One specific comment that I did want to make is on the “Jim as Provost” vs. “Provost as Jim” voice in any such operation. Note that in both the two worlds are combined - the operation of otherlobe gut-instinct thinking with facts-and-theories content thinking. This is a key point of the entire blog. If I had to choose, I would say my career has been more of the “Jim as Dean/Provost” than the other way. I think leadership begins with the person and I am most comfortable that way. At the same time, I would hope to keep the conversation on a professional level.

Please keep talking to me. I urge you to put your comments on the web site so that others can interact, but if you must I am always accessible by e-mail (james.stellar@qc.cuny.edu).

Happy New Year!

To me, finding valuable people to follow always seems like a grapevine effect, or a form of the popular ’six degrees of separation” theory. I follow this person, who follows that person and eventually “retweets” something by that other person. What that other person wrote interests me, so then I choose to follow their updates, too. And eventually you find yourself engaging with someone very interesting, 1,000 miles away who you would have never met before in your life.

SteveMac, certainly not rambling! You brought up Marshall McLuhan’s theory of “the medium is the message.” And if that holds true, what message is Twitter sending? It could be anything from, humans feel a need to remain connected, but need to do it quickly, or that we are beginning to be too busy for deep-rooted engagement, or we are moving globally in business transaction but falling short of global social engagement, or….? It is also interesting, because as I said in the post, social media are completely abstract. We decide for ourselves how we want to use them. It could be for personal use, to promote a club or event, or even to sell a product. And there is the other level, in which these social media are very warm, if not HOT, forms of media in their potential for two-way feedback. From our accounts, we begin the discussion, but then the intent and focus of our messages can shift and evolve with other people’s input and feedback. Is it important to make sure our original intent is preserved, or let the intent run wild with people’s feedback?

And there is your comment about the people seeking news about Lohan, versus health care reform. Who we follow and who follows us says a lot about who we are, and what interests us. Those who tweet about the Lohan’s of the world tend to follow and be followed by those with similar mindset, and vice versa.

This isn’t necessarily related to this topic, but there are clearly many people throughout the world (two examples are Iran and China) who are using these tools for political expression. I think it’s easy to see things like Twitter and Facebook being somewhat frivolous, but to some folks it’s a powerful way to communicate with the rest of the world.

Tweeting may not serve every communications need. Many bemoan the superficial nature of television news coverage, for example, because it skims the surface but omits important substantive details that would be required to fully process the depth and breadth of the news. Tweeting is similar in its brevity. So it may not be the best tool to use to conduct a robust conversation. And that is not to say that twitter cannot still be meaningful as a tool for engaging communities and transmitting useful information quickly, and through a viral network which actually is able to select those things that are important to broadcast more broadly. The interesting thing about the self-selecting nature of viral news is that the selecting organism is a broader consciousness that is representative of the group as a whole. So some segments may be alerting their networks to the latest things Lohan, Kardashian, or Gosselin while others are embroiled in the latest regarding the health care legislation in Washington. It remains to see what the outcome, per se, is, other than remaining informed and plugged in. Marshall McCluhan (sp) in his famous work said that the media is the message. I think it’s unclear what this means yet in the context of real-time social networks powered by remarkable mobile technologies.

Here’s another thought–we’re ultimately in a living laboratory, and we are the test subjects. We’re in a period of accelerating technological change, and in time, tools like twitter may evolve, or others may emerge, that help satisfy a wider range of needs and preferences. Those who don’t feel compelled to be “plugged in” every moment of the day may not need to, and yet be able to engage with those who are.

Regardless, it’s interesting to watch, and slowly, for me, to begin to engage. I am discovering, with stunned amazement, the many abilities of my new iPhone, which is really beyond anything I imagined it would be. It’s almost like a pet or best little electronic friend that I feel has to be with me at all times. I think that says something not only about the way technology has changed, but about how in order to feel a sense of connection to a larger “whole” this little handheld device carries such great relevance.

Sorry for the rambling randomness of these thoughts. Is that what Blogs are for? Tweet out.

That said, there is an enormous amount of value to be gotten from authentic engagement in something like Twitter. For one thing, the population on Twitter is self-selected - people who are ambitious about expanding their personal and professional networks - and is likely to represent a particularly fertile cross-section of the QC population. That’s doubly true for the subsection of those QC Twitter users who would be willing to interact rather than just eavesdrop on your tweets. This section of QC is the low-hanging fruit, those who are most eager to collaborate and innovate. Another benefit whose importance shouldn’t be underestimated is the connections that you might make beyond QC. To think of Twitter as a strategy for connecting to people on campus and nowhere else is to impose artificial restrictions on a medium whose inherent nature is to be porous around the edges. I myself have found the greatest value in Twitter when I’ve connected to people whose work parallels my own at other campuses within CUNY, around NYC, and beyond. These sorts of connections have a tendency to amplify and frame the work that I do locally.

In any case, I couldn’t agree more with Ashley’s suggestion that you decide whether you’d be tweeting as Jim (who is the Provost at QC) or The Provost (who is also Jim). The only valuable kind of interaction on Twitter is authentic interaction, and authenticity on Twitter amounts to having a voice that clearly represents an individual. Whether that voice is Jim’s voice or the Provost’s Office’s voice, nobody will listen if your tweets read like a newsletter - that is, as a disembodied, unidirectional megaphone.

Looking forward to reading more about your decision-making process.