bizzarebehavior-blog

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Week #8: Design of Online Communities

How do you base your community project is up to you, but of course as I mention in all my blogs, the core are the people.

For example if you want to base your community when photography is involved, of course the main topic of your community you will take on images they take or which you want to represent. But when you want to involve your community work they are the best solution although it’s not always the best decision to base your feedback on images only. But you have to choose a core.

Deviantart is a good example of community which is really complicated. It’s based on images and on text as well. In fact it’s a community based on creativity itself. It is a product of a years of work and hard dedication. And not only of staff behind it, but a huge amount of feedback and work as well was done by contribution of community. It would’ve never made without it.

Another good example I have is just to show how quickly you can exploit a market targeting privileged. Is for every one well known Facebook. First they invited students from Oxford only what made their Social network privileged. And then I don’t even need to tell how they followed. Of course it was made functional and functions like tagging in my imho made it very attractive, but marketing made a very huge role in granting first market share for the company. As in Deviantart example we can see that it was made to serve purpose and grew from it.  

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Week #6: Monitoring & Evaluation

In order to start getting some feedback we must have an access to our target group and people who participated in the project (and hopefully is still participaing). We assume that you have made nice long standing connections which I mentioned in previous blogs and then you must have communicated about whole process in all the way. So the good start is half the job. This will make half of your questions easier to answer, because people who you work with must be passionate about the theme.

Another very important part is get good feedback from your teammates and yourselves as well. It may sound strange, but we sometimes can’t really notice the whole process as a whole. It may take some time just to obtain a ‘fresh eyes’ and in that part I suggest communicating within your team briefly. You may found some things which you didn’t like along the path and even may want to fix some of your design (we all know that design is being polished ten thousand times till its ‘good enough’) as clear mind provides with some insight in your own work. Anyway don’t haste and do careless fixes because you may cause may damage than good. That’s why your teams here for.

If you can do it, share your research and insights with your target group and research connections. The best way to do it of course to gather for a last meeting to see really how people feel like about the whole process. That should give you more ideas about your design and you may (yes, again!) redesign it!

For nice feedbacking and talking methods on various socal themes google “Compass”. Issued for NGO’s from NGO’s.

Happy feedbacking

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Week #7: Retrospective

If you had a design challenge, would you join and participate in one of the types of online communities we’ve been researching? Why or why not?

To answer the question directly – yes I would, especially if I would have a my design challenge directly (or not) related to it. Online communities give you a good retrospective of things you may get told, but you imagine them a little bit further form the environment of the actual story teller. This may give your mind more generated creativity, as you need to imagine the whole scene by yourself (of course it depends on how detailed story is) therefore it’s not given by the story teller.

And to answer your question differently: why not?

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Week #5: Energy Facilitation

Internet have many facilitation tools either free or paid. Of course paid ones are most of the time comes with the better quality, but we as a students are much more dependent on our budget which is rarely big.  Free stuff here I come.

We as a students in online facilitation must be creators and contributors. In order to understand both sides of the game, so we could improve our quality of facilitation. Teachers in other way should be either spectating or contributing as facilitating group. The feedback of how the facilitation should’ve went can only be given after the facilitation itself. I don’t know if I must mention the reasons, but it’s called feedback for a reason. And the other is that we must make our own mistakes so our teachers could explain them for us simply pointing them out and correcting our path, not putting our feet in their engraved one.

To generate better facilitation experience enhance dialog between facilitators. It provides a dialog and the breakout of ideas, especially if you’re people motivated to facilitate. I’ve tried getting online feedback myself (not exactly a facilitation) and it’s not an easy task. I’ve posted in numbers of forums which I’ve found and only one person responded. But what a person he was! When I told him more about my project he gave me a lot of tips, places where I could find information and even corrected my grammar in my text! If you look deep enough you can find people like this in forums and then they can be your gateway to more enthusiasts which could be a valuable facilitators for your study. Before that, I couldn’t believe that these kind a people exist.

Of course in team’s facilitation I believe there’s one more very important thing is to keep in close contact with your colleagues. It depends on your project, but meetings offline are crucial for project success.

So the main idea is try to gain valuable facilitators which requires very much energy, but will pay off if you figure out at least one person like that. Another is to provide your facilitators quality info, so in other words: to be prepared. And the last but not least, keep in contact and work like a team, do not always divide tasks, but rather try to solve them in team.

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Week #4: Dat Tech Guy

Today’s world have this very fast growth speed of technology. Doesn’t matter which direction you will look at, games industry or software, you will see that new versions, fixes and updates of platforms which we use are reaching us more frequently than ever. And I will tell you a fact, not a secret, phase will keep rising up.

Me personally have some software I like, but that mostly depends on how much I’ve worked with it, so whenever there’s is a need of using a different one I don’t get frustrated too much. I just do it.

Of course if you’re working on the team there may be more strict choices made by people who don’t like changing their working environment so much. Well if there is a situation that with certain people a compromise just can’t be reached then at first I wouldn’t like to work with these kind a people. They may be left in management field, but in a design process it would be extremely painful for me to work with them. Although I could, because I am flexible. Anyway, I believe these kind a people rarely get to a creative process so I believe there’s always a room for a group agreement. If still a person has a ‘crush’ on his software of choice then a group just should assign a whole task to that man and hope that he gets it right. Of course feedback and corrections afterwards are a must.

I was a quite sometimes ‘dat tech guy’ in the group who held the responsibility to gather all the knowledge in digital so we could share it easier within and outside the group. Of course I have preferences like using ‘skype’ for a messenger, but people from different background use different messengers and sometimes skype is the rare one in the group so you got to adjust and find a sweet spot for the group communication. So you take a look for other preferences and even sometimes adjust your own as soon as you find something relevant for yourself. That’s innovation, but just in your tools for working with software. I always try to find better newer software, because some of it becomes outdated and then being overtaken by more advanced technology. In other words to say to be competitive you have to follow trends all the time. Doesn’t it apply for most of today’s competiveness in our world?

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Week #3: Idea: Experimenting towards solutions

The main goal of this phase is to add your idea a touch of innovation. But good ideas does not come easily. Most people who had those says that it's the simplicity which makes good ideas great.

I myself participated in few of the brainstorms and would consider myself as an experienced user. But brainstorming is nothing about your experience or something you know. In fact the less you know the better it is. Brainstorming is not a science, it's an art. The less you know, the less you borders build for your imagination. If you wouldn't knew that plains do fly you wouldn't draw them in the flying in the clouds or even give them wings.

The real pain in the a$$ is two things which really separates you and the great revelation for your idea. The first one is your brain, you ask why? Because our right part of the brain is responsible for radical solutions and patterns which makes sense. The awkward moment is when our brain receives the message that we have some kind a problem it tries to implement most reasonable, easiest solution we know. That's why at the same time we are so smart, but not very creative when we need it. You remembers those times when you lie down in bed and those great ideas start coming with aureole of revelation to your head? Well that's because you tricked your brain into going hibernate mode and he starts using left side of the brain more. Damn you brain...

Second part of the obstacle, is again, our brain. We just fear to spread our crazy ideas which seem that will be called stupid and get us embarrassed. That's why one of the most important rules in brainstorming is no judging, completely. You must give people a chance to shout out their ideas and even encourage them. In start the idea might seem impossible to do, unrelated or any other logical reason that brain gives you. But it's not the time to decide what is good and what is bad, because most of the time one of those 1000's of ideas will be really good or either lead you towards another innovation which could turn all your business 180°. 

Now lets try and imagine how should our brainstorm look. The size of it should be somewhere around 3 to 5 people. I find it easier to brainstorm if you gather people around you which you know and trust. If you don't have any people just do it alone, though I found it more difficult.

You may divide tasks between members of the group, but in my case we never did it, because it's already rationalizing your way of thinking and building some kind a border for your imagination, so I wouldn't recommend that. As well as I wouldn't recommend going into deep discussions about one or other point. Of course that doesn't count if some idea isn't explained well.

The whole brainstorm atmosphere should be as much informal, but it may vary depending on the people which do it, but most of the time I'd suggest it doing in somewhere where you feel relaxed. You may even grab couple of beers or anything you like, just go with 'hanging out' mood and share your ideas.

There are no real solutions or methodology how to get the best ideas, but these are mine tips which I'd like you to use. Just try out every possibility, because sometimes it may look like an absurd idea that people will decline. But the ideas need publicity like air, because they will die if you not test them with real public and real people. It's impossible to determine what the 7 billion people in our planet wants, so try to find your target group and you might just have a clue where you're heading towards.

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номер два - Research Framework

In this moment of such a rapid technology we have a huge opportunities of creating innovative communities. Facebook is not a new way of community or anything like that. It's just trendy up to date way of communicating which poped up just in time to  offer people the gap which those days networks (myspace, etc.) missed. It involved short messaging and at that time, better privacy settings (this matter is very much discussed atm., but lets leave it for later).

There are in my opinion way many more interesting networks like couchsurfing.org where people are taking internet connection into real life. Livemocha offers language learning, but it's special side that you have that community of world wide where people are ready to help you with your struggling learning language. That you could do from home. Although facebook is very well build, integrated with apps and up to date.

Now it's working corporation. And that what some people scares.

There are many other ways how to reach your community. Not talking about other social networks like twitter and so on, interesting detail that myspace had made it's comeback. Now with clear face of music social network.

So one thing we may learn from myspace as they did now. You must identify your communities interest. The one main link which connects people. That i think what answers my second question. How you communicate and where it does not really matter, what matter is that you would have really good face of community.

Then you have your fundamentals and can apply innovation, even to your facebook page. Start creating apps, connect your network spread from ebay to wordpress blogging if you need, but with a clear face a network has no limits.

These days we have such a big network. It seems there is no borders, so in order to connect people, we have to build the clear Framework which they may feel and see. The people will join if it's honest and visible. 

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Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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I just found this video today which is a very good example how messy your privacy policy is in facebook, twitter, etc. Don't let anyone exploit your private life, keep them secret, adjust your privacy settings.

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Blog Prompt Numero Uno

I take a deep breath. And jump. It’s always scary to jump in those areas of the new waters. Where you have no knowledge of how deep and warm water is. But almost always we turn out just ok, as soon as we take a first step to it. We adjust to water temperature, we check the depth of the water. 

But not always it is good idea to jump into the water just like that. What were you thinking, you could had break your neck! So safety. Safety goes, comes, turns around, walks, dance, as you wish, but it is numero uno when talking about exploring unknown waters. So first of all if we’re completely new with the social networks, we go and register there, explore their technical capabilities and their abilities to help us. Of course they are huge tool for connecting people, companies. Now it divides them into fanpages or fans, groups and group members. So at simple as it looks it may be a little bit deeper than you thought. I am not even talking about privacy settings, which is total mess for casual user. So for now few technical points which we got to know before starting: What is the possibilities for profile? Differences? (Human profile, Fanpage, Page, etc.)How to get more likes?How to get interesting promotions?How to post interesting smiles? These were questions which I discussed with my fellow roommate, as I am not so popular on social networks and no one replied to my posts. Natural new point which prompted for me was: How do I make my post attractive for others? What attracts people to participate? I think this question is very hard to answer, but must be one of the main questions when you’re targeting people from your social networks. Another interesting question catch my mind when I figured out that starting new marketing campaign on facebook. How do you get you first loyal followers? I excluded word ‘loyal’ because catching those really interested new trend followers is a must for a good start. At first we don’t really need just a simple users who will be just a statistic on our report page. We need people who are really interested in our offered product or service. Those people will recommend it for others, if they will like it. So 100% focus on people who can help spreading your network. 

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Winning takes hard work. If it didn't, losers would do it.

@TheIlluminati

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People don't by 'what', people buy 'why'?

TED - Simon Sinek

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Sometimes things just must be started. No matter how much I hate writing without getting knowledge about the topic first. Start a blog, write your thoughts, we're going to have a great community project. Exclusively online only. "Be together", but don't spend extra energy on being together. Online is enough. Stay focused, stay strong...