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Social Media 101 + 102: Workshops in September

Last year, I offered the Department Managers and interested staff a session about social media, a 101 course, that guided people through a brief history of social media and how we can use it in Higher Education, as well as basics for getting started: setting up accounts, which networks are optimal for which kind of media, etc. I'm also offering a new sessions, Social Media 102, the following day. 102 will get more into the content aspect of things: ways to engage audiences, attract followers, incentivize interaction, and ways to create 'shareable' content. 

Interested in both or either of these workshops - or might know about someone in your department or program who would benefit from these sessions? Please RSVP to jessicah.hohman@uky.edu by September 1st. Brief descriptions and details about both are below: 

SOCIAL MEDIA 101
Tuesday, September 9th
213 E King (Science) Library
10:00 am – 11:30 am

Don’t know where to start with social media for your department or program? Learn the history of social media, how we use it in higher education, and what you need to know to get your department’s social media up and running.

SOCIAL MEDIA 102
Wednesday, September 10th
213 E King (Science) Library
10:00 am – 11:30 am

Already running the social media show for your department or program? This is for you. Strategies, tips and tricks to engage your audience and connect with similar pages for maximum effect.

Four Elements for a More Fulfilling Workplace

I recently read a provocatively-titled article in the New York Times’ Sunday Review called "Why You Hate Work." Though the title is rather strong, the findings were pretty interesting. Not one to pass up commentary on work culture (and how to make it better), I read the piece, written by Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project, whose blog is full of great work-related research, and Christine Porath from Georgetown University, based on a study they conducted. They found that there are four major factors that influence how we feel about our jobs.

Renewal was the first. Taking breaks is essential to staying healthy and happy at work. Rather than ‘powering through’ a long string of nonstop tasks, taking breaks at regular intervals (in the study, it was every 90 minutes) will actually boost your productivity and help you focus. Additionally, engagement levels and work satisfaction dramatically decreased for those who consistently put in more than 40 hours per week. Employees who felt encouraged to take breaks were more likely to stay with a company and it increased their sense of health and well-being. Maybe the next time you're feeling depleted, try giving yourself a break: take a quick walk, do some stretches in your office, or visit the water cooler. Additionally, you could ask about Reduced Seasonal Hours, which are available this summer (in week-long blocks) from May 4, 2014 through August 23, 2014, or as temporarily reduced daily hours. Fill out a FlexWork Request Form to apply for this option.

Value was the second. Being valued by one’s supervisor builds trust and a feeling of security in one’s position. Employees with supportive supervisors are more engaged and are likelier to stay in a position. People who feel micromanaged or ‘replaceable’ are less likely to do quality work. As a supervisor, think about how you show your colleagues that you trust them to do their work. As a co-worker, how do you show support? Maybe give a Sparcet and share an accomplishment or bit of praise. 

Focus was the third. According to the study, only 20% of respondents said they were able to focus on one task at a time, but those who could reported 50% more engagement with tasks and co-workers. This factor also plays a part in prioritizing tasks. Those who reported an ability to prioritize were more able to focus and feel accomplished, as opposed to those who felt mired in multiple tasks of equal priority. If you use the Waggle ticket system, you may be able to keep track of progress and communications all in one place. Alternately, web-based productivity tools like Asana can help to work out timelines for tasks. 

Purpose was the fourth. Employees who have a sense of meaning in their work are more than three times more likely to stay with their companies. Finding meaning in your work is essential to taking it seriously and giving it your full attention. Feeling a sense of purpose enhances the satisfaction of doing the work, and helps you stay engaged. What satisfies you in your work? What inspires you? 

If you want to read the full article, click here

Boo!

The A&S Podcast team is diligently working on an audio tour of campus! Designed to be smartphone and web-compatible, the tour is run through an app called AudioBoo. It allows you to record stuff wherever you are and share it (much like other audio sharing apps), but it also has a handy geotagging system integrated into its interface. This means we can upload stuff and make sure the file is associated with the right spot on the map! So far we only have a couple of locations on campus up, but we're making good progress and hope to have all of our entries done by K-Week. I wonder if other Colleges at UK will do this, too? It could be a great navigational/informational resource for freshmen, newcomers and visitors!

Creative Commons Licensure for A&S Podcasts

Some of you may have noticed a new little piece at the end of each podcast listing that looks like this:

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

These little boxes with letters in them are Creative Commons Licenses - meaning that we, as the A&S Podcast team, have decided to indicate clearly what type of copyright we would like to exert over our own work. The "Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike" license means that people may use the podcast for non-commercial purposes (ie, to share for free, for educational purposes, remix for whatever purposes they wish, etc), they must attribute the work to its originator (whoever is listed as the producer for the podcast), and is obligated to share their derivative work under a similar CC license. 

If you haven't heard of Creative Commons, it's an alternative to traditional all-rights-reserved copyright that we're used to (and that we encounter most often, even online) -- it's a means of expressing whether or not the thing you have made is okay to share, re-post, re-mix, or use for commercial purposes. There's also a plan for the A&S podcast archives to be mirrored on archive.org, a non-profit repository for digital artifacts such as text, audio, and video pieces that were 'born digital.' I'm excited to contribute to public media and make our podcasts even more accessible! 

To (Yiwen's) Grandmother's House We Go!

I've hit the more-than-halfway mark for my trip to China this summer, and it's been really great so far! One thing that Dana Rogers (the Hive's photographer) and I got to do was visit Yiwen Chen, our Chinese Social Media Specialist, at her grandma's house in Wenzhou, about five hours south of Shanghai by bullet train.

Dana took some photos (many more to come), but you might want to take a look!

The past few days have been a whirlwind, meeting up with other UK students and faculty and participating (or, in my case, getting audio from) various seminars and group discussions on all sorts of topics relating to cultural exchange and Appalachian art & study in particular. When I return there will be a few podcasts from this event, so stay tuned!

Digital Archivism

Coming from a Library & Information Science background, I am always excited when I see resources getting archived -- especially online (despite my reservations about the amount of power it takes to keep all those servers up and running). The web started off as an information commons, where anyone with access could peruse or post their own contributions to the growing pool of knowledge. I was reading the WNYC blog and came across this article about the 2012 WebWise Conference, which focused on "Tradition and Innovation;" mostly dealing with the challenges and opportunities that come along with archiving in the digital age.

One of the things the blog mentions is Fugazi's Live Series archives, which will eventually hold 800 live shows... I've liked this band for going on fifteen years, so it's pretty cool that I'll get to listen to shows that they were playing when I was in kindergarten! Another thing it mentioned was the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer, which I interviewed Doug Boyd about awhile back. 

Oh- and this reminds me- we (as in, the podcast team here at UK A&S) are going to be putting our podcasts up on archive.org over the summer. I'm pretty excited that they'll be there, time-capsuled for posterity, and so even more people can access our materials and learn about all the cool stuff going on at A&S!

WUKY to play TED Talks on Sundays!

TEDTalks are some of the most interesting pieces of video I have come across, and the stories and findings that are revealed in these talks are going to be coming to WUKY 91.3 on Sundays! There's a fresh article on UKnow about it, which reminded me that I haven't listened to a good TEDTalk in awhile. As an audio nerd, I think that these often lend themselves better to a video format, but I love the mobility of audio-only formats! I will probably be downloading these and listening to them while I walk to work. 

If you haven't heard of these TED things, check some out. Or better yet, wait until you're on a deserted island with wi-fi. There are hundreds of these videos posted each year; currently about 900 are online for free. A recent, interesting one is Brian Greene's "Is our universe the only universe?"

The Sound of 34 People Eating Carrots

So, sometimes when I'm producing a podcast, I think, "Man, I wish I had some recordings sitting around of background noise, or birdsong, or tires on a gravel road..." and now, I don't have to worry about going and getting that audio myself (well, most of the time). Though it is more fun to go out and collect field recordings myself, I don't always have time to do it, and I do like to add some atmosphere here and there in pieces where it makes sense to do so.

Freesound.org is a collaborative database of sounds under Creative Commons licensure. A lot of drum hits, sound effects, and for some reason, 34 tracks of people eating carrots... all under Creative Commons licenses, some of which are really free & open and some of which ask that the artists be attributed, or that the tracks not be used for commercial purposes. Either way, CC licenses seek to allow people fair use of things that would otherwise be subject to traditional copyright law, which is vague at best and erring on the side of caution can mean not using much of a work. 

So, maybe Freesound is not exactly what I'm always looking for, but it's still an interesting corner of the internet, and a place to share random sounds that I might find interesting... perhaps there will be a water-filled trashcan "volcano" sound added soon! 

Pulling Back the Curtain...

Ever wondered how us podcasters seem to sound so articulate -- and our interviewees so composed and eloquent? It's not because we have perfect diction! The NPR show, "On The Media," did a 12-minute piece about how radio shows are created a few years ago. It was interesting and informative to me -- and, if you are curious about the process of recording, editing, and constructing narratives in the audio format, you might find it interesting and informative, too.