*I’m hiding behind the screen with my 140 characters* #TheProfileProject #5
Vic Cutting tells the story behind her Twitter and Facebook profiles: CREATIVE ACTIVITY IS MORE THAN A MERE CULTURAL FRILL, IT IS A CRUCIAL FACTOR OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, THE MEANS OF SELF-REVELATION, THE BASIS OF EMPATHY WITH OTHERS; IT INSPIRES BOTH INDIVIDUALISM AND RESPONSIBILITY, THE GIVING AND THE SHARING OF EXPERIENCE Tom Hudson (1979), British Columbia Exhibition of Children’s Art catalogue. “I picked up this post card at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a few years ago, and all I knew about it was that it had “Cardiff College of Art Foundation Studies: Experimentation with materials 1968” written on the back, from the collection of Tom Hudson. “It was at a time where I was considering retraining as an art therapist and was obsessing about the importance of process art, especially within my work with young people. Tom Hudson’s ideas resonated with me. “I like it as my Twitter photograph, I like that it is a personal image, and intimate, although that’s the opposite of how I feel about twitter. My Facebook profile is full of photos of my kids and funny (to me) thoughts that I want to share with my friends. “My Facebook profile photos are consistently oblique, but that’s because work advise us not to have photographs of ourselves. So it’s interesting to find photos that have personal meaning but don’t show people. I enjoy taking photos, I find it relaxing, a creative activity, going back to the original quote. I liked finding the shadow of me in the leaves, me – yet not me. A leaf yeti. “Twitter is more about politics, work and music for...
*A flippant and careless attitude* #TheProfileProject #3
Boff Whalley tells the story behind his Facebook profile picture: “When I was at grammar school in Burnley I was obsessed by music. For me it was an era when Bowie and Bolan gave way to a world of weird and wonderful rock music, from Zappa and the Bonzos and then headlong into the shuddering shock of punk, with all its fantastic possibilities. “I loved music. I listened to it, lived and breathed it, but couldn’t play an instrument. “My music teacher at school was a camp old Oxbridge luvvie who smoked cigarettes out of the window during class and spent whole lessons forcing us to listen to his gramophone recordings of classical pieces. At the end of my year as a 15 year-old he marked my report sheet: second to bottom of the class, 14th out of 15, and added the comment: ‘A flippant and careless attitude. Low assesment in term.’ “I grew to love that sentence. Twenty-five years after it was written I published an autobiography and decided that I wanted that sentence on the front cover. It summed up what I felt about how I was taught music. Casey, as the photographer who took the picture for the front cover of the book, wrote the sentence on my bare chest in red lipstick. She has beautiful writing! “Then just this last year I took a photo of my 5 year-old son Johnny in our camper van. Me and him were on a road trip to Scarborough and we were playing games and being silly. He was flexing his muscles and being a superhero. When I saw...
Should social care staff friend people they support on Facebook?
Should social care staff ever friend people they support on Facebook? According to this great paper by Peter Bates, Sam Smith and Robert Nisbet, the default view of social care staff and organisations is a resounding no. This stance is echoed in the proliferation of social media guidelines for health care practitioners that you can find curated here. The authors make a case for a more nuanced response to this question as explored through the lens of support for learning disabled people. They argue that the multi-faceted nature of people’s lives resists the reductive notion of linear personal/professional boundaries implicit within social media guidelines. I have previously blogged about the positive affordances of boundary violation between the personal and professional on online social networking sites. The authors point to the value of digital inclusion and potential of social media for accessing information and peer support. These ideas are beautifully captured in the context of mental health in a guest post by @positivitysmile. I concur with the authors’ stance that a thoughtful approach to social media is required for health as well as social care practitioners. Use and ethics of social media are not routinely incorporated within practitioner training and in my view this should be integrated throughout the curriculum rather than either ignored or sidelined as a stand-alone session or module. As our online and offline lives become ever more intertwined, health and social care staff will benefit from a sharpened understanding of online social networking both for themselves and people they support. Facebook is not a neutral space I would like to add a few additional thoughts to those...
How not to do customer service on social media
Recently I had a horrible experience with a service sector company – I wanted them to fix the problem, sort things out and treat me nicely – so far none of this has happened. In frustration at drawing a blank with the usual channels, I checked out whether I could engage with them via social media. I quickly found they had Twitter and Facebook accounts and I found them on a range of online rating sites. A successful Linkedin request to their chairperson gave me an email and mobile number. So quite a significant digital footprint, plus a flashy website. My various attempts to engage with them both directly (LinkedIn message) and publically (Twitter and Facebook plus feedback on rating sites) drew a complete blank. A big fat no response. In contrast when I tweeted a company they are accredited with, they responded to me straight away – friendly, helpful and even tweeted a thank you to me for following them – I immediately felt warmly disposed towards them. When I rang the chairperson on their mobile, they told me plainly that they never respond to electronic communications and if people want to contact them they should do so by phone. When I mentioned social media they shouted at me and told me how much they hated Twitter (although funnily enough they do have a personal account). I was stunned that anyone in business can think it is acceptable to blithely ignore communication channels they themselves have set up. It’s a bit like installing a letter box, but refusing to open your letters, whilst omitting to tell people who...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
