Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Beyond Social Media - webinar by Tara Hunt

All though I don't use Twitter for marketing, many of these tips could be used or implemented in some form towards training.

Presented by Tara Hunt, @missrogue
Http://www.horsepigcow.com
Http://www.buyoshphere.com

Smart ways to use social media throughout your business
1. Reward customers for sharing
2. Help customers make better decisions
3. Get customers involved in making better products.
4. Customer centric partnerships
5. Amazing customer service

1. Rewarding customers

Star wood - foursquare gives extra point s for checking in and notifies desk you are there
Chilis - gives discounts and free appetizer to 3 or more
Discounts if you are the mayor of a location
Some tools allow you to see who is tweeting in any specific area. You can then look to see what type of customers are in the area, what do they like and want and tailor what you can supply to their needs.

2. Some stores allow you to check in, scan items around the store and coupons are sent to your device. Others are connecting though social media to find some products and/or send you to where you can find similar ones you are looking for.

Foodspotting allows you to rake pictures of food within restaurant and allow you too see the food in conjunction to what is on the menu.

3. Crowd sourcing to help make better products.

Examples - fluvogs. People submit shoe designs. Customers build and improve upon them, the best become real products.

Netflix prize - a community of members that did a "you like this movie then you might like this one too"
ModCloth - offer customers to be the virtual fashion buyers for the company. It also allowed these new "buyers". The option to buy the products early.

4. Customer centric partnerships

RunKeeper Store - out doing Nike
Found various health tools that many of their customers liked and worked with other tools to come together with one product for the customers to use.

5. Amazing customer service

Example - AirBnB's
Rent out your house when traveling.
2 million bookings without incident (but 1 bad one happened recently). But they created a hold trust centre, tighter measures now in who rents, added insurance. Got feed back from customers immediately and added in the trust center based on their feedback.

STEAL THESE IDEAS

Partner with other stores. Create a a scavenger hunt - example Montreal Tourism
(tool- gowalla, scvngr [challenges, treks, rewards])
Create a Foursquare brand page
Http://aboutfoursquare.com/foursquare.com

Examples - lululemon's foursquare page
Create a photobooth/instagram
Set up a spot where they can take a picture of them selves and send it out. On a certain display. Around a particular product.
Give free wifi
Give it out free, but encourage checking in. Gives you the option to interact with the customer afterwards to ask how their experiences was.
QR codes
QR code easter egg hunt. Directs person to somewhere (URL often)

Thursday, 4 August 2011

Is Scoop.it worth it?

I got my hands on a Scoop.it beta account and set up a few topics to be "curated" (as they word it).  I have a few questions though.

It appears to me that it is a little more robust in it's information from Paper.li, in that it pulls information sources from more than just Twitter.  It, in fact, allows you to pull from Google News, Blogs, Videos, Twitter, RSS Feeds, Youtube, Digg.

It also not only pulls from all these sources, but it also allows you as the curator to choose which of the items, it finds, to publish.  So in this respect more info is posted to your Scoop than your Paper, however there is more work involved for the curator.  Paper.li posts automatically and distributes via Twitter for you.

The fact that it uses the word CURATE on the dashboard of the manager of any particular Scoop I think is what gets to me.  Sure I'm curating relevant items for the day, however there does not appear to be any historical view for the topic.  So I'm confused by content curation.  I for some reason thought that curating meant collecting, sharing, and archiving.  I appear to be wrong.

I found this useful article "What is Content Curation? And how it’s useful to you and your network", by Michael Gass, that doesn't mention archiving at all, so I suppose it is not a part of curating.  Maybe I'm just wishfully thinking that by collecting and distributing that I am also tracking for later use.  Oh well.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on this topic.Do you want and need another resource to look at for content curation?



UPDATE....So I have just myself followed several topics in Scoop.it.  I then added the feed for the over all pages I follow to my Google Reader.  I also now am using Zite more often too read all these feeds.  So in fact, I suppose having another feed for info is fine.  One more place that collects the stuff I want to know about....great, bring it on.  I don't need sleep...I read.

Tuesday, 2 August 2011

How to Create Slides that Don't Suck

Notes from Sonic Foundry's webinar - Aug. 2, 2011

Webinar link to rewatch - 
How to Create Slides that Don't Suck

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Seeking an Encompassing Term for the Benefits of Using Social Media

I'm looking for the term, or a term, that explains to someone who just doesn't get exactly what using social media can provide to a person or a group of people.

As Clive Shepherd mentioned earlier today on his posting "Social learning is not the same as social media," social learning has been around as long as there have been humans.  The introduction of social media has only provided yet another means to learn together.  Social media also provides us with the ability "to collaborate on tasks, to promote goods and services, to entertain each other, to exchange information and so on." - Clive Shepherd.

So if social learning doesn't cover it all what term does? Perhaps "Social Media Experiencing"?

Friday, 8 July 2011

Top 10 Tweets from #lrnchat - July 7, 2011

Let's face it; I can never pick just ten.
These entries have won the coveted "Top 10 Tweets" award based on originality, costume and choreography.
Photo by opensourceway.com
Created by Colleen Simon for opensource.com
CC: BY-SA

Early Session
Q0) Introductions
@Robin_Bridson: Do you play one on TV? RT @JaneBozarth: Note: I am NOT a social media expert. #lrnchat

@aaronesilvers: #lrnchat oh, btw, I’m Aaron Silvers. I like to rock the party


Q1) Social media has changed how people learn forever. What else has it changed forever?

@trinarimmer: Q1) Great quote I saw the other day, “I love my computer because that’s where all my friends live.” That sums it up for me. #lrnchat


@edCetraTraining: Q1) introduction of Acronyms… birth of a new language. English? Grammar? Syntax?? #lrnchat


@ddogaudium: Q1) It has forever changed the power balance between those who hold information and those to whom it is disseminated #lrnchat


Q2) How do you learn differently now, because of social media, than you did before social media? 


@StephanieDaul: Q2) I feel like I have more control over my learning – I decide what, where and when I learn #lrnchat


@LnDDave: Q1) My ability to know almost anything at any time. I carry the world in my pocket now. #lrnchat


@ChelleRobertson: My learning is in continuous beta version, meaning its ALWAYS improving and never static. #lrnchat


Q3) What are some ways you learn through social media that aren’t collaborative, with other people per-se?


@AndreaMay1: Q3) The conversation is “recorded” with SoMe. I can go back and explore on my time line rather than anyone else’s #lrnchat


@NolanHabegger: Q3) Quiet observation (“lurking”) and watching others collaborate – sometimes you learn more by NOT asking questions #lrnchat


@ChristyATucker: Q3) I do a fair amount of lurking (ie “legitimate peripheral participation”) #lrnchat


Q4) How are social media and social learning different? Is it important to explain the difference to people? 


@espnguyen: Q4) Social Media = the tools. Social Learning = Leveraging the tools to do the learning. #lrnchat


@Tracy_Parish: Q4)Watch kids do something & then follow 1 another doing same thing. Social learning-no media involved, just mud. #lrnchat


@kelly_smith01: Q4) Social learning does not have a schedule, appear in a catalog, or have a lesson plan. It happens. Anytime anywhere. #lrnchat



Monday, 27 June 2011

eLearning Should be a Walk in the Park - or a story about my lunch hour.

Imagine you're taking a walk down a path in a park.  It's hot and sunny, but there is a nice breeze blowing.  You're alone just enjoying the day.  As you walk the path you notice in front of you that is is turning to the left, but you can't see what is around the corner.  You continue on wondering what you will find if you keep going.




As you round the bend you can see that there is a stream running along the path.  You look down and see a Mamma duck and her 3 teenage girls.  You think to yourself:

  • I've never seen ducks this old still with their mom
  • how old are they?
  • when will they leave?
  • why haven't I seen this before?



You walk further wondering if you will see the same snapping turtle you saw a few weeks ago.  Sure enough he is out of the water on the bank.  You wonder:

  • how old is he?
  • how long will he stay out?
  • how big is he?
  • will my picture be able to convey how big he is?


Continuing along you pass people walking dogs, playing with kids, out running enjoying the weather and you think to yourself....

  • Why can't elearning be like this?
  • Why aren't courses more self exploratory?
  • Why can't I discover my own answers?
  • Why can't I come up with my own questions about the material?
  • Why can't it be this fun?



Matter of perception must be considered.  What is a giant flower to you may be only 1 cm big to me, but it's still a flower.  Fun elearning to you might not be to me, but it may still be required for us each to learn.

How do you try to appeal to the many that might have to take the course you are required to create?

How do you make it more about discovering?  How do you let the learner make their own decisions?  Would it not make sense that if they can do these simple things they would have greater interest in the material.

Let them explore.  Give them a path to follow, but they them wonder what else is out there.  Let them wander off the path and explore on there own.

Make it fun.

For a great collection of resources that can be used to explore on your own and come up with ways to let your learners explore; take a look at what's come out from the Backchannel of #mLearnCon.

A big thank you to David Kelly (@LnDDave) for his tireless dedication to collecting the resources for all in his blog "Misadventures in Learning".

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Interesting Tweets from #mLearnCon 2011- Day 2

Here's a recap of some interesting and useful tweets from mLearnCon today.


And a few amusing tweets that made me smile.

Interesting Tweets from mLearnCon 2011- Day 1

If you can't be at mLearnCon 2011 then the next best thing is to follow the twitter stream that is coming out from the participants.  Here's a bit of a condensed list of some of the great tweets that were shared yesterday (day 1).

A few amusing tweets that came out yesterday.