Study: Ages of social network users
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Author Archives: martin brown
Will #facilities management take advantage of new #foursquare business features?
I previously blogged and commented on the facilities management potential for using the location based application Foursquare. Now Foursquare has launched a do-it-yourself tool for business to claim their venue/facility.
Can or will the new features on Foursquare make it easier for businesses and facilities management to promote aspects of their facilities, buildings and venues, taking more advantage of the location based social media? The feature now allows owners (and fm's ?) to offer venue promotions and get insight on their Foursquare use and potental reach.
Venue pages now include the message, “Are you the manger of this business?” and a link to begin the process. Any 'business owner' can claim their Foursquare venue but its easy to see how this could be managed as part of the venues facilities management package, and a key element of Community Based FM
Also available are decals and window stickers promoting the facility / venue and of course Foursquare.
I would be very interested to hear of facilities management organisations using Foursquare or Twitter in this way ….
be2camp sustainability manifesto for the built environment
For more see http://www.be2camp.com/profiles/blogs/be2camp-sustainability on the be2camp.com network site
UKGBC Green Building Manifesto
Will BIM move to FIM? (Webinar 16/4/10)
The concept of a Facilties Information Model as a more encompassing, arching umbrella model to a Building Information Model has been discussed over the last few years, but with little (public) evidence of use in practice.
I guess in some ways it reflects the larger discussion between construction and facilties management, between the provision of buildings and use of buildings. And, as in practice we see FM and endusers taking a more prominent role in design and construction, we will see BIM become Facilities Information Models.
Good then to see the public debate and webinar How Owners are using BIMStorms scheduled for 16th April: (Info from BIMStorms:)
Owners are looking at BIM in a much broader way, beyond just design and construction. Learn how everyone can learn how to work with information in BIM that brings greater value to owners for the full life-cycle of projects.
Linking Business Requirements to BIM
Early Planning
Design and Construction
Facility Management
Real time sensor data connected to BIM
Managing a portfolio of projects using Real Time BIM data
Creating a feedback loop to work with existing buildings in BIM
| Please join us in this webinar that will show how owners such as The Los Angeles Community College, GSA, US Coast Guard, School Districts, are using BIMStorm and the Onuma System to define projects, interact with architects and manage lifecycle information.
April 16 |
This blog post will be updated after the webinar.
Not one but many Ada
As part of this years pledge to blog part of the Ada Lovelace international day, I have been thinking long and hard on who to ‘nominate’ and blog about.
Last year my Modern Ada was Pam Broviack and in many ways still is.
Through my involvement in web technology, be2camp, twitter and social media I have had the opportunity and privilege to meet, be inspired by, motivated by and discuss many issues with some great Modern Ada’s. It would be wrong to single out any one in particular.
However, a mention for Aleks Krotoski who through work at the Guardian and recent Virtual Revolution TV series has done much to popularise and mature internet and game ‘stuff’. (We actually met in second life back in 2006 at the Guardians SL Festival, Aleks wouldn’t recall, but we had a discussion about music in second life with Groove Amanda playing in the background. The meeting has stuck in mind as Aleks was one of the first ‘real world’ people I had met in SL)
But in my mind Ada was someone who rolled up sleeves and got stuck into to the machinery and code of the internet, not just used it as a communication and conversational tool.
It is again in the world of second life and other virtual worlds that I see the modern day Ada Lovelace, and for that Pam would still get a vote, for work in Second Life Public Works and lately in OpenSim, along with others such as Annabeth Robinson (twitter and avatar Angry Beth) whose energy in virtual environments continue to amaze and inspire.
Procurement
Sustainability
Design
Notes on recent #emailfail & how social media can help.
I recently got caught in a frustrating email fail situation which has reinforced my thinking that emails, having been invented in the 60's hence a dated concept, prone to failure, attack, cloning and phishing are not suitable today for a variety of communication issues, and that education in use of emails is lacking.
A recent email from LMU promoting a Women in Construction event was, apparently and unfortunately rejected by a recipient and resent to the 300 plus on the distribution list, which of course commenced a seemingly endless loop of resending. This repeated sending continued even when the original account had been deleted from LMU servers.
This of course caused great annoyance even anger from recipients, who I guess like myself received hundreds of copies of the email. The frustration resulted in a good number replying to the whole list complaining about the situation, shouting in CAPITALS, requesting the emails be stopped, one even suggesting the author had damage to women in construction movement. These reply to all's were of course rejected by the recipient failed server and spammed out to the whole list again repeatedly, causing more frustration, more reply to all responses and more spam flooding into in boxes.
Amazingly many replied to all suggesting that we shouldn't reply to all! Many suggested incorrect email responses (block, report as spam, complain to LMU, set up auto-redirect to sender etc)
In addition many of those reply-to-alls may have been reported as spammers by a good number of recipients, where in fact they were not at fault. It is possible that these are now permanently blocked by colleagues/contacts as spammers
I understand LMU contacted many on the email cc list by telephone to explain the situation.
The numbers:
Each email as it embedded a picture was approx 200kb, The original was sent to approx. 300 recipients. One send therefore = 60,000kb. Repeated resent some 1500 times. Add in the reply to all spams = say 50 at 200kb to 300 recipients @ say 25 times before they were blocked as spam. Add in local machine and server backups and the numbers grow exponentially very quickly, necessitating more server space, more energy, more cooling requirements more cost, increasing the carbon footprint of emails.
I would estimate I have deleted something in excess of 400 emails, but still today some 5 days later, they trickle through.
I was please to hear yesterday that through all this people have signed up for the event!
Twitter and social media
Interestingly a twitter back channel chat took place with those affected, discussing how do you reach a list of 300 people to tell them not to reply to all on the email without sending to all, or without using email.
At the same time, and perhaps ironically, we sent out invites for the forthcoming Lancashire best practice club event: Working with Technology. The event details were posted onto eventbrite with the link e-mailed to club members and communicated via twitter. Six tweets (original and retweets) had a reach of 2,000. The eventbrite site had some 300 views that day with 25 joining up (the number has grown since). The invite link was also sent via email to club members.
Somehow this approach seemed cleaner, easier and fresher. Members and delegates have commented on the ease of use of eventbrite for previous events, and, linked with a survey monkey feedback afterwards, drastically reduces admin burden
Lessons:
Emails are not always the best event communication route
A mixture of traditional (email) and social media (e.g. Eventbrite, Twitter) routes has greater potential reach and success
Emails are too prone to fail and attack
We are too quick to blame individuals for email 'system' fail, often replying in Capitals (i.e. shouting)
There is a lack of eduction in how to use email or how to deal with emails in fail / attack situations.
There is a need for social media awareness and education in use of alternatives to email
Fairsnape 