Queensland

Learning How Twitter Lists Work: Part I

January 7, 2010 By Des Walsh

I’m a bit late to the Twitter Lists party, but starting to catch on

Having started to uncover the mysteries of Twitter lists, I thought a post or two might help a few people understand this still fairly new way of managing your Twitter presence and the various conversations within the great Twitterville (thank you Shel Israel) conversation. This is almost certainly a “move along, nothing to see here” post for anyone already using lists, but may help some others.

In spite of some prompting, I had been slow in addressing what these lists are about. A friend had been saying “You don’t have Twitter lists? You must have lists.” While I thought that was good advice – this friend is always up on the latest in the fast-moving world of Twitter – it was something on my list of things to get around to.

And the other day I did get around to it. In my way, which was first to search for a guide on the subject. I immediately found Twitter’s own guide to lists, which after checking a few other links I found to be actually quite straightforward.

That was when I noticed the little link on my Twitter page – “Listed” with a number which was as I recall 91 (it’s now 98 as you can see from the screenshot here). I clicked on that and found I was on all these people’s lists! OK, I’m a slow learner sometimes, but that amazed me.

Time to get with the program.

So, with the help of the guide I’d found plus some experimentation, I figured out how to create a list and add people to it. In line with my main professional interests I started with two lists, one for social media leaders and the other for coaches. Then I added one for more local connections – “Queensland”. I started adding people to the lists.

That was not an immediately intuitive process, but I found by opening someone’s profile page and then mousing over a gray box in the top menu bar of the page, I was shown options for managing my lists. Then by just clicking on the box for the appropriate list I was able to add the person to that list.

I have to say I was amazed – and pleased – to see this morning tweets from two people for whom I have great respect, expressing appreciation for being on one of the lists.

I can see already that it’s a good way to follow a more focused area of conversation.

I discovered also a way to see at a glance how I am perceived by others on Twitter, by way of what lists I’m on. This could be a valuable aid for helping market yourself or others. More of that tomorrow.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: coaches, Queensland, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter lists

Social Media for Young Elite Athletes and Performers

September 15, 2009 By Des Walsh

When I first met Michael Jeh, former top cricketer and now staff member at Griffith University on Australia’s Gold Coast, back in June, I was impressed by the story he told me of his Skool Project and was very pleased to sign up. Today I had the privilege of participating.

I did a 90 minute session with the students about social media and social networking, with an emphasis on developing and protecting their personal/career brand. More of that in a separate post.

Right now, here is a short interview I did with Michael just before the next lot of presenters kicked off with the final sessions of the project’s second day. The Gold Coast City Council gets an appreciative mention and there is a challenge to other levels of government and the business sector to get behind this terrific project to support and develop our young leaders.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: elite athletes, elite performers, Gold Coast, Griffith University, Queensland, SEQ, Skool Poject 2009, young leaders, youth

Government 2.0 at Barcamp Brisbane

July 19, 2009 By Des Walsh

Yesterday, Saturday July 18, I spoke at Barcamp Brisbane on some impressions from the Public Sphere #2 event Government 2.0: Policy and Practice workshop held a few weeks ago in the Australian National Capital, Canberra and shared some thoughts about more local possibilities, especially at Queensland State Government level.

There is a two part video record, made on my Flip camera – the audio is poor, because I forgot to tell Steve who was filming that the camera needed to be closer to where I was standing. It is audible, just.

Click here to play the first of the two videos.
Click here to play the second of the two videos.

I have endeavoured to capture, in the notes that follow, the main points that came up during the session (i.e. you don’t need to watch the videos to get the gist .

At the Government 2.0 workshop in Canberra, Federal Government Ministers the Hon. Lindsay Tanner – Finance and Deregulation – and Queensland Senator The Hon. Joe Ludwig – Special Minister of State – launched the Government 2.0 Task Force, with a brief to report to Government by year’s end.

The Government 2.0 Task Force was up and running on the day of the workshop with its own blog and has a Twitter hashtag #gov2au. Chair Dr Nicholas Gruen spoke briefly at the workshop and gave every indication the Task Force would be very open to inputs.

In the period since the workshop in Canberra, people have been contributing, via wiki, to the development of a briefing paper to be submitted to the Task Force.

The Task Force is seeking written submissions to assist in the development of an issues paper: deadline is the start of business Monday 24th of August. There is a document on the Task Force site which includes detailed guidelines about submissions for the issues paper, and the current content of issues paper.

The Task Force has money

It will be able to fund initiatives and incentives which may achieve or demonstrate how to accomplish government 2.0 objectives.

New South Wales Government member and blogger Penny Sharpe MLC attended the Canberra event and is coordinating a NSW publicsphere event – Twitter hashtag #nswsphere

What about some Queensland demonstration or pilot projects?

In Brisbane yesterday I suggested it would make sense to have some State-specific focus in Queensland, on the issues being examined by the Task Force (and see the point above about the Task Force having money – although on reflection my thought bubble at the time that the Task Force might help fund a seminar in Qld should probably have copped a click on the Delete button: as a public servant I learned how quickly project funds could be swallowed up in funding seminars).

In terms of getting some action in Qld, I pointed to the presence on the Task Force of at least three people with significant Queensland connections in the IT/digital space, Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Dr Ian Reinecke and Dr David Solomon.

At least one other person present agreed with me that Professor Brian Fitzgerald would be an excellent first point of contact to discuss how best to proceed.

I suggested also that it would be great if the Queensland Government could be encouraged to get Senator Lundy and her adviser Pia Waugh, a prime mover for the Canberra event, to visit Queensland and share their experience at the national level.

I suggested too that it would be good to look at Brisbane City Council and the Government 2.0 issues at the level of local government.

Sharing the story

I mentioned too the question/challenge put to me by Senator Kate Lundy at the conclusion of my presentation in Canberra, asking how people – e.g. parliamentarians and public sector managers – not familiar with the technologies and processes could learn. I thought the suggestion at Barcamp to establish a kind of mentoring program was brilliant: the phrase “adopt a parliamentarian” might not gain traction, but I certainly liked the underlying idea.

I hope that covers the main points of background and foreground from the session yesterday. I welcome clarification, amplification, challenge etc by way of the comments function.

Hannah Suarez has posted a neat summary of her experience of Barcamp Brisbane yesterday.

Filed Under: Government, Social Media, Web 2.0 Tagged With: Barcamp Brisbane, barcampbne, Brisbane, Government 2.0, Queensland, Social Media

Social Media Club Brisbane is Growing

November 4, 2008 By Des Walsh

Back in March this year, I asked the question “Is Brisbane ready for a Social Media Club?”.

The answer proved to be in the affirmative. We had a preliminary gathering of interested people and then launched Social Media Club Brisbane on July 11th.

I take responsibility for the fact that in the enthusiasm of the moment we did not have an agreed plan for next steps. So until a couple of weeks ago nothing much happened.

Then we were able at short notice to put together an informal meetup at the State Library to get some indication of where we were at and where we were going.

At the same time, so as to facilitate communication, I set up a Social Media Club Brisbane group on Facebook , which has already proved to be very helpful. Without any fanfare, the group there has now grown to 74 and I believe it will at least double once the word gets out and we are having more regular gatherings.

Membership of the group is currently by invitation or with the approval of one of the administrators. We are not being restrictive but, until the details of how we are going to operate are articulated, we need to have it so that people apply or are invited.

There is a lot of background on Social Media Clubs at the main blog site and on the Social Media Club wiki.

For SMC Brisbane we now have a TWitter hashtag #smcb (go to http://search.twitter.com and enter smcb in the search box).

A computer crash some time ago meant that I lost some of the addresses of people who wanted to be kept informed about the development of SMC Brisbane, so if you or anyone you know is wondering why I haven’t been in touch, that is probably the explanation. Please hook up with us again, either by leaving a message on the Contact page on this site, or applying to join the group on Facebook.