This chapter section was cut from the book. Here it is (in its pre-edited form):
Microblogging for Social Change
"It's one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet."
- New York Times
At a nonprofit technology conference, a friend showed me a web application that he and some friends had built over the previous weekend. They didn’t have a name for it, but his excitement was evident. He told me that it was a “new way to tell friends what you are doing.” “Watch”, he said as he typed:
“showing the application to ben rigby.”
He pressed the return key and this short missive, along with a small photo of him, appeared at the top of the page. Underneath it I noticed several similarly brief notes from his friends. The message immediately below said:
“Getting a sandwich.”
“Uh huh. Neat.” I recall saying before wandering off to get lunch, having been more inspired by the idea of a sandwich than the application itself. A year later, this application is called “Twitter” and the New York Times calls it a phenomena. Some see Twitter and the class of web applications that it helped to define as the next great opportunity for collaboration, communication, outreach, and mobilization. Some feel that it’s either a passing fad or a dangerous move towards “radical self-revelation.”
Microblogging is only tangentially related to blogging. It shares the same spirit of openness and informality, but is used most often to convey personal status rather than detailed thoughts about a topic. As I’m drafting this paragraph, the top five public posts (or “tweets” as they are called) on Twitter read:
I refreshed the page after copying and pasting these tweets and they were already gone from Twitter’s home page, displaced by a new batch. If a blog tells the story of someone’s day to day, microblogging describes the moment to moment. By the time you read this book, these posts will have been forgotten.
Whereas blogging was designed for the web browser, microblogging was designed specifically for the variety of technologies that mediate young lives. For example, you can read and write posts from a mobile phone. In fact, messages are limited to 140 characters, which is the maximum length of a text message. You can also read and write posts from instant messaging applications, web sites, social networking sites, desktop applications, and even blogs. Microblogging sews a fabric of communication into many other digital domains.
Evan Williams, founder of both Blogger and Twitter (see feature box on page[?]) says that “Twitter is best understood as a highly flexible messaging system that swiftly routes messages, composed on a variety of devices, to the people who have elected to receive them in the medium the recipients prefer. It is a technology that encourages a new mode of communication.”
Most people share my nonplussed reaction to microblogging. The most common reaction is “I don’t get it.” Frivolous sounding product names and a preponderance of seemingly substance-less messages belie microblogging’s transformational potential. Like its cousin Blogging, its influence may become widespread.
How are Organizations using Microblogging?
Primarily, people use microblogging to communicate with one another. Organizational uses are rare. However, they do exist and I’ll discuss some below. I haven’t heard of any uses that perform a recruiting function, so I’ll skip directly to engagement methods.
Engage
Microblogging offers fertile ground for engaging young people. When used at an event, it creates a stream of information that allows attendees to connect with friends and to more actively make decisions about how to best enjoy the event experience. It also conveys a sense of the event to those who are unable to attend. When used by an organization it facilitates intra-office collaboration while broadcasting a behind-the-scenes vignette. Let’s explore some examples.
Optimizing and Sharing Event Experiences
Twitter launched into the public eye during the 2007 South By Southwest conference in Austin. Monitors in the hallways promoted the service by displaying tweets as they came in:
“Great talk on avatars in room 7a”
“Heading back to hotel”
“Learning about the hetronormative bias in the teledildonics industry.”
“Free Make Magazines at Dorkbot”
Attendees signed up for the service in droves. They used it to learn which sessions were boring and which were compelling. After a tweet from a trusted friend, they’d move from one conference room to another in search of the optimum conference experience. They also used Twitter to coordinate post-session meet-ups at Austin’s numerous bars and restaurants. People who weren’t able to attend said that it connected them to their conference-going friends:
“I couldn’t go this year... But I’m living out the experiences there in real time, as my friends all get together, search for parties, report which parties stink and which ones have a long line to get in. I got up-to-the-minute chatter that made me feel like I was hanging out there.”
Twitter became the conference’s darling, even winning its top prize for best web application. Moreover, the utility of the microblogging concept started to gel in the minds of the many influence makers who attended.
Collaboration and Outreach
Andrew Hoppin works for NASA. He’s charged with facilitating communication between what he calls “NASA’s 1000 stovepipes.” Hoppin’s primary tool: microblogging. He’s using a Twitter competitor called Jaiku to build links between divisions and individuals.
At NASA’s massive Moffet Field facility, hierarchy and physical space serve as a deterrent to collaboration. Hoppin says that its not uncommon for groups to schedule nearly simultaneous meetings on the same topic. Group A doesn’t benefit from any of the thinking or planning that happens at Group B’s meeting and vice versa. Using Jaiku, the groups start talking with each other. They notice that there’s a similar meeting and they combine forces.
Hoppin says: “You can’t every keep track of everything that’s going on. There’s just too much. With microblogging, you put in a very small amount of effort and are quickly rewarded. It allows you to communicate with someone without reaching out to that person specifically.”
As a side-benefit, this communication stream becomes a form of outreach that may particularly appeal to young people. Hoppin says that microblogging broadcasts the “heartbeat of NASA.” Young people love to become insiders and NASA is the type or organization that captures their interest. NASA’s microblog offers an uncensored peek behind the scenes. It creates a personal connection between NASA and its aficionados. Of course, not every organization has the allure of sending people to the moon. The heartbeat of most organizations would succeed only in lulling a young person to sleep. For the right organization, however, microblogging can serve as a method of engagement.
Activate
Microblogs operate on a subscription basis, which means that a person must opt-in to receive posts from any given microblog. On one hand, this model necessitates some degree of marketing. You have to let people know about your microblog so that they can subscribe to it. On the other hand, you know that people who have subscribed to your microblog are actively interested in your organization. Although there are no studies (yet) that evaluate results from calls-to-action delivered via microblog, the combination of timeliness and affiliation create a favorable environment for action.
Do This Now!
LiveEarth tweets to 1765 followers on a near daily basis. Some recent tweets:
“Eating my veggies! Livestock adds 18% of total greenhouse gas emissions to our atmosphere -- more than motorized transportation!”
“Killing my phantoms! When appliances aren't on, they still us electricity. Plug as many as possible into a power strip then turn it off”
“Signing the 7-point pledge at www.liveearthpledge.org! Getting all my friends to sign too”
These 1765 people have expressed an interest in saving the planet by subscribing to LiveEarth’s microblog. They’re likely to be receptive to these quick daily tips and calls-to-action.
Ways to Set Up A Microblog
At present, microblogging providers set up the structure and format of microblogs. There aren’t a lot of options for customized configurations. Some providers permit groupings and privacy settings. Some permit file uploads and sharing. Until the field matures, you’re stuck with what they give you.
How to Get Started
Being a new technology, there aren’t a lot of examples of (or results from) Microblogging. However, Microbloggers have a lot of big ideas for how it can be used. The following list may help you think through ways in which your organization can get started.
· Friendsourcing: Use your network to solve problems. Microblogging exposes a question to a large group of people very quickly. By having more points of contact, chances are that someone is going to be able to solve the problem. The network is able to solve the problem much more efficiently than you as an individual. You can solve a problem without knowing who to ask to solve it.
· Breaking news: Microblogging is instantaneous. If something happens to someone in your network, you’ll know about it well before it hits the blogs or mainstream press. As a nonprofit or political campaign, you can create your own breaking news.
· Fiction: You can tell the story of someone’s moments with a microblog. Compelling storytelling can motivate action.
· Staying in touch: Microblogging enables you to stay connected to a large group of friends, family, and contacts with little effort. It brings people into closer daily contact.
The technology is sorting itself out. There are many potential problems with it. Some skeptics believe that the frequency of interruptions does more harm than good. Others think that a bit of secrecy lubricates our society and that these moment-to-moment updates blithely place us in uncharted social territory. Before launching a micro-blog, you’d be smart to consider these problem areas.
If you decide to microblog, there are many options. Twitter.com was one of the original services, but many competitors now populate the field. Because they’re operated as web services, getting started with a microblog requires only that you select a service, signup online, and start using it.
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