Friday, March 28, 2008

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Here's a great talk by the always compelling Clay Shirky.

One of the key concepts I took away from it was this quote from Clay:

Every URL is a latent community. Which is to say: in addition to the value of having an individual being exposed to a resource that's available on the internet, there's additional value to be gotten by introducing those users to one another.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Bloggins tips from NY Times article

Here are some tips on blogging distilled from a NY Times article from March 20, 2008.

Tips:

1. Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice. Blog about your passions. Don’t blog about what you think your audience wants. Post because you have something you are dying to write about.

2. Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule. Blog is best handled by inserting it into the small bits of free time that rest among the bigger chunks of your work -- between classes, as a break, and during slow time at home.

3. Just post it already! Resist the urge to polish your blog posts. Don’t bottle up your ideas forever believing you have to hit a mature, complete, perfect point. Glogs are always in progress.

4. Keep a regular rhythm. Bloggers disagree on how often they should post -- some post several times a day; others will go a week without a post. What matters is that you establish a reliable rhythm for readers.

5. Llinking to other bloggers is the best way to get them to link to you. Links from other bloggers increase your readership two ways: they send readers directly from other sites, and they raise your ranking in search engine results.

6. Allowing readers to post comments on your blog not only increases readership, it provides a sense of live interaction with the rest of the world. But beware: the insulting comment is an Internet art form.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Blogs rolling along

We're starting to launch blogs now. I've been working with groups such as:

  • Engineers Without Borders

  • Connections Miniversity

  • Murray Women's Center Ambassadors

  • Green @ NJIT

  • CCS Dean

  • TLT (Teaching, Learning, and Technology)