Social Media Week in Review: What you may have missed
Since it's so hard to keep up with everything that's shared on social media, here's a weekly guide to things that may have passed you by.
OK, here's the dirty little secret of social media. Almost everyone will miss almost everything you share.
Those who disparage Twitter, Facebook, and so on, point to that as a reason for us to ignore social media altogether.
But though it's true most folks will miss the majority of your posts, that's no excuse for you not to participate. After all, you can say that about any medium--TV, magazines, newspapers, even blockbuster films--the majority of people will never see what goes on there.
So, in an attempt to get more stuff seen, I'm starting a Social Media Week In Review. Each weekend, I'll post items you may have missed. You can help by posting links in the comments section or e-mailing me at sreetips@sree.net.
First stop: Mashable's 37 digital-media resources you may have missed, by @MattPetronzio. A great way to catch up with all the best posts within Mashable, a leading social-media site. On Mondays, @Charlie_White offers a Weekend Recap of Mashable posts--also worth checking out.
Social Media Week: Hundreds of social-media events were held in dozens of cities last week as part of Social Media Week. That means you--and I--missed almost everything that went on. Dozens of the panels were simulcast, and you can catch up via the SMW Livestream page. I was involved in two panels, and I thought I'd share them here.
One was about the future of education (video here). It featured several terrific speakers, but the star of the show was Melissa Seideman (@MSeideman), 8th grade history teacher from a school north of NYC. She showed me several new tools that I'll use with my students, including Socrative, an audience/class instant polling service that could make those complicated clicker-based systems obsolete.
The other panel was one I moderated at the instigation of Eric Carvin (@EricCarvin), the new social-media editor at the Associated Press. (Video below.) It was about challenging the conventional wisdom in social media, with seven top social-media editors. Strange to think that such a new medium already has conventional wisdom, but it's true, and we covered many topics I hope to touch on in future posts.
#anthonyshadid: Thursday night we learned that Anthony Shadid, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and foreign correspondent for The New York Times (and ex-Washington Post, ex-AP) had died while covering the crisis in Syria. A man who had survived the Iraq war and countless other hostilities, including being kidnapped in Libya, appeared to have died because of an asthma attack. In a testament to how popular he was, Facebook and Twitter lit up with posts, tributes, and comments about his work. This NYT compilation of tweets shows the extent of Shadid's reach; my favorite was by his former colleague Don Van Natta, Jr. (@DVNjr):
"By Anthony Shadid" was a beacon of humanity and truth.
February 17, 2012
Liz Heron (@LHeron), NYT social-media editor, speaking at a tribute to Shadid at Columbia Journalism School, pointed out social media's unusual role in the hours after his death. She said the paper and his family would have had no idea how globally loved Shadid had been if it weren't for the outpouring of affection via social media.
Shadid himself was on Twitter (@AnthonyShadid), and what struck me the most about how he used it was in his very simple Twitter bio. He just said, "Journalist and author," rather than mention his prizes and his Times connection. How many of us are as humble as he was?
Shadid's widow, Nada Bakri (@NadaBakri), a former student at Columbia, tweeted this on Saturday:
#anthonyshadid i love and appreciate all your notes. they bring so much solace. he had so much more to give ... if only he had the time.
February 18, 2012
Funniest post I saw this week: Changing gears, the most amusing item I saw was posted on my Facebook wall by Jonathan Boorstein (@solodiner). It was a graphic from StuffJournalistsLike.com's Facebook account, which looked at what journalists think they do and what they actually do. I guess others liked it, too. The graphic got more than 14,500 likes and almost a thousand comments.
READERS: What did I miss? Post your thoughts in the comments below, please, or via @sree or #sreetips on Twitter.