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Crowd = Proud

Since Jeff Howe first mentioned and wrote about “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” back in 2006, the world changed forever (in the best way possible). I mean what would we do without our weekly dose of The Voice!? Bringing all that talent together from around Australia is amazing in itself, but the blind auditions and battles are on another level. Crowd sourcing has been around forever but

Now lets have a chat about probably the best of the best crowdsourcing platforms... Yes, it is Wikipedia! I mean where would we be without the plentiful source of information that is created through crowd of subscribers wanting to share their wealth with the world, although some information can be a bit suss, (David Beckham being a Chinese soccer player from the 18th century).

A major success via crowdsourcing is Lego’s Ideas. It has received a lot of support and publicity for their crowdsourcing idea of co-creating new products with its customers. Ideas works by people submitting Lego ideas, from there, people can support an idea they like. If that idea gets 10,000 supporters it has a chance to be produced as an official Lego product and also a share in the profits. Currently ‘X-Men’ Lego just gained 10,000 supporters and has gone into the review stage.

So what other ideas could be done through crowdsourcing to make out lives that little bit better. While driving to work this morning I thought ‘how good would an app be that can give me up to date warnings of road hazards or conditions’ (yeah, I know you like that), or what better way for a sporting club to get there members involved that getting them to crate a club uniform. The possibilities are endless.

Crowdsourcing should, and I’m sure will, be used extensively with marketing departments to further brands and create more in touch companies to bring on new customers and retain previous customers as well.

So come on everyone, get involved and have your say about the things you love (you never know what could come of it)!

  - SS.

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#selfie #rightangle

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Gaming = Awesome

At some stage in our lives we have all gone, or are going to go through the phase of playing games. Gaming companies have found their way into every type of gadget possible, so these days it will normally be social gaming through social media, consoles connecting to the Internet and smart phones allowing us to connect to the world whenever we want.

  Gaming is a massive industry bringing in $46 billion in 2010 worldwide, which is 50% more than the film industry (and I thought movies were popular…). Why is that? Is it the competitiveness, the sense of completion, achieving goals or just the fun of being able to shoot, stab, run over, rob or whatever else we want to do and not get in trouble for it (you know I’m talking GTA).We normally think, pretty much everyone who plays games are guys, well you’re wrong! 42% of people who play games are female (did someone say Farmville… Or was that Candy Crush). Gaming has become so wide spread that even my parents play on their iPad more than I do!

Personally, I do not know one person who doesn’t like a good game. From my brother playing The Godfather on Xbox by himself, to the whole family getting together to play the good old 1920’s Trivial Pursuit, we all love it.

While looking up info on this topic I wondered what gave me the urge to want to play good old Space Invaders, which then lead to the rest of the evening playing multiplayer Bubble Trouble (damn you level 14). For me I think it’s the sense of winning, having some fun and probably more than anything my extreme competitiveness. ‘I am going to pop those bubbles and beat this level no matter what it takes’, although it sounds so lame, lets be honest it’s so addictive and awesome!

So lets all take some time out to stop researching/doing/cramming/marking assignments and just play a game.

   “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else” –Albert Einstein …They even teach us valuable life lessons.

  - SS.

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Ideal Self Image = Social Media

Exploring the visual social media side of things, we are becoming more and more aware of the photos we are sharing. There is a massive difference between taking a general photo to keep in your camera roll, compared to taking a photo to share via Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. These photos have a lot more effort put into them and take considerably more time to capture the right image.

In terms of Snapchat, this can go either way, generally depending who you are sending your snaps to. If it’s one of your closer friends we will send them all kinds of photos, not caring about what we look like, but if it’s to someone we are interested in, then it’s a completely different story.

Snapchat is interesting, it is different from the other social media apps and sites. Snapchat allows us to communicate through photos instead of communicating around them, so we have conversations with photos instead of comments like on other social media.

Creating the perfect picture for social media is most common on Instagram, I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about, from the strategically placed essential items, to the perfect angle of your meal, we are obsessed with getting that right picture to share and bring in all those ‘likes’ and new followers.

Facebook is in the middle in a way. We aren’t going to post something that makes us look gross, but we are a bit more relaxed in terms of what kind of photos we share.

So why do we do it? Part of it is to create that ideal image of yourself to convey to your friends and followers. We aren’t going to post a Sunday hung over selfie that people will judge, we’ll be posting the pre-drinks photos while we are looking our best.

Through the tools of social media we have the ability to construct how we want people to perceive us. Whether that is physically or on a deeper level. We choose what images we want people to see in order to manipulate what people think of us. The portrait has been an integral part of self-documentation long before the camera; only now we have the technology to mass-produce self documentation.

- SS.

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Trolls = Arseholes

Trolling has been well covered by the media recently; we all know what it is and the extent of damage it can have on people targeted. Inevitably, like bullying it is hard to manage and nearly impossible to stop. 

People need to start to think about what they are posting to someone before they send it. I thought I would create a few questions to ask yourself before posting a comment to your digital social world that may help people realise if their post is going to be deemed as trolling or if someone may take offence to it-

Is what I’m writing offensive?

Do I know the person well enough to write this comment to or about them?

Would my parents/family/kids want to see what I am writing?

Could this post come out the wrong way?

Would I feel comfortable with someone writing this to me?

Am I being an arsehole?!?

If you feel comfortable still writing your comment after going through these questions then you will have no problems with what you are writing. Personally the last question is enough for me. If someone is trolling they know it, they want to be rude and they want to write something offensive.

When the late Charlotte Dawson confronted people trolling her through social media one of the guys responded with “they’re just things I say on twitter, and twitter isn’t real life”. What? That’s like saying talking to your friend on Skype isn’t real... Anyway, he followed on by saying “what my twitter is, is a bit of fun”. Now seriously preying on vulnerable people online with hateful comments is not “fun”, it’s so immature and thoughts and comments like what are being posted should be kept to yourself or people around you who would take it in the same way.

I think the way Charlotte Dawson exposed the trolls is great. Putting their names, suburbs and workplaces along with their comments on her twitter for her tens of thousands of followers to see is what they deserve. It brings their comments to “reality” and therefore will prevent the trolling from occurring in the future to other people who may make the comments to heart.

Our social media profiles are part of us, people need to realise what you wrote on them are taken just as seriously as saying it to someone’s face.

So just ask yourself am I being an arsehole?

  - SS.

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Kony = FAMOUS

One of the most successful protests through social media would have to be Kony 2012 by Jason Russell and Invisible Children. Anyone who uses Facebook or Twitter, or any other platform during 2012 would know what I’m talking about!

  The complex 30-minute video aimed at making Joseph Kony (Africa’s most wanted) famous and a household name was beyond successful. We are talking over 100,000,000 (that’s a lot of 0’s!) views in only 6 days (that’s 200 people each second, think about that).

  Twitter’s worldwide trending topics were being taken over, 7 out of the 10 were for Kony or the LRA, his army.   This resulted from the smart plan behind how the filmmakers could get the attention of the public and the government. They enlisted celebrities to tweet and talk about the video from an early stage that helped the video gain a much wider audience. From there the shares, comments and tweets blew up!

  From the video, 3.7 million people pledged their support to Invisible Children to take down Kony and the LRA. Through the continual support and passion to help, a bill was created in America and Barack Obama signed off to pour $45,000,000 to locate and arrest the top LRA leaders, also 100 US troops into Uganda to combat Joseph Kony’s LRA. As a result of the video, the US and local authorities, LRA killing of civilians dropped 67% from 2011 to 2012, that’s a big impact!

  So, through the power of social media what is possible? Is social media’s power overestimated? Underestimated?

A small organisation makes a video that leads to one of the worlds most wanted men becoming a household name and the largest government in the world pledging their support to help them… I’d say social media is pretty strong; no other form of media would be able to get that reaction and be able to spread the word so quickly about an issue or story. Social media is used so often and by so many people today that we want to know what’s going on, on the other side of the world and we expect to know it at the same time as the locals do.

  I’m all for social media and the impact it can have and I’m sure there are many others with the same mentality!

- SS.

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Politics = Social Media

I wonder how many more elections until we are able to vote online!?

With the ‘tech savvy’ politicians keeping up with the times (or their trustee PA’s), social media has changed the way politician’s works. The major parties, the not so well known parties as well as the politicians themselves need to go about their business in a complete different way these days.

There are many different ways of presenting yourself on social media as we all know (those kind of people). The ‘professional attitude’ (Tony Abbott… Boring), the ‘personal attitude’ (K Rudd = dad jokes), either way I’m sure we can see that not many people are interested in consistently over serious political talk on social media or someone who is hard to take seriously at times. Knowing how to use social media to boost your image and not just have a presence may be a challenge, but it will be more and more vital each year for politicians to do so.

The support of non-major parties has increased over the last three elections (some would say it’s to do with the internet being around…). From one-in-five a few elections ago, to one-in-four in 2010 and now it’s one-in-three people voting for other, alternative, different, unconventional, progressive, whatever you want to call them, parties! There has to be a logical response for this. Maybe it’s that these new parties are where a lot of young politicians start out, so is it any wonder these parties are gathering more and more votes. Younger people who have been bought up with the internet and understand what it is all about, especially social media, are playing a major role in these parties and know how to engage and interact with not only their followers but the public as well.

Also, social media gives people a voice and a presence, for new parties that people don’t have a judgement on this can be great. They can post about their policy and what sets them apart, as well as being able to give people a voice.

With some minor parties having half the Facebook followers than the major parties it’s easy to see why the votes are building for the underdogs. Politicians and their parties need to present their social media in a way the people can connect, interact and value their opinion and output.

Lets hope the AEC boost their social media presence too and allow us to vote via facebook, insta or twitter next election! (Save us from those creeps at the schools forcing pamphlets in our faces, please!)

  - SS

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Life = Online

As I sit on my balcony pondering my thoughts about always being online, I realise I am writing on a notepad that was purchased online, taking inspiration from an article online, while wearing clothes that were purchased online and twiddling my fingers with a personalised Tiffany ring that was also bought online. I am starting to understand and realise how much my, or our, lives are reliant on being connected to people, shopping, news, work and socialising online.

The only news I have read or watched this year has been online, gone are the days I sit down with the good old newspaper and glance over an article then turn the page to the next irrelevant article, or sit watching the 5:30 news on channel 7 with the 5 minute ads in between each segment. I now read articles when I want, where I want and how I want. It doesn’t have to be at a particular time, or in a particular place to be able to access what I want, it can be 3am and I can be in the middle of the bush in a tent (very unlikely) with no one around and I can see the craze for the latest Apple device on social media and purchase it without even taking a step. Amazing!

Being always connect to people can have its downsides though; how about the “read” that comes up on your texts after you have seen the message, or the fact that you can tell if someone has opened your email, this can put you in some awkward situations. My partner is in real estate, and gets calls and emails at all different times, so it’s easy to see how a problem can arise. If we’re out having a drink on a Sunday and he has a quick check of his emails, then forgets about the client the next day and loses a listing from that, firstly I won’t be happy (missing out on a present) or will his boss (less importantly).

  As Eugenia Siapera says “just a few years ago things were very different, as proximity seemed to determine our social life” we could only study close by to where we lived, be friends with people in our area (bar our trusty pen-pals) and only shop at physical stores. As the world of technology has changed so dramatically we now talk to our friends on remote islands in the Caribbean face-to-face, we can study at Universities across the country, purchase a bed from the other side of the world (my latest) and tweet about events that are streamed live to our tablets. Doing all of this from the comfort of our balcony.

  SS.