November 18, 2010:

Social Media: November 18, 2010

Tonight on his TV program, Charlie Rose interviewed one of the founders of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. He described Wikipedia as a non-profit, humanitarian site. I learned that the word, wiki, is a generic tern and he has no control over that. When asked about Wikileaks, he said that it was separate although it had been related and the paper work disconnecting them is not yet complete, but he has nothing to do with it. He did say he is for access to information, but care should be taken if it is harmful to others. He seems like a very reasonable man who described himself as a dinosaur as he communicated with e-mails as he travels so much. He did say that younger people don’t use it as much and prefer Facebook. He said they like to keep up with and connect with friends and chat. I was prompted to look him up and found that his mother and grandmother were educators and ran a small progressive private school which encouraged self exploration at one’s own pace and he enjoyed reading the encyclopedia. His original attempt at an information service was called Newpedia, which he commented was not fun, too structured, and therefore unsuccessful. Wales did start a PhD in economics which he did not complete as he developed a more social information service for information. To read more see: http://onlinepersonalswatch.typepad.com/news/2006/06/online_personal_2.html

I also interviewed my daughters about their blog: FIRESTONESISTERS.COM http://firestonesisters.com/ as they were in NYC on their way back to LA from Mallorca. They have a travel and healthy life style blog for primarily people from 20 to 40. They will write a piece for me to post in their own words about their focus. As I asked questions they clearly said that you have to be precise, to the point and clear in your reason for starting a blog. What do you want people to know about you or what you are representing. They feel it has been a way for them to define themselves, like branding, so they have their voice strong and out there ..they had over 7,000 hits a few days ago.. before they sign on for a possible TV program. I hadn’t thought about it in that way and now see that you have control of what you post and present and can use this as a vehicle to reach the public. This is more than selling products and with a following one can promote their causes and interests. Other people have to want that information and be interested in following. One daughter felt it might not be appropriate for a therapist to advertise their services on a blog and it seemed to present a public picture and people want privacy in that area, she felt. They hired a design person to help do their website and connect the link to Facebook which has gotten them people that would not have known or had access to necessarily. Their high school and college friends can now find them and know what they are doing. They have girl friends as well as male friends who read their posts. One mentioned that Twitter was not of interest particularly. More on that later....

At the recent, this past weekend, Summit Expressive Therapies Conference in New York, which lasted four full days and took place in four locations, social media was mentioned in the ethics panel discussion. The music therapist on the panel brought up social media as an area of major concern that needed to be clarified and updated constantly in today’s world. Ethical guidelines for research and publication are definitely being investigated and hotly studied particularly in relation to the individual expressive arts therapies.

I just ordered and received from www.BlackstoneAudio.com CDs by Nicholas Carr called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He presented at talk recently at the New York Academy of Sciences, which was too costly for me to go. This is a good alternative and I will report on what he says. I am reading his new book, Does It Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004), Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Company.