All Posts Tagged With: "communication"
Who’s really tweeting and who’s not?
Hard to know which celebrities have ghost-tweeters
LeWEB12/Flickr
About 290,000 people follow Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Twitter, perhaps to read what he has to say about the country’s affairs or to glean a little personal insight into what makes him tick.
Thing is, most of the messages that are sent from his account aren’t really his.
Harper only “occasionally” sends out tweets himself, according to a spokesman.
Much like many other high-profile Twitter users, most of the short-form messages that appear under Harper’s name and avatar are actually crafted by ghost-tweeters charged to work social media on his behalf.
“I assume if it’s an institutional individual — if it’s a CEO, if it’s a big personality, a singer, or it’s a politician — then they are not doing it themselves,” said Greg Elmer, director of the Infoscape Research Lab at Ryerson University studying social media.
A reunion for the Facebook generation
A 2002-themed party causes one man to reflect on identity
Oliver"s 2002 reunion night
It all came back to Facebook, eventually. Twice during the night, someone apologized for deleting me from their list of friends. Twice I said I didn’t care. But I get it. It’s important, and especially so on that Saturday night. Facebook was, ultimately, the reason we were there.
The invite had been a long one, but the premise was straightforward enough, if slightly strange.
“Hello to my DEAREST friends… who have found themselves a DECADE older (or at least a few years older)!!” a Facebook invitation shouted at me sometime in October. “For many of you, 2002 marked a few big things in our lives. Possibly your high school graduation, as well as your first year at a post secondary institution. 2012 brings us 10 years from those days as innocent, uncorrupted youth to where we are now…a DECADE later.”
How Canadian schools stack up in QS rankings (part two)
Subject rankings for psychology, law, economics…
Here are the top five highest ranked universities in the QS World University Rankings by Subject and the rankings of all Canadian schools for arts, humanities, and business. For science, engineering, and health disciplines click here. For the full rankings, visit TopUniversities.com.
Sociology
1. Harvard University (United States)
2. University of California, Berkeley (UCB) (United States)
3. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
4. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (United Kingdom)
5. University of Chicago (United States)
16. University of Toronto
33. McGill University
40. University of British Columbia
45. Queen’s University
51-100. Université de Montréal, University of Alberta
101-150. McMaster University, Western University, Université du Québec, University of Waterloo, York University
151-200. Carleton University, Concordia University, Dalhousie University, Laval University, Simon Fraser University, University of Calgary, University of Ottawa, University of Victoria
Psychology
Continue reading How Canadian schools stack up in QS rankings (part two)
Canadian wins “Dance your PhD” competition
Contest helps share science
Emma Ware, a PhD biology candidate at Queen’s University is among four winners in an international contest called Dance Your PhD, reports CBC News. Click here to see the video.
The contest, which is exactly what its title suggests, was founded by John Bohannon, a science journalist and researcher at Harvard. He first held the contest as a way to have fun at a party, but quickly realized that it could help scientists with the perennial problem of communicating their work to the public. The video-based entries were judged by both scientists and professional dancers. Ware’s video for her thesis, which is called A Study of Social Interactivity Using Pigeon Courtship, won in the social science category, which comes with a prize of $500.
An overall best PhD dancer will be chosen next. He or she will receive an additional $500, plus a trip to Brussels in November to perform at the Tedx conference.
Students always in transit
At least I have skype
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about saying goodbye. I get a lot of practice, so I’m pretty good at it.
I’m good at giving long hugs, hosting goodbye dinners, and promising to call and email. I’m good at packing, at putting clothes and books into storage, and I’m even good at shedding a few discreet tears during takeoff.
Like many students, I have to be. I say a big round of goodbyes in both April and August, and while the first days in a different city are often jarring, my daily routines fall quickly into place. Soon, those people whose physical presence was so warm and constant just days before are reduced to a voice on a telephone or a face on a fuzzy video screen.
In 2010, I’ll say more goodbyes than usual. Because I’ll spend the winter semester in Denmark, I’ll divide the year between three different cities, all of them thousands of kilometres apart.
But I don’t mind too much – after all, “goodbye” isn’t what it used to be. It can still mean goodbye forever, or at least until that high school reunion, but more often it means goodbye until the next time we Skype, or email, or text. Because I’m Facebook friends with at least half of my grade five class, all of whom I can contact or creep at my leisure, goodbye doesn’t have to mean goodbye at all (even when I wish it did.)
And for me, like many people I know, I expect these constant, half versions of goodbye will be a regular part of my life for years to come.
I’ve met people who are planning to stay in Ottawa after they graduate – after all, they have a boyfriend and a nice place and a cat – but not very many.
Many instead see themselves in permanent transit, hopping from city to city – or from country to country – in pursuit of travel and adventure, or just grad school and a job.
