts and interfaces to get me out of work on time when the President of the company decided he needed statistics at 4:55 p.m. on Friday.  If I could get one engineer in each department to give me the formulas they use for these proposals, I could create an interface to generate that section, print it for an engineer to approve (this is way before email), and get those proposals out on time!

The rest is history.  I enjoyed writing those quick little programs so much, I signed up for a Java course at Brookdale, then convinced my employer to pay for me to learn to write interfaces for that newfangled internet. Back from maternity leave, I moved from marketing to the fledgeling tech group and created the first onsite program for cell tower engineers to use to access information remotely.  It was ugly but it worked!

As I type this, I’m reminded of a program one of my Java students wrote this year.  He decided to automate the process of looking up history terms and events by having the computer access the first paragraph of the corresponding wikipedia entry, dump it into a text file, and voila! All the information contained in one convenient Word file created while he played video games.  Brilliant!  Also goes to show that the best programs come out of frustrating experiences.

Recently, I was asked to create an browser interface for teachers to enter data about students.  As I reviewed the specs and nodded along with committee chair as she ticked off all the requirements, I thought, “It’s been awhile since I created rather than taught code.  Is this stuff still in my head somewhere?”

Luckily I could use PHP which is a scripting language and therefore quicker to write since it runs in a browser. (If you’re a coder, you get that, if you’re not, don’t worry about it.  Be happy you have a life.)  Since I’ve used PHP with WordPress and a few other projects, I knew where to start.  Of course, the path of attack I chose had a lot of side trips down dead ends, but in a few hours stolen from prep time and after school, I built the interface.

Few things are as rewarding as working through a programming project and solving problems that pop up along the way.  Knowing I can still write code and manipulate a database after 8+ years out of industry gave me a nice little boost of confidence.

Damn straight this old lady still has some skills!  Now to celebrate my success at Bond St. with the chair of that committee…