Tuesday, October 27, 2009

How to Use Social Media to Increase Productivity


I kept seeing these announcements on Twitter for ODTUG Kaleidiscope 2010 and the call for papers.

Since I have nothing better to do right now, I wrote something up just to see what happens.


How to Use Social Media to Increase Productivity
Social Media has been on the rise over the last few years, but many in the development community (especially Oracle) have yet to truly embrace it. I would like to convey my own experiences with Social Media (specifically Twitter and Blogging) and how it has helped me to become a better Oracle Developer.

Abstract
In the past year I have received free passes to COLLABORATE 09 (http://www.oraclenerd.com/2009/03/collaborate-09-oaug-forum.html) and Oracle OpenWorld (http://www.oraclenerd.com/2009/07/whos-going-to-oow-09.html). I have also been able to have conversations with some of the industry experts, solely because of my use of Twitter. I had a great email exchange with Cary Millsap on the differences between Logging, Debugging and Instrumentation, which I eventually posted on my blog (http://www.oraclenerd.com/2009/07/logging-debugging-instrumentation-and.html).

Christian Berg, of OBIEE fame, saw my plea for help on Twitter and responded with a full explanation via email. Read it here: http://www.oraclenerd.com/2009/03/obiee-how-to-migrate-your-rpd.html

Thanks to Twitter or my blog, I have been able to have (technical) conversations with some industry heavyweights: Alex Gorbachev, Eddie Awad, Chen Shapira, Jake Kuramoto, Matt Topper, Lewis Cunningham, John Scott, Dimitri Gielis...I could go on and on.

I would like to encourage other Oracle people to add these tools to their repertoire and show the real benefits that can be achieved through their use.

Summary
I would like to encourage other Oracle people to add Blogging and Twitter to their repertoire and show the real benefits that can be achieved through their use.

Benefits
Benefits of of using Twitter.
Benefits of Blogging.
Building your social/professional network.

This being my first submission, I have no idea if it is what they want or need. As far as content, I believe Blogging and Twitter in particular, are underutilized. There is a vast community of Oracle experts out there who love to help...why not help others tap into that?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always been very dubious about twitter, thinking it just a collection of people's navel gazing and famous people equally navel gazing just followed by more people.
However reading your and other blogs makes me think I'm maybe missing something and it could be genuinely useful for "real" work.

So - maybe you could expand your article/paper a little into quite how one goes about it. "I've registered my twitter account. Now what?"
Eg - is it like email, I check it every hour or so, and there'll be emails for me or not? Is it like RSS where there's an interface like Google Reader?

oraclenerd said...

@rnm1978

I thought the same thing initially. I first used Twitter in January 2008. I made the obligatory, "testing" tweet and didn't revisit it until July of that year.

In July, Jake suggested I use it to help search for jobs. I didn't find a job through Twitter, but I began to see the power of it.

I started to notice other Oracle people...began to follow them...and finally began to interact with them.

I'll work on getting a more detailed approach to it as well and post that soon.

chet

Anonymous said...

hey chet,
Just thought I'd feedback on this - I'm sold on twitter! It does pain me to say it because of the utter garbage that surrounds it in the media - but used carefully it's a great tool for connecting with one's peers.
cheers, rnm.

oraclenerd said...

@rnm1978

(I'm guessing 1978 is the year of your birth...do you really have to rub it in that you are younger? ;)

I'm glad you have found it useful. It can certainly take awhile to figure out exactly how to use it...but the potential to interact with some of the best minds in the Oracle world is amazing.

I might ping you with some questions if this abstract gets accepted.