Being Social Us

Do you have a Facebook profile and a Facebook page to manage? Then you’ve probably been frustrated by the inability to batch upload images to Facebook. With PhotoBox! we created a way for you to batch upload and download from your profile, and a whole lot more. Today we’ve released PhotoBox! Pro which allows you to do the same thing for your Facebook page!

By John M Weiner

This paper investigates the similarities and differences between two important ideas in information processing and knowledge utilisation. Those ideas are [critical thinking] and [information literacy]. The two phrases are shown in brackets to indicate that the two words involved in each idea are not arbitrarily combined but have been coupled by authors to represent a single entity or a focus for development of concepts describing the characteristics involved. By exploring terms related to this couplet from the same sentence, the meaning of each of the central ideas can be expanded. The education, library science, and health science literature were used in this study, which analysed 8745 articles dealing with [critical thinking] and 8201 reports dealing with [information literacy] included in either ERIC or PubMed from 2000-2009.

The findings showed that combinations of terms (i.e. ideas) such as [information & literacy & related term] or [critical & thinking & related term], when organised based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning (Bloom 1956), clarified the similarities and differences between the two central ideas. [Information literacy] was involved in all of the cognitive functions suggested by Bloom. This finding is consistent with the definitions of [information literacy] that relate it to lifelong learning and effective decision-making. In addition, the ideas describing [information literacy] were consistent with actions and perceptions that were more public and standardised than those associated with [critical thinking].

This suggests that [information literacy] and its associated procedures could significantly augment current instruction in [critical thinking] and indeed, the possibility has been explored by some authors in the current literature. A merging of the two ideas would involve [information literacy] providing tools and techniques in the processing and utilisation of knowledge and [critical thinking] supplying the particulars and interpretations associated with a specific discipline. This type of integration could lead to instructional programs similar in concept and application to those in research methodology where methods from statistics are integrated with the techniques and skills associated with a specific discipline. The development of a curriculum of this type would change functions and perceptions from private, individualised mentation, now associated with [critical thinking], to a more easily learned and practiced process suitable across the breadth of disciplines.

If you think knowledge is power, you aren’t living in the real world.

Knowledge changes so fast that if you try to hold onto it, you end up with nothing. To get power,it is much more effective to share knowledge and thus build the basis for a reputation.If people think you have key strategic knowledge, you will have power within theorganization.

Richard McDermott, President of McDermott Consulting (From "Lagestion du savoir", proceedings of the November 2003 colloquium organized byCEFRIO:http://www.cefrio.qc.ca/pdf/ActesGestionDuSavoir.pdf )

This quote describes a common-sense reality that unfortunately not everyone understands. But wecan implement this idea here and now, creating the basis for a collective reputation! Chapter 9 of thisbook will thus be open to everyone and co-authored. Here, the book becomes interactive, written byreaders and by the author. [...]

This is the landing page Google's advice about Internet privacy and security.  There are four sections, each with links to Google Resources including video tutorials.  

There is a lot to dig into here! 

From the article: "What retailers need to understand is that there is no direct path to online consumer sales.

Consumers desire to broadcast and share their lives, and their web behaviors therefore strike out on a non-linear path to purchase.

The whole concept of social commerce is now realizing that every platform and network is a potential lead for an online sale.

Social discovery platforms are developing cult followings because they allow users to establish their authority in a certain subject area and to showcase their ability to create inspirational collections of products, items and even destinations.

Simple self-expression through the curation of products should be considered every retailer’s dream.

As a retailer, all you have to do is supply images and ideas in a way that’s accessible to the online user/consumer and sparks their desire to do all this work for you.

In one swift addition to a consumer “pin, post or add,” retailers can build brand awareness, increase online engagement and create direct links to product pages that lead to purchase conversions.

...

The future of e-commerce, search, social marketing are now tied to consumers attempting to curate experiences that represent their personalities."

Find also in this excellent article by Macala Wright thirteen product curation sites reviewed.

Very good. 8/10

Full article: http://fashionablymarketing.me/2012/02/social-discovery-product-curation/ 

Some of my clients worry about using Google's free services, including G-mail. I'm less worried about them than anything else I can think of, but I remember that early feeling I had, using G-mail, that I was standing out in the town square and there could be people who could see me naked. 

If you'd like to check your G-mail account to verify who (if anyone) has ever been accessing it besides you, here's a great description of how you can do that. Enjoy! 

This is an excerpt from a Mike Shatzkin article published in 2009 and entitled: "Aggregation and curation: two concepts that explain a lot about digital change."

If you are into curation, aggregation or into understanding why traditional publishers, record labels and newspapers are struggling so much in this digital era to keep their traditional services and products sustainable, you will likely find some eye-opening answers and explanation in here.

Here the key takeaways I have found inside it:

"Aggregation is one of the core concepts of content presentation and commercialization.

Any analysis of what happened to the record business, what is happening to newspapers, or the future of books and bookstores and magazines and TV that does not feature this concept prominently is almost certainly flawed.

Aggregation, of course, simply means pulling together things which are not necessarily connected.

Curation is a term that has always referred to the careful selection and pruning of aggregates, such as for a museum or an art exhibition.

But the concept in the digital content world means the selection and presentation of these disparate items to help a browser or consumer navigate and select from them.

Aggregation without curation is, normally, not very helful."

The music album, the CD, the newspaper. 

"...one thing has been common to all of them and to all other newspapers: they cover the waterfront. (I have called that being “horizontal.”) They aggregate news of the world, the nation, and the city with sports, weather, stock quotes, advice to the lovelorn, and many other things.

They sell almost all their advertising against the aggregate and against the brand, not against any specific item or interest being aggregated.

And the competition for each paper is against other curated aggregates.

Newspapers sold the curated aggregate to people who didn’t want most of it because the total price was a good deal for the parts they did want, just like the album was a good deal even if you only liked some of the songs. And now they are suffering precisely the same fate as the record album.

The unit of appreciation is smaller than the [aggregated] whole.

...

So the long story short on newspapers is this: a business model of selling a horizontal (many-subject) aggregate, curated by something other than subject, was based on the economics of a physical world where aggregation produced efficiencies of production and distribution.

The Internet changed that.

It is no longer necessary for an aggregator to provide news to deliver me sports, or to provide a whole newspaper to deliver me the weather or a stock quote.

The importance of curation becomes more prominent.

...the more horizontal is the collection, the less likely it is to work in the digital world."

Must read. 9/10

Full article: http://www.idealog.com/blog/aggregation-and-curation-two-concepts-that-explain-a-lot-about-digital-change 

(Unearthed by Peter Hoeve - Curated by Robin Good)

Information Overload is an increasing problem both in the workplace, and in life in general. Those that learn to deal with it effectively will have a major advantage in the next few years.

Information Overload is when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to process to make sensible decisions. The result is either that you either delay making decisions, or that you make the wrong decisions.

It is now commonplace to be getting too many e-mails, reports and incoming messages to deal with them effectively.