You can now visualize your LinkedIn network with InMaps. Smart Move LinkedIn.
Here is what my LinkedIn network looks like – the larger the circle the larger that person’s network and influence. Now I’ve just got to figure out the labels. This is still in the LinkedIn Labs – but great idea.
More here at Mashable LinkedIn inMaps
A not insignificant amount of time ago, I ventured into the world of Second Life, to see what it had to offer for universities and medical education. Not only did I discover that I was hopeless at flying, but I also found that getting dressed was no easy matter and for some time I was close to wandering around starkers.
Notwithstanding the challenges I had a gander around the brave new world of avatars and found the Ann Myers Medical Centre. It was inspirational. At that time they provided lectures, events & training tools in areas of psychology, oncology, gastroenterology, general practice and surgery.
Today, I ventured back to have a look and it has to be said although second life has also progressed, the world of avatars is as wierd and wonderful as ever. On login I have no idea where I am. Some avatar called ‘Rhys’ wants a chat:
I decide me and Rhys have had enough of a chat and attempt to fly to get an idea of where I am but it seems I am geographically challenged even in second life, so I use the Ann Myers Medical Centre teleport link and Voila! I have arrived.
There are notices around the place you can click on if you need more information. Within the AMMC you receive a welcome message and guidance on navigating the building:
“On the floor you see a green line if you follow it you see a yellow and red line branching off it. The green line guides you from psychiatry, general practice, diabetes, leukemia, oncology to the women health centre. When you follow the green path and enter the clinics/departments you can find some pretty amazing creations.”
Clearly the centre has expanded and there is plenty to see and do, but the limitations are still much the same as they were two years ago – limitations of second life not the centre.
AMMC was created for the virtual training for First Life medical and nursing students. I cannot vouch for the quality or level of the medical education, but what I did want to look at were the possibilities second life has to offer for medical education today.
I would say, there are still significant difficulties – learning to move, interact and navigate with the equipment and information is still cumbersome, but as a virtual structure the AMMC has shown what can be done, not only in building the centre but also in collaborating with different educators in different languages across the globe.
The AMMC say they would like
To assist students to become more proficient in initial exam history and physicals.
It will be interesting to know how close the AMMC are to achieving their aims and student uptake. AMMC currently has a voluntary staff consisting of Psychologists, Hematologists, Oncologists, Radiologists, Cardiologists, Midwives, Emergency and Trauma Specialists, general physicians, interns, educators and several nurses.
Do you remember the doubt, uncertainty, ‘it will never take off’, ‘how do we know the content is good’, ‘Wikipedia is dodgy and students should avoid using it at all costs’ that was around when Wikipedia was first launched Jan 15th 2001? The whole concept that anyone could contribute anything and it still be quality information was revolutionary.
It now describes itself as the “multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project”, and as a resource (a good one in my opinion) it’s well an truly here. Take a look at this:
The percentage of all American adults who use Wikipedia to look for information has increased from 25% in February 2007 to 42% in May 2010. This translates to 53% of adult internet users who use Wikipedia
Education level continues to be the strongest predictor of Wikipedia use. The collaborative encyclopedia is most popular among internet users with at least a college degree, 69% of whom use the site.
Those are some nice stats on Wikipedia from PEW
Happy Birthday Wikipedia!
but it’s about to be. My blog will be offline as Brisbane continues to flood & the server will be under water. Good luck @avantihosting
Update: it looks like the floods are at or near their peak and the servers were unaffected. Thoughts with the folks in Brisbane.
Google does take into account your twitter profile and impact. Once again Hubspot have come up trumps with their article on the affect twitter has on search rankings.
Here is their summary of the article in Search Engine Land on whether using ‘social signals’ help rank search results, which it seems it does, in particular your twitter ranking could help influence how a page ranks in web search.
To find out your twitter grade Hubspot have developed Twitter grader -free to use, which also gives pointers on what you can do to improve it. Their website grader is also very good.
This was a question I asked on LinkedIn How about this for a superb answer and case study from Jesper Nyholm, Copenhagen, Denmark
I have sucesfully engaged teenagers in online communities (social media) promoting healthy lifestyle.
I have concepted and implemented several health-campaigns for both Danish companies and Governments trying to reach the teenagers through social media.
(we have succesfully engaged more than 150.000 people in healthy campaigns via social media since 2005. some of the campaigns lasted 12 weeks and on average we have 80% of the participants completing the campaigns with daily interaction and with great healthy results)
my key findings are:
1. you need to make a story of the healthy issue – don’t spend to much time on talking health – spend time on encapsulating health into a relevant context for the teenagers.
2. you need to have a scoreboard and think in points and merits – look at all that is happening on facebook these days; farmville, mafiawars – or outside facebook; world of warcraft – these games are based on getting points and honor your effort.
3. When engaging teenagers, make sure that everybody can join your initiative at their own level – It is like playing golf; a bad player (unhealthy teenager) is able to challenge a pro player (healthy teenager) because of the handicap scoresystem in golf.
I know that this is a very brief introduction to our key findings. We are working on a book on the subject – and have plenty of relevant cases to introduce you to if you need more inspiration?
Gotta love social media for providing gold answers.
And in line with how young people are using email, texting, PEW released this data on how young people communicate
If I’m lucky Jesper may expand on this answer in the future. It’s clearly a well researched project they have undertaken. Here’s hoping.
