With the following note:

As promised, here is a pic of me in the t-shirt (excuse the badly taken pic, it was the best I could do alone):

Thanks @RSAWEB!

All thanks to Nokia, who flew ten Johannesburg-based journos down to their Cape Town event to meet the “masterminds” behind Ovi Maps (NAVTEQ), show us the behind-the-scenes of building the mapping database, let us see the N97 mini in the flesh and the highlight – letting us participate in a mini Amazing Race.

We were put into teams of four and sent off in BMW’s and Audi’s, using the Nokia N97 mini as a GPS. I was lucky enough to be in a team of 3 locals, who knew what the clues meant.

It was not a race to see who came first, though; points were given based on activities completed (bookmarking locations, MMSing pics and solving riddles etc). At each point, we had to find someone dressed in black who handed us our next clue. Team awesome (as I dubbed us) didn’t to too badly – we scooped 3rd place (there were 8 teams).

We were based at the 5 star 15 on Orange hotel. What a stunning hotel! I loved the modern interiors and especially liked the extra thought that went into the finishing touches. This is what the lifts look like:

There was a blend of media, bloggers and “industry experts”. The one thing most (if not all) of us had in common: Twitter. And tweet we did, during presentations. It’s amazing how it isn’t considered rude (anymore) to sit on your phone or laptop while being addressed.

But this is where Nokia comes in on top. They are using social media properly. It all comes down to them doing it in a way that isn’t ‘spammy’. Something a lot of companies have yet to learn.

I gave it a quick test to see if it actually works. I just had to; and these were the replies I got:

So it passed the test but I don’t think it something I’d use because my Mac goes home with me. Best if you use one at the office and forget to logout or need it to perform certain tasks, which can be found here with a list of commands.

Source

All you have to do is use Firefox and have the Greasemonkey add-on enabled. Get it here – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748.

Then install the Twitter search script – http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/43451

Do a search and ta-da:

The last 5 tweets on your subject searched will be displayed.

In simple terms, it can be described as using Web 2.0 technologies to get results (for your business). An example I’d like to apply is me personally using Twitter to achieve this. I was asked if I could assist in finding a speaker for a sponsored workshop coming up at ITWeb’s Digital Life Expo.

I updated my status on Twitter to read as follows:

I got a reply from someone who was very keen and ‘in the know’. I’ve since passed this info on to our editorial director – who thought he was an excellent candidate as she had met him previously. *Update* It hasbeen confirmed that he will be speaking at the workshop.

If you want to know what Twitter is, check it out here. Basically you’re allowed up to a maximum of 140 character updates per status update. To use Twitter effectively and get the best results, you should have a very niche following. I follow people within the industry who I think I can learn from and exchange ideas with and in turn, they follow me (people follow back at their own discretion). Don’t just join Twitter because everyone is joining it. It’s not another Facebook. Nobody really wants to know that you are having a cappuccino for breakfast.

I would also like to add, that according to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing has attracted controversy and criticism. They list the following reasons:

1. Added costs to bring a project to an acceptable conclusion.
2. Increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will fail due to lack of monetary motivation, too few participants, lower quality of work, lack of personal interest in the project, global language barriers, or difficulty managing a large-scale, crowdsourced project.
3. Below-market wages, or no wages at all. Barter agreements are often associated with crowdsourcing.
4. No written contracts, non-disclosure agreements, or employee agreements or agreeable terms with crowdsourced employees.
5. Difficulties maintaining a working relationship with crowdsourced workers throughout the duration of a project.
6. Susceptibility to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious work efforts.

I think that because I’m not a business owner, I don’t see it as being “harmful”. I’m just using my own resources to get results and I’m getting it.

For now, it works and I’m happy to use this medium.

See also – Mass Collaboration

An event like the Twestival attracts the geekier crowd (Twitter has not gone mainstream), and I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of geeks are shy. I’m all for networking online and admit I’m one of those who wont just go up to someone and say, “Hi, I’m Nafisa and you must be….”. Sounds a bit stalkerish. If you’ve built a ‘relationship’ with someone online for a while, then introducing yourself comes naturally.

While chatting to the SingleSyllable last night, we agreed that people on Twitter know what they want and know why they’re there. Twitter is a very powerful tool, if used properly. It’s also natural to network with like-minded individuals. However, I think it makes a difference if you not only follow a person on Twitter, but their personal blog too and after that, the idea of meeting irl is just the next step. Relationships like these tend to have a more solid foundation.

During my time as content & community manager at My Digital Life, I built a lot of relationships online with numerous bloggers and when we had a MOB (meeting of the bloggers), introducing ourselves came naturally; there were no uncomfortable or awkward moments. Conversation flowed.

Social networking has indeed changed the way people communicate. There’s no beating around the bush.

Just the way I like it.