Category Archives: Digital/social media

What is social media for?

  By antonia | April 16, 2013 - 12:46 pm | Digital/social media
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I’ve recently been at a few events on digital issues, and I’m off to Helsinki early tomorrow morning to do a workshop with colleagues there on digital communication. So I guess these issues have been at the forefront of my mind. In that light, I thought that the little anecdote of what happened today was pretty illustrative and worth sharing.

My brother lives in Borneo and I am visiting him in July. I had booked my ticket through Trailfinders, so he has asked me to talk to them about booking his ticket back to spend Christmas here. I went on their site, hoping to send them a message asking about it.

Their submit an enquiry form requires a level of detail I’m not ready to provide. Their contact us page is only telephone numbers and physical stores. I just wanted to ask if they can book a trip that starts and returns to outside the UK, so I thought, I’ll send them a quick tweet and ask if that’s possible. No sign of a twitter name on their site, so I did a search and found this article: ‘Social media gimmicky and not for us’ says Trailfinders

I think the position of Trailfinders makes a serious error and that’s about seeing social media as a marketing tool. Maybe the problem is the name: calling it ‘social media’ puts it in the same mental box as ad spend and newspaper/magazine coverage. What we are really talking about are tools for connecting people, to do whatever it is that they want to do with our organisation/brand/company. Seeing it as part of your marketing is why companies (wrongly) staff corporate twitter accounts with comms people, not client/customer service people. If I contact Virgin media by twitter about a problem, I don’t want them to reply with a phone number, I want them to answer my question. This is how people talk to each other now.

This attitude to social media also highlights something else I try to encourage people to consider, which is that the value of social is its intelligence function. You can quickly find out what people are saying about you. A search for ‘trailfinders’ on Twitter found a mixture: one irate guy whose flights had been changed and he hadn’t been informed, and several people highlighting how good the service is. Why would a company not want a more or less free way of finding out exactly what their customers are saying?

We’re in a transitional phase and I understand that it will take time for mindsets to change. But companies and organisations need to think about talking the language of their customers, and that also means connecting with them in ways that work for them. I’ve had great on-the-phone service from Trailfinders, but I have to admit that their inability to communicate with me in a way I feel comfortable with does make me feel a tiny bit less positive about them.

User experience: why and how it matters

  By antonia | March 19, 2013 - 1:20 pm | Digital/social media
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I recently tweeted

 

so I guess I ought to blog on it…

For a number of reasons, most utterly justifiable, the Commission usually creates proprietary software for any identified task or set of tasks (budget management, document management, personnel management). And almost invariably, the user experience is pretty crummy. These systems seem to be designed with, for and by the people that want to get the information out, but with little thought for how they will be used by the people putting things in. This is important, because if you are relying on people inputting information regularly and accurately, you need to be sure that you encourage them and make it easy for them to do so. A crummy user experience will often risk inaccurate and/or incomplete information.

If you are developing an app for the iPhone, say a to-do list, there are so many such apps around that the one that will emerge from the mass is the one with the killer user experience (in a good sense). I’m certainly finding that with Mailbox, a new email app for iPhone that rethinks how you deal with your email. So simple and intuitive is the user experience that I’m now long- and short-swiping on my other email accounts and wondering why I only have one option.

All of this is why I love Martin Belam’s blog, and its regular posts on elements of user experience. I particularly like that he has always been prepared to try things, and for them not to work, rather than never risk moving forward. I can relate to that…!

It seems to me that in developing systems for an organisation like ours, you need to offer incentives for people to use them, as well as thinking about what you are getting out. So to be hypothetical for an instant, an activity reporting system could connect to the appraisal system so that your managers could see what you had delivered during the year, if they wanted to. In this case, there would be a clear incentive for the user to put the information in and for it to be as accurate as possible. The most irritating thing is having to put the same information into several different systems, all in slightly different format…

Of course the other thing about user experience is that not all users are the same. I know that I am very diagram or image-led. I don’t need categories for my email if I have a good search function. Some people are more comfortable with labels and folders. Maybe that’s another problem of proprietary systems – there is usually little potential for adjusting it so it suits you.

This post isn’t really going anywhere, it’s just something I have been thinking about for a while. My feeling is very much that this is not a problem only faced by the Commission, but by any large organisation that is trying to monitor, evaluate, archive and manage the huge amount of information and data that is now part of our daily lives. I’d be really interested to hear other people’s views and experiences.

European Multilingual Blogging Day 2012 – the final product

  By antonia | November 15, 2012 - 10:36 am | Digital/social media, Languages
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Thanks to everyone who took part in yesterday’s blogging day. Here’s a link to the final Storify showing all the blogs I could find. There was fantastic variety, both in languages and topics, and it has brought some exciting blogs to my attention that I wouldn’t have found otherwise! Please leave a comment if there is someone I have missed out.

It was a joy to celebrate the multilingual web with you. Until next year!

#babel12

  By antonia | November 15, 2012 - 10:00 am | Digital/social media, Languages
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And here, just a teensy bit late, is my guest post for Multilingual Blogging Day from my translator colleague John:

Last year I wrote about my love affair with languages for Multilingual Blogging Day; this year I set myself the challenge of writing about one week in my work: five days in five languages.

Graphic for (optional) use on 14 NovemberDydd Llun, 26 Mawrth 2012
Pob nawr ac yn y man rwy’n cael y cyfle yn rhinwedd fy swydd i i fynd yn ôl i Gymru, sydd wastad yn gret. Er fy mod i ddim wedi byw yng Nghymru ers gadael coleg rhyw 14 yn ôl, Cymro fyddaf i am byth! Y tro yma, rydw i wedi dod yr holl ffordd yn ôl i Geredigion, fy nghartref i , i siarad a myfyrwyr ym mhrifysgol Aberystwyth am yrfaoedd fel cyfiethydd neu cyfiethydd ar y pryd yn sefydliadau’r Undeb Ewropeaidd. Anodd i gredu ond mae’n boeth ac yn braf iawn yma heddi. Wrth yrru heibio’r coleg rwy’n gweld bod llawer o’r myfyrwyr ar eu ffordd nôl o’r traeth! Rwy’n dechrau becso bydd neb yn troi lan i fy nghyflwyniad i. Sut alla i gystadlu gyda’r haul, yn enwedig yn rhywle ble mae’n bwrw glaw siwt gymaint?! Yn ffodus, mae yna digon o ddiddordeb mewn gyrfaoedd Ewropeaidd ymhlith myfyrwyr yr adran ieithoedd modern ac nid oes rhaid siarad mewn neuadd ddarlithio wag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rXCmHhihDI

Terça-feira, 27 de março de 2012
Depois da viagem de cinco horas em comboio de Aberystwyth a Londres, passo duas horas no escritório antes de voltar a sair para apanhar o metro em direção a uma escola no norte de Londres, para a final regional do concurso ‘Foreign Language Spelling Bee’. É um concurso para alunos de 11 e 12 anos, que têm de aprender e saber soletrar em voz alta uma série de palavras em francês, alemão ou espanhol. As crianças são incríveis – acho que eu estou mais nervoso do que eles ! Em Londres fala-se mais de 300 línguas, por isso não me surpreende ver que alguns dos melhores soletradores não falam inglês (nem francês, alemão ou espanhol) em casa. Os benefícios do bilinguismo são claros!
https://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/videos/2678
Środa, 28 marca 2012
Dzień w biurze. Wreszcie mam czas, żeby odpowiedzieć na e-maile! Muszę też napisać raport z warsztatu dla tłumaczy, który zorganizowałem ze stowarzyszeniem tłumaczy w Londynie. Ważne dla mnie jest też, aby na bieżąco informować mojego szefa w Brukseli, co robię. Również co środę mam wideokonferencję z kolegami i koleżankami w Brukseli, Paryżu, Berlinie, Wiedniu i Hadze. Możemy wymieniać się pomysłami i doświadczeniami, a także dowiedzieć się, co się dzieje w siedzibie w Brukseli.
Jueves, 29 marzo 2012
Empiezo el dia en un lugar fuera de lo común:  un estudio de grabación en Hackney, Londres.  Cantantes como Adele y Rihanna han grabado sus discos aquí, pero yo no voy a cantar – gracias a Dios! Estoy en el estudio con un grupo de jóvenes y ellos  sí que van a cantar. Han ganado un concurso organizado por el Club de Fútbol Arsenal en el que tuvieron que escribir las letras en francés, castellano, italiano, alemán y griego para una canción sobre los Juegos Olímpicos que  se celebran este verano  en Londres.   Para  casi todos  ellos, es la primera vez que se encuentran en un estudio de grabación pero no tienen miedo. Después de unos ejercicios para calentar las cuerdas vocales, cantan como profesionales y ni siquiera tienen problemas con las letras en lenguas extranjeras. Quizás  puedan representar  al Reino Unido el año que viene en el Festival de Eurovisión!
http://www.arsenaldoubleclub.co.uk/fun-zone/competition/
Vendredi, 30 mars 2012
Aujourd’hui, je suis à Manchester pour une conférence rassemblant des professeurs de langues. Je travaille sur notre stand où nous offrons des publications et des livres gratuits dans plusieurs langues et, bien sûr, les toujours très populaires posters et cartes de l’Europe. Il doit y avoir au moins une de nos cartes ou affiches sur les murs de presque chacune des écoles du Royaume-Uni! Je dois aussi m’exprimer pendant la conférence pour donner aux professeurs des informations sur le concours de traduction pour les élèves de 17 ans organisé par la Commission européenne – Juvenes Translatores. Heureusement, je partage le pupitre avec quelques professeurs qui présentent d’autres projets visant eux aussi à encourager les jeunes à apprendre les langues étrangères, ce qui est un vrai défi dans un pays où, selon un récent sondage, seulement 39 % de la population est capable de tenir une conversation dans au moins une langue étrangère.
http://ec.europa.eu/translatores/index_en.htm

European Multilingual Blogging Day 2012

  By antonia | November 8, 2012 - 1:24 pm | Digital/social media, Languages
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I promised to publish the list for European Multilingual Blogging Day once we had thirty sign ups, which we now have. So here we go!

European Union 2.0 by @tonybxl EN-FR
Juan Luis Postcardwala by @juanluissays EN-ES
Βιβλία και Ξερό Ψωμί (Vivlia ke Xero Psomi) by @annabooklover EL
Dick Nieuwenhuis Blog by @dicknieuwenhuis NL, EN – EN
Drawing Discipline by @secretenvelope EN – ES, EN
ingridnavarrett by @ingridyo57 EN – ES
Euonym – Social Media meets the EU by @euonymblog EN – FR, DE
A Hobbit’s Great Adventure EN – FR, NL, EE
Encrypted File Storage by @neeboCloud EN
Teaching Frenzy EN – ES
MULTILINGUAL CAFE EN – ?
Beyond Borders by @mariosorg EN – DE
A Brit Abroad EN – FR, ES, RU
Cerveja e Salsicha by @CervejaSalsicha PT – EN, DE
Nette Hargreaves by @Nette Hargreaves EN – DE
The Wurst Is Yet To Come by @chris_pegg EN – DE (Great name Chris!)
Charlotte’s (World Wide) Web by @luna_moonsilver EN – DE, ZH
The Interpreter Diaries by @InterpDiaries EN – FR, ES, PT
Mon enfant trilingue by @juli_b_59 FR
In my words by @tulkur EN – SV
Linguis Europae by @eucenter EN, FR, ES, IT – DE, HU
Rhetorik-Blog by @HansHuett DE – EN
Workingberlinmum by @workberlinmum EN – DE
Sprachenlernen24  DE – FR, IT, RO, LT, NO, EL
Hecticophilia by @JesseLili FR – EN
AJ Reads by @alainnjj EN – EN, FR, ES, DE, IT
6 hours ahead by @MarthaToulouse EN – ES
Erasmus Life EN – FR
Tubblog – News and Advice for SMB IT Companies by @tubblog EN – DE
Élet Manchesterben HU – EN
Thirdyearabroad.com by @thirdyearabroad EN-IT
The Football League Blog by @FootyLeagueBlog EN – FR, Welsh
Fecking Off to France (Because I’m a Bad Friend) by @lalalalarousse EN – EN, FR, Occitan (that’s a first!)
TheAmateurParisienne by @rosie_welch EN – FR
SOCLAS blog EN – EN, FR, ES, DE, IT
I-R-Charles Oben by @CharlesOben EN – FR
Brusselswatch by @Brusselswatch EN – ES
SprachenNetz by @SprachenNetz DE – EN
LEONARDO: Adventures in Hungary  EN – EN, HU
LEONARDO in France EN – EN, FR
Redmamy’s Daf Blog by @redmamy DE – DE
Neelie Kroes by @neeliekroesEU EN, NL – tbd
MidnightCookie PL – EN
Growing a library by @bumsonseats EN – DE
La Oreja de Europa by @MacarenaRG ES – EN, FR
In The Midst Of This Madness EN – FR, DE, IT
Eva en Europa by @evaeuropa EN, ES – EN, ES
Juvenes Translatores blog by @translatores EN – DE
Raya naplója HU – EN, FR, ES

I’ve created a graphic, which you are welcome to use with your blog entries on the 14th: Graphic for (optional) use on 14 November

Back to reality

  By antonia | September 10, 2012 - 9:29 am | Digital/social media, EC in UK, Languages
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Wasn’t it wonderful? This great British summer of sport and culture and more? I played my own very small part in it, as a volunteer during the Olympics. I didn’t get to stand with a big pink foam hand – rather I was in the Athletes’ Village, helping with transport information.

But now it’s over and we have to get back to normality. We’ve got a lot coming up including the European Day of Languages, the Mock Council simulation day (and here’s an interesting paper on the value of simulations as a teaching aid) and Single Market Week, marking 20 years of the single market.

12-16 November is Internet Week Europe, a festival of digitalness around the Lovie awards which recognise the best of the web in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. This isn’t organised by the Commission or EU, but obviously the idea of the multilingual web is interesting and so I thought it would be good to do European Multilingual Blogging Day 2012 in association with them. Hopefully it’ll be the biggest and best yet! If you’re interested in taking part, sign-up with the form, so that I can curate all the different entries. On 14 November, write your blog in a different language, or get a guest blogger in to do so. Write about whatever you want, though if you’re not sure where to start, maybe something about what languages mean to you might be a good place to start. I hope we’ll get lots of you taking part!

Unravelling the Ravelympics

  By antonia | June 22, 2012 - 4:21 pm | Digital/social media
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I’ve been sleeping quite badly recently, waking up around 4 in the morning and having difficulty getting back to sleep, so I often pick up the iPhone and have a little rummage around in Twitter and Facebook for a while before giving slumber another go. When I did so on Wednesday night, I walked right into the middle of the Ravelympics row, which presses a number of my buttons: it’s a *social media* row about people *knitting* during the *Olympics*.

For those of you that haven’t followed it, Ravelry (login required) is “the best social network you’ve never heard of” according to Slate. It’s a platform for knitters and crocheters, where yarnheads can catalogue their ‘stash’ (unused yarn), find patterns, get advice, post pictures of what they have knitted, send messages etc. Since 2008, during every Olympics, summer and winter, they encourage people to take part in the “Ravelympics”, where you knit an item as you watch the games.

This year, the US Olympic Committee sent them a cease and desist letter. We’ve all heard the stories here in the UK of people being stopped holding events using terms like ‘Olympics’ and ‘London 2012′. What has got the knitting community so riled are the terms in which they did it (I’m sorry, I can’t find a link to the original letter that isn’t on Ravelry itself, which is members only, so you’ll have to trust me that this is a non-doctored cut from what was posted there):

The USOC is responsible for preserving the Olympic Movement and its ideals within the United States.  Part of that responsibility is to ensure that Olympic trademarks, imagery and terminology are protected and given the appropriate respect.  We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

This is clearly someone who has never unpicked several rows of mohair lace knitting.

When Casey Forbes put this up on Ravelry, it caused quite a stir, with many fibreheads taking to Twitter to berate the USOC. What I found interesting from a social media point of view was that in the hour or so I was watching the hashtag #Ravelympics, there didn’t seem to be any reaction from the US Olympic Committee, not even a holding ‘we hear you’re angry, we’re looking into it’ kind of tweet that might have mollified a few people (just as some people were holding off getting riled at Argyll and Bute last week during the #neverseconds issue until they had put their side of the story).

Then the USOC did come out with a statement and I think you can see why this made things worse. Firstly he says this was a standard cease and desist letter, when that clearly wasn’t the case (I doubt the standard letter has the paragraph I extracted above). Then he finishes off by saying

To show our support of the Ravelry community, we would welcome any handmade items that you would like to create to travel with, and motivate, our team at the 2012 Games.

This statement has, unsurprisingly, been taken as “I will try to fob you off with transparently rubbish excuses and then ask you for free stuff”. Not designed to get the community on side.

The knitter part of me is definitely with those that are upset that an attempt to encourage knitters (I’m sure some are sporty, but many are not) to engage with the games has been deemed denigrating and disrespectful. The social media part of me is keen to learn the lessons of this experience, which I’ve summed up as:

1) Know who you are taking on

I remember talking at an event in Brussels on blogging and the web years ago, maybe 2005. I said how one of the most active online communities is the knitting world, and the digital expert there with me laughed, because he said this was well-known and he had been about to mention it. Knitters love social media, because they love sharing – exchanging yarn, tips, patterns, pictures. Knitting is a solitary activity, yes, but one best done in a group, whether on- or off-line. So social media works well for this community: they have taken to it and understand it. Upset one part of it (and a very important part, such as Ravelry, at that) and you will have the whole community on your head.Taking this at another angle, knitters have a pretty cuddly image. If you have a mental picture ofthe sort of people taking part in the Ravelympics, it’s probably a little old lady working on pastel baby clothes. Every element of that stereotype can be challenged by those in the know, but it does come across as the USOC whaling on the little people, while it takes the big companies’ money.

2) When things are going wrong, engage quickly

It seems to me that USOC’s biggest mistake was to let the #Ravelympics hashtag go on so long without any engagement. They must have known there was a problem, as just about every tweet I saw was an @mention to them. But it took them almost 24 hours to react. Even some sort of holding reply would have made people feel that USOC appreciated how upset they were.

3) When you react, get it right

The original mistakes were compounded by the perceived insincerity of the apology. They have extended the life of this social media storm by another 24 hours (I am still watching tweets come in on the #ravelympics hashtag). A little more thought, or running it past someone in the USOC that knitted (given that one blog I read said that 1 in 3 Americans is involved in fibrecrafts, that would have been quite easy), might have made the whole thing go away a lot more quickly.

4) There are no dividing lines

This morning’s Twitter storm is this afternoon’s headline. A quick search a few minutes ago showed the New York Times, AFP, National Public Radio, US Metro, USA Today and any number of local news websites carrying the story. Probably a day their press team would like to forget

Goodness knows that there are many examples of these kind of mistakes (maybe even today…). Looking at one from outside my immediate realm of work is useful in seeing where the common lines are and identifying what went wrong where. Anything else to suggest?

[Amended at 18.03 to correct quote and add the Slate reference]

 

#LondonThink

  By antonia | June 15, 2012 - 1:59 pm | Digital/social media
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Due to the tender ministrations of British Gas as they install my new boiler, I’m missing the #ThinkLondon event about thinktanks and their use of social media. A few interesting tools have come up during the morning already, so I thought I’d collate the information so far. I know tools are only a part of the story, but they do help, especially in situations where social media is just one of the 20 million things you have to do, and can help manage the huge amount of information and interaction that is out there. And please let me know your suggestions

Kred.com
Most of us will have heard of Klout, but the CEO of Kred.com was at the event. This distinguishes between how open you are to receiving information and how much you influence people.

The Archivist
If you’re dealing with an event with a hashtag, the Archivist can compile stats for you about its use, which is useful. Set it up before you publicise your hashtag and it will do your monitoring for you.

Crowdbooster
I think this might be the tool I have been looking for! It shows the reach of your tweets, number of replies and retweets.

Visual.ly
Generate infographics. At the moment there aren’t many options, but the ones they have are quite fun. I look forward to the tool developing to the point where you can make your own from scratch (or have I missed something and you already can?)

Ageing, the media and social networks

  By antonia | May 21, 2012 - 9:59 am | Digital/social media, European Year of Active Ageing
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Infographic by UmpfI’m currently writing a paper on attitudes to ageing in the media (and if you have any thoughts or interesting ideas on this, please let me know). While googling around to see what is already out there, I stumbled on some research done by an company called Umpf on the age breakdown of major social networks. I thought it was pretty interesting so here it is (I tried to embed it, as suggested, but couldn’t get the code to work).

I think it’s very interesting that over half of the group 65 and over have a facebook profile. Having said that, they are proportionally the smallest user group for every platform, so there does need to be some thought about inclusion issues.

Talking about code, I have started working through the Codeacademy exercises – taking some baby steps in coding. Exciting!

Rethinking digital measurement

  By antonia | April 20, 2012 - 10:29 am | Digital/social media
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One of my responsibilities in the Representation is managing our digital and social media presence. In order to improve how we do this, we have been doing monthly reports looking at each of the channels (Facebook, Twitter, the various websites) and seeing how many hits they get, what the most popular items have been and what search terms are used. There is then a qualitative section that tries to explain the numbers and draw lessons for the future.

So far so good and I think it is worthwhile. But we’re not totally happy that we’re getting the right feel for how things are working, or making the most of analytical possibilities. So I was hoping people out there that know more about this sort of thing than me might have some suggestions for how we could improve our evaluation and monitoring of our online presence. This isn’t an invitation for you to pitch for a consultancy contract or an expensive monitoring service as we have zero budget. I would just hope that there were some tips on what questions we should be asking ourselves.

Thanks for listening :)