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New study reveals the prime motivators behind why people follow brands If you’re still looking to justify your social media activity to the board, perhaps the following stat will help: 97% of people say that social media has influenced their decision to make a purchase of a brand or product. Pretty emphatic. And one of several very interesting findings from the team at get satisfaction. They’ve recently released a new infographic on why people follow brands. If part of your role is encouraging people to follow your brand, then it’s worth having a look.

This case study examines how ePortfolios, used in conjunction with blogs, can encourage students to become more critically reflective learners. The benefits and challenges of using ePortfolios are discussed, along with strategies for providing sufficient technical and pedagogical support, to enable teachers and students to confidently use the technology as a collaborative learning tool.

Is location-based marketing a no-brainer now Foursquare has 10m users? Brian Solis certainly thinks so. In this piece, our favourite dapper guru investigates the data Foursquare released to celebrate reaching 10m users. A couple of choice quotes: “Services such as Foursquare bring the Yellow Pages alive”.

Typical instructional design and pedagogy focus on breaking down a subject into component parts, gaining mastery of those parts, whether they are steps in a process or techniques or parts of the anatomy, and then reassembling them in the learner's mind and in practice so that the result is overall mastery of the broader subject. That may be oversimplified, but this basic approach goes back to Aristotle, at least. It's not debated in education, it's assumed that this is the best approach for learning anything, including complex processes or highly nuanced behaviors in shifting contexts.

Centola's conclusions. He studied positive changes in people's behaviors regarding health care, changes that resulted directly from placing subjects in carefully designed social networks with the goal of improving their health decisions. What he concluded was that smaller, tighter social groups had more success improving health behaviors than larger, looser social groups (ie, the typical Facebook connections). Maybe you already see what it took me a while to notice. Both of them had success. Social networks designed for a specific purpose can do something pretty amazing: They can change people's behaviors. Any educator or trainer whose goal is actually to impact both thinking and behaviors (to change lives!) rather than just getting people to pass a test or check a box, should be paying close attention. And maybe getting a little excited.Researchers in education have long known the power of social groups to alter behavior. Brown, Collins, and Duguid made this case a while back

these three went on to say that highly complex behaviors are picked up, absorbed, through relatively informal social exchange more quickly than they could be if they were "taught" in the usual break-it-down sense. We're talking about complex behaviors. Processes. Highly nuanced interpersonal interactions. Centola's study suggests to me that we now have an online tool, the social network, that is fully capable of carrying the power of culture to shape behaviors and establish norms. And it can be done on purpose.

Companies are STILL dragging their asses trying to decide if it’s worth the investment.  The longer they weight, the farther behind they’re going to get.

Businesses are still wrestling with the concept of integrating with social media, and it’s completely understandable.  Despite the many reports that can be found online, along with case studies that speak to the success of social media being used for business there are still a number of questions being raise