Disqus - Latest Comments for larryirons

Re: http://xcud.com/post/544524965

larryirons — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 22:44:56 -0000

Very cool, we need to talk next week.

Re: http://xcud.com/post/544524965

larryirons — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:55:53 -0000

Hey Ben, glad the summit went well.

Re: Crisis Planning: Prepare Your Company For Social Media Attacks

larryirons — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:21:38 -0000

This controversy with Nestle pales in comparison to Tell Shell from the late 1990s http://www.shellnews.net/we...

It seems like the intensity of these conflicts increases when the supply-chain of the brand is the source of the conflict.

Re: Ten Tips On Balance

larryirons — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:36:54 -0000

Good, balanced advice. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Re: Why User Competency Matters in Social Design

larryirons — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:29:33 -0000

Enjoyed the distinctions made here Adrian. The basic insight applies to a range of design issues in social media as well as brand communities. Shared some research on the general topic a few months back:

http://skilfulminds.com/200...

Re: Social Capital: The Currency of the Social Economy

larryirons — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:59:55 -0000

Two social norms regulate social capital: the norm of reciprocity (quid pro quo) and the norm of beneficence (giving something for nothing). Without the latter social capital doesn't get started. Without the former it doesn't grow. The two work together over time as trust deepens.

Re: Worlds Without Maps

larryirons — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:04:55 -0000

Boomer generation growing huge, yes...and how many agencies have any interest in employing anyone over 40, or even 30 years of age to actually develop understanding of their habitus and dispositions? Are we going to hire Indian anthropologists to study American boomers? Think man, think...

Re: When social search gets personal: ChatRoulette, Peerpong, Aardvark

larryirons — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:49:48 -0000

From the "research" done by Casey Neistat it look like the most telling social fact of ChatRoullet connections relates to age and gender
http://vimeo.com/9669721

Re: The state of realtime culture, and the future inter-subjective web

larryirons — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:50:40 -0000

Hey Adrian, you are right of course regarding the relationship between space, place, and time as requiring attention unto themselves.

Re: The state of realtime culture, and the future inter-subjective web

larryirons — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:52:02 -0000

Actually, I don't agree with your assumptions. Places are not simply locations, taken in a physical sense. Places are locations plus context. Most geo-location services that incorporate social media implicitly recognize this point, though earlier people-finder services sold by the mobile phone providers did not.

As I noted in a recent post, "As people increasingly access the Web and engage online communities on the go, the notion that this is happening on the net seems quaint." In other words, people interacting via ubiquitous computing environments are not online but rather engaging cultural practices that they weave in and out of their everyday places. The spaces through which they move are, however, not simply inert but also shaped by the availability, or not, of interactional resources to support those cultural practices.

Take a look at Johanna Brewer and Paul Dourish's "Storied Spaces" if what I'm trying to convey isn't clear.

http://www.dourish.com/publ...

Re: The state of realtime culture, and the future inter-subjective web

larryirons — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:06:50 -0000

Interesting thoughts. I recently remarked in a post that, "As people increasingly access the Web and engage online communities on the go, the notion that this is happening on the net seems quaint." The thinking was along the same lines but with respect to the way the ubiquitous digital infrastructure enhances the ability of ethnography to deliver insights about socio-cultural practices.

However, I see these changes more in terms of a shift between place and space relative to temporal patterns than in terms of time per se.

http://skilfulminds.com/201...

Re: Mobile Internet Market to Eclipse Desktop Internet

larryirons — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:08:09 -0000

Nice post Brian. Makes the digital sociologist (ethnographer) in me think about the coming ubiquity of digital research.

http://skilfulminds.com/201...

Re: Is community management unimportant to senior marketers?

larryirons — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:55:40 -0000

As you suggest Michael, it is unclear whether the data point on "social networks/applications" includes brand communities. I'd suggest it probably does, because a brand community can exist on a social network platform as well as other Web 2.0 platforms, even though the latter are typically designed specifically for longterm engagement and participation. Research published in The Journal of Marketing late last year suggests that there are really interesting implications for co-creation when we view brand communities from the point of view of practices rather than technologies. I offered some thoughts on the topic a few months ago.

http://skilfulminds.com/200...

Re: Don't Leave China Google! My Suggestions for Making Google's Services More Relevant for Non-Elite Chinese Users (involves some ethnography!)

larryirons — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:07:27 -0000

Hi Tricia, when I read your post I knew people over at anthrodesign would find it interesting. To answer your question, no I'm not referring to any specific research. It is too bad much of the interesting ethnographic research remains trapped behind confidentiality agreements. Though if you follow the comments from anthrodesign you will find a couple of people with ethnographic experience in China who agree with your insights regarding cultural practices and messaging.

My point, following Abe, was simply that, given the macro level constraints of Chinese government policy, Google may have "settled for" serving primarily one market segment. Also, it is no secret that users in countries with higher regulatory involvement in telecommunications typically rely on messaging platforms rather than voice due to cost. It is one of the reasons I've seen mentioned for why users in European countries relied on mobile messaging much earlier than those in the U.S.

I guess my main point was that it might be worthwhile considering whether the cultural practices of Chinese users, and the marketing practices of Google, observed by you are adaptations to meso and macro institutional structures. Of course, that doesn't change the accuracy of your insights into cultural practices, though it does put Google's situation into a slightly different frame.

I enjoy your blog very much. Oh, and I also own a livescribe pen which is wonderful for meetings.

Re: Important skills in the digital age

larryirons — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:16:42 -0000

The point of the quote appears to echo the thesis of Peter Morville's Ambient Findability book. I always considered knowledge to result from experience, therefore my own point of view is that your discomfort with the quote is well placed. One must know the right questions to ask in order to pose the most relevant search phrases for machines to process. That knowledge comes from the experience required for learning to occur. Machines don't do that very well since machines don't experience anything.

Re: Don't Leave China Google! My Suggestions for Making Google's Services More Relevant for Non-Elite Chinese Users (involves some ethnography!)

larryirons — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:29:08 -0000

Though your ethnographic insights are certainly interesting, I think Abe has it about right on the reasons behind Google's neglect of the socio-cultural context of the user experience in China. I would also suggest that, the informative insights you share don't really support the general conclusions reached. In any case, doing so is a tall order for a blog post and I really did enjoy reading it.

Given Google's history of conflict with the Chinese government it is probably quite reasonable for them to settle for attracting one market segment (i.e. educated, English-speaking Chinese).

Re: flash ethnography: observations of a doctor’s use of mobile tech with a patient

larryirons — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:52:27 -0000

I'd suggest that white lies are an essential property of social relationships and not always because the person is transgressing some social norm.

Re: A Customer Aware World

larryirons — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:05:03 -0000

Too many seams exist in the ubiquitous computing infrastructure to make the scenarios practical, much less desirable by many people. It is a large leap to assume that just because a majority of people engage in online social networking or communities that they want those "places" to follow them around.

Re: Geolocation Risk:Benefit

larryirons — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:07:38 -0000

Its just another kind of barcode that your smartphone reads. Kind of like self checkout for the consumer, but done through the smartphone at the shelf for a discount rather than at the counter for a checkout. As far as bluetooth goes, that is as simple as gesturing, i.e. bumping your smartphone lightly against a reader. These kind of near field ubiquitous computing apps are no more strange than using pass cards on the freeway.

Re: Geolocation Risk:Benefit

larryirons — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:29:34 -0000

I don't see that geolocation is needed for the applications you have in mind in the retail space. I've posted about visual tags several times. The only thing required is a standardized approach to visual tagging (i.e. 2D barcodes) so that an item's coupon offers a link to a website that sends a coded text message. Proof of the discount could then be done via bluetooth at checkout. That way the whole relationship remains "pull" without the privacy implications and spam potential of a "push" geolocation solution.

Does that make sense? There are also a range of uses for visual tagging in mobile learning applications as well.

http://skilfulminds.com/cat...

Re: The S Word

larryirons — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:30:29 -0000

Would you make the same argument about social capital, a key term for social business design even though it is infrequently used by advocates? Stowe has it right. On the other hand, CSCW is from the 1980s rather than late 90s so using the term collaboration is even more of a dated frame of reference than his point indicates.

I fundamentally disagree that social is redundant with business because most, if not all, of the models used by organizational behavior and HR professionals are drawn from psychology and economics. The conversation and the clients are better served by explicating what is "social" about business, rather than just assuming everyone knows. I don't know how you do that either responsibly or effectively without using the adjective, social.

If businesses already understood how they are social then distributed members of project teams spread across the globe would agree and know who is a member of the team. Yet, research by Hinds and others demonstrates that members of distributed teams often disagree on team boundaries. In fact, a whole range of studies of collaboration in distributed teams indicates that getting to know team members as people is crucial to effective, ongoing collaboration.

Re: NSFW: When Social Networks are Blocked for Your Own Good

larryirons — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:09:06 -0000

The eLearning Guild offered more granular statistics on access to social networking sites in their eLearning 2.0 report last year.

http://skilfulminds.com/200...

With the spread of smart phones it is hard to see how a company can prevent passive use, i.e. consumption, of social media on the job. As you imply, it is kind of like the late 90s and personal use of cell phones at work. So, for those IT managers, or other executives, who worry about lost productivity, the cat really is out of the bag already.

Of course, active contribution to social media while at work is, in some respects, controllable through monitoring. In that respect, your call for self-awareness of our social practices online is right on target.

Re: What Experience Do You Value?

larryirons — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:57:28 -0000

Michael, absolutely!

Re: The designer’s influence: social media and the user experience

larryirons — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:39:57 -0000

I know Adrian, just a little light-heartedness on my part. I do love Minima Moralia though ;-)

Re: What Experience Do You Value?

larryirons — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:08:27 -0000

I totally agree. First, professionals with multi-disciplinary experience aren't likely to provide vertical expertise specific to one industry or functional area. Second, what any company needs, if it is interested in at least innovation and perhaps even transformation of a product or service, is a professional with T-shaped experience...deep in one area of expertise (preferably knowing how to learn from others and collaborate) and wide in exposure to projects across either industries or functional areas.