Traveling via iPhone and Social Media

So I just got back from a day trip to Phoenix for a Adobe CS5.5 workshop. It was a last minute decision to go, but I’m glad I did. Not only was it a great workshop and a good networking experience but it was also a Social Media experience in traveling with an iPhone.

Going down to Phoenix, Arizona, a two hour drive from Flagstaff in Northern Arizona is a necessity when living in a small town and trying to maintain a big city career as a graphic designer. If you want to stay up on current trends and fresh on the current software and technologies you need to participate in all the events you can. Webinars are great but you sacrifice face time and valuable networking. I have found maintaining contacts in Phoenix a valuable resource and refreshing source of inspiration. Plus you can’t beat the real life exposure to the city. It is alive with networks of communication that speak to you the moment you enter; roadway signs, city transport advertising, architecture, radio airwaves and fashion trends all seek to get your attention and inspire or motivate a mind in need of new motivation.

With my iPhone prepared I planned ahead the night before and asked on twitter for the best app to use as a navigation tool. I go to phoenix a few times a year and typically get lost or thrown off course at least once or twice. Thanks to @Mountain_O, a friend in the Flagstaff community of tweeps, I was referred to Mapquest, I’ve heard of it before but had not used it until now. So I tried it, plugged in my destination, along with a destination to a nearby lunch venue and lastly to a friends house from the event so that I would leave no room for error. Mapquest turned out to be a great tool and friend; the soothing female voice giving directions became quite comforting. Even though I’ve been to Phoenix a thousand times I never fail to take the wrong off ramp or get detoured by construction and end up in some undesirable neighborhood off the freeway where I feel like I need to lock the doors and not make eye contact for fear of starting a gang riot. Upon reaching my destination, a half hour early, I found I had time to do the necessary Foursquare checkin with an added photo of the brilliant architecture of the ASU Building of Design and Architecture where the event took place.

In addition to planning my route the night before I also purchased tickets online the night before via Eventbrite and was able to use my iPhone as a ticket at the registration table. The workshop itself was put on by AIGA Arizona and featured Brian Wood, an Adobe Certified Instructor. The course audience was mostly AIGA members from what I could tell but a few others had made it from the outskirts with one person from Winslow and another from Tucson. Upon entering and taking a seat I immediately went to my twitter account to find where the discussion would be taking place online. All I could find is the comments from various AIGA members using the @aigaarizona twitter handle. The first thing I look for in a seminar like this is a hashtag so that I can follow along with my iPhone too see what others are saying about the instruction, it also helps to push out quotes and thoughts to my friends back home and to network before and after the event is over. Twitter in defense to those who think “it’s a distraction during meetings or rude”, is in my opinion a great way to become even more a part of the discussion and for an outsider to learn a little about those sitting around you. As the discussion began I kept an eye on my twitter account but there was not really a lot being said, and if it was I was missing it because I was not a part of the networks within the room who most likely knew each other so I decided to tweet: “This #adobe workshop needs a hashtag @aigaarizona #justsaying.” Immediately I got a response from @MarkDudlik well known for writing an open letter to the Phoenix design community, calling for unity and forward thinking and thus inspiring Phoenix Design Week. Mark put out a suggestion that we use the hashtag #adobeaigaaz which seemed good enough to me. At the end of the event I thanked Mark even though no one had really used it besides us, however he did say they would continue to use it for all the following workshops. So in a way I felt I had contributed in a small way to the groups’ presence on twitter and hope it will become a future resource to keep all tweets in one unifying stream so outsiders like me can participate while attending, or if we can’t attend but want to know what’s going on.

The next phase of my iPhone enhanced day would be to find my next destinations via Mapquest which I did seamlessly and of course to foursquare each stop. The amazing part of foursquare is that you are able to see what and where your friends are while out and about and I came across several Phoenix friends’ trusted spots along with tips and recomendations. It was quite a cool experience going into a restaurant and getting a tip on what to order from a familiar face. It was also cool to see that many of my Flagstaff friends were also in town that day and as a matter of fact some were nearby, given more time I would have chatted them up via twitter, but I was in a rush to get to my buddy’s house where I would be able to recharge my battery sucking device and visit “IRL” (in real life) without digital intervention for a while (unless you count that we watched the new Star Trek on his Blue Ray T.V.)

My last endeavor of the day would be on my way out of town where it became necessary at the oncoming sunset to find the nearest Starbucks. This usually does not require a digital device as there is one on every corner, but when you find yourself scouring parking lots and hitting every red light and every store front people-crossing you decide that an immediate source of information is better than endless searching, so I downloaded the Starbucks app and sure enough there was one just down the street from where I was. Upon leaving, Mocha-Coconut Frapucchino in hand, I Foursquared: “Time to head back up the hill. (@ Starbucks) http://4sq.com/k25BXf” and received yet another tip of a nearby restaurant from a foursquare friend as well as a message from a twitter friend @Azdurawrap, to have a “safe trip”.

All in all it was a great day participating in virtual and real life experiences where I was never for a moment alone. The voice of my trusty Mapquest companion kept me on the right path. I received tips and suggestions of my Foursquare friends. I helped provide a place to stream tweets about the future AIGA Arizona events and oh yeah I attended a great workshop via @AskBrianWood and @aigaarizona.

Jim Nissen president of AIGA Arizona

Related Articles:

Social Media In Travel: Over-Hyped, Under-Hyped, Or Who Knows

Phoenix Design Culture

Proud to know Mark Dudlik

Creative Introvert and Social Media.

There are two types of creatives in my experience. The typical extrovert, who we all know and love. They are the rock stars, the life of the party that we all hope to, by osmosis, absorb our own creative side from. Clients flock to these creative guru’s as if they were doctors who could heal their creative crisis with their own personal style of enigmatic flare. They may be prima donna’s but they get the job done no matter how much attention they may require. On the other side of creative expression is the introvert, more closely related to the studio artist who does his greatest work from the private confines of his own studio. Society at large does not quite know what to do with this type. They tend to need space to work out their creativity and may not inspire the same pizzaz, but are cool cats nonetheless.

In society in general extroverts tend to outweigh the introvert population by 3 – 1 putting “innie’s” at a disadvantage. Trying to get noticed and bring attention to yourself as an introvert is difficult in a sea of extroverts who have made the loud and vibrant persona the standard. When it comes to social media, perhaps the introvert finally has a shot. The misconception about introverts is that they  are antisocial and prefer to be left alone, which is not typically the case. Introverts need to challenge themselves with social interaction or else they can end up in isolation.

Social media may be a beam of hope for introverts for it has created celebrity out of mediocrity worldwide. Everything we do is posted for all to see no matter who we are. For those of us who tend to not embellish on everything we do and live seemingly non-eventful life’s, it would appear that this was just another chance to be out-shined. It has been said of introverts that they access their information from long term memory storage, while extroverts have info on demand in short term memory. This explains why introverts don’t do well in social situations. However social media is perfectly suited for heavy thinkers who don’t always have a quick reply, but take more time to think and analyze their response. On Social Media platforms you write about things that are real, and reflect on them in a somewhat quick tempoed way. It’s quick snippets of reality that can can be thought out and filtered. On Facebook and Twitter one can reply with every bit of cleverness as the next quick-witted extrovert, from the confines of their own comfortable world.

Since my interaction with a growing community I have found that my career as a graphic designer, who rarely sees the light of day, has changed significantly. People in my community who never had a chance to get to know me, now know the deepest insights of my day-to-day life. The transparency that I reveal in my postings becomes subject matter for conversation or just a recognized “hello” from someone who before wouldn’t be so sure to say “hi” given what might come across as an intimidating or, as a percieved antisocial exterior. With Facebook my avatar is always smiling and open for comment, and my posts are typically upbeat. I can’t say how much I enjoy corresponding with my local and extended communities and sharing a since of connection by simply posting what I had for lunch, what the weather’s like or the funny thing my kid said. Opponents to social media will criticize the lunch comments or the simplicity of 140 characters and how nothing can be truly gained. However aren’t these the fundamentals of everyday conversation. “Hey Bob what about that game last night.” “So Jill have you been to that new restaurant.” Or, “guess what movie I saw last night.” This is how extroverts do it right? They start small and lead up to in-depth conversations, thus the blog or the link to the site and the eventual friend status. For this I thank the masterminds behind these applications and the new world communication they have allowed for.

Some related blogs in research of this subject:

Creative innie By Mary McCauley-Stiff

Introvert and social media by Ladunkin

Don’t Reduce Your Designers And Developers To Stereotypes by Rob Borley

To Tweet, or not to Tweet

 

So since I’ve engaged myself into twitter on Oct 17th, 2008, 432 updates ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now 272 follows and 200 followers later, I am part of something bigger than I could have ever imagined. Has it changed my life, has it made me smarter? Probably not, but it has given me an inside to, not one, but several communities where I don’t have to look far for information. This is an avant garde community of social media whiz’s, computer geeks, marketeers and genuinly nice people who like to pay-it-forward. The Internet has grown too large for anyone person or company to conceivably understand or get a grip on, not even Google, well maybe Google. Tools like Twitter help us to have a much larger grasp. Now it’s not just me watching for new trends and informative sites but I have a community of 200 sets of eyes watching and sharing – for FREE!!!

In the Beginning

First ever tweet

Look at me so young, so impressionable yet already trying to spread myself on the vast social network. The idea is to spread yourself, get your name and/or brand all the exposure you can, and become part of the network. With combined Social Media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blip and WordPress.com I have indeed become part of many social networks. 

Local Tweeps Only

@solop the local hero

 

Originally I decided I only needed to find local twitter users to grow my network within my hometown community. Here is an example twituation where I was particularly upset that my furnace had gone out in the middle of winter. (I later erased the Tweet because of the language I was using at the time.) In response to my fowl tweet, @Solop a local college professor, media political consultant and all around good guy came to my rescue with the above bit of advice. It wasn’t a long term solution but the response to my cry was far beyond what I expected at 10:00 at night. Wow, immediate response to a problem! For me it was networking at its best. I could go on about the theater tickets I was able to get at a sold out show, or the news I learned before the morning paper came out, but you get the idea. It brings you closer to the goings on in your community.

World at Large

So it wasn’t long before I realized the power of Twitter and all the followers I had been passing up, I was now slowly adding to my twippertoire. Basically I developed rules for followers. 

1. Must have bio info and place of origin filled.
2. Must have avater picture – not default Twitter icon.
3. Must have something in common.
4. Must not be trying to directly sell me something.

I’m sure I’ve already broken some of these rules and will eventually decide that 200 is not enough, just like I did when I got 100.

The World just Got Smaller

Hi, mikerdzign.
The_Best_Job is now following your updates on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/The_Best_Job

The Best Job follow

Upon hearing about the Best Job ever Queensland Island contest on the radio I quickly went to tweet about it as something cool worth tweeting about. Later that day I was followed by the promoters of the contest. Three steps to direct contact:

1. Heard about it on traditional media.
2. Tweeted it to my, mostly, local community 
3. Searched by, found and followed by the campaign. 

It is clear the power of this application to get closer to your audience if used correctly and, in addition to, (not replacing) traditional forms of advertising. 

So in closing I would say yes, if you want to participate, learn, grow and engage with a growing audience of participants world-wide then undoubtedly Yes! Get involved. If you want to just get on and promote your product, or not tweet and just listen in, I would say no, it’s not for you. It’s about transparency, being real and paying-it-forward, and yes it’s about what you ate this morning too.

Greetings!

Welcome to my new blog!

About three months ago I began a social media experiment that involved what many are doing these days, creating accounts in Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. What I’ve found in my studies is that none of these really do anything for you unless you have something to yak about (yak here is used as in Yak Yak or talking, not in it’s traditional meaning: a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia), and it really helps to have a place to keep all your yakkings so that if people like your yak they will pursue your yak links. So here I am creating a blog to place all my valuable yakkings to further my experiment and to maybe post a couple of my designs and illustrations, (so far none  of which include Yaks – the traditional kind).