In addition to MatthewHurst.com, this new site supports my original goal to build my professional reputation, beginning first by securing my personal brand.  Instead of replacing this site as my expertise in online marketing, public communication, and of course social media, MattHurst.com seeks to better connect me with my peers who might not want to connect professionally, while still introducing them to my personal interests using online communication.

So far I’ve successfully created MatthewHurst.com into a online resource highlighting my professional insights and knowledge, but to most of those I meet online and in person I’m simply Matt – that guy who is really excited about social media. With this new site I hope this will continue to build my personal brand, not to mention helping out with search queries for “Matt Hurst”.

What do you think of MattHurst.com?  Please leave a comment, and I’ll try to incorporate your feedback into future redesigns of this blog as well!

Update: So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive

Love the site, man. I miss that robot! – Josh Parolin

New site looks really great Matt, nice job. I’m enjoying discovering your blog posts, esp. one on social vs. civic engagement – Matt

i <3 that robot. i have one too! – Salsus

Nice to meet you – Lone Olive

For those interested in building a similar microsite for themselves, I was able to build the page using Flavors.me using their design and hosting services. Some of my friends have made the move themselves, although credit is deserved to Ishmael Vasquez for leading me in this direction using his own example. Thanks again for all your feedback; please leave a comment with your own thoughts

@aCarvin and Katheryn Montgomery

“Are Media Making Us Dumber?” The question may sound like an oxymoron in an age where information is instantly accessible, but ubiquity of human knowledge does not always equal individual understanding. So how are media changing the way we learn and communicate important ideas?

I went to an American Forum last night to hear different perspectives on the issue and try to get a few answers.  Although consensus was difficult to reach in this panel discussion between academics and communications professionals, I think everyone agreed that people read a website differently than a book or newspaper article.

Without recapping the entire discussion (which is available online), one of the key themes of the night dealt with the ability to discern between the information which is valuable or junk. Unlike the process of reading a book, in which writers build support of its ideas gradually to create understanding, the internet does less to teach you to learn using reasoned arguments. At the very least, Google does nothing to discern between a scholarly paper and an anonymous ignorant individual – that is our responsibility.

Susan Jacoby advanced the idea that the internet is not an agnostic communications tool, but one McLuhan could successful identify like television as a tool designed to distract at every opportunity. And yet Andy Carvin was quick to distinguish distraction from an internet “designed for exploration and discovery,” appealing to our miserly nature as individuals to learn more about an idea.

Susan Jacoby

Even as civic engagement has become empowered through the internet, legitimate concerns about the internet becoming the primary or only source of information pose a challenge to those who want to introduce new ideas. Jacoby was wise to point out that the prevalent opinion was to treat Screen-time (ie Televison, Computer) as the reward for one’s work (ie reading and learning), as Professor Katheryn Montgomery described in her own household by watching the nightly news with her daughter.  Susan Jacoby’s argument that Books are necessary, not just for their information but to teach us the reward of taking on difficult challenges, was met by a seemingly hostile audience of students embracing-technology.  And while my own experiences may be more the exception than the rule, I see each medium as complementary if not mutually exclusive sources of communication; I still read books and investigative journalism as much as I read a blog.

One of the best discussions of the night came not from the panel but from AU Grad Student Joshua Berg, who introduced the idea that the internet enchances our ability to build knowledge through the use of hyperlinks.  He suggested that because a website allows you to link related articles where it would not be possible to gain these insights before it will create not just the ultimate fact-checking resource for journalists but the ability to deepen our understanding of ideas.
Indeed the panel added that Wikipedia is becoming more academically reliable as it builds more reliable peer-review processes (including citations), and that the future of annotated journalism is happening right now.  So that even while many worry about the loss of newspapers, Josh Hatch was quick to point out that,

“There is nothing about writing something down in a newspaper that makes that information any better than putting it on a website.  It’s just delivery mechanisms.”

Hopefully while the media for communicating ideas may be changing, perhaps the same values that apply to good journalism and academic knowledge will apply in these new media.

The American Forum is available online as an MP3 file. Also worthwhile: Nicholas Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in the July/August 2008 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Although you can’t tell if they’re reading an important email or just texting their friends, there is an increasing chance they are reading a website.  In a Pew study of mobile phone use before 2008, at least 19% of Americans had already used a cellphone or PDA to access a website, and since then use of cellphones like the iPhone that can access web represent an increasing portion of any website’s visitors.   Because these devices use a smaller screen, and mobile websites might be loaded for different purposes, communicating on a mobile website is different.

Some differences seem more obvious than others: like most writing for websites, a mobile website should be succinct, with catchy hooks that make you want to click through and read the rest of the story.  Most mobile web browsers will only display around 50 to 75 words of legible text on screen at a time, so you’ll need to make the point quickly.  The screen itself promotes sites that are easy to navigate with narrow vertical scrolling, as opposed to the wide horizontal columns used on monitors for navigating most desktop web browsing.  And because people are using the web on the go, they are visiting sites for different reasons; one trend is location-based information services that take advantage of GPS and Google Maps (which should be the subject of another post on this blog of its own).

This website is specially configured for reading on mobile browsers, including the iPhone and Blackberry handhelds; simply visit the site on your mobile device and it should look a little different.  By utilizing a plugin to WordPress, you will be able to use most of the features in this site on your mobile device, including the latest blog posts, sending an me an email, leaving a comment, or just searching the site.  I would like to welcome any feedback you might have about my own mobile website, so that I can make adjustments for these rapidly changing communications tools.