Dave's Random Thoughts

It includes a look at how the UC system dealt with going mobile. Got a little downtime? It’s good holiday reading.

The new issue of Link is out, post #heweb11. Check it out. I wrote an editor’s column on my thoughts on the conference and was left with two questions that I think are going to come in quite handy going forward.

Mashable tells us that the check-in company now wants us to use our checking accounts with them (thanks Mallory Wood, for the heads up). Well more like a credit card. The system would use personal QR codes linked to a credit card to let you pay for items with retailers. SCVNGR says it would have a more immediate impact than services like Google Wallet which are “five-year plays.”

I am curious to see if these kinds of services gain any traction at colleges and universities. I have a feeling that the right one would draw a lot of interest from students who would be happy to not have to carry an ID around with them to use for dining hall meals and such. SCVNGR has good relationships with colleges already. The current test will be with 500 merchants in big cities. I wonder if a campus test run is planned somewhere and what kinds of results it would get.

I attended RIT’s Social Media and Communications Symposium Thursday. It was great to put some faces to Twitter handles and make some new connections. However the content was rather hit and miss. I know organizers were trying to appeal to a broad audience, but much of the content seemed to fall into the “Social Media 101” realm. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it did cause some fuss on the Twitter feed and at time left me thinking I should have been in another session. Some thoughts on the good and the bad from Thursday.

Say no to Gloria Gaynor. Morning Keynote Speaker Pam Moore for some reason felt it necessary to play “I Will Survive”  to the whole assembly at roughly 9 a.m. There are a a couple of problems with this. 1) Playing a 30-something year old disco song may not be the best way to convince a crowd of tech-inclined people that you’re going to tell them something cutting edge and helpful. 2) There needs to be a moratorium on playing that song anywhere, for any purpose much like NPR Music has suggested should be enforced for covers of “Hallelujah.” Preferrably accompanied by a large fine. “I Will Survive” ceased to be fun, or have any real meaning, about 15 years ago. I’d like to have heard more from Moore in the way of case studies— more demonstrations of just how the methods she was espousing worked for her clients.

Never Underestimate the Value of a Tweet: Rachel Clapp of Wake Forest had an interesting comparison of the tweeting habits of Southwest Airlines and US Air. She did her masters thesis on the study. But she had a great turn of phrase “A Twitter response can act as a press release for positive customer service.”  Meaning all it takes is one good (or bad) experience via Twitter for news of your good (or bad) customer service to spread like wild fire. 

Clay Shirky rocks. Shirky’s talk offered some probing insights, some humor and some stuff that left you thinking. From moustaches to medicine I enjoyed his take on the ways we organize information on the web and how our “cognitive surplus” as he calls it, impacts our activities on the way. As he notes, the intersection of the serious and the silly on the web should not be discounted. In fact it often strengthens the quality of information we find on the web from communities and encourages more creativity.

Tech Problems at RIT: The wifi was a pain. Some presenters alluded to not being able to get the information they wanted to present up on their screens. There are some kinks to be worked out for next year.

A comeback for content: Maggie Fox, the last speaker of the day, told us the age of privacy is over and we should just get used it to it. Advertisers may be creepy some times, but they’re not out to do us harm. She also suggested that the avalanche of information on the Web will lead to a comeback for media companies, because consumers will be desparate for some one to filter and analyze that content for them, in order to tell them what’s important and why. Which is a nice thought. The problem is, when their advertising went kaboom  all those media companies laid off vast swaths of their experts— the writers, producers and reporters who made their products so valuable in the first place. Will readers come back to products that are in many cases pale shells of what they once were? Will advertisers pay for those products? We’ll have to see.

Other highlights for me: Learning about a Foursquare version of Monopoly, Thom Craver’s take on metrics and getting a closer look at how Kodak handles its online relationships with customers (though I imagine they’re having a hell of a day over there right now). 

Long term, I’d like to see SMACS develop a bit more of an identity. Only in it’s second year, it admirably tries to cover a lot of ground, but judging from Twitter that approach also put off some folks during the day.  I’d suggest one way to combat that is asking presenters to focus on case studies, showing attendees how they tackled tough projects, what they learned, what went well and what didn’t. 

This year’s event definitely had its moments. It will be interesting to see what next’s year’s conference looks like.