Academia and Social Media

In the last few weeks the pageviews for this blog topped 250,000, my twitter followers broke the 1000 barrier and the members of the LinkedIn group I run exceeded 1000 (to place things in proportion my lifetime paper citations are running at roughly 8300, according at least to Google Scholar). Each continues to rise. I say this not to boast, though I am quite proud of it, but more by way of frank astonishment. I recognise, of course, that these figures are in any event relatively modest in the overall scale of things. I am a bit player in social media

Somewhat over a year ago I started to use social media and consciously committed to developing my 'profile'. The spur was a chance remark by a professional contact that they had searched for me on the Internet and had looked first at my, then largely inactive, Twitter account. I had opened that account as part of my ongoing efforts to keep current with consumer technology, taken a cursory look and paid it no further attention. It seemed to me that to be a Professor of Computer Science and not to have had some exposure to such high profile technologies was to risk looking foolish. I use this same argument to justify my purchase of expensive gadgetry that I briefly mess with and then abandon.

It had not occurred to me at that time that anybody would make social media the first port of call to find out about somebody and even LinkedIn, the closest equivalent, I regarded as purely a contacts database. In my case I have quite good web pages with a great deal of professional information, why not look there? I now think differently. Of course Twitter and other social media are a good place to look. They reveal much more of the 'real me' - formal and informal - my interests and social context. They are, for the most part, current, indicating my influence and activity. They are much less managed, for better and perhaps for worse. The chance remark was a wake up call.

Social media participation is, I believe, no longer an option. It is an essential of professional life. It is as important for the academic as having a web page has become for businesses. It is set to become the way we engage beyond our immediate set of colleagues. For me it has opened new contacts, expanded my influence and opened stimulating and important discussions.

So, what are the particular lessons of social media engagement that I have learnt. Firstly, that social media is personal. Close-up if you like. You cannot engage without some willingness to expose yourself. It is in this respect like good teaching. Second, that social media gives only if you do. Activity and engagement  is critical, you must add to the social interaction if you are to benefit from it. Passivity is not really an option. Third, that you must be sensitive to the interests and needs of others. This is to do with genuine reciprocity, seeking to understand what those you interact with are hoping to get out of that interaction and taking active steps to address it. Effective social media is sensitive to social context.

Social media is continuing to change and evolve. All sorts of interesting technological convergences are occurring between modalities (social networks - image sharing - messaging, for instance). New cultures and languages are making these more powerful and allowing them to be appropriated for novel applications. If we as academics are not bringing our voices to these new settings and to these arenas for interaction and critical debate then we are not simply missing a trick we are disregarding a responsibility.