Posts Tagged Vancouver
Thugs, Cheerleaders or Citizen Journalists?
Posted by Paul Holmes in internet, photography, social media, society on June 17, 2011
The wounds are still fresh in the minds, and on the streets, of Vancouver.
We are angry, frustrated, and embarrassed about what some people made of the beautiful city of Vancouver on June 15th. As people around the world fight for freedom, and against tyranny, we smash cars and windows, ostensibly, because of a hockey game.
Much of the outrage heard on talk radio, the blogosphere, and social media itself, is about the so-called cheerleaders who stayed when the police asked everyone to leave. They kept their cell phones running, taking photos and videos, and posting them.
In social media circles, this could be called live-blogging.
So, did their presence instigate the problem, or were they getting in the way of the Police? Probably a little of both.
But the larger question is this: In an age of Citizen Journalism, were they Citizens or Journalists?
I guarantee that somebody will offer as defense in court over the next few months that they were exercising journalistic freedom by staying after the police asked them to leave.
After all, the traditional media didn’t leave. They were doing a public service, right? And, yet, no doubt, their presence inspired the rioters to continue, too.
Here’s the reality: There’s no Press Pass for a riot.
So where do we draw the line? If you have a popular blog, are you a journalist? If you have a Facebook page, are you a journalist?
Can you see police announce over a loudspeaker: If you have a Klout score below 62, you must immediately leave the area.
We’ve seen numerous other “publishing” laws apply to individuals (typically to the Facebook user’s surprise and detriment). In this case, we will see push back from self-styled citizen journalists who claim their presence was no different than the TV camera, or the newspaper photographer.
Are they correct? I suppose this will be for the courts to decide.
I’m willing to bet some lawyer with a name to make will drag this one as far up the court system as possible. I anxiously await the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in 2015.
As a total aside, love them or hate them, much of the citizen journalists’ content is helping police catch the real instigators.
Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt
Social Media Presentation in Vancouver
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, events, social media, speaking on November 7, 2010
On October 18th, I was invited by the Cambie Village Business Association to speak about social media for businesspeople in their organization and community. Many in attendance were retailers, but there were several other types of businesses represented too.
I often speak about social media, so that’s not the particularly interesting part.
What was very cool was that it was in an old restored movie theatre – The Park Theatre on Cambie Street. They have a fabulous new projector, and have done a phenomenal job updating the old theatre.
Its also the largest screen I have ever projected PowerPoint on!
A few folks asked for my slides, which are not terribly self-explanatory without the dialog. Here they are:
Next time, hopefully, my name will be in lights!
My Crappy E-Book – DELIVERED!
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, events, personal, social media on July 13, 2010
Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?! BUY MY E-BOOK!
Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?!
No, I’m not going to charge $0.99 (or 2 for $1.97), as promised, and the first 1,000 people to retweet it will not get a free copy.
This advice is free – for everybody:
The number of followers you have on Twitter means absolutely nothing.
Remember the old analogy: it doesn’t matter how big it is, it matters how you use it.
If you engage with others in a spirit of community (you know, helping your neighbours…), you win and your followers win.
Twitter is an amazing channel for communication, but there are a few things that make it awkward, or even annoying and counter-intuitive. Add spammers to the mix, and the whole experience gets a bit hairy.
So, here’s how I got to 10,000 followers:
1. I stopped caring about the “Home” feed.
The home feed is an age old dilemma for serious Twitter users – once you start following more than a couple hundred people, your home feed becomes effectively useless.
The old answer was to start a “secret” account where you secretly follow the people you really want to? Today, this is much simpler – build a list of the people you truly want to follow.
I use many lists and searches to find who and what I’m looking for on Twitter.
The home feed is dead to me.
2. I discovered the best ways to alert people to your existence is to follow them or list them.
Most people start on Twitter by writing stuff. Intelligent, informative or witty tweets don’t mean anything if nobody is paying attention. Some people get bored and quit; others learn about tagging posts, searching, retweeting, following people, and replying.
I am most interested in connecting with people in my geographic region – Victoria, Vancouver Island, Vancouver, Seattle. This is both natural, and a business decision (my main business, IdeaZone.ca, serves clients primarily in Victoria, and I organize events to serve the region, like the upcoming Social Media Camp).
So I find people I want to connect with, I follow them, and I list them. What have I noticed? Many of them tend to follow-back, and often they send a message.
Many people don’t follow-back.
This is totally fine, and I will eventually unfollow these people. Does that mean I don’t like them anymore? No. It doesn’t matter to me? Remember, I don’t read my home feed, I keep them on my lists, and they still show up in my searches. Some of the best interactions I have are with people who don’t follow me.
I unfollow them simply because Twitter won’t let you follow more than 110% of your followers, so they are using up a notch in my ability to discover and connect with new people by alerting them with a follow.
3. As a policy, I follow people who follow me.
I do this for two reasons: (1) I don’t have time to filter through and find the good or bad accounts, and (2) people cannot send you a DM if you don’t follow them.
The latter is important (for me, not everybody). I’m in business, if I prevent somebody from sending me a DM, I might be preventing them from sending me business, or a referral. I don’t want to risk snubbing a potential client.
I’m fairly certain this policy means I’m “following” some pretty sketchy accounts as a result, but remember, I don’t read my home feed, so all the sketchy people in the world could follow me, and it means nothing to me.
And this, my friends, is how I got to 10,000 followers on Twitter, probably half of them are real people I want to connect with, and the other half are spammers. To the uninformed, it might look pretty to have 10,000 followers, but I can assure you it means nothing – but the several hundred or so folks I have had the privilege of connecting with on Twitter have made a huge difference in my business, and my life.
Thanks for connecting with me!
And thanks for reading My Crappy E-Book.
Vancouver
Posted by Paul Holmes in music, photography on February 10, 2010
The Olympics gets underway in a couple days. I found this beautiful time-lapse video of Vancouver. Enjoy!
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