Folks from the Sloan-C Conference Will Understand :-)
Posted on May 11, 2008
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Updates, Ideas, Getting Back Into the Swing
Posted on May 6, 2008
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Well, it’s been over a month since I’ve written on my own blog thanks to all the other projects I’m happily working on. The mass of students have finally cleared out of town leaving Bloomington a pleasant place with shorter lines for the fancy coffee. I’ve cut back on hours at my job to give me more time to crank on my dissertation which is going well. More about that later in the post.
Meanwhile, just a few updates…
Summer Travel and Talks
- Mark and I have decided to get hitched in Vegas in June when we’re there for Educomm. We’ve known we wanted to get married for a while but didn’t want a big ceremony and all that hooha. No, we’re not going to be married by Elvis or anything but we are looking for something a bit different. Maybe we’ll webcast it, Twitter our vows or something else equally geek-tastic. More updates as we get it figured out! If you have any recommendations be sure to leave a comment.
- Along the lines of crazy travel plans, we’re also off to Brazil in June where Mark will be speaking at The Institute of Economic and International Studies in Sao Paulo. We’re in the midst of applying for travel visas and checking into vaccinations etc. I’ve never been to South America so I’m pretty excited. There’s a rumor of a boat trip down the Amazon to visit solar powered computer labs which would be amazing! We’ll be sure to post lots of pics and video.
- Tomorrow we’re off to the Sloan-C International Symposium Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning in Carefree, AZ. I’ll be delivering my first multi-world talk. It’s sure to be a pretty crazy experience. If you want to attend in Second Life be sure to check out the site for details about the virtual sessions.
- On May 22 I’ll be at Tufts University giving a talk about virtual worlds and education at the Summer Institute.
- I’ll be facilitating the discussion over at Global Kid’s new project, RezEd in the first week of June. We’ve not nailed down a topic yet but it should be a fun week of buzzing ideas. If you’re interested in virtual worlds and education go check out the site. GK is posting great content including podcasts, interviews, and lively discussions.
Summer Writing
- Dissertation!!!! I just want the darn thing done! With all my travel, though, and moving from desktop to laptop on a constant basis the drafts were getting a little lost. My solution was to move the whole thing onto a wiki that I can edit and my committee can hop into to leave comments/suggestions. I’m still in the process of melding old drafts and new ones but if you want to watch the car-crash-like mess that is my writing process feel free to check it out.
- I’m also writing a piece for the Educause Review about teaching and learning in virtual worlds where I’ll be focusing on the need to focus on pedagogy not on technology.
- Last, but not least, I’m writing an article for a really cool new journal called FutureBox. More on that later.
- I’m also editing the Second Life Education Blog for Linden Lab. Pop over and check it out!
Phew! That’s a lot to do. Meanwhile, the kids are doing awesome and have almost wrapped up their first year of school. Go kindergarten!
Lots to do and not a lot of time to do it all. What are you working on this summer? Got a cool trip planned?
O’Reilly Radar “Virtual Worlds: A Business Guide” Worth the Price
Posted on April 3, 2008
Filed Under business, metaverse, review, second life, tips | 4 Comments
So you’ve been thinking about taking your business into the virtual world but you need some help. Maybe you need some numbers, some handy facts about demographics, some insightful analysis about what this whole movement to the virtual world really means for business. Well, O’Reilly is here to help.
Now, I’ve read dozens of “white papers” claiming to be guides to Second Life and other virtual spaces and most of them get mocked and tossed into the circular file here at the Intellahome but, as much as I would have liked to claim that “even O’Reilly doesn’t get it!” I can’t. This is a great white paper. It’s actually useful! *gasp!* I know! You probably think I’ve lost my marbles, but listen up.
If you’re someone who needs to make the argument to your company or organization for a foray into the virtual, this little baby will actually give you some really decent ammunition: non-inflated demographic and population stats, useful information about money exchanges and purchasing habits, and context for Second Life as one of many new virtual spaces that should be on your radar. It even has a fair assessment of adult content in Second Life that neither glosses over risk or over-hypes it like some of the conservative press has tried to.
It’s worth a read.
Disclaimer: I should note that I did get my copy of the report for free though I would still have been happy to trash it if it deserved it. You can’t buy Intellalove 
Twitter: My Own Personal Highly Qualified Instant Help Desk
Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under blog, microblog, second life, social network, twitter | 3 Comments
So I’ve been having trouble with image spacing over at the SL-Education Blog. They were crammed up against the text no matter how much padding I put in. Tonight I finally got sick and tired of wrestling with it and called for help. No I didn’t turn on the Bat Signal. I Twittered!
Intellagirl: Anyone know a whole lot about WP? Not a little…but a lot about the ins and outs of the CSS and why it might not act like it should? about 1 hour ago from web 
And what do you know no less than a minute later a stranger popped up in my Guest Gchat and offered help. Not only did he teach me about the Firebug extension for Firefox (which is awesome btw), but he walked me through the edit in my style.css that was necessary to fix all my image goodness on the blog. So this is a story about one tool leading to another. First, Marcus Welz (of Slbuzz fame) are Twitter friends because we’re both Second Life junkies. So Second Life leads to Twitter which leads to the little Gchat plug in which leads to Firebug which lead to me having a fixed blog!
Giant hugs to my geeky community of friends!
Second Life for Dummies Event on Thursday!
Posted on March 24, 2008
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Authors of Second Life For Dummies Live in Second LifeAbracadabra – March 20, 2008 – SLED and SLRL’s own Sarah “Intellagirl Tully” Robbins and Mark “Typewriter Tackleberry” Bell, authors of Wiley’s Second Life For Dummies, answer audience questions in Second Life on March 27, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. SLT/PDT. Along with primary seating at The Magicians Colonnade at Abracadabra <http://slurl.com/secondlife/Abracadabra/201/90/31>, there’s balcony seating in the neighboring sim, Seifert Surface’s xyz. The event will be conducted in text chat.
A prize giveaway celebrating Dummies Month includes four real-life Dummies prize packs from Wiley, each including a Dummies duffel bag, a copy of Second Life For Dummies, and other Dummies goodies. For avatars there are free jackets and coffee, Enchanted Teachers’ Apples, and a few surprises. Instant message Chimera Malaprop or Art Laxness for a teleport offer.
Social Network Strategy for Business
Posted on March 3, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
This is the slideshow from my talk on Friday about how to use Social Networks in business. Please go check it out. Don’t be scared by the number of slides.
You’ll find:
- The 4 qualities of social networks
- The laws of networks and how they effect SNS
- Understanding the different kinds of SNS
- Five tips for five business strategies
Enjoy!
Social Network Strategy Talk Today at 8am EST: Streaming Online
Posted on February 29, 2008
Filed Under business, facebook, identity, social network, tips, web 2.0 | 1 Comment
I’m giving a talk this morning from 8am EST to 11am EST about developing strategies for using Social Networking Sites. If you’d like to watch follow this link.
I’ll post the slides and notes a bit later. Hope to see some of you there!
Twitter Crazy! Recent discussions and ideas about why Twitter is so darn handy
Posted on February 25, 2008
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I’m a devoted Twitter user. I Twitter from my desktop, from inside Second Life, from my iPhone. I use Twitter to ask questions, keep in touch, find news stories and tech updates, and even to make dinner plans when I’m on the road. Of the technologies to cross my desk in the last year, Twitter is the most useful I’ve added to my media habits.
Lately, as it approaches a million users, there’s been some exciting conversations going on about Twitter. They’re worth a look.
- Dell employees crazy about Twitter
- Howard Rheingold explains why he’s hooked on Twitter
- Kevin Makice, a local Bloomington tech brain extraordinare, created Twitosphere to follow local Twits
- The Tweeterboard logs the top 100 Twitter users by reputation
- A plant that Twitters when it needs to be watered
- The UK Guardian on how Twitter is a symptom of the blogosphere
- Laid off Yahoo employees Twitter their experiences
- Stolen iPhones phone home using Twitter
- NYT story mother using Twitter
If you’re reading this you probably Twitter. If you don’t, well go sign up. I’ll warn you that you might not see the value at first. Give it time. It will grow on you as sure as that Twittering houseplant.
Podcast and Challenge: How do we move the social media conversation past the converted?
Posted on February 20, 2008
Filed Under blogging, business, podcast, social network, web 2.0 | 17 Comments
The Intellacast is back! I don’t podcast as often as I’d like but when I do I try to make it worth it. So here’s a doozy. It’s a challenge to three of the best social media evangelists out there: CC Chapman, Joseph Jaffe, and Mitch Joel. All three deliver great insight into the ways social media is changing how businesses and organizations communicate and market. All three create consistently powerful content about how the new media revolution is changing us all. But all three deliver their messages via media forms that only reach the “converted”: podcasts, blogs, Twitter (except Jaffe who writes books as well).
So, in addition to giving my three rules of social media, I’ve also issued a challenge to these guys: How do the social media evangelists stop “preaching to the converted” through social media forms, and start engaging and exciting the huge population of folks who don’t even know what they’re missing? In the podcast I give my answer the question to get the conversation started.
I hope you all enjoy the podcast. And CC, Joseph, Mitch: I hope you’ll respond to the challenge!
Note: The podcast is at the bottom of the post in m4a format. I tried to get it up on iTunes but didn’t have the oompf to wrestle with it and this headcold at the same time. Enjoy!
TweetStats: Track your Tweets (and be nosy about other’s)
Posted on February 18, 2008
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Oh I love data! One of the most important things we Digirati geeks can do is encourage ourselves to stop and reflect on what we do and how we use the applications available to us. Being able to look back over patterns of usage not only informs our own use but helps us to understand how to help others be more participatory as well as informing us all about how these new technologies change how we all live.
This morning I found TweetStats. It should be called “Sweetstats!” I couldn’t help but start digging in and comparing the usage patterns of folks I know. My friend, MalBurns, is the most prolific Twitterer I know. I just had to compare his Twitter use to mine to see what I could learn.
For example…
This is my Twitter week
I was surprised to see that I Twitter about the same amount every day. There’s only a 20 or so post difference between a week day and a weekend.
Here is Mal’s chart
As you can see, Mal posts, oh about TEN TIMES more often than I do but the difference between week day posts and weekend posts is proportionate to mine. What does this tell me? Well, I think it says that we information workers might not differentiate between a “work day” and a “day off.” When you work at home and online there’s little difference between your work and your social life. The same applications serve both purposes.
Here’s another look. This is my Twitter use on an average day:
Looks like I Twitter most in the afternoon. Perhaps this is the mid-afternoon-I-don’t-want-to-work time killing or perhaps this is when I’m most entrenched in big ideas and most eager to share.
Here is Mal’s day:
Mal posts more consistently all day long. Is this a difference in work patterns? A difference in use of Twitter.
The data is anecdotal and not supported by an analysis of the content and purpose of the messages but the big picture is interesting to look at. Twitstats also shows up the potential future of research and data gathering. Using an API from a Web 2.0 tool allows us to gather tons of information but how ethical is it? How meaningful is the information?
What do you think? About Twitter? About Web 2.0 communication tools? About usage patterns? About conducting research using Web 2.0 APIs?
keep looking »