First of all on Monday that was the first time I had been to the Extreme Events Lab and I thought it was pretty cool. While the 3d map technology is not as impressive as it may have been a few years ago it was still really neat to see 3d put into action in a proactive way. I must say when he started moving us around the plane I did start getting kinda dizzy. Also I found it interesting that they use the five screens and while they are doing their work they listen to music and the music lets them know what is going on with their research. It lets them know if there is a correlation between things they are trying to put together and also it lets them know if big events are going on such as the riot/gathering downtown this evening which is making twitter and facebook feeds everywhere.
Now back to the topic at hand micro-blogging. A topic I find myself deeply divided on. It will not go away it's here for the long haul but it is just one of those things I cannot get on board with for some reason. I am not a twitterer, I don't like tweets, and I am not sure I ever will be.
I can see the positives of twitter and tweeting for disaster response purposes. I mean I get it, there are not a whole lot of wasted words when your message can only be 140 characters or less. It can't really be misconstrued, it has to be short and to the point. Like for example: Holy Shit Earthquake in (insert place here), or OMG Tooootallly A Riot Downtown Right now get down heuur. You know exactly what the focal point of a tweet is, you can tell a trend very easily by identifying key words. Again given that there are 140 characters it should be too hard to find a single word that all the tweets have in common. It is good for just a general overview of what is going on and where. It may be able to help you get into some slightly more specific things like help needed here or food needed here but not too much more than that because there just isn't the room. If you have any doubts that something is going and and widespread though definitely check twitter and you will find out really quickly what is or isn't important or going on in the world right now.
On the other hand if you want to get deeper into the topic and into more specifics tweeting can only help you so far. I mean if we can get to the root of every problem in 140 characters or less we should start burning dictionaries by the truck load. It just wont happen life is complicated. I think that is just the wordiness in me that will not allow me to like twitter. You have all be subject to my blog and therefor know I love my compound sentences and slow build up to "deep and meaningful thoughts." To me twitter is just like a mental quickie never allowing the deep connection and leaving you feeling wholly unsatisfied with the situation. If we want to know where problems are or what the general feeling on those problems is go to twitter. If you want to know specifics of where to send help and what is really going on i.e. how bad the damage is, how much aid is needed and things of that nature twitter isn't going to help. Maybe I am letting my twitter bias cloud my judgement on this matter and I am sorry if I am but I just don't see how anything profound can come from 140 characters or less. Hopefully twitterers will prove me wrong.
I leave you with some random quotes that hopefully you will enjoy by
Bill Cosby
Freshmen year was the first time I had been to the Extreme Events Lab. I was a little disappointed the second time I saw it, this past Monday. Other than the configuration of the room and maybe a few more monitors, nothing really seemed to have changed. I guess there is no point in “fixing” something that isn’t broken, but I kind of expected that I would have seen some progressive made with the technology. Maybe, my expectations are simply too high as part of a generation (arguably) spoiled with innovative technology. It seems every week some new and fascinating product is being released. In all fairness, maybe there have been improvements to the lab that I am simply not aware of.
ReplyDeleteAll throughout the presentation given about the Extreme Events Lab, I was expecting to hear examples of how the lab has actually been used. What problem has it addressed? Has is actually improved our ability to understand complicated data sets? Essentially, has it been used in any real life scenarios? I did find it interesting that it enabled the identification of flaws in the IST building’s design. But, I doubt that that is actually what it was designed to do.
As for Twitter, I also do not use it because I do not feel that it has the ability to serve a useful purpose much of the time. I do think it can play a useful role when it comes to disasters. Like you said, the fact that it limits the length of tweets to 140 characters forces users to get right to the point. But, in most situations why would people want to be constrained by those limits. If someone has something they want to say, that is greater than 140 characters, why should they feel constrained? I am kind of surprised that Twitter has become so popular, especially if people are feeling like they have to frequently post things, even if what they are posting has no value.
Tom, I thought that a lot of the things you had to say in this week’s blog post were very interesting. To begin, I also found that the extreme events lab was amazing. To be honest I completely forgot that they used notification sounds when in the lab working in order to hear if there is a crisis or just a simple message for lunch. I thought this room was very interesting and could be put to good use for future research projects here at Penn State or even my final group project for this class. When all is said and done I really want a 3D room like that in my house someday to do work on and play video games on.
ReplyDeleteI for sure agree with the next part of you blog about micro-blogging. I also hate Twitter and never even want to go onto it for personal use, however I think it can be very effective for the uses of disaster relief. It has been proven that Twitter and other social networking sites have done a tremendous job with disaster relief and communication but other than that I personally cannot stand it and think it is a waste of God given time.
Another plus of Twitter I would agree with is it is faster than the news. You can go on at any time of the day and if something major has happened such as a crisis I am sure you will see it on Twitter immediately. Tom, overall you have done an outstanding job on your blog post as usual. I am glad that you gave your true standpoint on Twitter because there are others of us that do not care for it as well as yourself. Keep up the good work and keep the blogs coming were almost done!
I'll be honest and say that I've never even thought about the draw backs of Twitter's tiny character limit. I spent much of my time this week ranting about Twitter being presently unfeasible for anything other than the dissemination of information or the organization of volunteers, but it didn't really occur to me just what you might be missing out on when you trim a maximum possible response down to a paltry one hundred and forty words. You might get a precisely worded, laser focused response... or you might get something that looks like what an eleven year would text her BFF. It seems like this is a double edged sword - it won't much change my opinion about Twitter or the uses of present social media in disasters, but it is certainly interesting.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I bet our past selves(say five years ago) would have been amazed at the technical marvel that used to be the CAVE. At present, though, it isn't nearly as spectacular. Having seen larger screens used to render video games in 3D and the recent slew of 3D movies, I think we've just gotten past the amusement state of 3D tech. The upswing of the presentation, though, was more about the idea of visually representing data in a much different fashion than usual and gleaning a deeper understanding of data trends as a result. I've personally seen the great effect a simple list sorter can have in finding emerging data trends, so that 3D visualization of data just cranks that notion up to 11.
Like you, Monday was the first time I was in the extreme events lab myself. The set up of the room was interesting, how they use the five screens in the front of the room to monitor each other’s information. I was also curious about the idea of playing music while they were working or monitoring a situation in the extreme events lab and using certain sounds or instruments to notify when a certain event has taken place.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem a little difficult to cram enough useful information into a tweet when you’re only able to use 140 characters. To me, I feel like tweeter could be a lot more useful if people were able to use more characters in a tweet, maybe something like 200 or 250. This way more information would be allowed into a tweet and people could be more informed. I feel like 140 characters isn’t enough, people might misinterpret the message or not understand the information. I thought the picture you added in your blog was funny and relevant. It seems as though twitter should never be used as a reliable source of communication for organizations. Maybe it should just be used for the public to notify each other as a community or a region.
Tom, like yourself I commonly find myself conflicted on the topic of Twitter. Since I barely update my Facebook status as it is, I do not really see the need to ever get a Twitter account. Meanwhile, I do see people connecting and communicating on Twitter in ways that would have never happened before Twitter. Yet on the other hand, most of Twitters users are only concerned with what they had for breakfast and what Kim Kardashian did yesterday. This deep divide between the users of Twitter makes it difficult for me to comprehend Twitter as a disaster response tool fully.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, Twitter is great for getting a good idea of what is happening in a certain part of the world. The 140 character limit forces people to be concise and describe exactly what is happening and where. Users can further help using hash-tags describing the situation. In that sense, Twitter is a great filter tool to find out what is important and where it is important.
However, Twitter is semi-useless as a deep meaning thought inspiring communication tool. As you said in 140 characters, there really is not a lot that you can say to somebody who follows your Twitter account. Twitter also suffers from a problem in that it is an informal communication tool. " OMG Tooootallly A Riot Downtown Right now get down," tells me absolutely nothing other than there is a riot downtown at the moment. That does not tell me the size of the riot or the reasons people are rioting downtown. That is all information that I would need that Twitter isn't really able to tell me unless people specifically Tweet with all of that information. While efforts like "Tweak the Tweet" exist to remedy this situation, I find them too idealistic. Until Justin Bieber is no longer trending daily, I will find it difficult to believe in Twitter.