TED videos for Business English, Part II (Success and Failure)

Often, whether we admit it or not, we measure a person by how successful they are...  but what exactly is success?

It's not how much money someone has, is it?

It's not whether or not they have a family  and friends... as good as all that may be, it's something else, it's something much more illusive.  How do we decide?  What leads us to  this sort of judgement... to saying "oh, don't bother with him, he's a loser" or "Wow, that woman is so amazing, gifted, she's really made it to the top of her profession."  Is it our  own culture that defines this or do these assumptions, opinions, ideas transfer globally?

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Anyway, here are my recommended TED videos for whenever the subjects of success and failure arise in your adult English classrooms.  I've also stuck up a SimplyConversations lesson on Achievements and Ambitions into Google Docs. which you can use as a  pre-task or follow-up activity.

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html (17mins)

Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure -- and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.

Measuring what makes life worthwhile
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html (18mins)

When the dotcom bubble burst, hotelier Chip Conley went in search of a business model based on happiness. In an old friendship with an employee and in the wisdom of a Buddhist king, he learned that success comes from what you count.  Fascinating!!

8 secrets of success
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success.html (3mins)

Why do people succeed? Is it because they're smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.

True success
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html (18mins)

With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom. 

Keep your goals to yourself
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html (3mins)

After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret. He presents research stretching as far back as the 1920s to show why people who talk about their ambitions may be less likely to achieve them.

Success is a continuous journey
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_st_john_success_is_a_continuous_journey.html (4mins)

In his typically candid style, Richard St. John reminds us that success is not a one-way street, but a constant journey. He uses the story of his business' rise and fall to illustrate a valuable lesson -- when we stop trying, we fail.

Don't eat the marshmallow yet 
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_yet.html (7mins)
In this short talk from TED U, Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification -- and how it can predict future success. With priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat the marshmallow.

Hope you enjoyed these as much as we did! 

Which was your favourite?

CHALLENGE

Write a lesson plan based on using one of these videos (or any other that refers to the subject of success and failure) and post this up on your own website or blog.  Alternatively, upload the LP into a document sharing site (e.g scribd/ slideshare/ google docs)  and let us all know the URL in the comments below.

Other great videos on this theme, via YouTube

• J.K Rowlings, The fringe benefits of failure
• Jeff Bezos, What matters more than talents
• Gary Vaynerchuk, Do what you love (no excuses!)
• Steve Jobs, How to live before you die

See also:
Part I: TED videos + decision-making 
Part III: TED videos + motivation
Speaking activities for teaching English with TED
Best video websites for teaching adult Business English learners

TED videos for Business English, Part I (Making Decisions)

Vicki Hollett recently mentioned a trouble I often hear being voiced by teachers who are trying to source samples of high quality, authentic Non-Native-English-Speakers speaking English and my tip, of course,  is that you can usually find quite a number of these on the adult-educational-deeper thinking-video-sites.

The other day, I finally finished putting together a post which had been lying around in draft for absolutely ages: Speaking Tips for using TED videos in class, conversation prompters, and so given Vicki's question, I thought, along with these dogme2.0-type suggestions I really should get around to organizing all the videos I've downloaded in the past, stored on my computer, used in classes, set as homework~put up as online discussion topics on my Ning(s), watched alongside students... and share with you the ones we've liked best!

I've sorted them into related topics to make it easier for you to share them with your own adult languge learners.  As often as I can - each Thursday/Friday -  I'll load up more of them, in a series of posts.  If you've any suggestions or recommendations from other sources on the same themes, don't hesitate to provide us with the links!   

I recommend either printing out a copy of this post , using the addthis/bookmark button at the bottom of this post, saving/ bookmarking / emailing yourself this page... (to find the links again later on in TED.com).

This week's Business English themes include:

Choices, Decision-making, Negotiating, Strategic-thinking

The art of choosing
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html
Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices -- and how we feel about the choices we make. She talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.

The paradox of choice
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

Are we in control of our own decisions? 
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.

A monkey economy as irrational as ours
http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html
Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.

How we read each other's minds
http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_saxe_how_brains_make_moral_judgments.html
Sensing the motives and feelings of others is a natural talent for humans. But how do we do it? Here, Rebecca Saxe shares fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples' thoughts -- and judges their actions.

See also blog post and discussion on Vicki Hollett's blog regarding theories of the mind and issues related to this video - both post and comments hold potentially good conversation starter-type questions.

The walk from "no" to "yes"
http://www.ted.com/talks/william_ury.html
William Ury, author of "Getting to Yes," offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations -- from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.

Carl Honore praises slowness
http://www.ted.com/talks/carl_honore_praises_slowness.html
Journalist Carl Honore believes the Western world's emphasis on speed erodes health, productivity and quality of life. But there's a backlash brewing, as everyday people start putting the brakes on their all-too-modern lives.

Hope you enjoyed these as much as we did! 

Which was your favourite?

CHALLENGE

Write a lesson plan based on using one of these videos (or any other that refers to the subject of decision making) and post this up on your own website or blog.  Alternatively, upload the LP into a document sharing site (e.g scribd/ slideshare/ google docs)  and let us all know the URL in the comments below.

Part II, TED videos: success / failure
Part III, TED videos: motivation

10 Speaking English Activities using TED.com

Many English Language teachers, when deciding to work with a video clip in their classrooms, make a false assumption that for an activity to be considered as really teaching, then prior to showing it, they'd better sit down for a few hours, prepare an extensive worksheet filled with vocabulary and grammar questions and what-not...in order to turn it into a good pedagogical exercise, you know to ensure it's really not just glorified babysitting.  ;-)

Personally, I don't agree and I really don't think that extensive worksheets provide a particularly authentic experience - such a thing mainly just erodes the power of the message within the video, takes away the inherent pleasure in learning from TED speakers.   

I'm fond of using TED with my adult language learners (+ similar sites - see here for a list of others) for the ingenuity and its realistic relevance and because I know that whenever I visit TED I'll always find short, topical talks which can be used to kick-off real discussions within my classroom: stuff my adult students want to know and talk more about... speeches that will either captivate their interest or through understanding, even with lower students at only 50%, will encourage them to feel a greater motivation about where their English is going.

Here are a few simple activities you can do with the video clip you're about to show/ are showing/ have shown to your students without designing a full worksheet :

1. Prediction:  what's the video going to be about?

Using the search bar function on TED, choose an interesting video (possibly related to the industry your students are currently working in) and then tell your students that they are going to watch a video with xyz talking about abc.  

Ask them what they think the speaker will be discussing and why they think this.   Do they have any pre-formed opinions on the subject matter?  After watching, get them to talk about whether or not the video met their expectations.  Why, why not?

Examples:

• Alan Siegel: Let's simplify legal jargon!
• Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed
• Jeff Bezos on the next web innovation
• Yves Behar's supercharged motorcycle design
• Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture vs Margaret Gould Stewart: How Youtube thinks about copyright

2. Vocabulary Collection

Give students a piece of paper with the numbers 1 - 10 written on it.   While watching, any video you've chosen, ask them to write ten words they found most interesting / or ten words they didn't understand / or ten words which they think would summarize the story.  

After watching, encourage students to share the words they've collected and to tell each other why these words were the ones they recorded.

Best with short TED videos: (see here)

3. Debate

While browsing TED, look for a video which the community has marked as persuasive.  Show the video and ask your students what the main points discussed in the video were.  Ask them to choose sides on these - to take an opposing view from others in the classroom and to debate it.

Examples:

• Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?
• Alisa Miller shares the news about the news
• Diane J. Savino: The case for same-sex marriage
• Bill Davenhall: Your health depends on where you live
• Birke Baehr: What's wrong with our food system

4. Post-speech interview

Ask students to pretend that they are journalists at a TED talk.   

Watch one of videos marked as informative and get them to write down questions while-watching and post-viewing.   Get one student to pretend to be the TED speaker, and encourage him/her to sit in the center of the classroom (aim to pick a student who's most likely to know about the ESP subject matter) and then get the other students to read out and ask their questions.

Works with any informative TED video, examples:

• Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education
• Janet Echelmann: Taking imagination seriously
• Negroponte takes OLPC to Colombia
• Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids
• Renny Gleeson on antisocial phone tricks

5a. Critique Presentation Style

Give students a piece of paper and divide it to 2 parts:  

+ / -

Tell students to analyze a 3- 6 minute speech: to think about the presenter's style of delivery and ask them to write pluses and minuses, things like: she spoke too quickly; she flaps her hands about; she loves her subject material; she used good slides.

Examples:

• Laura Trice suggests we should say thank you
• Derek Sivers: Keep your goals to yourself
• Lakshmi Pratury on letter-writing 
• Murray Gell-Mann on the ancestor of language
• Stacey Kramer: The best gift I ever received

5b. Compare body-language

Choose two very short videos on similar subjects less than 4 minutes (or use the first few minutes of a longer video) and turn these on without using sound.  

Ask your students to pay attention to the speakers' body language and facial expressions while giving their talks and to compare these.   How many times do they move around the stage?   How do they stand, where do they keep their hands?   Who looks more convinced and thus convincing?  

After this discussion, play the videos again with sound, do they still think the same way?  What role does body language play in the audience's reception of the content of a talk?

Examples:

• Ariana Huffington: How to succeed vs Richard St.John Success is a continuous journey
• Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media vs James Surowiecki: when social media became news
• Sheryl Sanberg: Why we have too few women leaders vs Halla Tomasdottir: A feminine response to Iceland's financial crash

6. Wh-

Write on the board/flipchart the wh-questions: 

who/what/where/when/why/how  

Show the video you've (or one of your students') chosen and tell them they shouldn't write anything down while they're watching. After the video is finished, ask students to sit in groups and discuss what they watched, who was the presenter, why did she make this speech, how effective was it: encourage them to ask each other questions and share opinions.

Works with any TED video.

7. Critical Thinking  - Who's the target audience?

Take one of the videos marked as most-emailed and watch it with your students.    

Show or tell them that out of the thousands of videos on the site, this was one of the most-shared with others via email and social networks.  Ask them to think about what sort of people found this video so interesting they sent it on to family members/ friends/ co-workers/ members of their online communities.   Was the speech designed to go viral?

Will they send it on too?  Why or why not?

Get them to practice writing a "FB status update or a Tweet" summarizing the video in less that 140 characters!

Examples:

• Adam Ostrow: After your final status update
• Jay Walker on the world's English mania
• Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the internet
• Gregory Petsko on the coming neurological epedemic 
• Howard Rheingold on collaboration

8. Will this idea fly?

Choose a video marked as ingenious, in a subject matter your students have expressed a clear interest in or is connected to their work.  

Watch the video with them and then ask them to discuss in groups whether or not they think the idea has merit; if they've already heard of something similar or if they disagree with its potentiality.

Examples:

• A robot that flies like a bird
• Mike Matas: A next generation digital book
• Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization
• Eythor Bender demos human exoskeletons
• Jakob Trollback rethinks the music video

9. In his/her shoes...

Review the videos marked as courageous and try to choose a video outside the scope of your students' normal interests and responsibilities.   Encourage a group discussion on whether or not, they could have done what was shown in the presentation; how they may have done things differently; who they know in their own lives/ read about who has done something like this?

Examples:

•  Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new
•  Becky Blanton: The year I was homeless
•  Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days
•  Julia Sweeney has "The Talk"
•  David Hoffman on losing everything
•  Matt Weinstein: What Bernie Madoff couldn't steal from me

10. Rank my TED video!

Encourage students to find a TED video based on something they are personally interested in.

It doesn't need to be about work, it can be a poem/song - it can be about glowing underwater fish! 
Whatever they like and while they watch -  possibly as homework (using the interactive transcripts in their own language if they need to) they can take brief notes about the subject matter.

In the next lesson, get students to share with each other what they watched.   Encourage them to    "rank" each person's suggestion in order of interest and at the end of the session, as a group watch the one that sounded the most fascinating.

11. What else?   

Have you got any zero-preparation/ great tips to share with fellow English Language Teachers on using TED in the classroom?  Do let me know your favorite videos, how you use them or any other ideas and experiences.

Best,
Karenne
education

image credit: European Parliment

Useful Links

• TED videos for Business English
• Larry Ferlazzo's links for teaching with TED
• Douglas Evan's TED ESL Lessons Blog 
• I also found Adam Simpson's post filled with 3 useful ideas however you'll need to get your vids from TEDtalks on Youtube. 
• Teaching with TED wiki (via Glennie)

THIS POST IS A RE-POSTING OF AN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED ARTICLE DATED BACK TO JANUARY 2011 (the first lot of comments below are copies of those posted between 26 Jan and ...) 
update 050911: actually, it looks like Blogger/Blogspot has been losing posts (in general, not just my own :( ... re the link to other sites which is also no longer here - will repost these up as well!)

TED videos for Business English, Part III (Motivation)

What gives you your buzz?  Your spark, your joie de vivre?

Why do we do the things we do?

Do you know?  Sometimes I think I do, sometimes I think I don't.   The other day I had a fascinating discussion with over 50 global students in the weekly live-chat session I host on MyEC.

Almost all of them started off by putting money on the top of the list of things that are highly motivational...

...yet the more we explored the phenomena, the more we thought through things like the fact that we all come together every week on a Thursday evening even though no one's paid to be there (them or me) and somehow that fact's part of the reason why no matter how busy I am, no matter what else is going on in my life, I turn up...

and we thought about

... things like how people do things for their friends and families unconditionally and how despite that, sometimes they then destroy their favorite people in the whole wide world...

how

some people study alone... yet some need a rod, a deadline to meet

And later on, I started thinking of how people write textbooks for really low advances and royalities...

some for the reverse

how people write blogs...   some start them and then some stop them,  some write for years

... and about how people cheerfully lose sleep and work their butts off for eduational start-ups with no guarantee of success, just the thrill of potentiality, of upsetting apple-carts... but how most would rather stay locked down within the walls of tradtional institutions...

It makes you think, doesn't it?

For many, it's responsibility that determines priority: their children need the clothes on their backs, food in their bellies and a sick parent needs  medicine.   Priorities differ.   For others, the iphone, ipad and flatscreen movie theatre have got to be paid for this month so the next new tech gadget that comes out to market can also get bought.  

For many, spending time with mates down the pub tops tweeting or working any day...   

For many, the opportunity to be the sage on the stage is a call way to loud to resist.   And as I mentioned on Harmer's blog, demotivation is an equally fascinating topic because they are, most surely, not always the flip of the same coin.

We're all such very different people, aren't we?  

Am willing to bet our/my list didn't even touch your own list, right?  As a person deeply fascinated by beingness and what drives us... I'll say this: anyone who thinks they know the one single motivational factor of any one other person is arrogantly deluding themselves.  

We are complex.

We do not know each other. 

We know each other so incredibly well.

I'll also, rather arrogantly, suggest that the why of the what we do cannot ever be set down in a pyramid nor carved into tomes for all eternity.  But we sure as heck can have some fun trying to get our fingers on that pulse.

So, anyway, anyhoo... along with Friday evening musings while I distract myself from the slides I need to write for next week's TESOL Spain... here's a list of my all-time favorite TED videos on motivation.   These can be used to spark off critical-thinking discussions with your adult and almost-adult students!   

You can use this short YouTube video with Victor Frankl as the intro / backup to a discussion you've been having with your learnes and  get students to individually choose which of the following TEDs they'd like to watch autonomously, reporting on their thoughts later...

TEDs...

Why we do what we do (21mins)
http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do.html

Tony Robbins makes it his business to know why we do the things we do. The pioneering life coach has spoken to millions of people through his best-selling books and three-day seminars and here discusses the "invisible forces" that motivate everyone's actions.

The surprising science of motivation (19mins)
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.

The riddle of experience vs. memory (20 mins)
http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy -- and our own self-awareness.

Our mistaken expectations
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research.  Here he presents data from his exploration of happiness -- sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. 

Why we love + cheat
http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html

Anthropologist Helen Fisher takes on a tricky topic -- love –- and explains its evolution, its biochemical foundations and its social importance. She closes with a warning about the potential disaster inherent in antidepressant abuse.

Life at 30,000 feet
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_branson_s_life_at_30_000_feet.html 

Richard Branson talks to TED's Chris Anderson about the ups and the downs of his career, from his multibillionaire success to his multiple near-death experiences -- and reveals some of his (very surprising) motivations.

 

Which was your favourite?

CHALLENGE

Write a lesson plan based on using one or all of these videos (or any other that refers to the subject of motivation) and post this up on your own website or blog.  Alternatively, upload the LP into a document sharing site (e.g scribd/ slideshare/ google docs)  and let us all know the URL in the comments below.

See also:
Part I: TED videos + decision-making 
Part II: TED videos + success/failure
Speaking activities for teaching English with TED + other important links
Best video websites for teaching adult Business English learners

Other videos discussing motivation:

• Nick Vujicic: Life without limits
  

Squeezing the joy out of a thing

Darren Elliot, the blogger behind Lives of Teacher is one of my fave edu-bloggers but he was a complete meanie the other day - he told me, in his comments, that basically it wasn't cool  to keep being cool. 

So while I get the point (and don't think teachers should suck up to their students) I don't entirely agree and actually, fully intend on being über-cool well into my 60's (like our Sensei Jeremy Harmer) but what made Darren's comment worth blogging about, was that interestingly, it occurred just after getting home from class and recognizing that I'd way totally killed the joy out of something for one of my students...  

He's an adult though, so I really do hope not forever.

Sidebar
We blogging teachers do tend to have a habit of only posting up lesson tips and ideas which have worked in our lessons - I mean, that's why we share them, because they worked so they'll probably work for other teachers too.  

But what about the things that don't work?

The things we do that fall flat...

Aren't there lessons worth learning and therefore worth sharing in those things too?  Or do we blogging teachers want everyone in the big old world to think that we're perfect teachers with perfect classes and what we teach is spot-on all the time and the students just love what we do all the time?

Not terribly realistic or truthful, now is it?

Anyhoo, here's my story:

One of my absolute favorite sites is TED.com, the lectures are simply fascinating and very often there are short videos filled with incredibly rich experiences - sometimes I just go in there only to drown in the knowledge of others.  Of course, because the lectures presented  are often by important leaders in the business world, it also is a soucre of authentic content especially if you, like me, teach adult ESP students.

Phillip, the student of the dogme-in-tech-movie fame, has an i-phone so one of my tips for him on developing learner autonomy was that he subscribe to TED.

And he followed through on the advice. SCORE...

He followed through on it so much so that in the last six months he has now watched more videos than I have, shares his favourites not just with me, via email, but also forwards them on to friends and colleagues he knows.

SCORE...

Feeling chuffed to bits that I'd managed to share one of my passions with one of my learners, I said to him, "hey, why don't you write up a blog post of your Ten Top TED videos." (Good so far).  

But then I said:

"Maybe you can include a list of all the new vocabulary you learned."

His face looked a bit incredulous but I continued undaunted.  "Yes," I said, "and maybe you could write about how you see TED as a great learning tool, how you were able to pick up these words from context, how you are then able to transfer that knowledge into the language you need in the workplace."

"Karenne," he replied in a slightly bemused voice, "I just like the videos.  I don't know which words I learn.  I understand some and I don't know what others are.  I don't think about that I watch them on my way to work, they're interesting."

He shrugged.

Oh.

Oh.

OH crap.  I thought to myself - now why'd I have to go and spoil his new hobby?   Now, everytime he looks at his i-phone to watch the latest on TED he's probably going to think about my über enthusiastic  English-teacher-suggestion and instead of  enjoying his videos and soaking up some great  vocabulary subconsciously, he'll now be thinking about what he's "supposed" to be extracting.

A lot of trainers will probably tell you just how important noticing is (including me) but noticing that you're supposed to be noticing - ummm - well, it's probably a distraction and probably hits all the wrong neuro-transmitting-signal-thingies in the brain.

Squoosh!

Best,
Karenne
image credit: diet coke by nesster on flickr.com

p.s. Have you ever gone and accidentally squeezed the joy out of something your students were enjoying doing by making it a way too learning oriented task instead of a simple life-experiential language experience?  Ever brought something into the classroom which completely bombed because it was your passion, not your learners'?  

Useful related links
The video Phillip sent me that launched this conversation. You'll love it :)
My delicious bookmarks: TED videos for Business English
More video sites for Business English classes
If your teach General English: also see Larry Ferlazzo's Best of TED videos.

Interesting articles on failures/successes in the TEFL classroom
Darren Elliot's The importance of failure
Jason Renshaw on Lindsay Clandfield's blog:  Six signs that you are on the right track


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Facebook and the Edu-Marketers

Am I the only person out there in social-media-land who really, really does not want to be friended by companies on Facebook?

I get random invitations, quite frequently, popping up with the accompanying "34 mutual friends" peer-pressure type inspired messages.

So, what - how does the strategy go, exactly... did they comb through their profiles,  saw me flash up in their friends' friends lists and thought to themselves: oh hey, she's a blogger! 



If I friend her then she can promote my business for me because she just loves writing about education so she's bound to notice our wonderful amazing products and become just absolutely passionate about our company, and, and... and with a relative glee, clicked on that add as a friend button - with no need for any type of accompanying message.

But who are they: 

is it a Jennifer, Janey or Jeremy behind their logo?   

I presume that I won't suddenly be having some kind of level access to their own photo albums, movie genre preferences or their deep and darkest private thoughts.  They'll have individual private profiles for that sort of stuff or are they hoping to share great TED videos with me?  

Going to be sending me the latest rap songs, which they know I'll be loving?

Doubt it.

The upside: 

I probably won't have to scroll through their Mafia War, Farmville or Jewel-thingie transactions.

The downside:  

They'll get to see me having a whinge or a moan about whatever is going on in my life that isn't all roses on whatever day that it isn't all roses.  They'll see the music I like and if a friend (you know, a real friend) or a family member (you know, a real person who is connected to me via flesh and blood) is going through something and I comment on their lives' passing by then they'll see my thoughts in whatever comment it is that I want to leave behind.  In whatever way I openly communicate within my intimate circle they'll see...

OOOOOOOOh.  Nooooooo.....

This gives me the hiiii biii jiiiiibies and I don't doubt that would give my friends and families the hiiii biiii jiiiibies too if I were to allow this sort of access to these edu-marketers.  Eee-yuck.

Now, if the desire for the connect is not because I'm an edublogger, is it simply that I am just some random teacher especially selected to receive their spam..?  I mean why not simply invite me to an official group page 'cause Facebook is about 

a) friends 

b) family 

c) professional colleagues who I've allowed into my life and thoughts and intimate circle in order that we may become friends: real friends.   

It is not random.

Why are these companies opting for the "friend" route - why the let's have access to everything you think route?   Why haven't they opted for a page or a group?  I join Groups.  I don't mind groups, check on them too, sometimes, when I have time.

Please don't tell me that these educational companies don't or won't spam us via Facebook.  Let's face it, usually, as a general rule, on the whole, they have done absolutely no research into web2.0 best practices,  (they have a Ph.D in Marketing from 1972 so they don't need to read up on what the self-prescribed gurus have declared best practices) and aren't interested in how social-networking works at all... they've just seen the numbers amassing and gotten wind of that ephemeral concept with its esoteric acronym... and with tongues a-salivating and dollar-signs a-blinking have felt a temptation way too yummy to resist and have come on in a-braying as they enter. 

You think I'm just ranting?

In the last two weeks, one of my PLN decided to tag me in a painting, not of me, but basically, essentially this piece of her art would now show up as my face when someone decides to google  image search me.  I tried to explain this to the artist as I felt that it was not actually an intended offense but she simply couldn't see the problem because, basically, she is in love with her art and has absolutely no problem with my name lending her some kudos.   

I'm not stupid, she wanted my friends list to see her art.

I have a problem with that.

I think it is dishonest and blatant marketing within my private space.

I untagged myself.

One of my PLN befriended one of my real friends.   My real friend since I was 14, wrote to check if this person was  an okay person to become friends with...  so I told her that yes, I thought so but honestly, it does make me feel a little weird, silly and nervous.    I'm crossing my fingers that it was actually okay, that the interest is genuine and that they can become real friends too. 

One very dear person in my PLN wrote a blog article - a very good blog article - but she tagged  me in it and wrote as a header that read This Article is about You.   Now it wasn't about me.  It was about her and about  her development of her PLN which is great, but basically, by doing this, tagging me in this way drove my curious real friends and my  wanting-to-know-what's-going-on-in-my-life-real-family to her blog page to find out just what had been said about the Karenne they love. 

These people are not potential members of her PLN.  

These people aren't my 

Personal or Passionately Loving 

or 

my Professional Learning Network.

These people are my Friends and Family. 

Not cool.  

Seriously.  

I untagged myself.

So what's next:  Mr company-who-wants-to-be-my-friend?  What will you be tagging me in? 

Sigh, I guess, I suppose instead of ranting and whingeing about all this, with you on my blog page, I could of course, just click on the ignore button whenever I receive these requests.  Actually I do do this, but after seeing the 34-mutual-friends on the last one, I just really had to put it out there and ask:

Why would anyone let a random company 

have access to one's private 

photos and thoughts?

To The Wall?

Doesn't anyone else feel like this is a total invasion of privacy?



Update 31 May 2010
hat tip to Petra Pointer for sharing this with me on Facebook



Useful related links

• More of my blog postings on social networking
• Face on or face off 
• Death by PLN, Darren Ellliot 
• Sabrina de Vita on Facebook vs Twitter
• Janet Bianchini on Facebook Privacy Issues
• Graham Stanley on Private or Public
• Keyboard friends by Carl Robinson

Finding this blog on Facebook:
via Facebook, Networked Blogs
to receive regular updates on what I've been posting on this blog, go Kalinago Group
If you want to be my friend on Facebook, it is okay, just do a search on my name and write me a personal message saying who you are, don't just click on the add as a friend button and for blessed sake, respect my world, my life...  :)

Best,
Karenne
imagecredit: I want privacy by bejealousofme, flickr





(There's a poll going on the Lexiophiles site to determine a list of the best language blogs, see my post about that here so if you haven't yet voted and you don't this is really totally tacky of me to ask, do please click and visit the site to let them know :-) thanks muchly).