Digitally curating on a holiday: Emily’s bildungsroman.

Blame the brief hiatus on a flurry of beach AND Internet activity through the past two weeks.

As previously mentioned, I went home to Florida for Mother’s Day, a vacation that (thankfully) did not consist of much more than watching dolphins frolic at sunset, zipping around in a convertible and saving a cell phone from a watery grave with the assistance of a well-timed bag of Vigo rice. So, a vacation that was all-too-brief, as usual, but proved an excellent period of pre-Summit relaxation. As always, my Tumblr is my platform for sharing content in a much more succinct manner; so, if you take issue with my verbosity, head that-a-way!

The Nonprofit Summit, the largest sector event in the Southeast, concluded this past Tuesday — and I have only now caught up on sleep.

Here’s a bit of context, so excuse me if you’ve heard this one before:

As a member of the Marketing & Communications team at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, I began working on branding the Summit in September, and was tasked with developing NonprofitSummit.org. It was the first time the conference had a separate branded identity from its host, GCN, and it was my job to … well, make sure it worked. And it did! So, this experience of building a website, and creating/maintaining all digital content, for a Very Real Big Deal Event was a new one for me; but I knew WordPress, and had all the requisite resources to make the site a hub for all Summit information; so, the rest is history, as they say.

Back to the point: along the way, I was also held responsible for social media content as it pertained to Summit, and here’s where the real American Dream success story comes in: I pitched the idea for maximizing Twitter engagement through live-tweeting and a projected Tweetcast. This is not anything novel at conferences, particularly those geared to social network engagement and digital media, et cetera. But it certainly was new for the Summit and my particular department; as far as I can tell, it was particularly novel for an event geared toward the nonprofit audience. People ate it up! I was so proud of how our audience took the #npsummit hashtag and ran with it — participants tweeted their Summit experiences, asked me questions on Twitter, and our follower count exploded. It all made sense, really, as our Day 1 keynote speaker was Claire Diaz-Ortiz, leader of social innovation at Twitter. So, anyway, a nice little pat on the back to myself and my intrepid colleagues. Here’s a little snap from some of the #npsummit activity:

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Enough about me and my shameless, self-promoting ways. All caught up on sleep, what’s a girl to do on a hot Memorial Day but consider Saturday’s excellent foray into lime fish tacos, listen to Nina Simone, and/or scour the Internet for interesting things?

Without further ado, this week’s Interesting Things Worthy of Consideration As Well As Your Respective Thinking Caps:

• The idea of media “stock and flow.” So, this piece basically consolidates what I’m thinking and feeling about content curation, and how indisputably major the concept of crowd collaboration and group-thinking is becoming, not in the least within the context of contemporary marketing (and web writing, really). I do notice a disproportionate amount of “flow” to “stock” from today’s marketers; and, IMO, that tactic is rife with error. No, the Internet does not need 800 identical listicles on “10 Ways to Fix Your Twitter Strategy”/”100 Reasons Your Resume is Terrible”/”1000 Ways to Market to Millenials.” What the Internet does need: good stock comprised of interesting concepts & ideas that are repurposed through the flow. Anyway, that Snark Market post is just a more articulate way of looking at what I’ve been railing about to my nerdy friends — marketers have got to stop littering the Internet with fluffy pieces of (un?)content constructed entirely for pageviews. This whole content curation thing I’m so obsessed with is based on the tenet that the Internet is … well … a gigantic community, a platform for collaboration and knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building.

• Furthermore, this piece from Ad Age by Ted McConnell, a digital executive at the Advertising Research Foundation, ties the content marketing  argument together: “Recently, in a room full of advertising brain trustees, one executive said, ‘The ‘new creative’ might be an ecosystem of content.’ Brilliant. The brand lives in the connections, the juxtapositions, the inferences, the feeling of reciprocity. The relationship of content and distribution is not the setting of traps in every hallway, but more like a system of helpful Post-it Notes and handrails that help consumers get where they want to go.” This is everything you need to know about approaching social community management! And then some.
• Have you considered being your Facebook profile for Halloween? Sorry, I’m not sorry if you’re disturbed by The REALFACE.

• Okay, THIS is the coolest thing I’ve found on the Internet today. The Listening Machine is a UK-based project that takes 500 Twitter users at random, and generates sounds (really, an entirely unique musical project) based on those users’ emotions as expressed through their posts. The sounds are broadcast live through their website from May to October 2012. From the website: “As a strategically selected cluster of 500 users from around the UK interact, converse and go about their online lives, their messages and emotions are translated into music by a series of automated processes, or algorithms.Collectively, these algorithms reflect the group’s sentiments (positive or negative), topics of conversation (from sports and culture to technology and education), rate of activity, and the rhythms and tone of their speech itself.” The result is listenable and … almost relaxing.

I only SORT of wrote a blog post about Girls.

So, I’ve hit the “two months left” mark in my job contract and I feel like I’m running out of juice.

This past week has been a flurry of anxious activity, from twisting my knee in the effort to make my morning train and consequently doing a lot of research on the necessity of stitches (I concluded they were, at that juncture, unnecessary; the whole incident could be illuminating as to the state of my awkward inadequacy at being a Self-Sufficient Grown-Up Who Understands How to Take Care of Herself), to moodily looking up jobs whilst sitting on the bed in the dark, growling to Twitter and my significant other about feeling simultaneously un-and over-qualified for my line of work … how romantic. How typical. How boring!

Believe me, there is a  significant effort going on to not make this blog turn into yet another broad, pointless thinkpiece on the intellectual state of Generation Y/ME/Millenials/etc., even if it doesn’t always seem that way. And while I definitely think most Internet ruminations on the new TV show Girls are not all that captivating, this one at the Billfold resonated with me. Consider this snippet:

All I know is I can feel it around me, this sense that we all want to be young and dumb forever. I have a suspicion that we think being a mess equals being young equals being vital.

I’ve talked before about being really into digital community-building, my experiences with it and how it changes the way we talk about basic issues and all that. Now, the personal crisis of growing up and trying to assert your independence while wanting to relive 21-year old youthful abandon over and over is not an issue specific to my generation. Conceivably, anyone who has ever been 24 has, regardless of their [left intentionally blank] status, gone through some semi-existential crisis in the effort to “make sense of it all.” The pivotal difference between every single generation going through the exact same thing is that we can broadcast that angst and build almost intangible communities around it. We can build communities around being tired of playing drunk louches day and night, and we can inspire others to try to live more meaningfully (and not in the sense of #YOLO — which, quick segue, is an acronym I only recently figured out and use way more often than is cool, lol irony etc). “You Only Live Once,” but you should probably try to live more responsibly/meaningfully, in the interests of self-sustainability and just being a happier human.

As for my own, personal commands for getting out of the Hot Mess Rut: try not to spend every paycheck on the dumbest things ($10! Just save $10 a month and you’ll be better off); admire the just-blooming magnolias; stop recklessly rushing because you’ll inevitably twist your knee and be the bloody pariah on MARTA; write that weekly blog post because your brain will rot otherwise; write more and more and more because you won’t get better just thinking about it; generally pay more attention to social and environmental surroundings.

Also, yesterday, I became a very minor local celebrity as I was one of Atlanta Magazine’s Tweets of the Day. To  celebrate, I went to an impromptu barbecue where I ate veggie kebobs and enjoyed Atlanta springtime. So, there’s that, and there’s something great about just sitting on a back deck when it’s nearly May.

Web items  that are tangentially related to this blog post; or, things I’ve found interesting this week:

• Transformational Entrepreneurship: “To successfully make the transition to the new socioeconomic era of the information age, we need to learn to focus the enormous power and efficiency of capitalism on the world’s most important problems.” (Long, but worth it.)
• Salon: No Sympathy for the Creative Class. Recommendation: read this if you are in the intended target market of Girls and want to get bummed out super quickly.
• I’ve been posting on my Tumblr more lately, having finally found a groove that differentiates its content from this blog’s. So, here are some Tumblr tips that I did not write myself.
• A look at digital urbanism, and its success in Boston. And to think, this time last year I could have been living and working in Boston. Ah, youthful abandon.
• Say no to social media interns. Did you know that I could not agree more with this article? “Businesses who truly care about ROI will entrust the digital face of their business to someone who will be meticulous and exacting by giving them a monetary stake in that product. ” THIS THIS THIS. If your social media marketing is important enough to your business that you’re actively seeking someone out to do it for you, pay them for their work.

So, now it’s the freakin’ weekend and baby I’m about to have me some fun, etc etc.

There is no MLA for the Internet.

Y’all! In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been fascinated by different articles about digital content curation, what that means and how to do it “properly.” Perhaps you guessed as much by my previous ramble about Pinterest. Most of what I’ve been reading about involves the ethical process of reblogging/repositioning/repurposing of content.

When you reblog, or pin, or share in general, is there a protocol for citing the original source? If we insist on standard attribution to an Original Source, does that take away from the cooperative, community aspect of sharing knowledge and creative work?

Austin Kleon, "Good Theft vs. Bad Theft"; StealLikeAnArtist.com

The cool/Nebulous Issue thing is: as we’re talking about the Internet, there is no absolute answer. Which is important! The conversation around the ethics of sharing, and the organic development of creative communities, will only inspire better, more interesting work — even if, at times, that conversation can seem aimlessly exhausting/circular. An interesting look at how to approach appropriate citation and attribution might be taking a look at literary criticism, its circular nature and how academics are very similar to content curators — albeit, possibly held more accountable by the nature of print and potential ubiquity of source material.

A friend of mine and I recently got into a conversation about the Curator’s Code, which essentially provides a framework for attribution of creative content by those who would repurpose that content (spoiler alert: there’s a large moving eyeball on the Code sight — it’s nothing short of terrifying). It’s a couple of symbols attached to a post, or what have you, that provide a convenient shorthand for citing original sources. David Carr wrote an insightful NYT article about it following a South by Southwest Interactive panel on the business of attribution and creating unifying symbols to identify content curation. Interesting point: “Where is the line between promoting the good work of others and simply lifting it? Naughty aggregation is analogous to pornography: You know it when you see it.”

I’m not sure if the Curator’s Code actually works in practice, although I do like the idea of it. Is it something that will catch on in common Internet practice? I hesitate to make a prediction either way, but the concept of a Curator’s Code does make me think twice about the manner in which I approach re-blogging/re-tweeting, etc. I am trying to get away from the visual of “Curator’s Code” as somehow involving Nicolas Cage in an Internet hacking cagefight for creatives everywhere.

Additional reading on the subject:

• Business of Fashion: Looking Back at SxSW Interactive
• “When did we lose this sort of creative meritocracy in how we treat dot-connecting content curation and today’s culture?”: Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
• A solid counterpoint to the Curator’s Code: Marco Arment: I’m Not a “Curator.” Also, from Matt Langer, “Stop Calling it Curation.”
• “There’s always room to question and improve.” How We Curate Nextness. (Side note: Nextness is my favorite example of continually compelling, informative curation.)
• If you’re putting all your stories out there and they’re being spreading frictionlessly on social, the hierarchy of importance among various stories is being settled democratically — or algorithmically, with people attached.” An interview with David Carr.
• I, for one, welcome the robot overlords: Today is the Most Exciting Time to be Working in the Internet.  “It feels like being an engineer at the beginning of the industrial revolution or an artist in the early 60’s. It’s a point where the future is open and we have the chance to shape it. Let’s not waste it.“
• Also, I’m in the process of creating a Pinterest board of interesting infographics (and graphics, in general) having to do with creative work. Follow it?

spring 2012.

So, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve come back to this blog, after a long time spent trying to figure out how to … well, get to it. Sometimes you go so long without writing anything of personal substance that the idea of returning is, more or less, fraught with low-level panic and the pervasive fear of mediocrity.

As someone who is 24 is perhaps wont to do, I’ve spent these long months making new friends and trying to ascertain where my life is headed, and if the person I’m shaping up to be is a person I want to become. This is not a new thing. This year has been weirdly instrumental in terms of grown-up direction — as in, it’s certainly resulted in more bulletpoints to add to a thankfully more-or-less linear resumé, the importance of which cannot be discounted as I enter the job search for the 3rd time. I won’t even go into the complaints about looking for gainful employment as they are not a new thing, either; it’s all sort of the same grousing on different levels of intensity.

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I may have finally hit the point of social media saturation, an incredible thing. It pretty much starts and ends with Pinterest. I’ve been a member for a long time, but on a sick day a couple of weeks ago tried to figure out why everyone has been freaking out about it lately.

My friend David and I have come to the conclusion that Pinterest is, in essence, the less hipster version of Svpply, a site which I still think is great — even if my activity has sort of petered out, given I’ve been doing more measurable, deliverable work at work this year. In any event, as I continue to try to work out Pinterest/why I should care about it/what makes it any more nuanced or interesting of a platform than anything else, I am kind of astounded by how much more immediately popular my items are on Pinterest than on Tumblr. I can’t really figure out why, except for the obvious fact that there are a lot of bored twentysomething white women out there who cannot get enough of macaron pictures or Sophia Loren “moodboards.” Another story for another time, maybe.

The issue of copyright infringement on Pinterest is an interesting one; I wonder if all of this hubbub is not just because a lot of Pinterest users aren’t careful about sourcing/crediting their images. Like, if you’re using a site like Svpply in the manner for which it’s intended — sort of an aggregate marketplace that allows you to categorize items in a way that codifies your interests, in a blabbery way of putting it — you shouldn’t be in too much trouble with the law on that end. If you’re “pinning” or posting something from Etsy, the nature of the platform (in this case, Svpply/Pinterest) is to link it back to the marketplace/seller, which creates a much more effective way to do e-commerce (IMO of course, and not knowing a whole lot about e-commerce, generally speaking). Tumblr is in the same way: If you’re allowing users just to post tilt-shift pictures of a sunset with a empty quote about ~sadness~ without any sort of image crediting, or a picture of a Modcloth dress with no link back to the original page, then of course there’s going to be issues of intellectual property/copyright infringement as applicable. This is kind of a meandering rant, and eventually I’ll do a better job.

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The point to all this is, I really do need to get back on the blogging bicycle, and get over my fear of the “sophomore slump” when it comes to this one. I fear Tumblr has made me complacent and obsessed with short-form. And, I work too much and too hard at my real job, and I’ve got to chill out on that.

Words to stand by:

“When I was writing The Keep, my writing was so terrible. It was God-awful. My working title for that first draft was, A Short Bad Novel. I thought: ‘How can I disappoint?’ So, just write and be happy that you did it. You stuck to the routine. You’re kind of holding the place so that you’re present for when something good is ready to come.”

Creative Things I’ve been reading (and liking, but probably not Pinning):

• This fantastic interview with Jennifer Egan.
• How to write a “Lives” essay for the NYT.
• Contrary to everything I’d like to believe about myself, I’m likely a work-introvert.
• “‘But,’ I added, making exaggerated eye contact, ‘appreciating art doesn’t mean you can send effective emails. I can write. I can make your job easier for you.’ This is the best thing to say in an interview if you are young and unqualified to do anything other than maintain a personal blog.”

sparc 2011 presentation, tomorrow!

If I don’t knock this thing out of the ballpark tomorrow, I’ll have nobody left to blame but myself. 11:15-11:35 AM EST, cross your fingers and toes for me! (Also, file under: This PowerPoint Won’t Make Itself, So Get To Work.)