There’s a lot of talk about the big opportunities and benefits of using social media. Examples of these benefits are customer engagement, direct customer communications, the speed of feedback/results, learning customer preferences, low cost, brand building, credibility of the ‘crowd’ or reach. You can hear or read al lot about the benefits of social media for marketing purposes, customer service, personal use, for relaxation and public services.  The discipline you hear less about the benefits of social media is social welfare. Therefore, E-society organized Next: a congress about the benefits of ICT for professionals in social welfare. This congress contained a combination of presentations and workshops of research and good practices during the last ten years.  I would like to present some good examples how social media can make a difference in a community.

tagged with: social media, communities, participation

› Continue reading Social use of social media : the small benefits can be the biggest


On the 29th of april the third and final day of The Next Web Conference 2011  was held in Amsterdam. The first order of the day was immediately one that stuck by me. It was a Wikileaks panel with Alexander Bard  and Rick Falkvinge  led by Andrew Keen. Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party. Alexander Bard is, well, a writer, sociologist, philosopher and TV talk show host. Also; successful record producer, artist  and songwriter. This makes him a very interesting person to talk to about file sharing and illegal downloads because he has a foot in both worlds. During the panel, Bard and Falkvinge discussed the importance of sharing, pirates, power, and integrity with a fair dosage of humor.

tagged with: rick falkvinge, pirats, spotify, record labels, artists, alexander bard

› Continue reading Shifts in power through sharing; The Next Web Conference 2011 Wikileaks panel


I’ve never really been into conspiracy theories, apart for entertainment reasons, but recently and for me more or less out of the blue the other day, Rogier Brussee mumbled something about Google being the CIA (or FBI for all that matters). Expressions like that make me cynical but also make me question why I am cynical about those ideas. Could it be true? Do you think it is like that? And if Google would be the digitized version of the all mighty watchdog of the US, than who would be the (moral) owners of Facebook, delicious, Foursquare, you name any social media originating from the US? If it really is the security forces of our modern western society, than let us ask what the role of social media in our society actually is.

tagged with: alexander bard, android, cia, fbi, flickr, julian assange, the next web, facebook, iphone, wikileaks

› Continue reading Intelligence & Integrity


At the expert meeting of the CVN - Commission Cultural Treaty Vlaanderen – Nederland – (www.cvn.be) last week in Antwerpen I participated in a breakout session lead by Sylvie Dhaene of ‘Het Huis van Alijn’ (House of Alijn; www.huisvanalijn.be). This former museum of folklore has set out to tell a timeless story about the culture of everyday life. In the museum ordinary objects and curiosities offer an introduction to the common inheritance of the time periods of the fifties, sixties, seventies and so on, up till now. Digital media is used to let you zap through photo albums, listen to sound recordings and plunge into film excerpts.

tagged with: participation, vlaanderen, cultural heritage, pace

› Continue reading House of Alijn


For Esther’s research about location-based service, she decided to invite Dennis from Feest.je to come talk about location-based services and their own product in particular. 

tagged with: business opportunities, feest.je, location based services, workshop

› Continue reading LBS Theme day Feest.je


I don’t get it… Foursquare or feest.je for that matter. I really don’t get it. My housemate gets it. I see him ‘checking in’ all the time. And he gets all excited when he finally is the major of Crossmedialab again. The smile on his face rises, he almost starts jumping around. The face of the girl he kicked of the major-thrown isn’t so happy no more. What is the fun of checking in at the same location every day? Going to work and checking in at work, so your friends know you’re at work? Where else would you be.. Or checking in at stefs (the school pub) every day.. to let your friends know you’re in a bar, every day? I don’t get it. 

tagged with: foursquare, location based services

› Continue reading Unlock your world?


Do you have any idea why higher education is still mainly delivered as classroom teaching? Most lecturers know that a lot more is possible and some of them even enrich classroom teaching with innovations such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and iTunes U. But knowing it is one thing, applying this knowledge is another thing. Why?

tagged with: digitizing, csikszentmihalyi, blended learning, innovation, education

› Continue reading Innovation in education


Last year, when I did my placement at the Netherlands Youth Institute, I attended an expert meeting with social media researcher Danah Boyd at the University of Tilburg. When she was asked what ‘the next big thing’ in social media would be, she didn’t hesitate and immediately responded that mobile is on the rise. “The technology is leading towards mobile. Location-based technology, like Foursquare and Gowalla (online social media through which you can tell people where you are). The first ones to use new technology are always the geeks, freaks and queers, so I look to them to see what will happen.”
I count myself in at least two of the above stated categories, so obviously I have been using Foursquare like mad for months trying to wrestle the title of ‘mayor’ out of the hands of other geeks and freaks around Utrecht.

tagged with: location based services, foursquare, feest.je

› Continue reading Rise in location-based services?


The augmented reality technology is relatively new and still under development. Only a handful of companies dare to venture into this area. Thus far only two companies emerged with Software Development Kits capable of creating ‘THE’ augmented reality of our dreams (or in movies like Minority Report). In terms of hardware we’re looking at the latest generation smartphones which are currently limited by the development in their respectable sizes, durability and battery-life. But our technological progress grows exponentially on a daily basis.

tagged with: science fiction, smartphones, tony stark, nokia, augmented reality, Concept

› Continue reading I want Starkuh-hud!


The politics are totally into social media. Nothing new about that. That politicians are trying to close the gap between politics and the people by using social media, is also nothing new. But is this really the reason why they are using social media, or are they only saying this. What kind of messages is sent by politicians? How do people react to these messages?  To what extent do politicians respond to the reactions of citizens? In the past two years Chris Aalberts and Maurits Kreijveld have done research to find answers to these questions. These answers are described in their book ‘veel gekwetter, weinig wol’. To my humble opinion, the most interesting contribution from this research is the number of new questions that come out of their results. I would like to describe some answers from Aalberts and Kreijveld given to the three questions above. With these answers I’d like to ask some new questions and introduce you to the new database that gives opportunities to answer these new questions. 

tagged with: database, politics, social media

› Continue reading How to analyze political tweets


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