THE CONTINUED RESISTANCE of traditional managers in a wide cross-section of industries to ignore vibrant online social networking amazes me. At the highest levels of Irish government, the dismissive attitude comes close to incompetent public representation. Some managers, CEOs, and politicians don't think that hyper-connected snappy exchanges count in the matrix of public communications. In fact, they often want to use tax money to block, throttle or censor the avenues used by active citizens online. This is so wrong on some many levels. It's pig-ignorant and an example of professional misconduct to ignore active citizens who express themselves in online social networks.Three years ago, when I first started poking around on Facebook and skimming through Twitterstreams, I heard the first snide comments about both of those social networks. Two years ago, when Tipperary Institute first started weaving social networking into an accredited creative multimedia degree, I had to defend my choice of networking tools (i.e., Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, Flickr, Google Documents, Last.fm and Blip.fm) to students who were happy to live in a world of irregular e-mail. By mid-2009, only students older than 35 needed convincing about using community zones online. Most of them become avid members of online communities within a few weeks. Today, a third of new students check into their social networks on their phones.
In the current climate of a potential swine flu outbreak, all local authorities and school officials should have a way to alert people of a serious threat. In fairness, emergency action information normally gets pushed out onto local radio and into bulk e-mail. But from what I've seen, the crisis communications checklists need to include actions taken on social networks. The active citizens there will push the message to their friends and associates.
I'd also like to offer a tip: if you send an email to an active citizen, requesting the toning-down or deletion of a comment, tweet or blog post, there's a good chance the request will be tweeted or passed around social networks. Personal email isn't sacred, even if it has a two-inch long postscript on the bottom.
My reach as a blogger extends across all time zones. That means someone visits at least once every 25 minutes. If also means the Googlebot visits several times a day and if I've mentioned an issue, another person or a special test site, Google will discover it and index it.
Like it or not, we're all part of a 24/7/global conversation. It is *live*. I take student requests and clarify assignments as late as 2AM some days. When I walk away from my screen after midnight most nights, students remain behind to chat and explore. As active citizens, they often spark off some clever ideas, making my job as an educator much easier.
I am topgold on many social networks.
