Twitter's Popularity Soars

Twitter growth surges 131% in March and is quickly revolutionizing mass communication.What are the reasons for such rapidly growing popularity among its users? Andrew McAfee discussed this phenomenon in one of his classes and they concluded on a combination of the following attributes:

• Concise
• Hyperlinked
• Persistant
• Searchable
• Asynchronous
• Assymetric
• Largely public, but with a private option
• Categorizable
• Open
• Universal
• Monolithic

Finally they were trying to understand the meaning of the combination of attributes listed above. One of his students argued as follows: "Twitter's not a substitute for anything we used to do. It's a combination about 17 things we used to do." So what are the most innovative attributes and characters about Tweet and Twitter? Is it an innovative and appropriate tool for usage in science?

Wikis

The production and usage of Wiki Websites is quite easy. Attention please, this post is still under construction. More information will follow soon.
In the meantime the following video, a commoncraft product, describes how it works.

Twitter

Twitter provides a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of FAQs to one simple question: What are you doing?

The following video, a commoncraft product, describes how it works.



View Twitter Blog for more information.

The Third Culture

Kevin Kelly describes the Internet as a copy machine.

At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

So is there anything left that cannot be copied and maybe is better than free?


According to Kelly there exist eight categories of "intangible value", "eight things that are better than free", eight uncopyable values. Kelly calls these qualities generatives that add value to free copies, and "therefore are something that can be sold".

Eight generatives better than free

1. Immediacy


2. Personalization


3. Interpretation


4. Authenticity


5. Accessibility


6. Embodiment


7. Patronage


8. Findability
   

More ...

People of Earth....

Through the Internet people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed.

The Cluetrain Manifesto and its 95 theses on powerful global market conversations by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searl and David Weinberger.

Project Management

Tomorrow I will give a seminar on project management at Danube University Krems.

Adapt yourselves to the changes of transformation and simplify your projects!

Read and follow the instructions of the ePMbook.

Nietzsche was just another monkey?

Visiting Bora Zivkovic's ScienceBlog I came just across this video. It's really worth watching.

Some of the monkeys read Nietzsche. Some of the monkeys argue about Nietzsche...

What makes a Great Presentation?

How often did you lose your interest before the speaker had even come halfway? Was it because of the subject of the talk? Was it the way the speaker presented it?

Actually, a great presentation is a combination of several elements.

You may download my files Presentation I (pdf, 82,0 kB) and Presentation II (pdf, 79,3 kB) for more information on successful presentation skills.

Don't miss this talk in German by Prof. Dr. Beger.
I consider it a great presentation.

... and there's another one by Prof. Dr. Boltz.

Cyberscience

"Cyberscience - it is already taking place - will be different from traditional science. "

Michael Nentwich, director of the Institute of Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, describes and analyses in his book the usage of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in science.

This book not only draws a portrait of "Research in the Age of the Internet", but also assesses the various impacts of the New Media on academic activity and discusses the impacts for future research policies.

So we`ve already got some answers to the questions I posed in my previous article.
But the digital world is a rapidly changing one. Isn`t it? ;-)

Science in a Digital World

In this respect the following questions arise:

• In which ways are scientists influenced by the so-called digital world?

• How do they respond to this digital world in general? Fears and expectations?

• Do they change their modes of communication with other scientists? If so, for what reasons and how?

• Which digital techniques of communication have already become part of their daily routine? Why?

• What do they consider benefits derived from the digital world?

• Do online tools meet their expectations?
  

Weblogs

Jan Schmidt, a German scientist on communication, analyses and discusses various practices of blogging in different areas.

Communication Styles

Interacting and communicating with other people involves different styles of communication.
In general there are three basic styles of communication:

1. aggressive
2. passive
3. assertive
   

Schulz von Thun differs eight communication styles:

1. bedürftig abhängige Stil
2. helfende Stil
3. selbst-lose Stil
4. aggressiv-entwertende Stil
5. sich beweisende Stil
6. bestimmende-kontrollierende Stil
7. sich distanzierende Stil
8. mitteilungsfreudig-dramatisierende Stil
   

Models of Intercultural Communication

I have just finished reading this book on Intercultural Communication. The authors discuss different methods, models and examples of intercultural communication.

Moreover, they demonstrate how different models and methods of communication psychology such as the Kommunikationsquadrat, das Innere Team und das Wertequadrat can be used as an effective tool for intercultural communication issues.

Intercultural Communication

This photo ("Multiculturalism" by Ingrid Bergner) represents the positive aspects of multiculturalism. It is possible to build highly effective bridges to other cultures, to establish common ground as well as mutual understanding.