The blog for my Fall 2008 New Media In Journalism class is here:
http://sjsumcom63.wordpress.com/
If you are reading this you are invited to check out the blog and/or the class itself! The class meets Wednesdays at 6 p.m. in room 226 in Dwight Bentel Hall at San Jose State University.
You can just show up if you like. If you have more questions you can e-mail me of course but, since e-mail is so last century, you can also text me (or call) at 408/605.0692.
I hope to see you there!
~Steve
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca
Companies Don't Blog - People Do
As Mike Sansone said, "One of the challenges a company faces when launching a blog, is making the leap from corporate-speak marketing lingo to a more personable message." Whitmore's so-called "blog" fall's far short of that goal. It is pure corporate-speak marketing lingo and is virtually devoid of a personable message. You can hardly even call it Whitmore's Blog as it is obviously not written by Jon Whitmore. Some flack in marketing is obviously writing this and is throwing in selected quotes from Whitmore. That, my friends, is pure corporate-speak marketing lingo, otherwise known as bull shit.
Is Whitmore's Blog even a blog?
The minimum requirement for a web site to be a blog is that it have content, and that it be sorted in reverse chronological order. But, I expect more than that from the president of a university claiming to power Silicon Valley. To quote Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, "I believe the term “blog” means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume. We’ve allowed comments here on TechCrunch since it started. At times, user comments can be painful to deal with. But they also keep the writer honest, and make the content vastly more interesting."
Here is a short shopping list of what I expect from a genuine blog from the president of my university:
But, I have found a real use for Whitmore's blog.
I use it in my new media class as an example, an example of what not to do with a blog. In my opinion Whitmore's so-called "blog" is worse for SJSU than no blog at all. It makes us all look lame. Where should my university start if they really want to do this right? I suggest starting here, with Scoble's Corporate Weblog Manifesto.
UPDATE 1, Mon Sep 1 16:11:43 PDT 2008: As of this time; Whitmore's blog does now appear to have an RSS feed!
(That must have been a lot of fun to make without permalinks for the posts? It possibly was a very manual process of hacking XML code)
UPDATE 2, Tue Sep 2 06:25:59 PDT 2008: The blog appears to have been done in what we call WEBCMS7, this is a content management system (CMS) we use to provide accessible Web page content to folks with disabilities on SJSU Web sites. It is a decent tool for that, but WEBCMS7 is not (normally) a blogging tool. I do not know of any way to provide permalinks to or commenting on a page in WEBCMS7. That brings up another question, is there an accessible blogging tool? I do not know the answer to that one.
Here is more information about accessible blogging tools, IMHO we need this at SJSU.
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, President Whitmore, Jon Whitmore, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca
Rogers Cadenhead, of the Drudge Retort, has blogged at length about the now settled conflict between him and the Associated Press. According to Cadenhead, "I got offers of help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen and the Stanford Fair Use Project." In his blogpost Cadenhead said:
I think AP and other media organizations should focus on how to encourage bloggers to link their stories in the manner they like, rather than hoping their lawyers can rebottle the genie of social news. Given the publicity of this dispute, the first blogger sued for excerpting a news story will have the best pro bono legal representation that massive press attention can buy.
According to Fox News, Cadenhead's lawyer, Wade Duchene said, "I hope that any guidelines that are issued (by AP) are not interpreted as an agreed definition of fair use."
Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media Law, blogging, Newspapers, J-school, ssloansjca
Unless we can say something to students about how they are going to get real money for blogging, it all sounds like evangelistic crap!
We can tell our students about blogging and Web 2.0 until we are blue in the face. But, unless we can at least say something to our students about how they are going to get real money for blogging the whole conversation is going to sound like evangelistic crap. So, we as teachers of new media have to listen when somebody who has authority talks about this subject. Whether you agree with him or not, you need to read this post by Michael Arrington on Tech Crunch. Among the things he has said:
"So today, at best, I’d describe the blogosphere as a frontier town with no lawman..."
and
"...writing good content is only half the battle. You have to figure out the complex, dynamic web of politics between bloggers and mainstream media before you post to know where to get support."
UPDATE (14:29 PDT: Scoble responds to Arrington):
"Lately blogging seems like it has lost its way. Why? Well, looking at TechMeme you can see why: the professionals have taken over and have redefined what blogging is."
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, blogging, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca
Five years of blogging
Five years ago today I made my first blog post. That led to a lot of things, including launching the first podcast in higher education. The best part is how much I have learned over that period, the people I met through this the great conversations this led to and especially the opportunity to teach new media at SJSU.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Vlogging, Podcasting, ssloansjca
Fall 2007 New Media Class
I am really sorry my Fall 2007 new media in journalism class is over. We had a lot of fun. This was a great group and all of them accomplished a lot. Every student graduated with his or her own podcast. We did Photoshop, InDesign (for web delivery), Dreamweaver, audio/video production, RSS, blogging, video blogging (vlogging) and podcasting. They did a great job and I am very proud of them. Here are their stories:
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, Jour96e, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca
I wrote this to my class on our class blog
Sit down, I have something important to tell you...
I was in my twenties when my father died. My youngest son was about a year old. My dad died of a rare disease, but this is not about my dad, it is about you. Every day is a gift. This is not just a gift to you. Each day of your life is a gift to all the people who love you and anybody who does now and or will someday want to know you. Believe it or not what happens to you is important. We think we have a long time, but we never know, we likely do, but...
My first wife was thirty-three when she was killed in a car accident. In a blink of an eye she was gone and I was a dad raising three kids on my own. Her story passed to me to tell them. But, this is not about her, or me, it is about you. You may live to be over a 100, but someday you will not be around to tell the story of who you are now. But, now you can tell that story, you have the power to tell that story now, to the whole world.
Gone the Sun
In the book Gone the Sun, Winston Groom writes, “Sometimes I think we should be issued another paper, a Life Certificate if you will – which could contain some brief statement for historical purposes that could explain how a person lived and what they accomplished and where they failed and why.”
You have a story to tell to people who may not be alive yet
Someday somebody will wonder what it is like to be you, now. Maybe your children, grandchildren, great...
Maybe that person will be you
You may someday look back on life and wonder what it was like to be you, now. You may someday be your own audience. You can also share stories as you remember them of folks you care about who are already gone...
"Hey, my name is Rianna,
I am a Junior at Tesoro High School and I am on the varsity song team." This is what Rianna's MySpace blog says. According to the LA Times, "Rianna Woolsey, a 16-year-old cheerleader, last logged onto MySpace.com on Dec. 6, 2005. She died the next day when her car smashed into a tree near her home in southern Orange County." Her page that has not changed since her death. The page is a time capsule of a life cut short. The only part that is different is the section where readers post comments. Since her death over two years year ago, friends have written probably over 1000 messages there. Her friends whom she authorized to post to her page still are posting there, to her, to this day. When I mentioned her on our class blog last year, I received a nice Email from a member of her family thanking me for mentioning her, for remembering Rianna. This person found the post through Google. As I mentioned in that blog post:
Every blog post we make builds our legacy and tells the story of our lives. This is so important, this is what folks will look back on when we are gone. This is our lives with permalinks and cached in Google. Her (Rianna's) words, my first wife Candy’s words, or my sister’s (who died from Cancer a few years ago) words, or my father’s words, all these words and stories I have, and the stories you have, that we hold in our memories can now be written and shared in the world by us and those living with us and preserved for a world without us. Rianna’s continuing story is in the comments of Rianna’s MySpace page. Her memory is shared for those who never knew her there. It is a story started by her before her death certificate and still being written by those who remember her.
As you contemplate your final movies for this class or even your next post to your blog or MySpace or Facebook, or wherever; remember, you don't have to be heavy, or try to do something poignant. Your memory of the best burrito you ever had in your entire life is a good story, an important story. It is a story that may be real important to someone who wants to hear that story either today or someday. Perhaps that person, someday, may be you. I wish I had videos of loved ones lost telling the story of the best burrito they ever had.
Technorati Tags: apple, Ipod, Blogging, Vlogging, Podcasting, ssloansjca
What Journalism Students are Having for Lunch
In my class today we did a fun assignment. I wanted the students to be able to tell a story on the Internet using video. So I came up with an assignment where they do a short video talking about that they had for lunch, and post it to the class blog. It ended up being a lot of fun and the answers are pretty interesting I think. They did a great job!
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school
We had a great time presenting at JACC
What a thrill and honor it was for Cynthia McCune and I presenting at yesterday's Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) Northern California conference at SJSU. It was standing room only in the room. We had a limited amount of time so I had to rush through this PowerPoint. If folks would like to view it at a slower pace, here it is in PDF format. To save file space I have not encapsulated the videos. Links to them are in this PDF.
Some folks asked, how do I get started using emerging technology? In my opinion the place to start is to start a blog. No matter what it is about, start. It can be about your friends and family. It doesn't matter (in fact that can be the best place to start) blogging is as easy as doing email! Set aside a couple of minutes every day. You have to use the tools regularly in my humble opinion (IMHO). Besides, sending a daily email to the world every day can be a real gift to your future generations and to yourself a few years from now.
Then, I recommend you start reading. Here is a brief reading list to get you started:
Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
~Steve
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school, JACC
On measuring social media
Jeremiah Owyang is my latest and one of the best bloggers I have subscribed to. This post is about the effectiveness of measuring social media:
Curt Hopkins writes me, he questions if we should ever be effective in measuring social media. Is it an art? Can ‘human’ activity truly be measured. As you know, I’ve been focusing a lot of thought on social media measurement, I believe that whoever has the measurement has the authority, and when the TV resources shift to web, they will be a key driving force...
Technorati Tags: Social Media, Jeremiah Owyang, ssloansjca
Your Assignment: Jeremiah Owyang's Blog
Last night I went to the Social Media Club's meeting at NBC 11 in San Jose. The event's focus was on Business Blogging. The panel of speakers at the meeting were:
All of the speakers were impressive. Mike McGrath moderated the panel. He did a great job. Two of my former students were there. Kyle Hansen and Jessica Drnek are interns this summer at NBC11. They are working on NBC11's Hometown Project, a website that breaks down the neighborhoods of their broadcast area. (According to Drnek, the skills they got through the class professor Cynthia McCune and I taught and the emerging technology club at SJSU helped them land these internships.) The panel was great and after the panel I was able to spend a good amount of time speaking to other meeting attendees and presenters including McGrath (who turned me on to Infotopia), Elisa Camahort and Jeremiah Owyang. Owyang works at Podtech with another former student and friend, Robert Scoble.
Owyang turned me on to Ustream, a technology I am planning to explore for my class and to investigate for possible pedagogical applications in higher education. I will get back to this blog on that. Meantime, you have to check out Owyang's blog! It is great. He covers his subject well and I was especially impressed with his citizen journalism category. I urge folks to check it out!
[Owyang's Post With Video Here]
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, Social Media Club, Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca
Thank God I am not an at-will employee
Today Scoble posted about an executive whom he talked to who got fired after talking to him. According to Scoble, "Most big companies, in their employment agreements, have in there that you aren’t allowed to talk with the press unless given permission by the PR departments." Then I thought about a conversation I had the other day with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal. (He was doing a follow up interview on the status of Skype at San Jose State University.) I felt totally at-ease talking to him because here at San Jose State we have a union. I am not an at-will employee. Of course, there are other lesser ways to punish an employee rather than fire him/her. But, I think the right of free speech in the workplace is important and I am willing to pay the price to exercise it.
Would my blogging and podcasting have gotten me fired were we not a union shop?
I have no way of knowing for sure because that would have changed everything. I might never have even blogged. But then, I would likely have never even applied at SJSU, because when I did apply having a union and free speech was a primary consideration. But, if you asked me in my opinion, I think I would have been fired long ago. They have been furious at me more than once for things I have published, blogged and/or podcast. One persons free expression is another persons trouble making.
How un-Cluetrain of them!
Apple may make cool gear, but I hate their anti free speech policies. According to Scoble, "I’ve met some people I KNEW had an iPhone and they were so scared of retribution or consequences that they wouldn’t answer a single question." Sometimes I ask myself if freedom of speech is so important to my why do I keep buying Apple hardware? Apple's attitude makes me feel better about the new Treo I bought. Now, according to Scoble Apple-like policies may be spreading to Microsoft, "Have you noticed that no one has started talking about the next version of Windows? I have. That’s on purpose. They learned their lesson and realized that letting you see inside the meat factory is a little too messy for this new world of PR. Rather keep all that mess behind corporate walls and come out when something is actually finished."
Do we really have free speech in this country?
Do we really have free speech if a company is allowed to fire an employee for speaking to the press? We may not send folks to jail for exercising their rights of free speech, we just deprive them of their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Is that really free speech? In my opinion it is not. And again I say, Thank God I am not an at-will employee. And, thank God we have unions where I work. I wish more folks did.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Free Speech, Apple, Scoblizer, Cluetrain, Web 2.0, Scoble, ssloansjca
Fighting back against bad service
This is how customers can fight back against poor customer service! Record the call (they do) and put it on the Internet. This is the power of global reach. I love the way "Mark" left the case number in just so the vendor knows who they made angry enough to put this video together.
Less than a week after starting vlogging I am busted!
Please be aware that you've exceeded 75% of your .Mac data transfer quota for the current period. At the current rate you may exceed your quota, especially if you have received this email towards the start of a two-week monitoring period (the 1st or the 16th of the month). If this happens, access to your site(s) will be turned off.
My new vlogs are here and here. I am no longer going to be casually posting my train and/or family videos on this tech blog. If you are interested in that content you may wish to look at the other two blogs and see if one suits your fancy.
~Steve
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, ssloansjca, Apple
Scoble on podcasting
At last night's class we showed this video by Jason Miller. We are using Scoble and Israel's book Naked Conversations as a text in the class. In the class I told the students that Scoble puts his phone number on his blog. They did not believe he would answer so I called him. He answered. It was very cool.
Scobles coming to SJSU?
Besides being an author, a professional podcaster and an A-list blogger, Bob is a long-time friend and a former student of our Journalism School. When we talked to him he said he would be happy to come and talk to our class. A month and a half ago, I talked to his wife Maryam, and at that time she was open to the idea of coming also. I am hoping she is still open to the idea and that they will both come. As far as I am concerned (this is my class) this event, should it happen, could be open to the world. Perhaps we could Skypecast it? It will definitely be podcast. Stay tuned for more!
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, ssloansjca, scoble, j-school
Presentation at CATS 2007
At the recent Community of Academic Technology Staff (CATS) conference in Fullerton I did a presentation on video blogging (aka vlogging.) I recorded the presentation and a copy of that is here in MP3 format. Sadly a problematic mic caused a lot of hiss in the recording and I did my best to filter that out. (Note to self: never trust untested equipment.)
The PowerPoint from the session is here. I had a lot of videos in the PowerPoint. I have removed those from this web version of the PowerPoint and replaced them with hyperlinks to the vlog posts. I will be presenting this presentation at this evenings Journalism 163 class. I am including direct links below for reference.
List of video blog posts from presentation:
Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, CATS, CATS2007, Fullerton, CSU Fullerton, California State University, San Jose, Vlogging, Video Blogging, Podcasting, Blogging, ssloansjca
Blograge: The darkness among us
I do not go to many conferences. This is because it is hard for me to get time off work and I usually have to pay for the conferences out of my own pocket. One of the conferences I have and am willing to pay to go to and take vacation time to attend is the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference a.k.a Etech. This year Etech and CATS2007 was scheduled at the same time. That and the fact that my employer paid me to go to CATS caused me to miss Etech this year.
Prominent female blogger getting death threats
Kathy Sierra writes the popular blog, Creating Passionate Users. She was scheduled to present a workshop at Etech this year. She did not go and canceled her presentation due to death threats she has been getting from within the blogging community. These threats have been in the form of both comments in her blog as well as hateful posts on other blogs. The sexual harassment nature of these has been so personal and so outrageous she is now afraid to go outside her house. She is not the only prominent female blogger who has been harassed. Prominent male bloggers have been trolled and harassed as well.
Scoble and other bloggers react
A-list blogger, podcaster and SJSU Alum Robert Scoble said, "I’m physically ill after reading what happened to Kathy Sierra. Maryam and several others here at PodTech asked me about it and are concerned since the same sites that are attacking Kathy also mentioned me and Maryam. Maryam is really freaked out about it. So am I." He said, "I’m going to stop blogging in support of Kathy, who I consider a friend and someone who’s voice would be dearly missed here. I’ll be back Monday."
What do we do about it?
As Sierra said, "death threats against bloggers are NOT 'protected speech.'" This is not the first time Scoble has taken time off due to harassment. He has been the target himself of vicious trolling. As Scoble said, "We have to fix this culture." There has been talk of a blogger code of conduct. If we don't find a way to fix this we could loose this. Harassment is not free speech and we cannot allow it to continue.
Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, Scoble, Kathy Sierra, Blogging, Blograge, Free Speech, ssloansjca
