Wednesday August 29, 2007 Social Networking Wiki
The social networking wiki is now live.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Aug 29 2007, 11:26:22 AM MDT )
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Wednesday August 22, 2007 Where's the Conversation?
If you are visiting this blog and wondering, "where is the conversation?", I have an answer for you. 
Linda, Lou and Jennifer started this blog as a way to talk about the work we were doing at Sun to enable conversations with our customers, between employees, employees with outsiders, etc. As we each maintain our own blog, it's been difficult to keep up with this blog too. In the interest of total transparency we thought we would put a final 'we are on hiatus at C2' post out.
You can still find all of us at our respective blogs and Lou and Jennifer also contribute to the Sun.com Web Design blog.
In addition, we are starting up a Social Networking wiki for our new wiki site that was released recently at Sun.
I'll post that link when it's available.
Thanks for reading, we hope to see you in the network.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Aug 22 2007, 09:54:59 PM MDT )
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Wednesday June 13, 2007 All the Photos Will Become One Photo
There was a new level added to my thought process about social media today after I watched this talk from TED.
It's a short and "jawdropping" Photosynth demo presented by its architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas. It is technology that allows any photo of the same object to be stitched with other photos of the same object. These photos are woven together in a cascading metaverse that allows you to explore the objects three dimensionally.
Things just keep getting more and more interesting....
Posted by evoljennifer
( Jun 13 2007, 10:05:17 PM MDT )
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Sunday June 03, 2007 Social Software for the Enterprise
I read a really interesting article in Social Computing Magazine today about social software in the enterprise.
The article's author, Lee Bryant, is putting forth the position that, "the adoption of social software / Web 2.0 ideas by large organizations has begun, and it is going to be a game-changing development."
The rest of the article is a pretty compelling outline of the current situation, where it's headed, and what kinds of strategic and tactical retooling it will require.
I found the article and was incented to read it because it was something I found through a search about 'tagging'. I was looking for information about tagging, but this article presented a much broader landscape of how the enterprise is ready for social software. It also explores the how the selling of software needs to evolve and the skill sets that will be required.
If these topics interest you, I highly recommend the article.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Jun 03 2007, 01:13:38 PM MDT )
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Monday May 14, 2007 Blogosphere Humor
Via Blaugh
And a dash of Vista humor...
Posted by lskrocki
( May 14 2007, 05:51:41 PM MDT )
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Wednesday May 02, 2007 Denver Social Media Club
The local chapter of the Social Media Club had its inaugural meeting last night at the Uptown Tavern in Denver (great place for Murphy's Stout, btw).
The buzz in the room and vibes were extremely positive, and you could feel the group's passion and excitement for social media, wanting to learn more, and sharing experiences. I'm looking forward to participating.
The turnout was good (despite a typical late afternoon thunderstorm that rolled in), and the organizer Dee Rambeau explained the purpose of the club &mdash "a community for the champions of social media and those seeking to learn."
Dee shared an excellent social media tutorial, Todd Defren's PR 2.0 Essentials, which is wonderfully concise overview of the tools (RSS, wikis, blogs, tagging) and best practices for marketing professionals and just about anyone else who is new to the Participation Age.
I was amazed at the credibility attached to my name badge. "You're from Sun? Love the stuff you're doing &mdash you guys really get it, and Jonathan is awesome! He actually responded to a comment I left on his blog!"
It sure felt good to hear this unsolicited praise about Sun, and it motivates me to work harder to share Sun's point of view with the world.
Posted by lou ( May 02 2007, 11:46:47 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [3]
XKCD's Online Communities Map...
Three things:
1. It ought to be interesting to see how the geographical mass segments on the map change from year to year (or day to day, for that matter).
2. Take note of the disclaimer before you disembark the mother ship: "Do not use for navigation."
3. I find the XKCD site disclaimer hilarious: "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."
Posted by lskrocki
( May 02 2007, 09:26:58 AM MDT )
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Friday April 27, 2007 RSS Unleashed!
Watch how "RSS Thing" saves the day for our hapless heroine Sally, a marketer who doesn't know the first thing about RSS. RSS can help you too! Learn how to subscribe to Web feeds using Firefox, an RSS reader and Thunderbird.
Extra credit: Can you name the popular Sun blogger with a starring role?
Posted by lou ( Apr 27 2007, 12:03:15 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [3]
Thursday April 26, 2007 Social Software Building Blocks
When surfing around this morning and trying to get all my email read, I found this post from Gene Smith about Social Software.
A list of building blocks was originally assembled by Matt Webb who was building on a list from Stewart Butterfield The elements are
- Identity: who people are
- Presence: where people are
- Relationships: how are people related
- Conversations: a way to let people communicate through the system
- Groups: a way to self affiliate
- Reputation: the trust factor, a way for the community to give input into how this person interacts in the community good or bad
- Sharing: a way to allow others to see/use/acquire/riff on/etc. artifacts created by the individuals
Posted by evoljennifer ( Apr 26 2007, 07:08:50 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [3]
Tuesday April 24, 2007 Instructional Video: Feed Reading 101
Via the Common Craft blog:
Posted by lskrocki ( Apr 24 2007, 09:04:56 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [1]
Monday April 23, 2007 May 1st: Inaugural meeting of the Denver Social Media Club
If you're in the Denver, CO area on May 1st, the first of hopefully many Denver Social Media Club meet-ups will be held at the Uptown Tavern at 538 East 17th Avenue from 5:30PM MT to 7:30PM MT.
Register here. Hope to see you there.
Posted by lskrocki
( Apr 23 2007, 04:17:37 PM MDT )
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Wednesday April 18, 2007 Spaghetti on the Wall: 10 Web 2.0 Expo Memes That Stuck
1. Don't do the crime if you can't pay the time
Have you put in your 10,000 hours yet? That's how much time you should expect to devote to a skill before you achieve mastery. If I apply this to my blogging, then I am true neophyte, a "young grasshopper" with lots to learn and improve.
2. You can't learn karate by reading a bookIt's not enough to read about the participatory web, social media, and social networks. You need to put some skin in the game, and use the tools and platforms out there to establish your identity and connect with others before you can start building your own community.
3. People are fundamentally trying to discover themselves on the WebThink back to being a teenager, and figuring out who you were by the friends you hung out with, the places you went together, and the things you did together. It's similar on the web, where you can spawn multiple identities for each of your interests, and you seek and follow others who have experienced places and things ahead of you.
4. Eat first, then take out the garbageA good user experience means staying focused on the task at hand -- whether that's configuring your computer online, searching for an answer online, or adding a blog comment. Housekeeping tasks like logging in, adding a favorite item to a wishlist, saving your shopping cart for later, and so on should never detract from the core task. Clever use of AJAX and similar RIA can help here.
5. Lurkers rule! Bring them out of the shadows.Participation comes in many forms. Even if the silent majority isn't actively participating by uploading photos, writing blogs, or commenting on videos, it doesn't mean the community as a whole loses out. Learn to incorporate their actions in most visited pages, activity heat maps, popular sections, and so on, to build a better experience for the people who follow.
6. A blog can't be a blog without comments.This one struck fear into my heart. When I think of posts I've written that didn't receive a single comment, I feel like a parent of many stillborn children. So much effort, passion, and intent, to what end? The lesson here is comments create and extend the conversation and add value. Someone please comment on this blog post so I can die happy.
7. You don't own your users -- they own you.Imagine walking into a drugstore and seeing your cherished family photos on a greeting card. Wait a minute! Just because I develop my pictures here, it doesn't mean these guys can use my photos this way, you think. Some Flickr users felt the same way when they discovered their photos were being used to promote an (ahem) Yahoo gaming site. They rebelled, and the folks at Flickr learned a valuable lesson about respecting your users. Do right by them, over-communicate to them, seek permission when in doubt, and they'll reward you.
8. Authenticity works.Watching YouTube is like eating potato chips. The effort to grab a bag of chips and start munching is low, and the results are immediately gratifying. Short, funny videos that are interesting and tell a true story resonate, and make us want to come back for more. The same holds true for bloggers. Tell your story, tell it often, be true to yourself, and good things will follow.
9. Every tag is sacred.People are hungry for meaning in their lives, and when meaning is grasped and recorded with a tag, it has immense value. A tag seems so simple, but it captures your viewpoint and feelings at the time you encountered or created something — a photo, a web page, a video — that matters to you. Magic happens when shared experiences form around tags, and kindships, friendships, and communities are born.
10. "I've never been this happy to be frightened in my life."Imagine standing up in front of a ginormous crowd of people and having five minutes to convince them the product you've poured years of effort into is worthy of their applause and respect. Kerry Fleming from Humanix started his talk about Inpowr with this statement, and its one of the most honest and beautiful things I've ever heard anyone say. I admire his courage.
Posted by lou ( Apr 18 2007, 09:35:17 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [2]
Friday April 06, 2007 The Notion of 2.0 for the Real World
The latest parody of 2.0, this time it's coming to a super market near you.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Apr 06 2007, 01:55:35 PM MDT )
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Thursday April 05, 2007 Free Web 2.0 Expo Passes from TechCrunch
TechCrunch is giving away Web 2.0 Expo passes. Per Michael Arrington's blog entry, here's how you play to win a pass:
"I want you to tell me how much we (occasionally) suck. Sometimes our predictions are, with the benefit of hindsight, way off. Or they had no logical basis to begin with. Or perhaps we got some crucial fact wrong. Whatever it is, I want you to dig out the worst post in TechCrunch history and write about why it’s so bad. A good place to start is our Company Index."Entries must be submitted in the form of a blog entry with a trackback (or comment pointing to your entry) posted on this blog entry by Noon PT this Saturaday (April 7th).
Good luck! Lou and I will be at the expo. If you see us, say hello.
Posted by lskrocki ( Apr 05 2007, 09:37:53 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday March 21, 2007 Tagging for Fun and Profit
An over-worked software developer preserves her sanity using the power of social bookmarking in this whimsical video.
Big thanks to Jenn for lending her star-power, and to our intern Danny Holland who gets production and direction credits.
Enjoy!
Posted by lou ( Mar 21 2007, 10:11:21 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [4]
Friday March 02, 2007 Why people UNsubscribe from your blog
Darren Rowse posted an interesting entry listing reasons people unsubcribe from a given blog. The funny thing is I use to subscribe to Darren's blog, but unsubscribed for some reason that I can't recall. I found his post via Scoble's blog. I re-subscribed today because of his unsubscribe entry.
Oh, the irony.
Posted by lskrocki
( Mar 02 2007, 09:54:47 AM MST )
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Thursday January 11, 2007 For Fans of Scoble...
You need to see this.
It's a Scoble DIY Action figure.
Thank you, Kathy Sierra.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Jan 11 2007, 05:38:37 PM MST )
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Ecosexual & Single?
The TipSheet section of the January 8th issue of Newsweek magazine provides a list of social networking communities for ecofriendly types to connect:
Posted by lskrocki ( Jan 11 2007, 08:51:58 AM MST ) Permalink Comments [1]
Monday January 08, 2007 You: Person of the year, election driver, and now...
...Super Bowl advertisement agency? According to news.com, in true participation age fashion, some of the Super Bowl XLI ads will be creations of consumers.
As you know, I'm all for the participation age, but there are some things that should rightfully remain in the hands of the professionals who's primary credentials match the task at hand...such as creating advertisements for the biggest ad opportunity of the year, brain surgery, etc. As American Idol demonstrates, people's perceptions of their natural talents can often miss the mark.
On the other hand, William Hung managed to become a famous singer because he was on the opposite end of the quality spectrum and active participants in the participation age do commonly possess two secret ingredients commonly mastered in the advertising sector -- the ability to effectively inform and entertain.
Guess we wait and see...
Posted by lskrocki
( Jan 08 2007, 01:27:56 PM MST )
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Thursday December 14, 2006 One of my favorite blog feeds...
...is for the Make Magazine Blog. Make spotlights things that the average Joe/Jane can make as well as other cool & sometimes strange projects. Such as this:
And this.Tho' I would need to add in the message "Oops Sorry" and "One of your shopping cart wheels are worn down" in case I run into the guy in the above photo:
Posted by lskrocki
( Dec 14 2006, 12:47:11 PM MST )
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Wednesday December 13, 2006 2006 User Experience Significant Happenings? David Armano Asks the Question.
David Armano asked his network of passionate marketing professionals what the most significant User Experience events of 2006 were and some really interesting answers came from the question. I personally felt that I experienced and witnessed bits and pieces of many of these things. The exciting part for me is that we are really just at the beginning of all of this. I guess you could say 2006 was about beginning to understand what all these things mean for the future and participating in some of these evolutions now to be able to better understand.
As someone wise once said....
"Tell me, and I will forget, show me and I might remember, involve me, and I will understand. --Ben Franklin"
The answers that are presented by Armano and co-creators feel very familiar to me. I believe these are the big themes from the year.
Here's the list of answers he gives in his post:
2006: The year of...
PC (Power Consumer)
Connection
2.0
Business + Design
Video
Creativity
People
View a slide show with the answers at Slideshare.
I like the last one the most. At the core of all of this is people. We connect to each other for various reasons. The tools that we are creating, co-creating and utilizing are allowing us to connect much more fully as people. I attended the Information Architecture Summit early this year after recently re-reading The Cluetrain Manifesto. That book reminds us over and over, it's about the people.
We have a ton of opportunity and challenge in front of us because as all of this is very exciting, it presents significant complexity and can be overwhelming. One of the big things I hope to see for 2007 is tools that help people. I don't know what those tools are yet, but if something enables you it needs to be accessible, perhaps dare I say simple. This is the user experience dreamer in me but the more accessible the more people will participate. The more people that participate, the more value that each individual will derive from the overall experience.
As it's the end of the year and a good time to think about the year ahead, in 2007 I will focus on thinking about ways to create experiences that guide people to the communication and creative avenues available to them. I know how much fun I have participating, I'd like to share that with anyone that is interested.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Dec 13 2006, 05:47:47 PM MST )
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Monday December 04, 2006 Alec Muffett at Blogs & Social Media Conference
Alec Muffett is a geek and proud of it. That makes him my hero, being a geek myself, and sometimes a maligned one at that. :) He's been blogging since Day One ... he's an early adopter and innovator, building his own blog software from scratch, and building readership with interesting stories about his life at home, and his work at Sun.
Alec gave a talk at the 2006 Blogs & Social Media conference earlier this year, and shared his experiences in a funny, engaging talk (Business Blogging – Innovate or Die?) that recounts his early experiments in corporate blogging, and gives glimpses of what the future might hold for companies interested in blogging / social media. Hint: it's about reinventing the way they companies amongst themselves, and how they reach out to customers, too.
Highly recommended -- worth watching!
Posted by lou ( Dec 04 2006, 02:26:49 PM MST ) Permalink
Monday November 27, 2006 Naked Conversations: Amazon's best of 2006
Huge congrats to Shel and Robert for Naked Conversations making #6 on Amazon's best of 2006.
When Jen, Lou and I hold our blogging 101 sessions we not only suggest the book as must read blogging book, but discuss the advice Shel offered a small group of us during a chat about the community space. In addition to his advice being solid, it was flattering to hear him refer to Sun as a poster child for corporate blogging done well.
Posted by lskrocki
( Nov 27 2006, 09:04:47 PM MST )
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Wednesday November 01, 2006 The Lobby: My 2nd favorite corporate blog
Starwood, my favorite business travel hotel/resort chain, has a fantastic blog -- The Lobby. Why the heck would anyone subsribe to a hotel chain blog, you ask? Same reason they'd subcsribe to any other blog...compelling content.
Every weekday they have short entries about cool events or bits of information at cool destinations. For example, a post from yesterday reminded me that it's time for the Monarch butterflies to return to Mexico -- if you saw the IMAX film on the migration of the Monarch butterfly, you know what a beautiful sight it is when they return to Mexico.
They explicitly state on the blog that the writers are hired (er...assembled) and almost every post has a discrete plug for a Starwood property, but the content quality outweighs both of these facts. Don't expect to get to know anything more about the writers than their first name & last initial tho'.
At any rate, thank you for the Monarch post, Vince D...whoever you are.
Posted by lskrocki
( Nov 01 2006, 06:22:30 PM MST )
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Monday October 23, 2006 Music and Dance Are Universal Languages
The New York times has a really interesting article this morning where they posed a thought provoking assertation.
They posit the reason that the top viewed video of all times is top viewed because it's got no diaglogue. It's got music with English language, but no specific language in the dialog.
It's internationally appealing.
When I checked it out today, it had clocked 34,534,832 views.
Posted by evoljennifer
( Oct 23 2006, 02:12:24 PM MDT )
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Saturday October 21, 2006 Who Are the Bloggers?
A report from The Pew Charitable Trusts just might give us some insight into who we all are.
"Bloggers cover a variety of topics
While many well-publicized blogs focus on politics, the most popular topic among bloggers is their life and experiences. The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism. "
Download the Report
Posted by evoljennifer
( Oct 21 2006, 08:37:23 AM MDT )
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Wednesday October 18, 2006 Tagging, Redux
Disclosure: This is a re-post of an entry I was inspired to write this summer, for a now-defunct blog. I think it's still relevant, but feel free to tell me if I'm wrong :).
The folks over at User Interface Engineering recently gave a Webinar titled "Users as Information Architects: Is Tagging Right for your Site? I found it useful in helping to complete my understanding of user tagging (folksonomy in some circles), especially the potential for helping to organize information on corporate web sites.
Joshua Porter explained the difficulties users may experience when searching for something that does not cleanly fall into a defined category. The example he gave is a user struggling to find a unique product such as iPod, when the only choices presented uses descriptions such as "MP3 Players".
The vocabulary of the shopping web site does not match the user's vocabulary. By permitting user to tag the page, this mismatch between the differing vocabularies can be bridged.
In the above example, a person creates a tag (word or short phrase) for an object (the thing being tagged).
Since the tag is the user's own words (similar to a search term), it is a powerful "trigger" that can be used to retrieve and organize information based on the user's context. For example, tags can be created by content-based keyword, by task, by person, or just about anything.
As a user applies tags to objects, a personalized, real-time navigation tool is created. For example, a tag cloud shows the trail of tags used, with the color and size of the tags shows frequency of use.
Here's an example tag cloud I created using the del•icio•us social bookmarking service:
Why would someone want to go through the trouble of tagging? For starters, it's a convenient way to remember things for later use. Regular usage is the key. For example, system admins using a support site like Sunsolve can save time by tagging the knowledge base documents they refer to often.
It gets better. While a user may tag an object for individual, "selfish" reasons —to save time and effort— the group benefits from this activity, too. For example, tagging services will show the number of times a tag has been used. This aggregate number can be used by marketers to spot a trend, or to improve search engine results.
If the object was important enough for one user to tag, chances are that is valuable to other users, too. Exploration and discovery of interesting things is a natural outcome. Pivoting, or seeing how other people use a keyword, helps users find common interests shared by others. Tags can clear up ambiguities, too. For example, the tag "solaris" can be related to "sunos, os, s10". The related tags narrows the possible meanings considerably.
Should you add tagging to your site? Only if the tagging feature is secondary to the core function of the site, and if you can provide a clear, immediate incentive for your users to tag. If users struggle to locate information (especially if they are required to access multiple sites that organize their contents differently), visit the site(s) on a regular basis, and access the same objects frequently, you have the makings of a successful tagging experience!
Posted by lou ( Oct 18 2006, 11:22:26 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [1]
Thursday October 12, 2006 To Blog or Vlog?
That is the question The McVlogger (Daniel McVicar) asks blog-celeb, Robert Scoble. Check out the informative and entertaining podcast here.
Love the power move, Robert. Love it.
Posted by lskrocki
( Oct 12 2006, 03:48:21 PM MDT )
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Tuesday October 10, 2006 Content Still King? Not Really.
Content is fuel for the Web. It's what keeps us coming back, attracts new users, and spurs growth of web sites, services, and infrastructure.
But not just any content. It's got to be fresh, new, and dynamic. People will always need to look up facts and reference information, but it's refreshed content that grabs our attention and holds it.
Producing constantly refreshed content is a herculean task for most Web publishers, and the fastest growing and most successful Web sites fundamentally understand this problem. They solve it by turning to the community. Content that comes from customers, such as goods posted for sale on Craigslist, URLs posted to Digg.com, photos uploaded to flickr, deliver the real value of those sites.
Adam Bosworth, VP of Engineering at Google, gives practical advice for community builders in this talk, hosted by Open Source Conversations. He reminds us that it is the communities who generate content that are the true "kings", and the combination of communities and the content they produce are immensely valuable.
Open Source Conversations: Adam BosworthPosted by lou ( Oct 10 2006, 11:46:17 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday October 04, 2006 Reinventing Education through Open Source
Is education the next frontier for open-source advocates? Since "information yearns to be free," could the use of Participation Age tools (such as wikis) and community-building models spell the end to traditional means of developing, publishing, and distributing learning materials such as college texts? Can technology developed in the private sector create learning opportunities for students and teachers everywhere?
Watch Dinesh Bahal of Sun Microsystems and members of the education community from the public and private sector debate these questions in a lively, thought-provoking Participation Age Panel discussion. Dr. Bobbi Kurshnan also speaks on progress with the Global Education Learning Community (GELC), an effort to improve global education through free, web-based open content.
Participation Age Panel on Education (Real Player format)
Posted by lou ( Oct 04 2006, 04:42:33 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
