Aqueduct

Posted by amy at September 20th, 2007

Chris Brogan writes a lot. Almost every day he has a post that catches my eye, about two or three times a week there is a post that I drop what I’m doing to read, and then there are days like today, where I spent some time in his archives getting ready for a presentation I’m doing on Tuesday*

As I was researching, I kept coming back to his top post on “100 blog topics I hope you’ll write”. I could probably write a post about 40% of them, but the one that interested me the most was “How Women Use Social Media.”

Do we really use it all that differently then men? Why isn’t one of the 100 topics, How Men Use Social Media? That started me thinking about some of the social media evangelists that I follow - who all tend to men - and the women who use social media to strengthen their community.

Knitters took to the blogging world early, I remember reading knitting blogs on 9/11, and knitters immediately finding ways to connect and care for each other. The first podcast I listened to was KnitCast, the first place I looked for in Second Life was a hangout for knitters. And it isn’t just about the yarn or the patterns, but it is an assumed community that provides intimate and immediate access. In contrast to the men’s communities I follow, there is little talk of reaching a new audience, turning people on to what is hip or happening. We seek each other out, pass the word along and network among ourselves, and celebrate when a new member wanders in and joins the tribe. And there is now a huge economic component as well, Etsy - like Ebay for crafters, lists 14,036 different hand dyed or hand spun yarns for sale from individual sellers, who work the social media like seasoned pros, send a skein of yarn to top blogger or podcaster and if she likes it, you’ll find yourself with a backlog of orders, your credit card processing company may even shut you down because they doubt anyone could actually be selling that much yarn.

Right now, I’m on a wait list to get into a group called “Ravelry” - a facebook type site for knitters. Raverly is a closed social network, and to control their growth they are slowly adding knitters from a wait list. Ready for this? They are now inviting 500-600 users a day. I just went and looked myself up on the wait list and this is what they said:

Photo by squirrel cottage

• You signed up on August 22, 2007
• You are #27,685 on the list.
• 12454 people are ahead of you in line.
• 6732 people are behind you in line.
• 43% of the list has been invited so far

Do you think this is just about yarn? I don’t — I think this is about community, and so when I see the question “How do women use social media”, my answer is, how don’t we? Maybe we spend less time talking about and and more time just doing it.

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*Berkshire Cultural Resource Center’s Nonprofit Management Series - 9/25 Online Marketing: Getting Real Results in the Virtual World

Panelists: Joshua Field, Graphic Designer & Owner, Orbit Visual Communications; Bill Reichblum, Founder and President, KadmusArts.com; Amy Stevens Webmaster, MCLA

Posted by amy at April 6th, 2007

or in this case, queen. This may be one of the most innovative websites I’ve run across in a while. The author is trying to sell something, something I didn’t even know I wanted before I clicked on to her page, and at the end, I couldn’t wait to have it.

Click on over, I dare you.

Posted by amy at April 6th, 2007

I think this one looked better on the rack. I landed on this template as I was searching for Google Adsense Friendly templates, but I think this is over the top, even for me. I’m going to give it a day or two and see if Google can figure out who my audience is and what you are interested in and I’ll let you know how it goes. Just last week, Greg pointed out some odd advertising on The Blazer Blog.

Posted by amy at March 6th, 2007

Some bloggers get one template and wash their hands of the process, their identity becomes entirely wrapped up in their template - would Bitch, Ph.D. be the well know blogging bitch that she is without that wonderful image of the two young girls caught in a truly bitchy moment?

For me, templates are like clothes, and if you are one of the three people who have visited my site in the past year, you may have noticed that I’m on my 3rd or 4th template. I began a knitting blog in 2001 called SSP (cleverly named both for Slip Stitch Pass, a knit stitch, and a Phish album.) My blog style then was minimal, always a white background. And even though I changed many templates since then, I always maintained a white background. Yesterday, I broke with tradition and voila, we’ve got a crazy brown template thanks to It Could Be This One. What do you think?

While I was tweaking under the hood, I attacked a project I’d been meaning to do for a while, which was to update my blogroll. At first I wanted to add a few of the local bloggers who I’ve met either online or know through work. They are listed geographically because that is how I’ve come to know them, even though most of them are not local blogs.

For tonight’s episode, we’ll breakdown the Little Rascal’s:

While I’m sure that this collection of men are not actually women’s haters, there are times when I am the only woman posting in the comment thread. Most likely it is my feminist training that makes me aware of being the only one in the room without a penis. The talk circles around local politics and culture, with a drop of good old fashion gossip. Wes, over at Walk In Brain was the first local blogger I met and you can often find him commenting on Ross’s Berkshire Sense blog. Ross often gets grief from the local old guard for being a sushi eating snob, but I know from his amazing wife that he doesn’t actually like sushi and I think preferring to eat your food off a plate rather than out of a take out bag may qualify you as a snob in the eyes of the old guard. Speaking of old guard, I haven’t met Southview of It’s Your Dime, but I already love him. He comes across as a crotchety old wise ass, who I can easily picture yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his sidewalk, and yet, he is a 61 year old retired construction worker who blogs, be still my beating heart.

I’d been commenting for weeks over at Northwest Corner before I realized that our daughters go to school together. Although I did realize through the comments that we had a mutual friend in common - that being Tom from Mortar Bend, who not only was on my hiring committee, but was instrumental in one of my first professional podcasts. Funny enough, it was in the comment thread for a blog post about that very podcast that I first met MCLA Blazer Blog.

If you happen to stumble upon their blogs and look up old posts, I’ll be the one commenting in favor of casinos, strip clubs and against teenage pregnancy. I know, I’m deep like that.

Widening the ring out a bit, we have Jen at Breed Em and Weep who may be one of the most popular bloggers in America, among mothers of young children. Jen’s ability to tell a story is breathtaking - whether she is talking about a “clogger” or that one time she flipped her hair and the universe laughed back. Be warned, by clicking through to her site, you will find that hours have passed, your handy box of Kleenex are empty from laughing and crying, and you will have nothing to feed your family for dinner. Good thing Jen introduced a whole lot of us to Ali, at the Cleaner Plate Blog , who writes about finding healthy, yummy foods your family will actually eat, we haven’t tested her parsnips yet, but I did take her advice to stop using plastic Tupperware in the microwave. One post from her had a far greater impact than seven years of gentle nagging from my husband, who got his own category on my blogroll. DH is a man obsessed with ornamental horticulture, and WoodedPaths was were he showed that passion off. Now that it isn’t gardening season, he too has linked in with the He-Man Women Hater’s club and can be found commenting on their blogs, in addition to thousands of others dealing with national politics.

There, the circle is now conveniently connected.

Posted by amy at May 31st, 2006

It isn’t that I actually want to see Cathy Young and Bitch, Ph.D. in a MTV animated boxing ring, but I would love to see them enter a forum, shake hands, sit down in their seats and talk about meaningful gender issues. Cathy Young’s post today about attempts to lower the standards for women in science so that more women can participate highlights, for me, one of feminisms failings. Yet I would imagine Bitch would present the other side in such a way that I could atleast listen and understand her perspective, if not totally agree with it.

Posted by amy at May 28th, 2006

I read a post recently asking where all the women bloggers were. What a dumb question. We are everywhere, here are a few I stop by occasionally, or links to specific posts.

Shirky: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality

Early Modern Notes » Teaching

Bitch Ph.D.

The Academic Self Discussion Group: A belated welcome (and introduction)

ACADEMIC SPLAT!

Dissertation Tips

academom

Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :

The Little Professor

The Truth Laid Bear

http://www.truthlaidbear.com/ubercarnival.php

Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs: Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs

Posted by amy at January 13th, 2006

Just a couple of links to get started and fill the space.

The Learning Circuits Blog: “Learning Circuits Blog is dedicated to sharing ideas and opinions about the state of learning and technology. ***Please use it to launch trial balloons,debate with others, and challenge assumptions. ***Join us in sharing pointers to new and interesting stuff. ***Continue the discussion of issues raised in Learning Circuits. ***Raise questions you’d like the Learning Circuits community to answer.”

State of Instructional Technology
A clearing house for ideas, events, and issues in instructional strategy and technologies.

Rose Colored Glasses
random thoughts on instructional design