Aisha O'Brien » Featured

When are you most creative? Take these tests to find out!

aisha — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:51:02 +0000

The 99% published a series of tests you can take to figure out when you’re most creative: morning, afternoon, evening, at home, at work, etc. The goal is to try two different sets of these tests at different times of the day to see when your peak creative time is. I have a feeling mine is in the morning at home…but ever the experimenter, I will try all of them!

Here’s a link to the tests: Test Your Creativity

The Filter Bubble and the Case for Useless Knowledge

aisha — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:02:54 +0000

My avid advocation for interdisciplinary studies is very well-know…to my friends. It’s really a problem I’ve personally dealt with and have come up against when deciding what job I want to have.

You see, I’m neither right nor left-brained; I’m smack dab in the middle of the Type A and Type B personality; I am an alpha geek and a uber artiste. My sticky fingers are in every pie imaginable. I’ve studied music since I was six and built webpages since I was 12.

And I love it. I want to keep doing those things I love even if they’re so far removed from the other.

My philosophy on life is that no knowledge is useless knowledge. This was a constant argument in my graduate class at UNR: Why take a class on building Flash games when I’m not going to be building Flash games in my career? Why do I need to know the history of journalistic and democratic thought and theory since the 1920s if that doesn’t apply to today?

And I’d counter that no knowledge is useless knowledge because the things you create tomorrow are the aggregate of things you learn today.*

That’s what I pulled from Eli Pariser’s TED Talk, showcased today on Moveon.org:

You see, it’s this constant evaluation of the usefulness of information to the individual that puts us into this trap, and (tip of the hat to Dr. Ryfe), fragments society in the way Putnam describes in “Bowling Alone.”

In education, it’s resulted in hyper-specialization where engineers don’t believe in climate change (true story) because they can’t be bothered to pop their heads out of their computer programs.

In art, it’s created Ke$ha. And other money-centered artists (I’m looking at you pop artists). Because we’re so busy navel-gazing that we’ve lost touch with everyone else and I’ll have a post elaborating more on this soon.

We drive cars because god forbid we have to subject ourselves to the smells of other people and the world around us.

In a way, Google’s and Facebook’s filtering system is just an extension of what we do anyway. Yes we want democracy and a system that runs smoothly that gives equal advantage to everyone – as long as I don’t have to leave my cozy little bubble.

News editors do get a rather bad rap for deciding what “goes to print” and what doesn’t. But the newsies I know who engage online in the social media sphere don’t believe in the filtering the Facebook and Google are up to. They want to use those tools to get people’s hands dirty, shoveling out the sadness and planting hope.

I really hope Eli and the Filter Bubble find a way around it. And if I can be of service, please tag me in.

*Thank you Prof. Larry Dailey, Dr. David Ryfe, Dr. Ed Lenert and Chris Bowman for those classes.

New Organizing Institute Toolbox – Educational Videos

aisha — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:18:31 +0000

The New Organizing Institute conducted and filmed a week long training on community organizing. In July 2010, they needed to place their curriculum with their training videos and a two-minute promo highlighting the program. I edited over 100 hours of video that was formatted, uploaded to YouTube and ready to go.

Below is the two-minute promo I edited:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5pxZVVqyEU

Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency – Social Media Strategy

aisha — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:56:04 +0000

The Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency needed a social media strategy and training to kick start their efforts online. I prepared a comprehensive and actionable social media strategy for four platforms they wanted to engage in: blogging, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In addition, I provided training on using social media tools and best practices.

The outline for their Social Media Marketing Plan:

Strategies & Tactics

Target User Matrix (outbound and inbound marketing)

Guides on writing for blogs, Twitter and Facebook

List of Social Media Resources

Social Media Policy (Internal)

Content and Comment Submission Policy (External)

Comment Moderation Flow Chart