Making social and digital media work for you

Editor's Notes

1. Lawrie’s bit. So from what Dave’s been articulating, we can look at how behaviours can be examined in the context of practice with digital (although it might also be said that you can use the framework for other elements of your life). The web is littered with advice for graduates, and what they should be doing and learning in addition to their course. And at Bath for example you will see elements of these in the idea of graduateness. And the skills that graduates have. Flipping the idea of the graduate attributes , this slide is derived from a post on mashable.com and suggests that there are things outside of your course that you can learn and exploit at University – flip slide.
2. So all of these are skills that if you, as an undergraduate, wanted to pick up and learn you could probably get help with at some level on campus. And the post is telling us that they are must have for graduates who want to succeed in their post university career. The 10 th one is interesting. Flip slide
3. The 10 th skill leapt of the webpage at me – Brand yourself. And they mean right now. Branding starts before you graduate (maybe before you get to Uni, debate for another day). The issue of branding is something we need to think about, across sectors, public and private, we see personal branding. But this is different to “cult of the celebrity”, I’ll come back to that. This idea of selling yourself as an individual is becoming prevalent. My own background is quite the reverse, and so in some ways this is alien. Working in the sector, in the LTSN and setting up TechDis my focus was on building a strong brand of the service and focusing on that, mainly because we were constrained with the routes to promotion and exposure. (anecdote about publishing 200 words in the times higher). Flip slide
4. SO everyone here is familiar with the changes that have been wrought by social media. How many people have their own blog? How many people have their own office? Social media is being used by a large cohort of academics and academic related staff. Some of you may even be regular readers of what they publish. Characterised: identified and recognised through the  online promotion and increased visibility of their work; and importantly interaction and collaboration with others. This is not about cult of the celebrity, not posting blogs and tweeting just to get profile, but having conversations to create understanding.
5. Everyone may be familiar with this phrase. If Einstein was at Bath, would his comms team require this statement on his Twitter account. This is an often cited phrase designed as a response to risk averse “social media policies”, which have the effect of further distancing the individual and individual thought from host institutions. The truth is, that if Einstein was a new member of staff, with no publishing record they probably would want to distance themselves.
6. Post-digital institutions may be characterised by their recognition that technology can be a vehicle to express motivation and practice. Understanding that individuals are chaotic, responding to small changes that may drive them in different directions and lead to new knowledge, learning and outcomes. Rather than setting strategic directions and objectives for technology practice (in either research or teaching) it is important to recognise that the practice is linked to behaviour, and that practices become the foci for investment of resource and energy. Where academic practice is now played out on an increasingly digital canvas, organisations need to recognise when individuals are becoming institutions and work to support them, providing an environment that allows them to thrive. Strategic plans, objectives and directions will only succeed if they are flexible enough to accommodate the emerging technology and practices that are being exploited by these individuals.
7. Where did Einstein go to University? (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) Which one did he retire from? Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton Institutions need to adapt to new realities, and where they can embrace them and support their staff through them.