@greghughes, I already replied to you via Twitter, but there were a couple of things that resonated through your comment. The first is the idea of doing “the next right thing.” That was a good reminder for me. The problem is that what appears right to me, may not always seem right to my employer, my stakeholders, my constituents, or my friends and family. My filters are weak - which is why I need a solid moral compass to keep me out of trouble, on my own, I’m not smart enough to figure this stuff out.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.709783&w=425&h=350&fv=autoplay%3Dfalse]

The other thing that resonated was that being right doesn’t mean being correct. My Dad drilled that into my head when he was teaching me to drive. His words, “you can have the right away, but you don’t want to be dead right.” This is the real issue I’m struggling with. If I were totally freelancing, I could handle building my own brand and establishing a unique identity. But, since I am an employee of an organization with some longstanding traditions and expectations, I have to be careful that I’m not too out of the box for them.

To most people, growth and change need to take place, but only if it’s NIMBY!

@blogan, I really appreciate your comments. Since I kind of know you, and I know you understand the traditions and constraints in which I operate, I feel like you’re really grasping the gist of my angst. (not that others aren’t - heh!)

I agree that we don’t have to tweet and blog every mundane act of our lives. This is the primary complain of those who don’t get FaceBook and Twitter, et al. However, as one who has internalized most of my emotions most of my life, it is nice to have an outlet to vent frustrations now and then.

My wife, who is very verbal, demonstrative, and expressive lets no emotion/feeling go unexpressed (more or less). Sighs, outbursts, etc are a regular occurrence with her. In fact she speaks words and sometimes I never know whether shes talking to me, the kids, the dog, or herself. I, on the otherhand, am challenged in this arena. I don’t vent, I just explode.

So, for me, Twitter is an experiment in venting - which is giving me courage to learn how to vent, verbally, and appropriately. Believe me, there is still much self-censorship taking place.

It’s the whole inauthentic thing that I’m trying to address. From my research, and from personal experience, it is the lack of authenticity that is keeping people away from church in droves. In addition, the lack of transparency is keeping churches in the nursing home business. We bring people in and care for them, but we aren’t providing a good pathway for recovery - like a hospital would.

So, as you said, I hope to lead the way by being the example. Some aren’t going to like this though. It may come across as pious, it may come across as TMI - either way, I have to be myself.

My desire for authenticity is not an ego thing. And I’m not so sure that people do care, that much, about the mundane in my life. However, like you suggested, the more I share, the more people feel trusting enough to share with me.

All my life I’ve been accused of being arrogant and aloof. That actually wasn’t what was going on in my soul. Instead, I had this great fear that I would be discovered to be a fool. I took to heart the phrase that says: “better to remain silent and be thought a fool, rather than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

As I’ve matured, gained confidence, and recovered some of my sanity and serenity, I’ve realized that I’m not a fool and that the more transparent I am, the more I’m trusted. So, for me, it is about paving the way to better relationships.

You mentioned the fighting-with-your-wife-putting-on-a-smile scenario. I do believe there are times when we need to buck up and not vomit our stuff all over other people. They don’t want to hear it, and you don’t want them to know.

However, who of us hasn’t sat in a meeting/class and leaned over to someone sitting next to us to ask “what in the world is this guy is talking about?” When I tweet that a meeting is mundane, or boring, I’d be willing to say it out loud to a trusted friend, or IM it to my brother across the room (which we used to do all the time).

Is this right? No. Should I stop? Yep. Does it set a good example? Absolutely not. Am I human? Sigh, yes I am.

To answer your question regarding would I be willing to share in person what I share online, the answer is yes - without a doubt. but sometimes we have to wait for the right opportunity. Whether I do it online, with my wife, or a close confident - some of talking it out is practicing how I want to say it when the opportunity comes.

One only gets one opportunity to have the crucial conversation. I want to make sure I don’t wound, maim, or repel the other party.

Is there some self-discovery there? Yes. I’ve been doing that through journaling for years and it helps me better communicate who I am when I write it out. But there is something about a journal post stored on my HDD, or locked into G-Docs that seems so, so void. Putting it out there for feedback is truly a learning experience for me.

I can take the heat, but I’m not sure ALL my readers can handle the transparent and naked me. If the heat were merely social, I’d be fine. However, there have been not-so-veiled threats towards my employment status, my success, and other areas that could greatly affect my family.

With my family at risk, I suddenly get more careful.

@charlene, (If that’s your real name? ;) ) Thanks for the feedback, both here and on Brent’s blog (http://blogan.net/blog/2008/10/03/self-censorship-online/). Maybe the answer, for me, is a more carefully concealed “super-seekrit” blog. I thought my Leadership Musings blog was hidden, but somehow, I had links to it in my main blogroll and in other locations. Stoooopid, I know, I blew it.

I was writing as if I were writing to myself, and in the meantime, some of the people mentioned had already subscribed to the feed. Sheesh.

I agree with you about balance. In fact, I see that balance point every time I swing past it. But to me, that’s the learning curve. If those who lurk my posts could allow me the tolerance of friendship, and a margin of error, they might learn stuff that is beyond what I can reveal in the meat space. But, I know that is hard.

As you said, the Millennials seem to have an easier time with this. I too am on the fringe of the BabyBoomer/GenX division. I related more to GenX before I had kids, but now that I’m approaching 1/2 a century, with a wife and kids, I seem to be less GenX.

But, when I look at others on the other end of the spectrum, clearly post WWII babes, I know that I have little in common with their values and visions. Indeed, many of the GenXers I associate with, tend to be more conservative and less adventuresome.

I am a quintessential early adopter and adventure is one of my core values (except when it comes to food ). Relationships are also a core value of mine - this was a bit of a surprise when I discovered that, but it’s true - even though I am an introvert.

Thanks for your thoughts (everyone) - I can’t tell you how affirming, thought-provoking, and enlightening this conversation has been for me!

Here are two more links dealing with the same issue:

http://www.interact2008.com/blog/2008/09/does-twitter-breed-lack-of-athenticity/

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/pontin/22115/

You can sign up (free) and start bookmarking today. You can also look at other people's bookmarks -- except the ones they have selected not to share. For example, you can see all my bookmarks. Or you can see bookmarks I have tagged specifically --

• My bookmarks tagged jou4341
• My bookmarks tagged Soundslides

One of the most useful and powerful features of Delicious is that you can build a personal network of people who bookmark stuff you like. My Delicious network is made up of people who are involved with online journalism. Their links point me to great stuff I might otherwise miss.

You can also look at others' networks -- for example, the Delicious network of Joe Weiss, the guy who invented Soundslides. Or, say, Joe's bookmarks tagged Soundslides. (Are you getting the idea now?) A network is a useful thing.

One more useful way to harness the power of shared bookmarks: See EVERYONE'S bookmarks tagged Soundslides AND tutorial.

For the past several months I've been experimenting with socialnetworking.  In the past, my online activity has been hidden behind a subterfuge of handles and anonymous comments.  However, three things conspired to draw me into the the vast arena of Web2.0.

First, my previous experience with CompuServe (back in the early 90s) and some recent experience with MySpace.  Next, I kept hearing about Twitter, in multiple venues, so decided to give it a try.  Finally, due to some illness in our home last year, I wasn't able to get out as much as I'd like.  These three opportunities convinced me to dive in with both typing fingers - so-to-speak!

My first PC had a 4800 Baud modem and a free month of CompuServe.  On CompuServe, there were forums, chat rooms, IM, and a host of other sharing tools.  These were heady days, almost pre-Internet - at least before the tubes went fully public.  It wasn't long before I'd upgraded my modem to 9600, then 14.4k, then 33.3k.  I learned the foundation of my tech experience dealing with those modems.

It wasn't long before CompuServe was swallowed up by the first dot.com bubble and users were left to their own devious devices.  Socialnetworking has been a part of the Net from the beginning, and it never really went away, it has just gone through various permutations.

Twitter was the key for unlocking the world of 21st Century Socialnetworking.  Somehow, I connected with the right people and my network of friends took off!  Then, with my need to stay home, I found friendship and intelligent dialog online.  Through these connections, I revived my interest in blogging (I first blogged in 1997).  Also, various tools became a regular part of my explorations into the Internets.

Recently, I was bitten though.  Twice actually.  First, I thought I had a super-seekrit "leadership" blog, but it turns out it was not secret and was being widely read by the people I most was keeping it from.  I just needed a place to process, a place to get some limited feedback from my mentors and coaches, and a place to vent.  Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job in protecting that.

Today I was informed that people have been lurking on my Twitter stream and have been offended by some of my comments.  So, my first reaction was to lock down my Twitter stream and make it private.  This would involve shutting off the FaceBook link, the FriendFeed link, the Netvibes link, and the widget on one of my websites.  It would mean cutting off the identica stream, the Plurk posts, the Pownce posts, and the Jaiku, Tumblr, BrightKite, Shizzow, Kwippy, and Plaxo feeds.

As I think through this, I see another option.  Can you say, self-censorship?  This is really unappealing to me too.  I've been self-censoring my whole life.  I became an alcoholic trying to stop the self-censorship, and that didn't turn out so hot.  So, I thought I found a venue where I could be real, authentic, and transparent.  But apparently this is hurtful to some.

What to do?  What to do?

What I'd like to do is invite the lurkers to put their lives on the line.  Join the conversation, participate, call me out when you disagree.  It is only through open and honest dialog that we can grow together.  Self-censorship nearly killed me the first time, I don't ever want to go back to that state.

Here's what I've learned though.  People would rather I be safe, than transparent.  To be safe, in this broken shell of a human, I'd have to self-censor.  So, does that make the "stuff" inside go away?  Nope.  It just stuffs it down deeper.  In my value system, I'd rather people share what's on their hearts and be healthy, rather than stuff-it and be unhealthy.  I am opposed to pretense and facades.  I'm all about authenticity.

If I turn off my feed, stop tweeting, or self-censor, I will end up back in the cave.  The loss is that the 90% of good tweets will be lost with the few negative ones.  Is that worth the price?  I'd love to hear some feedback?

This blog goes on to talk about how some institutions are experimenting with making these social networks compolsary elements of their courses. Practical as its purpose may be - to teach students the skills to use this technology , I do wonder about how relevant having a “bebo” can be in assisting any career.

I’m not all pesimist though. The skills of being taught how to use del.icio.us, bloglines and pbwikis are very useful in navigating the net and groupwork. Even if I am a tad behind with the flicking on lightbulb.

Das PDF-Dokument der Studie gibt in Kapitel 8 aber auch praktische Tipps, wie man sich im Netz sicherer bewegen kann. Allein diese Seiten lohnen den Download (hier).

von Tapio L.

Source : Social Media Optimization: An Easy Guide to Marketing and Promoting Your Blog

Io per quanto Social Networks Addicted, trovo che la real life interessantissima!

Voto x Myspace che resterà sempre il mio Social Punk preferito e strizzo l'occhio a Second Life che resta l'eterno incompreso cui sarò sempre affezionata e che quando ho tempo torno sempre a trovare...nel frattempo lascio il mio avatar in stanby nel metaverso.

Facebook lo uso per gli interscambi patinati o pettinati.

Friendspace no...no game!

E voi?!!!

Che tipo di social siete?!!!

We've only had a vague idea of what UK based Emote are up to until now, as they've been keeping their technology close to their chest, only demoing it behind closed doors at GDC this year.

Some details on their first project are now coming to light though, with Develop reporting on a collaboration with Avalanche on a hunting title:

Online social games start-up Emote has announced that it is collaborating with Swedish studio Avalanche on a new free-to-play online title.

The title was first unveiled by Develop via interviews with the Emote team in April 2008.

Called The Hunter, the game seeks to build an online community of game hunters, able to use the social interface to post blogs and images of recent kills as well as collaborate in tournaments, challenges and competitions. The online nature of the title will see Avalanche regularly adding new content, and plans to actively encourage its community to share ideas and suggestions for new features.

We'd so far heard that Emote's platform would enable players to interact with the same server from a lot of different platforms. The project above reads as social networking for hunters, kind of like Facebook crossed with Nike+ in terms of functionality.

How long before they can feed the interface back to hunters in the field, turning it into augmented reality?

(CC image of easter-egg hunters by Lyle58)

The temptation is great for those who do the work to dismiss the popular experts as "out of touch" and for the popular experts to dismiss the ones doing the work as people who simply "don't get it".

The rift is the problem. The talkers and the doers need each other, or could at least benefit from one another.

Can't we all just get along?

Almost every discipline (especially in business) has this rift between professionals and academics.

Professionals accuse the academics of sitting aloft in a proverbial ivory tower and the academics resent the professionals for not being in full understanding of their intricate theories.

Social media is different only because our scholars and academics are self appointed, or community appointed, rather than institutionally appointed.

There is no Ph.D. in social media communications, or Web 2.0.

Our scholars are regarded as such because of a body of written work that resonates with those who see the changes that are happening in the way information and experience is transmitted online.

Like it or not, their work is now informing how popular culture, mainstream media and the rest of the blogosphere understand social media's transformation on information, business and culture.

Self-appointed egotists more concerned with self promotion than promoting good communications strategies and practical advice

Yeah, I said it because that's what many working in the field are already saying.

As much as so many social media proponents like to tout listening as a rule, they don't always like listening to the people who work everyday at turning their theories into practice. And, believe me, this is no easy task.

Learning calculus taught me there is a HUGE difference between theory and practice. I can understand mathematical theories quickly, but practice is a discipline that is only learned through more practice no matter how well one understands the underlying theory.

In reality, those working in the field need people that devote their lives to promoting, explaining and studying the evolution of social media's impact on business and interpersonal communications.

Like academics who are generally paid a third of what those with similar training would earn in the business world, social media "experts" typically write blog posts, speak free of charge and find other creative ways to earn a living to sustain their passionate exploration of the field.

Without them, there would be no stories about social networks or social media tools in the New York Times or anywhere else. And, guess who reads the New York Times... our clients and bosses.

Another useful reminder is that PR Week is only most concerned with stories about PR if they involve a client (hat tip to Bonin Bough for bringing this fact to my attention). The industry is in desperate need of an outlet that lets us work through our challenges without having to mention clients directly.

Social media bloggers may be open to helping us explore our issues in this manner.

They may also be more interested in discussing and promoting our case studies that help prove their theories. Who doesn't like sweet validation?  Just please, as always, know who you're pitching...

Industry-types too concerned with numbers and profits, too entrenched in the old-school way of doing things to understand or appreciate the big picture... they just don't get it...

The ones doing the work are simply asking the same questions that most CMOs and clients will undoubtedly ask.

Even if I "get", and wholeheartedly agree with, the theory you're promoting, translating that theory into something that a client will care about is challenging when there is no empirical data to fall back on.

Numbers, data and statistics need to supplement compelling arguments and graphs that illustrate influence or authority or two-way conversations.

Professionals in the field need tactics and data, and eventually, so will the experts. Ironically, the evidence will only come from those working in the field.

Different disciplines

Promoting new methods of communication and implementing new methods of communication are very different disciplines. I think there's a place for both and that the venerated experts and savvy professionals are more dependent on one another than either would like to admit.

Techcrunch highlighted Facebook app Packrat on Monday, which seems to be causing a bit of a disturbance there. In a piece titled "Facebook Isn’t A Social Network. And Stop Trying to Make New Friends There", Michael Arrington writes:

A big part of the game is “stealing” cards from friends, and so a lot of users add other users as friends so that their cards can be obtained. The application’s popularity has also led some users to create Facebook accounts for the sole purpose of playing the game.

Some of those accounts are now being disabled by Facebook, according to this discussion forum on the application site.

What’s curious is the email sent from Facebook to one deleted user, which states that Facebook isn’t a social network (it’s a “social utility”) and isn’t meant to build large groups of new friends. Instead, Facebook is meant to reinforce “pre-existing” social connections

The game revolves around collecting, earning money and stealing inventory items. A continual stream of new and fairly slickly produced new content perpetually plugs into the old framework, while old content expires and becomes irrelevant, unless you can collect it fast enough.

I tried it out a few weeks ago, and it really does reach the heights of grind and tedium usually reserved for MMOs. As such, there's something weirdly compelling about it, so much so that Facebook have evidently performed some contortions around their terms of service to nip a potential and unintended community in the bud.

Packrat had the potential to become a trojan MMO, embedded in Facebook and incurring loads on their servers. Games are a very strange behavioural tool, and I think Packrat shows we only have a very superficial understanding so far.

(CC image by SCO)

With so much talk about ROI and investment and money, etc. you would think that's all that human beings care about. As highly developed as our brains might be, most proof seems to indicate that we are highly illogical creatures.

One of the broader topics discussed at a workshop I attended this morning at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City by Lois Kelly and Francois Gossieaux from Beeline Labs was social - vs- marketplace motivation.

Side note: Beeline Labs also released a study this year about online communities called the Tribalization of Business, which is a great resource. I plan to return to that in a later, more detailed post.

Lois and Francois cited studies that measured helpfulness in individuals when asked to help with a menial task like asking a stranger to help move something a heavy piece of furniture. Surprisingly, respondents put forth more effort longer when they were doing it as a favor to the other person or when offered a gift than they did when they were told the value of the gift or offered a small sum of money.

The reason being is that people either make decisions from a social or a marketplace framework. This is why some of the best content out there is user (can we think of a better word for this?) generated. User-generated content is socially motivated.

One of the most important takeaways from this fact of human nature they say, however, happens to be that there is no switch. Once a person is engaged in a social framework, it's next to impossible to get them to switch to a marketplace framework and vice versa.

How does this information help or hinder the cultivation of online communities? As someone who has just begun to create content out of a kind of social framework, will I ever be able to move that activity into the marketplace? Will others? How will managers operating from a marketplace framework engage with customers who are operating from a social framework?

Here are some highlights of this release...

• New SocNets: We have added support for MySpace and imeem, which, in addition to the Facebook support we already offer, connects us to the top 3 social network sites in the world (something like 250M users). You can now see what your friends are doing and share photos in any of these networks. Just go to your Xumii Account page and you will now see options to add MySpace and imeem.
• Handsets: We would love to have support for every handset in the world, but the reality is that there is work testing each handset and getting it work just right. For this release we got Xumii to work on some Windows Mobile phones from HTC. Let us know how it works for you. Remember to keep checking our handset support page, we are continually working to add new phones. Also if you have a phone that is not on the list just let us know. Go to http://m.xumii.com and download the software now!
• Features: We know that everyone loves looking and sharing YouTube videos, so we added a new feature in Xumii that will let you see the Top Rated, Most Viewed and Featured videos on YouTube. Note: You will need a good internet connection and a data plan on your phone to ensure it works properly.

We are always looking to hear back from you. Let us know what you think of Xumii and if you have some new ideas for us, and make sure you keep checking back to see what's new in Xumii.

Fortunately, George Siemens and Steven Dones have been very good in coordinating everything and I finally got the impression I have been able to get most of what was relevant . I'd like to thank both for making connectivism so accessible.

The tools where new, tha way people got involved was new, and the dynamics inside the course are new, so that the learning process through practice is probably the best experience to test onself the viability of this theory.

Even if connectivism was new for me as a theory, my personal experience in e-learning, as student, first, and as lecturer, later, revelaed many of the fundamental beliefs of Connectivism so that the statements in the papers I read this week were not completely new to me. The importance of the network in the way knowledge is generated and distributed inside the network was clear to me from the very beginning when I follwed the first e-learning course with Web-CT in 1996.

What the readings of this week have basically given to me is the theoretical construct of Connectivism and the links to other theories in psychopedagogy but also in sociology.

In the last two years I've been working with Social Network Analysis, trying to understand the weight of Social Capital in creating knowledge inside organizations and networks. The role of weak ties and the bridging strategies in social networks have specially attracted my interest and I've done some empyrical research with on-line and off-line networks in this regard. Strong ties and bonding role as vlaues for cohesion was evident  though what I was trying to understand were the dynamics that could transform knowledge as a trigger for innovation. Thus I needed to look after knowldge generation in a cooperative way.

Barry Wellman's paper Little Boxes, Glocalization and Networked Individualism has also brought much more undesrtanding of the multilevel and multitheoretical approach in understanding Connectivism. This is also the point tha Monge and Contractor raise in their Book Theory of Communication Networks. So I feel I should go on further and deeper in this path.

It has been a very intense and rewarding week. I hope I can share more reflections in the coming weeks.

Peggy Gartin, a friend and colleague, came up with a great simile: Learning 2.0 is like punk rock. Punk is a music genre that defies the mainstream. It grows from people wanting to express themselves and share their work; they don't wait for an executive at a record label to provide them with ideas. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels (A bit of that definition was borrowed from Wikipedia.). This resonates with what I've seen related to learning 2.0. If you try to harness it, control it, and direct it, you'll lose its magic. It won't have the same effect. If you force people to use social bookmarking, they'll ignore it. If you force them to blog, they'll get writer's block. On the other hand, if you provide these tools and let people run with their ideas, I believe you'll see much better results.

Many executives are still in the early stages of hearing about learning 2.0 and they're still trying to get their hands around it. From what I've seen, the key may lie in the everyday learning and technology professionals like you and me. We should continue to test-drive tools and technologies. Experiment on your own and find out what works best for you and your organization. Don't wait for some suit in an executive office to tell you what to do. We need to be the rebellious ones. Now go forth and rock. :)

Today at the DEMOfall 08 conference, Xumii launched the first social address book for mobile phones. With Xumii, users can socialize with any contact on any network, regardless of whether it is a social network, an instant messenger service or another mobile carrier. Xumii’s social address book combines contact information, feeds and status updates from social networks, instant messaging services and mobile contacts in a single view.  Xumii also offers integrated mobile messaging that allows users to maintain threaded conversations, share media files and create private groups. If you are at DEMO now, drop by station #61 to see a live demonstration of Xumii.

Quotes:

• “Xumii solves two major problems – mobilizing your social networks and socializing your mobile network,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO Conferences. “Xumii’s social address book makes social tools easily accessible and serves as an onramp to next generation mobile messaging, without the hassle of multiple applications and networks to contact friends and see what they are doing. Social networks should embrace Xumii since it maintains the affiliation of their members and increases their engagement with their community anytime, anywhere.”
• “We are excited to work with Xumii to let the imeem community extend their experience to the mobile phone.  Now more than 27 million imeem users can connect with their friends and share photos when they’re on the move,” said Sachin Rekhi, product manager, imeem Media Platform.

According to a recent eMarketer study the of mobile phone users worldwide who use their phones to access social networks is expected to rise dramatically to 18.8% or 800 million users by the year 2012.  Xumii is a free service that makes accessing and interacting with these networks easier.

Key features of Xumii include:

• Social Address Book: Access Every Contact, on Every Network - Xumii has developed a social address book that combines contacts from social networks, instant messaging services, media sharing Web sites and on phone mobile contacts into one easily accessible mobile address book. The address book gives users access to contact information, status updates, presence and news feeds for every contact on every network.  The beta version of Xumii currently supports the following networks: Facebook, MySpace, imeem, YouTube, Flickr, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger.  Xumii will continue to aggressively expand network support throughout the year.
• Mobile Messaging: Switch From SMS to Mobile Messaging - Xumii mobile messaging lets users text and share media files in a single threaded conversation. With Xumii mobile messaging, conversations can be shared by groups of people and can happen across networks.
• Media Sharing: Share Pictures and Videos with Anyone, Easily - Photos and videos from the phone can be shared with other mobile users, or uploaded to media sharing websites and social networks. Users can also share media files from social networks and media sharing Web sites.
• Group Messaging: Message and Share Files with Groups in Private - Xumii’s social address book makes it easy to set up private groups, allowing users to have conversations with groups of contacts in private. Unlike with SMS, Xumii group members can respond to all members of the group and post a reply in a threaded conversation. Members can also share photos, fun widgets and videos within groups. Xumii groups are a very powerful way to stay in touch with close friends and immediate family.
• Message Walls:  Post Pictures and Messages for Friends - Xumii is the first to introduce a mobile version of the popular wall feature used by most social networks. Walls are a rich graphical way for users to express themselves and communicate with their contacts. Similarly, anyone on a user’s contact list can leave messages or post pictures to another user’s wall.

Availability
Xumii currently supports a wide variety of the most popular handsets. Click here to join the Xumii beta or visit  or visit m.xumii.com on your mobile phone.

If you own your own business or are involved in marketing or PR, you're already creating content for your company or client.

The next step is to make the content you already create easy to share in an online environment by enabling direct posting to social networks, downloads and embeds.

Recently, I was poking around in an online media room for an event and realized that all the photos on that site were available for download only. While the photos on the site were being made available, there's a big difference between making something available and making it shareable.

In this case, the photos were huge, high-resolution image files that the company was asking me to download before I could do anything with them. The problem is that even though the images were nice and technically available to the public, they weren't shareable.

If I were a journalist or blogger intent on posting something to recap this event, I would be forced to download a huge file, save it to my computer, compress the file and upload it to my blog or website.

In most cases, that's simply asking too much.

The focus of PR specifically, has always been to ease, encourage and facilitate coverage of your company/client.

Five ways to encourage online sharing of your content:

1. Allow the URL of the image to be copied and pasted in addition to making smaller sized images available for download, too. Sure, magazine publishers will appreciate the large, high-resolution files available for download, but nobody posting online will appreciate such large files.
2. Video and audio clips should also be embeddable. Don't make me go to your website everytime I want to watch your video. Let me post your video where I want.
3. Continue to e-mail text versions of press releases when it makes sense to do so, but have an extension of your website dedicated to sharing content that includes SEO versions of your press releases.
4. With each item you post in your shared content space, include ShareThis or AddThis buttons to encourage direct posting of your content to social networks like Facebook and Friendfeed, and social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg.
5. In addition to posting current content, also share company background information, executive bios, logos, video and audio clips, images and external links to relevant information.

Rather than getting overwhelmed by the pressure to adopt several levels of engagement at once, I think it's more helpful to think about how to adapt the content you're already making to gain more traction in social networks and other online spaces.

Soon, it will become much easier to generate regular blog posts and welcome visitor feedback once improved listening and the simple act of sharing content becomes a habit.

Most companies may not be ready to leap into anything new right away, but they're probably ready to begin taking small steps.

1. Set up an account with Ning and join the Learning 2.0 Ning network

Create your own page.  Try to build in some features you have discovered so far in the Learning 2.0 programme.  You will receive an invitation to join the network via your hotmail address.

7 things you should know about Ning

2. Create a Twitter account and tweet for a week (Optional activity)

Twitter is a social networking site (that is also referred to as a microblogging service) that enables you to update your contacts on what you are doing at any moment in time.  It works in a very similar way to your status update in Facebook.

In this activity you are asked to post updates for a week and find some people to follow.  Try different ways of using Twitter - from your personalised homepage (e.g. Netvibes), from your phone, from your desktop or from a Twitter client.

What is Twitter and is there any reason I should care?

Twitter in plain English from Commoncraft

As a start to this activity try following Jenny - you can find her via email (j.evans@imperial.ac.uk) or by her username jennye