Week 7 Post

Pages 129-165 of Design to Thrive, by Tharon Howard describe the importance of belonging in the context of a social networking site. Basically, belonging is a sense of an individual’s social presence in a community. In other words, it’s an awareness of the shared bonds a member has with others in a group. The chapter begins by explaining the significance of initiation rituals in the establishment of a community that incorporates belonging. Initiation rituals are experiences that give individuals a “right” to enter a particular group. For example, college students often have to perform certain tasks in order join a sorority or fraternity. These tasks bond members of those sororities and fraternities for years and years.

Towards the end of the chapter, Howard discusses techniques that can be used to promote a sense of belonging in online communities. Such techniques include: creating and distributing a story of origin, creating an initiation ritual, encouraging your leaders to share mythologies, encouraging members to share stories about themselves, creating leveling up ceremonies, establishing routines, establishing symbols, and using a membership application.

One technique that particular struck me was “Encourage Members to Share Myths and Stories about Themselves.” When I read about this technique, I immediately thought about Twitter. Twitter’s hashtag component works to create a sense of belonging amongst users. When users use hashtags, they become grouped with other users who have also used that same hashtag. In some cases, hashtags become “trending topics.” These “trending topics” encourage users to tell stories about themselves using various hashtags. For example, there was a recent hashtag that said, “#ItDrivesMeCrazyWhen.” Twitter users were encouraged to use the hashtag to describe various things that drive them crazy. This caused the sharing of different stories by Twitter users. It also gave users a sense of belonging to the Twitter community.

Week 6 Post

Pages 43-79 of Design to Thrive describe the significance of remuneration in the building of an online community. According to Howard, remuneration is “the commonsense observation that individuals remain members of a social network when there is a clear benefit for doing so.” In other words, when an individual is building a social network or online community, he/she must concentrate on developing a positive user experience.

As the chapter continues, Howard details a list of techniques that online community builders can use to help ensure that users of the community help remunerate the group. Such techniques include adding emoticons, using a subscription application form, seeding the discussion, ranking the value of members’ messages, and creating a regular event. As I was reading about each individual technique, I immediately realized that Twitter utilizes the “Seed the Discussion” technique. This becomes evident when one visits the “Discover” tab of the Twitter interface. Upon clicking on this tab, users are brought to a page that provides descriptions of breaking news stories as well as trending topics. Users can subsequently use the breaking news as topics for discussion. They can also incorporate the trending topics into their own tweets in an effort to add to the various discussions. For example, when Clemson was playing Florida State on ABC Saturday night, a range of “trending topics” were directly related to the game: “Touchdown Clemson,” “EJ Manuel,” “Tajh Boyd,” and “FSU.” After seeing these topics, additional users would incorporate the words into their tweets, further driving discussion about the game.

One technique that I found interesting was, “Don’t Automatically Archive.” Before reading about this technique, I felt that it would be useful to archive posts. Doing this would prevent the same questions and discussions from occurring over and over again. Howard, however, brought up the point that knowledge is a process. In other words, questions can be answered in different ways, and discussions can take different routes. Howards closes out this particular section with a great word of advice: “Let your members talk.” This is a great point that causes me to look at online communities in a different way.

Week 5 Post

Pages 199-223 in Design to Thrive describe the social effects of print versus digital media. In this section, Howard compares the context of current technologies to past technologies. For example, the recent advancement in social media has reduced the cost of producing and distributing content. Instead of paying a company to record, edit, and distribute a story, an individual can use a digital camera and at-home editing software to create a professional-looking video. That video can then be uploaded to sites such as YouTube for the world to see. This reduction in the cost of media production isn’t something new. When Gutenberg introduced printing to Europe, the cost of creating and distributing newspapers dramatically decreased. This meant that the news was not limited to rich people; the average person could buy a newspaper. In addition, more entrepreneurs were able to start their own newspaper businesses.

In Design to Thrive, Howard brings up a legitimate counterargument about the value of online communities. This counterargument states that online communities can cripple individuals by exposing them to only one point of view about a particular issue. For instance, a democrat could log on to an online community specifically for democrats. In doing such, he or she will be exposed to points of views that will be mainly democratic. In other words, the democrat will be exposed to issues in a biased way. This can hinder that individual from making informed decisions in the political arena. On the other hand, if the democrat makes a conscious effort to visit other online communities (namely republican), he or she will have the opportunity to learn about issues from both sides of the fence. This example shows that online communities and social networks can be valuable to an organization; however, they must be used in the appropriate manner, exposing individuals to multiple facets of various issues.

Week 4 Post

Pages 204-227 of Made to Stick describe the positive ramifications that can result from storytelling. According to the Heath brothers, stories are “sticky.” In other words, people are more likely to remember a well-told story than a list of facts. After reading this section, I was able to realize the impact that storytelling has had on my career as a motivational speaker.

Every time I finish giving a presentation, I receive positive comments from audience members about a particular section in my speech. In this section, I provide stories of successful people who have overcome various adversities on their journeys to success. Such people include Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Barack Obama, and Michael Jordan. I tell all of these stories with one common theme: No matter what adversity you may face in life, you can still achieve great success.

I have used these stories as a way to engage my audiences for years; however, I never completely understood why the tales resonated so well with my listeners. I now understand that stories can provide a “sticky” way to inspire people to chase after their dreams. When individuals listen to such inspirational stories, they feel empowered to overcome their own adversities. For example, I spoke to an inner city school a few months ago. At this school, a 12-year-old girl approached me as I was about to leave and said, “I really loved your story about Oprah. If she could come from poverty and become a billionaire, then I can make something of my life, too.” In other words, a simple story was enough to inspire a young girl to do something great with her life.

Now that I am conscious of the positive impact of stories, I will definitely make an effort to further utilize storytelling in my future presentations. I will also employ other useful ideas that Made to Stick has to offer. I feel that this book is a great guide to creating an idea that will ultimately “stick.” I am anxious to continue reading about the various tactics that the Heath brothers recommend.

September 3rd Readings

Pages 29-41 of Design to Thrive discuss why it is important to invest in social media. One reason is that social networks improve decision-making processes by creating “epistemic communities,” which are academic or professional communities that have particular ways of validating knowledge. I find it very interesting that countries, when sending negotiating teams to hash out agreements or treaties, send representatives from the same disciplinary tradition (epistemic community). This is because members of epistemic communities share a common epistemological framework, meaning they share a similar set of procedures for making decisions. This allows work to be done with greater efficiency. While I never thought about this before, it makes perfectly good sense.

Social networks also preserve institutional knowledge. Howard uses the example of MATRF (Multimedia Authoring Teaching and Research Facility) and its 100% annual turnover rate. This turnover rate is due to the fact that the facility is staffed each year by a different set of first-year graduate students. Information could easily be lost every year; however, since online communities are utilized, information is protected and preserved.

Another reason why it is important to invest in social media revolves around the fact that online communities allow for interaction between managers, employees, and customers. Such interaction can lead to stronger relationships and better products/services. Social networks also cut travel costs. For example, if I am the CEO of a company with multiple locations, it would be very costly for me to travel to each location to meet with various employees. Instead, I can use an online community to deliver information and materials to the employees without ever having to leave my office.

Pages 40-58 of Secrets of Social Media Marketing discuss how to use various social media to ultimately grow one’s business. This section of the book talks about how an individual can use advanced searched to save time when searching for information. Gillin also describes the purpose of specialized search engines. For example, Technorati and Blogpulse are search engines that focus specifically on blogs. Tips are given regarding what to type into search engine boxes in order to obtain the best results. It is important for business owners and marketing managers to realize that there are many ways to acquire information on the internet. In other words, Google isn’t the only way!

Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing is very appealing to me. It provides useful information that I can immediately apply to my endeavors. The book also gives many examples that help facilitate learning.