The Future Of Media...

Wednesday night I attended the ITANS (Information Technology Industry Alliance Of Nova Scotia) annual dinner. The guest speaker was Ken Rutkowski, media personality, strategist and consultant. The theme of his talk was on the future of media. A couple of cool things came out - one - it's gonna be a busy future, and two - I'm mostly there now!

Ken started his talk by describing old media (TV, newspapers etc.) and new media (Web, RSS, blogs, YouTube etc.) and their products - old media's product is content, while new media's product is the audience - the customer is the advertiser (makes sense - hits is one of the measures of success for an online presence). This distinction may be a little simplistic, but it allows for an identification f new media.

Mobile devices, in particular cell phones (smart devices) is where it is at for the future of media. By 2010 there will 2 billion Nokia cell phones alone in circulation - cell phone penetration is growing and in some nations is well over 90%. I've talked about this in past posts and it's interesting to here an industry expert say the same thing. In my mind it's mobile devices that are the future of education, allowing learners to learn where, when, what, and how they want to.

Ken went on to talk about RSS and push technology, how RSS is pushing information - the customer is the product. I'm a big fan of RSS - push technology is the only way these days to make sense of the sea of information that we are swimming in. Content is everywhere - podcasts, YouTube etc.

Ken then did something very cool- the rest of his presentation consisted of him using Skype to contact "some of his friends", industry experts and personalities who shared their thoughts with us on the future of media. His friends included:

• Ralph Simon - creator of the ring tone
• Johnathan Wendel - professional gamer (Fatality)
• James Sun - CEO of Zoodango - a social networking site that facilitates both online and F2F social networking
• Scott Page - former member of Pink Floyd and Supertramp, now involved in Web-based technology allowing bands to communicate with their fans

The common thread from each of these incredible people is that it's content and mobility, along with penetration that is going to be the future of social media. Businesses and individuals need to get out there and be active parts of this always on environment - be part of community.

Thanks to ITANS and the organizers for a great evening and a wonderful dinner. I know that the students that we brought along had an amazing time - they saw a glimpse into the future - where they will be working and living, and that is too cool...

E-Mail Is Dead! Long Live ??...

This post "Is E-Mail On The Way Out?" from the Adaptive Path blog (you should add it's feed to your RSS aggregator ASAP), got me thinking again about the use and lifespan of e-mail. Is e-mail dead? Not yet, but I think it is starting to not feel so well. I still run my life with e-mail, it's my main form of business communication certainly, but there are other tools and technologies creeping in and my e-mail clients should be worried.

If I take a moment and look at all of the tools that I am using to communicate and share with people in my personal life, e-mail is probably now the least used tool - I use Twitter to update my comings and goings (but I need to get better at it), Facebook for just about everything that is me, Skype to stay in touch and communicate visually and by voice, Blogger to express and share my thoughts, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google Groups to collaborate, and many other tools and technologies as the mood strikes.There isn't any room for e-mail in my personal life anymore.

And to top it all off I get most of this information pushed to me, not to my computer, but to my cell phone - I am truly mobile.

Now I am not actually saying that e-mail is dead - it is still the tool I use and most people use for business communication, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, but as an educator I have come to see learners who don't use e-mail regularly if at all anymore (just ask them if they read that important announcement sent to their College e-mail account if you don't believe me). Learners are telling me that e-mail is dull and slow, that it's not immediate enough - they prefer IM or Facebook, or some other more immediate form of communication.

I asked a first year IT class to make a choice - do without e-mail, or do without Internet access - it was unanimous - 100% offered to give up their e-mail on the spot. Today's learners see e-mail as an old, tired technology; one that is not agile or immediate enough for their needs. As educators we need to be where are learners are, and to get there we need to embrace the changing technologies and engage with them - and you know I have - and they are right - e-mail is old and slow! I actually can go for days not checking my personal e-mail account, but I am on Facebook every day - it's one of my home page tabs...

So if e-mail is dead - what will replace it? Well whatever it is, I think it will be more open and social than the closed system of sending a message to a finite number of addressees. It may be Facebook or its successor, or twitter, or a combination of more than one tool. Whatever it will be it will be accessed more on mobile devices than computers, that I know for sure. The only thing that I haven't quite got my head around is how confidential matters will be handled, so maybe there will always be a small corner in the room for e-mail or its closed successor. Hmmm...

(Photo - "Tools of the Trade" by tim_d)

RSS - Feeds R'Us

I'm a really big fan of RSS. It has become my primary source of online information. I like the idea that I can have information pushed to me without asking or having to go find it (once I subscribe to the feed).

The problem that I have is that I now have too many RSS feeds. I use NetVibes as my RSS agrregator, and I receive over 200 feeds perday. So I am reduced to scanning headlines and then reading those feeds that interest me. I still think it's a great way to get information, I just need to perhaps have a better personal "RSS filter" and stop subscribing to every feed that strikes my fancy. the efficiency of RSS more than out weighs the volume of information being sent to me

Another good RSS aggregator is Pageflakes. Both NetVibes and Pageflakes advertise themselves as much more than RSS aggregators, and in fact they are - complete with thousands of add-ons, they truly are Web start-up pages or portals.

If you are new to RSS check out the video from CommonCraft "RSS in PLain English". here is the YouTube version:



I will be using RSS feeds and aggregators (supported by blogs and wikis) beginning this Fall to augment and eventually replace text books. The information is more immediate, current, relevant, and how it is received by the learner can be customized. What do you think of my idea to remove text books and replace them with RSS feeds and other Web 2.0 technologies)?...

(Photo - The Universal RSS Logo/Icon by orangejack)

Managing Information - Turn Off The Fire Hose!!

I suspect that we are all suffering from information overload, or as I like to call it - drinking from the fire hose - you get to swallow a little bit of information - the rest just gets you wet.

This was brought home to me this morning when I asked friends if they got my e-mail. The answer was "which one?" followed quickly by "turn off the fire hose!!". I was overloading them with information and not doing a very good job of even telling them what information I was even talking about.

So how do we manage information in this age of always on Internet, TV news, radio, and print media? I know that my information gathering patterns have changed significantly over the years from print to audio, to video (TV), to print again (the early Internet) and now to constantly streaming pushed multimedia content (Web 2.0) that I get to customize myself, creating an information nirvana for a data junkie like myself. I must receive on average over 200 e-mails from different sources (and with multiple e-mail addresses of course), although I will admit to merely reading the Subject lines of the messages and filtering out the ones of no or little interest (or the duplicates) to my Delete folders.

And then there is my latest information goldmine - the RSS aggregator - with Netvibes I am now receiving hundreds of feeds a day. Again I am mostly looking at titles and synopses and reading only the ones I think are relevant to my interests. On top of all this e-mail and RSS information, I read the newspaper every day, watch TV news, and get information sent to me by my friends - no wonder I always feel a little damp around the edges...

I tend to share what I find with friends and colleagues. The problem is I get carried away with my own enthusiasm and turn the fire hose on full, and everyone is just too busy to go around wet all day. How do I share what I think is neat, cool, essential, or just plain hmmm... information? My filtering system seems to work for me (or am I just kidding myself and missing more than I find?). So is it blogs, RSS aggregators, Google Groups, or some yet to be seen Web 2.0 "killer app" that will let me share the information I find and not get my friends (or myself) drenched by the information fire hose? Any thoughts, any ideas?

Hmmm...

My Web 2.0 Toolkit

I've been exploring and using all sorts of Web 2.0 tools and technologies for some time now and thought I would share the ones that make up my "Web 2.0 Toolkit". These are the Web 2.0 tools that I use pretty much everyday in both my personal life and as an adult educator. So, in no particular order, here they are:

• Blogging - Well - I'm obviously using Blogger, but Wordpress is pretty cool too
• RSS - I'm sold on Netvibes - it's become my number one source of online information - I literally get hundreds of feeds from it daily
• Pictures - Flickr and Photobucket. I use Flickr for storing and showing off my photos and Photobucket for my stock photos that I use on line. I also use flickrCC to find stock photos online (remember to abide by the licensing terms of the owners - msot use one of the Creative Commons licenses)
  
• Wikis - I have several different wikis now at wikispaces but pbwiki is a really good tool as well. Wikis are a great educational tool, particularly if you get your learners to maintain them. A good way to answer the question "What do we do now that the course is over?".
  
• Collaboration - Google Groups and Google Notebook. Two great tools from Google, I plan on using them to replace textbooks in my courses.
• To-do List - Remember The Milk is an easy to use to-do list that keeps me on track
• Calendar tool - Google Calendar - just about runs my life now, would be lost without it - and I can share my calendar too so people know what's going on with me.
  
• Social Networking - Facebook - a great tool for staying in touch, I'm in the process of setting up an alumni group for my former students
• Video conversions - Vixy.net is great if you absolutely must have a local copy of that favourite online video. A great tool if you don't always have a high-speed Internet connection
  
• Staying current - Twitter is a great tool for letting people know where you are and what you are up to although I do not use it nearly as much as some. I actually use the custom status messages in GMail more
• Conferencing - Elluminate's vRoom - a great free tool from Elluminate gives you all of the capabilities of Elluminate except for recording and a limit of three sites. Not really a Web 2.0 tool (try Vyew if you want a Web-based conferencing tool).
  

Well there you have it - my current Web 2.0 toolkit - I am sure that it will continue to evolve over the months to come and I'll do my best to let you know what I am using...

(Photo from David Babylon)