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Very interesting assessment of Twitter users in comparison to general public. They seem to be younger, more Democratic (redundant?) than general population. . . but only 13% of adults said they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages. So there is a small saturation rate. " In the Pew Research Center's 2012 biennial news consumption survey, just 13% of adults said they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages; only 3% said they regularly or sometimes tweet or retweet news or news headlines on Twitter. Twitter users are not representative of the public. Most notably, Twitter users are considerably younger than the general public and more likely to be Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. In the 2012 news consumption survey, half (50%) of adults who said they posted news on Twitter were younger than 30, compared with 23% of all adults. And 57% of those who posted news on Twitter were either Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared with 46% of the general public. (Another recent Pew Research Center survey provides even more detail on who uses Twitter and other social media.)"

blog post by Clay Johnson, Information Diet author, Lifehacker, Excerpt: "First, let's define notification. In the context of our discussion, a notification is something that comes from a service that the service deems worthy of your attention: The scarlet box at the top of every Google page notifying you of things happening in Google+. The messages you get from Twitter telling you that you have a new message. The email icon that shows up in your system tray telling you that you have a new email. Facebook letting you know what you're missing out on Facebook. Your sister's latest move in Words with Friends." Besides being disrespectful to your attention, notifications like this do something else that's much more nefarious: they train you to be a passive consumer of information rather than an active one. If we don't control the notifications we're receiving, we're forced to react to them: from Google's big red box, to Living Social's notification for a deal on backwaxing." Besides being disrespectful to your attention, notifications like this do something else that's much more nefarious: they train you to be a passive consumer of information rather than an active one. If we don't control the notifications we're receiving, we're forced to react to them: from Google's big red box, to Living Social's notification for a deal on backwaxing."

Free forum and message board platform that allows you to customize the look so it matches your website. They have an example of how they have integrated a forum into a website. Downside to free service are ads on the forum or message board page, but paid service eliminates that.

Great article by Susan Weinschenk, Brain Wise: Work better, work smarter, September 11, 2012, and why dopamine keeps us "seeking" when we already have enough information. excerpt: Do you ever feel like you are addicted to email or twitter or texting? Do you find it impossible to ignore your email if you see that there are messages in your inbox? Do you think that if you could ignore your incoming email or messages you might actually be able to get something done at work? You are right!" ... "Instead of dopamine causing you to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking behavior. Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior. From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The dopamine seeking system keeps you motivated to move through your world, learn, and survive. It's not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and fuels your searching for information. Research shows that it is the opioid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure." Turn off the cues - One of the most important things you can do to prevent or stop a dopamine loop, and be more productive is to turn off the cues. Adjust the settings on your cell phone and on your laptop, desktop or tablet so that you don't receive the automatic notifications. Automatic notifications are touted as wonderful features of hardware, software, and apps. But they are actually causing you to be like a rat in a cage. If you want to get work done you need to turn off as many auditory and visual cues as possible. It's the best way to prevent and break the dopamine loops. What do you think? How do you deal with dopamine loops? Are you willing to turn off your cues?

blog post by Dmitri Dragilev in Better Humans "Dopamine is why CEOs write down goals and vision statements. As you move toward these goals, mentors and advisors reassure you that you are moving in the right direction and every step of the way you get a shot of dopamine. The problem is that all of us have learned how to cheat the system and get shots of dopamine without actually accomplishing anything. Gambling is a great example, every time you pull that handle on a slot machine you get dopamine. Alcohol is the same story, a shot of whiskey = a shot of dopamine, you want more, you repeat; you're not actually moving toward a vision or a goal." I too am guilty of dopamine addiction. I love email and depend on it for a lot of my day to day work. I love instigating stuff, fast back and forths, and knowing what is happening everywhere. But I have found that all this stuff re-prioritizes my day quite a bit. For the past year I have successfully disabled email, Twitter, Facebook, and text message notifications on my phone and have kept it off since then. My life has been transformed. Not only do I find that there are a lot less distractions, I find that I stay focused on the right tasks that keep me marching toward my overall goal. Again, I'm not saying that what I did is the magic formula for everyone. What I am saying is that perhaps it's time to re-assess how much you check your email, text messages, social media and your devices in general and see if you're cheating the system in order to get a rush of dopamine or you're truly marching toward your goal.

Women using online dating services "out" men who are harassing them with explicit, ugly messages, especially on Tinder and OKCupid. They post the messages on either instagram, twitter, their dating site profile, or other places and not only stop or greatly reduce harassment, but attract men who want to get to know them better. A new problem for the modern age.

great article on Slack and maybe some barriers to using it

article by Jill Duffy on email management, March 5, 2012. Also a two minute video on this page that explains the tips: 1. delete (useless stuff) first when you open the inbox 2. Write short 3. Reuse sent messages 4. Reuse subject lines 5. Use groups/distribution lists 6. Sort to delete 7. Turn off notifications 8. Close email to focus 9. Use auto-replies wisely 10. Delete (or at very least, file messages into folders) 11. Take out the trash (daily) or set up auto-dump

Copyblogger post by Demian Farnworth on how children's books help you define your business message. December 2013 "As you read: Look at the emotions. What core emotion is behind each story? Is it fear? Joy? Sadness? Anger? Look at the characters. Who is the main character? Is he or she likeable? Who are the supporting characters? Who is the enemy of the main character? Look at the conflict. What does the main character want? What obstacle is stopping the main character from getting what he wants? How does the story end? Look at the language. The short words. The short sentences. The short paragraphs. The repetition and alliteration."

Wonderful infographic on how to market your business, posted December 6, 3013, Michael Nelson on Social Media Today, with examples of these rules.Well worth taking a look at. 1. Keep it simple 2. Be unexpected 3. Be concrete 4. Get Credible 5. Be emotional 6. Tell a story

good examples

beautiful example of a website with graphics, messaging, colors IMO

blog post by Donston-Miller, June 4, 2012 on how social changes how we work 1. website home pages (home pages less of a destination, Facebook timeline becoming more important) 2. Email--with built-in IM systems on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, email less important. Google+ users get tight integration on communication tools 3. Help desk call centers--moving to discussion forms on social networking platforms 4. Resumes-- "Now, social networks are basically living resumes. Or, looked at another way, you are your resume; what you post, how you interact, what you share, who your friends and followers are, and more all combine to demonstrate your value to a company." 5. PBXes--enterprise wide phone systems are affected by Skype and online chat and messaging features

Video by Clay Johnson on import of health information diet, big think website. April 24, 2013. Rescuetime.com--measures your intake of info on computer--makes you a more conscious consumer, how much time spending on email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Loves samebox.com--for pay subscription service--advanced spam filter, only puts important messages before you, emails you a digest at the end of every day of everything else Trying to live an ad free lifestyle--just as expensive as paying for content. ex--Domino's pizza commercial convinces you to buy pizza instead of making dinner. Use ad block on firefox and chrome to reduce exposure to ads. Cut cable to stop exposure to TV advertisements--"makes for weird bar conversations sometimes"

This paper written by George Siemens in 2008 on Learning in Networks raises issues very similar to those we are raising in our discussion at CPSquare. This paper also has implications for how the Women's Learning Studio is launched into practice in its discussion of teacher as learning atelier, concierge, etc. Google Scholar, Scopus, and open access journals offer increased access to academic resources; an extension to more informal approaches such as regular internet search and Wikipedia. Social software (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, instant messaging, Skype, Ning) provide opportunities for learners to create, dialogue about, and disseminate information. But what becomes of the teacher? How do the practices of the educator change in networked environments, where information is readily accessible? How do we design learning when learners may adopt multiple paths and approaches to content and curriculum? How can we achieve centralized learning aims in decentralized environments? This paper will explore the shifting role of educators in networked learning, with particular emphasis on curatorial, atelier, concierge, and networked roles of educators, in order to assist learners in forming diverse personal learning networks for deep understanding of complex fields.

Fast Company article on how female voices are perceived differently (downgraded) from male voices, when they are offered in the same conversation and the same message is being conveyed. Women CAN improve the way they express themselves but there is a clear bias in how they will be perceived.

press release on Accenture study looking at how digitally savvy women are helping to close the gender gap in the workplace, March 3, 2016. 

Blog by John Hagel reviewing new book, Design in Nature, by Adrian Bejan and J. Peder Zane, looks like it was published in January 2012. As a systems person, this review resonates with me and speaks to what the WLStudio can do to help women redesign their learning systems as well as the currents that flow through their systems. They must avoid others who wish to dictate where and what and how learning opportunities are available to them. Reworded more constructively, women need to design and nuture their own learning opportunities. Excerpts from review: The book introduces us to constructal law: "For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it." The authors caution "that nothing operates in isolation; every flow system is part of a bigger flow system, shaped by and in service to the world around it." "As the title of the book suggests, the constructal law is ultimately a law about design. It determines which designs will survive and thrive over time. The constant interplay between flow and design drives the evolution of flow systems. The design of flow systems must evolve to enhance the flows within the system or they will die." Final excerpt from book review: The bottom line So, what does this mean for all of us? The message is simple and compelling. If we are not enhancing flow, we will be marginalized, both in our personal and professional life. If we want to remain successful and reap the enormous rewards that can be generated from flows, we must continually seek to refine the designs of the systems that we spend time in to ensure that they are ever more effective in sustaining and amplifying flows. As the authors observe, "it is not love or money that makes the world go round but flow and design"

Excellent Blog post by Chris Munch, July 11, 2013 on stopping his dopamine addiction with graphic mainlining-technology image. Excerpt I have an addiction that cost at least 18 months of my life… This was not an addiction with drugs or alcohol, and in-comparison the 'high' was mundane, just avoiding life and responsibility. Months went by, lost to an addictive and bitter procrastination. Nobody was worried, on the surface I looked busy and hard working, yet around me life passed me by while I was infused in a dopamine haze. I'm a recovering addict to email, Skype, Facebook and so many little fun distractions online. My First Step to Recovery I lost about 1.5yrs of my life to email and chat. And then one day I read something which said turn off all auto-checking of email and IM notifications so that you won't get disturbed when you have work to do. I felt pretty dumb having spent the last couple of years doing the opposite, allowing myself to be constantly interrupted. After I made that little change things began to get better. That's when I realized I had an addiction. Even without the auto-alerts I found myself constantly being drawn in to see the latest unimportant message I had received.

Article on web 2.0 marketing to millennials by Strategic Enrollment Management February 2009. "Although we are not going to dedicate our article to a recap of millennial marketing, we do want to reinforce the importance of understanding the millennial mindset before you begin to build your Web 2.0 plan. Consider that 64 percent of your audience (teens 12 to 17 years old) are reported to engage in at least one type of online content creation, up from 57 percent just four years ago. Understanding what they are doing online allows our plans to be more comprehensive and effective and fully integrated into a successful enrollment plan. There is even an emerging classification of teenagers using a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging and e-mail. These "super communicators" represent about 28 percent of the entire teen population (Guess 2008). And possibly the most interesting statistic to watch comes out of Noel-Levitz's "E-Expectations: The Class of 2007" report, which claims that 43 percent of high school juniors have a profile page designed for use in researching colleges (Lenhart & Madden 2007). This all means that if you are not already participating in an active use of online marketing you are overlooking a large group of your audience. Frankly, they are keenly aware of marketing, and as marketers we need to understand their mindset to build effective plans to reach and educate them. We cannot expect that they will conform to marketing as it has been done in a traditional way. Tools of the Trade: Components to Consider The goal of any Web 2.0 is to inform and connect. Simply stated, the tools you choose should work to reinforce that goal and integrate with the other tools of the trade you are using. Enrollment managers who know their audience understand the need to consider a variety of marketing options, from traditional adve