Author Archives: Suw Charman-Anderson

03.02.10
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Report: ‘Digital Natives’: A Myth?

POLIS, the LSE and London College of Communications’ journalism research and policy initiative, recently released a report into the concept of ‘digital native’, examining whether young people really are imbued with an innate, and by implication superior, understanding of technology.

I wrote about this last year and my review of the literature led me to the conclusion that the idea of the ‘digital native’ was no more than a construction, created primarily it seems to provoke a sense of difference between the generations and, from that, a moral panic around how technology is allegedly affecting younger people.

In the introduction to his report, co-authored with Ranjana Das, Charlie Beckett says:

Myths can be useful ways for societies to tell stories about themselves. They can help us preserve our values and cope with change. So the idea that young people are particularly, even naturally adept at using new media technologies is comforting and perhaps even exciting. Even if older adults find digital devices and processes challenging we can reassure ourselves that the next generation will take to them effortlessly and creatively. I regularly hear from middle aged digital enthusiasts as well as the technophobes how their teenage children can do amazing and/or disturbing things online. They blog, game and network on a variety of platforms, often multi-tasking, producing sophisticated and rich patterns of communication and expression. This is wonderful and quite often true. But as the evidence and analysis of this report shows, it is a myth that this kind of youthful dexterity and literacy is somehow inevitable or ubiquitous. And this matters. As Professor Livingstone says, if we don’t understand the reality of young people’s use of the Internet, then we won’t realize how important it is to them and how vital it is to provide the skills and resources for them to make the myth a reality.

The fact is that young people experience the same opportunities and challenges as everyone else who uses digital technologies. The cultural and social barriers to conventional literacies appear to replicate themselves online. A young person who struggles to read a book will quite likely find online navigation difficult, too. There may be magical things that we can do online, but there is no miraculous power that changes intellectual frogs into digital princes. Those people growing up over the last decade or so may well be more familiar with a world of virtual and networked culture and communications. However, individual youths have not been endowed by some freakish evolutionary process with exceptional technological powers.

Furthering our understanding of how young people use, understand and relate to digital technology is essential to business. Too many times I have heard business people talk about how the ‘Facebook Generation will demand social tools’, when the anecdotal evidence I have is that the Facebook Generation doesn’t much see a need to use social tools in the workplace and would see the use of Facebook by their employers as an invasion of their personal space.

The truth is that all generations show a distribution of technological aptitude, and I’d put money on it being a normal distribution at that. There may be a difference in the width of the central hump of the bell curve, due simply to the increase in opportunity to interact with technology, but there no generation is born with an innate ability to grok tech.

This should ring alarm bells in any business whose HR policy has focused on attracting young employees with the assumption that those people will be better at technology. If you’re hoping that the youngsters will save your business from technological decline, you’re very much mistaken. Such a policy also ignores the vast pool of older tech-literate people who have grown up with the technology and who understand it in their bones.

03.01.10
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A web for introverts, privacy gradients and trust

Adam Tinworth draws attention to a blog post on GigaOM about how the social web is great for extroverts but not so good for introverts, whether or not that introversion is a general mindset or specific to the internet. From Kevin Kelleher on GigaOM:

Much less noticeable is another trend: the rise of the web introvert. But while some web introverts might be introverted in the classic sense — that is, uncomfortable in social settings — many of them aren’t shy at all. They are simply averse to having a public presence on the web. And in time, they are going to present a problem for social sites like Facebook and Twitter, whose potential growth will be limited unless they can successfully court them.

Web introversion isn’t a question of technophobia or security concerns. Anyone who has tried to build out their online networks on Facebook knows that there are a lot of people they know in real life that they can’t friend online. Many people who have been involved in technology for years — or who are entirely comfortable shopping at Amazon, paying bills online, buying songs from iTunes — will have nothing to do with social networks. Others see it as a chore necessary for their jobs. Still others have accounts languishing on all the major social networks.

Adam says:

Unless we can find a way to draw these people into the social web – and that probably means more thought around both privacy and data ownership – we’re only ever going to get a subset of a subset of people involved. And that, in turn, will massively limit its potential.

The main issue here is privacy. Many social networks haven’t really give that much thought to how people will emotionally respond to their progression through the site, i.e. along the privacy gradient.

The idea of a privacy gradient comes from architecture and refers to the way that public, common spaces are located by the entrance to a building and as you progress through the building the spaces become more private until you reach the most private ‘inner sanctum’. If you think of a house, then the most public part would be the porch (in the UK, a fully or semi-enclosed space around the front door, in the US, it’s often open or screened). The hallway is common space shared by everyone, and spaces like the kitchen and lounge are semi-private. As you progress deeper into the house you end up at the bedroom (and in some cases, the en-suite) which is the most private part of the house.

Understanding the privacy gradient is important, because when buildings ignore privacy gradients, they feel odd. Think about houses where there’s a bedroom directly off the lounge and how uncomfortable that can make visitors feel. I once had a friend who lived in one of the old tenements near Kings Cross, now torn down. To get to his bedroom and the kitchen you had to walk through his flatmate’s bedroom, a deeply uncomfortable act.

Websites work on the same principles, welcoming people via a publicly visible screen, and progressing into increasingly private spaces as the user’s interactions become more personal. A well developed and carefully considered privacy gradient is essential to social sites – even incredibly simple sites/services like Twitter do it, with the public timeline being like the front porch and the direct message like the bedroom.

Facebook, on the other hand, has gone for a walled garden model, which provides an illusion of security for users: even before they set their own privacy levels, they feel they are in a private space, despite the fact that it is shared by several million others and that information can quite easily leak out of it. Facebook’s recent changes to its privacy settings have made its walled garden a bit more like an old, knot-holed fence, letting people peek in through the holes and see glimpses of what goes on inside. This is problematic because it has exposed information that users used to think was private, blurring further the line between private and public.

The inability to see inside a walled garden can alienate people outside the system, who can’t see what or who is inside and may feel that they are being made unwelcome. This brings to mind certain shops (some Abercrombie and Fitch stores do this), that obscure the windows and ensure that one cannot ‘accidentally’ see inside when the door is opened by creating a shield around the doorway. They also have a privacy gradient internally, with more open public areas at the front and fitting rooms at the back.

As one moves along a privacy gradient, one is also moving along a parallel trust gradient. As you invite me deeper into your house, so you are displaying increasing trust in me. If you only talk to me at your front door and don’t invite me in, you’re displaying (in certain circumstances) a lack of trust, or that I have yet to earn your trust. Letting people move up the trust gradient too quickly can cause all sorts of problems, perhaps resulting in a betrayal of that trust.

The same, again, is true on websites. The more we communicate, the stronger our relationship becomes, the more I trust you, the more of myself I am willing to reveal and share. Different people, of course, feel comfortable in different areas of the trust/privacy gradient, so some people prefer to keep things private and require a lot of communication and relationship building before they are willing to trust someone. Others are happy to plunge in at the deep end, revealing everything about themselves to everyone, newcomer and old friend alike.

Both extremes can have negative repercussions. The shy user may fail to realise full utility of social sites because they cut themselves off from helpful strangers. The extrovert may find themselves swamped with many shallow relationships that they can’t maintain or strengthen and, sometimes, being hurt by people using their trusting nature against them.

What is key, though, is that people understand the repercussions of their behaviour and that their expectations of privacy and trust are met by the site they are using. When websites reveal items that were thought to be private, as Facebook and Twitter have both done, then people’s trust in the site is violated and the social consequences for them as individuals could be dire. Equally, when a website makes people feel as if their interactions are private when they are not, they will fail to understand who can observe them and may make mistakes that they would have avoided if there was no implication of privacy.

What I see in this discussion about web introverts is a reflection of the fact that most social sites have been built for gregarious people, often by gregarious people. The privacy gradients aren’t clear to the outsider, or simply haven’t been thought through in enough detail. Twitter, for example, makes it very easy to accidentally respond to a direct message via SMS with a public message instead of a private direct message: That’s a huge violation of privacy and potentially can be extremely embarrassing.

Until social sites get their act together and start to view the web from the point of view of the web-introvert, considering exactly how their sites embody the privacy gradient, shy people will just stay away. And every time companies like Google make mistakes of the magnitude of Buzz, trust in companies to respect our privacy is whittled away. Personally, I can’t blame people for wanting to keep themselves to themselves. With the social web the way it is, I would never attempt to persuade someone to use it if they felt uncomfortable with it. It’s much more important to respect their privacy.

02.26.10
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Online norms

It seems to be turning into Christian Crumlish Week here on The Social Enterprise, but the man’s on fire right now! If you’re not reading Mediajunkie, you really should.

Christian has been blogging recently about the various essays written by guest contributors to the book he co-authored with Erin Malone, Designing Social Interfaces. The most recent guest essay is by Gary Burnett, who writes about Explicit and implicit norms in online groups:

Social norms may be defined as a set of values particular to a group, the purpose of which is to provide a sense of balance, a mechanism by which people may gauge what is “normal” and acceptable in a specific context or situation. Such norms are not defined by outside factors; rather, they emerge directly from the activities, motives, and goals of the group itself. Social interfaces function as settings within which such a process may take place. The sociologist Robert K, Merton, in a classic formulation of social norms, distinguished between attitudinal and behavioral norms. However, since attitudes are visible in online settings only through visible behavior – only, that is, through the medium of textual production – it seems more appropriate to think of norms in online interactions in terms of a different distinction. Online social norms can be divided into two types: Explicit and implicit norms.

He then goes on to discuss explicit and implicit norms in more detail, explaining how they are formed and how they affect the community. Read the whole essay, it’s well worth it.

02.25.10
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Social network overload?

Are we getting swamped by social media? David Armano thinks so. I think that it’s a little bit more complicated than just trying to amp up the signal in the noise and has to do with a whole bunch of issues involved in, well, just being human:

1. We’re all interested in status

Actually, we’re all obsessed with status whether we realise it or not. Social networks make status explicit in some way, or at least they seem to. Number of followers on Twitter is a very bad proxy for our status within the different communities we inhabit, yet we can’t stop our status-obsessed brains from over-interpreting it.

2. We’re all interested in success

Status and success are two sides of the same coin: If you have success you probably also have status, although it very much depends on your definitions of success and whether others share them. We often don’t define success and can’t recognise it when it happens, so we use apparent status as a proxy for it. If you believe that in order to prove to yourself that you are successful you also need to have high status within your community, and your community is online, then you’re looking for high status there too… which means you’re looking at numbers which are a proxy for a proxy. Great stuff!

3. Phatic communication is as important as informational communication

Social media makes a lot of phatic communications, i.e. that stuff you say to show the world you’re not dead yet, explicit whereas we are used to them being almost unnoticeable. Those little grunts, sighs and snarfles you normally make to tell the people around you, “I’m still here” become “Making a cup of tea” on Twitter. Because we’re use to the written word containing useful information we get frustrated when it contains phatic information and fail to realise just how very useful that info actually is.

4. We’re completists

We evolved in a world where it was possible to know everything everyone else knew: Where to hunt, where to gather, how to cook, who’s in charge. Now there is so much information in the world that we can barely learn a tiny fraction of it, yet it feels like somehow we ought to know it all. Our dopamine system rewards us for seeking and there’s no end to what we can find. There is no end to the internet, so the seeking just goes on and on and on.

5. We’re stretching our wetware

Armano is right that we’re using tools that allow us to shatter Dunbar’s Number into tiny bits, and this is causing us some problems because we are trying to treat everyone as ‘friends’, instead of accepting that some people are closer than others. In actual fact, then number of close friends we maintain remains at around ten, or less. It’s the number of acquaintances that’s booming, and we’re not quite sure what the social etiquette is for our interactions with all these people we my well like but barely know.

This is problematic, to be sure. The technology is evolving faster than we are figuring out how it fits into our social natures. Manners and etiquette vary wildly between communities and society has not settled on a common ruleset. But I think a few simple guidelines can help us all:

  1. Don’t try to be everywhere
  2. Don’t try to know everyone
  3. Feel free to ignore content and people
  4. Don’t be offended if someone ignores you or what you write
  5. Accept that your brain is not the size of a planet and you can’t know everything. Yet.

Of course, all bets are off once the Singularity occurs.

02.24.10
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The cost of inauthentic communities

Roger Martin has an excellent post on Harvard Business Review that looks back at how business executives used to be embedded in the community they served but are now disconnected from it, as are the businesses they work for. It is a must read.

In the 60s, business were smaller, executives knew their customers and their staff. Shareholders were in it for the long run so tolerated long-term planning. Companies had more loyalty to their home city, so “doing things to benefit the city made sense both corporately and personally.”

While not perfect, this structure enabled the executive to live a reasonably authentic life; the way he wanted to live personally was largely aligned with her corporate responsibilities. He wanted to make the customers — whom he was likely to know personally — happy. He wanted to support his employees’ well-being — employees who he and his family probably knew. He wanted to be a respected figure in the city, a city that was important to his company and his family. And he wanted to make his shareholders happy because he knew that they had placed a long-term bet behind his company. If he worked on all those aspects of his community, he could be successful and happy. And by serving customers and employees well, the corporation was likely to keep on prospering.

But now companies and the executives that work for them have become dissociated from their environs, their staff, their customers and, crucially, from long-term thinking. Martin says:

[T]he idea that shareholder value was a corporation’s principal objective function took hold, largely, I think, through the agency of business schools, whose dramatic rise coincided with the decline of the traditional business community.

This disintegration of community is not a good thing for the exec, his business, the community or frankly, anyone else. It leads to the sort of short-termist thinking that led to the Crash.

Martin paints a fairly bleak picture, but I think there is a cause for hope: Social media. Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and a host of other tools provide a way for the people in business, whether executive or not, to get back in touch with their wider community. It also allows customers to collaborate and to become a countervailing force to shareholders, Wall Street and analysts who encourage companies to make bad decisions.

The new community that businesses find themselves in isn’t a geographically constrained community, but a community of interest, or rather, a community of people who have an interest, whether they are customers, staff or curious onlookers.

And there’s nowhere to hide, either. The sunshine of the public’s attention can illuminate any previously hidden nook or cranny, and behaviour that businesses once got away with can now be exposed and challenged. The broader reach of businesses also frequently allows customers to swap away from the worst offenders, using their dollar or pound to vote against a company’s policy or behaviour.

I think we have a long way to go before we make real progress, and the largest of companies frequently have the longest journey, but I think the tide is finally on the turn.

02.23.10
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The truth does not lie midway between right and wrong

There’s a habit amongst journalists to act as if there’s a continuum between opposing viewpoints and that the truth must therefore lie somewhere roughly in the middle, especially on health, science and certain tech stories. We saw it before with the reporting on now disgraced ‘scientist’ Andrew Wakefield and his very well debunked claims that MMR causes autism. And we’ve seen it regularly since.

Now the House of Commons science and technology committee has examined homeopathy provision on the NHS and has concluded that evidence shows homeopathy works no better than placebo and that the NHS should not provide or recommend it. The media seems to have decided that solid science is one end of a continuum of truths with homeopaths at the other end, and that it’s their job to shilly shally around in the middle and to present both sides in a ‘fair and balanced’ manner. To which I call bullshit.

Science isn’t about the balance of opinions but the balance of evidence. Evidence is bigger than any one person or research institute: it’s the findings of experiments that can be consistently repeated by anyone, anywhere with the right knowledge and equipment. When the evidence stacks up in favour of one theory, then that’s the theory that we must hold as true until/unless reliable and repeatable experiments lead us to refine or change it.

And that’s the thing. The reliable and repeatable experiments show that homeopathy performs no better than a placebo. Yet journalists seem intent on portraying this story as “MPs say one thing, homeopaths say something else, and who knows who’s right?!”. The Guardian, for example, uses a lot of fightin’ words (my bold):

To true believers, including Prince Charles, homeopathy is an age-old form of treatment for a wide range of ills. To most scientists, it is nothing more than water. Today the sniping between the devotees and the denialists became a head-on collision, as the House of Commons science and technology committee challenged the government to live by its evidence-based principles and withdraw all NHS funding from homeopathic treatment. …

…the money could be better spent, said the committee, accusing the Department of Health of failing to abide by the principle that its policies should be evidence-based. …

The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health countered the MPs’ attack by citing a peer-reviewed scientific study in the International Journal of Oncology which, it said, proved that homeopathic remedies were biologically active. …

But this isn’t a fight. It’s not seconds out, round one. Evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that homeopathy doesn’t work.

The Guardian, along with many other news outlets, also gives quite a weight to pro-homeopathy voices as if all opinions are equal and that this is a debate. Ben Goldacre is collecting examples over on Bad Science. The BBC, for example, comes in for a lot of criticism in Ben’s comments:

fgrunta said,

I just saw this story break on BBC News. They brought on a Homeopath GP who just went and told I don’t know how many millions of viewers that the “evidence is clear” that homeopathy works and she then proceeded to start quote papers.

Grrr….

And:

ALondoner said,

An excellent report, nice to see that MPs can sit down, review the evidence and then say something intelligent.

On the other hand, The BBC (and some other news outlets) seem to be so obsessed with giving each side of the story, they make it sound like there is reasonable evidence for both points of view.

When someone is found guilty of a crime, journalists doesn’t put guilty in quotation marks. Nor do they pick a self appointed expert to rant about why that person was actually not guilty. So why doesn’t the BBC simply report that supporters of homoeopathy say it works, but all independent reviews shows that it does not.

Instead, we get “many people – both patients and experts – say it is a valid treatment and does work”, without at least caveating that with “but all systematic reviews show it is no better than placebo” and explaining who these “experts” are. Experts in giving homeopathy perhaps, but are they experts in telling whether it works better than placebo?

Just sent a few comments to the BBC via their well hidden complaints website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms

The problem is, this is not a debate. The evidence is in: Homeopathy doesn’t work. Perpetuating the myth that taking ‘remedies’ which amount to nothing more than sugar pills or water that’s been shaken up a bit is potentially harmful. In fact, people die because they are convinced that homeopathy will work and so don’t seek proper medical attention. The media is complicit in those deaths because they help to keep the myth of homeopathy alive.

What I don’t understand is why journalists feels the need to create this false dichotomy in the first place. When astronomers discover a new planet orbiting a distant star, journalists don’t start looking for dissenting astrologers. When palaeontologists discover a new dinosaur, journalists don’t seek out creationists or intelligent design advocates to say that it’s all just a big trick by God. Why is it that in other fields they feel at liberty to talk utter hogswash and to ignore solid evidence?

This isn’t a science problem, or a science communications problems, this is a serious journalistic problem. This is journalists imposing a frame onto the story that is utterly inappropriate. This leads to a misrepresentation of the evidence and does a serious disservice to everyone who reads these stories and takes them at face value.

There is always some doubt in science, but this does not mean that science is unreliable or that opposing views are always as valid. In homeopathy, the level of doubt is very, very low, so low in fact that I feel perfectly happy saying “homeopathy doesn’t work”, because that’s the hypothesis that’s been proven correct time and time again.

Other scientific theories have more doubt and there we do need to be careful to be clear about what levels of confidence we should have. But this doesn’t mean that even in those stories that we need to give equal weight to for and against: we just need to be clear about how tentative or firm the science is.

And again, let me reiterate: This is important not just from a journalistic integrity point of view, but because misinformation kills. Actual people actually die. They actually get ill, actually fail to get the right treatment, and actually suffer because of it. Any action on the part of journalists that encourages people to believe in provably ineffective treatments is unethical. I just wish more journalists thought through what they are writing when covering stories like MMR and homeopathy.

02.23.10
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Book: Building Social Web Applications, Gavin Bell

I’ve yet to see a copy of Building Social Web Applications
, but Gavin Bell is a not only a friend but someone whom I respect and admire, so I’m already convinced it’s going to be a good read! The official blurb is:

Building a social web application that attracts and retains regular visitors, and gets them to interact, isn’t easy to do. This book walks you through the tough questions you’ll face if you’re to create a truly effective community site – one that makes visitors feel like they’ve found a new home on the Web. Whether you’re creating a new site from scratch or embracing an existing audience “Building Social Web Applications” helps you and your fellow web developers, designers, and project managers make difficult decisions, such as choosing the appropriate interaction tools for your audience, and building an infrastructure to help the community gel.With this book, you’ll learn to: understand who will be drawn to your site, why they’ll stay, and who they’ll interact with; build the software you need versus plugging in off-the-shelf apps; create visual design that clearly communicates what your site will do; manage the identities of your visitors and determine how to manage their interaction; watch for demand from the community to guide your choice of new functions; and, plan the launch of your site and get the message out. “Building Social Web Applications” includes examples of different application types – member-driven, customer service-driven, contributor-driven, and more – and discusses different business models. If your company’s ready to move into the world of social web applications, this book will help you make it a reality.

Christian Crumlish has a short review, GameDev take a bit of a deeper look and there are currently five 5-star reviews on Amazon.com. Personally, I can’t wait to have the time to sit down and read this cover-to-cover!

02.22.10
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Are we building better tomorrows?

Via Christian Crumlish, I discovered the excellent essay Are we building a better Internet? by Matte Scheinker. Matte’s essay looks at how seemingly small design decisions can have huge impacts on the way that the internet evolves. He says:

The first design meme I encountered with true deleterious power was the opt-out check-box for marketing emails on sign-up forms. Our argument for it to be opt-in instead was user-experience focused with a nod to the business folks. Undesired emails would hurt the brand, annoy the user, and not necessarily generate qualified leads. What we didn’t consider back then was how that small decision would help create today’s Internet. These undesired marketing emails — along with the invention of V1@gra — contributed to the cacophony of commercial noise that now pollutes the Internet. As far as I know, this noise hasn’t killed anyone. Yet most of us would prefer the Internet to feel a little more like relaxing on a secluded beach with a good book and less like Times Square on a muggy Saturday night.

Imagine for a moment what today’s design decisions will do to mold the Internet’s future. What if every product decision you made last week became a successful design meme? Would that create an Internet where you’d want your kids to play?

Sometimes we get lucky and it’s not difficult to discern the difference between right and wrong. Don’t sell user data because you’re short on beer money. Don’t keep emailing users after they unsubscribe. Don’t read user emails to find the next great stock pick. These are certainly over-simplified dilemmas, and sadly, most ethical dilemmas aren’t as clear-cut.

He goes on to talk about other ethical decisions that designers and businesses make and the impact that they have. You really should read the whole thing.

But Matte’s questions are not just for web designers and developers, they are also for business managers: Are you making business decisions that might affect the future of the internet? Of your business? Of Business? If everyone behaved as you do, would the world be a better place?

Decisions that affect the internal world of your business don’t just affect your staff, they affect their spouses, families, friends. If you’ve ever known someone who’s unhappy at work you know how far and how fast that unhappiness can travel. And if you’re making good decisions – enabling and empowering the people you work with to communicate, collaborate and be more effective – then your influence will also spread as the people you work with pick up good management habits.

Of course, this isn’t just about feeling good: if you have passionate employees you have a whole raft of potential evangelists who can represent your brand in the wider community. If you treat your customers with respect, they’ll be more likely to recommend you to their friends. And if you make good decisions about your website’s design, you’ll gain much more goodwill than abusing customer’s trust.

Being ethical isn’t just a nice thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

02.21.10
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Public speaking made easy

A couple of weeks ago I went to an event organised by Laura North aimed at helping people become better public speakers. I do a lot of presentations. I recently added them up and realised to my surprise that I have done 60 planned presentations over the last five years, not to mention all the unplanned ones! But I still feel that my technique could use some improvement so I was really glad that Laura put this event on. She is now planning a series of speaker training events, which I look forward to.

Meantime, here are my notes from the evening. You can watch the videos and see the slide decks on Speaking Out.

Host: Laura North
Dave Bell, Merrill Lynch
Katie Streten, Imagination
Christian Heilmann, Yahoo!

Dave Bell, Merrill Lynch
When he met Laura, who did the intro, they were discussing her dread of public speaking, and he gave her some insight into his experience, and later was accosted and asked to address a meeting like this because it’s a common fear. We all have to do it, whether we present to colleagues or clients. But the main thing is that everything comes with practice. Don’t worry if you feel nervous – you’re not on your own.

Most of Dave’s roles have included some sort of presentation aspect. Some events would be very large, and there’d be a hall of 400 people, but each time you do it you learn a little bit more about your content, your slides, what worked, what didn’t work. [Tip from me: Don’t spend quite so much time talking about yourself up front, just give the audience to establish context.]

Style and delivery varies according to the type of meeting and your role within it.

– Small meetings: Most extreme form of presenting is to present to one person, need to think about how that individual is thinking and feeling, how can you change what you are doing to suit what they need. Try to work out when they are following you, and when you are losing them or things have got too complicated. Learn to read the person on the other time of the table. Work out what you can do to meet them half way.

– Chairing meetings & large meetings: Let everyone in the meeting have a fair say and to contribute. Work out who are the key influencers, the people who need to participate. Who are the core constituents? Who needs to understand your message? Not the same level of communication as a one-on-one, but trying to build a consensus and that can be a challenge.

– Making presentations in meetings: When you have people who are not engaged, it’s an excuse for them to switch off, so try to make a connection with them. Look them in the eye. When we are presenting we are trying to communicate and make that connection to them. Address yourself physically to the whole room.

– Pitching ideas: When you’re introducing a new concept to people, especially if it’s new, it make take some time to build things up, don’t rush. How would you approach this if you hadn’t heard it before. If people don’t know who you are and what you’re on about. particularly if you’re external and you don’t have that rapport straight away, take your time and don’t rush to get to your message. Why should they be interested? Why should they come with you? Think about their position, not just about your content.

– Asking questions at conferences: Very nerve-wracking, but important in building reputation. Great if you can come up with some ways to get over the nerves and address a question to a conference. It’s ok if you have a question but don’t get to ask it exactly as you want to – don’t beat yourself up about it.

– Presenting at conferences: Biggest arena that you will face. It’s not as much about connecting with that audience [not sure this is what he really meant], but about having the confidence to speak from the stand.

Preparation is the key for being relaxed.

Audience: Who are they? Why are they there? Who are the key influencers in this meeting? What message do you want to leave them with? Who do you need to get on side in order to make your concept/idea get some legs? You can only leave people with a couple of ideas.

Cliche but true: Tell the audience what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

Materials: Detailed slides can help, but can be a distraction. Presenting is at its best when it’s the big picture. Give people enough to give them energy. Don’t need the fine detail, give them something to take away. Strip back your material to the core ideas.

Objectives: Important point – a presentation is about a transition through a relationship. Often, you are trying to build a relationship. How is the presentation going to help you get from A to B, and how are you going to take your audience with you?

Don’t over-think! But put enough work in.

Style. Once you know what you’re talking about and you’ve thought about the audience, think about your style. Often it will reflect your personality. There are no real rules, but a few things to bear in mind:

Who’s the audience? Tone should be right for the audience. Think about how to connect with people. Think about the subject. Be consistent.

Summary:

– connect with your audience
– preparation is the key to being relaxed
– be selective with your material – think big picture
– your style will develop and it will come with time
– presentations are performances, some times they go better than others. When it goes well, give yourself a pat on the back.
– …and everyone gets nervous! You are not the only one! Your audience is willing you on, they want you to be successful, so they are on your side!

Q: Should you do a dry run?
It helps you master the material, and the more comfortable you are with your core messages, the happier you’ll be doing the ad libbing. If it helps you relax, it’s a good idea. Use colleagues as a sounding board. You might think you’ve mastered the material, but when you get started you find you don’t know it as well as you could.

Q: What do you do if you think you’re starting to lose the audience?
Think about just slowing down and regrouping. The biggest thing is realising that you might be losing them is the important thing. Softly reposition what you are saying, perhaps say it again in a different way. Acknowledge to yourself they aren’t quite with you rather than charging through. But keep calm and try to address it.

Also, people sometimes close their eyes or stare at the corner, it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t listening. Some people learn aurally.

Q: Camden Speakers’ Club. Found that getting over the phobia, speaking to the club, 15 people, was the same as speaking to 1000. It’s the same. You said there were differences, what do you think they are?
If you have 15 people sat round a boardroom table, within that room you’ve got a dynamic, some people who are more influential who might lead a consensus, so gauging how they are going is important. That’s different to when you are on a platform, you can’t connect on more than a fleeting basis, you can’t tailor what you are saying for everyone. In a small group, if you lose the key influencer, you lose everyone.

Q: What about presenting over the phone?
Keep calm, don’t try to get out everything you are trying to say straight away. Almost like when you’re losing someone in the audience: adapt what you are saying, take your time, be confident. Have an elevator pitch. What is your one little hook? You need that on the phone as they don’t know anything about you. Why are they going to be interested?

Q: When you need to convince people of your credibility, how do you win them over? Particularly if you are young and talking to much older people?
Demonstrate your experience and knowledge. Until you’re tried and tested it is very difficult. Know your material really well. Be clear when answering questions. Who else in your organisation can you reach out to? Who could do the meeting with you? Who of your colleagues has more experience who can give you back-up?

Katie Streten, Imagination
Goes to a lot of conferences where the speaker programme is packed with men, yet competent women don’t get asked, and don’t push themselves forward as much as they should. Has done two courses on how to present, and they make you very fired up, then you go away and don’t do any of the things you are taught! Have a LAMDA Spoken English qualification, and they do really great programmes where you learn to read aloud, ad lib, etc. Still gets nervous ahead of time and hates asking questions.

Reasons not to like public speaking and suggestions for dealing with them. Asked others why they hate public speaking.

Reason 1: “No one will be interested in what I’ve got to say”.

Well, they are there. They are there for a reason, and that reason is you. In meetings at work, they feel you have something valuable to offer, so remember that when you feel your opinion is irrelevant. Think about them and what you can give them. This isn’t about you, it’s about why they have asked you the question. They want something from you and they think you can give it to them.

Reason 2: “I will start speaking and go completely blank.”

Prepare. If you’re giving a really important talk or if you’re not confident, write your script out longhand. It’s a pain in the arse, but it’s the best way to get it out. Read it aloud to yourself, read it to friends, and just keep going to it. You will realise some of your jokes were bad, it was too long, and gradually you’ll get familiar with your subject matter. Then write out card notes, which should be as simple as possible and just give you your key points. Just glance down when you get lots. Highlight key moments on your slides. Don’t practice too much, because your brain will start to expect a certain rhythm and if you falter, your brain will freeze. Now what you are saying, use the cards to help you maintain your flow but don’t try to have it off pat.

Reason 3: “Everyone out there will find out that I’m a fraud.”

You have been asked to speak, you are there for a reason. People think you have something to say so you are not a fraud. Everyone thinks that. Everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Armando Ianucci, who has talked about “the fear of being found out for being a bit rubbish”

Reason 4: “I will look out over the crowd and see their faces and go blank.”

If you can make a connection with the audience, that’s great. But if you’re nervous, don’t look at the crowd. Before hand, pick 3 spots in the room, or place your mate at the back to smile at you. Start talking to the first point say something and move on to the next point and talk to that, then the third. If eye contact makes you uncomfortable, then it will throw you, so fake it. Remember that people are more interested in the talk than in you. They are not interested in the colour of your shirt, or your accent, or your hair. They want to hear what you have to tell them.

5: “I will lose my place and just stall.”

This is common, that you’ll kick off, then lose your place and it’ll all go up in smoke. So: Cards. Practice. And remember, the audience is on your side. Everyone is desperate for you not to make a fool of yourself for their own sake. They want you to succeed. It’s ok if you stall. And if you do, ‘fess up. Say “I’m sorry, I’ve just lost my place”, look at your cards and carry on. No one will judge you for that.

6; “I will ask something that everyone else understands, and I will look like an idiot.”

Everyone in this situation is thinking the same thing as you. And others may have the question too, but by asking it you have saved them the trouble. But if you are in a situation where you have paid to be at a seminar or conference, you have a right to ask. The speaker has a duty to you, to explain anything that is unclear. It is their problem, not your. And if you wait long enough, there is usually someone in the audience who makes a statement instead of asking a question, so by asking a question you are doing the right thing and saving the audience from statements. Asking questions is a good thing!

7: “It feels artificial. It should feel like a conversation, I hate the awkward feeling.”

The audience often hate it too, they don’t want formality except in serious contexts. The audience wants to make a connection, to feel relaxed. They want to enjoy it. Say ‘Hello!” at the beginning. That makes it more informal, makes people feel relaxed. Also, your arms. Don’t hold them by your sides but don’t gesticulate too much either. If you move your hands at about waist height, that’s what you naturally do in conversation, and it just makes it less formal and breaks up the space. Don’t have a rigid script, but notes that let you ebb and flow with the audience’s attention.

Powerpoint

Two key things:

* Bullet points. This is not the place to write your script. (Don’t use a script, use cards!). Don’t put too much on your powerpoint, just do it in short bursts.
* Pictures: The things that stick in your head are images. Make the pictures appropriate to what you are trying to say. Makes it less formal too.

Conclusion
* People genuinely want to hear what you have to say. If they have invited you, they think you are capable, and you are capable.
* Think about your audience – what can you give them? Why have you been asked to do what you are doing? What can you bring to them?

If all else fails, try to remember the details of one speech you have heard in your life. You don’t. Some speeches really stick in your mind, as in you remember them, but you don’t remember the detail. So if you feel really bad about it, just remember that no one will remember anyway.

twitter.com/watusi

Q: What about humour?
Pictures can be very useful because a picture can be humorous without you having to be funny. If you feel you have to be funny, that can be massive pressure. You can get humour in via pictures. Obviously depends on context, so it’s not always appropriate.

Q: Struggle with going too fast. How do I calm down and articulate? What are your tips? And also, women should make more statements like men [instead of asking questions at a conference]?
Well, statements don’t hold people to account, so if you disagree with something don’t just refute it, ask them to back it up. You have to make yourself do it, you have to grab the opportunity to do so. Regarding speaking slowly, if you’re very nervous, put your reminders to speak slowly, raise your head, use your arms, on your first card. In terms of tone, the more relaxed you get the more conversational you get, and the more your tone will rise and fall. Think about the words you normally emphasise and do that.

Q: Jokes, sometimes they work once but not again? What’s your view?
Good pictures, quotes that other people have said. Because it’s not yours, then if it falls flat then it’s not your fault.

Q: Biting off, repeating oneself and then realising and ending the sentence abruptly.
Be aware of yourself when you’re speaking. It’s a bit weird, half of you is speaking, and half of you is trying to be aware of what is going on. As soon as you are aware, do something. Also, what that boils down to, is a desire to get your point across, and a feeling that either you’re not getting across well or that they are not listening to you. So be confident of yourself. Ask if someone has understood it, try to get to a point where you’ve said it and then ask, does that make sense?

Q: What do you do when people are behind you?
Depends on your room set-up and what’s your point. Either move out to the side, or turn round. it is worth doing that. Depends on how long your’e speaking for. If it’s short, it doesn’t matter. If a room is set up for training, people should face each other and you walk around. If it’s a presentation, then don’t have people behind you, even sit on a windowsill. Explain that you don’t want anyone behind you. If need be, rearrange the room so that you have no one behind.

Q: What’s the best way to say I don’t know?
Comes back to ‘fessing up if you make a mistake. Best thing to do is to say something along the lines of, “That’s a really good point, I don’t know but if you give me your email address I will find out and get back to you”. People can be a bit mean and want to put you on the spot, but if you don’t know be clear that you don’t, and follow it up. Or ask the audience, “Has anyone here had that situation? Can someone help?” Bring audience into the talk. Worst thing you can do is fake it, because they will know.

Christian Heilmann, Yahoo!
How to inspire as a speaker. Interesting to have this kind of event. Always a bit concerned about how everyone says that there aren’t enough women, as hasn’t had that problem when organising his own conferences.

Focused on how to teach people without them realising. Inspire people to learn more about the topic. Inspire them to find out and do something.

Was voted ‘most inspiring speaker’ in the SlideShare Zeitgeist. Upload the audio to his Slideshare.

Presentation is the flashcards – just one sentence. Records talks so he can remember what he said. You can do it too if you just trust yourself.

Why was he voted the most inspiring? He has very distinctive hair. Has its own tag on Flickr. Clearly it’s his hair…

He tries to look at the topic from a different point of view. What is different? Why would people care? Get out of the spot you are in, and look at it from a different angle.

Shows a photo that is missing a person in the middle. People laugh at the woman who didn’t jump, but people don’t notice the missing woman in the middle.

Toblerone. People don’t realise that if they look at the logo, there’s a bear in the logo. What is the story of the bear? Find the story that makes the difference. Even if it’s just anecdotes, make it lively, make it human.

Speaks in many different countries, different cultures.

People look at speakers first, then the information, then the audience. Although the audience is one of the most important things, people are seeking information. What do people take out of that info? How is that info useful to everyone else?

Know what your audience needs is the most important part of any presentation. What do people want? What is their problem? How can you solve it? This can be hard. Sometimes when you are invited at the last moment, or if you face a hostile audience. What do people waste their time on? How does your info make their time better spent? We should go into every conference asking what the audience asks themselves, what is in it for them? No matter how enjoyable a speaker is if they don’t give the audience what they need, they aren’t good. What would I want off me if I was sitting there?

Having the right mindset as a presenter is also very important. People came to see you speak. They had a choice and they chose to see you. So you’ve got nothing to lose. Even if you’re terrible, even if your slides are terrible, you can still say “I did it”, and dare yourself to get better. You can only get better if you keep going. We all suck, we just get better at faking it or don’t care anymore.

Look ahead at what might be interesting. Don’t just take the obvious topics. Just make something better. Tell a story. Find a story. Your presentation should be a story with a start, a climax and an end, with the repetition to drive it home.

How do you get to that stage? Relax, know your stuff. Not the presentation, but the stuff that you are talking about. People will ask you a question. If you just rehearse the presentation but can’t answer questions you lose everything you built up in the presentation. It’s not about dazzling people, but about learning something. Take the time to prepare your topic. It’s dangerous to just go out there and dazzle.

Own your talk. This is your talk. If someone sends you a slide deck, change it to something you feel comfortable with. Have seen people trying to tell other people’s jokes. It’s your talk, it’s what you define.

Practice. Any chance you get to give a public talk, do it. Go to unconferences. Talk to your friends.

Practice some more. The more you do it the better you get. When you get good, you can start to slip stuff in that people aren’t expecting. Grab people’s attention, and follow it up with lots of good information.

How can you practice? Loud reading in different voices is great training. If you have a kid, or can borrow a kid, read books to them with the different voices. Room on the Broom, great way to entertain the kids and you can train yourself to be a speaker.

Listen to audiobooks. Very good training. Stephen Fry is an excellent reader. Learn how to make breaks in the right spot. Accents. Hear the voice.

Listen to yourself. This is excellent training. When we speak our head vibrates, so our voice sounds deeper than we do to other people. Listen to your own talks, e.g. at the gym. Become your own critic. Find out mannerisms that you didn’t realise you had. Discover your own tics and weaknesses. Force yourself to listen to yourself.

Powerpoint karaoke. Friday afternoon. Beer. Download random Powerpoints off the internet. Then everyone has to give a five minute presentation to a random powerpoint deck. Everything from caring for crocodiles, to environmental physics. Good bonding experience too!

Lightning talks. 5 x 5 x 5. Good way to share information, to learn how to speak. 5 minute presentations of a problem encountered, 5 minute talking about how it was resolved, 5 minute discussion about whether the solution is good enough. Whatever you do at work, you can do this. Everyone in the team has to do one sooner or later. Very good to find new speakers too.

Get inspired by great examples. Sometimes, the quirky ones aren’t actually the best. TED is a great site for videos. Good introduction. Always pick people who are interesting.

Josh Blue, was at Last Comic Standing, and he’s got a Cerebral Palsy, and is very, very funny. US guy. Very in your face. Makes people realise that those with disabilities have something to offer too. Not just being funny, but also saying that we are out there, we are interesting. Anyone can do that too – show people that you are there.

Avoid at all costs:

* Imitation. If you imitate someone else’s style, that makes you a karaoke singer. Find your own style.
* Read your slides. It’s appalling if you read your slides. Slides are a guideline, outline of your story, reminds you where you’re going. Information for people who can’t be bothered to listen.
* Forget your story. It’s not just information. Make it personal if necessary. Use anecdote.
* Blinging it up. Don’t use the fancy transitions. You should never end up having to wait for your slides to build.

Overcoming the fear.
Some people say you should ‘dress a bit better than the audience’, but that’s not the point. Your presentation will talk for you. If you have to abide by company speaker guidelines, smile and nod and think of something happy. Be honest, accept your flaws. The audience is as afraid of you as you are of them. Some audiences are happy and supportive, others are very hostile because they think they are better. If you don’t talk to the audience and get them involved, you’re talking to yourself. The audience wants your information, give your slides to them online, let people relax and focus on your talk.

Instead of seeing a crowed or a sea of faces, pick a new person to talk to with every part of your story. If you’re experienced, try to figure out what they are trying to get out of them. Talking to people one after the other, people who look interested, makes you subconsciously talk to them more.

Has a presentation ebook online for free. developer-evangelism.com. How to write slides, how to get invited to speak, how to deliver the talk.

Twitter.com/codepo8.

Q: Format and structure of presentation. What the background should be? Bullets or no bullets? If you have a 10 mins presentation, how many slides?
There’s another game, Pecha Kucha – 20 slides in 20 seconds. Very fast. Good way to pace yourself and find out. Normally take a minute a slide. Always be faster than you think you are, don’t be scared of 45 minute talk. Don’t like bullet points because they distract the audience. If you structure the points, and show them one after the other and talk them through the process, then it’s ok. Summary slides, that’ where they are good. Other than that, one piece of information. Background – black background with big (36px upwards) white text works everywhere on every technology. Other than that, it’s up to you what your style is. Don’t go after someone else’s style. Think about what might break, and one thing to remember is that everything will break. You will never have a set up that works.

Q: How do you combat nerves of just getting up there?
Be in the mindset. You’re already there, people have already booked, you can’t let them down by not going on. There’s nothing much you can do that would make them hate you. Everybody is afraid at the last moment. You cannot change it just before you go on. You just have to do it. Find a way to calm yourself when you’re stressed. You’ve made the commitment, you’ve prepared, so you’re ready.

Q: How do you deal with people who take over the meeting, and make sure everyone has a chance to talk?
Wish we had more female managers; male managers get into vocal fist fights, talk in circles because they want consensus. Have an agenda, because if you don’t it’s a waste of time. Say at the beginning, this is the agenda, say you are going to stick to it and stick to the time, and be firm but polite with people. When people go round in circles, say, “We’re not going to fix this now, so let’s deal with it after the meeting.”

Q: How do you deal with a microphone?
See it as sceptre. I just earnt this because I have something important to say. It’s my turn. Spotlight situation: you want that question answers. You’ve made the commitment to ask it. A lot of others have the same question, and they’ll love you for asking it.

02.19.10
by

ATA: What makes a good case study?

Every now and again I find myself searching for social media case studies, and whenever this happens it’s always a monumental pain in the proverbials. People aren’t great at interpreting a case study from outside of their own context, so I like to find something that they can immediately relate to. But it can be really hard to find something relevant on short notice so I often wind up going back to my old favourites and then having to tell the client “Well, this may not sound exactly like you, but trust me, it’s more relevant than it looks.”

Although there are loads of social case studies on the web, they aren’t particularly well organised. There are various lists kicking about, but many of them are poorly organised and it takes ages to plough through them. So I’m considering a quick and dirty solution in the form of a Google spreadsheet and form so that we can gather more detailed information together. What kind of information would be useful to you? Here are some possible ideas:

  • Name of the company
  • Whether the project was internal or external
  • Date of case study
  • Tools used
  • Is this good practice or bad practice
  • Overview
  • Link to full write-up
  • Name of person writing is up
  • Style of case study (blog post, formal case study etc)

What else would you like to see? I’ll use your comments to create the spreadsheet and will post the form here when it’s ready.