The perceptions that we have of the world shape the way we understand it, and new technologies lead to new perceptions. Perhaps my greatest shift in this direction came once I had an iPhone; once I began to carry in my pocket a device that would allow me to capture and share what I was seeing or hearing instantly via tools like Twitter – tools that were simultaneously personal and not directed at any single other person. This device, these capabilities altered the way I experienced the physical world. I no longer had to be stuck behind my desk to share content, to make connections; I could do so from the wild. This started changing what I saw by changing what I looked for.

When seeing becomes social: How the network is changing the way I look at the world. 

I experienced this as well when I got my first iPhone/first reliable smartphone. Even though I used to carry a camera in my purse, I had to wait until I got home to upload the photos anywhere. Now that I can share on a number of networks anytime right away, new conversations happen in my head - “do I put this photo on Instagram, or Facebook? Or both? What’s a cute caption?” On and on.

Source: museumgeek.wordpress.com

The Teacher's Guide to Facebook

It’s like Mashable knew we were doing a talk on Facebook Groups and Pages for faculty today. This article presents various ways educators deal with interacting with students on Facebook, but unfortunately doesn’t go too much into using Groups or Pages with classes. Even so - it’s a helpful read for inspiring you to solidify your own policy regarding how you interact with students on Facebook. 

If you’re an educator looking to start using social media with your students, I also recommend the book Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices. I went to a workshop given by the author and found her tips and case studies very insightful.

And if you’ve been following Everyme since its early days, you may be wondering why the version that launched this week wasn’t “the intelligent social address book” that was promised last year. Cameron says that as he developed the earlier product, he realized that most people don’t have the overwhelming, sprawling address books that you see in Silicon Valley, so it would have been “a professional tool rather than something that could be used by everyone, which is what we wanted to build.

There Are Now 200,000 People In Everyme Circles | TechCrunch

Except at least if he did the address book thing it could’ve met the needs of that audience, instead of creating an app “for everyone” that sounds a lot like Google+. Has anyone checked out Everyme? 

I for one would’ve liked to check out that “overwhelming address book” solver app.

Source: TechCrunch

Just as Gmail was key to Google’s enterprise play, Google is fast becoming the enterprise social networking tool of choice for savvy office workers. The consumerization of IT certainly plays a role in this. In fact, a Forrester study found that the market for enterprise social collaboration is projected to increase tenfold in the next four years as more traditional services like video conferencing decline. Tools that succeed in this new era will combine communication and collaboration services with social features in much the way G does.

How Google Can Succeed at Business Without Really Trying

A must-read primer on the benefits of using G+ for business use.

Source: Mashable