Well, hello everyone.  I sat looking at the front page of The Sociology Blog, again considering what should be the next steps.

The good news is that I've never been more inclined to approach the idea of long form writing with this much energy.  It's funny though, because this Fall 2011 semester I have more on my plate than ever before.

However, there is also much more to offer in the form of commentary, ideas, and I continue to feel the need to share more.  I suppose my recent adoption of Google+ has affected this new found need; rather this new found need of a long time felt need.

I've struggled in recent years with content for this blog, not that there wasn't enough content, but I've also been keenly interested in teaching, the classroom environment, social networking and social media, areas of interest that perhaps have been out of the perview of "sociology".  Aside from the fact that those ideas may or may not be out of the perview of sociology, I've decided to use this particular blog space to present ideas not just related to sociology, but also education, technology, and related topics.

So my intent is to allow the blog to grow with me.  I think that will benefit the blog, me, and perhaps the online community.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts.


http://thesociologyblog.blogspot.com

We the People, Social Media, and Qualitative Research

Today a small group of folks pulled together our existing resources and took on the innovative task of tweeting and blogging a local civic engagement event.  Using our laptops and cellphones, we live tweeted/blogged a local civic engagement event sponsored by AmericaSpeaks and the Public Life Foundation of Owensboro.

The event brought together nearly 300 locals to discuss local issues centered around Education and the Economy. (A participant guide from the event can be found here.)  This was the second We the People event held in my hometown of Owensboro, KY, the first one being in 2007.

Our local group consisted of four folks (me, Steve Metzger, Jessie Schartung, and Michelle Montalvo).  I set up an event of Cover it Live at the Owensboro Blog.  The interface was free, very easy to use.  After talking with Mary Lauran Hall with AmericaSpeaks the day before, we set everything up and organized ourselves to pull this off late in the afternoon the day before the event.  This came upon us quite spontaneously.

I'd like to devote the remainder of this blog post to addressing some insights from the process, with its implications on citizen journalism and qualitative research.

Qualitative insights

Social media and social networking tools are disruptive tools in the media-sphere.  Particularly in our local community, social media and social networking tools are still largely viewed as new and for entertainment purposes.  Social media and social networking tools are primarily open, accessible, and can be implemented by anyone with the initiative to learn how to do so.  Pulling together these tools to document and regard an event of this type is not entirely difficult, but it does take some thinking and planning.  I have been working in this fashion in various ways for several years.  We like to think that as a result of our process that we not only documented the event live, but we were able to give lasting insight into the minute-to-minute, stage to stage process of dialogue and deliberation of participants during this event.

Usually during We the People events the first draft of information received is the draft final report handed out at the end of the day.  During our project, we were able to document quotes, feelings, raw ideas and beliefs of participants as they shared those in the moment, in dialogue and discussion with other members at their particular tables.  While this information served as a social media component because it was live, the real benefit is that this information is also archived, giving organizers, staff, researchers of the process particular insight into the emotional give and take often experienced as participants delve deeply into local issues.

The AmericaSpeaks were nothing but extremely supportive of our work during the event.  We obtained a .pdf copy of the initial final reports immediately after they were distributed to participants.  We shared that online and made it publicly available to anyone.  Part one of the document can be found here, part two can be found here.

This is significant as it relates to qualitative assessment and analysis.  We live in a culture (societal and in the academic community) that largely focuses on quantitative information: giving us the overarching view with little attention to detail and the quality of feeling of individuals and small groups.  By organizing qualitative research as we did with this event, we now also have the added dimension that gives depth of context to the results from the day long town meeting.  Therefore, this process can be used not just for documenting a live event for those unable to be physically present, but this process should also been seen as adding another layer of context to the overall town meeting and the results derived by the participants.

In our particular effort we worked to provide rich media, including photos, audio, and video accounts of activities occurring in the moment.  There are variations of intensity that can be conducted in documenting an event live.  Given our very quick turnaround on organizing for this event, we were unable to strategically plan how we would do the live tweeting/blogging.  In future instances, this would be an aspect to have better control.  Some particular options are having members of the team focus on specific activities.  For example, one person document via photos, others via text, others recording and uploading video.  The beauty of the Cover it Live interface is that those moderating the interface can include content from the outside.  In our case we did pull in this rich media as we were able to, including tweets from not just our small staff, but tweets from the AmericaSpeaks and tweets from the few participants that were tweeting from time to time.  We also brought in other content on the web, relevant to the event.  So for example we posted the participant guide so online participants could follow what was being covered in the physical setting.

Reach
The Cover it Live web based software does include stats.  Given our limited time for marketing, we did not expect that our live event would garner a whole lot of outside participation.  But keep in mind we also approached this as an effort of documenting the day, so it will be hard to tell how often the event (which is archived on the Owensboro Blog) will be viewed later.  In fact we do expect that qualitative insight into the day can be had by viewing both the archived Cover it Live instance and the backed up tweets from the day (found here).

During the event it appears we had around 20 people actively engaged in commenting and viewing via the Cover it Live interface.  During this particular event there was not much effort of online participation in the event via our interface.  We were unable to design the interface in such a way this time around, but options are available where such an effort could gain more traction and significance for online participants if established and communicated well in advance of the day of the event.  AmericaSpeaks does have experience in linking several physical locations at the same time, incorporating a collaborative web component to do so (or like service).

Below is the archived event on Cover it Live


In our effort each of the team members tweeted to their followers and posted links to our information on Facebook.  In total we theoretically have a reach of at least 1500 followers; people from all over the world, national, statewide, and not just locally.  So there is some consideration that needs to occur about the impact of such a reach, the impact of the process as it ripples through social media.  How many folks will research this process?  How many will read recommendations on live tweeting/blogging an event and using the data for further qualitative analysis via this particular blog post?  These are very relevant in the face of the reach and impact of social media and its content, and the utilization of data for for research and ultimately procedural and policy implications.

Notes on process
We were mobile with our approach.  We established our "base of operations" on a back table, essentially sitting down and connecting with our laptops.  Although I haven't mentioned, it's hopefully obvious we had a local wifi network established via the technical capacity of the AmericaSpeaks folks.  This was a must for us to do our work.

Jessie, myself, and my mother as volunteer

Because we were pulling in tweets with a certain hashtag, we were able to take our mobile phones out amongst the tables and mobile blog/tweet.  I found it intimate to listen to quotes from tables and directly tweet those; these ended up in the Cover it Live interface and were backed up as previously mentioned.  It still is rewarding to go back and view the quotes that we pulled in from participants in the moment.  This data is from participants in deep conversation with others, considering ideas and sharing those perhaps in a very rare safe and inviting environment.

These are some initial thoughts that seem to be bubbling up as I continue to reflect on this process.  Below was the initial debrief that our local tweet/blog team shared.

New Groups function on Facebook

Purpose of Groups

I'd recommend using groups for a close network of friends, family, or for a trusted network of colleagues or those with similar interests.  There needs to be a dimension of trust and dependability of members to get use out of this function.

When Group participation starts to become active it does become apparent that information needs to be better aggregated for easier access.  There still is not much structure for aggregating information via the Group.  This however can be achieved by using outside services such as Google Apps and then linking that content back into the Group.

Currently you can add Posts, Links, Photos, Videos, Events, and Docs to Group members.  You can also conduct Group chat.

Privacy

Multiple administrators can be added to a Group.  The administrator(s) can decide to make the Group one of the following:

• Open: members and content is public
• Closed: members public and content is private
• Secret: members and content are private

Notifications

This is a very important function to gain control of as soon as you join a Group. When you are in the Group, you'll see the "Edit Notifications" icon towards the top right. You can choose your notification options there. Note: if you do not want email notifications make sure you uncheck the box at the bottom. If there is a lot of activity in the group you will receive a large number of notifications both in your Facebook notification feed and your designated email inbox if you have not deselected the appropriate boxes.

• Facebook notification:  when you perform activity in the Group and someone replies or interacts with that activity, you will receive a notification via the traditional Facebook notifications tab on your main Facebook page

Group chat
The group chat allows you to chat with members in the Group that are currently online. At this stage note that all conversations held in Group chat are available for all members to see.

Therefore, Group chat should be relegated to casual conversation, with more specific interaction taken to individual chat or email.

Wall Posts

At current wall posts are the only way to develop interaction in a thread like manner. However, there are no threads in this new version of Groups. In order to get collaborative use out of this Groups function I'd recommend that people begin with the Wall posts function: post something. This helps to get interaction, exchange, and collaboration started.

I'd recommend that after a wall post develops much interaction with value added content, that perhaps it then is copied and pasted in to a Document so it can be better referenced over time.

As activity in the Group increases it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with general information that flows in and out of the Group through wall posts.  This information needs to be better managed.  As previously mentioned, this may better be addressed by using outside services such as Google Apps and then linking into the Group.  The Group can also use the Docs function, highlighted below.

Docs
The docs function allows members of the Group to create standing, editable documents.  This function has a very easy to use interface.  Docs are also available and can be accessed on the right hand side of the Group page.


Adding members
Once you are at the Group page the web address can be copied and emailed, tweeted, etc.. to anyone and they can click that link and request an invite to be added to the Group (the user has to have a Facebook account).  The administrator will have to approve.

All members of a Group can invite other members.  Therefore, you really should have a clear understanding of the purpose of your Group and who you want to invite.  That fact alone means you should have a handle on your trust, dependability, and willingness to collaborate with potential Group members before they are invited.    To repeat, all members of a Group can invite new members.  You do not have to be an administrator to invite new users.  Pick your members wisely.



Leaving the Group
You may find that you have randomly been added to a Group.  You can easily opt out of the Group by choosing "Leave Group" on the right hand side of the Group page.  However, once you leave you have to be reinvited to be added to the Group.

Hurricane Katrina: 5 years later

Thanks to @jmmeij for sharing!

Bicycling into the heart of the flood: A Hurricane Katrina remembrance

Facebook VP cites lots of sociology