Disqus - Latest Comments for kegill

Re: Social Media Campaign to Beat Cancer Eyes Record in Guinness Book

kegill — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:48:58 -0000

Adam, why didn't you detail the 24-hour period (9am Fri - 9 am Sat) in this post? It's now almost 13 hours later, #beatcancer is the number one trending topic, and people are still tweeting mindlessly. :-/

Re: Science And Sports: Conflicts In Genetics

kegill — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:39:23 -0000

From what I've read, it appears that if she is "intersexed" that she will not be able to compete as a woman. I've not seen anyone hypothesize about her competing against men -- but "men" have physical characteristics that privilege them in some sports. And she's not a "man."

Clearly her gender is female -- she thinks of herself as female, she physically appears to be female. I just wish that her handlers didn't think she needs to look like a *western* female in order to be considered "a girl" or to win sympathy for her case.

Until this, I had no idea that mixed-up-sex was as common as this.

Re: Science And Sports: Conflicts In Genetics

kegill — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:36:10 -0000

Define "born male" or "born female." If you mean, "if the baby has a penis it's male and if it doesn't it's female"... then she is (apparently) female.

The odds are that 1-in-2000 babies may physically appear to be female but have other characteristics that are "male." What about them?

She is NOT transgendered.

Re: Science And Sports: Conflicts In Genetics

kegill — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:34:15 -0000

How can it be "cheating" if the only way you know if you are intersexed is to have a helluva a lot of invasive tests? Why is not "cheating" to have a heart bigger than average? Both are genetically-based.

Gender IS culture.

SEX is science - but even science isn't black-and-white. Watch the clip.

Re: Science And Sports: Conflicts In Genetics

kegill — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:36:41 -0000

If you can get past the reporter's misuse of gender (used as a synonym for sex), this ABC Good Morning America episode from August is pretty good. Estimated 1-in-2000 children are born "intersexed" -- which means it's not *that* rare.

Perhaps a secondary issue here is the altar upon which we raise amateur (and professional) athletics?

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:32:05 -0000

Remind yourself that you aren't an early adopter, you're an innovator (Rogers). There will be a handful of innovators in higher ed seats this fall, as well, but they will be minority there just like they are the minority in the general population. [I use the term as Rogers did -- not tech specific but that small percentage of the population who adopt "innovations" first.]

The reason I made the point about school board involvement is that you seem very passionate about education -- and based on when you graduated from college, I also made an assumption about kids. Since you're in Seattle - it's even more important, IMO, given the controversy over math education/textbooks. Ugh.

Yes, "the academy" can be conservative, like any institution. One of the skills we wish for our MCDM students is that of the successful change agent once they get outside. But it's also one of the characteristics young journalists need. Our summer project was designed in part to provide ammunition for change agentry (albeit anecdotal).

And no apology needed on that first assumption .... you walked the path paved by the WSJ and the press release.

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:15:01 -0000

You're welcome. And I'm serious about that challenge to focus some of your energy on your local (eastside?) school board. :-)

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:54:52 -0000

Thanks, Ken!

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:32:42 -0000

Once upon a time, I thought that if I knew about a communications technology, everyone else did, too.

I built one of the first gubernatorial campaign websites (primary race) in the country; it was the first one in Washington with its own URL. (I fought a losing battle over .org v .com.) This was spring (I think) 1995. AOL couldn't read jpgs, only gifs. And I thought that the Web would profoundly change the *1996* presidential election. LOL! I was not working in academia at the time, nor was I working in the tech sector. I was a public affairs manager for a trade association in a conservative industry: pulp and paper. But I had a CompuServe account and was hooked on the Internet.

I tell this story to illustrate that 14 years later I have a better understanding of technology adoption cycles and where I fit. As a general statement , we are *early* in the adoption of social media technologies by organizations (public and private) and *very* early when we are talking about Twitter/real-time-web. And anyone who suggests that they know how this will play out is smokin' something! :-)

That said, the adoption cycle seems to be collapsing, ie, adoption tip points seem to come faster today than in 1995. That means we can't afford to wait if we want to help our students understand the media environment and help them develop the skills needed to find a job.

Journalism degrees, ostensibly liberal arts degrees, are very skills focused. I took at class at UGA (a top J-school) that involved T-squares and xacto knives! I learned how to develop black and white film and print photos -- concurrently with learning about composition and story. Mixing a technical skill into a journalism course is S.O.P.

Notice that my summer class was a "special projects" class. These are generally "one-off" classes, and I do not see this class being repeated. I taught two special projects undergrad classes in blogging, media and politics under the same assumption -- one-off (if one repeat counts!) but appropriate at the time.

Notice, too, that the UW, Stanford and DePaul journalism classes do not have "Twitter" in their title. That's because all of us understand that Twitter is a tool we can use to help students learn other things ... while they are also learning about Twitter.

My heartburn at how the WSJ and LAT and ChicagoTribune (et al) framed the DePaul course is that they jumped on the Twitter aspect -- because, as I said in my first post (I think!), Twitter is "hot". If the goal of the press release was to get attention for DePaul's journalism program, then it worked. However, at the same time, this demonstrates just how little "reporting" took place, if by "reporting" we mean research and analysis rather than rewriting a press release.

I'm guessing that Craig feels the same.

So on that note, I think we can all three agree. :-)

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:37:02 -0000

Steve, I was quoting you -- you said you had not seen the course sites. As I noted, it was quite easy to find the DePaul syllabus; I did.

I believe you are confusing technical literacy (skill or proficiency) with strategic use of a technology. I tried to say that in my prior post, but I did not do so well, it seems.

As someone who interacts with under-22-year-olds on a semi-regular basis (I teach only two undergrad courses a year), I can assure you that your implication that all 18-22-year-olds are digital natives is a very naive assumption. Of course, I mumble this just about every time I read something (article, book, blog post or comment) about digital natives. (I hate that phrase, btw, but it's shorthand for what your posts imply.)

Moreover, most of my undergrads (and almost all of my grad students) have real jobs and are still going to school full-time. Some of them have families, children. They don't have a lot of discretionary time.

Here's a different excerpt from student Twitter experience (note, the time is late May/early June 2009):

I found the amount of Twitter use by journalists surprising. I imagined that the journalism field would be resistant to using a medium like Twitter, but found quite the opposite. Not only were there many journalists using Twitter, news organizations were using Twitter as well. [...] I also came across journalists using Twitter to harvest information from their followers. I came across journalists/organizations posting replies thanking followers for tips, responding to questions, or issuing updates. Twitter is being used by journalists and news organizations to distribute news, but also as a means for professionals to cultivate the massive amounts of “citizen journalists” that have arisen on the Internet. Twitter is creating a “community newsroom,” an answer to David Cohn’s question, “How can professional and citizen journalists work together?“

I would ask you to help me understand (a) why you ignored this student's observations or (b) why it wasn't compelling ... except I don't want to prolong this thread.

Perhaps you don't think that is a "new" insight. However, I can assure you that Andrew's insight is not shared by every journalist out there and would not have been an insight at all had Twitter not been integrated into that course.

Andrew is not alone. I conducted a two-hour workshop for regional journalists in April. At the end, someone asked me "you really think these sites (Facebook, Twitter et al) are here to stay?" I got the same question from a development director at an area university two weeks ago.

This post to which I am replying continues to insist that our courses are "narrow" when we have shown -- via syllabi and narrative in this thread -- that they are NOT narrow. Various people have answered your objections, but apparently we are not convincing.

I hope you spend as much energy involved with your local school board.

Re: The first Twitter class

kegill — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:34:37 -0000

Interesting comments guys (and gal!).

First, understand that the PR folks at DePaul did what PR folks *do* to get media attention. And the online news sector is certainly full of Twitter hype at the moment, so they baited a hook well IMO.

Second, the WSJ did not link to the DePaul syllabus; Gawker did. A look at the syllabus shows that this journalism course -- like Howard Rheingold's from 2008 and mine from spring 2009 -- exposes students to issues and technologies surrounding digital journalism. Twitter is just one of them. You can see what my students thought about Twitter after the end of the quarter; their comments should puncture the "ageist" assumptions in Steve's first post: http://com466.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/student-...

Third, our summer course at UW was in many ways a directed research class. The students collaboratively developed a methodology for exploring how Twitter is being used in specific "channels" (higher ed, military, airlines, etc). They then interviewed leaders in those channels (each student selected a channel of personal interest) using a common set of questions and used agreed-upon methodology to conduct a heuristic analysis of at least 10 organizations. I'd call this critical thinking.

The results of that research will be available to anyone via the web. Currently some material is still password-protected because the student isn't quite ready for community feedback. This fall, as Jeris notes, the research will also be available in an edited volume -- Kindle, PDF and print-on-demand.

So this summer's graduate level class -- as well the three journalism classes mentioned -- wasn't "how to use Twitter" in the technical sense. It was, however (as were/are they), a course in how to integrate this technology into an organizational communication plan.

Moreover, Twitter (as a symbol for the real-time-web) is still an emerging technology (actual accounts v mindshare which exploded due to MSM attention - my 81 yo father who lives in rural south Georgia and uses his MacMini to play Solitaire asked me "what is Twitter?" back in April). So Steve's criticism of BreakingTweets (only 70M uniques a month) is premature, IMO. Moreover, niche *is* the name of this game. See, for example, EPIC2015 (the closing sequence).

I'm quite certain that in 1998 there were people saying that there was no need to teach university courses on how to effectively communicate on the web. They would have been wrong, too.

And Steve, this is a snarky comment but I'm saying it anyway: The links in John's story went *directly* to my summer class and my spring class. [As noted earlier, the WSJ did not link to DePaul syllabus but Gawker did - it wasn't *hard* to find.]

So when I read your prose -- "I fully admit this may all be off-base, since I've not seen the course" -- I find my teeth grinding in frustration. I don't mind criticism, when it's informed. It drives me batty to have to "refute" criticism written in voluntary ignorance.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:56:12 -0000

Hi, MichaelD - thanks! I hope you like TMV; I think Joe does a good job of bringing in a variety of writers. I used to write the USPolitics column at About.com and write here sporadically. I have a master's degree in agricultural economics from VPI&SU (Virginia Tech) but have not been a practicing economist for a long time. :-) I teach digital communication at the University of Washington, having turned to academia after a career in public affairs and technical communication.

Here are the C4C articles:
http://themoderatevoice.com/44569/c4c-gm-chrysl...
http://themoderatevoice.com/43588/cash-for-clun...
http://themoderatevoice.com/42828/cash-for-clun...

The orders for durable goods numbers are *very* promising -- more so if they hold for next month. These data are (a) reliable and (b) suggest that the economy has made a turn.

Re: Obtained: The RNC’s Health Care Survey

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:09:39 -0000

Thanks!

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:01:27 -0000

First, I certainly did not say that the economy was "great" and I don't know of anyone who is saying this - with or without a straight face.

The fact is that a slowing in the rate of decline IS improvement, even if that is all that these data represent.

It is also a fact that the national debt is a disgrace and we, the boomers who are "in charge" are culpable. I've already ranted about cash-for-clunkers. Don't remember reading you in those comments. :-)

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:58:13 -0000

We cannot "consume" our way out of the mess we are in. And we have to realize that an economy built on a steady diet of consumer spending is an economy built on sand.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:57:16 -0000

I would have felt a LOT better about the stimulus if it had been focused on infrastructure (think "investment"). We've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for the last three decades: look at our highways system, the electric grid, transit, water and sewer lines. All crumbling. :-/

Repeating myself: the CBO projected recovery WITHOUT the stimulus.

Where the "stimulus" has probably done the most good is in extension of unemployment benefits.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:54:42 -0000

Hi, DLS:

I may have a degree in economics but I don't have a crystal ball. :-)

Seriously, there are systemic changes working their way through the economy: the effects of limitless digital information ("Free" - "abundance") on a system that is predicated on scarcity. Recovery will be, IMO, slow. Some retail outlets aren't coming back. News as I have known it my entire life is going through wrenching change; we don't know what that model will look like. (I recommend EPIC2015 if you haven't seen it.)

My advice for high school and college graduates: if you like to do things with your hands, then focus your skills there. Jobs that have a geographical and/or "atoms" component can't easily be outsourced.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:50:57 -0000

We had a jobless recovery, pretty much, under Bush also. Remember, he barely squeaked by the record set by Hoover -> fewer jobs at the end of his term than at the start.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:50:12 -0000

Good call on the individual assessment. That might explain the difference in the Gallup results.

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:49:14 -0000

Hi, D.E.

Neither the Ds nor Obama can take credit for much of this recovery, if by credit you mean "all that money that we allocated for the stimulus in February." Because the economy isn't a light switch. The CBO said in Jan/Feb that the economy would recover late 2009 **without** the stimulus!

Re: Obtained: The RNC’s Health Care Survey

kegill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:58:11 -0000

Did you make the scans of the survey? If not, who did?

Re: Is The Economy Looking Up?

kegill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:37:37 -0000

One more thing. The economy is recovering with only minimal "help" from the federal government and the winter stimulus, because most of that money has not been spent, only allocated.

And the Congressional Budget Office made a forecast about the recovery sans stimulus -- that recovery would probably begin in 4th quarter 2009. Fourth quarter starts in October. Congress ignored that forecast (akin to rearranging chairs while the Titanic is sinking: we must do something!) as well as the one pointing out the negative long-run impact of all that borrowing.

Re: C4C: GM, Chrysler Losers

kegill — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:03:47 -0000

It is especially a waste when you remember that 3-out-of-4 cars sold in this country are USED. :-/

Re: C4C: GM, Chrysler Losers

kegill — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:03:01 -0000

Hopefully it will not be resurrected, although I saw a hint that there's going to be smaller version for household appliances. =:-0

We'll have to agree to disagree about its efficacy.

Re: C4C: GM, Chrysler Losers

kegill — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:01:11 -0000

For those not familiar with jargon, a transplant company is a domestic plant owned by a foreign auto company.