How I’m organising my digital outputs in 2011
I had a fascinating Skype conversation with Amber Thomas, a JISC Programme Director. She mentioned the concept of liminality in reference to the ‘trajectory of ambiguities’ idea I’ve been writing about in my journal article. It struck me afterward that I need to firm things up a bit given that I seem to exist in somewhat of a liminal digital world.
So here’s what you’ll find me doing where in 2011:
Synechism
I’ll be writing, as usual, at dougbelshaw.com/blog about user outcomes (including: education, technology, productivity, leadership, design). I’ll be posting around 1-2 times per week and won’t be writing the ‘Things I Learned This Week’ series. It’s a shame, but it’s too much of a time-suck to justify.
Doug’s clippings
I’m going to be using dajbelshaw.amplify.com to clip things of interest I come across online, adding my thoughts as I go. These will be auto-tweeted and saved to delicious.com/dajbelshaw.
I’ve cut back drastically on the number of people I’m following on Twitter (@dajbelshaw). It might be just me, but the signal/noise ratio seemed to decline sharply in 2010. I’ll be autoposting things from here and Amplify and using it for mainly work purposes.
I thought I deleted my Facebook (http://facebook.com/dajbelshaw) account in mid-2008, but it turned out I simply deactivated it. It’s now re-activated and I’ve gone about removing almost all of my ‘friends’, cutting back sharply to just my immediate family and close contacts. If you’re not one of those, I’m afraid I’ll be ignoring your connection request. Sorry.
As Facebook is the most popular social network and because pretty much all my close contacts are on it, I need to know how to use it effectively. Facebook’s also a great way to organise events and get groups started (without necessarily having a direct connection to people). More on that later, although you can (and should) ‘Like’ this blog there already.
My policy with LinkedIn (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/dajbelshaw) is simple: I need to know who you are, have dealt with you in a professional sense, and met you in person to connect with you. I’ll only waive the latter condition if you’re somebody I know really well online. It’s a professional, not a social, network.
Quora
I’m still experimenting with Quora (http://quora.com/Doug-Belshaw). Coming back to the notion of liminality, it’s a great example of what happens when boundaries are broken down as a result of new ways to connect to people. I really like the way it’s structured and it marries Yahoo! Answers with Digg and wiki-like functionality. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll connect with anyone on there. :-p
I’ve got more to discuss in terms of how I’m organizing things – especially related to academic stuff. This post covers just what others will see.
Some good thoughts, Doug.
Like you, I’m trying to sort out Facebook – I never deactivated it & it’s got very cluttered with general people, rather than, as you say, family & ‘close contacts’ (am assuming you mean ‘proper friends’…)
I keep meaning to have a good clear out, but worry (a wee bit, not that much really!) about whether or not I’d be mortally offending anyone.
Twitter too, I’ve always tended to have fewer I’m following than follow me – and tweetdeck makes it fairly easy to mostly read updates from those I really want to read & dip in/out of the general flow.
Blogging – I need to do more! It rather died a death last semester for a number of reasons. Hopefully, will be getting back to it soon.
Glad I’ve stimulated your thinking! You’ve got to be ruthless sometimes. :-)