Sue-Point-Oh!

Perhaps I have a softspot for front desk training from my years at the Cliffs Resort in sunny Shell Beach.  However, I was really captivated by this example that Silke Flesicher(Adobe) shared at the Adobe Learning Summit.  The piece presents different scenarios and the user can choose how they want to respond to the customer service scenario.  For each behavior choice, a short video plays so the user can see the result.  I think this is a great way to keep the learner engaged and is portable since it’s online.  Really great piece!

Nice synopsis of some of the most inspirational women in the blogosphere.

 15 Amazing Women In Blogging

Go ladies, get your blog on!

I’m not sure what is taking off quicker right now, real estate 2.0 sites or job listing 2.0 sites. Since I’m not buying a house anytime soon I’ve been spending a lot more time viewing the latter.

JobFox provides a service where they take your experience, ask your some survey questions about each position to figure out what you really did and then create a map of your skills. It’s sorta concept map meets tag bubble. Here is my map for my Training skills.

To see my full career page, click here
http://www.jobfox.com/people/susancline

What I like about this site is that people spend hours figuring out how to describe each position they have had on their resume. Employers are really looking for a set of skills like “cash register” rather than knowing that the employee “took patron’s money, made change and balanced register.” JobFox help the candidate par down previous job positions into a set of marketable skills.

I was directed to these “fifteen things” lists on Collaborage.com: Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Overview and I think they make great materials for presentations introducing the enterprise to web 2.0 technology. I would like to take the lists and adapt them for an education focused audience.

Fifteen Things Wiki Users Need Training On

Tuesday: July 3, 2007 10:50 AM Here are fifteen things end users need training, education, or training on. Don’t assume anything.
1. How to title your entry so that people understand the context
2. How to search and locate relevant content so content isn’t replicated
3. How to tag content
4. How to write clearly and succinctly
5. How to add attachments
6. How to include an image in the page
7. Other methods of content discovery; most popular, recently updated
8. How to use Rich text Editor or WYSIWYG Editor
9. How to use the Wiki markup syntax
10. How to create a new page or use [new page] function
11. How to roll back history and versioning
12. Understand that diversity of opinion is critical to wiki success
13. How to edit a page
14. How to manage your pages and keep the information current
15. Wiki policies and procedures

Fifteen Ways to Deliver Training the Enterprise 2.0 User Needs

Tuesday: July 3, 2007 4:09 PM 1. Online Instructions
2. Step-by-Step Guides
3. Product Documentation
4. One Page Tip Sheets
5. Communities of Practice
6. Lunch and Learns (Brown Bags)
7. Road Shows
8. Consulting Engagements
9. Word of Mouth
10. Frequently Asked Questions
11. Glossary of Terms
12. Sample Environments where users can see a Business sample
13. Podcasts
14. Video Training (Webcasts)
15. External Sources (Books, Classes, Magazine, Journals, etc.)

Fifteen Wiki Metrics That I would Like to See

Sunday: July 8, 2007 8:42 PM 1. Wiki Page Count
2. Page Update Chart with Quantity on the top and Age on the bottom
3. Number of Page Views Day, Week and Month
4. Popular Tags and Search Phrases
5. Number of Content Producers (People Updating the Wiki Information)
6. Number of Consumers (Readers of the Wiki Information)
7. % of Active versus Non-Active Producers (Active = Updated in the Past Two Weeks)
8. Number of Downloads
9. Distribution of Authorship (What are the most diverse pages?)
10. Most Updated Wiki Pages
11. Page Path Analytics (Where did the Reader Come From?; Tag Clouds, Search, Links)
12. Most Popular Pages
13. Most Linked to Pages
14. Longest Page
15. Most Favorite or Highest Ranked Page

The other day I presented the radical claim that zombies may be just as hot, if not hotter than pirates right now. This was based on the popularity of movies like “Shaun of the Dead”, “28 Days Later” and the recent Andy Samburg video where he punches people in the face while eating and then does a zombie dance. I thought that perhaps pirates had reached their peak last year with the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie and the pirate Halloween costume crazy of 2006.

However - according to Google trends the term “pirates” has a much higher search volume than “zombies”:

At first I thought this could have been because “Pirates” is also the name of an baseball team. However, internationally, where baseball is not as popular, the results hold strong, “pirates” are the winner.

(Blue = pirates, Red = red)

It should be noted that the search rate for “zombies” is a bit more substantial in the US, UK, and Canada. The UK did come up with “28 Days Later” and “Shaun of the Dead”.

It’s official - pirates are still hotter than zombies right now.

I’m really loving somecards.com, “when you care enough to hit send”.

Come on, there is nothing like sending a semi-sarcastic note to a friend framed by some turn of the century clip-art.

A couple years back I remember reading a USA Today article featuring the popularity of pro-anorexia websites. These are websites that support girls who are leading an anorexic or bulimic lifestyle. The websites have tips for eating less than 200 calories a day and images of waif thin women as a means to inspire the visitors. One website touted the famous tagline - “nothing tastes better than thin.” I remember at the time using Google to look up these websites and I had to enter the exact name of the website or specifically spell our “pro-anorexia” to find the site. They were mostly buried below the websites with “real” support for the disease.

However, just today I typed in “anorexia support” into Google and I was surprised to see with all the public health messaging out there - a “pro-anorexia” site was the third one listed in the results! This means that young women searching the net for information about anorexia are actually being presented with sites that support and encourage their dangerous behavior. If you do a search for just the term “anorexia” the 7th result listed is “The World’s Largest Pro Anorexia Site - 24 Hour Posting”. (hosted by live journal - way to go guys!). I should also mention that this title is much more captivating than the site listed in the results above - “Anorexia Nervosa”, “Anorexia Symptoms”, etc.

S o what does this google searching ranking tell us about the community supporting these Pro Ana sites? Google bases it’s search ranking on the meaningfulness of the website content as well as the number of incoming links a website has. This shows there is a very strong community supporting these websites, adding content, and creating a network for links. Back in the post 2.0 days the sites were strictly informative. But now with blogging platforms like live journal young women can provide each other with instant feedback. A couple sample quotes from the site:

“Instead of going out I’m stayin in my apartment and eating an orange for dinner.”

“Anyone know how I can make myself throw up more? Please hurry if you have any advice at all. My body is asorbing fat as we speak!!!”

I’m always touting the wonderful education benefits of the the read/write web but I guess this is a great example of the danger of instant feedback and social networks when they are based around an unhealthy behavior.

Your thoughts?

According to the 2007 Ofcom Communication Market report men still make up the bulk majority of the internet users but on average women are spending more time than men online.

• Women are spending 29 hours, nine minutes per month online
• Men spend 28 hours, 51 minutes.

This time disparity most likely has to do with the ways in which men and women use the internet. Women spend more time communicating with friends and family through email and using social networking sites. Men spend more time on quick tasks like checking sports scores or new articles. The social online activities that are more popular with women take up more time in general.

There are more young women online then men!

The report also shows that there are more women ages 25 - 34 online than men in the same age group. This is the first time a report has actually shown women outnumbering men in a significant age group.

• 2.18 million women in the 25 to 34 age group used the internet during April 2007 - compared to 1.83 million men in the same age group

This is pretty major thing for web developers, designers and entreprenuers to consider when trying to market their new 2.0 sites or improve curent sites. Not only are there more 25-34 year old women online then men but they are also spending more minutes per months using these websites.  What designs implementations are being incorporated to serve this population?

However, “women play minor roles in many high-tech occupations. For instance, women make up only 5 percent of computer programmers, 10 percent of system analysts and 10 percent of electronics technicians. Additionally, women lead only 5 to 6 percent of major high-tech companies in Silicon Valley(US Office of Technology Policy).” I’d love to hear your opinions!

So here it comes - I”m going to say it: If there are more young women online then men why aren’t there more young women building web sites and being included in the boy’s club of web 2.0.!!??

Recently revisited Lewis Carrol’s famous “Jabberwocky” poem. Some claim this poem is the greatest “nonsense poem” of all time. Carrol made up many of the words by combining sounds and letters from two or more words.

“‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

Mimsy = miserable & flimsy

Slithy – Combination of “slimy” and “lithe.”

 

Do any of these nonsense words seem a bit familiar?  Are our favorite webtreprenuers using “portmanteau”  (fuses two or more words or word parts to give a combined or loaded meaning) to create their website names?

 

Eventful? YouTube?  Blinksale? Fotki? BitTorrent? 

 

Beginning to sound a bit like a Lewis Carroll poem, eh?