A fly by history of information management. Beginning with how tribal cultures created categorical systems for understanding the world around them, through to the use of symbols, the first written word and the evolution of hypertext, a connected web and just who inspired Google’s pagerank.

“Tim would have launched the web in 1984, if he didn’t crash his hard drive… just goes to show you should back up your work. It took him 5 years to re-write it.”

Interesting tid-bits:

• Folk Taxonomy is not the same as a folksonomy.
  The former is the anthropological study of the classification / naming conventions by cultures for understanding the relationships between things such as animals and plants.  The latter is when people collaboratively tag stuff on computers.
• Jewelery was used as an information system by using symbols to indicate social standing and the wearers relationship to others in the community. The use of this system came about when people began living in larger groups than 5 – 15 or so. This occurred during the time Alex describes as the Ice Age Information Explosion, around 30-40,000 years ago.
• The first forms of handwriting we know of emerged around 5000 BC on Bullae, by the Sumerians. (Now the south of Iraq)
• Charles Cutter wrote an essay in 1883 imagining the library of 1983 called “The Buffalo Public Library in 1983” in which he predicted the library would have desks equiped with keyboards and little bits of wire connecting them to a catalog that would call up and display books for the user to read.
• Paul Otlet was the creator of the universal decimal system. He had imagined a sort of paper internet, where not only would a catalog asist people to find a book, but it revealed the content of the book and its relationship to other books as well as the history of the document’s use, who has read, refereneced etc. His work took place in 1934, much of it was lost to to World War 2. A video on his 1934 vision of an internet is below… truely amazing.

• Check out the memex, a large microfilm desk which is considered one of the conceptual precursors to the web from Vannevar Bush’s essay As We May Think (1945)

Vannevar Bush's Memex

• Eugene Garfield inventor of the Science Citation Index, which is a system for acknowledging the weight of links between various documents in the footnotes. It is considered that his work heavily influenced the founders of google and their page rank system.
• Doug Englebart, inventor of the mouse also author of an eassy called Augmenting Human Intelect. In 1968 he delivered a presentation often refered to as “The Mother of All Demos.” This demo was the first to demonstrate the mouse, copy and paste, creation of files, folders, links, video conferencing and email etc.

Some of Alex’s references:

Glut, Alex Wright
- Mastering Information Throughout the Ages
- http://www.alexwright.org/glut/

Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, George Lakoff
- What categories reveal about the mind.

Everything is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger
- The Power of the New Digital Disorder
- http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/

Facetag
- Working prototype of a semantic collaborative tagging tool
- http://www.facetag.org/

Some references I found:
Alex speaking at Google Masterclass
- The Web That Wasn’t: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72nfrhXroo8&NR=1

Wikipedia’s Timeline of Hypertext Technology
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_hypertext_technology

Self explains that Obama knew he was never going to raise money for his campaign in the traditional way.

“What Obama did,” Self says “was to gather 10,000 people together at a rally and ask each and every one of them to use their mobile phones to sms a number and pledge five bucks”. Certainly not a big ask but there you have it – $50,000 in 50 seconds.

This sort of activity is a great example of how Obama focused on a grass roots campaign rather than doing the traditional fancy dinner party for maximum donations of $2300.

Self says that once voters consider pledging $5 it is easier for them to consider stepping it up to $10 and $20. By lowering the barrier to entry and asking voters to pledge an amount they could afford, they generated an enormous amount of good will into the campaign. Voters now had a greater vested interest in the candidate they had reached into their pocket to support. These voters were more likely to remain informed, speak about the campaign to friends, neighbors and colleagues.

The focus of any campaign is on money, message and mobilization. By valuing small contributions the Obama campaign knew that this would have an incredible impact on mobilizing their message. During the campaign US$770 million was raised, and 35% of that was online. 68 million Americans door knocked or made phone calls to encourage votes for Obama. The campaign generated 1800 videos online with over some 50 million views and 6 million email subscribers were acquired by promising those people they would be the first to know who Obama elected as Vice President.

Other media assets Blue State Digital were responsible for during the campaign were:
Personal fundraising pages:  http://my.barackobama.com/

Fight the Smear – a website dedicated to fighting rumors during the campaign (rather than rely on traditional media to fight the smears for you): http://www.fightthesmears.com/

Seven tips to building relationships online:

1. Don’t ask for too much at once
   Relationships aren’t that different online as offline, Self explains. You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you on the first date, so don’t go for the full hog off the bat online either.
2. Make the best use of timing
   During the campaign the most amount of money was donated the day after Sarah Palin’s first speech in which she flamed community organisations.
3. Be authentic
   For example, emails are personal. Make it real. A real person wrote it, so get them to sign their name.
4. Transparency
   For example, Blue State Digital created hundreds of video journals from Obama, to campaign managers chatting about how it was all going.
5. Lower your barrier to entry
   Give people multiple options for how they want to be involved so that they can elect an activity that is meaningful and accessible to them.
6. Raise your expectations
   Begin with asking users for something simple, like a sign up, then you might ask them to perform an action such as refer a friend. Later, ask them to write a blog post or by a product. You get the idea.
7. Measure everything
   Measurement is really important so that you can know what worked and what didn’t. Test and refine along the way.

And with that, Self ends by explaining how savvy audiences are. He encourages building relationships with your user base from a good, genuine and passionate place. Otherwise, it will not work.

There are many ways for users to consume content online, begins Pickard. They consume, react, curate and create. Unfortunately we spend most of our time and efforts engaging them to consume and not enough engaging users to react, curate or create.

UCG or user generated content is considered a pretty dry term by Meg, she’d prefer to think of it as users expressing themselves about stuff they are passionate about.

People also tend to get social media and social networking confused. To often the media tends to provide social media tools in a separate environment to the content, rather than having that engagement interacting with the content.

Meg  encourages that we consider social media as an activity that should be rapped around the content. Moving forward Meg would like us to think not of content as king but context instead.

Another common misconception says Meg, is that social media should be social. Sometimes, it is quite anti-social. For example, a path exists through the forest because many people have walked it over time. This doesn’t mean these people have forged the path together, but more so that they have tracked down it one at a time. However, it is the fact that the path exists that is important because previous interactions with it define the best way to go for future travelers. Having said that – the herd isn’t always right and even if they are you need to figure out where they are going and if that is right for you? Or – if forging your own direction is right for you.

Meg also encourages online media junkies to play where people are already playing. She gives the example of the Guardian’s Message for Obama project which they set up on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/messageforobama/pool/ In this example, the Guardian observed no confusion as to whose project it actually was. They monitored the online chatter and were pleased with the amount of good will this project generated with their readership. Meg advises, “Do what you do well and go else where for what you don’t”

Also, sites need to think about how to encourage participation and reward their passionate users. Being a host isn’t just about being a bouncer and sending your users to the naughty step, says Meg. What we want to do is find a way to engage our more proactive users.

Guardian user cycle = casual > connected > committed > catalyst

iPlayer moto: “Making the unmissable, unmissable”

iPhone users are using their iphone 25x more than smart phone users to access the internet.

Looking at the history of the web, in 1994 the goal was for companies to have an online presence, in 2007 they were offering support to their linear media and in 2009 and beyond we will see much more made for web content that is rich, dynamic and on demand.

2007 -2008 showed the tipping point for many online activities including the iPhone (mobile interaction), social media went mainstream (Barak Obama on twitter) and video on demand grew. BBCs own, iPlayer went from launch to 300 million views in just one year.

The BBC aims to make its video content available not only on the PC or mobile device, but TV sets, PSPs and all conceivable devices into the future and they are looking towards 2012 to be the leader in UK Olympics on demand content.

In the pipeline

• BBC are looking to provide a global service. This year they will move towards providing more of their content in various international languages.
• ‘Democracy Live’ will be launched providing online demand of video from parliaments all over Europe with relevant information and data.
• Continue to embrace the communities.
• Make content shareable. Allow for ‘tear off strips’ of your site to be embedded in others sites.

Keep it simple. A really important thing about sharing is to keep it really simple. Facebook, Youtube and Delicious do this really well by making it as easy as a click of a button.

In summary, Nic bets that we will see IP on TV before we can even imagine. Just as video on demand online was not conceivable only 2 years ago. He says that the future of the BBC is online and that online services will appear on your mobile, TV and personal computer.

Pesce is always an interesting listen – he cases topics at hand in real world examples which are really engaging.

All the Friends I’ve Never Met details how a group of bloggers took down the US Attorney General and how Twitter informed him of the recent earthquake in China before it hit the wire. Great inspiring examples of social media as hyper-connected and powerful information sources.

Excellent use of 15 minutes of your day.

I’ve made some quick from reading and thinking about speech writing this afternoon. These notes are good for reading through before you get started and assessing first drafts against. This is a first rough.

You Should:

1. Reflect your personality, passion & perspective
2. Establish a purpose – what would you like the audience to take away from this?
3. Keep it fairly simple – try not to confuse the audience ( clear sentences & clear arguments)

Audience analysis

1. Who are they? What does each member have in common?
2. Why would they want to listen?
3. What do they have to benefit?
4. What level of detail is useful to them?

Opening:

1. Thought provoking
2. Ask a question, show a stat, tell an anecdote
3. Establish context / motive – why is it important
4. Tell your audience your what you are proposing & how it will be supported
5. Tell the audience what you will cover

Middle:

1. Make few points and do it well than bombard with many
2. Reiterate throughout – remind audience of the main point & refer to how the information supports your argument

End:

1. Recap
2. Summary
3. Leave food for thought… pose a question, tell an anecdote
4. Call to action / where to from here / recommendation

Theme:

Choosing a theme throughout helps audience remember main points and retain the central message

Evidence:

What backs up your thoughts?

Illustrations:

Stories to convey a message in a more interesting way

Terminology / language:

Don’t use new terminology or add variety in that way, this dilutes the message. Ie, say “review” throughout rather than – “reflection”, etc.

Tone:

Be careful of content that may offend

Ensure you don’t condescend your audience or talk over their heads

Know who your talking to (see audience above)

Video Links:

http://www.scottberkun.com/services/speakingsamples/

http://markpesce.com/

I love casting.