Images from Facebook pages protesting Arizona's SB1070 immigration law.

Arizona’s controversial immigration bill, SB1070 was just signed into law last Friday, but its social media footprint has already been firmly established. 

Search “SB1070″ on Facebook, and you’ll find 37 Pages, 89 Groups and 55 events (each with their own branding, of course) dedicated to the new law, both for and against it. The term has its own Twitter hashtag. There are dozens of YouTube videos showing protests and news clips of politicians and pundits debating the bill. You can even buy a “Do I Look Illegal?” t-shirt on Cafe Press.

I expect to start seeing bumper stickers and front-yard picket signs pop up around Tucson soon, but it has been fascinating to see the speed at which social media protests and rallies are created and spread. I’m curious to see how it translates to offline behavior.

Will the online calls for boycott really hurt the Arizona economy? Will social media advocacy campaigns look for civil rights abuses or have an impact on efforts to overturn the law? Will state politicians or law enforcement agencies respond to social media comments or even start their own outreach online?

Social media protests didn’t save Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show job, but it did help sell out his comedy tour in a matter of hours and certainly played a big part in the court of public opinion. And as much as I love Conan, illegal immigration is a much more important issue, so theoretically the power of a social media movement is far greater here.

UPDATE: It looks like this is spilling over to higher ed, too. Lane Joplin tweeted this morning about the immigration debate landing on Arizona State University’s Facebook Page:

People started posting immigration-related messages on ASU’s wall on Sunday, many of them filled with profanity and name calling. No response yet from the university.

People need understanding and connection, not just information.
If all you’re doing is blasting your community with content, you–and your audience–are missing out. Both the Future of Context and How to Spark a Movement panels beautifully explained this point. Help someone truly undersand something, connect your community members with each other and unite people around a common mission. That’s when the magic starts to happen.

Think Visually
Three of the best sessions were about this. Dan Roam’s Why Words Won’t Work explained that we’re all visual thinkers, and pictures are key to solving problems. Interactive Infographics showed off how data can come to life if the visualization is done well. And they pointed out that infographics have gone mainsream: How I Met Your Mother uses them regularly (Marshall even needed a charts and graphs intervention because he was using them so frequently) and comedians like Demetri Martin use visualiztions in stand-up. In other words, infographics are cool.

And Visual Note-Taking 101 was the perfect primer and call to action for all of us budding artists.

Stories are powerful
Storytelling, experiences, journey, quest – whatever label you use, a narrative arc is going to resonate with people. A panel about enhancing the museum experience asked “What’s the epic win for your user?” In Narrating the Crowd, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his brother showed off their project, The Kahani Movement, which is capturing the history of Indian-American immigrants by asking people to record their own family’s stories. “Ordinary people have extraordinary stories to share,” they said.

Stories help us remember information. In his Perfectly Irrational presentation, Stanford prof Dan Ariely explained how we are motivated by short-term rewards by telling the story of how he treated himself to a movie day every time he gave himself a painful injection he needed to treat his liver disease. That kept him on track and made sure he got his medicine. I”ll never forget that story, and as a result, that lesson will stay with me.

Open Up
NASA has embraced President Obama’s call to government agencies to become more transparent, and as a result this massive, aging organizations is connecting with new fans in a way that hasn’t been seen in a long time. All of their content is in the public domain, which means anyone can participate in space research and exploration.

Embrace Contradiction
You can be a cool science museum, an open bureaucracy, a warm-hearted business person, a funny girl, a designer who fights malnutrition. In fact those apparent contradictions are often where we find the most interesting people and projects.

Bonus – 5 Cool Web sites
Each of these was mentioned in a SXSW talk. Click and explore!

Apture.com – add contextual multimedia content to any site
www.Walking-papers.org - print maps, add notes and scan them back to share with others
www.Futureofcontext.com and www.explainthis.org -making online journalism more relevant
http://www.data.gov/ – more data than you could ever ask for

This session’s description of itself best sums it up: a case study on how the California Academy of Sciences - a traditional museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park — transformed itself into a global online education and research presence and integral social hub for the City, using the best tools and techniques of technology, social media and design.

Jonathan Denholtz, the museum’s director of interactive media and Maria Gidudice, a designer who consults with the museum, explained how they transformed an “150-year-old dusty institution into an organization that’s committed to experiential 21st century learning.”

Sound familiar, higher education friends? 

Their approach covers 4 main phases of a museum visitor’s experience:

• Inspire (pre-visit)
• Enhance (during)
• Extend (post-visit)
• Export (the virtual experience)

Unfortunately Denholtz and Gidudice were a little too giving with the crowd, so audience questions took over the session and we didn’t hear about the museum’s in-depth approach in each of these areas. But even without that it’s a thoughtful example of a way to frame your audience.

Here’s what they did get to:

Inspire (pre-visit)

• 70 percent of a museum’s revenue comes from the admissions gate. This is good during the first year, but more challenging as traffic levels off.
• CAS uses the web, mobile, social media and hybrid exhibits
• Segmenting the audience
  -CAS uses social media to target 20-30 somethings to publicize Night Life - Thursday evening parties where you pay $12 for a DJ and dancing at the museum. They also sell drinks. Attract 3,000 people every week.

Enhance (during the visit)

• How do you focus on an experience and not just information?
• Audio tours for CAS haven’t been super successful. Now they’re trying downloadable tours built around specific themes. Connects different exhibits while giving people a reason to come back multiple times.
• Look at user-generated vs. curated content
• What is the epic win for the user?

Export (virtual experience)

• The museum can only hold 2 million visitors annually, so how can they reach more people?
• Your Web site can be more than just an information repository. Create new, compelling content that keeps people coming back.

Photo by Kevin Dooley

YouTube’s Margaret Gould Stewart joined TED Talks Director of Film and Video Jason Wishnow and Damian Kulash, he of the OK Go and Treadmills viral video fame. The session was the perfect blend of informative and entertaining.

Some of the big points:

• “Viral” doesn’t have to mean 10 million views. It’s people responding to a clip and feeling compelled to share it. The numbers may be different for everybody. Try your best to set a goal, and see what happens. TED hoped to get 40,000 views on their first video. Now their talks have been watched 230 million times!
• Match the style to your content and purpose. TED Talks need high production values, mutltiple angles and close ups to help make the lectures come alive on camera. But the low-budget, single-camera approached was important for the first OK Go videos because that was unusual for a music video and made it clear the band made it themselves. It felt more personal and helped fans connect with them.
• Most common traits of viral videos: Inspiration, surprise, a sense of wonder, clever and POSITIVE. “People don’t really like sharing negative stuff,” Stewart said.
• Kulash says internet communities have a “permeable wall,” so this means you should involve your community by hosting shoot-offs, inviting or linking to parodies, holding contests, etc.
• You don’t have to always create content–you can be a curator too, like Fail Blog.
• Wishnow says there is no one way to reach your audience. You have to be “platform agnostic.” TED posts videos on their own site, YouTube, iTunes and many others.
• Emededibility is key. On average, during the first 48 hours a video is posted on YouTube, half of its traffic is from people watching it on some other site. Bloggers want to keep people on their own site, so they’re most likely to share a video they can embed.
• Your video’s title and meta-data are just as important as SEO on Google. Wishnow suggests adjusting your title for a video based on didfferent audiences and platforms.
• Make something people want to watch multiple times. The average viewer watched Ok Go’s new “This Too Shall Pass – Rube Goldberg Machine version” video (below) 4-5 times.

The panel’s favorite viral videos:

Kulash said they had a team of 60 engineers working on this video for months. It took 65 takes, and they only got all the way through the sequence successfully 3 times.

I think this one definitely has the element of surprise.

Kulash added that any good viral video should have boobs or kittens.

And how do you wrap up a viral video panel? By making one of course! Kulash and Wishnow used the audience to remake the surprised kitten video. Can you spot me?

And now, because I can’t stop, 3 of my favorite viral videos. Interesting that they all share the traits listed above:

First, a great example of using positivity, for a subject that could easily have been much more serious.

Next, a beautiful video that shows the power of fun and humor to change people’s behavior. Good lesson for, oh I don’t know – everything.

Finally, this video just makes me happy and bolsters my wish that sometimes life was a musical.

Artist Austin Kleon's interpretation of the "Try Making Yourself More Interesting" panel, a standout from SXSW 2009. I'm looking forward to Austin's "Visual Notetaking 101" session this year.

One of the things that I value most is that my SXSW experience managed to hit some high, soaring, inspiration notes while also giving me practical insight and tips. After the conference I reported back to my team at McCombs on my 5 big takeaways. Normally I wouldn’t share year-old notes, but these still influence me and my work on a regular basis, so here goes:

1.) Web site: The Big Picture
Alan Taylor runs the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” photography blog, and he gave one of my favorite presentations of the conference. It was surprisingly moving–he had the whole room in tears as he explained a photo series of cancer patients–and totally unexpected. For me, this was a quintessential SXSW moment: a passionate person sharing something he cares about and using technology and communication to connect people and move the world forward. And as a magazine and blog editor, it encouraged me to remember the power of great photography and that even business stories can be visually compelling.
 
2.) Celebrate our Success!
This was a small point made in a panel about agency-client relationships, but it really stuck with me. Too often we are already on to the next thing, and hardly take time to pat ourselves on the back, beyond perhaps a passing “Nice work!” e-mail. We need ritual and ceremony to celebrate the completion of major projects. I’m still working on this one, but I did convince our magazine team to get out of the building for a 30-minute Starbucks break after we published our first issue of a new online version.

3.) People respond to being part of something bigger than themselves
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s keynote was a memorable highlight and Zappos seems to be a model of how to do company culture right. He talked about how for most people, happiness is tied directly to a higher purpose. For that reason, Zappos aims to move employees from job to career to calling.

I’ve tried to keep this in mind as a higher ed staffer. I mean I know we’re dealing with tight budgets, no pay raises, layoffs and unlimited bureaucracy, but it’s not like we’re stuck selling appliances! We are serving instutions that provide enormous opportunity for people and set them on a new life path. We need to tap into that inspriational side of our jobs more often.

4.) Social media allows for accidental learning.
I heard this nugget during a student panel about social media in the classroom, and it has sort of become my guiding principle in how I think about higher education social media. I know our followers and fans don’t read every word we say, but if I can trickle into someone’s news stream and get them to click on a link where they all of a sudden find themselves reading about how to be a better manager or learning about a student’s study abroad trip, then that’s a success.

5.) Be amazed.
I forget who showed this fabulous clip of comedian Louis C.K. complaining to Conan O’Brien that everything is amazing but nobody is happy. Frustrated your cell phone is slow? “Give it a second – it’s going to space!” The in-flight internet is spotty? You had to sit on the runway for 40 minutes? “Oh really, what happened next? Did you partake in the miracle of flight?”

Those words have popped up in my head often when I get pouty about truly insignificant things.

I have no idea what gems await me this year at SXSW Interactive. I’m hoping to engage my creative side and get tips on visual thinking, engage my geek side and check in with some science panels and engage my it’s-good-for-your-job-and-don’t-limit-yourself-it’s-more-interesting-than-you-would-expect side by visiting some business sessions. But whatever I learn, I promise to share here!

Any fellow SXSW attendees out there? Do any of last year’s lessons still resonate with you now? What are you looking forward to this year?

P.S. – A huge thanks to Austin American-Statesman tech reporter Omar Gallaga for including me on his list of 20 people to follow during SXSW Interactive. I’m quite shocked to be included with such a sparkling group, but I will do my best to deliver the goods!

And yet, as a communicator now working in higher education—at the very university I graduated from—I struggle to infuse the stories I write with the lighter side of life. I find it especially difficult working at a business school, where the culture is more buttoned-down. But the culture isn’t boring and stuffy either, so what’s the problem?

One very astute alumnus commented on our magazine reader survey that we are “too afraid of [our] readers.” BINGO! I’m afraid of having a sense of humor in our stories, because I don’t want to offend people or make the school look silly. I included a Dilbert cartoon in our Spring/Summer 2009 cover story, and part of me sort of expected to get hate mail for it.

I don’t think that fear should drive my writing, but it’s not altogether unwarranted. Watch 2 minutes of the fun, non-traditional, somewhat silly student-produced Yale admissions video below and then read some of the 148 comments people left on a New York Times article about the video (Yale disabled comments on the video on its YouTube page.)

“I actually felt myself getting dumber watching that”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s YALE, not Taco Bell. With their miniscule acceptance rate, it seems hardly necessary to stoop to this. This is appalling. Selling one of the premier universities with trite songs and salad bars. So much for the dignity of the institution.”

“Embarrasing. [sic]”

“Really, Yale? Are you seriously trying to appeal to the “High School Music” demographic?”

“I absolutely would never have set foot on the campus if I had ever seen this. It’s disgusting, and they should seriously consider whether they want to risk losing alumni contributions (such as mine) by leaving it up. It is in remarkably poor taste for an institution as selective as Yale to have such breathless rhapsodies, tongue-in-cheek, or no (and I dare say any irony is worn pretty thin by minute 15) marketed to the 90% of applicants who will receive the `thin envelope’ in April. It’s not really cute, funny or ironic if you don’t get in.”

Ouch! No wonder we’re afraid of showing a sense of humor in our communications.

The good news? A large number of the commenters seem to support the video and admire Yale’s attempt at humor and innovation. It’s also surpassed 250,000 YouTube views in less than 2 weeks, so it’s certainly getting attention.

I’m going to keep trying to find my funny bone in higher education storytelling, but I think I better build up my backbone too.

Twitter’s new lists feature offers users a much-needed way to organize who you follow and group them into custom categories. And since you can see what lists others have placed you in, it’s also a fascinating and useful way to see how other tweeters think about you or your brand.

I discovered this rather rudely when I checked to see what lists our business school account (@UTexasMcCombs) were included on. Most people listed us under categories you’d expect—MBA, business school, colleges, Austin, UT.

But one list name stood out above the rest, a glittering display of social-media brute-force honesty:

“Ignore but not unfollow”

That shattering sound you here? Yeah, that’s my ego.

After I went through the five stages of grief (and of course tweeted about it), I decided to be a grownup and use this as a learning opportunity. So here, in no particular order, 5 lessons from being snubbed by Twitter lists:

-Numbers aren’t everything. Since launching our Twitter account in August 2008, we’ve gained 2,418 followers, more than some entire universities. We’re over 1,000 fans on Facebook. SO WHAT. Just because you have a large audience, it doesn’t mean they’re actually listening.

-Different strokes for different folks. Plan and strategize all you want, but people will relate to you on social media on their own terms, not yours. I’m not sure why this person is bothering to follow us if they’re intentionally ignoring us, but she’s got her own personal motivations, and that’s her call.

-You can’t please everybody. Numbers aren’t everything, but I don’t think we’d be steadily gaining followers if we weren’t doing something right. We get thoughtful interaction on both Twitter and Facebook, awareness seems to be on the rise, and feedback is generally very positive. We are genuinely trying to communicate and engage from the standpoint of being helpful, informative and relational. Is everyone going to love what we do? No. But hopefully we’re not too far off the mark with most of our audience.

-There’s always room for improvement. This falls under the What-have-you-done-for-me-lately? category. While we’re not going to completely overhaul our social media approach based on one weirdly negative Twitter list, it’s a good reminder not to rest on our laurels. How can we up our effort, create more compelling content and practice innovation?

-Don’t take it personally. I’ve put a lot of hard work into the McCombs Twitter account. I love working on it. It’s my baby. So when I saw this list title, it sort of felt like overhearing the cute boy at prom talking about what a dorky dress I’m wearing.

But if you’re going to engage in or even just monitor social media, you’ve got to develop a thicker skin. People will post negative comments, complain about your organization and sometimes just be downright rude. It’s easy to get emotional or defensive, but that’s only going to make it worse. (This post on Chris Brogan’s blog contains good advice about responding to negative comments.)

Examine the situation, respond (or ignore) as needed, don’t be jerky, learn your lesson and move on.

Have you had to deal with social media rejection? How much weeping was involved? Did it actually end up helping you?

Image source: sundesigns

Well, if all you get from Twitter is pointless babble, then the community you follow is probably the Twitter equivalent of a party at the Playboy mansion: sexy and shiny on the surface, but nothing much of lasting value. (Not that I’ve ever been to a party at the Playboy mansion, so of course I’m taking a wild stab in the dark with that characterization. Pure speculation.) If, on the other hand, you follow people who might be found lingering over a bottle of wine on your back porch or presenting at your favorite conference, then you get a rich, interesting, funny, immensely useful stream of information, opinions and insights.

To prove my point and explain why I personally use Twitter, here are 7 useful things I found on Twitter in the last 7 days:

1. Annie Leibovitz, one of the world’s most celebrated photographers, is near financial ruin.
Use: Pop culture 101
This New York magazine article tells a fascinating story of how Annie Leibovitz is in massive debt and at risk of losing all rights to her vast catalog. Shocking! It fed both my interest in pop culture and my desire to soak up quality magazine writing. I actually came across this article because someone tweeted about another New York magazine piece that sounded interesting, and I ended up doing a little extended reading while at their site. (P.S. – Here’s to Annie turning it around and starting a new chapter, yeah?)

Twitter is full of bright ideas. Get it?

2. Nike shoes were inspired by waffles.
Use: Inspiration and creativity
@Twalk retweeted @KathySierra’s post about unexpected places where people find inspiration, which in turn is an inspiration for me and a reminder to keep my eyes open and look for possibility and connection in everything around me.

3. Where to find $5 parking near Chase Field in Phoenix
Use: Well isn’t this handy!
A true example of only-on-Twitter interactions.

Tweet 1: @TimNekritz linked to his blog post about branding and ballparks.
Tweet 2: I replied, saying I’d be visiting the Phoenix stadium soon, and his post would be on my mind during my visit.
Tweets 3-5: Phoenix resident @lanejoplin chimed in and wished me a good time at the park. I asked if she had any game tips, and she promptly provided me with a stadium restaurant, directions to the park and a Google map showing where I can park for $5. If Chase Field has parking fees in line with other Major League stadiums, she probably saved me at least $20.

4. A new book for my reading list
Use: What I should be reading/watching/attending
I’ve picked up great recommendations on music, film, books, museums and dining from Twitter. This little tweet from @Tucson_Cowgirl caught my eye:

Sweet, a new book to read and a source of info about my new town.
 
5. How to avoid being fined $500 by the City of Austin.
Use: Critical news and information
Even though we live in Tucson, my husband and I still own a home in Austin, and it features a beautiful fountain that he built. Luckily I follow @austintexasgov and saw their link to the new watering restrictions, including one that prohibits running an outdoor fountain. By following city accounts, helpful Austinites and local news organizations like @statesman, I’ve got all I need to remain a law-abiding, water-conserving virtual citizen.

6. A hit-the-nail-on-the-head perspective on the role of PR in 2009.
Use: Professional advice and best practices
@kristen_okla retweeted a fabulous post from @shel on how PR and marketing are still valuable tools in a world where peer-to-peer word of mouth seems to rule all. I already view my role as a PR practitioner in the manner he describes, but it’s helpful to see a.) my instincts and practices put into words and b.) confirmation that I’m on the right track. Twitter gives me access to some of the brightest minds in my industry and helps keep me on my professional toes. It’s kind of like being at a great conference all year long.

 7. Opportunities to meet cool people in my new town.
Use: Building real-life relationships
@ssr11 noticed I’m new to Tucson and immediately invited me to coffee and the Tucson Tweet Crawl. I also learned of and attended a Social Media Club Tucson meeting with @AaronMSB and his “Swinging with Social Media” talk. I’ve been in a new city 3 weeks, and I’m already making connections.

On Twitter, it’s all about who you follow. Now I’ve given you 7 uses for Twitter and, let’s see, 11 helpful people to follow. And this is just a sample of what I got from Twitter in one week.* Seems like a lot more than pointless babble, no?

*Of course Twitter is also about what you give. I also try to keep these 7 uses in mind when writing my own tweets.

Sound off: Why do you use Twitter? Or, for some of you, why do you avoid it like the plague? Discuss!

Photo by Chuck Coker