Who has time for Social Media?
It seems like no matter how hard I try, serving as an administrator at independent school with 655 students and 150 employees during the months of April and May reminds of riding The Comet roller coaster at The Great Escape in Lake George, New York. I mean, seriously, how many of us really have the time to devote to maintaining a social media presence, let alone cultivate and foster the many meaningful networks and relationships we belong too?
Well as I pondered this very issue, and bemoaned the fact that my personal blog has been neglected for a few months and that my Twitter activity is down to a measly 3 to 5 tweets a day, I searched the web for some inspiration, justification, even a bit of appreciation for what I, and I am sure, many of you go through as you try to balance hectic lives and cultivate your online presence.
Then I happened onto an article by Sarah Perez over at Read, Write, Web entitled “Real People Don’t Have Time for Social Media” where she talks about how aside from those of us who would call ourselves “social media addicts” the rest of us who are just starting to explore how social media fits into our lives struggle with figuring out exactly how to fit it all in. In her article she references an article on Museum 2.o called “How Much Time Does Web 2.0 Take?” that looks at all the different types of activities and levels of participation on a sliding scale depending on how much time you have to invest.
Here is how it breaks down:
1-5 Hours per Week = Participant
A participant is at the lower end of the scale. Participants can set up MySpace or Facebook pages and groups, run a Twitter feed, comment on blogs, and/or upload images to a site like flickr. She notes that the most time-consuming aspect of Twitter is not the broadcasting aspect but finding followers who will read your content.
5-10 Hours per Week = Content Provider
A content provider can start a blog or a podcast. Both activities require slightly more advanced technical skills and a larger time commitment. Bloggers should aim for a minimum of at least one post per week, but two or three would be better, she says. Podcasts can be as infrequent as once per month.
10-20 Hours per Week = Community Director
A community director is much more involved with social media. Here, her advice is more narrowly aimed towards museum staff, but still the overall suggestions hold up. Community directors can get involved in community web sites, work comment boards, and create projects in Second Life. Basically this category involves getting involved in larger scale activities, but, once launched and running, they don’t require full-time management.
Pretty interesting stuff right? So now you are all thinking to yourselves, I think I know where I fit in, but how about everyone else at my school? My Head? The Development Director? Maybe the Parents Association President, regardless of where you fit on the scale the larger question is helping others around you find a place to enter that works for them. Many of us here at edSocialMedia are clearly spending a great deal of time and energy cultivating and tending to our social media networks like digital organic farmers tending over their crops, but for the large majority of the rest of the people in our school communities, social media is either a term they don’t recognize or a fad they tried and just don’t seem to have the time for.
So I leave you with this thought; how do we rethink the cultural and institutional atmosphere in our schools in order to foster meaningful and appropriate use of social media in our personal and professional lives? And lastly, how much time do you really spend?
Follow Antonio on Twitter @antonioviva or on his blog which has been neglecting due to lack of time @ antonioviva.com
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Working on this very issue and think the one area that could immediately benefit from this cultural shift is how we conduct meetings. Exploring the role that web 2.0 tools could play in reducing the face to face time of faculty meetings by encouraging asynchronous discussion and distribution of information. The early feedback indicates that the desire for change is present but the unfamiliarity with the tools is causing anxiety.
Thanks Matt. Meetings remain firmly rooted in 20th century thinking in most of our schools. I know that most of the time, they are viewed as ineffective and time wasters. Great place to start! Anxiety is often rooted in one’s inability to be comfortable with not appearing to have all the answers or knowing what to do. These are qualities most of us in schools are not familiar with as we have for a long time, been expected to hold all the answers and appear to be confident and adept in our working knowledge of all we teach.
Thanks for the great post, Antonio. This is a topic I have been thinking about a lot lately, We often talk about the fact that improvements in technology are meant to simplify our lives. (An aside here would be that I have enjoyed reading your “mindfulness” and zen related posts!) So the question that I see is this: If we are as educators or workers are spending this amount of time with social media, what are we letting go of?
The time ratios mentioned in your post and attributed to Museum 2.0 seem reasonable to me – so what will allow for that kind of time commitment in our work lives. The answer, as I see it, is an acceptance of the fact that the time allotted to participating in social media tools will have to be derived from rethinking the way we work and communicate. If the hoped-for result is better and more meaningful communication, we will have to do away with the less efficient modes of communication that many of us have become accustomed to. In other words, these tools should not become “add-ons” that we consider a new part of doing business but rather ways of changing and streamlining the work that we currently do. With each new tool (blogs, podcasts, twitter, etc..) we should be thinking about what they can replace as a way of communicating with those who depend on us for information.
All too often I find that we are willing to experiment with new ways of communicating but reluctant to get rid of whatever system we currently use to do the same thing. Each and every time we adopt some new system for communicating, we should be asking ourselves, “what is this replacing?” And the answer should be met with a steadfast willingness to abandon that which is being replaced.
With this mindset, I think that we will find that these tools can indeed help us to simplify rather than complicate our lives. The key is to constantly ask ourselves when contemplating the implementation of some new tool, “will this help to simplify?” If the answer is yes – than we owe to ourselves (and our students) to adopt the new system. But in so doing, we must be willing to abandon entirely whatever old one it is replacing.
Great conversation. Curt,I now find myself less tolerant of a long-winded e-mail after adjusting to the speed and brevity of Twitter.
It’s as if we now need to retool faster on communicating in short bursts across many media instead of focusing in depth on a few media. I once knew a quote on how many books were available in Jefferson’s time. Easier to be a Renaissance man when there are only a few thousand books to read!
We now have to learn to be comfortable with letting go, on Twitter especially. Ever try to catch up after being offline for a few hours or overnight. Hard, huh? It’s a river passing right by us every minute. So, part of that simplification process may be learning to be content with what we can, and cannot, actually have time to consume and discuss.
Excellent points!! I think the key to simplifying our lives is to be certain that we don’t simply add, but replace. This was true of my short lived attempt to test out Plurk, which was fun for about 3 weeks but soon gave way to the reality that I could not maintain both networks sufficiently.
Lorrie, I agree with your last statement, in fact, that is very true of my recent “relationship” with Twitter. It is just not possible to consume all the great “stuff” that everyone I follow is putting out there, so I need to be willing to accept that I won’t catch everything that comes through the wire.
To answer your question, of how we rethink the culture, I think it also has a great deal to do with the idea of community use.
If you make “web 2.0″, I’m starting to hate that term, a core part of your community, it will become a ubiquitous part of your daily routine.
Ideally, it would not become an “extra” think to do. Rather, you and your community would use those “web 2.0″ tools to communicate internally and externally.
By doing this not only do you find time for web 2.0 but you also make it a core part of your institution.
While this may take time and planning to make web 2.0 a core component of an organization, it will not only provide you time for web 2.0 but it will help consolidate your internal communication streams and provide assistance to your external message.
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