Making links

My community building mission meant that I needed to set up a range of networks. One network within CPIT and another externally using a number of accounts with some of the community sites, on behalf of CPIT. So over the past month I have have set up accounts with Flickr, YouTube and Facebook with Twitter planned for a little later.

The Flickr and YouTube accounts I'm planning on using as repositories for photos and video. Both of these provide options for embedding the files stored with them on any site you wish, which was a key requirement of mine. As much as possible I want people to be able to look at the content I'm linking to, within the page they are currently viewing. These community sites by and large can also link extremely well with each other updating one another as new material is added. A big plus!

Developing profiles on this range of sites I felt might create some confusion later when it came time to use them though. In spite of that concern I still didn't really plan the account creation process as well as I could have. For those of you thinking of doing something similar I would recommend you select a common username and email, and check their availablity with all sites before you finalise your application. I didn't and had to make some small tweaks to the username or userID with some sites.

Also be aware that the various sites authenticate you in slightly different ways too. Some use an email address while others use the userID that the sites generally create for you during the account creation phase. Some sites also let you choose the email you wish to use while others make you use one from a parent account. My whole rationale was to ensure that in spite of content coming from a number of different sites people would at least recognise a consistent username. In the end I'm not sure how visible the variations actually are to the user. Nevertheless I've taken the precaution of listing all my login details in a file so I don't forget them. I have described the process in more detail in subsequent posts, External Links and Internal Links.

Glue for Ignition

OK so today is testing my patience.

I work for CPIT but that's not the cause of my frustration: my role here is really a very interesting one. It's the technology that's driving me crazy ... and that's saying something because I am just a little bit in love with techno solutions. I'm not blind to their failings but I do believe in them in the sense that as technological tools exist it makes sense to embrace them. Because they can make jobs and tasks easier and more efficient ... unless they don't because the network is all choked up. It's one of those days!

Network issues aside it is perhaps, strange, that while some individuals or companies make great use of the broad range of tools available, a remarkable number don't and I'm not quite sure why. Especially now that there are so many and so many that seem at first sight to be easy and simple to use. Of course by tools, I mean computer or Internet tools. And the measure I'm using here when I qualify the success of a tool is its ability to improve our ability to communicate and socialise. My interpretation of that success though might well be limited by my ability to really understand it.

I came late to the Internet revolution and to some degree I feel like a traveller in a foreign land. Even though I have come to love the promise of this new world, making the leap to embrace the tools as extensions to or elements of everyday interaction requires a shift in thinking that still just eludes me at the moment. I love the idea of them but I don't quite get how they work. The question is can I can learn the lingo and make them work for Ignition?

Ignition, for those that don't know, is the brand (including the resources and management) that promotes and coordinates the events and exhibitions of the Creative Industries Faculty at CPIT throughout the year.

My goal, following the wrap-up to Ignition and specifically the CPIT Creative Festival in 2008, was to begin work on building the online and backend elements that could link the students, alumni and the community groups involved with the Faculty together. There is nothing there now in any real sense. Even in the pysical world there is little interaction between the Schools, the students within them or the groups within the community that in various ways support both. No mechanism for students to talk to and request help from each other. No mechanism for employers to contact students easily. No mechanism for the general public to build an idea of what the students in our faculty do. No mechanism for students to really profile themselves and build a platform that incorporates their work and their learning, their interests and their hobbies. And no way to maintain a relationship with the wealth of experience and knowledge held by the Faculty alumni. No community really, period.

I believe these communities can be developed and supported and that we can create these mechanisms online. Time will tell. This will be a record of my journey.