{"id":3621,"date":"2017-10-15T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-15T08:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/?p=3621"},"modified":"2018-10-14T21:43:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T21:43:03","slug":"best-practices-are-no-longer-best-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/best-practices-are-no-longer-best-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Practices Are No Longer Best Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

I said good hashtags don\u2019t need to trend<\/a>, they just need to create good conversation. It\u2019s enough of a marvel that Twitter and a hashtag can gather a dedicated, focused group into a public conversation from strangers anywhere.<\/p>\n

Texas Instruments co-founder Patrick E. Haggerty said in 1963, \u201cIt\u2019s a tremendously stimulating thing for each person who has learned that\u00a0a small group of individuals can change the world\u00a0if they really want to.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The keyword in that quote is \u201csmall.\u201d Considering how many lives they touched, America’s Second Continental Congress<\/a>, or the Impressionists<\/a>, or the Apple Macintosh design team<\/a> were relatively small groups of people. When we use the popular word \u201cviral<\/a>,\u201d we all understand how important changes start out microscopically small.<\/p>\n

Reading common practice on social media, you would think size is what matters\u2014a large number of followers, quantity of posts over quality, interacting with the biggest, most popular news story.<\/p>\n

All of that has little to do with what\u2019s trending.<\/p>\n

Like good viral ideas, trending Twitter topics (that aren\u2019t paid advertising) start with a voice. An author starts tweeting after concentrating on a niche for years. A small conversation resonates with the larger audience. A single tweet gets retweeted.<\/p>\n

To follow what\u2019s trending on a daily basis means chasing the tail end of other people\u2019s ideas. The small groups and individuals who use social media well don\u2019t always know what\u2019s going viral because they are in the midst of creating their own viruses.<\/p>\n

I teach all kinds of students for the communications program at Quinnipiac. I had to tailor the course to engage recent undergrads, veteran journalists, Web designers, and PR majors. Medical students delving into the arts trend<\/a> regularly take the course too. They can all learn from a different way to think about a hashtag.<\/p>\n

It takes the class a few weeks to understand their tweets don\u2019t have to be witty, controversial, or promotional. We\u2019re not trying to be the clever remark of the day; we\u2019re just talking about ideas.<\/p>\n

Students in all subjects and niches will cling to \u201cbest practices\u201d if they are taught that\u2019s all they need to know. Understand the learning objectives of the course and therefore you understand. Memorize human anatomy and you understand human anatomy<\/a>. That\u2019s how we\u2019ve thought about education for a long time.<\/p>\n

But the Web\u2014and this is my favorite thing about using and teaching it\u2014is no system or algorithm. It is made of algorithms that anyone can update or supersede at any time. It takes our best knowledge and makes it dynamic. Twitter\u2019s creators built and established their platform without the hashtag, but they also made it possible for a single outsider to fundamentally change their rules.<\/p>\n

When Chris Messina created the hashtag, he didn\u2019t look to follow Twitter\u2019s rules and he didn\u2019t look to disrupt them either<\/a>. He just improved Twitter. His best practice was to change everyone else\u2019s best practices.<\/p>\n

That’s a good media lesson and a good education lesson. Learn the best practices for the MySpace platform all you want; they are now history lessons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is a natural inclination in all of us to find the system and understand the right way, but the Web undermines this with its constant development and interactive voices.<\/p>\n

Best practices are only the best we have for the moment. I want my students to develop their own innovative practices and ideas, the kinds that start small conversations in small groups, and don\u2019t trend until it\u2019s time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I said good hashtags don\u2019t need to trend, they just need to create good conversation. It\u2019s enough of a marvel that Twitter and a hashtag…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,56,60],"tags":[109,108],"class_list":["post-3621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-course","category-ivoice","category-wikiweek","tag-cliche","tag-knowledge","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3621"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4056,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621\/revisions\/4056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}