Friday, January 30, 2015

NEW LEARNING NEW BOUNDARIES

    Attending Social Media classes is a joyful experience.
    New social media tools tumble out of closet with every new class. Last time it was " Pintarest", and this time it was "Tumblr" and "Storify". Each one different, each new and each interesting. While farmer pins your interests, latter permits you to weave fanciful stories on issues of your interest.
   With every new learning one can let his interests take visible shape. Boundaries of our knowledge, thinking, attitude and vision are expanding.
    New beginning, new learning and new boundaries.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Drivers of Social Media

Last week, we discussed what barriers to social media adoption are, and what some drivers could be. The "driver" group discussion focused on two key elements of social media drivers.
  1. Social media makes an organization able to easily interact with and be available to its supporters.
  2. Social media allows an organization to quickly and cheaply provide current information to a wide audience.
Essentially, social media drivers maintain that using social media effectively helps an organization to be able to share ideas and hear feedback.

Here are some more details from our discussion...
  • Social media makes an organization responsive to citizenship.
  • Fewer resources are required in terms of people working full-time on this issue.
  • Organizations will have more agency - they will be involved with the online conversation, which is a good thing, since the conversation will occur with or without them.
  • Communication can be created and sent out in a short time frame, to a wide reach of people.
  • Social media triggers and facilitates collaboration.
  • This type of media makes it easy to provide visual information and updates.
  • It is an informal setting that allows organizations to see what people think. They can see feedback, idea-sharing, and concerns - and respond easily.
  • Social media allows organizations to build strong relationships & trust.
  • Social media means that an organization will have a constant presence in the lives of its supporters.
  • Emergency communication and organizing is made very simple and effective with social media.
  • Social media allows for organizations to make authoritative information available to all.
  • It breaks down inhibitions and barriers, allowing an organization's message to be spread in multiple languages and across multiple platforms.
While it is important to also consider the barriers to social media usage, we "drivers" feel that the ideas listed above provide a clear argument to develop an effective social media strategy.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Ayojak- Case discussion


Hi all

It was very interesting to note that feedback received from the event holder group were on the same line as anticipated by our group. This prove two things, first we are learning the right thing and secondly, we are learning very quickly. Any way we are grateful to all our colleagues for extending the support in our endeavor.

One interesting fact which could not be deliberated much about the peculiarity of the ayojak with regard to 'e-ticketing' service. This unique service feature ,in fact, could be easily enacted by the company in promoting its brand by associating itself with the environmental cause. The 'save tree' motive could be utilized by the company to garner the emotional support of the clients and public at large.  It would really amazing feature ,if the company would be able to attach them-self with the people emotionally which is a social dimension of the networking. The social networking with the help of technology would be lively if any emotional flavor are added thereof.

Looking forward for your comments, please.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

In House or Outsource Your Social Media

An interesting take from a Social Media agency on why it might make sense for an organization to outsource it's social media activities. 
I wonder if this is a viable option for government agencies? 
Depending on pricing, it might make sense to embed a social media expert in a non-profit for a week or two to train the staff on the ins and outs of effective social media policy.

In or Out?

Case Analysis: Social Media Content Strategy at Ayojak

*Note: this is a group posting by Amanda Vitullo, Rose Ndong, Mahmet Guler, Ashok Nakra, Umashankar Kushwaha

Ayojak is an online event management website that offers services for both event hosts and event attendees. The company has two operational products: Ayojak Ticketing and Ayojak Social Meets, and is looking to add two additional products: Ayojak Conference and Ayojak Event Promote. Ayojak currently uses Facebook, Twitter and a corporate blog as their primary social media platforms. The company outsources the management of these platforms to a social media agency, Noida. Ayojak uses each of these platforms in distinctly different ways: Facebook is used to promote events and create awareness regarding Ayojak’s products; Twitter is used to promote events, interact with community members and provide customer service; and the blog is used to promote Ayojak’s products almost exclusively. Despite their social media efforts, however, Ayojak remains to have issues with engaging customers on these platforms and is looking to improve this as they begin to roll-out their newest products.

As a manager, the Ayojak case is particularly important because it outlines how having a social media strategy does not guarantee effectiveness. Additionally Ayojak’s social media approach outlines that although you can utilize a variety of platforms, if none of them are managed well they will not be effective. Currently, the biggest problems with Ayojak’s current social media strategy are:
  • apparent disconnect with their outsourced social media firm, Noida;
  • lack of balanced content on their Facebook and Twitter;
  • lack of posting consistency and variety;
  • missed opportunities to engage followers through an established hashtag;
  • and, missed opportunities to reach specific audiences on LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest.
In order for Ayojak to move forward with improving their social media strategy, it is suggested that they reconsider their contract with Noida. The goals the firm was given have clearly not been completed, which should raise questions regarding their effectiveness. The lack of balanced content on Facebook and Twitter is also an issue. On Facebook the posts too brand-focused and not focused enough on the customer, and on Twitter the posts are too customer focused and not brand-focused enough. There needs to be some kind of medium between the two. This also includes consistency with the posting, which fluctuates dramatically from month-to-month. Ayojak is also missing opportunities by not establishing a hashtag in order to engage users and quantify social media posts, and is also missing out on potential clients by not interacting on Pinterest and LinkedIn.


The suggested solutions to the above problems are as follows: return the social media department in-house, so that there is a greater connection between what is going on in the company and the social media content that is produced; increase content that focuses on the customer on the Facebook page (this could possibly be accomplished by posting more contests and quizzes) and increase content that focuses on the brand on Twitter; establish a clear and concise posting calendar for each month to increase consistency; and, expand social media presence to Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn in order to better reach potential B2B and B2C customers and transition the corporate blog to a video blog. By adopting this strategy, Ayojak will not only improve social media engagement, but will also improve their brand image.

About Tumblr

     Tumblr is a tool for creating microblog and a social networking site. It was founded in 2007 and now, it has more than 220 million blogs.


     Tumblr’s first feature is to easily create a small blog. In Tumblr, we can post all kinds of materials, such as text, photo, quote, link, audio, and video. It is very simple to use and easy to customize blogs because its user interface is basic and clear. Moreover, it has great feature of automatic editing. We can modify a blog by simply choosing a template and once this setting has been saved, every past post will have the same template. In addition, when we chose my template or color, we can see how it looks like simultaneously. It reduces the time to layout and to set the color scheme in Tumblr. This is one of the great advantages because we can choose many designs and try again and again. It can be really fun.
     There is another feature of Tumblr: Following and social networking. This is same as Facebook and twitter. If I follow someone’s blog, his or her blog post show up in my dashboard. As a result, we can see other bloggers posts and those who hit “like” and “reblogged”. These are similar function of “like ” and “retweet” in twitter.
      In terms of public sectors use, I followed the blog of White House. This is very simple and easy to read because it uses many pictures, links and captions are short. It looks very different from traditional government site and attractive for many people to read. Since it contains links to some pages from government sites, it is a good way to make them more accessible for Internet users. In addition, it has question function. We can ask question to the White House directly. In fact, they respond to some of the questions. For example, “What advice do you have for a collegestudent who dreams of working in the White House one day?” White house answered that white house internship is one way to start. This is one of the direct communication ways between government and citizens. However, having such kind of social media site requires a person to do the maintenance such as updating the information or responding to questions. This is one big problem for the government to maintain this social media tools. But for me, I guess the advantages still outweigh the disadvantages.  
   



Saturday, January 24, 2015

SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEVELOPING NATIONS

Debate about importance and utility of social media tools appear unnecessary. It is almost conclusively established by one and all that  social media tools are universally beneficial for all the socities regardless their geography, cultural history or economic status. Social media would alleviate all.
Still, there is need to ponder over the strategy for adopting social media in social milieu of a country. Different nations have evolved differently. Developing nations have different realties and stand on different pedestal. Social media tools may have limited utility for many constituent segments of such nations.
Governments have two major functions - Policy formulation and Service delivery. Social media is mostly about public opinion and feedback aimed at effecting improvements. While social media can provide wonderful contribution to policy makers, service delivery machinery may struggle to derive proportionate benefits from social media.
Typically, Departments entrusted with responsibility of implementing schemes and service delivery face serious constraints of budget, manpower and technology. Shortage of staff, insufficient manpower trained in computer skills, lack of budget, lack of technological and infrastructural support, heavy workload leaving little time for any thing else are factors which seriously limit the utility of social media tools in developing nations.
Faith, perseverance and patience may be the key to derive the best from internet revolution for developing nations.   

Friday, January 23, 2015

Cork'd comments

Issue : Cork'd as a wine social media network is facing a challenge because of constrained finances and the need to hire more developers to continue managing its growing user base.
Background : Till now the social media strategy of Cork'd has been two pronged. On the one hand it has provided individual users to interact with other users, upload profiles, review and rate wines, share their experiences and comment on wines on Facebook,Yelp and Twitter. It has allowed them to choose other similar minded users and form  'drinking buddies', further the users can purchase wines through linked third party websites which provide some revenue to Cork'd .Teaching about wines is the main theme, the users can also create wine shopping lists. On the other hand the wineries are registered for an annual fee of $999 which allows them to manage and maintain their own profile pages with direct links to their own websites. The wineries have an opportunity to interact directly with the users and learn about their feedback along with a possibility of making direct sales. The wineries are graded as 'verified' and are included in the weekly newsletter along with a listing in the wine tasting events.
Environment : The competition is very strong Snooth.com has a higher reach given their efficient shopping options, and the CellarTracker.com is focusing on the personalised inventory management and professional wine reviews . Cork'd is perceived as a startup with a focus on entry level customer and therefore is struggling with the low traffic and revenue figures.
Options :

  1. Cork'd can focus on increasing its individual user base which requires capital, since more developers and support would be required to manage the increased traffic and requirements of the site. This capital can come from the promoters or by adding more wineries.
  2. It could focus on enlisting more and more wineries in its fold. But this requires selling the concept to the wineries. The wineries would only come on board when they see a large and active user network.
Both the alternatives are somehow interlinked and it seems that Cork'd would have to generate some funds as a loan or investment by the promoter or market since  revenue from the wineries will not be forthcoming easily in the near future failing this  it is doomed given the fierce competition in the market.

Why should a monopolistic government organization use Social Media?.........


Dear Matt McReynolds, I think is that the purpose of the social media for the government is information sharing and getting the views of the citizens on various developmental aspects, policies, programs etc. It is not a question of the competition. Even in case of substitute service provider, by and large government’s objective is not to compete with the private service provider. However, it definitely tries to improve its service. I fully appreciate your view regarding risks of sharing information on social media. My advice would be as a government department/service provider you should exercise caution ‘as to what extent’ you should share the information on social media. You have to strike a balance. Further, I am of the opinion that all the government policies, programs, schemes etc. is for the citizens of the country and not for anybody else, therefore, govt. must share as much information as possible to the public subject to the condition that it do not compromise security and sovereignty of the nation. Further, I feel most of the services provided by the government is belong to social sector. Information sharing on social media by and large has no risk except in case of defence, security, intelligence etc. Social Media information sharing has become reality of life. 15 years ago when I see a person with mobile phone in hand I used to think they might be carrying it for show off. What purpose it will solve? But now everybody is using mobile phone and you would feel incomplete without it.  Gradually more useful services have been added to it gone far ahead from talking device. To summarize my argument, I would recommend use and promote social media in everyday life. If you are in an organisation, particularly in government, use with caution.

Neeraj Srivastava

Thursday, January 22, 2015

An encounter


My first interesting experience in US happened after about a fortnight of landing in this country. Interesting, it may be termed at hindsight, but at that time, it was kind of harrowing and nightmarish.

I along with my friend, who was on the driving seat, were in the University area during daytime. He, has been driving in US for last few months, but inadvertently failed to stop the vehicle at a stop sign. And just in a flash of seconds, a police car appeared behind us, as if it was there just waiting for us to violate the traffic rules. A horn from the police vehicle made my friend slow down the car, so as to wait the police car to cross us. He was perhaps secretly hoping  that either the transgression of the rules might not have been noticed or the horn was for someone else. A second shrill horn made him turn the car towards right and stop. We waited for few minutes, which seemed eternity,  in our car for any action, but nothing happened. The police car had also stopped behind us, but the officers did not chose to come out.

As per practice in India, where law enforcing officers are rule in themselves, and may not like to trouble themselves by moving out of their vehicle for such a small misdemeanor, we thought it better to come out of our car to plead with them to excuse us for our wrongdoing. Both of us, simultaneously came out of the car, and suddenly the officer was out shouting, pointing towards us and directing us to go inside the car, sit there with out hands in front. Not understanding the reason, but having no choice either we complied with his orders.

Thereafter, one officer approached us with look of suspicion and scorn, sought the driving license. My friend handed over his International Diving Permit issued in India, which was kind of a booklet, printed in various languages, authorizing to drive in US. Meanwhile, another officer appeared on the scene, who seemed to be more sympathetic, understanding and willing to listen. We explained him about being government officers, international students at SU, new to this country and also admitted the mistake.

Despite the understanding tone, subsequent light banter and  helpful attitude, the officers went by the book and handed over two tickets, one for not stopping at stop sign and another for driving without license and a date at DA office. We were explained that the ticket regarding driving without license can be argued at DA office as he could not make head and tail of International Driving Permit. The officers also guided us about location of DA office, other procedures and reasons why they behaved so as well as protocol in US in such matters.

My friend would be poorer by handful of dollars, but still it was a learning experience for us. Though we were on the wrong side of the law, but still were impressed with the professional attitude of the police officers.

Rajneesh           

india's online revolution


  
                            


India’s online revolution is on the edge of an exciting phase. At the turn of the century, the country had only 5 million Internet users, largely on dial-up connections delivered through fixed-line networks. In 2009, Internet use took off as mobile penetration grew and companies began to invest in data networks. By 2013, mobile Internet had overtaken fixed line, and mobile devices had become the sole access device for many people. Today, 230 million Indians are online, with 155 million of them using mobile devices.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. As a research study : In the next three years, India will see another mobile explosion as the online community more than doubles to 480 million. By 2017, 385 million people will have smartphones, six times more than today, and the number of online transactors will explode to 160 million—eight times as many as today. Data consumption will triple, and consumers will be buying five times as much content. This transformation will happen at an unprecedented pace.

            This e revolution will bring  empowerment , equity and efficiency of citizen for citizen and this will transform the peoples life. This revolution will enhance service delivery and programme implementation and monitoring
               


SO NEAR YET SO FAR

Thank you. Finally I am in. It took another 48 hours to come in.
Incidentally it has been quite a journey for me to get into Syracuse University. It all started with getting myself nominated into this course, the CAS Public Policy. When I applied and filled out the forms, I was told that the application cannot be connected by the processing Division. When I explained the course of my form and the path it had taken, the said Division replied in the negative and asked me to fill out another application. When that was done, the Division suddenly found my old form and set the ball into motion.
As things turned out, it became apparent that my own Department had yet not confirmed the approval of my case, and that had to be done on the day of this discovery as it was the last day. With great difficulty, I convinced the Sectional Officials to move my case for necessary approvals. I had to personally monitor the file movement and by 6 PM in the evening I was cleared by the top management. Now the problem was to put it across to the processing Division by going on to their website. When we starting doing that, to my great horror, we realized that the network is down and the local network engineers had taken a maintenance block for the next one hour. After an agonising sixty minutes, we filled in online, but the acknowledgement wouldn't come. since it was already past six, that is the office closing hour. I now made a frantic search for the officials over there, but no one answered the calls. Next I tried sending them emails, but all in vain. I was almost over and done, when one of my colleagues barged into my room with another file for discussion. Looking at my hassled state he asked as to what was the matter. I narrated my woes, and he smirked. I was nonplussed at his nonchalance, and stared him in the eye. He laughed and told me that he had the answer to my problem as he knew th concerned Officer in that Division. He was quickly contacted on the cell phone, and some more calls followed, and yet more more officials were roped in. The silver lining in this was that the concerned dealing clerk was still in office, and he finally was made to go to his desk and open up the system and acknowledge my application before the deadline. I had just managed to cling on.
The next battle ensued in the Embassy wherein the VISA application got rejected as the finger prints had not matched. It was already 6th of January and I had alraedy requested the airlines to reschedule my flight. But the VISA took another three days, and the flight had to be agian rescheduled. I had alraedy missed the orientation, and was now hoping to atleast attend the first lecture. But no sir, the first flight was available only for the 12th of January. I just managed to cling on.
When I reached here in Syracuse University , i was told that I cannot log in for registration as I had not yet matriculated. Now I was as mad as a hatter and ran like a frenzied bull in a China shopping arcade.The fact that it was my first day and I hardly anybody made matters worse. And then the weather was taking its own toll on  me. As I ran up and down trying to figure between Maxwell and Eggers, I realized that the time was already 3PM and I had to do something more. Somehow, Lady Luck took pity on me and I found the Universty official who had been in correspondence with me through email.
Finally, it took me another 48 hours to get in, much the same as here into this blogspot site.
Thanks Ateesh

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Test-my first blog

Hi all

I am really excited to get an opportunity to express myself to the highly educated online fraternity like you ....
I think it's going to a game changer in our social and professional life.

Creating content with all our resources made available by the powerful platforms will be challenging but interesting as well. The sharing and making useful comments will be exciting experience as well...

Looking forward your comments, please....

See you soon
Umashankar

Why should a monopolistic government organization use Social Media?

We had a lively discussion in class today re: pros and cons of using Social Media in govt. and non-profit organizations.

I have a fundamental question: If I run a govt. agency, and the services my agency provides are a monopoly (exg. Border Patrol or Treasury Dept.), what would be the real downside to choosing not to use social media outlets beyond just simply having a presence?  I have no competitors in my sector who may or may not be using social media.

I understand the argument from the private sector perspective--that if your company is not using social media outlets, your competitors will, thus putting your company at a competitive disadvantage.

If I view social media as posing more risk than reward to my organization, and I am a monopoly in my field with no competitors, can you make the argument for why I should consider using (or using more) social media options?

Thoughts?

Obama's 6th Union address

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama called on Congress to make community college free for most students, enhance tax credits for education and child care, and impose new taxes and fees on high-income earners and large financial institutions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/state-of-the-union-obama-ambitious-agenda-to-help-middle-class.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Test

Social Media class

Obama yesterday!

Mr president initiative from new york times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/state-of-the-union-obama-ambitious-agenda-to-help-middle-class.html

Introduction to blogging

Write text.

  1. Point 1: More text
  2. Point 2 Correction: Point 3


1.
Well,
Its good to be introduced to the world of blogging.
Thank you Ines !

Social media in Vietnam

This statistic shows the most popular social networks in Vietnam in April 2013, based on their number of unique visitors. During that month, ZING Me had 5.3 million unique visitors. Facebook hat 11.8 million unique visitors in Vietnam. Obviously, Facebook has become the most popular social network of young Vietnamese


Introduction to blogging

Getting a nice introduction to the class blog from Professor Mergel this morning. Next up on the agenda: a look at the online discussion surrounding #SOTU2015.


Introduction to Blogging

Could social media be vital to the future of citizen science projects?

Participating organizations:

  1. Cornell Lab of Ornithology
  2. National Audubon Society

Current programs:




Test

Test of Blogger. 


First Draft for Class 2015

Writing a blog about our ideas on a topic and share it easyly with other people is very interesting and intuitive. Thanks to technological advances we can do it now. I'd like to improve my skills and use them in my professional life.

class

1. good beginning.

Intro to Blogging

Good Morning,

My name is Stephanie Valdes and I am very excited to be learning about the best ways to blog. Sharing information with my fellow Maxwellian classmates seems like the perfect way to start!

Testing blog post

Figuring out how to link to things and change fonts on this blog.


SOCIAL MEDIA!

Social Media Class


The film "6 degress of seperation" is very interesting.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/six-degrees-of-separation/

Blog Testing for Matt

Formatting test
Formatting test
Formatting test
  1. Formatting test
#SOTU2015




E- gov initiative by Indian government

Govt of india has taken several initiative for e government . Today after my class I will write detail blog on the same

Pinteresting blogging

Follow our class board on Pinterest 
Hello all
This is interesting stuff. But what am I suppose to blog about?
Bala

Social Media....

Social Media, in terms of relationships, all boil down to mutual trust. Good start.

Introduction to Blogging

Hi All,

This is my first first blog post. Feels great !!!

Vikas Sheel
27383-5056

This is a trial blog post

I am learning to write blog posts in my social media class

Introduction to blogging

Today we are learning blogpost. Very interesting class!