jennybee.net

As anyone in the tech world who hasn’t been under a rock for the last few days will know, the SXSW tech love-in is currently taking place.

I’m not there but I’m trying to keep abreast with what’s going on. Fortunately, this is a lot easier to do than ever before. Twitter and Seesmic are updating me with observations from people who’s opinions I respect and my rss reader is busy gathering feeds. There are also a number of tools I can use to ‘manually’ find content - digg, del.icio.us, hashtags etc.

But sifting through the gossip, chatter, informed opinion, official texts, party videos etc etc to identify key themes, opinions and zeitgeist is a daunting task.

Established publishing channels such as Wired seem to be doing a good job of recording key moments and general observations. But I’m not totally certain their reporting is accurate. What if they are completely failing to notice the Twitter buzz around a new application?

What I’m faced with is my perception of trust and authority in the recording of this event. I need to employ a number of methods to build a complete picture of the conference as there isn’t one source to do that for me. I trust that I’ll be presented with well informed, intelligent, crafted commentary from the Wired blog, and I also trust my Twitter and Seesmic friends to reflect zeitgeist and offer their expert opinion.

What I need is a website where I can get a roundup of what the Twitterverse is buzzing about, what’s being discussed on Seesmic, what’s being blogged, rated, bookmarked and so on.

I’d still like to read ‘professional’ editorial and interpretation but this and the user generate content would complement each other in order to present a holistic vision of - in this case - SXSW.

I wonder if this is the approach established news publishers will need to move towards in order to survive changing perceptions of authority and the inevitable mainstream establishment of user generated content?

What do people think? Does anything like this already exist?

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Could we be witnessing baby-steps towards more appropriate personal communications methods?

We can spend up to half our working day going through our inbox, leaving us tired, frustrated and unproductive.

A recent study found one-third of office workers suffer from e-mail stress.

E-mail is ruining my life! (bbc.co.uk)

The article refers to Deloitte’s short-lived ‘no-internal-email-Wednesday’ which it reckons has made staff think more carefully about the email they send and whether there is a more appropriate communication method such as picking up the phone or talking face-to-face.

I agree, we should be more considered in our communications but our places of work on the whole haven’t even begun to embrace tools like IM, RSS, collaborative working, online project management, social networks etc etc.

My personal email traffic (both in- and out-bound) has significantly decreased since engaging with some of these tools. I refuse to subscribe to email lists - choosing RSS instead, and I use IM (if I can) to have quick conversations with friends. I use Google Groups to manage extra-curricular projects, Twitter keeps me in touch with friends and acquaintances and I use Facebook to organise my social life.

If only I could (or, more appropriately, was allowed to…) work more like this in my 9-5!

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In honour of the 30th anniversary of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio broadcast, here’s one of my favourite bits from the TV series… check out those graphics!

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One of things I struggled with when I signed up for twitter was the lack of easy way to find people to follow.

I remember (unsuccessfully) googling ‘twitter’ + ‘keyword’ in the hope I would find some like-minded twitterers. Eventually I found the twitter fan wiki which is a great resource but quite techy and requires patience.

My suggestion for solving this problem?

Twitter Communities

Twitterers could categorise themselves by subject-based community (technology, music, photography, food, politics etc).

As well as the public timeline each community could have a timeline, along with a list of members starting with most recently joined.

This would be great for newbies as they try and figure out what Twitter is all about and for old-timers and newbies alike as a way of finding people to follow.

What do people think? Is this something that can be set up as a stand-alone app? Does something like this already exist?

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Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new Australian research has found.

Full article

Awww - I concur.

(Thanks to Broadstuff for the link.)

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