The Tenure Track Dream Team presentation by Ines Mergel: "Why academics should tweet and blog too!", 10/08/2010 for PhD students and Postdocs at Syracuse University's Future Professorial Program, SU's Graduate Career Center and Graduate School
2. Social Media for Prospective Faculty:Why Academics Should Blog and Tweet, Too! THE TENURE TRACK DREAM:MAXIMIZE YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE Ines Mergel Assistant Professor, Public Administration
3. Disclaimer! These are my thoughts and not the thoughts of my department and they don’t represent the opinion of Syracuse University.
4. Social mediaSocial networking Academic networking What kind of relationships do you need? How can you tap into existing social networks?
5. Academia = Ivory tower Strict rules Hierarchical Based on seniority and merit BUT: Clash of generations
6. Old boys network vs. young gun problems http://www.cafepress.com/feminist_tees.38815686
7. Academic networking Photo source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/o/old_boys_network.asp What kind of ties do you need? Local & global Informal & formal Research, Teaching, Service Professional & social Practitioner & academic
9. Birds of a feather flock together Homophily in social networks Similarity breeds connection Result:Personal networks are (too) homogenous
10. Six Degrees of Separation & Small world phenomenon Watts, D. J. (1999). Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks Between Order and Randomness. Princeton University Press.
11. "The Strength of Weak Ties" (SWT) by Mark Granovetter Strong ties: arise from long-term, frequent, and sustained interactions Weak ties arise from infrequent and more casual interactions: bridge social distances Activate weak ties to accessinnovative information Picture source: http://www.wrike.com/projectmanagement/07/28/2008/Project-Management-Software-Mind-Mapping-Weak-Ties-and-the-Human-Brain
15. Developing a researcher profile through social media Twitter Weblog Find your network(s) and develop your digital self!
16. Social Media for Research: Collaboration, Resources & Dissemination wikis to coordinate the research and keep everyone up to date Co-writing: google docs [Ok for getting a document going but forget about formatting. Good for web surveys too.] Collecting resources: diigo.com [I've never really got into web bookmarking although I do like igoogle for keeping track of blogs.] Taking notes: evernote.com [Got this on my phone but not really started using it yet.] Sharing files: dropbox.com [Love this! Great for backing up key documents, making shared folders for teams and getting a URL for a document to make it public.] Organising references: mendeley.com [I have high hopes for Mendeley - here's my profile. I always struggled with the discipline needed to keep EndNote up to date but having access on various platforms to a single database version like this makes a lot of sense.] Collective intelligence: ning.com [I actually had no idea that I was already a member a ning network - ClimateSciNet - until I went to the page and looked at the URL. I guess they are professional networking sites but rely on gaining critical mass and having members that are willing to communicate and collaborate with new people.] Joint projects: pbworks.com [I'm setting up new project wiki to keep remote partners up to date with developments and it seems quite user-friendly. I expect I'll need to push people to keep it up to date and delegate specific elements to individuals.]
18. Twitter in Higher Education How frequently do you use Twitter for the following activities?
19. How to use Twitter for … Create Twitter groups to share information with your students Early information channel for your class topics Connect to potential guest speakers Network with other academics teaching in your field Access early publications Newest PEW studies Most retweeted “must-read” articles Follow conferences (backchannel), save travel money Public notepad Social proof Teaching Research
20. Twitter as a “Global Faculty Lounge” Asymmetric information sharing Track a Conference Instant Feedback: Public NotePad: Follow a Professional: Social proof Measure of influence: “we view a behavior as more correct… to the degree that we see others performing it” Subscribing to content that a lot of other people subscribe to Number of retweets, likes or content shared (reused) Twitter as a networking and professional development tool Success depends on who you are connected to and with; how frequently you participate; how conscientious you are about contributing value to the community. Joanna C. Dunlap and Patrick R. Lowenthal in Horton Hears a Tweet (EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4)
22. #Hashtags Indicates a specific topic with the hash symbol (”#”) at the start each Twitter message Easy to search for & help to organize messages No need to follow everyone who writes about a specific subtopic Examples: Prominent #hashtag: #followfriday Conference as #hashtags Names as #hashtags Topic areas as #hashtags …
23. ReTweet = Twitter loveRepostings Convention to replicate other people’sposts Add “RT” to a post (via @name) Use “HT” (hat tip)Hightlights, that the original post/idea came from someone else “OH” = overheard Sometimes called “Twitter love” An indicator of who you pay attention to Correct attribution More on the science of ReTweets: http://mashable.com/2009/02/17/twitter-retweets/
24. Twitter applications Overview of 19 Twitter desktop applications:http://mashable.com/2009/06/27/twitter-desktop-apps/ Twitter started #appwednesday: Unofficial Twitter application suggestions
30. School blogs “The Green Grok” Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University by Dean Bill Chameides Facebook YouTube channel Twitter iTunesU Technorati favorites Students and travel blogs http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/
31. RSS feeds "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary” Syndication of frequently updated content Blog entries News headlines Radio Audio … In XML format
33. Disclaimer Any content, views, opinions and/or responses expressed on Twitter are solely my views, opinions and responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Syracuse University.
34. Tweet, wordpress or linkedin with me: http://twitter.com/InesMergel (http://inesmergel.wordpress.com iamergel@maxwell.syr.edu http://www.linkedin.com/in/inesmergel/
Hinweis der Redaktion
Clash of generations:When it comes to using social media and social networking services as an accepted form of interaction for professional and social purposesBut also – established professors know very well how to navigate the landscape of academia => But are not necessarily willing to reveal these insights to you or are not able to articulate their informal networking strategies.
Amazingly difficult to understand what the informal ties are within a department, within your profession and what appropriate behavior is.Not all of us have had the opportunity of generous PhD mentors who understood what it takes to teach and prepare PhD students.
Similarity in: Gender Religion Geographic propinquity Education isomorphic positions in organization You need to reach out beyond your cohort, school, even concrete field (Does another school need someone like you?)
Make the best estimate of who is in your social network and can help you find out about job opportunities!People are generally very good in making these kind of assessments!Groom people who might be willing to help you! Make an effort to maintain and nurture your network ties.
Social Media for Research: Collaboration, Resources & DisseminationWikis to coordinate the research and keep everyone up to dateCo-writing: google docs [Ok for getting a document going but forget about formatting. Good for web surveys too.] Collecting resources: diigo.com [I've never really got into web bookmarking although I do like igoogle for keeping track of blogs.] Taking notes: evernote.com [Got this on my phone but not really started using it yet.] Sharing files: dropbox.com [Love this! Great for backing up key documents, making shared folders for teams and getting a URL for a document to make it public.] Organising references: mendeley.com [I have high hopes for Mendeley - here's my profile. I always struggled with the discipline needed to keep EndNote up to date but having access on various platforms to a single database version like this makes a lot of sense.] Collective intelligence: ning.com [I actually had no idea that I was already a member a ning network - ClimateSciNet - until I went to the page and looked at the URL. I guess they are professional networking sites but rely on gaining critical mass and having members that are willing to communicate and collaborate with new people.] Joint projects: pbworks.com [I'm setting up new project wiki to keep remote partners up to date with developments and it seems quite user-friendly. I expect I'll need to push people to keep it up to date and delegate specific elements to individuals.]
-> Libraries: - get updates on newest issues - newest books purchased in a specific research areaRSS feeds (Real Simple Syndication) Pushes information Examples: Podcasts or subscriptions to blogs iTunes University uses them
Hope that potential students, particularly overseas students, will find the university via their staff’s web presence. => Static view of the web.You need to develop a pull strategy
Contrary to popular commentary, I *am* curious about what people are eating now, and where, particularly if they're someone I know or are strangers but nearby. And it would be even better if I could filter by GPS location or if they were interfacing Twitter with Yelp.com or something similar. So I say, please tweet about what you eat! I'm hungry. Aggregation of informationFiltering of irrelevant information Find your network
SEARCH:Show me the world through the eyes of the people who care about this topicNext addition: Groups Location ID
Once you have found your network on Twitter: A lot of people are maintaining and linking to their research blogs to post actual content. Create your own content by using blogs Represent yourself onlineto blog, create videos, and/or post images or audio to your website. Add a Flickr account to share pictures of your work and describe them in more detail on your blog
Task divided up between participants of a research group or department. Lowers the burden on individuals to produce content
To grok =to communicate sympathetically
Staying updated in your field is as simple as spending 20 minutes a day online once you know how to use feeds. feed readers such as Google Reader can bring clarity, organization, and efficiency to the formerly painful process of staying informed. simply put together lists of websites to track, or even bring you news feeds just based on a particular topic.Lazyfeed and Guzzle.it for getting news by keyword or topic, and for the visually oriented, we also suggest these two dead-simple visual feed readers.