Ironic: IBM Unveils Healthcare Island on Second Life

IBM, who has an anti-Second Life commercial, has opened a new island in Second Life. (story)

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Technorati tag: Second Life

If you work alone, social networking tools can help you feel connected

I work by myself and sometimes miss the "water cooler" conversations or the quick comments of someone passing by my office. What I have found in the last year especially is that social networking tools can provide quick conversations, an easy way of bouncing ideas off of others "in the office," and a place to ask "what do you think?" Of course, those conversations can only occur if you are networking with a group of somewhat similarly-focused people. For example, in my Twitter network are other information professionals (some of which I've actually met face-to-face!). Because we're in the same industry -- broadly speaking -- we can offer tips, ideas, and support quite easily.

If you work alone -- or with a group of people who have a different focus than you -- you may find the camaraderie that you need through tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Meebo, ...

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Technorati tag: social networking tools

Tips for conference bloggers

With conference season coming (but you didn't think it had its own season), it's time to remember this document, Tips for Conference Bloggers." This is a short (six-page) document with valuable tips on how to blog a conference. Some key tips:

• Do some upfront preparation, e.g., locating any speaker bios and photos, finding sessions descriptions or other known information.
• Don't feel that you must capture every word. "Sometimes even just three key points will do, as long as they capture the relevant parts of the speech or of your analysis."
• Consider your posts to be work in progress. Enhance them after the conference -- make additions and corrections, if necessary.
  

The authors advocate live blogging, but that is not always possible. In fact, depending on your style, you may find that having time to sift through your notes after a conference session will yield a better focused blog post.

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Technorati tag: Blogging

How to find Twitterers (twits) near you

Want to find people who are using Twitter that are geographically near you? Try TwitDir. Pretty cool! Bet you'll find a few people to follow using that.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Twitter

One woman's experience with Twitter

The New York Times today has an article that chronicles one woman's experience in trying to use Twitter with her family. The bottom line, they didn't get it. Walter J. Carl, an assistant professor of communications studies at Northeastern University, said:

The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.

I find Twitter to be an excellent tool for:

• Offering and receiving support
• Exchanging short bits of information
• Making people aware of what you do

However, for it to be productive, you need to be Twittering with a group of people that you have something in common with. They may be friends, work colleagues, or fellow hobbyists. Without that group, Twitter is meaningless.

And Twittering with people you barely know is okay. You may find that Twitter helps you to get to know them better and build trust....all stepping stones for successful networking.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Twitter

Blog post: How to run a great unconference session

Today the team that is planning the unconference in Upstate New York met with our student volunteers. (See An unconference in Upstate New York) We have a dozen graduate students from the iSchool at Syracuse University that will help us with the wiki as well as during the event on March 4 & 5 in East Syracuse, NY.

While looking for information that will help then understand how unconferences work, I found this great blog post by Scott Berkun entitled "How to run a great unconference session." At the bottom are links to additional information on unconferences and conferences. Wow! I wish we had found this months ago...but I'm also glad that we found it now. First, I know there are things we can learn from the posts before our event in a few weeks. Second, I can see that we're on the right track with what we've done so far. However, I'm also seeing that we could have been more creative in the sessions that we planned. C’est la vie! We'll use the info for our next unconference.

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Technorati tags: unyunc, unconference

Article: Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo Continues to Draw Flickr's Ire

Likely you know that Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo. The question is what the impact will be on Flickr, which Yahoo owns. Flickr users are up-in-arms about the possible deal and are posting photos to Flickr to show their displeasure (see article). Whether or not the purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft would be the doom of Flickr, we'll have to wait and see.

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Technorati tag: Flickr

Wordless Wednesday

The Linked Intelligence blog does "Wordless Wednesday." On Wednesdays, the blog post is a photo that can be related to networking and is presented without any text. Below is the image from Feb. 6:

Here's a question for you... Can you use images to communicate your message? Could it be effective to sometimes use an image without any words? Note that royalty-free images can be found in places like stock.xchng and free photos with Creative Commons licenses can be found in Flickr.

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Technorati tags: Flickr, photo sharing

Blog Post: Lessons Learned - No. 16 (privacy lesson from a flight)

I actually have a MySpace account and blog. I've been using the blog primarily to tell "lessons learned" stories. This story from April 2007 is one that should be told here, too. The story begins...

A story from today provides several lessons.

On a flight to Syracuse today, a gentleman sat a row in front of me and to the left. We were both on the aisle. Early in the flight, he read something about golf, which included a league or course schedule for the year. He wrote for a while on a yellow pad (notes about something). Late in the flight he opened up something to read that was marked "Confidential" with a red stamp.

I took notice. Things marked confidential are not to be shown around to others, but here he was reading something confidential on a flight where several of us could peek over his shoulder!

Intrigued? You can read the rest of the story and the lessons here.

Blog Post: How Productivity Habits Reduced the Impact of Theft … Twice

This is a very interesting post, since it not only provide productivity tips, but also provides types to help you guard against files -- paper and electronic -- being stolen. If you don't have time to read it in detail, please skim it. And then at least consider what you carry in your bag on a daily basis (as well as in your wallet), and think about the impact if all of it were suddenly stolen.

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Technorati tag: security