The role of social media at the Creative Digifest #SXSC2
October 15, 2012
by Lisa Harris
The #SxSC2 event provided us with an additional opportunity to develop our DE USRG SMiLE project. The Social Media in Live Events project is exploring the practical, ethical, policy, data mining and management issues surrounding the use of technologies such as twitter and Facebook as a deliberate component in events. The project began with the planning of the CAA 2012 conference in early 2012. For the #SxSC2 event we were keen to build on the lessons learned from CAA2012. In particular:
- Build a community around the event in advance e.g. via the successive bio blog posts added each day for the two weeks prior to #SxSC2, and creation of #SxSC2 twitter lists to help attendees to follow other attendees and speakers before and after the event.
- Encourage attendees with no social media experience to learn more about it and, if wanted, provide a quick introduction to tools such as twitter.
- Provide practical support for extensive social media use e.g. charging stations, signs detailing hash tags etc.
- Raise awareness of issues raised via social media during the meeting in a way that exposed them to non-SM users e.g. use of Leaderboarded.com on screens and subsequent storifys
- Share video interviews and photographs with linked SM straight after the event to help communication of key ideas
- Create a social media archive of the event and demonstrate the potential of such an archive, particularly in the context of work by the Web Observatory and in relation to the JISC DataPool project.
- Encourage users to meet one-another physically, building on SM connections e.g. by printing SM icons on delegate badges.
The #digichamps played a vital role throughout the #SxSC2 event, organising, training, capturing and editing content and developing the community. You can learn more about their activities on the Digital Champions pages.
However, we didn’t manage to do everything that we planned. For example, we had hoped to print out emerging issues and enable users to meet physically in areas designated via hash tags used in the twitter feed. We could also have made far greater use of Leaderboarded.com’s extensive functionality as a means to add gamification components to #SxSC2. We had discussed various means to encourage physical meetings including use of mobile phone apps. to help serendipitous and deliberate encounters. Each of these will be explored further as we plan for #SxSC3.
Resources
We are collating a list of #SxSC2 storifys.
Photos from the event are available sotonDE flickr stream.
You can access the #SxSC2 page on Leaderboarded.com. There is also a post by the leaderboarded.com team about the event.
Creative Digifest top trending on Twitter in the UK with Leaderboarded
All those who tweeted with the event hash tag #SxSC2 got into the event leaderboard. The playersâ performance was ranked by their Twitter activity, Kred influence and Kred outreach weighted 40/30/30 correspondingly. The trendiness attracted lots of spambots, which were easily excluded from within the Leaderboarded application. […]
http://www.leaderboarded.com/home/2012/10/creative-digifest-leaderboarded/ (12th October)
Statistics
A total of 222 people registered to attend the #SxSC2 event and approximately 200 attended, with a quarter being external guests from a wide range of industries. The internal attendees came from across the University of Southampton.
So far there have been 109 views of the http://i-catchingmovies.co.uk/ films (which are available at http://www.youtube.com/user/icatchingmovies).
The streaming video during the event was watched at least 68 times. We have edited footage that can be viewed from SUSU.TV including recordings of all talks. We are exploring ways to link the video content to the social media content that surrounded it.
The sotonDE blog received 554 new visitors in the week of the conference, and it crept onto the first page of a google.co.uk search for ‘digital economy’.
During the event there were 59 shares of the live feed, 99 of the bio pages (in total), 144 of the programme of SxSC2 and 21 of the pre-event videos.
We have started to analyse the social media activity, starting with the twitter feed. As part of the JISC DataPool we established an internal ePrints archive of #SxSC2 tweets. So far this holds a total of 1908 tweets. Here is some summary information:
Top Hashtags
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Top Mentions
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Retweet and Mention networks
As part of our collaboration with the Web Observatory Ramine Tinati from the RCUK DE WebSci DTC has undertaken some initial analysis:
“Below are some basic statistics, plus some network graphs of the Retweet and Mention networks. I’ve also included a ‘classified’ retweet network graph, which represents the highly retweeted, and well-connected users within the #sxsc2 conversation.
“The classified network retweet graph enables a much clearer view of who has been not only influential within the Twitter conversations, but also who might be worth following or aggregating, potentially acting as valuable sources of information or content. The Red nodes (circles) represent users who have been highly retweeted within the network, and the Yellow nodes are those that have been aggregators of this content. Other users (the blue and the green nodes) do play a supplementary role within this network, facilitating the spread of content (Tweets, URLs, media) within the Twitter conversation, but the roles we are interested in (for the purpose of the observer) are the red and yellow nodes. This analysis is scale independent, and is based upon the dynamic properties of individuals within a Twitter conversation network, rather than the volume of Tweets or their static friends/follower network.”
More details of the methods employed are introduced in the following eprint.
Identifying communicator roles in Twitter
Tinati, Ramine, Carr, Leslie, Hall, Wendy and Bentwood, Jonny (2012) Identifying communicator roles in Twitter. In, Mining Social Network Dynamics (MSND 2012), Lyon, FR, 16 – 20 Apr 2012. 8pp. (Submitted). […]
Video showing evolving tweet network by @raminetinati
The first of the Web Science debate series of the 2012-13 academic year 17.10.2012 - 17.10.2012
“This house believes that privacy is not worth paying for”
Tim Davies    Dominic Hobson    Mark Frank    Maire Evans    Jack Townsend
Everyone welcome      Sandwiches and danishes
Would you like to speak briefly at a future debate? If so contact Jack Townsend.
Storifys from #SxSC2
by Graeme Earl
We are starting to hear about storifys being created for #SxSC2. Please contact us to add to the list below.
Storify by Amir Arya – Creative DigiFest #SxSC2: “Here’s a catch-up on Creative DigiFest #SxSC2, the event that was organised on 11 October 2012 with the main theme of technology developments in digital world…”
Storify by C01 – Creative DigiFest #SXSC 2: “University of Southampton 11 October 2012: http://digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk/events/1313…”
Storify by Nikoletta Toumazatou – Creative DigiFest #SXSC 2 (11.10.2012): “How are digital networks transforming our lives? What can the latest technologies do for you? @University of Southampton…”
http://storify.com/ESopasi/creative-digifest-sxsc2-11-10-2012 by Evi Sopasi
âNothing is what is seems when itâs free …â
by Karen Woods
Sage words from Mike Lister, one of the panel members at SXSC2. How many of us have been seduced into attending a boring meeting by the promise of a quality buffet or a glass of decent wine? Or maybe youâve handed over your personal details to a website in exchange for a 20 per cent voucher off the price of something or other? Surely thereâs no harm in Facebook, Google etc because they are useful services and, besides, they are free?
The marketing guru added a commercial perspective to the discussions on the future of digital technologies. Earlier, keynote speaker and author of Digital Vertigo, Andrew Keen (who wasnât too upset at being dubbed âthe antichrist of the Internetâ) called for us to âfight again the economy of freeâ and urged debate on new business models and the urgency for widespread data literacy, before all our personal information ends up in the virtual vaults of the big social media companies. He even asked us to think seriously about government restrictions on the free market of information.
According to Mike, Facebook isnât a social network, itâs an advertising stream: Google isnât a search engine, itâs an avid collector of personal information for its own financial devices.
According to Andrew, many web marketeers think âprivacy is for old people â like a gas light, it will just fade awayâ.
Food for thought? Prawn vol-au-vent anyone?
#SxSC2 live stream
by Graeme Earl
#SxSC2 is now finished. Many thanks indeed to the hundreds of you who attended, both physically and virtually, and for all the social media contributions. We will make the videos recorded during the day available in the next few days, and there will be lots of storifys and other follow-ups. Thanks again. Hope to see you all at #SxSC3 :-)
#SxSC2 bio tag clouds
by Graeme Earl
Here is a tag cloud representing many of the answers we received from the speakers at #SxSC. They were produced by Tom Frankland whose PhD forms part of the RCUK DE PATINA project:
“I’m interested by whether tagclouds can be used to promote group awareness. On an archaeological site conversations occur in many forms, and over the last 10 years at Catalhoyuk, Turkey, archaeologists have been using diaries as a way to communicate with one another. By combining natural language processing with visualisation, my research explores whether tagclouds generated from these diary entries can bring people together and open up new channels of communication.”
You can read all the bios here.
SxSC2 tag cloud
Georgi Georgiev discusses #webscience at #SxSC2
by Graeme Earl
Georgi Georgiev one of the UoS Digital Champions discusses #webscience at #SxSC2
Ian Brown introduces the Web Observatory for #SxSC2
by Graeme Earl
Ian Brown introduces the Web Observatory in advance of the #SxSC2 event.
Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Guy Stephens
October 10, 2012
by Lisa Harris
Guy Stephens, Social Media/Enterprise Social Network Consultant at Capgemini.
Guy has over fourteen years experience in the digital space, the last six or so focusing on social media. Guy has been described by Dr Dave Chaffey as ‘one of the world’s leading thinkers’ on the use of social media customer service, and was seen as an early adopter in this space by Business Week. While at The Carphone Warehouse he set up the use of social media within customer service, back in 2008. This work was written up in a Forrester Report – How Carphone Warehouse Uses Twitter And Social Media To Transform Customer Service.
Guy currently works with large organisations to help them understand the business transformation challenges social media has on the way they engage with their customers, as well as the impact it has on the way they work and communicate. His work covers everything from designing social media command centres through to working with companies such as Yammer, HootSuite, GetSatisfaction and Salesforce.
Guy also acts as a mentor as part of Capgemini University, a programme jointly run by the University of Reading and the Henley Business School. In addition, he also works with Behind the Screen, a project creating a new type of IT GCSE, to design the social media module. Guy is a committee member of Digital Surrey, advisor to Leaderboarded.com, founder of the Social Media Governance Forum, regular contributor to various publications, conference speaker, avid Tweeter and lazy blogger.
In what ways are digital technologies transforming our lives?
We live in curious and somewhat paradoxical times. Social media is a proxy for change, disrupting established business models. On the one hand it is bringing a level of intimacy and humanity back into areas of the business such as customer service that have for decades been defined by Taylorism, and yet walk into any public space and we’re all consumed in our own little worlds tapping away on our smartphones or iPads. Intimacy on the screen, intimacy in a virtual space, alongside an ever-increasing sense of physical alienation. A world in which strangers are friends, privacy is characterised by apathy, convenience and cognitive polyphasia … as Clay Shirky writes – when we change the way we communicate we change society.
What can the latest technologies do for you?
Everything and nothing!
If youâre not online, are you out of the game?
Which game? Whose game? Who sets the rules? What are the rules? I’m reminded of Howard Rheingold talking about digital literacies – what skills plus social, do we need to survive?