The past few weeks I've been working with two forms of social media that I had thus far managed to avoid. I feel compelled to write about my experiences with each both because this sort of reflection is required for a class I'm taking and because I spent a great deal of time pondering what about these sites make them unique enough to fulfill whatever cyber-voids that Facebook, blogging, commenting, texting, and emailing don't.
Twitter
Of the two, Twitter is the most important. This is both because its sudden ubiquity, but also because it has become our de facto agora in contemporary society. I had a very hard time crossing into the realm of "Tweeters" (this is the right terms for someone on Twitter, right?), because I am aware that should any amount of fame or infamy ever find me, my Twitter posts will be the likely point of focus of any public speculation on my state of mind, interests, or opinions either relevant or irrelevant to whatever notoriety I may incur. Thus, picking a user name on Twitter was a dizzying challenge of prediction and restraint. Do I use my real name? Do I use an absurd name? Will all of humanity either find me pretentious or ridiculous for choosing or not choosing either one of those? (I eventually settled on the name "TysonMe"--decidedly not clever, but probably unoffensive as well.)
Tweeting hasn't been too much of a chore. It's as easy as sending a text message or updating my status of facebook. Which of course brings me to my biggest issue with Twitter: What distinguishes it from a facebook feed or text message? I suppose the extreme public nature of Twitter posts is the essence of what makes it different than a facebook post (but only marginally so, unless your facebook privacy settings are cranked all the way up). At the same time, though, this makes me hesitate at the point of tweeting anything: Who is going to read this and why? There is an existential crisis built into the Tweeting process, something simultaneously akin to public nudity and voyeuristic urge, which although probably ignored by many prolific Twitter users (Yes you, Kanye), that creates the risk of the whimsical gaining ground on the profound on happenstance alone.
Answering the question: "What's happening?" has never been such a simultaneously banal and profound act.
Flickr
My first thoughts while trying to register for Flickr: Yahoo has deserved to suffer a long and protracted death.
My current thoughts about using Flickr: Yahoo deserves to suffer and continuing long and protracted death, preferably involving bees and feral dogs.
I've posted hundreds of photos on Facebook, used Picasa any number of times, and uploaded photos to everything from newspaper websites to blogs. The process of setting up my Flickr account was agonizing? What do I get in return for setting up a YahooID? Given the effort, time, and frustration of setting up a web-based account, then having to essentially repeat the process on my phone, I think I may have rather gone through the process of acquiring an STD--at least some portion of that acquisition might be enjoyable.
What did I get for my efforts? Well, not that much. Although I appreciate all the functionality in tagging, geo-tagging, cropping, rights-setting, etc, that Flickr provides, I haven't really found myself warming up to the whole process. Granted, I'm not the photo-taking type, but the level of investment just to get pictures out and available to my friends and family using this site just doesn't provide the type of return that other sites I already use do.
Showing posts with label ENGL 539. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ENGL 539. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Social Software: Continuing the Story
Background
In 2004, technologist Christopher Allen wrote a short article about the development of social software since the 1940's. Back in 2004--pre-Facebook, pre-YouTube, pre-social networking--most of this software was geared towards collaborative business and/productivity tools(ex. Adobe Connect, Skype, and, in a very limited way, Second Life-like environments). At the time of writing, he made a few vague predictions about how such software would be characterized in 2010:
"Typically, a visionary originates a term, and a community around that visionary may (or may not) adopt it. The diaspora of the term from that point can be slow, with 10 or 15 years passing before a term is more generally adopted. Once a term is more broadly adopted, it faces the risk of becoming a marketing term, corrupted into differentiating products rather than explaining ideas.
Is 'social software', which just now gaining wide acceptance, destined for the same trash heap of uselessness as groupware? And, if so, what impact does the changing of this terminology have on the field of social software itself?"
The Re-Write:
Although the trend of social software through the opening years of the millennium had primarily been tools for academic and business collaborations, beginning with Friendster in 2002 the popular adoption of social software to facilitate social networking and online community building became the predominant form of social software. The three most important exemplars of this type of social software that emerged by the close of the decade were Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Facebook, which emerged from an initially crowded social networking market that included MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster, has become the de facto social network of mainstream culture, not just in the United States where it originated, but globally, with over 150 million users from over 60 different countries. Facebook evolved into not only a service for linking people and maintaining "weak" social relationships, but also a gaming, advertisement, and entertainment platform, with all the applications reinforcing the site's collaborative, socializing nature.
YouTube, a video sharing site, was started in 2005 and was by 2010 one of the most popular sites on the web. It regularly spurs collaborated creative efforts, often in the form of creative video responses (replies) to original media from other YouTube users. Definitely falling within the realm of social software, the site is primarily viewed as an entertainment site.
Twitter, a streaming feed of short text posts ("tweets") created by individual users, is a cultural data feed that incorporates everyone from the average joe, politicians, entertainers, athletes, and fictional characters. The overall effect of the site is universal inclusion of individual messages, organized temporally, but not connected by any specific theme, narrative, or prompt.
The Future: 2020
The popular social networking sites of 2010 had already revealed that traditional social norms, traditions, and mores often came into conflict with the types of views, attitudes, and customs that were revealed by users. Ultimately, these sites erode not only users notion of personal privacy, but also society's expectation of it. This will have a revolutionary effect on public-private social norms, morality, and social transparency.
In 2004, technologist Christopher Allen wrote a short article about the development of social software since the 1940's. Back in 2004--pre-Facebook, pre-YouTube, pre-social networking--most of this software was geared towards collaborative business and/productivity tools(ex. Adobe Connect, Skype, and, in a very limited way, Second Life-like environments). At the time of writing, he made a few vague predictions about how such software would be characterized in 2010:
"Typically, a visionary originates a term, and a community around that visionary may (or may not) adopt it. The diaspora of the term from that point can be slow, with 10 or 15 years passing before a term is more generally adopted. Once a term is more broadly adopted, it faces the risk of becoming a marketing term, corrupted into differentiating products rather than explaining ideas.
Is 'social software', which just now gaining wide acceptance, destined for the same trash heap of uselessness as groupware? And, if so, what impact does the changing of this terminology have on the field of social software itself?"
The Re-Write:
Although the trend of social software through the opening years of the millennium had primarily been tools for academic and business collaborations, beginning with Friendster in 2002 the popular adoption of social software to facilitate social networking and online community building became the predominant form of social software. The three most important exemplars of this type of social software that emerged by the close of the decade were Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Facebook, which emerged from an initially crowded social networking market that included MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster, has become the de facto social network of mainstream culture, not just in the United States where it originated, but globally, with over 150 million users from over 60 different countries. Facebook evolved into not only a service for linking people and maintaining "weak" social relationships, but also a gaming, advertisement, and entertainment platform, with all the applications reinforcing the site's collaborative, socializing nature.
YouTube, a video sharing site, was started in 2005 and was by 2010 one of the most popular sites on the web. It regularly spurs collaborated creative efforts, often in the form of creative video responses (replies) to original media from other YouTube users. Definitely falling within the realm of social software, the site is primarily viewed as an entertainment site.
Twitter, a streaming feed of short text posts ("tweets") created by individual users, is a cultural data feed that incorporates everyone from the average joe, politicians, entertainers, athletes, and fictional characters. The overall effect of the site is universal inclusion of individual messages, organized temporally, but not connected by any specific theme, narrative, or prompt.
The Future: 2020
The popular social networking sites of 2010 had already revealed that traditional social norms, traditions, and mores often came into conflict with the types of views, attitudes, and customs that were revealed by users. Ultimately, these sites erode not only users notion of personal privacy, but also society's expectation of it. This will have a revolutionary effect on public-private social norms, morality, and social transparency.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Online Community Examination: The Economist Debates
I've passively followed some of the debates on The Economist's website for a few years now. By passively, I mean as--in web parlance--a lurker. I've never posted a comment. I have voted a few times in the "agree with the motion" or "disagree with the motion" but I've never felt interested/motivated or qualified enough to contribute a written opinion. I suppose this makes me a quasi-lurker, but I digress.
In general, the community is made of readers of the Economist and its website (the debates have been regularly plugged in the print magazine), but it can also include guest luminaries and pundits varying by the subject of debate.
Purpose:
The debates are designed as an enhanced forum for traditional Oxford style debate. A motion is proposed by the "house," and the debate is whether to "agree" or "disagree." At the end of a series of phases, a winner is declared by the editorial staff (the "moderator"). The debates tend to focus on issues tangent to current events. As such, the Economist can present a number of related archived stories, featured agree/disagree opinions by expert or celebrity commentators, and yet another forum for expert but objective commentary on the points made in the user forums and by experts. As a whole, the debate forum as The Economist presents it allows participants to further educate themselves on the facts of the situation presented, and provides exposure to the breadth of opinions presented the (assumed) most capable pundits and its readership. In the classical sense, the purpose of this website is education via a dialectic.
Product:
Although the site is mostly textual, it does what I feel is a fairly good job of presenting the multitude of information surrounding a debate in parallel. Although dense, the site is organized professionally, adhering to design concepts argued for by Redish, Williams, etc. That said, a fair amount of literacy and openness to moderated argument is assumed of the site's readership. While flame wars have been present in the forums, they are far more polite that what one might find in the comments section of a CNN.com article, with most forum posts beginning "Dear Sir," or "Dear Moderator." Rarely are comments directed at specific posters. (This may be against the Oxford Union-house rules that the forum is modeled on. Regardless, it is effective.)
Process:
Debates have five parts: Overview, Opening, Rebuttal, Closing, and Post-Debate. Each of the latter four phases marks the closing of the forums for that part, the starting of a new forum, the inclusion of new expert pundits, and additional commentary by the moderator. Forum members can change their agree/disagree votes at any time, and the votes are charted daily up until the closing phase. This is very unlike other online forums that may be moderated, but are not closed off into temporal sections of discussion. While an online thread on, say, Brett Farve's love life on a Viking's Fan Site, has the potential to go on into perpetuity, that this forum is designed to actually come to some sort of moderated conclusion on a social, economic, or political issue makes it somewhat unique.
Has a debate ever changed my opinion? Not completely. I have never found myself transitioning from the "agree" to "disagree" or vice versa, but my view on the topics presented have always ended up more nuanced, more complex than prior to following the debates. This house proposes that this makes this community an effective, intriguing one, both for the quality of its presentation and the occasionally thought provoking post in the floor forum.
In general, the community is made of readers of the Economist and its website (the debates have been regularly plugged in the print magazine), but it can also include guest luminaries and pundits varying by the subject of debate.
Purpose:
The debates are designed as an enhanced forum for traditional Oxford style debate. A motion is proposed by the "house," and the debate is whether to "agree" or "disagree." At the end of a series of phases, a winner is declared by the editorial staff (the "moderator"). The debates tend to focus on issues tangent to current events. As such, the Economist can present a number of related archived stories, featured agree/disagree opinions by expert or celebrity commentators, and yet another forum for expert but objective commentary on the points made in the user forums and by experts. As a whole, the debate forum as The Economist presents it allows participants to further educate themselves on the facts of the situation presented, and provides exposure to the breadth of opinions presented the (assumed) most capable pundits and its readership. In the classical sense, the purpose of this website is education via a dialectic.
Product:
Although the site is mostly textual, it does what I feel is a fairly good job of presenting the multitude of information surrounding a debate in parallel. Although dense, the site is organized professionally, adhering to design concepts argued for by Redish, Williams, etc. That said, a fair amount of literacy and openness to moderated argument is assumed of the site's readership. While flame wars have been present in the forums, they are far more polite that what one might find in the comments section of a CNN.com article, with most forum posts beginning "Dear Sir," or "Dear Moderator." Rarely are comments directed at specific posters. (This may be against the Oxford Union-house rules that the forum is modeled on. Regardless, it is effective.)
Process:
Debates have five parts: Overview, Opening, Rebuttal, Closing, and Post-Debate. Each of the latter four phases marks the closing of the forums for that part, the starting of a new forum, the inclusion of new expert pundits, and additional commentary by the moderator. Forum members can change their agree/disagree votes at any time, and the votes are charted daily up until the closing phase. This is very unlike other online forums that may be moderated, but are not closed off into temporal sections of discussion. While an online thread on, say, Brett Farve's love life on a Viking's Fan Site, has the potential to go on into perpetuity, that this forum is designed to actually come to some sort of moderated conclusion on a social, economic, or political issue makes it somewhat unique.
Has a debate ever changed my opinion? Not completely. I have never found myself transitioning from the "agree" to "disagree" or vice versa, but my view on the topics presented have always ended up more nuanced, more complex than prior to following the debates. This house proposes that this makes this community an effective, intriguing one, both for the quality of its presentation and the occasionally thought provoking post in the floor forum.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
My Netiquette Top 10
1. Don't forward chain e-mails. Ever.
My dad is the worst offender I know on this big number one netiquette rule. Because my earliest email experiences involved corresponding with him over email, an on-again-of-again conversation that has lasted since at least 1996, this has also been one of my most persistent annoyances. To be fair, my dad's affection with chain emails is well intentioned. I get the feeling that he has looked at every email or link he's ever forwarded. Likewise, I remember early on in the 'internet age' when getting jokes and funny little stories (see Darwin Awards) in your email was a real treat. Friends and colleagues took the time to discuss the most recent emails at parties and lunches. This probably doesn't happen anymore. In fact, I imagine that except for a dedicated few, most the emails sent by my dad beginning with "FW:" end up as they do in my email box, subject lines bold and unread into perpetuity.
2. Don't friend request your boss.
This has always seemed obvious to me, but I still see people try to do it all the time. That said, if your boss friends you, it's probably ok to accept (cynically mandatory, actually). Friending former bosses is passable behavior as well. On the other end of the spectrum, however, is friending someone who you've just been assigned under, but have never actually met. This is the definition of cyber awkward. Expect rejection.
3. Don't start Facebook wall posts with "Dear," "To whom it may concern:," etc. or end a post with "Love," "Sincerely," "Best wishes," etc. (Unless you're being ironic.)
Facebook posts aren't letters. They aren't even email. They are wall posts, descendants of graffiti in urban spaces. Your identity is obvious as soon as it shows up on the wall, so there's no need to identify yourself. Any niceties on the front or back of your post make it seem like you are completely lost or are suffering from momentary amnesia. The bright, electric screen and pictures of your cousin's birthday party should make it obvious you're not crafting a epistemological masterpiece, Mr. Hemingway.
4. Don't harass gamer girls.
I've been playing a lot of Halo: Reach lately. Every so often, a female gamer will be part of one the games. The second a female voice is heard by the rest of the (male) players, the discourse, gaming, and general vibe of the experience goes downhill immediately.
Exemplar comments:
-'You sound hot. Where do you live?'
-'Do you have a boyfriend?'
-'I have a girlfriend, but I'd do you.'
-'How about you give me your phone number? I'll sext you.'
-'I just killed you. That kinda turns me on. Does it turn you on?'
And so on.
This really ruins the experience of all the gamers, not just the females. I feel like there are enough experiential boundaries to getting into a competitive, relatively complex game like Halo: Reach to start throwing up crude social barriers to the gaming experience as well. And while not every gamer will look like the girls in this pertinent video, the gaming experience should be as open and welcoming to everyone as possible. If nothing else, having a larger number of players simply enriches the game play of all.
5. People don't care about your Farmville cows. (And neither should you.)
I know Zenga is making a zillion dollars a week by incentivizing time wasting to people around the world, but the last thing I want on my Facebook newsfeed is to hear about your new baby calf having diarrhea, what your mafioso crew did to some speakeasy, or that your pirates just assassinated a trove of pink unicorns.Yes, I know I can block stuff like this, but should I really have to?
6. You are not your dog, Martin Luther King Jr., or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Your Facebook profile picture should reflect this.
7. People do not want to be fans of your employer.
Congratulations! I'm glad you got that great new job at Target, I really am. I was tired of paying your half of the rent, anyway. But this does not mean I want to become a fan of Target, and I think you owe it to me not to suggest such a thing. Please. (By the way, you still do owe me $1200 and I'm not a fan of that, either.)
8. If you're going to post a link to an article, add a personal comment about it.
It's great that you think that Tom Friedman/Michelle Malkin/Any Huffington Post Contributor's latest diatribe is so insightful. But why? As Yoda once said: Posting an article does not an opinion make.
9. Don't hate (on Social Media).
I've been in more than one conversation with people who state that they 'hate, just absolutely hate' Twitter/Facebook/bloggers. And yet, when the question is asked, 'have you ever actually been on Twitter/Facebook/a blog?' The answer is almost always no.
People are entitled to opinions. But uninformed opinions... Not so much.
10. Yes, Professor, I am looking at Facebook during class.
And so is everyone else.
Although the argument is sometimes made that computers in the classroom detract from the classroom experience, in computer science classes, new media classes, and the like computer-centric classrooms are a necessary evil. In more and more college classes these days students are bringing their laptops (and at least their cell phones) into class. And all of these students have Facebook or Twitter or GMail open while they are in class. It's a fact of contemporary life. For instructors, this simply means that your margin of attention grabbing error is smaller than ever. The best perspective, in my opinion, is to see classroom Facebook use as a symptom of a problem, not the actual problem.
The actual problem is that you haven't sold me on the idea of what you're teaching is actually important and/or interesting. Although we all know cognitively that we're already paying tuition, you're going to give us grades at the end of the semester and that this material will be on the final exam, it all doesn't matter when the cute girl/guy from the party last night just added us as a friend and we now have access to all their pictures from last spring break. Yes, professors, this means that you are competing against co-eds in swimsuits on the beach.
Time to earn your tenure.
My dad is the worst offender I know on this big number one netiquette rule. Because my earliest email experiences involved corresponding with him over email, an on-again-of-again conversation that has lasted since at least 1996, this has also been one of my most persistent annoyances. To be fair, my dad's affection with chain emails is well intentioned. I get the feeling that he has looked at every email or link he's ever forwarded. Likewise, I remember early on in the 'internet age' when getting jokes and funny little stories (see Darwin Awards) in your email was a real treat. Friends and colleagues took the time to discuss the most recent emails at parties and lunches. This probably doesn't happen anymore. In fact, I imagine that except for a dedicated few, most the emails sent by my dad beginning with "FW:" end up as they do in my email box, subject lines bold and unread into perpetuity.
2. Don't friend request your boss.
This has always seemed obvious to me, but I still see people try to do it all the time. That said, if your boss friends you, it's probably ok to accept (cynically mandatory, actually). Friending former bosses is passable behavior as well. On the other end of the spectrum, however, is friending someone who you've just been assigned under, but have never actually met. This is the definition of cyber awkward. Expect rejection.
3. Don't start Facebook wall posts with "Dear," "To whom it may concern:," etc. or end a post with "Love," "Sincerely," "Best wishes," etc. (Unless you're being ironic.)
Facebook posts aren't letters. They aren't even email. They are wall posts, descendants of graffiti in urban spaces. Your identity is obvious as soon as it shows up on the wall, so there's no need to identify yourself. Any niceties on the front or back of your post make it seem like you are completely lost or are suffering from momentary amnesia. The bright, electric screen and pictures of your cousin's birthday party should make it obvious you're not crafting a epistemological masterpiece, Mr. Hemingway.
4. Don't harass gamer girls.
I've been playing a lot of Halo: Reach lately. Every so often, a female gamer will be part of one the games. The second a female voice is heard by the rest of the (male) players, the discourse, gaming, and general vibe of the experience goes downhill immediately.
Exemplar comments:
-'You sound hot. Where do you live?'
-'Do you have a boyfriend?'
-'I have a girlfriend, but I'd do you.'
-'How about you give me your phone number? I'll sext you.'
-'I just killed you. That kinda turns me on. Does it turn you on?'
And so on.
This really ruins the experience of all the gamers, not just the females. I feel like there are enough experiential boundaries to getting into a competitive, relatively complex game like Halo: Reach to start throwing up crude social barriers to the gaming experience as well. And while not every gamer will look like the girls in this pertinent video, the gaming experience should be as open and welcoming to everyone as possible. If nothing else, having a larger number of players simply enriches the game play of all.
5. People don't care about your Farmville cows. (And neither should you.)
I know Zenga is making a zillion dollars a week by incentivizing time wasting to people around the world, but the last thing I want on my Facebook newsfeed is to hear about your new baby calf having diarrhea, what your mafioso crew did to some speakeasy, or that your pirates just assassinated a trove of pink unicorns.Yes, I know I can block stuff like this, but should I really have to?
6. You are not your dog, Martin Luther King Jr., or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Your Facebook profile picture should reflect this.
7. People do not want to be fans of your employer.
Congratulations! I'm glad you got that great new job at Target, I really am. I was tired of paying your half of the rent, anyway. But this does not mean I want to become a fan of Target, and I think you owe it to me not to suggest such a thing. Please. (By the way, you still do owe me $1200 and I'm not a fan of that, either.)
8. If you're going to post a link to an article, add a personal comment about it.
It's great that you think that Tom Friedman/Michelle Malkin/Any Huffington Post Contributor's latest diatribe is so insightful. But why? As Yoda once said: Posting an article does not an opinion make.
9. Don't hate (on Social Media).
I've been in more than one conversation with people who state that they 'hate, just absolutely hate' Twitter/Facebook/bloggers. And yet, when the question is asked, 'have you ever actually been on Twitter/Facebook/a blog?' The answer is almost always no.
People are entitled to opinions. But uninformed opinions... Not so much.
10. Yes, Professor, I am looking at Facebook during class.
And so is everyone else.
Although the argument is sometimes made that computers in the classroom detract from the classroom experience, in computer science classes, new media classes, and the like computer-centric classrooms are a necessary evil. In more and more college classes these days students are bringing their laptops (and at least their cell phones) into class. And all of these students have Facebook or Twitter or GMail open while they are in class. It's a fact of contemporary life. For instructors, this simply means that your margin of attention grabbing error is smaller than ever. The best perspective, in my opinion, is to see classroom Facebook use as a symptom of a problem, not the actual problem.
The actual problem is that you haven't sold me on the idea of what you're teaching is actually important and/or interesting. Although we all know cognitively that we're already paying tuition, you're going to give us grades at the end of the semester and that this material will be on the final exam, it all doesn't matter when the cute girl/guy from the party last night just added us as a friend and we now have access to all their pictures from last spring break. Yes, professors, this means that you are competing against co-eds in swimsuits on the beach.
Time to earn your tenure.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wiki
Many moons ago, my friend Hannibal and I were tasked with making a project Wiki for the Naval Academy's CDX team. Every lesson learned, every tool used had to have the appropriate documentation added to the Wiki. By the end, I felt pretty savvy on the Wiki stuff.
That was then, this is now, however. Revisiting the MediaWiki software, I was quickly reminded about some of the quirks of the markup language and all the various ways an administrator has to customize the interface to get it up to a familiar level of Wiki functionality.
The biggest markup issue I had was with the image alignment. Somewhat counterintuitively, the markup language built into MediaWiki does not add breaks after images. More counterintuitively, the standard html "<br />" doesn't do the job either. As a result, this was our article:
That was then, this is now, however. Revisiting the MediaWiki software, I was quickly reminded about some of the quirks of the markup language and all the various ways an administrator has to customize the interface to get it up to a familiar level of Wiki functionality.
The biggest markup issue I had was with the image alignment. Somewhat counterintuitively, the markup language built into MediaWiki does not add breaks after images. More counterintuitively, the standard html "<br />" doesn't do the job either. As a result, this was our article:
All that was left, of course, was to dig waaaaay into the documentation and I finally found--sandwiched between all sorts of other image format code a single sentence that provided a "<br style="clear: both" />" snippet. I'd never seen this before. It worked, however.
Finished page: http://www.english.digitalodu.com/courses/fa10/539/wiki/index.php?title=The_Joshua_Tree_Epiphany
That said, I still find MediaWiki extremely easy and user friendly. It is still my favorite Wiki software out there and I appreciate that the Wikipedia Foundation folks are still willing to distribute older versions of their software for free. It really is a great example of why Open Source products can work.
Purpose:
WikiMedia is an environment that allows users to publish Wiki articles in private domains. It produces a Wiki product that is similar in look and feel to Wikipedia.org's pages.
Product:
About as good as it gets. I know that the Wikipedia folks use a newer version of this software, and that it has additional functionality that I looked for when developing our page. The version of WikiMedia that we used was appropriate for the task.
Process:
Generating pages in groups is always ideal. Having multiple users working on the same page provides a QA and often deepens the depth of the information presented. Larger groups make for better groups. I'm sure there is a number of diminishing returns, but Wiki software is by it's very nature collaborative. I think doing one article as an entire class would have been a more interesting exercise.
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Problem
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| Candyland: War College Edition |
Last week, Wired's Dangerroom Blog wrote about a Army Colonel who was relieved of duty in Iraq after writing a generally unflattering article about the US military's use--or rather, mis-use--of PowerPoint. The Colonel laments, "endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information.” He was relieved less than 48 hours after the article hit UPI, a newswire service.
While I can't quite figure out why the colonel would choose to release this over a wire service rather than a blog or some other, less 'commercial' forum--as Wired points out, the Army (and the military in general) has been generally hands off soldier's blogs and online postings--I agree with his general conclusion. The military has developed a PowerPoint habit to the point of inanity. Rather than using it as a tool to convey information in a visual form, it has become the sole, de facto medium of communication from the Grunts on the ground and deckplate Sailors up to the general officer and Pentagon command structure.
As a student interest in the rhetorical and functional implications of various forms of electronic media, the drawbacks of relying solely on PowerPoint are obvious. Take, for example, the infamous PowerPoint slide at the top of this post. The New York Times and others have reported on the military's reliance-to-a-fault on PowerPoint and have used this leviathan slide to illustrate their point. To the credit of the flag-level Officers who view these everyday, it's obvious that they know that all nuance and many important details are stripped from the information by the data gets delivered to them in slide form, yet this does not prevent this from the being the day-to-day status quo of decision making strategists.
Two issues:
1. From my level, I am usually directed to format a slide(s) in a particular way that I know is less effective than another method I have either learned or studied. There are certain formats ("stop-lights," "quadrant-slides," etc.) that I continuously produce or see being produced that are just not the most effective way to convey information to the "chain-of-command," but this is what the CoC demands--or implies that it demands. The reliance on these slides likely derives from the lowest common denominator of PowerPoint users. Most military users suck at PowerPoint, do all or most of the PowerPoint sins, and this ineffective use has evolved into an equally ineffective culture of information flow.
I believe that it is absolutely essential to fix the culture of ineffective info flow.
2. Returning to the slide that starts this post, the slide itself is essentially accurate. But, if the "medium is the message," then it's the medium that muddles the usefulness of what is presented here. The question I'm am very much concerned with is the same one The Guardian poses: How can it be done better? Can it be done better with PowerPoint or any other tool for that matter? The Guardian posed it as an open-ended question, and seems to have received anything in the comments section of any real substance.
So, professional writers, there's our gauntlet. America needs our help.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hello ENGL 539!
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| Tuition? How about a kidney! |
So, this is me getting back on the wagon. And getting academic credit for it.
It took a deal of good fortune to get me to get here. A fortunate schedule that has my ship in an extended repair period, kidney surgery (see picture), and an upcoming transfer out of the Surface Warfare Community all aligned to allow me the opportunity to take a full graduate course load at ODU this fall. It may still be a challenge to accomplish everything--especially when I'm back to full duty--but this was my window of opportunity.
So, for the English 539 and 662 assignments and every other void that having an online expository platform such as this might fill: Hello World!
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