A lot of people run into these etiquette errors as they are getting used to a new social network. I have a presentation that I’ve delivered several times (often for fifty bucks and bus fare) where I describe LinkedIn as a Grey Flannel Suit and Facebook as a Hawaiian Shirt. It’s good to have both in your wardrobe, but if you show up at a board meeting in a Hawaiian Shirt you look like a goof and if you show up on a boathouse roof in a Grey Flannel Suit you look like an ass.
Soon, machines could twitter as much as people. Corey Menscher, a graduate student at New York University, developed the Kickbee, an elastic band with vibration sensors that his pregnant wife wore to alert Twitter each time the baby kicked: “I kicked Mommy at 08:52 PM on Fri, Jan 2!” Mr. Menscher is now considering selling the product.
Pairing sensors with Twitter leads some to think Twitter could be used to send home security alerts or tell doctors when a patient’s blood sugar or heart rate climbs too high. In the aggregate, such real-time data streams could aid medical researchers.
This quote helps understand why Twitter is changing things:
“Twitter reverses the notion of the group,” said Paul Saffo, the Silicon Valley futurist. “Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”
The T Mobile advert (notice the British accent) from Liverpool Station is a brilliant way to show what Social Networks look like to those in them and especially those outside of them. I shared this in a presentation today:
What I also particularly like is the end, when it is all said and done, the people move on, as they have with Friendster and perhaps MySpace.
I’m playing with some social networking tools and add ons to Word press. If you see some widgets come and go, that’s why. There is ongoing research about student preferences in communication tools. More and more of my tech user contacts are moving to new platforms (Facebook and or Twitter) as a primary contact.
F.R. "Fritz" Nordengren is Assistant Professor at Des Moines University where he supervises health care administration graduate student capstone projects.
He is a President of the Iowa Food Systems Council to recommend policy, research and program options for an Iowa food system which supports healthier Iowans, communities, economies and the environment.
Nordengren is an award winning producer, a graduate health care educator, and a small farmer & rancher
