Offline Networks: Personalizing

This is the diagram of my offline network; I've indicated how strong the ties are by different shades of colour- lighter the shade- weaker the ties.

Online Networks: Twitter

Last but not least- Twitter, which proved to be unsuccessful among most of my colleagues and leave them dissatisfied, but I am still eager to give it a try as well, we'll see!

Online Networks: Blogger

This is another screenshot of my personal blog followers. For the moment it is possible to follow me via two platforms- Blogger and Bloglovin' and while some people prefer to use both at the same time and sum of these numbers doesn't quite reflect an actual amount of different people, it still gives me an audience big enough.

Demographic location statistics show the variety of countries my followers come from- great multi-cultural network indeed!

Online Networks: Odnoklassniki.ru

As I mentioned earlier, this is a Russian website which works by the same principle as Facebook- you add your friends, share your photos and thoughts, interact with others etc (highlighted are my friends and groups I participate in). However it translates "Classmates" which suggests that it is more oriented for finding people which relate to you through education. Most of the people there are indeed my ex-classmates, people I know from school and also my Russian-speaking relatives and friends. I believe this is not the best source for my given assignment as all of these people are closely related to me which makes them strong-ties, but I will keep this network as a back-up option.

Online Networks: Formsping

This is a screenshot of my Formspring; as you can see there is a function there which enables you to ask your followers a question. I have only created it recently for my main blog, so I don't have that many followers yet, but I hope most of 56 people will get back to me on a question I am going to post.

Online Networks: Facebook Page

Here is a screenshot of my personal blog's Facebook fan page; its statistics show the demgraphic location of people who "liked it" and as we can see they are from many different countries that I have no connections with, which means they joined my network and they are being weak-ties in it, 650 weak-ties to be exact- superb for my research!

Online Networks: Personal Facebook Profile

Here is the diagram that was created using myFnetwork app on Facebook that my course colleague Jessica has kindly shared with me. Mine didn't come out as busy since I've got under 200 friends as opposed to her almost 900 friends, but I love the fact that you can clearly see all the names and connections- it was quite entertaining to have a look at!

What's funny is the fact that you can note few busier groups of connections that represent my Estonian childhood/school friends, followed by my English colleagues from college and university which split into two smaller groups- Fashion and Photography courses, and last but not least- my husband's family and friends. I would have never thought of it this way! Most of these nodes would be strong-ties in my network though, therefore they are not very good to approach for my given assignment.

Online Networks: Personalizing

Having taken a collage from previous post as an example, I have filtered it and personalized it in order to match my own networks. Having put them in the organized groups I can now easily see which group I can use for a specific target. For example:

• Publishing - Blogspot can be used for approaching the readers of my personal blog
• Micro-blogging - Twitter can be used for asking for a feedback from my Twitter followers
• Crown Sourcing - these websites will be good for creating my surveys and online questionnaires
• Social Networking - Facebook can be good for creating my own groups, finding useful groups that already exist and taking/sharing information; Odnoklassniki.ru is a Russian analogue of Facebook which provides the same opportunities; Formspring works on question-answer base and can be good to ask an open questions to my followers

Of course I should not forget a good old email- a good way to have an expanded interview with somebody.

Online Networks: Organizing

Another useful collage I found on the Internet. Unlike the first one, this collage "organizes" the social websites in groups, making it easy to see what each of the group is responsible for. Looking at it, I can now clearly see which social networks I should pay more attention to in order not only to complete the whole assignment, but also deal with its individual parts. Social Networking, Micro Blogging, Publishing, Crowd Sourcing and Conversation Apps are the ones I will be working with the most, opting for a particular one in accordance to the data that I may need to collect, eg. interviews/questionnaires etc.

Image source:

http://www.motherhoodthetruth.com/social-media-you-must-engage/

Online Networks: General

This is one of the collages that came up on the Internet when I searched for "Online networks" and let me tell you, I was very surprised how many of them there are these days! When during the class we were asked to name a few, as a group we barely came up with 10 names, but despite the huge amount of networks that there is, I have to stay focused not to get lost within this social web. For that I will have to refine the networks and decide what are the ones that will suit my given assignment and set aim the best.

Image source:
http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/build-your-own-social-network/

Today's Talk: Grayson Perry "I Love Making Art"

Today I had the pleasure to attend a lecture given by a contemporary British artist Grayson Perry which took place at the university. The presentation was called "I Love Making Art" and the artist was kind enough to share a lot of inspiring images of his work along with some valuable tips on how to succeed.

What got my attention the most though, was the fact that in his speech Grayson has mentioned several times networking and its importance. Moreover, he even used it quite literally in his art.

This Grayson Perry scarf has been created exclusively for Tate; as the artist described himself, it represents the route to success and recognition for aspiring artists. The idea behind it was to help the artists to navigate through the hostile industry thanks to the right people along their way. The whole map looks like one big network of useful connections to me, but as if it wasn't enough, there is a special little spot for networking if we look at the close up of the print:

How brilliant is that?

Here is another one of his works which again represents networking in some way (groups of useful connections in this case):

With this one, the artist has recreated a sort of a map of potential buyers in the face of well-known collectors, which totally worked out- the pot has been sold to one of the gentlemen from the list.

All in all, I enjoyed the presentation and found it really useful for the current module!

Image courtesy of Tate and Colourweb

My Topic: Generating the Ideas

Trying to choose a topic for my research I have to take in consideration two aspects- first of all it has to be current and actual for our time, and ideally it has to respond to my genuine interest as only that way I will truly enjoy it and be dedicated and productive.

After considering several ideas I have come up with these two that I feel relate to me the best:

1) Blogging

Having had to create a blog for this module and already running my personal blog for almost two years, this topic seems quite obvious to consider. I could use the opportunity and find out some new interesting things about "blog world" I might not know, in a way that is familiar and enjoyable to me. Maybe it will help me to improve myself as a blogger and benefit my own blog.

2) Discount vouchers and coupons

Being a frequent e-buyer myself and often looking for all sorts of discounts for my purchases, I feel that this topic might also be of interest to me. Perhaps I could find out some hidden aspects of "bargain" shopping or exciting things about sales?

The only thing that I am concerned about is a doubt that both of these topics might be too simple and banal and that I will not be able to discover anything new or interesting. But then again, having a 3,5 year old and a house to take care of, I wouldn't want to set up impossible goals for myself and get involved with something very complicated as I know I wouldn't have enough time to dedicate to such subjects. I will need to give it a hard thought in the days to come...