Jon Hickey

Image via CrunchBase Finding people on Twitter can be tricky.  With so many users, it’s easy for valuable profiles to slip through the cracks.  When looking for elected officials, I’ve found that a great start is to use an aggregator like GovTwit.  Using this site, I can identify search for elected officials and filter them [...]

I believe the following 5 people could be considered thought leaders for government-based social media, and Twitter in particular: Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky) – Dr. Mark D. Drapeau is the 2006-08 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, U.S. [...]

Cover via Amazon The final section of Cass R. Sunstein‘s book Infotopia is titled “Opting for Optimism.”  This section addresses both optimistic and pessimistics views of decisions being made from the massive amounts of information that can be found online.  The pessimistic view “emphasizes mob psychology, groupthink, and the risk that people will lead one [...]

As I study Twitter in my Twitter Class at the MCDM, I have found myself learning some aspects of Twitter that I’ve neglected in the past.  One of the big ones is the profile itself – particularly the background.  For my personal Twitter account, I simply chose a stock background because I didn’t think it [...]

Image via CrunchBase As Twitter become more popular and necessary for organizations to engage in, it is becoming important to know exactly how to use Twitter.  The following are three best practices I propose for organizations using Twitter: Find your community Applications such as TweetDeck allow you to easily keep a live search stream to [...]

Cover via Amazon What struck me first about the Cluetrain Manefesto was  the copyright date – 1999, 2001.  The Cluetrain Manefesto was certainly early.  Even before the advent of Web 2.0 platforms, the Cluetrain Manefesto was encouraging conversation between businesses and customers while deriding businesses for their short-sighted marketing practices. The “Markets are Conversations” chapter reveals [...]

While researching the government’s use of Twitter, I’ve found that I need to make an important decision soon – should I focus my writing on government agencies or on elected officials?  There is certainly a difference between best practices of a government agency and an elected official.  Primarily, elected officials are going to be political [...]

Image via CrunchBase Some pretty fun Twitter memes have popped up lately – most notably the #nerdpickuplines meme.  #nerdpickuplines was a blast for the nerd community, and even earned itself an article in the L.A. Times.  Yesterday a less noticed Twitter meme came to my attention.  Edufire, an online video learning company, decided to have [...]

I love the Twitter community.  I often find myself refreshing my browser, excited to see interesting articles people have stumbled upon, small tidbits of wisdom, or fun, character-building status updates.  In my 3 months on Twitter, I have been pretty happy with those I’ve followed.  That is, until recently. I am admittedly a newbie to [...]