In 2009 I had participated in a class in social media and branding at Stanford, and was invited to speak at the new class the following year. I was struggling to define myself in the post-crash world and in a new world called California (oh so different than New York or Durham, North Carolina). The thinking and exercises I did on social media and brand as a part of that class were incredibly helpful.

It was helpful to remind myself of what I said then as it is still relevant and possibly even more important today: think about your value-add, what you bring to the marketplace, understand your “feature-set”, as well as think about an aspirational future and what you bring to that future — do you have the skillsets to support that future?

Watch and enjoy — would love to hear your comments on is it still relevant? What makes sense or doesn’t?

First, a few definitions of transmedia storytelling:

• “Telling a story that extends across multiple media platforms” (Lisa Hsia of Bravo Digital Media writing for Mashable)
• Where “elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making their own unique contribution to the whole.” (Henry Jenkins debunking transmedia myths in Fast Company)

Lisa Hsia’s point is that interactive social TV is changing the way audiences engage with television. Henry Jenkins takes it further and adds that shows such as Glee “model new transmedia strategies to attract and sustain audience engagement.” You watch the show, you engage with the characters on Facebook, you read the Twitter stream, and maybe even add to the story.

Henry Jenkins makes a key point (you really should read his article) “Transmedia storytelling is still about the stories and if the stories do not capture the imagination, no amount of transmedia extension can repair the damage.”

And now to learning….

So why the heck does this excite me? Well, can you just imagine the possibilities for learning/organizational change?

• Say you’re trying to get a group of people to behave differently or think differently about a particular topic. Well, write an engaging storyline for them. Start with a set of characters that personify their lives.
• The audience watches the stories of the characters’ attempts to learn on a particular topic, then in the classroom the audience/participants engage in deconstructing the story and saying how they would have done it differently, what resources they should have used, what they should do next.
• At the close, they then pitch that idea to the “producers”, who then decide on the next story segment. And so it goes on for each class.
• The learning experience starts with each new cohort (defined as a group coming into the organization in a similar time frame.)
• Add in a fan page, a twitter stream, a game element, t-shirts, etc., all of which tell one aspect of the story or allow the audience to engage.

Back to Henry Jenkins: “Transmedia represents a strategy for telling stories where there is a particularly diverse set of characters, where the world is richly realized, and where there is a strong back-story or mythology that can extend beyond the specific episodes being depicted in the film or television series.”

I just have to keep reminding myself, start small, grow it over time. Time to make the ideas I’ve been exploring on creating the eLearning graphic novel into a franchise. Next episode coming soon….

The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner is a good book. It does exactly what it purports to do — provide a comprehensive guide to social learning. It’s one of those books that is going to become a must-have for learning folks — for the next couple years anyways before it all changes again. But by then, perhaps they will have built it into a franchise, bringing out a new book every year.

This book covers: workplace trends, online communities, making the case for social learning, micro-sharing (aka twitter and Facebook), collective intelligence (wikis, blogging), immersive environments, and blended learning.

Good points: it’s easy to read, it has nice tidbits (“Microsharing is an serendipity engine”, p.98). I can easily imagine it as a reference when making a game-plan for social learning in your workplace. A great place to start if you’re learning about social learning.

Downside: It didn’t inspire me. Perhaps it’s just me — I’m familiar with most of the stuff in the book and I’m looking for something else. It talks about nuts and bolts, and it has quotes from people who implement, people who manage it, there are many interesting stories, but not compelling stories. I wanted to hear more about how that small group of guys changed the culture of the CIA, FBI and the rest of the intelligence community and got them to use social media.

If you’re working at the intersection of social media and learning, you need this book in your shelf. End of story. So I’ll make it easy: here is where you can buy it. And don’t worry, I don’t get a cut, not even through Google ads.

But if you’re looking for the in-depth story of how social media creates cultural change in organizations, you won’t find it here.

Check out the New Social Learning website for more info.

Maybe not the shortest book review ever, but close.

The main questions I’m trying to answer is “What is twitter?” and “Why should I bother?” My interest in this introduction is not to get into branding, or social media marketing, or any of that. It’s really a reflection on why I got interested in twitter, and why you might find it interesting too. It was also to dispel the myth that twitter is just about gossip — because it’s not (though that is a large part of what goes on I must say.)

This also gave me to the opportunity to add to my portfolio and was a warm up exercise to get me motivated to do that learning thing I want to do about wine, which, you know, I’m getting to.

For you viewing pleasure, a slidecast. No complex builds because Slideshare doesn’t allow for that.

• Steve Meretzky — VP of Game Design at Playdom
  funny, very experienced and knowledgeable game designer, now designing Social Games
• Dave Castelnuovo — of Pocket God (Game), cofounder at Bolt Interactive
  one of the first entrepeneurs to successfully lead the charge into iPhone Games, very funny

Notes from the meeting:

Dave Castelnuovo:

• Created an app game called Pocket God where you help pygmaies get off the island, but can also do ultimate evil to them.
• Talked about and how he got started in games — long hours working on other projects, as an employee, then as independent contractor. Really wanted to get on the iPhone bandwagon.
• Used the idea of sprint projects, setting himself goals to create a usuable game/app within 10hrs and just get it out the door. Create a prototype. Get things done in a set amount of time. A way to focus yourself when life keeps distracting you.
• Created app game with co-worker. Many updates, done weekly, quick turnaround, to add features to the game.
• Early on noticed that his game was mentioned on TouchArcade – a community/reivew site. Starting interacting with the community reviewing his project. Built trust. Recommends toucharcade.com as a place to get feedback.
• The key is to build grassroots, build slow and steady, then go for eyeballs and ramp up.
• His first game had 150 downloads per day, 2nd game 2 or 3, Pocket God – ramped up to millions. The key is to interact with your community.
• Chose your category on the app store carefully. Simulation is a category where its easier to stay at the top. What categories you choose is key.
• Apple used to take 3 days to approve and app. Now approval time is up to 3 weeks. if you posted updates frequently, it would push your app to the top. No more.

Castelnuovo was a wonderful, self-deprecating storyteller. He left me feeling that I too, could design games, given enough chutzpah and willingness to give up sleep.

Steve Meretzky:

• Presentation on the ABCs of social games.
• Great intro of Steve Meretzky, sounds like a great guy.. and fun.
• Who knew Stanford had a game industry archive? Steve donated to it when he moved from MA to a much smaller house

Presentation Notes:

• Social games are different from traditional games in that:
  • can be cooperative or competitive
  • have content that changes over time
  • have potential for negative behavior
  • they are easy to get into –> start simple and reveal depth over time.
• Design and business of social games is intermixed — cannot have one without the other.
  • Virality and monetization.
  • Goals of virality
    • Once you start the game/install game, the designer must get you to come back to game.
    • What you want to do and what terms of service (TOS) of the platform allows (Facebook, MySpace, iPhone App Store platforms)
    • The overlap of TOS and what you want is the what you end up doing. Developers however, are constantly pushing the boundaries of the TOS, and the rules of what is allowed is constantly changing..
  • Viral tools
    • Invites
      • Negatives – they require action on part of the user, TOS have limited number of invites that can go out
      • Positives – they are persistent in the user’s inbox.
    • Wallposts
      • are bragworthy
      • high profile
      • can disappear in a user’s stream rather quickly
    • Notification channels
      • Negatives – require action on part of user (click to activate the Notification window).
      • Positives — once they are there, they are paying attention
• New changes afoot in Facebook
  • Notifications changing (easier to see access), number of invites allowed changing, new scores/points/post? from game will be allowed.
• New viral strategies
  • join my mob
  • beat my score
  • let’s exchange gifts
  • Wish list
  • Be my employee (playfish started this with restaurant)

• The key to Monetization starts with engagement
• Games have a longer form (arch), they allow you to build a presence over time.
  • Bejeweled, which has 4 mil players, is unable to monetize because it’s game arch is limited, does not allow building of engagement over time. They don’t know how to make $$ with their fan base.
• Key monetization comes from
  • Re-engagement strategies
    • …. harvesting fields..
    • collect $ (mobster),
    • daily login rewards.
    • Taking care of employees (who are your social network friends)
    • taking care of pets.
    • Someone beat high score.
  • Monetization strategies – selling:
    • virtual goods (major $$ strategy)
    • premium virtual goods for rare items and that also have in game use
    • accessories for avatar customization,
    • buying stuff for your pet
    • content — charge for premium content
    • mini-games within a game (i.e. within sorority game)
• Themes within social games.
  • What’s not working is what works in non-social gaming before (FPS, Fantasy, Sci-Fi)
  • Real world settings work (Mobster, Sorority, Farmville, Restaurant, etc.)
  • This is now the mass market games… based on RL
• The future….
  • more social synchronous game time
  • personal profiles play into game more
  • your social graphs – who you interact with, how, etc.
  • cyber-expression of selves in the social world

Meretzky had a good perspective on what works in social games. He was also very clear that the rules keep changing. Excellent presentation.

Quick analysis – I thought I’d be able to see trends or topics – and not have to read the transcripts. Not so obvious. The experts are the most retweeted – or is it those with the strongest network ties? — that’s probably closer to it. So for your viewing pleasure.

#lrnchat - Oct 15, 2009

#lrnchat - Oct 22, 2009

#lrnchat - Nov 5, 2009

Three things on shifting your audience & leadership:

• Create the time to play with the media
  • I left my job. I had time to play. I really didn’t want to get engaged in social media but felt like I should. At my previous job, we had tried to play with social media within the organization but it was a limited closed circuit. What we should have done, is played with social media in the world wide web — where it’s more dynamic, where you can participate in existing communities.
  • Informal company communications - I wish Twitter was more popular before I had left my job. It’s the one way I can imagine people on different floors keeping up with each other (cross-floor communication became an issue). It would have closed the physical space that opened up after we moved to new offices and the informal chatter lessened. It would have decreased the space between offices in NY, Durham, London. Or people offsite communicating how a client program is going (For example, I could have really used Twitter the time when our a video got held at Canadian Customs and my boss got held at Immigration — I felt very alone.) Twitter would have improved informal communications within our organization. These are spaces where  Twitter can play and help people do their jobs.
  • It depends in part on the type of work and group dynamics of your organization.
• Provide constraints – let them ease into it
  • There is one thing that got my into social media through blogging: it was Karl Kapp’s line “every learning professional should blog, if only for a month”. Blogging for a month — that I could do. I was participating in Work Literacy in Fall of 2008. I started to blog and it changed my connection to my work and opened up a community of support. Every learning professional should blog — about something they care about — if only for a month.
  • Others should be asked to comment on your blog — only for a month.
  • Rotate the blog contributors — so they each do it for a month.
  • Maybe  monthly/weekly team reports should be done on a blog.
  • Tweet once a day to a community of practice such as #lrnchat, #astd, #dl09, #learntrends – and follow the conversations/hashtags for that community to see if one learns anything new.
• Get influencers within the resistant cohort and/or leadership
  • I remember trying to teach Second Life (SL)to senior executives. The one question I always got was “Why should we bother, it’s not real.” So I positioned the economy of SL and other virtual worlds as emerging economies. How large (in USD) are these economies? Is this a place where you want to have a presence? How do you regulate in this emerging economy? What are the opportunities? Risks? Are you clients here? (That one always got them.) Are your staff here?
  • Teaching social media to leadership or anyone in the company I would ask similar questions. Social media is in part a reputation/branding engine. What are people saying about your company? Your brand? Are your staff here? Are your clients or customers here? Don’t tell them all, let them discover most of the answers for themselves. Call it research, call it discovery learning.
  • Examine those places that we don’t usually think of as social media — Amazon, photo sharing sites, Yelp, Ning, Delicious. I thought because I didn’t participate in Blogs, Facebook, Twtitter, LinkedIn that I wasn’t on social media. Not true
  • The harder thing to do is find measurements of social media learning that matter to your organization. Is there a pain point you can link social media to (customer complaints, etc.)? Is there a way you can measure the impact of social media?

Social media is a way for the learning department to have an impact beyond just learning and link it to the organization as a whole. It’s informal.

Just some thoughts.